A Tale of Two Tarts

After a hike around Milton's Blue Hills Reservation on the 4th of July, my boyfriend and I were pretty exhausted, but since it was still pretty early in the day and dinner was inevitable, I decided I might as well cook.  I quick trip to the grocery store for some necessary items and I was ready to use the fennel and carrots from my share to make two different tarts.

I decided to make two since they both required puff pastry and they come two sheets to a package...also we were HUNGRY!  On the agenda this holiday were a Carrot Ricotta Tart and a Caramelized Fennel Tart.  Both of these recipes are a little flawed, but for different reasons.

Let's take this post one tart at a time!

Carrot Ricotta Tart

The Carrot Ricotta Tart is, as you saw if you already clicked the link, in French...and I do not speak (or read) French.  So I did a cut and paste into Google Translate and then made a few more adjustments to calculate oven temperature from Celsius to Fahrenheit and Grams to Ounces.  The translation was less than perfect so I used my own best judgement.  For example it called for 4-6 puff pastry squares, which would lead you to think here in the US that you would need 2-3 packages of frozen pastry, which you DO NOT.  One sheet was perfectly adequate.  To save you folks at home the hassle here are my English instructions with some edits based on what I did:

Ingredients

      5 or 6 carrots

      1 sheet frozen puff pastry
      7 oz ricotta cheese
      Pinch of thyme
      Salt

      Pepper

      Honey

Instructions

• Thaw pastry sheet (approx. 30 minutes) 
• Peel the carrots, removing the tops and bottoms
• Thinly slice them (use a mandolin slicer if you have one)
• Steam carrot slices until tender, put aside until needed.
• Preheat oven to 400° F
• Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and unfold the pastry puff
• Lightly mark a 1” border around the pastry crust with a butter knife
  
• Fold the edges of the pastry over, making small walls along the 4 sides
• Lightly prick the bottom of the pastry puff with a fork
• Spread the ricotta cheese on the pastry
• Lightly salt and pepper the top of the ricotta cheese
• Layer the sliced carrots on top
• Add a little more salt and pepper on top of the carrots with the pinch of thyme and drizzle with honey
• Bake the tart for 20 minutes or until pastry puff is browned 
• Eat while still warm

The one major difference between my attempt and the recipe is that my carrots were teeny tiny so my slices were also teeny tiny and the end product looked more covered in polka dots than beautifully rustic.  I also didn't get my carrots to bake as well as it looks like they did on the original recipe page.  I think this probably has to do with the thickness of the carrot slices.  I did mine by hand and my knife skills are still pretty unfortunate so they ended up on the thicker side.  A mandolin slicer and fully grown carrots would probably solve all these problems!

I really loved this tart even with the too thick carrots.  The honey drizzled on top was lovely and the ricotta cheese was creamy and indulgent tasting.  The whole thing was so easy to make and would be perfect as an appetizer for a dinner party or luncheon (all those luncheons we have, right!? Ha!).

Caramelized Fennel Tart

I had such incredible hopes for the Caramelized Fennel Tart recipe!  When I looked it over it seems totally easy and foolproof, but I think it might just be my first dud since starting my blog.  It started out promising when I was slicing the fennel, which smelled so so so delicious, but went awry as the cooking of the fennel went on...and on...and on.

The fennel sadly ended up very dry, in part because I basically killed it trying to make it "golden brown" as directed.  I can't help but think something was missing in the recipe itself.  There was never any substance to the "mixture" other than the cooked fennel.  It was overcooked before putting it into the oven and REALLY bone dry by the time I took it out.

If you look at the photo on the recipe page the filling looks substantial - like there is something liquid bonding
everything together, which just didn't happen for me.  It mentions 2 tablespoons of olive oil twice in the ingredients list that I thought was an error, but perhaps there was something there that I overlooked.  Maybe and second dose of olive oil should have been added in somewhere along the line, but the recipe never calls for it.  Anyway, I am at a loss

for what went wrong. If you have any thoughts on what could have made it more of a filling and less of a pile of overcooked fennel please let me know in the comments!  I'd love to try it again and see if I can make something as beautiful as the photo in the recipe.

All of that being said, the taste of the fennel (even overcooked) was actually pretty nice.  My boyfriend liked it more than I did, but I find myself being much more critical of my adventures than he is.  I was dreaming of something more delicious and the reality of that sad dry fennel was just too much of a disappointment.

Not sure what my next adventure will bring, but I hope you'll keep checking in with me!  Until next time...au revoir!