It’s Valentine’s Day and while I do think that it is a commercial “holiday”, it is a good excuse to bake something so I went for this super-raspberry, super-red, super-delicious Raspberry Curd Tart. It’s really delicious and actually quite easy to make. It can be done all in one day, or you can make the filling up to 3 days in advance and the crust a day in advance, in case you don’t want to be pressed for time.
So I’m plugging away at Cookie Madness, but I couldn’t help but make one last pie in these pre-Thanksgiving days. This one uses heirloom apples called Baldwins that I got at Russell Orchards last weekend. Very nice apples; firm and not too tart. Loving my lattice work too. The rim was a little messy so I used a leaf cookie cutter to pretty it up a little bit.
Often people send me viral photos of cool looking bread design or fancy pie crusts. I love this but one of the things that you often see is the pre-baked pies, but never the end result. Like, what does it look like once You’ve baked it? Is the still as pretty? Or does it all bake together? I decided to give this style of pie — it’s really just a boring old double-crust apple pie, but with the fancy swoosh top crust — a go, and at least with this one, the pattern turned out pretty neat. Pleased with the result.
It wouldn’t be autumn in my world without plum cake. Pflaumenkuchen, Zwetschgenkuchen, Zwetschgendatschi … whatever you want to call it, it’s a very common autumn dessert or snack to coffee-time in southern Germany. This time, I made one a little different, with the addition of cardamom. I love cardamom too and the combination with the tart italian plums is fantastic.