Tag Archives: tart

Quick and Easy Apple Tart

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I love the rustic nature of these tarts. We took a few apples, got our mandolin out, pumped up some tunes from Fiona Apple’s new cd and we were ready to slice and puff.

The puff pastry and the thinly sliced apples have a bit of tang from the lemon and are glazed in the natural apple juice and brown sugar. The extra crunch from the turbinado sugar provides another level of texture. The tart is unbelievably simple to make and really provides a wow factor at a dinner party or for tea.

Adapted from Pioneer Woman

  • 1 whole Sheet Puffed Pastry, Cut Into Half Or Thirds
  • 4 Apples, Cored, Halved, And Sliced, But Not Peeled
  • 1 cup Brown Sugar
  • ¼ teaspoons Salt
  • ¼ cup turbinado or sugar in the raw
  • juice of one lemon

Preheat oven to 410 degrees.

Put pastry rectangles onto a baking pan (greased with a bit of butter). Add sugar and salt to the cored and peeled apples. Squeeze juice of one lemon. Stir to combine. Allow to sit for a few minutes and the sugar and juice to marinate.

Arrange apple slices on the pastry in a straight line, overlapping as you go. Sprinkle turbinado sugar on top of the apple tart. Bake for 16 to 18 minutes, or until pastry is puffed and golden brown.

Cool and serve.

Standard Baking Co., Portland

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We stopped by The Standard Baking Co. for some pastries for later. Immediately upon entrance, the smell of fresh bread and cookies wafted throughout the air.

Boules, french bread baguettes and rolls

Cookies, tarts and scones

Standard Baking Co. had both lemon and pear frangipane tarts and I chose the latter. It was one of the best tarts I have had in a while. The flavor of the soft pear and luxurious almond scented frangipane was a lovely combination. The sweet buttery crust was so addictive.

The chocolate cake was dense, fudgey and dusted with a thick layer of the highest quality cocoa. This was a must get and so satisfying.

The vanilla madeleine was lovely. There were flecks of vanilla bean and intense vanilla flavor throughout the French sponge cookie cake.

I will have to make Standard Baking a ritual every time in Portland because each item I tried was high quality, well crafted and memorable.

Standard Baking Co on Urbanspoon

Bread and Chocolate, Concord, NH

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Bread and Chocolate is a charming Concord bakery attached to a bookstore and its prices are very reasonable. Besides sweets, Bread and Chocolate offers sandwiches, teas and coffees. The bakery also has the best chocolate mousse bombe or chocolate mousse I have ever had. It was rich, luscious, covered in decadent chocolate. Amazing.

The store has a rustic, aunty quality with black and white photos, gilded gold frames and older fixtures. There was cat relaxing in the front window display.

Bread and Chocolate offers a variety of fresh cookies, muffins, pastries, chocolate mousse, baklava and cakes at very reasonable prices.

The fruit tarts, chocolate cakes and other cakes are dusted in chocolate shavings, nuts, and beautiful decorations.Although we did not sample the breads and croissants, the pastries and sandwiches made in  house all looked quite tasty.We had to try a slice of fruit tart with strawberry, berries, glaze, custard and shortbread crust. The fruit tart had a lovely flavor.

The eclair with light whip cream filing and a chocolate covering was very generous in size and one of our favorite eclairs ever eaten. 

Bread & Chocolate on Urbanspoon

Portuguese Egg Tarts

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Throughout our childhood, we have had countless Chinese egg tarts. Recently, we wanted to try making Portuguese Egg Tarts. A Portuguese Egg Tart has many similarities to Chinese egg tarts and the origins of Portuguese tarts are from Macau, a Portuguese colony.

We made the tart crust with puff pastry, versus a shortening based crust. We were surprised how easy they were to make because of the puff shortcut. We realized the egg tart should be more bruleed, which can be achieved by using the broil setting for a few minutes.

Adapted from Edible Garden and Rasa Malaysia

  • 3 egg yolks
  • 1/2 cup sugar (I would use slightly lesser than this next time)
  • 1/4 cup whole milk
  • 1/4 cup of heavy cream
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 block of puff pastry sheet

Thaw the puff pastry sheet  for 40 minutes and roll to about 1/2″ thickness on a floured surface. Roll it from the width-side tightly and cut into small discs. Roll each disc (flouring the surface sufficiently) to the rough size of the muffin tray.

Grease a muffin tray and pre heat oven to 350F.

Microwave milk and cream in microwave for 2 minutes. Whisk sugar into the milk mixture until dissolved. Place the egg yolks one at a time into the liquid mixture and then the vanilla.

Lay each rolled out disc into the muffin tray, pour the cooled custard to about 3/4 level and bake for about 20 mins.

The custard will bubble up during baking. Turn the broil function on for 3 minutes to brown the Portuguese egg tart.

Whisking the egg into the milk, cream and sugar mixture.

Cutting circular rounds of puffPress puff circles into greased muffin tin.

Fill custard almost the way to the top.

The warm, freshly baked Portuguese tarts.