Endless Summer

Summertime always stretches out in my mind as a long opportunity to catch up on all those things I've been putting off.  And of coures, it always sneaks up quickly, throwing my routines off, bringing just as many   new ideas and as new minutes of sunlight.  Ah, summertime, whoever said your living was easy?

A month into it, the routine is a little more settled, and we've had time to tackle a few of the chores, making room for some fun.

We spent the holiday weekend with friends, riding horses and exploring a new place.  Our assignment was simple: dessert.  In an effort to keep refining the strawberry tart, we tried a new version and, apologies to our hosts, it wasn't quite as good.

You can see here that the dough was a little too thick around the edges, but instead of sacrificing some, we crammed it in.  That wasn't a good idea because the corner of the crust came out underbaked.  I also used this white quiche pan, instead of my metal one with the removable edge, so the crust didn't crisp as much as usual.  This recipe was a very basic sweet crust, with a little sugar and no eggs.  The last one we made was more like a cookie dough, with more sugar and eggs - it was more tender and made a better crust for these cool summer tarts.

Of course, we hadn't yet tried the crust, so the kid-chef filled it with our pastry cream and made a great whirl of strawberries on the top.  We all took turns critiqueing the results and I think we've got the right combination down now.

Phew!

On to the next summertime task!