Fruit Desserts | Gourmandistan

Hand jive, hand pies, doin’ that crazy good sour cherry hand pie

June 13, 2017 by Steve

While we do host both felines and poultry, Gourmandistan does not have a cat named Way-Out Willie, or a cool little chick named Rockin’ Billie. We’ll let others do that hand jive all over town. We’ll keep scarfing sour cherry hand pies down. We spotted sour cherries at the market a while back, and once again bought every last remaining carton from the farmer. Steve sat down and made an afternoon out of pitting cherries, reserving most of the fruit for […]

Categories: Baking, Cherries, Cooking, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Fruit Desserts, Pies & Tarts, Recipes

King-size apple cake keeps us intrigued, well-buttered

December 8, 2015 by Steve

We have been enjoying this simple, old-fashioned apple cake from Susan Herrmann Loomis’ 1991 Farmhouse Cookbook for several days. Long before she began making everyone jealous with her tales of Rue Tatin in a small Norman town and rural French cooking, Loomis traveled across the U.S., interviewing farm wives and collecting their homey recipes. This “King-Size Apple Cake,” from one Alice Berner of Big Sandy, Montana, is a winner. It may be the seasonally-appropriate mix of cinnamon and allspice bumped up with some nice quality cocoa, but it’s most likely […]

Categories: Apples, Baking, Cake, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Fruit Desserts, Old cookbooks, Recipes

walnut-apple-calvados-caramel cake says “autumn,” avoids awful pumpkin spice

October 11, 2015 by Steve

Gourmandistan enjoys autumn, and does not generally stand in opposition to cinnamon, cloves or nutmeg. (OK, Steve admits to being somewhat more averse to cinnamon than most people.) But we do not understand the current appeal of pairing the season with something called “pumpkin spice.” We are in awe of the marketing and social forces that have combined to make whatever constitutes “pumpkin pie” flavoring almost ubiquitous, but we wish more people would seek alternative “fall” flavors that are all around them. Apple, for one. It is […]

Categories: Apples, Cake, Cooking, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Fruit Desserts, Recipes

Peach Ginger Rosemary Brown Betty makes brioche flop much better

August 2, 2015 by Steve

An anticipated bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich ended up as a Peach Brown Betty, and it really wasn’t a bad ending. It did begin somewhat sadly for Steve, who had fussed over his buttery brioche dough for two days before it all went wrong in the oven. What seemed to be a golden brown loaf revealed its still-raw core when the top fell off as Steve attempted to turn it onto a cooling rack. Putting the patched-together brioche back in the oven […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Peaches/Nectarines, Recipes, Vegetarian, Yeast breads

Wild blackberry curd and buttercream make a lovely wedding (cake)

July 23, 2015 by Michelle

The wedding that eventually led to Gourmandistan happened many years ago, and it has been quite a while since we’ve attended anyone else’s. However, a combination of Michelle’s imagination and Steve’s perspiration recently led to one of the best wedding cakes either of us has ever eaten—and we didn’t have to get dressed up to do it. This year’s wild blackberry harvest was not that wonderful. February’s ice and snow smashed many canes flat; the oddly cool temperatures and torrential rains that followed didn’t […]

Categories: Blackberries, Cake, Chocolate, Cooking, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Fruit Desserts, Recipes, Vegetarian

Besting the queen with blueberry-ginger ice cream pie

June 26, 2015 by Michelle

We have quite often catalogued the various nature-related nuisances of where Gourmandistan is most often located: our sometimes raging and/or icebound creek, roaming bands of garden-gobbling deer, coyotes that creep near to the house and our many, many issues with mice. We have recently been reminded that we also have ants. Our somewhat wet spring saw the return of marching lines of little brown ants, invading the sugars in our pantry, infesting the cats’ kibble bowl and generally making us re-examine our food storage methods. […]

Categories: Blueberries, Cooking, Desserts & Sweets, Fruit Desserts, Ice cream, Recipes, Vegetarian

Strawberry delight just one of many found on Dewees

May 23, 2015 by Michelle

Gourmandistan has once again been lucky enough to decamp with Michelle’s family to Dewees Island, a little eco-slice of paradise just off Charleston, South Carolina. The week we have been here has seemed to fly by. The weather has been just about perfect, and, as always, we have reveled in the sun, sand and extraordinary solitude of the island. We have stumbled across starfish, snails, storm clouds (which only provided picturesque light, not rain), hermit crabs and other wonderful things as we’ve […]

Categories: Cooking, Desserts & Sweets, Family, Food, Fruit Desserts, Ice cream, Recipes, Strawberries, Vegetarian

Impossible Apple Cake with Maple Ice Cream

November 10, 2014 by Steve

We have mentioned this Caramelized Apple Cake before, because Michelle has tried to make it several times every apple season for years with little (OK, at least one) real success. The recipe pages in Susan Herrmann Loomis’ Cooking at Home on Rue Tatin have all sorts of scribbles covering them, adjusting the amount and thinness of apples, ingredients, mixing instructions and more. Time after time, it’s turned out underdone, overdone or just odd—but the damn thing keeps haunting us with its buttery, caramel […]

Categories: Apples, Cake, Cooking, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Fruit Desserts, Ice cream, Recipes, Vegetarian

Normandy Pudding slumps from soufflé to clafoutis, stays good.

October 27, 2014 by Michelle

It is once again apple season, and Steve has been bringing home several pounds of the fruit each time he goes to the market. While he’s happy to eat them out of hand, Michelle has been enjoying the chance to make tarte Tatin, apple crisp, clafoutis and other good desserts. Searching for something newish, she returned to Camille Glenn’s The Fine Art of Delectable Desserts, a 1980s-era philanthropic project from the legendary Louisville chef, teacher and author we’ve mentioned before. This […]

Categories: Apples, Cooking, Custards & Puddings, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Fruit Desserts, Old cookbooks, Recipes