Rainy Day Thoughts and Lemon Bars

You know how sometimes you read a blog entry and it sets you thinking very intently about something that had been crossing your mind occasionally?
This blog entry by pastry chef Shuna Fish Lydon made me think that there was something I wanted to talk about in this post.
Amongst other things, she makes the point that to cook professionally you have to want it above all else, you have to be ready to give up normal hours, and you should have one way or another of supporting yourself that isn't through cooking professionally (at first anyway because you'll be be a no-pay or low-pay gofer).
There are two things that I would happily do 16 hours a day. One is work in film post production and the other is bake. I've been fortunate enough to do the first and will go back to doing that as soon as I can leave my perfect baby with someone else, but I will never do the second professionally, and that's ok because I've been able to do one of these two things which is more than most people get to do in life.
Now, if you've drifted in and out of reading this blog for as long as it's been around, you might know that I was trained as an engineer in college, but I think that if I remember my posts well enough, that may be all you know about me other than that I'm married with step-children, a new baby, and a menagerie of animals. So here's something I've been wanting to say on and off for a while now. I do not come from a family of people who love to cook or bake. My sister is probably the only person in my family that loves to cook. We were always told to do something practical like be an engineer before we went off and did anything else because it was a solid foundation for whatever else we might want to do. I don't begrudge my father for nudging us consciously and subconsciously in that direction because, even though I hardly use my engineering degree in the way it was intended anymore, that sort of mathematic and scientific foundation is useful every day in a myriad ways (including when I bake). It is interesting to me though that I'm suddenly realizing that if I had thought it was an option back when I was 18, I would have probably wanted to go to pastry school. As is, I went to graduate film school instead and here I am, doing something I love for a living, lucky me. The reason I wanted to mention this train of thought now is because I look at my two month-old daughter (today! boy time sure does fly) and my step-daughter, who is 9, and feel like my job as their mom is to make it possible for them to do whatever they want to do and to let them explore every option if possible so that they too can end up doing something they love. That's not a very deep thought, I know, but it's so important to me I felt like I needed to verbalize it somehow.

What does this have to do with lemon bars? Well nothing really, I'd just been dying for some lemon pastry after seeing all these lemon desserts all over the blogosphere and baking them gave me a little bit of time to think about what I was talking about above. The recipe is from the Tartine Cookbook by Elizabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson with some minor tweaks here and there such as a little less sugar and unrefined blond cane sugar at that (I try to replace refined white sugar with unrefined sugar as much as possible where allowed) and pine nuts in the brown butter shortbread crust which is an optional addition in the recipe (and which I highly recommend). I'd made these once before with Meyer Lemons and did not like them nearly as much as I liked these made with regular lemons (and here is where I confess to those of you who've read this far that I don't think I like Meyer Lemons very much because to me a lemon should be tart and acidic and make me pucker and Meyer lemons just don't do it for me. I know, I can hear the collective gasp from all over the foodosphere). I also didn't have a 9x13 inch pan to bake them in so the surplus from my slightly smaller pan went into tartlet molds for those of us, such as A., who can handle a bigger piece than a 2 square-inch lemon bar.
A new picture of Baby Saffron will accompany this post tomorrow. Gotta get back to her now, my little precious...

"Maman! You are such a doofus sticking that big camera in my face!"

Tarte au Citron Meringuée aka LMP - DB January

I know I know... I haven't been posting. Mea Culpa. Life is a little crazy ridiculous right now with all sorts of developments that would take so long to explain here that I simply don't. But one thing never changes, and that is the Daring Bakers' monthly challenge. This month, Jen of The Canadian Baker challenged us to make a Lemon Meringue Pie with the pie portion of the recipe courtesy of Wanda's Pie in the Sky by Wanda Beaver, 2002, and the Tartlet recipe courtesy of Ripe for Dessert, 2003 by our favorite web chef David Lebovitz. You can see the full recipe on Jen's website.
Actually, you've already seen me make lemon tartlets without meringue on top, so for me this recipe was primarily a variation on the methods I normally use. I didn't want to get butter and/or sugar on my camera so I didn't take any pictures while I was making the dough; then I was afraid of pouring water or something else on it while making the filling, so the camera didn't appear in the kitchen until all the elements were ready for assembly.

Le French: Je sais je sais... je n'ai pas écrit de billet depuis un moment. Mea Culpa. Mon existence est un peu folle et dans tous les sens en ce moment et ça mettrait trop longtemps à expliquer ici alors je n'explique pas. Mais une chose ne change pas, c'est le défi mensuel des Pâtissiers Téméraires. Ce mois-ci, Jen de The Canadian Baker nous a défié de faire une tarte au citron meringuée avec les recettes suivantes: La recette pour la garniture de Wanda's Pie in the Sky de Wanda Beaver, 2002, et la recette de la pâte à tarte de Ripe for Dessert, 2003 par le chef pâtissier David Lebovitz. Vous pouvez voir la recette sur le site de Jen.
En fait vous m'avez déjà vu faire de la tartelette au citron sans meringue, donc cette recette pour moi était sûrtout une variante sur les méthodes que j'utilise normalement. Je ne voulais pas mettre du beurre et du sucre partout sur mon appareil photo alors je n'ai pas pris de photos pendant que je faisais la pâte; puis j'avais peur de verser de l'eau ou quelque chose d'autre dessus en préparant la garniture, alors l'appareil n'est apparu dans la cuisine que quand les éléments étaient prêts à être assemblés.

As you can tell, I made tartlets with molds, free-form tartlets, and mini-tartlets. David Lebovitz's dough tasted good but I found it harder to roll out to fit the molds and that it had more of a tendency to become gluten-ish and elastic than my fetish dough recipe, that of my boyfriend Pierre Hermé (don't tell A.).

FR: Comme vous pouvez le voir, j'ai fait des tartelettes avec des moules, des tartelettes sans forme particulière et des mini-tartelettes. La pâte de David Lebovitz avait bon goût mais je l'ai trouvé moins facile à étaler dans les moules et ayant plutôt tendance à devenir rapidement élastique et épaisse que ma pâte fétiche, celle de mon boyfriend Pierre Hermé (ne le dites pas à A.).

The lemon filling was pretty easy to prepare. It was the first time I was preparing a lemon cream that was primarily made up of water, lots of egg yolks, corn starch and very little butter. Generally, I make PH's lemon cream, which is essentially made up of butter and lemon. I know, I'm obsessed.

FR: La garniture a été assez facile à préparer. C'était la première fois que je préparais de la crème au citron essentiellement composée d'eau, avec beaucoup de jaunes d'oeufs, de la maizena et très peu de beurre. Généralement, je fais la crème au citron de PH, qui est sûrtout composée de beurre et de citron. Je sais, je suis obsédée.

Perhaps because I haven't made any French meringue recently, having made only Swiss meringue since the yule log, the meringue didn't appear very stiff to me; maybe I beat it too much, or maybe not enough, I'm not exactly sure. But I still had a good time decorating the tartlets.
The best part of the whole process was using my brand new mini-blowtorch which is, as I said to Meeta, my new favorite kitchen gadget.

FR: La meringue, peut-être parce que je n'ai pas fait de meringue française depuis un moment, n'ayant fait que des meringues suisses depuis la bûche, ne me semblait pas très ferme; peut-être l'ai-je trop battu, ou peut-être pas assez, je ne sais pas exactement. Mais je me suis quand même bien amusée à décorer les tartelettes.
Le clou de l'opération a été l'usage de ma nouvelle mini-torche de cuisine qui est, comme je l'ai dit à Meeta, mon nouveau gadget de cuisine préféré.

Overall, I found the dough to be pretty good but I still prefer PH's recipe with almond meal, an egg, icing sugar, a little more butter, a little less flour, etc...
The lemon cream was good too, particularly because it was pretty tart but, I know you already know what I'm going to say, I still prefer the coronary available to me with PH's lemon cream recipe, which tastes better in my opinion.
And I think that next time I'll make a Swiss meringue so that it's stiffer and that the egg whites are cooked.
In any case, it all disappeared very quickly, which is always a good sign...
I hope you'll visit the other Daring Bakers daring creations.

FR: En tout, j'ai trouvé que la pâte était pas mal mais je préfère la recette de PH avec de la poudre d'amandes, un oeuf, du sucre glace, un peu plus de beurre, un peu moins de farine, etc...
La crème au citron était bonne elle aussi, en particulier parce qu'elle était assez acide mais, je sais que vous savez déjà ce que je vais dire, je préfère la crise cardiaque disponible avec la crème au citron de PH, qui a plus de goût en ce qui me concerne.
Et je pense que je ferais une meringue suisse la prochaine fois pour qu'elle soit plus ferme et que les blancs d'oeufs soient cuits.
En tout cas, tout est parti très vite, ce qui est bon signe...
J'espère que vous rendrez visite aux autres Pâtissiers Téméraires pour voir leurs créations.