Last year I got some great books and baking supplies for my birthday and Christmas. One of them was The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts. I judge this book by its cover every time I see it; by this I mean my heart gets all fluttery with excitement every time I imagine myself putting together the cover image. As a result this is one of my favourite cookbooks. I love it for the moment of glee I get every time I pull it out of the shelf. Thankfully I’ve finally started cooking from it and it’s actually a pretty great book.
It’s like having a TAFE lecturer patiently sitting with me in the kitchen while I bake. Sure it’s not as friendly and it doesn’t have as many stories, but it’s filled with great advice. It’s laid out in roughly the same order as the Cert III Patisserie course, so it’s a great refresher as I start psyching myself up to return to the kitchens in a couple of years.
My first foray into the books has come in the form of tarts. Chocolate tarts, apple tarts, lemon tarts (or pie, depending on how you’re classing them), and fruit tarts.
It started off with a cake ring from Ecotel–a store that gives me similarly fluttery feelings. I had a few friends and family round for my birthday last month and decided to make some tarts. A chocolate Bavarian tart and an apple tart. I made my own sweet pastry and then managed to get it stuck to the board–yes I forgot to lift it–and I couldn’t roll it thin enough. Dodgy rolling pins and tiny chopping boards do not make for happy pastry. Thankfully the fillings turned out brilliant.
I couldn’t work out why my Bavarian was so lumpy, then I remembered that I didn’t pass the mixture through a sieve. I topped it with shaved chocolate and fresh berries. The apple tart was the crowning glory. I used pink lady apples rather than the golden delicious apples that were recommended. Pink ladies are already a deliciously sweet eating apple, so when added to butter and brown sugar they just sung. It was such a delicious homely apple pie.
We served them all with a bowl of whipped cream, fresh berries, and little meringue kisses so that my nieces who weren’t so tart-inclined could make up their own eton messes for dessert.
I was left with enough pastry to make about two or three more tarts, because the book can be a little clear on how much of one recipe to use for another. Thankfully pastry can be frozen for a month or so, and still turns out great results.
I’ve just moved house, so I had to make the trip back down to Moana to roll out my pastry and get to work on some new tarts for our Food Blogger’s Christmas picnic. I decided on a lemon meringue pie and a fresh fruit custard tart. I spent the train ride studying all of the recipes. Making note of which things I needed; when I was supposed to have which things on the stove and what things in the oven. Thankfully a lot of these amazing tarts come down to really simple ingredients. They take time, a bit of patience, and sometimes tears, but if you’ve got flour, sugar, eggs, and butter at the home you’re half way towards making some pretty spectacular tarts.
I made all my fillings with no trouble at all, so I was doing a little happy dance around the kitchen. My pastry was still a bit thick, and I can never get it to colour evenly. I ended up with a bowl of crème pâtissière and lemon curd left over; mum and dad and their friends happily finished them off for me.
In the morning I had to ride down to the fruit and veg shop and at home I had to whip up the Swiss meringue.
I went a little overboard with the fruit surrounding my fresh fruit tart, but I was worried it would look a bit silly on such a large serving platter. I am a little bit in love with this new platter. I picked it up at IKEA after spotting it on Love Swah’s Sweet Swap post–she had the smaller version. They’re really cheap, but their such nice serving dishes.
It was a great afternoon with lovely people from Hungry Australian, She Cooks, She Gardens, Furikake Me, Liz Bakes Cakes, Louis Fameli, Cooking with Lucy, Sliced Food Insights, G’day Souffle, and What’s on the List.
Things I learnt: Lemon meringue pie is not a good picnic dish–or at least my sloppy lemon meringue would have you thinking so–and I need to work on my forearm strength for all my whisking needs.
What are your favourite tarts?
