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Puff pastry and bacon are cut from the same cloth. The cloth of whatever you are making if you add some bacon or puff pastry, it will automatically be ten times more delicious. That is a fact, not an opinion.

In short, this tart was flaky buttery goodness. Apples, butter, brown sugar, puff pastry (I added some cinnamon at the end, mainly for color). Nick and I split one of the little tarts, and the rest were removed from the premises post haste. I have been doing a good job lately of working out and not being a pig in general, so I didn’t want to derail my work by keeping these evil temptresses in the house. Oh, but they were good!

Nick has made puff pastry a few times, like real deal puff pastry that takes hours and multiple turns. However, we were fresh out so I did buy the all butter Dufour puff pastry. This cost me $10.49, which is why my tarts are square and not round. Sorry Dorie, I am not wasting perfectly good puff pastry just so I can have a circular tart. We did not like the Dufour as much as Nick’s homemade puff pastry. The flavor was better on the homemade which we attributed to the salt content and the Straus butter he used. That said, I would certainly not throw this Dufour puff pastry out of bed and I can’t wait to use it up on more tasty treats.

The bottom line is that this is really easy and delicious and the filling can be adapted to pretty much any fruit that you like.

This wonderfully delicious and easy Apple Tartlet was chosen for Tuesdays with Dorie by Jessica of My Baking Heart. Great pick Jessica!

The one request I get most from Nick of what he wants me to make is pie. It is always “where’s the pie, where’s the pie"? So for his birthday, which was a few weeks ago, I had to make him a pie. No, I wanted to make him a pie, because I love him.

I decided on peach for no particular reason other than peach pie is delicious. I had to use frozen peaches since I did not have time to get to Whole Foods and the Safeway by my office did not have any fresh peaches. So, the filling ended up being good, but nothing spectacular. I followed a recipe from our good friend Joe Pastry. (We mention Mr. Pastry quite often on this blog, and for good reason. If you have not read through his blog, you should do yourself a favor and do that soon.)

The crust of this pie, however, is another story entirely. It is the flakiest most delicious crust I have ever produced and probably ever eaten period. It is probably the closest you can get to making a laminated dough pastry without actually making a laminated dough. I read about and followed the instructions, here, from Joe Pastry. However, the technique originally belongs to Rose Levy Berenbaum, so you know it’s quality.

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This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie is Tartest Lemon Tart and was chosen by Babette of Babette Feasts. This recipe is on page 336 of Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

Being a lemon dessert lover, this was an awesome pick in my opinion. In fact, I had already made this tart and posted about it here. I really loved the filling the first time, so I was excited to make it again. This time I wanted to try to make it into lemon bars instead of a tart. This proved to be successful, and I studded the bars with fresh blueberries after it had cooled. This gave a nice burst of sweetness amid the tarty lemon filling.

My filling was actually a little too bitter this time, I think my lemons must have had more pith than the ones I used before. I am sure my fellow bakers came up with some great ideas on how to reduce the bitterness. I will be on the look out for tips for next time. The only change I made to the recipe was that I used evaporated milk instead of heavy cream in the filling because I did not have any cream in the fridge. Perhaps the richness of the cream would have helped cut some of the bitter taste (or not, because I totally just made that up). However, I still loved these and will definitely make them again. The filling is so thick and luxurious and bursts with gorgeous bright lemon flavor. I would be interested in making this filling with other citrus, maybe a grapefruit next time.

I have said before that Nick and I do not enjoy shortbread crusts, so I made a Pasta Frolla. If you are not a shortbread lover, this is a great alternative for your tart crusts. It seems to stay more tender even after the long baking times and we enjoy the texture over a shortbread.

Overall, this tart is a winner. I can’t wait to see what my fellow bakers thought about it.

That’s about all I could muster up tonight. It’s 11:30 PM and I am writing this through tired bleary eyes. I’m out.

I love bananas. I am bananas for bananas. Sorry, I had to do it.

So I was very excited to make the week’s Tuesdays with Dorie, which was Banana Cream Pie chosen by Amy of Sing for Your Supper. Amy has a fabulous blog that you should definitely take a few minutes to peruse. This was my first banana cream pie and it was totally delicious. Great pick Amy! This recipe is on page 342-43 of Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

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Last night, I attempted to make this. Clearly, something went awry. This was supposed to be an all butter pie crust (pâte brisée) for next week’s Tuesdays with Dorie. It turned out to be a big mess.

Okay, so I just wrote that paragraph and went off to find my link to the ever trustworthy Elise’s recipe on Simply Recipes. I stopped off at a few other search results along the way to see what other bloggers had written. After reading other recipes and rereading Elise’s recipe, I can’t be 100% sure, but I am pretty certain I remember adding 1/2 CUP of sugar to this dough instead of the 1 1/2 TEASPOONS of sugar the recipe called for. Oops. A 1/2 cup of sugar is 24 teaspoons. That might make a difference, huh? I am a non attention paying dummy. I am embarrassed for myself.

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To end this week of all things lemon, is the lemoniest thing I have made in a long time. It is a lemon tart made using whole lemons - zest, pulp, and juice, complete with a lemon infused tart dough. No waste in this kitchen, people! (Here are the other lemon related posts in my week of all things lemon: Lemon Poppyseed Muffins, Almond Lemon Yogurt Cake (TWD), My Favorite Ultra Lemony Yogurt Cake, Blueberry Lemon Souffle Pancakes).

I decided on a whim that I wanted to make some sort of fruit tart, and was intrigued and inspired when I saw this recipe in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. I have just been drawn to all things lemon lately, hence the reason why I created lemon week here at Imafoodblog.

The recipe for the filling is Dorie’s Tartest Lemon Tart on page 336 of Baking. However, Dorie calls for her Sweet Tart Dough as the crust for this, which is basically a shortbread dough. Since Nick and I have both not loved the shortbread crusts that I have made in prior tarts, the dough I used here is a Pasta Frolla dough. This was my first ever attempt at Pasta Frolla, and it came out great. We both preferred it over the traditional shortbread crusts I have previously made. It seems to stay more tender even after the long baking times and we enjoyed the texture over a shortbread.

This tart was uber tart and lemony but it still had a good balance of sweetness to it. The whole lemon to cup of sugar ratio is 1:1, which is similar to that of a Shaker lemon tart/pie, so the bitterness of the pith is kept in check pretty well.

This is a great make ahead dessert, as I think it did get better after a day or so of rest in the fridge. And even better is the fact that both this dough (which requires no rolling and no food processor) and the filling are quick and easy to make.

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Not only is this my first Tuesdays with Dorie post, but this is the first post ever on our blog. Yay!

This week Tuesdays with Dorie was chosen by Dorie Greenspan herself, and she chose the French Pear Tart on page 368-69 of Baking: From My Home to Yours. This tart came out pretty tasty and it was fun to make. My whole family enjoyed it, save Nick who called it banal - thanks honey .

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