Ferber’s Strawberry Preserves, Stick with the Berries.

I promised some folks—including my mother—a recipe for strawberry rhubarb muffins.  Muffins that behave like shortcakes.  Muffins that are really quite wonderful, and certainly worthy of a few hundred words. 

I am sorry.

By now I am bored to tears with rhubarb and needed a break from the stalks.  You might very well share a similar sentiment, after its commandeering gin entry and usurpation of leftover rose.  When I realized I had very recently gone through four pounds of the plant and was choosing to clean my toilet over write about it again, I thought it time to fast-forward straight to strawberries. 

So I have a recipe for you from a Frenchie instead.  A fourth-generation pâtissier from Alsace named Christine Ferber.  Her jams are packaged in red polka dot caps, tied with bows, and sold to people with deep pockets and sweet tooths.

But perhaps the best, simplest introduction to all this is that I’ve been waiting forty-nine weeks for the first quarts of strawberries to appear at the farmers’ market. And when they did, it was nary a full forty-eight hours before toast and jam made the breakfast menu.

It was also ninety degrees the day I planned to cook down the berries, which is de rigueur anytime I take on a summer project requiring a stovetop.  Instead of behaving like a normal human, I set my alarm for six AM with the priggishness and pride of a Kamikaze pilot.  Secretly hoping to outsmart the earth before it could heat up.

I didn’t.  But I don’t regret it.

Making these preserves isn’t incredibly difficult, mind you.  It does require an overnight advance. Plus being comfortable briefly turning your kitchen into a steam room—without the white towels and general nakedness. No one wins combining nudity and hot fruit.

But this jam is winning.  It is madly strawberry, by both flavor and sight.  Its small fruits remain intact, becoming jeweled and suspended by sugar.

Purists may scoff at the raspberry, balsamic, and black pepper additions.  But they are there to add oomph to the berries and deepen their intensity.  So just try not to think about it too much.  Consider them a sweet, sanctioned form of cheating.

The preserves are particularly wonderful with cheese and spread on thick slices of buttered sourdough toast.  And—I might add—are also quite fetching partnered with a political mug in the morning.  Heck, they probably go well with nudity too. 

But we won’t go there.

Ferber’s Strawberry Preserves

Adapted from Mes Confitures: The Jams and Jellies of Christine Ferber by way of butter tree

Ingredients:

(790g) 1¾ pounds strawberries (about 1½ pounds once rinsed and hulled)

(800g) 4¼ cups sugar

juice of 1 lemon

(565g) 1¼ pounds fresh raspberries

1 tbsp plus 2 tsp balsamic vinegar

5 peppercorns, ground

Instructions:

Halve the strawberries (quarter large berries and leave the tiny ones whole so they are all about the same size).  In a large bowl, combine the strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice.  Cover with parchment paper and place in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day, place a small plate with four or five small spoons in the freezer (you will use them to test the jam for doneness).  In a small saucepan, combine the raspberries with 3½ ounces of water and bring to a boil.  Cook a few minutes until the berries breakdown and then strain out the seeds through a wire mesh sieve to collect the juice.  Discard the pulp or save for another use (see note).

Place the raspberry juice in a large heavy pot or saucepan.  Using the same sieve, strain the strawberry juice into the same pot and set the berries aside.  (You will likely have some residual sugar that stays with the berries, that’s okay, just try to get what you can in.)

Bring the juice to a boil over medium-high heat, skimming off the foam that forms on top.  Cook until the jam reaches 221 degrees with a candy thermometer, or about 10 to 15 minutes, skimming occasionally. (Admittedly, my candy thermometer didn’t reach all the way into the pan so I half improvised with this.)

Add the strawberries to the pot and return to a boil then cook for 5 to 15 more minutes, occasionally skimming and stirring gently.  To see if the preserves are ready, place a small amount on one of the spoons in your freezer and leave it in there; check after 1 minute.  If you push the jam with your finger and it wrinkles a little, it’s ready. (Start checking after 5 minutes, it took me closer to 15.)  If it is not ready, continue cooking the jam for a few more minutes and then test again.

When the jam is ready, turn off the heat and add in the balsamic and peppercorns.  You could either process the jam in sterilized jars to can it or simply store what you won’t use up immediately in your freezer.

Makes about 2 pints.

Notes:

-Look for smallest and sweetest smelling berries you can find.

-I reserved the raspberry seeds and used them as a receptacle when skimming the jam.  The seeds are sweetened by the little bit of jam that is discarded as the foam is removed and this eases my guilt of throwing out food.  I mixed a little in yogurt all week.  You know, for the fiber.

-The peppercorns are easily ground with a mortar and pestle.  It’s about a scant 1/8 tsp.

A Kilo Plus Vanilla Bean Pound Cake with Rosé Glaze

I came back from France up a solid kilo, newly equip with a little more padding around my middle region and a liver that just wouldn’t quit.  Nice and all, but I felt in need of a detox. 

When I throw around a term like “detox” what I really mean is that I try to avoid drinking for a solid six days, try to eat more plants, and try not to sneak cookies at lunch.  Some of you may know this as “moderation.”  I lasted until Thursday. 

By Friday I was making a cake that contained three sticks of butter, lavishly glazed in rosé syrup.  Shoes don’t stretch.  Men don’t change.  And I don’t detox very well.  You can take these things as fact, friends. At least for as long as there are women who love dessert and pink-hued wine and who can talk themselves into buying ill-fitting shoes and the words of men they attract.

But I’m veering off course here. I need to keep this short and sweet because I have lunges to do. The inspiration for this cake came from Provence and from a recent recipe by Jess of Sweet Amandine.  She makes the cake without the syrup here, inspired by Hi-Rise.

While touring a winery in Provence, I came across some crisp, buttery cookies made with vanilla and a little rosé, biscuits vanillé aromatise au vin rosé de Provence if we are being fancy.  I wanted an excuse to use my new loaf pans.  I also wanted an excuse to bake this pound cake Jess spoke of and open a bottle of wine I lugged back from Provence.  You know where I’m going with this.

The biscuits I bought were delicate, barely sweet with just a faint hint of rosé.  There is nothing delicate about this cake.  It’s pound cake. 

It calls for eight eggs.  It uses four cups of sugar.  There is no moderate use of butter.  No moderate use of its sticky wine glaze.  And certainly no moderate use of vanilla beans, either.

It’s everything a real pound cake should be.  It’s dense, like a glazed donut in loaf form.  Cut in thick slabs and served with tart berries it’s pure summer.  And it’s delicious with a glass of rose, also pure summer.

So I’m off to lunge, stretch, and then take my middle section for a jog.  And afterwards, well, we’re probably going to eat some wine cake.

Vanilla Bean Pound Cake with Rosé Glaze 
Adapted from Sweet Amandine (and a few other places)

Ingredients:

For the cake

3 cups all-purpose flour

1½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp kosher salt

1½ cups butter, room temperature (plus extra for buttering your pans)

2½ cups vanilla sugar (see note)

1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped out (save the pod)

1 tbsp vanilla extract

8 large eggs, room temperature 
sprinkling of fleur de sel (optional)

For the glaze

1½ cups sugar

1 cup rosé wine

1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped (plus the pod from above)

splash of orange blossom water

pinch of kosher salt 

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Butter two-9 inch cake pans (or alternatively, loaf pans; I used 3 of varying size).  If using loaf pans, fit parchment paper inside your buttered pan, letting the sides of the paper hang out; butter the paper too.  

Sift the flour and baking powder together into a medium bowl.  Add in the salt; set aside.

Cream the butter and vanilla sugar until light white and fluffy in a stand mixer.  Add the vanilla bean seeds, vanilla extract, and then add the eggs one by one with the mixer on low speed.  Increase the speed and beat until well combined.

Add the flour mixture to the creamed butter and sugar, a little bit at a time, until just combined. Scrap down the batter from the sides of the bowl and fold the batter a few times to make sure everything is well mixed; do not over mix.  Divide the batter between your cake pans (or among your loaf pans).  Bake 30 minutes and then rotate the pans and bake for another 15-30 minutes, depending on the size of your pans.  (The loaf pans took a total of 65 minutes.)  The cakes are done when a toothpick or cake tester comes out clean.

While the cakes are baking, make the syrup.  Combine the 1½ cups sugar with the rosé wine; add the vanilla bean seeds, split vanilla bean pod, plus the additional reserved pod.  Heat on medium, stirring occasionally until the sugar is dissolved.  Add in the orange blossom water and pinch of salt.

When the cakes are finished let them cool on a wire rack for 15-20 minutes (or until the pans are cool enough to touch).  Gently remove the cake from the pans (if you are using the loaf pans with parchment paper this will be very, very easy; just loosen the ends and tug at the parchment paper sides.  (Then remove the parchment paper.)

Brush the syrup over the top and sides of the cake.  You’ll want to do this a few times, about every 10 minutes or so.  (I ended up having about ¼ cup of syrup left.)  Sprinkle the top of the cake with a little fleur de sel, if desired. Let the cake fully cool and then serve, cover, or freeze.

Makes two-nine inch cakes or 3-4 small loafs

Notes:

-To make vanilla sugar just stick a few pods of vanilla, after you’ve used the seeds for something else, into a jar of sugar and let it hang for at least a few days.

- This recipe is a great use of leftover rosé, as it only requires one cup (a moderate amount).  This amount also dictates that one cannot drink an entire bottle.  (Unless, of course, there is another bottle.)

-This is a sweet cake.  Serve it with some fresh berries or a perky sorbet.