Brownies, Lemon Squares and Apricot Jam

Brownies
This past week I decided to try two more recipes in the Tartine bakery cookbook. On Wednesday I made brownies (page 160). The recipe billed them as "fudgy brownies" and I was excited because homemade brownies are never quite as good as brownies from a box. I selected 70% cocoa, bittersweet chocolate from El Rey. Being from the East Coast, I usually work with Callebaut purchased from Whole Foods. Here on the West Coast El Rey is king (that's a pun). I'll be honest, I started taking pictures and then forgot to take them about half way through.

One pound of chocolate melting in butter

Five eggs beat with sugar

And whipped until light and battery with a very small amount of flour.

The melted chocolate added to the egg sugar and flour

So, these brownies were more like "souffle" brownies instead of "fudgy" brownies. They were light and airy and literally melted in your mouth. The edges were a but drier than the middle, and warm the middle was almost uneatable...almost. A spoon helped. To me, they were a lot like a flourless chocolate cake in taste and texture. They were ten times better after about an hour in the refridgerator. Next time, I might choose a different kind of chocolate. Probably not one that was 70% cocoa. After just two brownies I was flying high on caffeine. My neighbor Tom, who gets most of these baked goods, ate 9 in a row. I have no idea how his heart did not blow out of his chest. He liked them, but boys who like chocolate are easy. Tom's rating: "Amazing...never made it to the fridge."

Lemon Squares
Around this time of year, my other neighbor Patty, brings me bags of meyer lemons from her mom's tree in Santa Cruz. I love lemon squares, so on Thursday, I decided to try out Tartine's Lemon Bars on Brown Butter Shortbread (page 149). They say that by baking the crust until it's golden brown makes for a more buttery flavor. I was making these for a dinner party and I worried that the host would think that I cooked them too long and wrecked them, but still decided to serve them. The other noticeable difference is more custard, requiring 6 whole eggs and an additional yolk and one cup of lemon juice. My favorite recipe calls for just 4 eggs and a 1/3 cup lemon juice. You see the difference?

Lemons come from trees!

Butter for the crust

Pressing the crust into the dish

And that's it. The bars were good. I felt that the custard was a lot like custard and not like lemon squares. When they first came out of the oven I smelled eggs, which is never a good sign when you are making a dessert. When warm, the filling had almost a metallic taste to it. When cooled, they were fine. The book recommends chilling them before cutting. I tried that and they were almost impossible to get out of the dish because of how hard the crust set up. I am waiting for Tom's rating.

Apricot Jam
It's apricot season and luckily we get them here in California. At Lulu's a few weeks ago, we made an apricot jam for the cake we were making. I am not a jam/jelly person but this was pretty amazing. It was so good, that after 5 hours of cake making I came home and made biscuits so I could put the jam on them. Lulu had instructions for this jam, but it looked pretty easy so I tried it out today. I had 2 pounds of apricots which I pitted and chopped and let macerate in sugar for about an hour. Then I added some lemon zest and cooked the fruit down until it started to resemble jam-ness. At some point the apricots started smelling like tea. Like iced tea. When I stirred, there was some carmelizing going on at the bottom of the pan. *shakes head* I don't want carmelized apricot jam! Oh and I added too much lemon zest. Damn. Oh well, I'll eat it, I'm sure.

Apricots macerating in sugar