Pear & Cream Cheese Tarts

We closed the house in Montauk this past weekend, always a sad activity.  With the baby due date approaching, it seemed wise to close early.

To mark our last weekend 'out east', a good friend invited us to a dinner party. She whipped up one of my favorite fall Martha recipe's, pot-au-feu, and a particularly juicy roasted chicken.  I created the little guys below for dessert. I wish I had thought to take a picture of the table.  Candles burning, fresh cut flowers, a table of friends... it was the perfect end to our Montauk season.

The recipe looks complicated because of the length, but that is truly not the case. I combined a few favorite desert components for a quick baking treat. The crust bakes just once, unlike many tarts where the crust bakes first, and the pear and cream cheese filling are a cinch to pull together.  Enjoy!

Perfect Pear Cream Cheese Tarts
Ingredients
For the Crust(s):

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt 
• 1/3 cup confectioners (powdered or icing)
• 1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

For the Filling:

• One 8-ounce cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Pears:

• 5-6 pears, cored, peeled
• Note: If you are making the individual tarts, chop the pears into bite size pieces. If using one pan, slice into 1/4th wedges
• 1/4 cup sugar
• Juice of 1/2 lemon

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350F and place rack in center of oven.
• Butter or spray either 6 mini tart tins like these, or a 9 inch spring form pan. 

• Crust: In your food processor, pulse the flour, salt, and sugar together.
• Add the butter and pulse until dough just begins to come together. If you don't have a food processor, you can mix by hand with two knifes.
• Spoon the dough onto the bottom of the mini tarts or pan, and flatten out across the bottom and up the sides.
• Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge.

• For the Filling: Blend of food process the cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar and mix well.
• Blend in the egg and vanilla extract and process until smooth. Remove the crust from the fridge and scoop 1.5 tablespoons in each mini tart, or pour a thin layer of filling in a larger pan.  If you are making the mini-tarts, you will have leftover filling. 
• Return to the fridge while you prepare the topping.

• For the Topping: Combine the sugar and lemon juice in a bowl. Toss the pears in the sugar mixture. Arrange evenly over the cream cheese layer.

• Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes in small tarts or 25 to 35 minutes in the single pan, until the crust is brown and the filling is almost set. Remove from oven and place on wire rack to cool.
• Sprinkle with confectioners sugar and serve at room temperature.

 

Ina Garten's Apple & Pear Crisp

I've loved the Food Network since it's early 90's debut.  Like any good East Ender with a passion for cooking, that means I adore the one and only Ina Garten, a.k.a. The Barefoot Contessa.

Shopping at the Montauk fish monger one year, I saw her filming a segment.  Ohhhhh did that tickle my fancy!  We watched two takes, where Ina "asked" about the difference between types of scallops for the benefit of us viewers, and then I obsessively DVR-ed until I saw "our" episode air. (See how I did that, I made something about Ina mine!). In the episode, she and Jeffrey enjoyed sandwiches on the Montauk docks, OUR Montauk dock, and I ate it up.

This years crisp CSA apples have been a favorite in my household, and the delivery of pears last week had me looking no further than Ina for a perfect fall dessert.

Apple & Pear Crisp    
Courtesy of Ina Garten & The Food Network

Ingredients (Base)

• 2 pounds / 4 ripe pears
• 2 pounds / 6 firm apples
• 1 teaspoon grated orange zest
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/3 cup of agave syrup or 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup whole wheat or (white) all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

 Ingredients (Toppings)

• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat or (white) all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup of agave syrup or 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 cup old-fashioned oatmeal
• 1/4 pound (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, diced
• Note: The recipe calls for 2 sticks, but I used one and was happy with the end result
• Vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt 

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
• Peel, core, and cut the pears and apples into chunks. Place the fruit in a large bowl and mix in the zests, juices, sugar, flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg. 
• Note: Out of nutmeg, I used ground ginger instead
• Pour into a 9 by 12 by 2-inch baking dish.
• For the topping: Combine the flour, sugars, salt, oatmeal, and butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix on low speed for 1 minute, until the mixture is in large crumbles. If you don't have a mixer (like I don't at the Montauk house), mix and chop the ingredients together by hand with a knife until the butter breaks up. 
• Sprinkle evenly over the fruit base, covering the fruit completely.
• Place the dish on a sheet pan and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, until the top is brown and the fruit is bubbly. 
• Serve warm topped with vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt.  

 

This October is #AppleLove recipe month, led by The Spicy RD.  Check it out on Twitter with the hash tag or here!

Zucchini & Walnut Muffins

When I first moved to New York City seven years ago, I had a bit of a muffin problem.  Actually, I had more of a "I can not find a job, I just got my MBA, I am starting to panic about student loan debt, so I will obsessively bake muffins" problem. It was a much needed distraction from the daily job hunting grind. 

Looking back, I was not very inventive or fun with my muffining.  I just kept baking them, a WHOLE lot of them, on repeat.  When I started working, I stopped baking, and my household not-so-secretly welcomed the hiatus. 

It was a few years before I was back in safe muffining territory.  When Fitsugar tweeted this recipe last week, I pounced, very excited to use one of many (too many?) CSA zucchinis in a non-savory way. 

While these muffins are certainly on the healthier side with skim milk and a veggie base, served warm or toasted with a slab of butter I promise you will not care.  Plus, I added chopped walnuts.  Have you ever eaten a walnut-specked baked good you didn't like?  I didn't think so.  Next time around, I am turning these sweet treats into cupcakes with a cream cheese frosting.  Now THAT will be some good muffining!

Zucchini & Walnut Muffins
Modified courtesy of of FitSugar and DietsinReview 
Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (or 3/4 cup white flour & 3/4 cup brown whole wheat flour)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• Egg-whites from 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup agave syrup (or 3/4 cup sugar)
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup skim milk (or 1 cup if you used sugar instead of agave)
• 1 1/2 cups grated zucchini (one large zucchini in my case)
• 5 tablespoons roughly chopped walnuts

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees (or 400 if you used sugar instead of agave). Spray muffin tins with non-stick cooking spray.
• In a large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and spices.
• In a second bowl, beat egg whites slightly and stir in the agave, milk, oil and zucchini. Add to flour mixture stirring until just combined. Mix in the walnuts.
• Fill muffin cups to the line**.
• Bake for about 20 minutes. 
• Allow to cool for 2-3 minutes and then remove from pan. Serve warm or refrigerate for later use, heating up to enjoy.

**The original directions, and most muffin recipes, suggest filling the tins 2/3 full.  I did one batch 2/3rds full, and a second batch with a few filled to the top.  See the obvious winner below.