Well, looks like the updates didn’t go quite as smoothly as we had hoped.  If you’re reading this through an RSS reader, you may have noticed the pictures weren’t showing up for a couple days, and if you tried to access anything on Friday during the day, you may have noticed that almost all the links weren’t working.  Both of these were a result of our adding some code to try to stop hotlinking — I’ve been seeing some pictures showing up on other sites via hotlinking without attribution lately, and in trying to nip that in the bud we broke some other things.  Anyway…. we think (hope!) that everything is fixed now.  If you are still having issues, please let us know either via comment here or email to admin@meltingonline.com.

And, to make it up to you, let me share the apricot-cherry crumble I threw together the other night.  This is another to file under “tasty-but-won’t-win-any-beauty-contests,” but it’s deliciously tart-sweet, with some crunch from the topping, it’s quick and easy, and it’s the perfect way to use up any of that wonderful summer fruit that you haven’t quite managed to eat out-of-hand before it starts to get kinda squishy.

I had some apricots left from our trip to the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market in SF with Phillip and Jammie last weekend, and they needed to be eaten, stat.  I also had some cherries, so those were the two fruits I used, but really, this idea works with any summer fruit, and especially with the myriad different stone fruits.   You can use any amount of fruit, just bake it in a different size dish, and since there’s no pie crust to fuss with, you just make however much topping you need.  I ate mine topped with whipped cream, but it would also be good with ice cream, or just by itself.  Here are the proportions I used, but scale it up or down and substitute as you like.

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I had hazelnuts leftover from the hazelnut brown butter cake, and I’ve learned the hard way that hazelnuts can go rancid rather quickly if left on the shelf too long, so I wanted to go ahead and use up the ones I had.  I was in the mood for French toast, and we also had some stale leftover bread, so I thought adding a crust of hazelnuts would kill two birds for one dish.  We’ve been buying oranges by the bag, so I added some orange juice and zest to the soaking liquid, and threw in a little Cointreau for good measure (though if you don’t have any, you could easily leave that out).  The next weekend, I made it again with pecans instead of hazelnuts — great either way.  And a tip from my mom — if you have extra orange juice, stir some into the maple syrup to top the toast. Though it’s a little more work, I’m sure these would also be great topped with the syrup from our favorite orange nutty pancakes.

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For Mom’s birthday, I gave her a list of options of “celebration desserts” I’d been wanting to try, and she picked the hazelnut brown butter cake from Smitten Kitchen.  (I know, you’re probably starting to think that’s the only place I ever get ideas.  Maybe I have a little food crush?  I actually found this one via Not Derby Pie though.)  This cake was fantastic — nutty, dense and almost chewy but not too heavy, just sweet and rich enough.  I have to admit, I was worried this wasn’t going to be chocolatey enough for a birthday cake for Mom. (A couple years ago I made this torte, which is basically just chocolate, butter, and cream.  We could barely stick in the candles.)  But here, the layer of ganache, while thin, was dark and rich enough that it was just perfect.  And wait until you see what I did with the leftover hazelnuts, coming later this week!

I made caramelized hazelnuts to decorate the top, using instructions from Tartelette.  However, I thought some pictures were in order to better illustrate the technique, so I’ve detailed what I did after the jump.  If you want the recipe for the cake, I’ll send you over to the Smitten Kitchen.  By the way, the cake has very little flour in it, so I think it could probably be made gluten free pretty easily.

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I know it’s January and everyone has New Year’s Resolutions to lighten up and cut back on the sweets.  I know I do too — however, you won’t be able to find whole cranberries much longer.  In fact, it may already be too late!  We were able to find a couple bags of cranberries in the freezer section at the grocery store this weekend, and maybe you will be so lucky, too.  And if so — you should rush out and make this tart, as soon as possible.

Fresh cranberries have a very limited season, and so they are only available around the holidays.  They freeze very well, and in fact will last for months in your freezer.  For some reason though, it’s hard to find them even frozen except in November and December, so if you’re still able to find them, grab as many bags as your freezer will hold, and they’ll last you into next summer!  I forgot to do stash up this year, and was afraid I’d missed them all, so I was very excited to find them when I was buying some other frozen fruit this weekend.

Matt and I made this Cranberry Pecan Frangipane Tart for his family over the holidays.  I’ve mentioned her before, and I’ll do it again — Deb over at the Smitten Kitchen hasn’t led me wrong yet.  I’ve made more of her recipes than I can keep track, and I’ve got an even longer list of things to try.  (Ok, I admit there was one dud — but even that tasted good but was just a pain to cook.)  So why are you still here?  Go on over to Deb’s place and make yourself a cranberry pecan frangipane tart.  And if you can’t find fresh cranberries, grab the ingredients for whatever else you find there — I guarantee you it’ll be delicious!

This is another recipe that we always make at Christmas and that I don’t remember having any other time of year. They are a pecan shortbread cookie rolled in powdered sugar (the ones on the left in the picture). I’ve also seen similar cookies by other names, such as Mexican wedding cookies. We make ours in a skinny finger shape though, so we call them nutty fingers or lady fingers.

The recipe makes a bunch, but they are small and tend to go fast. They are slightly more labor intensive than some cookies, but they are absolutely delicious. The recipe comes from my grandmother, who always made them when my mom was growing up.

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