The Easter Beagle Will Never Let You Down

Okay, the title has very little to do with the actual post.  Other than Easter.  As usually happens around the holidays, Mr. flyskim and I trek out to the middle-of-nowhere Hillsboro to spend the day with his cousin M, M's wife, R, their adult children, sister-in-law V and her husband, G-man.  I was in charge of desserts, and even though we had been warned that there were only going to be 11-12 people there, Mr. flyskim suggested that I make two different items.  Far be it from me to turn down an extra baking opportunity.  I don't get to do it anywhere near often enough because Mr. flyskim doesn't eat sweets, and I'm trying to avoid gaining weight as I head into my mid-forties.  So, I started with my fallback chocolate cake with standard, sugar box icing.  This recipe has never failed me, and if you ask me to bring a cake somewhere, it's probably going to be this one.  I'm not much of a cake decorator, so I usually just dye the icing and stick things on top.  If I'm lucky, it'll actually look like something.  As I noted in my last post, Mr. flyskim insisted that we put Peeps on the cake, so I colored the icing green and put the Peeps bunnies out in the middle of the Easter egg field. 

If it had been up to me, this would have had an Easter bunny harvesting a giant carrot and candy flowers.

My second dessert was a Raspberry Streusel Tart from the Joy of Cooking.  I've only made one real pie crust, and it turned out okay, but I didn't want to risk it not turning out, so I did then next logical thing.  I made something I had never even tried before.  I used a press-in shortbread crust, and I think my tart pan was a little too big because I had some issues covering the whole thing, and it cooked in under 15 minutes (recommended time was 18-22 minutes) in my oven where baked goods regularly need the maximum time for a recipe plus some.  I was glad I decided to check it early, because I got it out before it started to burn.

Isn't it pretty?  The shiny comes from an egg wash to seal the pastry from the wet filling.

I'm glad I used a sweet crust, because it was a nice contrast to the tart raspberries.  The recipe wisely does not call for a lot of sugar in the filling.  The streusel was made with flour, brown sugar, crushed walnuts (Mr. flyskim's people are walnut farmers in the California central valley, so we always have a good supply on hand) and cinnamon. 

 

I'm not 100% certain that I cooked this long enough.  I'm not exactly sure whether the streusel is supposed to be crispy, crunchy or cake-like. It doesn't matter much because it was yummy.  Here are my creations waiting to be hacked into.

 Aren't they pretty?

Since I'd way over-baked, and Mr. flyskim was wrong for once about his cousin inviting every neighbor off the mountain to dinner, my co-workers had to do the dirty work of polishing these off for me yesterday.

Next up on the sewing table:  New Look 6587, view A.  I'm using this great cherry-print stretch cotton and the cutest little red buttons.  I have the bodice and the skirt put together separately.  The next step is to put the two together, add the collar and sleeves and make button holes.  If I'm focused, I might be able to finish by this weekend.