pb & j blondies

Peanut butter and jam is a classic and perfect combination, but it suffers from a somewhat childish reputation. But there is a reason children love it - it’s great. The addition of a little flaky salt on the top is enough to make these blondies grown up, but not put off the kids who have tirelessly campaigned for the PB & J movement these many years.  

I like to use crunchy peanut butter because it gives a little textural variation. You could go with smooth and add some chopped peanuts if you like, but I don’t recommend using sweetened PB, these are plenty sweet with natural style peanut butter. Don’t be shy with the jam - I increased the jam considerably from the original version, and it was delightful. Do not over bake: these should come out fudgy and gooey, the centre will look just set when you pull them out of the oven.

PB & J blondies:

Adapted from Bon Appetit  

• ½ cup butter, melted

• 1¼ cups all-purpose flour

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1 tsp kosher salt

• 2 large eggs

• 1½ cups light brown sugar

• ¾ cup peanut butter (I used and recommend unsweetened, chunky peanut butter)

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 6 tablespoons strawberry jam

• big pinch flaky sea salt (such as Maldon)

Heat oven to 350°.

In a large bowl combine eggs, sugar, peanut butter, butter and vanilla and mix until smooth. Fold in flour, baking powder and 1 tsp salt until evenly incorporated.

Spread batter in a parchment lined 8”x8” pan and press a spoon-back into the batter to create little dents for jam. Dollop jam generously into jam-dents and sprinkle a pinch on flaky salt over the top. Bake 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle (avoiding jammy spots) comes out clean. Let cool and cut into squares.

blackberry & pistachio gateau basque

Gateau Basque is a traditional French pastry from the Basque region. Despite the gateau in the name, it isn't a cake,  it's more like a pie or tart. But the dough is really quite different from other pie doughs, and it is fantastic. It gets puffy and light from a hefty dose of baking powder, but has a lovely fatty, rich toothsomeness from enriching almonds and eggs. It seems like there will be way too much dough, if you made an American style pie with this kind of dough-filling ratio, it would be an overwhelming dough monster. It seems like it would be too dry. But this super enriched dough is not excessive or overwhelming. It melds together with the pastry cream to make an almost frangipane-like alchemy on the inside, and a crisp, caramelized outside. It's just sweet enough without being cloying.

Gateau Basque is traditionally made with vanilla pastry cream and cherries, which is fantastic and feel free to do that instead. But I had some blackberries left over from fall in my freezer, and I needed to clear them out to make way for the rhubarb that is on it's way.  You can also just use jam without any extra fruit, or just use pastry cream (double the recipe), swap out or remove the nuts...choose the flavours that you like best. 

Note: pistachio paste here means pure ground pistachios, which you can buy or grind yourself if you have powerful food processor and a lot of pistachios. Use 6 tbs finely ground pistachios if you can find any paste or don't want to grind it for ages. The tart dough makes twice as much as you need - the extra will last a few days in the fridge or a couple months in in the freezer.  

dough

adapted from Food and Wine 

• 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tbs baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tbs butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 large egg yolks
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla 
• 1/4 tsp almond extract
• 1 cup almond flour

Combine flour, baking powder, salt and almond flour in a medium bowl. Beat butter and sugar in a stand mixer on medium speed until fluffy. Add eggs and yolks, vanilla and almond extracts and beat until well mixed. Reduce speed and add flour mixture gradually until thoroughly incorporated. Scrape dough out onto a work surface and divide into four equal portions. Form them into disks and wrap in cling wrap. Chill at least 4 hours. 

pastry cream

adapted from Martha Stewart 

• 1/4 cup sugar 
• 2 egg yolks 
• 2 tbs cornstarch 
• pinch salt 
• 6 tbs pistachio paste
• 1 cup whole milk 

Combine sugar, egg yolks, cornstarch, salt and pistachio paste in a small saucepan. Whisk in milk until smooth. Cook the mixture on medium heat, whisking constantly. When the mix comes to a boil, cook for 1 minute, continuing to whisk and scrape the bottom. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve. Chill, plastic wrap pressed directly on the surface of the cream to prevent a skin from forming. 

assembly

• 1/2 cup blackberry jam
• 1 cup fresh or frozen blackberries 
• 1 egg
• 1 tbs milk 

Roll out one disc of dough to 1 cm thick, drape over tart shell so the dough rises up the sides of the pan. Trim away excess. Spread jam in an even layer over the bottom of the tart. Sprinkle blackberries over jam and cover with pastry cream. 

Roll out second dough disc to 1 cm thick. Place over the top of the tart and press around the edges to trim off excess dough. Gently press around the edges to seal. Score a grid pattern into the tart with a paring knife. Beat milk and egg together and brush all over the top of the tart. 

Bake at 350° on the lowest shelf of your oven for 20 minutes. Wrap the top of the tart in tin foil and move the tart to the upper shelf. Bake around 40 more minutes, until dark gold on top. Transfer to a rack to cool. 

jammy walnut cookies

I'm totally fascinated by aquafaba, a new egg white substitute that has been getting popular in the last year or two. Aquafaba is something I have been unknowingly throwing away for years, and before I saw it in action, I couldn't really believe that it was actually going to work. Aquafaba is chickpea brine, the water that I have been tipping out of canned beans and pouring away down the drain! But it has a secret power to become an uncanny egg white replacer. It makes very fluffy, glossy meringues indistinguishable from egg white meringue. Uncooked aquafaba meringue has the faintest beany smell, but sugar and a bit of vanilla takes that away, and cooked, the stuff is an incredibly convincing egg white mimic. 

To make it work, it helps to reduce the aqua faba by about 25% to thicken it slightly, so 1 cup becomes 3/4 cup. To reduce, heat over medium heat in a small pan for around 10-15 minutes, checking the volume frequently until you get 3/4 the original volume.Now, every time I eat chickpeas I save the liquid in a jar in the freezer for later. I can be frozen and then reduced after, or reduced and then frozen.

These cookies are soft and chewy, with a molten, caramelly little jam puddle through the centre. 

jammy walnut cookies: 

Adapted from The New York TImes

• 1 ¾ cups blanched almonds, toasted

• 1 ½ cups walnuts, toasted

• 1 cup sugar

• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 1/2 cup aqua faba, reduced by 25%

• ½ cup raspberry jam

Grind almonds and walnuts in a food processor until mostly finely ground, a few bigger pieces are ok. Combine nuts with sugar, cinnamon and vanilla in a medium bowl. 

In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix aqua faba with the whisk attachment on medium speed until very frothy, about 3 minutes. Fold into nut mixture. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, overnight if you like. 

Heat oven to 325°.  Scoop golf ball sized cookies onto a parchment lined baking sheet and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, cool for a couple minutes and then carefully make in an indentation in the centre of each cookie. Drop a teaspoon of jam in each and then bake 10 more minutes, until the bottom edges of the cookies are golden brown and jam is bubbling.