Tarts

My natural inclination is towards being a hermit. The first dinner party I went to in SB was Sarah Battersby's 'What would Julia do?' party on Julia Child's birthday. You had to bring something from one of her cookbooks. I brought a pear frangipane tart. It's the classic french tart. Though I cheated on the crust, I used Jamie Oliver's recipe. Actually I cheated on the filling, too, it was my recipe. But it was basically a french tart. And the good reception meant that since then I've been slightly less of a hermit.

Tarts are wonderful, they look elegant, but are easy if you know how. Lots of fillings are possible. Amy thinks they are the best thing I make. The best part is they can easily be made gluten free (GF); Clare politely suffered through the early GF experiments, but has since reaped the rewards. 

Wheat tart dough recipe (makes 2 11" tart shells):

Virtually verbatim from Jamie's Kitchen by Jamie Oliver

2 sticks butter
6.3 oz powdered sugar
Salt
4 egg yolks
15 oz flour (2/3 wheat, 1/3 rice is good)
Vanilla
Zest
2-4 T cold milk or water

Cream butter and powdered sugar, add salt and yolks. 

Add flour, mix to coarse breadcrumb state. 

You can add vanilla or an appropriate zest if you want. 

Add a little liquid to make it a dough.

Shape it into a log on plastic wrap, wrap it up, fridge it for a couple of hours.

It will solidify so that you can cut 1/8" slices easy, put in to a false bottomed tart pan, jigsaw style, and press it in to seal all the edges. 

Do the bottom first, then the sides.
I usually make the sides thicker than the bottom. maybe 1/4" thick.
Put it in the freezer for at least an hour.

350 oven. 

Preheat a cookie sheet in the oven, this serves to counteract the fact that the tart/tart pan are frozen. 

Put tart on cookie sheet, 12 min for a tart you will be adding a raw filling to, 15 min for a cooked one. 

{the freezing is so the sides don't collapse when you bake it empty, you can also use pie weights + tin foil, but that is annoying}

GF tart dough recipe (makes 2 11" tart shells):
Basically the same, except use 2 eggs instead of 4 yolks. Egg whites help to bind the dough. More flour may be needed -- seems like GF flours behave differently from wheat, or maybe it's the eggs vs. yolks difference. I use a combo of sweet glutinous rice flour, tapioca flour, corn starch, montina. 

Frangipane:

This method of doing it is original

~1 c almond butter
~1 c honey
3 eggs
Salt
Vanilla
Beat everything together, pour into 12 min crust. 350 ~1 hour. The classic french presentation is to lay pears on top before it goes in the oven.

Chocolate:

This is straight out of The Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver

1c + 6 T cream
1/2 c butter
1lb bittersweet chocolate
2 T sugar

Salt
~ 1/2 c liquid (milk + kahlua or triple sec)
Vanilla

Heat cream/sugar/salt, put chocolate/butter in it, stir to melt chocolate.

Stir in cold liquid and vanilla, make it smooth. Cool some more.
Pour in to a 15 min crust, cool for a couple of hours.