Happy *&$%&# Birthday: Part I

So, check this out: I get a voice mail from a friend of mine last weekend, inviting me to a surprise party on the 21st for my friend Francis. And she asked if I would make a cake. Which is fine, but the 21st is MY birthday. Just to be clear: dissed by friends on birthday plus asked to bake.

Now, a better person might get angry. I, however, chose to approach it as a perfect opportunity to casually remind people at how I really felt via my favorite medium: passive aggressive behavior. That is: I said I thought it was funny, and then made sure everyone at the party heard my latest funny story. I also made this:

Raspberry Tart


Crust:

1 1/2 cups flour
1 stick unsalted butter, very cold and cut into 1/2 inch pieces.
1/4 tsp salt
1-2 tsp sugar*
3 tablespoons ice water
1 very good chocolate bar, chopped

*A word: This is my mom's (Mrs. Rathead) pie crust recipe, and I use it for everything, regardless of filling. If I'm making a savory filling, I leave out the sugar. In this instance, I used 2 tablespoons sugar, because I wanted it to be a bit sweeter. You can also use a butter/shortening mix if you want -- it does make a more stable crust, but don't go over 50% shortening.

Place flour, salt and sugar in the bowl of a food processor and pulse a bit to mix. Scatter butter over the top and pulse a few times until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Leaving the food processor running, add the ice water in a thin stream. Keep running until the dough forms a ball. Remove, shape into a ball, flatten, wrap in waxed paper, and let rest in the fridge for an hour or so. This will keep in the fridge for three days or the freezer for three months.

Preheat the oven to 400.

Take the dough and roll out. This will fit a 10 inch tart pan. I actually used two 7 inch tart pans and it fit both of them, but barely. Anway, roll out on a floured surface and get it into your tart pans. Trim the edges and prick all over with a fork. Put back in the fridge for about fifteen minutes. (This all works better if the dough is really cold before you bake it.)

Take a sheet of heavy-duty aluminum foil and butter it. You want to make a butter circle about an inch wider than your tart pan. Place this, butter side down, onto your chilled crust. Make sure it's touching the sides. Put your tart shell on a baking sheet, if you want (it's easier to move around.) Fill with pie weights (I used dried peas).

Bake for 15-20 minutes, then take out and reduce the heat to 375. Let the crust sit for a minute or two while you drink the aroma of toasted pea pie. Take off the tin foil and put back in the oven for about five minutes, until golden brown.

Let cool completely.

Either in a microwave, in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over extremely low heat, or in a double boiler (or, if you're me, in a copper jello mold shaped like a fish over a saucepan of barely simmering water) melt your chocolate.

A word: If you are going to melt chocolate all by itself, I recommend using one with a lower content of cocoa. You know how all the fancy chocolate bars are all "85%" like they think they're better than you? Chocolate with that high cocoa content burns really easily. For this, I used a Valhrona bar with 61% and it melted like a dream. Also, it had hazelnuts in it, which I didn't see when I bought it, but it worked great.

Spoon or pour the melted chocolate into the pie crust and spread with the back of a spoon until the entire bottom is evenly coated. Let cool, or chuck into the fridge for a minute or two to set.



I'll do the rest of this in a separate post.