Brioche Plum, Nectarine, Peach, and Apricot Tart (Tuesdays with Dorie)

Happy Bastille Day! I went to the Los Angeles Bastille Day festivities in Elysian Park on Sunday, and today Tuesdays with Dorie celebrates with brioche!

For this week's Tuesdays with Dorie selection, Denise of Chez Us picked Brioche Plum Tart on pages 54 and 55of Dorie's book, Baking: From My Home to Yours.

The tart is a brioche dough topped with fruit. Yes, a combination of buttery, rich bread and summer fruit. We were destined for success!

I missed the Farmer's Market this week (again!!) and picked up some nectarines, peaches, red plums and black velvet apricots at my local store. I've never had the black velvet apricot (pictured above)...but its skin is sorta velvety! The inside is like an apricot.

I made the dough last night and got up at 3:20 am to make this tart! If I fall asleep while answering reference questions later today, just feed me a piece of this and I'm sure I'll perk right up.

A layer of peach jam was spread on the brioche dough. Then my various stone fruits were placed on top.

And what happens when you make something before dawn? You "misread" the directions. I thought I was supposed to mix the fruit and sugar together (like a pie) and let things macerate for 30 minutes during the 1st rise in the pan cycle. However, when I reread the directions after the tart was in the oven (yes, this IS the best time to reread the directions!), it turned out the sugar was supposed to go on top of the fruit. Thus, I got no caramelization. Oh well, it's still yummy!

The Brioche Fruit Tart.
It's worth getting up early.

Be sure to check out the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers! I can't wait to see everyone's take on this - I'm sure there will be a whole farmer's market of fruit and jam!

Recipe:
Find the recipe on Denise's blog Chez Us or buy Dorie's great book, Baking: From My Home to Yours!

Dimply Plum Cake (Tuesdays with Dorie)

Itty-Bitty Dimply Plum Cake

For this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, Michelle of Bake-en selected the Dimply Plum Cake (page 41) from Dorie's book, Baking: From My Home to Yours. This came together in two parts...

Round One:
Lots of beautiful plums and a full size 8x8 pan.
Cut fruit, mix and bake.
After 40 minutes, the top was golden and the toothpick came out clean.
But when I cut into the cake, it was crazy raw. Like the raw food movement entered the center of my cake. Except for sashimi, I like my food above 115 degrees.

Round Two:
This time, based on a few factors (including the sad state of plums at the Farmer's Market), I decided to make 1/4 of the recipe in a little 4-inch pan.

Even though it was a 4-inch pan, I baked it for 40-45 minutes (can't remember now...I just keep hitting "snooze" on the kitchen timer). At 30 minutes, I tented the pan with some aluminum foil.

Yippee! I held off the raw food movement (I just don't understand this, by the way - how can you give up hot soup in the winter??!??!) and it was nicely baked!

Whoo Hoo! My cake and Dorie!

Be sure to check out the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers! Next week, creme brulee - yes! more torched desserts! :)

Can I live at Trader Joe’s? Rustic Summer Fruit Tart with Buttery Puff Pastry

Summer Fruits on Puff Pastry

Remember that 80’s movie “Mannequin” starring Andrew McCarthy? When it came out my friends and I talked about what store we wanted to live in. I don’t remember what we selected...but I’m sure someone said Miller’s Outpost, Nordstroms and perhaps Contempo Casuals.

If I were asked that question today, I would answer: Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and a toss up between Surfas, REI, and Yogurtland. Sigh.

My Trader Joe’s is now carrying frozen puff pastry. Made with BUTTER. Yes, all butter! Thank you Mary Jo for mentioning this in your blog, Bash!

Recently, I bought Dufour’s puff pastry at Surfas. Dorie Greenspan says it is made with all butter and better than, without mentioning any names, the Pepperidge Farm stuff in the grocery store. But Dufour cost…get this…$14 a package. I haven’t opened it yet because I’m afraid of messing up and ruining my “investment”!

I’m stoked that TJ now carries puff pastry for $4.99!!! Here’s the package of two frozen sheets.

Wheat flour, butter, salt, sugar, water! I cut off the calorie count...it's better not to know.

I decided to make Everyday Food’s Rustic Nectarine Tart with some additional summer fruits. This is sooo easy. Roll out dough, score the "border", bake off and then add the fruit and have a second bake! Easy. Delicious. and Butter!

The tarts are filled with mango-flavored nectarines from Ken’s Top Notch Produce at So Cal Farmer’s Markets, some yellow peaches, plouts and plums. I heated some apricot jam to lightly glaze the fruit.

I made this in the morning and brought it to work.
The breakfast of champions: Butter and Stone Fruit!

Summer Fruit Galette (Tuesdays with Dorie)

These nectarines and pluots are perfect. And the galette makes them even better.

For this week's Tuesdays with Dorie event, Michelle from Michelle in Colorado Springs selected Summer Fruit Galette on pages 366 - 367 of Dorie's book.

- click to enlarge -

A few entries ago, I made this crust for the blueberry pie. Here's what I did...mind you, I don't know if I'm doing this correctly... Measure dry ingredients and place in the food processor unit (with blade). Cover with plastic wrap and let chill in freezer with the butter and shortening (on separate plate). Process together until small bits appear. Slowly add ice water (from a container of water with 4-5 ice cubes in it). When dough will clump together in your hand, dump onto plastic wrap - it will look loose. Use the plastic wrap to gather together (you can see little flecks of fat in the dough). Let chill in refrig.

After a nice rest in the refrig, I rolled out the dough, covered it with plastic and left it chilling overnight.


The next morning, I place some apricot jam and graham cracker crumbs on the dough. I used 4 nectarines and 2 pluots from my farmer's market. Fold over the sides and sprinkle with sanding sugar.

Midway through, I added some custard filling. I used less than half of the filling...and just waited for it to bake! This was delicious! I want to try it with a dozen different fruits.

Be sure to check out the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers!

P.S. I just got back from a great library conference (Digipalooza 2008) in Cleveland. As Drew Carey says, Cleveland Rocks! I had a great time at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame + Museum - Reading a letter by college freshman Madonna is classic, and Jimi Hendrix's childhood drawing of a UCLA Football player (Go Bruins!) is the best. And I won a Creative MP3 player! You know that one house on the street that all the kids go to on Halloween because they give the best candy? Well, Digipalooza is THAT conference and more. Excellent panels and presenters (really, I learned a ton!), yummy food, embossed swag, fun outings, and the killer part...full-size Snicker bars at breaks. :)

However, I came back to Los Angeles with a cold and a very unhappy cat who I am trying to get to take 28 antibiotics...and she's putting up a fierce fight. Greenie pill pockets? She thought they were frozen pizza and turned her nose at those. Cocktail of liquid antibiotics? It was sugarfree Rock Star to her (Remember this Brian?) and spit it out...all over my duvet cover. I'm down to trying this kitty-TMJ inducing technique but it's not going well. I'll let you know how my recently diagnosed kidney-disease kitty is doing later...