Dorie, most of the TWD bakers  all know you love to be in your apartment in Paris as often as possible. So what would a “Dorie Book” be without the near and dear to the heart, apple tartlet? Dorie introduces her Parisian Apple Tartlet as a version of a widely enjoyed little treat that can be eaten out of hand or elegantly plated. So make it your choice.  

On one end of the tray is an apple tartlet, the opposite is an apricot & blueberry.  The beauty of this delicious treat (I ate them both after Corbin photographed them…..shhhh)  is the “bang for the buck!”  These can be produced in a very short amount of time.  Start to finish, a little more than 1/2 hour.  Depending on the size of the fruit the recommended baking time may be a bit shorter.  Now, if you keep your secrets to yourself you can present a very tasty and impressive sweet treat to an unsuspecting loved one.  :-)  

Thanks goes to  Jessica of My Baking Heart  for  the palmsized sweet treat that I enjoyed eating tonight.  She had the fun choice this week.  You can get the recipe on her site as well.    Get into that Baking From My Home to Yours cookbook by Dorie Greenspan if you have it on your shelf.  If not ?  Seriously, why don’t you?  Thanks again Dorie for such a nice, homey little treat.  It is way better than a donut!!!

Tuesdays With Dorie.

I made this tart a while back upon discovering its reputation on SmittenKitchen.  I have to say as I read the varying comments I wasn’t sure how things would go.  I used Meyer lemons before and also this time.  This was my first experience with them.  A much softer, less intense  and not so tart lemon.   Pretty little things, they are.  I have to say it was really a nice and similar to an old southern lemon chess pie recipe I make all the time for my Mom.  I love the translation of desserts from Dorie’s home to ours and the connections they often times have to our families.  

My crisper drawer had  Meyer lemons and regular lemons.  They definitely called out so I made two tart shells and set about making Tartest Lemon Tarts.  I love lemons.  I know everyone asks “Did I say I love lemons?”  But really…. I do!  So, don’t worry even though I love them, well, Corbin had an Orthodontist appointment on Monday morning.  I’m not the patient so its easy for me to say, “It’s fun” however Corbin might not agree.  He’s always grumpy for a few days after.  They don’t mind if I bring my baking to them and they actually seem to enjoy ????  They’re nice.  The Meyer lemons are very small with thin skin.  I used two, skin and all, minus the seeds.  There is very very little pith in Meyer lemons.    Aside from that everything else was according to the written recipe in Baking From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan.  

There were good suggestions about handling the pith from the regular lemons in the P & Q section of the TWD site.  I considered my options,and decided I didn’t want to risk all my ingredients and time to a possible bitter aftertaste.  I used my micro plane to zest my lemons, peeled away the pith, removed the seeds and cut up the 1 1/2 lemons.  The unbaked tart filling tasted quite nice so I can’t wait to taste the cooled version.  Mmmmm.

Thank you so much for your patience today because my post was an evening edition not an early morning one  and for stopping by for a visit.   I can’t wait to see all the beautiful Tartest Lemon Tarts out there in the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group.  Take a look for yourself.  You’ll definitely want to snag a copy of Baking From My Home to Yours for yourself.  In the mean time take yourself back to Babette Feasts where you can get the recipe.

Dorie’s Chocolate Cream Tart is the perfect dessert for a Celebration, a Supper Club, a Birthday or a Holiday Gathering.  Since today is my birthday, I’m thinking the birthday angle.  I have a mental picture  of it as a woman dressing for a dinner out.  A pretty little black dress, the perfect  shoes and the all important accessories.  Luscious chocolate cream made from your favorite chocolate,  layered on top of a  chocolate shortbread tart dough, finished with the lightly sweetened whipped cream.  I think I must have my mind on “Birthday Dinner.”  Ya think?  he he  

Thank you Dorie for another “feel good” dessert.  The Chocolate Cream Tart is definitely a winner (so chocolatey) in my collection of favorites from Baking From My Home to Yours. 

I’m off celebrating getting old-er.  I hope all the bakers at TWD enjoyed this weeks Chocolate Cream Tart.  Stayed tuned for next weeks selection Tiramisu.  Thank you so much for stopping by.  Isn’t it fun to make new friends?

Proscrastination = photos later.  I will tell you that I am going to enjoy this tart today….hope you do too.  I made the elements last night and assembled this morning hoping for a photo shoot before school….ooops, guess I will have to wait til this afternoon.  Darn!!  So for now please enjoy a cupcake photo.

Some Birthday Cupcakes I made earlier.  

Oops, so sorry I’m late.  I’ve missed the comment rush, but that’s okay.  I’m a dork and couldn’t locate my photos to go along with my post.  :-0.  Anyway, I loved that Dorie chose this tart for us this week, loved making it, loved eating,  loved sharing and loved being a part of this group.   It was just such a Parisian kind of feeling (not that I’ve ever been there) and kind of had that “special”  and fruffy feeling.  Share the Love and Enjoy!  I did.[SinglePic not found]

This is the first baking selection for the New Year 2009.  It also happens to be the First Anniversary of Tuesdays With Dorie baking group.    I bake along with one of the best baking groups in the blog world.  It’s called Tuesdays with Dorie.  Dorie Greenspan authored the book (among many others) Baking From My Home to Yours.  Each week,  a selection is made from this book by one of the members of the nearly 400 bakers.  Baking is done  during the week and posted on Tuesdays.  So that is the story.  Chances are, if you are among the handful of people who are reading this you are aware.  Just in case you have happened onto this site somehow in the spider web of the internet, you might want to understand the purpose of this post and blog.  I just call it sharing the love.  I love to bake pretty food.  Especially sweet food.  Although I love to eat savory food as well.  Don’t worry!  I love food, think about food, . . .  all the time.

Last night I quickly put together the Sweet Tart Dough in my food processor.  I pressed it into my rectangular tart pan and took it to my freezer for the night.   Dorie’s recipe suggests you can vary the dough slightly and so I exchanged some of the flour for almond flour.   I’ve  made Sweet Tart dough before in my Food Processer and its so easy and tastes so good!  Seriously!   My mental picture is that of a giant shortbread cookie with the tart filling on top.  Its just that good.   I have not used this particular pan frequently so I was pumped about creating this beautiful French Pear Tart in this particular pan.  Its kind of fun to change it up a bit, don’t you think?[SinglePic not found]

This morning I went to the gym for a rigorous hour of training.  I had a little extra incentive, with that old after the holiday “fright!”  Well, also so that I could have some of this sweet stuff tonight.   A trip to the store for the pears for the French Pear Tart was really all I needed to produce this dessert.  Just for fun, I choose to poach my fresh pears.   Dorie suggests that even some of the highly acclaimed pastry chefs use canned pears.  Can you believe that?  The almond cream was lovely, made again with Bob’s Red Mill Almond Flour.   I had it on hand and had used it before for almond cream when making a previous tart.   I did add 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract to this mixture to enhance the almond flavoring a little more.

I conferred with my designer friend about the placement of the sliced, poached pears.  Wasn’t it just so kismet that she and her husband dropped by just as I was slicing my little fruits?   Perfect timing!  So, we placed the pears on a cutting board in front of the pan just to make sure everything fit and looked , well, the way we wanted them to look.  That was fun!  So in a bit….I’m off to her house for a special delivery, with some of Dorie’s French Pear Tart.

This really was a fun project.  I don’t mind multiple steps to a project because you can do them along with all your regular life stuff.  I learned how to core those little fruits with my older brothers baby spoon (my Mom gave me), which worked like a charm.  Also, in my case with this particular pan I baked for approximately 40 minutes.   The recipe calls for a 9″ round tart pan and suggests an approximate baking time of 50 minutes.   The unbaked components are just as tastey as the baked.  he he .  That is a secret you will have to discover for yourself.  Do you want to see the recipe?  I’ll tell you how.  Just click  here.  If you make this lovely tart,  you can taste the goodness for yourself.

You know, Dorie chose this weeks recipe.  She Did TOO!!!   Uh huh!!!   Just take a look at her website if you don’t believe me.  www.DorieGreenspan.com.   She has the lovely recipe there as well.  There are many many many beautiful French Pear Tarts out there so please enjoy the photography (of which there are many print worthy photos) and  visit all your favorite TWD bakers on the  Blogroll.  It is so fun to see all the energy and success of these baker women and even a few men.  Yep, that’s right we do not discriminate.     Not to mention, many of them are quite entertaining and funny. 

As a special treat to our Tuesday’s with Dorie bakers,  Laurie of Quirky Cupcake,  who is our fearless leader organized with Dorie an Anniversary  Q & A interview on the Tuesday’s with Dorie site.  What a fun and wonderfully inspiring woman she is to many.  Click here and get to know Dorie.  Get you own Baking From My Home to Yours and bake along with all these baking friends.  

Chocolate Tarts on Wednesday! Yippee…I love the smell in the kitchen, make no mistake. Anything chocolate baking in the oven gives off the most satisfying aroma of all. Upon rare, and I mean an undeniably unheard of occasion, someone who doesn’t care for chocolate comes into my world. Can it be?!? Who…. on earth could not like chocolate. A chocolate tart of this simplicity tempts even the unloved.

If it was up to me, it would be only chocolate (dark) and lots of it. My non-dark chocolate loving husband sought out the most amazing chocolate this past Christmas ’07. Surprise of all surprises, he found Amedei Chocolate. Inside the elegant, black and gold box, were 36 pieces of the most beautiful chocolate experiences for my pallet and any other adventurers. Cocoa procured from a beloved part of the world (Venezuela, Trinidad, Madagascar, Jamaica, Grenada, and Ecuador) and made in Italy. A specialized collection of chocolate.  http://www.Amedei.com . Along with the I Cru box of 36 chocolates he included a 1035 gram bar of Chuao baking chocolate. 70% cocoa. How does one decide to enjoy it? That is the question. I’m sure they have more chocolate, miracle of all miracles. When its gone I think they will still have some available, right? Just the fun of choosing how I will use it and enjoying the journey to my plate will be a huge highlight and a pleasure.