Swiss Onion Sage Tart

Every once in a while you have a genius idea. Mine this weekend was brown butter pie crust. Now, the idea is genius. imagine a warm, buttery, nutty rich flavored pie crust that's so deeply savory you just can't imagine anything else. Well....

A picture is worth a thousand words right? That picture screams mmm yummy bbq, and ugh, worst execution ever in the same breath. The crust is flaky to the point of being crumbly, which for a bbq pie like the one you see above would be awesome....if you can get it out of the pan in one piece. Even if you can't, the broken pies still taste absolutely delicious. Next time I'll be using my mini cheesecake pans and popping my cup pies out from underneath. Problem solved!  

Brown butter pie crust works well in some ways, and worked horribly in others. For instance, it did not make good pop tarts, unlike the buttermilk crust for my Cider Five Spice Pop Tarts. It made wonderful tart crusts for my savory onion, sage, and swiss cheese tart pictured above, but not a decent empty tart shell. All I can say is this version of browned butter pie crust deffinately meant for specific uses. 

The idea for this tart came from Butchie's brunch choice at a little bistro in Bethesda, Maryland. The problem is, I made only one tart.....so my filling recipe is for one, and my dough recipe is for at least six. Thanks to the wonders of mathematics this shouldn't be much of a problem, but if you do end up with more or less filling than dough I'll beg your pardon now. 

Swiss Onion Sage Tart

3 white onions

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh sage

Freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup milk

3 large egg yolks

6 tablespoons of swiss or gruyere cheese, separated

1 recipe brown butter pie crust

Preheat oven to 350.

Saute onions and sugar in olive oil. Until clear and transparent. Add salt and balsamic vinegar and continue to cook until onions have turned a golden brown. Allow to cool slightly.

Roll pie crust out and fit to six small tart pans.

Stir sage, black pepper, egg yolks and milk into the onion mixture. Divide the mixture between the six tart pans. Top each tart with a tablespoon of shredded cheese.

Bake the tarts in the upper third of the oven for 15 to 20 minutes. Allow to cool slightly before unmolding and serving.

Brown Butter Pie Crust

1 cup chilled unsalted butter, diced

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons ice water

In a medium saucepan simmer and cook the butter until it turns brown and takes on a nutty scent.  Pour into suitable container and allow to solidify in the fridge for at least four hours.

Combine flour, sugar and salt in large bowl. Add butter. Cut in using hands or pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add ice water and stir with fork until moist clumps form.

Press together to form dough. Divide dough in half. Gather dough into balls; flatten into disks. Wrap separately and chill 1 hour.

Rhubarb Berry Crumbles

This recipe gives your berry cobblers a fresh twist. With a grated pie crust as the topping, you get that light flaky taste of pie crust, and all the gooey goodness of a cobbler.

If you've got a moment PLEASE VOTE for my entry in the Twice Baked Potato Contest! You can vote once a day for the next week!

I have a sad announcement, well, sad for me. Butchie, my dear friend in brackets [hello! --B.], will be taking step back from our weekly baking night. She's going part-time and will be baking with me every other week instead of weekly. She has a big and scary project of her own she's got to devote more time to. So what do we girls do for our last regular girls' night? Make Butchie happy and make a rhubarb treat....along with a plain berry crumble for me. [We made everything as you see below, but before adding the rhubarb to the rest of the filling ingredients, we set aside one cobbler's worth of berry-only filling for J. Why can she not abide rhubarb? I don't know. Why do I take on insane projects with a high chance of failure that also prevent me from gorging on baked goods every Monday? See previous. --B.]

We first made these little crumbles last year, and with my little site redesign and the recipe index, I thought it would be a good time to redo some VERY poor photography done in the days of a point-and-shoot camera. It was a simpler time: taking pictures at night with pillowcases as a backdrops, no tripod, only 7 megapixels, bad lightening, wretched set ups...yes, it is time to weed out the weak. This recipe deserved a better picture than we'd originally given it. [Truth. These are delicious--not too sugary-sweet. --B.]

These rhubarb treats can be a little unsettling to make. Grating the “crust” is a little different if you aren’t used to the idea. It really does have the texture and look of cheese. But trust us! Even though it inspired Butchie to say “I feel like we’re making a lasagna,” the final product is worth it! I can’t wait to try out grated crusts on other pies! [I concur. --B]

Rhubarb Berry Crumbles
adapted from Tartelette

¾ cup flour
1/4 cup corn starch
1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
pinch of salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, in small pieces
1/8 cup honey

3 cups rhubarb, fresh
2 cups mixed berries (we used frozen)
2 tablespoons cornstarch
juice and zest of half a lemon
2 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon sugar

In a large bowl, stir together all the dry ingredients. Add the butter and honey and start mixing everything together as you would a pie crust. Press together into a rough block, and freeze while you prepare the fruits.

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Peel the rhubarb then cut it in small pieces.

In a large bowl, mix together all the remaining ingredients with the rhubarb. Spray your ramekins or 13x9 pan with cooking spray. Gently pour in the fruit mixture. Don’t be afraid to pile the fruit high, it will cook down substantially.

Grate the cold crumble mixture right over the fruit. As Butchie said “Oh! That feels like cheese!”

Bake for a minimum of 20 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the fruits are bubbling.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Chiffon Pie

Pumpkin Chiffon is a light, smooth, creamy version of tradition pumpkin pie. It's my mother's favorite, and that right there says it all! :) Mama knows best, right?

For my birthday party we held a mini-pumpkin themed night. Or at least we tried to. We were going to play games like mini pumpkin bocce, capture the mini pumpkin, mini pumpkin relays, and of course, mini pumpkin pie eating contest! In the end, the weather made most of our plans impossible, and though playing in the rain can be fun....this would have been playing in a downpour. Not. So. Fun. 

We did however get to have our mini pumpkin pie eating contest and these little beauties were it! I made them in a cupcake tin! I'm not sure how it happened, but I FINISHED DEAD LAST! Everyone kept yelling at me not to be dainty. DAINTY?!?!?! Are you kidding me? I had pie across half my face! The stupid  adorable little pie kept scooting farther and farther away from me as I tried to eat it. I spent half my time trying to pull it back with my teeth so I could get another bite! Epic. Fail. My friends Tristan and Hugh won practically in a dead tie. Amazing. My favorite part had to be when someone commented "Wow. That was the best pie eating contest pie I've ever had!" ....first off, thank you, but secondly, how many of those have you had?!?! This was my first! 

In a few weeks I'm going to the Giant Pumpkin Regatta in Goffstown, NH. I hear the festival has a pumpkin pie eating contest. I hope so, because I could use a little redemption! 

I also recommend making the pumpkin chiffon filling and simply putting it into individual ramekins or hallowed out mini pumpkins as a pumpkin mousse dessert. 

Chiffon Pumpkin Pie

2 baked 9” pie shells or about 24 mini pie shells

4 tsp. gelatin

6 tsp. cold water

1 15 oz. can pumpkin

¾ cup milk

1 tsp. ginger

1 tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. salt

2 cups sugar minus 4 tablespoons

4 eggs, yolks and whites separated

To slightly beaten egg yolks, add ½ cup of the sugar, pumpkin, milk, salt, and spices.

Heat in a double broiler. Pour cold water in small bowl and sprinkle gelatin on top

of water. Once set add to hot pumpkin mixture. Mix thoroughly and cool. Beat egg

whites with remaining sugar to make a meringue. Fold into pumpkin mixture. Pour into

previously bake and cooled pie shells. Chill in refrigerator.

Phyllo Pie Shells

sugar

cinnamon

nutmeg

butter

phyllo dough

Make up a cinnamon, sugar and nutmeg mixture to your preferred ratios. Take phyllo and layer it, about four deep, brushing with melted butter in between each layer, and sprinkle the sugar mixture on every other layer. Press down into your molds and bake at 350 for a few minutes, or until golden brown. Allow to cool in the pan completely before trying to remove.