The Cheese Blog
Chèvre, Coconut & Guava Sandwich Cookies from Shortstack Chevre
If you've ever searched for a killer goat cheese recipe online- say you've already made that chèvre and arugula salad and are aching to put the extra six ounces of the log to tasty use, you'll likely have noticed most chèvre recipes are savory. That is to say, not sweet. Beet and goat cheese salad. Chèvre and quinoa bowls, you get the picutre. Which might lead one to believe that that's all chèvre is good for.
Not true.
While I would never turn down a goat cheese tart, my hands-down favorite way to enjoy chèvre (fresh goat's cheese/goat's milk fromage blanc) is sugared up.
When sweetened with sugar, dark chocolate, fruit, or honey, chèvre transforms whatever dish into which its incorporated into a bright, luscious, sunny dish. Its lemony notes help lift sweet and rich creamy desserts to lighter places, bring out layered notes in chocolate, and add a subtle creme fraiche or buttermilk flavor to baked goods.
So I'm very happy to share with you Tia Keenan's Chèvre, Coconut & Guava Paste Sandwich Cookies from her latest cheese book- Chevre- a slim yet dense Shortstack book.
Now my friend Tia is skilled (she opened Caselulla and Murray's Cheese Bar in NYC), so it's not the only recipe I'm batting my eyelashes at, but it was the first one to scream "make me now," or to put it more accurately, "eat me first." When Tia describes the recipe in the intro and says the chèvre gives the cookies a buttermilk biscuit flavor rather than a chèvre flavor, she's spot on. I might even try them with an extra thin layer of chevre spread over the guava if I was serving them to a fierce goat cheese crowd, but they're charmers as is. I served them at a Memorial Day party, and they off the cookie plate fast. And I brought my friend and her husband two for a treat and my friend ate them both. I did not tell her husband.
Thanks for sharing these Tia! The recipe follows. Buy the book here for more chèvre love.
Chèvre, Coconut & Guava Paste Sandwich Cookie Recipe
These hearty, biscuity sandwich cookies are best with a big ol’ mug of milky tea or coffee. The chèvre lends a buttermilk biscuit twang to the cookie, which is a nice contrast to the sweet filling made from guava paste. Guava paste is the working-class cousin of cheese-plate-stalwart quince paste—and a more affordable and readily available fruit paste for pairing with cheese.
3 1⁄2 cups cake flour, plus more for rolling out the dough 1⁄2 cup granulated sugar 1⁄2 cup packed light brown sugar 2 tablespoons baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 11⁄2 teaspoons kosher salt 4 ounces (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes 6 ounces chèvre, crumbled 1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes 1 egg 1⁄2 cup heavy cream 2 teaspoons demerara sugar 16 ounces guava paste (such as Goya brand; available at super- markets), cut into 2-inch cubes
Preheat the oven to 425° and place racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. In a food processor, combine the flour, granulated and brown sugars, baking powder, baking soda and salt and pulse to combine. Add the butter, chèvre and coconut and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg and cream; set 3 table- spoons aside in another bowl. Add the remaining egg mixture to the flour mixture and pulse until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently to bring it together. Roll the dough flat to a 1⁄4 inch thickness and cut out rounds with a 21⁄2-inch cookie cutter or rim of a drinking glass. Place the cookies 1⁄2 an inch apart on the baking sheets, 16 cookies per sheet (you’ll have less than that for the last sheet and will need to bake in 2 rounds for 4 sheets total).
Brush the cookies with the reserved egg mixture and sprinkle with the demerara sugar. Bake for 10 minutes, rotating the sheets between the upper and lower racks halfway through baking, until the cookies show just a bit of color. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for a few minutes, then, using a spatula, transfer them to a cooling rack.
Place the guava paste and 1⁄4 cup of water in a small saucepan. Melt the paste over medium heat, stirring occasionally at first, then more frequently as the paste melts, 15 minutes. You will need to stir vigor- ously, forcing out any lumps in the last minutes of cooking.
Drop a 1⁄2 teaspoon of the hot filling onto the bottom half of a cookie, then place another cookie on top of the filling to make a sandwich (if the filling cools and gets stiff before you finish assembling the cookies, reheat the filling to make it easier to work with). The cookies will keep in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
Reprinted with permission from Short Stack Editions Vol. 33: Chevre, by Tia Keenan (shortstackeditions.com).
Apple Gouda Pastry Puff Cheese Recipe
The inspiration for this apple gouda dessert cheese recipe came to me when I looked outside to see the sun shining. While the rest of the country is freezing, our northern Californian trees are full of leaves, the magnolias and tulip trees are blooming, and drivers created a major rush hour-style traffic jam this weekend trying to get to the beach. Some flock to wine shops to buy rosé, others whisper to new breaking buds, "it's too soon, it's too soon," and fear what has been titled a Mega-drought will empty our reservoirs to lows lower than Paris Hilton's jeans in the nineties.
Right now I'm situated a little in-between enjoyment and feeling the need to gather some friends, bake some cookies, and hold an intervention for Weather. We think you've been too dry, too long here, I'll say. It's not just hard on you, it's hard on the farmers too. And the polar vortex? Don't you think you could be a little more thoughtful?
I'm also realizing that my heart is not ready to give up on the culinary, warming, glories of winter. Maybe it's because I was traveling so much through October and November and didn't get to cook much, or maybe it's because our winter has been so short , but as I see the snowy photos on my Instagram feed, all I am feeling like doing is heating up my oven. So that's what I'm doing.
In honor those around the country battling furiously cold blizzards, I bring you a cheese dessert to warm your kitchens. Or your hearts if your kitchens don't need warming. Meet the gouda apple pastry puff. The gouda acts like a firm, salty caramel when baked with lightly tart apples, creating a dessert reminiscent of fleur de del caramels. Pair that to fruit and flaky puff pastry and you've got a complete dessert that would make any mother proud.
I'll tell you a little secret. It's also as equally lovely with Lancashire or clothbound cheddars. If you want to read more about gouda, click here.
Gouda Apple Pastry Puffs
Serves four
2 medium-sized apples, peeled and cored 1 1/2 teaspoon salted butter 2 teaspoon granulated white sugar 1 teaspoon brown sugar 1 teaspoon turbinado sugar or granulated white sugar 1/4 teaspoon red wine vinegar 8 ounces puff pastry 1 egg, beaten 2 ounces L'Amuse Gouda, thinly sliced and lightly chopped
In a small saucepan, place the apples, butter, 2 teaspoons white sugar, and 1 teaspoon brown sugar over medium-low heat. Once the butter is melted, continue to cook the apples for six to eight more minutes, until they start to soften Add the vinegar, stir, and take off the heat. Pour the apples over a salad plate and set aside to cool.
While the apples are cooling, tend to the pastry. Lightly flour a clean, dry surface. Lay the pastry over the surface and lightly dust with flour. Roll out the dough evenly so it is about two-thirds to three quarters of it's original thickness. Cut once horizontally and once up and down so you have four squares that are roughly equally sized. Trace a circle that extends to the sides of the squares of each of the quadrants.
Once the apples are cool, divide evenly and distribute among the centers of each square, leaving an inch or so around the edge. Divide the gouda among the tarts, tucking into the apples. Pull the pastry towards the center of the circle, pinching off the dough to form an open, rippled pouch. Don't try to make too perfect- these are rustic.
With a pastry brush, lightly brush the beaten egg over the tarts, being careful to cover all of the visible dough. Focusing on the dough, sprinkle the turbinado sugar over the top of the tarts. Transfer to a plate and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 375.
Place the tarts on a lined baking sheet. Bake for ten minutes, then rotate the pan so the front is now towards the bake. Bake for ten more minutes. They are ready when the tarts are golden-brown and the dough is cooked through. Set aside to cool (they will deflate a healthy bit). Serve lightly warm or at room tempera
Great Dessert Cheeses & Their Buddies
No offense to my other great dessert loves, carrot cake with orange-cream cheese frosting, or peanut butter and chocolate ice cream, but I’ve never been of the mindset that one needs to end the night with a sugary bang. Maybe just a light ka-boom. For me, cheese supplies enough of that ka-boom. A little sweet, a little salty, and creamy and loving to everyone that it meets, cheese is its own dessert. Plus, it requires less time than carrot cake, souffles, cupcakes, tarts, and even fruit salad (if you count that as a dessert) to put together.
So I have a new regular writing gig, dear readers. Every 4-5 weeks I will be writing for Menuism as their new expert cheese blogger. This is good for three reasons. 1. I get to meet new cheese lovers. 2. I get to be on the list of awesome menusim writers like chocolataire and rock and roll cake-designer extraordinaire, Kate Steffens 3. They come up with ideas that they'd like me to write about. This means that you also get new topics that I might not have thought up myself. Which is very good- by the way, I'm ALWAYS open to writing suggestions.
Below is my latest post for Menuism, Great Dessert Cheeses originally published on the Menuism Cheese Blog. And here is my interview with them.
Gouda Ice Cream: What Not to Do
Inspired months ago by titillating 140-character cheese and dessert discussions on twitter, Pastry Chef Plinio Sandalio of Houston's Textile restaurant and I decided to collaborate on a gouda ice cream post. That is, he volunteered to supply the recipe and I would try to represent it to the best of my dessert abilities.
Inspired months ago by titillating 140-character cheese and dessert discussions on twitter, Pastry Chef Plinio Sandalio of Houston's Textile restaurant and I decided to collaborate on a gouda ice cream post. That is, he volunteered to supply a recipe and I would make it to the best of my dessert abilities.
Because cheese ice cream recipes on the net had been whispering sweet nothings to me for months, when I heard that I could have one of Plinio's creations in my own little, cheese-ripened hands, I said yes. Instantly.
Without further ado, here is a definitive list about what not to do when an outstanding pastry chef gifts you with the keys to a gouda ice cream palace, then, Plino's five-star recipe.
Gouda Ice Cream: What Not to Do
1. Don't worry about that the last time you used your ice cream maker, you weren't sure if it was working properly. It was your grandmother's. Of course it works.
2. Forget that the pastry chef told you he used a 3 yr old gouda and buy a 4 yr old cow's milk gouda instead. Oops. A little intense. And don't think about using a goat's milk gouda, which would have lent a tangy, lively character to the sweet ice cream. Who needs a pesky flavor layer?
3. Depend upon your old strainer to extract the salty, caramelly gouda chunks from the custard base. Screw using a restaurant-quality chinois, cheese cloth, or butter muslin fabric. Everyone loves a chunky cheese ice cream. Yes?
4. Ignore the directions on the ice cream maker to freeze the results for at least an hour before consuming. It's much more fun when the dessert melts before it arrives to your mouth. You gotta catch it dripping off the spoon that way, works off all that cream!
Gouda Ice Cream
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups milk
2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/2 tsp salt
pinch xanthan gum
12 oz aged gouda
Whisk all together in a large sauce pan and heat slowly over low heat. Do not boil. Continue cooking on low until the custard base is thick enough to lightly coat a wooden spoon. Remove from heat.
Blend mixture in a food processor or blender until very smooth. Strain through a fine chinois, or with a sieve lined with butter muslin to remove all chunks.
Chill completley.
Freeze according to ice cream maker's instructions.
Eat
* I didn't have time to play around with the recipe much, but because the flavor of aged gouda is so strong, all 12 oz isn't really needed. You might be able to get by with only 6 or eight ounces. Let me know!
* Please leave updates on this post if you try this or variations of the recipe. I'd love to know how things went!
