An Unlikely Trifecta
Puff Pastry, Magic Mike XXL, and Easter Bread
My best friend Caroline took me on an end of winter, beginning of spring weekend getaway to Victoria last month as a late bday gift. It was Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: Best Friends edition, except we traded in margaritas for Whistle Buoy beers, and left the island feeling closer to one another, instead of pouring gasoline on our friendship and striking a match. A bestie blowout across the board.
The highlight of the trip for me (aside from the company, naturally) had to be our visit to Working Culture Bread in Rock Bay. I had only heard the highest of praise for this spot and was chomping at the bit for a taste of the action. Everything looked divine, but we decided on one savoury pastry and one sweet for our breakfast - entrée and dessert. Two goodies really caught my eye: the cremla, a combination of the Swedish semla and a croissant (s/o Sabine for awakening me to this crossover episode) and a pastry with brie, grainy dijon mustard and mushrooms!
Idk, but this combo really made me do a double take. Mushrooms and brie? Duh. Brie and grainy dijon? Double duh. But all three together…was it going to be a triple cream duh? Of course, I’m no stranger to a mushroom cheeseburger, the very menu item that these three ingredients are most likely to meet in. To all my White Spot heads (sorry non British-Columbian readers) I’m kind of a Monty Mushroom Burger gal. But such a simple pastry, just the dough, dijon, shrooms n cheese really made me wonder.
Buuuuut it was delightful. Caroline and I were in that tranquil, almost anesthetized state that comes from eating a good pastry. The cremla was heavenly too. Immediately, I knew I needed to come home and recreate a version of this for you, dear reader. As Caroline said “you could totally galette the shit out of this.”
So here it is! My mushroom, grainy dijon and brie tart that mobilizes one of the greatest things you can have in your freezer - puff pastry.
Ingredients
1 sheet dethawed puff pastry (place in fridge for at least 4 hours or preferably overnight)
3 cups brown button mushrooms, sliced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tablespoons grainy dijon
8 slices of brie cheese
1 egg
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1/4 cup grated parm, for serving
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and pepper
Method
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Heat olive oil and butter in a skillet on medium heat. Once butter has melted, add mushrooms to pan. Cook, without moving, until mushrooms have browned, about 3 minutes. Stir and keep cooking for another 3-5 minutes, or until mushrooms are golden brown on all sides.
When mushrooms have browned, add garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. cook until garlic is no longer raw. Take off heat and let cool slightly.
Once the mushrooms have cooled, remove puff pastry from the fridge and roll out on lined baking sheet. Fold the edges of the pastry over to create a 1 inch border around all four sides. Using a fork, prick the dough several times to ensure the dough remains flat when baking, and crimp the edges.
Spread your grainy dijon evenly within the dough’s border, and add mushrooms on top. Make sure the mushrooms are level - we don’t want a mushroom mountain!
Whisk egg (and a little milk or cream if you have it!) to make an egg wash. Brush on to the pastry border, and top with sesame seeds.
Place tart in oven and let bake. After 15 minutes, add slices of brie on top of the mushrooms, arranging them uniformly across the tart. Place back into the oven for another 5 to 10 minutes, or until the pastry is golden and puffed, and the brie is melted.
Remove from oven and let cool.
Cut into squares, top with parm, and enjoy!
Popcorn
If you’ve talked to me in the last month, you probably have heard me extol the virtues of the second Magic Mike movie, Magic Mike XXL. While it is the best movie of the three by far, there is one scene in particular that haunts me: a conversation between Mike (Channing Tatum) and Zoe (Amber Heard) about cookies vs cake. It truly makes no sense in the plot at all. I went back and watched it 3 times. Still no answers.
What is director Gregory Jacobs trying to tell us? Why does this scene feel so long? “I’d take a pack of Oreos over that bullshit any day”?? Is the world really divided into cake girls and cookie guys?
Sexy Little Snack
I spent my Sunday, in a very Martha-Stewart-at-the-farm-esque way: baking loaves upon loaves of sweet Croatian holiday bread with my mom and nonna. We made 4 walnuts rolls (orahnjača: typically baked for Christmas, but being my Nonna’s favourite Croatian treat she insisted we make some for Easter too!), and 4 boules of Easter bread (pogača: a sweet brioche-like bread with a cross cut in the middle, sometimes baked with an egg braided into it).
Baking holiday sweets all day long is VERY Martha, but perhaps the most Martha part of it all was this: we baked an extra loaf of orahnjača for the firefighters down at Vancouver Firehall No. 9.
I had to go to the fire department because a ring got stuck on my finger LOL.
There were 4 firefighters helping me cut it off, 4 jacked men in uniform who were ALL sexy little snacks themselves. So deeply 1950s core. I’m flouncing down to the firehall in the slinkiest dress you’ve ever seen, ringing the doorbell with a “yoo-hoo, boyyyyys!” Martha would approve.
Happy Spring! XOXO!!