Asian Pear Tart and a Giveaway
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The folks at Crave! at Work offered to send me a 10 pound bag of fruit to share with my coworkers and use for their recipe challenge, and I obviously couldn’t say no. When the bag arrived (filled with a few different kinds of pears, mini bananas, and chestnuts), everyone at the office kept saying how cute the mini bananas were, and one colleague couldn’t wait to swipe the chestnuts to roast at home. For some reason, I gravitated toward pears, a fruit I have never baked with nor liked. Call me crazy.
I was super excited when I found this recipe for an Asian Pear Tart in the LA Times, but found myself extremely disappointed when the end result was a very soggy tart. I tweeted to someone at the LA Times test kitchen and she said she will try the recipe and get back to me because she was curious about the method involved. Has anyone tried the recipe?
So, I ended up finding this “healthier” Asian pear tart recipe, and while it looks pretty, the dough was incredibly difficult to work with. I couldn’t get it to roll out and the amount of dough would never have even rolled to a 10 inch circle, so I ended up doubling the recipe and pressing it into a tart pan. I did however taste the pears, and what do you know–I actually like Asian pears, go figure!
While this recipe won’t win any ribbons, there is a prize for one of you! Crave! at Work is giving away a 10 pound bag of fruit to one of Nosh’s LA area readers. Just leave a comment below telling me your favorite dessert made with fruit and you will be entered in the giveaway to have fruit delivered to your office!
Contest ends at 11:59 p.m. EST on Wednesday, January 5, 2011. One winner will be selected at random shortly thereafter and contacted by email. Please note this contest is only open to Los Angeles area residents.
Ingredients
1 large ripe but firm pear, peeled and thinly sliced
1 teaspoon plus 1/3 cup all-purpose flour, divided, plus additional for dusting
2 tablespoons sugar, divided
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
1 tablespoon cold unsalted butter
2 tablespoons walnut oil, or canola oil
1-2 tablespoons cold water
Preparation
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Toss pear slices, 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a medium bowl.
Whisk 1/3 cup all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour and the remaining 1 tablespoon sugar in a medium bowl. Cut in butter with a pastry cutter or a fork until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Sprinkle oil over the mixture and stir with a fork until evenly combined. Add 1 tablespoon water and stir until the dough just stays together when pressed with a fork; add up to 1 additional tablespoon of water if the dough seems too dry.
Line a work surface with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat, generously dust with flour and turn the dough out onto it. Form the dough into a small patty, dust the top with flour and roll into a rustic 10-inch circle, adding more flour if necessary to prevent sticking. Transfer the crust to a baking sheet with parchment paper or baking mat in place.
Lay the pear slices in decorative, overlapping circles on top of the crust, leaving a 1-inch border around the edge. Spoon any remaining pear juice over the slices. Pick up the edges of the crust using a spatula and fold over the pears. The crust will not meet in the center.
Bake the tart until lightly browned and bubbling, about 40 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.
Recipe from Eating Well.
Malted Milk Cookie Tart
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As soon as I saw this recipe I ripped it out of the magazine and stuck it on my fridge. I knew I would love it, and not only because it has a tart shell, chocolate, and malted milk balls, but also because it can be made using only one 1/2-cup measuring cup. I hate doing dishes and love recipes that are simple like that. And yes, I am a dork.
I should also mention that I had a really hard time finding malted milk powder in Los Angeles. After calling all of the major grocery store chains in the city, I finally found the Carnation brand at Gelsons, a more upscale chain. Weird and annoying.
Fortunately, this tart was well worth the time it took to find the malted milk powder. It was super easy to pull together (in fact, I made a second one which I baked in a disposable pie tin), and it tastes amazing. The shell is chewy, not overly sweet, and has a hint of salt, and is the perfect match to the chocolate and malted milk balls on top.
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup malted milk powder
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon (scant) coarse kosher salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces, room temperature
1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips (about 3 ounces; do not exceed 61% cacao)*
1/2 cup malted milk balls, coarsely chopped
Photos of the process.
Preparation
Preheat oven to 325°F. In processor, pulse flour, malted milk powder, sugar, and coarse salt. Add butter; pulse until moist clumps form. Transfer dough to work surface; gather into ball. Press evenly onto bottom of 9-inch-diameter tart pan with removable bottom.
Bake crust until evenly golden brown, about 45 minutes. (Mine was done somewhere around 35-40 minutes. Set the timer for a shorter time and check it regularly.) Scatter chocolate chips over; let stand 5 minutes to soften, then spread melted chocolate over hot crust in well that forms as center sinks. Sprinkle malted milk balls over. Cool completely. Remove tart from pan; cut into wedges.
*Don’t tell anyone, but I didn’t have enough bittersweet so I used some semi-sweet. Shhh.
Recipe from page 50 of July 2010 issue of Bon Appetit.
Crack Pie
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DISCLAIMER: 1. This pie does not contain actual crack. 2. This picture does not do it justice.
A few weeks ago my friend Carly asked if I had ever tasted Crack Pie. Crack Pie? Huh? She then explained it’s some crazy addictive pie she’d heard about, and that you can buy it online from Momofuku Milk Bar for $44. Yes, $44. As fate would have it, the LA Times ran an article about the pie the very next day, and included in the article was the recipe. I promised Carly I would make it.
So when I got invited to a friend’s Oscar party, I figured hey, why not try out the Crack Pie? Since the recipe yields two pies, I had grand plans of tasting one pie then freezing the rest of it so Carly could try it, and bringing the other pie to the party. Of course, my oven had other plans and I burned the first pie beyond repair (totally my fault, I set the oven incorrectly). This meant I only had one pie to work with and I would be bringing something I had never tasted to the party.
To make matters worse, I read tons of reviews and everyone said their pies were jiggily and oozing and undercooked so I cooked mine about 10 minutes longer, and when I took it out of the oven the top was cracked which made me fairly certain I had over-baked it. However, the final step of the recipe calls for a light (I have a heavy hand apparently) dusting of powdered sugar which covered the ugly exterior and no one was ever the wiser.
Fortunately, it was a huge hit. As in, OMG WHAT IS THIS PIE? IT IS SOOOOOOOOOO GOOD! and I CAN SEE WHY IT’S CALLED CRACK PIE, IT’S BETTER THAN CRACK (if you say so). The pie is crazy rich with a caramel flavor and gooey interior. A slice held its shape for about .23 seconds before becoming an oozy mess on a plate, but no one cared. It was that good. In fact, it’s a “I’d eat this straight from the fridge with a spoon my fingers kind of good. Although, I have to admit, I don’t think I’d pay $44 for it.
Some notes: 1. I hate “scant” measurements and used the weight measurements whenever possible. 2. My pies felt super jiggily after taking them out of the oven at the lower temp, so I baked them for an additional 10 minutes, which I’m still not sure they needed.
Photos of the process here.
Ingredients for Cookie for Crust
2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (3 ounces) flour
Scant 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
Scant 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter
1/3 cup (2 1/2 ounces) light brown sugar
3 tablespoons (1 1/4 ounces) sugar
1 egg
Scant 1 cup (3 1/2 ounces) rolled oats
Preparation
- Heat the oven to 375 degrees.
- In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl using an electric mixer, beat the butter, brown sugar and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Whisk the egg into the butter mixture until fully incorporated.
- With the mixer running, beat in the flour mixture, a little at a time, until fully combined. Stir in the oats until incorporated.
- Spread the mixture onto a 9-inch-by-13-inch baking sheet and bake until golden brown and set, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat and cool to the touch on a rack. Crumble the cooled cookie to use in the crust.
Ingredients for Crust
Crumbled cookie for crust
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
1 1/2 tablespoons (3/4 ounce) brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
Preparation
Combine the crumbled cookie, butter, brown sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse until evenly combined and blended (a little of the mixture clumped between your fingers should hold together). Divide the crust between 2 (10-inch) pie tins. Press the crust into each shell to form a thin, even layer along the bottom and sides of the tins. Set the prepared crusts aside while you prepare the filling.
Ingredients for Filling
1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces) sugar
3/4 cup plus a scant 3 tablespoons (7 ounces) light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup plus 1 teaspoon (3/4 ounce) milk powder
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, melted
3/4 cup plus a scant 2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
8 egg yolks
2 prepared crusts
Powdered sugar, garnish
Preparation
- Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, brown sugar, salt and milk powder. Whisk in the melted butter, then whisk in the heavy cream and vanilla.
- Gently whisk in the egg yolks, being careful not to add too much air.
- Divide the filling evenly between the 2 prepared pie shells.
- Bake the pies, one at a time, for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 325 degrees and bake until the filling is slightly jiggly and golden brown (similar to a pecan pie), about 10 minutes. Remove the pies and cool on a rack.
- Refrigerate the cooled pies until well chilled. The pies are meant to be served cold, and the filling will be gooey. Dust with powdered sugar before serving.
Recipe from the LA Times.
