a whisk and a spoon

Tuesdays with Dorie: Summer Fruit Galette

This week, it’s more summer fruit action for TWD, as Michelle from Michelle in Colorado Springs has selected Dorie’s recipe for Summer Fruit Galette.  I’m wondering if there are any Southern Hemisphere dwellers coming up in the rotation?  Anyone to pick a heavy, wintertime bread pudding, or perhaps a little pumpkin somethin’ somethin’?    Just kidding…actually, I have something up my sleeve, and it’s one of my absolute favorites.  It’s no secret either, because I used it last week– rhubarb.  

I so associate rhubarb with spring back in the States, but I mentioned last week that I see it at the farmers’ markets year-round here.  Maybe it’s the mild climate or something, I dunno.  And I’m talking about thin, red as anything, beautiful stalks, with healthy green leaves (although they’re not healthy to eat–call Mr. Yuck!) still attached.  It’s really a veggie, by the way, so perhaps I should call this a “summer vegetable galette”?

A galette is a free-form tart.  Less muss and fuss than one baked in a ring, it’s easy to make, and even easier when you have enough of Dorie’s pie dough (left over from my mini Double-Crusted Blueberry Pie) stashed in the freezer to do it.  I made two individual-sized galettes.  After cutting out the rolled dough into two circles, I smeared the centers with a little strawberry rhubarb jam and sprinkled on some almond cookie crumbs.  Then I just piled on a heap of cut rhubarb.  Because I really liked the bite of ginger in last week’s cobbler, I chopped up a couple of small hunks of baby stem ginger in syrup that I had in the fridge, and dotted it among the rhubarb pieces…it’s pretty potent stuff, so a little goes along way.  I folded the edges of the dough up to form pleats, and the galettes looked oddly similar to a stop sign when viewed from above.  I wouldn’t exactly say that rhubarb abounds in natural sweetness, so when I sprinkled the dough with raw sugar before putting the galettes in the oven, I also sprinkled some on the rhubarb.

A few minutes before the galette finishes baking, a “custard” of melted butter, egg, sugar and vanilla gets poured on top.  I had initially thought about leaving it out, because the combination of ingredients sounded a little weird to me, frankly.  Other TWDers said it really added something, though, so I went ahead with it.  And I must say, while it had a strange color (some may say “snot-like”), it was quite tasty and it gave a nice sweetness that seeped all around the rhubarb to fill in the gaps.

To serve, I followed Dorie’s suggestion to simply dust some powdered sugar on top and call it day.  We really enjoyed this.  It’s a great simple dessert, and I’ll definitely have to try it with some stonefruit in another six months!  And I have to say (even though I should not praise that which contains shortening), Dorie’s pie dough is super freakin’ flaky.

Look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Michelle’s post to find the recipe.  Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll to see what over 200 other people had to say!

P.S.: So sorry, but I may not be able to make the TWD rounds myself for the next couple weeks.  I’ll be on vacation when you read this–twelve days in America’s paradise, and without our laptop.  Aloha!

Tuesdays with Dorie: Double-Crusted Blueberry Pie

I may not have had fireworks this Fourth of July, but I still had homemade blueberry pie!  As you can tell, I’m back in action in my new kitchen…although the day we moved in, we got some news that makes us wonder if we should bother to unpack, but that’s a different story for a different time…I’m here now to talk about Dorie’s Double-Crusted Blueberry Pie, which Amy from South in Your Mouth selected for TWD.  Look at that pie with its little blueberry juice scar–it’s so homely, it’s almost cute! 

The recipe for Dorie’s pie dough calls for mostly butter with a small amount of shortening.  I’ve actually never made a pie crust with shortening before, but since I do have some the fridge (why, I cannot remember), I decided to give it go.   I won’t lie…it’s a great crust.  It’s crispy and flaky and all that, but I do generally have the shortening creeps, and will probably stick with my normal all-butter recipe going forward.  Due to the fact that fresh blueberries are hard to find here right now, and break-the-bank expensive when you do, I took a gamble and used frozen ones in the filling.  I do think, by the way, that fresh blueberries make a noticeably better pie filling, but in a pinch, these were acceptable.  Besides the frozen berries and the fact that I made a mini pie, I followed Dorie’s recipe to a tee.  I served up our slices with vanilla whipped cream.

Thanks to everyone who left comments here last week!  Dorie herself commented on my Apple Cheddar Scones post–I almost choked on my coffee when I saw that!  Now, off to the TWD blogroll for all the other pies out there!  And check out Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or Amy’s post for the recipe for her Double-Crusted Blueberry Pie.

Tuesdays with Dorie: La Palette’s Strawberry Tart

They say that within simplicity lies beauty, and this strawberry tart (our TWD recipe of the week) is a case in point.  At its bare bones, it’s just a sablée crust, strawberry jam and fresh berries.  It’s delicious as is, and even better tricked out with a couple of Dorie’s minor embellishments.  I put a little hazelnut meal into the tart dough and tossed the cut berries in kirsch, a sprinkling of sugar and a hit of black pepper.  Dorie recommends serving this with a little crème fraîche or whipped cream, but I had mascarpone in the fridge, so that’s what I used.

I decided to make individual tarts so I could bake the shells off as needed, which is a good idea when there are only two of you, and a great idea when its been so damp all week.  I really loved the ultra-crisp crust, although I admit it was a little tricky to cut into.  Reminiscent of a linzer cookie, the tart shells are sweet and nutty, and filled with the jam and berries moments before serving.  It’s not exactly strawberry season over here, but I did find one lady still selling them at the monthly growers’ market, and happily they were pretty good.

This week’s recipe was chosen by Marie of A Year in Oak Cottage.  If you want to read about the inspiration for this tart from the woman herself, look for the recipe in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or on Serious Eats.  And don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie: Florida Pie

“What the heck is Florida Pie?” you ask.  It’s basically a key lime pie with a couple of coconutty embellishments, and it happens to the TWD pick o’ the week from Dianne of Dianne’s Dishes.  Dorie’s Florida Pie has the standard crumb crust and lime juice/condensed milk filling, but it also has a layer of coconut cream in between said crust and filling, and coconut folded into the meringue topping. I decided to go for mini pies, and half a recipe of filling gave me three babies.  Mini pies do have a higher crust to filling proportion than full size pies, so I probably used about 2/3 recipe of crust. 

I didn’t stray too far from Dorie’s instructions this time, but I did make a couple tweaks.  I used regular (not key) limes and condensed low fat milk in the filling, which worked nicely.  And for the coconut cream layer, I used way less cream than she called for, probably just a few tablespoons, and wound up with something more like a tasty goo.  I also toasted my coconuts (both the shredded stuff I used in the goo, and the fine desiccated stuff I folded into the meringue), because I think it really brings out the flavor of packaged coconut, which can be pretty lackluster as-is.

“How did it taste?” you ask.  Pretty darn good.  Next time, I’ll add a little lime zest to the filling.  I really like the combination of coconut and lime, but if you aren’t a coconut fan, just leave out the cream layer and keep your meringue unflavored.  You’ll still wind up with a fantastic key lime pie.  If you’d like to be transported via baking to Key West, Del Boca Vista, or the Floridian destination of your choice, put on your Lilly Pulitzer and check out the recipe here on Dianne’s Dishes, or in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.  Don’t forget to go look at the TWD Blogroll!