take two: brie en croute

Today is Bastille Day! What better way to celebrate le quatorze juillet (or even just a random Tuesday) than with some melty French cheese tucked inside a deliciously flaky crust. Here is Christine's take on the très mouthwatering brie en croûte.

Serving a wedge of brie at a party is a sure crowd-pleaser, but wrap it in puff pastry and bake it, and it’s downright showstopping.

Every time I serve the French specialty brie en croûte, it’s gone by mid-party. No one has any shame about eating the last bit. I’ve seen people spy the last of the brie, pick up the plate right off of the serving table, and walk away with it. I take it as a compliment.

This dish also makes a perfectly satisfying meal accompanied by a green salad — think of it as inverted fondue.

Brie en Croûte

• A round of brie
• Puff pastry (thawed)
• 1/8 to 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup pecans
• Cinnamon to taste
• Egg white, slightly beaten
• Apples and or pear slices

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll out pastry with rolling pin until it can envelop the brie. Place brie on pastry and sprinkle with brown sugar, pecans and cinnamon. Close pastry around brie. Seal edges by brushing with egg white, then pinching together. Brush rest of pastry with remaining egg white. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes or until brown. Serve with apples or pears.

Brie en Croûte

• A round of brie
• Puff pastry (thawed)
• 1/8 to 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup pecans
• Cinnamon to taste
• Egg white, slightly beaten
• Apples and or pear slices

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll out pastry with rolling pin until it can envelop the brie. Place brie on pastry and sprinkle with brown sugar, pecans and cinnamon. Close pastry around brie. Seal edges by brushing with egg white, then pinching together. Brush rest of pastry with remaining egg white. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes or until brown. Serve with apples or pears.

question of the week: summer drinks

Certain drinks have a way of conjuring up images of summertime. A daiquiri brings to mind lounging in a poolside chaise, a Mai Tai says sunset at the beach while a glass of Sangria sends you to a backyard barbecue.

Tell us which drink says summer to you.

pie dough change-o

In my family, the leftover pie dough is as big a deal as the actual pie. We make Dum-Dums out of them—a cinnamony pinwheel cookie whose name origin nobody recalls and appears to have no logic.

I adore these cookies, and they only appear around the holidays, so they’re a real treat. They won't win any beauty contests, but they're awfully tasty and smell divine. Once, my family made Dum-Dums and ate them all before I awoke. I was SO MAD. Perhaps it was my own fault since I slept in so late—that was my family’s stance—but I felt deeply wronged.

Recently I discovered these cookies don’t have to be a holidays-only kind of thing. I made a pie for a potluck, and, as is customary in my family, I used a recipe that gives you enough dough to cover the top of the pie, but then I didn’t cover it. I made Dum-Dums with the extra dough and served them to a friend one early evening. As it turned out, they are the perfect little sweet thing to serve a guest. I told my friend the story of the all the Dum-Dums being gone before I awoke. After eating one, she said: “I would have been mad about that, too.”

Dum-Dums

Leftover pie dough
Butter, melted
Brown sugar
Cinnamon
Nuts, finely chopped (optional)

Measurements are impossible for this recipe since it all depends on how much leftover pie dough you have. (Or make the pie dough, skip the pie and bake these.)

Preheat oven to 325.

Roll out the dough so it’s about 1/8 inch thick. Brush with melted butter. Cover with a layer of brown sugar—add as much as you think you’d like. Sprinkle with cinnamon and nuts, if using. (Pecans are a nice addition.) Roll dough into a log, then slice into roughly 1/4-inch slices. Put on baking sheet and brush with more butter, if desired. Bake for about 15 minutes or until dough is cooked but not brown.

Best served warm.

on the cuff

The baby shower world has lots of knickknacks for the new mom-to-be — beauty products, jewelry, scrapbooks, etc. But dads have a way of getting overlooked in the gift department.

Now snazzy dads everywhere can present the newest members of their family by way of these sonogram cuff links. They're subtle, sleek and the perfect way to be a proud dad-to-be.

spike it

When it comes to ice cream floats, two options come to mind: root beer or Coke. I never thought there was more to the float world.

Then, one quiet day, the folks of Tastings in New York told me about an entirely new float. These floats were a giant hit at their summer parties. They involved alcohol. Also fruit. The visionary creation? Prosecco floats!

Bon Appetit introduced Tastings to the light-alcoholic-fizziness-meets-strawberry-sorbato combo. And the drink is, I’ve decided, the perfect hot-day refresher. It's also such a pretty addition to a bridal or baby shower. And while Bon App’s homemade sorbato (sorbet-meets-gelato) sounds delicious and not-that-hard-to-make, my approach is especially low-tech.

Spiked Floats

Place 1-2 scoops of store-bought sorbet of your choice—Haagen-Dazs’ strawberry, raspberry and peach are all great. Fill glass with Prosecco or other sparkling wine; 7 Up also works for a teetotaler version. Add 3 or so raspberries or other pretty fruit. Serve.

And be forewarned: This opens up an entire world of spiked floats. After this, I was an unstoppable-spiked-float force. I created what I call a Southern Spritzer by adding the leftover peach sorbet to 7 Up and bourbon and am officially smitten with this drink. I’m now contemplating my next spiked float move….

question of the week: songs of summer

Seems like every summer there's a new batch of songs that get everyone singing and dancing at parties. And this summer has no shortage of catchy beats and quoted lyrics. 

Tell us what tunes you'll be rocking at your get-togethers this summer. (Unless, of course, you're so 2000 and late.)

twiigs.com

4th of july recipe roundup

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Fireworks, check. Charcoal briquettes, check. Sunscreen, check. You're ready for your big 4th of July party. Or are you? Do you have a that cocktail that everyone's going to be asking for more of? How about a summery dessert?

Never fear — we've gone back into our recipe vault to bring you some oldies but goodies to cap off your bash.

• Frozen whiskey sours: They're sweet and citrusy and the perfect cocktail to chill the masses while waiting for the sun to go down.
• Watermelon granita: This dessert takes the ultimate summertime fruit and freezes it into delicious icy goodness. We even tell you how to spike it for the grownups.
• Fruit dip: It doesn't get any easier than this creamy concoction. With ingredients you probably already have in your cabinets, you can whip it up and just add fruit.

a little layering

 

Sometimes you want your cocktail to say “America.” I know I do. So with July 4th on the horizon, I decided to create a red, white and blue striped beverage to toast our country. I figured learning to layer a drink would be easy enough.

I was wrong.

Not that I was unprepared. I did some research on layering drinks and discovered heavy liquids should go at the bottom, lighter ones at the top. So I decided to start with a grenadine syrup-based concoction; blue curacao would be my middle; and a light, white-ish Prosecco would top the whole thing off. The layers would be in the nontraditional red, blue and white order, but people would get the idea. Also discovered during my research: You should pour liquids over the back of a spoon to help them disperse.

get the scoop

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I love ice cream novelties. By which I mean, I will happily accept any frozen treat served on a stick, squished between two cookies or served in a small tub with a flat, wooden, totally unhelpful spoon.

I've also just realized that I'm a fan of novelties in the field of ice cream too. Here are three cool ones:

• Ice Cream Scoop & Stack — These cylinder-shaped scoops look extra fancy and make it far easier to stack on a cone. (Cuisipro)
• Power Scoop & Well — We all have our tricks for cutting through ice-cold ice cream, but this combo takes it to another level. The microwavable bowl heats up water and keeps it hot (unlike the traditional cup of water method), and the scoop has a pointed tip to dig into the hardest ice cream. (Prepara)
• Ice Cream Sandwich Molds — Wouldn't a good ice cream sandwich taste even better if it were shaped like a star or a heart? Sounds hard, but these molds seem to make it easy: First you use them to cut the cookie shapes, then you use the press to make the ice cream middle. (Tovolo)

chocolate fix, fixed

I have this horrible habit of attempting far more than is reasonable when I entertain. Lately, I’m trying to rein myself in.

I had a successful foray in restraint when I prepared an Easter dinner and decided to nix the homemade apricot custard tart I was planning in favor of a build-your-own-s’meeps station. The s’meeps were a hit (mainly for their sheer kookiness), and, quite frankly, a good lesson for me in successful-yet-totally feasible entertaining.

So when friends invited me over for dinner recently and gave me dessert duty, I decided to go interactive again. But this time with five-minute microwavable individual chocolate cakes.

First, I’ll give you the recipe—it’s from a forward my mother sent me that doesn’t list the original source of the recipe. (Sorry, Original Source Person—speak up if you’re out there!) Next, I’ll tell you how my friends and I fared on the project.