Raspberry sorbet using invert sugar

The last time I was at Pizzeria Mozza I sat at the bar, stuffed full of tricolore salad and pizza, unable to stop eating the mango and passion fruit sorbets in front of me. I’ve had Dahlia’s gelatos and sorbets hundreds of times, I even watched them being made when the machine first arrived, but this time I was mesmerized. As I lifted the spoon to my mouth time after time I just kept wondering, how in the world did she get them so creamy?

When I had the good fortune of running into Dahlia at a party just a couple weeks later I asked. The answer, apparently, is simple: invert sugar.

Now I admit to geeking out on the science of cooking now and then—I’ve got a soft spot for Alton Brown’s brand of nerdiness—but invert sugar sounds like molecular gastronomy to me. I just like making things from scratch. Nonetheless I was intrigued. Could this one thing really truly improve the texture of my sorbet that much? I had to find out.

Apparently invert sugar really isn’t that high up on the technical scale. It’s made by taking traditional sugar and using an acid—lemon juice, cream of tartar, citric acid—and heat to break the sucrose into equal parts fructose and glucose dissolved in water. The resulting syrup crystallizes more slowly than regular sugar, giving the product it is added to a softer, creamier texture.

While you can buy invert sugar (try Surfas or Gloria’s Cake & Candy Supply in Los Angeles), I decided I wanted to make it myself. (Did I mention I like to make things from scratch?) I had trouble finding a recipe, though, so I decided to experiment. I combined one cup of water, one cup of sugar and ¼ teaspoon of citric acid and simmered it for about 30 minutes and then let it cool.

With my experimental invert sugar on hand, I rinsed off the tart, sweet raspberries I picked with my family at Underwood Family Farms in Simi Valley and ran them through the food processor and then through a fine sieve to get out all the seeds. Some water, the invert sugar and chill time later I found myself scooping out the creamiest, most luscious-textured sorbet I’d made to date, like velvet across the tongue. Even after a few days in the freezer the sorbet, which usually hardens into a block of ice, stayed soft and scoopable. Next up, sugar plum sorbet…inverted of course.

Raspberry Sorbet

4 cups fresh raspberries
1 cup water
1 batch invert sugar*

*invert sugar – 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, ¼ teaspoon citric acid or cream of tartar, simmered for 30 minutes and then cooled.

Puree the raspberries in a blender or food processor. Push through a sieve with the back of a spoon to remove the seeds. Add one cup of water and the invert sugar to the raspberry puree. Stir and refrigerated until thoroughly chilled (about 8 hours). Freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

Excuse my dusty cliché, but man does time fly. It’s been more than a month since I’ve written anything here, a month of living by the beach, trying to remember where I put things in my urgency to just get unpacked already, and now it seems that summer is waning with the moon. I’m sorry for my absence; not writing here feels like not talking to your best friend for too long.

But it’s not like I haven’t been writing at all, which is why it’s been a little hard to get back into the groove. In fact, I’ve been keeping up my column for the LA Weekly’s blog, Squid Ink, with stories about lobster trap escape hatches, food stamps at farmers markets, egg safety regulations, sugar shortages, Eat-Ins and farmers market celebrations. And I’ve been cooking, just a little bit, trying to figure out my oven on the not-so-hot days, but mostly making ice cream.

I find the clicking and whirring sounds of the Cuisinart ice cream maker that Matt and Adam lent me quite comforting, a musical interlude before a delightful frozen treat, and I use it every chance I get. The recipe I’ve been working on lately was inspired by the musty, piquant Yerba Buena mint Lily had at her herb stand a few weeks ago. Standing there with Foodwoolf, my face buried in the mint taking long deep breaths, I imagined the aroma interacting with something spicy, something sultry. Chocolate. Chile. Mint.

It took a couple of tries, but the chocolate-chile-mint ice cream I envisioned that day finally came together. Neal and I are still pecking away at the first batch, where I used to crushed chile flakes. The heat in that ice cream was all front-of-the-palate, and it built so that it was a little hard to eat when you got to the bottom of the bowl. I liked the mint element, which was cooling, but there seemed to be a big hole in the middle, like donut, followed by the rich, coating quality of 85 percent Scharffenberger chocolate.

For the second batch, I searched for Fresno chiles, thinking their sweet heat might give the ice cream a rounder flavor. But then I remembered the Ibarra in my cabinet and the smoky, cinnamon-spiced heat that makes Mexican hot chocolate so intriguing. So I opted for the full-flavored ancho chile powder in my cabinet instead, added some fresh-grated Vietnamese cinnamon and toned down the bitterness on the chocolate using 70% Scharffenberger. To quote my friend Bryan, whose wife was a recipient of the first successful batch: “OMG that ice cream you made and brought is absolutely FABULOUS.  Jia-Rui (his wife) woke up talking about it this morning and I just tasted it… OMG. So damn good.”

I think you’ll feel the same way. I loved it, and I don’t even like chocolate that much.

Chocolate Chile Mint Ice Cream

2 cups heavy creamy
¾ cup sugar
3 springs Yerba Buena mint (can substitute spearmint or peppermint), chopped
5 tbsp unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
3 oz chopped 70% cocoa Scharffenberger chocolate or other bittersweet, high-quality chocolate
pinch of salt
1 tsp fresh ground Vietnamese cinnamon
2 tsp ancho chile powder
1 ½ cups whole milk

Heat cream and sugar in a medium saucepan until the sugar dissolves. Add mint and let steep for 30 minutes. Re-warm and whisk in cocoa powder, trying to break up lumps. Bring mixture to a rolling boil and then remove from heat.

Slowly stir in chopped chocolate until fully melted. Add salt, cinnamon and chile powder. Stir until combined. Stir in whole milk. Pour into a storage container and chill overnight.

Strain out mint and freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

Blueberry Lemon Verbena Ice Cream

“Nothin’ but blue skies for now on…”

Anyone who tells you Seasonal Affective Disorder is a load of crap should be subjected to a Pacific Northwest winter. Eugene, Oregon, where I went to graduate school, layered days upon days of glary, gossamer grey light. It’s not that it rained that much there. Don’t get me wrong, it rained. But the greyness was what was most oppressive, climate-coated  emotional shackles. I prefer the monotony of 300 days of sunshine. Blue skies, blue skies with puffy white clouds, blue skies and wind-whipped icicle cold air, as long as there’s sunshine, I’m happy.

Which is to say, that my least favorite month living in Southern California is June. The hazy, foggy mornings that fall under the umbrella of June Gloom are such a downer. I find it hard to wake up, hard to concentrate, hard to do anything but laze around and watch baseball. And since May Grey seems to precede June Gloom with more frequency than it used to, by half way through June I’m cranky as all get out. And by the behavior of my fellow Angelenos, I’d say it’s getting to them too.

Fortunately, I’ve learned that the shortest route to an attitude adjustment has to be ice cream. Take a crying kid and give her an ice cream cone and those tears quickly dissipate into a dirty-faced smile.  Take a curmudgeony grown-up on a hot, sticky day out for gelato and they’re bound to relax. So last week I decided to take my bad mood out for some ice cream.

Inspiration wasn’t too far off. As I was snapping pictures at the Hollywood Farmers’ market for my monthly contribution to Serious Eats’ Market Scene (which, incidentally, was about June Gloom too—there seems to be a theme here), I tried gorgeous tangy-sweet blueberries from Jimenez Family Farm, newcomers to the market. The navy blue orbs were like nature’s Pop Rocks, exploding with flavor that was surprising for this early in the season. Armed with blueberries, I wandered over to Lily’s herb stand and, sniffing around, discovered some lemon verbena. An herb native to South America, it has powerful lemony scent with just a hint of grassy undertones. It’s a nice complement to fruit salad, makes for a refreshing tisane and, I thought, would add a nice lemon quality to the ice cream without adding more acidity. When I told Lily what I was thinking she raised her dark eyebrows skeptically.

The combination of the fruit and the herb was the delightful, summery remedy I was looking for. And it’s cerulean color, tinged with purple, and its creamy richness would have to suffice for blue skies, at least until July.

Blueberry Lemon Verbena Ice Cream

2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar
1 oz lemon verbena
12 oz blueberries, rinsed
pinch of salt
5 egg yolks

Stir together the blueberries, a pinch of salt and sugar in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat until the berries start to give up their liquid. Add sprigs of lemon verbena and let steep for about 45 minutes. Remove the lemon verbena and puree in a blender until smooth. Pour the blueberry mixture through a sieve to remove seeds and skins, then add back to the pot and stir in the milk over medium-low heat.

Pour the heavy cream into a medium bowl and set a strainer over it. Set aside.

In another medium bowl whisk your egg yolks until they’re smooth. Slowly pour the warmed blueberry mixture into the eggs, mixing constantly, to temper the yolks. (Do this too fast and you’ll end up with blueberry scrambled eggs.) Transfer the blueberry custard base back into your pot and heat again over medium-low until the mixture thickens slightly. You’ll know it’s ready when you can drag your finger through the batter on the back of a spoon or spatula and it doesn’t run together.

Pour batter through the strainer into the cream. Stir to combine, cover with plastic and chill overnight. Freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Clafoutis catches some rays at breakfast

Sometimes I get a little over-zealous at the farmers’ market, especially in the late-Spring. I stock up on gorgeous gem-colored cherries, tangy-sweet blueberries, pints of radiant red strawberries, baby beets and rainbow chard, forgetting I made dinner plans or agreed to go to a wine tasting later in the week. As I’m unloading my bags and stuffing my crisper until it’s spilling out the seams like Jack Sprat, I realize I’ve bought way more than I’ll have time to eat without a little strategizing. (And sadly there are weeks I don’t realize this until I the strawberries begin looking like a fifth grade science experiment.)

Walking to the old Farmers’ Market on Fairfax and Third last week, Neal and I spied some rhubarb growing in a neighbor’s yard. The plant had already gone to flower, so it wasn’t going to be good eating, even if it wasn’t an integral part of their landscaping. But it got me thinking of the pint of strawberries in my fridge and one of my favorite, simple French desserts: clafoutis.

I love clafoutis, which is essentially fruit and cake batter, but it tastes a cross between custard and a pancake-y Dutch baby. In Limousin, where the dessert originated, it’s usually made with early-Season cherries, pits and all. The little stones inside aren’t edible, but as they cook they add depth of flavor to the clafoutis. When I make the dessert with cherries, I like to pit them, but rather than cutting the cherries up, I prefer to split them by hand to remove the pit but keep them mostly in tact. It adds to the rustic appeal of the dish.

Moreover, I love clafoutis because it’s so hard to mess up. Even the worst clafoutis tastes pretty good, and it takes hardly any time to make.  So I picked up some crimson stalks of rhubarb at the market to make a strawberry-rhubarb clafoutis. I found a recipe from the folks at King Arthur flour that I used as a foundation and set to hulling and halving strawberries and dicing rhubarb. And while the final version made for some good after-dinner treats (and late-afternoon, passing-through-the-kitchen will-power busters), this not-to-sweet version, which I spiked with cardamom and black pepper, was a delight first thing in the morning with my cup of coffee.

Spiced Strawberry Rhubarb Clafoutis
adapted from King Arthur Flour

Fruit
1 lb ripe strawberries, hulled and halved
1 cup rhubarb (about 2 stalks), diced
4 tbsp butter
1/3 cup sugar

Batter
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
3 eggs
3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 whole milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp fresh-ground black pepper

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch cake pan or casserole dish.

In a sauté pan, melt the mutter. Add the rhubarb and place the strawberries on top, cooking for about five minutes and giving an occasional shake to make sure it’s not sticking. (The goal is the reduce the fruits’ juices to create a bit of a syrup without turning the strawberries to mush.) Sprinkle the 1/3-cup of sugar over the berries, stir and bring the mixture to a boil. Cook for a few minutes, until the mixture thickens slightly. Pour the fruit into you baking dish and let cook while you make the batter.

In a medium-sized bow, whisk the sugar, salt and eggs together until it is light. Slowly add the flour, whisking until combined. Stir in cream, vanilla, cardamom and pepper. Pour the batter over the fruit. Bake for 35-45 minutes, until the cake is puffy and browned on top. Dust with powdered sugar or serve with whip cream or ice cream.

Strawberries from Harry’s Berries@ the Hollywood Farmers’ Market

Sometimes I think I want to just throw in the towel. Writing is hard work, and some days the last thing I want to do, after a full day writing and editing for work, is to sit in front of the computer while the last hours of sunshine and warmth recede into purplish sunsets. To me a bad day writing is like a bad day cooking—you’ve still got something you created in front of you, but do you really want to eat it?

Still, it seems, almost immediately after a string of uninspired days, I’ll be filled with a creative impulse that allows my brain and my ego to shut off just long enough for me to type with abandon. And generally, that inspiration comes from the kitchen, a dish or dessert that rekindles that desire to share, a literary running around with the spoon, eager to feed everyone. I had intended to make a springtime pizza this week complete with a new dough recipe I’m working on in my head. But a succession of incidents left me feeling discouraged, and I never got around to making the dough. As of yesterday, the English peas, fava beans and asparagus for the pizza were still sitting in my fridge, next to the three pints of ruby red strawberries I picked up at the farmers’ market last week.

I love strawberries. In fact, I love them so much, and I ate them with such gusto as a kid (strawberries, strawberry jam, strawberry shortcake, strawberry yogurt—if it had strawberry in it, I ate it) that I developed a strawberry allergy. For nearly a decade, those sweet, juicy berries were forbidden fruit. I grew out of the allergy, thank goodness, but to this day I savor every berry like it might be my last. I try not to over-indulge, but the force is strong with me. I can easily eat a pint in a sitting. Surprised that I hadn’t eaten more of them, my wheels started churning.

I learned long ago that pity parties are best with ice cream. So I decided to take advantage of my new loaner, countertop ice cream maker, my semi-sour mood and riff on the strawberry thyme sorbet recipe I’ve been playing with.  (Thanks Adam!) And wouldn’t you know, inside the perfectly smooth scoop of strawberry rosewater sorbet last night was that seed of inspiration that I had been looking for. Now I have two recipes to post!

To spring!

Strawberry Rosewater Sorbet
adapted from David Lebovitz’s Perfect Scoop

1 lb fresh strawberries
¾ cup sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
½ tsp rosewater
pinch salt
1 tsp vodka

Rinse and hull the strawberries, then quarter them. Add strawberries, sugar, lemon juice, rosewater, salt and vodka to a medium bowl and cover with plastic. Let the strawberry mixture macerate for a half an hour and stir. Let stand for another half an hour. Puree strawberry mixture, then push through a fine-meshed sieve with a wooden spoon to get rid of any pulp or seeds. Chill mixture for 6-8 hours and then freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

Strawberry Thyme Sorbet
adapted from David Lebovitz’s Perfect Scoop

1 lb fresh strawberries
¾ cup sugar, separated
1 tsp lemon juice
1 oz fresh thyme springs
¼ cup water
pinch salt
1 tsp vodka

Rinse and hull the strawberries, then quarter them. Add strawberries, ½ cup sugar, lemon juice, vodka and pinch of salt to a medium bow. Let macerate for an hour covered with plastic wrap, stirring occasionally. In the meantime, place ¼ cup water, ¼ cup sugar and thyme springs in a small saucepan, heat until the sugar dissolves. Let cool, then pour over the strawberry mixture. Let macerate for another half hour to hour.

Remove thyme spring and puree strawberry mixture. Run through a fine-meshed sieve to get rid of any pulp or seeds. Chill mixture for 6-8 hours and then freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

Murcotts at Burkart Farms, Hollywood Farmers’ Market, Murcott Olive Oil Ice Cream

The pile of Murcotts at Burkhart’s farmers’ market stand shrank a little this week, the stack looking more like a pile of bright orange tennis balls left behind on the playground than winter’s citrus bounty. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating, you can see the stand above, and the selection is far from paltry. But I’m waxing a little poetic this morning about winter’s waning. There are probably only a few more weeks left in Murcott season, and I’m a little melancholy. I almost packed up my sweaters in defiance of Mother Nature, hoping the razzing would prolong the season just a couple more weeks. But it looks like our wedding is going to be next spring, instead of the fall, and I couldn’t afford to piss her off. I may want more Murcotts now, but next April I want warm days and mild evenings and mountains of springtime produce to help execute the dinner menu that’s slowly evolving in my head.

The Murcott, as I mentioned in last week’s post, is a tangerine that deftly walks the line between tangy acidity and breakfast-orange-juice-sweetness, making it exceptionally easy to eat. While I enjoy them in savory dishes and out of hand, it’s the deconstructed creamsicle that Foodwoolf made last Easter that stands out in my mind as the ne plus ultra of Murcott use. So in homage to the fading winter, sticky-fingered childhood memories sitting on the curb eating a rapidly melting popsicle, and my favorite citrus of the season, I decided to preserve the Murcott’s memory by making ice cream.

I was a bit concerned about adding the Murcott juice directly to the cream and milk, imagining the citrus’s acid turning my dairy into Little Miss Muffet’s curds and whey, so I decided to take a slightly different tack. Inspired by the tangerine olive oil Neal and I tried at Pasolivo Olive Oil while hunting for wedding venues up on the Central Coast, I decided to infuse my favorite fruit olive oil with the Murcott zest to extract the flavor. The result? Murcott Olive Oil Ice Cream that layers flavors like delicate sheets of puff pastry melting into each other on your tongue. The little girl in me was jumping up and down with every bite, oohing and ahhing at the sweet tangy goodness, and the grown-up in me couldn’t get over the featherweight creaminess in my mouth. Of course, if you can’t find Murcotts at your local farmers’ market, you can try this recipe with the zest of almost any citrus. Satsuma mandarin? Key lime? Kumquat? Let your palate be your guide.

Murcott Olive Oil Ice Cream

2 cups whole milk
¾ cup heavy cream
¾ cup sugar
½ cup fruity extra virgin olive oil
3 egg yolks
1 oz Murcott zest cut into large strips, pith removed

Pour olive oil into a small saucepan. Add the Murcott zest, gently rubbing it between your fingers to help extract the oils. Bring the oil and zest to a boil then turn off the heat and let stand for 1-2 hours.

In the meantime, heat the sugar and milk in a medium saucepan, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

In a medium-sized bowl, beat the egg yolks with a whisk. Slowly whisk the warm milk mixture into the egg yolks to temper them. Return all of the mixture to the saucepan and warm over medium-low heat until thickens slightly, stirring constantly. You’ll know the custard is ready when you can run your finger through the batter on the back of a spoon or spatula and it leaves a clean line.

Pour cream into a large bowl or large measuring cup (at least 1 quart) and place a fine-meshed strainer on top. Slowly strain custard into the cream. Then slowly strain olive oil into the custard mixture. Mix and cover. Refrigerate overnight. Give a stir and then freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

Serve a scoop of the ice cream with a squeeze of fresh Murcott juice or even candied Murcott zest.

Beignets for Fat Tuesday

People who know me know this: I have very few secrets. Maybe I read too much Dr. Seuss as a kid, or maybe I was interested in psychology too early, but I offer up information about myself like a flower does pollen. So when I recently let it slip that I have an obsession with donuts, I think my fiancé Neal was a little surprised.

I wasn’t allowed to eat many sweets growing up, and there were rarely any in our house. My mom occasionally bought coffee cake or, my favorite, boxes of Entenmann’s Donuts. I loved the mildly spicy powdered cinnamon ones best. They were cakey and just a little sweet, and they would almost dissolve into a glass of milk. When the cinnamon ones were all gone, I would furtively sneak the plain cake ones, thinking no one would notice.

Somehow, most of my donut eating after that was done on the sly—the honey-dipped Dunkin’ Donuts a secret treat from my Aunt, the dozen donuts at Yum Yum when my friends and I snuck out at 2 a.m. in seventh grade, even the pre-shift sugar donut in grad school that kept me bounding around the restaurant like a five year old at a birthday party after both cake and ice cream. No one knew.

When I confessed my secret passion for donuts to Neal I discovered, to my delight, that Neal secretly harbored a love for donuts too!

Since tomorrow is Fat Tuesday, the culmination of Carnival celebrations, I thought I’d indulge my sweetheart and my sweet tooth and whip up a batch of one of my favorite kinds of donuts: beignets. Beignets are a traditional New Orleans treat—deep-fried yeast dough dusted with powdered sugar. The word beignet is French for “fritter,” a word that any donut-shop frequenter would recognize. I like mine rolled in cinnamon and sugar, though they’re also good with a little spiced chocolate.

To find a recipe I turned to my Anne, a friend and colleague who also happens to be a trained pastry chef. She pointed me in the direction of the Village Coffee Café blog, which had this simple (and might I add, fast) beignet recipe a la the famous Cajun chef, Justin Wilson. I cut mine into little bite-sized circles and served them three ways: dusted with powdered sugar, rolled in cinnamon and sugar, and dipped into oozy good dark chocolate. And I saved some dough to make them fresh for the perfect Fat Tuesday breakfast: Fresh beignets and café au lait.

Beignet Justin Wilson Style
courtesy of Village Coffee Café

2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)
1 medium egg
3 tbsp sugar
1 cup milk
¼ tsp vanilla extract
1 quart of oil for deep frying
powdered sugar

Fill a large, heavy-bottomed pot with oil and heat to 375 degrees.

While the oil is heating, sift together the flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon into a medium bowl.

In another bowl, beat the egg well. Then beat in the sugar, milk and vanilla.

Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just moistened. Turn the dough out on to a well-floured work surface (it will be sticky) and knead lightly. Cut into diamond shapes or cut out 1-inch circles for bite-sized beignets.

Fry in oil, turning once, until lightly browned. Drain on a paper towel. Dust with powdered sugar or roll in cinnamon and sugar and serve hot.

These can easily be adapted to savory recipes as well.

I’m not as bitter about wedding planning as I was in my first post about the subject. I’m actually starting to enjoy it, thanks to my wedding planner, Emily, who has taken over all the research responsibilities. Now I can click on the myriad links she sends me leisurely. I can rule places out with a glance, and I don’t have to worry about hurting my mother’s feelings. And I can sit in my pajamas all day and flip through the stacks of wedding magazines my friend Suzy so thoughtfully lent me. None of this makes finding a location for both the ceremony and the reception that suits our budget any easier, however; it’s just less stressful.

But with most of my free time devoted to the business of getting married, and Neal hunkered down at his desk, working into the wee hours every night trying to finish a side project he took on months ago, I haven’t thought much about romance.

I’ve long had an aversion to Valentine’s Day. It was one of the few days that being single bothered me when I was, and it always felt cliché and unromantic when I wasn’t. But last year I fell off the anti-Valentine’s wagon lock, stock and chocolate-covered barrel. And this year I’m grateful that it’s coming up, if only that it’ll shake me out of my future-oriented daze and get me to pay some well-deserved attention to the man I love. While I’m working diligently to whip a mental recipe to make Neal melt like a box of Russell Stovers left in the sun, here are a couple of click-and-go treats from my quiver.

Recchiuti Confections
If your lover likes chocolate, these elegant, rich, subtly infused delights are a no-brainer. Using top-quality chocolate from Valrhona, El Rey, Scharffenberger and E. Guittard, Michael Recchiuti’s collection of sweets are like the cacao version of Jeff Buckley’s “Lover, You Should Have Come Over”—they will bring you to your knees. My favorite was easily the Sur de Lago—extra bitter chocolate ganache resting on a Sur de Lago chocolate disk with crushed Sur de Lago nibs all covered in bittersweet chocolate. While decadent enough to make you want to tear your clothes off, it wasn’t too sweet and it had the most textural contrast of all the Recchiuti chocolates that I tried. The San Francisco chocolatier has special Valentine’s selections, but nearly anything from this house of chocolate would work. If you’re really looking to impress (or can’t decide), try one of Recchiuti’s Chocolate Clubs and fill the next three, six or 12 months with chocolaty bliss. Order online or check out their store at the Ferry Building Marketplace in San Francisco.

Carmela Ice Cream
If you’re current relationship is hot and steamy, the last thing you’ll want to do is overheat before Valentine’s is over. Carmela Ice Cream’s cool, creamy confections will also quickly put the thaw on any anti-Valentine’s sentiments. Jessica has whipped up a Valentine’s assortment that includes a reprise of the ever-popular Rose Petal ice cream, which has a hint of rosewater and flecks of organic red roses. The sampler also includes Lavender Honey, made with organic lavender from Silver Lake Farms and local honey, Brown Sugar Vanilla Bean, which is exotic and earthy, Salted Caramel, Dark Chocolate Cacao Nib, Spiced Strawberry Sorbet, Blood Orange Sorbet and Aztec Chocolate, a blend that includes Ceylon cinnamon, whole Madagascar vanilla beans and spicy Ancho and Chipotle chile peppers—the perfect way to reintroduce the heat after these frozen desserts. You can order Carmela’s ice creams online by February 9th or pick them up from one of the area farmers’ markets: Culver City, Silver Lake, South Pasadena or Hollywood.

Sugarbird Sweets
Bring out the little kid in your sweetheart with handmade marshmallows and rosewater Rice Krispie treats from Sugarbird Sweets. Using gourmet fruit purees and fresh herbs from the garden or the farmers’ market, Kei takes the marshmallow to a whole new level. The strawberry heart marshmallows are intense, but to me the perfect Valentine’s flavor is passion fruit, which has a lovely tropical tang to it. Kei left her job working pastry at David Meyer’s Sona and now reserves her handiwork for these confections, currently available at the Carmela booth at the farmers’ market and from her Etsy site.

 Grapefruit & Black Pepper Sorbet

Something happened while I was waiting for blood oranges. My friend Suzy brought me a giant bag full of Ruby Red grapefruits from her parents’ house in Palm Springs. Juicy, sweet and wonderfully tangy, these were some of the best grapefruits I’d had in years.

I haven’t always been a grapefruit fan. I thought the yellow-fleshed, sour orbs that my mother served instead of salad some nights when I was a kid were utterly horrible. They made your face screw up so that even the cutest five-year old would look like a Photoshop-warped Popeye. After my mother finally caught on and started buying me oranges, I forgot about grapefruits completely. In fact, I don’t think I gave grapefruits another thought until college, when they were one of the safest things to eat in the cafeteria. Nothing bad could happen to your grapefruit under its leathery skin, and sprinkled with enough sugar—at least until I learned to appreciate their tart intrigue—they were exponentially more edible than the pancakes, though those made fair stand-ins for Frisbees on the disc golf course on campus.

There are dozens of grapefruit varieties ranging in sweetness and in color, for almost white to, well, ruby. There are also Pomelos, which are thought to be an ancient grapefruit variety. These suckers can easily reach the size of a bowling ball, though are more often the size of a baby’s head. Grapefruits are predominantly grown where all citrus does well, in places like Florida, Texas and California. Wander around my neighborhood and you’ll surely find them dangling off trees, just within reach. But be sure to ask the homeowners. People steal our avocadoes all the time and it stinks.

Anyhow, back to Suzy’s grapefruits. I ate them out of hand, in salads and brûléed. But there were more grapefruits than Neal and I could imagine consuming before they went bad, so I harnessed my inner David Lebovitz (you do know David Lebovitz, right? Author of the Perfect Scoop, one of my all-time favorite cookbooks), took a well-deserved break from wedding research, and concocted a sorbet recipe, with a kiss of black pepper to spice things up.

Not wanting to be wasteful, I peeled all of the grapefruits first and set about to candying their zest with a super-simple recipe I got from Cookstr. Remember those gummies that your grandma kept in the candy dish? The candied zest was like those, except it wasn’t stale and it tasted like real fruit. Together, the zest and the sorbet made a remarkably refreshing dessert, perfect for the warm weather here in Southern California, but an equally nice get-away treat if you live in the colder reaches of the country and have access to good citrus.

Candied Grapefruit Zest

Grapefruit & Black Pepper Sorbet

2 cups fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice (about 4 grapefruits)
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

Using a paring knife, peel the zest off the grapefruits in wide, long strips, and reserve for your candied grapefruit zest.

In a saucepan bring sugar, water and ground pepper to a simmer, making sure all the sugar is dissolved. Whisk simple syrup into grapefruit juice. Refrigerate overnight and freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

Pistachio Persimmon Cupcakes

Do you remember when the cupcake was just a lowly children’s birthday party treat—just yellow Betty Crocker cake with some shelf-stabilized, not-even-sure-if-it-contains-cocoa chocolate frosting? It was simpler then, before New York’s Magnolia Bakery threw down the first whisk in the cupcake wars. There was no sneaking off into the bathroom to eat a Sprinkles carrot cake cupcake where no one could see you lick off all the cream cheese frosting first, no hiding the pink cardboard boxes from your coworkers in the bottom drawer of your desk, no snatching the paper-wrapped delights out of a little girl’s hand saying you just want a bite…

My cupcake conversion began while I was an editorial assistant at Harper Collins in New York City. I had left my job managing Le Zinc, a TriBeCa bistro owned by Karen and David Waltuck of Chanterelle fame, to become an editor. I wanted to cultivate poets and edgy fiction writers over two-martini lunches, but ended up answering phones and writing flap copy for books I had never read and didn’t want to. I struggled to pay my rent with the smallest monthly paycheck I’d earned since manning the Moonbounce on a ranch in the eighth grade, and dozed at my desk after waiting tables until 3 a.m. in an effort to make ends meet. I toiled under the flickering fluorescent lights 12-hours a day, even though I finished my work in six, filing, answering phones and writing rejection letters. And I watched intently as the people I wanted to be, the Editors, shuffled miserably from marketing meeting to marketing meeting, lunched with agents, ate dinner with writers and used vacation days to actually edit the books they bought. I could see my workaholic life unfolding before like an origami prison. In fact, there were only three things I liked about my job—the audio department, my proximity to the cookbook editor’s office, and afternoon forays to Buttercup Bake Shop on 2nd Avenue between 51st and 52nd Street.

I liked Buttercup better than Magnolia, then considered the Holy Grail of New York cupcakeries. Where Buttercup cupcakes were moist and airy, Magnolia cupcakes were sweet and dense, the kind of confection that makes your teeth feel like 80 grit sandpaper. Paired with a hot cup of coffee or a cold glass of milk a Buttercup cupcake could make you forget your boss yelled at you in front of dozens of people for something you didn’t do, forget that you hadn’t written or read anything of substance in months, forget that you were much happier working 70-hour weeks at the restaurant where you were, surprisingly for an industry that’s known for its brutality, treated with some respect.

These days I don’t need a cupcake to wipe out the gloom of my workaday life, but that doesn’t mean I don’t crave them now and then, dream about them even. About a month ago I dreamt about these deliciously light, not too sweet, pistachio persimmon cupcakes. And since that dream I’ve been trying to figure out how to make them.

The first trick was picking the right persimmon, which are in season right now. I generally prefer the Fuyu, which looks a bit like a dusty tomato and doesn’t have the astringency of the Hachiya, another common variety. But I also like it for its firmer texture so pureeing it didn’t seem to make sense. I used pistachio flour from the Santa Barbara Pistachio Company, but you could also grind pistachio kernels to a fine powder on your own. For my first batch of cupcakes I chopped it up and folded it in like apple cake, but they tasted much more like a quick bread. I needed to get more lift out of my batter and I wasn’t quite sure how to do that, so I talked to Alan over at the Cook’s Library and read up on leavening. In the end I decided to increase the baking soda and add another egg. I was also careful to fully cream the butter and sugar and to fold in the dry ingredients by hand, so as not to overwork the cake. On my fourth attempt I finlly hit the jackpot. I iced them with a simple buttercream (using real butter and just a little almond extract) and fresh chopped pistachios (which are deliciously fresh, having been harvested over the past few months).  But be warned: these slightly fruit cupcakes are addicting. I ate them for breakfast, lunch and dinner until they were gone.

Pistachio Persimmon Cupcakes

4 large eggs, room temperature
1 stick unsalted butter (1/2 cup), room temperature
¾ cup persimmon puree
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
¾ cup sugar
½ cup pistachio flour
2 cups all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cardamom
½ cup toasted, chopped pistachios

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line two cupcake trays with your favorite cupcake cups.

In a medium bowl sift together the dry ingredients (except the sugar) and set aside. Then, in another bowl, combine the persimmon puree, milk and vanilla.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. By hand, alternate folding in the flour mixture and puree until just incorporated; be careful not to over mix.

Fill cupcake cups about three-quarters full and bake in the center of your oven about 20-25 minutes, until lightly golden and a toothpick poked into the center comes out clean.

Let cupcakes cool before icing with a simple buttercream or cream cheese frosting and roll in toasted, chopped pistachios.