Sunday, August 29, 2010

Free-form Apple Tartlets

First of all, thank you all so much for your encouraging comments about my photo!
I feel very loved.

I was invited to a pARTy yesterday and I made these little apple tartlets and some plum tartlets to bring along.
These are a great little dessert to make with kids.
The Elder Hug-a-Bug was very helpful with the stirring of the filling as well as the forming of the tartlets.
Also, these are a good project for people like me who don 't have very much skill with the detail work of pie-making.

To make these first cut up some fruit, sprinkle said fruit with lemon juice, sugar and cinnamon and mix, then you roll out pie crust to an eighth of an inch, cut into 4 pieces, prettily arrange the fruit in the middle of a piece and pull the dough up around the edges.
Chill the tartlets while the oven is heating up.
Then bake for 15 minutes at 400 degrees, brush with egg white and sprinkle with sugar, then bake another 15 minutes.

I used an amazing pie crust from Cook's Illustrated which uses a mixture of flour, butter and shortening along with vodka and water for moisture.
Apparently the vodka inhibits the gluten production and makes the crust more tolerant of handling.
The first time I made this crust I bagged the shortening and just used Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks, since it's basically margarine that tastes like butter.

I'll share photos of the project from the pARTy later today, I still have some assembly to finish.

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