Raspberry Mascarpone Tart

It's been almost 2 and a half years living in Indonesia, a little more than 2 years of blissful marriage, and almost one and a half years of neglecting my blog. For that, I apologize. It's not that I haven't been baking... I've been baking quite a lot actually. It's actually more on the fact that I don't have time anymore to take pictures and writing out the recipes. But I'm going to try to do better. Starting with this pretty tart I made last night.

Raspberry Mascarpone Tart
adapted from Sarabeth's Bakery and Baking at Home

1 fully baked and cooled tart shell (I used an 8-in square tart shell)
1/2 cup mascarpone cheese, at room temp
1/4 cup orange flower honey
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup heavy cream
1-2 cups fresh raspberries
Powdered sugar, for garnish

In a bowl, whisk until smooth the mascarpone cheese, honey, and lemon juice. Set aside..

In a separate bowl, whisk the heavy cream until it reaches stiff peaks. Fold the the whipped cream into the mascarpone mixture in 3 additions. Pour the cream into the cooled pastry shell and evenly distribute using an offset spatula. Cover the tart loosely with cling wrap and refrigerate for about 15 minutes.

Garnish the tart with fresh raspberries and lightly dust the raspberries with powdered sugar to create the snow effect.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Strawberry Tart

Been fascinated with tart shells these days - pate Sucre or sweet pastry crust... yum!


Baking things whose batter require refrigeration has been a challenge for me in Jakarta. The hot and humid weather makes it really challenging to keep the dough chilled while working on it. Thank goodness for air conditioning that helps the process. :) I still find myself going back and forth to the fridge to re-chill the dough during my rolling process. This is part of my reason for my fear of attempting to make puff pastry dough :p

Since I was in the baking mood and had quite a bit of time, I decided that one fine afternoon to make chocolate strawberry tart. I used the recipe from my recently purchased book, the art and soul of baking, and I really like the hint of vanilla in the crust.

6 1/4oz all purpose flour

1 3/4oz granulated sugar

1/4 tsp salt

4oz cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

2 large egg yolks

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1-3 tsp cold water

Using a food processor, put the flour, sugar, and salt into the bowl and pulse several times to combine. Add the cut butter and pulse again 6-8 times until the butter becomes pea-sized crumbles. In a small bowl, mix the egg yolks and the vanilla and stir to combine. Slowly drizzle in the butter mixture while pulsing the food processor until the dough forms small clumps. Test the dough by pressing a handful of the dough - they should stick together. If the crumble and fall apart, add 1 tsp of water and pulse again. Repeat if necessary.

Turn the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead a few times to bring the dough together. Shape the dough into a disc and plastic wrap it before storing in the fridge.

Now I use a regular 1:1 ratio for the chocolate ganache and lined the tarts with my homemade strawberry jam before pouring in the ganache. :)

Itadakimas! (so the Japanese say)

Apple Tart

This has been the longest absence I've ever taken in my blogging history. :p I must admit that I have only started blogging a couple of years ago, but I've been pretty constant in providing new entries and updates on my kitchen experiments.

Since my move to Indonesia, I haven't been baking as much. The kitchen is different (I don't know where things are stored), the oven is different ( we only have gas oven and the temperature can't be set), the ingredients are different (not many options are available - even raspberries are hard to find), and the circumstances are different (I'm no longer in my own place, but I'm at my parent's house).

I know... I know.. those are all excuses. :p Despite the many changes I encountered here, I managed to bake a little bit here and there. I took pictures of some of them but the slow internet connection here makes it challenging to post them up on my blog entry. However, I managed to pull it through and here I am sharing them with you. :)

Apple tart for the family :)

One for each of my family members, with much love!

I really want to thank each one of you who are still faithfully checking up onmy blog updates. You guys really motivate me to continue with my passion despite the despites. I hope to upload more for you all. :)

Cheers!

Strawberry Cream Chiffon Tarts

I'm in the mood for tarts lately. I had bought a bunch of mini tart molds from Indonesia and have yet to find the chance to use them. Making petite desserts takes a lot of time because each small tart requires the same amount of effort to make as a large one but I have to make a lot of them. So when work slowed down this past weekend (we filed the 10-Q!) and I have a short day on Friday, I decided to make these mini strawberry tarts.

I started with pate sucree for the crust the night before and chilled it in the fridge overnight. After work on Friday, I started to roll out the dough and mold them to each mini tart molds. I have to say, this is quite challenging for me. First, rolling out the dough when it's still chilled is quite difficult because it's hard as stone. But when the dough started to warm out, it sticked to my rolling pin! >_< I found a solution for this though: I rolled the dough between 2 sheets of cling wraps. It worked perfect!

Second, trying to pit the rolled out dough on the mold was really tedious. I had to make sure that the dough was pressed to the sides and bottom on the mold. I'm not sure why, but it's a difficult process for me. :0 I guess I'm just not patient enough for this. :p

When all this is done, I had to cover each one with aluminium foil and weigh them down with rice grains. Then I had to bake them in the oven! :) I like this part best because it's the last step in the process. :p


Even after the crusts were ready, I still wasn't sure on the filling. I couldn't decide whether to make a fruit tart (with custard), mango chiffon tart, or strawberry cream chiffon tart. After browsing through my fridge, I scratched off fruit tart because I don't have many different kinds of fruit at home. But I have both mango puree and strawberry puree sitting in the freezer. I also have fresh mangoes and strawberries at home. It was a tough battle, but I finally decided on the strawberries. Why? Because the strawberries wouldn't last longer in the fridge compared to the mangoes. :p Plus, strawberries are in season now and the ones I had at home were just the reddest and sweetest strawberries ever (all for just $0.99/lbs).

I promise to make something mango next. :)

I brought these for the bible study session Friday night. :) I love bringing desserts to my bible study group because I know that they'll eat it all - with a big smile on their faces. This is what makes all that effort worthwhile.

Here's a little glimpse of the tarts before I filled them up with the strawberry cream chiffon filling. :) Aren't they cute?

Now, for the strawberry cream chiffon filling's recipe:

450g strawberry puree
8g cornstarch dissolved in 60ml water

30 ml lemon juice

7g powdered gelatin bloomed in 120ml water

60g egg whites

60g granulated sugar

125ml heavy cream

Bring to boil the strawberry puree and then stir in the cornstarch mixture. Stir until thickened and then add the lemon juice and the softened gelatin. Continue stirring until all the gelatin is dissolved. Chill until thickened but not set.

In a clean mixing bowl, whisk the egg whites until it reaches soft peaks and then slowly mix in the sugar while whisking at high speed until you get a glossy meringue. In another bowl, whip the heavy cream until soft peaks. Fold the meringue into the chilled strawberry mixture followed by the whipped heavy cream.

At this stage, you can fill the tart shells with the strawberry cream chiffon filling and decorate as you desire. :)

Strawberry Tart

I made these sometime last week but I've been procrastinating in updating my blog for it. This is actually a milestone for me because it's the first time for me to make tart shells. :) I grew up with fruit tarts at home and I've always wanted to be able to make my own.

The main reason that I'm making a strawberry tart instead of a fruit tart is the fact that H-E-B was selling strawberries for $0.97/lbs!! Yes... I know... it's such a good deal and I just can't resist. The strawberries were so red, fresh, and smelled so sweet.

I read a lot about tart shells before I actually made one. Some of the lessons I learnt from my research are:

1. Don't over mix the ingredients as it will result in tough tart shells
2. keep it cold to prevent shrinkage
3. brush a thin layer of egg whites while baking the tart to keep it crisp


I brought this over to my friend's house for a potluck and I think it was well accepted by the group. :) I only had 15 minutes to assemble the whole tart (including slicing the strawberries) and thus the messy look on the tart. I think I'll give myself more time in the future so that I can have a perfect little strawberry tart. :)