Tag Archives: dessert recipes

Loquat Sorbet Recipe with Tequila and Salt

Posted on March 6, 2018 | 2 comments

Here’s a fun post: a delicious recipe for loquat sorbet made with a splash of tequila and sprinkled with Hawaiian black lava salt.

Loquat Sorbet Recipe using fresh loquats and a splash of tequila and salt

The loquats came from a tree in our backyard. We started it from the seed of a tree down the street and it’s taken off. According to the Specialty Produce App, loquats grow well in most Southern states, but usually only fruit in California, Florida and Hawaii.

Loquat Tree with fruit ready to make into loquat sorbet

This post is a family collaboration! Papa Bird (our sorbet master) came up with the recipe and shot the “making of” photos. The child labor came from the (not so) Baby Birds.

Fresh loquats from the treekids cooking loquat sorbet

Kids Cooking in the Garden

Kids cutting loquats for sorbet with playful chef safety knives

The girls have been honing their kitchen skills with their new knife set. They love the safety knives from Playful Chef (Amazon link) which are designed to cut through apples and carrots, but safely fit in young hands. They use them almost daily.

The kids also harvested the loquats from the tree, selecting the ripest, softest and sweetest fruit.

My kids enjoy cooking, especially sweet treats. And they LOVE making and eating anything from our garden.

How to Make Loquat Sorbet

Loquat Sorbet Recipe using fresh loquats and a splash of tequila and salt

Loquats are from the same family as apples, pears and roses. The fruit have a mild, sweet, slightly sour and refreshing flavor.

loquats on the tree, ready for this sorbet recipe

They grow rampant in Southern California. So check your neighborhood and forage! If you or a friend have a tree, you likely have more fruit than you can deal with. And sadly, there are not very many loquat recipes out there. Select fruit that are a little soft and pull off easily from the branch.

Loquat sorbet

Next, Papa Bird set up an assembly line for the girls outside. The fruit can be juicy and sticky.

Kids Cooking Recipe: Fresh Fruit (Loquat) Sorbet

The kids cut the fruit in half. Loquats contain 3-7 large, hard, inedible seeds in the middle.

fresh loquats with seeds

Remove the seeds. The fruit are now ready to run through a juicer.

loquat sorbet

Preparing the loquat sorbet

This sorbet came out delicious!

Loquat sorbet with tequila and Hawaiian lava salt

To make 2 cups of juice, Papa Bird used approximately 60 halved, seeded loquats. We have a Breville compact juicer, which quickly separated the juice from the skin and less edible parts.

Read the printable recipe below. Continue reading →

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Posted in Dessert, Food, Green Parenting, Our Family, Recipes from the Garden, Recipes to Make with the Kids, San Diego, Seasonal Recipes, Urban Agriculture, Urban Homesteading

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Our Thanksgiving

Posted on November 27, 2016 | 1 comment

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving! Thank you for taking the time to read our posts and click through to see our pictures.

thanksgiving-3

Papa Bird and I were feeling a little unenthusiastic about Thanksgiving this year. Neither of us have family in town, and the traditional “story” about Native Americans welcoming the English immigrants to the first Thanksgiving felt at odds with the current state of our country. But we talked about making new traditions and celebrating what we do value.

rotisserie turkey

We invited our sweet friends with a newborn over for a traditional meal at our house. At twelve pounds, the turkey was small enough to (just barely) fit on the rotisserie attachment of the grill. Thank goodness! However do you cook all the sides if there is a bird in the oven? Our friends made oven-roasted veggies and mashed potatoes with homemade creme fraiche, and even so, our oven was in full use throughout the morning and early afternoon.

thanksgiving-4

Many thanks to Sarah and the girls’ “Tio Lou” for coming over, cooking, and sending us the pictures of us at the table. Papa Bird and I had seen their newbie at the hospital, but the Little Birds were thrilled to meet baby Mateo for the first time.

Sarah and Mateo

And there was pie. And pie crust cookies made by the girls. (Not pictured: chocolate mousse made by the girls, too.) I used my all-butter crust recipe and the “Real Pumpkin Pie” recipe from a few years ago with the following improvements: I used maple syrup instead of honey as the sweetener, which mixes easily without having to be warmed up. I also ended up using mostly cream and only a splash of milk, just because we had more cream than milk on hand.

real pumpkin pie

And the day after Thanksgiving we put up our tree. Christmas and Hannukah, here we come! (Another photo courtesy the Moras, as I was covering a shift at the hospital Friday.)

picking the perfect tree

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Posted in Entertaining, Food, Our Family, Recipes to Make with the Kids, Seasonal Recipes

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Pumpkin Custard with Ginger and Maple

Posted on October 7, 2016 | 3 comments

It’s officially pumpkin season! San Diego weather may change its mind on a daily basis, but pumpkin everything gets the green light in my book! Today I’m sharing the recipe for a ginger-maple pumpkin custard topped with a pepita streusel. This creamy alternative to pumpkin pie is made extra gingery with both fresh and dried ginger, and sweetened with maple syrup.

Ginger Maple Pumpkin Custard with Pepita Streusel

The pumpkin custard is gluten-free, with no refined sugars, and no cans. Like in my pumpkin smash cake recipe, I won’t tell anyone if you speed the recipe up with canned pumpkin, but try a real pumpkin one time so you can taste the difference. I use whole cow milk, but you can substitute any milk alternative. This custard is adapted from the filling for the real pumpkin pie recipe. We topped it with real whipped cream (get the “real” food trend?) and a pepita (pumpkin seed) streusel. Find the streusel recipe here.

Papa Bird and the little birds grew pumpkins this year from seeds saved from last year’s sugar pie pumpkins. Specialty Produce is also fully stocked with baking and decorative pumpkins.

[Recipe] Ginger Maple Pumpkin Custard with Pepita Streusel (whole, unrefined ingredients, gluten-free)

Try the recipe today and you just might be eating this surprisingly healthy custard for dessert and breakfast. Or else pin the recipe to save and try later!

5.0 from 1 reviews
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Pumpkin Custard with Ginger and Maple
Author: 
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 6-8 servings
 
A creamy alternative to pumpkin pie, made extra gingery with both fresh and dried ginger, and sweetened with maple syrup. Gluten-free, no refined sugars, and no cans. I use whole cow milk, but you can substitute any milk alternative. Adapted from my "Real Pumpkin Pie" filling.
Ingredients
  • 2 cups roasted and pureed pumpkin (1 sugar pie pumpkin or 1 15 oz can of pureed pumpkin)
  • 1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • ½ teaspoon allspice
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 3 large eggs
  • ½ cup maple syrup
  • 1 cup whole milk
Instructions
  1. Prep pumpkin (see notes) or use canned (I won't tell anyone, but try a real pumpkin one time so you can taste the difference.)
  2. Preheat oven to 350* F.
  3. If you are using homemade pureed pumpkin, add the rest of the ingredients into your food processor or blender. Mix until combined.
  4. Place six to eight custard dishes or ramekins inside of a large roasting pan. Fill the small dishes/ramekins with the pumpkin batter. Pour water into the large pan, being careful not to splash water into the custards. Fill the pan until the water level is even with the level of the batter in the small dishes. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until the center of the custards are "set."
  5. Remove the custards from the water bath and cool on a wire rack.
  6. Serve with streusel and/or whipped cream.
Notes
1. If starting from a fresh pumpkin: Use a "sugar pie pumpkin" or "pie pumpkin" and not a decorative jack-o-lantern type pumpkin. Preheat oven to 350* F. Wash the outside of the pumpkin well. Cut off the stem of the pumpkin, and then cut in half vertically. Remove the seeds and strings. Rinse and save the seeds for drying and replanting and/or roasting. Place the two halves of the pumpkins on a baking pan lined with a piece of foil that is twice as long as the pan. Fold the foil over the top of the pumpkins and bake for 75 to 90 minutes, or until soft.
Allow pumpkins to cool (they can be refrigerated over night.) Peel off the skin, and any overly browned parts.
Place the flesh of the pumpkin in a food processor or good blender and puree until smooth.
Leave the pumpkin in the processor or blender, and add the rest of the custard ingredients.
An average sized pumpkin makes about 2 cups of pureed pumpkin. A little more or a little less is fine.
2. Nutrition figures are for 8 servings. I made 6 large custards, and we felt full after half, so it could easily serve 12. I split the difference and calculated for 8. Nutrition is also for the custard as written, and does not include streusel or whip cream topping.
3. Streusel recipe here.
Nutrition Information
Serving size: 131 g Calories: 111 Fat: 3g Saturated fat: 1.2g Unsaturated fat: 1.8g Trans fat: 0g Carbohydrates: 18g Sugar: 14 g Sodium: 188mg Fiber: .8g Protein: 3.8g Cholesterol: 73mg

 

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Posted in Dessert, Entertaining, Food, Recipes for the Whole Family, Recipes from the Garden, Recipes to Make with the Kids, Seasonal Recipes

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Nectarine Pie [Recipe]

Posted on July 16, 2016 | 3 comments

Summertime… What does it mean to you? For me, summer is never complete without a peach pie. This year I experimented with nectarines in place of peaches. We tried out a nectarine and blackberry pie with an all butter crust.

Nectarine and Blackberry Pie with an All Butter Crust

Nothing beats a ripe nectarine for snacking, standing over the sink, letting the juice drip down your hands. But baking? My interest was piqued when I heard they can be baked without peeling, which can be tedious when preparing peaches. The Little Birds and I picked up extra sweet Carmen Miranda nectarines from a local farm at Specialty Produce.

Nectarines for Pie

My four-and-a-half-year-old loves baking and she helped with every step. She even took this picture of me and the pie dough. Here I am shaping half of the dough into a disc before chilling it in the refrigerator for half an hour.

All butter pie crust for nectarines and berries

These nectarines were so sweet there was no need to add any sugar. In fact, I added a splash of lemon juice to try to cut the sweetness. Because they were ripe and juicy, I added a little tapioca flour to thicken up the filling. You could use flour or cornstarch, but I think they leave a starchy taste. This recipe has zero added sugar, unless you want an optional sprinkle of a pinch of turbinado sugar on the top crust.

Carmen Miranda Nectarines are super sweet and juicy

We love eating sweet, fresh summer fruit simply. But a pie is one way to celebrate the fruit and make it the star.

Fresh blackberries for pie

Peach vs. Nectarine Pie?

Nectarine Pie - 5

And the verdict? These nectarines almost reminded me more of baked plums than baked peaches. I liked the bit of pink the skin gave the fruit, and didn’t mind the texture of the skin one bit.  But as far as being easier to prep than peaches… I had a hard time cutting the nectarines off the pit. The don’t fall off the pit nicely like peach slices. Then I figured out the trick of cutting them squarely.

Egg white brushed inside the pie crust can help prevent it from getting soggy from a juicy filling

Here is another trick for you: if you brush a little bit of beaten egg white on to the bottom crust, it can help prevent a juicy filling from getting the bottom crust too soggy. Cracking an egg, beating the egg, and brushing it on are all great jobs for kids!

Lattice top for a Nectarine Pie A lattice top is pretty classic for a peach or nectarine pie. I rolled out the second half of my crust recipe and used a ravioli cutter to slice strips with a fluted edge. Use the longer strips in the middle and the shorter pieces on the edges, and weave over and under. Can you tell in this photo where I messed up the pattern?

The extra bits of crust went to Little Bird to make her famous pie crust cookies. Enjoy with vanilla ice cream for dessert, or simply as is for a sorta healthy breakfast!

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Nectarine Pie [Recipe]
Author: 
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 1 pie
 
A twist on a classic American peach and berry pie makes use of peak of season nectarines and blackberries.
Ingredients
  • 6-8 large nectarines
  • 1 pint of blackberries
  • 1 tablespoon of tapioca powder
  • 1 teaspoon of lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon of butter
  • 1 recipe for a double pie crust
  • 1 egg white, gently beaten
  • (optional) sprinkle of turbinado sugar
  • (optional) splash of milk
Instructions
  1. Prepare an all butter pie crust according to instructions, chill in the refrigerator while you prep the fruit.
  2. Wash and cut the nectarines. Wash the berries. Toss with the tapioca powder and lemon juice. Set aside.
  3. Preheat oven to 350* F.
  4. Roll out the first pie crust and gently place in the bottom of a 9" pie pan. Brush a thin layer of beaten egg white over the dough. Gently pile the fruit into the pan. Dot with little bits of butter.
  5. Roll out the second pie crust, then cut into slices. Decorate the top, weaving over and under, until a lattice covers the top. Brush the top crust with a bit of milk and/or sprinkle a bit of turbinado sugar.
  6. Bake for 45 minutes or until the crust is browned and the fruit is tender. IMPORTANT (and hard): Let the pie sit for at least one hour before cutting.

Enjoy!

Nectarine Blackberry Pie

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Posted in Dessert, Food, Recipes for the Whole Family, Recipes to Make with the Kids, Seasonal Recipes, Step by Step with Pictures

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Chocolate, Apple, Walnut Torte (Nana’s Passover Cake)

Posted on April 10, 2016 | 3 comments

This chocolate, apple and walnut torte is the Passover cake my mother and grandmother have made for decades. I have been asked to share the recipe several times — and here it is! Like my great-grandmother’s recipe for Matzo Ball Soup, it is published in an old synagogue cookbook that I still use for traditional Jewish recipes, including many from my family. (By the way, Mower’s matzo ball soup is still surprisingly popular on Pinterest.)

chocolate, apple, walnut passover torte

My grandmother “Nana” had a serious stroke 12 years ago. She doesn’t remember much that has happened since her childhood, and pretty much thinks of herself as a girl. She doesn’t remember me when I visit her memory-focused assisted living, but gets that I am there for her and is as sweet and as pleasant as ever. She even forgets what she said a minute before, and when she finds a good joke, she repeats it. We were only recently a family of four on our last visit to New York and she kept asking how many kids we planned. She would then advise, “Two or three is okay, but more than four is too many.” So of course my husband would tell her we wanted fourteen and she would crack up. This happened about twenty times in the space of an hour.

But memory is a funny thing. She can identify the names of every single plant on the grounds. And she remembers recipes! On my last trip, my uncle gave me her recipe box to bring to the visit. Nana remembered them all and shared stories. I recognized the Passover cake recipe as identical to the one I had made a month before (and every Passover before it since I was a teenager.) I am calling it “Nana’s Passover Cake” but as she reminded me, it was originally the recipe of her friend Bea Glück. “Well, since it was Bea’s recipe, naturally it’s a winner. Natch!”

Nana's Passover Cake

As you may see in the index card, there isn’t a ton of detail to the technique, nor in the version my mom wrote for the cookbook. But I’ve added some tips and my own system for sailing through the prep. You could make it all by hand, but a food processor and mixer will help. Tip: no need to wash the processor between ingredients. I even go ahead and make charoset right afterwards.

A friend in the midst of a Whole 30 challenge, gave me a Paleo-friendly apple and nut muffin that had such a similar taste and texture. Although this a “torte” in the sense that it uses no flour, rather ground nuts and a handful of matzo meal (similar in baking to breadcrumbs), I bet it could be adapted to gluten-free pretty easily. Try using almond meal in place of the matzo and/or more apple. There is no added fat, other than the eggs and nuts, and this Passover torte is not too sweet. My grandmother noted “Red Delicious” apples, but I have often used Fujis with good results.

5.0 from 1 reviews
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Chocolate, Apple, Walnut Torte (Nana's Passover Cake)
Author: 
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: Jewish (Passover)
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
 
Passed down from my grandmother, this traditional passover cake could easily be confused with a contemporary paleo-ish torte, featuring chocolate, chopped walnuts and apple in a light sponge. It's not too sweet, and everyone loves it!
Ingredients
  • 4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, grated
  • 2 apples, cored and grated
  • 1 cup of walnuts, chopped
  • 6 eggs, separated
  • 1¼ cups sugar
  • ½ cup matzo meal
Instructions
  1. Preheat over to 350*F. Grease a 9 inch springform pan.
  2. Using a grater, or grating attachment on a food processor, grate the chocolate. Place the chocolate in a medium sized mixing bowl. Without washing or rinsing the food processor, grate the apples. (The apples should be cored but don't peel them.) Add to the mixing bowl. Without washing, take out the grating plate and put the chopping blade into the food processor. Chop the walnuts and then add to the mixing bowl.
  3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the egg yolks with the sugar until thick (at least 2 minutes on high/fast.) Gently stir into the chocolate, apples, and walnuts and add the matzo meal. In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Gently fold into the batter.
  4. Bake in the greased springform pan for 1 hour. Cool in pan.
Notes
The instructions include equipment (such as a food processor and stand mixer or hand mixer) that make the cake a snap. But the cake can also be made by grating, chopping, and beating by hand.

Serving options: I like the cake with whipped cream (or non-dairy whip for Kosher friends) and strawberries. (Strawberries are usually in season for Passover/Spring Equinox/Easter.) My mom's transcription from the 80's suggests sprinkling with powdered sugar just before serving.

The cake is best the first day, but can be baked the morning of a big dinner.

If you like this recipe, please like the Baby Birds Farm page on Facebook, or follow my Jewish Recipes board on Pinterest.

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Posted in Dessert, Entertaining, Food, Our Family, Seasonal Recipes

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