Lower East Side Brunch Tart - Everyday Dorie Cookbook

This week's Cook the Book Fridays is in memory of a fellow member Chez Nana/Ro who sadly passed away in June. Nana baked, blogged, commented on all our posts and even learned coding and photography for her blog at the age of 88. How amazing is that? This recipe - Lower East Side Brunch Tart is a recipe that Nana had nominated in the past. So in honour of her, everyone in the Cook the Book Fridays community is baking this recipe for Nana.

Our group has never "met" in person but together we are able to all cook various recipes virtually. Everyday Dorie is actually the first "cook the book" community that I have joined and so far it has been great. I enjoy being able to spend extra time working on my photography skills and picture editing without worrying about the "recipe creation" part. It also adds new ideas and dishes to our meals.

For this recipe, you can choose to make your own pate brisee (buttery pie crust) or buy a store bought one. I opted to make our own pie crust following Dorie's recipe on page 329 of Everyday Dorie. The pie dough comes together really quickly as a food processor blends the cold butter and flour without really heating up and softening the butter. After you have your disc of dough, chilling it is super important if you aren't planning on using it right away. Even though I wanted to use it right away, I thought it would be best to put the dough in the fridge given that it was a fairly warm summer day. The tiny chunks of chilled butter will help to give your tart a flaky crust. 

The Lower East Side Brunch Tart uses a "half baked" pie crust which means you bake it for 25 minutes. After the pie crust cools, the rest of the ingredients are assembled and the tart is baked again. 

Lots of flavourful ingredients are used in the filling of this brunch tart and is reminiscent of a quiche. Smoked salmon, cream cheese, capers, and dill are layered into the crust followed by a mixture of heavy cream and eggs. 

Because the tart pan that I used was deeper (I don't have the cute crust one), I ended up using all 250mL of the small carton of cream I bought as well as adding in one more egg (total - 3 large eggs). I also added in a touch more smoked salmon and cream cheese. I skipped any extra salt as I typically find the addition of smoked salmon and capers already quite salty. As I am not a huge fan of red onions, I omitted the onions as well. 

After the entire tart is baked for another hour (recipe says 45 minutes) at 350F the tart is done. Topped with additional dill and capers this recipe was perfect for our al fresco dinner outside.

I loved how easy it was put the recipe together. I "half-baked" the pie crust in the morning and let it cool. Within 20 minutes after returning home from the clay studio I layered the ingredients and put the tart in the oven. We actually had this tart for dinner with additional tomatoes, greens and a mojito each. I love how this tart reminds you of "bagels and lox with the works" as Dorie says in her recipe. For the next time I bake this recipe, I would consider putting quiche-like ingredients inside the tart such as spinach or maybe some ham and place the smoked salmon on top after the tart has been baked.

Find the recipe for Everyday Dorie's Lower East Side Brunch tart here and check out the Cook the Book Fridays page for everyone's pictures and links. 

enjoy!