I love sablée cookies. They’re not too sweet, have a great texture and are a great base for making into different flavor combinations. This cookie has a soft, crumbly texture. For this recipe I chose to flavor it with fresh orange zest and tahitian vanilla bean seeds but you cold choose a variety of flavors such as five spice, lemon-lime and so on. You just have to make sure that the added water content isn’t, or the mix will be much too soft. This will cause it to be difficult to handle, and spread too much while cooking. What makes these cookies, is that after the dough is rolled into logs, they are coated with an eggwash lightly (some skip this, but I like a good amount of sugar on mine and it allows for more to stick to the sides), then they are then rolled in sugar and sliced into about 1/2″ pieces. This gives the cookies a nice, crunchy sugar crust after baking. I prefer to use a demerrara sugar for this, which will give it a nice earthy color and a firmer crust, but a white sugar will work also.

Orange-Vanilla Sablée Cookie Dough:

400g unsalted butter
160g 10x sugar
1g salt
zest 2 oranges
2 van. beans, scraped
44g egg yolks
450g AP flour

Cream the butter, 10x sugar and salt. Add the zest and vanilla seeds and continue on the paddle for another two minutes. Add the yolks and flour, mix until just combined. Do not overwork the dough.

Divide the dough into five equal portions. Roll each portion into a log around 1 - 1 1/2″ in diameter. Brush each roll with egg wash and roll in sugar. Place in refrigerator to firm up. Cutting the dough when it’s to soft will give you some trouble. Once firm cut the rolls into pieces about 3/4″ thick. Place on a parchment lined sheet tray. Make a small indent in the center on each cookie with your thumb. Bake in a 350 degree oven until the edges brown slightly, around 20 mins. Due to the small amount of egg in this dough, they will seem soft, but will firm up as they cool.

In re-reading my post Fall into Winter with Pears, I realized I neglected to add this to the Pear Tart post.

Chai Tea Ice Cream:

.75l Milk
10g Chai Tea blend
1 tahitian vanilla bean, scraped
175g sugar
200g egg yolk
50g Inverted sugar
75ml heavy cream

Place the tea, vanilla and milk in a heavy sauce pot. Heat to a scald. Remove from the heat, cover with plastic wrap (to ensure a good seal) and let steep for at least an hour. After one hour, whisk the yolks and sugar to ribbon stage. Add the inverted sugar to the milk and return to the fire. Bring to a scald again and slowly temper into the yolk mixture. Pour back into the pot and cook on a low flame, stirring constantly until the base thickens and leaves a path on the back of a spoon when you run your finger across it. Strain into an ice bath. Add the heavy cream and cool. Cover and place in the refrigerator. Let stand overnight to improve flavor. Then and churn in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s directions.

The shell is made with a pate sucrée, one of the most incredible crusts in the world in my opinion. The filling is done with a high percentage dark chocolate. Somewhere in the range of 62 - 65 percent. The contrast of the lemon with a lower percentage chocolate is a little too cloying for me.

To make the pate sucrée:
500g AP flour, sifted
375g unsalted butter
175g sugar
75g blanched almond flour
75g 10x sugar
6g salt
100g whole eggs
1 van. Bean, scraped

Cream Butter, salt, van. seed and sugar together in the kitchen aid until just malleable. Add almond flour and 10x sugar and combine. Add eggs and flour, alternating ending on flour. Be careful not to overwork the dough. Wrap and refrigerate. Roll, portion and bake, blind, in a 350 degree oven until golden brown.

For the ganache filling:
225g 61% chocolate
225g cream
25g trimoline
10g liquid glucose
60g butter, soft
26g lemon juice

Heat cream, trimoline and glucose until it just reaches a boil. Pour over chocolate and stir to emulsify. Add softened butter and stir to melt and incorporate. Add lemon juice. Pour into shells and refrigerate to set.

For the salted caramel sauce:
50g sugar
200g cream
125g white chocolate
15g butter, soft
2g salt

Mix sugar with a little water and cook in saucepan until it reaches a light caramel. Heat cream, and whisk into caramel. Pour over white chocolate and stir. Add softened butter and salt. Refrigerate.

For the chocolate sauce:
300g sugar
300ml water
200g cream
125g cocoa powder

Heat water and sugar to a boil. Pour over cocoa powder and whisk smooth. Place back on the heat and bring to a boil. Strain into ice bath and add cream. Refrigerate.

For the candied pistachios:
Pistachios
Salt
sugar

Place pistachios, sugar, salt and a little water in a bowl. Stir and place over heat. Constantly stir with a wooden spoon. Be careful not to burn nuts. As the sugar melts, scrape onto sides to allow crystallization. When the sound of sand appears, remove from heat and continue stirring until it crystallizes fully. Cool and pulverize in a coffee grinder.

For the whipped crème fraiche:
Crème fraiche
10x sugar
1 van. bean

Whip crème fraiche, enough 10x to sweeten and the seeds from 1 vanilla bean until stiff. Refrigerate.

Call me strange, but I really don’t care for the flavor of apples as much as I like the flavor of pears. And thankfully, even in my neck of the woods, there are numerous varieties of them to choose from nowadays. Thinking back to my days making classic restaurant apple tarts and tart tatin, I wanted to do something for thanksgiving that likened to those, but were centered around the pear.

I decided on a roasted pear tart. Wanting to capture the flavor of a tart tatin, it’s got a caramelized crust on top… much like a crème brûlée. It sits on a pâte sablée crust, which is one of my favorite doughs of all time practically. The pears themselves were cooked much in the fashion of an old family apple tart, just out of the crust.

For the pâte sablée:
135g unsalted butter
120g sugar
55g egg yolks
4g vanilla extract
3g salt
9g baking powder
180g AP flour
1 egg for egg wash

Sift the flour and baking powder together. Cream the butter and sugar until very light. Add the salt, vanilla, egg yolks scraping down the bowl. Then add the flour mix until just combined. Be careful not to overwork the dough. Chill in the refrigerator.
Roll dough to a thickness of about 1/3 inch. Cut into the shape you like to fit the mold you are using. Brush with egg wash and bake in a 350 degree oven until golden brown.

For the pears:
This tart is held together loosely by gelatin. For 10 pears, two sheets will work well. Bloom in cold water. Select any variety that you’d like. I like to mix it up with several kinds. Peel and core them. Chop into a large dice. Saute in butter, sugar and vanilla beans until nicely caramelized. Place in a 325 degree oven and continue cooking until just softened. Melt the gelatin n a microwave until just liquefied. Add to the warm pears.
Place sablée into bottom of mold. Add pears to fill on top, pressing down to ensure that there aren’t any spaces. Try for a nice level top. Place in refrigerator to set.
When ready to serve, remove from mold and sprinkle with demerrara sugar. Caramelize with a torch.

There are flavors that classically are intertwined. Those include things like: chocolate and raspberries, balsamic vinegar and strawberries and blueberries with lemon. One of my personal favorites is coffee and bananas.For this dessert I’ve also added two other primary flavors which blend with the others very well. Those are chocolate and Sambuca.

My ideal makeup for a dessert incorporates several different textures, flavors and temperatures. I like to limit it to 3, maybe 4 key flavor elements. The approach with this dessert is a coffee panna cotta with a circle of caramelized bananas on top. These are ringed by a sambuca foam and topped with a chocolate caviar.

For the Panna Cotta:
340g. heavy cream
80g whole coffee beans
1 vanilla bean
6g leaf gelatin
115g sugar
200g mascarpone
100g half and half

Bloom the gelatin leaves in water. Place the heavy cream and coffee beans into a heavy saucepan. Split and scrape the vanilla bean and add to the cream. Heat gently until scalded. Cover and let steep for at least an hour. Blend the mascarpone and half and half together with a rubber spatula. Be careful not to break the cheese by beating it too hard.After the steeping period is over, gently re-warm the cream with the sugar added. Add the gelatin and the mascarpone. Strain and portion.

For the cocoa caviar:
(I’ve made some of this recipe in volume because the size of some of the ingredients is too small for most scales to measure)
118g sugar
55g glucose
2 T cocoa powder
100g water
1/8t locust bean gum
1g agar agar

2 cups very cold vegetable oil (around 32 degrees F.)

Cook sugar and glucose together to a rich caramel. Make sure you wash down the sides with a brush to prevent crystallization. Deglaze with the water then mix in cocoa. Whisk in Agar and the Locust Bean Gum, bring to a simmer. Strain and cool slightly, but retain a little warmth to prevent solidifying. Fill a squirt bottle with a very small tip. Drop into cold oil. You can vary the size of drops with hand pressure.

For the Sambuca foam:
250g whole milk
55g Sambuca
50g sugar
1g powdered lecithin

Heat milk with sugar to a scald. Whisk in lecithin. Pull off heat and add Sambuca. Reserve.

To make the Banana circles and finish:
Sliced bananas (try to not make a bias cut)
melted butter
Demerrara sugar

Arrange banana slices on parchment paper squares. Form them into a circle around a half inch smaller than the container your panna cotta is in. Overlap each slice so it forms a tight ring. Coat with melted butter and store in the refrigerator. Coating them will make them easier to handle and will also delay oxydization. When ready, remove from the refigerator and sprinkle with demerrara sugar. Caramelize with torch until evenly brown. Try to move quickly, if heated too long the bananas will start sliding apart. Let cool and place on top of the panna cottas. Place Sambuca milk in a container that will leave you with at least 3 inches of side above the milk. Take a hand immersion blender and froth the milk. Spoon the bubbles around the edge of the bananas. Top with a spoon full of cocoa caviar.

First I removed all of the front clip:

And yes, there’s some stuff hanging down that’s going to be moved. Here you can see where my old tow hook brackets mounted. One tug and they bent:

While I was taking care of this, I decided to add a additional transmission cooler to the system. With our travel plans for the future, and the addition of a trailer, it made sense. I mounted it in front of the condenser, towards the siede where the mechanical fan is:

Here you can see where I plumbed it into the return line to the transmission:

Continued in part 2..

For now, this is what I’ve finished up with:

Still to come is mounting the new firestone NDT’s:

I almost always have a sweet risotto on my menus. I have always had a love for rice puddings… As I’ve grown I’ve taken to elaborating more and more on the flavor combinations I can explore, and they really are the epitome of my dessert mantra. They have warm, sweetened rice, cold sorbet or ice cream and a nice flavor contrast.

For this late summer menu, I’ve concentrated on a tropical version.

For the Lime Risotto:
113g arborio rice
710ml whole milk
232g cream
75g sugar
1 van bean, scraped
zest of 2 limes
juice of 1 lime
10ml dark rum

Combine the rice, milk , cream. sugar and vanilla seeds in a heavy saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and cook, stirring frequently, until the rice is cooked. It’s very important to stir constantly to avoid sticking and burning on the bottom. Cool and add rum, lime zest and lime juice.Cover and refrigerate.

For the sorbet syrup:
375g water
75g atomized glucose
300g sugar
7g sorbet stabilizer

Heat water, glucose and 2/3’s of the suagr together in a heavy saucepan. Mix remaining sugar with stabilizer and whisk into water/sugar mix. Bring to a boil and strain.
Chill and let mature 24 hrs.

For the Coconut Sorbet:
500g coconut puree
160g water
600g sorbet syrup
juice of 1 lime

Blend the puree, water, sorbet syrup and lime juice together. Process in a batch freezer or other ice cream maker.

For the Thai Basil caramel:
56g water
226g sugar

56g water
150g thai basil puree

make a very light caramel with the first water and sugar. Deglaze with the remaining water, and add the thai basil puree to it. Chill.

Small dice tropical fruit will be used for the center garnish. It should be contrasting in both taste and acidity levels… alittle difference in color is nice also. Dicing the fruit and letting them macerate for a day is best. That gives the fruit time to release it’s liquids and fully develop in flavor.

To serve:
Warm the risotto. Place a ring in the center of a bowl, spoon the salsa into the middle and pack it down a bit, this will prevent it from collapsing under the weight of the sorbet. Spoon risotto around the ring. Drizzle a cordon of thai basil caramel around the outside. Remove the ring and place a scoop of sorbet on top.

It’s down to the bare frame now:

A bunch of surface rust mainly, nothing rotted through. I’ll be putting a completely new spring set-up in.The old springs, shackles and such would only come out with a cutting wheel. Looks like I’ve got a few days of grinding ahead of me. After grinding, the frame will be cated in POR15, then painted in a chassis coat… probably black. Just because.

The parts bin is growing:

The two biggest areas of concern for me (besides rust of course!), is that the lunette has been cut off and had a 1 7/8 hitch welded over it. Not such a bad thing, except they also welded the lunette into the recepticle. My two options are to find a new lunette housing (preferred), or just cut off the remaining length of lunette and use the upper lunette mount. My hold backs to that are that a) it will look bad and b) the upper mount will probably give me difficulty in height for my hitch.

The other “modification” was to cut the rear panel out and replace it with a slide in tailgate. To make matters worse, the individual also welded angle iron to brace the sides. Unfortunately, he also welded them to the frame. So getting the tub off will require a bit of cutting. I’m still planning on how to attack that issue. I don’t mind a tailgate, I just would like it to come down and function as a table of sorts.
Check back for more progress!