A Less Baked-Well Tart

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.

I had just baked an apricot frangipane tart a few days before this month's Daring Bakers' challenge was announced, so I decided I would wait a week or two before baking the Bakewell Tart, as they are quite similar (short crust, fruit, frangipane filling). Well, ya gotta love a deadline, because wait I did, all month...it is now 10:40 a.m. on June 27th (deadline day) and the tart is in the oven. Yes, I have been fairly busy with work, with baking and with doing nothing, but this tart is very quick and simple to make (luckily) and I could easily have whipped it up while watching TV in the evening.

I do love frangipane...both for the name and for the flavor. My boss, Margaret H., at the restaurant, said she thought that Frangipane (said with the most un-French pronunciation that you can muster...Fran-Gee-Pan-ee vs Frahn-Jhi-Pahn) would be a good name for a cat -- I always imagined a big fat orange calico that would casually swat at you as you passed by. For the weekend crowd we used to make little flat knots out of either brioche dough or cinnamon roll dough (I don't remember now which we used, but both would be good) and top them with frangipane before baking. The frangipane we used had a pastry cream base and was quite rich and deelish, I must say.

For the layer of jam in today's Bakewell Tart, I used cranberries that I had in the freezer (50 cents a bag after Thanksgiving, I bought 8 bags...how can you pass up a deal like that?) and some rhubarb that I had left over from something else. Both are quite tart, but I figured that would be okay, as the crust and frangipane could be on the sweet side. And cranberries are so fun to cook -- simmer em til they pop - yeeha.

Okay...so, now fast forward...the tart is out of the oven and the pictures have been taken. Hmmm. Listen to this charming tale of what happens when you wait until the last day to bake a Bakewell Tart and you wanna get the thing out of the oven because you want it to cool so that you can cut it and take a few hastily set-up pictures...here's what happens -- you take it out of the oven a little too soon (against your better judgment) and the frangipane has not fully baked, which you kinda feared when you looked at it so you left it in an extra five minutes but even then it wasn't quite as puffy as you thought it shoulda been but you took it out anyway because you didn't want to wait any longer (and the top was getting kinda dark, kinda) even though you knew, you did, you just knew deep down/in the back of your mind, that it was too soon and, no, it wasn't going to be done. And of course, it wasn't.

Oh well, we'll eat the done parts...

Bakewell Tart
Makes (9” tart)

Sweet shortcrust pastry
225g (8oz) all purpose flour

30g (1oz) sugar

½ tsp salt

110g (4oz) unsalted butter, cold

2 egg yolks

½ tsp almond extract

1-2 Tbsp) cold water
Pulse the flour, sugar and salt in the food processor a few times to combine.

Add the cold, cubed butter to the food processor and pulse a few times until the butter is the size of peas. 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 plastic and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes

Frangipane
125g (4.5oz) unsalted butter, softened
125g (4.5oz) icing sugar

3 eggs

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 pale 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, add 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.

Assembly:

1. Roll crust to desired size. Fit into tart pan and freeze for approx 15 minutes.

2. Preheat oven to 400.

3. Spoon an even layer of jam (3/4-1 cup) into the chilled tart shell.

4. Top with the frangipane, smoothing the top.

5. Bake 30-40 minutes, until the top is puffy and set.

Strudel-time

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers. Mmmm, layers of flaky crust surrounding a delicious filling..."curious choice for May" was my first thought when I read the challenge, given that the traditional filling, spiced apple compote, is more commonly associated with autumn. True, I live in Arizona, and perhaps our spring weather is not typical of the rest of the country, but the temperature was hovering right around 100 degrees on the day that I made this recipe, which I must admit did not put me in the harvest-moon-apple-cider-and-barn-dance frame of mind...but, alas, I know, I am not the center of the universe.

That fact accepted, then, I must ask, if not me, then who is the center of the universe, culinarily speaking? And I pose this question only partly rhetorically. Because I do think that many of us, or at least those of us who might bother to give this a moment's thought, know exactly who/what/where our particular food universe is centered. For me, there have been a few different Big Bangs around which my world of food rotates...certainly growing up in a house where cookies could almost always be found in the Tupperware on the kitchen counter established one culinary force field...discovering Nancy Silverton's Breads of La Brea Bakery and taking Chef Amy Quazza's bread classes at FCI joined forces to create another strong point on my personal time-space continuum...and though I have not yet eaten at any of his restaurants, reading the books and recipes of Jean-Georges Vongerichten sets my mind and palate spinning/drooling into another realm.

So...back to strudel. Strudel = Autumn, Vienna/Germany/Eastern Europe, Grandmothers...my personal perspective on strudel-ness, which, yes, I admit is a stereotype. But being the proud member of a subculture that relishes its stereotypes (think Village People), may I just say...stereotypes come from somewhere. We talk in culinary racist stereotypes everyday..."Chinese or Mexican for lunch?"..."Let's do something Italian with the chicken tonight"..."Yuck, I hate Greek food." We all do it, and to a degree, I suppose, it is an act of verbal efficiency, but it probably also represents the limited variety of a culture's food that might be available in restaurants (face it, a certain unnamed loved-one of mine has been known to refer to Mexican food as "rolled food"). But what a disservice we do to ourselves, to limit our exploration of the world's cuisines to the 4 or 5 dishes we might have tried at the local ethnic eatery. And I am as guilty as anyone in this way - I tend to order the same thing everytime we go to the handful of restaurants that we seem to frequent most commonly, as if there were nothing on the menu other than a Chicken Burrito Enchilada-Style.

However, as I said...stereotypes do come from somewhere. Take, f'rinstance, the meal that I was served in Munich. Having tired of day after day, meal after meal of heavy (but delicious) German food, (and feeling rather "clogged up", if you will) Nik's nephew Corey and I were pleased to see a salad featured on the menu at dinner one evening. Ok, maybe we should have thought about it before ordering, we were, after all, in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, not exactly the home of spa cuisine. And, ok, maybe analytical thinking was not something we could have done at the moment, so we both went ahead and ordered the salad (really, I distinctly remember the words salad and vinaigrette in the English translation on the menu). Lesson #1: Salads do not necessarily contain lettuce; Lesson #2: Slice beef thin enough and toss it with vinaigrette and tourists drowning themselves in beer might just forget about lesson #1; Lesson #3: How does one make a tossed salad heavy? Substitute beef for the lettuce. German food = Heavy food? Yes, stereotypes come from somewhere.

Yet, the other side of the deutschmark is the lovely tradition of the 3:00 cake and coffee break. I suspect that the promise of the mid-afternoon piece of cake might have been Nik's real motivation for going to Germany (other than to visit "the motherland" with his German-speaking mother, Rosemary-Rosemarie). Nik had spoken lovingly of "afternoon cake" for years, and we certainly tried to honor the 3:00 tradition, but I must admit that we tend to become rather driven on vacations, with a go-go-go attitude, so I fear 3:00 often passed us by without the leisurely visit to the bakery. Yet, stereotypes be damned, on those occasions when we did stop walking long enough to enjoy some caffeine and a confection, I don't believe we ever once had a slice of strudel, usually opting instead for desserts containing marzipan or chocolate. Hmm, I guess there's yet another reason to go back. Until then, here's a delicious version of apple strudel...and don't be afraid of the dough, it's really fun to make.

Apple Strudel

Filling

Apples, peeled, cored, sliced.....................2 lb

Lemon Juice.........................................1 oz

Brown Sugar.........................................3 oz

White Sugar.........................................3 oz

Cake Crumbs........................................1 1/2 oz

Cinnamon............................................2 tsp

1. Combine in saucepan. Cook over medium-low until apples are cooked and juices are slightly thickened.

2. Let cool before using.

Dough

Bread Flour.........................................300 grams

Water...............................................166 grams

Salt.....................................................5 grams

Eggs...................................................46 grams

Vegetable Oil........................................18 grams

1. Mix all ingredients together. Knead until soft but not sticky. Wrap well and refrigerate overnight.

2. Cover a surface with a slightly floured sheet or tablecloth. Gently stretch/pull the dough to approximately 2 ft x 3 ft.

3. Coat dough with 6 oz melted, room temp butter (use your hands to spread the dough - a brush will likely tear it). Sprinkle with cake crumbs.

4. Make a line of filling down one side of the dough, with approx 3 inch border of dough on the edge. Flip the dough over the filling. Using the sheet to assist, loosely roll the strudel, cutting of any thick edges of dough. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet.

5. Coat with butter, sprinkle with granulated sugar, and bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown.

Simple and Delicious

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge. Yes, I too wondered what dreadful crime or happenstance this cheesecake was responsible for that it should be considered infamous...poisoning, obesity, hyperlipidemia, gluttony on a mass scale? But before letting my mind wander too far afield, I nipped that mental storyline in the bud and just assumed that Jenny might have meant famous rather than adding the sinister in- prefix to the recipe's title.

As it turns out, it's just a good thing that Jenny and Abbey's recipe was not felonious, because this cake became one of the desserts at a co-worker's baby shower. I didn't attend, just the cake did. I didn't even bake it with the intention of donating it to the shower; I actually had forgotten the event was scheduled for lunch that day. Conception/Shower/Cake...it was all so serendipitous. (Please note, I'm trying to squelch the unfounded cynicism that I have regarding baby showers...hey, I gladly donated a cake.) The lemon mirror on the cake was a lovely shiny yellow, which apparently is one of the approved colors for baby shower things. If I had known that it would be a baby cake before I left the house that morning, I really would have decorated it with delicate, beautiful little baby things...see, my cold cold heart just melted a bit.

Baby showers, bridal showers, bachelor and bachelorette parties...I'm sorry, I don't know what it is, maybe I'm just too darned egocentric to buy into these events, maybe it's the lame "oppressed by a straight world" thing, maybe it's a foreign tradition for which I haven't any cultural schema, but they just don't work for me. Yes, yes, yes, I know, it's not about me -- I should appreciate the joy that the guests of honor are experiencing. And I do. I genuinely love that young couples have babies and get to experience the nervous thrill of decorating a nursery. Really, I get that. I've done that. And I fully understand the thrill that goes along with getting dressed up in a gown/costume/drag and throwing a big party. I really know that feeling. And, yes, a celebration of two people in love is very sweet and touching. See...please take note that I did not include weddings on the list of personally questionable celebrations...Nik might have, but I didn't.

Ok, blog as cathartic device, followed by sincere commitment to change...I hereby promise to attend AND ENJOY the next happy-couple-based event to which I am invited. And believe me, this is not an empty promise...there are two other pregnant woman at work and their showers are imminent. But back to the cheesecake.

Vanilla Sour Cream Cheesecake...on an almond-coconut crust...with a lemon curd topping. I know, long name...with two prepositions. I can explain. It was going to be a Mango Swirl cheesecake, but I hadn't gotten to Food City to the the good/cheap mangoes. So then I though about an Almond Joy/Mounds cheesecake...hence the almond/coconut crust. But I didn't have any dark chocolate like I thought I had. What I did have were lemons...

Joconde

Almond Meal.........................2 1/2 oz

Coconut..............................2 oz (dessicated preferably, but I used sweetened and it was fine)

Cake Flour...........................1 oz

Whole Eggs..........................4 3/4 oz

Egg Whites...........................3 1/4 oz

Sugar..................................2 tsp

Butter, melted.......................1 1/4 oz

1. Pulse almond meal and coconut in processor until fine. Combine with flour.

2. Whisk whole eggs until combined.

3. Whip egg whites to foamy, gradually add sugar and whip until stiff (not dry) peaks form.

4. Fold dry mixture into whole eggs.

5. Fold 1/3 of egg whites into mixture to lighten. Fold remaining 2/3 whites into mixture.

6. Spread evenly in parchment-lined 1/2 sheet pan.

7. Bake 7-10 minutes at 400 degrees - do not overbake.

8. Let cool.

9. Cut a circle of cake and a circle of parchment the size of your cake pan.

10. Fit the parchment circle and then the cake into the pan. Brush with simple syrup and set aside.

Cheesecake

Cream Cheese..........................24 oz

Vanilla Bean.............................1

Sugar.....................................1 cup

Sour Cream..............................8 oz

Lemon Juice............................1 Tbl

Vanilla Ex................................1/2 Tbl

1. Rub vanilla seeds into sugar. Pour through a fine sieve before adding to cream cheese.

2. Beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth.

3. Add one egg at a time.

4. Add sour cream, lemon juice, and vanilla extract - beat until smooth/combined.

5. Pour into prepared pan.

6. Set cake pan in a larger pan. Fill larger pan with hot water and bake for 1 hour at 350.

7. Turn off oven and let cake sit in oven for additional hour.

8. Remove from water bath, and cool. Chill.

Lemon Curd

Egg Yolks..........................2 fluid oz

Sugar...............................4 1/2 oz

Lemon Juice......................3 fluid oz

Butter..............................2 oz

Salt.................................Pinch

Lemon Zest.......................from one lemon (approx 2 tsp)

1. Heat lemon juice, salt, zest, and approx. half the sugar to nearly boiling.

2. Whisk egg yolks and remaining sugar to ribbon stage.

3. Temper the yolks with a small amount of the hot juice, whisking constantly. Gradually whisk the remainder of the juice into the yolks.

4. Return the mixture to the saucepan over medium-low heat, whisking constantly until thickened. Whisk in the butter.

5. Pour through a fine sieve to remove the zest. Let cool slightly, then pour over the chilled cheesecake. Chill until curd is thoroughly chilled and set.