Sometimes you fall in love with the right person at the right time and sometimes you don’t. Same with fruit. In the Northeast, raspberries are ready in August, and I have no business buying them on the outside of March. I was walking the dog with no coat and no hat and it was the deep dark pink of a Spring tulip pressing into bloom on a third grey day of rain that drove me to it. I needed to eat the sun. I bought the raspberries, a half pint of heavy cream and just in case the reality of the raspberries was they looked better than they tasted the morning after, French raspberry jam.
Make a shortbread crust: 1 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of cold, unsalted butter cut into cubes, pinch of salt and 1/4 cup of sugar. Rub the butter into the flour and bake at 400 degrees in a pan with releasable sides, until it begins to go golden around the edges.
Smash the raspberries with a fork and add a little raw sugar, and a few spoonfuls of jam to taste. Whip the cream with a dot of pure vanilla extract and a tiny shower of confectioners sugar, until it begins to thicken. When the crust is cooled, and just before serving, spread the raspberry mixture over the top, and nearly cover with the whipped cream. Serve with a side car of dark chocolate.
3 thoughts on “Raspberry Tryst”
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I’m falling in love.
When you say “Rub the butter into the flour” does that mean you just slightly combine them together? In the pan? Or do you mash them together into a ball of dough and then put it in the pan? Please elaborate because I want, I want.
Use a bowl. Add the flour, salt and sugar and mix them up with a whisk. Cut the butter into tiny half inch cubes. You want to rub them into the flour until the flour is completely incorporated, but the crumb of the stuff is uneven–some bits a little bigger than others. Press this into the pan (9 inch) with your fingertips.
ah yes. ok, got it.