Patron Saint of Bakers

Salut Gumdrop,

Having just stuffed myself with an enormous, melty chocolate chip walnut cookie from Le Gourmand, I finally feel able to recount my experience with chocolate pastry.

I know a poor worker blames her tools, but I’m going to lay the blame for this catastrophe firmly at the feet of Nick Malgieri and his book The Modern Baker. More specifically, I’ll blame the gorgeous look of the book. Like a complete sucker, I feel for its fresh and modern style, but when I started to make Chocolate Pecan Tart with Chocolate Nut Dough, I just knew I was in for a bad run. Have you ever had a moment like that? You’re only on the first step and it already feels wrong? I must have read the recipe five times just to find out what temperature to set the oven.

The dough was easy enough to prepare, but utterly uninspiring during the experience. Likewise, the filing wasn’t complicated in and of itself, but I did ask for a bit of trouble by making this a large tart instead of tartlets (having received a ruffled tart pan for the wedding, I wanted to use it. A fine lesson in what you want isn’t what you need). This meant that my chocolate caramel ganache didn’t set properly. Regardless of that little disaster, the chocolate overwhelmed the caramel flavour, so I wondered what purpose the caramel really served?

With all the bad mojo during the baking, I had a sense that all might not be right with this tart. I decided that I needed to try this beastie before I served it to the in-laws for Mother’s Day. It wasn’t good. It looked so awful when cut; I couldn’t even bring myself to photograph it. Some things only a mother can love, but that’s not the case with mothers-in-law, is it? For a split second, I thought I could pretend the IE made it instead of me, but as my father would say, that was just too far-fetched a story. In the end, I whipped up an emergency Four Star Chocolate Bread Pudding instead. Once again, Dorie saved the day. She should be the patron saint of bakers.

The true casualty of this experience is that I was totally unwilling to work with nuts and ganache again and scrapped my plans to make the Hazelton Sandwich Cookie for the Cookie Carnival. Instead, I whipped up a Red Velvet Cake during the weekend up at the cottage.

Red Velvet Cake has had a bit of a popularity surge recently, but it’s a nostalgic cake for me. Every girl has one of those childhood movies we inexplicably adorable and for me, it’s Steel Magnolias. I think because it reminded me of my mom and her gaggle of girlfriends, who each reminded me of those magnolias. For a while, I had a version of my future that involved marrying a Louisiana lawyer and arguing over a Red Velvet Armadillo Groom’s Cake (not that whole diabetes/no children thing).

The movie was the first time I’d ever heard about the cake and my imagination ran wild wondering what it would actually taste like since neither the colour red nor velvet itself had much of a discernible flavour as far as I could tell. So one year when my family was in Myrtle Beach for our annual vacation and my mom and I came across a Red Velvet Cake at the Harris Tweeter or Piggly Wiggly (have you noticed that all Southern grocery stores seemed to be named after cartoon characters?), we had to try it. Now, I can’t recall if it had a cream cheese frosting (I suspect it didn’t), but that cake was just not right. It was the most peculiar, flavourless thing and everyone except my grandfather refused eat it after the first bite.

Maybe some things just need a little time to grow on you, but this version from Epicurious was delicious and charming in its simplicity (it was the cottage, so I didn’t bother with a crumb coat, making it the homely thing here). When the hubby says, "it’s so good, I want to lick my teeth," I think it’s something that’s going to stay in the repertoire for a good long while. All those Steel Magnolias would be proud.

Px

Guilt Be Gone

Oh Gumdrop, your baking industriousness is a thing of true beauty as are your noble efforts to fuel your children’s love with cookies. It’s an absolutely brilliant plan and even if it all goes pear-shaped by 2015, you’ll at least have the memory of all those sticky kisses from the golden days of toddler love.

You see, I’ve been feeling a little guilty lately about all the baking I’ve been doing. It’s the prime contributor to the newlywed 15 the IE and I are battling. But now I’ll HAVE TO bake cookies to honour my commitment to the cookie carnival (buying a bike to ride to work is also helping with the guilt). Maybe I should run to the market right now to pick up some fresh lemons and almonds….

Px

Slices of Spring - Lemon Bars for the Cookie Carnival...

Greetings Pickle -

Even though Pretzel and Peanut are only 2 and 9 months old respectively, I am already very worried about the teen years and the hatred they are bound to feel for me! Daily, I wonder to myself - how can I curry enough favour to keep the teen hatred at the 'mild' setting? One of my preventative strategies, cribbed from my Nana, is to always have a jarful of homemade cookies on my counter. Surely eleven years of homemade cookies will earn me a place in their hearts, no matter what an embarrassing dork I actually am. Right? Right???

This full jar policy led me to the folks who are having a great time over at the Cookie Carnival. Each month, they pick a new cookie recipe. How fun is that? I know - as much fun as a carnival! It was dreamed up by the talented and amusing Kate over at The Clean Plate Club, and this month's recipe and round-up are courtesy of the sweet baking machine called Holly over at Phe/MOM/enon.

I have to admit that the Toasted Almond Lemon Bars chosen for this first month didn't fit neatly into my cookie jar, so that was a little sad from the get-go. I have to admit also that I'm not even a giant lemon bar fan, although I know this puts me in the minority in the world. But they are from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book , and as you know I loved the recipe for Pretzel's birthday cake which came from the same source. And they did scream Spring. So I dug in!

The unique thing about this recipe is that it features ground, toasted almonds right in the crust and almond extract in the filling. I LOVE almond flavoured things. These, though, were a little too subtle in the almond department IMHO. If I make them again, I'll definitely up the almond content. However, where they were perfectly subtle was in the lemon department. They weren't all sour and puckery like too many of those lemon bars that use peel. I took some to a job, and the boss was very vocal about not liking lemon squares because they're too tart. And then she ate three. So I am now an office favourite, thanks to the bars. Who could ask for more?

Actually, I could - because Pretzel gave me a giant sticky hug after the lemon bar he got for dessert tonight. And then, before I noticed, 9-month-old Peanut grabbed a huge hunk of crust and chowed down on that with little hums of satisfaction. And then Columbo the dog licked the crumbs up with apparent doggy glee. Ahhhhh. Another deposit into my Anti-Teen-Hatred Account.

Toasted Almond Lemon Bars

From The Sweet Melissa Baking Book by Melissa Murphy

For the Crust:

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup confectioners' sugar

1/2 cup sliced blanched almonds, lightly toasted

1/2 teaspoon salt

20 Tablespoons (2 1/2 sticks) cold, unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces

For the Lemon Filling:

4 large eggs

1 3/4 cups sugar

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup fresh lemon juice (about 7 lemons)

1/4 cup confectioners' sugar for sprinkling

To Toast the Almonds:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spread the almonds in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until lightly golden and you can smell them. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

Before You Start:

Position a rack in the center of your oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9 x 13 - inch pan with nonstick vegetable cooking spray. Make a parchment "sling" by cutting two pieces of parchment paper, measuring 16 1/2 inches long by 12 inches wide (you can also use aluminum foil). Place one piece across the length, and the other across the width of the pan, with the excess hanging over the edges. You will use this sling later to lift the finished bar from the pan. Spray the sling with the cooking spray.

To Make the Crust:

1. In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade, pulse the flour, sugar, almonds, and salt to combine. Add the cold butter in pieces and pulse until the dough comes together in a ball.

2. Turn the dough out into the prepared pan and press evenly into the bottom and 1 1/4 inches up the sides. (This crust, once it is baked, needs to act as a liner in which to pour the liquidy lemon filling. So be sure to do a good job of pressing the dough up the sides - no cracks!). Cover the dough with a piece of parchment paper or aluminum foil, and fill with pie weights ( you can use dried beans or uncooked rice as pie weights as well). Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until lightly golden. Carefully remove the pie weights and the liner and bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, or until the whole crust is golden. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

To Make the Filling:

In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar until smooth. Add the almond extract and flour, and whisk until smooth. Add the lemon juice, and whisk to combine.

To Complete the Bars:

1. Pour the lemon filling into the prepared crust. Reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees F. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the filling is firm and lightly golden. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

2. When cool use the parchment sling to lift the entire bar from the pan and onto a cutting board. Slice into twelve 3 x 3 1/2 - inch bars. Remove from the pan and, using a small sifter, dust with the confectioners' sugar.

Challenge: Conquer Chocolate Crust...

Dear Pickle:

This is your fault - because those butter tarts WERE fun and got me into pastry mode. And I'm seriously jonesing to pull out that rolling pin again... So, the new challenge is:

Chocolate Pastry, in a pie or tart of your choice. I've never made it, but it sounds divine - and how could it fail to make so many pies and tarts that much better?

Martha has a recipe for chocolate pate sucree here.

I think I'm going to try Cindy Mushet's from her beautiful new 'Art and Soul of Baking'. Cindy warns that you have to be very careful not to burn it as you can't use the usual golden brown indicator to tell you when it's done...

Enjoy!

x
Gumdrop

Butter Tarts: The Easter Maker

Cher Pickle:


Well, this is the kinda challenge guaranteed to put a grin on the face of a small town Ontario gal! Butter tarts are kinda just burned into the DNA, aren’t they? In my case an appreciation for the tart is sandwiched right between the gene that allows me to find a Pepsi anywhere within a two-mile area and the gene that assures I am quite decent at a game of catch, even if years have elapsed since the last one. (We will leave the gene which gives me a genuine appreciation for the Jell-o salad for another day.)

Just right off the top I will declare my rules. Not ‘preferences’, rules. Tarts must be made in a muffin tin, not any kind of tart tin, which makes them too delicate and ultimately pretentious. In this case, even though I enjoy a soft pastry on a pie, the pastry must be crispy. And there must be NOTHING other than delicious goo in the middle of the tart. No raisins, nuts, coconut, currants, extraneous pastry cut-outs. NOTHING. Part of this preference is due to the fact that I come down very firmly on the side of runny (hee). One bite should send the filling pouring down your fingers and off your elbow. You should be consumed with panic at the thought of missing one delicious drop. Fillings just dam up the flow and distract from the delightful gooeyness of it all. My favourite kind of butter tart almost makes an argument for being eaten with a spoon – although you cannot, that’s another rule, but it should be tempting.

My current cookbook collection is decidedly lacking in a good butter tart recipe – most of the older vintage books are still in boxes after our recent move. (What do you mean fourteen months ago doesn’t count as ‘recent’?) But I do have to say that I TOO love the Five Roses cookbook and was excited to hear that you use it – if only I’d been able to locate it in the basement! It contains the ONLY correct recipes in the world for both peanut butter cookies and pineapple upside-down cake. (Although I am a little freaked out by the butchering diagrams, something that has bothered me since childhood. I think maybe reading the Five Roses is when I first realized that meat came from animals.)

Anyway, speaking of lard, I got a pastry recipe here at Home & Country magazine. It’s quite a good one - rest assured, though, no lard. I felt instinctively that the tablespoon of icing sugar was right. Also the bit of vinegar. Although, of course, I had to replace half the shortening with butter. That’s how I get down. But it did feel specifically like a pastry for butter tarts, which is a nice thing.

Agree with you completely on the surprising ease of making tarts. I don’t make them often because they seem fussy in my head – but in fact they are in some ways easier than a pie crust because you don’t have to fuss with a perfect circle or creating a large area at exactly the same thickness. Maybe the muffin tin makes this still easier because there is no fluting or forking required!

So I made the crust the day before Easter and went to make the filling the morning of. But with family coming over soon, I couldn’t devote the time needed to finding the perfect filling recipe. I felt like I wanted a little actual MAPLE in my tarts. (Does that make them into Tarte au Sucre instead? Are you no longer my friend? Did I go too twee with the Canada theme here?) So I went with this recipe from Canadian Living magazine, which seemed an a propos source. To their credit, they said it was 'custardy' right from the top...

In the interest of family harmony, I did hold my nose and add nuts to a few (for my mom) and raisins to a few others (for Mr. Salty). I left half of them straight up for my dad and I, who know how to eat things properly.

There was a minor squabble when my mother, alone in the kitchen, ate one that got stuck in the tin and tried to blame the transgression on my completely innocent dad. But otherwise the harmony was indeed preserved. After an Easter dinner, they may have been a less-than-traditional dessert, but they were delicious. And we were glad.

However, I still feel the need to make a proper runny batch because these weren’t it - and now there's an itch which must be scratched!!! I think I will use this crust recipe again but I may have to forego my maple pref. Will report back when/if my real butter tart itch gets scratched!

xxx
G

PS - The pictures are of only one tart - because that's all that was left!!! Must learn to unabashedly take pics before serving food...

Battle: Butter Tarts

Like you, Gumdrop, I was in need of a baking challenge. I needed to muck about with flour and measuring cups, butter and rolling pins. I needed it desperately. I tied on my armor (okay, apron) and braced for battle.

You see, I decided to solve my own conundrum: which butter tart is best? Would it be the pastry made with pure butter or did a little shortening give a flakier crust? And having never imagined a world where butter tarts had corn syrup (isn’t that cheating?), I had to taste it for myself. Of course with 48 tarts on the loose in my house, I definitely needed to enlist help in determining which tart was best. Luckily, my mother’s birthday was looming and I’d have a captive, butter tart loving panel.

The opponents in this battle would be brash new school Wanda’s Pie in the Sky (Batch A), a local bakery that uses corn syrup in the filling and a pure butter pastry versus old school Five Roses (Batch B) with a classic butter tart recipe of straight butter, sugar, vanilla and eggs, but whose pastry was half butter, half shortening. I will admit to a certain partiality to the Five Roses recipe based on pure nostalgia since it’s the cookbook my mother and grandmother used as their baking bible. It’s Prized Shortbread recipe is the only enduring family Christmas baking tradition that my non-baker of a mother adheres to (probably because my brother and I would mutiny on the whole obligatory family thing otherwise).

With the soldiers prepared for battle, I whipped up the pastry. I’ll admit, I always feel some trepidation with pastry making, but with a little preparation and respect for procedure, my confidence has grown. Chill the fat, ice the water and refrigerate the dough before rolling it and you’re pretty much guaranteed that it will turn out well. And how fun is it to use a gadget like a pastry cutter? My lovely metal one from Williams Sonoma even has a little divet for your thumb. Very clever.

While tarts may seem a tedious when you contemplate having to roll out the pastry and cut out all those little circles, it really is very therapeutic. As someone’s days are a chaotic mélange of people and ideas, it’s nice to escape to something that demands time and patience. Up to my elbows in flour, music wafting through the kitchen, it’s probably about as Zen as I get.

As for the fillings, they were essentially the same except for that addition of the corn syrup.

I mixed it up by making each version with and without currants (you’d be court marshaled for nuts or raisins in this girl’s culinary army). Watching the filling bubble and bronze in the oven, I couldn’t help but admire the simple beauty of this humble little Canadian treat. Maybe it’s just a symptom of the times, but I’m going through a love affair with homey looking dishes right now. The days of fiddling with pristine pastry leaves and edible gold leaf seem like punch-drunk opulence now, all style and status and devoid of flavour and sincerity. Maybe I’m romanticizing those poor little tarts, setting them up for a mighty fall when some flashy gâteau catches my eye, but for now, I’d much prefer to nestle up with a lumpy homemade pottery mug of tea and a comfy rough hewn dessert.

The IE was on the frontlines of the taste test, plucking a golden orb almost straight from the oven. To offset the scalding nectar, he doused the poor thing with vanilla ice cream. Thus, he was an immediate fan of Batch A’s very runny filling as it mingled with the melting ice cream. Ooey gooey goodness, as he called it.

Personally, I’m not a fan of a dessert that needs a dribble bib, but the pastry had a lovely colour and tasted delicious (vast lashings of butter does that). So with one vote very firmly cast for Batch A, we sent off to visit the family, armed to the teeth with baking ammunition (What’s a birthday without cupcakes and a giant cupcake cake? This frosting, much like the one you made for Pretzel’s birthday, except with gobs of melted chocolate, is like eating chocolate mousse on cake toast. It’s definitely the kind of frosting you eat straight from the bowl in a frenzy until someone (like your startled new husband) discovers you with it smeared all over your face and you know the only way to not be judged is if you offer them a spoon, but your greedy neediness makes you hesitate to share a joy so pure babies would weep. Yes, I like this recipe).

But back to the butter tarts. Firstly, butter tarts in general are always a crowd pleaser. It doesn’t seem like anyone hates a butter tart if they’re over the age of 5. Mom, Bro and Nou (my bff) all chose Batch B, vehemently in favour of the flaky crust and the firmer, less sweet filling. A true and magnanimous butter tart lover, my dad was happy with both versions and demonstrated his affection by eating them until he got a stomachache.

I was completely alone in my currant preference, but most generals rule alone, don’t they?

Px

I’m feeling a little sleepy on this rainy Spring evening, so I’ll post the butter tart recipes later this week since both are so old school, I can’t track them down online.