New Things! New Things!

Hello all! I apologize for my posts tapering down again, but there's been lots going on! A) I've had a lot of orders lately, which is AWESOME! Thank you to everyone who has been ordering from my Etsy Shop, and I hope you've enjoyed your treats! B) My day job has been quite overwhelming and frenetic of late. And finally C) I've been working on some NEW things for a very special order, which I will hopefully be writing more about soon. Intrigue!

I just wanted to talk about a couple of the new things that I've made lately, and about some things that will hopefully be available soon in my shop. SO! Obviously the name of the bakery insinuates that there might be some small tarts for sale... I have definitely failed on that front so far. But, do not worry, my little muffin heads! I have been working on some tartlet-ey things lately and have (I feel) perfected a recipe for Turtle Tarts! Behold!

Not only are they SOOOOO GOOOOOD, they are so pretty! I have to say, I am particularly proud of this photo too. I am not the best photographer, as I'm sure you all have noticed, but I think this picture is really pretty and tasty looking. BIG SMILE! Hopefully I will add these, as well as some other tartlet type items to my shop in the near future. Huzzah!

I also have been working with some Autumn produce for this special order, and came up with some really beautiful plum galettes and fig & honey galettes. Check out this picture of the fig & honey!

I would like to put some more galettes up in my Etsy Shop, but I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out appropriate packing/shipping methods for those. So for now, they will only be for local special orders. 

Anyhoo, those are a small tidbit of the things I've been working on in the Tartlet kitchen! I hope to share more with you soon!

Out of the Kitchen Tuesday #1

As I mentioned the other day, I've been feeling particularly crafty.

Sidebar: Whenever I say "crafty" I think of the Beastie Boys song. "She's crafty! And she's just my type!" (RIP MCA).

Anyhoodle, back to my post!

I'm going to try to post something crafty every Tuesday... we'll see how it goes!

So, my downstairs guest bathroom has been pretty blah since I moved in over a year ago. (Jeez, get on it, Aubrey.) I have a hard time deciding on color schemes and decorations and stuff like that. Recently I had a good friend of mine, Haya from The Calculated Kitchen, come stay with me for a few days (which was so much fun). There's nothing to inspire home improvement projects like knowing you will soon have a house guest.

One of the ideas I wanted to actually do, was make a sign for above the toilet that says "Have a Seat". Silly, I know, but I thought it was cute. I had gotten some little canvases on sale at Michaels, and thought I should put one of them to use.

I started with my blank canvas and some pretty paper (also from Michaels).

I then covered my canvas with the chosen paper.

Then traced my lettering onto the paper...

Then I got to painting! I'm sort of a turquoise fiend, so the colors I ended up on for my bathroom are turquoise and orange. I thought the turquoise paint looked good on the paper I chose. 

The only problem was, the letters weren't thick enough to really stand out against that busy background, so I did have to outline them all in heavy black ink. 

Once the lettering was all done, I added a small paper flower to the corner and woo! Finished product! It's now hanging in my bathroom, looking pretty, and the paper flower matches the flowers I made for the vase next to the sink. Excellent. 

I'm thinking of doing another couple of these and adding them to my Etsy shop. Would anyone be interested in something like this? I think it's cute, but I could just be a whackadoodle...

Salted Caramels - ooOOOOOoooh!

First off, let me start by saying I've never been a huge caramel fan. It's usually over-the-top sweet for me and hurts my teeth. Yet everyone calls me crazy for not liking it. I want to like it, I really do. It LOOKS really great. Especially when people put salt on it. I'm a huge sucker for the salty/sweet combo. So when I ran across this recipe at Flour it Devour it, I thought it might be time for me to attempt caramels. I like that the recipe does not use corn syrup, but rather honey. I LOVE love honey, and thought the flavor would really lend itself to caramel. Also, there's vanilla. Double yum. So I went about trying out this recipe, with just very slight modifications.

Thank you instagram for making my crappy photography look any kind of acceptable. Hopefully.

Salted Caramels

1 &1/2 cups vanilla sugar
1/2 cup raw honey
1/2 vanilla bean
1/2 cup salted butter, chopped into small cubes
1 cup heavy cream
Sea salt for sprinkling

So I started with raw honey and organic cane sugar. I used vanilla sugar that I made (it's easy, just chop up some vanilla bean, scrape it into the sugar, then throw it all into an air-tight canister, scraped out beans included, and the flavor infuses into the sugar. SUPER good). Pour the honey over the sugar and let it melt on a medium to low-ish heat. I also scraped an extra half of a vanilla bean into the mix, because hey, I love vanilla. Do not stir the sugar! Stirring may cause it to crystallize. If you need to do something because you just can't stand it, swirl around the pan a little, but please refrain from stirring. I know it's difficult.

While the sugar is melting in the honey, heat up the cream, bringing it to a simmer.

When the sugar is melted, and it's a beautiful golden brown color, add in the pieces of butter and whisk until it's all melted in and smooth. 

Once the mixture is smooth, slowly add in the heated cream and whisk together. The mixture will foam up a lot, so be careful. Let the mixture cook until it reaches 248°F. 

When the caramel reaches 248°F, pour it into a pan that has been lined with parchment paper. I used a 13x9 quarter sheet pan. Once it's cooled a bit (10-15 minutes), sprinkle the sea salt over the pan. 

After the caramel has cooled to stiffness, cut it into whatever size or shapes you like. I cut mine into pieces about an inch and a half long, and half an inch wide, then wrapped them in parchment paper. Viola! Delicious, creamy caramels with tones of honey and vanilla and a hint of salt. YUM!

Tartlet is BACK!

As you hopefully know from following Tartlet on Facebook, I closed down my shop for the month of July. My boyfriend and I took a pretty long roadtrip/camping vacation the first couple of weeks of July, and when we got back I needed to focus on some house projects. But I have returned! Yay!

Allow me to bore you with vacation pictures for a moment :)

A beautiful lake in Nemo, South Dakota

Gorgeous view from Needles Highway in the Black Hills National Forest

Man and dog being scoundrels in Four Mile, South Dakota

Devils Tower, Wyoming

Shell Falls in Big Horn, Wyoming

I have many more, but I won't get too carried away. We had an amazing time, and I was also able to meet most of Kris's family (they live in Wyoming), which was great. 

BUT NOW I'M BACK! And baking with a vengeance. I have a couple of new items that I plan to put up in the Etsy shop in the next couple of weeks, so keep an eye out!!

Small update on working with Cafe Pascal: we are no longer working together because we had some differences of opinion on some issues. The main issue being he didn't want to pay me for my baked goods. Oh well... 

HUGE NEWS!

Tartlet Bakery will now be selling items at Cafe Pascal near the Richmond Marina! HOW EXCITING!!! This cafe is soooo cute and sells really yummy french inspired food and desserts. The owner, Joe, is awesomely nice and encouraging. He said that I could sell my things there and can even use his kitchen! So, starting on Monday, I will be going there super early in the morning to bake fresh goodies three times a week! YAAAYY!

This is such a step forward for me! If I can keep up this progress, I'm on track to being able to do this full-time!


Also, check out these amazing photos of Tartlet macarons, taken by Randy Aquilizan! He's so talented! I want to eat them off of the screen!

Honey Lavender

Vanilla Lemon

Mint Chocolate

Pretty!

Galette Success!

As mentioned in my last blog, I wanted try making some little blueberry free-form pastries called "galettes". I finally made some and they turned out great! I have a feeling that I'm going to be making these a lot before the blueberry season is over... but you know what's right around the corner in my parts? Blackberry season! Blackberry galettes sound like a fine idea as well, don't they?

I ended up using the crust recipe from Spoon Fork Bacon and it was awesome!

Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour, plus more for dusting
¼ teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
4 ounces cold cream cheese, cut into small cubes
1 tablespoon cold water
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Directions:
1. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
2. Place butter and cream cheese into the bowl with the flour mixture and cut together until fully incorporated. The mixture should be evenly grainy.
3. Add water and vinegar and knead together until the mixture comes together and a smooth dough forms, about 2 minutes.
4. Pat the dough into a disc, cover with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

For the filling, I stayed really simple because I just wanted the natural flavor of the fresh blueberries to shine.

Ingredients:
8 oz fresh organic blueberries
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp organic cane sugar
2 tbsp raw honey
2 tsp corn starch

I rolled out the dough to about 1/4 inch thick and cut out circles with a cup. The diameter of the circles was probably about 3 inches. I put as much filling as made sense for the dough. I'm not exactly sure how much it was. A couple of spoonfuls maybe.

Then baked at 400 for about 10 minutes! YUM!  They turned out super delicious! I brought a few to work for people to try and the feedback was all very positive. 

These mini galettes are now available to order in my Etsy Shop. Enjoy!