Monday, March 10, 2008

Tarts and Bentos

You can tell that I have a paper due when I bake a lot. It is nice because I can study and take time out to bake and it calms me.
Saturday I made lemon poppy seed shortbread cookies. They were a nice little snack to have around, I just took a plain shortbread cookie recipe and added 3 tablespoons of lemon juice and about 4 tablespoons poppy seed. You have to chill in the fridge a lot longer since the lemon juice adds more moisture. I have been craving citrus sweets.

Then Sunday was my brother law Andrew's birthday, and I wanted to make something that I have never made before. I have never made a tart and I have always wanted to try a recipe from my French-American culinary hero, the Latartine Gourmande. She has beautiful recipes, but her food photography has a special place in my heart. The recipes also have interesting stories that accompany the food. So I decided to be brave and try her Lime Cream Tart with Sweet Almond tart shell. I was in the kitchen all day! Her recipe is for the tarts to be bite sized, but I don't have petit four tins, so I made one tart with my tart pan from daiso.
The shell was fairly easy.... I wish mine was a little more pretty, but that will just take more practice on my end.

The lime custard was harder, I cooked it in a water bath on too high a temp and it curdled. When this happend, my phone was ringing and Andrew and his girlfriend showed up all at once. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I let it cool and took a break. After it chilled in the fridge for awhile, it got it's proper consistency back!!!! All was well in the world again!!!!!
I added a little shaved dark chocolate to the custard and filled the tart shell.
The tart is very yummy, best enjoyed in small doses so that you don't overdose on the flavor. Funny thing was that we never ended up eating the birthday tart on Andrew's b-day, we were all too full from dinner!


Here is our bentos that we had today, we both worked and I finally got to enjoy my bento at the office. The sakura shaped veggies are in honor of the cherry blossoms I am currently enjoying here in Portland. On walks I will stop and just soak in the blossoms at random. Each day there are more and more!
Bunny's had pork and salad, mine was my favorite bread and cheese with a salad.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

You make the cutest darn food. I don't even know if I'd want to eat it it's so cute! That was nice of you to make Andrew a birthday tart! He acts all cool about it but he really appreciates that sort of thing. :D

daydreamer said...

Hi bunbun,
Your bunny cookies look so adorable!

Dchao said...

Looks so good!

You should take pictures of the cherry blossoms...
Oh I miss them so.

mushroommeadows said...

That's so funny! I bake when I'm studying, too. :)

I love how you cut your veggies in flower shapes. Yummy. :)

average rai said...

Those cookies look like they would melt in your mouth. Lemon poppyseed is my favorite! My mom always used to make a lemon poppyseed quickbread. Beautiful pictures as usual.

bunbun said...

Awww, thanx!!!!!!

Actually Andrew hasn't had any tart
yet. Is is just me or are tarts more of a lady dessert? Casey really liked it, but I think I should have maybe made a cake.

Rai: I would love to hear your mothers quickbread recipe. I am going to make your buns tomorrow, hopefully.

dchao: I had a little sakura photo session this afternoon!

Anonymous said...

Yummy...!

average rai said...

I e-mailed my mom for the recipe. I'll post it as soon as she gets it to me!

Unknown said...

Hi bun2, I LOVE THIS POST, sakura flowers are my favorite, i've never seen one here with our 365 hot summer holidays! the only ones i saw was some miserable few flowers on a dead sakura tree imported from japan. Can i put up a post on this and steal your sakura pics and put the link back to you? please...., if not, its ok - no problem, its just im so in love with this particular post on sakura, so forgive me if i'm going a bit crazy :)

and you make your own bento...how sweet, wished i could make some for my kids too, and you like HELLO KITTY!!! i'll take note of that too :)

Oiyi said...

I love the bunny shortbread cookies!

amy said...

The cherry blossoms made me feel happy to see. (I was feeling down in the dumps.) I cannot get over the beautiful pictures you take. Everything you make and eat looks so healthy yet so delicious. It's like you eat all of the yummy foods that you see in the gourmet cookbooks.