coconut berry tart - epic failure

[Guest]

Thank goodness I wasn't having company!

As I posted in the thread above (25595), three cups of cookie crumbs was about one cup too much and 6 TB butter was not nearly enough. I removed over a cup of the crust mixture from the bowl and added an additional 2TB butter. That made a nice crust that only needed to bake for 9 minutes, not 12.

The filling never set up and oozed all over the plate when I cut the tart. I am not experienced with gelatin and could have made an error but I believe I followed the recipe.

The good news is that the crust tasted very good and the pineapple brown sugar topping I made was also good. My husband asked for seconds.

 

[mistral]

A failure, yes, but not epic!

I say if you liked parts and learned from the parts you didn't like, AND the significant other asked for seconds, it was just a failure.

Now if you really hated it all and there was no saving the crust AND the filling was runny, AND the significant other tasted, spit it out and said to never feed him that again, weeeeeeell, that is a more legendary, epic style fail.

smileys/smile.gif

 

[wigs]

cyalexa2, I'm so sorry I wasn't home yesterday 2 answer yr ?s. I did use an 11.5" tart pan in lieu

of the 9-inch one called for in the recipe, and I still had some crumb crust mixture left over which I froze to use later for a portion of a future tart. Also, I added more melted butter than the amount called for as I always put enough butter into any crumb crust (whether with graham crackers or vanilla wafers or pulverized cookies or crushed Nabisco chocolate wafers) to the point that it feels like wet sand when I squeeze some of the mixture together in my hand. That is a George Geary hint that was well worth the cost of a class I took from him years & years ago.
The recipe ingredient amounts are accurate as they appear because I scanned the recipe directly from my "Taste of the South" magazine and then cut & pasted it into the eat.at posting.
I have edited and added the above info about the crust to my original post, and I'm sorry I neglected to do so when I first shared the REC here. I made that tart for a lady back in September and had forgotten about my crust adjustments.
I didn't have any trouble using the gelatin to stabilize the filling; it set up just fine for me, but remember you can NEVER heat unflavored gelatin to too hot a temperature, or it won't stabilize properly. I found that out by watching a baking episode on the foodnetwork that was done by Alton Brown eons ago. (Naturally, I'd made that error on more than one occasion before Alton straightened me out!)
Alton also said to NEVER use a glass bowl to whip cream (always use a chilled metal bowl & chilled beaters) plus you should set the chilled bowl inside a slightly bigger bowl that has ice cubes in it when you whip. I have no idea how big a difference this ultimately makes, but I've always used his method when beating heavy whipping cream. (Also, if you are adding any type sugar or extracts or liqueurs, Alton counseled that you should NOT add those at the beginning of the whipping process but should wait until you have at least reached a soft peak stage before slowly adding sweeteners and/or flavorings to the cream as it is being whipped.)
Am so glad to hear you and your husband liked the tart! I thought it was very tasty plus it was so pretty when I displayed it on a pedestal cake plate at the bridal shower party I catered last September.

 

[Guest]

thank you

I really appreciate the time you are taking to reply. I also put my extra crumb mixture in the freezer!

I'll have to do some research to find the max temp for adding bloomed gelatin. Perhaps my coconut milk was too hot. I have all 3 of the Good Eats books and will look there first. BTW, these have turned out to be pretty good reference books. I rarely use one of the recipes but read up on techniques with some regularity.

I think my whipped cream was OK. I used a cold metal bowl and cold beaters and added coconut extract after reaching soft peaks. I ended up with nice firm peaks and folded it into the coconut mixture carefully.

 

[Guest]

you're right, I'm over-reacting

Because I try lots of new recipes I make something I don't particularly enjoy with some frequency but rarely have such a poor outcome that I would be embarrassed to serve the dish to company.