November 2010 Challenge: Crostata!

The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well.

PICTURES TO COME

I was excited to try a crostata/tart, even more so that I had an excuse to buy more baking equipment (tart pan).

For this challenge, I chose to make two crostata/tarts. The first one was filled with lemon curd and sprinkled with powdered sugar and the second one was a pecan pie-like recipe. Both fillings were made from recipes found in _______.

The crostata was easier to work with than the "sweet pastry" recipe found in the above book. The crostata did crumble a little, but at least it held together when rolled, which was the main thing!

Both recipes were very tasty, and I have a whole new love for tarts, such sweet looking half-pies :)

RECIPE:
Pasta Frolla
Ingredients:
•1/2 c. minus 1 tablespoon superfine sugar or a scant 3/4 cup of powdered sugar
•1 and 3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
•a pinch of salt
•1 stick [8 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
•grated zest of half a lemon
•1 large egg and 1 large egg yolk, lightly beaten in a small bowl

Making pasta frolla with a food processor:
1.Put sugar, flour, salt, and lemon zest in the food processor and pulse a few times to mix.
2.Add butter and pulse a few times, until the mixture has the consistency of coarse meal.
3.Empty food processor's bowl onto your work surface
4.See step 3 above and continue as explained in the following steps (minus the lemon zest, which you have already added).

1.Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
2.Roll out a batch of the pasta frolla and cover the base of the tart pan.
3.Cut a piece of parchment paper or aluminum foil large enough to cover the bottom of the crust and extend out a bit over the edges of the pan.
4.You can use pie weights or dry beans to blind bake. Place whatever weight you’re using directly on the parchment paper or aluminum foil in an even layer.
5.Place the crostata shell in the oven and bake for 10 minutes.
6.Remove from oven and remove the weights and parchment paper (In the absence of weight, the crust may rise in the middle: if that occurs, gently push it back down with the back of a spoon).
7. Fill with recipe from Lemon Tart and place back into oven for 30 min.
8. Remove, cool. Keep chilled.

Just before serving, dust with confectioner's sugar.

For the Pecan Tart, follow directions for baking once the rolled dough is placed in tart pan (except bake only 2/3 of the time for a traditional pecan pie).

SEPTEMBER 2010: SUGAR COOKIES!

The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of “What the Fruitcake?!” Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.


We were asked to decorate the cookies with a theme of "What September means to us" and I chose Back To School as my Theme :)

The cookies were very yummilicious recipe! Thank you Mandy! The challenging part was the actual cutting of the shapes (or using cookie-cutters) and the decorating.

I used royal icing and typical food coloring for the icing, and I used food color markers for writing on the icing.

Not a very difficult "challenge" but one that was easy enough to fit into a weekend day with small children trying to grab all my attention ;)