TWD & BWJ: French Apple Tart

Gaye hosts this week's recipe for French Apple Tart for the Tuesdays with Dorie baking group. You will be able to find the recipe here.  Although there are a lot of steps to making this tart and it is time consuming, it really is a straight forward recipe and no special equipment is needed.  I don't have a tart pan, so I made a French Apple Pie.

I will say that this is one delicious pie...er, tart and the crust is the flakiest crust I've ever made. I didn't have high hopes as I baked this; I didn't have the right pan, the filling was very lumpy and both the crust and the finished pie took twice as long to bake as the recipe said it should. Still, this recipe is a keeper. 

TWD & BWJ: Pizza with Onion Confit

Our first outing for 2013 is Pizza with Onion Confit, a yummy way to start the new year. While I have had mixed results with the sweet recipes from Baking with Julia, I have always enjoyed the breads and my efforts have usually been rewarded with success.

I will let this week's host, Paul describe the process in more detail. He will also post the recipe if you want to try it. I will just say that the recipe uses common ingredients. Even though it is time consuming, each step is very easy. I did have some problem with the stickiness of the dough. I added about an extra 1/4 cup of flour, but I didn't want to add too much. In the end, I made one pizza. I then made four smaller calzones filled with tomato paste, cheese, olives and onion confit. I found folding over the dough made it easier to place on the pizza stone. It's probably time to invest in a pizza peel.