Tuesday, October 13, 2009

On Baking

For some reason I agreed to take on the task of baking desserts and cookies for La Esquila. If only all of my belongings had arrived, this would not be a big deal, but I am faced with cooking in the glorified camping kitchen. No baking tools whatsoever save one springform pan pinched from the Santiago house. So far this morning I have made a Bourbon Walnut Tart. Here's how it went.

First I put the pastry crust in the springform pan. This was an easy task. Yes, I cheated and bought a premade crust. No, it's not as good as homemade or even the Pillsbury kind. But we had it from my last baking experiment and it seemed a shame to waste it. I won't buy it again. (It's chewy... I'd like to know how pie crust becomes chewy...) Next in the recipe, I spread chopped nuts over the bottom of the crust. Faced with a cutting board the size of my shoe and a knife the size of my arm, I realized that chopping wasn't going to do it. I decided that crushing the nuts in their packaging would be the best solution. I found the biggest crushing device I could: a wooden spoon. The farm is so devoid of industrial noise that apparently my whacking could be heard all around. I got several inquiries as to what in the world I was killing while I finely crushed the nuts. "Oh just some walnuts!" It took about 15 minutes to effectively smash the walnuts.

Next, one must mix brown sugar and softened butter. Fail on both accounts. The butter was nearly frozen and the brown sugar doesn't exist here. Instead I have a brick of chancaca, which is something like muscovado sugar, but very close in taste to brown sugar. And texture, once you grate it. So I set the butter next to the fire and set about grating chancaca. Chancaca is not like, cheese, where it easily caves to grating. No, chancaca fights the whole way. Like a fist-sized nutmeg. I thus spent a half hour grating enough chancaca for the tart, and very occasionally nearly grating my hand too.

The butter never did soften, so I decided to make a sort of double-boiler to soften it. Meantime, realized that the fire in the other room was dying so I had to run back to stoke it a bit (I am really terrible at keeping a fire). Finally the butter did soften enough and I managed to get the filling together. Into the oven went the tart and I went back to work grating more chancaca for later. Shortbread cookies this afternoon....

I really do think the chancaca is actually superior to traditional brown sugar. Brown sugar in the US is refined white sugar with molasses added. Chancaca is unrefined and so retains a bit more flavor, a bit more character then brown sugar. It's very hard to find in the US, so I think an adequate substitute would be adding a bit more molasses to brown sugar or just using muscovado.

All of that said, you might like the recipe for this glorious tart, which normally takes about 10 minutes to prepare and is quite easy and VERY delicious. Here it is.

Bourbon Walnut Tart
1 pie crust
1.5 c chopped walnuts
1.5 c brown sugar or grated chancaca or muscovado sugar
0.5 c softened butter
2 eggs
2 T bourbon
2 T whipping cream
1 T very good vanilla (don't bother if you only have imitation)
1 T flour
0.5 t salt--only if the nuts you use are unsalted

Spread the walnuts of the bottom of the crust which has been installed into a tart or pie pan. Throughly blend the remaining ingredients and pour over the nuts, moving them around a bit to make sure there aren't any air bubbles. Bake at 350 F/170 C for 35-60 minutes (really depends on the oven and ingredients) or until the tart doesn't jiggle anymore when you move it. Let it cool and enjoy with unsweetened whipped cream (trust me it doesn't need any more sugar!)
Recipe (c) 2009 Stefanie Niery Party

1 comment:

MommyV said...

mmmmm that sounds fabulous! I'd try it, but Kris doesn't like nuts in things... maybe for my Christmas party!