Day 1: Almond tart using pate brisee , with strawberries

 And we're off to the races! Day one of trying recipes in the cookbook has begun. 
This is the dish I made, and here is how I got there: 

Almond tart with strawberries


Last night/early this morning I completed my first two recipes - a pastry called Pate Brisee, which is like saying "broken pastry" because it crumbles easily. Then I made an Almond filling, also in the book to go inside. Thus creating an almond tart.

Part of having a culinary class, or a culinary class text book is that they DON'T tell you how hot or how long to bake it. I know, it's crazy right? This is because, I am assured, that these components can be used for multiple dishes and you would not want 20 recipes slightly modified for different fillings and pastries. 

The other issue is that depending on the oven you have these will multiply by at least 5 different types of oven (home, deck, convection, etc). 

And then you are taught methods and formulas so you can modify sizes of tarts or the amounts the recipe makes. So you see it's not just about following a recipe, it's also a science experiment. 

I went with an oven at 350F, but you can go a range of 330 to 420 or so when baking anything. Seeing that it was pastry which loves to burn, and it had sugar in the mix, I opted for the lower end. 

I made 4 small tarts and one large tart with the pastry dough. I docked them in the center and parbaked them until they no longer looked translucent. 

Docked pastry and Almond filling


Then I filled them with the almond filling and baked again.I tried the small ones first, and then doubling the time, baked the larger one. 

Small pastries, par baked and filled, ready for 2nd bake


They came out different from each other so the math was probably off a bit. But it was kind of fun playing with the almond paste! Almond is one of my favorite smells. 

Small tarts ready for taste testing
  

Larger tart was cut up and offered as well. 


I stayed up way too late, but after adding the tart strawberries to the sweet almond pastry, it was so worth it!

Stay tuned, day 2 coming soon!

Vicky

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