MY FAMOUS PEANUT BRITTLE

My Peanut Brittle is now available for sale. Please hit the comment button below and leave your order. It will be directed to my e-mail and I will respond with a confirmation of your order. The peanut brittle sells for $16.00 per pound + shipping.

It can be packaged in 2, 4, & 8 ounce packages. The package above is the 8 oz. package.

APPLE APRICOT TART

I was invited to a Tea and the spotlighted tea was Apple Apricot so I made this Apple Apricot Tart to complement the Tea. It was a success and I have made it several times since for various clients. It has a cream cheese crust which is very flaky. I got the idea to make the apples look like a flower from Rose Levy Beranbaum's book The Pie & Pastry Bible.

Here is my recipe for 1 - 9" tart:

APRICOTS
1 Cup Dried Apricots
1 Cup Apple Cider
1 Slice Lemon
Cut the dried apricots in 1/4's and put into a small saucepan with the cider and lemon. Bring to a boil, lower the heat to a simmer and poach covered for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat, strain the apricots and set aside.
CREAM CHEESE DOUGH
4 Ounces Frozen Butter (cut into 1/2" pieces)
6 1/2 Ounces Unbleached All Purpose Flour
1/8 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/8 Teaspoon Kosher Salt
3 Ounces Cold Cream Cheese (cut into 1" pieces)
3/4 Ounce Ice Water
1/2 Ounce Cider Vinegar
Place the flour, baking powder, salt in a food processor. Pulse to combine ingredients. Add the cream cheese and pulse to combine. Add the butter and pulse until the butter is the size of large peas. Combine the ice water and cider vinegar and add it to the above mixture pulsing to combine. Remove the dough from the processor, shape it into a disk and wrap in in plastic. Refrigerate it at least 1 hour.
Roll out the dough and put it into a (sprayed with release agent) 9" deep dish pie pan. Trim the edges. Place the dough filled pie pan in the refrigerator for 30 minutes before blind baking.
With the remaining dough make leaves to go around the edge of the crust. Set these aside in the refrigerator until ready to bake.
To blind bake:
Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Use coffee filters to put on top of the pie crust then fill with beans or rice. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes. Remove the coffee filters and continue to bake 5 more minutes or until golden brown.
APPLE FILLING
6 Large Granny Smith Apples (peeled, cored, thinly sliced & halved)
Juice of 1/2 Lemon (strained)
2 Ounces Sugar
3 Ounces Light Brown Sugar
1/4 Teaspoon Kosher Salt
1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
1/4 Teaspoon Nutmeg (freshly ground)
1 Ounce Unsalted Butter
1/2 Ounce Cornstarch
Mix the apples with the lemon juice, sugar, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, & nutmeg. Cover and let sit overnight. The next day strain the apples and cook the reserved liquid with the butter to a thick syrup.
Put the apples in a bowl and toss with cornstarch then pour the thickened syrup over the apples.
To make the tart:
Put half of the apricots into the blind baked tart shell. Lay the apple slices over the apricots in concentric circles adding more apricots as you go. End with a solid layer of overlapping apple slices (no apricots) to make the flower. Reserve 1 tablespoon of the apple juices and pour the remaining apple juices over the apples.
Brush the edge of the tart shell with the apple juice and place the reserved dough leaves around the edge.
Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then cover with foil and bake another 30 - 40 minutes or until you see juices bubbling from the tart.
Let the tart cool slightly then brush with simple syrup or apricot glaze.
Posted by Sugar Chef at 12:36 PM

2 comments:
Tartelette said...
So...tonight I finally decided to go through my spam filters and email folders and found the email you sent me a couple of month ago. So sorry....really am! If there is anything I can help with, please let me know.That tart looks absolutely fabulous!
7:43 PM
Y said...
Gorgeous tart! I love the look of that pastry too.
9:22 PM

BRIDGE BIRTHDAY CAKE

The birthday girl loves to play bridge, thus the inspiration for this cake. The flavors were chocolate cake, raspberry bavarian cream, raspberry jam and chocolate ganache.
Here is the ganache, cake & raspberry bavarian cream recipe. I used a good quality raspberry jam to spread on each layer of cake before applying the filling.

GANACHE
1 1/2 Pounds Semi Sweet Chocolate
24 Ounces Heavy Cream

METHOD
Bring the cream to a boil and pour over the chocolate. Stir with a whisk until the chocolate is completely melted. Cover and leave at room temperature. Make this one day in advance so it sets up to an icing consistency.

COCOA CAKE
Makes 2 9" round cakes.
15 ½ Ounces Granulated Sugar
9 Ounces All Purpose Flour
3 ¾ Ounces Cocoa Powder (sift after measuring)
1 ½ Teaspoon Baking Powder
1 ½ Teaspoon Baking Soda
1 ½ Teaspoon Salt
2 Large Eggs (room temperature)
1 Cup Whole Milk
½ Cup Canola Oil
2 ½ Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
7 Liquid Ounces Boiling Water

METHOD
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray and line with parchment 2 - 9" round cake pans.
2. This should be done by hand. No mixer necessary. When making X2 or X4 use a mixer.
3. Place all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and whisk to combine.
4. Place all wet ingredients except water into another bowl and mix together.
5. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and stir until well combined.
6. Boil water in microwave, add and stir to combine.
7. Pour into prepared pans.
8. Bake 30 to 40 minutes.

RASPBERRY BAVARIAN CREAM
2 Cups Milk10 Ounces Sugar
10 Egg Yolks
8 Gelatin Sheets
2 Cups Raspberry Puree
24 Ounces Heavy Cream

METHOD
1. Soften Gelatin in ice water. Set aside.
2. Sprinkle a little of the sugar into the bottom of a saucepan and pour the milk over it. Bring to a boil.
3. Mix the remaining sugar into the yolks and temper the yolks and milk.
4. Cook the mixture to 180 degrees. Remove from heat and strain.
5. Add the gelatin and stir to melt it.
6. Add the raspberry puree and stir over an ice bath until cool to the touch but not set.
7. Whip the cream to soft peak and incorporate it into the raspberry mixture.