No Bake Peach Tart from Ask Chef Dennis

I'm trying something new here on The Kitchen Noob. There are so many food bloggers out there in a vast foodie community, and it's fun to see what people are cooking and posting every week. Something I like to do is actually make some of the foods I see on others' blogs, and I wonder if others do the same.



I thought it might be fun to start a new type of blog post, one where I feature another food blogger's recipe prepared Noob-style rather than showcasing something I've gotten from a cookbook or tv celebrity. Maybe someday I'll be skilled, talented, and imaginative to invent my own dishes...

So my first Guest Recipe of No Bake Peach Tart comes from Chef Dennis from More Than a Mount Full - A Culinary Journey. I saw this a few weeks ago and made a mental note that I had to make use of the buck-a-pound peaches that have invaded the baskets of the local farmers markets. I also thought it might be cool to make a tribute to More Than a Mount Full, where Chef Dennis has made tremendous efforts to help get food blogging newbs like myself off to a good start in communities like Foodbuzz.

So here goes:

Preparing the dough seemed to go okay. It was crumbly when I pulled it out of the food processor, and I tried not to handle it too much.

I flattened it out a bit, put it between two sheets of plastic wrap and into the fridge.

I had a problem with the crust - it didn't peel from the plastic wrap after refrigeration. I'm not really sure why this happend. By the time I scraped off the dough with a spatula and worked some flour into it, I figured the crust was going to be over-worked, dense and flat. I did manage to salvage the dough enough to make some pretty good pie crust cookies though!

So I called my crust-master wife into the kitchen to quickly prepare me one of her awesome pie crusts!

A little shortening into the flour, and we have one of those fancy pie crust gadgets for this, but two knives works better.

We want a nice crumbly mix with pea-sized clumps.

Add ice water a little bit at a time...

And this looks about perfect. This is going to become a light and flakey crust.

Turn the crust mix onto counter and clump it up without handling it too much. Flatten out a little and wrap in plastic.

Normally, you can fridge the crust while preparing your filling, but in this case the crust was going directly into the oven, so we rolled it out right away

The best way to do this is sandwich the dough between two large sheets of plastic wrap so the dough doesn't stick to the counter or rolling pin.

 I don't have a tart pan, so this is going to be a pie!

And Jen says...alright so can I go back to what I was doing now?

The pie crust goes into the oven at 350 - mine took about 25 minutes and it could have been a little bit more done. Chef Dennis's suggests for his crust recipe that it takes about 10-12 minutes and to use something to weigh it down such as cutting a round of parchment paper and filling it with dried beans.

For the filling, cream together mascarpone, cream cheese, and powdered sugar.

It takes a little work to make sure everything is incorporating properly. Lots of stops and scraping the sides of the bowl with a spatula. It's worth the effort. Also, mix in some vanilla extract and lemon zest.

Pie crust comes out of the oven. I think this could have used another 10 minutes. It came out pretty good though, just not golden.

 

While the pie crust is cooling, I did mention pie crust cookies. I topped some of them with butter and cinnamon and others with some of the peach preserves I'll be using for the tart recipe later.

Next, heavy whipping cream, whisk till soft peaks. I had to move the cheese mixture out into another bowl to do this because I only have one mixing bowl.

Fold the whipped cream into the cheese mixture. I learned a few years ago what fold means from Alton Brown. If your crust is cool enough you can start filling it up with the cheese mixture.

Peaches!
I wasn't going to get too fancy about slicing them, I just made thin slices. I even debated about peeling them, but in the end I did because I thought chewing the peels might be unpleasant in the end-product.

Top the cheese mixture with the peaches. While we were eating this I wished I had put more peach slices on - if you love peaches you wont regret piling them on!

Lastly, heat some peach preverses in a small saucepan until they're syrupy liquid and brush (or spoon) over the top of the peaches. I was a little worried about putting hot liquid on cold cheese and having the cheese melt or curdle, but with a little care that didn't happen.

I wish I had gotten a bit crisper picture of this slice.. This dessert is downright decadent! It's is incredibly rich, but not sickeningly so where you can't eat more. I wanted to devour this whole pie! When it comes to pie, I enjoy the symbioses of the filling and the crust, and in this case it was no different. The cheese filling is similar to a cheesecake yet lighter and fluffier and the lemon zest within enhances the natural tart flavor of the peaches ( I guess depending on how ripe the peaches are). The peach preserve glaze topping contrasts the tartness of the lemon zest and peaches perfectly. The crust wraps it all up and brings your tastebuds back down to Earth.

Special thanks to Chef Dennis for his recipe and for his helpful Ask Chef Dennis posts over the years. He is moving/upgrading his blog, and I wish him success and luck and his new adventure!

If you want the recipe for this, you can get it straight from the source here: No Bake Peach Tart