Intro: This Cheese and Mushroom Tart is an appetizer that is nice start to a meal because it offers the earthy flavors of mushrooms and the creaminess of cheese inside of a flakey and  buttery  pastry dough. Sound familiar?
It should, because the cheese and mushroom tart shares some key similarities and differences with my last blog's Fruit Tart.

• The similarities are that both tarts can be made before your guests arrive and they are made from the same dough.
• The differences:
  • The cheese tart is savory and therefore should be served before the meal (as opposed to after it)
  • While both tarts use the same dough, the cheese tart bakes with the filling inside of it instead of being filled after it is cooked.
  • The dough amount is  halved for the cheese tart and so instead of being formed into four large 8-ounce ramekins they are formed into the four smaller muffin holes of a standard muffin pan.
  • Lastly, there are no rice weights or egg-wash needed for this recipe.

 
The pastry dough recipe is first and the cheese and mushroom filling follows it.
 
A quick reminder.  When making your tart shell make sure to keep your counter well-floured (to prevent the dough from sticking to it) and the dough well chilled (to make it easier to handle). 

1) Mix your ingredients. Add the butter and vegetable oil to the dry ingredients and break the dough  up into pieces with your fingertips.
 
2) Slice in your water. Make  a well in the center of the dough, add cold water and slice the dough in quick short strokes until the water is thoroughly incorporated into the dough.
 
3) Shape your dough. Gently roll the dough into a ball, place on floured counter, and form into a cylinder shape.
 
4) Chill your dough. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

5) Portion your dough. When the dough is thoroughly chilled place on the counter and cut and scale 4-1 ounce portions. 
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6) Roll your dough. Flour both your rolling pin and counter and roll each dough portion-one at a time-until it is about 1/8 inch thick. Make sure to keep flour under the dough as you roll it so it doesn’t stick to the counter.     
 
7) Form your dough into four muffin cups of a muffin pan. Carefully pick up your dough with either a pallet knife or other flat tool and gently place the rolled dough over 4 muffin cups and push the dough down into the cups so they fit the holes' shape and come to the top and over the lip.
 
8) Score the lips of your dough inside the ramekins.
 
9) Set the pan aside and make your filling.

Scoring the edges

​1) Sauté vegetable oil and diced mushrooms on a medium flame until the mushrooms are soft. Set aside.
 
2) In a separate pot make a roux with equal parts butter to flour. Cook the roux until it becomes a medium brown color similar in appearance to wet sand.
 
3) Turn off the heat and slowly whisk in the hot cream. The mixture should thicken quickly. Leave the heat off from now on.
 
4) Add a beaten egg to the mixture by tempering it. To temper the egg, add a little of the cream sauce to it and mix the ingredients together before adding the egg to the large batch of cream sauce.
(Tempering your egg prevents it from scrambling when you add it to the cream sauce).
 
5) Give the sauce a good whisking to remove any stubborn lumps and then stir in the cheese, parsley, salt, cayenne, and mushrooms.
 
6) Spoon the mixture into the 4 muffin tins evenly just below the lip of each one.
 

Tempering the egg

7) Place in a 425 degree oven for 12 minutes. The crust along the edges of the tarts should be browning and the tart filling should be puffing up.
 
8) Cover with aluminum foil and cook an additional 10 minutes until the tarts are puffed up and are golden brown.
 
9) Remove from the oven, let them cool slightly, and then gingerly pop them out of the holes with your fingers or by slicing around the edges with a paring knife.
 
10. Allow them to sit at room temperature for at  least a half hour before serving so the custard has time to set.
 
11. Garnish with equal parts cream to sour cream and chopped parsley. 
​

Ready for the oven

Score- Small cuts in pastry dough that add eye-appeal and also allows some steam to escape.
 
Tempering- The process of warming raw eggs before they are added to a hot liquid by first slowly adding some of the hot liquid to the eggs before they are incorporated into the bulk of the hot liquid. This process prevents the eggs from scrambling.

​Intro: I love this dish to finish a meal because the tart is flakey and buttery and it is topped with a large dollop of whipped cream and berries. Another plus is that you can bake your dough before your guests even arrive and then whip the topping right before you serve it.
 
When making your tart shells make sure to keep your counter well-floured (to prevent the dough from sticking to it) and the dough well chilled (to make it easier to handle).

​1) Mix your ingredients. Add the butter and vegetable oil to the dry ingredients and break the dough  up into pieces with your fingertips.
 
2) Slice in your water. Make a well in the center of the dough, add cold water and slice the dough in quick short strokes until the water is thoroughly incorporated into the dough.
 
3) Shape your dough. Gently roll the dough into a ball, place on floured counter, and form into a cylinder shape.
 
4) Chill your dough. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

Tart dough ready to refrigerate

​5) Portion your dough. When the dough is thoroughly chilled place on the counter and cut and scale 4-2 ounce portions.
 
6) Roll your dough. Flour both your rolling pin and counter and roll each dough portion-one at a time- until it is about 1/8 inch thick. Make sure to keep flour under the dough as you roll it so it doesn’t stick to the counter.     
 
7) Form your dough into the ramekins. Carefully pick up your dough with either a pallet knife or other flat tool and gently place the rolled dough over a ramekin and push it down into the ramekin so it fits the ramekin's shape and comes to the top and over the lip. Repeat the process for all four ramekins.

Rolling out your dough

​8) Score the lips of your dough inside the ramekins.
 
9) Add rice weights and bake. 
 
10) Egg-wash your dough. After 12 minutes remove the rice weights and egg-wash the shells.

11) Finish baking.

Brushing with egg wash

Tart fresh from the oven

​1. Whip the ingredients together. Put the cream, vanilla, sugar and Gran Marnier in a bowl and mix with a hand mixer for about 2 minutes until thickened into a frosting consistency.
 
2. Fold in your berries. Add the berries and gently mix together to create the tart filling.
 

Fruit Tart with Gran Marnier Vanilla Cream
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​Rice Weights- Oven-proof bean bags full of rice that are placed on tart dough in order to keep the dough from puffing up when it is baked. (You can also use homemade rice weights by filling tin foil with rice).   
 
Score- Small cuts in pastry dough that add eye-appeal and also allows some steam to escape.

​Intro: While bread is ubiquitous in French culture, it is usually used sparingly at mealtime and guests are given one portion which they are expected to use throughout all the upcoming courses. (I like the French's system of bread portioning because it keeps the guests from loading up on bread so that they don't spoil their appetite for what is coming ahead).

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I like to serve bread rolls instead of bread loaves at meals for two reasons. First, in my experience, roll dough is easier to handle (for beginners) than loaf-sized dough. Second, it is   easier to handle once it comes out of the oven: you just pop the rolls  onto a plate with a little garnish and a slice of butter and then serve them.
 
The Upcoming Caramelized Onion Rolls recipe not only offers a great tasting roll, but it also only calls for a small amount of handling and a minimum of ingredients. 

​1) Activate your yeast. Pour honey and yeast into warm water and lightly mix it until it dissolves. Let it sit for ten minutes. You will know that the yeast has activated when it has a strong odor and the water bubbles up.
 

Yeast is activating

​2) Mix your yeast with the flour mixture to form your dough and then knead it.
 
Knead your dough by pushing the dough away from you with your dominant palm. Next, pick up the dough from the counter by either of the dough's edges, drop it back on the counter and then push the edge away from you. Keep repeating the process until the dough becomes less sticky and smoother. 

Kneading your dough

3) Put it in a bowl and let it rise for an hour.
 
4)  Punch your dough, add caramelized onions, knead it, portion it, and knead the portioned dough.
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Punching your dough after first rise

Caramelized onions added to the dough

​5) Let the portioned dough rise a second  time and then bake your rolls.
 

After second rise: ready for the oven

6) When they the rolls are done, brush the top of the rolls with melted butter or olive oil and serve.
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Caramelized Onion Rolls

​Kneading- The process of handling yeast-fermented dough so that the yeast is fully incorporated into the dough ensuring a proper rise. The dough is first pushed away from the user, picked up by an edge, and then dropped back on the work surface so that the edge can now be pushed away from the user. The process is then repeated until the dough becomes less sticky and smoother.

Intro: Wine is heavily influential in French cooking and all the entrées that I have gone over (in these blogs) has wine in them in one form or another. However, the influence of wine doesn't stop with the entrées- it extends to plenty of other courses, including our focus this week, the Poached Pear Appetizer.
​The upcoming dish uses 2 types of wine, red and white, and they are both used to flavor and color the dish through the process of poaching.
Use any type of table wines for this dish but please do not use wines that you would not drink or serve. 

1) Poach your pears. In separate pots, combine your two red and white wine poaching liquids and add your peeled and cored pears. Bring them to a simmer and poach them until they are soft but keep their shape.

Poached Pears being removed from the stove

​2) Make your red wine reduction. Take the red wine pear poaching liquid and reduce it until thickened.

Reduced red wine

3) Make your thyme dressing. Whip together your thyme dressing and dress your greens. 

Dressed greens being placed behind the pears

4) Plate your dish: 
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Poached Pear Appetizer

Poaching- To simmer submerged food in liquid.