Strawberry and White Chocolate Tart

Okay. So, not only am I back from Germany, but I'm also unemployed because 1) this is a weird time of year to hire anyone, and 2) it's a terrible economy to hire anyone. You're probably thinking that I should be using all this time to bake bake bake and post post post. But bake bake baking requires money money money, which I am sorely lacking because of my current state of unemployment.
Nonetheless, I did bake last week. I actually made something for a friend who was looking for a subject for a photography exercise/contest. I spent a lot of time considering all my options. Something tried and true or something completely new (rhyme not intended)? I chose a dish, then changed my mind, then changed my mind again and finally I did land on something I had made before... only completely different.
If you'll think (or look, if you weren't with me back then) back to June 2008, you'll remember that I made a strawberry chocolate pie for my sister's birthday. Well this time I decided to follow the original recipe more closely and used white chocolate... but I still used strawberries. Mostly because the raspberries were about twice the price.


I started by hulling and washing some beautiful, fresh, Ontario strawberries. I'm only glad I live in Ontario in the summer, and only because of the plethora of beautiful, fresh produce.


I set those aside to drain and cut up some chilled butter.


Then added some flour and sugar.


And blended it all up.


Next I added some egg yolks, whipping cream and lemon juice and blended those in.


The dough looked like this when it was all blended.


I formed it into a ball and wrapped it up in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge.


Meet my new Paderno tart pan. I love it.


When the dough was chilled, I fit it into the lovely lovely pan.



The dough went back into the fridge and I chopped up the white chocolate.


I melted it in a pot with some whipping cream and vanilla (which made the colour kind of gross, but I tried to ignore it).


I poured the melted chocolate mixture into a bowl with an egg and beat it up.


While I was doing all that, the tart shell was baking blind, so once the filling was prepared, I filled the bottom of the tart with a bunch of strawberries.


And drowned them with the white chocolate mixture.


After going in the oven for 45 or 50 minutes, the tart came out looking like this, which is basically what I imagine heaven looks like.


So, I don't have any photos of the tart cut. I took the tart over to my friend's house where he had set up about three flashes and his fancy-pants camera. Many shots of the whole tart were taken before we cut a perfect slice out and took many most photos of the slice and the tart, etc. It was fun and a lot of the photos seemed to turn out pretty nicely. Of course I haven't seen any since that night, but as soon as I get my hands on them, I'll post them up and show you what my food looks like when you light it properly instead of just using the natural light of my huge apartment windows.
We also ate some, and it was pretty tasty! They crust was a little too thick, but the filling had a pleasant white chocolate flavour and the strawberries gave it a nice fresh taste, too! I did alter the recipe based on thoughts by eat me, delicious, who made it quite a while ago and thought that the white chocolate flavour was a little weak. All I did was increase the white chocolate by 2 ounces and decrease the whipping cream by 2 ounces. It worked out just fine!
I'm not sure I would add it to my regular rotation of desserts for gatherings or functions, but it was quite enjoyable.

More posts to come soon, hopefully! My sister is visiting for the weekend and we're planning to make shortcake!

Recipe

Strawberry and White Chocolate Tart
adapted from a Ricardo Larrivée recipe.

×××

Shortcrust
2 ¼ cups flour
1 pinch of salt
½ cup sugar
¾ cup unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
4 egg yolks
1 tablespoon ice water or 35% cream
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Filling
½ cup 35% cream
6 ounces white chocolate, chopped
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 ½ cups fresh strawberries (or enough strawberries to fill the bottom of your tart crust)


×××

Shortbread Crust
Place the butter, flour, salt and sugar in a bowl and blend with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the egg yolks, water or cream and lemon juice and blend until the mixture is uniform. Shape into a disk, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Pat the dough into a 9-inch tart pan. Refrigerate for another 30 minutes. With the rack in the lowest position, preheat the oven to 375°F. Line the chilled crust with aluminum foil, scattering a few dry beans or pie weights on top to hold the foil in place. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove the weights and foil and bake for 5 minutes more. Let cool.
Filling
Preheat the oven to 325°F. In a saucepan over low heat, gently melt the chocolate in the cream and vanilla. Lightly beat the egg using an electric mixer on lowest speed. While beating, slowly add the chocolate mixture, taking care not to incorporate air into the mixture. Beat for 15 seconds more. Arrange strawberries on the pie crust with their pointed ends facing up. Gently pour the filling over the berries without covering them completely. Bake until the centre is only slightly jiggly, 45 to 50 minutes*.
Let stand at room temperature for 3 to 4 hours. Best if served the same day.

* Make sure you check often after about 35 minutes, because all ovens are different!

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Christmas 2008 Baking!

Over Christmas, particularly Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I baked a lot. I made two lemon meringue pies, two types of cookies and a rather elaborate cake for my mother's 60th birthday. It was a very busy time, so I didn't do photos of my whole process and I apologise! But below you'll find my photos, recipes and thoughts on the things I made over Christmas!

Chocolate Shortbread Cookies with Hazelnuts



½ cup cold butter or margarine
¾ cup flour
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
1-2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
75 grams chopped hazelnuts
2 tablespoons sugar

×××

Combine flour, powdered sugar and cocoa powder. Cut in the butter and continue mixing until a smooth batter forms. Roll the dough out into a 20 centimetre long roll.
Mix together chopped hazelnuts and sugar. Spread the mixture out on a baking pan, and roll the dough in the mixture. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour.
Preheat the oven to 325°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Cut the roll into thin slices and place on the cookie sheet. Bake for approximately 15 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

×××

I originally got this recipe in a Sanella recipe booklet (Sanella being a German margarine brand), which my German professor gave me. I'm not a fan or a friend of margarine, so I decided to switch it out for butter, making the cookies a lot like shortbread. Also, the recipe originally called for walnuts, and I was going to be making these cookies with my sister who is allergic to walnuts, so I switched those out for hazelnuts. These are very chocolatey cookies, however, a little dry. My suggestion would be to cut the flour down to about 2/3 cup, which would not only make them less dry, but also make the hazelnuts stick to the dough better.
All in all, a very good cookie, which I plan to make again, with the minor adjustment to the amount of flour.

Ginger chocolate chunk Cookies



7 ounces best-quality semisweet chocolate
1 ½ cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 ¼ teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
½ cup dark-brown sugar, packed
½ cup molasses (not blackstrap)
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ cup granulated sugar

×××

Line two baking sheets with parchment. Chop chocolate into ¼-inch chunks; set aside. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and cocoa.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and grated ginger until whitened, about 4 minutes. Add brown sugar; beat until combined. Add molasses; beat until combined.
In a small bowl, dissolve baking soda in 1 ½ teaspoons boiling water. Beat half of flour mixture into butter mixture. Beat in baking soda mixture, then remaining half of flour mixture. Mix in chocolate; turn out onto a piece of plastic wrap. Pat dough out to about 1 inch thick; seal with wrap; refrigerate until firm, 2 hours or more.
Heat oven to 325°F. Roll dough into 1 ½ inch balls; place 2 inches apart on baking sheets. Refrigerate 20 minutes. Roll in granulated sugar. Bake until the surfaces crack slightly, 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes; transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

×××

This recipe is one I got my Anders' mum. She'd made it a few times previously and just... they are so amazing. Easily the best cookies I've ever had. The ginger is intense, the chocolate is an amazing addition and this is overall the most delicious cookie ever, and I really can't describe it well enough, so you'll just have to make them.

Lemon Meringe Pie





Crust
1 ½ cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2/3 cup unsalted butter, diced and chilled
1 x large egg
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Filling
1 ¼ cups sugar
1 ½ cups water
5 tablespoon cornstarch
5 large egg yolks
dash salt
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
½ cup fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoon unsalted butter
Meringue
5 large egg whites
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch

×××

Crust
For crust, combine flour, sugar and salt. Cut in chilled butter until a rough crumbly texture and little bits of butter are still visible. In a small bowl, whisk egg and lemon juice. Pour all at once into flour mixture and combine just until dough comes together. Shape dough into a disc and chill for at least one hour.
Preheat oven to 400 °F. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to just less than ¼ inch thick. Sprinkle a 9-inch pie shell with flour and line with dough. Tuck in rough edges and crimp (pinch) with your fingers. Put pie shell in freezer just for 10 minutes to rest and firm up. Once chilled, line pastry with aluminium foil (and have foil hang over crust edges to protect it) and weigh down with pie weights, dried beans or raw rice. Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce oven temperature to 375 °F and bake 15 minutes more. Remove aluminium foil and weights and bake 10 minutes more, to dry out centre of the
shell. Cool completely before filling.
Filling
Whisk sugar, water, and cornstarch in a heavy-bottomed saucepot. Whisk in egg yolks and salt and cook over low heat for 5 minutes, whisking constantly. Increase heat to medium and, still whisking, cook until filling becomes glossy and thick, about 5 more minutes. Remove from heat and strain. Stir in lemon zest, lemon juice and butter until butter dissolves. Pour immediately into cooled pie shell and let cool 15 minutes. Chill completely before finishing with meringue, about 4 hours.
Meringue
Preheat oven to 350 °F. Whip egg whites with cream of tartar until foamy. While whipping, gradually pour in sugar and whip on one speed less than highest until whites hold a stiff peak (the meringue stands upright when whisk is lifted). Whisk in cornstarch and dollop over chilled lemon filling. Use sweeping motions with your spatula to create swirls and peaks that look so enticing once browned. Bake pie for 10 minutes, just until meringue browns lightly. Let pie cool or chill until ready to slice.

×××

I got this recipe from Anna Olson. I love Anna Olson. I loved the idea of a lemon meringue pie crust with lemon in it. The filling also set up really nicely, which I've had problems with in the past. It was a very delicious pie, all in all. There's nothing I would change about it and I would make a million and eat them all. Everyone who ate it liked it too. Make this lemon meringue pie.

Espresso Chocolate Cake with Hazelnut Mousse and Chocolate Ganache






And one of my mum singing Happy Birthday to herself!

Espresso Cake

2-2 ½ cups unbleached white flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cup sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup espresso, cooled
¼-½ cup water
1 tablespoon vinegar

×××

Preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease and flour a 9-inch springform pan. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar into a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the oil, vanilla, espresso and water. When the batter is smooth, add the vinegar and stir quickly. The batter will foam slightly where the baking soda and the vinegar are reacting (you should do this only when you're ready to pour the batter into the pan and put it directly in the oven). Stir just until the vinegar is evenly distributed throughout the batter. Pour the batter into the cake pan, and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Chocolate Cake

1 ½ cups unbleached white flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
1 cup cold water or brewed coffee (I used water for this one, because of the coffee layer)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons vinegar

×××

Preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a 9-inch springform pan, and dust lightly with cocoa powder. Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt and sugar into a bowl. In a 2-cup measuring cup, measure and mix together the oil, water or coffee, and vanilla. Pour the liquid into the bowl and mix the batter with a fork or small whisk. When the batter is smooth, add the vinegar and stir quickly. There will be pale swirls in the batter where the baking soda and the vinegar are reacting. Stir just until the vinegar is evenly distributed throughout the batter. Pour the batter into the cake pan, and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack.


Hazelnut Mousse (only make this when both layers are cool and ready to assemble!)

1 teaspoon agar-agar powder (gelatin substitute)
3 tablespoons cold water
½ cup chocolate hazelnut spread such as Nutella
½ cup mascarpone
1 ½ cups chilled heavy cream
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
3 tablespoons sugar

×××

Sprinkle agar-agar over water in a 1- to 1 ½-quart heavy saucepan and heat over low heat, stirring, just until agar-agar is dissolved and the mixture begins to thicken. Whisk in Nutella until combined and remove from heat. In a large bowl, whisk together mascarpone and Nutella mixture. Beat together cream, cocoa powder, and sugar in another large bowl with an electric mixer at low speed until just combined, then increase speed to high and beat until cream just holds medium-firm peaks (if they're too soft, they'll deflate when everything is mixed together). Whisk one third of whipped cream into mascarpone mixture to lighten, then fold in remaining whipped cream until well combined.

Simple Chocolate Ganache
1 ½ cup whipping cream
½ lb. semi-sweet chocolate
¼ cup Nutella

×××

Chop the chocolate into small pieces, and place in a medium bowl with the Nutella. In a pot over high heat scald the cream. Remove from the heat and pour over the chocolate and Nutella. Whisk rapidly until all the chocolate has melted and the mixture is a smooth, even colour. Cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally. Whip half the ganache until soft peaks form.

Assembly

Even out the tops of the cakes by slicing off any round dome that may have formed. Place the coffee layer on the base of the springform pan and spread the whipped ganache over just the top. Place the chocolate layer on top and use any remaining whipped ganache to to fill in the crack between the two layers. Clamp the collar of the springform pan around the top portion of the chocolate layer. Spread the mousse over the chocolate layer, inside the collar and refrigerate, covered, for a least three hours. Just before serving, remove the collar and pour the remaining ganache over the top, allowing it to spill down the sides.

×××

So... this cake. Wow. I made up the espresso cake recipe based on my chocolate cake recipe (number of times the chocolate cake recipe has been altered: 3), and the flavour came out pretty well, but if I made this again, I would leave out the espresso layer altogether. In that case, I would cut the chocolate cake in half and layer that with the whipped ganache. Moving on - the chocolate cake was delicious, as always and the hazelnut mousse... wow. It was just perfect and so amazingly tasty. It went perfectly well with the chocolate cake. I'm planning to do the chocolate cake with the hazelnut mousse for Anders' birthday coming up next month.
The cake was really delicious, and while it had many layers and lots of parts, it was nearly as heavy as I was expecting and I was really pleased with how it turned out.

So that's Christmas, in a nutshell. Coming up next, tortilla soup inspired by my friend Irina, and both peanut butter chocolate chip and apple cinnamon muffins. Delicious!

Guten Appetit! Continue reading...

Wild Blueberry Galette

I have discovered my new favourite pastry. It's much simpler than a pie, and to me, much prettier. It's a galette. I made one for the first time on Thursday for a dinner I was having at Anders' house with his family. I got the recipe from this foodblogger, who posted it on Bake! Bake! Bake! I mostly followed it, too, and it did not disappoint. Oh no, it didn't.

The filling was blessedly simple. I love a simple filling.

Wild blueberries, lemon juice and zest, sugar and cornstarch. Could it be any simpler?

The only other thing I needed was a pie crust. I went for my lovely olive oil recipe.

To get a nice, perfectly round crust to work with, I used the serving dish I planned to use as a cookie cutter and pressed it into the dough.

As I said, this is a simple recipe, and all I had to do with the filling was pour it into the centre of my crust.

And then fold up the edges to hold it all in. I tried to make my pleats as pretty as possible.

It's not hard to make a dessert look good when you're working with berries that look this delicious.


The galette baked on a piece of tin foil on top of a cookie sheet for about 30 or 35 minutes.

And came out looking perfectly scrumptious, if I do say so myself. And I do.

This dessert was enjoyed by all (nine of us!) later that evening.





I am I love with this recipe. I think it's a great alternative to pie, especially if you're only feeding a small crowd (which I wasn't, really, but it worked out, because we had THREE kinds of dessert). I found the lemon a little too strong, so I will definitely reduce that amount when I make this next time, and there will definitely be a next time. In fact, we have some soft peaches in the fridge that I might try in a galette next!
If you're one of those people who can't seem to get pie crusts right, whether it's because they always shrink in the oven, or putting them into the pie plate is simply a chore, try a galette! You won't be disappointed... and you'll probably be more relaxed!

Recipe

(Wild) Blueberry Galette

1 premade pie crust
1 pint fresh (wild) blueberries
zest of one lemon
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 ½ teaspoons cornstarch
brown sugar*, to taste (I think I used 1 ½ tablespoons)
egg wash

×××

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Cover a cookie sheet with tinfoil and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Roll out pie crust to form a large circle and place on the prepared cookie sheet. In a medium bowl, gently mix together blueberries, lemon zest and juice, cornstarch and sugar. Pour the filling onto the centre of the crust and fold and pleat the edges around the filling. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for approximately 30 to 35 minutes, or until edges are golden brown and filling bubbles. Allow to cool before removing to a serving plate. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.

*The original recipe called for white sugar, but I like brown sugar better in a pastry.

Guten Appetit! Continue reading...

Strawberry Chocolate Pie

My older sister's birthday was on Friday and her husband planned her a surprise party for today (Sunday). Since her friend offered to make cake, I took my cue from the just recently fresh Ontario strawberries and made a pie yesterday. For a while now, I'd been eyeballing this recipe for raspberry and white chocolate pie, and waiting somewhat impatiently for the berry season here in Ontario to begin. The original plan (I guess... do bakers make plans? Because really, it's sort of whatever I feel like, whenever I feel like it, rather than planning to make specific things) was to make it for Anders, because he loves white chocolate and I don't know many other people who do. Instead, however, I substituted raspberries for strawberries and white chocolate for dark chocolate. And some of the amounts of ingredients were changed significantly and the baking time was way longer, etc., etc., so essentially it's a mere version of the original recipe, but I digress.

I started by making my olive oil pie crust. This, I thought, would be a far sight more difficult than the previous time I made it, because we've had this hot, humid, disgusting weather here. But it turned out just fine.If you'll think back to my recipe for olive oil pie crust, you'll recall that the olive oil has to be frozen before beginning. I put a little bowl full in the freezer in the morning while I waited for Every Kilowatt Counts people to come pick up our old fridge.

See? Old fridge...


New fridge... <3.


Anyway, the fridge people didn't come, and when my parents got home from grocery shopping, I had a shower, ran some errands (which included going to buy some new stainless steel frying pans that Anders and I were going to buy the night previously except that the power went out in the store before we had a chance!), left my camera on the kitchen table and found this gem on it today:


(yea, that's a squirrel, totally flaked out on the top of our fence)

and came back to get started.

By that time it was about 4.30PM. And my olive oil was like a brick. A round, smooth, oily brick...




It shouldn't look like this. If it turns pale yellow, it's too frozen. You won't be able to get it out. Just give it a few minutes (especially if your summers are as gross as the on the summers in Southern Ontario) and it should pop out, though. Don't microwave it. You will regret that.
Me? I didn't give it long enough and was using my pastry cutter on it for aaages before it finally mixed into the other ingredients.

Eventually I ended up with this pleasant lump of dough:


And instead of putting it in the brand new fridge for an hour, I put it in the brand new freezer for half an hour:


While I waited (I set the timer on my oven because my skill for estimating the passage of time is not very well developed), I hulled and washed these beauties:


and admired my new pie plate ($10 at Wal-Mart!):


I also looked up some information of baking a pie blind, because I couldn't for the life of me remember ever having to do it before yesterday. While I was looking at that information, I came across some "techniques" for rolling out dough. I tried one, where I put the dough between two pieces of parchment, but the paper was quickly discarded and instead I rolled it out on the floured, crappy counter top in my kitchen with my lovely marble rolling pin. This brings me to my only gripe with this dough. It's really elastic. You absolutely need a heavy rolling pin and some patience. It pays off, though. It rolled out so perfectly in the end that I didn't have to patch any spots and it didn't stick to anything. Is it possible to be in love with pie dough?

Right, so putting it in my new pie plate was pretty exciting too:

Don't make fun, I've never been good at crimping edges.

For those of you who don't know, to bake a pie blind you need to weight the centre so it doesn't puff up or shrink too much. I just gently pressed in a piece of tin foil and filled the centre with about a cup of dry beans.


I also pricked it with a fork, just in case. I'm panicky like that.

It went in the oven for a total of ten minutes, but halfway through I carefully took out the tin foil and beans without spilling them all over the floor. Go Cathlin. By this time, my sister and her husband had showed up, and we had dinner reservations in about 45 minutes, so naturally I got to work on making chocolate curls. I had never done this before, and turned to Pioneer Woman. You could say that I want to be this woman when I grow up. I also would love if my blog would be as funny and popular as hers. Yea, that's pretty much how I felt all through high school, too.
Anyway, you can find her recipe and method for chocolate curls here. Basically, you throw a tablespoon of Crisco and three ounces of chocolate into the microwave and then mix them until they're.... well, mixed.
At this point, I would go look at Ree's. I did take photos but they're really bad. Plus, I don't have a pallet knife and ended up using a butter knife. It sucked. Seriously, go look at Pioneer Woman's. It's toward the bottom of the page. You won't be sorry.

So, by the time I'd gotten about half of the chocolate curls done, it was time to go for dinner, so I left my chocolate in the freezer, ate some quesadilla at Papagayo's, came back home and gave my sister her gift (in true kitchen-wench fashion, I got her a book of 1080 Spanish recipes), and then got back to my pie.

The filling couldn't have been easier to make, even if I did mess with the ingredients. I started by running some water into the bottom of a double boiler, and then melting eight ounces of chocolate (the recipe called for four) in one cup of whipping cream (the recipe called for 3/4 cup) in the top.

This is what chocolate melted in whipping cream looks like:

Yea, I tasted that deliciousness a few times...

Then I lightly beat an egg, and added the chocolate mixture in, steadily but slowly, until it looked like this:

Now, the recipe said to make sure not to incorporate air. I don't know, mine looks like it had air incorporated.


Let that mixture sit for a minute, and arrange a bunch of strawberries on the bottom of your cool pie shell (I used almost two cups).


And then drown those suckers in chocolate, wahahahahaha!


Okay, so this is where the recipe really didn't work for me: the baking time. Perhaps with four ounces of white chocolate, 3/4 cup of whipping cream and one egg, the 35 minutes suggested baking time would have been sufficient. But when I looked at my pie at 35 minutes, it was still liquid. Completely liquid. So I turned the oven up from 325°F to about 400°F and let it go for about another 30 minutes. At that point it was still sort of jiggly, but it looked baked. I've been puzzling about what to suggest for baking temperature and time all day and I think next time I'll try 400°F for 35 minutes. Of course, I'll be checking it constantly.

By the time the damned thing came out of the oven, it was midnight, so I didn't take any photos. I just went to bed.

This morning when I woke up, it looked like this:


I sliced the leftover strawberries in half and instead of arranging them neatly on top (which is what I did at first and it made me feel like a stuffy grandmother getting ready for a church bake sale), I dropped them on. All willynilly. I really let loose at 8.30 this morning. It was great.



Just don't do this on the brand new white tablecloth your mother just bought for the kitchen table.



Intermission while I shower, get dressed, get pretty, actually go to the party, eat and share the pie, take photos, come home, start my laundry and make my lunch for tomorrow.

What a day!

Okay, so I was sort of concerned about the inside of this pie. I was afraid when the first piece was taken out, it would just be liquid hangin' out in a pie crust. Not so. It was more the consistency of rich chocolate pudding. And the strawberries were so destroyed from being baked that they had almost completely disappeared into the chocolate. Certainly not a bad thing! It tasted like strawberry infused chocolate. Oh goodness, it was delicious. And a huge hit with the crowd, even the people who didn't really like dessert.



You should probably go make this pie right away. People will say things like, "you are a baking goddess/god" (I actually got that one today). If you don't have a mild ecstatic experience while you eat it, we probably shouldn't be friends.

Recipes

Olive Oil Pie Crust

2/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil
2 ½ cups of all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ cup ice water
1 tablespoon of vinegar
1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon of sugar (REALLY optional, depends on what pie you're making)

×××

Place olive oil in the freezer until it solidifies and is of a consistency similar to cold butter, approximately 3 or 4 hours.
Combine flour, salt and baking powder into a bowl and mix. Add remaining ingredients and blend with a pastry blender. Place dough in an air tight container or plastic wrap and place it in the fridge for an hour or so to chill.
Roll ball out to 1/8 inch thickness and fit into a pie plate. Use as you would a regular pie crust. To bake it blind, fit a piece of tin foil into the pie crust, and pour in about 1 cup of dry beans. Bake at 425°F for five minutes, remove the beans and tin foil and continue to bake for another five minutes, or until evenly light golden brown.


Strawberry Chocolate Pie
1 cup whipping cream
8 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 cups fresh strawberries
Dark chocolate shavings
1 prepared pie crust

×××

Preheat the oven to 400°F. In a double boiler, gently melt the chocolate in the cream. Lightly beat the egg using an electric mixer on lowest speed. While beating, slowly add the chocolate mixture. Beat for 15 seconds more.
Arrange as many strawberries as will fit on the bottom of the pie crust with their pointed ends facing up. Gently pour the filling over the berries Bake until the centre is firm, about 35 to 40 minutes*. Let stand at room temperature for 3 to 4 hours. Just before serving, garnish with chocolate shavings and the remaining strawberries.

*I haven't tried this, so I don't know if it'll work, but it seems about right, based on my experience. Don't sue me if it doesn't work though!

Guten Appetit! Continue reading...