Manzanna: Lesson 17: Tarts

After weeks of non-stop savory, savory, savory, finally we had our first...

PASTRY CLASS!

I am a connoisseur of raw dough. I've spent many years refining the technique of snatching inconspicuous pieces of pie dough when my dad's back is turned. Today, my skills must have been a little rusty, though, because my pastry professor caught me munching and wagged her finger at me with a face that clearly meant, "How pathetic!" Hm. A little embarrassing.

In spite of my fixation on dough foraging, I managed to glean some tidbits that will help make your dough superb, whether you're a mature adult who possesses this new-fangled thing called "self-control" or a...hedonistic glutton.

1. unlike with breads, you want to avoid the formation of gluten, which makes the dough hard; so we had to keep kneading to a minimum

2. there are three types of tart dough:

- sucrée (sweet dough)

- sablée (crumbly, cakey offshoot of sucrée made with the butter creamed first instead of "cut" into the dough)
- brisée (all butter basic pie dough; used for both sweet and savory tarts)

We also talked about variations on a basic fruit tart, which I decided to practice today at home...
- you can replace part of the flour with another dry ingredient like cocoa or almond flour
- you can add essences or chocolate to the pastry cream after you've made it
- you can infuse the pastry cream with citrus or spices as you heat the milk

I tend to think normal fruit tarts are too sweet and soggy, so I decided to add some salt and some crunch to these babies.

And so, I present two jazzed up fruit tarts (all made with sucrée dough and pastry cream):

1. Mango Mint Tart:
- I put whole mint leaves in the milk I used to make the pastry cream (but fished them out before mixing in with the rest of the ingredients)
- after assembling, I put more chopped fresh mint on top
- I also added toasted and slightly salted pumpkin seeds (I would probably add some other kind of nut in the future, but nuts are sooo expensive in Buenos Aires...)