Biwa (Loquat) Tarts & Ume Jam Tarts

Biwa (Loquat) Tarts Thanks to a fellow baker who gave me a recipe (in the comment) of perfect pastry cream, I enjoyed a great success with tarts today. This certainly made up for the traumatizing experience I had with the strawberry tart back in May! The loquats from my dad’s orchard that I got from mom last Thursday were going bad and needed to be used right away. An inner voice told me that it was a perfect chance to try the pastry cream recipe. And tata-!! Don’t they look nice? They tasted nice, too! Read More Another Look (I want something else than mint leaves to garnish my sweets...) I have a confession to make… I couldn’t find half-and-half, so I mixed whipping cream and milk to make a substitute. For the rest, I generally followed her recipe, except that I used a little less amount of salted butter and omitted the pinch of salt in the recipe. And you are right, a fellow baker, this is a very good, versatile pastry cream! The only problem was that very ripe loquats are just so sweet, and with this sweet pastry cream, it was just uninterestingly plain sweet. I needed a twist with something a little sour. You know what I did? I still had some konatsu bavarois left in the fridge and I put a little amount of it at the bottom of the tart shell. (BTW, the tart shells were from the store. I was lazy.) I piled up the pastry cream on the konatsu bavarois and put loquat halves on top. The loquats were peeled, seeded and cut in half, then dipped in marsala wine briefly. Yes, another twist. And those twists worked just fine!! The slightly sour Konatsu bavarois, the sweet pastry cream and fresh loquat made a perfect combination with a crispy tart shell. It was oh so heavenly!! Ume (Japanese plum) Jam & Melon Tart I experimented another combination: the pastry cream, melon, and ume jam that I made the other day! At first I thought the ume jam had a little harshness left, but maybe it was because I tasted it while it was still warm. On the next day, I noticed no harshness at all and I’ve been enjoying the ume jam with yogurt almost every morning. The jam also went well with this pastry cream! BINGO! You know what I really want to try this ume jam with next? Crab Rangoon. I always thought that apricot sauce was a bit too sweet to eat with crab rangoon, but this Ume jam would be perfect for me. I have some other ideas for the use of ume jam. Hmmm…maybe I’ll need to make another batch pretty soon. BTW, It's so difficult to eat a tart with piled up cream and fruits in a cookie-type tart shell gracefully, isn't it? --- There's a question that I have always wanted to ask people in other countries (except US, UK, Canada and Australia, because for them I already know the answer.) The question is, "How many milliliter(cc)s are in 1cup in your country?" Through the conversions I had to do for foreign recipes in the past, I learned there were differences among countries. In Japan, 1C=200ml. I'm curious about how it is in other countries (except those countries listed above.) Can you help me with this small personal research? *I made those tarts yesterday after coming back from the Sunday Market, but posted this entry today.