Blackberry Fool

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Blackberry Fool

Blackberry Fool

The spring sun has struck me with an incurable fever. Even though snowflakes were falling from the sky just this morning, I long to shed my winter coat and find myself no longer craving the hearty soups and dishes of winter. My mind has begun spinning towards lighter fare and short sleeves. I have begun craving the sweetness of a ripe strawberry and the bold tartness of a stalk of rhubarb in vivid detail. If I shut my eyes tightly, with the sun streaking through the window late into the evening, I can almost pretend the world outside is green and ready to be planted with seeds of rebirth.

I shall never take for granted the arrival of spring again.

Blackberry Fool

Craving a feeling, person, or place brings out a yearning in our heads all the way down to our toes. When our heart's desire is out of reach, we find a way to bring it closer through hope and longing and daydreams. These wishes, both small and large, sustain us as we wait for our cravings to be sated. They sustain us until our cravings come to pass.

I am craving spring. I am craving green grass, the smell of new growth, the touch of a warm sidewalk, the sweetness of a beautiful, red ripe strawberry. The hunger grows daily. As the sun sets later each evening, my appetite becomes insufferable. Knowing warmer weather will be around the corner keeps my spirit up as I dream of the long walks I will take once this winter is done.

Soon, soon, soon.

Blackberry Fool

A "fool" is a traditional English fruit dish originating in the sixteenth century. The dessert was most commonly made with gooseberries, but a variety of fruits from raspberries to apples can be used its place. The three main ingredients to a fool are pureed fruit, whipped cream, and a sprinkling of sugar. For this Blackberry Fool, I used fresh blackberries with whipped cream and a seedless blackberry jam.

This may be a more modern take on a traditional dessert, but the result is the same—delight. Feel free to try out other berries with matching flavors of jam, such as blueberries or strawberries, to play around with flavors and preferences.

Blackberry Fool Blackberry Fool

Blackberry Fool is a light, sweet ending to a spring or summer meal. Seedless blackberry jam is folded into whipped cream and layered into a glass with fresh blackberries. The contrast between the sweet bite of the berries and the smooth quality of the whipped cream makes the dessert simple, yet elegant. This traditional English dessert can be served for a small dinner party or an evening that calls for something special.

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Coconut Whipped Cream

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Coconut Whipped Cream

Coconut Whipped Cream

Since becoming both a baker and a blogger, I have noticed an intrinsic change in the way I approach, prepare, and appreciate food. In many ways, I anticipated that a small evolution would take place when I carefully typed out my first post, but I could not have imagined how much it would affect (and continue to affect) my life.

When I started blogging, it was out of desperate desire to find a passion for myself, a need to express the confused emotions and excitement of growing up and coming into my own. I latched onto the idea that baking was where I should be, clutching onto the hope as if it was the only life saver in my ocean of feelings. There was no evidence to support these feelings—I did not bake often and knew very little about it—but I was so frantic to find something to call my own that this indomitable mountain did not seem to matter. When I began blogging, I started from scratch. I taught myself how to create desserts through trial and error. I experimented with yeast, rolled out pie crusts, and stumbled around the kitchen, sharing these moments of discovery with you.

Coconut Whipped Cream

I have met people who have changed the way I think about food. While I lived in Montreal, my roommate unknowingly shared her philosophy of cooking and eating over the dinner table each evening, as she consistently prepared fresh and healthy foods (a feat I had yet to master). She took me to the local farmer's market and shared her thoughts about fruits and vegetables, as we wandered through the colorful, vibrant aisles with our market bags growing increasingly heavier. Though her wisdom was disguised as everyday conversation, she unconsciously taught me to treat my body with respect. Looking back, it was a lesson I needed to learn more than I understood.

By chance, I once listened to a segment on the radio in which Nigella Lawson talked about her perspective on summer fruits. Her passion was so evident and her descriptions so vivid that I was swept up in her approach to food. Her words affected me so deeply that I can recall them several years later.

Coconut Whipped Cream

In those early months of discovery, when I could not have anticipated what my approach to food would become, I imagined myself making colorful cakes and using sprinkles on everything from cookies to ice cream cakes. My real evolution has taken me by surprise—a mixture of rusticity, homespun flavors, and what I hope to be honesty. I am driven by the seasons and fall prey to my whims and cravings. What started as a desperate compulsion to find a passion has matured into a journey of butter, sugar, and self-discovery.

Any path that leads to something so simple and elegant as coconut whipped cream is a path I deem worth following.

Coconut Whipped Cream

Coconut Whipped Cream is a dairy-free/vegan alternative to traditional whipped cream. The natural fat content of coconut milk makes it possible to whip it up with a mixer, creating soft peaks. While coconut whipped cream is not as stiff as whipped cream, the flavor is immaculate and can be spooned over any dessert of your choosing. The natural subtlety of coconut, along with a few vanilla bean seeds, makes this whipped cream memorable.

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Summer Berry Pavlova

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Summer Berry Pavlova

Summer Berry Pavlova

Heat is oppressive. It wasn't until this summer that I fully began to understand the effects of a never-ending swelter. With a heatwave lasting the length of the sunny season bearing down on me, cool air has seemingly become a luxury of the past. I now realize just how often I took air conditioning (and a hundred other little things) for granted since I moved into a new apartment in a new city.

I used to think heat was glamorous. After reading books set in the deep south such as The Secret Life of Bees and watching movies like Gone With the Wind, my perspective has become skewed. I imagine pretty girls in patterned dresses drinking lemonade on the back porch and fanning themselves with a good book to stave off the sultriness of summer.

Oh, was I wrong.

Summer Berry Pavlova

My apartment is on the top floor of a building; when temperatures rise, the heat in the building rises, and I'm left with a kitchen that could pass for a sauna. The blazing sun has become an unwelcome sight in my windows. Keeping the blinds closed has become something of a survival tactic, as my apartment converts into a stifled cave when I struggle to keep out the heat. I have a small wall air conditioner, but it is useless against the rising heat of the building, scarcely lowering the temperature after running for most of the day.

The heat rarely registers below ninety degrees in my living room and I am starting to understand how food roasting in the oven must feel. At night the temperature impossibly rises as I strip the bed of sheets and fall into a fitful sleep in the path of an industrial fan. I've suffered bouts of heat exhaustion simply from lying on the couch in a heat induced stupor for too long, exhausted and dehydrated from doing absolutely nothing.

Summer Berry Pavlova

There is nothing glamorous about heat. I couldn't have been more wrong in my fantasies of the women of the south and their glasses of lemonade and magazine fans. Now, after living in my own little "deep south," I can appreciate how much people do suffer in the heat, with humidity so high that it suffocates and air so still it feels like a boa constrictor slowing wrapping itself around your body. Heat is really just sweat, frizzy hair, and dreams of crawling into the freezer next to the frozen vegetables.

Last weekend, my parents held a small summer party and I offered to make a couple desserts. Outside in the hot summer air, these Summer Berry Pavlovas were a cool treat to serve and impress. They are light and delicate, which is a lovely quality during the dog days of summer when a bowl of cold cereal is good enough to call dinner.

Summer Berry Pavlova

This Summer Berry Pavlova is sweet, light, and fresh. The pavlova is a large meringue with a crisp exterior and a soft, marshmallow-like interior. When the pavolva cools, the center collapses, revealing a cavity that is filled with a white chocolate whipped cream. The pavlova is topped with fresh raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries, with white chocolate shavings and a dusting of powdered sugar. These are a cool delight when the heat is high and friends are near.

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