Returning to recipes
The best part of seasonality.
Hello from NL 57. This is Bake Sense, the somewhat ordered record of ramblings that concern the world of baking. Here, we champion flavour and wholesome ingredients and keep an open and curious mind that questions where those ingredients come from and how we can make the most of them.
For a few days at least, we’re enjoying what looks and feels like summer: blue skies, temperatures in the 20s, a light feeling of levity, and, dare I say it, ease. It genuinely feels acceptable to do British things like visit the PYO, light a BBQ, and inflate the paddling pool.
Any dessert topped with jewels of ripe fruit is in demand, and after more good weeks than we could’ve hoped for with passionfruit from Seville, there are apricots from France to play with, and given this weather, there is a strong chance of British strawberries and raspberries, too.
At this point, I look back through notebooks to see exactly what we were making at this time in previous years at the bakery, and I am always reminded of the simplicity and succinctness that can be achieved with a good sweet pastry recipe combined with an appropriate cream from the catalogue of French classics. Today’s recipe for Strawberry Tarts with Fig Leaf Crème Légère is a case in point, but it’s also more than that; it’s three recipes in one, as each element could be used in multiple ways to compose desserts all summer long.
The sweet shortcrust is the one I’ve used for years; it is forgiving, reliable and great for large or small tarts of any shape. The fig leaf cream alone could be used to fill choux buns or as the layers between sheets of genoise. The strawberries would suit sitting atop any scone with clotted cream or pavlova piled with chantily.
I found the recipe hiding in a rare but still existent and organised folder on my desktop, complete with all the important details, ingredient quantities, methods and key points to remember. Details like this are often neglected when quickly scribbling down revisions to formulas, adaptations and riffs that are required when operating in a space that makes the most of what is on hand at any exact time. Base recipes are rehashed repeatedly to make batch sizes fit the free mixer, the fridge capacity for a Saturday versus a Thursday or the ingredient that never arrived or arrived ten times less or more than the amount expected.
Any baker will tell you that the foundations of their repertoire are recipes that can be adapted to suit the seasons, so please feel free to riff on the fruit and flavour components to reflect what’s available where you are right now.
When the raspberries are good, I’ll remove the fig leaves and sweeten the légère with heather honey; if I’m lucky enough to get British blueberries, I’ll try infusing the milk and cream with lemon peel and a spent vanilla pod. When I pick blackcurrants, I’ll take leaves for infusing or dehydrating to finish each tart with a dusting of their powder.