Valentine's Pomegranate Meringue Rose Tartlets

Here's the perfect treat to impress your sweetheart! With a pistachio-studded crust, rose and orange flavored white chocolate ganache, and a pomegranate meringue, it's the perfect medley of Middle Eastern flavors to end (or begin) a romantic night. While you may not have time to bake it for tomorrow, there's always this weekend to celebrate! Also, this lovely tart would fit in perfectly with a celebration of spring in a couple months.

Pomegranate Meringue Rose Tart
Makes 8 4" tartlets
From Saveur

Note: The original recipe made one 9" tart. I've modified it to make 8 4" tartlets because those are the pans that I have. If you want to make one big tart, see the original recipe for the correct proportions. You'll need a candy or instant read thermometer for this recipe. You could probably make the crust by hand by chopping the pistachios with a knife and using a pastry cutter for the dough, but I haven't tried that. You can pipe or spread on the meringue. The original recipe just has you toast the outside of the meringue, but we liked the texture better after cooking it for a while at a lower temperature. You can try either way.


Crust:

3/4 cup pistachios (3 1/8 oz)

1/4 cup sugar (1 ¾ oz)

1 1/2 cups flour (7 ½ oz)

1 stick unsalted butter, cubed and chilled (4 oz)

1 egg yolk

1/4 cup cold water (2 oz)

Ganache:

18 oz. white chocolate, finely chopped

3/4 cup orange juice (6 oz)

1/8-1/4 tsp. rose water (to taste)

Meringue:

1 1/2 cup sugar (10 ½ oz)

3/4 cup pomegranate juice (6 oz)

1 ½ tsp. cornstarch

¾ tsp. cream of tartar

6 egg whites

20 drops red food coloring (optional)

Crust:

In a food processor, combine the pistachios and sugar and pulse until finely chopped. Add the flour and pulse a few times to combine. Add the butter and pulse until the chunks are all smaller than peas. Add the egg yolk and water and pulse just a few times to combine. Press the dough into two equal disks. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for an hour, or freeze for thirty minutes.  Find something circular that has just less than a 6" diameter. If you can't, you could cut a guide out of cardstock or you can just eyeball it. Flour a counter top and roll out one disk to a little less than 1/8" thick. You'll want to be able to get 3 circles out of one roll, and use the scraps for the 4th tartlet. Using your circle guide, cut out three circles. If you're eyeballing it, you can use the tart pan bottoms and cut an inch out from around them. Press the dough into three tartlet pans. Press the scraps into the 4th pan. If you can't get a whole three circles out, it's okay to use scraps for 2 tartlets. Repeat with the second disk. Prick the bottoms with a fork. Chill for an hour in the fridge or 30 minutes in the freezer. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375 F. Put all the tartlet shells onto a large baking sheet and bake until beginning to brown, about 20 minutes. Let cool before adding the ganache.

Ganache:
Put the orange juice in a small saucepan and heat over medium-high heat until it begins to simmer. While that's heating, put the chocolate in a medium bowl. Set a fine mesh strainer over the bowl. Once the orange juice simmers, strain over the chocolate. Remove the strainer and stir with a heatproof spatula until the chocolate is melted. Mix in rose water to taste. We used about 3/16 teaspoon. Quickly pour the ganache into the tart shells. Let it cool completely before adding the meringue.

Meringue:

Get a pastry bag with a large star tip ready. Boil the pomegranate juice and sugar in a medium saucepan. Bring it up to 250 F. Meanwhile, combine the cornstarch, cream of tartar and egg whites in a stand mixer (or bowl to use with a hand mixer). Beat until soft peaks form. Once the pomegranate syrup has reached 250, pour it into a glass measuring cup. Beat the eggs on high in the stand mixer and slowly pour the syrup in. Add the food coloring while it is still beating. Beat until firm peaks form. Immediately pipe or spread the meringue onto the tartlets.

To finish:

Toast only for a gooey meringue: Chill in the fridge until the meringue is firm. Broil or torch the meringue until desired color. Be careful! It browns fast. Enjoy with your love when cool!

Bake for a more marshmallow-like meringue: Follow above directions. Take the meringue out of the oven if using the broiler. Set the over to 300. Give it time to cool down (ours took about 10 minutes). Bake the tartlets for an hour. Turn off the oven and prop the oven door open with a wooden spoon. Leave the tartlets inside for another 1-2 hours to dry out more. Enjoy!

TWD: Focaccia

We can now add Focaccia to the list of breads that we've made.  Thanks to the trusty Kitchenaid it didn't require a whole lot of physical labor either.  We started the work on Sunday of putting it together and letting it go through the pair of specified rises, then let it sit in the fridge till we were ready to bake it.

The dough was easy to work with and it baked up very nicely.  We seasoned ours with Z'atar and our favorite Italian seasoning mix, and the Italian seasoning was our favorite.  We froze one of the three Focaccias since we didn't think we'd finish it before it went stale and we'll see how well it thaws!

The recipe can be found here.

TWD: Pizza with Onion Confit

I was a big fan of this week's recipe. The dough was easy to work with and the combination tasted good. We added spinach and goat cheese. Next time, I'd use about half of the confit and more spinach, but overall this was a success!

You can find the recipe here.

Christmas Cookie Advent Wrap-up

We actually did it! We made a treat every day from November 26th to December 24th. It was challenging at times, but a lot of fun! I think I'd only do it again in a kitchen with a built-in dishwasher. Our current one hooks up to the sink, so it's hard to do multiple loads in a day. Overall, I'm really glad we stuck with it! I've found some new favorites and we only had a couple duds.

Italian Seven Layer Cookies

These were some of my favorites. I gave barely any away because they were so good. They take some extra work to assemble all the layers, but are definitely worth it! The combination of almond flavored cakes, apricot preserves and chocolate is splendid. And, you can color the layers for whatever occasion you're making them. I saw a cute suggestion for red, white and blue for Independence Day.

Amadeus Cookies

These also took a little extra work, but were wonderful! They have an almond paste and pistachio filling sandwiched between shortbread cookies and dipped in a chocolate glaze. They aren't super sweet, but are very flavorful, which was nice after a month of sugar. 

Lemon-Glazed Persimmon Bars

Now these were easy. And tasted exactly like Christmas should taste. Moist, sweet, and spiced with a hint of lemon. If fruitcake was good, this is what it would taste like. 

Peanut Butter Fudge

This was the easiest thing we made the whole Advent. A few minutes in the microwave with a few basic ingredients is all that you need for these. And the payoff is big! Although this doesn't have the super creamy texture of true fudge, it was still delicious, and definitely worth the 5 minutes of work.

Pignoli

These Italian cookies are gluten free! Almond paste, confectioners sugar, and egg whites provide the structure instead of flour. These were fun, but definitely best enjoyed in the first couple days. 

Pizzelles

An awesome friend let me borrow her pizzelle iron! The slight flavor of anise was so different and worked really well with these crispy cookies. These were my sister's favorite of everything we made. I loved them too and definitely want to buy a pizzelle iron in the future. It would have to be after we get a bigger kitchen though.

15-minute Chocolate Walnut Fudge

This was also easy, but I think I cooked it a little too long since some of the oils separated. I, and another sister, still liked it, but Kyle thought it was too dark. I might try it again cooking for less time and substituting bittersweet chocolate for the unsweetened chocolate.

Baci di Dama

These were not really good at all. They were fine, but didn't have much flavor and weren't really sweet at all. Also, they took a ton of work because you have to blanch hazlenuts. It's a pain! And we bought unshelled nuts, so we had to shell them too. Does anyone know a good source for blanched hazlenuts? Or an easier way to shell and de-skin them?

Black and White Spiral French Butter Cookies

This is another version of the butter cookies we made earlier. We used normal butter for these and they weren't quite as amazing, but they were still delicious.

Brown Butter Chai Spiced Sugar Cookies

Sadly, I didn't get a solo picture of one of my favorites! I might just have to make them again to get a better shot. I even made them twice because I forgot to get a picture the first time. But then they were gone too quickly again! You can kind of see them hanging out behind the Amadeus cookies. They're a riff on the above recipe, but with the butter browned. And yes, this is the best plate of cookies ever. It was for my awesome friend who lent us her pizzelle iron. That's why you should lend us kitchen equipment! We'll return it clean and usually with some awesome goodies :)

You've seen this gingerbread before, but I thought this was so cute I had to post it. I hope you had a wonderful holiday season with your loved ones! Just like these gingerbread people.

Previous Advent Posts: 

1

2

Cookie (Treat) Advent Update

Here's an update on out Christmas Cookie (now Treat) Advent. We've actually kept it up every day, but added more variety so that we don't get bored. A few days, the treats disappeared too quickly for pictures, so we're planning on making those again to get some good shots! We literally have crumbs left of one of the cookies, which while delicious, don't look that appetizing. Some others aren't worth mentioning (I'm looking at you coconut caramels). All of the following were a success!

Alpine Mint Brownies

These are the best mint brownies I've ever had. Hands down. And my lucky couple friends we shared them with agree! I usually don't like fudgy brownies because they often end up gooey in the middle or over-baked., but I now understand why they're called fudgy brownies. These were actually the texture of fudge! They converted me. We followed the recipe, except I'm not a fan of normal McCormick mint extract, so we used 1/8 teaspoon peppermint oil instead. 

Cottage Cheese Pufflets

These were quite delicious! The cottage cheese in the dough threw me off, but mostly it just made the dough really flaky. When you picture these, think of super flaky handheld pies. We filled them with homemade currant jam. 

Finnish Pulla

Kyle made this today. We love it so much that there's only a third left. Make it sometime. Plan to not eat much else that day.

French Butter Cookies

These are like those Christmas cookies that come in a tin, but so much better! They're pretty easy, too. We altered the recipe just a little. We left out the salt and used a really good quality Amish salted cultured butter instead. They had a wonderful slight tang. 

Brown Butter Ginger Cookies

This picture doesn't do the cookies justice, but these were amazing. These were the only two left! They were supposed to have frosting and be sandwiched together, but we loved them as was too much to mess with it. 

Alfajores

These were really good, but way too much work for me to make them again. If I did, I'd use a purchased dulce de leche. 

Gooey Butter Cookies

These are Kyle's favorites. They taste exactly like their name. I don't love them as much because I prefer a firmer cookie, but if you're in the gooey cookie camp, you'll love these!

Jam Thumbprints

These were good thumbprint cookies, but not particularly amazing. 

Gingerbread!

This was our first time making real gingerbread houses. We had our friends the Messerly's over for some decorating fun! Some of the reviews of the recipe above said it wasn't very flavorful. We doubled the cinnamon and cardamom in the recipe and would have doubled the ginger, except we ran out. It tasted pretty good, and was also really sturdy for construction. We made some royal icing for building and decorating, and some brown butter icing for delicious eating!

TWD: Finnish Pulla

Okay, so I have to update what I said about the best ever brownies last time. This is my new favorite recipe from Baking with Julia! We made it as part of our Christmas Treat Advent today. I've honestly never had better soft bread in my life. It's slightly sweet with a perfectly balanced hint of cardamom. The sliced almonds and pearl sugar on top add great textural contrast.  If you still don't believe how good this is, we baked it tonight and there is only this much left:

I just keep going back for one more slice! Honey makes it even better.

I would never attempt a bow again though. It was harder than the braid and pretty much blended into the loaf. Other than that, I would definitely make this again! Kyle mixed up the dough as written, except we didn't have cardamom seeds, so he just used 1/2 teaspoon cardamom powder. I'm pretty sure this would still be good without the pearl sugar, so if you don't have that, give it a try anyway! Here's the recipe and other blogger's experience. 

Remembrance