During the occasion of publishing a recipe for a raspberry tart, I want to tell you something about my travel to Italy 2 weeks ago to participate on a food photography workshop in Gradara/ Marche.
In a beautiful farmhouse and garden with view to the adriatic coast ten women from Lebanon, Turkey, Iran, Greece, Italy, Croatia, Germany, Switzerland, Kuwait and Canada came together to be teached by the talented Valentina Solfrini and Zaira Zarotti from Italy and Betty Liu from the US. Two full days we arranged still lives, searched for the best light, learned technical things about photography, talked about everything, ate the most delicious food from Valentinas mother on a long wooden table in the garden.
I hope the pictures are telling the story itself, it would be interesting to write about each single woman on this workshop with all their passions and talents, especially about the amazing Zaira from Venice ( her pictures are like wonderful paintings ), Valentina ( her pictures are artistic delicate compositions ) and Betty ( with her completely different amazing style ). Two weeks after this gathering I am still in a high inspired mood, not only because of my passion for cooking, baking, creating recipes, find new combinations of flavors, but also to share it with you with the most beautiful possible photos.
Recipe
for the dough
- 150 g soft butter
- 75 g brown sugar
- pinch of salt
- zest of half a lemon
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 200 g flour
for the cream
- 250 ml milk
- 1 vanilla bean
- 4 egg yolks
- 50 g sugar
- 30 g corn starch
- 2 tbsp ricotta
…and raspberries
Mix together the butter, sugar, salt, lemon zest and vanilla extract. Carefully kneed the flour in. Keep the dough in the refrigerator for 1 hour. Then shape circles of the size you want. Bake at 180° for about 12 minutes.
Bring the milk with the vanilla bean to a boil. Meanwhile beat the egg yolks with the sugar, then stir in the cornstarch. Pour the boiling milk over the egg mixture, stirring all the time. Bring the mixture to a boil again and keep stirring until the mixture is thickening. Let it cool down a little, the stir in the ricotta.
Give a little cream on each baked dough circle and garnish with raspberries.
