TWD - BWJ #2: Chocolate Truffle Tartlets

I think it's time I officially admit that I am utterly incapable of not making things overly-complicated. The second Tuesdays with Dorie - Baking with Julia recipe was Chocolate Truffle Tartlets (pp 382-383), and that in and of itself was apparently not enough for me--I had to go and do it six different ways.

Oh, yes, I said six: citrus almond biscotti, four-chocolate biscotti, mint, orange, espresso, and all of these sans the white chocolate (I guess I could have said I did it 10 different ways but that just seemed like exaggeration). And of course the day I decide to do this is the day I'm informed that yet more work has to be done on my car, but I digress.

Taking a Step Back from the Chaos

When I decided that I wanted to really try to incorporate new things into my life and my kitchen I jumped into it head-first, and a couple of weeks later I'm feeling more than a little overwhelmed. In the span of 2 days I tried to make a couple of flatbread pizzas, try out 2 new pie/tart doughs, create a hazelnut chocolate ganache filling for the tarts, whip up a batch of salsa, bake shortbread cookies, make another batch of udon noodles with almond sauce and try out a new fried rice recipe. The pizza was great but the tart dough was dry, the ganache wasn't as thick or smooth as I wanted it to be and only about 1/3 of the cookie dough got baked (the rest is in my fridge). While I love spending time in my kitchen experimenting with doughs and trying new recipes, trying to do too many things at once isn't working for me.

With that in mind, I'm going to take a deep breath and a step back. Instead of trying to do 6 things a day, I'll keep it to maybe 2, and do one thing at a time. Hopefully this will let me enjoy what I'm doing, and make a tart shell that isn't so dry.