Panna Cotta with Salted Caramel Sauce

Andrew and I are back from a whirlwind anniversary trip to Paris, and it was truly wonderful. We visited everything on our list and more. We're still going through the pictures, which will make their way to Facebook very soon. For our anniversary, June 16, Andrew took me to a beautiful little restaurant called A la Petite Chaise. Billed as the oldest restaurant in Paris (1680!), it specializes in simple but gourmet French cuisine. When I went to Paris with Grandmama in 2005, she took me here; my beloved cousin Julia went here on her trip with Grandmama as well, and revisited when she came back to Paris for her 25th birthday. My memories of Grandmama were very strong that day, especially since, a year before, Andrew and I chose to have our wedding on what would have been my grandparents' 56th anniversary--and in the same church.

Dinner at A la Petite Chaise was incredible, but the true stunner--for me--came with the dessert. Andrew ordered his first crême brûlée, and I ordered something called the café gourmand. It was a cup of strong French coffee (already a winner) with all these little desserts--bits and tastes of other things on the menu. I had a pistachio macaron, some chocolate, and this incredible panna cotta with salted caramel sauce. The waiter told me that I couldn't leave until I finished it. I told him that it was so good, there would be no problem. Andrew loved his crême brûlée, but he helped me with my panna cotta quite a bit!

When I came home, I instantly started looking for recipes. I think it came out really well. Maybe I've been watching a lot of Masterchef and Hell's Kitchen lately (I have) but I think Gordon Ramsay would approve. The only hard part is stirring the sugar as it becomes caramel, which can count as today's workout. I recommend watching some Gordon Ramsay cooking shows for motivation.

Panna Cotta, from David Lebovitz
Makes 8 servings.
This recipe recommends serving your panna cotta with berries, which is probably delicious as well. I might try it with some of my leftover panna cotta servings--except for the large quantity of leftover caramel sauce I'm dealing with. Why can't I ever bring myself to halve a recipe?

Pour 6 tablespoons cold water into a large bowl. Open 2 packets of unflavored gelatin and sprinkle the contents over the water. Let stand for 5-10 minutes.

In a saucepan, heat 4 cups heavy cream and 1/2 cup sugar. This can't be anything but good for you! Although the original recipe didn't specify, I used medium-high heat. You want it to be warm enough to dissolve the gelatin in a minute.

When the sugar is dissolved, take the cream and sugar off the burner and stir in 2 teaspoons vanilla extract. Then pour the warm cream mixture over the gelatin in the bowl and stir, stir, stir until the gelatin is all dissolved.

Pour the panna cotta into a serving cup, or into a lightly oiled custard cup if you want to unmold it onto the plate. I used some beautiful crystal wine glasses and didn't have to worry about unmolding anything. Place the panna cotta in the fridge for 2-4 hours.

Salted Caramel Sauce, from Two Peas & Their Pod
Makes about 3 cups
Bring all your ingredients together, turn up the volume on your Gordon Ramsay show of choice and get ready. I used a non-nonstick pan, the kind with an aluminum interior, because I was worried about burning my caramel and wanted to be able to see more clearly. You'll need:

2 cups sugar, in a saucepan
12 tablespoons butter, at room temperature and cut into pieces
1 cup heavy cream, at room temperature
A tablespoon (or less) of salt. They recommended fleur de sel, but Publix does not seem to  carry it.

Put the sugar on medium-high heat and keep an eye on it. Once it starts to melt, start whisking. It will start to clump up into beautiful pale caramel sugar cubes, but keep whisking and it will keep melting. I have literally no concept of how long it took. At some point, you will get a beautiful clear, smooth caramel that is a dark amber color. The original recipe said you want to hit 350 degrees. I only got as high as 300 degrees and that was plenty for me. Like I said, I didn't want to burn this thing. Then I started adding the butter a few pieces at a time. This is fun because it bubbles up like the lava of Mount Doom in some Candyland-LOTR mashup. Whisk the butter in so it melts. Once all the butter is melted and mixed, take it off the heat.

Then slowly drizzle in the heavy cream for more caramely-Mount Doom bubbling. Keep whisking and add the salt at the end. Let it cool a few minutes before pouring it into your jar/wherever you are keeping it.

To serve with panna cotta, heat the caramel sauce for 30 seconds in the microwave and drizzle over the panna cotta just before serving.

Enjoy!

Derby Pie: Chocolate, Pecans and Bourbon, Oh My!

The Great Gatsby came out this weekend. Like everyone else in the world, I read it in high school and loved it. I especially remember wondering what a mint julep was--they seemed to always be drinking mint juleps! When I went off to W&L, mint juleps were a spring term tradition. Alumni weekend usually fell on Derby weekend, two forces conspiring for fraternity boys to descend upon the Lexington Kroger and clear it out of mint.

Last weekend, Andrew and I made plans to make mint juleps and watch the Kentucky Derby. So I made derby pie. It is the perfect, almost sinful combination of chocolate, pecans and bourbon. I used the America's Test Kitchen recipe almost exactly--aside from swapping pecans for walnuts, because pecans are better. Otherwise, it was perfect. You get a pretty strong taste of bourbon, which I love. The consistency of the pie would still be good if you left out the bourbon, but why would you do that?

Derby Pie from America's Test Kitchen
The star chefs at America's test kitchen recommend refrigerating and then freezing your crust before you bake it. I didn't do this, and I think it turned out fine. I would use pie weights if you have them. (I didn't, but my crust puffed up so much I finally went to Bed Bath & Beyond and dropped $5 on some ceramic weights the next day!)

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Cover your chilled pie crust with parchment paper and pie weights. I used my homemade pie crust (recipe here). Bake 20-25 minutes or until the dough doesn't look wet. Remove pie from oven, take off parchment paper and weights, and reduce temperature to 325 degrees.

Chop 3 ounces bittersweet chocolate into small pieces. Sprinkle the chocolate on the bottom of the hot crust and let it sit and melt. After 5 minutes, spread the chocolate into an even layer.

Cut 1 stick unsalted butter into small pieces. Melt it in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, until butter is a nutty brown. Remove from heat and slowly stir in 3 tablespoons bourbon. Let cool 5 minutes.

Whisk together 3/4 cup sugar, 1/2 cup light brown sugar, 2 tablespoons cornstarch and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Add 2 large eggs plus 1 yolk and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Slowly add the warm butter mixture.

Chop 1 1/2 cups walnuts or pecans. (America's Test Kitchen says to toast the nuts first; I didn't and thought they were still delicious.) Add nuts to the mixture and pour the whole filling into the chocolate-lined crust. Bake 35 to 40 minutes until center only jiggles a little. Cool on a wire rack for 4 hours, or in the fridge.

Candied Grapefruit Peel

We're moving toward Advent: a time to feather your nest, play John Rutter and cook up a storm. So today I'm sharing another Christmas classic: candied grapefruit peel. It takes something you'd normally throw away and makes it so delicious. My auntie Flo suggests dipping it in dark chocolate, but I love it plain. It's definitely a motivation to eat your grapefruit in the morning--Andrew and I have been saving our empty grapefruit halves in a Ziplock bag in the fridge. You could also make it with oranges, or really any citrus. Mommy helped Andrew and me make our first batch, seven grapefruits' worth, when she and Daddy were here a few weeks ago. Mommy always says that it is even more precious because of all the work that goes into it!

I'm posting the version of the recipe that Mommy wrote up a few years ago because it is full of her wisdom.

Candied Grapefruit Peel
This recipe comes from the original Joy of Cooking but obviously, it's much older. I love how it uses something you'd otherwise throw away (or compost).

Slice grapefruit peel into thin slices and remove all the pith (the white part). I use a small paring knife for this and it takes forever. A good movie and/or a glass of wine (or homemade egg nog) helps.

Cover peel with cold water and bring slowly to a boil. Drain thoroughly. Repeat 5 times. This removes the bitterness of the peel.

The peel, ready to go in the sugar syrup

Make a sugar syrup using 1/4 cup water and 1/2 cup sugar for the peel of one grapefruit or two oranges.

Boil the peel in the syrup until all syrup is absorbed. Cool slightly. Roll in granulated sugar and spread to dry. This part has to be done pretty quickly because if you let the syruped peel cool too much you can't spread it.

Sugared peel can be dipped in chocolate if desired.

Keeps a long time in a tin but a very short time in a dish (because you'll be eating it!).

Thanksgiving: Stuffing, Carrots and Pecan Pie

I'm back! As you may have noticed from the incessant Christmas ads, Thanksgiving is upon us. Thanksgiving is really one of my favorite holidays because it's so unpretentious. It's about eating a delicious meal with people you love. Better yet, it's about preparing a delicious meal with the people you love. It's worth waking up early to throw on an apron, watch the Macy's parade and brown flour for the gravy. Every family has their own traditions: in my family, it isn't Thanksgiving without rice, at least five types of cranberry sauce and wine jelly with boiled custard. Well, that isn't strictly true. We've had Thanksgiving with a lot of different people, not just with family in the same city every year, which I think is great: you can have the same holiday in many different ways. Which is why it's okay that I've married into a mashed potatoes family...

However, I firmly believe that Thanksgiving shouldn't be the only day of the year when you go all out and cook your favorite foods. For this reason (and because Andrew got a free turkey with his flu shot), we had turkey dinner when my parents came to visit last week.

At Wakulla Springs

My parents' visit was wonderful. Daddy hadn't been to Tallahassee before, and Mommy had only been to help me move some of my stuff down before the wedding, so we got to spend the long weekend showing them everything the beautiful town of Tallahassee has to offer. We went to Wakulla Springs, Maclay Gardens, the fair... and Mommy's college friend Susan and her husband Mike came to visit! We saved turkey for the night they were coming because we would need help eating it.

So here are some of my favorite recipes that I made last week and one that I'll make tomorrow night to take to Tampa. If my mom sends me some other family favorites (wine jelly and cranberry chutney??), I'll post them; they don't seem to be in my recipe file just yet!

The feast. I love any excuse to pull out the fine china and crystal.
Andrew, as you can see, loves milk.

Grandmama's Sausage Stuffing
My grandmama was an absolutely incredible cook. I remember Thanksgiving weekends helping her roll out and cut the yeast rolls for dinner (a competitive item when my twin cousins, uncle and I were at the same end of the table). This is her stuffing recipe, which I think is absolutely fantastic. We didn't put it in the bird last week, since it makes the cooking take longer, but if you have time it's worth it.

Cut 1 pound sausage (the kind that comes in a giant roll) into 4 slices. Cook it on the stove, breaking it up into small pieces while it cooks. Once all the sausage is browned, take it out and put it in a bowl.

Meanwhile, take 1 pound of soft white bread. Old bread is great; if it's fresh, set the slices out to dry a little so they harden. In my family, we try to save heels and crusts in the freezer and thaw them for stuffing. Then cut the bread up into small pieces.

Chop 1 large or 2 medium onions, and cook it in the sausage grease until soft and clear. Mix the onion, sausage and bread together, and add salt and pepper to taste.

If you're cooking it outside the bird, add chicken broth (I used 2 cups for the whole thing) and heat in a 350-degree oven for 30 minutes. The chicken broth softens it, since it's missing out on those yummy drippings from the bird.

Carrots Vindalee
I believe this is a more recent recipe in my family's Thanksgiving arsenal, but it is a great one. This is the only version of cooked carrots Andrew will eat. It's from the "Mountain Elegance" cookbook by the Junior League of Asheville, NC. (Thank you to Auntie Flo for correcting my original, poorly remembered version!) You can never have enough vegetables at Thanksgiving, and the orange brightens up the plate.

Cut 4 or 5 carrots into thin slices. Chop 1 celery heart, including the leaves. Cook the carrots and celery on the stove covered in dry white wine and a tablespoon or two of sugar. The wine should cook down so it isn't soupy. Add a teaspoon or two of dill and enjoy!

The Jackson, MS Junior League Pecan Pie
This is what I'm making for Thanksgiving this year and I'm so excited. Not only is it delicious--better than any other pecan pie you have ever eaten ever--but it is incredibly fun to make. I'm even going all out and making my own pie crust (thanks, Eleanor!). This recipe came from Becky Heishman, a good family friend. Daddy likes to call it PEAKEN pie.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Bake a 9-inch pie shell for 3 or 4 minutes. Cook 1/2 cup butter, 1 1/4 cups sugar and 1/2 cup light corn syrup over low heat until the butter melts. Do not let it boil. Cool slightly.

Lightly beat 3 eggs (the recipe notes, "Do not unloose your inner masochist"). Stir them into the mixture--be careful not to add the eggs while it's too warm or they will start to cook and you will be very embarrassed in front of your auntie who's chopping carrots. Mix the eggs in well.

Finely chop 1 1/2 cup pecans, and add them to the mixture with 1 tsp vanilla. (I like to reserve 1/2 cup or so pecans to arrange a pretty pattern on the top, but you don't have to.) Pour filling into crust and bake for 40-45 minutes. Pie should be soft in center when removed from oven.

Chocolate tiffin

Last week I had a Pi Phi Alumnae Club meeting, and it was wine & cheese & dessert. I wanted a dessert that was a little unusual, and chocolate tiffin fit the bill. I'd wanted to make chocolate tiffin since my weekend in London during my summer in Provence. It's a kind of cake or cookie bar made of crushed "digestive biscuits" that's popular with British children. I think it's similar to Prince William's groom's cake from the royal wedding, so if that isn't motivation I don't know what is.

These are digestive biscuits. I found them in the ethnic foods aisle at Publix, which I thought was funny.

It's an easy recipe and it makes a ton. I had decided to double it for some reason, which means that I had leftover tiffin to bring to tailgating and to lunch at work every day. Extra chocolate has never been a problem ever, but I think one times the recipe makes plenty. It feels so indulgent to make because of the melted chocolate. And of course you have to lick the spoon...

You have to be careful with melting chocolate, and what cooking blog would this be if I didn't warn you? I used my shiny new double boiler. You can also rig up a double boiler with two saucepans, or melt it for a few seconds at a time in the microwave.

My other question with this recipe is if there should be more butter and Karo syrup to the crushed biscuits. That's basically the glue that holds the cookie crumbs together. I could have crushed the biscuits into smaller pieces--you really want crumbs!--and that may have been my problem with biscuit pieces crumbling off and making it a little messy. But it could also maybe use a little more butter.

Chocolate tiffin
Crush 8 oz Rich Tea biscuits into really small pieces. Melt 4 oz butter, 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 tablespoons Karo syrup and 4 teaspoons cocoa. Add the biscuits and (optional) 1 handful of raisins. Mix and pour into a jelly roll pan or something similar.

Meanwhile, melt 4 oz milk chocolate and 4 oz dark chocolate. Pour the melted chocolate over the biscuit mixture.

Let the tin set in the frige for at least an hour. Cut into pieces to serve.

The best chocolate chip cookies ever

This is one of my favorite recipes. These are the cookies I grew up with; Mommy rightly believed that no other cookies are as good, so why bother? When I stress-baked in high school and in college, I always made these cookies. I have the necessary ingredients on hand at all times, and I genuinely have the recipe memorized. These cookies have gone to French club bake sales, to copy editing nights at the Hi's Eye and the Ring-tum Phi and, perhaps most importantly, to Andrew's roommates his senior year. I don't think Ned would like me as much if I hadn't constantly supplied him with cookies; he even mentioned them in his best man speech at our wedding. Little did he know that he'd those exact cookies after the bouquet toss! Mom and I baked about 30 dozen in February--and Andrew had no idea--and froze them until June. They were still just as good!

Some of the cookie dough for the wedding...

I creamed the butter by hand until Andrew bought a hand mixer halfway through his senior year, but with a mixer they come together in no time at all. The trick to this recipe is the oatmeal. Do not leave it out! That's what makes these cookies so chewy and delicious. Chocolate chip cookies are often too dry or crunchy; the oatmeal makes the difference. I find that smaller cookies--about the amount of dough that fits into a spoon--tend to come out better. Plus, smaller cookies are easier to share. I cook them for about 7-8 minutes (Fannie Farmer calls for 8-10 but I know better), until they're browned on the bottom but not necessarily on the top. Then I take them out and let them sit for a few minutes before moving them to the cooling rack. This is a good trick to keep them from overcooking; they bake a little more on the cookie sheet when they're out of the oven, and letting them sit makes them come up more easily without falling apart.

Try to go for about this size--they spread out so much!

I could keep talking up this recipe forever. I've made it a bajillion times, and I genuinely have it memorized. (Yes, I double-checked before posting.) These are the best cookies you will ever eat. Ever. So here you go, and get baking!

Chocolate chip cookies
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cream 1/4 pound butter (1 stick). Gradually add 1/2 cup dark brown sugar and 1/2 cup granulated sugar until they are will mixed and light. Next, add 1 egg and 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract. Add 1 & 1/8 cup flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda. Mix in 1/2 cup uncooked oatmeal, then 1 cup chocolate chips (semisweet is best, but milk chocolate is fine).

Drop onto cookie sheets and bake about 8 minutes. Let sit before transferring to cooling racks. Makes 2 to 3 dozen cookies. Serve with a huge glass of milk.

Christmas sugar cookies and frosting

Christmas in July is my favorite holiday. It reminds me of camp, when we have a carnival and fireworks and a movie at night. We used to put our shoes out the night before and wake up to candy and a dusting of "snow." When raccoons started showing up in junior camp, the candy was replaced with little bottles of sunscreen and bubbles. Christmas in July is the slightly tacky younger cousin of actual Christmas. My family's time-honored Christmas recipes--egg nog, bon bons, candied grapefruit peels, 10 dozen ginger cookies--didn't make an appearance yesterday. Y'all will have to wait until December for these secrets! But it's a great time to wear bright red and bright green (I even pulled out a favorite tartan ribbon), drink hot chocolate and indulge a little. Andrew brought in flowers from our garden to decorate the dinner table. Look how beautiful they are!

Dessert was sugar cookies--and of course, you could make any shapes you want. I always made arrows and angels for Pi Phi cookie shines. My apartment in college didn't have a smooth countertop, so I used a big cutting board--easy cleanup! I usually take a chunk of dough at a time and dip it in flour all over so that the cutouts come up more easily. You can also use a paring knife and a thin spatula if the dough gets stubborn. Andrew and I bought these Christmas-themed cookie cutters three years ago, when I convinced him to let my pledge sisters use his house to bake cookies during finals. I threw in a few angels, too. I used his favorite sugar cookie recipe and let it sit in the fridge overnight. It doesn't have to wait that long, and it doesn't really have to go in the fridge at all, but it does roll out better if it's cold. These quantities make a LOT of cookies, so you can always cut the recipe in half or freeze part of the dough for later.

Rolled sugar cookies
Cream 1 1/2 cups softened butter and 3 cups white sugar until smooth. Beat in 4 eggs and 2 tsp vanilla extract. Stir in 5 cups flour, 2 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp salt. Cover and chill at least one hour.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Roll out dough onto a floured surface 1/2 inch thick (who would actually measure this? Just know that the thicker it is, the more you risk spreading) and cut into shapes. Bake 5-8 minutes. I know I roll my cookies thin, but I only baked them for 5 minutes. I like to keep them on the cookie sheet for an extra minute--they solidify a little more--before I transfer them to the cooling rack.

You could leave your cookies plain, or toss sprinkles on before you bake them, or cool and frost them. I did a bit of all three. My frosting recipe came from Joyce Winchester, whose daughter Cat is one of my best friends from high school. She read Psalm 121 at our wedding and it was beautiful. Our families are close--we've gone on vacations together, and I consider Cat and Lauren to be my sisters. My cousin and bridesmaid Julia (who is also Lauren's new roommate!) sent out recipe cards in the invitation to my shower. It was a lovely idea and a great way to kick-start my recipe collection. Joyce got this recipe from the mother of one of her friends and says it's her absolute favorite.

 I've tried several buttercream frostings over the past few years, which all have varying proportions of milk, butter and confectioner's sugar. This one is definitely unique, but it made a smoother and better-tasting frosting than any of the others.

Yummy buttercream frosting, from Joyce Winchester
Combine 5 tablespoons flour and 1 cup milk in a saucepan. Whisk together well then place over medium heat. Continue to whisk until the mixture is very thick. Cool completely. Cream together 1 cup butter and 3/4 cup sugar. Add 1 tsp vanilla and the milk paste. Whip it with an electric beater until it resembles whipped cream. Yum!

Peach lazy cake

Living next door to Georgia in the summer means peaches, and lots of them. One night, I just had sliced peaches and cheddar cheese for dinner. This is a summer staple from my childhood called "lazy cake"--you'll see why! It takes about as long to  throw together as it takes to slice a couple of peaches and melt some butter. You can bake it while you're eating dinner, and it's done by dessert. Growing up, we'd often eat it after Daddy grilled something for dinner. Barbecued chicken, grilled zucchini, fresh tomatoes and lazy cake: what could be better? It's my brother's all-time favorite, and I think it's up there for Andrew as well. It develops a crisp crust and a light center punctuated with delicious peach pieces. You can really use any fruit you have around; blackberries are great in it. I had peaches, so that's what I used.

I got this recipe from my mom, who probably got it from the angels.

I don't bother measuring the fruit; this was two peaches.

Lazy cake
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Melt about 6 tablespoons of butter in a casserole dish. (You can use up to a stick, but you really don't need that much.) I toss it in the oven while it's preheating because I'm extra-lazy, but microwaving is faster. Mix together: 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of sugar and 3 teaspoons of baking powder. Add 2/3 cup milk and pour batter on top of melted butter. Dump 2 1/2 cup peaches or other fruit on top. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour.

It's that easy!

Don't mix the fruit in with the batter--really.

The finished product

YUM!

Introductions and Banana-Chocolate Tart

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."
- The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkein

I am convinced that my husband (it still feels strange to call him that!) mostly decided he liked me because I wanted to join him and his friends for one of their many failed attempts at a Lord of the Rings marathon. (They did finally complete a marathon during his bachelor party.) We are both hobbits, although at 6'4" Andrew is really too tall to claim the title. I am much littler at 5'2", and second breakfast is my favorite. Andrew and I got married just a month ago, on June 16, and now live in a cute little midcentury house in Tallahassee. We have a huge, wild garden with fig trees and oak trees and foxes, so we named our new home the Shire. So that is why I have named my blog "Food, Love and Hobbits," at least temporarily until I think of something more clever.

Some of my high school friends told me that I should start a blog about my new life, especially all the food I've been making. I have always considered myself a good cook, especially when it comes to helping my mom and my aunties get ready for Thanksgiving. I lived in an apartment my junior and senior years of college and made myself dinner most nights, usually without much of a recipe. But having my own house and cooking for two on as much of a budget as I can handle is definitely a different experience from defrosting a few shrimp and making some pasta every night. I've been reading cookbooks and recipe blogs a lot more, trying to find recipes that are healthy, cost-effective and not too complicated, but still flavorful. I believe that gourmet food is not out of anyone's reach, and it certainly beats takeout or cheap restaurants.

So here we are, and here is a blog. I'm going to start with this delicious dessert I made last night. It was our one-monthiversary, so I promised Andrew I would make him something special. (Disclaimer: he is also a good cook and makes me yummy dinners all the time. He is worried that I would use this blog as an excuse to ban him from the kitchen, but I would never.) He had a long day in the lab--he is a biology grad student--so when he came home I poured him a glass of milk and put the finishing touches on...

• Baked herbed goat cheese with a little balsamic vinegar and olive oil, served on baguette slices (leftover from our Bastille Day celebration). This was our appetizer
• Rosemary chicken, which has been my favorite since I was little
• Oven-roasted tomatoes provençales
• Green beans almandine
• Yeast rolls (I used some of the dough to make cinnamon rolls for second breakfast today!)
• Banana-chocolate tart

The following recipe is from Around my French Table by Dorie Greenspan, which is an amazing cookbook. I've organized the recipe in a way that makes more sense to me and added my own commentary, but I do not claim to have invented it.

Banana-chocolate tart: This tart is made of four components prepared separately, which you can do earlier in the day. It's a long recipe, which looks intimidating. I promise it isn't. The finished product is so beautiful, and none of the steps were particularly challenging. I timed out the different components, which need to cool or set, and used them as a break from preparing the rest of dinner, cleaning the house, etc. I did them in the following order, and then it sat in the fridge until dinner was over.

Chocolate shortbread dough: This is more of a cookie dough, but you make a crust by pressing it into your tart pan (or pie pan, if that's what you have). I got to break in my Cuisinart food processor... although I was on the phone with one of my best friends at the time, which impeded my ability to get the lid on correctly. It cut in the butter perfectly! I may actually start using it to make my own pie crusts, something I foreswore when we had to make them by hand in eighth grade home ec class.

1 1/4 cups flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 cup confectioner's sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

Put the above ingredients in the food processor and pulse a couple of times to combine. Scatter 9 tablespoons very cold unsalted butter (cut into small pieces) over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is cut in coarsely. For me, this took like a minute. Stir one large egg yolk just enough to break it up, and add it to the dough. When the egg is in, process in long pulses--about 10 second each--until the dough, which will look granular soon after the egg is added, forms clumps and curds.
Turn the dough out onto a work surface and very lightly knead it to incorporate any dry ingredients that may have escaped mixing.
You can either press the dough into a tart pan (this is what I did) or roll it out for a pie-style crust, or maybe for cookies. If you want to roll it out, flatten it into a disk and refrigerate it for a few hours, or up to 5 days. Once the dough is in the tart pan, prick it all over with a fork and freeze it for at least 30 minutes before baking.

To bake it, put it in a 375-degree oven with a buttered circle of aluminum foil over it for 25 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 8 minutes. Let it cool on a cooling rack before filling it.

Caramelized bananas: This is the layer closest to the crust, and it is such a nice surprise when you dig in! I found that my caramelized bananas only covered the center of the crust, so you could increase these proportions (maybe double them). I would also be more careful than I was about arranging the slices when you take them off the skillet--once they've cooled in a clump, they're stuck.

Cover a plate with parchment paper. Slice 1 ripe but firm banana into 1/8-inch-thick slices and toss them with a little lemon juice to keep them from blackening. Put a large nonstick skillet over high heat, melt 1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter and add the bananas. When both sides of all the slices are covered in butter, add 3 1/2 tablespoons sugar and cook, turning the slices until they are golden and caramelized on both sides. Transfer the bananas to the parchment-lined plate, dab them with a paper towel to remove excess butter and let them sit until they reach room temperature.

Chocolate ganache: Chop 1 pound bittersweet chocolate and put it in a heatproof bowl. Bring 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream to a boil in a small saucepan, then pour it over the chocolate. Let the mixture sit for a few seconds, then mix it together with a whisk or a spatula. Stir gently, and when the ganache is smooth and shiny, stir in 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into four pieces and at room temperature. If you refrigerate the ganache before using it, reheat gently in a microwave.

Arrange the caramelized bananas in an even layer on the crust, then pour the ganache on top. Gently rotate the tart pan so the ganache covers everything evenly. Refrigerate everything for 30 to 60 minutes, at least until the ganache has set.

Banana topping: Cut 2 or 3 bananas into 1/4-inch-thick slices and toss them with a little lemon juice. Arrange them on the tart in concentric circles. Bring 1/2 cup apricot jam (or less) to a boil and brush it over the bananas. Allow the glaze to cool and set before serving.