Eating tarte in the woods

We’ve been in the woods again (and already a week has passed by since). With a group of about 40 friends we enjoyed the beautiful landscape, fresh forest air and great food. Of course, I couldn’t resist to get involved in all the cooking and baking. It’s always fun to work in the kitchen with our friend Marcus, who turns into a real pro when it comes to baking.

For the afternoon coffee time we made some brioche and simple blueberry and chocolate tartes (recipe below) – and easy doesn’t mean less tasty! Both recipes were from this french cooking book, a real treasure trove of classic french dishes.

After swimming in the lake, hiking, biking or just relaxing by doing nothing everyone came together for dinner again: fresh homemade burgers. And homemade means homemade: patties, sauces and buns … another baking session preceded! And it was of course worth the effort: We had a real forest feast!

For now I am finishing this post, but there are still some pictures and a recipe to follow. Marcus really has brought baking bread to perfection, he has reached a point where I can only watch and learn … and that’s what I did. Upcoming: a lesson in baking bread, and a recipe!

blueberry and chocolate tarte
[adapted from Stéphane Reynaud:Vive la France! Das Kochbuch, engl. French Feasts]

ingredients

crust for one tarte: 250 g flour, 125 g butter, 70 g sugar, 50 g grounded almonds, 1 egg

blueberry cream: 50 g grounded almonds, 50 g groundes hazelnuts, 100 g sugar, 100 g butter, 2 eggs, 200 g blueberries, 60 g flaked almonds

chocolate cream: 250 ml heavy cream, 150 g dark chocolate, 70 g butter, 20 whisky [We only had rum, so we used this, which was fine, too, but we found 30 ml as the original recipe said a bit too much.]

preparation

For the crust combine soft butter (room temperature) with almonds and sugar. Add flour and finally egg. Knead into a homogenous dough. Cover (f.ex. with plastic wrap) and let cool in the fridge.

Preheat oven to 180°C. Roll out dough and line tarte dish with it.

For the blueberry tarte melt butter in a pot and let cool down a bit. Combine grounded nuts, sugar. Add eggs and melted butter. Finally fold in washed blueberries.

For the chocolate tarte brake chocolate into smaller chunks. Pour cream into  a pot and melt chocolate and butter at low temperature in it. Finally add whisky (or rum).

For the blueberry tarte fill cream into lined dish, sprinkle with flaked almond and bake for about 30 min.

For the chocolate tarte, first bake crust for 30 min. When it is only slightly warm, fill in choclate cream and leave to chill in the fridge for at least 30 min.