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Honey Cream, Strawberry, and Chocolate Pizza

16 Apr

Perhaps it is not entirely honest to refer to this as a pizza, since, barring the fact that it is pizza-shaped and utilizes a crust that is quite fitting for savory pizza applications, it is quite clear that if something contains strawberries, cream, and chocolate, it’s probably not really a pizza, per se.

But, in yet another example of how I like to turn non-dessert foods into dessert, when I had a leftover pizza crust laying around last week, it just seemed wrong to let it live out the last of its days as something not sweet.  Plus, I had leftover strawberries sitting around.  And leftover cream.  And chocolate.  And also, I am not actually trying to justify what I have done, and I hope I am making that painfully obvious right now.

For something so simple to make, this dessert is a real showstopper.  Not only do the honey cream and strawberries go together like, well, strawberries and cream, but the light drizzle of chocolate at the end provides a finish that is as delicious as it is easy on the eyes.  If you want to be really cheeky, you can serve this pizza as a dessert on pizza night, whipping up this pizza dough the night before, allowing it to rest overnight in the refrigerator, then using 2/3 of the dough for dinner pizzas, the last 1/3 for this dessert pizza.  Resting the dough in the refrigerator overnight is not a necessity, but in my years of pizza making (the last year being the most intensive and experimental), I have discovered that a long-rested dough develops an unbeatable flavor and texture that is difficult to approximate with a dough that has rested at room temperature for a couple of hours.  You’ll have to plan ahead a bit, but it is so worth it.

Plenty more recipes for pizza can be found here.  Also, last year on Indie Fixx I published one of my most favorite pizza recipes, which can be found here.

Last Year: A Trio of Flavored Butters

Honey Cream, Strawberry, and Chocolate Pizza Recipe

Pizza dough for 1 pizza, or 1/3 of this dough, rested in the refrigerator overnight for maximum flavor

¼ cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons honey

12 ounces of strawberries, de-stemmed and sliced

2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit.  Place a baking stone or a heavy sheet pan on the second to lowest shelf in the oven.  Line a rimless baking sheet or an overturned sheet pan with parchment paper, and set aside.

On a lightly floured surface, stretch and push the pizza dough with your hands, coaxing, poking, and punching it until it forms a roughly 12-inch circle.  Place the dough on the parchment-lined baking sheet.

In a small bowl, whisk together the cream and honey until the honey has dissolved.  Brush ¾ of the cream mixture over the pizza dough.  Arrange the strawberries over the cream, trying your best to lay them in concentric circles.  Brush the remaining ¼ of the cream mixture over the tops of the strawberries.

Gently slide the pizza—still on its parchment paper—onto the preheated baking stone or sheet pan.  Bake pizza for 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges of the pizza are dark golden brown and bubbly.

Remove pizza to a rack to cool a bit.  While the pizza is cooling, melt the chopped chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave on low heat, stirring frequently in both cases.  Melt the chocolate just until it still has come visible chunks, then remove from the heat and stir until the chunks have melted and the chocolate is glossy and smooth.

Drizzle the chocolate over the cooling pizza.  You can eat it while both the pizza and the chocolate are still warm, or you can allow both the pizza and chocolate to cool and firm up before eating.  Either way, it’s delicious.

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Recipe Roundup

2 Jan

I am still happily writing for both Indie Fixx and Portland Farmers Market.  Here is a roundup of my newest articles and recipes (just click on the name of a recipe to be taken directly to it).

Turnovers in Phyllo

Pear and Pecan Bread

Popovers with Braised Leeks

Portland Farmers Market will be in hibernation for the next few weeks, but they will emerge soon after with a brand new winter market.  This was my last post from their regular market season, and I definitely closed out the year with a bang (hello, cheese and heavy cream).

Root Vegetable Gratin

Also, last year I made this cake, but then I never told you about it.  Maybe I should do that, because it was really freakin’ good.

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Pear Nougatine Tart

21 Dec

Overlooking the obvious can lead to rather surprising results.  Sometimes those surprising results are of the pleasing variety, like when you realize that the only reason you get food from an otherwise sub-par taqueria is because of the fact that they have a salsa bar that offers the world’s most incredible habanero salsa.  When you realize this, you then go home and make your own batch of habanero salsa, freeing you from the clutches of the not-so-great Mexican food you’ve been eating just to serve as a base for the salsa in question.  Problem solved!  (And the you in question is, in fact, actually me, in case anyone didn’t pick up on that right away.)

Other times, overlooking the obvious can lead to surprisingly disappointing results, like when I decided to make a particular tart that was so named for the fact that it was topped with candy, not fully realizing that, lady, you’re about to top a tart with candy, which means that things are going to get really, really sugary around here.

Yes, when I first made this tart, I lamented the fact that it was far, far too sweet for my tastes.  At first I couldn’t figure out why, because I was too focused on the tart’s other, more pleasing, qualities (like, for instance, the shot of lemon that wakes up every other flavor, or the small splash of cream that I added to the pear caramel to round everything out), but then, looking back on the recipe, and, you know, its name, it suddenly occurred to me that I had just made a tart topped with candied nuts.  So, that’s going to be sort of sweet.

Because of this, I actually debated whether or not to share my experience with this recipe, not being sure if I wanted to highlight something that I thought needed its sweetness dialed back so severely.  In the end, realizing that the rest of the recipe is fairly delightful, it seemed like the recipe did need to be shared, albeit in a somewhat less-sweetened form.  And even though I swapped out the original recipe’s call for apples with my own penchant for pears, and I ever-so-slightly altered the pears’ cooking method in order to get a more usable sauce in the end.  Okay, so there is a fair amount that I changed about this recipe, but only because I had a hunch that what I found to be almost perfect could, with a bit of fiddling, be made to shine.  And at the risk of sounding like a weird pageant mom, I think that bit of polishing has rendered this tart now ready for its close-up.

Pear Nougatine Tart

Adapted from Tartine

Fully baked 10-inch tart shell (recipe here, only for a fully baked tart shell, bake the shell for a total of 30-35 minutes, 20 minutes with pie weights, and 10-15 minutes with the foil and weights removed, until the crust is golden brown)

Pear filling:

3 pounds just ripened pears (over-ripe pears will fall apart when cooked, so make sure your pears still have a bit of firmness to them), peeled, cored, and sliced into quarters

¼ cup (4 tablespoons, or 2 ounces) unsalted butter

¼ cup (4 tablespoons) sugar

pinch of salt

2 tablespoons heavy cream

lemon juice and grated zest of ½ a medium lemon

Topping:

1 cup sliced almonds

¼ cup sugar

2 large egg whites, lightly beaten

pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Place fully baked tart shell on a baking sheet and set aside.

Have a large bowl ready to hold the sautéed pears.  You will be sautéing the pears in 4 batches, so divide the pears as needed.  In a heavy sauté pan, melt 1 tablespoon butter over medium heat.  Add 1 tablespoon of sugar and allow it to just caramelize with the butter, turning a medium brown.  Add 1 batch of the pears to the pan in a single layer.  Saute until soft, turning a few times with a spoon.  If the sugar begins to darken too dramatically, reduce the heat to low.  The pears should become quite soft and caramelized as they cook, but still hold their shape.  The timing of this will depend on the ripeness of your pears, but it should not take more than 5 minutes.  When the pears are caramelized and soft, transfer them to the waiting bowl.  Add another tablespoon of butter and sugar to the pan, not cleaning the pan between batches.  Add another batch of pears, and cook as you did the first batch.  The second batch should not take as long as the first.  Continue with the remaining batches of butter, sugar, and pears, adjusting the heat as necessary to keep the caramel in the pan from burning.

When all of the pears have cooked, the caramel remaining in the pan should be quite dark.  Increase the heat under the pan to medium high, then deglaze the pan with 3 tablespoons of water, scraping up the bubbling caramelized bits with a wooden spoon or a wire whisk.  When most of the bits from the pan have been loosened, add the heavy cream and continue to stir or whisk until the liquid has reduced by about 1/3.

Pour the reduced caramel and cream mixture over the sautéed pears, then toss to combine.  Add the lemon juice, lemon zest, and salt to the pears, then toss once more.  Pile the pears into the baked tart shell.

To make the topping, combine the almonds, sugar, egg whites, and salt in a small bowl.  Stir well to combine.  Spread the almond mixture evenly over the pears, extending the topping all the way to the edges of the tart.

Bake the tart on a baking sheet, in the middle of the oven, until the topping is browned, about 30 minutes.  Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before serving.

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