Plum Flame Tart

 A beautiful seasonal tart

This one was relatively simple to make:

 Just slices of plums set in a sweet cookie tart crust,

then sprinkled with some sugar and spices

 And the fruit flowers once baked!

The tart became somewhat soggy and the cream never fully whipped in the summer heat.

But the tartness of the plums was a refreshing antidote to the sweltering weather.

So, it all worked out:)

Gateau Engadine

In baking, I have two nemeses – meringue and caramel. With meringue, I can never seem to beat the egg whites up to their full volume, despite pathologically ridding everything of oil (I even keep a separate washcloth just for meringue bowls). With caramel, I always end up burning it. However, encouraged by my recent success with butterscotch caramel, I decided to give this caramel pie a go.

The Gateau Engadine, named after the Swiss mountain region of the same name, is actually quite simple. It is basically walnuts and caramel encased in a shortbread crust. What’s not to like, I ask?

Burnt caramel, I say. To be fair (to me), I didn’t actually burn the caramel. But it did have a slightly bitter taste. I am quite convinced that the fructo-oligosaccharide I used instead of corn syrup has a lower cooking temperature, and causes this slight bitterness. I think I was convinced of this last year, actually, but I’ve still not gotten hold of regular ole corn syrup. So maybe this is really just the taste of laziness!

I was extremely hesitant as to whether I should bring this pie to the gathering I was attending. It was quite good, but sub-par, in my opinion. Even though I was running late, I sat around and debated the point with myself for awhile. In the end, I decided to bring it with me. I concluded that the spirit of the project was in the “trying” instead of in making things perfect (as much as perfection pleases me…). And besides, a mediocre pie is still pie!

I was really glad I did because no one seemed to notice the bitterness (or was too polite to?), and just complimented the buttery, nuttiness of the pie. The whole thing disappeared within minutes, and all I had to take home was the pan. I’ll call that a success :)

*****

As it turns out, I had corn syrup in my pantry after all! I’d completely forgotten it was there. It was the dark kind, and a quick internet search revealed that dark corn syrup is just as good as the light, as long as you rely on a thermometer instead of the color to determine the caramel’s “doneness.” And of course I had to give it a try! So, I made a mini Engadine with pastry scraps and leftover nuts and cream…  And it was de-li-cious! Indulgent even. Like a caramel candy bar sandwiched between two shortbread cookies. I wish I could’ve shared this one with people!

I think this reaffirms the fact that acquiring the right ingredients is integral to any cooking project. I guess that’s what makes this a real challenge!

Tahitian Vanilla Cheesecake Tart

I came about making this tart in a random sort of way. I went to Bangsan Market the other day to stock up on baking necessities, and I added the block cream cheese to my pile with plans to make some cream cheese crusts. At the checkout counter, the guy asked me if I planned to use it right away because there was only about a week and a half left to the expiration date. So I told him I’d pass on the cream cheese... And he gave it to me for free! (Though I wonder if he would’ve charged me full price if I said I’d take it. That would’ve been ironic…)

So, to beat the expiration date, I decided to make the cheesecake tart immediately. This recipe also called for vanilla-scented crème fraiche, which I made at home with cream and plain yogurt (since buttermilk is pretty much non-existent in Korea, unless I make that too). I read somewhere that crème fraiche doesn’t really have a standard taste because the flavor is really determined by the yogurt (or buttermilk) you use, and as we’ve all experienced, yogurt can taste quite different. I’m currently looking for the perfect yogurt brand for the best tasting crème fraiche. But I think that in general, the Korean brands are quite mild, and the resulting crème lacking in the appropriate tang. Or perhaps the cream is just ultra pasteurized. (Look at me talking about technical stuff! I actually don’t really know what I’m talking about.)

There’s a random story behind the decorations too. The tart didn’t quite turn out as I’d hoped; I over-baked it. I’d reduced the recipe, but I didn’t reduce the baking time, and the top came out with ugly brown spots on it. Uhg:( It is so very disappointing when something doesn’t turn out as it’s supposed to, especially after all the work you’ve put in! So, I scraped off the spots, applied a layer of leftover crème fraiche (good thing I made extra!), and adorned it with flowers and mint leaves. Et voila! Very pretty:)

It did occur to me that perhaps I’m a little over-obsessive about making things pretty. After all, the flowers aren’t edible. But I find that “taste” is a subjective experience determined in large part by expectation, which in turn is tremendously influenced by appearance. Which leads me to conclude that up to half of our gustatory experience is predetermined by our eyes. Food for thought… I hope this “visual principle” is mostly limited to food!

Despite being over-baked, and more dense than creamy, the cheesecake was still quite tasty. Perhaps because of the visually appealing flowers? I’ll never really know… But all in all, it was terrific, considering it all started with nearly-expired, free cream cheese!

Pear Tart with Almond Cream

 This one is a double feature, one of the very rare repeats that I’ve done.

I’ve wanted to make this one for almost a year, after watching Ms. Beranbaum make one on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6fI5-UMEDQ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbbHX080Zmc). It was possibly the prettiest pie I’d ever seen up to that point. I was super excited! Just one problem – the available Asian pears are sweeter, juicier, and simply more luscious (I think) than the other kind, but not really appropriate for baking. So, where to get Western pears…

Who else could I ask but Dear Brother? I asked my brother to bring back some Bartlett pears, saying that if he hid them really well in his luggage, customs might not notice (yes, it was the same time I asked him to bring back some limes, as some of the more regular readers of this blog may remember). But alas, they were confiscated! I stopped myself from suggesting that just throwing them into a huge, sparsely packed bag is not exactly the definition of “well hidden.” Well, the kid tried. He now insists on only doing “legal” favors for me.

Afterwards, I began to see some version of this pie at more high-end bakeries, and I realized that they must be using canned pears. Which I sort of considered to be cheating (fresh is always better). But then it occurred to me that I would never finish this project if I didn’t use all the resources available and make small substitutions. So, I bought a can of pears at Bangsan Market, and the only change I made to the recipe is that I poached the pears very very briefly, since they were already a bit soft, and let them sit in their new juices for a longer period of time, mostly to overpower the flavor of their old juices.

The result was quite fantabulous! The light, nutty almond cream complemented the sweet, vanilla-y pears very well. And it somehow tasted very “elegant,” especially compared to last year’s apple-walnut tart, which was perhaps creamier but heavier. I shared this first one with my new “colleagues,” who, I think, enjoyed it, too :)

I had some pear halves leftover, so I decided to make another tart. For the second one, I tried another floral design with the pear slices, mostly to achieve a uniform ratio of pear-to-cream in each bite. Hehehe! I think this second pie actually came out prettier, but it was slightly over-baked. I’m guessing the pear slices keep the heat in longer, so you have to reduce the baking time accordingly.

I shared the second one with my favorite teacher-student pair. We went to a very hip, sort of bohemian neighborhood near Hongdae and made candles and macaron soaps (seriously cute enough to eat!), and then hopped over to a nutritionally and socially conscious, very intimate restaurant where I had some of the best pasta I’ve ever tasted. And, of course, we had some tea and tart. The lady who ran the place was actually a professionally trained pastry chef. She complimented my crust! And went for seconds! It was a truly victorious moment :D

Chocolate Pecan Blast

This one was truly sensational. Perhaps my favorite of the sweet pies.

Let’s go through the layers.

chocolate cookie tart crust, filled with

chocolate mocha mousse, slathered with

butterscotch caramel, packed with

toasted pecans, and swirled with

chocolate drizzle

A combination of everything good!

The result was a pie-formed chocolate candy bar that was bursting with billowy, ooey-gooey, and crunchy textures. Yet it wasn’t too sweet because no sugar was added to the chocolate filling (made with bittersweet chocolate), and most of the sweetness came just from the homemade butterscotch caramel. Which was ah-mazing! I can eat spoonfuls of the caramel with nothing else. Mmmmm-mmmmm-mmmmm!

Spicy Spinach Quiche and Black Forest Chiffon Pie

 Swirly!

I recently calculated how many pies I’ve made so far and how many more I have to go; I’ve done about 60 and I have about 100 more to go. Still! This means I have to ramp up the speed and bake two a week for the next year to make my 30^th birthday deadline. So, first up, a quiche and a chiffon!

 The spicy spinach quiche was quite rich, filling, and healthy (relatively), though not at all spicy. 

And the quail egg yolks were a cute, decorative addition.

The brandied cherries for the Black Forest chiffon pie 

I waited nearly a year to make this pie; I had my eye on it since last year’s cherry season when I first started the project, but it seemed a little too complicated to make at the time. So, I brandied the cherries in kirsch with the first crop of this year.

 Chocolate crumb crust sealed with chocolate, studded with brandied cherries, covered with chocolaty chiffon, and glazed over with more chocolate goodness!

 The result was a marriage between cherries jubilee and chocolate tiramisu. You could taste the mildly boozy cherries in between bites of chocolaty, creamy clouds of chiffon. What a perfect union:)

 Delicious remembrance…

Apricot Strip and Apricot Tartlets with Almond Cream

 An apricot pastry party!

5 dollars for a whole basket of apricots and two-for-one French butter – a sure sign as any to make apricot pastries:) Especially since I have less than a year to finish the project, and I won’t have another apricot season to work through. I thought I should finish off the fruit while I had the chance. With a whole basket at hand, I was able to have a raw, unadulterated, unenhanced apricot for the first time in my life – I ate it like a fruit, not a dessert. I thought it tasted quite peachy.

Puff pastry weighted down and ready to go into the oven.

Like many amateur bakers, I harbored a fear of puff pastry and put off tackling it for nearly a year. For good reason. I remember Jamie Oliver saying that, while working with “just as good” store-bought pastry, if you’re making puff pastry from scratch, you need to get yourself a job. Maybe he’s right. Because I did 7 ‘turns’ of the pastry, with thirty minutes of cooling in between each turn (layering). This took an entire Sunday and converted my kitchen into a floured disaster area. Oy!

Naturally, I was quite nervous about how the puff pastry would turn out. Will I be able to achieve the thousand layers? Let alone the layers, what if it turns out hard like pie crust? These fears were further fueled by teensy tears during the rolling (which was like watching my kid skinning its knees), uneven edges (getting bad grades), and even some tiny lumps of dough and butter (why are they there?!). The whole process was filled with a queer mixture of doom and expectation…

And… They turned out beautifully!

Oh yes, there were many layers.

When I was a kid, I hated it when my mom would try to extract a lesson from everything around me. Moralizing is sooo annoying. And yet, I feel the need to do it now. (Perhaps I’m growing up?) I think the one “lesson” that I’m “learning” from all this baking is to just marshal through, no matter what. Because many of my pies and pastries seem like disasters until everything comes together – at the very end. And even then, they’re not perfect; I can list a whole bunch of things I can improve on. But it still tastes ah-mazing! There’s a whole range of good to awesome beneath this mythical “perfect.” I think I needed tangible (taste-able) evidence to believe in this.

I think I may come to worship French butter. The aroma of French-butter-made-pastry was just outta this world. Heavenly, period. Perhaps a good argument for making your own puff pastry. Homemade wins once again!