Chocolate Cream Tart

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie pick was selected by Kim of Scrumptious Photography. She selected the Chocolate Cream Tart, which is a chocolate tart shell, filled with chocolate custard cream filling and topped with sweetened whipped cream. Visit Kim’s blog to see the entire recipe.

I don’t make a lot of pies and tarts, just because sometimes I don’t want to fiddle with pastry. I had good days with pastry when everything comes together nicely and other days when nothing will work. I was happy to see that this recipe used a press in the pan chocolate crust, which is usually very forgiving. The pastry presented me with no problems, so that was really encouraging. I think my crust was a little thick around the edges, but this made the crust sturdier. In places where the crust was thinner, it was very crumbly, so I’m glad that I made it a little thicker.

The filling for this is chocolate custard, where you boil milk and then whisk the milk into an egg yolk mixture. I’ve made a lot of custard lately, with last week’s bread pudding and the recent banana cream pie selections. I’m getting quite skilled at making custard, but I’ll be glad to make something else, too. The difference with this custard is that you add melted chocolate. I used dark chocolate rather than bittersweet chocolate, and it was great. I also cooled the filling quickly, rather than allowing it too cool and sit in the refrigerator too long. Last time I did that the custard had thickened to a rubbery mess. Cooling the custard quickly was a good plan, since the filling ended up being smooth and velvety.

I tasted the difference components of the tart and they were all good. The pastry is a touch bitter thanks to the cocoa powder in the dough. The filling had a good dark chocolate flavor and the whipping cream had a subtle sweetness. All of the flavors came together wonderfully. The slight bitterness of the crust is mellowed by the richness and sweetness of the other components. You can’t eat a very big piece of this tart as it is quite rich! With the exception of some parts of the crust, this tart is not delicate at all. It cut easily and even the first piece I cut was picture perfect! I usually completely mangle the first piece of pie or cake that I cut, but the first piece here came out so well that I used it in the photographs. Certainly a pleasant surprise!

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours be Dorie Greenspan, pages 352 and 353.

Lemon Sandwich Cookies

I’ve been waiting to make these cookies for a long time, but as they take a little longer, it wasn’t something that I could necessarily put together in an evening after work. I had plans to meet up with a good friend for tea, and I thought that these would be perfect! They came from a listing of Christmas cookies, but I figured that lemon sandwich cookies really work any time of year.

I had purchased some clear sanding sugar with the intent to make these a long time ago, and that’s the only unusual item that’s required for these cookies. I’m sure that you could just roll the dough in granulated sugar, but they wouldn’t have the nice sparkle that the sanding sugar provides.

The dough was very easy to make. I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to get all of the flour mixed in, but I only had one little bit that didn’t mix completely. The dough is very soft so you can’t handle it too much. You don’t want to make the dough balls very big, or the sandwiches will be way too big when you are done. The cookies don’t look very different after they were baked, they don’t really brown at all, they do flatten a little but that’s all. I baked them the minimum time and they seemed ok.

The filling was a bit tricky. I made it exactly as the recipe specified and the filling was way too soft. If I would have tried to sandwich the cookie together they wouldn’t have stuck! I ended up adding about ½ cup more powdered sugar to stiffen the filling, which seemed to help some. The filling was still really soft and they didn’t fully set until I put them in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes.

These are the perfect little tea cookie. They have a wonderful lemon flavor, they are soft and crumbly but still have a bit of a crunch from the sanding sugar. The filling does soften if you take them out of the refrigerator for too long, so they are best stored cold.

1 1/3 cups flour

2/3 cup cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon salt

16 tablespoons butter, softened

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 tablespoon grated lemon zest

1 teaspoon vanilla

Sanding sugar

Filling

1 cup powdered sugar (or more, as required)

1 tablespoon grated lemon zest

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

4 tablespoons butter, softened

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 large baking sheets with silicone baking mats. Whisk together flour, cornstarch, and salt.

Beat together butter and powdered sugar with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy, then beat in zest and vanilla. At low speed, mix in flour mixture just until a soft dough forms.

Roll one teaspoonful of dough into a ball and drop into the sanding sugar, turning to coat. Reshape if necessary and transfer to a baking sheet. Repeat, spacing balls 3/4 inch apart, until baking sheet is filled.

Bake until tops are slightly cracked but still pale (bottoms will be pale golden), 12 to 15 minutes. Transfer cookies to a rack to cool completely.

To make the filling and assemble the cookies, beat together all filling ingredients in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until combined well. Transfer to a piping bag or sealable bag and snip off a corner. Turn over half of cookies and pipe about 1/2 tsp filling on flat side of each. Sandwich with remaining cookies, pressing gently.

Recipe from Sass and Veracity, who got the recipe from Gourmet

Honey Nut Squares

I’ve been making a lot of bar cookies lately, and sometimes I think that I want to make something really different, but I had seen these cookies on TasteSpotting (http://www.tastespotting.com/) and I really was excited to make them. I’ve made some other bar cookies that have a shortbread-like crust with toppings. Sometimes these work out really well, but I know a couple of times the crust and the filling don’t really stick together and you end up with a cookie that completely falls apart when you try to eat it.

Making the cookie base was very streamlined: you make it in the food processor. No extra bowls to dirty! I was happy that this called for an egg to bind everything together, since I figured that would help the cookie from being too crumbly once it was cut. The dough never really formed into regular cookie dough, it was still fairly crumbly even after adding the egg. I pressed it in the pan and it was fairly thin. I baked it for 20 minutes and it was just barely browned. Maybe I could have baked it a couple minutes more. It seemed set so I didn’t want to dry it out or overbake it.

I was a little nervous to make the topping, because it seems that I can’t ever get my candy thermometer attached to the pan in a way that works. I cooked the mixture until it was 240 degrees or maybe just a degree or two less. It’s a little hard to tell with my thermometer! It was bubbling very nicely when it got to temperature and then I took it off the heat and added the nuts. When I spread the topping on top of the crust, I noticed that the mixture was a light golden, not very dark at all. It looked a lot different from the original picture I had seen. Had I not cooked it long enough? Would it set up? I had my worries.

I baked it about 10 minutes, rather than the 5 the recipe called for, since the topping seemed so liquidy. Was it supposed to set up? I really didn’t know. I took it out of the oven and just decided to let it cool. In the back of my mind I was thinking, what is cookie plan B if these don’t work? I let them cool for about 3 hours before cutting. Lining the pan with foil made this so much easier. They cut very easily and the squares were really soft. I don’t know if there were still slightly warm or what. They are certainly delicate.

These have a very sweet, buttery flavor. The honey is a subtle flavor but it shines through. I used fireweed honey, but I don’t know how different the flavor is from clover honey. We had a couple different types of honey in the cupboard and this sounded interesting. You would think these were loaded with butter (ok, so they do contain 2 sticks of butter), but it’s the topping that is so smooth and buttery. They are very tasty. My husband REALLY likes them and keeps coming from the kitchen eating them so I hope there are enough left to share with others.

The Crust:

1/2 cup butter

1 1/3 cups flour

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 cup sugar

1 egg

The Topping:

8 oz. lightly toasted macadamia nuts

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup honey

1/2 cup butter

2/3 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9 x 13 in. pan with a double layer of foil. Put butter into a food processor with the flour, salt and sugar. Process until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg and process until it comes together. Press into the baking pan and bake for 15-20 minutes until golden. Allow the crust to cool while you make the topping.

Process the macadamia nuts in the food processor for about 30 seconds, until they’re chopped into little pieces (but not finely ground). Put the nuts on a baking sheet and place in the oven for about 5 minutes, until lightly toasted. (You can also toast them in a microwave.)

Put the sugar, honey, butter, and cream into a tall heavy saucepan. Cook the mixture until it reaches 240 degrees on a candy thermometer. Stir the mixture consistently while it is cooking. Once the mixture has

reached 240 degrees, pull the mixture off of the heat and quickly add the nuts. Stir well, and pour on top of the crust. Bake for about 5 minutes, mine was bubbly.

Allow to cool for at least 2 hours before cutting into squares. (Or refrigerate, but don’t refrigerate too long or the topping gets too hard.)Squares can be stored in an airtight container for 5 to 7 days.

Recipe from http://food.theplainjane.com/2009/03/09/honey-nut-squares/

4 Star Chocolate Bread Pudding

Lauren of Upper East Side Chronicle (http://uppeeastsidechronicle.blogspot.com/) picked this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe: Four Star Chocolate Bread Pudding. Check out her blog for the complete recipe. I had almost made this another time when I had leftover bread, but I had ended up making another bread pudding. My husband loves bread pudding but had never had a chocolate version.

When I was growing up, I was a part of Camp Fire Girls (now Camp Fire Girls & Boys). Every spring our council would have a canoe weekend at a local camp. Canoe weekend was a lot of fun, although here in Washington it was often rainy. Learning to use a canoe could be tough too, with all of the skills you have to learn to verify that you would know what to do if your canoe tipped over.

One thing I remember is that we had a great cook for canoe weekend. She was also a very thrifty cook and would use leftovers for other dishes, so nothing went to waste. She would always make bread pudding, so that was my first experience with bread pudding. I recall really liking it. I have had bread puddings since then, but I haven’t liked them too much. They are usually too soggy. I was hopeful that this wouldn’t be soggy.

This came together nicely. I used brioche buns. I bought them at Whole Foods and their breads don’t usually have preservative, so they get stale very quickly. Perfect for bread pudding! I made the custard and then used dark chocolate mini chunks for the bittersweet chocolate. I end up using those dark chocolate mini chunks for almost everything! The brioche soaked up all of the liquid and so I was hopeful that it wouldn’t be soggy.

I was pleasantly surprised that it was not soggy at all. The flavor was good, although it wasn’t the prettiest thing to look at! It was firm enough to cut, which was nice. I have to say that I have found a bread pudding that I liked, but it still isn’t my favorite dessert.

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 410 and 411.