Sunday, January 29, 2006
The Silver Spoon: Ricotta and Raisin Tart
Flavor: Mild, almost delicate
Prep Time: 1 hour 30 mins
Add to the Rotation?: Maybe, probably better for guests.
The third of my three course meal that I created from The Silver Spoon was the Ricotta and Raisin Tart on page 1076. I selected this due to its seemingly Old World type nature. One of the downfalls of The Silver Spoon is that while it is an Italian cookbook it also has a great many other influences which appear in this book. One has to remember that this is really an Italian cookbook written for Italians, not Americans who want pure Italian recipes. Instead, The Silver Spoon is dotted with many recipes which are clearly French, Russian and even American (American Chicken Salad? Yes, on page 913). So, while some of the recipes are easy to spot as not being Italian, some are not so. For this reason, I selected the Ricotta and Raisin Tart. Once again, the novice baker such as myself would have a great deal of difficultly with this book. It calls for tart pan, but how large, and what shape? I used a beautiful rectangular fluted French tart pan that I bought years ago at Williams-Sonoma. The dimension are roughly 4 inches by 15 inches. The tart crust was a standard butter and flour mixture however, it was uncooperative when in came to rolling out. The crust would not stay together and just crumbled a part. Perhaps, had a I been a better baker this would not have happen. I rolled out what I could, and filled in the tart pan. Any holes or openings I used the leftover scraps to plug them up. The filling was made up of Ricotta cheese with sugar, golden raisins soaked in Marsala and lemon zest. Only the lemon flavor really came through on the end product. It turned out that my tart pan was the perfect size for the amount of filling. The last step in the recipe is to create a lattice with the remaining crust. This was not going to work. The dough was too dry and crumbly. I even popped the dough in to the fridge for a short period hoping to get crust at least in place as one sheet. In the end, the crust won the battle and I simply rolled out what I could and draped the pieces on top of the tart. This approach gave the end product a sort of cracked Old World kind of look. I placed the filled tart pan on an insulated cookie sheet to keep the bottom from burning and sat the whole thing into the oven. The directions called for 45 mins at 350 degrees. It turned out to be 60 mins until I got the top to brown. Once cooled to slightly more than room temp, we sliced into the tart. The taste was mild with a very subtle lemon flavor. The raisins while chewy and appealing to look at in the Ricotta mixture, weren’t all that flavorful even after soaking in Marsala for an hour and a half. Yet, this desert was delicious and a perfect mild end to the rich Peas and Ham dish described below. My partner described this desert to be on par with the French cookie Madelines. Both have a delicate buttery lemon flavor which I agree with. Be sure to serve this with tea or coffee as the dry crust pairs best with a beverage. While the work to create this dish keeps it from being an everyday treat; I do think that one would be happy to create this for guest especially if one has a fancy French tart pan.
What are you tasting?
Edna
Prep Time: 1 hour 30 mins
Add to the Rotation?: Maybe, probably better for guests.
The third of my three course meal that I created from The Silver Spoon was the Ricotta and Raisin Tart on page 1076. I selected this due to its seemingly Old World type nature. One of the downfalls of The Silver Spoon is that while it is an Italian cookbook it also has a great many other influences which appear in this book. One has to remember that this is really an Italian cookbook written for Italians, not Americans who want pure Italian recipes. Instead, The Silver Spoon is dotted with many recipes which are clearly French, Russian and even American (American Chicken Salad? Yes, on page 913). So, while some of the recipes are easy to spot as not being Italian, some are not so. For this reason, I selected the Ricotta and Raisin Tart. Once again, the novice baker such as myself would have a great deal of difficultly with this book. It calls for tart pan, but how large, and what shape? I used a beautiful rectangular fluted French tart pan that I bought years ago at Williams-Sonoma. The dimension are roughly 4 inches by 15 inches. The tart crust was a standard butter and flour mixture however, it was uncooperative when in came to rolling out. The crust would not stay together and just crumbled a part. Perhaps, had a I been a better baker this would not have happen. I rolled out what I could, and filled in the tart pan. Any holes or openings I used the leftover scraps to plug them up. The filling was made up of Ricotta cheese with sugar, golden raisins soaked in Marsala and lemon zest. Only the lemon flavor really came through on the end product. It turned out that my tart pan was the perfect size for the amount of filling. The last step in the recipe is to create a lattice with the remaining crust. This was not going to work. The dough was too dry and crumbly. I even popped the dough in to the fridge for a short period hoping to get crust at least in place as one sheet. In the end, the crust won the battle and I simply rolled out what I could and draped the pieces on top of the tart. This approach gave the end product a sort of cracked Old World kind of look. I placed the filled tart pan on an insulated cookie sheet to keep the bottom from burning and sat the whole thing into the oven. The directions called for 45 mins at 350 degrees. It turned out to be 60 mins until I got the top to brown. Once cooled to slightly more than room temp, we sliced into the tart. The taste was mild with a very subtle lemon flavor. The raisins while chewy and appealing to look at in the Ricotta mixture, weren’t all that flavorful even after soaking in Marsala for an hour and a half. Yet, this desert was delicious and a perfect mild end to the rich Peas and Ham dish described below. My partner described this desert to be on par with the French cookie Madelines. Both have a delicate buttery lemon flavor which I agree with. Be sure to serve this with tea or coffee as the dry crust pairs best with a beverage. While the work to create this dish keeps it from being an everyday treat; I do think that one would be happy to create this for guest especially if one has a fancy French tart pan.
What are you tasting?
Edna
