Thursday, May 10, 2012

La Palette's Strawberry Tart Goes Chocolate


I know. Another recipe from Baking From My Home to Yours. But this one features strawberries (available now fresh anywhere in the northern hemisphere). I made it in February, when the first organic local strawberries showed up at Trader Joe's. They were beauties, sweet and floral, juicy, and the first harbinger of a spring that was way too early this year, at least in our area.

When the berries are fresh and luscious, it masks almost any error one might make, like over baking the tart shell, nuking cold ganache until it almost broke, forgetting the original recipe also called for strawberry jam, and fumbling the berries so they tumbled randomly into the shell (I had every intention of an artful design, but you know that's just not me). I had planned to use both the jam and the ganache (my addition to the recipe), but completely forgot. We didn't miss it. It would have been a shame to cover the strawberries' flavor with jam. Hindsight...

I have a tart shell crust that I've fallen in love with, and it's the one from The New Best Recipe from Cook's Illustrated. It doesn't look like it from this photo but it's very easy to work with (I mauled it once it was in the pan). It's like a buttery shortbread, and that's a good thing in a tart shell.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

That looks amazing! I bet the jam would have taken away from the taste. I would absolutely buy that from a bakery!

Anonymous said...

I'll have to try out the tart shell recipe. It sounds like a good one.

TeaLady said...

this was sooooo easy to put together. And that crust does look/sound good. Next tart....?

Tumbled strawberries work for me!