ffwd – tourteau de chevre

It is so fun to get back into my French Friday groove! I’ve officially missed a couple of weeks, though I have made the mustard batons twice, including for ffwd, but life sometimes gets in the way. Things are back to normal(ish), so it’s time to get cooking again!! So inspired, I made both this ‘cake’, as well as Dorie’s cheating-on-winter pea soup. A good day! Oh, and the soup is well-worth making. mmmm

This is an interesting recipe. Particularly since Dorie gave us her story of first tasing a tourteau, and not really knowing what it was supposed to be… a dessert? cheese? Once made, and tasted… I understand.

This is definitely not an American-style cheesecake. I’ve had several Italian-style ricotta cheesecakes too, but this is something entirely different. In a very good way! Essentially a goat-cheese-filling in a pastry crust. Dorie offered a couple of choices for the crust – both we’ve made before. Either the regular tart crust, or the sweeter dessert crust. Since I was interested in trying the tourteau both as dessert and also as a cheese course with a nice glass of wine – I decided on the simpler (un-sweet) tart dough. Because we’ve made that before, I’ll just cut to the chase, and concentrate on the filling.



I’m just going to guess, and say that I think I’m probably not the only one who buys an exotic ingredient because I’ve seen it in a recipe, only to realize that I can’t remember exactly which recipe it was… happily, now I have something that requires that fancy bottle of orange-flower water!



pretty short list of simple ingredients…

 

first the egg whites get whipped to soft peaks they’ll be set aside so we can make the cheesy-part



love this – use the same bowl to mix together the yolks, cheese, sugar, corstarch, a pinch of salt – oh, and a little orange flower water



this all gets beaten until smooth



about a fourth of the whites are folded in to lighten the mixture



then the remainder are incorporated I don’t get overly concerned – I’d rather err on the side of keeping all of that lovely air in, and not overmixing



the tart dough gets rolled out (I love my new mat that has the measurements on it – makes it so easy!) and then placed in the 8″ spring-form pan no need to make things perfect here (good thing!)



the filling added and then it’s popped in the oven much like a pie, it’s cooked at a higher temperature for a few minutes, then the temperature is lowered and cooked a bit longer one much easier thing about this cake? no water baths, nothing fussy

just out of the oven, beautifully puffed



of course, once it cools, the touteau deflates a bit mine isn’t quite as brown as Dorie’s maybe a bit longer in the oven? I’m not sure it needed it

 

and the sliced touteau!

I thought this was lovely! Like Dorie, I couldn’t decide – and maybe didn’t need to – when this was better served. It was excellent with a glass of wine, though a cup of coffee would be good too! Or even a glass of port after dinner! Breakfast?

This was really fairly light, a nice contrast with the crust and creamy filling. I enjoyed the little bit of tang from the goat cheese, and the amount of sugar was the perfect compliment. I’m sure it would be wonderful with the sweet crust, but I didn’t really think it needed it. And as promised, it did hold up for several days – though I will admit it was nicest when freshly made.

I completely expect to make this again. In fact, I’m really just trying to think of when!