Thursday, March 27, 2014

Popover Puff Tart



This elegant but relatively simple dish originated with a Pampered Chef recipe.  Let me say right up front that I like a lot of the Pampered Chef merchandise, and if you were to take inventory of our kitchen, you would find many pieces of Pampered Chef equipment--some of which are used very regularly.

However, I have a couple of little problems with Pampered Chef recipes.  One is that because Pampered Chef is out to sell their merchandise, the directions for each recipe are made so complicated by them telling you in bold print which of their products you are to use to complete each task.  Second, Pampered Chef recipes often include the use of a pre-packaged or pre-processed ingredient such as canned biscuit dough, etc.  I don't mind a bit that their recipes use these things, but I wish that they would also include a "from scratch" version for a couple of reasons.  To begin with, many people are trying to cut as many of the pre-packaged, processed foods from their diets as they can.  Furthermore, I've spent a lot of time poring over vintage recipes, and nothing frustrates me more than when a recipe says something like "a box of marshmallows" or something like that.  The size and contents of packages change over time, and a recipe that calls for a "package" of something is then rendered useless.

Thus, the recipe that I'm sharing here originated with a Pampered Chef recipe, but I drew on my great-grandmother's from-scratch recipe for cornstarch pudding to modify it so that it is completely from scratch.

This recipe is particularly timely if your family is like ours and experiences a rise in the consumption of eggs in the weeks before Easter.  We poke holes in each end of the eggs and blow the egg out of the shell so that when we dye Easter eggs, we are only dying the empty shell.  This is a great system because sometimes the weather on Easter forces us to hold our egg hunts indoors.  You have to understand something about our Easter egg hunts, though: they are a competition, and we hide the eggs so well that sometimes we don't find them all.  Thus, hiding only the shell prevents us from having a rotten mess on our hands.

It's a timely recipe for other reasons too.  We had a huge apple crop last fall, and we've still got bushels of apples in our utility room.  It is quite cool in there, and the apples were Jonathans, so they've been keeping quite well.  We need to get them used, though.

Since the cookstove is being fired almost constantly still, I added small pieces of wood to make a brisk fire in order to bring the oven temperature up to around 400 F.

Here is what you'll need to make the popover puff crust:


3 Tablespoons butter
6 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
First, melt the butter in the bottom of a cast iron skillet.  I used a #8, but I think the next size up would have been better. 
I didn't measure the butter for this particular tart, and I think I got
a little too generous.  This resulted in a puff that wasn't as pretty as
it usually is, so I guess this is one time when more butter isn't better.
Remove the skillet from the heat and tilt and turn it until butter coats the entire bottom and goes part way up the sides.  Set aside.
Combine the eggs, milk, and flour, beating well.

Add the melted butter from the skillet, beating it in quickly so that if it is a little hot yet, it doesn't cook the eggs.  The batter will look a little lumpy.  Pour all into the skillet and put it in the hot oven to bake.



The popover puff is supposed to bake in a hot oven for about twenty minutes.  Then, the oven heat is to be reduced to moderate for another fifteen or so minutes to finish the cooking.  I've found that reducing the heat is not really necessary.  All you need to do is be sure that you've accomplished your hot oven by burning small pieces.  Then, don't refuel the fire as quickly as you would if you were maintaining the high oven heat.  Rather, let the oven gradually cool down to a little hotter than 350 before you add fuel to the fire. 

Of course, you'll want to occasionally take a peek in the oven to see that everything is progressing as it should.  This is particularly fun during this recipe because the popover part changes so dramatically.

The popover puff about midway through its baking.  This is not
nearly as pretty as some that I have made.


While the popover puff is baking, begin working on the fruit filling.  You'll need the following:

4-5 baking apples (I think Jonathans are best)
1 orange
3 egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 c. raisins
1/4 c. dried cranberries
2 1/2 Tablespoons cornstarch
water
vanilla


Core and slice the apples into a skillet.  I use Granny's large Saladmaster stainless steel frying pan for this step.  Add the raisins and cranberries.  Zest the orange, putting the zest in the pan with the fruits.

Squeeze the juice from the orange and add it to the 1/2 c. of orange juice.  Add enough water to make a cup of liquid. 

In a medium bowl, combine the rest of the filling ingredients and whisk until smooth.  Pour over fruit.




Place the fruit mixture directly over the firebox.  Stirring constantly, cook until thick and fruit is coated.

By the time I inherited Granny's frying pan, the bottom was warped
enough that it doesn't make contact with the stovetop except in the
center.  Therefore, I remove the stove lid beneath it to speed the cooking.
While you are cooking the filling, the popover puff crust will probably finish baking.  Remove it from the oven when it is golden brown and appears to be firm all the way through the bottom.


As the popover puff cools, it will contract and make a nice "bowl" to receive the fruit mixture.


This is what the fruit filling looks like when it is finished.
Pour the fruit filling into the popover puff crust, dust lightly with powdered sugar if desired, and enjoy!  I think that it is delicious.






Friday, March 7, 2014

A Blog Reader's Cookstove - IV

Late last year, reader Rebecca contacted me with information about her family's cookstove.  I have been too busy to blog (as you can tell from the single, solitary posts in January and February), so I feel very guilty about taking so long to post this information--especially because Rebecca's cookstove is a Flameview, and this blog has fielded lots of questions about Flameviews.

Rebecca's Flameview cookstove.
The story of Rebecca's cookstove is one that is not only a testament to how great a woodburning cookstove is, but it is also a testament to what a difference proper insulation can make.  Rebecca and her family live in southern Manitoba, Canada, where temperatures during the winter days can run about -4 F and the nights are generally -31F.  Before purchasing the Flameview, they had been considering installing a masonry stove when they renovated their house.  However, a 48 hour power outage, which ended up causing them to have to temporarily vacate their home, prompted them to decide that a stove which could not only heat their house but also heat their water and cook their food would be a better choice.

The Flameview fit that bill.  They installed their stove in a four-seasons sunroom which is two feet lower than the rest of their house, thus facilitating the transfer of the heat of the stove (and the sun) up into their living quarters without the use of fans.

What's truly impressive is how much of their home heating the Flamview provides, and part of this amazing ability is due to how smartly Rebecca and her husband completed the renovation of their home.  I'll let you read her words:

"When the sun is shining (even if the weather is bitterly cold) I can do a good burn in the morning, something small for lunch and then nothing more until 4:30 pm. When the sun is not shining, then I need to burn more in the morning.  We go through about two large Rubbermaid 68 liter [18 gallon] totes of split wood a day total for heating and cooking. When it is sunny maybe only one tote.

During the renovation we built out the existing walls of the house and added 10" of Ruxol insulation so that our walls in the main house are about R60. We also added new triple-pane windows throughout and more blown-in cellulose insulation in the attic. Unfortunately we only put double-pane in the sun-room. We have 6" walls in the sun-room with pink insulation that is R22 plus thin foil insulation that is R5. If we did the sun-room again we would make the walls thicker and do triple pane windows!

Because our house is well insulated, once we heat it up, the heat stays for quite a while. Even now that it is so cold at night, if we get the house up to 22 degrees celcius [72 F] before going to bed then bank the fire, the furnace only comes on at 5 or 6 am (we have the furnace set at 18 degrees celcius [64 F])."

With this system, the Flamview is able to provide nearly 100% of their home heating unless they are away from home for over twelve hours.

  

A vew of the firebox side of the Flameview.
 
In response to my question about what they like best about the Flameview, Rebecca's husband responded that he liked being able to see the fire.  Rebecca, on the other hand, mentioned that she is most impressed by how "crispy and golden" everything looks and tastes from the oven.  She specifically mentioned the oven fries had a superior quality to them that she had not been able to produce in the oven of her modern range--which she still has but rarely uses now that she has figured out how to control the heat of the wood cookstove.
 
The only drawback that they mentioned is that, in their experience, quite a bit of smoke escapes into the house when the firebox door is opened.
 
Below, you will see two photographs of the back of the range.  The top one shows how the rear-mounted water reservoir is connected to the coil inside the range.  The bottom one shows the thermostatic control option which is available on Margin stoves as well as the optional electric blower which helps circulate the heat from the range.
 
 
 
Rebecca added some very valuable information about the Flameview in general and the use of the blower on my post entitled "Purchasing a New Woodburning Cookstove," and I'm looking forward to having her chime in quite frequently to help out with a Flameview owner's point of view.