Mini Strawberry Tarts

Peter came over and since he lacks any kitchen accoutrements at his dorm, we decided to satisfy his cravings for some home cooking. We had some fresh strawberries on hand, time, and a hankering for sugar. Since we were waiting for food to be delivered (from ATE Comfort, super yummy and cheap in the San Diego area) He called his mommy, and she gave us a pastry crust recipe. I googled and found a custard recipe. Good teamwork.

Tart Crust

• 1 cup flour
• pinch of salt
• 1 T Sugar
• 1/4 t orange peel (optional)
• 4 oz unsalted butter
• 1 T Water
• 1/2 t vanilla
• handful chocolate chips

1. Mix dry ingredients together
2. Cut butter into dry ingredients
3. Add water and vanilla
4. Mix until holds together
5. Refrigerate for ~20 minutes until cold
6. Divide up dough into 6 equal parts. Press dough ball into muffin pan with fingers. Push to cover bottom and sides. Try to make it an even thickness ~1/4 in.
7. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. You might want to check after 10 minutes.
8. Put chocolate on bottom while still warm. Spread chocolate out on bottom when melted.

Strawberry Filling

• 1.5 cups fresh strawberries
• 3 T sugar

1. Cut strawberries into slices
2. Sprinkle sugar on top, and mix

Custard Sauce

• 1 c Milk
• 1/4 c Sugar
• 3 Egg yolks
• Ice

1. Heat milk and sugar until simmering, without stirring.
2. Take off heat, add slowly to beaten egg yolks
3. Return to burner, and let mixture thicken until coats back of spoon. Be careful not to overheat and cook the egg.
4. Take off heat and stir over ice until cool
5. Place in fridge until cold,

Tart Assembly:

1. Wait until the tart shells are cooled off.
2. Spoon a bit of custard into the bottom of each shell.
3. Assemble strawberry slices on top. If you can do it artfully congratuations, if you can't it's still yummy.

Makes 6 mini strawberry tarts.

You'll probably have a lot of leftover custard, mmm. Put on ice cream, dessert, or your spoon.

Strawberry Scones & Cupcake Craziness

I like alliteration.

But that really doesn't have anything to do with this post besides the title.

Anyway, I didn't cook much at all this past week because it was busy-busy-busy and I still suck at time management.  I did eat a lot of salad and hard-boiled eggs.  But I -did- manage to bake a couple things (real food? pshhhhaw...), and will now share them (or at least, photos of them) here~  Two recipes to recommend today:

First off...

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with Rose Buttercream Frosting~

Recipe from: Joy the Baker

The recipe lists all "organic" ingredients, but my (monetary) resources are somewhat limited, and I gotta move everything outta the apartment in a month or so, so buying a whole new *organic!* set of ingredients would have been...stupid.

Otherwise, both recipes were quite simple and reliable! :D
About the buttercream: What I adorrred the most, is that it doesn't use powdered (confectioner's) sugar!!  Instead, the frosting is thickened with a milk-flour mixture.  When making the milk-flour mixture, it doesn't ever actually need to boil; you just need to heat it until it's steaming a little, and it'll thicken up just fine.  I did notice that after a day or so in the fridge there was a bit of a not-so-smooth crystallization thing happening that probably doesn't happen with confectioner's sugar based frostings (don't really know, I don't usually make frosting...), but taste was still fine.  Compared to store-bought and other frosting recipes, it's not as sweet, but I still found it pleeeenty sweet enough.

 I made these on Easter day (4/4/10), so these were decorated to go with that lovely commercial-Easter kinda theme.  They were also frosted with some Betty Crocker vanilla whipped frosting I picked up at Safeway a while back, instead of the rose.

Concerning rosewater (that's how you get rose flavoring in the buttercream): You can get a nice, 12-oz (I think..) bottle of it at Whole Foods for $3.99 (or was it $2.99?  either way, less than $5).  That's cheaper than an itsy-bitsy bottle of vanilla at some places (definitely cheaper by-the-ounce than anywhere else).  Wow.  And it feels like such a luxurious, gourmet flavoring~  Don't try drinking it straight, though.  Please, please trust me on this.  Seriously.  Don't.

...and another set decorated with the vanilla store-bought frosting.  I gave these to some of the sophomore guys in my fellowship--the chocolate cake is our sinful lives before Christ, the red sugar the drops of blood Jesus shed, the white frosting the forgiveness and grace with which He purifies and covers our sins, and the egg representative of new life in Him.  Complex, cheesy (not in actual, physical taste! just in meaning), and...eggy all at once.  Yeah, I'm aware that the toppings look like bloody fried eggs...

and to finish...

Strawberry Scones! ^^

Recipe from: Confessions of a Tart (cute name, yeah? XD)

These were the first shaped/cut/then-baked scones I've made in a couple years.. you know, where you pat the dough into a circle and then cut triangle slices out to bake..?  yeah.  I usually just do drop scones because it's a lot easier and much less messy.  But I had a lot of extra strawberries, and I figured, as a scone-lover, I really ought to give these a try..

They were pretty yummy, and really not as much of a pain as I'd imagined (even the cutting in little butter cubes part).  The strawberries were quite juicy, and it all turned out rather tasty~

*J2 Special!* Strawberry Coffee Cake

This entry is special!

Why so special?

Because it's the first one we've made together this year AND uploaded to the blog. :D

Strawberry Coffee Cake, recipe from Joy the Baker

yayyy~ :'D

Look it's so puffy! Look it's so sweet. Look, I am hungry all over again.