Intermezzo: A Pause Between Panickings

Okay, granted, just because one has turned in their full first draft of their dissertation doesn’t mean that all of the work is done. Just because one has had that All Important Chat with one’s editor about one’s revision, and has the hope of actual money changing hands (Authors get paid so erratically. Do not attempt this profession if you’re actually into making money or don’t have a sugar daddy with a PhD and a penchant for genius in your back pocket. N.B.), the work is not yet completed.

However, the projects are done enough for government work. That is, done enough for the moment. In a few weeks, the pressure will start up again…(The oral dissertation presentation before the external examiners and the entire department takes place the 26th. T.’s freelance editor is tapping her foot for the science fiction manuscript due the end of May, and her middle grade novel is coming up for editorial review via committee. Notice the groups of people passing judgment around here?)

…but, for now, there’s apple tart.

We wish that we could point toward some noble impulse like Making A Healthy Dessert in the formation of this dish, but alas, it was more along the lines of O Noes, We Bought Braeburns, And They Were Overripe, And All The Apples Are Getting Mealier, Except For the Pink Ladies, Which We Have Scarfed Down, Yea Verily.

Generally, T. makes sauce out of the various Varieties of Apples Which She Will Not Eat, of which there are legion, as she tends to stick with Gala, Pink Lady, and ripe Braeburns. D. keeps bringing home different varietals to try, and she tends to turn up her nose, dry or sauce them, as this really isn’t apple season at all… but apple season never really ends in Scotland.

But we digress. Badly. The point was the tart. Which we pulled together because we had geriatric apples around the house. Okay, not too-too geriatric, we aren’t talking withered flesh and wrinkles here. Just… older apples which were slightly softening.

You may wonder why we are talking this through, instead of putting down a recipe… well, we have a sneaking suspicion that you already know: there IS no recipe for this tart. We just… dumped it all in a springform. Here’s our best guess of what we did. We started out by:

A. Thinly slicing the apples. We left on the skin, because our Mama would be Saying Things if we did not. We used 2 Tbsp. of orange marmalade and coated the apples. If you don’t want your apple tart tasting orangey, use apricot preserves for this, which will allow the apple flavor to shine through. Only apricot-ly.

B. We took one cube of plain, silken tofu, and, with a stick blender, combined 1 Tbsp of almond extract, 2 Tbsp of water, 2 Tbsp. white sugar, and 1 Tbsp of cornstarch into a smoothly blended whole. You can substitute lemon juice for the water, or add 2 tsp. of freshly grated lemon zest to give your creamy faux custard a lovely scent.

C. In another bowl, we combined 1 Cup of porridge oats — which means they’re practically instant, they’re so over-parboiled, and we use them for nothing but baking, because they make GLUE if you try to eat them, and we have zero idea how people here cook them without that happening. We prefer plain rolled oats — 1 Cup AP flour, a pinch of salt — well, we forgot that, but please don’t you forget —1 Tbsp. ginger, 1 Tbsp. brown sugar, and 4 Tbsp. of olive oil. Feel free to use butter or margarine, but we tend to make crusts with olive oil because then we can say that Pie Is Healthy. It’s a lie, but it works for us. We cut this oat-flour-oil mixture up with a fork, until it clumped a bit, then moistened it with a scant teaspoon of water. It formed a dry crust, which we pressed into the bottom of a springform pan and baked for 10 minutes at about 350°F/160°C.

D. Once the crust was baked, we poured on the tofu mixture, and layered the top of our custard with apples, and an additional 1 Tbsp. of sugar. The last bit of sugar is to assist in the caramelizing of the apples; technically one can leave the custard under a broiler for a minute, but as our broiler tends to make things go up in flames, and the foam from the fire extinguisher somewhat ruins the delicate taste of food, we skipped that bit and just baked it for 35 minutes at about 350°F/160°C. /p>

The trickiest thing was putting together the springform. Seriously. All tarts should be this quick and off-the-cuff. Our next attempt at this will include salt (cough), more spices in the crust – possibly just using gingersnaps and oats pulsed in a food processor with a little bit of olive oil would work – and the aforementioned lemon zest AND lemon juice. We’ll also likely experiment with an orange tart. Imagine thinly sliced clementines or oranges in marmalade, and maybe adding a bit of creamed cheese to the tofu mix, to make it more like a baked cheesecake…

Baking: the best thing you can do, when crises arise, and you need distraction.