I love fruit tarts as you’d all know by now! I had some left over tart dough that I cut into circles and froze in between parchment from the last time I made strawberry tarts.
I coated the tart shells in matcha white chocolate from glaze that I made from the matcha financiers (love things with multi-purposes). The coating helps it to stay crisp in the refrigerator. And filled them with blueberry jam and vanilla pastry cream.
Berry jams are so simple to make! These were quite tart so I cooked them with 25% sugar and a splash of lemon juice to finish.
These taste better once they’ve sat overnight and are fully refrigerated.
Spring veggies in their full glory. Garlicky ramps, sweet buttery favas and tender asparagus.
To talk about baking pies and tarts, we have to understand blind baking.
The dough, whether it is a pie dough or a tart dough contains moisture. This moisture is not just the water we add in, but also present in the butter. When the dough bakes, heat releases moisture in the form of steam in between layers. This makes your crust crispy and flakey, but it also causes it to rise unevenly.
Some tarts such as the quiche requires the crust to be baked before you add the filling to ensure that the dough is thoroughly cooked as the baking temperature for the crust (400F/200C) and filling (330F/165C) are different.
Blind baking is baking the pie with with a covered surface (use heat safe cling film, aluminium foil or crushed up parchment) on the dough with a weight (you can buy these ceramic or metal pie weights from the store or just used dried beans) to prevent it from puffing up so the end result is a nice flat surface. The dough should be relatively cooked through, the weight is then removed and baking is continued until the surface has cooked. The crust has cooked almost through, but the surface has not crispened up in the first step, the crust won’t rise after the weights are removed. The second step is to fully cook the surface.
Pâte brisée, pie crust/dough, quiche dough, shortcrust? However you wanna call it. Different name for the same product. It is flakey with layers reminiscent to a rough puff pastry. Buttery and crisp. It isn’t like a pâte sucree aka. sweet tart dough/crust, whose end product is a lighter tender, almost biscuit like texture.
To make a quiche we’ll be making the crust and the savoury egg custard filling.
Pâte Brisée Yield: One 9″ quiche
250g Bread Flour 205g Unsalted butter, cold and diced 3g Salt 55g Iced Water, strained
Rub the butter into flour and salt until it resembles small pea sized bits. Knead in water and mix until just combined. Shape into a flat disc and refrigerate for at least 2-3 hours. Roll out to 2-3mm thick and line tart pan (I used a shallow 9″ cake tin) Refrigerate at least 1 hour or up to 24 hours (cover with clingwrap if refrigerating for more than hour to prevent the crust from drying out) Preheat an oven to 400F/200C Blind bake about 20 minutes. Remove weights and bake for about 5 more minutes. Pie doughs are best prepared the day before.
Quiche Filling Yield: one 9″ quiche
300g Eggs 200g Milk 60g Cream 6g Salt Black Pepper to taste
Blend and strain first 4 ingredients, season with black pepper.
I added 1 TBSP ramp pesto, mozzarella, hard sheep cheese, green garlic, bacon, and spring veggies.
Preheat an oven to 330F/165C. Mix ramp pesto into quiche filling. Lay veggies and cheese into the baked crust. Pour egg filling over veggies. Bake for about 45 minutes (check from here every 5-10 mins) until it has a core temperature of 172F/78C. Cool and remove from tin, serve warm.
What makes you happy? I’ve been trying my best to appreciate this rare ‘free’ time we have now. I would have never imagined in my life that this would happen. With that said, afternoon tea definitely makes me happy. Amongst that, cute wooden plates, crinkled linen and brown things also make me happy. Silky ganache and crunchy hazelnut butter. Flakey sea salt.The tart shell is basically a pressed in pie or cheesecake crust. I made my own cookies (recipe here) to grind into fine crumbs. You can use graham crackers instead. If you really don’t feel like baking, you could always make an oreo cheesecake crust instead which only requires melting butter and mixing it with oreo cookie crumbs – there are many recipes online!Filled 1/3 way with chunky hazelnut butter. I purchased this freshly ground chocolate hazelnut butter at a grocery store called rainbow in San Francisco. One of my favourite places to visit! The store is filled with so many self-serve bins of herbs, spices, nut butters, granola. You name it, they’ll likely have it. The just don’t sell meat, which I’m fine with.
Stir all ingredients together, divide into 3 equal portions and press into tart moulds Freeze until firm Preheat and oven to 350F or 170C Bake for 10-12 minutes Press down again if it has puffed up with a spoon Leave to cool in mold
Ganache Filling:
110g Heavy cream 15g Honey 90g Dark chocolate (valrhona guanaja 70%) 12g Unsalted butter, room temp
Place cream and honey into a small pot and bring up to a boil, turn off heat Immediately pour over chocolate, let sit for a few seconds Stir until smooth Whisk butter in
Assembly:
Spread ~ 1 TBSP hazelnut butter at the bottom of the tart Pour ganache on top of hazelnut butter Grate chocolate on top of ganache Refrigerate to set Once firm, remove tart from mold gently (has to be cold or it’ll fall apart) Sprinkle flaky salt on top of tart just before serving Enjoy at room temperature
To talk about baking pies and tarts, we have to understand blind baking.
