All tarted up

 “Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it” (Lohan 2004).

Thus, with Halloween just around the corner, it is time to get all tarted up. By which I mean, write a post about my great-grandmother’s apple and plum tarts, also known by their ridiculously long German names, zwetschgenkuchen (no one told them that—count ‘em—FIVE consonants in a row was entirely too many) and apfelkuchen.

According to family lore, I am eerily like my namesake, Ella Van Geldern. (My middle name is Elise.) Though a wonderful pastry cook, Oma (as she is called in the family) loved oversweet store-bought icing (on which I have made myself sick, not infrequently). There are some other traits that apparently connect us (wickedly sharp tongues, an ability to talk FOREVER), but these are irrelevant to a cooking blog. (Woo! Enough parenthetical statements, ya think?)

When she did that pastry-cooking bit she was so good at, Oma NEVER measured ANYTHING—time, ingredients, vessel size. Her recipes are full of useful instructions like “bake in hot oven until done” and “add flour until it looks right.” In an effort to functionally record her recipes such that her pastries could be replicated, my mother spent hours with her in the kitchen as a college student, shoving measuring spoons into streams of flour and spices, and taking note of oven temperatures and baking times.

Despite her heroic efforts, Mom didn’t manage to get measurements for all of Oma’s pastries, so the following recipes will be half written, half bake-by-picture. (What, you think I’m industrious or fast enough to intercept my mother’s hands in the kitchen? Ha!) I assure you, though, that the photo interpretation is worth the effort. These tarts are relatively simple (the dough is made in the food processor!), can be thrown together quickly with refrigerated dough, and tempt even the most abstemious and timid diners to ask for seconds. So without further ado…

Good luck, gumshoe!

Tart crust- Blatterteig 

(You may recognize this butter dough as the same dough used for bachelor button/thumbprint cookies!)

½ lb. unsalted butter, room temperature

1 c. granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp lemon extract/juice OR vanilla

2 c flour

1 tsp baking powder

Whisk together flour and baking powder in small bowl—set aside.

Place butter and sugar in bowl of food processor, process until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time through feeding tube (ew, that sounds awfully surgical), then vanilla or lemon flavor. Gradually add flour/baking powder mixture, and process until the dough begins to come together in a ball (you may need more flour, this is fine).

Remove dough from processor, shape into moderate-sized disc, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour (and up to 7 days, maybe longer, if your dad doesn’t insist on tarts within that window).

Zwetschgenkuchen (Plum cake)

½ batch blatterteig

~1 lb. Italian plums, quartered

matzo meal

cinnamon sugar

Take the blatterteig out of the fridge.

Butter a 10” tart pan generously. Break the blatterteig into smaller hunks (I don’t know, about 3” long?) and distribute the blatterteig over the pan. Using your palms, press the dough into the pan to ~1/2 inch thickness, “smooshing” it up the sides of the pan. Avoid overhandling dough. Sprinkle lightly with matzo meal (just enough to coat).

Begin adding plums, pressing down lightly, like this:

Dr. Povar moves so quickly that I can't even catch her arms on camera, and you expect me to capture measurements of ingredients? Fat chance.

Fill the crust, leaving some space between plums for the crust to rise. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar (“it should taste like sweetened cinnamon, not cinnamon-y sugar” –Gail Povar) over the tart until it looks like this:

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 mins to an hour. While the tart is hot, sprinkle with more cinnamon sugar.

Allow tart to cool, and refrigerate tightly covered (for eating later, when you will bring it to room temperature) or enjoy (preferably mit schlag).

Apfelkuchen (Apple cake)

½ batch blatterteig

2-3 baking apples, peeled, cored and sliced 1/8- ¼ inch thick

raisins

cinnamon sugar

1 egg

Lemon juice

Sour cream or yogurt (light is ok)

Sugar

Flour

As with the zwetschgenkuchen, make tart crust by spreading blatterteig onto buttered tart pan.

Begin placing apples (again, gently pressing, but layering a bit so there are nooks for the custard to fill) like this:

When tart is full, add cinnamon sugar until it looks like this:

Then sprinkle enough raisins over the apples until it looks like this:

Make custard: whisk together lemon juice and one egg, about 3-4 tbsp sour cream or yogurt (knowing that if you use regular yogurt, you’ll need more flour thickener), and about 1 tbsp flour (no measuring spoon were harmed in the making of this particular tart). Add sugar until the custard is just barely sweet. It should look like this:

You'll notice that the spoon here is a completely workday spoon. No measuring here! Nuh uh!

Pour the custard over the tart, using a pastry brush to make sure every apple is coated. If you move the raisins around, don’t worry about it, you can always relocate them after the custard is spread. Now, it should look like this:

Bake in a 350 degree F oven for about 1 hour, until the custard is well set and the crust is just beginning to pull away from the pan (see photo at beginning of post):

Allow to cool before cutting, or refrigerate tightly wrapped.

 (Whew! Can you tell I have a new camera that I like playing with?)