Araxi Lemon Tart - another Alpha Baker paean to mixing bowls

I really should look up paean to check it means what I think it means. Whatever, we did use an awful lot of mixing bowls again. Despite all the washing up, this tart was pretty straightforward and pretty delicious too.

At first I couldn't remember whether I'd already made the pastry or not. And it wasn't because my dementia was playing up again. It's because Rose's pastry methods don't vary much (weigh butter, cut up and refrigerate; weigh flour and whisk with salt...etc) and I was remembering the biscuit dough I made last week. No matter, because it was no bother to make except for zesting the lemons (which I find a bit annoying). And it was really delicious dough - a definite 10 on the raw dough scale.

Since this bake-through is coming to an end very soon I've been thinking about the things I've learnt through the experience. Patching together my holey pastry case calmly and serenely I realised that I haven't learnt to stop making the same mistakes over and over; or to miraculously change personality and become more painstaking. In fact I've learnt to perfect those mistakes - so I know just how to deal with them and am confident that the finished product will turn out to a standard I will be happy with - most of the time.

This time I perfectly botched filling the pastry case and had to patch it together...again.

I don't like wasting perfectly good food to blind bake pastry but I'd cleaned out the pantry recently and cavalierly thrown out my 'blind baking chickpeas'. Now I have 'blind baking rice and chickpeas'. I really should get some pastry weights.

The tart filling is also easy-peasy to make although requiring multiple bowls and, yes, a sieve as well. It's only eggs, sugar and lemon juice mixed with whipped cream. You're meant to leave it in the fridge for 30 minutes to separate. I put mine in the fridge and five minutes later this is what the mixture looked like. That was separated enough for me and my impatience.

My experience of baking is that a lot of time is spent preventing mixtures from separating, not encouraging them to do so. So my question is, was this recipe a mistake, in a good way, like the story of tarte tatin, which burnt on the stove but actually turned out to be a great success? 

Next week the Alpha Bakers are making Brandy Snap Cannolis. Oh dear, I suspect this might turn out to be a humidity-led fail.

SaveSave

Bright and sunny Lemon Curd Raspberry Pielets

A quick pictorial post on these very delicious and easy (and not too time consuming, all things considered) pielets. From the bottom up we have: sweet pastry, lemon curd, lemon curd flavoured whipped cream and fresh raspberries. I haven't had time to try them on anyone else but my bet is they'd wow a crowd. And I got to use my new teeny tiny brioche shapes which I found, where else but in the local Asian grocery. Happy days.

I ran out of time to take them out of the moulds. Never mind. Next week we're making Fudgy Chocolate Sandwich Cookies.

Hungarian Raisin (Sultana) Walnut Tartlets

This last week seemed to be the longest, slowest week, so when I saw Marie's weekly round-up on Friday (as it was in Australia) I was surprised to find it wasn't still Wednesday. Yes, I really missed the boat on posting about this recipe. It was such a tiring week that I have to confess that the Hungarian Raisin Walnut tartlets were not put together with a lot of care.

They turned out pretty well, all things considered. The eggy filling is really delicious - I could have drunk it with a straw - although it was pretty sweet combined with the sultanas and walnuts, and the tartlets were quite large. I liked these best when they were warmed through and drizzled (saturated) with cream, when they tasted more like a pudding. I was surprised they didn't have any spices in them (since they're part of the Hungarian Christmas repertoire) and I guess you could try some cinnamon and nutmeg. 

No prizes for this pastry work but luckily Rose's pastry is slapdash-proof. I'm not sure why but I found the flavour of the pastry really came into its own when combined with this filling.

These are sultanas, which are not raisins in Australia but seem to be raisins in the U.S. This Easter I made Kulich (Russian Easter bread) from a Canadian recipe which specified raisins. I wasn't sure what to use so I put in Australian raisins (which refer to the largest, sweet dried grapes) and they were really too big and sweet - I should have used sultanas. So I used sultanas here and I think it was the right decision.

I was happy to be using walnuts again since I had such a big bag of them which is gradually whittling away and freeing up some fridge space.

The tarts are very easy to put together, especially when you ignore the complicated instructions for preparing the walnuts and just roast them, crush them a bit with your hands and throw them in. The filling is also very easy-care and I just used the stick blender to mix it (so lazy was I feeling).

I over-filled the tarts (even though Rose warns us not to let the filling leak under the pastry) but I baked these in a silicone mould so they weren't difficult to remove. I do recommend putting less filling into the moulds, if you're going to try them.

I found the muffin-size tarts to be a little overwhelming after a couple of bites so I tried them in mince pie-size. Despite overfilling them also (so they leaked all over the oven) they turned out nicely and provided just the right combination of sweetness and pastry for me. I sifted some icing sugar over them mince-pie style and it felt a little bit like Christmas.

 Next up we're making Rugelach.

Posh Pie (it's chocolate)

I missed out on making the Baking Bible's Posh Pie with the Alpha Bakers last year. I wanted to try and catch up since it looked luscious and of course chocolatey. The Posh Pie is a chocolate tart with a biscuit crumb base, chocolate mousse filling and shiny cocoa glaze.

My pie didn't turn out looking all that posh but it certainly was shiny. A bit of bling can fix anything. The pie was very nice but I think I need to make it again to tweak a few things and get it right. It also took quite a lot of time and energy. I'm not sure this pie was, but maybe posh pie 2.0 would be worth it.

The biscuits. It's kind of unbelievable that anyone would be masochistic enough to make biscuits just to grind them into crumbs. But that's what I did. This could be my first and only time and not just because it goes against the grain to crush biscuits you've sweated over. I also found this biscuit dough quite difficult to deal with. It was very sticky and melted after very little time out of the fridge. I think I'd probably choose an easier chocolate butter biscuit if I did it again.

I thought I might have packed the biscuit crumb in too hard by the time I finished but it was so crumbly it seemed to be the only way to compact it. Next time I might cook the biscuits a little less so they're softer and thus make softer crumbs. Or just buy some nice chocolate biscuits.

I love this type of mousse-like filling, and prefer it to buttercream filling for cakes. It's rich but not as sweet generally. I'm not a fan of using gelatin usually but if you're not serving the cake or tart immediately (or you live in a hot climate) you probably do need to use it. I might try a bit less next time or use leaf gelatin which I think gives a softer, less jelly-like finish. 

I don't have any photos of making the glaze because it was late by the time I got to that point. It was easy to mix up and poured on with no trouble.

I took this tart to work. It was very difficult to get the base out of the bowl. By the time a few pieces had been hacked off for hungry workmates the tart looked a bit messy. Most seemed to like it although no one raved. One person said it was too rich. He's never getting another piece of cake.

I'm making the Pink Pearl Lady Cake this weekend which means I'm making fondant icing. This is something I'd never bother to try otherwise, but being part of the Alpha Baker's is all about trying out new things...and then complaining when they don't work out.

Lemon and cranberry (sunburst) tart tart

The photo of the Lemon and Cranberry Tart Tart in the Baking Bible is one of the prettiest in the book, in my opinion. The tart is primarily lemon with sunbursts of red from cranberry sauce. I've been waiting to make it since the Alpha Bakers started a year and a bit ago. Needless to say I wasn't confident that my cack-handed decoration skills would achieve the same level of beauty. 

Actually when I took my mini tarts out of the oven I looked at them and thought 'yes!'. Then I checked the photo in the book and thought 'ah...no'. I hadn't reproduced the cranberry fireworks of the original. But mine were still quite pretty so I wasn't too disappointed. The tart was also delicious and the unusual combination of lemon curd and cranberry sauce is inspired. I only wish I'd used more of the cranberry in the tart.

Rose's instructions for making pastry in the food processor invariably ask the baker to pulse the butter until it's the size of small peas. My impatient hand generally pulses straight past small pea stage to minuscule crumbs. This time I slowed down and gave peas a chance. Boy, was I peas'd to see those pea-sized lumps and now my mind is at peas.

Terrible puns aside, I was pleased to be using up the bag of mega-expensive frozen cranberries I have in my freezer from a previous baking project. Until I measured out 50g. Only about 550g to go.

I need to confess that I didn't make the lemon curd this week. Before Christmas I made lemon curd for some lemon jammies biscuits I made as gifts and I had a reasonable amount left over. This is my first week back at work and I was quite relieved to have one of the tart components already made, even though it might be a bit different to Rose's recipe. Because I only had a limited amount of curd I decided to make a couple of small tarts rather than one big one.

The pastry for this tart is a lovely almond-based sweet pastry and is very soft and buttery. Unfortunately this doesn't make it easy to roll out and you can see my first disastrous attempt to roll out and fill the tart tins. Hmmm... back to the fridge.

You are in a beautiful garden... There is no pastry...

Even after a night in the fridge the pastry melted really quickly in the heat of my kitchen. I worked a bit faster for the second one and it was slightly better looking. I made 3 tart shells from the pastry but I could only fill two with curd.

Straight from the oven and even my decorations on the edges of the pastry are looking quite pretty.

Next week we're making the perennial favourite, chocolate chip cookies.