the New Recipe Challenge: Chocolate-Caramel Pecan Tart

Ah holidays; yes! My favorite excuse to overeat sugar! I made this tart for a Thanksgiving dinner. While pumpkin pie is normally my go-to, the friend that had invited me had already called dibs on creating the most awesomest of all holiday pies. Seemed a perfect time to venture out into the great unknown. Tarts. And now, with no further adieu, Chocolate-Caramel Pecan Tart.

Verdict: DELICIOUSNESS IN SMOKY NUT FORM
Smoky nuts, salty hint, flakey crust- this is nowhere near the cloying goo of a typical pecan pie. 

I had no tart pan with removable bottom, but just threw the crust into a spring-form cake pan. At first I was dismayed to find that my crust shrank in considerably from the edges, but really, turned out to be no big thing. So don't worry about what kind of baking pan you use. 
The bit about cooking the corn syrup for 8-10 minutes... complete lie. Just watch it carefully- it turns fast. Luckily, Mama was on hand and coached me through most. Including a bit where she stopped me from scraping gritty bits of sugar back down to the goey mass. Apparently that is a big no-no in candy making, and I narrowly escaped turning my batch into a gruesome crystalline mess. Or something. 
Next Time: I doubled the salt as well- and I probably could have used even more. Other than that- I'm not changing a thing. 
Repeat factor: Very high. 

What? You are still here?

I know it has been a while since I posted, I lost my login info for a while, or was trying the wrong one or did I lose my camera? Anyway I am sure it was something stupid and Paris-like. But I am back, just in time to tell you about one of my new favorite cookbooks(and cookbook author!). I enjoy reading Fine Cooking magazine, everything I have made out of it has been quite good.

A while ago we decided to try to make their French Macaroons. They turned out excellent, as documented in this official photo:

Don't those look delicious?

Well that might have been the end of that, except when watching a cooking show I have been enjoying lately, Simply Ming(good show, you should check it out), the author of the article(Joanne Chang) and recipe showed up as a guest, and I discovered that she had a baking cookbook out! So we rushed out to Barnes and Nobles to get a copy.

As Rachel mentioned below in her Seattle post, I made her birthday cake out of this book. We also made the Brioche au Chocolate. And since then I have made the lime cornmeal

cookies and the parsley-sage biscuits. All of which have been excellent!

In fact the cornmeal-lime cookies inspired me to play around with them and I made the lime glaze with tequila instead of water, and sprinkled a bit of pink sea salt on top. It was very tasty, but a little too salty, I need to play around with it more. I can't wait to make more stuff out of the book.

The recipes can be a little involved, for example the brioche was about a 3 day project. Be sure the read the directions all the way through before starting. We learned that the hard way.

I think you should pick up the book, and pay attention if you see an article by Joanne Chang or see her on TV. She hasn't failed me yet!

By the way, I think I read she has a degree in physics from Harvard and decided to become a pastry chef instead. I admire the hell out of her.

Cutiepies

With dreams of my very own bakery dancing in my head, I made mini-tarts this weekend. I’m calling them cutiepies! Paris had made these amazing looking mini blueberry pies, so I wanted to make minis too. I knew exactly what I’d make, I went right for a recipe I got from a Food and Wine magazine. A Food and Wine magazine that I picked up after visiting Portland, because Noel and James get Food and Wine, so I’m scoping it out to see whether or not it’ll be the next one I order.
Recipe for free form tarts:

Pastry

2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ sticks cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
½ cup ice water

Filling

Use whatever fruit you want, cut it up of course, the magazine suggested mango, and it’s absolutely the best fruit in these tarts, amazingly yummy! They also suggest pineapple and berries, use your imagination! I also like the way bananas taste after they’ve been baked, they have their own natural sweetness.

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Sugar, for sprinkling
Crème fraiche or vanilla ice cream, or whipped cream, for serving. But these suckers taste amazing the next day as is as a breakfast treat.

Now that you’ve got everything together, Do This:

1. Make the Pastry- In a food processor, pulse the flour and salt. Add the butter and pulse until it’s the size of small peas. Sprinkle the ice water over the mixture and pulse until it comes together. Transfer pastry to work surface and knead a few times until it comes together. Divide in half and flatten into disks. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for an hour, can be made a day ahead.

2. Preheat oven to 400. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. On lightly floured surface roll out a disk to 1/8 inch thick. Cut out rounds that are 5 inches in diameter, can make 4 per disk. Place on baking sheet. Repeat with second disk. Refrigerate for 10 minutes.

3. Arrange the fruit on dough rounds. Bring the pastry edges up and around the fruit, pinching firmly to form pleated edges around fruit. Refrigerate 10 minutes more.

4. Brush tarts with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar. Bake 35 minutes, until pastry is browned and fruit is bubbling. Cool on wire rack.

-If you want to make them super tiny like I did…I made them 3 inch rounds, and decreased the temperature of the oven to 350 for the first 15 minutes, after that, I rotated the pan and turned the oven up to the standard 400 for the rest of the time, still cooking them for a total of 35 minutes. I made some with tops too, just remember to make holes in the top crust. Enjoy!

So I Quit My Job

This is some of the stuff I've been up to...

Eating...




The Cuban sandwich with the bites missing had a jalapeno relish; the pork was super juicy, and the sandwich was delicious. The weather has been amazing in San Francisco. On Friday's there are food trucks in the Civic Center/UN Plaza area. They travel around the city, if you have a favorite you can follow on twitter and facebook to see where they'll be next.




Baking...



The fruit tart was a recipe from a Food and Wine magazine I picked up this month, they were super easy to make. And the chocolate chip cookies, which I've made before, and the carrot cupcakes are from, my favorite, America's Test Kitchen.