Apricot Tart

Towards the end of August, the Sunday farmer's market at our co-op had some delicious fresh apricots. I love to eat apricots by themselves but I never can resist looking up what I can bake with new goodies. I found a recipe for an apricot tart that got rave reviews. The result was delicious. If you ever get fresh apricots, try this tart. The crust seems to get a bit soggy after the first day. All the better to share with friends... or just eat it all yourself in one day and no, I did not do that, you can't prove it!

You want to eat this.

Lemon Sabayon Pine Nut Tart and Rosemary Bread

Why would I be making these delicious things when I'm in the middle of grant writing? Well, it was for supper club! Anything for the creation of food that will soon be in my mouth. mmm.

So I made the rosemary bread from "Amy's Breads" and the Lemon Sabayon Tart with Pine Nut Crust from French Laundry. The rosemary bread is delicious. I think I've posted it before but when I made it this time I subbed 1/2 cup of high gluten bread flour for the original whole wheat and I think it made the bread moist and chewy while maintaining the crustiness. Great with evoo and balsamic.

I enjoyed making the Lemon Tart. It was quite easy although the Sabayon took a while. But I got to use my new awesome foot long whisk made out of piano wires that I bought from the C-town resto supply store. I have to admit, though, that I have no arm strength and could barely manage that big whisk after the first 10 seconds. So maybe next time it'll be the hand beater...

People loved the bread and liked the tart. Some complained that they could not taste the pine nuts. I decided this was because they did not know what pine nuts taste like because the crust is very distinctly pine nutty. The sabayon was smooth and so tart. Lovely.

Pear (Quince) Frangipane Tarts

When I get all stressed after 10 hours of research, lab work, or procrastinating, I like to bake. So last night I looked at what I had in the fridge and found two quinces that I had bought in Flushing over New Years that were crying out to be eaten in some delicious form. Last fall I had made quince tarts out of quinces I salvaged from under a neighbors quince bush and they were good so tart it was. I used this recipe from Tartlette and it was easy, fast and delicious. I have to make frangipane more often! I admit I used frozen puff pastry from Trader Joe's but they make their puff pastry with butter so it's pretty darn tasty.

The tartlettes scared me when they were in the oven because the frangipane melted off to the sides and it looked like I was baking pancakes:

However, it wasn't really a big deal because one the tarts cooled, I chopped off the extra frangipane and was left with cute little tarts that looked like this:

I had at least 1 cup of frangipane leftover from making six little tarts. I cut two more pears in half, poached them, sliced and fanned to make one big "just pear" tart. This one I sprinkled some chopped pistachios on which was delicous and gave the tart more depth.

Plum Apple Pecan Tart

During the summer, I was making tarts left and right using an easy olive oil crust that I had found on several blogs. After making it the first time, I didn't measure anymore or use an exact recipe however La Tartine Gourmand has a great one for starters. The ground almonds can be exchanged for another type of nut. I've use pecans and walnuts successfully. Put the fruit in the middle, drizzle some honey or maple syrup over the fruit, fold over the edges and bake until golden. They came out delicious and the crust was flaky. Any combination fruits would work but I really loved apple and plum tarts.

Wild Berry Tarts and Peach Tarts

Delaware is a pretty lush state and a large variety of plants thrive here including rambling blackberry and raspberry bushes. This is the peak time for these delicate berries so I spend time on Wednesday picking berries with D. We got some thorns and prickers in our fingers but were rewarded with a large bag of sweet berries at the end. I decided to make some berry tarts but wasn't quite sure what to use a vegan pastry cream. I finally settled on one that used flour and soymilk and seemed to work for several people but once I made it, I was disappointed. It seemed too much like sweet paper mache gloop even after I cooled it. But I didn't have time to make another cream since I was planning on bringing these to a group meeting and the meeting was starting in 30 minutes! So I just slathered in into the tart shells I baked earlier and spread a thin layer of blood orange sauce that I found in the freezer on top before arranging the berries over the whole thing.

The blood orange sauce really saved the tarts. The sweet and slightly bitter orange flavor punched up the gloopy pastry cream and made a decadent tart. Still I think next time I would use a cashew cream or a vanilla pudding instead of the faux pastry cream.

One thing that finally struck me after making lots of tarts is that the water:butter:flour ratio for pie crusts is as such 1:2:6. So for example 3/4 cup flour: 1/4 cup butter: 2 T water. It's nice to be able to bake sans recipe.


Tart crust (fits about five 4" tart pans)
3/4 cup flour
1 t sugar
pinch salt
1/4 cup Earth Balance
2 T water

Mix flour, sugar and salt together. Cut in butter until pea sized balls form. I do this by hand since I'm missing a food processor. Sigh. Add in water and gather into a large ball. Wrap in wax paper and chill for 30 mins. After chilling divide dough into five parts and pat quickly into balls. In between two pieces of wax paper, roll out each ball until it is slightly bigger than your tart pans. It should be quite thin maybe 1/8". Gently peel off wax paper and drape dough into pans, pressing into the flutes. Cover with wax paper and fill with dry beans. Blind bake at 350 C for 15 minutes. I do this in the toaster oven since it's so bloody hot now.


Tart pastry cream filling is from Vegan Chef.
1/2 cup unbleached flour
2 cups soy milk, rice milk, or other non-dairy milk of choice, divided
1/3 cup unbleached cane sugar
pinch of salt
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 t. grated lemon zest
1/2 t. vanilla

In a small bowl, place the flour and whisk in 1/2 cups soy milk, and set aside. In a small saucepan, place the remaining soy milk, sugar, and salt, and whisk to combine. Add the flour mixture to the liquid ingredients and whisk well to combine. Cook the mixture over medium heat, while whisking constantly, for 5-6 minutes or until thickened. Add the remaining ingredients, whisk well to combine, and cook the mixture an additional 1 minute. Remove the saucepan from the heat and transfer the mixture to a glass bowl. Place a piece of waxed paper or plastic wrap directly on top of the pastry cream to prevent a skin from forming on the top. Place the pastry cream in the refrigerator for several hours to cool completely. Use as a filling for pies, tarts, pastries, or phyllo dough, or as a topping for desserts.

Yield: 2 Cups

Blood Orange Syrup (from Epicurious)
3 cups fresh blood orange juice or regular orange juice
9 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons grated blood orange peel or regular orange peel

Stir all ingredients in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Increase heat and boil until syrup is reduced to 1 1/2 cups, about 20 minutes. Refrigerate until cold. Cover and keep refrigerated up to 2 days. I put mine in the freezer and can pull it out to use directly. It doesn't need to defrost since it won't freeze solid or loose any flavor.

Assembly:
Spoon pastry cream into each tart shell and smooth.
Spoon a thin layer of blood orange syrup on top.
Top with fruit.

The tarts got a bit soggy after a while. I should have probably painted the insides of the tart shells with some jam to prevent that from happening.
The peach tart flower idea is originally from Tartlette who mentions that this can be done with thinly sliced fruit. Yeah right, I thought, probably only by a professional pastry chef. But I was so wrong! The flower was delightfully easy to make and even more fun to eat.

Raspberry Lime Tarts and Snowballs

Trader Joe's had stacks of 2 pint boxes of organic raspberries. They were strategically placed at the register so that they gave off a sweet fruity perfume that made your tummy rumble. This coupled with the dozen or so limes that are sitting in the fridge left over from our last theme party makes raspberry lime tarts. Most of this recipe came from Eat Air who apparently got the key lime filling from PETA. I just made it in mini tart form and stuck raspberries on top.


We were on a mini weekend trip to Rehobeth when we passed by a cafe that served Belgium waffles. There's no way we could pass up waffles so in we went. Rehobeth is teeming with international teenagers working minimum wage jobs for the summer. In this particular cafe, it was a Bulgarian girl and a guy named Marcello, who could be from France. They were very cute and friendly but neither knew an iota about making good waffles. Our waffles turned out undercooked, soft on the outside and gummy on the inside. But I didn't know this when I looked in the pastry display case and saw something labeled "Summer Snowball" which looked like this:

This thing was huge and it looked so deliciously light and coconutty. It was about half the size of my head.
Unfortunately, like the Belgian waffles, it was a good idea executed poorly. This summer snowball was nothing more than a custard puff wrapped in an inch thick layer of what tasted like canned icing. So sugary that I had to scrape of most of the icing before I found it slighly edible. Although this particular snowball was a dunce, it gave me ideas on a tastier homemade version, perhaps with coconut whipped cream, choux pastry and coconut custard.