The Baking Bible: Frozen Pecan Tart

Hello all. I skipped last week's cookies as we were down in California for the holidays, but we came home Friday night just in time to bake this week's Frozen Pecan Tart. Which made me a little sad. I am not a big fan of pecan pie, as it is usually too sweet and seems to be more about the goo than pecans which makes me wonder why they don't call it "goo pie with some nuts." Turning this goo pie into a tart, so there is a more even balance between goo and nuts is really the only logical thing to do, and made me a fan of pecan tarts. Also, even though it looks like there's lots of complicated instructions which made me even more reluctant to bake this tart, it all is rather easy and fairly quick to assemble. So it has been decided this tart may stay.

December 29, 2014
Name of Tart: Pecan Tart with Some Goo
Occasion: bake along!
Constituents: a 9 inch tart with a sweet cookie crust and goo made with golden syrup and muscovado

The first order of business: making the crust. I finally forced myself to make the crust last night, and there is no photographic evidence that I did so. It was hard enough getting up off the couch as it was.

Thankfully, the crust can be made in the food processor, and thankfully, we have a dishwasher to wash the food processor. The hardest part was processing the turbinado sugar (the crust calls for turbinado instead of boring white sugar) into fine crystals. Once that business was done, the rest of the dough gets mixed up right quick. A quick knead to get all the crumbly bits together, and the dough is off to the refrigerator to rest up and sort itself out.

if the food is on the couch does that mean i can eat it?

Then the dough is rolled out to fit the tart pan. For a 9 inch tart pan, the dough is rolled out large enough to cut a 12 inch circle. I used the bottom of a 12 inch cake pan as my template. Here comes all the funky, seemingly complicated instructions. First, the dough circle is draped over an 8 inch cake pan. Then the bottom of the tart pan is laid on top of the dough and the tart pan ring fitted over that. Then the whole contraption is flipped over, the 8 inch cake pan removed, and ta-da! The dough is nicely fitted into the tart pan. I have to say, it actually made placing the dough in the pan really easy and practically foolproof. So word to the wise: it sounds like a pain in the ass but it actually makes it all very easy.

Then the edges are folded over and you can make a nice little pattern on the edge with the back of a knife which I actually did do.

I put the tart pan into the refrigerator and both of us went to bed.

This morning the tart shell got a blind bake, and while cooling, the filling is made. This is super easy; pretty mich all of the ingredients except vanilla and the pecans are cooked on the stovetop until thickened and gooey. The pecans are arranged in the tart shell, the goo is poured over the top, more pecans are shimmied in, and then it's time to bake a tart. Done.

The tart is designed to be served frozen, so after cooling it goes into the freezer for at least a couple of hours. There is an optional chocolate drizzle that if you haven't noticed I opted not to do. The tart doesn't freeze solid so it isn't like you're eating a pecan tart popsicle; rather it is just cold and the goo is thick. I noticed as I took pictures of the tart the goo got gooier as it warmed up, so if you like your tart runny then maybe keep it at room temperature. Or maybe that was just my tart that did that...

All told, the Frozen Pecan Pie was delicious, it was easy. and it will be made again someday. Mark thinks that this was the best pecan pie/tart he's ever had, and since he's a pie guy, that's saying something.

The Baking Bible: The Ischler

This week we are baking a twist on a Hungarian classic: the Ischler cookie. Apparently the original cookie is an almond cookie sandwiched with apricot preserves and half-dipped in chocolate. Rose decided there should be chocolate in every bite and so these cookies have ganache AND apricot sandwiched between two cookies.

November 12, 2014
Name of Cookie: Chocolate-Apricot Sticky Middles (Mark named them)
Occasion: Because people like to bake cookies this time of year
Constituents: Almond cookies with thickened apricot preserves or blackberry jam and ganache centers

Disclaimer: I really dislike rolling and cutting out cookies. It's too much persnickety work and I am plenty satisfied with store bought cookies that I sandwich with nutella. If that means I have pedestrian tastes, then so be it.

Mark's mother has a tradition of baking Christmas cookies every year, so to Mark it isn't Christmas without a big cookie production. He told me I need to get used to rolling and cutting out cookies because Eliot needs this tradition too. I told Mark he is welcome to do this tradition with Eliot himself.

Eliot has a favorite book where Mama Owl invites Frog and Squirrel up to her nest for cookies, so when Mark told him I was baking cookies in case Frog and Squirrel came over, I was kinda obligated to bake the cookies. Plus, you know, the bake-through.

They are, in all respects, easy cookies to make. Everything gets mixed in the food processor and it goes really fast. First, almonds and powdered sugar are blended to a powder. Then a bunch of butter is added.

pay no attention to the dirty dishes

It will look like this:

Around now I was starting to wonder if we were sort of making our own marzipan.

Then you add half an egg and some vanilla.

The dough at this point is supposed to be moist and crumbly but mine looked moist and only just a little crumbly. The dough is then kneaded together, divided into quarters, shaped into discs, wrapped in plastic, and left to rest in the refrigerator for at least a couple of hours.

Then comes the part of cookie baking that I dread the most: the rolling and the cutting out. This dough is sticky, but when you roll it out using plastic wrap to protect your roller from tearing the dough, it really isn't that bad. Still, it just takes longer than I would prefer. I didn't have the right sized cookie cutter but a wine glass was pretty close, so that's what I used.

After the cookies bake and cool, it is time to fill them with ganache and apricot preserves. There is an option to use apricot lekvar which I had all intentions of doing, but this week was not a good week for projects. So I bought some jam and called it good.  I failed to notice how much jam I would need and didn't have enough, but Mark suggested using the homemade blackberry jam our friends gave us, and that was really a great choice.

The jam gets boiled down to become a thick and sticky filling, hence Mark's name for these cookies.

These are good cookies, but I am not in love with them. They would have to be the most amazing thing on earth for me to feel they were worth all the rolling and cutting, and they are a good cookie but not the most amazing. People who enjoy making cookies will no doubt love these. People who enjoy eating cookies will no doubt love these. We have snacked on quite a few of them since yesterday as proof.

We have a recipe for you! Make these for your holiday situation! The recipe is posted up on Pastrygirl's blog, Dessert First.

with apricot

with blackberry

The Baking Bible: English Dried Fruit Cake

After last week's all-day, intensive Kougin Amann, this week's English Dried Fruit Cake was a snap. You don't even need the stand mixer! Just a little old fashioned elbow grease.

November 7, 2014
Name of Cake: Easy Peasy Fruitcake
Occasion: Winter is here
Constituents: a 9x13 fruitcake made with nuts and dried fruit, and fresh apple, soaked in rum

Rum! I love a boozy cake. The rum is technically optional, but I wouldn't dare skip it. If you do rum the cake, or booze it up in some other fashion, give it 24 hours at least to mellow. Or wrap it up in cheesecloth and plastic wrap and douse it regularly, and keep it edible for months.

What makes this fruitcake so unique is that it is made with fresh apple chunks and dried fruit instead of glaceed peel and whatnot. This not only makes the cake easier to make on a whim, but in my opinion makes it more delicious and accessible to the fruitcake-suspicious. Rose recommends dried pears, apples, apricots, and prunes but really you could do whatever you wanted. I chose dried pears, a few apricots, prunes, and some tart cherries. These got to soak in some hot water for a little bit to relax and soften.

I had pre-prepped all the ingredients I could earlier in the week, which made the assembling of this cake even faster. Right before I set to work I just needed to peel and chop the apple, measure out the butter, and add the baking powder (for some reason I never pre-measure the baking powder).

Instead of creaming the butter and sugar, or creaming the butter with the dry ingredients, the butter is melted and the sugars cooked a bit. Then the apples and orange zest are added.

Here I must stop and say, towards the end of the Heavenly Cakes bake-through, I received Rose's Zest n' Nest free with the understanding that I would try it out and mention it on my blog. I never did because I am lazy, but I will now say that I use the zester every time I need citrus zest, or grated ginger, and yes I once used it to very finely grate Parmesan. It is a wonderful tool. You all need to go out and buy one for yourself. Go on, consider it an early Christmas present.

Anyhoo, it turns out I only had half the recommended amount of orange zest, but the resulting cake still has a nice orangeyness to it. But note to self, next time buy two oranges.

The cubed apples are added to the pot of butter and sugar, then the eggs are mixed in one by one. You get a soupy looking pot that may look like this:

In the meantime, the soaked and drained dried fruit and the toasted pecans are stirred into the dry ingredients. Then the wet is folded in, and ta-da! You are done mixing the batter. It gets poured into a 9x13 pan and sent off to bake for 40 minutes or so. Which will result in something like this:

And your house will smell amazing.

So after a ten minute rest the cake gets bathed in rum and put to bed for another day. I stored the cake in its cake pan; I thought that would be the safest and easiest thing to do.

Mark and I eagerly took our slices of aromatic cake the next night and with a generous dollop of whipped cream (slightly rummed) and a sprinkle of cinnamon, we sampled the cake. It is delicious. It tastes of warm winter nights. Mark commented that even though it tastes hearty due to all the fruit and nuts, the texture was light and not cloying. There could have been more rum, but this way the booze didn't cover up all the delicate cinnamon and orange notes. The fresh apples keep the cake moist and soft. This cake is a winner. This cake is right up there with the Sticky Toffee Pudding as my go-to winter cakes that makes me feel warm and cozy and happy.