Mini Strawberry Crostata (Gluten-Free)

New semester, new batches of hallway dinners! This year, the whole end of the hallway changed, as the seniors graduated and new freshmen come in. The new hallway as a whole became a bit more complicated in terms of food. In all, we have vegetarians, lactose intolerants, gluten, soy, and nuts allergies...

This made baking for an Italian-themed dinner more difficult. I therefore opted for the simplest thing I could think of, which was crostata. Crostata are jam tarts, usually covered in a lattice of some kind. The challenge, this time, was working with gluten-free flour (buckwheat flour in this case).

I came across a recipe for buckwheat flour pastry from pep's Free from Kitchen, which I used with a flax egg. The filling is simply strawberry jam from the supermarket, to which I added lemon juice to cut through the sweetness. I used a pastry cutter to cut the strips of dough to make the lattice on top, which all threatened to break left and right. All in all, it resulted in a pastry that I felt was a bit dry.

Tarte Tatin

Do you know the story of the Tarte Tatin? From what I hear, it is about how two sisters named Tatin once baked an apple tart while forgetting to put the dough under the apples. Thus, they decided to put the dough on top of the apples, then flip the whole thing after the baking was done. This resulted in very caramelized apples that were cooked uniformedly.

The apples in this recipe were first poached in a vanilla and butter syrup, then arranged on top of a caramel layer. The whole thing was covered in an homemade, inverted puff pastry, then baked.

This was how the tart looked before I flipped it over (with a shower of liquid syrup and caramel):

The recipe was adapted from La Pistacheraie's recipe (with many pictures).

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TARTE TATIN RECIPE

  Ingredients

     Inverted Puff Pastry

• 200 g (150 + 50) all-purpose flour
• 135 g pastry flour
• 220 g unsalted butter
• 6 g salt
• 1 tbs white vinegar
• 165 g cold water

     Caramel

• 200 g sugar

     Poached Apples

• 1 L water
• 150 g sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 100 g butter
• 6-8 apples

  Procedure

     Inverted Puff Pastry

1. In a large bowl, mix 150 g all-purpose flour with the pastry flour, salt, cold water, and vinegar.
2. Mix until just combined. Flatten into a rectangle, film, and refrigerate until used.
3. In another bowl, combined softened butter with remaining 50 g all-purpose flour.
4. Using a baking sheet, fold so that a square section forms in the middle.
5. Put butter mix in the square, fold in flaps, then using a rolling pin, flatten into a square.
6. Refrigerate at least 15 mins.
7. Take out both doughs, and remove the paper and film.
8. On a well floured surface, roll out the butter square until it becomes a large rectangle.
9. Put the flour mix on the middle portion of the rectangle, and fold in the two remaining flaps in order to close the flour dough into the butter one.
10. Turn the dough 90°, and flatten it by pressing a rolling pin into it successively. Roll out until about 60 cm long. Fold into 3rds and turn 90°. This is a simple turn.
11. Repeat steps 10, then refrigerate 45 minutes.
12. Repeat as to obtain 5 turns total, refrigerating after every 2 turns.
13. Cut the dough in 2 equal pieces, film one and store it in the fridge.
14. With the second half, roll it out until you can cut a circle that is 1-2 cm wider than your springform pan. Poke it with a fork.
15. Refrigerate.

     Caramel

1. In a heavy-bottomed pot, spread a thin layer of sugar (about 1/4 of the total amount).
2. Heat gently until melted, and beginning to color.
3. Add another 1/4 of sugar, shaking the pot to spread it.
4. Repeat until all the sugar has caramelized.
5. Pour it into the bottom of your springform pan. It will harden and become glass-like.

     Poached Apples

1. In a pot, mix water, sugar, vanilla, and butter. Bring to a boil.
2. Peel and cut apples into quarters. Put them in lemon water to keep them from browning.
3. Put about half the apples in the syrup, and cook about 6-8 minutes, or until tender, but still holding shape.
4. Repeat with the remaining apples.

     Assembly and baking

1. Preheat oven 220°C.
2. Arrange apples tightly in concentric circles on top of hardened caramel.
3. Put the circle of dough on top of the springform pan. Gently push it down until it is in contact with the apples.
4. With a skewer or a thin knife, poke a hole (chimney) in the middle of the dough.
5. Bake for 25 minutes, then reduce the heat to 180°C, sprinkle the dough with sugar, and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes. Put another pan under the tart, as caramel syrup will leak out of the springform pan while baking as the caramel becomes liquid again.
6. After cooling a little (the tart should still be warm), flip onto a plate. A lot of syrup will flow out!
7. Tilt the plate to remove excess caramel syrup. Glaze with some watered-down apple jelly.

Milk Tart (Melktert)

Long ago, I saw a recipe from Cakecrumbs for a milk tart, a cinnamon-flavored South African custard tart. Initially, it was the appearance of it that drew me -- that, and the word "cinnamon." The custard itself, however, required quite a few eggs that I know, from experience, would not work with just egg replacer. Google helped me to find a vegan alternative.

First, I settled with making a shortbread crust, which I put into my mini tart pans, and baked until golden. This time, instead of standing around rubbing the butter into the flour, I attempted to pulse it a few times in a blender with a chopper blade attachment, and finished the rest by cutting with two knives. It made for more dishes to wash, but resulted in a much shorter pastry, and less mess on my own fingers.

Then came the time to make the filling. I looked in my various ingredients and baking equipment boxes, convinced that I had a bag of cinnamon sticks laying around. The one time I wanted to use one, and it turns out I left them at home. Silly me. Cinnamon powder would have to do.

Simmering soy milk with the cinnamon, I added a slurry made with some more soy milk and cornstarch. Once cooled a little, I filled in my tarts, then left them set in the fridge. It actually took two days to stop jiggling. Then the whole surface was dusted in a mix of icing sugar and cinnamon.

Since I had some excess custard, I filled little dessert jars for extra nomming.

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MILK TART RECIPE (for approximately 6 mini tarts)

  Ingredients

     Shorbread Crust

• 250 g (2 cups) flour
• 150 g (10.5 tbs) butter, diced
• 25 g (2 tbs) unrefined sugar
• 2 tbs cold water
• a pinch of salt

     Custard Filling

• 2.5 cups soymilk
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder or cinnamon stick
• 3 tbs cornstarch
• sugar, to taste

     Dusting

• 1 tbs icing sugar
• 1 tbs cinnamon powder

  Procedure

     Shortbread Crust

1. Mix flour, sugar, and salt in a mixing bowl.
2. In a blender with chopper blade, pulse flour mix with butter until a breadcrumb consistency is obtained.
3. Add water progressively until the dough comes together into a ball.
4. Refrigerate 30 mins before rolling out.
5. Preheat oven 180°C.
6. Roll out to desired thickness, and line pans with the dough.
7. Using a fork, poke holes all over the surface of the dough.
8. Bake for 15-30 minutes, or until golden.

     Custard Filling

1. In a pot, mix 2 cups of soymilk with cinnamon, and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce to a simmer to infuse cinnamon.
2. Make a slurry out of the cornstarch and the remaining soymilk.
3. Progressively add slurry to the hot soymilk, whisking constantly.
4. Add sugar to taste, and continue cooking until thickened.

     Assembly

1. Pour custard filling into the tart shells.
2. Let cool then refrigerate overnight.
3. Dust with a mix of cinnamon and icing sugar.

  Tips and Comments

• You can use any other milk. I just used soymilk because that is what I had at hand.
• I ran out of cornstarch halfway through, so I subbed the rest with 3 times the volume in wheat flour. This requires longer cooking for it to thicken, however.
• This recipe is for approximately 6 mini tarts, although I am not sure about how much filling it would make. I made 3 mini tarts with 1/2 of the crust recipe, and used about 2 cups of soymilk overall to fill my 3 tarts and two little glass pots.
• If you have leftovers, put them in various recipients (jars, glass pots, etc.), and refrigerate to make little custards.

Egg-free Frangipane and Pear Tart

Pears getting old in the fruit basket? Time to test a new recipe! I made the crust the same way as I always do (see recipe). Then I topped it with frangipane, an almond-based paste.

Since frangipane is usually made with eggs, I had to look for a good substitute, which I found on Z'oeufs peux pas, a French blog written by a mother with some kids who have egg allergies. The recipe itself can be found at this link, and is translated below.

As the pears were kind of hard, I poached them in sugar syrup with a hint of cinnamon. I topped the pre-baked crusts with the frangipane paste, then laid the sliced pears on top. The whole was baked for about 25 minutes, then glazed in reduced poaching liquid.

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FRANGIPANE RECIPE (for about 7 mini tarts)

  Ingredients

• 50 g butter, softened
• 100 g ground almonds
• 40 g golden sugar
• 63 g golden sugar
• 1/4 tsp baking powder

  Procedure

1. Mix sugar and butter. Add in ground almond.
2. Mix in the plain yogurt and baking powder.
3. Mix until smooth. This is easiest using a fork.

Mini Jam Tarts

 

December 6th

That weekend was a baking spree weekend, despite me having a looot of deadlines to look out for. I had a lump of dough that dated from some months before, that I had previously frozen for future use. Well it was now or never. I also happened to have a jar of forest fruit jam that I needed using up.

I made some mini jam tarts! Since I had 6 mini tart tins, I used those. Just dough and jam straight from the jar.

In an attempt to use up more dough in one go, I made latices on top. Unfortunately, some of the jam bubbled up and ruined the look.

Vegan Plum Tart

My mom wanted to have a get-together with some people. At first, she asked me to make some pasta, but then, since she was going to make another main dish to bring along, she said I could make dessert. My dad chipped in that we had a box full of organic plums from my uncle's garden that was sitting in the fridge. So plum tart it was.

This being my first time making tart with fruit other than apple, I did a quick Google search. It would seem that plums are often paired with an almond paste thing, which I was not ready to deal with. So I decided to incorporate a couple of ideas from a few sites, and some of my own ideas into this tart.

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First, I gathered ingredients. Due to time constraints, I used store-bought pastry dough, which contained margarine instead of the customary butter. I used the plums, and a homemade vegan custard, the recipe of which I will provide in another post in a few days.

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To prepare the plums, I cut each in 4, and sprinkled the whole thing in sugar. I let that sit, mixing occasionally, while I pre-baked the crust and made my custard. Then, I simply drained the plum pieces using a large strainer, and keeping the liquid for later.

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I spread a thin layer of custard on the crust, and let it cool a bit so it could set. Then I first made concentric circles of plums, skin-side down. I went back around and filled the gaps between the circles with another layer of plum pieces, this time skin-side up.

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Baked for 30 mins at 200°C. The plums shrank a little in the oven.

After letting it cool, I nuked some of the drained plum juice with some sugar in the microwave to make a glaze, which I went and brushed on the plum pieces using a spoon. 

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As you can probably tell, I'm playing around with my post format. If you would be so kind, please let me know in the comments what you think about it~