10 Desserts That Will Make You Want to Rush Through Dinner
By Riddley Gemperlein-Schirm
When she has the kitchen all to herself, Phyllis Grant of Dash and Bella cooks beautiful iterations of what solo meals were always meant to be: exactly what you want, when and where you want them.
Today: 10 Phyllis desserts that will make your summer sweeter.
More: Everything you need to know about summer desserts
If you haven’t learned this already, catch up quickly: If Phyllis bakes it, you’ll want to, too. Whether it’s brown butter cupcake brownies swathed in vanilla ice cream or a crackly-topped brown butter blondie, she’s been bringing us desserts—sweet, a little salty, and filled with hella brown butter—that make us want to rush through dinner. Here are 10 of our favorites:
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream
More: 11 iconic summer desserts
Biscuits with Summer Berries and Whipped Cream
More: 6 summer fruit desserts worthy of a weekend project
Lemon Goat Cheesecake
More: The best ice cream sandwich you’ll make this summer, step by step
Brown Butter Cupcake Brownies
More: Eton mess: proof that whipped cream with fruit is the perfect dessert
The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie
More: Alice’s top 5 no-bake desserts
Hazelnut Brittle with Chocolate
Brown Butter Blondies
Caramel Ice Cream
Caramel Nut Tart with Chocolate
Brown Butter Apple Tart
Brown Butter Apple Tart
Serves 6
1 recipe of your favorite tart or pie dough (or puff pastry)
6 to 8 Granny Smith apples
3 tablespoons salted butter
½ vanilla bean, halved and scraped of its seeds
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
3 tablespoons heavy cream
4 tablespoons turbinado sugar
3 tablespoons apricot jam, any large chunks of fruit finely chopped up
Take your dough out of the fridge 20 minutes before rolling it out (or 1 hour before if it’s in the freezer).
Heat your oven to 450° F. Place your pizza stone or sheet pan in the oven to warm up. Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Swirl it around a few times. It will foam and spatter. After 3 to 4 minutes, it will start to smell nutty. Don’t walk away. It’s ready when the sizzling quiets down and you see little brown bits drop to the bottom of the pan. Cool. Whisk in vanilla bean seeds and extract.
Cut a piece of parchment paper that’s about a 10-inch square. Roll out your dough into about a 12-inch round. It doesn’t need to be perfect – you’re going to fold over the edges. Roll dough onto your rolling pin. Unroll dough onto the piece of parchment.
Using a very sharp knife or a mandoline, with the apple stem facing north, very thinly slice about 5 circles off of two opposing sides of the apple. Stop once you hit the core. Repeat with the remaining apples. Save remaining apple and the outermost discs with lots of skin for applesauce or some other use.
Starting about 2 inches in from the border of the rolled out dough, make a circle with the apple discs, having them overlap. Continue with a second layer that overlaps the bigger circle. Do a third and smaller circle. And a fourth. Finish it off with a few discs in the middle in a flower pattern. Paint all exposed apple surface with the brown butter vanilla mixture. Fold the outer border of the dough in to enclose about half of the exterior edge of the outermost apple discs. Let it be funky!
Whisk together egg and heavy cream. Paint exposed border of dough with a thin layer of egg wash. Refrigerate any leftover egg wash and save for your next tart or pie (it will last a few days). Generously sprinkle the turbinado sugar all over the apples and the egg-washed dough.
Remove hot pizza stone or sheet pan from the oven. Quickly slide the tart (keeping it on the parchment) onto the hot surface. Bake until apples are golden brown and the crust is crisp, about 20 to 25 minutes.
Warm up the apricot jam. Using a pastry brush, paint surface of the cooked apples with warm jam. Serve immediately.
Photos by Phyllis Grant.
