0 Dorie G's Tartest Lemon Tart

ahhh..yesssss..dorie's tartest lemon tart...

and it is tart, but so so right.








this was not the actual crust recipe given, but this crust was, might i say, perfect... and i can say that because i didn't make it...the crust master of the house, MOM, made it. it was fun...we both got our hands dirty on this one.










there was just the right amount of dough AND filling to throw together this little guy. almost too cute to cut.....almost.











visually, the whole tart turned out beautiful yet simple. taste-wise, this baby has nothing simple about it. it's tart with just the right sweetness.



i must admit...this is not the first try with this tart. my first try was from the lovely pages of smitten kitchen (love her stuff!) recipe found here. i followed it to a T or so i thought, and mine looked like hers...oh i was so excited about it. but i gotta tell ya...i was disappointed. it kinda reminded me of a cooked lemon marmalade. like a blended up lemon with a bunch of sugar and greasy butter...wait...that's what it is!...but hold on...all is not lost. i gave a few slices away and to my surprise i was told it was one of THE BEST things i have ever made !!! a good friend of mine, alice, who has traveled france quite a bit and pretty much knows her authentic tarts is the one that flipped over this one. so i thought i must be crazy..i had to try it again. i googled dorie's tartest lemon tart and low and behold found out that most all the other examples (from a TWD found at the host babette's blog) had a 1/2 c. of heavy cream.

well, back to the drawing board...and just in time for my pal alices 29th birthday. luckily my pastry chef had whipped up a few discs of that fabulous dough for another try. for this one i emplored her help through the whole process due to the fact there was no room for error. the tart had to be delivered on that saturday in time for alices birthday weekend. needless to say tart #2 came out much better in my opinion...but now i'm questioning my opinion..hmmm....anyway, i was told yummy and fabulous by the birthday girl and the mini tart we saved for ourselves was devoured down to the knuckle.

so, the point of this story is...that this is a damn good tart no matter what i think!!! if your looking to WOW your guests with something you'd only expect from a fabulous dinner out...try this one on for size...

0 Mallows and Milans

This month's Daring Bakers' hostess Nicole at Sweet Tooth chose chocolate covered marshmallow cookies (aka mallows) and milan cookies from the Food Network website. Both are from pastry chef Gale Gand and are homemade versions of Nabisco's Mallomars and Pepperidge Farm's Milanos. I've never tried Mallomars and didn’t even know about their existence until Harry (played by Billy Crystal) declared them the greatest cookies of all time in "When Harry Met Sally". Milanos were a favorite snack while I was in college. Back then there were only two varieties - original and mint. Orange, raspberry and others came along much later.

I really enjoyed the mallows. The cookie dough was very straightforward and easy. My only problem was the stated yield in the recipe was completely wrong. I rolled my dough 1/8-inch thick as stated and I was on my way to getting 12 dozen 1-inch diameter cookies. Luckily I only cut out about 50 cookies and saved the rest of the dough for the future.


I've never made marshmallows from scratch and was excited to try it. It's pretty amazing that the fluffy, runny, sticky mess sets up so nicely. It was a lot of fun and tasted much better than store bought. Instead of piping the marshmallow onto the cookies, I made them in a potato starch coated baking pan and cut them into disks after they had set up. Of course I didn’t really think it through and the marshmallow disks wouldn't stick to the cookie. I tried using fruit jam or peanut butter to stick them onto the cookie base but I felt that it detracted from the delicate flavors of the marshmallow and cookie. So I just placed them on the cookie base. The chocolate glaze coating held them in place just fine.


The recipe for the milan cookies appeared very straightforward. But I messed up somehow. Maybe I misunderstood the piping instructions, but I ended up with a lot of tiny cookies. Like the recipe instructed, I used a 1/4-inch plain tip and piped out 1-inch long sections which could give me enough to make over 200 miniature cookies instead of 3 dozen Milano-sized sandwich cookies. Maybe I was supposed to pipe out 1-inch wide sections instead of 1-inch long sections? I actually stopped after piping two sheet pans worth so I ended up baking about 80 miniature cookies.


The flavor of the cookie was okay, but the texture of my cookies was nothing like a Milano. Mine were much thinner than those used in Milanos and were like chewy tuiles. Not good. Maybe my batter was too runny? I didn’t have time to redo the cookie batter so I continued on with the recipe anyway. I made the chocolate ganache filling and assembled the sandwich cookies. I did not enjoy these at all. I should have cut my losses early by only assembling a few cookies for the photographs, saving the ganache for something else and then tossing the rest of the cookies into the compost bin. Yes, I disliked my cookies that much. I felt they were a total waste of good chocolate.

So this month was 50-50 for me. My mallows were good. My milans were bad. I'm sure the other Daring Bakers fared better than I did.

The fine print:
The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.


Continue reading...

0 BLONDIE BISCOTTI...?

well, as promised in yesterday's post here's what i did with the gooey mess i had in the center of my "Nigella" white chocolate macadamia nut blondies...and i gotta tell ya, i could toot my own horn on this one...not that it's any BIG fabulous idea or anything, just that they came out unbelievably good and i was very proud of the save.

i turned them into mini blondie biscotti.

after i cut off the sides about 1 1/2 in. (photo of those yummy blondie squares in yesterday's post) i put the half baked middle back in the fridge to chill so it would be easy to cut. i saw that there was no possibility of cutting this into normal squares so i sliced it long, then cut that into smaller flat squares. as you can kinda see the top and bottom were already cooked. this is what gave it that biscotti feel. i popped them in the oven and watched them carefully. some of them oozed out the sides (those tasted the best, but weren't too pretty)...who am i kidding...they were eaten 1st before i could get a shot of them...

the result was this amazing chewy, soft, yet crunchy melt in your mouth cookie. to me, they kind of resembled a dense financier. these were a big hit around here. the bummer is that i don't know if i could do it again....hmmmm....maybe try to half-bake something on purpose? i might mess that up and end up with either a puddle of goo, or an over baked brick.

anyway...if anyone out there ever comes across this same snaff-foo please try this trick. it's not often a baking near disaster can be fixed, so you know i'm gonna milk this save and hope i can do it again sometime...

0 WHITE CHOCOLATE MACADAMIA BLONDIES...very fudge-like?

well, let's just start by stating, "these are as good as they look"

and you know it's full of love a goodness because it's one of Nigella's recipes. i found the recipe through.....http://opistachio.blogspot.com/2009/06/white-chocolate-pecan-blondies.html ..... with many thanks to "opistachio" for bringing it to my table.

okay...now here comes the snaff-ooo...

i know i followed the recipe to the T. i loved the fact that the butter and white choc are melted together before adding to the batter. i'm already thinking i want to try this with regular chocolate, but back to these babies...and i loved all the pecans (i used macadamias), i think i even put in extra...no harm, no foul, right?...well, the recipe says bake for 35min or untill top is set, but center is still a little gooey...i watched like a hawk at the end because the top was browning, but the center seemed to be reeeeeally gooey, so i probably left mine in for an extra 10 maybe even 15mins...the recipe also says to let cool for 3-5 min then cut into small squares. i knew i should leave it to cool for longer so i didn't touch it for a few hours...it was quite warm for a while.

my first cut was down one of the sides and it looked great..la la la...very pleased...

but...then the next cut revealed total GOO through the center...baked on top and bottom, but goo in the middle..AND goo all the way through...all around about 1 1/2 in. from the sides was great....this is what you see in the photo above. i gotta say these bites are deeelicious. they resemble a cross between a dense brownie and fudge...or a little like a friand or financier, if you can wrap your head around that...

so i'm left with a half-baked treat...i cut all the sides into nice neat little squares, happy as a clam with those, but what do i do with all the rest. i can't see wasting all those good, kinda expensive ingredients so i came up with an idea...

a "half baked idea?"...punn intended

the results turned out amazing, quite possibly better than the original...i'll post photos and explaination next entry...

0 SWEET SAVORY SPICY PECAN PANCETTA AND EGGS

i really don't know where i came up with this combo, but i gotta tell ya, it sure works for me. my 1st bite made me think i was at a 5 star hotel on a fabulous vacation somewhere just willing to try anything and everything different or out of the ordinary. but no, there i was in my own kitchen....darn...oh well...

anyway, lately i've been obsessed and facinated with the whole sweet savory thing. (spicy goes without saying because everything i eat has to have some heat to it). i was just falling asleep the other night and a thought came to me that i haven't ever seen anything with nuts and eggs together...i'm sure there are recipes out there, but i don't recall any. it's hard to come up with anything truely new anymore, ya know? someone's always done it before. but...i'm not lettin' the wind out of my sails yet...

i wish i could say that there's some big fancy recipe, but i like simple. put this with that and these and those...and if you don't have some of those then use whatever you think would be good and make it your own.

here's what i did........

fry pancetta(sliced like thick bacon) in a non stick pan. remove and place on paper towel

cook eggs to your liking in same pan(yes! in that yummy pancetta fat! duh...)

i scrambled mine with cheyenne, thyme, salt and fresh ground pepper

(the 1st time was a frittata, as seen above)

***sweet & spicy pecans from Trader Joes***

spicy pecans are a key factor (where ever you get them)

maybe a lil'extra cheyenne and thyme on top

maple syrup tableside

put these flavors together however you see fit and i think you'll be surprized. the variations on this are endless. my tastebuds are already rolling with more ideas for new combos and flavors.

let me know if you like this one and, for sure tell me your ideas...

0 Blueberry Hand Pies

Rebecca of Ezra Pound Cake and I had the honor of choosing the theme for this month's You Want Pies With That. We asked the participants to come up with a pie that reminds them of a "Taste of Summer". Summer can conjure up seasonal fruit or carnival foods, but it can also be about sunburns and bored kids. I was one of those bored kids.



The concept of over scheduled children driven around by a "soccer mom" didn't quite exist when I was growing up. My parents didn’t send us to camp or summer school. In fact, it was okay to leave children at home alone unsupervised for a few hours back then. My brothers and I would hang around the house and try not to destroy the house or each other.

My mom never let us have any junk food normally. But during the summer break we could occasionally go to the corner store and pick out something sugary. I always chose a Hostess Fruit Pie. I know it sounds gross and I am a bit ashamed to admit that I like it, but a 9 year old me thought it was delicious. [Note: Hostess Fruit Pies are commercially produced hand pies.]



So I decided to bake some miniature blueberry hand pies as a tribute to that childhood summertime treat.



Blueberry Hand Pies
(22-24 mini hand pies)

1 quantity of Flaky Pie Crust (see recipe below)

Blueberry Filling:
14 ounces blueberries
6 tbsp granulated sugar
5 tsp cornstarch
2 tsp finely grated lemon zest

Optional glaze:
1 egg, lightly beaten with 1 tbsp water
1-2 tsp granulated sugar

To make the filling:
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

To assemble the hand pies:
Roll out your chilled dough to about 1/8-inch thick. Using a 4-inch round cutter, cut out 4-inch circles. (You can reuse the dough scraps once. Lay the scraps, side by side slightly overlapping and roll them between plastic wrap. Refrigerate dough for at least 15 minutes before cutting out more circles from the rolled scraps.) You should get about 22-24 circles.

Spoon about 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons of the blueberry filling, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Brush the edges lightly with cold water (to help the dough stick) and fold dough in half. Using your fingers, press the border to seal it and then press the border using the tines of a fork. Refrigerate filled hand pies for 30-60 minutes.



To bake:
Preheat oven to 400F. If desired, brush the chilled turnovers with egg glaze and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Use a sharp knife to cut 3 steam vents into the top of each turnover. Bake at 400F for 15-20 minutes or until the pastry is lightly golden and the filling is bubbling. Let hand pies cool for 15 minutes before serving.

Flaky Pie Crust
(makes 20 ounces dough - enough pastry for 22-24 hand pies)

7 ounces (14 tbsp) unsalted butter, cut into 3/4 inch cubes
11 1/4 ounces (2 1/4 cups) bleached all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
5 to 7 tbsp ice water
1 tbsp cider vinegar

Divide the 7 ounces (14 tbsp) of butter into 2 portions: 4.5 ounces and 2.5 ounces (9 tbsp and 5 tbsp). Refrigerate the 4.5 ounce portion and freeze the 2.5 ounce portion for at least 30 minutes.

Place the flour, salt and baking powder in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the blade. Process for a few seconds to combine.

Add the 4.5 ounces of (refrigerated) butter and process for about 20 seconds or until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the 2.5 ounces of (frozen) butter and pulse until the frozen butter is the size of peas.

Add the 5 tbsp of ice water and the vinegar and pulse 6-7 times. Pinch a small amount of the mixture to see if it holds together. If not, add another 1 tbsp water and pulse 3 times. Try pinching again to see if it holds together. If not, add the final 1 tbsp water and pulse 3 times.

Divide the dough in half. Wrap each portion with plastic wrap and flatten into discs. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.