Work Cited Page

In this part of the "Pies and Tarts" section of my blog, I give full credit to the following:

• The recipes given to us students by Chef Olga Bravo
• The pictures taken in labs at Johnson and Wales University
• "Baking and Pastry Formulas" published by Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Scale River, New Jersey 07458

Variety of Different Tartlettes

In labs we created a whole variety of different tarts. We made chocolate ganache tartlets with swirls of white chocolate, fruit tartlets that contained pastry cream, and apple frangipane tartlets, and almondine tartlets (both that contained almond cream and raspberry jam). I thought my fruit tartlets came out beautiful. I was very creative when it came to placing the fruit in different spots on the tarts. The chocolate, almondine, apple frangipane tartlets came out not what I was expecting. I messed up on the design for the chocolate ganache  tartlets. I worked with the chocolate not to lose enough so I could have made designs with the pairing knife.  The apple petals were hard to peel so my roses were a little off on the apple frangipane. the design with the powdered sugar for my almondine tartlets were a little off too. I could have been more creative.  The shells, according to chef, should have been a little more golden brown .

Turtle Tarts

So my teacher the other day in labs decided that instead of making a turtle pie that we would try to make turtle tarts. I thought these turtle tarts were adorable. Each one was made out of a chocolate shell, a pecan/caramel filling, layered with chocolate mouse, whip cream and a caramel candy turtle.  While making the mouse, I added to much of the swiss meringue that was originally called for so it offset the color. Unfortunately I threw it away and used a different group's extra mouse that was the right consistency, color, and flavor. I thought the candied turtles were so adorable and added a great tough to the tart itself. I did taste one of these pastries and I thought it had great flavor, but very sweet.

Lemon Meringue Tarts

Today I have made these delicious lemon meringue tarts. Lemon meringue is one of my favorite pies/ tarts. I love how zesty the lemon curd was that made a perfect combination with the swiss meringue. When making the meringue I had some trouble whipping the egg whites and sugar and it took a longer time than usual. IN the end though it came out perfect. I also think that I should have baked my shells a little longer for the small tarts and for the bigger tart I think I should have made the walls a little bit thicker. It resulted to cracking, but I fixed it when I set my lemon curd in the tart shell, The walls then were sturdy enough to hold the filling.  I think if I had to change anything I would have probably have changed the design on the big tart and keep the little tarts like they are in the picture. Also I would have torched the big tart a little bit longer.

Pecan Tarts

Hi everyone, the other day I have made these really amazing pecan tarts that came out very beautiful and astonishing. Personally I'm not a huge fan of pecan tarts, but since everyone else in my lab said that they were delicious I figured I could show everyone how to make them. So here it is a step by step process on how to make pecan tarts.

1. Make sure you gather all your ingredients. To make the dough for the tarts you would need one whole egg, pastry flour, butter, and granulated sugar. You can add your sugar to your egg and mix it with a fork. Make sure your butter is cubed and cold before you proceed with the dough making.

2.  Next you would lay your flour on the surface and lay your butter on top of the flour. Now instead of using the cutting method with your bench scrapper, use your palm of your hand to rub the butter into the flour, this would be called the rubbing method. The rubbing method is to create mealy long flaky dough. Once the butter is rubbed in, create a well into your flour mixture and add little by little of the egg/sugar mixture into the flour/butter mixture and rub in using a bench scrapper until combined into a ball. Once combined wrap the dough ball with plastic wrap and set in the fridge to keep cold until ready to use.

3. When your ready to work with your dough take it out of the fridge and cut it in half. With one half you would be able to make a medium size tart. With the other half you'll be able to make 3 small tarts. Roll out the dough to the thickness of 1/8 of an inch. Once rolled out lay the dough on top of the tart shell ramekin and cut the extra dough around the edges.

4. With the little dough thats off the edge of the circle ramekin carefully fold it in to the round ramekin and press it against the sides using your thumbs. Now using your paring knife make a slanted line along the edge for a creative and nice design. To bake these tarts, we're going to blend bake the crust. Blind bake is when you take plastic wrap and place beans inside the plastic wrap while placing the plastic wrap beans into the tarts. Place the tarts into the oven for about ten minutes until the edge is turning a little golden brown.

5. Once the tart shells are baked, egg wash the bottom of the tart surface. This is so when you bake the pecan pie filling in these tart shells the filling will not make the bottom so moist and will not leak out of the crust. The egg wash act as a barrier (you can make the bottom surface white or dark chocolate and it acts the same way as the egg wash). As you can see in the next picture after the egg washing,  a layer of chopped pecans were layered on the bottom. I mixed together a liquid filling that you can see me pour into the half baked tart shells. This liquid filling is made out of butter, granulated sugar, egg, corn syrup, bourbon, and vanilla extract whisked together.

6.  Next layer your full size pecans on the surface of your tarts and place them in the oven. To make sure they are fully baked you are looking for bubbles along the surface. Once baked and the tarts are fully cooled be careful taking them out of the rings because they could fall apart. 

I would say the final product was all right. I believe I could have done a lot better with the whole tart itself. The larger tart wasn't as nice looking, that is why I only took a picture of the small tarts instead of the larger tart. I wasn't a huge fan of the whole pecans on top. Next time I would of have done the small pecans instead of the whole. Also I'm not a huge fan of pecan tarts or pecan pie. It's one of my least favorite pastries.

Linzertorte

Hi everyone, today's creation I have made a delicious Linzertorte made with a raspberry jam, almond cream, and an almond dough. I would say out of the pastries that I've made this year, this one was probably the best. The crust was so flaky that it had a lot of texture. Both fillings, the raspberry jam and the almond cream were a great combination together and complimented each other very well in the torte. The lattice on my torte looked amazing. I evenly spaced out my strips and the strips itself were evenly cut out. There was a nice golden brown color on the surface of the torte.  The sliced almonds and the powdered sugar around the edge looked very nice and well presented. When I tried my linzertorte I had it with a cup of tea from Starbucks and it tasted very well together. Another successful pastry that I have made, plus got an A+ on.

Butternut Squash Pie

Hey Everyone, today I have made a very festive butternut squash pie for the fall season, but also this pie could be made for any time of the year. I have used what is called a mealy basic pie dough for the base. I have also blind baked the pie crust which was very flaky and added nice texture. Butternut squash isn't my favorite type of pie. Personally I enjoy pumpkin pie because butternut squash gives me heart burn. I did try it though and it was very creamy. Maybe with a scoop of vanilla ice cream the pie would taste a lot better. I very much liked the boarder that surrounded the butternut squash filling with cute little leaves and acorns.