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pies + tarts

beet tartlets with beet greens pesto, goat cheese, and honey on spelt pastry

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

This morning the sun is shinning bright; we bundle up and make our way out to a quiet spot. It is still cold here, but Spring is whispering: her voice in the steady drips from gutters and rooftops. My family walks in single file down a well-worn path of snow; it is barely white but we still hear a faint crunch as our boots tread it. The children…

baking• dessert• pies + tarts

blood orange pie

Monday, February 4, 2013

[Note: this is a re-post, again. I know, tacky. But! I love this pie, and the original post contained photos that made me cringe. So, when I had a chance to remake this pie, I decided to take some new photos, too.] So, I’m on this blood orange kick. I keep buying bags of them, cutting them open one by one, just to see their pretty purple pieces…

baking• chocolate• dessert• pies + tarts

bittersweet chocolate tartlets with flaky spelt crust + crème fraîche

Thursday, January 24, 2013

I’ve had several baking failures the past few weeks, but these little pretties came out perfect. I had used the bittersweet chocolate filling many times at a coffeehouse I baked at so I knew it couldn’t miss, only then it was in a large tart form with a shortbread crust. But I had been intrigued by Kim Boyce’s spelt pie dough, and decided to try it out here.…

baking• pies + tarts

a little pie party

Monday, September 24, 2012

A few weeks ago Hannah from Honey & Jam commented on Twitter that she could ‘really use a piece of pie right about now.’ I had just made a pie; it was sitting proud and pretty on my kitchen counter, and so I tweeted back, wishing I could send her over a slice. Stephanie from Desserts For Breakfast and Beth from Local Milk also chimed in, and we…

baking• pies + tarts

rustic grape tarts

Thursday, August 23, 2012

roasted grapes [haiku] I am taken with you: alone, or sleeping with covers of sweet crust. We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne. – Marcus Aurelius Rustic Grape Tarts Tart dough recipe from Cooks Illustrated These tarts are fairly easy to…

baking• dessert• pies + tarts

rustic tarts with my sister

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Part One: Kindred [Celia and Rosalind, like sisters] “I was too young that time to value her, But now I know her. If she be a traitor, Why, so am I. We still have slept together, Rose at an instant, learned, played, eat together, And wheresoe’er we went, like Juno’s swans, Still we went coupled and inseparable.” -William Shakespeare, As You Like It Part Two: Lamentations If I…

baking• pies + tarts

raspberry tartlets with amaretto cream

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

My Dear and Lovely Winter, Today we were working in our garden. I was incredibly crabby, because [as you’ve probably figured out], I’m a terrible gardener: so, so impatient in that space. There was an ungodly amount of scraggly, prickly weeds taunting me, not to mention all the raspberries about to fall off the bush, herbs on the verge of flowering, and a big pile of compost to…

baking• chocolate• dessert• pies + tarts

french silk pie

Monday, November 28, 2011

Thanksgiving has come and gone. Somehow it creeps up, every year, and I’m just not ready for it. Like Linus I try to catch a glimpse of the Great Pumpkin, but it whizzes past me, leaving my head spinning and my pants a bit too tight. We have three celebrations with three different branches of family, and while I feel the warm glow around me, the memories all…

baking• dessert• pies + tarts

raspberry streusel tart

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

I was asked to host a dinner party. The menu was to be from America’s Test Kitchen’s latest book, The Menu Cookbook [There is a post about the whole evening here, on The Feed, if you’re interested]. It was a lovely time, filled with good food and wine, family and friends. This little pretty, pictured above was dessert. And it was delicious. The raspberries were oh so tart,…

pies + tarts

plum walnut crumb tart

Sunday, August 28, 2011

I couldn’t resist these little plums. They jumped out at me as I walked through the store, and my daughter squealed with delight as something so tiny and so purple was put into our cart. I came home to find the Smitten Kitchen had posted a recipe for a Hazelnut Plum Crumb Tart. It was meant to be. Except I didn’t have hazelnuts. So I did some tweaking,…

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