Apple Tarte Tatin + The Pixies "Wave of Mutilation"

The last time it was this Cherry & Blueberry Tart and The Clash's "London Calling".  This time? Apple Tarte Tatin and The Pixies' "Wave of Mutilation". It seems I have found a formula that works for salvaging whatever bad mood may hit.


Apple Tarte Tatin, a classic french dessert with apples, caramelized sugar and a flaky crust, falls nicely into my recent category of culinary fascination: butter heavy french dishes. Also, it really isn't fall without some baked apple desserts, right? Besides requiring a careful watch, and sometimes nearly 3 hours of time from initial prep to final presentation, this is a very simple and easy dish to make. The key is allowing the sugar and liquid to cook down enough to reach a caramelized stage, without loosing track and allowing it to burn to the bottom of the pan.

Cherry Blueberry Tart - And How To Salavage A Bad Day

I made this tart with the 4th of July in mind- red cherries, blueberries, and pastry cream seemed like a pretty patriotic combination (though I will admit, the egg yolks, vanilla and liqueur in the pastry cream turned it a bit yellowy/tan rather than white) and since I have been trying to make desserts inspired by holidays this year (my green st. patty's day cake was a hit) I decided to make this to continue the theme.

As it happens, the day I made this was shaping up to be JUST NOT A VERY GOOD DAY. Things were not going my way, and I felt angry and hurt by a series of events that morning. I was hesitant to start a project while feeling that way, worried that I would not be able to concentrate and put my best effort in. After some convincing from my favorite (and only) sister, I ended up discovering that making this tart was in fact just what my day needed. I turned on London Calling (which makes for great "I'm angry and I'm gonna bake things!" music), threw on my apron, and sang along while I worked. And I may have danced a bit. I am sure I looked like a fool, but by the time the tart was done, not only did I have a delicious dessert to show for it, my bad mood had been magically repaired. And I knew how to make pastry cream.

Zucchini & Thyme Tart

Is this not gorgeous? I spent Saturday (as usual) at work. All day I couldn't stop thinking about food, I imagined all the recipes I might try when I got home, and day dreamed about cooking courses I could sign up for in the area, I mused over ingredients I could stop and buy on my walk home and new ways I could challenge myself. Part way through my work day, an old friend called me. We decided to have dinner together, and I was nearly ecstatic knowing I would have someone to cook for that night, an opportunity to try out one of the dishes I kept thinking about. I decided I wanted to make a savory tart. I looked at recipes for quite some time online, and even emailed one of my roommates and asked him to check my favorite cookbooks at home, but in the end I improvised. This zucchini & thyme tart is simple and elegant, and tastes just as good at room temp, so you can make it ahead, or even bring it to a potluck to one up the standard pasta salads.

I made the crust from scratch using the Flaky Pie Crust recipe by Mark Bittman in How to Cook Everything, which is quickly becoming one of my most trusted resources; I made the filling by mandolin slicing zucchini which I then quickly sauteed with olive oil, garlic, fresh thyme, salt and pepper and dried herbs, and layering it with finely shredded Gruyere and Parmesan cheeses. The outcome was savory and delicious, not to mention beautiful. And each step of the process was pretty easy.

Sunday afternoon baking- Chocolate Fudge Tart

                   Consulting my cookbooks for a good sunday afternoon baking recipe.


There is one reason I will probably never be a great baker. Baking involves math, my worst enemy. If you were to ask me off hand "what is 7 + 45?" I would probably break down crying before I could give you an answer. Especially if counting on fingers isn't allowed. So far, I have managed to get away with doing quite a bit of baking without encountering much math at all. Today that changed.

This morning I decided to bake a simple chocolate tart. I went to the grocery store, and picked up my supplies (the store, by the way, was a mob scene due to the current water emergency in the Boston area, lines down each aisle of people eagerly waiting to buy bottled water, most stores have already sold out) and hurried home to get started. No sooner than I took my ingredients out of the bag was I slapped in the face with a real life, contextual math problem. The kind of thing math teachers always say will happen, how you will use math in your everyday life and be grateful that they taught it in school. Well, I guess that all never really got through to me, because as I thought it through my mind could not make sense of any of it.

If I have a 500 gram bar of chocolate, and the recipe calls for 140 grams, and my bar has 40 squares....how many squares do I need for this recipe? My pulse quickened, and my breathing grew labored. MATH RELATED ANXIETY ATTACK!  How can I ever hope to bake well if I can't figure out how many damn chocolate squares this tart will need?