by Libby Klein
Special thanks also to Rossana Tarantini for fixing my Italian translations. Gia’s family talks so fast, I can barely understand them.
And to my writers’ group for their fabulous insights and critique. Jerry, Peter, Mandy, and Kathy—a million thanks for making Poppy as great as she can be!
Lastly, to Convention Hall for being a good sport. I’m sure your security is top-notch and the Beauty Expo was just a fluke. And Congress Hall—tell me that Twilight Egg Hunt isn’t a great idea! I totally want to do that!
Butterfly Wings Bed and Breakfast Afternoon Tea
Traditional Cucumber Cream Cheese Triangles
Grandma Emmy’s Egg Salad on Wheat
Poppy’s Chicken Salad in Hot Cross Buns
Chocolate Cherry Mascarpone Dessert Sandwiches
English Scones with
Devonshire Cream
Strawberry Champagne Preserves
Lemon Curd
Fresh Strawberries
Custard Tarts
Joanne’s Petits Fours in chocolate passionfruit, raspberry rose, and black vanilla
RECIPES
Poppy’s Chicken Salad
I usually use a rotisserie chicken, but you can start by cooking and cooling three chicken breasts if you’d rather. You’re going to cut all the ingredients in cubes roughly the size of dice. This makes about 4-5 cups of Chicken salad.
Ingredients
2 cups cooked and cooled chicken cut into cubes
3 ribs of celery, chopped chunky
2–3 scallions, white ends removed, chopped chunky
1 apple, peel left on, cored, and chopped chunky
1 cup dried cherries
1 cup roasted, shelled pistachios
1–1½ cups mayonnaise
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
Directions
Combine the first six ingredients in a mixing bowl. It will make a very loose, chunky salad. But we aren’t finished yet.
Add 1 cup of mayonnaise, salt, and pepper and mix well.
Now we’re going to pulse the chicken salad in the food processor. The goal is to have a spreadable filling with some small pieces of cherries and nuts. Not to make pâté. So don’t just turn it on and let it go.
I had to pulse it in two batches, and I pulsed each batch ten times. If you cut your pieces very small, you may only need 8 pulses. If you cut them very large, you may need 12–14 pulses. You can tell by the way each pulse sounds that the pistachios are getting smaller. Do as many pulses as you like to make your finished chicken salad the right consistency. Just don’t get carried away.
At this point you can add more mayonnaise if you feel it is too dry.
This is wonderful filled in a Gluten-Free Hot Cross Bun.
Gluten-Free Hot Cross Buns
Yield 12-18 buns
Ingredients
½ cup rum, water, or apple juice
½ cup dried fruit (I used orange peel)
1 cup mixed raisins
1 tablespoon orange zest
1¼ cups milk, room temperature
2 large eggs, plus 1 egg yolk (save the white for the wash)
8 tablespoons butter, melted
4½ cups Gluten Free Flour Blend
1 tablespoon instant yeast
½ cup brown sugar, packed
1½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon cloves
½ teaspoon allspice
½ teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 large egg white reserved from above
1 tablespoon milk
1Icing for the crosses
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
½ teaspoon clear vanilla
Pinch salt
4 teaspoons milk, give or take
Directions
If you’ve ever made bread before, be sure to read through these directions first. We aren’t doing things the usual way. For gluten-free bread we’ll only get one rise, so we have to go straight to forming the buns and letting them rise.
Line your sheet pan with parchment paper. Turn on your oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Place a 9 x 13 pan of hot water on the bottom rack.
Mix the rum, water, or apple juice with the dried fruit, raisins, and orange zest in a glass bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave for a minute or two until hot. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
Mix together all the dry ingredients
Drain the excess liquid off the fruit. Set it aside.
Add the eggs, butter, and milk to the dry ingredients. Start mixing (I do it by hand) and add the roomtemperature, rehydrated dry fruit. If the dough is too dry, add a little of the reserved liquid from the fruit. If it is too wet, add a little more flour. Once the dough comes together, form into balls the size of small oranges right away. They will rise, but not as much as regular yeast rolls. Arrange them on the parchment-lined pan.
Cover the pan with an oiled sheet of parchment (you can spray a sheet of parchment with PAM if you want). Then cover that with a light kitchen towel. Nothing too heavy. Let’s not make the rolls have to work any harder than they have to.
Put the pan in the oven and TURN IT OFF. Let the rolls rise in the oven for an hour. They will only puff up a little. Take them out of the oven and increase the temperature to 375 degrees.
While the oven comes up to heat, whisk the reserved egg white with the tablespoon of milk. Brush the tops of the rolls with the egg wash. Bake for 20 minutes until golden brown.
Take the buns’ temperature. Insert an instant-read thermometer to the center of the bun. The temperature should be 205–210º F when fully baked. Transfer finished buns to a rack to cool.
If you’re making the icing crosses, mix half the milk into the confectioners’ sugar with the salt and the vanilla. Add milk a little at a time until you get a thick paste. If it’s too thin, the icing crosses will run all over.
Gluten-Free Chocolate Loaf2
Makes one loaf
Ingredients
1¾ cups gluten-free flour
½ cup unsweetened cocoa
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon xanthan gum *omit this if it is already in the flour blend
1 cup sugar
½ cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup small or mini chocolate chips
Directions
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottom only of a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan.
Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. Mix together.
In a large bowl, beat together sugar and butter. Add eggs; blend well. Stir in cream.
Add the dry ingredients and stir until the batter comes together. Do not overmix.
Fold in chocolate chips.
Pour into the greased loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 15 minutes, then remove from the pan to cool completely.
After the loaf has cooled, wrap tightly and store in refrigerator. This will cut in half-inch slices much better if it is refrigerated. Cut with a serrated knife and fill with Cherry Mascarpone filling.
Cherry Mascarpone Filling
This makes about a cup and a half of spread.
1 cup mascarpone cheese, room temperature.
½ cup Morello Cherry Preserves, room temperature
Beat mascarpone with hand mixer to loosen it up. Add cherry preserves and combine well. This spreads best if it is whipped up right before it’s needed and used right away.
Gluten-Free Cream Tea Scones
This makes about a dozen scones
Ingredients
3 cups gluten-free flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
⅓ cup sugar
8 tablespoons butter, cold
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1¼ cups heavy whipping cream
Additional heavy cream, to brush on top of scones before baking
Directions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment.
Into a food processor bowl, combine gluten-free flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Pulse until well combined.
Add cold butter by the tablespoon and pulse until combined.
Add the vanilla extract to the heavy cream. Pour in a little at a time while pulsing.
You should form a lovely, cohesive dough. Not sticky, but no flour left in the bottom of the bowl either. Lightly dust your counter with gluten-free flour. Turn the dough out and let it rest for a minute.
Form the dough into a ball and flatten it with your hands. Roll out to a thickness of about ¾-inch thick. Cut into rounds with a biscuit cutter.
Place rounds on prepared baking sheet close together, but not touching. As they rise, they will help each other.
Brush the tops with heavy cream.
Bake for 15 minutes and check for doneness. I usually cut that last ugly one I mashed together with leftover dough in half to see if the middle is baked all the way. If they need a little more time, put the pan back in the oven for 5 minutes. If the tops are getting too brown, turn the oven down to 350 degrees for the last 5 minutes.
Remove from oven and let cool until you won’t burn your mouth. Serve warm and spread with Devonshire cream and jam or lemon curd. Or all three. I’m not judging.
Joanne’s Extreme Vanilla and Raspberry Rose Petits Fours
Extreme Vanilla Cake
Ingredients
1½ cups gluten-free flour blend
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 sticks butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
3 large eggs, room temperature
2 tablespoons sour cream
2 fat vanilla beans or 1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste3
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9 x 13 pan with nonstick baking spray or line with parchment.
In a mixing bowl, add gluten-free flour blend, baking powder, and salt. Whisk to combine.
In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add corn syrup and whip a little more. Add eggs one at a time and whip until each one disappears into the batter. Add sour cream, vanilla bean paste, and vanilla extract.
Whip some more to combine fully. Be sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl to get everything whipped together.
Now add your dry ingredients in two batches and mix on low speed. Do not overmix here. Sometimes I stop the mixer before the flour is completely incorporated and I finish by hand with a rubber spatula.
Spread the batter evenly in the prepared pan. It will not be a high cake, and because it is so dense it shouldn’t rise as much as cakes usually do. Bake for 15 minutes and check for doneness. If it needs a little more time, give it 5 more minutes and check again.
Let the cake cool completely on a wire rack before turning out on your work surface. I use a cutting board. When the cake is completely cool, wrap it in plastic and chill several hours or overnight. At this point I have enough mess in the kitchen to keep me busy cleaning until that cake is cold.
The first step in making petits fours is to level and layer your cake. If you have a cake leveler, the job is a snap. If you don’t, a long knife works well when cut at eye level. Trim off the top dome of the cake so you have a flat surface, then cut through the cake at the halfway point, making two thin 9 x 13 layers. Wrap in plastic and freeze until you have your filling ready.
Extreme Vanilla Ganache
Ingredients
2 cups of white chocolate chips, or a white chocolate bar, chopped
¾ cup of heavy whipping cream
2 fat vanilla beans, scraped
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Directions
Place white chocolate in a glass mixing bowl. Heat heavy cream on top of the stove until it just starts to simmer. You can see it bubbling around the edges. Pour hot cream over the white chocolate and walk away. Give it a minute to work on its own.
Come back after a minute and whisk until you have a smooth, creamy consistency with no lumps. On the off chance that you did not get your cream hot enough and the white chocolate is not melting, put the bowl in the microwave on high for 30 seconds and try whisking again.
Add in your vanilla bean goo and your vanilla extract. Whisk until you can see all the little flecks of beans spread out throughout the ganache. Cover with plastic wrap right on the surface of the ganache. Refrigerate until cold and thick.
Spread the ganache between the layers of frozen cake. Rewrap in plastic and refreeze until the glaze is ready.
Rose Ganache
Ingredients
340 grams of white chocolate chips, or a white chocolate
bar, chopped
200 grams of heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon of rose extract
Directions
Follow all the directions above, adding in the rose extract instead of vanilla bean and vanilla extract. Add a little more extract if you want the rose to come through stronger. It should be a light taste, like an afterthought. Not a strong flavor like perfume.
Spread the ganache between the layers of frozen cake. Add a thin layer of ½ cup seedless raspberry jam on top of ganache. Rewrap in plastic and refreeze until the glaze is ready.
White Chocolate Glaze
Ingredients
13.47 ounces (1 bag) white chocolate chips or a white chocolate bar, chopped
⅔ cup heavy cream
Directions
Place white chocolate in a glass mixing bowl. Heat heavy cream on top of the stove until it just starts to simmer. You can see it bubbling around the edges. Pour hot cream over the white chocolate and let it sit for a minute. Whisk until smooth. Let it cool a bit.
Cutting and Glazing the Petits Fours
Take your cake out of the freezer and, using a sharp, straight-edge knife, trim off the edges to make very clean sides. Cut cake into squares (or use a small round cutter if you want circles).
You’ll need two forks, and a wire cooling rack on top of a sheet pan lined with parchment. You want the glaze around 85 degrees for dipping. That’s warm, but not hot. If it is too hot, it will be very thin and sheer. If it’s too cool, it will be thick and lumpy. Keep a pan of very hot water on the stove in case you need to warm up the glaze a few degrees. I find it is a lot easier to pour some glaze into a small working bowl for dipping. Small and deep is better than wide and shallow.
Using two forks, plunge and submerge your cake square. Try to keep it sitting on the lifting fork in the right direction. When you bite into the petit four you want the filling horizontal between layers, not vertical splitting the cakes into two sides. Pull the cake square out of the glaze and tap the lifting fork it’s sitting on with the other fork. You’re tapping off excess glaze. Scrape the bottom of the lifting fork with the tapping fork to clean the bottom edge of the cake and gently slide off the fork and onto the wire rack.
If you are decorating the tops with something like sprinkles, dragées, sparkling sugar, or other toppings, you’ll want to sprinkle it on before the glaze fully sets. If you’re piping designs with royal icing, you’ll want to make sure it fully sets before you begin decorating.
These look so pretty in little fluted papers. Store in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.
Notes
1 I didn’t make the icing crosses for the chicken salad sandwiches, but I wanted you to have the entire recipe in case you just want to make the buns by themselves.
2 adapted from the paleo chocolate loaf recipe in Restaurant Weeks Are Murder
3 If you scraped your own vanilla beans, be sure to put the empty husks in a bottle of rum or vodka to start your own vanilla extract.
&nbs
p;
