Thyme For Dessert

The last few cherries in the bowl were starting to look as if they needed eating - a little wrinkly here, a soft spot there. It was time to get serious about making something from them before they became just so much compost.

I wasn't in the mood for clafoutis, even though the idea of trying it with the pits left in has been a temptation ever since I learned last cherry season that it's traditional. Eggy just wasn't appealing. And I didn't want a cherry pie - too sweet and too much pitting to contemplate on a laid back sort of a day. Fruit and cheese came to mind - and stuck.

I cruised the interwebs without a lot of success. Some recipes had parts that sounded good but other parts that made me shake my head. Finally, I decided it was time to take my courage in both hands and invent.

Here's what I came up with - cherry and goat cheese tart with thyme. I have no idea why that combination sounded appealing but it did and by some minor miracle I had all the ingredients that were bouncing around in my head actually in my house. I rolled out some store bought puff pastry and spread it with a mixture of goat cheese and cream, dotted it with halved, pitted cherries, sprinkled it with fresh thyme from the garden and slid it into a moderate oven.

The result was a really lovely dessert, not very sweet at all - in fact, the cherries seemed to lose sweetness in the baking - but complex and interesting and savory with just a whisper of sweetness. The thyme flavor was unexpected and novel and I liked it - I'd do that again for sure.

We had a piece before leaving to walk the dog and it was so good that we had another piece a few hours later for dessert. I took the rest over to my neighbor next door - just to get it out of the house - and then sat around thinking, "Man, I wish I had another piece of that tart!"

Cherry and Goat Cheese Tart with Thyme

About 2 dozen cherries, pitted and halved

1/2 cup whipping cream

3-4 ounces soft goat cheese, crumbled

Frozen puff pastry, 1/2 package (I use DuFour brand - it's much the best)

1-3 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Pit and halve the cherries and set aside. Roll out the puff pastry on a floured board with a floured rolling pin - just a few strokes - the resulting rectangle should measure roughly 8" x 10". Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place the pastry on the paper. Trace a line with the tip of a knife one inch in from the edge of the pastry all the way around - don't cut through the pastry, just incise a line. Inside the line you've just incised, prick the pastry all over with a fork. Set aside or, if the pastry is getting too warm, stick it in the fridge to cool down while you prepare the cheese.

In a medium size bowl, beat the cream with an electric beater until it is loosely whipped and holding very soft peaks. Crumble in the goat cheese with the whipped cream and continue beating until the cheese is combined well and the resulting mixture can be spread with a knife - perhaps 30 seconds.

Drop blobs of the cheese mixture evenly onto the pastry, then spread with a knife to coat the whole pastry to about 1/4" thick. Place the cherries cut side down on top of the cheese mixture and sprinkle with fresh thyme leaves.

Bake at 375 degrees F for about 30-40 minutes, until the crust is richly browned and the cherries soften. Slide the parchment paper with the tart aboard onto a wire rack to cool.

I don't know how well it keeps as it didn't last long once we started eating it.

For Now

For now, all we are doing is washing them and eating them right out of the colander.

Last week, the cherry stand opened at our farmer's market with these incredible Brooks variety cherries, the earliest on the market and full two weeks ahead of the Bings.

The Brooks cherry was developed at UC Davis and only released to the public in 1987, so it's the new kid in town compared to Rainiers and Bings, but I like it even better than those two for its complex flavor. Yes, it's sweet but also just a little tangy, not as darkly rich as Bings, not as simply sweet as Rainiers.

I may get around to clafoutis, or even to a pie since these are partially freestone but, for now, we are happy just to hold the smooth shiny fruit between our teeth while we pull off the stem, then bite into a burst of juicy cherriness. Next to strawberries, cherries are my favorites - at least for now.

Classical Gas

Made another clafouti, this time with cherries and, as Cookiecrumb suggested in a comment on my last one, less vanilla.

Y'know, she was right. Too much vanilla can be too much of a good thing.

I also prefer the cherries to the strawberries - clafouti is classic with stone fruits for a reason - they just sing together.

I might try the strawberries again with a different twist of flavors but with cherries you can't go wrong. They're a gas!

Summer Fruit Heaven

Having made Pear Croustade last year from Cousin J-Yah's recipe, I wanted to try one this summer using white nectarines and cherries. Somehow, that combination sounded like near nirvana to me, so this week, I made one.

This time, I used the recipe for pate brisee* that came in my Cuisinart instruction manual thirty years ago, then just loaded the pitted, sliced fruit into the crust, dotted it with butter and sprinkled a single tablespoon of turbinado sugar over the crust and already-sweet fruit before turning up the crust around the fruit and baking it in a 350 degree oven for about 30-40 minutes.

Initially, I was a little apprehensive when it came out of the oven as it wasn't bubbling and shiny like most fruit pies, but the first bite dispelled any concerns. It retained the essence of the two kinds of fruit, except where the mingled juices made a juicy, sexy marriage of flavors. Served with just a dollop of creme fraiche on top, it made a lovely summer dessert, as close to transcendance as I have found on earth.

*Pate Brisee (Basic Pastry Dough) from the Cuisinart instruction manual, 1978.

2-2/3 cups all-purpose flour (I use unbleached)
1 cup (2 sticks) very cold butter, cut into 1" pieces (I use frozen)
1-1/2 tsp. salt (original recipe calls for 2 tsps. but I find that unpleasantly salty)
1/2 cup minus 1 Tbs. ice water
1 egg yolk

With metal blade in place, add flour, butter, egg yolk and salt to the work bowl. Process for 8-10 seconds, or until mixture has the consistency of coarse meal. With processor running, pour ice water through feed tube in a steady stream. Stop processing as soon as dough begins to form a ball. Turn out onto waxed paper and shape into two smooth, flattened disks (for a two-crust pie - if making a crousade, keep it all together). Use immediately or wrap in plastic and refrigerate or freeze for later use.

When ready to roll chilled dough, let stand at room temperature to soften slightly. Allow frozen dough thaw for 10 to 15 minutes. Roll on lightly floured board to 1/8 inch thickness. Fit into pan or pans and chill again before baking to prevent shrinkage.

Makes enough pastry for a double-crust 10-inch pie, or one large croustade.

Wretched Excess

Whenever I see a stretch limousine lumbering along with its televisions, bars and cushy seats, I think "wretched excess" and yet clafouti (or clafoutis), which also originated in the Limousin region of France, is the polar opposite of excess, a dessert designed to make the simple and delicious most out of fruit that is perhaps a little past its prime.

This week, I had a few cherries that were going wrinkly and some blueberries that had shrunk slightly - combined, I had just enough fruit for a clafouti to say thank you to My Beloved's daughter, Katie, who had volunteered to come and upgrade my computer.

If you aren't familiar with clafouti, it's similar to a slightly sweetened popover or pancake batter poured over fresh fruit and baked until it puffs. Eggy, but not custardy, if you get my drift. You can use just about any kind of fruit but the most commonly included are stone fruits such as cherries, peaches, apricots and nectarines.

A quick Google for "clafouti" will get you more recipes than you can handle but I still like the basic one Mrs. Child recorded in her classic, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." It is simplicity itself to make using only a blender, a couple of measuring cups and a pie plate, and it is a lovely early-summer dessert when the fruit is so ripe and perfect that you don't need to fancy it up. My Beloved and I like it a la mode but it's great all by itself and I can even recommend it for breakfast, although that really is wretched excess!

The Sweet Season

Recently, I went to the farmer's market over in Marin, dodging giant SUVs and baby strollers to bring home a bounty of fresh fruit.

First, the strawberries and now, in a delicious parade, the cherries, raspberries and nectarines. These were white nectarines, dripping with flavor and so unbelievably sweet. All I did was slice them into a bowl, add a few raspberries and cherries for My Beloved who loves variety and plunked them on the table. Later, I'll feel jaded enough to make them into something but, for now, we are simply relishing the return of the sweet season.