Two Years!!! (Maple Hazelnut ButterTart Squares)

Since this is my first post of 2010, I guess a Happy New Year is in order! I hope all of you have had a great start to this new year and that you will have the inspiration, energy and passion needed to reach success in all of your goals. How wonderful it is to get a fresh start every new year!

I can hardly believe my blog is 2 years old today! I feel like it was just yesterday that I decided to post a few photos and recipes and see what would come of it. 130 some posts and 122 followers (!) later, I'm still at it, albeit a little inconsistently lately. Balance is hard to achieve between obligations and the things I love to do, choices have to be made. I'll get there though, that's what life is all about!

I want to share one of my family's favorite desserts with you today. When I get a request for pecan pie but I don't have time to make the pie dough, I make these squares. They're so easy to make, almost too easy, I could have them everyday! For a change I used hazelnuts and golden raisins in this batch but you could use walnuts, pecans, currants, dried cranberries or pretty much any combination of dried fruit and nuts you like. As I said, it's all about choices!!! :)


Maple Hazelnut Butter Tart Squares
adapted from here and here

for the base:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup all purpose flour

for the topping:
1 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1 tbsp melted butter
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cups golden raisins (or other dried fruit)
1/2 cup toasted hazelnut, skins removed, coarsely chopped (or other nuts)

To make the base:
Line an 8 inch square pan with parchment or aluminum paper. Set aside.

In a large bowl, with your mixer of choice, cream the butter and sugar together well. Add the flour and mix until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Press into the prepared pan and bake at 350F for 10 to 15 minutes. The base with be golden when ready. Don't over bake it as it will become hard but don't under bake it either or it will be too soft.

To make the topping:
Combine all the ingredients for the topping and mix well.

Spread the mixture over the base and bake at 350F for about 30 minutes. The top will be golden and cracked and beautiful!

Let cool to room temperature in the pan then cut into squares. Top with whipped cream or the ice cream of your choice.

TWD - Chocolate-Crunched Caramel Tart

I remember the day I got Baking from my Home to Yours in the mail. I was so excited to finally flip through its pages and look at all the drool-worthy photos and read the delightful descriptions Dorie writes of every recipe. They were all quite tempting but one caught my eye and it has been known around these parts as the "I-have-to-make-this-tart-now" tart. Since I was just starting Tuesdays with Dorie at the time, I didn't want to try any one recipe just to have it be chosen by someone soon after. I really wanted to make the recipes as they were chosen. So I waited. Why didn't I choose that recipe when my turn came up? Perhaps because of the tart crust (I've always been a wee bit scared of them), or perhaps I was just as intrigued by the Chocolate Armagnac Cake as I was tempted by the Chocolate-Crunched Caramel Tart. In any case, here we are now and I finally had THE perfect excuse to make this tart!

You guys all know how much I loooooove caramel, right? And chocolate, well that goes without saying. But peanuts, eh, they're not my thing. Since the recipe calls for honey roasted peanuts I always thought I might use pecans, almonds or cashews in the tart, but then on one trip to the grocery store, I came across a bag of honey roasted cashews. Honey Roasted Cashews! I couldn't believe my luck! This was going to be one great tart.

I had really, really high expectations of this tart and it lived up to them and then some! The silky ganache, the perfectly sweet and salty caramel, the crunchy contrast of the honey roasted cashews and the crispy cookie-like crust, all come together into one perfect dessert! It couldn't even be wrecked by the fact that I forgot to buy some unsalted butter last weekend and had only half of what was needed for the ganache. Even if it really was worth the wait, I would recommend you not to wait as long as I did to make this tart. If you don't have THE book (and you should!) visit Carla over at Chocolate Moosey and get thee that recipe right now! You will not regret it! And be sure to pay a visit to the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie bakers for a massive dose of baking inspiration!

TWD - Parisian Apple Tartlet

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe has to be the simplest one to be chosen, at least since I joined in the fun! Puff pastry, apples, a little sugar and butter and you're done! I was a little bit disappointed in the puff pastry I bought. I got it at a local bakery but I think it had been in the freezer a bit too long because it didn't puff up quite as much as I had expected. And I must not have used enough sugar, my tarts turned out a bit bland. Oh, well, nothing a gigantic scoop of vanilla ice cream can't fix!

Visit Jessica's blog, My Baking Heart for this week's recipe and the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie gang for tartlets galore!

Tuesdays With Dorie - French Pear Tart

You guys all know by now that (most) every Tuesday is Tuesdays with Dorie here on my little blog because I, with a zillion other bloggers, am baking my way through Baking from my Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. Though I only joined last April, our little group recently turned one and to celebrate, today truly is Tuesday with Dorie as Dorie herself chose the French Pear Tart as this week's recipe.

I'm still not very good at making pâte sablée/sucrée so that was the part of the recipe that intimitated me the most. To make matters worse, I realized I was out of confectioner's sugar, which the recipe calls for. I decided to throw caution to the wind and use granulated sugar instead and to use one whole egg instead of just an egg yolk to help the dough come together. And you know what? I liked it better that way. I had a lot less problems patting the dough into the pan and in the end, the crust turned out perfectly crumbly and buttery.

The rest of the recipe is a breeze, smells fantastic as it bakes and tastes out of this world good! As the almond cream bakes into the crust, it gives it an almost candy-like texture and taste. And the soft pears contrast really nicely with the cruchy crust. I'm telling you, this is a fabulous tart.

I strongly advise you to try this recipe out for yourselves, I promise, you won't be disappointed! For the recipe, you can buy Baking from my Home to Yours (and if you like to bake, you should!) or you can visit Dorie's blog. How cool is that? Don't forget to check out the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll for more freshly baked goodness!

Warm Days Ahead

Living in Québec means that in the winter we get extremely cold temperatures and a lot (a LOT) of snow. So much so that I sometimes wonder if the snow will ever melt. Well, the snow has indeed melted and gone with it are the days of craving warm soups and cup after cup of hot chocolate. Instead I’ve been making sandwiches and craving lemonade.

To me lemonade has to have the perfect balance of tartness and sweetness. Once again using the trusty Food Blog Search widget, I found the Perfect Lemonade courtesy of Elise at Simply Recipes. Making lemonade couldn’t be simpler and really, I don’t know why I’d never tried it before! The kids totally loved it and they were so impressed that lemonade was something we could make ourselves.

I think its important to show them that a lot of things we find ready made at the grocery store can be made right here in our kitchen. And that homemade beats store bought any day! Summer is only just starting and I can’t wait to try a few lemonade variations. Something to make the warm days ahead a little cooler.

CLICK: The photo at the top is my entry for this month's CLICK event hosted by jugalbandi. CLICK Yellow for Bri is a special edition of the event and you can find out more about it here and here.

A Little Tartness, For a Change

Usually, when I get a new cooking magazine, there’s at least one recipe that catches my eye right away. And usually, I don’t stop thinking about it until I make it. This happened with a recent Ricardo magazine. It’s a special issue, all about gardening and even though I have no garden and no space to even thick about gardening, I got the mag anyway, for the recipes.

The recipe I couldn’t stop thinking about was the Ground Cherry and Vanilla Compote. I just love ground cherries and I was so intrigued at what pairing them with vanilla would do that I could almost taste it. So when I saw beautiful ground cherries at the supermarket, I jumped at the chance.

This is such an easy recipe, very simple and so satisfying. You get the sweet tartness of the ground cherries with the scent of the vanilla and the touch of lemon that comes through. And the golden amber color of the compote just makes it even more mouth watering. It is totally worth using one whole vanilla bean.

And since I had some brioche dough leftover from the last Tuesday with Dorie recipe, I baked it off into a loaf and spooned the compote over brioche slices. I couldn’t ask for a better dessert. Which by the way served as my birthday dessert. I mean, after the cutie patootee cupcakes I made for Olivia, the Pecan Honey Sticky Buns I made for Tuesdays with Dorie, and the next TWD recipe, which I haven’t even made yet, procrastinator that I am, I needed to make something a little lighter.

And this was perfect, just sweet and tart enough to change from the rich desserts we’d been having lately. But don’t worry, a rich, dark and sinful dessert is coming up soon, very soon.

Ground Cherry and Vanilla Compote
Adapted from Ricardo Magazine, Special Gardening Issue

* The recipe says to pour the compote into sterilized jars but I just kept mine in the refrigerator.

4 cups ground cherries
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 vanilla bean or 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

In a saucepan, mix together the ground cherries, the sugar and the lemon juice. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and with the tip of a knife, remove all of its seeds. Add the seeds and the bean to the pan. If you use vanilla extract, add it only after the compote has finished cooking. Stirring frequently, bring the mixture to a boil. Simmer for about 25 minutes or until the cooking juices are slightly syrupy. Remove the vanilla bean and pour the compote into sterilized jars. Serve with toast, cookies or vanilla cake.