Assorted Bakewell Tartelettes

Summer's arrived and so has the busy social calender. 

June has been quite a busy month... Birthday parties, baby showers and just entertaining friends and family. It left me so little time that I barely had time to finish the challenge. 

When I first read the Bakewell Tart (um) Pudding challenge, I was wondering if I would have enough time to finish all the different steps... Sounded complicated just while reading it. But when I finally got down to it, the entire thing was done in a couple of hours.

I halved the recipe and baked individual "tarts" in cupcake/muffin molds. I filled two with blackberry preserves, two with strawberry jam and two with nutella. 

I think everyone loved it indeed!  

The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.

Assorted Bakewell Tartelettes

Sweet shortcrust pastry:
4 oz all purpose flour
0.5 oz sugar
1/4 tsp salt

2 oz unsalted butter, cold (frozen is better)

1 egg yolks
1/4 tsp almond extract (optional)
1 Tbsp cold water

Frangipane:
2.25 oz unsalted butter, softened
2.25 oz icing sugar
1.5 eggs
1/4 tsp almond extract
2.25 oz ground almonds (or other nut of your choice)
0.5 oz all purpose flour

Blackberry preserves, strawberry jam and nutella

Prepare the dough:
Sift together flour, sugar and salt. Grate butter into the flour mixture, using the large hole-side of a box grater. Using your finger tips only, and working very quickly, rub the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Set aside.Lightly beat the egg yolks with the almond extract (if using) and quickly mix into the flour mixture. Keep mixing while dribbling in the water, only adding enough to form a cohesive and slightly sticky dough.
Form the dough into a disc, wrap in cling and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Prepare the frangipane:
Cream butter and sugar together for about a minute or until the mixture is primrose in colour and very fluffy. Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter may appear to curdle. In the words of Douglas Adams: Don’t panic. Really. It’ll be fine. After all three are in, pour in the almond extract and mix for about another 30 seconds and scrape down the sides again. With the beaters on, spoon in the ground nuts and the flour. Mix well. The mixture will be soft, keep its slightly curdled look (mostly from the almonds) and retain its pallid yellow colour.

Assemble the tartelettes:
Place the chilled dough disc on a lightly floured surface. If it's overly cold, you will need to let it become acclimatised for about 15 minutes before you roll it out. Flour the rolling pin and roll the pastry to 5mm (1/4”) thickness, by rolling in one direction only (start from the centre and roll away from you), and turning the disc a quarter turn after each roll. When the pastry is to the desired size and thickness, transfer it to the tart pans, press in and trim the excess dough. Patch any holes, fissures or tears with trimmed bits. Place the tarts on a baking sheet line with parchment paper and chill in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 200C/400F. Position a rack in the center of the oven.

Remove shell from freezer, spread as even a layer as you can of jam onto the pastry base. Top with frangipane, spreading to cover the entire surface of the tart. Smooth the top and pop into the oven for 30 minutes. Five minutes before the tart is done, the top will be poofy and brownish.

Daring Bakers Challenge- Sweet and Spice and all things nice

I love baking.
It wasnt always like that. I remember my mom begging, pleading. arguing and using every trick in the book to get me to try my hand at cooking. I would flat out refuse.

Then one fine day I announced I wanted to go to university to get a degree in Nutrition. Mom almost fell out of her chair.
And then she couldnt stop laughing.

Its not like I had an epiphany or something. I dont even know what the turning point was.
I just started to enjoy whipping up desserts. Even then I knew I was more interested in baking than cooking.

Which brings me to why I decided to join Daring Bakers.
I decided that instead of doing variations of the same desserts all the time, I would join Daring Bakers- which would certainly make me stretch and challenge myself.

While my husband appreciates all the baking I do, he doesn't really have much of a sweet tooth. And it leaves me with trying to polish it all off. Not very good for me- wardrobe-wise.

With the monthly challenges I can switch it up a bit whenever possible- something spicy, something sweet...

And it would only be once a month which works out perfect for a busy working mom.

So with this month's Strudel challenge, I did an apple filling and a potato filling.

I had made Aloo chat and I decided to make a strudel with the filling. Sort of my version of an aloo chat samosa if you will...

I also made the apple filling. The apple strudel didnt turn out as flaky as I would have liked. I did stretch the dough so thin I could read a card through it. But it was a thicker casing around the filling.



So for the potato version I made sure it was REALLY thin. So thin in fact that I had a bit of trouble peeling the dough from the paper. But the end result was so flaky it could have passed for (2 sheets of ) phyllo.

Of course I couldnt stop crowing about it. Wouldnt you?

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

Strudel dough

from “Kaffeehaus – Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague” by Rick Rodgers

1 1/3 cups (200 g) unbleached flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons (105 ml) water, plus more if needed
2 tablespoons (30 ml) vegetable oil, plus additional for coating the dough
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar

Combine the flour and salt in a stand-mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix the water, oil and vinegar in a measuring cup. Add the water/oil mixture to the flour with the mixer on low speed. You will get a soft dough. Make sure it is not too dry, add a little more water if necessary.

Take the dough out of the mixer. Change to the dough hook. Put the dough ball back in the mixer. Let the dough knead on medium until you get a soft dough ball with a somewhat rough surface.

Take the dough out of the mixer and continue kneading by hand on an unfloured work surface. Knead for about 2 minutes. Pick up the dough and throw it down hard onto your working surface occasionally.

Shape the dough into a ball and transfer it to a plate. Oil the top of the dough ball lightly. Cover the ball tightly with plastic wrap. Allow to stand for 30-90 minutes (longer is better).

It would be best if you have a work area that you can walk around on all sides like a 36 inch (90 cm) round table or a work surface of 23 x 38 inches (60 x 100 cm). Cover your working area with table cloth, dust it with flour and rub it into the fabric. Put your dough ball in the middle and roll it out as much as you can.

Pick the dough up by holding it by an edge. This way the weight of the dough and gravity can help stretching it as it hangs. Using the back of your hands to gently stretch and pull the dough. You can use your forearms to support it.

The dough will become too large to hold. Put it on your work surface. Leave the thicker edge of the dough to hang over the edge of the table. Place your hands underneath the dough and stretch and pull the dough thinner using the backs of your hands. Stretch and pull the dough until it's about 2 feet (60 cm) wide and 3 feet (90 cm) long, it will be tissue-thin by this time. Cut away the thick dough around the edges with scissors. The dough is now ready to be filled.