Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp

I think brown butter is my new fascination. Butter is delicious to begin with, but when it's browned over heat for a few minutes, it takes on this complex, nutty flavor that elevates dishes to a whole new level. Ravioli with brown-butter and sage sauce. Chocolate chip cookies with brown butter. And these dishes are just the beginning.

I promised my friend Yana a brunch with strawberries and rhubarb. I could have made pie, but after a strawberry-rhubarb pie, blackberry pie and a Tuscaloosa Tollhouse pie recently, I needed a break. I also needed the recipe to be finished by brunch at noon, and I couldn't get strawberries and rhubarb until I went to the farmers' market on Saturday morning.

I found a strawberry-rhubarb crisp recipe in Williams-Sonoma's Essentials of Baking cookbook that just looked delicious, but Cook's Illustrated recent feature on how crisps are often just so-so had me worried. I had to dress this crisp up a little. I know the topping would make or break the crisp, and I wanted it to be richer. I swapped the melted butter for brown butter, reduced the flour, added oats and mixed in pecans to add some complexity.

Biting into this crisp made me glad I had not made a pie. The crisp was light. It felt very healthy since the filling wasn't surrounded by pie crust.

I like any dessert I can justify having two servings of in one day.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie in the Park

I signed up to bake a pie and bring it to a Pie in the Park picnic at Smorgasburg last weekend, but I had trouble determining what type of pie I wanted to make. I kept finding tarts I was interested in (Do tarts count as pie? They're included in the same cookbook sections, but I couldn't be sure.). I considered a Tuscaloosa Tollhouse Pie, kind of like a big chocolate chip cookie in a pie crust, and a chocolate pecan pie, but it didn't seem like the right season. I was dying to make a Mississippi Mud Pie, but that included ice cream, not the best for an outdoor picnic. I avoided pies that required whipped cream to be just perfect. I searched for that pie that could stand on its own.

Finally, I went to the Union Square Famers' Market on Monday for inspiration. I saw the first blueberries of the season (they still needed some time), last year's cellared apples and honey. Then I rounded the corner. There they were. Beautiful pints of rosy New Jersey strawberries and bright red stalks of rhubarb, just calling out my name.

Strawberry-rhubarb pie. The market determined it for me.

I just needed a recipe. Previous strawberry-rhubarb pies I've made turned out delicious but runny, and the filling didn't really stay together after the first slice was cut. Those pies tended to use cornstarch as a thickener, but I remembered my mom using instant tapioca that came in a bright red box to thicken her fruit pies.

Deb from Smitten Kitchen had come to the same realization that tapioca worked wonders as a thickener. She'd also incorporated brown sugar into the pie filling and used less sugar so the tartness of the rhubarb would stand out. I knew I had found my recipe. Deb never lets me down.

The pie picnic? It was certainly enjoyable. I ate three slices of delicious pies, made by both amature and professional bakers. My favorite was a Nutty Monkey Pie, loaded with toasted walnuts, dark chocolate bits and banana chips (though I could have left those out). Unfortunately, there were A LOT of strawberry-rhubarb pies. I was encouraged to see so many bakers going for the seasonal ingredients, but it meant that my little guy just wasn't the star of the show.

Oh well. The little bite I had of my pie was delicious.

And, Pie in the Park sent us home with these beautiful custom recipe cards.

New York State Upside-Down Ice Cream Cupcakes (for the 2011 Ice Cream Cupcake Contest)

I can honestly say I've been dreaming of entering a cooking contest since I was 10. I'd pour over every issue of the Lowell Ledger, our very local newspaper, and I'd imagine what recipe I'd make for the chili contest at the Kiwanis Club or the pie bake-off at the local fair. Last summer, I considered entering the Pie in the Park contest but never quite got around to it. The desire to enter a cooking contest never faded away.

This week, I finally took the cooking contest plunge (although in a slightly different, more virtual venue that 10-year-old me couldn't have imagined would be possible). I decided to participate in the 2011 Ice Cream Cupcake Contest created by Cupcake Project and Scoopalicious. The challenge: create a recipe for an ice cream cupcake (that combines cake and ice cream), photograph it and blog about it. I committed, but I just had to make my creation.

Then, the New York Times posted this recipe for rhubarb upside-down cake. The recipe has you create a quick brown sugar and butter sauce to spread in the bottom of the pan, add chopped rhubarb (uncooked) and top it with cake batter. The recipe promised a delightful layer of tender pink rhubarb atop a moist cake.

I created these New York State Upside-Down Ice Cream Cupcakes as a testament to this season's New York state produce. Rhubarb came into season first, and strawberries just joined it. After a winter of eating root vegetables and cellared apples, I was ready to celebrate! Ronnybrook Farm Dairy in the Hudson River Valley provided the dairy products I needed to make the complete project a success. 

I adapted the rhubarb upside-down cake into cupcakes that were loaded with rhubarb topping. I greased and re-greased the pans so the cupcakes wouldn't stick. Each cupcake was given a spoonful of brown sugar and butter, a full layer of rhubarb and then filled about 2/3 of the way full with batter.

As the cupcakes cooked, the brown sugar and butter mixture bubbled up a bit over the sides. The baking pan I placed underneath the cupcakes as they baked was a life saver and saved me from scrubbing burnt caramel off the bottom of my oven.

I still had a batch of roasted rhubarb ice cream, using some of the beautiful local rhubarb I picked up during a trip to the farmer's market. I sliced fresh strawberries and whipped up a quick batch of whipped cream.

Assembling the ice cream cupcakes was the fun part. There are countless ways you can assemble your cupcakes (Stef from Cupcake Project has a great list of options), but I decided to go with the slice-and-stuff idea. I sliced the cupcake in half, being careful to avoid the delicate rhubarb layer. I added a layer of strawberries, topped it with spoonfuls of rhubarb ice cream and put the top back on. A spoonful of whipped cream finished it off perfectly.

Roasted Rhubarb Vanilla Ice Cream

I came home from the farmers' market on Saturday with a beautiful bunch of fresh red rhubarb stalks and no strawberries. It's still so early in the strawberry season, and they were selling at the market this week for eight dollars a pint, so I resisted. In hindsight, that decision ended up being a hidden gift, because it forced me to move beyond strawberry-rhubarb pies, galettes, and crumbles to come up with a more creative recipe using rhubarb.

Roasted rhubarb puree

A quick phone call home to chat with my dad yielded this recipe for Savory Rhubarb Lentil Dal from Mark Bittman. Interesting idea, but the idea of the first rhubarb of the season just disintegrating into a dish just seemed disappointing. I wanted this rhubarb to pop!

That's when I stumbled across this delightful blog by Tom from Tall Clover Farm, where he posts about the fruit he grows and the pies he makes. He'll also give you advice about how to set up your own compost bin and he'll tell you where to find the cute new raincoats his dogs are sporting.

Most importantly, he taught me how to make my first cooked custard ice cream. I've been eyeing cooked custard ice cream recipes since I got The Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet  and Accompaniments and an ice cream maker for my birthday from my New Jersey relatives! I've made several of his Philadelphia ice cream recipes, which are uncooked, to great success, but I haven't attempted his multi-step custards.

Tom's recipe made it seem so easy, and it was! His step-by-step directions and gorgeous pictures drew me right in. What could be better than a vanilla custard ice cream with roasted rhubarb puree mixed in?

To determine whether the custard is fully cooked, run your finger down the spatula. If your finger leaves a path that is not quickly filled in by custard, it's ready!

This ice cream is full of flavor and so tasty. It was hard to balance scooping it into freezer containers and tasting! Now to figure out what to serve it with..... a post on that to come later!