Dough (Pate Brisee)
250g All purpose flour
125g unsalted butter, cold and cubed
40g ground blanched almonds
1 egg
1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, ground almonds, sugar and salt. Add the cubed butter and rub between your hands until crumbly. Add the egg and work the dough quickly and as little as possible until a dough forms. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap or put it in a zyploc bag and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or overnight.
Pastry Cream (makes about 2 cups)
1 whole egg
2 egg yolks
1/3 cup granulated sugar (more if you like it sweeter)
2 Tablespoons corn starch
1 Tablespoon all purpose flour
1 heaping cup milk
1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
1- In a saucepan, combine the egg, egg yolks, sugar, corn starch and flour. Mix until all the ingredients are well combined and the mixture is lump free.
2- Heat the milk and slowly add it to the egg mixture while whisking continuously.
3- Slowly, cook the custard over medium low heat, while whisking non stop.
4- Once the custard starts bubbling remove from the heat and add the vanilla extract.
5- Transfer the custard to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap and set aside to cool completely.
Lemon Cream
1 cup pastry cream
zest of half a lemon
Juice of 1 lemon (or more depending on how sour you want the cream to be)
4 tablespoons soft unsalted butter
In a blender, combine the pastry cream, lemon zest and lemon juice. Pulse for 10 seconds. With the machine running add the butter, one tablespoon at a time. Blend until creamy.
The cream will look runny, but after resting a few hours in the fridge it will have the perfect consistency.
1- Bake the tart shells in a 375F preheated oven. Let cool.
2- Fill each baked tart shell with lemon cream
3- Bake the tarts for 5 to 8 minutes or until the meringue has a light golden color.
4. Let cool for a few minutes and then decorate with blackberries, powdered sugar, whipped cream, and/or ice-cream
Hilary and I definitely give this recipe at least 4.5/5 stars! YUM. Just look at them!
Also, my dad and I went on a safari in Washington! That's right. We took our Pontiac 1987 Safari Station Wagon and went up to the mountain to hike. It was beautiful and cool with pretty mountain flowers and spectacular views, and all was well until we turned around and saw THE MAN-EATING MOUNTAIN GOATS! Ok, so maybe they weren't man-eating, but they were mountain goats, and a lot of them, really close, less than 10 feet away. I had just read a story about a man being stabbed to death y their horns, not to mention that the only big animals I had been hanging out with lately (Lions, elephants, hippos etc) were animals that I would really not want to meet outside of a protected safari van. So, I was a little on edge, but they didn't seem to care about us at all. There was a mother and her two babies and big ones and small ones, and they all just went along eating plants and being goat-like, and in the end we escaped without being horned, and all was good.
I continue to be amazed by how many of you actually read the blog! It started out as a way to keep in touch with my worried over-protective Mom (Love you Mom) but it has been fun to hear that everyone else is reading what I'm up to.
For our last outing, we went to a local elementary school. The best part was whenDaniel, one of the students on the trip told the kids that if they sang a song, I would start dancing, and so I agreed. In the midst of a group of maybe 40 kids clapping and singing, I broke down my dance moves to the uproarious laughter and clapping of the group.