Pies and tarts, what’s the difference?
This site tried to explain the difference, but I still don’t get it. I figured when it’s something fruity, it’s tarts. But then there are such things as blueberry tarts and blueberry pies, which are 2 different things, and it’s back to square one.
But those bite sized things are fruit tarts aren’t they?
Whatevs. My head hurts trying to figure them out.
OOH! I finally got my blowtorch! BLOW-freaking-TORCH! BLOW TORCH!! BLOW TORCH! I spent a good 15 minutes trying to pump butane into the torch, and then realised nothing was going in because when I turned the switch, there wasn’t any hissing sound.
Damn that butane can. And it was brand new! So I used my other butane can, and YAY! It filled, for like 1 minute, before the can started leaking, and started freezing and frosting the whole blowtorch. You know, because of the latent heat of vapourisation and whatnot. Then I tried the other can again, and finally it worked! Weird, but whatever.
Hissing sound — checked
Click and behold! BLUE FLAMES!
WOHOO! It worked!! So obviously we got really excited to torch our individual lemon meringue tarts (pies??) after lunch.
Crust recipe here and lemon meringue recipe here.
The filled pie shells:
The meringue layer, pre-baked and pre-torched
I decided to bake the pie, because of the amount of uncooked egg whites used. Just didn’t want to risk anybody getting salmonella from eating the lemon meringue pie. So I baked the pie and about 3 tarts for about 40 mins on low heat, while the rest were baked for about 10 mins on low heat just to kill any bacteria, before we fired the torch.
Torched!
I think the burnt edges make the tarts pretty! And they smell like roasted marshmallows!
So whatever happened to the baked pie?? The lemon curd oozed out!
Which was probably my fault, because I made the crust too thin, and it broke under pressure! AND I didn’t chill the filling long enough.
So I was trying to salvage it, by attempting to put it back to the pie pan.
BAD IDEA!
The crust was too thin, and too fragile, so the pie broke into 2, and I got a sticky gooey mess of runny lemon curd. OMFG! It was so disheartening!!
And I forced it back into the pan anyway! Hahah.. Terrible person I am! Half of the pie doesn’t have a crust!
Sya, Hafie and Salmah thought I should never be a surgeon after seeing how I tried to stuff the crust back into the pan. Messily, I might add.
Oh well. There’s always a next time!
And! Baking didn’t give the burnt edges effect, so I torched them anyway to look prettier!
Even the texture’s different. Baking gave a crispier meringue layer while torching made it gooey, soft, airy marshmallowy. Then the paranoid in me decided to bake the torched ones anyway! For about 20 minutes! Die, bacteria, die! Thankfully, the merigue still remained gooey!
