Kitchen Time

I was supposed to bake something for my little girl,but being busy in the little farm for preparation of rice seedlings,I wasn't able to go to town and buy the needed ingredients for the cake.

Then a call from the heads requesting us to do noodle processing because they will  come and monitor our activity was added to my task.I made an article about it here.

Unfortunately when we were about to start the proccessing, the fuse in the fuse box was faulty. We found out that only one works but it can't start our machineries. To follow safety precautions, we posponed the activity since there's no available reserve fuse, I had to take home the squash that was already cooked and mashed, i wasn't able to use the blender too. I thought of using the squash into something when i got home.

When I arrived home, i cooked the mashed squash for the filling of my planned recipe. Since I don't have butter, I use corn oil then I poured the condensed milk and waited it to become thick then i poured the mashed squash mixed with 1 eggyolk.I should have added cream and a little corstarch because the squash is a bit watery, but sadly i don't have it. Luckily, it went perfectly dry but it took too long in the fire to achieve it's dryness.

Now checking on my stocks again, there's an evaporated milk i mentioned and a baking powder, and sugar but no flour😅. I have no choice but to request my son to run an errand to buy a single kilo of all purpose flour in the mini store. I have to bear with the additional price though.😅

After washing the utensils and as I was preheating the oven which releases an unnusual smell of a burning iron or what since it's new and I just got it as a free kit from a training course, I started to prepare the baking materials and the ingredients from scrap and I started the "thing" in my mind.

I sifted the flour and added the dry ingredients, sugar with a pinch of fine salt then mix them well.

I was taught in the training center to use butter in tarts and pies but I used corn oil instead. I heard from my friends they tried using oil instead of butter and it went well so i tried it also. There's no harm in trying since butter is also an oil when melted.😁

Now using this pastry plender i pressed it to the flour mixture to incorporate the ingredients and the oil to hold the flour.It is done this way to achieve a crunchy crust of the tart. The oil holds the protein in the flour. One can have his own choice of tart, either it will be a crunchy one or the soft one. Just adjust the milk added.
Next, one tablespoon after another i added the milk. Since it's cold in here, i had to add more than the ussual because the flour stays dry even i added the normal amount of milk. When I first made this recipe i added the normal amount because the weather is hot and the dough I made was at my desired moisture already at a short time. But now I need to add more. I made it sure, it looks like a coarse crumbs to have a flaky and a crunchy outcome.I had to hold it by rubbing between my thumbs and the other fingers to make sure I achieved the desired moisture. Because of the pastry blender i don't need to hold the flour and blend it with the other ingredients all the time using my hands. I took time to play with the crumbs. In the hot weather, if you don't have pastry blender, it is advisable not to overhandle the dough using of your hands because the outcome will not be crunchy since we released the oil from the flour already but to others, they liked the not so cruchy tart too.

Now i have to put a dough in the tart molder by pressing it in the midde and in the sides ensuring no extra crumbs hanging in the edges to prevent from being burnt, i trimmed it using my fingers pressed through the edges.

Then I filled the hollow portion with the prepared squash filling. I had to flatten the top well  because any tip formed will become brown first and it will be burnt before the entire tart will be cooked.

Now I can smell the aroma of the tart and this little kiddo was just so excited to have a taste of our baked product.

Tsaraan! My experiment went well! I don't be needing a butter next time because we don't have a refrigerator 😁.

The crust was crunchy but not so hard to bite.This is a perfect bite i want to achieve always. My kids loved it and wanted me to make another one but there's no filling anymore. 🤣 I promised to bake them a cake instead one of this days. Next time ime I will try the egg tart.It's a bit tricky to achieve the perfect outcome though specially the custard that needs a keen eye.

Thanks for having time reading. ❤️

>Xzeon<