Gorgeous! If they are in fact plums, I'm even more impressed. I can't pit the damned things without mangling them all to hell.
Yup, those Italian prune plums, quartered.
4: Oh, that makes more sense. My first thought was: portabello mushrooms marinated in balsamic? Which would actually probably be good but an unusual choice for a tart.
Ooo. Now I want Stanley's tart. It'd need a layer of carmelized onions in it somewhere.
Now I want Stanley's tart
Sexist *and* a home breaker!
My first thought was where did you get all those tiny artisanal hedgehogs but I'm pretty tired.
8: Just one, actually, cored and spatchcocked.
Now I can't be impressed with myself for making a pumpkin pie with fresh pumpkin. Shit.
Yes you can, custards of any kind are hard. Particularly when you're working with something like fresh pumpkin, that's got an uncontrolled wateryness level.
My mother-in-law used to make a totally wonderful version of this pie. Quetschekuche.
Different crust, though. Yeast dough, not unlike a pizza.
Beautiful. Do you have to do anything to mitigate the moistness of the plums, so the crust doesn't get all soggy?
It may be soggy -- I haven't had a piece yet. The recipe calls for a teaspoon of cornstarch sprinkled over the bottom crust (partially prebaked), which presumably thickened the juices released by the plums. I'll know if it worked after dinner.
If you eat a big enough slice, you'll have about three hours before it works.
11: I'm sure you did very well, Moby. For a guy.
That looks cool. Does it look a little like a chrysanthemum from above?
18: A guy using a crust from the store and a four year old assistant.
That does look nice. Did you blind bake the shell?
On the effects of plums, prunes, etc. I've noticed that they now sell prunes as 'soft plums'. If I'd been on the prunes trade council, I'd have argued for 'softened plums'; even more evocative.
I've noticed that they now sell prunes as 'soft plums'.
I first read about that recently, in this article about corn-syrup producers wanting to change the name to "corn sugar". (And the article says it's "dried plums" but maybe both?)
Partially blind-baked: just enough to firm it up some before putting in the fruit.
The classic example is the changing of "rape seed oil" into "Fanta."
Quetschekuche.
Accordion pie? Crimped pie? Or is Quetsche a dialect word for Zwetsche?
We saw a Quetschebaam here in Msla yesterday.
http://www.theworldwidegourmet.com/products/fruits/quetsche/
So, that's what it is in English, too. Check out the 'eastern recipe' at the bottom.
I might try two teaspoons of cornstarch next time; it was pretty juicy. The crust stood up to it, though.
It really looks fantastic. And I have 2 pounds of French prune plums (presumably almost the same thing?). And guests coming to dinner tomorrow. I might have to try this - that is, if LB would be so kind to share her recipe. Otherwise, I'll probably just try something with pastry cream in the base. Or do a crumble, like I usually do with plums.
I think I can recommend 28 to 33.
I saw that! Mine are not the dark purple-black plums, but instead the lighter sort occasionally sold as "sugar plums." Same shape, though I think the lighter variety are considerably sweeter. I won't have the time to make brioche, sadly. I will probably end up making the ginger-plum crumble from Orangette that I make all the time.
I seem to have fig trees in my 'yard', any clues if and when I can eat them, or similar looking stuff that is bad for you? I generally find store bought figs underwhelming, but the fresh off the tree ones I ate in Dalmatia were wonderful.
36: Yes. When they're ripe.
That's facetious sounding, I know, but generally it's pretty easy to tell a ripe fig - the scent is overwhelming, the skin looks about to burst, and sometimes droplets of moisture will appear on it. Color depends on the variety. Generally the same tree will have two fruit-bearing seasons in a year; one in late spring and one in fall.
Wildish figs are very common in California. IANAB, but I've never been warned off from eating them. You can also use the leaves as you would grape leaves to wrap things for the grill, etc. (Not as edible as grape leaves, though.)
This tart is pretty simple: blindbake a pate sucree crust for 7-10 minutes until it's just starting to firm. A teaspoon of cornstarch (maybe two) scattered over the bottom crust, fill with quartered plums, sprinkle 1/3 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg over the top, bake 45 min at 350F. Glaze with melted apricot preserves. (Thank you Rose Levy Berenbaum.)
Congratulations: that looks very tasty and nothing at all like a pie giving birth to an alien.
36: Figs are ripe when the wings of the wasp are dissolved enough that you can't tell it was a wasp.
39: That was what Buck said -- he walked into the kitchen and recoiled in horror. Said it looked like a pie that would eat your face.
Said it looked like a pie that would eat your face.
Aw. I feel obligated to share: at some point last night, a hipster friend of mine (he's really pretty much the stereotype of hipster at this point; he's donning a mullet, for instance, and just because he can) asked if he could check his "face space" (the vernacular in his subculture for the Book of Faces we've all come to know and love). I handed off my laptop without closing the open tabs, leaving him staring down a photo of LB's confection, whereupon he exclaimed, "Yo. That is one dank-ass pie."
All of which I take to mean he was very impressed. Notwithstanding having called it a pie.
My baking career feels complete now.
he's donning a mullet, for instance, and just because he can
Isn't that kind of ten years ago? He should grow a rat tail.
You don't just grow a rat tail. The rat tail finds you when you are ready.
I'm looking for Megan. I'm her new look.
Anyone with a rat tail now is just going to seem like a pale imitation of the "dude, you have no Quran!" guy.
Isn't that kind of ten years ago?
Is it? I feel like it's old-hat at this point, but the "Dude, you have no Koran!" guy definitely had something in the genre of the hairstyle to which I refer. It's around.
On preview: exactly, essear.
47: and that's so bad? Dude's gonna be in High Times!
When you get right down to it, though, a mullet is really just a bunch of rat tails clustered together, right? Like a rat-king tail.
We must prevent the assassination of the rat king!
With a fancy internet phone, I can now sneak over there to look at apo's links. Unfortunately, I still end up taking a phone call or something, while 216 pixels of TFT LCD beam out a pile of dead rats to anyone who walks by my desk. The future. Hmph.
If your cell phone screen is 18x12 pixels I'm not sure anybody's going to be able to figure out what it's a picture of.
It's probably one of those 2x108 pixel phones.
I want a phone with a 6x6x6 display.
I meant 216 pixels-per-inch. Um. My phone rang. Or something.
36: Don't touch the figs.
51: well, that's a little bit of awesome I was unaware existed. My week is shot now.
60: oh, it's amazing. I highly recommend plowing through the entire archives.