Spoon sized (mini-muffin tin) little tarts are my “go to thing” when I have leftover pie dough — and goodness knows that I often have leftover pie dough! When it is a “last minute” thing, I just spoon in spoonfuls of jam (which I also usually have a lot of), but this time, because I had so many lovely blueberries from Maine in the kitchen, I decided to make these from scratch. Perfect bite size. And totally addictive; perhaps even more so than a full sized version, because you can pop a whole little one mouth with no drip from the super juicy berries. Store bought lemon curd, mini-mint sprigs from my garden. Perfect for my afternoon “Kaffeetrinken”.
Desserts
I was up in Maine for the weekend (again, I know… it happens a lot in the summer), and right around August 1st, the blueberries are ready for raking. I prefer the Maine Wild Blues by leaps and bounds over cultivated ones — smaller, sweeter, bluer. And there is something about seeing the rocky fields just bursting with the color that makes it so wonderful Now I have a lot of blueberries. Some will be frozen, but I’m starting by making this pie for dessert tonight. Note that the one in the photo is smaller than the one described in the recipe (only a 7 inch tart).
Variations on Pie: Peach Cherry Lattice Top Pie and Peach Cherry Crumble Top Pie
Making the most of the fresh fruit season, here are two variations on Peach Cherry Pie. They use identical ingredients (though there is some variance is the measurements of those ingredients), but what I was trying to show is that recipes are fairly flexible. When you don’t want to make the same thing over and over, changing something as little as the topping can make something familiar be something new. I love that.
A few weeks ago, a friend’s daughter (who is 13) made him Peanut Butter Cup Banana Bread, which sounded yummy so of course I asked him for the recipe. I am not a fan of peanut butter on the whole (“good not great”) but if you have chocolate too, then I am all in. This isn’t her recipe (I modified by own “usual” banana bread recipe) but her’s looked awesome as well. So, thanks for the inspiration!