Plum Tartlets
I was baking these lovely plum tartlets for our bake-along with Joyce from Kitchen Flavours, Lena from Frozen wings.
Plum tartlets? I don't deny asking myself this question when I baked these. At first glance, I reckon that these tarts made with the recipe from the book, Back in the Day Bakery or here do look more like cakes to me!
Apart from their looks, I think it is fair that they should be named as tarts as they do taste more like tarts than cakes to me.
To be specific, they are actually cake-like tartlets with outer rims of pastry-like texture with their insides being simply buttery and sandy. As they are neither spongy nor fluffy, I can appreciate and understand the reason why these can't be fully classified as cakes.
Buttery? Yup! I do have issue with the amount of butter used in this recipe. Originally, the recipe suggests 250g of butter to bake six tarts, resulting per tart containing 40g of butter!!! Being a health freak, I obviously don't like this idea! To fix my issue, I have baked my tartlets even smaller... Using half amount of the recipe, I have managed to bake six tartlets, resulting per tart containing 20g of butter! Now, that's slightly better!
Besides my butter issue with this recipe, I have also asked myself another question... Where can I buy fresh plums during winter? Sort of impossible. For those who are living in countries with seasons, I'm sure that you will understand what I mean as buying and consuming any fresh food that are not seasonal is definitely NOT a cost effective thing to do. For this reason and based on past experiences, I have learned to preserve various stone fruits with lemon juice and small amount of sugar and stored them in our freezer after our summer, just like I always do for our home grown nectarines. Now, we can enjoy summer fruits throughout the year!
No worries, now! This is how I baked these plum tartlets using frozen plum and less butter...
The addition of lemon, cardamom and vanilla make the mixture very fragrant!
See this... I have to agree that mixing this is like mixing a cake batter.
However, the mixture looks more doughy at this stage.
Due to winter, I have to use frozen plums to bake these tarts.
Assembling the tarts
I reckon my tartlets look very much smaller than the ones in the books.
Mine are not less prettier!
... and taste equally good with lesser portion of butter! :p
Here's the recipe that is mostly adapted from the book, Back in the Day Bakery or here
Makes 6 small tarts
150g all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 large egg yolks
40g caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla paste (or extract)
lemon zest from 1 lemon
2 plums, pitted and sliced (fresh or frozen)
2 tbsp brown sugar
icing sugar for dusting
Preheat the oven to 350°F or 160°C fan forced. Lightly butter 6 cups of a muffin tray and line each base with a circle of baking paper.
In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 mins. Add the egg yolks, granulated sugar, vanilla, and lemon zest and continue to beat until the mixture is light in color. In a separate mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, cardamom and salt.
Reduce the speed to low and add sifted flour mixture in thirds, mixing just until incorporated; be careful not to overmix.
Divide the dough evenly among muffin cups. Place plum slices in each cup, lightly pressing the slices into the dough with your fingers. Sprinkle the tops with brown sugar.
Bake for 25 mins, until the tartlets look set and the tops are bubbly and caramelized to a golden brown. Dust with icing sugar and serve.
These are best served warm, but they can be covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to 3 days.
Happy Baking
Here are our friends that have joined us for this bake-along. Please visit their blogs for more of their Plum Tartlets baking.
Please submit your details if you wish to link your post with this bake-along. This linking tool is open from 21 to 30 Aug 2014.
For our next bake-along, we are baking popovers which is to be posted on 15 Sep 2014. Please bake-along with us! All you need to do is to bake any of your favorite popover recipe and blog hop with us for the next 10 days.
To blog hop with us, simply copy and paste this linky HTML code into your blog post where you want the blog hop list to appear. Make sure you are in HTML view/mode when you paste in the code. get the InLinkz code
Before using this linky tool, please make sure that: (1) Your post must be a current post. (2) Please mention Bake-Along in your post and link back to any of our hosts' Bake-Along post, (Joyce, Lena or Zoe). (3) Appreciate if you can display the Bake-Along badge in your post when linking up with us. Cheers!
This post is also linked to the event, Little Thumbs up organised by Doreen from my little favorite DIY and me, Bake for Happy Kids, hosted by Diana from Domestic Goddess Wannabe at this post.
Our Little Thumbs Up event starts on the first Tuesday until the last day of the month. Please join us! To join, simply cook or bake any recipe with the theme of the month which is FLOUR for August 2014 and link with us at this post anytime until 31st August 2014.
If you are wondering what kind of flour you can use to participate this event, please check out this message from Diana...
"Flour is an essential ingredient in my (and I am sure, many of your) kitchen. It is the base of pastas and noodles, cakes and biscuits, or even as thickening agents in the making of a roux. The list of food items made using flour is endless. As such, we will be limiting the theme to mainly Wheat Flour, namely:
- All-Purpose (also known as Plain) Flour
- Bread Flour
- Cake Flour
- Self-raising Flour
- Pastry Flour
- Wholemeal Flour
- Hong Kong (also known as Waterlily) Flour
- Superlite Flour
- Top Flour
What after August 2014? Kit from I-Lost in Austen will be the next hostess of September 2014 and her theme is APPLE! Her Little Thumbs Up event starts on the first Tuesday of August 2014 (2nd Sep) until the last day of the month.
Don't forget your thumbs up or display this badge! And make sure that: (1) Your post must be a current post preferably within this month. (2) Please mention Little Thumbs Up in your post and link back to Bake for Happy Kids, my little favorite DIY or/and Diana from Domestic Goddess Wannabe. For more details, please see this.
