Worlds collide

At a lot of the training classes and district meetings that I go to, not everyone knows one another, so we go around and introduce ourselves.  Name, branch, how long with the company, that sort of thing.  And to make it slightly more interesting, sometimes we'll add "and tell something about yourself that no one else here knows."  It's fun to hear what people come up with.  For me, I've mentioned things like:  I played the flute for 10 years, including chamber music in college.  I've visited 36 states, and lived in 8 of them.  My husband and I have been married for almost 8 years, but have known each other for 22 years. Recently, I told them that I write a baking blog.  And I have one ready for next time--I'm part of a fantasy hockey league.

I played fantasy hockey once before, but it was a number of years ago.  I came to be a hockey fan because Jamie (my husband) has been a diehard fan practically forever.  At first, I didn't really know what the heck was going on as I watched games on TV with him.  Eventually it started to make sense.  Then I got really into it.  Then I had kids. =)  So for the past few years, I've been lucky to watch two or three games a season outside the playoffs.  This year, though, I have incentive to pay more attention.  A few days ago, Laurie (our fearless leader of TWD and FFwD) tweeted that she needed one more person for her fantasy hockey league.  I responded, saying that I might be interested.  She assured me that the league was for fun (not super serious), so I figured, why not?  We had our draft yesterday; now we wait for another week or so for the season to officially start.  Laurie commented during the draft that it was a bit weird to have her baking and hockey worlds overlapping.  I can understand that.  For a lot of us, we're different people in different situations, like at home versus at work or at school.  It's a bit weird when people from one world suddenly show up in another, and see a different side of us, and sometimes learn stuff that they didn't know about us.

So aside from Laurie, what does fantasy hockey have to do with this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe?  Well, one of my good blogging friends, Leslie of Lethally Delicious, picked Tarte Fine for us to make this week.  This fairly simple recipe consists of a rolled out sheet of puff pastry layered with thinly sliced apples and topped with sugar (with a bit of egg wash to help it stick).  I think I had this recipe on the brain when I first logged in to set up my FHL team, because when it asked me to pick a name for my team the first thing that popped into my head was Puck Pastry.  I tried to think of something else, since it seemed a bit too silly, but it stuck.  So Puck Pastry it is.  Wish me luck! =)

A few more notes on the tarte... I have a hard time finding all-butter puff pastry dough around here that isn't outrageously expensive, so I made my own. I used the recipe for Quick Puff Pastry from The Art and Soul of Baking. It makes about 2 pounds of dough and I only needed about 8 ounces for this recipe, so the rest is waiting in my freezer. For the apples, I used one of my favorites, macintosh. We're just starting to get New York apples down here, but the new crop of macs showed up in time for this and some of the other apple recipes coming up in the next few weeks. Tart apples are my favorites--macintosh, macoun, jonathan, jonamac, gravenstein. We'll see how many I can get my hands on this year. I baked the tart until the edges were getting nicely browned, about 30 minutes, I think. And I didn't have anything to use for glaze, so I skipped it.

The verdict?  This tart was delicious. I just wish there was more of it. =)  I cut the large rectangle into 6 pieces, as Dorie suggests in the recipe.  But each is so thin, it's gone before you know it, and you're left wanting more.  I could eat buttery, flaky pastry all day long, given the opportunity.  But I was good--I ate one piece after taking the pictures, and had a second for breakfast the next morning.  Brianna and Gillian joined me for breakfast, and really seemed to enjoy the tart as well.  (Jamie got some, too, the night I made it.)  I definitely think I'll be making this one again.  I'd like to try the butter & sugar variation given with the recipe, or at least have something to use for glaze next time.

If you'd like to try this one for yourself, head over to Leslie's blog for the recipe.  And you can find out how the other TWD bakers fared this week over on the Links page.

A little help from my friends

In my almost year and a half of blogging, I've joined several groups (TWD, DB, BBA) expecting to expand my baking horizons.  I figured I'd learn new techniques as well as try recipes that I might otherwise skip.  I definitely have.  And this baking blog has evolved a bit to where I don't just write about my baking experiments.  I've realized that I enjoy writing about what's going on in my life (especially with my kids) as well.  What I didn't expect was that in the process I would make so many great friends.  A while back, someone said something to me about how I was writing here for strangers to read.  But many of the people who read my blog aren't strangers anymore.  

We may not have met each other in person, but we've gotten to know each other quite well.  First someone invited me to join Facebook, and that's been fun.  It's allowed me interact more with a lot of people (college friends, family), not just other food bloggers.  Then more recently, I joined Twitter.  And I have to say, so far it's been a blast.  It's like baking along with a whole bunch of friends.  All you have to do is throw out a question ("What size pan would be best if I double this recipe?" or "So where exactly did you find that fresh yeast?"), and before you know it, someone is there with an answer.  It's so neat to hear the experiences that others have as they're baking through the same recipes.  

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is a good example.  Jessica of My Baking Heart picked Parisian Apple Tartlets for us to make.  In reading through the recipe, this looked like one of the easiest TWD recipes yet.  You cut half an apple into quarters, place it on a circle of puff pastry, and sprinkle it with brown sugar and a bit of butter.  Then you bake it at 400 degrees F for about 25 minutes, and voila!--apple tartlet.  But of course I couldn't do it the easy way...

In reading this week's P&Q, a number of people said they were making their own puff pastry.  And that got me thinking.  At the beginning of the year, I was thinking about some of the things I wanted to make this year.  Puff pastry was on the list.  So I figured this was as good a time as any to try it, since the rest of the recipe was simple.  I remembered recently seeing it on Wendy's blog.  When I mentioned it on Twitter, Wendy was quick to say that it wasn't that bad to make.  Plus it gave me the chance to try a recipe from my new cookbook, The Art and Soul of Baking.  

I made the puff pastry on Sunday, at the same time that I was making coffeecake from brioche dough (post coming soon).  Wow, I went through a lot of butter this weekend!  I figured that if I was going to spend the time making puff pastry, I might as well make the full recipe.  It made over two pounds of dough.  I actually did four turns instead of three, and the dough really started to look good on the last one, so I'm glad I did it.  I chilled the dough for about 24 hours, since I didn't have a chance to bake my tartlets until Monday afternoon.  I divided the dough into four pieces (about 9 oz each) and immediately stashed two in the freezer for later. (Still debating what to do with the extra piece in the fridge--may also go to the freezer for now.)

To make the tartlets, I rolled out one of the pieces of dough to about 1/8 inch thick--it may have been a bit thicker, but it was close.  Then I hunted around in my cabinet for something that was about 4 inches in diameter to use for a template.  I ended up with the lid to a sour cream container. =)  I traced around it with my fluted pastry wheel to cut out four circles.  Next was the choice of fruit--apple or peach?  I put out another query on Twitter.  Turns out that Nancy tried these with a variety of fruit, but like the apple the best.  So I decided to go with apple.  I peeled and cut up my apples and placed them on the dough circles (on a parchment-lined pan).  They looked funny--there was a big hole in the middle from where I'd removed the apple cores.  Oh, well.  I continued on, adding some brown sugar and butter and popped them in the oven.

Twenty minutes later I checked on the tartlets.  Okay, that's a lie.  I probably turned on the oven light and peeked at them through the oven window half a dozen times in the first ten minutes, watching like a little kid to see if the pastry was puffing. =)  Fortunately it was.  Not a lot, but I expected that, since I used the fluted cutter rather than a straight knife (which compresses the layers a bit at the edge, making it harder for them to separate and puff).  But when I took them out for a closer look at twenty minutes, they definitely weren't done.  More tweeting ensued, since Tania was baking her tartlets at the same time I was.  I decided that the holes in the middle of the apples were bothering me too much, so I filled them with raisins and put the tartlets back in.  After a total of 45 minutes of baking, I finally pulled them out because I had to go pick the girls up from daycare.

When I got back, I looked at the little tarts again.  They definitely looked kind of sad, nothing like the pretty picture in the book.  Tania suggested they needed caramel sauce or something, which sounded good to me.  That's a sure sign of how far I've come in the past year and a half.  I thought nothing of whipping up a quick batch of salted caramel sauce (starting from white sugar and water) while making dinner.  And it definitely made my tarts much nicer looking. =)

The verdict?  The apples definitely weren't cooked all the way through.  I seem to have this problem a lot with Dorie's recipes (often when I substitute apples for another fruit).  I think I need to try a different kind of apple or something.  But they still tasted good, especially with the caramel.  The pastry was fantastic.  I split one of the tartlets for the girls to try.  Gillian ate everything but the apples.  Brianna just ate the raisins out of the middle of hers.  Jamie and I split another one, eating the whole thing. =)  I still have lots of pastry dough left, so I think I may have to try these again with different fruit.  

Be sure to head over to Jessica's blog to see some really lovely tartlets.  And of course check out the blogroll at Tuesdays with Dorie to see what everyone else did this week.