Is it a pie? Is it a pudding? Is it a cake? No, it’s clafoutis. Or maybe it should be called a flaugnarde since it doesn’t have cherries in it as a dignified clafoutis would. This baked custard contains apples (preferably from Normandy) with a dash of Calvados (if you have it). Simple but perfect.

First, whiz the pie crust ingredients in a food processor and roll out. Or, you can skip this whole step and make a baked custard instead.

Then, slice and bake the apples until golden.

Finally, whisk the custard ingredients and assemble the dessert. Bake at 375° for about 30 minutes. Check it earlier if you’re making individual servings. The custard is cooked when the point of a knife comes out clean.

Recipe for Clafoutis Normand (Apple and Cream Tart)

Serves 6


Pâté Brisée Sucrée
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup cake flour
1 egg
1 tablespoon water
Pinch salt
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 egg, lightly beaten, for glazing

Baked Apples
3 apples (preferably Golden Delicious)
1 lemon, halved
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1 tablespoon Clavados (I left this out)
1 tablespoon sugar

Custard
1 egg yolk
2 eggs
¼ cup sugar
1 ounce fine-ground almonds (about ¼ cup)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup crème fraîche or heavy cream

You can find the recipe for Clafoutis Normand (Apple and Cream Tart) in the book Le Cordon Bleu at Home.

Tasting Notes
I love pudding, so this dessert is in my "make-again" pile. I made it both with a pie crust and without (since I ran out of leftover pastry). The crust gave it some texture, but I prefer the baked custard version, even though it was a touch darker than it should have been.

Bucket List
Pick an apple in Normandy

More Clafoutis
• No Special Effects: Tartine's Cherry Clafoutis (Clafoutis aux Cerises)
• Cooking with Amy: Julia Child's Clafouti Recipe
• Gastronomer's Guide: Plum Flognarde
• Nourished Kitchen: Flaugnarde with Roasted Berries

Next Time
Crème chantilly, Crème pâtissière, Crème anglaise, Crème bavaroise
(Whipped cream, pastry cream, Bavarian cream)

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This is such a simple dessert. Baked pie crust + whipped cream + fresh strawberries. It's strawberry season in Ottawa, so I walked over to the fields by my house to the local "pick your own" farm and pinched off fresh, sun-kissed red strawberries. And I used the leftover pastry from last week's Tarte aux Agrumes (Citrus Tart). A quick whisk of whipping cream, and this dessert was ready.


Recipe for Tartelettes aux Fraises (Strawberry Tartlets)

Serves 6


Pâté Brisée Sucrée
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup cake flour
1 egg
1 tablespoon water
Pinch salt
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
7 tablespoons unsalted butter,  cut into pieces
1 egg, lightly beaten, for glazing

1 ½ pint basket strawberries

Raspberry Glaze
6 ounces raspberry jam (a generous ½ cup)
1 tablespoon kirsch (I left this out)

Chantilly Cream
1 ¼ cups heavy cream
¼ cup confectioner’s sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

You can find the recipe for Tartelettes aux Fraises (Strawberry Tartlets) in the book Le Cordon Bleu at Home.

Tasting Notes
What's not to love about this dessert. It's similar to a strawberry shortcake but with a crunch.

Links
Dorie's La Palette’s Strawberry Tart
The Kitchen Sink Recipes: Rustic Strawberry Tart
Confessions of a Tart: Fresh Strawberry Tart

I've always had trouble with pie crusts (or pâté brisée sucrée if you want to be all French about it). But this crust came together easily for me. I didn't use the traditional method of putting the ingredients on the counter, making a well and "fraisage-ing" the dough. I used my food processor, threw all the ingredients in and whizzed until the dough formed a ball. So much simpler, and it was my best crust yet.

This tart (a pie has a crust on top and bottom, but a tart just has the bottom crust) is composed of orange pastry cream and macerated slices of orange and lemon.

Why does fruit retain its shape when heated in sugared water but break down when heated with just plain water?
It is a case of osmotic pressure. If you heat it in plain water, the sugars inside the cell want to cross the cell membrane and try to equalize their concentration inside and out. With sugar in the water, the osmotic pressure is already equal so they don't need to leave the fruit.
Michael at Herbivoracious

The citrus pastry cream (crème pâtissière in French) is an important component of this tart. Pastry cream is just a pudding that’s used as a filling in éclairs, tarts, pastries, cream puffs, cakes, and so on. When making pastry cream, the tricky part is avoiding burning it as the mixture thickens.

Finally, you heat the orange juice and apricot jelly to reduce and form a glaze.

This tart is not difficult once you break it down into its four components: pastry, fruit in syrup, pudding and glaze. But it's the pastry that takes the prize in this recipe.

Recipe for Tarte aux Agrumes (Citrus Tart)


Citrus
1½ cups sugar
1½ cups water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 small oranges, unpeeled and sliced thin
2 lemons, unpeeled and slied thin

Pâté Brisée Sucrée
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup cake flour
1 egg
1 tablespoon water
Pinch salt
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 egg, lightly beaten, for glazing

Orange Pastry Cream
1 cup orange juice, strained
3 egg yolks
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon Cointreau (I left this out)

Orange Glaze
Juice of 3 oranges, strained
½ cup apricot jam or jelly, strained
Fresh mint for garnish

You can find the recipe for Tarte aux Agrumes (Citrus Tart) in the book Le Cordon Bleu at Home.


Tasting Notes
One of my daughters loves any sort of pie, so she enjoyed this one. I don't really like pastry cream, so this wasn't my favorite tart. But the crust was out of this world.

Links

Dorie's The Most Extraordinary French Lemon Cream Tart
Dorie's Tartest Lemon Tart
David Lebovitz: Tarte au citron: Lemon Tart Recipe

Next Time

Tartelettes aux Fraises (Strawberry Tartlets) page 504

It’s time for sweetness and whisking up a Dacquoise, which sounds all fancy schmancy but not when you spell it like this: DAH-KWAH! And though the ingredient list is simple and short, I know from experience that those recipes are the hardest to pull off. So I did some research and found this video (in French) that shows the technique.

Distracted by the caster sugar in the recipe (also known as superfine sugar), I googled images for caster shakers and found an assortment of antique, modern and art deco containers that are now on my wish list. (One was even selling for $1139 on eBay.) I already own a variety of shakers, but you can never have too many beautiful things to hold something sweet.

“fruiter di una torta di noci”
("fruitier than a nutcake" which is a bad translation of "nuttier than a fruitcake")

Back to the recipe. First step is to make a meringue (egg whites and sugar) and whisk until soft peaks form. Soft, firm, stiff. The difference can only be seen, and Kitchn has a visual guide and descriptions to help in that area.

"Soft Peak - When you turn your whisk upside down, the peaks are just starting to hold. They're soft and melt back into themselves after a second." ~Kitchn

Folding in the ground almonds, icing sugar and flour is more fun with your hands.



Finally, it’s time to dust off the piping bag and with one of the larger tips, pipe it into a fun shape. {I used my round egg shaper!} Bake “until done”, as chef at LCB would say. How long depends on your oven, the temperature you use and how big the shape of your dacquoise is. Sometimes, your dacquoise may turn out cakey and other times more crispy like Pavlova. I’m aiming for cakey.

After that, it’s up to your imagination how you want to dress it up.

"If you use chocolate buttercream and chocolate ganache, it's a marquise. If you use hazelnuts in the meringues and bake them in rectangles, with chocolate buttercream and ganache, it's a marjolaine." ~BondC

You can also use other nut meal for variety. Mmmm hazelnuts, chestnuts, pine nuts...

Recipe for Spiced Pear Dacquoise with Chocolate and Red Wine Sauce

Serves 6


Clockwise from top: Dacquoise, Spiced Pears, Chocolate and Red Wine Sauce, Ganache

Dacquoise
4 egg whites
50 g caster sugar
70 g ground almonds, sifted
75 g icing sugar, sifted
30 g flour, sifted

Ganache
90 g bitter chocolate (55 to 70% cocoa)
100 ml double cream
15 g honey of neutral flavour
35 g unsalted butter, softened

Spiced Pears
6 pears
½ lemon
30 g unsalted butter
40 g honey of neutral flavour
ground cinnamon
cloves
ground nutmeg
freshly ground black pepper

Chocolate and Red Wine Sauce
100 g chocolate
½ bottle red wine
3 star anise
20 ml water, only if necessary
30 g caster sugar

You can find the recipe for Spiced Pear Dacquoise with Chocolate and Red Wine Sauce here.


Tasting Notes

Dacquoise has been called one of the best desserts in the world. That might be stretching the truth. But it’s good to know how to make since Dacquoise makes other items on the plate shine. I would love to use the ganache again in another recipe.

Bucket List

Visit Dax, France - Dacquoise takes its name from Dax in the southwestern part of France.

Wish list

Art Deco Sugar Shaker
Tin Can Sugar Shaker

More Dacquoise

My French Yule Log
Ezra Pound Cake: Coconut-Roasted Pineapple Dacquoise from Dorie Greenspan
Zoe Bakes: Toasted Almond Dacquoise
David Lebovitz: Poaching Pears
Sea Salt with Food: Matcha-Green Tea Dacquoise

Next Time

Tarte aux Agrumes (Citrus Tart) in Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook (page 102)

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