Hello friends!
As finals draw to a close and the winter holidays begin, it’s time to go full-on festive with Christmas trees, gifts and bows, non-stop carols, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The latter is particularly bittersweet this year, considering the legendary and beloved Brit Lit teacher from my high school, known by all for his annual tradition of reading this children’s book at exactly 10:00 pm at the winter dance, passed away this fall. Rest in peace, Dr. Miller.
On a lighter note, to properly bring in the joy of the season (and to make up for the relative dearth of recipes over the past couple of months), this week we’re doing a two-for-one recipe that combines two simple holiday-flavored concoctions in two different ways. See, part of the trouble with keeping a dessert blog is that there are always some variety of leftover par-cooked ingredients hanging out in the freezer. After noticing the rather full state of the freezer drawer, I perused its contents and found hidden in its depths frozen gingersnap cookie dough from last year’s caramel gingerbread trifles and tart crusts from spare puff pastry dough (both of which apparently keep remarkably and somewhat disturbingly well in the freezer — the key is to wrap individually or otherwise aliquoted in air-tight saran wrap and to squeeze out all excess air from the freezer bag). With a healthy helping of eggnog pastry cream and cranberry jelly, either option makes for a delicious treat.
As a side note, the cranberry jelly recipe also does double duty as my go-to cranberry sauce – it comes together in all of ten minutes (but sounds impressive because anything that could be store-bought but is nevertheless homemade is a respectable offering at Friendsgiving among college students), and pairs perfectly with roasted turkey (or any other poultry). It’s also an incredibly easy recipe to memorize — it’s all ones and twos: 12 oz of cranberries, 1/2 cup each of sugar and water, and the juice from 1/2 of a lemon. Also while the concoction is strained in the context of the tarts and trifles (since no one really wants to find a cranberry skin in their dessert), skip the straining for a even quicker, easier, and more texturally interesting complement to your holiday dinner.
In case you too happen to have frozen gingersnap dough or tart crusts hanging about in your freezer, look no further for the perfect way to clear them out for the latest round of holiday cooking. Otherwise, if you happen to surreptitiously sneak into your neighborhood grocery store for a batch of pre-made gingersnap cookies or frozen pie crusts, then I certainly won’t tell anybody. Either way, hope you enjoy!
Happy Saturday!
Anne
Makes: 6 large wineglass-sized trifles or 24 tarts, plus plenty of leftover cranberry jelly
Ingredients:Gingersnaps: (make this or the tart crust)
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
3/4 cup (1 1/2 stick) butter, room temperature
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup crystallized ginger pieces
Granulated sugar and ground ginger for rolling
Tart Crust: (make this or the gingersnaps)
2 sheets puff pastry
Eggnog Creme Patissiere:
1 1/2 cup eggnog
1 tbs granulated sugar
1 egg yolk
20 g flour
Cranberry Jelly:
12 oz cranberries
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 lemon, juiced
Whipped Cream:
1/2 cup heavy cream
(For trifles, add an extra 1/2 cup of heavy cream)
To Serve:
6 or 24 reserved fresh cranberries
Gingersnaps:
Tip: This recipe makes about 36 cookies, which is way more than you need for the trifles. Fortunately, the cookie dough freezes really well, so feel free to bake up just 6 for the trifles (or more for a little snack) and freeze the pre-chilled cookie dough balls before rolling in the ginger sugar in a quart size freezer bag for a rainy day.
Tart Crust:
Eggnog Creme Patissiere
Tip: Always make sure to mix your eggs into the milk by tempering them with hot milk, then pouring through the sieve rather than dumping them all in at once. No matter how many times and how quickly I’ve tried to whisk while pouring in untempered eggs, I always ended up with unpleasantly eggy pastry cream because some of the egg inevitably scrambles as it hits the hot milk. After lots of sadness, disappointment, and wasted pastry cream, I finally started to use this tempering method as a virtually fool-proof strategy for keeping pastry cream (or any other type of custard) scrambled eggs-free!
Tip: Make sure the saran wrap touches the surface of the creme patissiere when you cover the bowl to prevent a skin from forming at the top of your pastry cream if the surface dries out.
Cranberry Jelly:
Tip: Gently use a spatula to squash each cranberry to release the pectin-y goodness inside from the skins.
Whipped Cream:
Assembly (Trifles):
Assembly (Tarts):
