Almond tart with caramel filling and shortbread crust

This is yet another egg less yummy tart particularly good in fall or spring as the base is like a rich shortbread. This won the Food52 contest for "your best late winter tart". Other than caramel making (which I am kind of getting comfortable with after many many failures in the past), I would say it is quite easy to put together.  If it is not already clear from my last three posts, I love baking tarts and trying out different flavors.

Serving: 20 small pieces

Ingredients:

Shortbread Crust:
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup confectioners sugar (preferably buy confectioner's sugar which are sold in plastic bags)
1 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoon (3/4 cup) unsalted butter (cold, chopped in small cubes)
zest of one orange (or two tangerines)
~ 3 tablespoon fresh orange juice

Filling:
1/2 cup superfine sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 orange blossom honey/blue agave
1 cup extra heavy whipping cream
3 cups sliced almonds (toasted, I used 8oz pack of sliced almonds from Trader Joe's)
 2 teaspoon fresh orange juice
1 teaspoon fresh orange juice + 1 tea spoon warm water for brushing the tart base

Procedure:

1) Line a 9.5 inch tart pan with a parchment paper
2) In a stand mixer, pulse flour, confectioner sugar, salt, butter, orange zest. Slowly add one tablespoon of orange juice at a time and pulse again. You will need about 3 tablespoon of juice to bring everything together in form of a ball. Pulse slightly and carefully until the mixture starts to form a ball.
3) With your hands, spread the dough in the tart pan and on the side of the pan working with you palm and fingers
4) Chill the pan for  1 to 4 hours ( 1 hour minimum)
5) Heat the oven to 375 degree F
6) In a heavy bottomed sauce pan, add superfine sugar, brown sugar, honey, two teaspoon orange juice and mix everything gently.  Turn the heat to medium low and allow the mixture to melt while stirring gently.  Cook for 5-7 minutes until the mixture darkens and caramelizes. Make sure you don't over cook (burnt taste) or under cook (not a liquid form and you can still see crystals)
7) Add heavy cream and increase heat to medium. Cook the mixture for another 8-10 minutes until it thickens. Most of the time mixture will be boiling so decrease the heat setting little bit if the mixture wants to come out of the pan :)
8) Mix one teaspoon orange juice and one teaspoon warm water, apply this mixture to the chilled tart base with a brush
9) Stir in sliced almonds into the caramel mixture and spread the mixture into the chilled tart pan.
10) Bake for 30 minutes and lower the temperature to 350 F and continue baking for another 15 minutes
11) Remove from oven and let is cool completely and serve with whipped cream or as is. Make sure to cut a very small slice as a small slice goes a long way for this tart.
12) If you end up storing some in refrigerator, warm the slice for 10 seconds in microwave or for 1-2 minutes in oven at 350 F.

Easy and Tasty Egg less Peach Tart

Tarts are one of my favorite desserts comprising of layers of deliciousness with crusty base, smooth filling and a distinctive topping. Endless combinations exist which closely change seasons in terms of filling and toppings.

Peaches are in full swing at farmer's market now. I wanted to try this recipe that I had bookmarked for a while waiting for peaches to show up in the farmer's market. Tasty peaches make all the difference in this tart.  It is an eggless tart  and is quite easy to put together because of the minimal ingredients it contains.

Ingredients:
(Adapted from the winning recipe for "your best peach pie or tart" in Food52 contest)

Crust:
3/4 cup spelt flour
3/4 cup all purpose flour (or u can use 1 and 1/2 cup all purpose flour and omit spelt flour)
1 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tea spoon salt
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup olive oil (extravirgin or light olive oil)
1/2 tea spoon almond extract
2 table spoon milk

Filling:
3 peaches
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 table spoon cold unsalted butter (pea size pieces)
1/4 tea spoon salt
2 table spoon all purpose flour

- Mix all the dry ingredients for crust  (flour, sugar, and salt) and all the liquid ingredients (oil, almond extract, milk) separately. Combine them together while mixing slightly and not overworking the dough
- Grease a 9.5 inch tart pan or 10 inch tart pan (line with a parchment paper if you don't want to sctrach the bottom of the pan)
- Transfer the crust mixture to tart pan and spread it evenly and firmly with your plam and fingers throughout the pan and along the sides (no rolling required for this crust)
-Preheat oven to 425 F
- Now cut 1/2 inch pieces of peach and arrange them in circle from outside to inside and in the middle while covering maximum area on the crust
- For the filling, mix sugar, butter, salt, all purpose flour with your fingers until crumbly and sprinkle over the peaches evenly
- Bake for 35 minutes to 40 minutes based on your oven settings
- Carefully remove from oven and at this point you will see a lot of bubbles in the pan and let it rest for half an hour.
- Slice and eat :) . This tastes great when slightly warm so in case you endup referigerating the tart (if you are fortunate enough to have any left) warm a slice in microwave for 15 seconds before eating it (you can serve it with whipped cream or eat without it)
- Enjoy this fresh and light treat.

Multilayer date tart (Ranginak)

This is a popular dish from southern part of the Iran where date trees are in exuberance and is usually eaten with a hot cup of tea. What got me interested in the recipe was the familiarity with the ingredients and yet novelty in the way they are combined. Each ingredient in the every layer of this dessert is my all time favorite including dates, walnuts, wheat flour roasted in ghee, pistachio and cardamom powder. Naturally,  I couldn't resist this super high calorie dessert.  Very little use of sugar and natural sweetening with dates gives it a character especially in comparison to my favorite aata ke ladoo where we add a lot of sugar to ghee and aata mixture. It is a no bake tart/dessert however a baked version do exits for this dessert. Also, it reminds me of date crumble or aata/date shortbread and even classic aata ke  laddo.

I am paying some attention to dates these days at the local farmer's market. One of the farmers only brings dates of 5-6 different varieties and is among one of the most popular vendors. My favorite are majool dates (soft and chewy), then there are Bahri (eaten during Ramadan as told by the farmer, also soft and smaller than majool, people in middle east eat them with tea as a sugar substitute)  Farmers also have 2-3 other varieties which are relatively dry and perhaps could be used for chutney/baking.  Soft and fresh dates are recommended for making this dessert. Many variations exist for this dessert, some of which I will discuss at the end of the recipe.

This recipe was adapted from  Food of life ancient Persian and modern Irani cooking and ceremonies by Najmeih Batmangij.   In addition to small changes in the quantities of ingredients, I substituted ghee for butter and wheat flour for all purpose flour as I knew I would like this taste better and I remember reading it somewhere else that it used to be made with wheat flour also. This is the first recipe that I am trying from this book. It is one of my favorite cookbooks these days and I eagerly wait for trying new recipes from this book. Since Persian cuisine had so much influence on Indian cuisine, many recipes sound familiar yet they are so different in the preparation. 

Ingredients:

Layer1:

3 cups of pitted dates (preferably soft and fresh, Bahri or majool)

1 cup roasted walnuts (chopped into small pieces)

Layer 2:

1 cup ghee (clarified butter)

1 and 1/2  cup wheat flour (shifted)

Layer 3:

1/2 cup confectioners sugar (shifted)

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Layer 4:

Garnishing

3/4 cup pistachio (ground)

Procedure:

1.  Lightly toast raw walnuts for about 5 minutes on a skillet on medium heat.
2. Chop them or grind them into big pieces for stuffing in dates after cooling them for little bit.
3. In a thick bottom pan, mix the ghee and wheat flour on low-medium heat and cook the mixture. It took about 40 minutes for me to cook it. (Since there is enough ghee in the mixture, it was sufficient to mix it every couple of minutes to avoid sticking at the bottom. Original recipe called for cooking it on medium heat for 15-20 minutes. I usually like things on slightly more cooked side especially halwa and ladoo so decided to toast it for 40 minutes. Make sure that you don't burn this. When you start smelling beautiful aroma of ghee flour mixture you will know that its ready and also it will change color similar to caramel sauce or little darker than that)
4. Slit one side of date (remove the pit) and stuff with chopped walnuts
5. Grease a 9.5 inch tart pan or a 9 inch pie pan and arrange stuffed walnuts from inside to outside covering maximum space on the pan
6. Once your ghee flour mixture is ready, evenly pour it over the dates and cover them completely. Level it to make a even surface
7. Now mix confectioners sugar with cardamom powder and cinnamon powder and evenly sprinkle over the flour mixture and tap it little bit from the back of a spoon. Soon this will be submerged into the flour mixture and you won't see sugar as prominently
8. Now ground some pistachio and distribute those evenly over the sugar mixture 
9. Let it cool for an hour (put it in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours) and then cut a small triangular piece and warm it slightly for 30 seconds in microwave. Enjoy with hot tea (Note that it will be little soft and crumbly before putting it in the refrigerator so be careful in taking out the pieces if you do not want to put it in the refrigerator . If you do put it in the refrigerator, make sure to microwave it to heat up the flour ghee mixture a bit)

 Variations:

*  You could also just put the flour ghee sugar mixture in the pan and arrange the date (stuffed or without stuffed) on the mixture

** You could put half of the flour mixture at the bottom, sprinkle sugar mixture, arrange the dates and put remaining half of the mixture on the top and use your own artistic idea for garnishing

*** You could just serve the stuffed dates with little sprinkle of pistachios or even add feta cheese or a savory/sweet combination for stuffing to make your own date delights

Warm Chocolate Tart

French are leaders in pastry making among many other things! Often recipes from famous chefs are long and time demanding given the perfection desired. Not surprisingly, I have been looking for recipes by French chefs which are short and sweet for some time now!  One of my favorite places to go and work (or to pretend) on weekends is the public library where I happily take rather frequent breaks to search through the cookbook sections.

Pecan Tart

Tarts are wonderful desserts and almost always I would pick a tart over a cake for dessert:) Joy of tart making is both in the pastry and the filling. Once you have your numbers right for the pastry, the whole new world of fillings open up to make fruit tart, chocolate tart, pecan tarts, cheese tart... the list is endless.

Orange Tian-Daring Baker's March Challenge

Orange tian (March 2010 Daring Baker's Challenge) was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate savings. At first glance, this orange tian felt within my comfort zone because of its similarity with tarts but I knew that this feeling will certainly change soon:) I was particularly excited for this contest because we had an orange tree in our apartment complex and picking up oranges was a lot of fun!

Cherry Tart

Cherry Tart with pecan base and fresh cherry's. A small twist to pecan tart - replacing pecans with cherries on the top - filling is still pecan based. Will upload the recipe soon. Miam-miam !!