Jam tarts

After my first surgery, because Mike had been literally waiting on me for weeks at a time, I finally made him the blackberry jam tart he's been asking for every year when our blackberries are in season. The first ones I made were 4-inch blackberry pies, which he devoured, but then informed me that they weren't what he wanted. He wanted a tart shell, filled with jam, and topped with a lattice crust, the way his mother used to make.

After I was speaking to him again (never tell your wife that the blackberry pies she spent an entire day making, including picking the blackberries, were not the pinnacle of dessertness; I forgave him primarily because I had used packaged pastry crust), I agreed to try again. I picked another basket of blackberries and cooked them until they were soft, then passed them through my food mill, then continued to cook the juice with sugar to taste until it was thick.

While it cooled, I made the pastry crust, following the Cook's Illustrated "fool-proof" recipe, rather than using my old stand-by. Well, they never met this fool. It calls for chilled shortening, as well as cold butter. My shortening was not chilled. I scooped out the amount called for and put it in the freezer to chill, hoping that would do. Then, I got out the food processor, measured the dry ingredients into it (doubling the sugar), realized that I should have held out one cup of the flour, so scooped it back out with a soup spoon, and proceeded to process the butter and shortening in short bursts, per directions. I then added the additional flour, at which point it became clear that the shortening was not cold enough, as it blended into a paste, rather than clumping.

Then, following the recipe, I dumped it all into a mixing bowl, wondering all the while how this was saving me time. I don't have a crew of dishwashers. Couldn't I just have cut the shortening and butter into the flour in that bowl, the way I always have? I even have a pastry blender, which is a whole lot easier to clean than a food processor.

So, I sprinkled on the cold vodka and the cold water and pressed it in with a spatula, as per the directions. It seemed very soft to me. That was when I discovered that it had to be refrigerated for 45 minutes or up to 2 days. Errrrghhhhh!

When I pulled it out of the fridge, it was still really soft, but at this point, I did not have any more time to wait, so I sprinkled my pastry cloth liberally with flour and rolled it out. It rolled like a dream, but when I tried to roll it around the pin to transfer to the tart pan, it drooped and sagged and fell off the pin as I lifted it from the counter. After a few more tries, I gave up and just pressed it into the pan, doing my best to make it even. I then blind baked the crust for about 20 minutes, let it cool, and filled it with the now room temperature jam (which was absolutely fabulous -- such concentrated blackberry flavor, it was almost too good).

Here is where I lost it. I rolled out the remaining dough, cut it into strips, and tried to pick them up. Maybe 3 inches would lift before it would break. A few choice expletives later, I dumped a cup of flour on the pastry cloth and kneaded enough into that dough to make it manageable, rolled it out, cut the strips, laid them out, and baked the thing.

Mike, poor thing, got quite an earful when he got home from work, consisting mainly of "All I want to hear from you is how this is exactly what you wanted. I do NOT want to hear how your mother did it!"

He must have meant it when he said it, as he ate two pieces that night, another piece at breakfast, and had to call me to come and get him from work because . . . because you should not eat three pieces of blackberry jam tart within 12 hours. Despite the near-disaster with the crust, it still came out light and flaky and crispy.

I still don't know why the "fool-proof" pastry failed -- was it because the shortening was not cold enough? Because of the extra sugar? The kitchen too warm? I didn't leave it in the refrigerator long enough? There was enough left to make another crust, so I popped it into a plastic bag and into the meat drawer.

And got it out today to use for a fig jam tart, way more than 2 days later. The figs are ripening and he spent the morning vacuuming and doing the kitchen floors, to say nothing of having been saddled with cooking duties for the past three weeks.

Rolled it out, flipped it into the tart pan, weighted it down and blind baked it while I made the fig jam -- figs cooked down with sugar to taste and a couple of tablespoons of the limoncello I made last year, since we're out of lemons. I would have used port, but I used the last of that for the Christmas pudding. Let everything cool, pureed the figs with my immersion blender, spread the jam in the shell and stuck it in the fridge. The bits of crust that broke off are as flaky and crispy as they were 2 months ago. The fig jam isn't quite as rich as it would be with port -- but needs must.

Having tasted it, I'd call it more of a "fig puree" tart than a jam tart -- fig jam doesn't jell so much as thicken. Very tasty, but the texture is not quite right. Next time, I would not puree the figs, just chop them roughly and leave some pieces for texture. Still, Mike has had two pieces . . . 

I really think the next time, I may follow the Cooks' Illustrated pie dough recipe as far as ingredients go, but I'll just cut the shortening (which is now in the fridge) and butter into the flour, rather than messing with the food processor. I know they use it on Master Chef, but . . . I'm not on Master Chef.