Tarte au citron: A Taste of Summertime

I love lemon tart for the same reason I love lemonade, lemon curd, really, lemon anything! It's because it tastes like summer sunshine. :)

I was immensely pleased with the lemon tart recipe I found last year. It tasted like *real* lemons with not a whit of cornstarch or food coloring in the filling! You will be amazed at how good this is. :)

This is the recipe I started with. I copied it below, courtesy of David Lebovitz- Living the Sweet Life in Paris

Lemon Tart

One 9-inch (23 cm) tart (recipe below)

This makes a modest, but very tasty lemony layer. If you want more filling, feel free to double the recipe; any filling that you don’t use can be spread on toast, fresh biscuits, or scones.

You could substitute fresh lime juice for the lemon and if you have Meyer lemons, reduce the sugar to 1/3 cup (65g). You can use a favorite tart dough recipe, or the one I’ve linked to.

1/2 cup (125 ml) freshly-squeezed lemon juice
grated zest of one lemon, preferably unsprayed
1/2 cup (100 g) sugar
6 tablespoons (85 g) butter, salted or unsalted, cut into bits
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks

One pre-baked 9-inch (23 cm) tart shell

Preheat the oven to 350F (180C.)

1. In a medium-sized non-reactive saucepan, heat the lemon juice, zest, sugar, and butter. Have a mesh strainer nearby.

2. In a small bowl, beat together the eggs and the yolks.

3. When the butter is melted, whisk some of the warm lemon mixture into the eggs, stirring constantly, to warm them. Scrape the warmed eggs back into the saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and almost begins to bubble around the edges.

4. Pour the lemon curd though a strainer directly into the pre-baked tart shell, scraping with a rubber spatula to press it through.

5. Smooth the top of the tart and pop it in the oven for five minutes, just to set the curd.

6. Remove from the oven and let cool before slicing and serving.

Now for the French Tart Dough recipe- I love this, because I can't abide making pie crust! It always sticks to the waxed paper. :P No rolling out here!

French Pastry Dough

One 9 (23 cm) tart shell

Adapted from a recipe by Paule Caillat of Promenades Gourmandes

90 g (3 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 tablespoon vegetable oil (I used canola)
3 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
150 g (5oz, or 1 slightly-rounded cup) all purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 410º F (210º C).

1. In a medium-sized ovenproof bowl, such as a Pyrex bowl, combine the butter, oil, water, sugar, and salt.

2. Place the bowl in the oven for 15 minutes, until the butter is bubbling and starts to brown just around the edges.

Do be careful with the hot bowl of butter. Not only will the butter spatter a bit when you add the flour, but it’s uncommon to have a very hot bowl on the counter and easy to simply give in the urge to grab it with your bare hands.

3. When done, remove the bowl from oven (and be careful, since the bowl will be hot and the mixture might sputter a bit), dump in the flour and stir it in quickly, until it comes together and forms a ball which pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

4. Transfer the dough to a 9-inch (23 cm) tart mold with a removable bottom and spread it a bit with a spatula.

5. Once the dough is cool enough to handle, pat it into the shell with the heel of your and, and use your fingers to press it up the sides of the tart mold. Reserve a small piece of dough, about the size of a raspberry, for patching any cracks.

Enjoy! This is a super easy recipe and it's a wonderful dessert for a hot day! :) -Rachel

Hot Cross Buns! :)

"Hot cross buns!
Hot cross buns!
One a penny, two a penny
Hot cross buns!
If you have no daughters
Give them to your sons.
One a penny, two a penny
Hot cross buns!"

Gracie and I made Hot Cross Buns today! :) I read that they were a traditional Good Friday treat, and so I made them today....on Saturday. :P You can read about their history HERE. It's really quite interesting! :) The recipe I used is below....
Buns:
7 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. each of nutmeg and cloves
pinch of salt
1 cup chopped raisins, craisins, currants, etc.
2/3 c. diced, candied orange peel (I just peeled two oranges, diced up the peel, and tossed it in sugar, since I didn't have real candied peel)
2 eggs
7 tablespoons butter melted
4 1/2 tsp. yeast
1 1/2 c. milk, warmed

Crosses:
4 tablespoons cold butter
1 cup flour
Cold water

Step One: Mix together flour, sugar, spices, salt, raisins, and orange peel.
Step Two: Make a well in the center and add melted butter and the eggs. Mix well
Step Three: Mix yeast in the milk with a pinch of sugar and proof a couple of minutes, then add to flour mixture.
Step Four: Form 2 dozen buns from the dough, and put on cookie sheets.
Step Five: With hands squish butter into flour until crumbly, add water to make a pie-crust-like dough. Roll out into strips and lay on top of buns in cross shape.
Step Six: Cover and let rise 30 minutes while you preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Step Seven: When baked, bring out of oven and while warm, brush on a glaze of milk and powdered sugar boiled together until sugar is dissolved.
Enjoy these scone-like buns! :)

Recipe For Foccacia Bread

Hey guys! I was making foccacia bread yesterday, and I thought I'd share the recipe with you guys! (I don't know if anyone pays attention to recipes anyway, but I'll try this time! ;)
Okay. So here is the basic recipe:

Rachel's Focaccia (foe-cotch-a) Bread Recipe:
4 1/2 tsp. yeast
4 cups warm water
4 tsp. natural cane sugar
5 tbs. plus 1 tsp. olive oil
4 tsp. sea salt
8-10 cups white-wheat flour
By the way, this makes enough focaccia bread that our family of 11 ate it for dinner last night with left-overs, and there is still a pan for lunch with my grandparents today. If you are a small family, just cut the recipe in half or so! :)

Okay. So I started by grinding out white spring wheat in our Whisper Mill. There's nothing like freshly ground wheat!

Then I combined the yeast and the sugar in one cup of the warm water. I let this proof for about 5 minutes. Think it's puffy enough? :)

I added the yeast mixture, along to the remaining water, oil, and salt in our mixer. Then I slowly added the flour until it formed a nice ball of dough. At this point I turned it out on the floured counter, and kneaded it till it was... well as we say, "smooth as a baby's bottom". :) I made a nice, smooth ball and put it in a greased bowl to rise on the warm front porch for an hour or so. Meanwhile, I crammed some more of Ivanhoe. (Still trying to finish it! :)

When the dough is done rising, you grease two pizza pans, and dust them with cornmeal. I didn't have any, so I used flour. It works the same way.

Here is the dough after it has risen!

You then divide the dough in half, and roll each piece out to roughly the size of your pan. Plop that in the pans, and cover it. Let rise again for about 1/2 hour or so. After that is done, comes the fun part! You get to poke a bunch of holes all over the top and dimple it. Brush the surface with olive oil.

Here's where I go off the recipe: I like making a mixture of dried herbs to go on the top. So I just grab whatever is in the cabinet, and make up a mixture that is spicy and tasty enough to suit Daniel and Dad! :) I think I used basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme, onion powder, and garlic powder this time. Sprinkle whatever you decide to use on the top.
Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, or until golden brown on top.

So here it is when I took it out of the oven!

And here is a piece after it is cut! This has become a favorite recipe in our family! Hope you enjoy it! :) -Rachel

My Favorite Illustrator

Hey guys! Before you read this, make sure you go on down to Sarah's post below and see all the pictures of our snowy-day fun! Okay, most of you know that I love Tasha Tudor's illustrations. They are so timeless and beautiful! One of my dreams-that-will-never-some-true-since-she-is-deceased is to write a book and have Tasha Tudor illustrate it. But anyway, Mama found a really neat website about their family, and about her home, and it sells a bunch of really neat things, so if you want to learn more about this intriguing lady, click here. Also, here is the recipe for snow-cream. It tastes so good! I just made it with Gracie, and it is so much cheaper to make than icecream!

Snow Cream:

One gallon (16 cups) fresh, clean snow

1 cup heavy cream or sweetened condensed milk

3/4 cup sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

Mix all ingredients and return outside to stay frozen until you eat it! Yum!

More From Auld Mary, The Yarb Woman

Hey guys! Pardon the strange title. That is my official name when I do my herbal things. (I got it from a Little House book so blame them!)Okay, here I go! As I have already stressed my love of God's blessing in the way we can use herbs, I won't bore you by repeating it. But here are some of my latest accomplishments (or scrapes. You decide)

I undertook the task of making an all-purpose scrape, bruise, bump ointment, because as we all know, there are countless opportunities to use such a thing, and it is alot of fun to make. Or so I thought. One batch of burned herbal oil later, I have discovered that you must be very particular with a gas stove. You can't heat oil directly on it, so I decided, 'Ah-ha! I'll make a double boiler!" so there I go making a tidy little double boiler out of a pot with a glass bowl nested inside. That batch burned too. We were treated to a very suspicious-smelling fragrance all through the house though! (Yuck!!! :p) The reason? All the water had steamed out of the bottom pot. So I made a slapped-together version of a double boiler, and babysat the oil, and finally had the proper thing finished. I used equal parts of St. John's Wort, calendula, and comfrey in vegetable oil. (I burned all our olive oil! Shame on me! I hate wasting!)Anyhow, after straining the oil from the herbs, (or vice-versa) all that was left to do was add beeswax, and pour off into a glass jar. Voila! There! I have my first first-aid ointment.
Next I'm off the make cough drops. I just got a recipe online, and if they work, I'll post it! But here comes the one that absolutely cracks me up. It is a remedy for all the convenient little sores, burns, sprains and things that the children show you by the dozens at choretime! ;) Anyone should have the ingredients to make it. Ready? Mama's Cure-All Remedy
cayenne pepper
vinegar
garlic oil
strong peppermint oil, etc.

You shall probably get the idea by now. Make it smell bad, and sting, and soon enough there will be no more convenient ailments from the little ones! Isn't that brilliant? A lady at church told me about it. Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed reading about my little mad-cap experiments, and I hope I don't blow anyone up anytime soon!
-Rachel

Rachel's Crumb Cake

Cheerio! Since I am going to be so busy the next four days, I thought I'd share a really good recipe I made yesterday for breakfast. Everyone likes Crumb Cake right? This is the good kind: almost more crumb than cake! :) It turned out really well! But I would next time add a little lemon zest to the cake, and a bit more vanilla. Anyway you look at it though, this is a great, figure-fattening breakfast cake! (Like anyone is looking for a fattening breakfast! :)
Without further ado I present:

Rachel's Crumb Cake

2 Tbs. oil
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used white wheat as usual)
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients. Pour in an ungreased 9X13 baking pan, spreading to edges with spatula. Sprinkle topping (see below) over batter. Bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes, turning pan after 15 minutes. Remove, cool, and dust with powdered sugar before eating. Cut into squares.

Recipe for the Crumb Topping :) 2 1/2 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar (I used Demerara sugar)
2 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup butter, melted

Combine all ingredients until crumbly. sprinkle over batter.


So anyhow, the recipe book said that it would serve 6. I don't know what they were thinking! It served 10 of us with good sized pieces, with left-overs! :)
Hope you enjoy this recipe, and tell me how it turned out if you used it! -Rachel