Coconut Custard Tartlets

 

More than any other activity, food is the guiding principal on Taylor Family vacations. A good majority of our days are spent battling discussing what to eat, where to eat it, and what each person will eat when we get wherever we’re going. We dissect our favorite dishes with the intention to reinvent them in our kitchen, using amateur detective skills to debate questions like

who thought to put pears inside a pasta and can you please draw me a bath made of this sauce?

a taco shack! we have to stop! fish tacos FTW! what is that spice?

can you remember the name of that place without a sign in a Roman alley where we ate the best cacio è pepe of our lives eight years ago?

who invented this butterscotch pudding in a teacup / where can i get the recipe / is the inventor available for marriage?

The mother recipe from which these tartlets were born, a coconut custard pie, follows this pattern. Everyday lunch on my parents’ favorite Caribbean island is a celebration of local Antiguan fare and includes freshly-caught fish, garden vegetables, and coconuts from the palms that envelop the property. My mom loved this pie so much that the pastry chef sent her the recipe.

While I don’t have a tree in my backyard to shimmy up and harvest a few coconuts for tonight’s dessert, sweetened coconut works just as well here. Since it’s not seasonal, these tartlets will transport you to a tropical island far, far away — specially if it’s 15 below zero during an east coast winter — if only for a bite or two.

Coconut Custard Tartlets (adapted from Mark Smith, pastry chef at Curtain Bluff)

1 pie crust (Unfortunately for you, I’m taking my pie crust recipe to the grave. Try this one.)

1 lb sweetened shredded coconut

3 eggs

1 cup heavy cream

1 cup milk

kiss of vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a mini muffin tin with cooking spray.

Whisk coconut, eggs, cream, milk, and vanilla extract together in a bowl. Set aside.

Roll out your pie crust until to approximately 1/4-inch thickness, re-rolling the dough as necessary. Using a circular cookie cutter or a small glass, cut rounds out of the pie crust. Press each crust into the muffin tin and spoon ~1-1 1/2 tablespoons of coconut mixture into each cup.

Bake for about 30 minutes, or until tartlet crust is golden brown. Leave tartlets in the muffin tin allow to cool on a cooling rack for 10 minutes. Top with a dollop of slightly sweetened whipped cream (or coconut whipped cream!) and serve.

{Double Batch} Cinnamon Rolls

swirly and cinnamony

Rejoice, for Lent is OVER!! I can now eat all the sweets I want! Chocolate and ice cream and the box of Samoas I stashed in the garage freezer 40 days ago, oh my!

And now I have a MASSIVE sugar hangover.

To be fair, I wasn’t quite as strict this year as I have been in previous years and slipped up occasionally. Sometimes a girl just needs a milkshake on a Friday afternoon when she was traipsing around New York City with out-of-town coworkers until 4:30am the previous night. Can you blame her?

Usually, I want to break Lent with chocolate — I made an Almond Joy cake for Easter last year and chocolate tiramisu the year before. This year, I made good on my word and ate an entire bag of Reece’s Peanut Butter Eggs before 9am on Easter morning and then proceeded to tackle these cinnamon rolls. Molls is right, these rolls dessert AND breakfast wrapped up in a sweet ball of dough — it’s the best of both worlds!

Cinnamon Rolls (adapted from Joy the Baker)

These rolls take a certain amount of patience to see all the way through because they’re a bit time consuming, but they’re definitely worth it!

for the dough

1 – 1/4-oz package active dry yeast

1/4 cup warm water (approximately 115 degrees F)

1/2 teaspoon + 1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup milk, room temperature

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg + 1 egg yolk

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading and rolling

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick unsalted butter, plus more to grease the pan

for the filling

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

2 tablespoons maple syrup

3/4 cup pecans, finely chopped

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

for the icing

2 cups powdered sugar

1/4 cup milk

In a large bowl, combine yeast, 1/2 teaspoon sugar, and 1/4 cup warm water. Stir to incorporate and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes.

Add the rest of the sugar to the bowl, along with the milk, brown sugar, vanilla, egg, and egg yolk. Mix with a whisk until ingredients are combined, then add flour and salt. Using your hands, knead the dough until all ingredients just come together to form a dough.

Add the butter and proceed to knead the dough — it will be come wet and sticky. Transfer dough to a well-floured work surface and knead about 1/3 cup flour into the dough. When dough is mostly smooth (a bit sticky is alright), transfer to a large, greased bowl. Place a damp towel over the bowl and put in a warm place to rise until doubled in size, about 2 hours.

While you wait ever so patiently for the dough to rise, make the filling! Combine sugar, brown sugar, pecans, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, and maple syrup in a large bowl. Set aside.

Grease a 13-inch baking dish and set aside.

When dough has risen, plop dough onto a heavily floured work surface. Add flour one tablespoon at a time until dough is no longer sticky. Place a damp towel over the dough and let rest for 5 minutes.

Using a floured rolling pin, roll dough into a 10 x 10-inch square. Brush the top of the dough with melted butter and pour filling on top of the dough, leaving a 1-inch border on the sides. Lightly press filling into the dough. Lift the edge of the dough closest to you and roll into a tight cylinder. Place roll seam side down and slice into 8 or 10 equal rounds. Place rounds in the greased baking dish, cut side up. Cover with a damp towel and refrigerate overnight.

The next morning, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Take rolls out of the fridge, uncover, and let them sit at room temperature for 15 minutes. Bake until golden brown and sugar is bubbling, about 30 minutes.

While rolls are baking, whisk together powdered sugar and buttermilk until mixture is smooth.

Take cinnamon rolls out of the oven and transfer entire pan to a cooling rack. Brush with melted butter and drizzle with icing. Allow rolls to cool long enough so they won’d burn the insides of your mouth, then devour as quickly as possible.

{Double Batch} Orzo + Arugula Salad

a springy salad for your troubles

For the third year in a row, I have given up sweets for Lent. For the third year in a row, this 40 days without sweets is TOUGH. For the third year in a row, I know I will feel better at the end of these 40 days only to consume an unhealthy number of Reece’s Peanut Butter Eggs at 7am Easter morning (because Reece’s in egg form are just so much better than the normal peanut butter cups).

By the time Lent comes along every year, I’m usually in need of some kind of detox. Thanksgiving bleeds into Christmas (pies and cookies are abundant), Christmas topples onto New Year’s Eve (my Hungarian family sustains on sugar), there are many birthday celebrations to be had come January (hello, birthday cake), then my birthday (hello, more birthday cake, cake balls, and Momofuku cookies), only to conclude with an indulgent Mardi Gras celebration.

The difficulty with eliminating sweets is defining what exactly “sweets” encompasses. Does it mean solely desserts? Does candy count? What about breakfast pastries? Are you giving up all (heaven forbid) sweet-tasting things?! For my purposes, desserts, candy, and breakfast pastries count as sweets, but I get my sweet fix from fruit and honey in my afternoon tea.

So as I count down the hours until the Easter Bunny sneaks into our house and leaves a basket full of Fudge Kitchen fudge, peanut butter eggs, and Cadbury goodies outside my bedroom door, all Double Batch posts for the month of March will be salad-related (thanks to the ever-brilliant Molly). This bright pasta salad is a great springy recipe especially when the date says winter SHOULD be over, but it’s still 35 degrees with impending snowstorms every day.

Orzo + Arugula Salad (adapted from Love & Lemons)

vinaigrette

1/2 cup olive oil

2 cloves garlic, chopped

2-3 tablespoons champagne or white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons grated lemon zest (plus a bit more for garnish)

2 tablespoons fresh thyme, chopped (plus a bit more for garnish)

juice of one lemon

salt & pepper to taste

pinch of red pepper flakes

salad

1 box orzo

1/2 cup pecorino, shredded

1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes, chopped

1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted

2+ cups arugula

In a small bowl, whisk together ingredients for vinaigrette and set aside — you want the flavors to marry before using the dressing.

Cook the orzo in boiling water for about 7-10 minutes until pasta is al dente. Drain almost all pasta water from pot (leaving about 2 tablespoons) and transfer orzo into a large glass bowl. Add cheese, sun dried tomatoes, and pine nuts to the orzo and toss until incorporated. When orzo has cooled a bit, add arugula. Pour dressing over salad a little at a time and toss. Serve with garnishes of shredded cheese, lemon zest, and thyme. Enjoy immediately!

This pasta salad is best if eaten the day it’s made, but will keep for 1-2 days in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

garnish with more cheese, lemon, lemon zest, and thyme