2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
Sift the flour, salt, and baking powder together and set aside. Cream the butter until soft and gradual y add the sugar. Add the flour mixture a little at a time and mix wel .
Refrigerate for one hour.
Divide the dough in half and keep one portion in the refrigerator while rol ing out the other to approximately 1/4'
thickness. (The dough gets soft quickly.) Sprinkle the dough with the nuts and gently press them in with the rol ing pin.
Cut into 11/2' squares. Pix uses a paper pattern as she is hopeless at estimating things like this, unlike Faith. Prick with a fork and place the squares on an ungreased cookie sheet. Repeat with the rest of the dough.
Bake until golden brown, approximately 15 minutes in a preheated 350° oven. Makes 6 dozen squares. This is a devastatingly rich, crumbly cookie.
FAITH FAIRCHILD'S MAINE
BLUEBERRY TARTE
Pastry:
1 1/2 cups flour
12 tbsps. unsalted butter 1
tbsp. sugar
3 tbsps. ice water
a pinch of salt
Fil ing:
3 cups blueberries
2 tbsps. flour
4 tbsps. sugar
1 tbsp. lemon juice
Put the flour, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse once. Cut the butter into pieces and add to the dry ingredients. Pulse again until the mixture resembles coarsely ground cornmeal. (You may also cut the butter into the flour mixture with two knives or a pastry cutter.) Add the ice water through the feeder tube with the motor running and briefly process until a bal is formed.
Wrap the dough in wax paper and refrigerate for 1/2 hour.
Faith makes ice water by adding a few cubes to a glass of water before she starts making the dough.
Rol out the dough on a lightly floured surface and line a 10' fluted tarte pan—the kind with the bottom that comes out. Prick the bottom of the dough-lined pan with a fork.
Combine 2 tbsps. of flour with 2 tbsps. of sugar and dust the bottom.
Add the lemon juice to the fruit and spread evenly over the dough. Sprinkle 2 tbsps. of sugar on the top and place on a baking sheet. Bake in the middle of a preheated 375°
oven for 40 minutes, or until the edges turn slightly brown.
Let cool for ten minutes and remove from the pan to a serving plate. Tastes best warm or at room temperature.
Serves 10. This recipe is also delicious with other summer fruits. Caution: do not use frozen blueberries or you wil have a soggy mess. Pix knows.
Author's Note
There are cooks—and cooks. Pix represents one school; Faith another. I fal somewhere in between. As with the recipes in The Body in the Cast, these can be made successful y by cooks of al natures. Substitutions have been suggested in some cases and certainly feel free to experiment. I'm told I make great chili, but since I put different things in each time depending on what's to hand, I may never develop a recipe for it.
A relative once told me that anyone who could read could cook, a notion I heartily endorse. Cookbooks are always in the stack of books next to my bed (along with mysteries). Crime and food go together wel . Occasional y a passion for one wil lead to the other—as in Faith's and my case. There's nothing we enjoy more than sitting in the backyard with a plate of Bainbridge Shortbread and a cup of tea ... or a glass of wine and a stack of crackers and Chutney Cheese or ... being transported to whatever world a favorite mystery author has chosen this time. I hope you wil join us.
