Baking Friday - Pie # 1

SUCCESS!

After last week's fail, I was starting to lose a little confidence in this whole idea, but I forged ahead regardless.  And this week's entry was a success!  Comments like "fantastic!" and "very good" and "keeper" and "is there raspberry liqueur in this?" could be heard in the cubicles of work on Thursday.  (Which if you have Chambord on hand, that would be a great addition to the raspberry puree!)  One friend even remarked about the tasty way that the white chocolate shavings played with the whipped cream, but I'm getting ahead of myself!

Step back, Deb. Take a deep breath and start back at the beginning.

This is my Valentine's Pie for the 2014 Friday Baking project.  And when I think Valentine's, two things come to mind when it comes to food - chocolate and red.  Red from raspberries and strawberries.  I don't think Red Velvet because I still haven't figured out what "red" is supposed to taste like, but that's a story for another day.  But since I've now seen Red Velvet M&M's on sale for Valentine's, well, I may have to tackle Red Velvet before Valentine's is over.

Valentine's is also all about our sweethearts.  And my sweetheart likes French Silk.  And really?  Who doesn't?  What is not to like about butter and sugar and chocolate beaten to silky oblivion?

Nothing.  Absolutely nothing!

But French Silk is just a bit too easy, and only covers the chocolate half of the food equation.  I needed something red.  And thought of raspberries.  So this is a French Silk Pie laced with a raspberry puree.  Only I didn't want a full pie, because Valentine's is also all about special and pretty and small, so I decided to go the tart route.  And finally I wanted a sweeter cookie type crust, but not a crushed cookie crust.  I still wanted a pastry crust but more like a cookie.  So I settled on the Murbteig pastry from Helen Fletcher's New Pastry Cook book.  This is a very tasty Viennese shortbread cookie that we've baked from Helen's book for years.  We have cut them in fluted rounds and hearts, and these are the cookies S&K's cookie girl handed out at their wedding instead of flowers.  We LOVE this dough!  I've never used it as a crust before, but I hoped this would work, and other than the shrinking, I think it worked well!

Ready?  Here we go!  But to keep you motivated, here is a picture of G's slice of the Valentine one.  (I actually made two tarts - one for my sweetheart and one for work.  And just so you know, G said that this was pretty awesome!)

Cuts up kinda pretty, don't ya think?!

Tuesday night - the crust, the raspberry puree and the chocolate hearts.

Let's start with the Murbteig crust.  Here is the recipe that I used, but since the crust shrank a bit more than I liked, I would add another 1/2 of flour to give it more strength and stability the next time.  The normal dough includes the peel from one lemon, but I didn't want the lemon flavor with the chocolate, so I left it out.  Here is what I used (slightly different than Helen's original).

1/2 cup sugar
2 - 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (10 ounces)
1/2 t. salt
1/2 pound butter, refrigerated (I used salted, but obviously unsalted would be great)
2 egg yolks
1 whole egg
Splash of vanilla

I measured the flour - and yes!  The flexible cutting board idea from a few posts ago worked great on the scale!  I was able to measure all 10 ounces together rather than splitting into two measurements like I had to on the waxed paper.  Keeper idea!

Combine the sugar and flour and salt in the food processor and mix about 5 seconds.  Cut the butter into a number of pieces and circle over the flour-sugar mixture.  Process about 20 seconds until the butter is fully incorporated.  Add the yolks and whole egg and vanilla and mix until a ball forms (about 30 seconds) and then another 10 seconds after that.

Shape into a disc, wrap in plastic and refrigerate.

Next came the raspberry puree.  This was a 10oz. package of frozen sweetened raspberries that I pureed in the food processor first and then pushed through a strainer (since I don't have a food mill!) to remove all of the seeds.  This probably took the longest dedicated time of anything I did Tuesday night.

Here we are at the beginning of the process...

...and here we are at the end....about 15 minutes later.

I added 4 T. of sugar, 1-1/2 T. of cornstarch, 1 t. of lemon juice and then cooked over medium-high heat until thick and bubbly.

I let it cook about a minute longer.  Then I added a pat of butter and a splash of almond extract before covering it with plastic wrap and refrigerating overnight.

The last thing I did on Tuesday night was make the chocolate hearts for the Valentine tart.  I simply melted milk and white chocolate and spread them out on parchment paper.  This is one time when I needed to use perfectly clean parchment, and I should have spread it a bit thinner.  Then I chilled it in the fridge for about 10 - 15 minutes until it's just about set, but not totally.

And then I started cutting hearts with a small cookie cutter.  They didn't all come out perfect, but I got a few good ones in both the milk and white - and anything that didn't cut right or the scraps just got collected to use again later.

I tucked these in the freezer and went to bed!

Wednesday evening - Bake crusts, French Silk Filling, Assembly

At Helen's direction, I rolled the crusts between sheets of waxed paper, and if the dough got too soft, I would place it in the freezer for 5 - 10 minutes and go at it again.

Beginning...

...middle...

...and end - lined with foil and rice before going into a 325 degree oven for about 20 total minutes.  Next time I wouldn't weigh them down, and I would bake at 350.  You can see a bit of the shrinking I mentioned in the picture below.

But they released from the rim ok, so I moved forward!

Now I was ready for the French Silk filling!  I used a normal filling - the same one you can find many places on the internet.  I did a normal recipe for splitting between the two tarts, but since there was some shrink of the crusts, I had about a ramekin worth left over.  Tragedy!  Oh the problems we cook's face!

We're almost to the finish line, folks!

Next I added the raspberry puree, but I warmed it just slightly in the microwave to loosen it.

Then I took a spatula and began to gently swirl.

And that is where I ended Wednesday night.  I slid both tarts in the fridge and let them set up. And went to bed!

Thursday morning - Garnishing!  Fun!

I garnished both tarts using a little bit of magic with whipped cream, fresh raspberries, chocolate hearts and chocolate shavings!  FUN!

First the Valentine's look for my sweetheart. This was easy, folks - a few mounds of whipped cream, a quick shell heart of whipped cream in the middle, raspberries on each whipped cream mound, and then a few of the chocolate hearts here and there.  And suddenly, it's Valentine's Day!

But for taking to work or any everyday sort of way to dress it up (and since the price of raspberries is WAY high right now!) I garnished with mainly chocolate shavings.

Ya know those hearts that didn't turn out quite right?  Oh yea, baby!

Imperfect heart?  Meet Mr. Knife.

Broken heart?  Meet Ms. Grater.

And there you have it, folks!  SUCCESS!

I am now 1 for 2.  I'm batting .500 folks!  I am ready for major league baseball!

Or not.  But I can at least throw a ball NOT like a girl, thanks to my friend, S, who took the time years ago to teach me.  Yadi isn't worried, or anything, but I can at least throw better than the dad from the car commercial...

I hope you've enjoyed this journey, and that I might have sparked an idea or two of how you might want to make a Valentine's treat for your sweetheart!

And I hope you come back next week for Baking Friday - Bread # 1!  Seeya then!