Peaches and cream Breton tart

Oooh my, soooo good! My favorite Breton dough, a thin layer of peach jam, fresh Michigan peaches and an easy custard all baked up into a golden buttery treat. What more could you want on a summer August day?

August and fresh peaches go hand and hand for me. Growing up, my early August birthday dessert choice was most often pound cake with fresh peaches and ice cream. Oh those memories.

Being in a tart mood as I planned some assorted treats for folks down the street, I knew a Breton dough base would be just the thing. While I typically make individual portions for such occasions, my brain asked - how about slices for a change? Two rectangle tart forms coming right up.

I’ve written several times about the beauty of using Breton dough for its versatility. Bake it thick and plain to create a gateau Breton, roll it more thinly and bake it topped with jammy fruit and crumble or make simple crisp cookies to go with your afternoon tea.

When making Breton tarts, I lean towards a thicker base crust to put the texture somewhere between cookie and cake. Thicker more cake-y, thinner more crisp.

As you see below, the straight sided form is slightly wider so I gauged my dough quantity to give me a thickness of about 3/8”, ending up with 400 g of dough for the slighter smaller fluted form and 475 g for the straight sided one. Butter the forms (it helps so much with removal later - trust me).

Place the dough between plastic wrap and roll or press it into its rough shape . . . . .

then transfer it into the form, pressing it evenly and also building up an edge to provide a dam for the upcoming custard. Please note - I left the bottom out of the fluted form - I’ll come back to that later.

Once both forms are “doughed” up, place plastic wrap directly on the dough surface to cover and chill until ready for assembly. The lining step is one you can complete even a couple of days ahead if desired. While the chilling step isn’t absolutely essential, I find that dough always bakes a bit better when it’s cold going into a hot oven.

Heat the oven to 350ºF. Spread a thin layer of peach jam over the dough and bake about 20 minutes to set the dough. You should see the dough risen up and starting to brown a bit.

A quick jam note - every year I contemplate a jump onto the jam making band wagon, yet thus far that process hasn’t finagled its way into my summer repertoire. There are some wonderful jams to be found on well stocked supermarket shelves. I lean toward French made brands like St. Dalfour and Bonne Maman which both offer an interesting line up of flavors.

Before baking

The par-baking gives me just the amount of time I need to prep my fruit and make my easy custard.

Par-baked

For the custard: in a medium bowl whisk together 80 g cane sugar, 160 ml heavy cream, 2 large eggs, 1.5 tablespoons all purpose flour, 25 g almond flour, 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander, a few grates of fresh nutmeg and a splash of vanilla extract. You can leave out the spices if you prefer and, instead of vanilla, add 1/2 tablespoon of peach brandy or your favorite almond liqueur.

The beauty of this custard filling is not only its ease of preparation but you can whip it up earlier in the day and hold it in the fridge - when ready, give it a quick re-whisk to bring it all back together.

Two ripe peaches for each tart were perfect - peel, slice and line them up something like this.

Carefully pour the custard over the peaches as far up to the edges as you can without overflowing (whoops - a little bit there on the left). There will most likely be a bit of custard left.

Bake for 10-15 minutes to start setting the custard and then you should be able to add the remainder, drizzling it over the top. Don’t worry it you don’t use quite all of it.

Bake for an additional 20-30 minutes until the custard is set, a bit puffy and nicely golden.

Looking pretty good!

Cool for 5-10 minutes then gently loosen the edges using a paring knife or offset spatula to reduce the stick factor from any stray custard. As noted on the left above, Breton dough can sometimes sneak out under the edges of open tart forms during baking - just trim away any edge bits.

Cool an additional 30 minutes or so. The straight sided open form should lift off pretty easily. With a removable bottom fluted form, double check that the curvy edges are free before pushing the bottom up to lift it out of the form. Let cool to room temperature.

NOTE: you may have noticed I baked my fluted tart WITHOUT the removable bottom. I find the crust browns more thoroughly that way. For ease of release, I pop it into the freezer for 20-30 minutes to finish cooling and firm it up. It’s much less fragile that way and is easier to remove from the form.

This tart keeps in the fridge a couple of days at least. Slice into rectangles and top with candied almonds for serving.

For the almonds: oven at 350ºF; parchment lined sheet pan; place 1/2 cup sliced almonds in a medium saucepan along with 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup water and 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt; bring to a boil over medium heat and cook 1 minute; strain (discard the liquid) and spread the nuts on the prepared sheet pan; bake ~15 minutes, stirring half way through, until nicely browned; let cool. Keep in a covered container at room temperature and enjoy as a garnish on whatever you fancy!

Let’s just say that all of those who tasted these delectable slices (including Steve, the tasting maestro!) were very happy indeed. I love that.

Summer’s waning, autumn’s coming. Meanwhile please take care of yourselves and those you love.

Lovely color at nearby Meijer Gardens

Oranais aux pêches

Kinda looks like a double yolked fried egg, eh?

As we step ever so eagerly into prime baking season and autumn flavors like apples, pears, nuts, caramel, coffee, chocolate and pumpkin, here’s a farewell nod to the delicious summer fruits of west Michigan. Desirous of doing something a bit different, I opted for my own peach version of oranais.

So what is oranais you might ask? A traditional pastry made with either puff pastry or croissant dough, it’s created with a combination of pastry cream and apricot halves. It may go by a different name in various parts of France, e.g. lunette aux abricots, croissant aux abricots (en Bretagne) or abricotine (sud de la France).

My research revealed that it reportedly originated in Algeria in and around the port city of Oran - hence the name oranais. Did you know that Algeria is fourth in apricot production in the world? And let’s not forget that Algeria was once governed by France so there’s still a huge French influence there, both culturally and culinarily (is that even a word?). By the way, here’s a little historical tidbit for you - Algeria gained it’s independence from France on July 5, 1962.

During our various trips-to and stays-in Paris over the years, oranais is always on Steve’s radar - he loves those sunny beauties!! Frankly they’re not often found in the many pastry shops around town so one has to keep an eye out for a good one. At Le Cordon Bleu Paris we made them with croissant dough, and those that we’ve found in Parisian pâtisseries have been made that way as well. However my online research found that many recipes call for puff pastry.

I decided to give it a go with both. Oh boy!

Since puff is not yeasted it’s more straight forward in its handling - no worries about the dough bubbling and puffing up during the rolling, cutting and shaping. I rolled my puff to about 6-7 mm (~1/4”) thick and cut 80 mm (3 inch) squares.

The rolling out, cutting and assembly process is the same for both puff and croissant dough. Using a classic pastry cream, pipe a line diagonally across the square, place two rounds of fresh peach near opposite corners and bring the other two opposite corners up and over, sealing with egg wash. Sort of like a chubby bowtie.

Remember - puff doesn’t have to rise before baking, whereas with the croissant dough version, give it a 45-50 minute (give or take) rise. I topped the shaped/risen croissant version of oranais with an additional blob of pastry cream and some peach jam in the hopes of keeping the corners together during their time in the oven.

Bake at 400ºF for about 20-25 minutes until the pastry is golden brown.

Puff result

Croissant dough version result

Once out of the oven brush with a vanilla simple syrup or some apricot glaze and let cool.

During the bake there was definitely more slipping and sliding of the pastry cream and peach in the croissant dough version. I had to keep pushing the peach rounds back onto the dough in my attempts at keeping things together.

As for the taste test (the best part, especially for Mr. Steve), we actually preferred the puff version. The flaky pastry and creamy, peachy combo was oh so delicious.

Of course, the croissant version was pretty good as well. After all, anything made with croissant dough is usually a winner.

Bottom line - going forward I’ll be making my oranais with puff. Yes indeed!

Cherry-berry feuilleté and peach buttermilk ice cream

The summer annuals are showing off their colors here in Grand Rapids MI . . . .

lovely coleus in our little garden courtyard

and the summer peaches are out in full force!

Fresh Michigan peaches are one of my favorite fruits.  So of course I've been thinking of the many wonderful ways to use them.  This time I was inspired by a peach buttermilk ice cream recipe from "Food and Wine" magazine.

I followed the recipe for my usual ice cream base (2 cups heavy cream, 1 cup whole milk, 3/4 cup sugar, 5 large egg yolks, pinch of salt) replacing the cup of whole milk with buttermilk.  I blanched 1.5 pounds of peaches, then peeled, pitted, sliced and blender-ized them with a squeeze of lemon juice, folding the purée into the cooled base.

peach purée at the ready

ice cream base finishing its chill down

I usually chill my base in the fridge for a day or two, then process in my ice cream maker and transfer to a freezer container several hours before serving.

I also wanted to use some cherries and blueberries I had on hand to complement the peach ice cream in a dessert I was planning for a family meal.  And, to top it off, there was some reverse puff pastry in my freezer just waiting to be made into something oh-so-delicious.

The beauty of the feuilleté preparation is that I can roll, shape and bake them ahead of time and hold them either at room temperature if using the same day, or in the freezer for a number of days if planning a bit farther ahead.

When ready to fill them, I simply push down the center layers of puff to make room for the fruit mixture that will be mounded in the feuilleté.

I mixed 4 cups of fruit (cherry/blueberry combo) with a teaspoon of fresh lemon juice, 3-4 tablespoons granulated sugar (I like my fruit on the tart side) and 1 tablespoon cornstarch. I then cooked this concoction on med-low heat until bubbly and thickened.

Note:  this quantity of fruit filling was enough for 7-8 feuilletés about 3.5 inches square.

Then I scooped a mound of filling in the center of each feuilleté and baked at 350ºF for about 10-15 minutes.  Since the puff pastry is already baked and the filling already cooked, it's really just a matter of heating everything up.

Once cooled, I topped each one with previously baked matcha crumble (really more for color contrast than taste) and gave them a light powdered sugar dust.

the end result!

I know I've mentioned crumble before in this blog.  It's a great thing to have on hand and is so easy to make.  Make as much or as little as you'd like.  

Simply mix equal weights flour and sugar in a medium bowl, sand in the same weight of cool, diced butter to form coarse crumbs.  In this case I added some matcha powder with the flour and sugar (you don't need much).

Spread the crumbs out on a parchment lined sheet pan and bake at 325ºF, stirring and breaking up clumps every 5 minutes or so until lightly browned and crisp, 10-15 minutes total.  Let cool.

Store in a zip-top bag in the freezer and use at will!

For serving I simply placed a scoop of peach buttermilk ice cream atop each feuilleté (no muss, no fuss) and handed 'em out.

Mmmmmm!

While the ice cream was a bit more icy in texture than I had hoped (I suspect due to using low fat buttermilk rather than whole milk, plus the water content of the fruit purée), the contrast of the tangy peachy coolness with the tart cherry-berry filling and buttery, flakey puff was oh-so-good indeed.

Three cheers for summer fruits!  Hip hip hooray . . . .

Michigan peaches and a rustic crostata

It's peach season in Michigan again!!  Love, love, love it.  The photo below is actually one I posted back in October, 2014 from last summer's crop.  Deelish.

Fulton St. farmers market

It seems this summer has been taken up by trips back and forth between Providence RI and Grand Rapids, MI, as well as all the things that have to be done when moving and buying a condo - changing addresses, setting up new accounts (oh boy - more passwords!!!), spackling/sanding, painting and more, more, more.

Even so, I've been able to whip up a few different rustic crostatas in the past week or so.  Planning ahead for some family occasions I made a 3-crostata batch of pâte brisée sucrée (a slight variation on my usual pâte brisée with the addition of egg and a bit of cream), some of which went into the freezer until needed.  I find the texture and flexibility of this dough lends itself very nicely to the necessary dough pleating for a crostata.

Here is one version I made for Mom's birthday with Red Haven peaches plus a few blueberries (Michigan of course) and raspberries tossed in for extra measure.  Add a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream and you're all set.

nice and juicy

love that fruit

Happy birthday Mom!