You're a tart, lets have a quiche!

I've been a lagger lately...Besides the usual weekly baking, we are planning for our upcoming group project. We've done bread week and my posts still stuck with tarts and pies. However, the pie and tart week posed such challenge for me that every recipe seems important and worth-mentioning. After a few attempts at both sweet short pastry and pie dough, I am happy to announce that I am getting better at making the doughs. However, there are a few important points while handling these doughs, especially sweet short pastry:

1. Use cold butter and cold water.
2. Before any liquid added to the crumbs like mixture from rub in method, monitor the consistency as you add the liquid. Even though a recipe called for 100ml liquid, you can't assume that it won't be too wet (non sticky) or too dry (non crumbly, no crackings)   
3. Let the dough has some R&R. Best if you could make the dough overnight and let it chill in a fridge or once the dough being laid in a pie ring, chill it again.
4. Work quickly with the dough. Roll them evenly and always floured the rolling pin and surface. Not too much flour tho.

Here are two simple tart recipes that we did which uses baking blind. Baking blind includes an initial baking of the pastry before the filling is added. Usually bake with beans/rice so the pastry remains in shape during baking. Such pre-baking technique used for pastry cases that are to be filled with an uncooked or precooked mixture.

Fruit Tartlets

In this recipe, we'll be using the sweet short pastry for the base. Using 3cm tartlet rings, roll the dough as thin as possible. Bake blind until golden but not brown. Cool over wire rack. Melt some cooking chocolate and brush the interior of the tart shells. Let them cool.

Pastry Cream (the custardy filling holds the cut fruits in the tart shells)

Milk...................................................250g

Vanilla Essence..............................Drops

Egg Yolk..........................................50g

Sugar...............................................50g

Corn Flour.......................................25g

Butter...............................................35g

1. Boil milk in a pot. Mix half the sugar and vanilla essence into boiling milk.
2. In a separate bowl, mix egg yolk and the remaining sugar with a whisk.
3. Add corn flour into the egg yolk and sugar mixture. Stir till smooth.
4. While whisking, slowly bear in hot milk into the egg yolk mixture. Stir constantly.
5. Return everything to the pot and cook until mixture thickens (medium heat).
6. Lastly, add in butter.
7. Fastest way to chill is wrap the pastry cream in a cling film and laid it flat in a fridge.

Fill the pastry cream in piping bag and pipe it in the chocolate covered tart shells. Decorate with variety cut/sliced fruits and berries. Glaze the fruit topping with apricot flavoured glaze.

Chocolate Coffee Tart

Since the filling is sweet, we'll be using the sweet short pastry for the base again. Using 8cm tartlet rings, roll the dough as thin as possible. Bake blind until golden and cool on wire rack.

Whipping Cream/Heavy Cream.............................................90ml

Milk............................................................................................90ml

Chocolate (medalions)...........................................................120g

Egg............................................................................................half of a medium sized egg.

Coffee essence........................................................................drops

1. Combine the cream with milk in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer and remove from heat.
2. Add chocolate and stir until chocolate completely melted and blended uniformly.
3. Add the coffee essence.
4. Beat the egg lightly in a bowl and stir in gradually in the warm chocolate mixture.
5. Pour the chocolate liquid into the tart shells.
6. Bake at 170 degrees C and let it cool. Best serve chilled.

Quiche Loraine

This recipe, surprisingly a hit amongst all of us. Probably most of the stuff we made previously were all sweet and we can use almost anything for the filling. Since the filling is savoury, it is better to use pie dough instead.

Prepare a pie dough and do a bake blind for 20mins at 180 degrees C. Once the pastry turn golden, remove the beans and bake for another 5mins. For 2 x 5 inches or 1 x 12 inches pie ring, here's the ingredients:

Eggs...............................................................3

Milk.................................................................50g

Cream............................................................100g

Salt, pepper, oregano and herbs to taste.

Sky's the limit when it comes to the rest of the filling. Vegs: capsicums, onions, tomatoes, spinach etc...Meat: ham, bacon (cook 1st), sausage, smoked salmon etc. Finally, tops with shreded/grated cheddar cheese.

1. 
   
   Set the temperature to 160 degrees C.
2. 
   
   Add some cheese in the pastry base and all vegs and meat follows.
3. 
   
   Combine the eggs with milk and cream in a bowl and season well. Pour over the meat and vegs. Sprinkle some herbs and tops with cheese.
4. 
   
   Bake for 30-40mins or until set.

Frangipane aka Almond Cream Pie (Yummy!)

Of all the 6 recipes we learnt this week, this is my favourtite and I am planning to master it. Its filling is sweet and creamy with strong almond taste! Since this is a sweet filling, similar to the apple pie, we'll be using the sweet short pastry for its base.

Prepare the sweet dough as instructed. Making sure no kneading or work on the dough too long (chill the dough flat in a cling film before use should do the trick). Working with the dough is tricky for me because it is tends to be sticky (presence of sugar)...so I have to work on it with confidence and fast. Once the dough is set on the pie ring, make sure poke the base with a fork to create a few small holes.

Lets look at the filling recipe - for a 5 inches diameter pie ring (set oven temperature at 170 degrees Celcius):

Butter..............................................................125g
Icing Sugar.....................................................95g
Brown Sugar..................................................15g
Vanilla Essence.............................................Drops
Lemond Essence/Juice................................Drops
Glucose (fruit sugar - very sticky).................25g (purpose is to retain moisture)
Egg..................................................................1
Ground Almond..............................................100g (blanched almonds to remove skin and blend)
Cake Flour...................................................... 25g
Nutmeg Powder............................................. Pinch
Canned fruits for topping (peaches, cherries, blueberries etc)

1. Cream butter, glucose, icing sugar, brown sugar and essences (vanilla & lemon) until fluffy.
2. Beat egg and add gradually. Mix well.
3. Mix ground almond, flour and nutmeg powder together.
4. Fold in the dry mixture to form a smooth batter.
5. Fill batter into a piping bag and pipe into pie ring in a circular motion. Allows 5mm gap between the batter and pastry edge (this filling will rise).
6. Put in oven. Once it is half bake (filling rises but the pastry is still whitish), arrange fruits on the top.
7. Continue to bake until golden brown.

Note: Glazing the fruit topping is not necessary. If desired, dilutes some apricot glazing gel in warm water and brush the pie top once it is cool on a wire rack. 

Shut your pie hole!!

After the drama last week, I've decided to keep my mouth shut. All of us were assigned cleaning tasks according to a duty roaster - a small triumph for me. This week, we are going to learn everything about pies and tarts! So putting everything behind, I am ready to learn new stuff. However, this week lesson also means something that I've always dreaded...making pie pastry. I hate that I don't have a nifty fingers to roll a proper pastry. This week lesson also means something very new to me since I am not a huge fan of pies or tarts. 

Success or failure of pie pastry depends on how the flour and fat (butter, shortening or margerine) are mixed and how gluten is developed. We learnt about the two mixing methods two weeks ago:

1. Creaming - mixing butter and sugar before adding any liquid such as eggs, milk etc followed by flour.
2. Rub in - butter is mixed into flour until particles of fat are about the size of pea formed. Water is added in to form some gluten in the flour.

We also learnt two types of pie dough (difference between the two is in how the fat is blended with the flour):

1. Flaky pie dough - fat is rubbed into the flour until the particles of fat is about the size of peas/walnuts depends on how flaky the crusts required after baking. The bigger the fat particles, the flakier the crusts. When water is added, the flour absorbs it and develops gluten. When the dough is rolled out, the lumps of fat and moistened flour are flattened and become flakes of dough separated by layers of fat.
2. Mealy pie dough - fat is blended into the flour more thoroughly, until the mixture look like coarse cornmeal. The crust is very 'short' and tender because less gluten can develop. Less water is needed in the mix because the flour won't absorb as much as in flaky dough. The baked dough is less likely to absorb moisture form the filling.

Mealy dough is used for bottom crust, especially in baked fruit pies and soft or custard type pies, because it resists sogginess. Flaky doughs are used for top crusts and sometimes for pre-baked shells.

Sweet Short Pastry (Creaming Method)

Butter................................................125g
Sugar................................................ 45g
Salt.................................................... 1g
Egg.................................................... 35g
Cake Flour........................................ 200g

1. Using paddle attachment, mix the butter, sugar and salt until evenly blended.
2. Add egg and mix just until absorbed.
3. Add flour into the mixture and mix just evenly blended.
4. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill a few hours before using.

Pie Dough (Rub In Method)

Butter................................................ 113g
Flour.................................................. 200g
Salt.................................................... 6g
Sugar................................................ 2g
Water (cold)..................................... 68g

1. Combine salt and sugar with water and set aside.
2. Rub butter into flour until mixture resembles crumble.
3. Add water to flour mixture and mix until water is absorbed (check the consistency- not sticky).
4. Wrap and chill in cling film a few hours before using.

Amazingly, after making some pies and tarts I started to like them but gosh! Not easy to make since it involves lots of steps especially those small little fruit tartlets!!!