You guys really pulled a fast one on me with the poll last week. It was a perfect tie between gin and rum! What’s a mixologist to do?

At first I tried to come up with a drink that had both gin and rum in it, but that proved to be pretty hard. Drinks do exist that use both, but they have a pretty specific flavor profile. Most of them weren’t really in the Halloween spirit so I thought it would be easier and more fun to just make two cocktails: one with rum and one with gin.

Frankly, both turned out better than I was expecting due to some awesome simple syrups.

Two Halloween Cocktails

Yield: 1 drink of each

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

Pumpkin Simple Syrup:
1/2 Cup pumpkin puree
1/2 Cup water
1/2 Cup sugar

Pumpkin Martini:
2 ounces rum (spiced rum would be good)
2 ounces pumpkin simple syrup
1 ounce cream
Cinnamon sugar (for rim)

Vampire Blood:
2 cups cranberry juice
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup dried hibiscus flowers

Vampire Blood Cocktail:
2.5 ounces gin
3 ounces club soda
1/2 ounce vampire blood
Garnish with lime

Helpful Equipment:
Cocktail Set

Directions:

1) For pumpkin syrup, just mix all the ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to simmer. Simmer for about 5 minutes and then chill and use. It will store in the fridge fine for a week.

2) For pumpkin martini, wet rim and run it around some cinnamon sugar. Then shake ingredients together with ice and strain into chilled glass.

3) For vampire blood, combine ingredients in small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Reduce the mixture down by about 1/3 which should take about 20 minutes. Chill and use or store for up to 2 weeks.

4) For cocktail, mix gin and club soda over ice. Pour over vampire blood mixture and garnish with lime.

Pumpkin Martini

It’s Halloween and I just had to try to mix pumpkin into one of these cocktails. Anytime you’re trying to mix in a flavor with a drink, it’s usually best to try to make a simple syrup out of it which will make it easy to mix into things.

I was a bit worried that the pumpkin wouldn’t mix well due to it’s lumpiness…

Wasn't sure about this...

But after I started stirring this mixture together though, I knew it wouldn’t be a problem. The pumpkin just kind of melted in with the sugar and after a few minutes of simmering I had this surprisingly smooth syrup that I knew would work great in a cocktail.

Pretty silky smooth!

One Note: For the pumpkin, be sure to use just 100% canned pumpkin. Don’t use the pumpkin pie filling stuff. That stuff has all kinds of crazy stuff in it.

Shake It Up

While you could make this drink on the rocks (over ice) if you wanted, it seemed a bit more elegant to make a real martini out of it. That’s means you’ll need a shaker set of some sort if you don’t have one.

Try it with spiced rum....

A Bartender’s Trick

If you want to know a hint to watch for to see if your bartender is a good one and cares about the drinks they are making, see how they handle the glass. A good bartender will always always chill the glass. That means that if the glasses aren’t kept in a refrigerator, they will ice and chill every single glass that they pour into.

It only takes a few seconds and really helps keep your drink cool for as long as possible.

Very important.

At the last minute, I decided to add a cinnamon sugar rim to the glass also just to play off some of the pumpkin flavors. Not essential, but a fun little touch.

For the rim...

Just wet your glass with a paper towel and then run the rim in the cinnamon sugar. After that, just add your ingredients to your shaker with some ice and shake shake shake. Or stir stir stir. Whatever.

It’s a pretty drink and really tasty. I think if I made this again, I might try it with spiced rum instead of white rum.

Beautiful thing.

Vampire Blood Cocktail

Ok. Onto gin land! This is Halloween play on gin and juice basically. I wanted to make a blood red syrup and then add it to a gin soda and I figured it would be cool looking and delicious.

You’ll need some red stuff to start. I used real, pure cranberry juice, but you could also use pomegranate juice.

making blood!

See those withered flower things down there? Those are hibiscus flowers and they turn things bright red and give them a light floral taste. I love them in cocktails.

Here’s an up close look at these weird things.

They kind of look like what I would imagine vampire flowers would look like actually.

Up close!

Anyway, just like the pumpkin syrup, just mix all these together and bring them to a simmer. The only difference is that with this one you want it to simmer and reduce for about 20 minutes to thicken it up a bit.

Making blood!

A Chill Tip

For both of these syrups, they are best when they are cold. They will take hours to cool off completely in the fridge. What I like to do is set up a bowl with some ice water in it and then put the syrup in a smaller bowl inside the larger bowl. Stir the syrup and the ice water in the outer bowl will chill the syrup down in just a minute or two.

Back to the cocktail!

Then just add your gin and club soda (or tonic) to a tall glass with ice and a small shot of the vampire syrup and you’re all set!

Feel free to garnish with a lime and some fangs!

Awesome drink.

Both of these drinks are freakin’ delicious and you better bet that I’m going to be having one or two of both over the Halloween weekend.

You can't find this in a can...

A huge event is happening next week. And no, I’m not talking about Thanksgiving. I’m talking about the first time that Betsy and I host our very own Thanksgiving! It’s a big deal because it plants us firmly in the you’re-all-grown-up world.

As you might imagine, I’m taking the whole thing a bit seriously even though, in actuality, we are only hosting three people. It’s still a big deal though! A big enough deal that I ordered a 20 pound turkey.

What? Four pounds per person? Betsy thought that was a bit ambitious, but let me just say: “Mother, if you’re reading this, BRING TUPPERWARE.”

On the subject of Thanksgiving, it’s been my experience though that while a poorly cooked bird can sometimes ruin the meal, really delicious side dishes can 100% make the meal very memorable. So I want to devote this week on Macheesmo to those side dishes.

I’m starting with one of the most abused side dishes in Thanksgiving history: Cranberry sauce. I’ll just be blunt. If you’re going to spend all day making a huge feast of a meal, put down the can opener and make some real cranberry sauce. You can even do it in advance. It’s stuff like this though that will stand out on the table.

Roasted Cranberry Sauce

Yield: 3 Cups

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound fresh cranberries
1 Cup sugar
3 Tablespoons neutral oil
1 Tablespoon fresh rosemary, minced
1 Teaspoon fresh thyme, minced
1 Teaspoon fresh sage, minced
1/4 Cup Triple Sec
3 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/2 Cup currants (you could sub raisins, but chop them roughly so they aren't so big)
Pinch of salt

Pecans:
1 Cup pecans, roughly chopped
1/4 Cup Triple Sec
2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 Tablespoons water
1/4 Cup sugar
1 Teaspoon fresh rosemary, sage, and thyme, minced

Directions:

1) Mix sugar, cranberries, herbs, and oil in a large bowl and then spread out on a heavy baking sheet.

2) Roast at 425 degrees for about 15-20 minutes until the cranberries are deflated and most of the liquid is cooked out. Stir once, half way through.

3) Meanwhile, combine Triple Sec, apple cider vinegar, and currants in a pot over medium-low heat. Simmer for 10 minutes while the cranberries roast to let currants soak up liquid.

4) When cranberries are done, add them to pot with currants and stir well to combine.

5) Let this mixture chill until cold. It's best to make it the day before.

6) For the pecans, add sugar, triple sec, and vinegar in a small pan and bring to a simmer. Cook until sugar is dissolved and mixture is thick, a few minutes.

7) Add chopped pecans and stir so they are coated. Then pour pecans onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

8) Roast at 425 degrees until pecans are lightly browned, about 8-10 minutes.

9) Let cool and then break up the pecans.

10) Serve cranberries with pecans on top.

Pretty heavily adapted from a Bon Appétit recipe.

Roasting the cranberries

Roasting the cranberries really intensifies their flavor but also mellows out the bitterness a bit. The sugar helps with that also. It looks like a lot of sugar, but you’ll lose some of it in the roasting pan. Also, who cares? It’s Thanksgiving. Just go with it.

Remember, cranberries are tart things.

It shouldn’t surprise you to see the Thanksgiving trio of herbs in this dish. You’ll need them for both the cranberries and the pecans and probably for every other dish you make for Thanksgiving.

Herbage.

Stir the cranberries, sugar, oil, and herbs in a big bowl and then lay them out on a large baking sheet.

Ready to go.

Bake these at 425 degrees for about 20 minutes. After 10 minutes, take the cranberries out and stir them well. Push them toward the center of the pan.

Meanwhile, you’ll need some of these guys (NOT PICTURED: apple cider vinegar).

Plus apple cider vinegar!

The original recipe called for red wine, but I wanted an orange flavor, hence triple sec. The problem that I quickly realized was the Triple Sec is really sweet and I worried that my final sauce would be way too sweet. So I added some apple cider vinegar to the mix and it worked like a charm.

Mix the triple sec, currants, and vinegar in a medium sauce pan over medium heat until it simmers. Simmer it so the currants absorb a lot of the flavors. Simmer for about 10 minutes while your cranberries roast.

Keep a close eye on the cranberries so they don’t burn. You might have some burned syrupy sauce around the edges of the baking pan, which is fine. Just don’t use that.

Your cranberries are done when they are mostly deflated and a lot of the liquid is cooked off. This is about perfect. I didn’t use any of the blackish sauce around the edges.

Smellin' good.

Move the cranberries to the pot with the currants and simmer for another minute. Add a pinch of salt and combine well.

Let this cool completely before serving. This means that it’s probably best to make the day before which is nice anyway.

This stuff is really good though.

Yum.

Making the Pecans

Texture is very important on a dish like this and as is, the cranberry sauce is kinda of mushy. Adding some roasted, candied pecans to the mix gives it a fantastic crunchy topping. It brings the dish from good to great. You could leave out the pecans though if you don’t have time.

To make them, combine the sugar, triple sec, and apple cider vinegar in a small pan and bring to simmer. Simmer until thick (a few minutes), then add the herbs and pecans. Stir well to coat the pecans with the syrup mixture and lay them out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

More roasting...

Bake these guys at 425 degrees for about 10 minutes or until they are lightly browned.

Let them cool for a minute and then break them up into small pieces.

You could make a huge serving of these and have them around as a snack also. They’re awesome to munch on.

Lightly candied.

When you’re ready to serve it, just sprinkle the pecans on the cranberry and you’re all set.

Maybe the best cranberry sauce I've had.

I know that cranberry sauce seems like a small part of the meal, but trust me. If you take the time to make something like this, people will remember it.

I came up with the idea for making some cheese blintzes and then slathering them with the tangy cranberry relish rather than syrup or something like that. This plan of mine worked better than I expected.

Cranberry cheese blintzes are something you should make.

Did you know those are cheese filled?

If you haven’t made blintzes before, they are very similar to crepes. The batter is almost identical, it’s just a bit more eggy and therefore it produces a sturdier pancake. It’s a very small difference though.

Cranberry Cheese Blintzes

Yield: Makes 5-6 blintzes.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

Blintz Batter: (From How to Cook Everything)
3/4 Cups all-purpose flour
1 Cup milk
3 eggs
2 Tablespoons butter, melted (plus you need a tiny amount of butter for cooking)

Filling:
1 1/2 Cups cottage cheese
1/2 Cup cream cheese
1 Tablespoon sugar, or a bit more if you want
Pinch of cinnamon

Directions:

1) Combine flour, milk, eggs, and butter in a large bowl and whisk together. Let sit for 24 hours in the fridge if you make the batter in advance or a few minutes if cooking immediately.

2) Heat a large nonstick pan over medium heat with a small knob of butter (or use nonstick spray) in it. Once the butter is well melted and hot, add about 1/2 Cup of batter to the pan and swirl it around so the batter covers the entire bottom of the pan. After about 15 seconds, it should be pretty dry. Then give it a flip using a spatula to help out.

3) Cook for literally 15 seconds on the other side and then take that blintz off and set it on a plate. The blintz shouldn’t be crispy at all. It should be nice and flexible. You can immediately add more batter to the pan and keep going!

4) Mix cheeses, sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl. It definitely helps if you start with your cream cheese at room temperature.

5) Grab a blintz and put about two tablespoons of filling on it.

6) Fold in the ends so they slightly overlap. Roll up the other two ends until you have a nice little package of deliciousness.

7) To cook, you can do it on the stove or bake at 400 degrees with a bit of butter and sugar on top for 10 minutes. Spray baking dish so they don’t stick! If using stovetop method, add a bit more butter to pan (1 Teaspoon is more than enough) and once it is melted, arrange blintzes in the pan. You can fit as many as possible, but just make sure they aren’t overlapping at all.
Let them cook for a few minutes on one side and then flip them over. They should be slightly browned and crispy!

8) Warm cranberry relish up in microwave.

9) Serve the blintz with a bunch of the cranberry relish!

Making the blintzes

I’ve made crepes before on Macheesmo (although it was awhile ago). These guys are basically the exact same. Start by making your batter by combining everything in a large bowl and whisking it all together. It will be really runny.

You can let this sit for an hour to 24 hours in the fridge so you could make it the night before. I just let mine sit for a few minutes though and it worked fine also.

Runny is good.

Start heating a large nonstick pan over medium heat with a small knob of butter (or use nonstick spray) in it. Once the butter is well melted and hot, add about 1/2 Cup of batter to the pan and swirl it around so the batter covers the entire bottom of the pan. After about 15 seconds, it should be pretty dry. Then give it a flip using a spatula to help out.

Cook for literally 15 seconds on the other side and then take that blintz off and set it on a plate. The blintz shouldn’t be crispy at all. It should be nice and flexible. You can immediately add more batter to the pan and keep going!

If you mess up the first one, don’t worry about it. It usually takes one or two to get the method down.

Eventually though you’ll end up with a plate of lovely blintzes!

Thin, but sturdy.

Making the Filling

Not rocket science people. Mix your cheeses, sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl. It definitely helps if you start with your cream cheese at room temperature.

Actually pretty good.

Filling the Blintzes

Grab a blintz and put about two tablespoons of filling on it. You can do more if you’re feeling lucky.

Step 1.

Next, fold in the ends so they slightly overlap.

Step 2.

Then roll up the other two ends until you have a nice little package of deliciousness.

Step 3.

The nice thing about these is that there is no rush to finish them. Take your time and just set aside each blintz as you make it. If you roll them correctly they should be pretty sturdy.

Kind of like burritos.

Finishing the blintzes

If I’m just cooking for a few people, I finish these on the stove, but if you are cooking a bunch of these (like a double batch or something), you can also bake these in a 400 degree oven with just a bit of butter and sugar on top for 10 minutes. Just make sure to spray your baking dish so they don’t stick.

If you are doing it on the stovetop though, add a bit more butter to your pan (1 Teaspoon is more than enough) and once it is melted, arrange your blintzes in the pan. You can fit as many as possible, but just make sure they aren’t overlapping at all.

Let them cook for a few minutes on one side and then flip them over. They should be slightly browned and crispy!

Crispy is good now.

Hopefully, you’ve made your cranberry relish already. Again the recipe that I used is from my Thanksgiving appetizer post. I just microwaved mine for a few minutes until it was warm. You could of course just use store bought stuff for this. Any kind of jam at all would be great.

Heat this up for a few minutes.

I think you know the rest! Serve the blintz with a bunch of the cranberry relish!

Eat immediately!

Day after thanksgiving brunch?

These actually aren’t as rich as they look. The filling isn’t all that sweet and the relish is kind of tangy. I think these are actually way less rich than a stack of pancakes and they do have a certain holiday flare to them.

You could obviously go crazy with the toppings and fillings, but this is a great base recipe.

When I think of artichokes, especially for an appetizer, I got straight to a spinach artichoke dip. It’s really everything I want in a dip: creamy, cheesy, hot, and lots of flavor. You can even make it spicy if that’s your style.

As you might imagine, there are a lot of spinach artichoke dips on the Internet. After checking out various recipes, I decided that it’s really hard to go wrong with this dip as long as you put some creamy stuff in it, use lots of artichokes and spinach, and bake it. (Okay. Some versions don’t even bake the stuff.)

So let’s make my version!

Artichoke Dip Ingredients

Two Thanksgiving Appetizers

Yield: Serves 8.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients:

Hot Spinach Artichoke Dip

2 14 ounce cans artichoke hearts in water (I like mine really artichokey.)
1 10 ounce bag frozen spinach (thawed and patted dry)
6-8 ounces cream cheese
1/2 Cup mayonnaise
6-8 ounces silken tofu
1 Cup Gruyere cheese, grated
Salt and pepper
Pinch of cayenne (optional)
Parmesan cheese for topping
Chips, crackers, or spoons for dipping

Cranberry Relish

3-4 Cups of fresh cranberries
1/2 Cup sugar
1/4 Cup orange liqueur, also known as Triple Sec. If you don't have this, you can also use orange zest.
1/2 lemon, juice only
Tiny pinch of cinnamon
You'll also need...
1 wheel of brie
Crackers

Directions:

For artichoke dip:
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2) Drain artichokes and roughly chop them. Add artichokes to a bowl with all the creamy ingredients and tofu.

3) Thaw frozen spinach and press it between a few paper towels to press out as much liquid as possible. Chop up the spinach and add it to the dip.

4) Add in grated Gruyere cheese and salt and pepper the dip.

5) Add dip to a square 8x8 baking dish and top with Parmesan cheese.

6) Bake dip at 350 for about 45 minutes until it's golden brown. Serve with pita chips, tortilla chips or bread.

For Cranberry Relish Brie:

1) Rinse off cranberries. Add them to a pot with enough water to just just make the cranberries rise.

2) Add sugar and bring to a simmer. Let simmer for about 20 minutes and use a spoon to mash up cranberries as it cooks.

3) Taste the sauce (let it cool) and adjust the flavors. it might need more lemon or more sugar depending on how you want it.

4) Let this cool for at least 2 hours so it can thicken fully.

5) Slather a wheel of brie with the relish and bake at 300 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Serve it with crackers!

Spinach Artichoke Dip

First thing’s first, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Then drain all your artichokes and roughly chop them. I like mine on the more rustic side so I don’t over chop them.

Chunks are okay here people.

Add your artichoke to a large bowl and then it’s on to the creamy ingredients. You can use a bunch of different things to make this dip creamy including the cream cheese and mayo I list in my recipe, but you could also use sour cream, heavy cream, etc.

In an effort to make this just a very tiny bit healthy, I decided to add about half a block of silken tofu to the dip. When it’s mixed in it produces a creamy texture and literally you can’t taste it at all.

If you’re completely opposed to this stuff, you can substitute any other creamy ingredient without a problem.

Secret Health Ingredient!

Prepping the spinach

I like to use frozen spinach for this recipe. If you use fresh, make sure to blanch it in hot water and then press out the water with paper towels or you’ll have a really watery dip.

For frozen spinach though, just thaw it out and then press all the spinach between a few paper towels. There will be a lot of liquid.

Once the spinach is dry, add everything to the a big bowl.

Also, add your grated Gruyere cheese! This made it even creamier although I’ll say that I had a hard time actually tasting the cheese in the final product which was shocking to me.

Don't forget the spinach!

Salt and pepper the dip to taste (yes I recommend tasting it cold. If it’s good cold, imagine how good it will be hot!) Mix everything up and pour it into a 9X9 baking dish. Top it with a fare amount of Parmesan cheese.

Ready for the oven!

Bake this at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or until it is nice and golden brown. Serve it with pita chips, tortilla chips, or just a bunch of spoons! (Joking on the spoons… kind of.)

Creamy and delicious.

Cranberry Relish Brie

During the holidays, I like to make a batch of cranberry relish (or cranberry sauce). It’s great to just eat with turkey obviously, but it can used for all kinds of other things. I also used it for an awesome brunch dish that I’m posting on Saturday.

For a good quick appetizer though, you can just slather the cranberry relish on a good wheel of brie and bake it!

Basic Cranberry Relish.

This really couldn’t be easier to make. Rinse off all your cranberries to remove any dirt or stems and then add them to a large pot. Add all your other ingredients and just enough water to rise up to the cranberries. I found that it was about as many cups of water as cranberries. Don’t worry about it though, if you add too much, you can just reduce it more later or add more water if you need to.

One note: Cranberries float. If you try to keep adding water until it covers the berries, you will fail.

Ready to cook!

Put this over medium heat and stir it slowly until all the sugar is melted. Let it simmer for about 20 minutes. The cranberries will all burst and start to break down and the whole pot will thicken up nicely due to all the pectin in the cranberries.

At this point, make sure to taste your mixture. Get a spoon and scoop out a little. Let it cool for a minute or two and then give it a taste. Too bitter? Add a bit more sugar. Too sweet? Add some more lemon. If it’s really runny, let it cook for a few more minutes.

Please don't burn your mouth.

Ideally, your final product will be the consistency of warm honey. It should be thick, but flow freely. Pour it into a container and let it cool at room temperature for 15 minutes and then at least two hours in the fridge. As it cools it will thicken up a lot.

Lovely.

Slather this stuff on a wheel of brie and bake it (I baked mine in a cake tin) for about 25 or 30 minutes at 300 degrees. You just want everything to be warm and gooey.

Some recipes call for wrapping the brie in puff pastry and that’s good also (although you then need to bake it at 350), but it’s okay to just bake it as is.

Serve it up with crackers!

My brie sprung a leak...

Obviously, the warm brie is delicious, but the cranberry really sends it over the edge.

So, if you’re looking for a quick and tasty appetizer or two in the next week, check these out.

Do you have any quick holiday appetizers? Leave a comment!

About the tart, he says “it is literally child’s play.” To Mr. Bittman’s credit I then, of course, skipped over the part about how while it is easy, it still has to be “learned.” But I had the confidence I needed. This thing is child’s play.

This attitude led to me breaking one of my golden rules in the kitchen: Stay humble. Because the one time you think you can master something, it will fall apart all around you because you become careless. And that is more or less what happened to this:

Ready. Start. FAIL.

I’m posting the recipe for the crust, but not the filling because, well, you will find out why. The recipe for the crust is solid though and it goes like this:

Tart Crust (From How to cook Everything)
- 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1.2 teaspoon salt
- 2 Tablespoons sugar
- 10 Tablespoons butter: unsalted, very cold, and cubed.
- 1 egg yolk
- 3 Tablespoons sugar

I know I did this part right.

As with any crust, you want to start with extremely cold butter, cubed. In fact, if you are using a food processor, you can even use frozen butter. I used a food processor here and I don’t think I’m ever doing it again. I’m just not satisfied that you can get the right butter distribution with a food processor. The problem is that you don’t want the butter processed. You want it clumpy but yet distributed. That is how you get those small peas of butter that lead to that really flaky crust.

When I use a processor though, I just spin away and end up with a butter flour meal of sorts that isn’t what I want. This is what I got this time and I knew right away that I over processed it a bit.

I here by resolve to never use a processor again for crust.

Now, I know plenty of people who stand by the processor and I think they can work as long as you have restraint with the pulser. Go slow and try not to over do it. I am incapable of doing that so, for me, it’s back to mixing in the butter by hand with a pastry cutter or even a fork.

Anyway, so assuming you do that part right, you will be much better off as that is one of the most important parts. What is frustrating is that I knew it was the most important part and yet I was so confident, I just plugged ahead rather than taking the time to redo my obvious mistake. Anyway, onward and upward!

Now slowly add your yolk and your water. You should be able to form clumps with the dough now that stick together very nicely.

It clumps and then it crumbles.

Now just take your dough and form a nice ball. Wrap this in plastic wrap and chill it for at least an hour. You can freeze it for days and days, but you want to make sure everything is nice and cold.

So then you form a ball. This part is easy.

The method I like to use for rolling this dough out is to put it between two pieces of parchment paper and just slowly roll it out with a rolling pin. After you roll it a few times, turn it 1/4 of a turn so as to make sure you have a nice circle and that you are rolling evenly.

This part I knew I could do, but the dough would not be as flaky as I wanted due to my previous error.

This gave me some confidence, which was of the false nature.

Ok. Now for my even larger mistake. THE FILLING. I was trying to get all fancy with this thing so I took some fruit that I had around (cranberries and raspberries which was a great start) and put them in a sautée pan. But then I just got too cocky. I added: 2 Tablespoons of jam, 2 Tablespoons of brandy, honey, and sugar. Was I drunk while I was doing this? No. I’m not really sure what I was thinking.

This is where I got even more cocky though: The filling tasted awesome. It was a bit tart but yet had some sweetness and had a nice texture. So, with chest puffed out, I emptied the entire pan onto my crust. What could go wrong?!

I knew something was wrong, but did that stop me?

I should have known something was going to be wrong right after I took the above photo because the filling continued to flow out from the center. But I was way past the point of no return. So I clumsily folded all the sides up on the tart. (CHILD’S PLAY!)

Ready for exploding pie time!

Do note that I did one thing correctly, which was to sprinkle sugar under my tart dough so when I folded it up there was some sugar on the top and also it makes it easier to get your tart off the baking sheet.

As you can imagine, when I took this thing out of the oven, the filling had completely exploded all over the place. This was because my filling was way too moist. There was all the liquid from the additions I put in PLUS all of the natural liquid in the fruit and it just seeps right out once it got hot.

This was actually not half bad.

So, while it was not something I would want to remake (and the photos didn’t turn out great), I did learn plenty from it:

1) No more food processor for me when it comes to pie or tart dough.
2) Keep it simple with fillings. Why did I think complicated was better? Just the fruit tossed in a bit of sugar would have yielded better results
3) Stay humble. There were a bunch of signs during this baking experience that should have made me put on the brakes, but I just plowed ahead.

Now for the shocking part – or at least it shocked me. The tart wasn’t bad. It actually tasted nice. It wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever tasted, and the crust wasn’t the best, but in general it was pretty darn good. Still better than store bought! So even if things aren’t going perfect, you might still make a decent dish and at least you will learn some things along the way!

Sometime shortly I will be trying this again with hopefully better results and better photos. Hopefully, I can learn from this and maybe the next time I try this I can say that it is, in fact, child’s play.