My Very First Blog Ever

As a member of the Daring Kitchen, I'm supposed to do a blog each month about how my project went. I opted at first not to blog, since I haven't ever done this before, but today I decided to take the plunge. Look at me! I blogging!

So the challenge was actually June's that I'm going to write about. It was the Bakewell Tart. In culinary school we'd have called this a Frangipane tart I think.

I made the tarts with my sister Jennifer, who is the reason I got involved with the Daring Baker to begin with. We made the strudel "together"- me in Washington, she in California. When we got together for our annual Sister's Weekend (this year at Jennifer's house in Sacto.), she and I decided to make the tarts before our other sister, Heather, arrived. (She's not so much into cooking for some reason.)

The recipes were very well written, straightforward, and easy to follow. Jennifer is way into making jam and preserves, so we had a plethora of jammy options. We made a double batch of both the dough and the frangipane, then filled the tarts with plum jam, peach-blackberry-strawberry jam, Nutella, chocolate chips, fresh peaches, apple butter, and lemon curd.

Overall, I'd say that I enjoyed all the tarts, but my favorite was the one with the chocolate chips. We put way too much frangipane on top, and not nearly enough jam. Were I to make those again (and I probably will), I think I'd do stronger flavors, a thicker layer of jam, and most likely I'd add some almond paste to the frangipane.