cherry, chocolate & hazelnut tart

Pro-choice stances support people’s autonomy to have a child if and when it is best for them. All of the many personal views on abortion aside, it’s about having the right to make that personal decision in the first place, whether it be straightforwards or complicated.

Now for many, the choice is lost. As it currently stands, about half of American states face bans or severe restrictions which will worsen already inequal reproductive health access. It’s a move steeped in partisanship more than anything else, which only makes the infringement on bodily autonomy all the more frustrating and incomprehensible.

The fallout from the loss of Roe vs Wade has also highlighted how abortion is an integral and necessary part of health care, including in the treatment of nonviable and life-threatening ectopic pregnancies, pregnancy complications, and miscarriages. When a necessary procedure is artificially criminalized, fear of litigation compromises health care providers’ professional judgement to provide the best care for their patients. For instance, treatment of medical emergencies have already been delayed due to fetal heartbeat laws in Texas, resulting in more dangerous complications. Even individuals requiring methotrexate for various autoimmune conditions have had trouble receiving their prescriptions because it can also be used for medical abortion. It’s evident that abortion bans were written by lawmakers without any regard for the wellbeing of individuals who can become pregnant, and without any practical sense for the actual ramifications of these laws in medical practice.

When it comes to mourning the overturning of Roe vs Wade, there is much written, much better, than I ever could. But the response in Canada has also about remembering what not to take for granted and where our systems are still very lacking. While the legal status of abortion in Canada does not appear to be under immediate threat, access always has been; take New Brunswick, where access to provincially funded abortions is nearly non-existent.

In the remaining provinces and territories, access can still be fraught. With the vast majority of providers located in major urban centres, rural residents must contend with the costs and burden of travel and time off, which only exacerbate socioeconomic disadvantages. Further, in some provinces, actual abortion-providing facilities are far outnumbered by crisis pregnancy centres (CPCs). These organizations target pregnant individuals to discourage abortion, including through misrepresentation of the options. Recent events only underline what has always been the case – that we need the continued work of pro-choice advocates and organizations like Action Canada and Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada to ensure that reproductive health care can be accessed by everyone as needed.

The larger issue is more than just abortion though: some people face discrimination for being or wanting to become parents, and there are myriad ways in which societal inequities can make raising children more difficult. Addressing abortion rights as part of reproductive justice extends to supporting those who are already or may become parents – including addressing the deep racism which underlies atrocities such as forced sterilizations, birth alerts, and over-representation of Indigenous children in care.

More things:

• A primer on Canadian abortion access statistics from Action Canada
• Two articles on the abortion rights struggle in Canada from The Breach – one on positioning abortion within the right to healthcare and reproductive justice and an interview with advocate Darrah Teitel on the challenges to abortion access
• Iljeoma Oluo on how this has been coming for a long time with the failure of solidarity
• I love comics and here is one on how abortion access and economic justice are connected
• The Most Important Study in the Abortion Debate from the Atlantic
• Why medical emergency exceptions for abortions aren’t enough from Vox
• Suggestions for action and more reading from Nursing Clio
• Why we Need Literature on Abortion from Rewire News Group
• For listening, Prochoice by Julie Arsenault

And as for cherry season – while I haven’t made too much with cherries this year yet, I have been sitting on this cherry, chocolate and hazelnut tart for a couple years.

This tart is fun (and also rather uncontroversial) – a bottom chocolate layer that slices like a smooth and thick ganache, a soft nutty hazelnut mascarpone cream layer over top and then covered with plenty of cherries. I’ve made small tarts with a ring of cherries arranged this way and it’s even more fun in a large tart for multiple concentric rings of cherries! It’s a bit tricky to cut though, so admire your carefully arranged fruit before slicing. If you chill the tart for a couple hours after the assembly, it will help the top layer firm up and keep the cherries in place.

cherry chocolate and hazelnut tart

• Servings: 15cm (6-inch) tart
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Chocolate tart filling adapted from Tasty. Be careful not to overcook this layer or it becomes dry!

special equipment: tart ring 15cm in diameter and 4cm tall – no idea how I found this anymore, but I realize it certainly isn’t a standard dimension! You can definitely use a rings of a different size, just be aware it might affect how much tart dough, filling and fruit you need, as well as baking time. For instance, a 15cm wide/2.5cm tall ring would hold less, whereas I think a ~20-24cm wide ring/2.5cm tall might hold a similar volume but would likely need more tart dough to line the ring, and still have a shorter baking time to accommodate the thinner layer of filling.

tart shell

• 56g soft butter
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 2 tsp granulated sugar
• 25g egg, at room temperature
• 15g cocoa powder
• 90g flour, half all-purpose and half whole wheat

chocolate layer

• 85g 85% dark chocolate
• 15g granulated sugar
• pinch salt
• 40g water
• 56g butter
• 1 tbsp kirsch, optional
• 1 1/2 large eggs (75g)

hazelnut mascarpone cream

• 40g slightly coarse hazelnut praline paste (recipe here)
• 100g mascarpone
• 50g heavy cream
• 1 tsp granulated sugar

assembly

• 400g cherries
• halved hazelnuts
• grated dark chocolate

tart shell

Cream together the butter, sugar, and salt. Add the egg, a bit at a time, beating in each addition before the next. Lastly mix in the flours and cocoa powder until a cohesive dough is formed. 

Roll out between two sheets of parchment paper until about 3mm thick and chill completely.

Place a 16cm (6 1/2″) tart ring that is 4cm tall on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Line the tart ring with the pastry – I prefer to line the bottom and sides separately – for details of the method look at this page. Cover and chill completely.

Preheat the oven to 375F. Dock the bottom of the tart shell with a fork. Bake for about 12 minutes or until the pastry appears to have dried and firmed up.

chocolate filling layer

Preheat the oven to 300F.

Place the chopped chocolate and sugar together in a bowl. Heat the milk and butter together in a small saucepan until it comes to a boil, then pour over the chocolate and whisk until the mixture is smooth and glossy. Whisk in the kirsch and eggs. 

Scrape into the prebaked tart shell and tap to level. If bubbles are visible, bounce the back of a spoon over the surface of the filling to pop them. 

Bake until the filling is mostly set and the centre is still a little jiggly, around 15-18 minutes. Let cool then chill completely.

hazelnut mascarpone

Cream together the praline paste and mascarpone. Whip the cream together with the granulated sugar and fold into the mascarpone mixture. Spread over the chilled tart, return to the fridge and chill.

This layer is quite soft initially but it does firm up after a couple hours in the fridge – this can be before or after adding the cherries, but be sure to take time to chill the tart again before attempting to slice it. 

assembly

Cut the cherries in half, like you would a clingfree peach or nectarine: use a small knife to cut the cherry around the pit and then twist the two halves to split them. Pry the pit out of the half that hangs onto it. Arrange the cherry halves in circles on the surface of the tart, starting from the edge and working your way in. In the very centre place two cherry halves stacked on top of each other. Scatter some some halved hazelnuts on top. Grate a bit of dark chocolate over the tart. Chill the tart in the fridge for an hour or two to allow the hazelnut mascarpone to firm up, which will make it a bit easier to slice.

birch flower & hazelnut summer fruit tarts

Épices de cru, in Montreal’s Jean-Talon Market, occupies a brightly painted narrow stall, shelves stacked with tins of different spices, as well as ingredients that aren’t spices in the most traditional sense, like local Quebec dried spruce tips or clover flowers. My aunt/uncle/cousin had gotten me the most lovely assortment of spices for baking one year and I’ve been excited to try using them in a dessert. These tarts are based around dried yellow birch flowers – minute, pale flowers which come with an aroma of oolong tea, grass, sandalwood incense and tonka bean.

The starting point for these tarts were the dried yellow birch flowers, but even after getting multiple people to smell the dried flowers and tell me what they thought they smelled like (you can thank them for the bougie aroma profile in the previous paragraph), I still had no idea what to pair it with. So I went with all the fruits I had on hand: plumcots, cherries and strawberries. Given the woodiness of the yellow birch flower, I thought nuts could also be a nice accompaniment; in the bottom of each tart I layered a thin slick of hazelnut praline paste. It worked out very well actually – the praline paste anchors the pastry cream, with a rounded dessert-y caramel nuttiness that brings out the more amicable flavours of the yellow birch flower.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I ended up loving these tarts!

• Servings: four 3-inch tarts
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tart shells

• 115g butter
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 1 large egg
• 200g flour, half whole wheat and half all-purpose

hazelnut praline paste

• 100g hazelnuts
• 100g sugar

yellow birch flower pastry cream

• 240g whole milk
• 2 1/2 tbsp very lightly packed dried yellow birch flower (approx 1-2g)
• 2 egg yolks
• 10g cornstarch
• 1 tbsp + 1 tsp sugar (or more to taste – typically recipes classically use 3-4 tbsp)
• 1 tbsp butter

assembly

• fruit! I used 1 plumcot, and about 8 cherries and 8 strawberries, but use whatever you have on hand

tart shells

This makes about twice the amount of pastry you’ll actually need to line the tart shells, but having this much pastry makes it easier – and then you can use the rest for another project.

Cream the butter with the sugar and salt. Beat the egg in a small bowl and add to the butter in four additions, thoroughly mixing in each addition. Add the flours and stir until a dough is formed. Knead a couple times to bring it together.

Divide the dough in half and roll out each between parchment to about 2-3mm thick. Chill completely. 

Set four 3″ tart rings on a parchment lined tray and line with pastry – for details of methods, you can look at this page.

Trim one half of the dough into a rectangle and slice into long strips – they should be longer than the circumference of the rings and wider than the height of the tart rings. Take a strip and use it to line the sides of a tart ring, cutting the excess length and pressing the two edges together to seal (have a bit of overlap to help seal).

Cut circles 0.5cm smaller than the diametre of the tart ring from the other half of the dough. Fit these circles of pastry into the bottom of rings and press along the seam between the side and base to seal. If there is a bit of a gap, press along the edges of the base to make it slightly wider until it meets the pastry lining the walls. Trim the excess pastry height with a sharp knife to bring it level with the side of the tart rings. Cover and chill completely.

Preheat the oven to 375F. Dock the bases of the chilled tart shells with a fork. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool completely.

hazelnut praline paste

This makes quite a bit more than you’ll need, but if you’re going to the trouble of making it, you may as well make more as it keeps very well.

Spread the hazelnuts out over a baking tray covered with parchment paper. Place the sugar in a small saucepan along with a splash of water. Heat the mixture until it boils and the sugar is dissolved. Allow to continue cooking over medium to medium-high heat until the sugar caramelizes, swirling occasionally. Cook to the desired degree of caramelization – I went for a darker amber. Pour over the hazelnuts. Allow to cool.

Chop the praline into pieces. Place in the bowl of a food processor along with 1/4 tsp kosher salt and pulse until a paste is formed. Place in the fridge. 

yellow birch flower pastry cream

Begin by infusing the milk. Bring the milk to a simmer and stir in the yellow birch flowers. Cover and set aside to cool, then transfer to the fridge to finish steeping overnight. 

The next day whisk the sugar, egg yolks and cornstarch together in a bowl. Set aside.

Pass the infused milk through a sieve to remove the flowers. Place the milk in a saucepan and heat until it simmers. Slowly pour the milk into the egg yolks, while whisking constantly to temper the eggs. 

Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook over medium to medium-high while whisking constantly. Look for the pastry cream to begin to bubble and to thicken considerably. To ensure the starch is cooked, let the pastry cream cook at a bubble for at least 1 minute (all the while whisking very vigorously!).

Whisk in the butter and then immediately transfer to a bowl (at this point you can taste for sweetness and add more sugar as per your preference). Cover and chill. 

assembly

Spread 1-2 tsp of hazelnut praline paste on the bottom of each baked tart shell. Whisk the pastry cream to loosen and smooth it, then dollop into the tart shells and spread smooth with an offset spatula. Arrange fruit on top. 

tarragon lime posset tarts with black & blueberries

These tarts were inspired by these blueberry and blackberry tarts by Ed Kimber (I seem to be taking inspiration from his bakes lately!). I came across the recipe one day and the image stayed with me: shades of blue rendered in differently shaped and textured berries. Here I’ve put the berry pairing over a posset, a sort of cooked and curdled citrus cream, which, despite how it might sound, makes for a delightful tart filling. The tarragon and lime in the posset are close to a lime-and-mint pairing: – fresh herbal and citrusy – but with an aniseed/liquorice-y vibe. If you like tarragon, this might be my new favourite tarragon pairing!

Okay, but I can’t just leave you with “posset is curdled cream” can I? While true, it doesn’t give posset nearly enough credit! Posset is sharp, sweet and like the smoothest, creamiest, richest pudding – think almost ganache-like in consistency. My mum used to make it to use up near-expired cream – and it is fast and simple as is her cooking style: just boil the cream with citrus juice and sugar, and it’s done. It would probably be one of my favourite things except that it is also very sweet. As the sugar content is something of a structural necessity (I think), I haven’t dared to tamper with it too much. Thus it works well here as a thin layer balanced with a fairly unsweetened tart crust and plenty of fresh berries.

Another great thing about posset – unlike a pastry cream filling, it won’t sog up your tart shells as quickly as pastry cream! While the posset can crack after a day or two as some of the moisture is absorbed into the tart shells, any surface cracks will be covered with berries, making it quite alright to make and fill the tarts a day or two ahead of time if needed.

tarragon lime posset tarts with black and blueberries

• Servings: five 9cm tarts
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You will need five 9cm fluted tart tins (about 1.5cm tall). Posset adapted from Food52. Blueberry and blackberry arrangement based on these blueberry and blackberry tarts by the Boy Who Bakes. 

pastry

• 56g softened butter
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp granulated sugar
• 25g egg, at room temperature
• 105g flour, half all-purpose and half whole wheat
• plus a bit of extra beaten egg

tarragon lime posset

• 240g heavy cream (36% milk fat) 
• 2 large sprigs of tarragon (~3g)
• 60g granulated sugar
• pinch salt
• 1/4 tsp finely grated lime zest
• 37g freshly squeezed lime juice

assembly

• approx 250g blueberries
• approx 150g blackberries
• tarragon leaves
• finely grated lime zest

pastry

Cream the butter with the salt and sugar. Add the egg, a bit a time, beating in each addition completely before the next. Lastly add the flours all at once and mix in until combined. Pat into a disc, wrap in plastic, and chill the dough completely.

Remove from the dough from the fridge and place on a very lightly floured countertop (you may need to let the dough warm up on the counter for a few minutes first). Roll to about 2-3mm thick. Cut out at 12cm circles and use to line the fluted tart tins. In order to line all five tins, you’ll need to re-roll the scraps. This is a delicate pastry to work with, so don’t worry if it tears – just patch any tears together with a bit of extra dough. 

Cover the tins and chill completely.

Preheat the oven to 375F. Dock the bottom of the tart shells with a fork. Bake until the tart shells are golden brown, about 20 minutes. Brush the shells lightly with a bit of extra beaten egg and return to the oven for another few minutes – this will help form a seal.

Let the tart shells cool completely. If there are any cracks, you can patch them with a bit of melted white chocolate.

tarragon lime posset

Heat the cream until steaming. Roll the tarragon between your fingers to bruise the leaves and help release the flavour, then stir into the hot cream. Cover and set aside to steep for at least a few hours or overnight (in the fridge). 

Pass the cream through a sieve to remove the tarragon, pressing to extract as much cream as you can. Transfer the cream to a medium saucepan (we’re using a larger saucepan to prevent the cream from boiling over). Add the sugar, salt and lime zest. Bring the cream to a boil and let boil for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and whisk in the lime juice. Transfer to a cup with a pouring spout and allow to cool slightly.

Keep the baked tart shells in their tins for extra support. Distribute the posset amongst the five tart shells. Tap lightly on the countertop if needed to level the surface. Place in the fridge and allow to set completely.

assembly

Place 4-5 blackberries (depending on size) on top of each tart. Fill in the spaces around the blackberries with blueberries and then pile on some additional blueberries to create a slightly mound of fruit. Scatter the tarts with tarragon leaves and finely grated lime zest.

blueberry lemongrass & mint tarts

The potential importance of reading a variety of news sources didn’t occur to me for a long time – at one point I thought it was sufficient I wasn’t reading the Canadian equivalents of Fox News. But we know Canada is a country of systemic racism and all the other -isms. By definition, that extends to newsrooms where it has an impact on who is in the newsroom, as well as on what news is reported, what news is not, and how the stories are conveyed.

What people hear, see and read in the news drive the public consciousness and narrative. And when that news is being reported through the lens of whiteness and internalized oppression, it becomes distorted.

Hadeel Abdel-Nabi, The Sprawl

coconut & grapefruit marmalade tarts

What is food blogging like in a pandemic? My blog oscillates between the asinine and, occasionally, trying to be a bit of something else. Today is another trying-to-be-a-bit-of-something-else sort of day.

There is a theme strung throughout the constant inundation of pandemic updates. While each individual headline isn’t a surprise, it is remarkable how clearly COVID-19 has broadly articulated inequities. Which is to say that COVID-19 is wreaking havoc on the more vulnerable and marginalized.

We’re seeing the same disproportionate impact on those in poverty, a key determinant of health, as we do with many health outcomes. There are many challenges for precariously housed or homeless individuals, for whom the calls to self-isolate pose a “cruel oxymoron.” For precarious workers, individuals living from pay check to pay check, staying home may not be a choice, particularly when many have no paid sick days despite longstanding advocacy efforts. And individuals that work in informal economies are not only impacted, but also often excluded from government support measures.

The current crisis has also amplified the unequal burden placed on women to act as unpaid caregivers and the violence that some face at home. In some areas in the States, the pandemic has been twisted to restrict access to essential reproductive health care.

Through ongoing marginalization of Indigenous peoples and surveillance of Black Canadians, Canada has set these populations up for a worse outcomes. And then there are the excess risks posed to those with pre-existing mental health conditions, those who use substances, and the exclusion in care of those with disabilities. Refugees, migrants and undocumented workers are seeing greater risks, as well as immigration detainees in Canada. Seniors in long-term care facilities have already seen devastating outbreaks, with nearly half of Canadian COVID-19-attributed deaths originating from these centres, a situation which may soon be replicated in Canada’s prisons as well.

It’s no coincidence that COVID-19 has been exacerbating vulnerabilities on every front – these are the places and people who are not valued in the same way as others and have been denied the power, tools and resources. In fact, intense inequity may have played a role in perpetuating the pandemic in the first place.

For anyone who cares about something, this pandemic is a public health crisis – so it’s a good time to keep talking about it and keep opening new conversations. With increasing public attention and awareness, this could be an opportunity to shake off some inertia and address underlying social factors that impact health. Just a few examples: establish living wages, mandate paid sick days without needing a doctor’s note, start guaranteed basic income pilots, implement Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls to action, or reform prison systems.

Because I do believe we’re all in it together – but we’re in at different depths.

Oh and here are some tarts! They’re essentially a variant of a Bakewell tart. It turns out I love grapefruit marmalade – I added in some pectin to cut down on the sugar, and it is tart and bitter and bright, and turns a brilliant hot-ember orange.

I am also loving combinations of coconut and citrus, and so here is another such pairing – and I can’t resist adding cardamom to almost everything.

grapefruit marmalade and coconut tarts

• Servings: 5 tarts
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If you make five tarts, you’ll have leftover marmalade for toast, and a half recipe of frangipane left for my favourite banana bread. 

special equipment: five 3-inch tart rings (I use egg rings)

grapefruit cardamom marmalade Preparation of fruit adapted from Ricardo. Makes about one 250mL jar of marmalade.

• 1 grapefruit
• 80g of granulated sugar
• 1 tsp green cardamom pods,
• 10g pectin

Peel the grapefruit and very finely chop the peel. Put the peel in a small saucepan, cover with water, and boil for 8 minutes. Drain the peel in a sieve, rinse with water, and repeat the boiling process twice more.

Cut the flesh of the grapefruit into small cubes. Add to the small saucepan along with the drained grapefruit peel. Add 1/3 cup of water, the sugar, cardamom pods, and pectin. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar and pectin. Reduce the temperature to allow the marmalade to simmer until it becomes thickened (about 10-15 minutes). Check the consistency by putting a spoonful in the freezer – you’re looking for the liquid to be viscous.

Transfer to a jar or container to cool.  

pastry

Makes lots of extra! It’s so much easier to line tart tins when there is extra. This is enough to line 5 tins in one go, or if you re-roll the dough and break up the process you can absolutely line more. If you use all all-purpose flour instead of whole wheat, you may need more flour.

• 113g soft butter
• 25g granulated sugar
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 1 egg at room temperature
• 210g flour, half whole wheat and half all-purpose
• a bit of extra egg white

Cream the butter with the sugar and salt. Beat the egg in a small bowl and add to the butter in four additions, thoroughly mixing in each addition. Add the flours and stir until a dough is formed. Knead a couple times to bring it together.

Divide the dough in half and roll out each between parchment. Chill completely.

Take five 3″ tart rings. Cut round tart bases from one half of the rolled out dough.

Trim the other half of the dough into a rectangle and slice into long strips – because you can trim the strips, they should be longer than the circumference of the rings and wider than the height of the tart rings. Take a strip and use it to line the sides of a tart ring, cutting the excess length and pressing the two edges together to seal (have a bit of overlap to help seal). Press along the seam between the side and base to seal. Trim the excess pastry height with a sharp knife to bring it level with the side of the tart rings.

Chill completely.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Prick the bases of the tart shells all over with a fork. Bake the tart shells until dried, around 10-15 minutes.  

sort of coconut frangipane 

I don’t know how, but over multiple remakes and random alterations, this no longer resembles the typical ratios of a frangipane… Makes enough to fill around 10 tarts, but I only used half for 5 tarts and saved the remainder for this banana bread recipe. 

• 67g soft butter
• 40g granulated sugar
• hearty pinch of kosher salt
• 100g unsweetened desiccated coconut, ground rather finely
• 17g flour
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Place the coconut in the bowl a food processor (or do it in batches in a spice grinder) and pulse until ground. Cream butter with sugar and salt until light and fluffy. Add the ground and toasted coconut and beat in. Follow with the flour, and then the egg, a little bit at a time. Lastly, beat in the vanilla extract.  

assembly

• shredded dried unsweetened coconut

Preheat the oven to 350F. Spread a bit of grapefruit marmalade in a thin layer on the bottom of each tart shell. Top with coconut frangipane – this doesn’t rise quite as much so you can fill it a bit closer to the top of the tart shell. Sprinkle with shredded coconut. Bake for around 20 minutes or until the filling is golden brown.