Extreme Baking -- Beets in Puff Pastry with Ginger and Creme Fraiche

[crafty_packrat]

This weekend I'm trying some more experimental baking -- lots of recipes out of Shakespeare's Kitchen.

This one is a desert recipe adapted from a period side dish from Lombardy -- sweet beets with crystalized ginger and creme fraiche.

Ingredients

6 small golden or red beets, peeled and grated (about 2 or 3 cups?)
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 package frozen puff-pastry shells (6 shells)
1/2 cup creme fraiche
2 tablespoons crystalized ginger

Shredding the beets in my tiny food processor seemed to work, but they do bleed everywhere.


The honey I used was purple aster honey from Bees and Blossoms, who were at the winter farmer market this year. It's slightly spicy, and good for pairing with stronger flavors.



Once the beets are baked, they definitely need to be drained or they're too messy in the pastry shells -- but I think this would make a nice party dish, if I can bake the beets and shells beforehand and just assembly the pastries right before serving.

They're certainly pretty

Comments

[laughingrat]

Those look wonderful. What a fascinating recipe! Thanks for the link, too.

I said I'd be using this icon for when I STELE UR FUDZ, so here it is...

EDIT: I see Texasgrandma mentioned that there must be a way to finely chop beets by hand. Makes me wonder if the original recipe would have assumed one was cooking them first, at least a little bit? That would soften them up nicely, certainly enough to make them choppable. Old recipes frequently leave out stuff like that--they would just assume the reader would *know* that you're supposed to boil the beets first, or what quantity "ynuf" cream is, or whatever. I'm trying to think of a better example, but it's not happening. Anyway, I wonder.

beets

[texasgrandma]

did you bake the pastry separately from the filling? In researching beets I came across a recipe for a frozen dish that uses a custard base. Also, if this is from Shakespeare's time there must be a way to chop beets finely by hand. Did the tart taste the way you hoped it would? It looks like berries or cherries.

Re: beets

[crafty_packrat]

Yeah, you bake the shells separate and fill them before serving. These are just Pepperidge farm puff pastry shells, since I'm not up to making puff pastry dough from scratch.

Well, the original recipe (printed in my cookbook) says 'chop them small', but grating them in a food processor actually seems less messy.

The tarts were good enough that I ate two. If I wind up coming to Thanksgiving or Christmas, I'll bring the cookbook and we can make enough beet tarts for everyone. It's a really simple recipe -- the only thing I can imagine we'd have any difficulty finding is creme fraiche or maybe crystalized ginger.

Re: beets

[texasgrandma]

I think we can both here and if not we can make creme fraiche from scratch. I know crystalized ginger is available in most markets. And there is a large Chinese market nearby. So ginger should be readily available.

Re: beets

[crafty_packrat]

The book also has a recipe for Roast Pheasant with Currants and Wine that also calls pancetta, ground pork, ground mace, artichoke bottoms, pine nuts, chestnuts, and pistachios, if you want me to go Extreme Cookery on some of Dad's game meat.