Cranberry Crackle Tart—Tuesdays With Dorie—Baking Chez Moi

I made our Tuesdays With Dorie recipe for Thanksgiving.  Normally we would post on Tuesdays, but since this one was so close to the holiday, we were given permission to post after the day.  The color is off on my photos as most of them were taken in a hurry while the tart was sitting at the dessert table.  I took a few at home right after it baked, too.    I should have taken more time for better photos because I loved the way the tart looked. 

First I made the crust with Dorie’s Galette Dough (page 420 of Baking Chez Moi).  I made this dough twice over the holiday and love how it rolled out nicely and didn’t stick to the counter.  The tart was easy to make, it was just a meringue with cranberries folded in to it.  Some raspberry jam was spread on the bottom of the tart before added the meringue.  The tart is then baked low and slow for an hour and it had a great crackled top.  I admit to tasting one bite of the tart and I really liked it.  I could have easily eaten more of this tart, but didn’t for  my health’s sake.  Now for fun, I want to make cranberry meringue cookies with raw honey. 

This was a perfect holiday tart and would be even better for Christmas, I think.  You are in luck, Dorie posted this recipe on her blog a couple years ago--Cranberry Crackle Tart.  I personally think if you like great baking, you should get Dorie’s book, Baking Chez Moi.  We won’t be posting recipes in the group and they won’t all be available online.  Add this book to your wish list if you don’t have it yet.

Meyer Lemon Buttermilk Pie for Pi Day

Happy Pi Day!  While you math people celebrate in your own special ways, I choose to celebrate with pie! ;)

Today I decided to make a Meyer Lemon Buttermilk Pie because of two reasons—I had a couple Meyer lemons in the fridge begging to be used and two—I  also had some buttermilk to use as well.  I really like Meyer lemons.  I have gone through a dozen of them in the last month or so.  When I first bought some, I looked up all kinds of recipes and had a hard time deciding what to do with them.

At one time, I used them in a lemon poppy seed dressing with a spinach and strawberry salad.  De-lish!  I used one in some lemon cornmeal cookies I made recently—they were good, but I didn’t think they were that pretty, so I didn’t post them.   Basically, lately when I made something that needs lemon, I’ve been using Meyer lemons.  I love that they aren’t too terribly tart and have their own distinct flavor with a little hint of orange or tangerine.

So, in that search a month or so ago, I found this pie and have had it on my “to make” list since then.  The recipe for this pie is found on a new-to-me blog by Alanna, The Bojon Gourmet.  She is a baker and pastry chef and has gorgeous photos of the things she makes.  This Meyer Lemon Buttermilk Pie recipe is so well written and Alanna tried it different ways until she felt it was perfect.  Like she mentioned, she had never made a buttermilk pie before and neither had I.  I wanted something a little different than just making a lemon meringue pie or lemon bars or something like that so when I saw that this had buttermilk, I decided that was what I wanted to try. 

I followed her recipe to a tee.  My only issue was, even though I did exactly as she described in her recipe for the crust, mine still shrunk a bit.  Hate it when that happens.  I’m wondering if that could be solved with some high altitude tweaking, but who knows.  So after prebaking the crust and seeing it had shrunk a bit, I knew all of the filling wouldn’t fit in the crust.  I filled it as full as it could be without overflowing.  Then I made a quick cookie crust with Nilla Wafers and baked the rest in a 9x5 inch bread pan that I lined with non-stick foil.  It came out great!

The cookie crust was simple and could easily be doubled in an 8x8 inch pan.  Here’s the recipe for the bread pan.

Nilla Wafer Cookie Crust, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

1 cup Nilla Wafer cookie crumbs

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Combine the cookie crumbs, sugar and melted butter until it is the consistency of wet sand.  Spread evenly in a 9x5 inch bread pan lined with non-stick foil, leaving some foil hanging over the edges to easily release the tart from the pan.  Prebake the cookie crust in a 325 degree oven for 10 minutes. 

As if you couldn’t tell, I made some whipped cream for the top of each slice of pie and the tart.  With the Meyer lemons, this isn’t as tart as regular lemons would be.  If you’re a lemon fan, and especially like Meyer lemons, go check out the blog with the recipe, The Bojon Gourmet.

French Apple Tart—Tuesdays With Dorie

This week we got to make a true French classic for Tuesdays With Dorie—French Apple Tart.  I know there will be some beautiful tarts in the group. 

First a pie crust is made and put into a tart pan.  With my current cutting back on sweet treats, I decided to make two mini tarts (they were made in four inch tart pans).  For the applesauce layer, I cut the recipe in the book down to 1/6.  The recipe uses 6 apples, I just used one.  Then about half an apple for each of the top layers. 

This became an even easier task for me when I saw some pie crust dough in my freezer.  I didn’t write on the outside what crust it was, but decided to use it up.  It was probably a pate brisee' which is a simple short crust recipe/method I learned from Paige at For Love of the Table.  Yes, there was still a lot of crust leftover.  I made a quick peach pie with some canned filling I had.  My oldest son ate the whole thing within a couple days. 

I knew the French Apple Tart would be good, since apple pie is probably my favorite pie.  The few bites I had were great!  Love the soft applesauce layer on the bottom.  This would definitely be a wonderful show stopper of a dessert for company.

Gaye from Laws of the Kitchen is hosting this week and has the recipe on her blog.  You need this recipe in your file.  But I’ll say it again, you should have Baking With Julia in your cookbook collection.

TWD—Baking With Julia—Chocolate Truffle Tartlets with Oreos and Andes Mints

Tuesdays With Dorie—Baking With Julia today!  This recipe was a little more involved than the first one for white loaves of bread.  The group has decided that each month we’ll just be doing two recipes (instead of weekly) and one will be more difficult or involved than the other.  We all agreed that would work well with our schedules and with Baking With Julia being more involved recipes.  Still having two weeks instead of just one this time around, I waited until yesterday to get to these Chocolate Truffle Tartlets!  When will I learn? ;)

I decided after looking at how decadent this recipe was that I needed to cut it down a bit.  So I only made 1/4 of the recipe, which made two small 3 1/2 inch tarts instead of six!  The recipe called for a little added white chocolate and milk chocolate as well as a chopped up biscotti.  After making a failed recipe for almond biscotti the other day that only had egg whites in it, I decided on some chocolate filled Oreo cookies I had on hand and some chopped up Andes mint chocolates and I thought these tasted great!

I thought the chocolate crust was good.  Kevin thought it wasn’t sweet enough, but to me it worked well with the sweet filling.  The filling was not really what I thought it would be, I was thinking more of a custard or something.  I thought it was delicious and I’m glad it wasn’t custardy.  It was more like fudge—a nice minty fudge with a little extra crunch from the Oreo cookies!

Everyone ate a little tiny slice or two for dessert and the two little tartlets were gone in a flash!

We have a number of bloggers hosting this recipe this month.  You can find the recipe on their blogs.  But I do suggest you just get the book, Baking With Julia.

Spike at Spike Does Stuff

Steph at A Whisk and a Spoon

Jamie at Good Eats & Sweet Treats

Jessica at cookbookhabit

Check out all their tarts!  You can also see a bunch of others on the Tuesdays With Dorie website.

A Virtual Blog Party For My Friend Shelby With Mini Nutella Chocolate Cream Pie Bites

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas (or whichever holiday you celebrate)!  We did and are truly blessed!  Now, it’s time to par-tay!  I’m not just talking about ringing in the New Year, though that is a reason to celebrate.  Today I’m talking about a virtual blog party!

My friend, Shelby, at The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybunch is celebrating her fourth year blogging anniversary.  (Mine is coming up, too—in February.  My how time flies!)  Shelby thought it would be fun to celebrate with a virtual party and word has it, a giveaway, so be sure to head on over and check it out.  Besides, she has a great blog with some amazing food and some great stories she shares, mostly about her significant other, Grumpy and their relationship.  Shelby’s blog is one of the first I started reading.  She used to blog along with TWD (Tuesdays With Dorie), which is how I got to know her. 

I recently did a guest post on her blog while she and Grumpy sailed the ocean blue on a cruise.  She is such a kind-hearted person, one that I’m sure if we actually ever met face to face would be a great friend of mine.  As for now, we are “virtual” friends.  Can’t wait to see what else she shares next on her blog.  Year number five, here we come! ;)

For the blog party, I recently made some Mini Nutella Chocolate Cream Pie Bites (Tarts) that I wanted to share.  Don’t know if you’ll recall, but for Thanksgiving, I made this delicious Nutella Chocolate Cream Pie that was a big hit.  I had many people asking for the recipe.  I thought it would be really fun to make again, but mini-size.  These are great one-bite wonders that are perfect for serving at any party.  I love the little mini-tart fillo shells you can buy in the freezer section at most grocery stores (the ones I get are from a company called Athens).  At only 15 calories each, they are a great alternative to pie crust.  You can use them for all things savory and sweet—but of course, I went with sweet for this party!  I just cut the Nutella Chocolate Cream Pie recipe down and piped some of it into each fillo shell.  Then I drizzled on a little extra straight-up Nutella and sprinkled on a few chopped hazelnuts.  You can leave those off if you’d like, but they added a great texture to the mini pies.  I also thought they’d be great topped with a little dollop or piping of whipped cream, but I left that off this time.

Mini Nutella Chocolate Cream Pie Bites, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

30 mini fillo shells (2 boxes)

1/2 cup Nutella chocolate hazelnut spread

4 ounces 1/3 less fat cream cheese, softened (half a brick)

4 ounces whipped topping or whipped cream (1/2 to 1 cup, to taste)

2 tablespoons more Nutella, for drizzling

2 tablespoons or so chopped, toasted hazelnuts, for sprinkling (optional)

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.  Place the frozen mini fillo shells on a baking sheet.  Bake for 8-10 minutes, just to crisp them up a bit.  Let cool.

Combine in the bowl of a food processor or mixer the Nutella and cream cheese.  Scrape sides of bowl and make sure it is all well combined and smooth.  Add the whipped topping or whipped cream and pulse to combine.  With a rubber spatula, scrape the filling into a piping bag fitted with about a 1/4 inch flower tip (or you could use a plastic zip top bag and cut off the corner).  Pipe some of the filling into each shell.  Put some of the extra Nutella into a plastic zip top bag with just a small tip of the corner snipped off and drizzle over the Nutella chocolate cream filling.  Sprinkle with chopped hazelnuts (if using).  Refrigerate until serving.

These are perfect for a party.  I like little bite-sized things because then you can have more or are able to try lots of different things and not feel so guilty! ;)  And try to just eat one of these!  They’re really good, especially if you love Nutella!  I do!  Probably not many treats to make for a party that are easier!

……And many more!!!…..to you, Shelby!  Party on!  Go to Shelby's blog now!!  Check out her virtual party and enter the giveaway!

TWD—Honey Almond Apple Tartlets

One of the recipes for TWD this week was for the Honey-Almond Fig Tart, which was chosen by Kayte the Great from Grandma's Kitchen Table.  She’s posted the recipe along with an alternative to figs using grapefruit.  Her tart looks delicious!  I wouldn’t say my laziness got the best of me, as you can see my little tartlets with those premade mini phyllo shells, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to find figs—and I actually looked and did not find them.  But I also knew I couldn’t subject myself to eating another tart.  I love the crust, not to mention whatever happens to be inside one!

These apples were not even the size of golf balls.  And they really taste great!

So I improvised and made half the recipe of almond cream.  While looking for the figs at Whole Foods, I came upon some of the cutest little apples I’ve ever seen called Lady Apples.  So I bought a bunch and thought these would be perfect for adding to the tarts.  I then topped them with a couple of pomegranate arils for some color.

I only made 15 tarts with the mini phyllo cups so it only took a couple of apples to fill the tarts.  I sauteed the apples in a little butter and brown sugar first.

I put the almond cream in a pastry bag and piped some of it into each tart.  I just put one slice of apple on the top of each one.

  Ah, those look nice—all ready for some apples and a little baking.

I know what you’re thinking—those look great, Katrina.  Well, I wouldn’t want you to think I’m perfect or anything, so here’s the deal.  I filled each tart with a bit too much almond cream—so they overflowed a bit.

Evidence ;)

All was not lost.  I think I made them look alright.

And what was even better—they taste great!  And I don’t feel quite so guilty about eating one or two rather than a slice or two or three of a real tart‘

What great thoughts Kayte also shared about baking along with this Tuesdays With Dorie group.  And I totally agree—it’s been so fun to learn new skills with baking and to “meet” so many wonderful people!  We’ll be starting the new group as we start another of Dorie Greenspan’s wonderful books, Baking With Julia in February next year!

In the meantime, we’re gearing up for Christmas around here, including this little Bad Boy!

 

Check out Kayte's post for the recipe for this tart.  The other recipe that was chosen for this week was Earl Grey Madeleines and you can get the recipe for those from Nicole at Bakeologie.  Since we just recently made some madeleines, I decided not to again, but Nicole’s look great!

TWD—Sour Cream Pumpkin Pie (or Tart)

Mini Sour Cream Pumpkin Tartlet

I really wanted to get both recipes made for TWD this week, but I was not able to get to the Normandy Apple Tart!  I have two apple tarts on my must-make list soon.  The week before last there was an Alsatian Apple Tart and this week’s apple tart was chosen by Tracey from Tracey's Culinary Adventures.  She has the recipe on the link to her blog.  And how pretty does her tart look!  I’ve had a similar tart before and it was so good—the applesauce on the bottom was great.    I even bought the apples I wanted to use for the tart, but just ran out of week for making both.

After all the Thanksgiving goodness and still having these pies/tarts on the need-to-make list, I decided to make just half the recipe for the pumpkin pie and I used the leftover pie crust dough from a couple pies I’d made for Thanksgiving.  It was just the right amount of pie dough to make two four inch mini tarts.  After halving the pumpkin pie filling, it was enough to fill the two tarts and two ramekins (without crust).  Yum to both!

The pumpkin pie is simple and classic with just an addition of sour cream.  My only adaptations to the recipe were that I used lowfat evaporated milk instead of the heavy cream and I used lowfat sour cream.  I also omitted the dark rum.   I would use this recipe again for pumpkin pies in the future.

Kevin and Scott both like pumpkin pie and happily ate some of this.  And I enjoyed it, too, you know, since I did use some lowfat ingredients, it’s probably not all that bad for ya—especially the ones with no crust.  This recipe was chosen by Judy of Judy's Gross Eats and she’ll have the recipe posted on her blog. 

TWD—Fold Over Pear Torte

I find some of the recipes we do in this group that don’t have a picture in the book and no one is too sure what it should look like are often interesting to see that everyone’s look totally different from one another.  So, I had no idea what this was supposed to look like, and after checking out a few blogs that have already posted theirs before I finished my post, I still don’t know just what the correct look is for the torte.  A few I looked at seem like their crust went all across the top.  Not happening here.  Here’s mine.

At one point over the last week, I was going to make half the recipe for this torte because I had half the dough left from making mini tarts for FFWD's mustard tart and because I was just a little skeptical about anyone around here really liking the torte.  Kevin isn’t big on pears.  I’m not big on custard.  But I ended up using that leftover dough for something else.  So I ended up making the full recipe, because sometimes that is just easier than doing math.

I whipped up the crust dough for this on Sunday and it chilled until I finished making the torte on Monday.  When I went to buy pears at the grocery store last week, for some strange reason, the only pears they had at that time were Asian pears.  So I got some of those.  They weren’t ripe at all, so they sat in a paper bag for three days and I was hoping they’d ripen.  I don’t think they were as ripe as they should have been yet.  Because of that, after putting together the chopped fruit and the custard and adding it all to the prepared crust, I baked that thing for probably an hour and a half.  After it had baked for 80 minutes, and the crust still wasn’t too dark at all, I left it in the oven, took a phone call and forgot to reset the timer.  So I lost track of how long it baked.  But I think it was somewhere around 90 minutes.  (The recipes suggests 60-70 minutes.)  Now you’d think that would be enough time, but the pears aren’t as soft as I would have liked.

That and when I first looked at the finished torte, I thought it looked kind of unappealing.  And I even thought to myself that the pears kind of look like chicken.  Is it a pot pie?  I didn’t say anything to anyone, and when Scott came in the kitchen and saw it, he pointed to it and said, “What is that, chicken?”  So while I think the crust looks good (and tastes good), I wasn’t thrilled with the whole torte.

 

I knew I should have just sliced the pears like you would for apple pie and I knew for my sake I should have just left out the custard.  I think this would be really good more like an apple pie, sliced Bartlett pears piled high and then maybe a crumbly topping added.  Sometimes, I really feel like making the recipes exactly as written, but know in my gut that I’m better off changing things a bit.  I followed along this time.  I tasted the photographed slice of torte, the custard is just too much of an eggy taste for me.  Scott ate the rest of the piece.  We now still have the rest of the torte that I’m not sure will get eaten.  Live and learn and I’m always glad when I participate in this group week to week and learn new things.  So don’t feel bad for me that I didn’t care for this.  I usually really like the added flavor of almond extract, but also thought it didn’t really go well with this and as usual, I left out the rum.

You can check out the other tortes this week on the TWD website and get the recipe from Cakelaw.  Her torte looks really good.  Maybe mine had too many pears.  I used three, but those three Asian pears were huge.

I used all the pears, apricots and walnuts as well as all of the custard filling and this is what it ended up looking like as it was about to go in the oven. 

And now I must tell you that as much as I REALLY want to get around to all the other TWD blogs and am already behind, I’m taking Parker, Taylor and Sam and we’re going to Idaho on Wednesday to see my parents.  They don’t have school for fall break on Thursday and Friday, so I thought we’d take the extra long weekend and make a trip home.  (Scott is staying home to go on a scout campout and Kevin will stay with him.)  So I apologize right now if I don’t make it around this week.  I’ll be back (and yes, you can say that just like The Terminator.) ;)  Catch ya’ll later.

FFWD—Gerard’s Mustard Tart (And CSN Stores Giveaway Winner!)

Double posting again—be sure to check out the yummy Apple Betty Bars below that I posted for Twelve Weeks of Christmas Cookies.

French Fridays With Dorie is here again.  We are in to the second week of cooking and baking along to Around My French Table.  The recipe Dorie chose for this week looks great in the book.  I was excited to give it a try.  I don’t LOVE mustard.  I would never purposely put it on a sandwich.  But I have been liking it okay when it’s in dressings or certain recipes where it isn’t the key flavor.  Looking through the ingredients in the recipe for this mustard tart, I was a little skeptical that I wouldn’t  like it with as much mustard that is in it.  Besides that being an issues, I just knew that the whole tart wouldn’t get eaten here.  I LOVE crust, but have noticed that Kevin often leaves a lot of the crust uneaten, even with the most delicious of pies.  Scott does the same thing.

So, I decided to halve the recipe, but when making the tart dough, went ahead and made the full recipe.  I plan to use the other half of the tart dough for something else (next week’s TWD recipe!).  I ended up making two 4 inch tarts and having enough filling left over that I made a crustless one in a four inch cake pan.  The egg-y, frittata like tart full of veggies was pretty good.  I could definitely taste the mustard (I used all Dijon, didn’t have grainy mustard).  I would eat a slice of this tart if I was served it somewhere, but not sure I’d make it again.  OR, I’d make it again and cut way back on the mustard, I do like having a little bit of that taste there, but maybe not quite that much. 

Oh, and it’s no surprise that I don’t really like leeks, since they are in the onion family.  So I skipped the leeks and cut up some carrot, red and green peppers and some cremini mushrooms and I browned them up in a skillet with a clove of garlic and some olive oil first.  I used some dried thyme for the herb as I didn’t have any fresh and I don’t care for rosemary.  The tart really did taste good.  I love the idea of putting lots of veggies in and making such a simple lunch with the mini tarts.

 

This is so fun to be cooking some new things here.  Steppin’ out of the comfort zone.  Next week—some Spicy Vietnamese chicken noodle soup!

 

And now for the announcement of the CSN Stores $75 giveaway winner—I chose a winner randomly from the entries received and the winner is---Sarahe!

sarahe said...

looks wonderful!
If i won I would get some new baking pans...mine are kinda sad :(

October 06, 2010 7:17 PM

Congratulations, Sarah, I will be contacting you for the correct information to get the $75 promo code from CSN Stores to you!  Yay!  (Thank you, CSN Stores for allowing me to have this giveaway!)

TWD—Tarte Fine

Our recipe for TWD this week for Tarte Fine (page 315) was chosen by the lovely Leslie of Lethally Delicious.  Thank you, Leslie.  What a great, easy, fine-tasting recipe this was. 

Puff Pastry, I love you. (I used Pepperidge Farms, that’s all I can find around these parts.)  Dangerous love—lethal, let’s say. ;)  Really, the problem I have with it is that it isn’t filling at all, so it’s easy to eat too much.  Especially when it just has some thinly sliced apples on it.  Then I find myself reasoning that it’s not bad since all it has is apples.    Enough about that. You almost don’t need a recipe.

Thaw some puff pastry.  Lay it out and place thinly sliced apples over the top.  Sprinkle it with a little bit of sugar.  Bake.  Before baking, brush the puff pastry with a little milk and the apples with an egg wash.

When it it finished, gawk at those flaky layers.

Brush the apples with some apricot jam for a little shine.  Cut the tart in to slices and serve it with a little vanilla ice cream on top.

Thank you, Leslie.  You can get the recipe for this fine tart on her blog.  I ate more than my fair share.

Coming up this Friday our first recipe for French Friday's With Dorie as we begin cooking and baking from Dorie Greenspan’s new book, Around My French Table.  Here we go!

TWD—Crunchy and Custardy Peach Tart

Another Tuesday, another recipe from Baking From My Home to Yours.  Rachel at Sweet Tarte picked the Crunchy and Custardy Peach Tart.  I don’t know why I dread and don’t really enjoy making tarts.  I suppose it’s just too many steps and sometimes maybe a little confusing.  I’m not complaining and saying I didn’t like this recipe.  I’m super glad I made it and it tasted really good.  But I will probably not ever make it again.  Give me cookie dough to scoop and I am one happy baker.  Put an already made delicious, beautiful slice of a tart in front of me and I will love it.  Know what I mean?

I made the sweet tart dough (page 444) with almonds.  Put it in the freezer for a few days.  It looked great.  Does the tin foil always stick when you make a tart dough?  I had to scrap the partially baked dough off the foil and place in back on the crust.  Wasn’t happy.  But it pieced back together just fine. 

The rest of the steps came together just fine.  I prepped the streusel the day I made the tart dough.  Peaches were peeled and sliced, no problem.  Custard—easy as can be.  Even assembling it all was fine.  Just more than I really wanted to do.  (By the way, I only have an 11 inch tart pan, so I made everything one and a half times the recipe.  It was actually a super easy recipe to do that with.)  I added the streusel at the wrong time during baking, but it seems to have baked just fine.  Maybe I’ll find that some others’ tarts have a lot more crumble on top, while mine just baked in with the custard. 

Another thing I have found with every partially baked crust I have made into a tart, I think the crust gets too overbaked.   I don’t like it that dark.  I’ve seen many tarts throughout this TWD baking that don’t get that dark.  I only tasted a little sliver of this and it was good.  But I would much rather make a peach crisp instead.

I’m always glad when I play along and make some of these things that are way out of my comfort zone, so thanks, Rachel.  You can find this recipe on her blog.

***Disclaimer—I don’t want you to think in any way I don’t like this tart.  I think it tastes great.  Dorie said she likes it cooled from the oven and chilled.  I think it is even more fantastic chilled!  (I may have sampled another little sliver for breakfast. ;)

___________________________________________________________________________________

We had dinner at Cindy’s house tonight (Monday), Frank was in town (from DC) to bring his son, Tyler out to BYU, so we had dinner together, including Kristy.  Scott fell from the bench he was sitting on eating dinner on the deck and hit his head on a brick wall.  He ended up with a nice gash in his head.  So Kevin and I took off and got him to an urgent care for some stitches.   (Sorry we didn’t get to visit with Frank longer!)  Scott was a trooper as they put staples in his head.  Just the thought makes me cringe.  He starts junior high tomorrow (Tuesday).  Hopefully he won’t have to keep a bandage on it through his first day of school tomorrow.

Sam got to go meet his preschool teacher today.  He seems really excited to start school on Wednesday.  The teacher gave him a little gift of a pencil and some crayons.  This is how he looked a while after we sharpened the pencil and he’d been drawing with it.

 

“Sam, did you have the pencil in your mouth?”

“No,” shaking head shyly.  Uh, okay, Sam.  Could he be any cuter?

TWD—Quick Classic Berry Tart (The Really Quick, Cheap Way)

So I feel like this will be the most lame I’ve ever been with a TWD recipe.  Not sure why.  I think the big reasons are that I’m trying to use up things we have, and the only berries in the store that are even barely affordable are strawberries and I just didn’t want an all strawberry tart.   Oh, that and pastry cream—I just couldn’t make the pastry cream.  I feel pretty confidant in my ability to make it, I just couldn’t subject myself to eating too much of it.  You know what I mean?  I love the sweet tart dough.  Love the pastry cream.  And berries are at the top of my fruit list.  But I might have eaten way too much of a whole tart if I’d have made it.

Does that sound good enough for excuses?  Well, I DID make a couple of cute little quick tarts, but I (she said under her breath in shame) used instant fat free pudding for the pastry cream.  I only made half the sweet tart dough.  I could just bake a whole tart and not put anything in it and keep munching on the baked shell.  Dorie’s tart in her book is beautiful.  I might make it someday when berries are really in season.  It looks like a great dessert to impress.

So I made two 4 inch tarts and two little mini tarts in my mini muffin pan.  I ended up burning those two little ones to death.  Oops!  But the other tarts were perfect.  I had a half used box of instant banana pudding, so I whipped that up with some skim milk.  And I just happened to have also made some chocolate chip oatmeal cookies that had vanilla pudding in the dough, but not the whole box.  So I also made some of that.  I filled one tart with banana pudding and one with vanilla.  I sliced up a couple strawberries for one of the tarts and I had a fresh pineapple.  So I sliced some of that for the other tarts.  Then I did this---

 

The strawberry tart has the banana pudding.  That’s a cherry in the middle.  We had had breakfast for dinner and I’d made crepes.  I had some frozen cherries in the freezer and made a cherry compote to serve with the crepes (though banana/Nutella is everyone’s favorite). 

Here’s the pineapple/sunflower tart, which I think is just darling and was mighty tasty as well.

 

Yes, those are mini chocolate chips in the middle.  I know you were all wonderful how or if I would be able to incorporate chocolate in to this.  There you go. ;)

Get this.  After I made the tarts, I tucked them into the refrigerator to let the boys have them for snack the other night.  And I forgot about them and they had a popsicle instead.  When I remembered later that night I actually thought I’d let the boys have some for breakfast the next morning.  And I forgot about them again.  As “healthy” as I made these with the fat free pudding, I still didn’t want to eat them both myself.  I was afraid they weren’t going to still be good.  That night, I got ice cream out and while they were eating their ice cream, I saw the tarts.  So I pulled them out, cut them into four pieces each and offered them to the boys who were stuffing their mouths with chocolate ice cream.  Parker matter-of-factly said, “Oh, I don’t like tarts”.  (Never heard that one before.)  Taylor and Sam didn’t want any.  Scott obliged me and ate a little piece.  So since it was cut, I ate a few bites of each.  They were good.  I especially liked the pineapple.  I tucked them back into the fridge and the next day was Mother’s Day.  We had a yummy Belgian waffle breakfast, a simple, quick lunch before church then some Asian Chicken Pasta Salad for dinner.  And I made myself my favorite cake--Banana Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake (I used coconut oil and whole wheat pastry flour to make it a little more healthy) for dessert.  I’ve made it plenty of times and I don’t recall the boys going so gung-ho with it.  But they each ate two pieces, including Kevin and Sam.

And later on, I opened the fridge and saw those poor tarts.  Darn it.  Forgot again to at least get them out and offer them to anyone who wanted some.  After school today (Monday) I got them out for the kids to eat as a snack after school.  They actually still looked pretty good.  When the boys got home, Scott is the only one who wanted some, so he ate both tarts that were almost still all there.  But I discovered a danger for me.  He doesn’t care for the crust and kept leaving it on  the plates.  I picked at some of the leftover, rejected crust, then I was a good girl and threw away a lot of it or else I’d have eaten it all and I just can’t do that.  So the tarts were great and I can only imagine they’d have been even better with real pastry cream and lots of fresh berries.

 

Poor delicious little tarts.

Yes, that’s a banana slice underneath the chocolate chips.  I didn’t look at its condition three days after making the tart, but Scott ate it.  So thank you, Cristine, from Cooking With Cristine for a great pick for the week.  I will do it more justice someday.  Cristine will have the recipe on her blog.

Please come back tomorrow as I’ve got some of the best cookies (Toffee Cowboy Cookies) I’ve ever made coming up and I’ll share those oatmeal  chocolate chip pudding cookies in the next couple days as well as more pictures of four the the cutest boys in the whole world! ;)

TWD—Soft Chocolate Pistachio Tart and Sam’s Third Birthday!

Howdy Ya’ll!  It’s the birthday boy!

We’re in Utah right now.  We got to see “our” house today.  (I say “our” in quotes, because technically, we haven’t completed the purchase yet, but I’ll let ya’ll know more soon!)  The home we are buying is in Eagle Mountain.  We LOVE it.  We drove out with the boys over the weekend and will be here during spring break.  It’s great to be back “home” in Utah. 

I knew we’d be out of town this week, so I made the tart(s) early last week before we left. I halved the tart dough and divided it between two 4 inch mini tart pans and had a little leftover, so I made a yummy shortbread cookie.  I used ground pistachios in the dough.  I was trying to “go green” for St. Patrick’s Day.  Great flavored dough!  I would make the sweet tart dough with pistachios again just to make shortbread cookies.  And I’d definitely do this again----

Dipped in melted bittersweet chocolate, it was delicious.

Since this was supposed to be soft chocolate pudding-like, I decided to make the full recipe for the chocolate and just put some in a pan without the crust.  I was thinking it would have been scoopable like pudding and I’d make little parfaits out of it.

I baked off the two tarts and forgot to photograph the rest of the chocolate I put in a bread pan.

 

They looked nice and pudding-y before they baked.

But I thought they were almost brownie-like after they baked.  It was not the consistency I really wanted.  Is this how it’s supposed to be?  Oh, by the way, I didn’t use raspberries because they are outrageously priced right now and although I really like the fruity-chocolate combo, Kevin really doesn’t.  I don’t know why I worry so much about that sometimes, as I’m pretty sure he didn’t even taste this.  He was gone the evening I made them.  The boys had some and liked it.  Not sure they would have really liked the raspberries with the chocolate.  But the pistachios were really good, so besides in the dough, I sprinkled some on top.

Then to stick with my green thinking, I decided to tint some whipped topping with some green food coloring (too lazy to whip my own again this time).  It’s a very pale green, but festive anyway.

I think Scott ate half a tart and wanted more, but I wouldn’t let him.

Parker ate a little.  Taylor took a bite and didn’t want any.  I think Sam ate a cookie instead.  Overall, I thought it tasted okay.  I probably wouldn’t make it again, I like (love) a chocolate ganache tart more.  Like that one we made with the caramel---Chocolate Crunched Caramel Tart from TWD a few months ago.

So here’s what I did with the bread pan full of the “soft chocolate”--

I made a S’mores Rocky Road “Parfait”.  It was pretty good.  Then I put the rest of the chocolate and half a tart in the fridge and we got busy doing lots of things and I threw it out before we headed for Utah after it sat for 3-4 days.  I know, crazy me.  We just got to getting ready for our road trip and it kinda got put by the wayside in the fridge. 

So to wrap it up, thanks, Rachelle from Mommy?  I'm Hungry! because I do like to try all these different recipes and have fun with them and it WAS chocolate, so that worked for me! ;)  You can get the recipe on Rachelle’s blog.  Hey, check out all the other TWD blogger's tarts, too. 

It’s Sammie’s birthday!  I can’t believe he’s three.  He was just sitting on the couch earlier singing so cute out of nowhere, “Jingle bells, jingle all the way, how I wonder what you are.”  And he’s been walking around singing, “Hap Birtday, Hap Birtday.”  So darn cute.  I’ll post more about his birthday soon.  Here’s a quick preview of more to come as my parents are here in Utah and brought him a little gift.

 

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!  Grandma knew that one of Sam’s favorite books is Dinosaurs Love Underpants, so they gave him some dinosaurs.  He loves them.

We are staying at Aunt Cindy’s while we’re here in Utah and I was sitting out on the front porch with Sam.  He picked up a little push broom and said, “This is a wittle broom for wittle people like me.”  Taylor came outside a few minutes later and wanted to use the broom, Sam looked at him with extreme seriousness and said, “Are you wittle enough to use this wittle broom?”  DADGUM CUTE!  You know I usually write up these posts on Monday night, so Sam’s birthday is really tomorrow (or today, Tuesday, however you want to look at it).  So tomorrow/today/Tuesday we’re going to the SLC Hogle Zoo.  Sam is quite excited.  He wuvs the zoo!  So am I, it’s supposed to be in the 60’s.  The day we got here on Saturday it was literally blizzard with 50 mph winds!  It blew right out of here on Sunday and today/Monday has been beautiful in the 50’s.  Spring is sprunging!