Puff Pastry Chicken & Mushroom Pie

I just made this chicken & mushroon pie.  No biggie, but what I really want to share with you is the instant puff pastry.

Now if you have made puff pastry before, you should know that the classical way of making puff pastry is quite daunting, and very time consuming.  Not anymore.  Making this instant puff pastry was so easy.  No multiple rollings of the dough, no multiple chillings in the fridge, and most importantly, no half a day wasted preparing the dough !  Just pulse some flour, butter, salt and water in a food processor.  Turn out onto a well floured surface.  Some pressing here and there, a single 3-fold, a quick roll (sounds a bit like a massage), and voila, puff pastry !  All in less than 15 minutes.

Thank god for The Modern Baker by Nick Malgieri, without which I would not have learnt this technique.  Now that I've attempted this, I am almost certain that I will never use any store bought puff pastry again.  So, if you are still buying frozen puff pastry, you should really give this a try. Trust me, it's really easy, and further, you'll be assured of eating good quality butter, which is the key ingredient in puff pastry.

Normandy Apple Tart

I love this tart for the simplest reasons.  One, it is so pretty; two, it is probably the best baked-apple-thing I have ever tasted; and three, it is such a cinch to make.  Finally, and most importantly, it is comforting and brings back fond memories of the apple pie that my mom used to bake for us kids.

I urge you to try this regardless of whether you are an apple-pie-girl (or boy) - I dare guarantee you won’t be disappointed.  Who knows, this tart may even end up as apple of your eye.

To play around, you can also make the same tart using pears.  Just make sure they are ripe enough.  I don't know about you, but unripe pears remind me of potatoes.  Again, this tart is adapted from Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours.

Lemon Meringue Pie

This pie has a sweet crumbly pastry crust and a tangy lemon filling and is topped with fluffy meringue.  Mouthwatering huh?  Except that this lemon curd filling is so uber tangy.  Now, if you are a fan of lemon or anything tart, you may like this one, but personally, I'll give this a pass.  The combination is an overkill for my naive taste buds - too sweet and too tangy.  Plus meringue is not my all-time favourite. 

However, I do like the pâte sablée although I'll make it a point to reduce the sugar in my next attempt.  Pâte sablée is the richest of the French short pastry crusts.  It is used to make sweet flans and tarts.  While it has the most flavour, it also has more calories than a pâte brisée (shortcrust pastry) or pâte sucrée (sweet shortcrust pastry).  Oh dear, no wonder it agrees so well with me.  Why do all the food that I particularly like have higher calories ?

Both the pâte sablée and lemon curd filling were adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.