bakewell tarts

The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England. Recipes are on the host blogs.

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Alrighty. I think I mentioned that I joined The Daring Kitchen, which has monthly baking challenges and monthly cooking challenges. This was this past month's Daring Baker's Challenge (which I think I was supposed to post yesterday, which was the reveal date, but I totally forgot).

I made mini bakewell tarts. Mostly because things in miniature are awesome (in my opinion). These appear to be pretty similar to the baked tarts they sell at Sarah's, where I was working (my last day was last Thursday, how sad), in terms of pastry crust + fruit (jam here) + almond cream (frangipane). I made these for Bible study snacks for GCF, they disappeared pretty quickly.

I stood in the jam aisle at Wegman's to figure out what to use. I wasn't quite in the mood to make my own jam (though I did do that this past weekend with the roomies, we made strawberry freezer jam but that's another story). I decided for blackberry, plus some canned pears, and some chocolate (not all together, as you'll see in the pictures below). Emily has rubbed off on me, I couldn't just use pear jam (though pear + almond is a pretty delicious combination), because then the whole thing would've been beige.

So, pre-filling:

blackberry jam

blackberry jam + canned pear slices

chocolate chips

Coming out of the oven:

I put an almond slice on the plain blackberry ones- I think this caused some confusion at bible study, cause these were the most that were left.

And a little pear slice on top of the blackberry-pear:

And a little chocolate chip on top of the chocolate ones:

They were, suffice to say, delicious. I will have to make these again sometime. Perhaps a larger tart next time, but I love bite-sized things. They're just that much cuter.

And so pretty inside!

I had a lot of dough but only a little bit of frangipane (the almond cream filling) left, so I made this free-form "large" tart- by large I mean it was probably about 5 inches in diameter. A layer of jam, some pear, and almond filling. Mmm.

I made 1 batch of frangipane but 2 batches of the shortcrust pastry dough, to make 48 mini-tarts. (This makes sense, since when you reduce size, for the same volume [frangipane filling] you'll increase the surface area [pastry crust]. See, some of my education is occasionally useful. Only occasionally.)

a photo update

On my drive to Boston, not last weekend but the weekend before, it was raining pretty hard and I saw all sorts of rainbows. Absolutely gorgeous. I even saw a double rainbow at one point, but couldn't get a picture. Rainbows always make me think of Noah, and God's promise after the flood, and thus they always make me smile. (I also always think of an angle of 42 degrees, after that awful physics proof we had to do junior year in high school with Mr. Rylander.)

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I've been in a baking mood, so this past weekend I made a swiss roll. It's basically a simple sponge cake, with strawberry jam inside, rolled up. Much easier than it looks. It tastes okay, nothing stellar. I have recipes for chocolate rolls, which I want to try, but that requires things like baking chocolate that I didn't have on hand. However, since this was so easy to roll up, I won't be intimidated by the idea of it and might make it sometime.

I joined this website called the Daring Kitchen, and they have a monthly baking challenge and a monthly cooking challenge. I plan on doing both, but we'll see how time works out. It seems like a fun and exciting way to get new recipes. Next week (I think?) I get my first baking challenge, yay!

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I borrowed Joe's ice cream maker to make strawberry sorbato for these floats (which, by the way, were pretty fantastic), and I still haven't returned the ice cream maker (I will, soonish). Ice cream maker has made it on to my list of "appliances I want to own someday". Also on this list are a washer/dryer set, a stand mixer, and a sewing machine. About in that order, I think. Ice cream maker may be before or after sewing machine, I haven't thought it through that much. I made some mango ice cream, which turned out to be ridiculously easy and really really good. (My goal was actually to make a mango gelato, but I still haven't determined what the difference is between gelato and ice cream in terms of ingredients or technique. So I'll just call it ice cream to be safe.)

Recipe:

2 cans (14 oz? maybe?) of tropical mango (in the international foods aisle at Wegman's) in light syrup

1.5 c half and half

1. puree mango (with syrup) in a blender

2. strain to get all the fibery stuff out

3. mix with half and half

4. put in ice cream maker, churn until ready, freeze until firm.

I suppose I could've used fresh mangos, but the other recipes I found (yay google!) told me to take fresh mangos and combine with hot simple syrup, I figured the effect was the same as just using canned mangos in light syrup (which is just sugar and water, same as simple syrup, I checked the ingredients on the can first).

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My latest knitting project is a knitted rug, made out of leftover yarn from the half a dozen (or more?) blankets I've made over the years. I have a small dresser filled with yarn and knitting supplies, I've got to use it up somewhere. I also have a crapload of sock yarn, but I'm not quite in the mood for knitting socks. Must think of other things to do with sock yarn... In the meantime this is keeping me busy, though I'm running out of ideas for color combinations, and I think it needs to be several feet larger in diameter before I'm through.

Safety pins are holding it in place, so that I can see how the colors look as I go. I envision at least a 3 ft diameter rug, but possibly larger if I can make it.

on cheese puffs and blankets

Classic Gougeres

Cheese puffs- I used cheddar instead of gruyere cheese, because that's what I had. Light and delicious.

And I finally finished this blanket that I started in Dec- to be fair, I had another blanket I made while I was still in the middle of this one. Now, however, I need a new knitting project. Possibly a rug out of my remnants.

I tried making puff pastry, I used this recipe, and it actually puffed! I was so excited!

See, it puffed!

But, when you consider how much time and energy it takes to make this, and that a 17 oz package costs < $4, it's probably just easier to buy puff pastry sheets at the grocery store.

Palmier cookies- puff pastry + lots of sugar, rolled and sliced. Yummy!


I still have a lump of dough in the freezer, I should consider how to use it...