Gingerbread Shortcake with Caramelized Pears

Happy Thanksgiving. Something to be thankful for in lieu of pie and as  breakfast tomorrow when you don't feel like cooking EVER again -could just get you over the hump.

Gingerbread Shortcake with Caramelized Pear

Gingerbread Shortcakes

• 2 cups all purpose flour (whole wheat works too)
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• Pinch cloves
• Several gratings fresh nutmeg
• 1/3 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
• 6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 vanilla bean, scraped
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 candied ginger, cut into long slivers

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and sugar in a mixing bowl.  Stir well.  Cut in butter and quickly work dough to create a coarse crumb.  Combine vanilla bean seeds and heavy cream and quickly mix into dough.  Turn out onto a parchment lines baking sheet and gently pat into a square - roughly 8 x 8.  Refrigerate about 1 hour.  Heat oven to 375.  Cut dough into 8 equal squares and reconfigure on baking sheet so there is some breathing space between. Pat top of each square with a little cold water and sprinkle with sugar.  Top with a few slivers candied ginger.  Bake until golden, about 30 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool slightly before serving. Best warm. 

Caramelized Pear

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 2 pounds firm but ripe pears, thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons brandy
• 1 cup heavy cream, whipped to soft peak, for serving

Melt butter in a heavy bottomed skillet over low heat.  Add sugar, sprinkling so to create a more or less even layer.  Let stand a few minutes while sugar melts into butter and softens.  Increase heat slightly.  Add sliced pears and cook, shaking pan until sugar melts completely and starts to caramelized - shake pan to prevent scorching.  Add brandy and let bubble up.  Reduce heat and let simmer just long enough that pears soften, release some juices and are drenched in golden caramel.  Sandwich pears between halved Ginger Bread Shortcakes and serve with whipped cream. 

Concord Grape and Pear Focaccia

We have a small vineyard of these grapes upstate.  I'm always looking for ways to use them besides making grape jelly- here's an earthy and easy alternative.

Concord Grape and Pear Focaccia

• 1 3/4 cups warm water
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 5 cups flour, plus more for kneading
• 1 tablespoon sea salt, plus more for topping
• 1 cup olive oil
• 1 bunch concord grapes, split and seeded
• 3 ripe but firm pears, cored and thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• several sprigs fresh oregano

Combine water, yeast and honey in a small bowl.  Let stand in a warmish place until yeast is bubbling and full of life, about 15 minutes.

In the bowl of a mixer fitted with dough hook, combine flour, salt, 1/2 cup olive oil and the yeast mixture.  Mix on low speed just until dough comes together.  Increase speed to medium and work dough until smooth and soft, about 5 minutes.  If dough remains wet or tacky sprinkle in a bit more flour.  

Transfer dough to a lightly floured work surface and knead by hand a few turns.  Clean out mixing bowl and wipe inside with a generous splash of olive oil.  Return dough to bowl, cover with plastic wrap and a damp clean clothe and let stand until dough has doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Coat a baking sheet with 1/4 cup of olive oil.  Gently pull and stretch dough as you would for a pizza creating a nice large round.  Use your fingers to dimple the surface.  Cover dough with damp clothe and let stand until dough has doubled once again, about another hour. 

Heat oven to 425.  Combine grapes, pears, pine nuts and oregano in a bowl.  Toss together with about 2 tablespoons olive oil.  Arrange mixture over prepared dough.  Drizzle top with remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil - a bit more if feeling brave and sprinkle with a general amount amount of sea salt.  Bake until golden brown, grapes should be hot and juicy, about 25 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool slightly before serving. 

Tarte Tatin à la Stephen Doyle

You know you are working with a designer when he tells you to arrange the fruit in pan so to create an apple rondel.

Tarte Tatin à la Stephen Doyle 

For the pastry

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon Maldon sea salt
• 8 tablespoons cold sweet butter, cut into small pieces
• 6 tablespoons cold Crisco

Whiz together flour and salt in the work bowl of a food processor.  Add butter and Crisco and pulse until the mixture resembles a coarse oatmeal.  Transfer to a mixing bowl and add enough ice water that when dough is gently worked with hands it just comes together.  Divide dough in half and shape into two discs.  Wrap both in waxed paper.  Refrigerate one for two hours and freeze second for later use.   When ready to use, let dough warm up slightly - rolling dough straight from fridge leads to cracking and irritable dough syndrome.  

For the apples

• 4 tablespoons sweet butter, room temperature
• 2/3 cups sugar
• 7 large Gala apples

Heat oven to 425.  Mush softened butter around on the bottom and sides of a 9 inch Tarte Tatin pan or cast iron skillet.  Add sugar and swirl around to coat.  Quarter, core and peel apples and arrange in rondel like configuration.  Start from the outside and overlap apples, working your way inward.  Set pan over high heat and cook, adeptly rotating pan to assure even heat, until sugar, butter and apple juices have melted together and made a brown caramel.  It should smell divine.  Remove from heat.  

Roll out pastry between sheets of waxed paper, lightly floured,  to a circle approximately 12 inches in diameter.  While still connected to one waxed paper sheet, center pastry over apples and peel away paper and then tuck in excess pastry to neatly swaddle fruit.   Place Tarte Tatin in oven, set a baking sheet, lined with foil, on lowest rack to catch inevitable sugary drips,  and bake about 15 minutes.   Reduce heat to 375 and bake until juices are bubbling up and apples have softened, about another 25 minutes.  The pastry should be golden brown.  Remove from oven and let stand about 30 minutes before praying in French and inverting Tarte Tatin onto serving platter.  Be careful - caramel is hot.  Stand over kitchen sink to catch drips.