The Basil and Macadamia Nut Double Feature! or, Dinner AND Dessert

Today's post has been a long time in coming.  A year ago last week, I was in Berlin, Germany, on a stop of my first Grand Tour of Europe (I spent last St. Patrick's Day in Athens, Greece!).  My roommate was at the time studying in Berlin, so we hatched this awesome plan in which I would stop by through my traversing of the Old World and say hi.

Nollendorfplatz, our stop in Berlin

It was wonderful (and cold), and, while she was dragging me from one end of the city to the other, we managed to walk by this random Australian restaurant, where she had once eaten macadamia nut pesto.  We made plans to return to the restaurant to try this fascinating pesto creation, but my time in Berlin was just too short and we ended up getting side-tracked by this amazing thing called pesto gouda.  (P.S. If you're in Germany or the Netherlands and would like to mail me some pesto gouda, I will be forever in your debt! *hint hint*)  Anyways, at last, a few weeks ago, I got down to replicating macadamia nut pesto, and, the results, I have to say (and according to my roommate), were fantastic:

Because of the macadamia nuts, this is seriously the richest, smoothest, most buttery pesto that I have ever tasted.  Creamy.  That's the word for this pesto.  It was awesome.  My roommate and I slathered it on all sorts of pastas--gnocchi, spaghetti, penne--and gobbled it all down.  We might even try it with pizza at some point.  That could potentially be epic.

The pesto is actually quite different from the basil pesto that I normally make, which has more basil than pine nuts.  This pesto, as I was instructed by my roommate, has more macadamia nuts than basil, so you get just a hint of the light freshness of basil coming out over the rich creaminess of the macadamia nuts.  Add some really good parmegiano reggiano cheese, garlic, freshly ground black pepper, and salt, and voila! an excellent (and exceptionally fast) dinner.

Of course, being me and this being a dessert blog, I couldn't really stop there.  As I was gathering the ingredients for the macadamia nut pesto, it struck me: chocolate would also be amazingly good with the same combination of flavors.  Plus, I needed to do *something* to use up the big boxes of organic basil that I bought.  (The sales girl did ask me quizzically what I was doing with all that basil.)  So, I present to you, the Basil and Macadamia Nut Double Feature:

That's right.  I took the same ingredients from dinner (save the tomatoes) and ported them over to a dessert, a basil-macadamia nut dark chocolate tart, to be exact.  There's even olive oil and generous flecks of sea salt in that tart:

The combination of basil, macadamia nut, olive oil, sea salt, and dark chocolate came out beautifully.  The crust is made of macadamia nuts and home-dried basil--buttery, flaky, and fragrant.  I whisked olive oil into the dark chocolate ganache, giving it this incredible sheen and subtle fruitiness.  Topping it all off with liberal amounts of sea salt really made the chocolate pop when you took a bite.

The overall result is a delectable dessert that's rich yet light at the same time and not at all overly sweet or saccharine, making it a perfect post-dinner treat that doesn't leave you completely, belt-bustingly full.  One person who tried it couldn't stop congratulating me on it for a few days.  And, the slight green color of the crust adds an air of mystery to the tart (yet, it doesn't look unappetizingly like kryptonite).  I took the finished product to a department dinner, and it was a great conversation starter: "What is that?  Mint?  Avocado?  Apple? Leprechaun?"

So, what started out as a long-awaited fulfillment of a promise in Berlin turned into a wonderful experiment of using the same ingredients in both dinner and dessert and ended up with an awesomely delicious chocolate tart recipe!  But, that's not to say that I wouldn't want to go back to Berlin to try the actual restaurant... or for more pesto gouda, which is, incidentally, startlingly kermit-the-frog green.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day, all!

Read on for both savory and sweet recipes...

Key (Lime) to My Heart

Yet another dessert from the vast dessert table I did for Maria and Nick's wedding this past weekend (comprehensive post coming soon, I promise)!  At our first meeting, Nick mentioned that he really liked key lime pie, so I knew that I wanted, no matter what, to include it in the dessert menu.  But man, oh man! Squeezing key limes is one hell of a pain.  I've joked with several people now that if I were to open my own bakeshop and sell key lime pie, I would *have* to hire someone I couldn't stand and force them to squeeze key limes for by hand.  Or, just get someone who really enjoyed eating key lime pies.  Anyways! if you dare, I'll include the recipe here.  Or, if you have one of those handy dandy juice squeezers, you're golden, and I'm very jealous.

Key lime pie

with graham cracker crust

and dark/white chocolate hearts

By the way, these heart shaped mini-pans are just awesome.  I got mine at Sur la Table, though I couldn't find them online when I looked.  I also have the round version, which I did find on the website.  They're great pans, and mousses, cakes, cheesecakes, or tarts that I make with them always slide right out.  (of course, if you're paranoid like me, you'll take the time to line the bottoms with parchment and spray a bit of non-stick...)

Now onto the recipe (and chocolate hearts)!

Key Lime Pie

makes ~24 mini hearts

for graham cracker crust (this will make a bit more crust that you need, but better to have too much than not enough, in my book)

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (I just run store-bought graham crackers through a food processor)
1/2 tspn ground cinnamon
1/3 cup melted butter

1. Combine graham cracker crumbs and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Mix in butter.
2. Press the crumb mixture into (sprayed and lined) the bottoms of the pans, about 1 Tbspn per heart.  Use something like the side of a small rolling pin to press the crumb mixture into the bottom of the pan and a little bit up the sides.
3. Put the crust in the freezer while making the filling.

for filling

2 14oz. cans condensed milk (Trader Joe's has great organic condensed milk for cheap)
8 large egg yolks (save those whites for meringues/macarons!)
2-3 Tbspn key lime zest
1 cup key lime juice (~25 key limes... have fun!)
green food coloring (I used gel coloring, so please adjust as needed)

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Combine milk, yolks, zest, and juice in a bowl.  Whisk until smooth.  Whisk in one to two drops of food coloring for a light green color.
3. Pour mixture into the crumb-prepared pans, filling about to about two-thirds full.  Bake for 13-15 minutes until the center looks set but moves like jello when you give the pan a bit of a gentle shake.
4. Remove from oven and let cool completely.  Keep the pies in the pans until you are ready to serve.

To make chocolate hearts:

Melt chopped chocolate gradually in the microwave in a microwave-safe bowl or in a double boiler.  Pour the melted chocolate into a disposable piping bag or parchment triangle.  Be careful! The chocolate is very hot!  If it's too hot to hold, wrap a dish towel or paper towel around it so you don't burn your hands.  Then, pipe small heart shapes on a piece of parchment paper or Silpat.  Allow the chocolate to cool completely, and then peel off the parchment paper.  These hearts are made of untempered chocolate, so they are very delicate and should be kept in the fridge.  I use a pair of chopsticks to arrange them on the pies, but food-safe tweezers are also useful.  :-)











So one last story about the key lime pies.  As I was cleaning up the dessert table and consolidating the few remaining morsels onto two platters, a wedding guest comes up to me and asks, "Are there any more of those key lime pies?"  When I told him no, his face just completely fell!  He was so disappointed that I felt so bad I hadn't made more.  But, at the very least, I take it as a sign that all that key lime squeezing and juicing really paid off.

A golf cake birthday

For B, who really likes to golf:

Yellow cake
with chocolate fudge frosting and fresh strawberries
covered with a thin layer of strawberry cream cheese frosting
and homemade marzipan.

Decorations were mostly royal icing, gum paste, or marzipan.