Sunday, August 21, 2011

Nectarine-Plum Crostata

Hello again!

I don't know about anyone else but I am absolutely in this huge fantasy that it is already fall. Everywhere I go I look at every tree to see leaves changing. I think my friends are tired of me randomly shouting, "look! That one tree there has one leave that is slightly yellow on the top branch that you can barely see!"

I have been crockpot crazy and wanting to making everything with apples in it for a couple weeks now, but I was afraid to make yet another apple dessert for my Dungeons and Dragons group this week (I am going to go ahead and call it DnD from now on, the whole name is a lot to type!). I don't want to burn myself out on apples too early, there are still many apple months left.

That takes me to the fact that I instead flipped through all my fall baking magazines and found a recipe for Nectarine-Plum Crostata. I thought it sounded tasty and something that I have never tried to make before, so here's how it went!

Here are your ingredients! (minus the bananas... they just made their way into the background)


In a medium bowl, add 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon sugar, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt and stir.


Then you are going to take your butter and cut it into the flour-y mixture and that needs to be mixed in. You can use two knives to cut the butter in, you can use your hands (make sure you watch them ;)) OR if you are me and you just got a fancy new pastry cutter for the first time ever, you can use that!


I got the cheap one (hey, I'm not made of money here) but it worked pretty well and took much less time. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up. (anyone get the quote...?) Your flour butter stuff should now look kinda like this:


Perhaps using a white bowl was not a great decision. I'll try harder next time, I promise.

Next you are going to need to put 1 (ONE) egg YOLK in. You can throw away the other part, or if you want to save your egg white for another day you can do that, but I don't really know what you would do with just the one egg white. Anyway, I digress. It took me three tries to break the egg that didn't also break the yolk.




  I finally did it! Yay, me!


So you will want to mix this yolk into your flour stuff with a fork.


Then start sprinkling in your tablespoons of water. The recipe called for 4-5 tablespoons, I used about 4.5.This is me, playing with the water in the measuring spoon. Sometimes I get distracted.

I finally directed the water into the bowl.


Mix, mix, mix, mix, fun, fun, fun, fun. Oh Rebecca Black, get outta here.


Then you need to kind of knead it a little bit until it's a ball of dough.





Then you need to wrap it in plastic wrap. I also finally bought un-crappy plastic wrap. For some reason at some point, I thought to myself, "hey, Carly, you should get this cheap plastic wrap at the dollar store. It's a dollar!" Don't do it. Don't do it to yourself! It will cause you minutes of heartache. Minutes!



Stick that little guy in the fridge for 30 minutes. I put mine in for longer because I went to dinner before I made the rest, I would suggest going just the 30 minutes because it was harder to roll out later because it was so cold.

Meanwhile. back at the ranch on the other counter, I was getting the fruits all ready.

Look, plums sink and nectatrines float. Science in action! Wash them up because you are going to leave the skin on.

Get them all sliced.
Hey, I told you about my cutting disabilities, don't judge. 
Here is a bowl filled with delicious sliced fruits!
 In another small bowl, mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons flour, and 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon.
Oh, cinnamon. My favorite spice. I want to put you on everything (although I think it could make some gross combinations.)

Look at it mixed in there with all that sugar and flour and junk. Mmmmm...cinnamon.


After I broke my cinnamon trance, I rolled out the dough from the refrigerator. Another kitchen implement I do not have is a rolling pin. So I used a glass. I think one of my goals today is to get a rolling pin.



This should be rolled out to about 13 inches or so. I think mine was about that size, but I didn't have a measuring tape near me, or a fancy rolling mat. So I just went with it.


I went ahead and mixed in the sugary, cinnamony, floury mixture with the fruit, sprinkled it with the lemon juice, and then piled them in the center of the dough. 
I tried to leave about 3 inches of border so I could pleat it around the size. 

Dot the fruit with pieces of 2 tablespoons of butter, then fold up the edges of the pastry over the fruit trying your darndest to make pleats. I then used my fancy silicone brush to brush some water on the edges and covered it with my new fancy orange and yellow sanding sugar before putting it in the oven.Bake at 425 for 30-40 minutes until crust is golden brown and the fruit is soft.

Here it is, post oven!

If I was Martha Stewart, someone would be scraping off that sugary stuff off the side of the pan so my crostata looked fancier, but I don't have fancy Martha Stewart sidekicks, I have geeky boys plays DnD in the next room who just want to eat baked good. So, you know, meh. 


There she is! I really liked it. The nectarines were sweet, the plums were tangy, and the dough was buttery and kind of flaky. Also, the juice from the fruits made the dough nice and soft. I very much enjoyed it! You should make these and eat it!

Nectarine-Plum Crostata
adapted from Betty Crocker

Ingredients

Crust


  • 1 1/2 C all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp. sugar
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 C. cold butter, cut into pieces
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 4-5 tablespoons cold water
Filling
  • 1/2 C. sugar
  • 3 tbsp flour
  • 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
  • 3 C. sliced nectarines 
  • 2 C. sliced plums
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 2 tbsp butter, softened
  • 1 tbsp sugar

As usual, thanks for reading!

<3, Carly


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