For this post, I’d like to introduce my friend Luzia.

Luzia and I met about a year-and-a-half ago on the bus ride to the starting point of the Inca Trail. For the next four days, we shared the unforgettable experience of hiking the 26-mile-long trail together, culminating in our arrival at the ancient Inca city of Machu Picchu. There were 14 of us in our group, but out of everyone, Chris and I got along best with her and her boyfriend Berni. When we parted ways, we kept in touch since we knew we’d be taking approximately the same path south, and about three months later, the four of us finally met for dinner in Ushuaia, the southernmost town on the South American continent. If that’s not poetic, I don’t know what is. They actually continued on to Brazil for Carnaval before heading back to Switzerland, whereas we ended our trip in Buenos Aires. And that was that.

But actually, it wasn’t, because she and I kept in touch. We’ve kept up a pretty consistent correspondence for the last year, exchanging lengthy emails, in English, and despite it not being her native tongue, she still rocks it. (How do the Swiss do it? She also became practically fluent in Spanish, whereas I at best mastered five phrases.) We are modern-day pen pals.

I’ve always loved exchanging letters with faraway friends. When I was nine, after my family had moved back to the U.S. from Hong Kong, I kept in touch with my best friend by exchanging long, handwritten letters. We kept up our penpalship for years, and I remember it to this day with much fondness. That’s what this correspondence with Luzia has felt like.

Coincidentally, Luzia and Berni also love to cook. About 6 months ago, I asked if she could share a Swiss recipe with me, something traditional that I could make for the blog. She returned with two, one she called Älplermagrone, or Macaroni for the Alpine Herdsman, which, hahaha, I had a pretty good laugh over because the direct translation is just too funny. The other was this strawberry rhubarb tiramisu, which, while it isn’t Swiss at all, is her favorite dessert. That pretty much clinched it. Once rhubarb season rolled around, I would make it. She warned me that it looks disgusting and recommended that I serve it in glasses. Thanks for the tip, Luzia! I am passing it on to the rest of you.

All in all, I loved it! If this recipe is any indicator, we Americans like our desserts much sweeter than European standards. Stewed rhubarb, according to Martha Stewart, calls for 2/3 cup of sugar per 10 ounces of rhubarb (or over a cup per pound). Luzia recommended 5 tablespoons, or just a little over 1/4 cup, per pound. That’s a pretty dramatic difference. In the end, I settled on 6 tablespoons for my pound of rhubarb and that felt just about right to me. The rhubarb retained its pucker, but was nicely balanced by the creamy sweetness of the mascarpone cream and ladyfingers (that’s what we call them, Luzia, odd-sounding, I know), as well as a few splashes of Grand Marnier. It was such a perfect variation of a normally decadent dessert, and really ideal for the springtime.

I have to point out that unfortunately, I am doing this recipe a disservice because I didn’t include the macerated strawberries. My access to most fruits has been limited to the bland-tasting crap being shipped over from who-knows-where, and I know that for this dessert, Luzia is quite particular about using only local, fresh strawberries. I will make amends by doing it right next time, but readers, please take note.

Luzia, thanks so much for everything! Not only for the recipe, but also for your steadfast communication and friendship. I envision you, Berni, Chris, and I sitting together one day over a home-cooked meal, and it will be great. Promise me that we will make it happen?

LUZIA’S STRAWBERRY RHUBARB TIRAMISU
Serves 6 to 8
Adapted from my friend Luzia

Since I didn’t make the strawberries, I doubled the stewed rhubarb portion.

Ingredients:
For the stewed rhubarb:
1/2 lb. rhubarb
3 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp water
2 Tbsp Grand Marnier liqueur

For the strawberries:
1/2 lb. strawberries, plus extra for garnish
1 Tbsp sugar

For the mascarpone cream:
2 eggs, separated
2 Tbsp sugar
8 oz. mascarpone

12 to 16 ladyfingers

Directions:
For the stewed rhubarb:
In a saucepan over a low flame, add the rhubarb, sugar, vanilla, and water and cook until soft, 7 to 10 minutes. Turn off the heat, and remove about 1/4 cup of the liquid. Set it aside. Stir in the Grand Marnier. Set aside to cool. This step can be prepared a day in advance.

For the strawberries:
Slice the strawberries, stir with the sugar, and set aside.

For the mascarpone cream:
In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until well combined. Stir in the mascarpone and mix well. Whisk the egg whites until stiff (I used my stand mixer), and carefully fold it into the yolk mixture.

Assembling:
I would layer the tiramisu this way: a layer of ladyfingers that had been dunked in the liquid removed from the stewed rhubarb on the bottom, a layer of stewed rhubarb, a layer of mascarpone cream, a second layer of ladyfingers, a layer of strawberries, a second layer of mascarpone cream. Feel free to garnish the top with extra slices of strawberry. (Note: I served the tiramisu in individual glasses using 2 ladyfingers per glass. However, if you decide to use a larger dish, make sure to split the ladyfingers and mascarpone evenly between their layers.)

After assembling, refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving.

The post Luzia’s Strawberry Rhubarb Tiramisu, Absent the Strawberries appeared first on The Tart Tart.

Girls are… sugar and spice and everything nice. Lavender would fall into the latter category, and coincidentally, it makes me feel so so girly. While girly is not my natural state, my friend, who also happens to be an appreciator of the finer things in life, is, and it was for her that these macarons, which combine both sophistication (like all things French, no?) with femininity, were originally intended. Lavender is her favorite flavor.

These are celebratory macarons, job-well-done macarons, pat-on-the-back macarons, because she just finished her second year of law school (congratulations M!) and only has one year left to go. Of course, I didn’t bother coordinating her schedule with her, and found out later that she flew home, to California. It’s probably a good thing she’s not around to be a recipient, because my latest batch came out, for the most part, cracked, oozed over, and unkempt in all the ways imaginable. I’ve rationalized this disappointment by telling myself that I’m just honing my skills until she returns, which is when I will present her a box of perfect macarons, all tied up with a shiny pink ribbon. (First though, I need to get over this spring cold that makes me drowsy and achey and bleary-eyed.)

What frustrates me the most about the outcome of this recipe is that I didn’t deviate far from my recipe for plain almond shells. There was the addition of one tablespoon (tablespoon!) of dried lavender, and two drops (drops!!) of violet gel food coloring. And yet, what a difference they made. My yield from the two batches I baked: about 20 mediocre shells (only mediocre), and 60 that could’ve filled a textbook with examples of Failed Macarons. Is the batter so sensitive that the tiniest addition of liquid completely changed its chemistry? I have no definitive answer, but it does seem the case. Or maybe I overmixed the batter, or undermixed it, or should’ve used aged egg whites, or failed to let the shells sit out long enough before sliding them into the oven. But I refuse to believe they are that fussy!

LAVENDER MACARONS WITH HONEY BUTTERCREAM
Makes about 40 shells, or 20 macarons
Adapted from Brave Tart

For the macarons:
Ingredients:
1 cup confectioners sugar
1 Tbsp dried lavender buds
3/4 cup almond meal
2 egg whites
3 Tbsp sugar

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 300 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Blend the confectioners sugar, lavender, and almond meal in a food processor until fine, then whisk everything into a large bowl.

In the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attachment affixed, add the egg whites and sugar. Turn the mixer on to power level 4 and whisk the mixture together for 3 minutes. Next, turn the power up to 7 and whisk an additional 3 minutes. Turn the power up to 8 and whisk an additional minute or two. By now, there should be a stiff meringue in the bowl. Feel free to mix in the food coloring at this point and whisk at 8 speed for an additional minute to incorportae the color. Knock the meringue that’s trapped in the whisk back into the bowl.

Now, add the almond meal mixture into the bowl all at once. Stella’s instructions:

Use both a folding motion (to incorporate the dry ingredients) and a rubbing/smearing motion, to deflate the meringue against the side of the bowl.

The dry ingredients/meringue will look hopelessly incompatible at first. After about 25 turns (or folds or however you want to call “a single stroke of mixing”) the mixture will still have a quite lumpy and stiff texture. Another 15 strokes will see you to “just about right.” Keep in mind that macaronage is about deflating the whites, so don’t feel like you have to treat them oh-so-carefully. You want to knock the air out of them.

You don’t need to be too gentle with the batter. By the time it’s ready, its consistency will be runnier than you’d think, closer to pancake batter than cake batter. Check out 5:10 in this video to see how it should look.

Fill a pastry bag with the batter. You can use a pastry bag with just a coupler, or with a tip. I used an Ateco 806 tip, which resulted in shells on the larger side. Pipe your shells onto the parchment-paper lined baking sheets, a little more than a quarter (US currency) in size (about 2 cm. or 1 inch), spacing them about 1 inch apart.

When you’re done piping, pick up the pan and whack it down hard against your counter. Do this another time, then rotate the pan 90 degrees and do the same thing twice. You might see tiny air bubbles appear on the top of the rounds, a good sign because they could be potentially damaging if buried within the batter. Repeat with the other pan.

Slide the pans into the oven and bake for about 15 minutes, at which point the shells should be able to be cleanly picked off the parchment paper.

Let the shells come to room temperature, then fill your macarons with the honey buttercream (recipe below). I used a pastry bag, but a spoon should work as well.

For the honey buttercream:
Makes enough to fill about 40 macarons (feel free to halve this recipe—my mixer doesn’t handle small quantities well)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
2 Tbsp honey

Directions:
In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter using the whisk attachment for about 2 minutes. Slowly add the confectioner’s sugar, and whisk until everything is incorporated. Do the same with the honey. Beat another minute or so to get everything well incorporated.

The post Lavender Macarons with Honey Buttercream appeared first on The Tart Tart.

By nature a contrarian, I find myself very skeptical of hype. This was the case with boy bands and this was the case with ramps (why boy bands comes to mind, I have no idea. And actually, I did have a small crush on Brian of the Backstreet Boys that I’m now just a teeny bit embarrassed to own up to). With all the hooplah surrounding what’s-just-another-member-of-the-allium-family, I admit, I was pretty disinterested in trying them, especially if it meant fighting over the last few stalks with someone more aggressive than me because they wanted them more than me. Because these guys go fast. Watching them sell at the farmer’s market is like watching a time lapse video.

But being a food blogger is akin to being an investigative journalist, at least in matters of food. You follow all leads, and you don’t hold yourself back from anything. (And yes, I did just make that comparison!) In this case, with a trustworthy source as my lead, I decided to pick up a couple bunches.

Now, a few facts about ramps that I find remarkable: (as usual, thanks Food52)

1. They’re only found in specific parts of the U.S., namely the Northeast.
2. They’re only in season for something like three weeks each spring.
3. They are almost completely foraged, which means they’re wild, which leads me to the next fact…
4. Ramps take FIVE TO SEVEN YEARS to grow before they’re ready to be harvested. And it can take 18 MONTHS just for them to germinate.

Wow. In that context, it’s easy to understand why people go crazy over them. Although, scarcity doesn’t necessarily imply that they’re any good. But in this case, Carey, you were right! Ramps don’t quite taste like anything else, and they’re wonderful. They’re also extremely pungent. Even before you taste them, you smell them, sharply, overwhelmingly, scented garlic but not raw. They smell like garlic bread, in fact, sort of roasted and intense. They taste so much stronger than their domesticated cousins too. Piquant, kind of like what arugula is to regular greens. They remind me of Chinese leeks, a great favorite of mine growing up that my mom used to scramble with eggs and serve alongside rice porridge (which somewhat made up for the fact that we were forced to eat watery tasteless GRUEL when Mom didn’t feel like cooking. But this is old baggage; I won’t go into it.) Anyway, I highly recommend breath mints.

Which is why pesto seemed the perfect food to take advantage of ramp’s rather distinctive qualities. Doesn’t it just sound good? There can’t be a better fate, in my humble opinion. I didn’t have pine nuts lying around, so I used walnuts instead, but besides that, I followed the traditional pesto recipe pretty closely. (Well, I guess the traditional way of making pesto involves a mortar and a pestle, but there were no Italian nonni around to judge.)

I’m only now questioning the color of this pesto. It’s awfully bright and swampy isn’t it? And yet, that was its exact hue when it was first blended. Weird. But it does mature into a darker green after awhile.

RAMP PESTO
Adapted from Food52
Makes around 1/2 cup (I’m completely estimating—I would say it’s enough for topping one medium pizza, serving 2 to 3 with pasta, and feeding quite a few with bread)

Ingredients:
1 bunch of ramps (about 10 stalks)
1/2 cup toasted walnuts
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
1/3 to 1/2 cup olive oil (I used about 1/2 cup)
Salt & pepper
Squirt of lemon

Directions:
Wash the ramps and cut the hairy ends off the bulbs. Roughly chop the leaves and remainder of the bulbs. Also roughly chop the walnuts, then place both the ramps and walnuts in a food processor. Pour in the cheese and start processing, slowly pouring in olive oil until you’ve reached a consistency you like. Taste for salt and pepper, and squirt in some lemon juice to taste.

I would let the pesto sit for a little while, maybe an hour, before eating. The flavors need some time to meld together.

The post Ramp Pesto appeared first on The Tart Tart.