pie

strawberry poptarts

09/21/2012 By bridget 6 Comments

I like to keep track of things. This is why I have a website showcasing new recipes. But I also have calendars (printed out and filled in with pencil, old school) logging all the workouts I’ve done for years, a list updated daily of which projects I spend time on at work, and a color-coded Google Calendar that I check and update several times a day.

This apparently wasn’t enough for me, so I’ve recently started tracking some new things – indulgences. Desserts, alcohol, restaurant meals, snacking on ingredients while making dinner – those are the biggies for me. I set goals for the month, and they are generous, and I don’t get bent out of shape if I miss them (and I always go over on both alcohol and desserts), but having it laid out in front of me in a spreadsheet does help my self-control sometimes. Is munching on this cucumber, even if it’s dipped in dressing, really worth having to log a day of ingredient snacking?

There are loopholes though. Shortcake, obviously that’s dessert. But scones are breakfast, so I don’t need to record those, even if they do contain just as much butter and sugar as shortcake. Cupcakes, dessert; muffins, breakfast. Poptarts are breakfast, right?

That might be a stretch, even by my standards. Yes, there is jam involved, but a spoonful of jam is squeezed between two sheets of buttery delicious pie crust. And that’s all there is to it, unless you add icing. But once you add icing, any hope of calling this anything but a treat of the most indulgent manner is lost. It went on the list as dessert, and it was worth every mark on the spreadsheet.

One year ago: Banh Mi (I absolutely love this recipe)
Two years ago: Taco Pasta Salad
Three years ago: Twice Baked Potato Cups
Four years ago: Banana and Peanut Butter Stuffed French Toast

Printer Friendly Recipe
Strawberry Pop-Tarts (adapted from King Arthur Flour via Smitten Kitchen)

Makes 9 (although I made 10 out of a half recipe)

My dough was too crumbly with just one egg, so I also used part of the egg used for the egg wash.

I used the icing because I wanted my tarts to be as traditional as possible, but, it turns out, royal icing on pie just isn’t that good. It’s pretty, but I don’t recommend it for the best flavor.

I replaced a quarter of the flour with whole wheat pastry flour.

Pastry:
2 cups (8½ ounces) all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (16 tablespoons) unsalted butter, diced
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons milk

Filling:
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon water
¾ cup (8 ounces) strawberry jam

Egg wash:
1 large egg
salt

Icing:
½ cup (2 ounces) powdered sugar
1 teaspoon meringue powder
1 tablespoon water

1. For the dough: Combine the flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor. Add the butter and pulse until it is cut into pea-sized pieces. Add the egg and milk and pulse until the dough looks crumbly but stays together when pinched. Turn the dough out onto a work surface or shallow bowl, forming it into a ball and kneading a few times. Divide the dough in half and shape each half into a rectangle, about 3 by 5 inches. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap; chill for at least 30 minutes or up to 2 days.

2. Meanwhile, make the filling: In a small saucepan, stir together the cornstarch and water. Mix in the jam. Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium heat; simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat; cool completely before using.

3. On a lightly floured work surface, roll one portion of the dough to ⅛-inch thick, slightly larger than a 9 by 12-inch rectangle. Repeat with the second piece of dough. Trim each portion of dough into a 9 by 12-inch rectangle. Cut each piece of dough into thirds both lengthwise and crosswise, forming a total of 18 3 by 4-inch rectangles.

4. Beat the additional egg with a pinch of salt and brush it over the entire surface of half of the dough. Place a heaping tablespoon of filling into the center of each egg-brushed rectangle, keeping a bare ½-inch perimeter around the jam. Place a second rectangle of dough on top of the jam, using your fingertips to press firmly around the pocket of filling, sealing the dough well on all sides. Press the tines of a fork all around the edge of the rectangle. Repeat with remaining rectangles of dough to form 9 tarts.

5. Transfer the tarts to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Prick the top of each tart multiple times with a fork to allow steam to escape. Refrigerate the tarts (they don’t need to be covered) for 30 minutes (or freeze for 15 minutes), while you heat your oven to 350 degrees.

6. Bake the tarts for 20 to 25 minutes, until they’re light golden brown. Transfer them to a wire rack to cool for at least 10 minutes before icing.

7. In a small bowl, beat the powdered sugar, meringue powder, and water with a hand mixer until soft peaks form. Dribble over the tarts. Let set at least 20 minutes for the icing to set.

Filed Under: breakfast, dessert, pie

tomato mozzarella tart with basil crust

09/13/2012 By bridget 5 Comments

I planted tomatoes in my garden this year with high hopes and low expectations. Last year I lost all of my precious tomato plants to fusarium wilt, and even though I didn’t do anything to rid the soil of the fungus, I couldn’t resist planting a few tomato plants this year too. They started strong but succumbed to the disease before setting fruit. At that point, I settled in for a tomato-less summer.

Instead, I’ve had what’s nearly been a landmark year! After describing my tomato woes to a coworker, she started bringing me some tomatoes from her garden. At first it was a trickle, just enough so I could make each of my favorite tomato dishes once. She also bought me a handful of zebra tomatoes while traveling. And then I bought myself a pound or so of tomatoes from our town’s little farmer’s market. And then the bonanza from my coworker – nearly ten pounds of beefsteak, romas, and cherries. This was enough to make all of my favorites again, plus try some new recipes.

This was first on my list. It has all the ingredients of pizza, but rearranged and with a whole lot of butter added. How can that be bad?

The basil crust is fragrant, tender but sturdy enough to hold up the toppings. The mozzarella holds the toppings on. And the real star is those thin but deeply flavorful slices of tomatoes. There is nothing I like more than a landmark year for tomatoes. But next year, I’m determined to successfully plant my own – but maybe I’ll still take some off my coworker’s hands.

One year ago: Fresh Pasta
Two years ago: Pappa al Pomodoro
Three years ago: 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread
Four years ago: Lemon Pancakes with Blueberry Syrup

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Tomato Mozzarella Tart with Basil Crust (adapted from Jack Bishop’s The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook via Ezra Pound Cake; crust adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Sweet Tart Dough)

I used fresh mozzarella (as seen on Annie’s Eats) both times I made this, but when I removed the tart from the oven, I noticed a puddle of liquid skimming across the baked cheese. Once cooked, I don’t think fresh mozzarella seems so different from the firmer type, which isn’t as moist and won’t release liquid onto the surface of the tart, so in the future, I’ll use regular mozzarella instead of fresh. (Fortunately, the crust didn’t seem to get soggy from the extra liquid.)

The original crust recipe was for a flaky pie type of crust, which used ice water. It shrunk when I baked it, plus I wanted something sturdier, so I adapted a traditional tart crust to include basil. This is a tart after all!

Crust:
½ cup loosely packed basil leaves
1 clove garlic, peeled
1¾ cups (8.4 ounces) all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon cornstarch
½ teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, cut into ½-inch cubes
1 egg, lightly beaten

Tart:
8 ounces mozzarella, sliced
2 medium tomatoes, thinly sliced
salt
black pepper
parmesan
3-4 basil leaves, slivered

1. In a food processor fitted with the metal blade, process the basil and garlic until finely chopped. Add the flour, cornstarch, and salt; pulse to combine. Add the butter; process in 1-second pulses until the largest pieces of butter are the size of peas. Add about half the egg, pulse, then add the remaining egg. Process continuously until the dough forms clumps and curds. The sound of the food processor will change when it gets to this point.

2. Evenly press the dough onto the sides and bottom of a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Spray a 12-inch square of aluminum foil with cooking spray and press it, sprayed-side down, onto the tart crust. Freeze for at least 30 minutes.

3. Adjust a rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 375 degrees. Remove the tart crust from the freezer and spread pie weights over the bottom. Transfer the tart pan to a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake another 5 minutes, until the crust is just starting to brown. Remove from the oven, maintaining the oven temperature.

4. Line the crust evenly with slices of mozzarella, overlapping if necesary. Top the mozzarella with slices of tomatoes (do not overlap the tomatoes). Season with salt and pepper. Grate a generous layer of parmesan cheese over the tomatoes.

5. Bake the tart for 25-30 minutes, until the crust is brown and the cheese is melted and just starting to brown. Transfer to a cooling rack. Evenly distribute the slivered basil over the top of the tart. Let cool 5 minutes before serving.

Filed Under: cheese, pie, summer, vegetables, vegetarian

coconut cream pie (tom douglas)

06/24/2012 By bridget 7 Comments

My rules of thumb for ordering food in restaurants – get the restaurant’s specialty, if it has one, and don’t get anything I could easily make at home – failed me when I went out for dessert with Brady, Nicole, Joelen, Jessica, and another friend we met at BlogHer Food. (Hillary – get yourself a blog, would you?) I considered the coconut cream pie, but passed it over because I had no idea that it was A Thing at that restaurant. The rhubarb rose sorbet sounded great too, but I went with the lemongrass frozen yogurt. It sounded interesting, but it wasn’t. It tasted like sweetened frozen milk and was nice; not thrilling, but nice.

The bites I stole of Brady and Joelen’s coconut cream pie, however, were thrilling. Silky custard, mounds of whipped cream, crisp crust. How was something so basic as coconut cream pie knocking my socks off? We were all excited later when we found the recipe online. We could create this perfection ourselves!

But, the pie I made was not the pie I kept stealing bites from at the restaurant. The crust might have been the same, and the simple whipped cream certainly was, but my pastry cream seemed off. For one thing, I don’t remember shreds of coconut within the pastry cream at the restaurant. For another, I have my doubts about using flour as the thickener in pastry cream instead of cornstarch. I tried it because I was curious, but in the end, I prefer the silkiness of cornstarch compared to the pastiness of flour used in pastry cream.

The fully assembled pie was a thing of beauty, with its golden crust and mounds of whipped cream. But when I removed a slice, the sloshy unset filling flowed in to fill the gap, so that if it weren’t for the missing rim of crust, you’d never know there was a slice missing. This pie, good as it was, seemed different from the one we had at the restaurant. Or maybe it’s just that nothing can come close to the memory of sharing desserts with five friends in Seattle.

One year ago: Date Nut Loaf
Two years ago: Dressy Chocolate Cake
Three years ago: Strawberries and Cream Pie
Four years ago: Pigs in a Blanket

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Triple Coconut Cream Pie (adapted from Tom Douglas)

Makes one 9-inch pie

Shredded coconut in the crust was an interesting idea that I enjoyed, but for the filling, I prefer this recipe.

Crust:
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (5.4 ounces) all-purpose flour
½ cup (2.1 ounces) sweetened shredded coconut
2 teaspoons sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes
⅓ cup ice water, or more as needed

Pastry cream:
½ cup heavy cream
1½ cups whole milk
2 cups sweetened shredded coconut
1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise, seeds scraped out and reserved
¼ teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons (4.4 ounces) sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
¼ cup (½ stick) unsalted butter, softened

Assembly:
2 cups heavy whipping cream, chilled
¼ cup (1.75 ounces) sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 ounces unsweetened “chip” or large-shred coconut
Chunks of white chocolate (4 to 6 ounces, to make 2 ounces of curls)

1. For the crust: In a food processor, pulse to combine the flour, coconut, sugar, and salt until combined. Add the diced butter; pulse until the butter is broken into pea-sized bits, 6-8 one-second pulses. Stop the machine and pour in about half of the water; pulse twice, then add the remaining water. Pulse 3-4 more times, then test the dough by gently pressing it between your fingers; it should just hold together; if it doesn’t, add a couple teaspoons water and pulse to combine again. Line a wide, shallow bowl with a large sheet of plastic wrap; transfer the dough to lined bowl. Pull the plastic wrap around the dough, then flatten it to a round about 1-inch high. Chill for 30 minutes to an hour before rolling. (The dough can be prepared a day in advance, and stored, wrapped tightly, in the refrigerator.)

2. Unwrap the round of dough and place it on a lightly floured work surface. Dust the dough lightly with flour, then cover with a sheet of plastic wrap. Roll the dough into a 12- to 13-inch circle about ⅛-inch thick, adding more flour if it begins to stick. Transfer the rolled dough onto a 9-inch pie pan. Trim any excess to a 1- to 1½-inch overhang. Turn the dough under along the rim of the pie pan and use your fingers to flute the edge. Cover with plastic wrap and chill the unbaked pie crust at least an hour before baking.

3. Heat the oven to 400°F. Place a sheet of aluminum foil or parchment paper in the pie crust and fill the cavity with dried beans or pie weights. Bake the crust until the edge is just golden, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven, lift off the foil and weights, and return the crust to the oven. Bake until the bottom of the crust shows golden-brown patches, 10 to 12 minutes more. Transfer the crust to a cooling rack and cool completely before filling.

4. For the pastry cream: In a medium saucepan, combine the heavy cream, milk, coconut, vanilla seeds and pod, and salt. Place the saucepan over medium-high heat and stir the mixture occasionally until it begins to steam and tiny bubbles start to form around the pan’s edges. (But don’t let it come to a boil.) Remove the pan from the heat.

5. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, and flour until well combined. Whisking continually, slowly add about one-third of the scalded milk into the egg mixture. Pour the warmed egg mixture to the milk and coconut mixture in the saucepan. Place the pan over medium-high heat and whisk until the mixture thickens and begins to bubble. Keep whisking until the pastry cream is very thick, 4 to 5 minutes more. Remove the saucepan from the heat. Add the butter and whisk until it melts. Remove and discard the vanilla pod. Transfer the pastry cream to a bowl, then place it over another bowl filled with ice water. Stir occasionally until it is cool. Place a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pastry cream to prevent a crust from forming, and refrigerate until cold, about an hour. The cream will thicken as it cools.

6. To finish the pie: Heat the oven to 350°F. Spread the coconut chips over a baking sheet. Bake the chips, stirring once or twice, until lightly browned, 7 to 8 minutes. Meanwhile, use a vegetable peeler to shave about 2 ounces of the white chocolate into curls.

7. Pour the chilled pastry cream over the prebaked pie crust, smoothing the surface with a spatula.
In an electric mixer fitted with whisk attachment, beat the heavy cream with the sugar and vanilla on medium speed. Gradually increase the speed to high, and whip to peaks that are firm enough to hold their shape. Spread the whipped cream over the surface of the pie. Just before serving, decorate the pie with the toasted coconut and white chocolate curls.

Filed Under: custard, dessert, pie

strawberry rhubarb pie

06/16/2012 By bridget 5 Comments

My parents have a cabin in the mountains in Colorado, where they have a neighbor who is officially a Mountain Man, with a long scraggly beard, horses running around on his property, and the requisite amount of woman trouble. One day the Mountain Man and I got to talking about pie. He declared that pie is simple – it’s a mixture of fruit, flour, and sugar baked in a crust. I don’t recall whether we discussed his crust recipe, but I have to believe it comes from a vacuum-packed tube.

While I can agree that fruit pies are, at their most basic, a mixture of fruit, sugar, and thickener, I would disagree that that makes them simple. In fact, it makes them particularly tricky. First, the best thickener for each fruit varies – is it flour, cornstarch, tapioca, or something impossible to find in the average grocery store? Second, and worse, is that the perfect amount of thickener will vary depending on how ripe the fruit is. Exceptionally juicy peaches will need more thickener (and less sugar) than just barely ripe peaches.

I’ve gotten strawberry rhubarb pie wrong at least as often as I’ve gotten it right. Cook’s Illustrated has a recipe for it that starts with sautéing the rhubarb with sugar to get rid of some of the excess liquid. I did make an awesome pie with this recipe, but it resulted in the worst burn I’ve ever had when a chunk of super hot sugar-coated rhubarb landed on my foot. Plus it’s a hassle – who wants to deal with pre-cooking the filling in addition to rolling out dough and chopping filling ingredients?

I tried Deb’s recipe last year, which calls for tapioca as the thickener, but didn’t like the bits of gelatinous tapioca mixed with the fruit filling. I thought the answer was grinding the tapioca to a powder with a spice grinder (aka repurposed coffee grinder) until I saw Cook’s Illustrated comment (in The New Best Recipe) that tapioca and rhubarb don’t make a great pair. I happen to have arrowroot powder in the cabinet, so I used that instead.

And what I got was a perfect strawberry rhubarb pie. When the first slice was removed, the filling didn’t flow in to fill the void, but it wasn’t dry. It was just sweet enough. I didn’t use flour in the filling, but I still think that even Mountain Man would approve.

One year ago: Whole Wheat Almond Bread
Two years ago: Jamaican Jerk Chicken
Three years ago: Strawberry Tartlets
Four years ago: Deep Dark Chocolate Cookies

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Strawberry Rhubarb Pie (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

I used Deb’s recipe for pie crust.

If you can’t find arrowroot powder, use ¼ cup of tapioca, ground in a spice grinder.

Baking the pie on a baking sheet catches any drips; preheating the baking sheet helps the bottom crust become crisp and flaky instead of soggy.

dough for a double-crust pie, rolled into two 13-inch circles and refrigerated
½ cup + 2 tablespoons (4.4 ounces) granulated sugar
¼ cup (1.75 ounces) light brown sugar
¼ cup arrowroot powder
¼ teaspoon salt
24 ounces (about 3½ cups) rhubarb, sliced ½-inch thick
16 ounces (about 3½ cups) strawberries, hulled and sliced if big, halved if small
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 egg beaten to blend with ¼ teaspoon salt (for glaze)

1. Place a rimmed baking sheet on the middle rack of the oven; heat the oven to 400 degrees.

2. In a large bowl, mix the sugars, arrowroot powder, and salt. Add the rhubarb, strawberries, and lemon juice; stir to combine well.

3. Line a 9-inch pie plate with one round of dough. Transfer the filling to the lined pan. Scatter pieces of butter over the fruit. Top with the second round of dough, sealing and fluting the edges. Cut 8 slits in the top crust and brush with the egg wash.

4. Transfer the pie to the hot baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees; bake for an additional 25 to 30 minutes, or until the top crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbly.

5. Transfer the pie to a wire rack and cool at least 4 hours before serving.

Filed Under: dessert, fruit, pie, spring, vegetables

fresh orange cream tart

12/21/2011 By bridget 2 Comments

I’ve come full circle. The second recipe I made as part of Tuesdays with Dorie was a lemon cream tart; the alternative offered for that recipe for lemon haters was this fresh orange cream tart, and now this is the second-to-last thing I baked for the group. I swore after that lemon tart that I was done with citrus creams, because, as good as they are, a full pound of butter in a 9-inch tart is extreme. But it was a never say never situation, because I made a lemon cream as part of this lemon meringue cake and now I’m making an orange cream to say I baked every single dessert recipe in the book.

Fortunately, this time I was smart enough to give them all away without telling my guests that they were eating orange-flavored butter on a cookie. Plus I made them tiny, so each little tartelette only contained maybe one tablespoon of butter. Which is still a lot. It’s good enough that it might be worth the calories. But what I can say for sure is that making this one very rich dessert was worth it to say I finished off an entire cookbook.

Three years ago, one very busy day of candy-making: Candied Orange Peels, Buckeyes, White Chocolate Lemon Truffles, Pumpkin Seed Brittle, Vanilla Bean Caramels

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Fresh Orange Cream Tart (from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From my Home to Yours)

I skipped both the orange segments and the jelly garnishes.

For the Orange Filling:
1 cup (7 ounces) sugar
Grated zest of 3 oranges
Grated zest of 1 lemon
4 large eggs
Scant ¾ cup fresh blood-orange or Valencia orange juice
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1¼ teaspoons unflavored gelatin
1 tablespoon cold water
2¾ sticks (22 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon-size pieces, at cool room temperature

1 9-inch tart shell (round or square) made with Sweet Tart Dough or Sweet Tart Dough with Nuts, fully baked and cooled

3 orange segments, for decoration
⅓ cup quince or apple jelly mixed with ½ teaspoon of water, for glazing

Getting Ready: Have an instant-read thermometer, a strainer and a blender (first choice) or food processor at hand. Bring a few inches of water to a simmer in a saucepan.

Put the sugar and orange and lemon zest in a large heatproof bowl that can be set over the pan of simmering water. Off the heat, rub the sugar and zests together between your fingertips until the sugar is moist, grainy and very aromatic. Whisk in the eggs, followed by the orange and lemon juice.

Set the bowl over the pan and start stirring with the whisk as soon as the mixture feels tepid to the touch. You want to cook the cream until it reaches 180 degrees F. As you whisk – you must whisk constantly to keep the eggs from scrambling – you’ll see that the cream will start out light and foamy, then the bubbles will get bigger and then, as it gets closer to 180 degrees F, it will start to thicken and the whisk will leave tracks. Heads up at this point – the tracks mean the cream is almost ready. Don’t stop whisking or checking the temperature, and have patience – depending on how much heat you’re giving the cream, getting to temp can take as long as 10 minutes.

As soon as it reaches 180 degrees F, remove the cream from the heat and strain it into the container of the blender (or food processor); discard the zest.

Soften the gelatin in the cold water, then dissolve it by heating it for 15 seconds in a microwave oven (or do this in a saucepan over extremely low heat). Add the gelatin to the filling and pulse once just to blend, then let the filling cool to 140 degrees F, about 10 minutes.

Turn the blender to high (or turn on the processor) and, with the machine going, add the butter about 5 pieces at a time. Scrape down the sides of the container as needed as you incorporate the butter. Once the butter is in, keep the machine going – to get the perfect light, airy texture, you must continue to blend the cream for another 3 minutes. If your machine protests and gets a bit too hot, work in 1-minute intervals, giving the machine a little rest between beats.

Pour the cream into a container, press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface and refrigerate for at least 4 hours. (The cream can be refrigerated, tightly covered, for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 2 months; thaw overnight in the fridge.)

When you are ready to construct the tart, whisk the cream vigorously to loosen it. Spread the cream evenly in the crust. Arrange the orange segments in the center of the tart and prepare the glaze: bring the jelly and water to a boil. Use a pastry brush or pastry feather to lightly spread the jelly over the orange segments and cream. Serve now or refrigerate the tart until needed.

Sweet Tart Dough

1½ cups (7.2 ounces) all-purpose flour
½ cup (2 ounces) confectioner’s sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon (9 tablespoons) very cold (or frozen) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk

Put the flour, confectioner’s sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse a couple of times to combine. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is coarsely cut in – you should have some pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and some the size of peas. Stir the yolk, just to break it up, and add it a little at a time, pulsing after each addition. When the egg is in, process in long pulses – about 10 seconds each – until the dough, which will look granular soon after the egg is added, forms clumps and curds. Just before you reach this stage, the sound of the machine working the dough will change – heads up. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and, very lightly and sparingly, knead the dough just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing.

To Press the Dough into the Pan: Butter a 9-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom. Press the dough evenly over the bottom and up the sides of the pan, using all but one little piece of dough, which you should save in the refrigerator to patch any cracks after the crust is baked. Don’t be too heavy-handed – press the crust in so that the edges of the pieces cling to one another, but not so hard that the crust loses its crumbly texture. Freeze the crust for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer, before baking.

To Fully Bake the Crust: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Butter the shiny side of a piece of aluminum foil and fit the foil, butter side down, tightly against the crust. (Since you froze the crust, you can bake it without weights.) Put the tart pan on a baking sheet and bake the crust for 25 minutes. Carefully remove the foil. If the crust has puffed, press it down gently with the back of a spoon. For a partially baked crust, patch the crust if necessary, then transfer the crust to a cooling rack (keep it in its pan).

Bake for another 8 minutes or so, or until it is firm and golden brown. Transfer the tart pan to a rack and cool the crust to room temperature before filling.

Filed Under: citrus, dessert, fruit, pie, tuesdays with dorie

hidden berry cream cheese torte

12/20/2011 By bridget 2 Comments

I don’t think of myself as much of a shopper. The majority of the clothes I’ve bought over the last year have been thrifted, I rarely buy books or CDs since we moved to a town without a big bookstore, I have no interest in cars beyond dependability and gas mileage, and the only decorations in my office at the place I’ve worked for a year and a half are a bird-shaped mirror that makes me smile every time I see it and three posters on local geology that a coworker was trying to get rid of.

But ingredients are becoming a weakness. I blame living in a small isolated town; because there are so many foods I can’t buy here, when I do have access to a fun new ingredient, I snatch it up. This is why I have a container of truffle salt I’ve only used once and several types of ground and whole mustard seeds which I never got around to using in homemade mustard recipes. It’s probably a good thing Dave rushed me out of the Middle Eastern market we went to for lunch in Albuquerque, so I only had time to buy a container of za’atar and a jar of boysenberry preserves.

I haven’t used the za’atar yet, but the jam was perfect in this light, creamy cheesecake. I added a little more than the recipe called for, and I wished I had used even more. This is one impulse buy I don’t regret one bit.

One year ago: Cardamom Crumb Cake
Two years ago: Cafe Volcano Cookies
Three years ago: Buttery Jam Cookies

Printer Friendly Recipe
Hidden Berry Cream Cheese Torte (from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From my Home to Yours)

8 servings

I used 8 ounces of cream cheese, since that’s the normal size of the packages. I also left out the spices.

Crust:
1¾ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup (3.5 ounces) sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1½ sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and chilled
2 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Filling:
⅓ cup thick berry or cherry jam
9 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
8 ounces (1 cup) cottage cheese, at room temperature
¾ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
Pinch of ground cinnamon
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
2 large eggs, preferably at room temperature
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting (optional)

Getting ready: Butter a 9-inch springform pan, dust the inside with flour, and tap out the excess. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat.

To make the crust: Put the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse just to blend. Toss in the pieces of butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir the egg yolks and vanilla together with a fork, and, still pulsing the machine, add them and continue to pulse until the dough comes together in clumps and curds—restrain yourself, and don’t allow the dough to form a ball.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface. If you want to roll the dough, gather it into a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for about 20 minutes before rolling. (I like to roll this, and all sweet crusts, between sheets of plastic wrap.) Or simply press the dough into the pan. The dough should come about 1½ inches up the sides of the springform. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Fit a piece of buttered aluminum foil against the crust, covering it completely. Fill the crust lightly with rice, dried beans or pie weights and slide the pan into the oven. Bake the crust for 20 minutes, then carefully remove the foil and weights and bake for another 5 minutes or so—you don’t want the crust to get too brown. Transfer to a rack to cool while you make the filling. Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees.

To make the filling: Stir the jam and spread it over the bottom of the crust—it’s okay to do this while the crust is still warm.

Put the cream cheese and cottage cheese into the food processor and process, scraping down the sides of the bowl a few times, for 2 minutes, until you’ve got a smooth, satiny mix. Add the sugar, salt and spices and process for another 30 seconds. With the machine running, add the eggs and process, scraping the bowl as needed for a final minute. Pour the filling over the jam.

Bake the cake for 60 to 70 minutes, or until the filling is uniformly puffed and no longer jiggly. Gently transfer the springform pan to a cooling rack and allow the torte to cool to room temperature, during which time the filling will collapse into a thin, elegant layer.

Run a blunt knife between the crust and the sides of the pan, then open and remove the sides of the springform. If the sides of the crust extend above the filling and you don’t like this look, very gently saw off the excess crust using a serrated knife. Chill the torte slightly or thoroughly before serving and dust with confectioner’s sugar.

Filed Under: cake, cheese, dessert, fruit, pie, tuesdays with dorie

puffed poached pear tart

12/13/2011 By bridget 5 Comments

Just a handful of recipes left, and I’ll have baked every single dessert in the Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From my Home to Yours!

Or at least I’ll have baked something vaguely resembling Dorie’s recipes. These stragglers at the end call for unseasonal unavailable ingredients, so I’ve had to make some significant substitutions. I was actually surprised to find that the plums I needed for this recipe weren’t available at all at my store, not even tasteless rockhard specimens shipped in from another continent.

But when I saw that the plums in the original recipe are poached in wine, I immediately thought of pears. I exchanged the red wine for white and the prunes for dried apples. Raisins might have been a better choice for the dried fruit, because the whole thing ended up looking pale and plain. But it was nothing that a dusting of powdered sugar couldn’t solve, and anyway, after a bite of the buttery flaky crust and sweet winey pears, I wasn’t at all concerned about whether this delicious dessert was a little on the monochrome side.

Julie chose the Puffed Double Plum Tart for Tuesdays with Dorie. I replaced the prunes with dried apples and the fresh plums with pears. I poached the two in a mixture of 1 cup white wine, 1 cup water, and ⅔ cup sugar for about 20 minutes, then arranged them on top of the puff pastry and baked according to the recipe.

One year ago: Apple Coconut Family Cake
Two years ago: Sablés
Three years ago: Buttery Jam Cookies

Filed Under: alcohol, dessert, fruit, pie, tuesdays with dorie

sour cream pumpkin tart

11/30/2011 By bridget 6 Comments

My brother majorly stuck his foot in his mouth a couple Christmases ago. He lives in the same part of the country as most of my relatives and had spent Thanksgiving with them; then he and my aunt and grandmother all visited for Christmas. As my aunt was mixing up the pumpkin pie, my brother recalled the apparently horrible (“completely tasteless”, I believe, were his words) pumpkin pie from their Thanksgiving festivities. “Who made that anyway”, he wondered?

You know where this is going, right? Yes, my aunt had made the pie. And she was right there during this conversation, making more pumpkin pie. And it must have affected her confidence, because she forgot to add the sugar.

(extra batter)

Fortunately, this pie was anything but completely tasteless. The spices were in perfect balance and it was just the right level of sweetness. I hope that my brother would approve – and that if he didn’t, he’d keep his mouth shut about it.

Judy chose this pie (or tart) for Tuesdays with Dorie, and she has the recipe posted. I exchanged the sour cream for 2% Greek yogurt, because I don’t often buy sour cream.

Two years ago: Herbed Lamb Chops with Pinot Noir Sauce
Three years ago: Truffles (chocolate comparison)

Filed Under: alcohol, dessert, fall, pie, tuesdays with dorie

normandy apple tart

11/29/2011 By bridget 8 Comments

There seems to be a misconception among some people that I have my act together. Something like this tart, with its carefully arranged apple slices, presents an image of someone organized and calm and productive. Who knows – they might even think that I regularly clean my bathrooms.

The truth is that I forgot about the apples while they were cooking down into sauce and was lucky that there was no harm done. The truth is that I sliced and arranged the topping while singing Chicago hits (you’re the inspiration!) and drinking champagne late Sunday night when I should have been getting ready for bed.

I took the tart out of the oven long after my normal bed time. Then my hand slipped and mussed the carefully arranged apples and scalloped edge. The truth is that photographing the tart Monday morning made me even later for work than usual.

Maybe the moral of the story is that even if you’re just fumbling through, things will probably turn out just fine. You can use two forks to carefully unmuss your carefully arranged apple slices. You can eat the broken edge first. And none of those surficial imperfections spoiled how incredible this tart tasted, with the apples in the sauce adding a bright contrast to the sweet browned apples on top. This tart, Chicago’s greatest hits, and champagne were worth staying up for – even if it means that any image of me having it all together is just smoke and mirrors.

Tracey chose this tart for Tuesdays with Dorie, and she has the full recipe posted. I followed it exactly, except, remembering a Cook’s Illustrated testing of applesauce and how the version with a pinch of salt was the favorite, I was sure to add a smidgen of salt to my sauce as well.

One year ago: Devilish Shortcakes
Two years ago: All-in-One Holiday Bundt
Three years ago: Linzer Sables

Filed Under: dessert, fall, french, fruit, pie, tuesdays with dorie

apple pie cake

11/22/2011 By bridget 7 Comments

Those accursed diamonds. Dorie Greenspan tells a cute story about how her grandmother used to make a similar recipe to this one and cut it into diamonds. Notably however, Dorie did not suggest the diamond shape. She recommends squares.

But I thought the diamonds sounded so elegant and pretty. I considered and then disregarded how fragile the sharp diamond corners would be. I also considered and disregarded the impracticality of cutting a rectangular pan of pie-cake into diamonds. I powered on.

The result was more crumbs than diamonds. I usually consider the fallen crumbs to be a little treat to snack on, but when half of a large pan of pie-cake crumbles as you cut it, that can be dangerous. Once the crumbs started getting really out of control, I shoved them all in a bowl before I could even consider eating them.

Bu not even one coworker mentioned the broken diamonds when they came by to tell me that these might be the best thing I’ve ever brought to share. It didn’t even get mentioned when one coworker announced over the intercom how amazing they were. (I blushed.) I’m actually a little bit glad that I cut them into impractical diamonds, because now I have a bowl full of apple pie-cake crumbs stashed in my freezer.

One year ago: Almost-Fudge Gateau
Two years ago: Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies
Three years ago: Thanksgiving Twofer Pie

Printer Friendly Recipe
Russian Grandmother’s Apple Pie-Cake (from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From my Home to Yours)

As usual with Dorie’s recipes, I bumped up the salt – ¾ teaspoon in the dough and a pinch in the apples. And I completely forgot the raisins.

For The Dough
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
Juice of 1 lemon
3¼ – 3½ cups all-purpose flour

For The Apples
10 medium apples, all one kind or a mix
Squirt of fresh lemon juice
1 cup moist, plump raisins (dark or golden)
¼ cup sugar
1¼ teaspoons ground cinnamon

Sugar, preferably decorating (coarse) sugar, for dusting

To Make The Dough: Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together on medium speed until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs and continue to beat until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 3 minutes more. Reduce the mixer speed to low, add the baking powder and salt and mix just to combine. Add the lemon juice – the dough will probably curdle, but don’t worry about it. Still working on low speed, slowly but steadily add 3¼ cups of the flour, mixing to incorporate it and scraping down the bowl as needed. The dough is meant to be soft, but if you think it looks more like a batter than a dough at this point, add the extra ¼ cup flour. (The dough usually needs the extra flour.) When properly combined, the dough should almost clean the sides of the bowl.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it into a ball and divide it in half. Shape each half into a rectangle. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or for up to 3 days. (The dough can be wrapped airtight and frozen for up to 2 months; defrost overnight in the refrigerator.)

To Make The Apples: Peel and core the apples and cut into slices about ¼ inch thick; cut the slices in half crosswise if you want. Toss the slices in a bowl with a little lemon juice – even with the juice, the apples may turn brown, but that’s fine – and add the raisins. Mix the sugar and cinnamon together, sprinkle over the apples and stir to coat evenly. Taste an apple and add more sugar, cinnamon, and/or lemon juice if you like.

Getting Ready to Bake: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Generously butter a 9×13-inch baking pan (Pyrex is good) and place it on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat.

Remove the dough from the fridge. If it is too hard to roll and it cracks, either let it sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes or give it a few bashes with your rolling pin to get it moving. Once it’s a little more malleable, you’ve got a few choices. You can roll it on a well-floured work surface or roll it between sheets of plastic wrap or wax paper. You can even press or roll out pieces of the dough and patch them together in the pan – because of the baking powder in the dough, it will puff and self-heal under the oven’s heat. Roll the dough out until it is just a little larger all around than your pan and about ¼ inch thick – you don’t want the dough to be too thin, because you really want to taste it. Transfer the dough to the pan. If the dough comes up the sides of the pan, that’s fine; if it doesn’t that’s fine too.

Give the apples another toss in the bowl, then turn them into the pan and, using your hands, spread them evenly across the bottom.

Roll out the second piece of dough and position it over the apples. Cut the dough so you’ve got a ¼ to ½ inch overhang and tuck the excess into the sides of the pan, as though you were making a bed. (If you don’t have that much overhang, just press what you’ve got against the sides of the pan.)

Brush the top of the dough lightly with water and sprinkle sugar over the dough. Using a small sharp knife, cut 6 to 8 evenly spaced slits in the dough.

Bake for 65 to 80 minutes, or until the dough is a nice golden brown and the juices from the apples are bubbling up through the slits. Transfer the baking pan to a cooling rack and cool to just warm or to room temperature. You’ll be tempted to taste it sooner, but I think the dough needs a little time to rest.

Filed Under: cake, dessert, fall, fruit, pie, tuesdays with dorie