Chocolate Cream Tart, baking with friends, and Julia Child's house in Cambridge

Wow, where to start? I spent the weekend in Cambridge, MA (where I used to live) with my friend Stephanie. We made dinner, baked this TWD recipe, drank wine on the deck in great weather, had some great meals out. It was a great weekend! We had fun baking the Chocolate Cream Tart. We made the chocolate shortbread dough a day ahead and froze it in the pan. I think the only problem we had was slightly overbaking it. Directions were add 5 min to the 25 + 8 min to fully bake the crust. Next time, I think will be a few minutes less in the oven. The filling went well as did the topping and chocolate shaving. Also ran a little short of the topping, bu tno complaints and it tasted good!

Between the making of the dough and finishing the tart was the drive to see Julia Child's old house. See yesterday's post.

Julia & Paul Child's Cambridge House

I was back in Cambridge,MA 25-27 April. I stayed with a long time friend (not an old friend!) Stephanie, and she showed me a postcard from about a year ago. It was a notice that the house of Julia & Paul Child was for sale. So we did a drive by and you can see the photos here as well as the postcard. It is a big house, over 6,000 sq ft. The timing of seeing this was fun. Stephanie and I were making the current recipe for Tuesday's with Dorrie this weekend, while staying in Cambridge. Dorrie had worked with Julia on previous cookbooks, so there was a link. I also remember walking by Julia in Harvard Square many years ago when I lived there. It is also timely that I am reading Appetite for Life, the biography of Julia Child by Noel Riley Fitch.

15-minute magic: Chocolate Amaretti Torte

So this was for TWD. It is really fast, really simple and really good! So what else can you ask from a great chocolate torte?