OlyveOyl

@JoNorvelleWalker I had a fleeting thought about cocoa, I have Valrhona and Cocoa Barry but 1) I wondered if the flour should be reduced a bit , 2) didn’t have a guesstimate on how much cocoa, 3) felt the taste would probably be better with chocolate. I would love to be educated as the cocoa would be easier. So if anyone has used cocoa, please chime in!

@JoNorvelleWalker and then there’s this…chocolate pastry cream, very luxurious! 100g. 72% chocolate added to finished pastry cream, 250g milk, 1 egg, 50g sugar, 2T Wondra flour, pinch salt, vanilla. This has become way too easy to make!

Red plum tart with almonds, a very tender cake due to the sour cream incorporated in the batter. This was adaptable from Easy Strawberry Cake at Natasha’s Kitchen. This is half in a 7” cake mold, the cake has a generous rise. I also made a plum compote to serve with it.

Lunch today was mortadella , burrata and pistachio pesto on sesame bread. Tangerine curd tarts, blueberries and crushed pistachios were the mini tarts for dessert.

Tangerine curd tart, blueberries and crushed pistachios. I made just two mini tarts as I had the unbaked tart shells frozen, while they quickly baked, I made a tangerine curd in the micro for the filling. These chilled for a little bit, topped with berries, nuts, and dessert was ready!

I have one or two of those and use them mostly to expel water/liquid from fruits or vegetables. I last used it on cabbage when I was making sauerkraut. The older models had a spring connected to the lid and are more effective in applying pressure rather than the screw down plate which I found to be less effective.

A couple of small tarts today with a little extra pastry dough, tart dough has some almond flour and confectionery sugar, based on one of Ed Lepard’s from his book “Short and Sweet”. Pastry filling is from @JoNorvelleWalker, berries from the Farmers Market.

@ElsieD if you just google Tarte Maman, Raymond Blanc, I’m sure you will get the info you are looking for, I no longer have the link as make it from memory.

Peach blueberry custard tart, adapted from Raymond Blanc’s Tarte Maman. The peaches and blueberries are cooked for twenty minutes and the custard is then poured over. This takes just 10/15 minutes to set the custard. Usually made with apples, but it works well with other fruit.

Lemon, peach, verveine ( lemon verbena) , yogurt cake. From the book , “Gateau”, a favorite cake of ours. This has been made many times, raspberries, blackberries, even sans fruit , it’s a fine textured crumb with a lovely flavor from the verveine. The cake was also brushed with a verveine syrup prior to dusting with confectionery sugar.

Today for lunch we had corn salad, red onion, basil slivers. sliced chicken breast with a mayo/ sour cream, tarragon, basil, chives, parsley sauce. Ginormous chiogga beets vinaigrette with arugula from today’s FM. Desset was a lemon, peach, yogurt , verbena cake, peach sauce and peach sorbet.

@Smithy The crust is more like a pâte brisée, 125g pastry flour, 63 g butter, “ some grated Asiago cheese”, fresh herbs, a tablespoon-ish of tomato paste and harissa, 2-3 T sour cream, salt, a little sugar. Not sure a puff pastry crust would work well with this type of tart, but perhaps the phyllo could work ..worth a try!

@Shel_B thank you so much. I just wrote down what I did so I hopefully can recreate it. Any veggie would be nice on top.

Tart du jour is a ricotta, pistachio , zucchini tart. The zucs were broiled and set aside, ricotta, Asiago, pistachios were added to the frozen crust and baked for 25 minutes. The zucs / tomatoes were added and the tart was returned to the oven for five minutes. A dusting of Asiago and a sprinkling of herbs and lunch was ready. We had this with an arugula salad and lemon mustard dressing .

Mini galettes , blackberries, blueberries, raspberries. I think these deserve a scoop of ice cream on top.

Tomato tart, a swipe of tapenade, followed by grated Gruyère , tomatoes. A little more grated cheese, and some basil oil brushed across the tomatoes. Baked about 25 minutes, then removed and dolloped with basil pesto.

Crabmeat trifecta, some Chesapeake Bay jumbo lump provided us with a bounty of crab dishes. linguine with crab, fresh herbs a smidge of garlic, white wine and butter. Risotto,saffron, poultry broth, white wine, shallots, fresh herbs including tarragon and a very light dusting of fennel powder. Crabmeat salad, evoo,chives, parsley, a wee bit of sour cream/mayo, Sprinkle tomatoes, avocado, vinaigrette.

@paul o' vendange Thank you. It’s an adaptation of a Donna Hay pear tart, it’s mostly almond flour.

Never let a good thing go to waste! A nice dollop of pastry cream was an excellent addition to the fruit tart. ( Green figs, cherries, blackberries, raspberries and blueberries.)

@paul o' vendange That is an amazing picture, how wonderful your brother had kept it. i saw a TV clip of Graham Kerr a few years ago, apparently he is living in California .

@rotuts i think after having cataract surgery, my biggest surprise was the increase and clarity of colors. I told my DH that i needed to redecorate.

I have two, “ Dessets by Pierre Hermé” and “ Chocolate Desserts by PH”. ( I just went to look for my “La Technique” book and can’t find it. I hope it turns up, a treasure.)

And the proof is in the crème pat…raspberry tart, pastry cream, Pierre Hermé pate sucrée. With a tip of the hat to @JoNorvelleWalker for the quick and easy method for the delicious pastry cream 😋

I’ve been making various versions of Sbrisolana, an Italian “ crumbly” cake, frequently made to be broken off into pieces for serving. These have fresh fruit with a little jam to bind the fruit. One version was with a layer of ricotta and jam, which I’m Intending to make again when I get the artisan ricotta in the next few days. Fresh cherries were cut into eighths along with a smidgen of sour cherry jam was one of the fillings, another was quartered blackberries with a little raspberry/ lemon jam. These are 5” cakes, so four small pieces are the yield.

@JoNorvelleWalkerThanks for posting this, can’t wait to try! And it’s wonderful! Vitamix 2liter container, was quicker than I anticipated, have it chilling in an ice bath .