Perfect Tarts with Leslie Mackie

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Hello, I'm Julia Child.

Welcome to my house.

What fun we're going to have

baking all kinds of incredible cakes, pies and breads

right here in my own kitchen.

Leslie Mackie's pastry chef and owner

of Seattle's popular Macrina Bakery.

Today she shows us her way of making perfect pie crusts

for these beautiful fresh fruit tarts.

Learn how she does it on...

[Captioning sponsored by VIEWERS LIKE YOU]

Welcome to the Tart-O-Rama.

Look at what I've got here.

There's a yogurt and blackberry tart

a beautiful, classical apple tart

and here is a nectarine and blueberry tart

that is oozing its juices.

And the great thing about this

they're all made out of the same dough formula

and Leslie Mackie, our pastry chef

is going to show us how to make the dough to begin with.

This is a classic pie dough

and I use a pastry flour with it because of the...

I like the flakiness and the crumb.

We're going to start with five and a quarter cups of flour

of the pastry flour.

I got four in there.

Four cups are already there.

Yep, and we're just going to kind of

measure this with a heaping section on top.

If you don't have pastry flour

you said that it'd be perfectly all right

to use unbleached all-purpose plus cake

if you... three cups of all-purpose to one cup of cake.

Exactly-- and then we got a tablespoon of salt.

So we're just going to kind of mix that all up.

We have our butter here.

We're going to cut this into smaller pieces.

This is 12 tablespoons.

Or one and a half sticks of chilled, unsalted butter.

Exactly.

And you cut this...

I kind of cut it into little smaller pieces.

Because it's easier to mix in.

And the pastry, rather, you could do that

I suppose, with your fingertips.

You sure could, but it tends to warm it up a little bit.

We're working on getting that coarse crumb look.

It's getting there, takes a little time.

Is that almost it?

I think we're almost there.

Now we're going to put in the shortening.

It makes that beautiful flakiness.

And it calls for a cup and three-quarters.

And now that shortening comes in sticks

one and three-quarters cups

would be 3½½ sticks.

That would be much easier

than the sort of silly cup measurement.

This is very messy.

This is chilled shortening.

It softens up awfully quickly, doesn't it?

It sure does.

Now, we're going to work this in.

Now, this goes in much easier than the butter, so...

But it is very effective in making a tender, flaky dough, isn't it?

Makes all the difference in the world.

It makes that crust that your mom used to make.

Did your mom make lots of pies?

Well, my grandmother did.

My mother made...

she's famous for her strawberry pie.

And she made beautiful crusts, really beautiful crusts.

See, it's getting nice and crumbly.

And now it's going to start looking a little wet.

You're looking for this exact same stage, right here

where you can see it looks a little bit wet.

And you can see lots of crumbly

and I just double-check it for big clods

and there aren't any in there, so...

I'm just going to make a little bit of a well

and put our one cup of cold water in there...

Is that ice water?

It is ice...

I just took the ice cubes out of it

strained the ice cubes out of it.

And you want the fats to really stay in little lumps.

You don't want them to dissolve.

That's why everything is cold.

I'm going to use my hands.

Hands are our best tools.

These things help

but your hands will never overmix it like a machine would.

So you can work it a little bit longer.

I think we're almost there.

I'm going to dump this out on the counter, here.

I'm going to dump this out on the counter, here.

So we got a little dry here

so I'm just going to get that, incorporate it in.

I'm going to divide it into two units

and then chill it up for about two hours and then we can work with it.

It's a little difficult to... to roll out at this stage.

That's a nice- looking pie dough.

Just wrap these guys up.

How much will these make, now?

Half of this will make the double-crusted pie.

And the other half will make, like, two shells

and if you're not in the mood or have the time to do all of it

you can always freeze it.

How long can you freeze it?

Gosh, you know, I've froze it for up to a month.

I just, just date it...

I've frozen some for a year.

Is that right?

You have a little busier schedule than I do.

This is a quarter of the dough, here.

It's been chilled.

I notice you have a cold marble, here.

Keeps it cold.

I'm going to sprinkle just a little bit of flour.

You don't want too much flour

because... then you taste flour.

Actually, what I normally do

is make it kind of in a round shape.

Then it will roll out round.

That's a good idea.

Yep, gets it going in the right direction.

I'm going to use a smaller rolling pin.

Because this has a fair amount of shortening in it

it does tend to get soft pretty darn fast.

That's why it's a good idea

to get a marble that will fit into your refrigerator.

That's a very good point, yeah.

Another trick that I find handy, is to fold it in quarters

to transport it... just kind of do like so.

Well, this is...

about how thick would you say that was?

You know, I guess this is

about an eighth of an inch... something like that.

Yeah, not more than that.

And this is a false bottom.

Yeah, that makes it...

it's for ease of getting the tart out.

And you haven't buttered it or anything.

Because you know what?

You've got enough in here.

Well, that's good.

So, what we're going to do

is we're going to lay this over here.

Again, you need to work with it pretty darn fast

because it tends to get soft.

It becomes much more difficult to work with

and you want this to be pleasurable, because it is.

What I'm doing

is I'm sitting it inside the tart pan here

but then I'm creating a little bit of a ledge here

so we have a little bit to work with.

Oh, you sort of pushed it up a little bit.

Yeah, I have a little extra.

You're lifting and pushing it down.

Yeah, we're going to make it look beautiful

but right now

we're just giving it a little extra dough to work with.

Okay, now I'm going to make it look pretty.

Well, you're pushing it...

Pushing it against, I'm kind of lifting it up, I'm kind of raising that edge.

This one is a classic French look.

You find this in the pastry shops in France.

So you're just kind of using the back of the knife here

and I'm just kind of pushing it on the angle.

And see, if you didn't have that little extra lip there

little extra ledge

you wouldn't be able to get much of an indentation.

There we go, perfect so...

Lovely.

Now we're going to chill this

for about 20 minutes or thereabouts.

I'll take it to the fridge.

All right.

Here's a yogurt and blackberry tart

that's going to go into this, which is a cake pan

so it needs a special way of doing.

It does.

It has the straighter sides here.

We're going to kind of lift it in there

and again, because there's so much butter and shortening in here

that you don't need to butter the pan at all.

I'm just going to kind of lay it in there.

This is going to get crimped on the top

kind of like an old-fashioned pie.

Okay, so now we have a little bit of an edge here.

I'm just going to roll it over

so you have a little something to work with.

I'm just kind of rolling...

Do that very slowly so we can see...

Okay, I'm just going to kind of tuck it under...

and the more you do this, the faster you get at it.

So now we kind of have an edge there.

Now I'm going to make it pretty.

So you just use your finger

you just kind of go around...

You're really just pinching...

Kind of pinching it.

And you get pretty darn fast at it

when you do enough of it.

Well, you have to, in a bakery.

You do, you have to.

There we go, marvelous.

Now, is that to be chilled again, is it?

We're going to chill this for 20 minutes

and then we're going to blind bake both of these tarts.

In other words, sort of pre-bake.

Exactly, so they...

That's to prevent the soggy bottoms.

Absolutely, because we don't like soggy bottoms.

Nobody wants one of those.

( both laughing )

Well, I'll put that in the fridge.

Okay, these are our chilled tarts.

And it's important to chill them

because they tend to shrink or lose their shape

you know, if you immediately...

Because the gluten has been activated, yeah.

I'm just going to line them

with a little bit of parchment paper, here.

And we're going to put some rice...

you can put rice or beans in, whichever.

You just save that and use them just for your pie shells.

Exactly.

And then this holds up the edges doesn't it?

Sure does, and you need to push it in there.

You need to push it so it really does secure it.

All right, we're going to bake these in a 400-degree oven.

How long will it take?

20 to 25 minutes.

There we go.

Now, how can you tell that they're done?

The indication is the color of the crust here.

And you want it kind of a medium brown

because it does go back into the oven and gets baked again.

Yeah, when it's filled.

Exactly, yeah, and I like to keep the rice in there

because it tends to dry out

the bottom of the crust a little bit more.

So we'll start with the apple mixture

that goes in the base of the French...

Oh, the classic apple tart.

That's going to be lovely.

I'm just going to cut up this apple.

I'm going to peel it first and then cut it.

You're using Granny Smiths.

I like them for the flavor, and also, you know

I'm out in Washington and we grow a lot of these apples.

I'm just cutting them in quarters

taking out the interior, there.

And what I'm going to do, is cut this into thirds, each quarter into thirds.

Okay, so we've got six apples in here.

Six, nice big apples.

We're going to put in three- quarters of a cup of sugar

and a tablespoon of flour-- kind of thickens it a bit--

and we're going to put a big pinch.

That was an enormous pinch of cinnamon, wasn't it?

( laughs ): Generous.

We have our lemon here.

The lemon is to taste.

I'm going to just kind of toss this.

Okay, these are pretty well tossed.

What I'll do is put these right on the baking sheet

and we'll cook these for about ten or 15 minutes

till they're soft, in the oven at about 375, 400.

That's a good idea.

They smell good.

We're going to mash these up.

These come out of the oven

and it kind of depends on the apple itself

but they need to be mashable.

They have to be tender.

And it's good to get a little of that sauce in there

because that's just concentrated apple juice.

So this is the texture we're looking for.

It's pretty mashable as you can see.

Leslie, you said you wanted a little texture in it.

Yep, that's why we mash it rather than puree it.

And I'm going to add

a half a cup of fluffy bread crumbs.

Uncooked.

Uncooked, it just tends to absorb

some of the moisture again, so it doesn't....

Well, that's a good idea...

Well, that's a good idea...

too saucy.

There we go, and you can still see all the bumps in there.

We like the bumps.

Okay, I'm going to take this apple here.

This is going to be for the topping.

This is for the concentric circles of apples up on top.

What do you do with those little brown spots?

You know, I just cut them right off

cut them right out like that-- there we go.

I'm going to quarter that.

There we go.

These are like....

Very thin.

Pretty thin, about an eighth of a inch, I think.

You're putting lemon on there.

Just put a little lemon on top of there.

The smaller ones will go for the center sections

and the larger ones will be for the initial ones here.

And you want to be very neat.

Yep, this takes patience.

That's very neat and nice.

Now, we're going to go with the smaller ones.

We're going to start laying... there we go.

This is the harder section.

You have a pretty open palette, the first time around.

You're just going to make it.

Yeah, see, we hardly wasted a one.

Some of these you have to cut down just a little bit.

Okay, now this is the tricky part, here:

Because you've got this bottom layer

and you've got the top layer

so you've kind of got to...

cut a little bit out...

and you interface it a little bit, there.

This is where little hands come in handy

so you can place them in there.

Then I'm just going make a little top section.

Just make it look like a flower.

Mmm.

Put that right in the center.

That's just beautiful.

Well, thank you, well.

Now we're going to brush the apple slices

with a little bit of butter.

And we'll put a second coat on, too

after it's been cooking for about 20 minutes.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, now I'm going to sprinkle it

with a little sugar.

Oh, just a little bit, about half a tablespoon.

Mm-hmm-- this helps it to caramelize on the edges, too.

Ah, yes.

Okay, now I'm going to put this in the oven.

Oh, about 375.

Mm-hmm-- how long will it take?

Probably about... 25 to 35 minutes.

Julia: Mm-hmm-- have to keep watching it.

Leslie: Yeah.

Well, Leslie's going to put

her yogurt and blackberry filling in this shell.

We're going to start with four beautiful brown eggs.

U.S. Grade A large, yeah.

And then also a cup and a third of sugar.

We're going to cream this to a pale stage

which takes approximately four or five minutes

here with this electric mixer.

You can see it's really yellow right now

and in about five minutes it'll be pale yellow.

It'll be kind of a straw color.

All right.

We're going to add the yogurt into this.

And how much yogurt we got?

We've got three cups of yogurt.

That's just plain yogurt.

Plain, non-fat yogurt.

Fold that in.

Looks nice.

Mm-hmm-- we're also going to put

three tablespoons of vanilla in here.

Pure vanilla, rather than...

Pure vanilla extract.

Yeah, not the imitation stuff.

Not that terrible stuff.

That we do not use.

Uh-uh.

And also what we're going to do is

we're going to sift in the flour next.

So we've got a cup and a quarter of flour.

All-purpose flour?

Just... yeah, just the all-purpose.

We're going to sift this into the custard

so we don't get too many lumps.

I'm going to fold a little bit in.

Sometimes this takes the whisk

to truly get it all the way in.

But you don't have anything

to deflate, do you?

Not really.

So you can really whisk perfectly well.

I suppose you... could do this in the bowl of a mixer?

You could, you could use a mixer.

Mm-hmm.

There we go, that's nice and smooth.

So I'm going to put this into the shell.

So it...

It looks nice going in.

When the berries go in

it tends to... makes it... grow a little bit.

We'll just kind of make it even there.

And you could also use

any kind of berry that was in season.

The criteria is just that you have

nice, beautiful fresh fruit.

So you're going to kind of... bob those down.

And now we're going to put a little

chopped almond around the outside.

Oh, those are toasted almonds.

These are toasted with the skin on.

We're just going to sprinkle this on the edge.

They already have that wonderful

toasted almond... perfume, I guess you'd call it.

We're going to put this in the oven.

This will bake for about 35 or 40 minutes at 325.

Now, this is the filling for your covered tart; it sound delicious.

Mm-hmm.

We're going to go with three cups of blueberries

and two cups of the sliced nectarines.

Yeah.

And for making filled tarts--

so you don't get too much juice...

That's a big problem, too, isn't it?

It's a big problem.

So what I do is I start with half of the fruit

and I season it with... the sugar that's needed.

And that's three- quarters of a cup.

The sugar brings out the juices, doesn't it?

It does.Yeah.

And we got some flour.

And that's again to absorb juices.

So it kind of makes a sauce for itself.

It's a tablespoon and a half--

I'm just going to guesstimate on that second half, there.

Also, we're going to put some lemon zest into this.

We don't need too much of the zest.

No.

Because the zest tends to be the strongest.

A big pinch.

A big pinch.

Yeah.

There we go.

I'm going to put just a little bit

of lemon juice in there, too.

Again with our...

we'll just kind of keep the seeds from...

Mm-hmm.

going in there.

I'm going to put this into the hot pan.

And what we're doing is we're getting

some of the juices to come out.

There we go.

So we're going to cook this until the juices kind of exude.

Blueberries actually have a fair amount of natural pectin in them.

Oh, that's good, so that thickens things up.

Mm-hmm-- so you don't have to put too much flour in.

Okay, this is looking pretty good-- we're boiling.

We can see the thickness of the sauce.

Yeah.

Looks good.

And...

I'm going to take it off.

And then put the... other fruit into it.

Just as-is.

And kind of mix this around

And then we're going to taste it

make sure we're...

Mmm.

Just right?

Just right.

Perfect.

There we go.

Okay, now we're going to chill this.

If we put it in warm into the pie dough it'll make it

soggy on the bottom.

Oh, of course, yes.

So we're going to chill this to room temperature.

Okay.

Now, that's the top to this fruit tart.

And this is kind of the trick

to get the right size.

There's a little overhang here

and that's what we're going to use for the crimping.

You don't want to build up too much dough on the edges

so you put this shell right on top

and you cut right around.

It doesn't have to be exact, but a general shape.

I'm just going to lift that off.

Take the little scraps off here.

Now what we'll do

is we'll put the filling into the dough.

This is a chilled shell.

Yeah.

And let me lift this up...

And you've chilled it over ice and water--

that's very sensible.

I'm going to put this... and this may make...

So beautiful...

Isn't the color...

Smells so good.

Delicious, yeah.

Lovely, fresh fruity smell.

There we go, get some of these...

nectarines on the other side.

Oh, that's right, so everyone gets...

A little bit of each.

Mm-hmm.

Now we're going to dot this with a little butter

which just adds a little richness to the tart.

Just going to kind of dot it.

Let's see... there we go, that's about a tablespoon.

You want to seal it.

This is the insurance that that the juices will stay in.

Is that one egg beaten with...?

A little bit of water.

We're going to do this...

Always fold it in four, that way, yeah.

You know, some people can just manage it on its own

You know, some people can just manage it on its own

but... this helps dramatically.

So easy.

Yeah.

We're going to like, lift it right over the top

we're going to match up those edges.

Now, I'm just going to kind of even up the edges here

because we didn't get it just exactly.

And this just helps so we don't get too bulky on the crimp.

Now you're folding them under.

I'm folding it under... and pinching it here.

We're going to make a little different crimp-look on this.

Now what I thought I'd do

is make it flat and then bring it in.

So I'm going in... flat, out.

Mm-hmm, yeah, I can see that.

Well, this will all be illustrated in the book

that comes along with this TV program.

Uh-huh.

So if we forget, we can look it up.

And we need a little fork.

And what I'll do is, just on the flat sections

I'm just going to make a little mark there.

Oh, I see, oh, that's nice.

And it just kind of... gives it a nice look.

That's very pretty.

Obviously there's going to be steam

that's created with the berries and all

so we need to cut some vents in it.

So I'm just going to cut a little vent.

Just frankly cut.

That's part of the decoration, too, isn't it?

It is, you can do all kinds of designs.

You can put your initials in it.

( Julia laughs )

So you know which pie is yours.

Well, that's nice.

So just like so.

Now we're going to give it a little egg wash.

And that makes it... a nice brown color.

Yeah.

And again, you have to be kind of ginger with it

because you can disfigure it.

All right-- now we're going to put a little coarse sugar

this is the turbinado sugar, it's more of a less... less-refined sugar.

And this is...

See, it's a little, it's... crystalline.

Yes, turbinado.

Turbinado, mm-hmm.

If you didn't have that, just plain sugar, I guess.

You could just use plain sugar

and it's for coloring, but it also adds...

Pretty.

a nice look to it.

Now this needs to chill

for about 20 minutes, and then we'll put it into the oven

about 375, and it bakes for about 40 minutes.

And it's best to...

let's put it on a baking sheet, here

because the... as it bakes it will...

the juices will come out and make a messier oven.

Okay, I'll put it in the fridge.

All righty.

Gosh, what a real "Tart-o-Rama"

this has turned out to be.

Here's that wonderful yogurt tart and the...

classical apple one, and this lovely fruit tart.

Which one shall I pick?

I think the apple was a good one to try.

All right.

Mmm.

That is beautiful.

I'm dying to taste that crust.

That's... the crux is in the crust, isn't it?

That is true.

( both laughing )

There we go.

Put it right on top, there.

Let me garnish it with a bit of crèème frache.

Want a little whipped cream instead?

I'd rather have whipped cream.

Mmm.

That's still warm.

It looks beautiful.

You'd serve this warm or at room temperature?

Uh-huh.

If it has a chance to cool down a little bit

it's a little easier to cut.

It's a lovely crust.

Thank you.

So many people...

don't even bother

to eat the crust and this is a delicious one.

Mm-hmm.

Lovely tart.

Well, thank you.

Thank you so much, Leslie, you've been...

so nice to come all the way from Seattle.

You've taught us an awful lot about crusts

and tarts and it's been a wonderful lesson.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

It was my pleasure.

Julia's got the

Julia: Bon appétit!