Bakewell Tart. The Daring Baker's June'09 Challenge

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.

Note on the challenge: 

the tart was pretty easy to make, and was pretty delicious as well. But, I think (personally) I would prefer to serve this during cold month in winter accompany by a cup of mint tea. 

Sweet shortcrust pastry

225g (8oz) all purpose flour
30g (1oz) sugar
2.5ml (½ tsp) salt
110g (4oz) unsalted butter, cold (frozen is better)
2 (2) egg yolks
2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract (optional)
15-30ml (1-2 Tbsp) cold water

• Sift together flour, sugar and salt. Grate butter into the flour mixture, using the large hole-side of a box grater. Using your finger tips only, and working very quickly, rub the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Set aside.
  
• Lightly beat the egg yolks with the almond extract (if using) and quickly mix into the flour mixture. Keep mixing while dribbling in the water, only adding enough to form a cohesive and slightly sticky dough.
  
• Form the dough into a disc, wrap in cling and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Frangipane

125g (4.5oz) unsalted butter, softened
125g (4.5oz) icing sugar
3 (3) eggs
2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract
125g (4.5oz) ground almonds
30g (1oz) all purpose flour

• Cream butter and sugar together for about a minute or until the mixture is primrose in colour and very fluffy. Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter may appear to curdle.

• After all three are in, pour in the almond extract and mix for about another 30 seconds and scrape down the sides again. With the beaters on, spoon in the ground nuts and the flour. Mix well. The mixture will be soft, keep its slightly curdled look (mostly from the almonds) and retain its pallid yellow colour.

Assembling the tart

1 quantity sweet shortcrust pastry 
1 cup (8 US fl. oz)) jam or curd (I used raspberry jam), warmed for spreadability
1 quantity frangipane 
1 handful blanched, flaked almondsHandful of almond flakes

• Grease a 9 inch tart pan, set aside.
  
• Place the chilled dough disc on a lightly floured surface. If it's overly cold, you will need to let it become acclimatised for about 15 minutes before you roll it out. Flour the rolling pin and roll the pastry to 5mm (1/4”) thickness, by rolling in one direction only (start from the centre and roll away from you), and turning the disc a quarter turn after each roll. When the pastry is to the desired size and thickness, transfer it to the tart pan, press in and trim the excess dough. Patch any holes, fissures or tears with trimmed bits. Chill in the freezer for 15 minutes. 
  

• Preheat oven to 200C/400F.
  

• Remove shell from freezer, spread as even a layer as you can of jam onto the pastry base. Top with frangipane, spreading to cover the entire surface of the tart. Smooth the top and pop into the oven for 30 minutes. Five minutes before the tart is done, the top will be poofy and brownish. Remove from oven and strew flaked almonds on top and return to the heat for the last five minutes of baking.

Thanks to Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar who chose such a delicious and classic English treat. What a fun challenge this was! AND, thanks to Lisa and Ivonne who created this fabulous monthly event.

Keiko's Gâteau Week-end

You see, BUMP is beautiful!

I just have to share this delicious and addictive recipe which came from Keiko. For me, it is always inspiring to visit her, although at the beginning, very often I find my self disappointed to find a beautiful and mouth watering photographs with no recipes, but, I soon start to learn just to enjoy and be inspired by her stunning photographs. When she does post a recipe, I immediately want to try it.  One of her recipe caught my attention, because it sounds fairly manageable. At the time, I needed some delicious treat, but wouldn't mind the wait (the batter need to sit in the refrigerator overnight) So, I made  this "Gâteau Week-end" and become my favorite treat ever since. A bit of warning!!!!!! This gâteau is highly addictive, so don't be surprise if  you find your self making it pretty often.  

Lilium Pardalinum

(pool garden)

The recipe is similar to  Madeliene recipe, the batter need to sit  overnight to create the "bump". If the time is limited,  chill the dough for an hour or two, it will be good enough, although you will not be able to have the beautiful high bump.

Next project, I want to make this, or this (she doesn't have the recipe, hick... ) and this  or this  (phew, glad I have both books). Wish me luck! 

Not as pretty as hers, but I think she will be happy to see the bump, yes Keiko?

Interview And Pane al Cioccolato

I was pretty surprise when Celine of Celine's Cuisine e-mail me and requested an interview. Of course I accepted, in fact I feel honored to be interviewed by a professional cook like Celine. Many of you probably already known her from her cooking classes in Southern California, as well as her beautiful and delicious blog.

Thank you so much Celine, I had fun answering your questions!

Curious about me and  really want to see me, why not visit her blog? 

I can not wait to share with you what kind of bread I've made this week. This is becoming my new favorite bread after Norwich Sourdough that I make on a regular basis. I found the recipe of this Pane al Cioccolato when visiting YeastSpotting, and immediately attracted to this (@ ToxoBread) particular bread.  Couldn't wait that long, so here it is. I hope you like it as much as I do. I'll be making this pretty often. 

I am submitting this  Pane Al Cioccolato  to Yeast Spotting event created by Susan from Wild Yeast. There will be many delicious sweet and savory bread recipes to enjoy, so make sure to visit her blog. To join this event is very easy, here is how:

• Bake with yeast (wild or baker's) or make a dish starring bread.
  
• Post about it. Please include a recipe/formula, or a link to one, or some indication of how the bread was made. Also please include the word "YeastSpotting", with a link to this page.
• Submit your post here. Please submit it during the same week it was posted.

Thank you to Jude for posting this delicious bread! I am totally in love! Oh, one more thing, don't forget to  visit me at Celine's blog? 

Summer Berries and Kiwi Tart With Crème Pâtissière

This tart was a special request from my husband to bring to a work related  party in on of his colleague's home at Stanford, I was a little nervous since I know how very careful and conscious they are about what they eat. When my husband came home, he  told me that, this tart was very popular, and was the first food that was gone that night. WOW, I guess even the most food conscious people in the world like it. I can say no more ...

For the sweet pastry:

1/2 cup + 2 tbs chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces-put the butter in the freezer for 5 minutes 
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioner sugar
a pinch of salt
1 egg, lightly beaten

• Put all ingredients, but lightly beaten egg onto food processor. Pulse use 1 to 2 second pulse until most of the butter is the size of a peas. Add lightly beaten egg and pulse again until the dough just start to form a small clump. 
  
• Transfer the dough onto work surface, form into a disc, then wrap in plastic. let the dough or pastry chill in the refrigerator at least 2 hours.
• Roll out the pastry to fit  the prepared tart pan (13½" by 4") that has been greased with butter, trim off the excess. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 375⁰F, place a piece of  parchment paper on top of the pastry, add beans, or baking bead, and bake for 20 minutes. Take the pastry out from the oven, remove the beans and the paper, bake another 15 to 20 minutes more, or until golden browned on the edge. Set aside to cool completely before adding the filling.

For The Crème Pâtissière:

8 fl oz milk

3 egg yolks

2 oz sugar

2 tbs flour

1 tsp vanilla extract

Strawberry, cut in half

Blueberry,  

Kiwi, peel-cut in half, then slice

Apricot jam, optional

• In a small sauce pan, heat the milk over medium heat. Meanwhile, whisk the yolks and sugar until light and creamy, stir in vanilla extract fold in the flour. Pour the milk gently into the egg mixture, whisking constantly. Return this mixture back into the sauce pan, bring to a gentle boil, keep stirring and whisking until it  is thicken. 
• Transfer crème pâtissière to  a bowl, cool at room temperature. Stir frequently to prevent a skin forming. When it is completely cool, cover the surface with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until very cold.
• To assembly: spoon the cold crème pâtissière into the tart cell, arrange the fruit or the berries and the kiwi over it. 
• Heat the apricot jam in a microwave until liquid. Glaze the fruit with pastry brush. Serve the tart on the same day.

Blueberry in the Herb Garden, we normally not able to taste the fruit as some 

other creature will harvest them first. 

But, just to see that it actually gives fruit is enough to cheer us up.

FOUGASSE

NO, don't worry! 

It is not as scary as its sound!

If you armed with patient, most likely you will be able to achieve good result. That's it! Patient is the key, as the dough must rest in the refrigerator between 24 to 36 hours. The book stated that, you should  not be tempted to skip this chilling period, or else you will not be able to achieve Fougasse with  its characteristic chewy texture, and surface bubbles/speckles/oil glistened crust. 

Oh, by the way, it is not that difficult to shape the dough either, check here and here you'll see what I mean.

Recipe source:

Baking with Julia, written by: Dorrie Greenspan

6½  cups unbleached all purpose flour + 1 tbs salt, mix 

2 cups luke warm water + ¼ cup garlic infused olive oil, mix

½ cup warm water + 2 tablespoon active dry yeast, dissolves and it bloom (about 5 minutes)

Herb of your choice, for flavoring (I used Rosemary)

Fleur de sel or Kosher salt, for sprinkling

• Put the flour in a mixer bowl, make a well in the middle, pour the yeast mixture, and the water-garlic infused olive oil. Process on low (with dough attachment) until al ingredients to mix together, add a few drops of water if its too dry.  Increase the speed to medium high, and continue to mix for 10 minutes. The dough should be soft, moist and very elastic, and transparent when stretch, like this!.    

• Turn off the machine, shape into bowl, place on a lightly oiled clean large bowl. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Let it rise at room temperature for 1 to 1½ hours. Then fold, see here how to fold. Rest for another 45 minutes to 1 hour.

• After the second rest, fold the dough again. Cut into 3 pieces, shape each pieces into a ball. Place each ball into ziplock bag, refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours.

• About 1½ hours before you are planning to bake the dough, remove them from the refrigerator. Place the dough on a lightly floured surface, dust each dough with flour, cover loosely but completely with plastic (to prevent having the top go crusty). Let the dough rest for 1 hour until reach room temperature, and feel spongy.

• Working very gently (you definitely don't want to knock out the air that you've work so hard to create it), place a  dough  (cover the other 2 with kitchen towel) on a lightly floured surface. Gently pull the dough to make a triangular shape. Place the dough on a cornmeal-dusted baking sheet, cover while you do the rest.

• Using a small knife, make 3 slashes down the center of the dough. Or use this method here and here. 

• Brush the loafs with oil, sprinkle with the herb of your choice, and dust with coarse salt. Let them rest for 10 minutes.

• Bake at 450⁰F oven for 20 minutes or until nicely golden. Transfer them to a rack, and let them cool completely before serving.

Mine was simply flavored with fleur de sel and rosemary, of course you can personalized your own. The oil I used was garlic infused olive oil (very good, if you fancy garlic, but then you can't have Bill (the awesome True Blood dude as your boy friend, hmm ... ). It was so good, that I will make this bread on a regular basis, well, at least once a week. Still not convinced? Maybe I should ship one to your front door....

Proudly sending my FOUGASSE  to Yeast Spotting event created by Susan from Wild Yeast. There will be many delicious sweet and savory bread recipes to enjoy, so make sure to visit her blog. To join this event is very easy, here is how:

• Bake with yeast (wild or baker's) or make a dish starring bread.
  
• Post about it. Please include a recipe/formula, or a link to one, or some indication of how the bread was made. Also please include the word "YeastSpotting", with a link to this page.
• Submit your post here. Please submit it during the same week it was posted.

You will absolutely adore the speckled, oil-glistened crust from this delicious flavored of your choice flat bread!

Apricot-Frangipane Tart

Simply delicious, only if you like Frangipane and Apricot!

Frangipane Apricot Tart 

1 recipe for sweet tart dough   

1.5 kg (3 pounds) Apricot, quartered

1 large egg

⅓ cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

100 grams (½ cup) ground almond

50 gram (4 tablespoon) unsalted butter, soften

• Preheat the oven to 375⁰F
• Roll out the pastry to fit a 9 inches round tart pan. Trim the excess, place the pan in the refrigerator while you prepare the filling. 
• To make  the frangipane: beat the sugar and the butter until pale, add the egg, beat another minute before adding vanilla extract. Fold in the ground almond. 
• Take out the pastry from the refrigerator, spread the frangipane evenly over the pastry, arrange the apricot quarters over the frangipane, standing them up with the eges upward in a concentric circle overlapping them slightly to cover the frangipane completely.
• Bake for 45 minutes, or until golden brown. Un mold and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before serving.