Baked And Churned

Tag: tart

Tudor Strawberry Tart

What the heck is a Tudor Strawberry Tart? Well, it’s a strawberry tart made from a Tudor-era recipe. But why? I’ve recently become obsessed with a new youtube channel called ‘Tasting History‘ Every episode the host, Max, re-creates some recipe from the past and gives a history lesson related to the food and the period it’s from.

I decided to try a recipe from an episode, and the Tudor Strawberry Tart episode seemed perfect.

Along with making the tart, Max tells the story of how the modern strawberry we all know and love accidentally evolved from the wild strawberry. It’s surprisingly interesting.

Let’s address the elephant in the room.. What are those.. things.. on the surface? They are little pockets of melted butter. The recipe for the tart calls for 2 Tbsp of butter to be added as the last ingredient. He said not to worry about mixing the butter in too much because it would just melt in. Well, I think my butter (out of the fridge) was a combination of too cold and not cut up small enough, so I ended up with little pools of butter instead of the butter getting fully incorporated. The good news is, other than looking a little ugly it didn’t seem to affect the tart at all.

The filling is made from very simple ingredients – Strawberries, egg yolks, sugar, butter and bread crumbs. Yes, bread crumbs seem odd, but I imagine it was a combination of strawberries being very expensive and luxurious, and a need for something to bind and thicken the filling that led to using them. I happened to have some stale bread in my freezer, so I used that to make my own bread crumbs in the food processor.

I was concerned that the texture of the Tudor strawberry tart would be weird given the breadcrumbs, but it was pretty nice. It looks gritty/lumpy-er than it actually was when you ate it. The flavor was nice too. It sounds silly to say, but it was really strawberry forward, tasting more strawberry-ey than your average strawberry pastry. I guess the complete simplicity of the recipe really allows the flavor of the actual berries to shine. I’d probably make this again, and I will definitely be trying more recipes from the series.

August 5, 2024
Apple Marzipan Tart

I made an Apple Marzipan Tart for my in-law’s dual birthday celebration. They decided that my mother-in-law would pick the theme this year and she requested apple. I’d been looking for an excuse to make something from Jurgen Krauss’ (of GBBO) book The German Baking Book, and found this recipe.

Apple Marzipan Tart

The Marzipan

As you might expect, an Apple Marzipan Tart recipe calls for marzipan. You basically have 4 options for marzipan (although broadly 2 – make or buy). Option 1 – buy it. Option 2 – Make it from Almond Meal/Flour. Option 3 – Make it from sliced almonds. Option 4 – Make it from whole almonds. I decided to make Jurgen proud and go full from scratch, making marzipan from whole almonds. I followed this recipe, but I didn’t have any rosewater. Rather than simply add more water as the recipe suggests, I used some liquid vanilla to make it a bit more flavorful. Since I started with whole raw almonds, I had to blanch them in boiling water to loosen the skins, then remove them by hand. I’m not sure exactly how many almonds there are in two cups, but it felt like about ten million.

So was it worth it? Honestly? Probably not. Maybe making marzipan fruits it would be, but as an ingredient, I doubt it made a noticeable difference. I don’t know that I would just buy in the future versus making it, but I wouldn’t start from whole almonds again. Even if you believe homemade is better, I can’t imagine there is a noticeable difference starting with whole almonds versus almond meal or slivered almonds.

Final Product

Apple Marzipan Tart Slice

The Apple Marzipan Tart was a success. My mother-in-law, who had requested apple, loved it, as did everyone else. I was concerned about the ratios as I felt like there was a lot of apples and not much of the marzipan filling, but the marzipan was so sweet that you needed the tartness of a lot of apples to balance it. I can’t wait to try some more recipes from the book. I still have like 3/4 of the marzipan I made left, I think I have some in mind already.

November 14, 2023
Strawberry Rhubarb Tart

It’s Strawberry Rhubarb Tart season! Our yearly CSA began last week, and one of the first things we always get is rhubarb and strawberries. Two years ago I made individual tartlets, this year I decided to make a single full-sized tart. As I noted, the tartlets were called “maybe the best thing you’ve made” by my family, so the bar was pretty high. That’s also partly why I decided to do something a little different. I loosely followed this recipe from Bakes by Brown Sugar.

The Filling

Compote

For a change, I remembered to take an in-progress photo. Above is a picture of the compote I made to start the whole process. Although not strictly required, I peeled the rhubarb to ensure it would become nice and soft/smooth when pureed. After breaking down the compote, I used a stick blender to make it into a puree. This puree then gets thickened with eggs to become the tart filling. A tart like this is always scary because you can never be quite sure if/when it has set. Even when you take it out of the oven it seems somewhat liquidy, but you need faith that as it cools it will set if you’ve done it right. Thankfully, I had.

Tart Slice

The Final Result

The tart was a great success, everyone loved it. Was it better than the tartlets I made previously? Who knows, but it doesn’t matter. The brown sugar crust was a nice change from the less sweet one I used in the past. It helped counteract the tartness of the rhubarb that comes through and I would definitely use the crust again. The one thing I regret is that I was in a rush and used premade canned whipped cream instead of making it fresh. I think fresh whipped cream would have, to steal a phrase, kicked the strawberry rhubarb tart up a notch.

Whole Tart

June 16, 2022
POTATO, ONION, AND GRUYERE GALETTE

A potato onion and gruyere galette. This was another farm-share driven bake. We had a ton of onions and potatoes and my wife was desperate for some to get used and make room in our pantry. I did a little research and found a Sur La Table recipe for this galette and thought, why not? I’d never made a galette before and frankly might not have really known what it was. It’s essentially a rustic tart where you don’t bother with a tart pan. It was perfect in this case because the two tart pans I have are small and shallow and would never have worked for this monster savory tart.

This is the recipe I used. I already had everything I needed except the gruyere so I picked up a half-pound of a 6 month aged one. The recipe calls for a quarter-pound but I think cheese follows the same rule as garlic and chocolate chips. Always use more than it says!

The Unbaked Potato Onion and Gruyere Galette

Yes, it looks messy, but that’s the beauty of a ‘rustic bake’. It’s supposed to! Sort of. It came out tasting amazing. I was pretty happy that the form held together even though I had overstuffed the galette by doubling the cheese and using a bit more potatoes than called for. The family loved it. I’ll have to try some more galettes, they are less finicky than doing a tart in a tin but are still quite impressive in their own way.

Potato Onion and Gruyere Galette

Sliced potato onion gruyere galette

October 16, 2021
Strawberry Rhubarb Tartlets

Strawberry Rhubarb Tartlets for the 4th of July. Let me start with a mea culpa – I don’t really have a recipe for this because it just sort of developed. It’s a crying shame because this was crowned “probably the best thing you’ve made” by my family.

Strawbery Rhubarb Tartlets

Tartlets. Tartlets. Tartlets. The word has lost all meaning.

The Non Recipe

We subscribe to a weekly CSA from local farm that we love. One of the earliest treats every season is rhubarb. My wife decided to make rhubarb compote with the intention to eat it on yogurt for breakfast. It turned out to be WAY more than she needed, so I received the directive to ‘make something with all this compote’.

I decided on Strawberry Rhubarb Tartlets. I vaguely followed this recipe from Baking The Goods, but of course, that recipe starts from scratch, not from having a bunch of compote. I had to improvise a bit, but I mixed compote with sugar and egg yolk over some heat until I got a good consistency (and taste). After that I pretty much followed their Strawberry Rhubarb Tartlets recipe.

Strawbery Rhubarb Tartlets

I decided to make some fresh whipped cream to pipe onto the Strawberry Rhubarb Tartlets prior to serving. Since I wanted it to be thicker for piping I followed this recipe for stabilized whipped cream. It’s basically a standard whipped cream recipe with some milk powder added to stiffen it. Other recipes use cream of tartar or gelatin to thicken, but I had milk powder and that seemed like the most flavor neutral option to me, so I went with it.

Success

Well, as I spoilered up front – it came out great! The shortcrust was buttery and crumbly (like in my pecan pie), the filling was delicious, and fresh whipped cream on top was the perfect finish. These were enjoyed at my family’s 4th of July BBQ, and everyone loved them. The next time I have some rhubarb I’ll have to try and recreate, this time with an actual full recipe.

Strawbery Rhubarb Tartlets

August 4, 2020