These salty, sweet tarts had a fun, unique flavor and would have been a hit…. If I had baked them all the way. As it was, I ruined the batch, and the next 24 hours of my life, by not realizing they were undercooked and then eating one… or two… So that is my big takeaway here. MAKE SURE THEY ARE BAKED COMPLETELY! Absolutely bubbling on the entire surface of that tart. If you aren’t sure if it is bubbling all the way, then it probably isn’t. Give it another 5 minutes and check again! What can I say? It wouldn’t be chaos baking if I didn’t mess something up. Unfortunately, this mistake came with a mild case of food poisoning.

Enough of my yammering, here is the LINK TO THE VIDEO, and see the recipe below!

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Ingredients

• Dough

• 1 1/4 cups (150g) All Purpose Flour

• 1 cup (113g) White Whole Wheat Flour (I used regular wheat flour)

• 1/2 teaspoon table salt

• 10 tablespoons (142g) unsalted butter, cold, cut into cubes

• 1/4 cup (57g) water, cold

• Filling

• 2 large eggs

• 1/2 cup (106g) light brown sugar, packed

• 1/4 teaspoon table salt

• 1/2 cup (156g) maple syrup

• 1 teaspoon cider vinegar

• 1 tablespoon (21g) molasses

• 4 tablespoons (57g) unsalted butter

• 1/2 cup (71g) cooked, crumbled bacon

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Directions

• To make the dough: Whisk the flours and salt together in a medium bowl. Work in the butter, mixing until everything is crumbly.
• Drizzle the cold water into the flour mixture, tossing to moisten evenly. Stir to make a cohesive dough, pat it into a slab 1/2″ thick, wrap, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
• To make the filling: Use a mixer to beat the eggs, brown sugar, and salt until smooth. Add the maple syrup, cider vinegar, molasses, and melted butter and beat for a few minutes longer.
• Stir in the crumbled bacon.
• Preheat the oven to 375°F. Have on hand a lightly greased or nonstick 12-cup muffin pan.
• To assemble: Roll the dough 1/8″ thick. Cut 4″ circles and press them gently into the muffin pan; gather and re-roll scraps as necessary.
• Fill each tart two-thirds full with the filling.
• Bake the tarts for 18 minutes, until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbly. Remove from the oven and cool completely before unmolding.
• Store covered in the refrigerator for up to 1 week; freeze for longer storage, up to 2 months.

My struggles were many with this recipe, although that wasn’t the recipes fault! The first struggle I had was with my dough. I had to add extra water, which can happen sometimes due to outside influences. My house was cold and super dry that day. Pie crust is something that I struggle with from time to time. I really do prefer the taste and texture of a homemade crust, but the convenience of buying pre-made is so so so nice. Still, pre-made won’t work with this recipe. The addition of the wheat flour gives it some good flavor. I wonder what toasting the wheat flour would do… Is that a thing? I feel like that is a thing.

My second struggle came with rolling out the dough. This was a thick, springy dough. Despite my awesome rolling pin that helps me gauge the thickness, I feel like my crust was thicker than it was supposed to be. I’m not mad about it. It was still light and flaky with a great flavor!

The syrup. Not all maple syrups are created equal. I used the old waffle standby, Aunt Jemima Butter Lite… I feel like this added a slightly unnatural sweetness to these tarts. I think a more traditional maple syrup may have been a better addition, so think about that. This may have also added to the consistency issue. I’m not a scientist or professional baker, so that I just an unfounded conspiracy theory on my part!

My biggest struggle was the baking. And this is where I ended up failing because I didn’t trust my gut, which is what ended up paying the price later!

The recipe said 375 for 18 minutes. When I pulled my tarts at the 18 minute mark, they MAY have been a little bubbly, but it was soooo hard to tell. And since I was using regular wheat flour instead of white wheat flour, the crust wasn’t much help. I put them back in for about 5 minutes. They were deffinitealy bubbling after the 5 minute mark, but my instincts said that wasn’t enough, as it was the edges that were bubbling away, but the centers were only bubbling a little bit.

I got nervous and pulled them anyways. I shouldn’t have done that. Those sucker should have been bubbling like crazy all the way across. I didn’t bake them all the way through and the center ended up being a jelly/custard like consistency. It took me a minute to get over how it looked and felt.

THE TASTE WAS AMAZING!

I do plan on making these again. This time, I will make sure they are completely done so that I don’t spend a day in misery!

If you are here for the first time, this was week 4 of the baking challenge! One new recipe every Saturday for the entire year! I’m selecting these recipes from King Arthur Baking because I am such a fangirl! (I am in no way sponsored by KA, but I’d be open to it if they enjoy my chaos baking style.)

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