White Chocolate Berry Tart

I made this dessert for a party I went to the other night. I loved it and I think it will replace this recipe that I've been making for years. The raspberries are such a nice surprise as they are folded into the white chocolate mousse. I only had one basket of strawberries, so I thinly sliced them and arranged them on top of the mousse, then brushed an apricot jam glaze over the strawberries. The recipe calls for 3 oz of milk chocolate that you brush over the hot crust, but I totally forgot about that because our sweet neighbor lady came by for a visit. Isn't she cute? We love Zerada.

White Chocolate Mousse and Berry Tart

adapted from epicurious.com

Yield: Serves 8

Crust
1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
4 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3 egg yolks

3 ounces milk chocolate, finely chopped - I totally left this part out on accident

Filling
1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin
1 1/4 cups chilled whipping cream
7 ounces white chocolate

1 1/2-pint basket fresh raspberries
2 1-pint baskets strawberries, halved
2 ounces imported white chocolate for curls (optional)

For Crust:

Combine flour, sugar and salt in large bowl. Add butter and cut in using fingertips or pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal. Beat egg yolks to blend in small bowl. Pour yolks over flour mixture and stir with fork to combine. Gather dough into ball; flatten into disk. Wrap dough in plastic and refrigerate 30 minutes. (Dough can be prepared 3 days ahead. Keep refrigerated. Let dough soften slightly at room temperature before continuing.)

Preheat oven to 375°F. Roll out dough between sheets of waxed paper to 14-inch round (scant 1/4 inch thick). Peel off top sheet of waxed paper. Using second sheet of paper as aid, invert dough into 11-inch-diameter tart pan with removable bottom. Carefully press into pan. Trim and finish edges, patching any holes with scraps. Freeze until firm about 15 minutes.

Line crust with aluminum foil and fill with dried beans or pie weights. Bake until sides are set, about 23 minutes. Remove beans and foil and continue baking until crust is golden brown, piercing bottom with toothpick if crust bubbles, about 12 minutes. Remove from oven. Immediately sprinkle chocolate over crust. Let stand until chocolate melts, about 4 minutes. Using back of spoon, carefully spread chocolate over bottom and up sides of crust. Cool.

For Filling:

Measure 1 tablespoon water into heavy small saucepan; sprinkle unflavored gelatin over and let stand 5 minutes to soften. Add 3/4 cup whipping cream and stir over low heat until gelatin dissolves. Add 7 ounces white chocolate and stir until melted and smooth. Transfer to medium bowl. Refrigerate until cool but not set, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes.

Whip remaining 1/2 cup whipping cream in medium bowl until stiff peaks form. Fold whipped cream into white chocolate mixture. Fold in raspberries. Spoon filling into crust. Refrigerate until beginning to set, about 30 minutes. Arrange strawberries atop filling, cut sides down and points toward edge. To form optional white chocolate curls, slide vegetable peeler across white chocolate. Garnish tart with chocolate curls. (Tart can be prepared 6 hours ahead. Refrigerate.)

Crummy pictures/yummy recipes

Like so many other things, I'm blaming my worse than usual food photography on the pregnancy. These are recipes I've made in the last couple of months that I loved but was just too sick to blog about. Enjoy!


Light Brioche Burger Buns from Smitten Kitchen

Delicious! When there were no more patties left, I started eating these with a little butter. Oh my, that sounds delicious right now!


This is a favorite dessert of mine. Not sure if it's ever made it's debut on my blog, but even if it has, it deserves to be showcased twice. It's that good. Although, this is the last piece. It took me that long to get around to taking a picture. Strawberry White Chocolate Mousse Tart from Bon Appetit.


Linguine with Shrimp Scampi from Barefoot Contessa

I love this stuff. I'm the only one in my family who does. So I either have to eat the whole thing myself or host a girl's lunch. This time I felt no desire to share, so I ate this for dinner for a whole week. Yum!

Don't judge by the picture, this recipe was so delicious. Peach and Crème Fraîche Pie from Smitten Kitchen. It was fun making my own creme fraiche, too.

I think I hate walnuts.

I was really excited to try this recipe- I am a big rhubarb fan. I discovered after making this recipe that I am not a big walnut fan. I saw walnuts and thought, "yech... oh well, Dorie knows what she's doing." While I ate the dessert, all I could taste was walnuts. So next time I would either substitute pecans or leave the nuts out entirely. (To tell you the truth, next time I have a hankering for strawberry rhubarb, I'd probably just go with this. Because it's freaking awesome.)

Strawberry Rhubarb Double Crisp (Dorie Greenspan)

Makes 9 servings

For the crisp mix

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup (packed) light brown sugar

3/4 cup old-fashioned oats

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

Pinch of salt

Tiny pinch of ground cinnamon

1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts

1/4 cup very finely chopped crystallized ginger (see above)

1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

For the filling

1 pound (4 to 5 medium stalks) rhubarb, trimmed and peeled

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1/2 cup cold water

3 cups (about 12 ounces) strawberries, hulled and sliced

1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

GETTING READY: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Put a nonreactive 9-inch square baking pan (I like Pyrex or porcelain) on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat.

TO MAKE THE CRISP MIX: Put the flour, brown sugar, oats, ground ginger, salt and cinnamon in a large bowl and sift the ingredients through your fingers to blend them — be on the lookout for lumps in the brown sugar. Mix in the nuts and crystallized ginger, then pour over the melted butter. Using a fork, stir the ingredients until they are thoroughly moistened.

Spoon half the mixture into the pan and pat it down lightly to form a thick crust; set aside the remainder for the topping.

TO MAKE THE FILLING: Slice the rhubarb into 1¿2-inch-wide pieces and scatter them over the pressed-in base. Dissolve the cornstarch in the cold water; set aside.

Put the strawberries, sugar and ginger in a medium saucepan and, with a fork, pastry blender or potato masher, crush the berries. Place the pan over medium heat and, stirring occasionally, bring the mixture to a full boil. Pour the dissolved cornstarch into the pan and, stirring with a whisk, bring everything back to a boil. Keep cooking and stirring until the strawberry filling is thick and no longer cloudy, about 3 minutes. Pull the pan from the heat, stir in the vanilla and pour the filling over the rhubarb. Scatter the remaining crisp mix over the filling, breaking it up with your fingers so you can scatter it evenly.

Slide the crisp into the oven and bake for 60 minutes, or until the topping is golden and the strawberry jam is bubbling up all around the edges. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool until only just warm or at room temperature.

SERVING: You can try to be neat about cutting the crisp into squares, but it's pretty hopeless; better to cut pieces in the baking pan and lift them out with a spatula or big spoon into shallow bowls. Have the crisp with ice cream.

STORING: This is best the day it is made, but if you keep it covered at room temperature overnight, you'll make a bunch of breakfasters happy the next day.

Day 3 of cheap raspberries

Natalie gave me a couple boxes of this a while back and I was always planning on using it or my next strawberry pie. I've tried making my own strawberry glace before and not loving the results. I'm not sure I did it right by this box either. The consistency seemed like that of jello rather than a glaze to me. Oh well, I didn't get the look I was going for, but it still tasted great! :)

I decided to make this one a strawberry raspberry pie. It's not really much of a recipe, just a pre-baked pie crust filled with 1 1/2 16 oz cartons fresh hulled strawberries, and one carton fresh raspberries. I tossed them in the pie glaze/jello and then placed them carefully so the ends of the strawberries pointed up. After talking it over with Jessica, I think next time I would just try adding more boiling water to the mix so the consistency would be thinner and the flavor not as strong.

Pre-baked Pie Crust
(Pie recipe from barefoot contessa, enough for 2 pie crusts.)

• 12 tablespoons very cold unsalted butter
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/3 cup very cold vegetable shortening
• 6-8 tablespoons ice water (about 1/2 cup)

Directions

1. Dice the butter and return it to the refrigerator while you prepare the flour mixture.

2. Place the flour, salt, and sugar in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse a few times to mix.

3. Add the butter and shortening.

4. Pulse 8 to 12 times, until the butter is the size of peas.

5. With the machine running, pour the ice water down the feed tube and pulse the machine until the dough begins to form a ball.

6. Dump out on a floured board and roll into a ball.

7. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

8. Cut the dough in half.

9. Roll each piece on a well-floured board into a circle, rolling from the center to the edge, turning and flouring the dough to make sure it doesn't stick to the board.

10. Fold the dough in half, place in a pie pan, and unfold to fit the pan.

Okay, so after you're through with step 10, flute or pinch the edges as desired around edge of pie plate. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Stick the pie in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. The chilling will help the pie to retain its shape during baking. Take your pie out of the refrigerator and line it with a large piece of aluminum foil. Fill the pie with unbaked beans or pie weights. (I just have a container of beans that I keep in my pantry for such occasions. They're my pie beans. :) Put in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, remove foil and turn heat down to 325 degrees. Bake another 15-20 minutes until desired shade of golden brown.

one smitten kitten

I just fell in love with a new cooking blog: Smitten Kitchen.

I made a strawberry rhubarb pie, the first one I've ever made or even tasted, on Saturday and I loved it. My sister-in-law Jen told me years ago how much she loves strawberry rhubarb pie and I've been wanting to try one ever since, so I'm dedicating this pie to her. Jen takes the most beautiful pictures of my girls. I so wish that we lived closer so that 1.) we could hang out more because she's awesome and 2.) I could cook for her and pay her back for all the awesome pictures I have hanging in my home. My Dad called the other day and said, "Hey I need more pictures of your girls. Has your sister-in-law taken any more recently?" I am so not a photographer and he knows it! Check out Jen's flickr page and website. She's in the Kansas City area and she is so talented!

So back to the pie- I got lucky and the strawberries at Walmart of all places were perfectly sweet. It was all I could do not to eat the whole lot of them before getting them into the pie. I got a sweet deal on rhubarb at the farmer's market and you better believe I'll be heading back Saturday morning for more. I followed the Smitten Kitchen's recipe almost exactly, except I used the Barefoot Contessa's pie crust recipe. Why mess with perfection?

I ended up with a really wet filling, too, so I actually took the pie, tilted it slightly over the sink, and poured about 1/4 or more of pie juices down the drain. Not very sophisticated for a "domestic goddess", but I think it was a smart move. :)

For filling
3 1/2 cups 1/2-inch-thick slices trimmed rhubarb (1 1/2 pounds untrimmed)
1 16-ounce container strawberries, hulled, halved (about 3 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 large egg yolk beaten to blend with 1 teaspoon water (for glaze)

Make filling: Preheat oven to 400°F. Combine first 7 ingredients in large bowl. Toss gently to blend.

Assemble Pie: Roll out 1 dough disk on floured work surface to 13-inch round. Transfer to 9-inch-diameter glass pie dish [er, I used a metal one and it was just fine]. Trim excess dough, leaving 3/4-inch overhang.

Roll out second dough disk on lightly floured surface to 13-inch round. Cut into fourteen 1/2-inch-wide strips. Spoon filling into crust. Arrange 7 dough strips atop filling, spacing evenly. Form lattice by placing remaining dough strips in opposite direction atop filling. Trim ends of dough strips even with overhang of bottom crust. Fold strip ends and overhang under, pressing to seal. Crimp edges decoratively.

Brush glaze over crust. transfer pie to baking sheet. Bake 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F. Bake pie until golden and filling thickens, about another 25 minutes. [The original recipe suggested a total baking time of 1 hour and 55 minutes. No joke. Mine was done in just shy of an hour.] Transfer pie to rack and cool completely. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

I served it with my friend's recipe for vanilla ice cream. Oh it's so good! Here it is:

Sandra Zeigler’s Vanilla ice cream
for 4 qt. ice cream maker.

4 Eggs
2 1/4 c. Sugar
5 c. Milk
4 c. Heavy Cream
4 1/2 tsp. vanilla (I use Mexican Vanilla)
1/2 tsp. salt

Mix together eggs and sugar until stiff. Add other ingredients and mix well together.

Pour into container of ice cream maker, and freeze as instructed.