So, this time, I let my mom choose the cookie we would make because I'm sick of deciding myself. She decided on the Pecan Tassies. Now, to paraphrase every graduation speech ever, the dictionary defines tassie as "1) a cup, goblet, or glass or 2) the contents of such a vessel." Yes, I did just have to look that up because neither my mom nor I knew what a tassie was and in fact, we kept calling these cookies Pecan Tartlets by mistake. Martha is very big on tartlets so that's where our confusion came from. Anyway, I'm rambling without even giving you a clear idea of what we're making! Silly me. Essentially, what we're looking at is a pastry shell molded into a mini muffin tin and filled with pecan filling and baked. I guess that's where the cup definition comes in because they look like little cups of delicious.
Now that we know what we're dealing with, let's get down to it. The first step was making the dough for the pastry crust. I put my mom in charge of finely chopping the pecans to go in the dough. It's a good thing I was making this cookie at home because guess what I don't have in my kitchen? That's right, a food processor! So my mom pulls out this teeny tiny food processor that looks like it hasn't been touched for twenty years. Seriously, the base was caked with grime. It grossed me out. My mom thoroughly cleaned it though and used it to chop up a bunch of pecans. Cool. Meanwhile, I had the extremely challenging job of combining butter (only half a stick!) and mascarpone cheese. I'll be honest, I don't really know what mascarpone cheese is but I'm told it's like Italian cream cheese. Sure, I can buy that. Oh, and by the way, it wasn't extremely challenging. It was actually absurdly easy. I could have combined this stuff with a wooden spoon.
From there, I added the flour. The recipe called for "a pinch of salt". Now, I don't really know what a pinch is and we used salted butter instead of unsalted so my mom and I decided that there was probably a pinch of salt in the butter so we eliminated that step. A pinch...Martha obviously thinks I'm more knowledgeable than I am. Then, we stirred in the finely chopped pecans and voila! The dough for the crust was done.
I forgot to mention that while all this was happening, we had the remaining pecans for the filling in the oven to be toasted before adding. Wow. Toasted pecans. Here's a tip: always toast your nuts. The smell is amazing. Fortunately, Martha specified that the pecans should be toasted so I got to experience the beauty of toasting nuts. It's not too challenging. Just stick them on a baking pan and put in the oven at about 350 degrees for about 5 minutes. It really brings out the flavor and aroma of the nuts and it's magical. Just keep an eye on them because burnt nuts do not smell good. I know that from Thanksgiving chestnuts that we forget about in the oven pretty much every year. Alright, that was my ode to toasted nuts. Let's return to the baking, shall we?
From there, I gave my mom the job of molding the dough into the mini muffin tin. She had to roll the dough into 1 inch balls and press it into the bottom and up the sides of the cups in the tin. I appreciated her taking that job so I wouldn't have to get my hands dirty (Thanks Mom!). Meanwhile, I was busy making the filling. The filling only contains an egg, vanilla extract, maple syrup, brown sugar, salt, butter, and pecans. Mmmmmmm. You just can't go wrong with those ingredients. Martha instructed me to whisk all those ingredients together. It mostly went well except for the butter. I whisked my hardest but I still had some small lumps of butter. After that, my mom took over and she was able to get everything a bit more combined. Mommies always save the day. From there, I just had to fill the cups of dough with the filling and bake for 15 minutes.
Let me tell you, letting those tassies cool completely in the pan was torture. They smelled so so so good and we just wanted to dive in and eat them. Not fair. Eventually though, they did cool and we were able to easily lift them from the pan. Here's two pictures of the result, including a side shot so you can see how tall these tassies are:
Adorable, right? Only Martha makes desserts that adorable. And the taste, oh the taste! They're delicious! They're amazing! They're scrumptious! They're not really sweet at all, the crust is soft but neither soggy nor crumbly, and the whole thing together just tastes light and delightful. Now, all that said, here's my dilemma. My mom and I each had two last night and they were lovely. I left some for her when I headed back to CT this morning. Which means that I have about 10 for myself. 10 isn't a lot to share with people, right? I mean, I can't bring them to colloquium because there wouldn't be enough. I could just share with a couple people but you know what? I don't want to! I'm trying to justify not sharing these with people but (as I pop another of these into my mouth) they're just so good that I don't want to share them! I'm sorry! I will not give up my Pecan Tassies! And if that makes me a bad person, then I don't want to be good!
Side notes: I am eliminating the Critical Reception part of my blog. It isn't fun to write and I'm fairly sure it isn't fun to read. Also, please somebody let me know if I should start including links to these recipes in my blog. I get all of my recipes from cookbooks but many of them can be found online. If anyone is interested, please leave a comment so I know to include recipes. Baking is fun! Get in the game with me!
A Disney Moment: One Hundred and One Dalmatians
Here it is, the winner of this group of five, 101 Dalmatians. The movie kicks off with a great tone. The credits at the beginning are fun and are not just lists of names. This is the first instance we see of Disney really having fun with the opening credits. This is a trend that continues through the next few movies and can include some of my favorite moments in the film. So anyway, the credits are adorable and fun. That's the first positive point about this movie.
The second is that, remembering that I am not a dog lover, these puppies are all adorable. I just want to hug them. Pairing that cuteness with the pure and slightly psychotic evil of Cruella De Vil really lets you feel the fear that the puppies have for her. I mean, her character design and her voice is just fantastic. I love it.
Musically, there isn't a lot to say because there are only three songs. But "Cruella De Vil" is a classic. I love the jaunty quality to the song and the lyrics are clever and fun. And I know it's barely even a song but the Kanine Krunchies jingle is awesome. It always gets stuck in my head but it's so cute.
Other small things I loved were the dogs matching the owners in looks, the narration at the beginning by Pongo, the What's My Crime game show that the villains were watching, the cameos by characters from Lady and the Tramp, and the smooth pace of the film. Honestly, the only place where the movie felt like it dragged was the scene with Sarge which lasted about two minutes too long. That's my only complaint though. The movie just works. Loved it from start to finish and that's why it's ranked a 1/5 (though, admittedly, a very close 1/5 to Sleeping Beauty).
No comments:
Post a Comment