Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Raspberry Tarts

Just for Fun - Raspberry Tarts

A sweet old Italian man lives on the corner; he has basically adopted my cat and my boys. Minnie, the cat, actually spends more time with him than at our house. I am trying to convince her to bring her dead birds trophies to him, not me. This week Tony, the neighbor, brought me two big bowls of fresh raspberries that he picked out of some friend's garden. He gave me one bowl on Sunday and a big bag today. They are so fresh and mushy that I had to do something with them quick or they would be no good. My friend dropped her kids off with me for a few hours today, so we made pies. The current Martha Stewart Magazine cover has cute little berry tarts with stars and stripes lattice crusts. The picture was our inspiration, but with a 5 and 8 year old we did not quite pull of Martha quality. I like to think our pies are better for their creativity and taste just as good!

Raspberry Tarts
Source: the basic recipe found in most cook books, magazines and websites for any berry pie.

Ingredients
4 rolls of prepared pie dough
4 cups fresh raspberries
1 cup sugar
Juice from 1/2 a lemon
1/4 cup tapioca
1 egg
a few teaspoons of sugar to top it

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Mix berries, sugar, lemon juice and tapioca in a big bowl. Line the bottom of a small pan with one pie dough. I used disposable small fudge pans so I could give them away,you could just make one pie in a standard pie pan. Trim pie crust to fit pan. Fill pans with berries evenly. Roll out, on flat drt work surface, two additional pie crusts. Use pastry tools and cookie cutters to make fun shapes to create lattice work pie crust. Place pieces on top to create a lattice or fun design. Brush top pie crust with an egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 10 minutes at 425 degrees then drop heat to 350 degrees and bake another 30 minute or until crust is brown and berries are bubbly. Cool and serve with whipped cream. Delicious!


This is the first bowl Tony gave me. He gave me more today fresh off the berry bushes.



Mixed the berries with sugar, lemon juice and tapioca. Save a few pretty ones for the top of the tarts.



Berries in the pie crust. Abigale is topping it with the firm berries.



The Martha magazine covered with our crust work. Embarrassing - I don't own pastry tools or even any good cookie cutters. We used Play Dough tools. Washed them and they totally worked! Had a nice star fish tool to make stars with.



Ready for the oven, egg washed and sprinkled, with a heavy little hand, with sugar.



Still bubbling as they come out of the oven! One went home with Declan and Abigail, my little helpers. The other was cut in half and sent to Tony, our raspberry fairy.

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