Coffee Custard with Toasted Swiss Meringue Kisses & Hazelnut Brittle

This custard almost defeated me. I made it three different times before I got it just how I wanted. It was a bit of an experiment really. Every recipe I came across for anything even remotely similar involved instant coffee or espresso powder, but I wanted nothing to do with that.

I actually find the use of instant coffee or espresso powder in desserts somewhat perplexing. I guess I get it in some sense--it's easy, quick, and cheap. But I so often hear about the importance of using the best quality chocolates or top notch vanillas or freshly squeezed lemon/lime/orange juice or freshly grated spices or unbleached flours, but what about coffee? Why, in baking, do we settle for instant (i.e., freeze dried, low grade, poor quality coffee) instead of the good stuff (i.e., good quality, freshly roasted, responsibly bought, thoughtfully treated coffee)? And when coffee is the sole or primary flavor in a dessert, why use something with no flavor at all except the roast?

In this custard, I didn't want just roast flavor. I wanted everything I get from drinking the greatest cup of coffee ever. I wanted the sweet, the fruit, the delicate, the nuance. I wanted it all!

Jarred Lavender Custard with Blackberry Gin Glaze

When I'm feeling fancy, I tend to reach for champagne. That champagne is then usually promptly deposited into a mason jar for sipping.

Sometimes I like my fancy dressed down a touch, i.e., champagne in a mason jar, Keds with a date-night dress. You know, that sort of thing.

It's sort of like this. This silky, flowery custard with satiny gin berry glaze is super duper fancy. You totally deserve fancy. And since everything tastes better in a mason jar (and since 4 oz. mason jars are some of the cutest containers around), this custard deserves to be housed in one. This is fancy-dressed-down dessert. Which works out well with all the post-custard-consumption jar-licking I see in my future. So fancy.

Cherry Plum Clafoutis Cups

Well hello June, it's nice to see you!

I like June.

June brings good things.

Official summer things. Like sun and heat. Dresses and sandals. Iced coffee and cold treats. Farmers markets and summery fruits.

You should know something about me. I have this thing with fruit. I eat fruit for breakfast. I fulfill my snacking needs with fruit. I make fruit fit swimmingly well with lunch, perhaps in a salad or on peanut butter, and into dinner, perhaps roasted and thrown in pasta. I always want fruit in my dessert, in any form really. And have we discussed how a $3 bag of Georgia peaches causes grabbings for bourbon? It's sort of a problem. Onto cherries and plums!

Let's toss them in a shortcrust, cover them in custard, and make clafoutis. Clafoutis is a French cake-like custardy dessert, traditionally made with cherries and without a crust in a full size tart pan or pie plate. But because plums look like giant cherries sans stems and because mini versions of things bring happiness and because I just love short dough so freaking much, let's make cutie clafoutis! Let's call them clafoutis cups! Yes, let's.