Pate Sable

January 2, 2010

Glen and I got together for a tart making party on Thursday, making an autumn tart, a lemon tart and a chocolate silk tart. We didn’t choose ordinary tarts, but pate sable, the French “sandy” pastry.

The recipe says that at the right temperature, this dough will roll out as smoothly as plasticine. Too warm it is like pushing a noodle uphill, too cold and it is too brittle to be malleable. We tried the second and third of the iterations, before perfecting the rolling of the crust.

The autumn tart contains apples from the trees at the lake – of course we couldn’t stop peeling them until we had enough to make two 12 inch tarts, not just one.

At the next tart making party we have 2 more scientific experiments to do. The first is to create a crust from chocolate crumbs that does not fall apart after being baked.

The second is to perfect the technique of carrying tart pans to the oven. So far it seems they have to be carried by using one’s hands on the side of the pan. To carry the tart pan to the oven with one’s hand on the bottom of the pan is to find the upper ring of the pan dangling on the elbow of your arm and the crust that has been carefully packed onto the fluted sides of the pan falling down around your feet scattered onto the floor around you.

This is a lesson that a person only has to learn once.

Hopefully.

Arta