The Not-So-Great-Bake-Along Week 4
Pear Tarte Tatin
Well, I was wrong last week. It’s not dessert week, it’s caramel week! I was filled with dread when this was announced in the opening moments of this week’s episode - caramel and I have never been the best of friends.
What a delightful week though. There was careful avoidance of brand names, Dylan wore a hat, Noel broke a jug, and Mike the camp farmer went home. (I’m very sad to see him go - he was an absolute delight and vaguely reminded me of a pal of mine.)
Speaking of Dylan, I’ve decided everyone is very weird about Dylan. I wasn’t his number one fan at the beginning, largely because he seems like someone who would tell me about his gap year and life is too short. My lack of fandom was further cemented when he mentioned wanting to be a chef - I have a strong dislike of people who go on cooking competitions to become chefs, rather than suffering from the bottom up as I once did. It’s possible this is unfair of me. (It’s more than possible.) I’ve come around to the guy though! His bakes are interesting (even if I refuse to accept that gochujang can be considered exotic), he’s obviously talented, and he comes off as very sweet and earnest. I just wish the internet would stop drooling over him, comparing him to Jack Sparrow’s baby brother and generally being odd. It’s possible that I should get off the internet instead, but that’s simply never going to happen.
Anyway, Tarte Tatin! As caramel challenges go, I actually wasn’t totally dreading this. I adore tarte tatin, it’s one of my very favourite things, and I’ve made it before with varying degrees of success! Pears though, I was dreading. Pears are fickle bastards that don’t like being ripe at the right time. Eddie Izzard has spoken on the subject at length. Nonetheless, I soldiered bravely on.
I did have to skip the ice cream component this week. Partly because my freezer is miniscule and partly because I simply did not have time this week to do a three hour challenge - I’ve got a big deadline coming up.
Originally, I planned to do this challenge on Thursday. As a result, I asked my partner to pick up some walnuts (for the praline) and some ice cream (because I may not be making it but I wasn’t going to eat tarte tatin without it). I greeted him at the door to see him clutching…walnuts, yes. Walnuts that were still very much in their shells. The kind you buy at Christmas for cracking while…having a wholesome time or something of that ilk. I should point out that at this point, I still needed to write another couple of thousand words of the book I’m working on before embarking on the challenge. I did not have time to crack walnuts. He had also not purchased the exact ice cream I wanted. (I had not specified the exact ice cream I wanted.) This led to me bursting into tears. This was a completely normal reaction that I’m absolutely certain had nothing to do with deadline pressure or the fact that fully immersing myself in/writing about the television show Riverdale for 2 straight weeks has probably not been amazing for my mental health.
Thankfully, the walnut and ice cream errors were corrected the next day and I was able to forge blindly ahead. So let’s make a tart!
The Rules
I have to recreate, to the best of my ability, the Technical Challenge.
I will not be looking at any kind of recipe. Each week, I have to do this purely with some context from the show and my own store of baking knowledge.
The time limit: The maximum amount of time I’ll be allowing myself is the time given to the bakers. However, as I don’t want to be wasting food and I don’t have a vast team of producers and camera operators to eat my bakes, I will sometimes be scaling my bakes down. When that happens, I’ll be reducing my total time accordingly. This week, as I took out the ice cream component of the challenge, I gave myself 1 hour and 45 minutes to complete the challenge - but secretly wanted to do it in 1 and a half hours.
The judging: I do not have handy professionals available to judge me. I have, however, considered purchasing some fabric to make my own gingham altar. I will be judging myself, and I’m a raging bitch so I won’t be particularly lenient. My partner will be scoring as well, and probably his office mates if there’s too much cake for us to consume in one sitting.
The equipment: I like to think I’ve got the sort of decently-stocked kitchen any skilled home baker would have. If a technical challenge requires specialist equipment I don’t have, I won’t be buying anything for the occasion. I will be MacGyvering it, and adjusting my handicaps accordingly.
Caramel Week - Pear Tarte Tatin and Walnut Praline Ice Cream
I start the timer. I stop the timer because I realise I haven’t got my podcast lined up and playing first. I put on a podcast (House of R discussing Agatha All Along) and start the timer again.
The oven is already on, thanks to a beef stew, so I start by chucking my walnuts in to toast. This will prove to be a mistake.
I am at least confident in my puff pastry. I mix 100g of butter with 200g flour, add enough water to make a pastry dough, roll it out, grate some frozen butter into it and do the layer thing. You know, you’ve seen it. In doing this, I forget the walnuts that are in the oven, and they burn. I throw them out. Luckily, my partner has made up for buying the walnuts by buying me lots of walnuts, so I have a back-up. I start toasting them.
On the butter thing. Prue mentioned on the show that the contestants had been given frozen butter, and would need to get on with the pastry before the butter got too warm. Could the contestants not just…put the butter in the freezer themselves? Until they were ready to use it? Was this not allowed? That seems like a really weird restriction if that’s the case. Was this purely to make life harder?
I’ve never actually made a praline, but based on watching bake off I just need to make a dry caramel and mix it with nuts. I put sugar in a pan, turn the heat on and hope for the best. I start peeling pears. I almost forget the nuts a second time, and rescue them just the right side of burnt. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself. I remember the time Archie fought a bear in Riverdale.
The caramel for the praline miraculously works without burning. I have never gotten a caramel right first time before. I start the second caramel, for the tart, by putting far too much sugar into a larger pan and setting it on the hob, hoping the miracles will continue. I pour the caramel over my toasted nuts. (I’m not doing a dirty joke here, it’s far too easy) and chuck them in the other room to deal with later.
In attempting to wash up the first caramel pan, I remember why I hate caramel so much. I get distracted. I almost burn the second caramel and rescue it just in time. I remember the time in Riverdale when it turned out the nuns were drug dealers who worshipped a gargoyle kind from an illicit board game. I try so hard to forget. Instead, I roll out my pastry and add more folds.
Butter and pears go into the caramel, and I realise I’ve only used 45 minutes of my time. Maybe this cooking lark isn’t too bad. The buttery, caramel-covered pears look and smell amazing. Maybe I’m actually quite talented. Maybe the world is a good place after all. Then I remember that time on Riverdale where Cheryl kept her brother’s corpse in the family chapel and had coffee with it every morning.
The pears seem cooked. I have clearly, I realise at this point, made far too much caramel. Nevertheless, I arrange the pears in a baking tin, pour over some of the caramel, stick the rest in a small pan and suffer through more washing up. The world is awful. Everything is sticky.
I roll out the pastry, probably too thin, and snuggle it around the pears. The tarte goes into the oven. I still have 45 minutes to go. I will, at this point, admit that I only used four small pears and a small tin, because I only had four small pears and quite frankly, there are limits even on how much tarte tatin I can consume. Not many limits, but some. I try not to anxiously peer at the pastry. I’m quite smug though, as I finish clearing up. Look at how efficiently I’ve done this challenge! I’m nearly finished!
I forgot about the praline, of course. I take one look at my sticky nuts and realise that they will destroy my food processor. I use the age-old trick of putting the lot into a bag and beating it up. Much like that time Archie was beaten up in the underground fight ring he was forced to join after going to prison for a murder he didn’t commit, having been set up by his girlfriend’s father, who's trying to use everyone’s obsession with that weird board game to have Archie killed. I refuse to accept that Riverdale has affected my psyche in the slightest.
With 26 minutes to go, the tart comes out. I let it sit for a minute before the last, nerve-wracking challenge of flipping the bastard over. It works, and I have a tart on a plate. It is smaller than it probably should be, but it’s a lovely little tart; which is also how I’m often described. (This is a lie. I have never been described as lovely or little.)
With 22 minutes to go, I’m done! In less than an hour and a half.
The Judging
My partner gives me a 9/10, but a ‘high 9’. I assume a point has been docked for crying about the ice cream.
I’m giving myself a 9/10 too. Technically, I haven’t gotten this right. There’s too much caramel, and the pastry was too thin, so while it did definitely have puff pastry layers, they’re completely drenched in caramel, which is giving the whole thing a bit of a baklava vibe. This is not correct, but it is delicious, and I refuse to mark myself down for that.
Was this a fair challenge? My version, which still required two caramels (the theme of the week) certainly was. The version on the show, with the ice cream? Look, no one’s tarte was great for a reason. Pastry, two caramels and an ice cream, even in three hours, is a lot of components to make the contestants juggle in a technical challenge. Letting them demonstrate one or two technical skills well is, to me, more interesting than throwing the kitchen sink at them. Then again, it seems clear from the judging this season that the technical’s fairly meaningless.
Next week, pastry week! And possibly no blog from me. Partly due to the aforementioned deadline, and partly because based on the ‘next time on’ the technical challenge will be filo pastry, and I’m morally opposed to making that rather than buying the packet stuff. Life really is too short for some things.
Shameless self-promotion time - I’ve written a book! Friends and the Golden Age of the Sitcom is available now in all sorts of places, including signed copies on my website! (Please buy it so I can buy nicer ingredients.)
I think we’re going to need to get you specific Riverdale therapy. Tarte looks incredible though