Tarts & Pies

I have kept this tart in the archives to post today because today it is exactly 1 year ago that Rossdibi of Ma che ti sei mangiato suffered a stroke at age 30. She wants to make the 3rd of March 2008 a happy day and has launched An Apple A Day. An Apple a Day is a food blogging event with apples as the main focus because apples can help prevent strokes. Participant should make something with apples and one (or more) of the following ingredients: Almonds, Black Tea, Cinnamon, Dark Chocolate, Fish, Peperoncino or Tomatoes. All foods that can help prevent strokes.
I took this tart to a small birthday celebration of a friend of mine. One of the other friends that was coming doesn't eat wheat and prefers not to eat regular sugar (yes, it's that friend, fortunately she can eat more now). So instead of using regular sugar and wheat flour I made the crust with palm sugar and spelt flour. The tart has a almond pistachio frangipane filling that I sweetened with maple syrup. The only tiny bit of sugar is in the apricot preserves that I used to glaze the apple slices with.
The only thing I wasn't totally satisfied with was the texture of the filling. The frangipane was wetter because of the maple syrup. I expected this to happen though. It still tasted very good.

Note - I used butter in my crust and the frangipane but you could substitute this with a vegetable alternative to make it healthier.



Sweet shortcrust pastry (adapted from Modern Classics Book 2 by Donna Hay)

270 g (2 cups) (spelt) flour
3 tbs palm sugar, beaten to a powder with a meat tenderizer
150 g (5 oz) cold butter, chopped
2-3 tbs iced water

Process the flour, sugar and butter in a food processor until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. While the motor is running, add enough iced water to form a smooth dough and process until just combined. Knead the dough lightly, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Roll out the dough between baking paper and line a 23 cm (9 in) tart pan. Blind bake for 10 minutes. Remove the baking weights and bake for another 10 minutes or until the crust is golden. Allow to cool down.

Filling (adapted from Essentials of Baking by Williams-Sonoma)

115 g (4 oz / 1 cup) blanched almonds
55g (2 oz / ⅓ cup) pistachio nuts
155 g (5 oz / ⅔ cup) + 1 tbs maple syrup
¼ ts salt
1 ts vanilla extract
½ ts almond extract
1 large egg
60 g (2 oz / 4 tbs) butter, room temperature

Process the almonds and the pistachio nuts in a food processor until finely ground (be careful not to over-process or the nuts will get oily). Add the maple syrup, salt, vanilla, almond extract and egg. Mix until combined. Add the butter and mix until well blended. The mixture will be quiet liquid. Pour the mixture into the prepared crust. Allow to firm up in the fridge for about 1 hour.

Topping (adapted from Essentials of Baking by Williams-Sonoma)

1-2 apples, peeled and thinly sliced
1 tbs butter, melted
1 tbs maple syrup
75 g (2 ½ oz / ¼ cup) apricot preserves

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Arrange the apple slices in two circular rows onto the chilled frangipane. Mix the butter and maple syrup and brush the mixture onto the apple slices.
Bake for 40-45 minutes. Allow to cool for 30 minutes.
Heat the preserves until melted. Strain the preserves through a sieve. Brush the apple slices with the strained preserves. Allow to cool down completely.

This month's Daring Baker's challenge was lemon meringue pie, a challenge from The Canadian Baker.
I'm a bit feverish so I'll keep this post a little short.
When I read the recipe I did have a few reservations about the crust and filling, both involved water. The recipe for the crust called for ⅓ cup of water which seemed like a lot to me. I checked the recipe to see if it said something about adding water until it comes together but no such thing. So I just did exactly what the recipe said which resulted in a fairly wet and flexibel dough. After chilling it somewhat longer than the recipe suggested (½ hour instead of 20 minutes) it was manageable though. Not as manageable as Donna Hay's shortcrust recipe that I usually use though. When I cut away the overhanging dough it looked pretty strange. Because of it being so wet and flexible I suspect it was more a combination of cutting and tearing (even though I used a sharp knife). I put it in the fridge and went grocery shopping so it chilled for over an hour instead of the suggested 30 minutes. After blind baking the crusts (I made two smaller ones and used springform baking tins) it turned out that the dough did not behave the way my usual dough behaves. One of the crusts kind of slided a bit down at two points. The other seemed ok but it did shrank in the sense that it went below the top of the springform. Nothing a little meringue couldn't conceil ;)
The water in the lemon filling was my other reservation, it seemed like so much. Turned out the filling tasted really great, in fact it was delicious! The texture was great too. At least at this time I was sure the lemon meringue pie would be delicious.
It was fun to see how the water turned into thick wall paper adhesive. Had been afraid to add the corn flour directly into the water so I let the water cool down for a couple of more minutes. But it worked well...learned something here. I had to make the pie in steps so I chilled the filling and hoped for the best the next morning. It firmed up beautifully except, I needed it to be more liquid to fill the crusts. I microwaved it 20 seconds at a time, everytime whisking it until it was smooth. Took about 3 x 20 seconds and 1 x 10 seconds.
I filled the crusts and started whipping the meringue. Meringue is not something I make a lot and usually I make Swiss meringue (heating the sugar and egg whites before whipping them) and up till now that usually works well for me. The times that I made regular meringue I usually underwhipped it because I was afraid to overwhip it. This time I thought to myself that I wouldn't let that happen...result: OVERwhipped meringue. I only noticed after I piped the meringue onto the pie, it looked more like whipped cream from a pressurized container. Still I didn't really get it so I thought I'd just make it spiky with a palet knife....well, that doesn't work with OVERwhipped meringue. It just looks ugly :( Oh well, sometimes that happens.
At least the slice of cake looked ok enough if you don't look at the top too much. I had to be very careful cutting the (chilled) pie to not ruin the slice. The meringue kind of moved around on the filling and the crust was pretty hard (maybe I overworked the dough?)
Oh, and did I mention that the meringue wept? It wept.
Would I make it again? I would because it was delicious but I'd use a different crust...I think....but on the other hand, even after more than 24 hours it was still not soggy!
That's it for this month's challenge, can't wait till the next :) And now I'm going to bed...



Check out all the other Daring Bakers.
For the recipe check out The Canadian Baker.

I came across a recipe of a walnut and honey filled pie in an old issue of Elle Eten (the Dutch food version of Elle magazine) the other day. It looked so good that I had to try it. I changed the walnuts to cashew nuts because I had plenty of unsalted cashewnuts lying around begging for me to use them. Besides the honey I added some vanilla to the filling too. Instead of the dough in the original recipe I used the apple pie dough my mum uses. Turned out that the flower I used to decorate not only looked cute, it was helpful too because I could cut between the petals and create 6 really equal slices :)



Even though it was a delicious pie, I was disappointed about the lack of cashew nut taste. The taste of the honey and crust overwhelmed it. I guess I never realised that cashew nuts have such a delicate taste. Next time I'll make it with either walnuts or hazelnuts.
I used a springform pan to make the pie because I don't have a pie pan/dish. I thought it was very useful because that way I could cut out the bottom by placing the greased bottom of the spring onto the rolled out dough and just cut around it with a sharp knife. If you carefully turn it around (and if you're lucky) it will stick to the bottom so you just attach the top part of the springform with the bottom part of the dough already in place. (it does take a little practice to place to close the thing in an orderly fashion I should add!) To make the disk that went on top I opened the upper part of the springform and used that to cut a round out of the other part of the rolled out dough. This made it a little bigger than the first round so that it would easily cover the filling and still have enough dough to reach the sides of the springform.



Cashew nut, honey & vanilla pie (adapted from Elle Eten)

serves 6

crust:
250 g (8 ¾ oz) flour
150 g (5 ¼ oz) butter, cold and cut into cubes
125 g (4 ½ oz) caster sugar
grated rind of 1 lemon
1 egg

filling:
25 g (1 oz) butter
3 TBS honey
½ ts vanilla
100 g (3 ½ oz) cashew nuts, chopped

egg wash:
1 egg
1 TBS water
pinch of salt

Rub the flour and butter between your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and lemon rind and stir it in. Stir in the egg. Knead briefly to combine and to let it come together. Form into two disks and chill for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Grease a 15-18 cm (6-7 in) springform or pie pan.
Roll out each disk between 2 sheets of baking paper to a thickness of about 4 mm (1/6 in). Cut out a round that will fit the bottom of the pan (for a tip, see the text above). Cut out a slightly larger round to cover the filling. Cut out a flower and a small round with a cookie cutter.
Place round no. 1 into the springform. Spread the filling on top of it, leaving a 1½ cm (½ in) border at the sides. Place round no. 2 on top. Press the borders onto each other. Put the flower in the middle and the small round in the middle of the flower. Brush with egg wash. Bake about 40 minutes or until golden brown.

I have been baking all week for a high tea I organized for some of my dearest friends. This tart was one of the goodies I made and it's also my entry for the 'Topless tart' edition of WTSIM that is hosted by Cook Sister! this month. The tart has a simple egg-less sweet shortcrust basis and is filled with clementine and lemon curd. The crust and curd are then baked for 25 minutes.
It was the first time I made a curd and I must say that clementines make one delicious curd! I didn't read the recipe very well before started so I didn't process the clementine zest with the sugar before mixing it with the eggs. Instead I put the rind in the clementine juice and allowed it to steep for a couple of hours in the fridge. Even though it turned out delicious it would probably have been even better if I followed the recipe (and maybe a little more orange). I raised the temperature that was needed for lemon curd from 71°C (160°F) to 77°C (170°F) degrees because only then it had the right consistency. In the recipe it says that it will take about 5 minutes for the mixture to reach 71°C but it took me much longer, I think about 25 minutes.
The only time I ever had curd was years ago and that was lemon curd. I don't remember the taste very well but I would say this one is less tart. At first you taste lemon, but after that you taste a very destinct clementine taste. The tarty sweetness combines especially well with the shortcrust pastry...yum! Definitely will be making more curd in the future...maybe next time I'll try it as cookie filling.



Clementine and lemon curd (adapted from The Secrets of Baking by Sherry Yard)

170 g (⅔ cup sugar
2 tbs finely chopped or grated clementine zest
3 eggs
5 egg yolks
½ cup clementine juice
¼ cup lemon juice
50 g (4 tbs / 1/2 stick)

Prepare an ice bath. Use a large bowl to hold the ice.
Combine the sugar and and clementine zest in a food processor and pulse until the sugar is yellow and very fragrant (about 1 minute).
Combine the clementine sugar, eggs, and egg yolks in a medium heatproof bowl and whisk together for 30 seconds. Heat the contents au bain marie while whisking continuously. Whisk until the sugar is dissolved.
Add the clementine and lemon juice and cook, whisking continuously. Check the temperature from time to time. Cook and whisk until the mixture reaches 77°C (170°F) and the mixture has the consistency of sour cream.
Transfer the curd to a large bowl and whisk in the butter piece by piece. Continue to whisk until the mixture is homogenous.
Strain the curd through a fine-mesh strainer into a medium bowl and place the bowl in the ice bath to cool down. Cover the surface with plastic wrap to avoid the forming of skin. Stir the curd occasionally until it has cooled completely.

It keeps for up to a week in the fridge.




Sweet shortcrust pastry (from Modern Classics Book 2 by Donna Hay)

makes 3 small tarts or 1 large tart

270 g (2 cups) flour
3 tbs caster sugar
150 g (5 oz) cold butter, chopped
2-3 tbs iced water

Process the flour, sugar and butter in a food processor until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. While the motor is running, add enough iced water to form a smooth dough and process until just combined. Knead the dough lightly, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Grease three 15 cm (6 in) tart tins (or springforms). Divide the dough in three and press into the tins. Blind bake for 10 minutes. Remove the baking weights and bake for another 10 minutes or until the crust is golden. Allow to cool down. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Divide the curd over the 3 shortcrust pastries and bake for 25 minutes. Allow to cool down.

I never really bother to roll out tart dough: why roll when you can press is my motto ;) I know it is the easy way out but it works fine for me.
It's not the rolling itself I dislike but what you have to do after that: transferring the dough in one piece into a baking tin and making sure it fits nicely.
I don't even remember the first time I did try but I remember I didn't like it....and still don't (like the other roll out thing). However, being a person who bakes on a regular basis I thought I should be able to roll out dough too. So behold: a tart with dough I actually rolled out! It worked out pretty good, even though I need to pratice getting it neatly into the baking pan. I rolled the rolling pin over it before pressing it a little bit against the sides so there was a little bit too much dough in some places...practice makes perfect, right?
Anyway....this is my entry for this month's Hay Hay it's Donna Day. Created by Barbara of Winosandfoodies and hosted by last month's winner: Trinigourmet. This month's theme is tarts!
The crust recipe I used is Donna's sweet shortcrust dough from Classics Book 2. It is the one I use for pretty much all my crusts. I settled for a chocolate ganache filling but wasn't sure about an extra flavour. Should I infuse the cream with something or just keep it as is and add something else to fill the crust? So many important choices a baker must make ;)
In the end I went with something I made for last SHF: Haagse Hopjes or coffee caramels. I still had most of them tucked away in my cupboard. Not because were not tasty but - I did not mention this in the original post - I couldn't cut more than a few caramels because the mixture had cooled down too much. When I first cut them, it was too soon so the cut marks were gone after some time. The second time I was just in time to cut only a few caramels in the middle, the rest of the mixture was already too hard to cut. In other words, I had a few big pieces of caramel that were not very convenient to nibble on. Luckily I discovered that you can recook caramel. You just dissolve the caramels in water and cook till the required temperature. To make the original caramels I cooked them to hard crack stage, this time I cooked them till soft ball. That way the caramel would stay soft. I used the caramel as the bottom layer, the chocolate ganache was poured over the caramel. The dot decoration is white chocolate. I like making dot decoration as you can see here, here and here.
The tart tin I used was about 10 x 34 cm (4 x 14 in).

Notes to myself when making something similar:
- cooking caramels to soft ball is too soft to use as filling at roomtemperature, that is if you don't want the caramel to sip out when you cut the tart (the recipe below is the corrected version of medium ball stage)
- don't rush to finish the tart before you go to bed and pour ganache over caramel that has not properly cooled down. If you do, expect the caramel to creep up at the sides instead of staying on the bottom of the crust ;)
- when piping chocolate dots, lift the piping bag in an upward motion instead of a sideward motion in order to create neat dots that don't have to be corrected by piping bigger dots on top of them
- make sure the tart is level when put in the fridge that way the tart filling will be level too
- don't use your silicon roll out mat because 2 sheets of baking paper works much better

As for the taste: the ganache was delicious in its simplicity. The coffee caramel taste was not very present, I think because mine was to fluid and therefore it blended with ganache too quickly when taking a bite. I suspect that a more set caramel would solve this 'problem'.

Sweet shortcrust pastry (from Modern Classics Book 2 by Donna Hay)

270 g (2 cups) flour
3 tbs caster sugar
150 g (5 oz) cold butter, diced
2-3 tbs ice water

Process the flour, sugar and butter in a foodprocessor until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. With the motor running add enough water for the dough to cling together. Knead lightly and wrap in plastic wrap. Allow to sit in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
Roll out the dough between 2 sheets of baking paper until 2-3 mm (⅛ in) thick. Line the greased tart tin. Blind bake for 10 minutes. Remove the baking weights and bake for another 10 minutes or until the crust is golden.

Coffee caramel

about 300 g (10 ½ oz) Haagse Hopjes (or other coffee caramels)
1- 1 ½ cups water

Dissolve the Haagse Hopjes in the water on low heat. Turn the heat up to medium and allow to cook till 118-121°C (245-250°F or medium ball stage). Pour the caramel into the baked pie crust. Allow to cool completely.

Chocolate ganache

200 g (7 oz) bittersweet chocolate (70%)
200 ml (6 ¾ fl. oz) whipping cream

Chop the chocolate in ½ cm (¼ in) pieces. Transfer to a bowl. Bring the cream to a boil. Pour the boiling cream over the chocolate and allow to stand for 1 minute. Stir until well combined. Pour the ganache over the caramel filled crust. Allow to cool completely.

White chocolate decoration

30 g (1 oz) white chocolate, chopped

Melt the chocolate and transfer to a piping bag made out of baking paper. Snip off the tip and pipe dots onto the ganache.