Whole Lemon Tart

I had been in the mood of making a lemon tart for some time now using a recipe from Dorie Greenspan's book. I guess the final straw came when I saw a tart recipe posted up in Smitten Kitchen's blog. Lemons do so well in any dessert recipes and furthermore it's a readily available fruit all year round. I've made lemon slice before but have never attempted a lemon tart. I would image it's pretty close to a slice as it does have a biscuit-like base and sitting on top of it would be a lemon filing. However the filing of this particular tart is what makes it stand out amongst other lemon filing. It calls for the use of an entire lemon ... yes, you heard me right, one full lemon, skin, white rind and pulp is used. When I read the recipe, I wasn't sure about it. I've heard that the white rind should not be used as it gives a certain bitterness to the recipe. However if it had worked for the talented Smitten Kitchen, who am I to argue about it!


I've made her "unshrinkable" pie shell recipe before into a fresh mango tart and I have not been disappointed one ounce. So with her pie shell recipe at hand plus the lemon tart recipe, I dived right into this project. I made the pie shell the night before, unbaked of course, wrapped it nicely and placed it into the fridge. The next afternoon, I made the lemon filing and baked off the tart. Based on the recipe, I turned this into an 8" lemon tart with 2 smaller tart ramikins. I was going to give the 8" lemon tart to a fellow baker friend and the other smaller tarts for tea-time for myself and my hubby. We enjoyed it thorough. The pastry was flaky, buttery and soft and the lemon filing was certainly tart. Excellent dessert with our afternoon cup of coffee. This is definitely a recipe I'll bookmark to make when friends come around.


Whole Lemon Tart
Adapted from Rollet-Pradier via Dorie Greenspan’s Paris Sweets

1 partially baked 9-inch (24-cm) Great Unshrinkable Tart Shell recipe or your favorite sweet tart shell
1 average-sized lemon (about 4 1/2 ounces; 130 grams), rinsed and dried (a regular lemon works fine but a Meyer lemon works even better; the former will taste sharper, the latter more mild)
1 1/2 cups (300 grams) sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 1/2 tablespoons (12 grams) cornstarch
1 stick (4 ounces; 115 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Method:

1) Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven 325°F (165°C). Line a trimmed baking sheet with parchment paper and put the tart shell on the sheet.

2) Slice the lemon into thin wedges, remove the seeds, and toss the lemon and sugar into the container of a blender or food processor. Blend or process, scraping down the sides of the container as needed, until the lemon is thoroughly pureed and blended with the sugar, 1 to 2 minutes.

3) Turn the mixture into a bowl and, using a whisk, gently stir in the whole egg and the yolk, followed by the cornstarch and melted butter. Pour the filling into the crust.

4) Slide the baking sheet into the oven and bake the tart for 20 minutes. Increase the oven temperature to 350°F (180°C) and bake for another 15 to 20 minutes, or until the filling is bubbling and lightly browned.

5) Transfer the tart, still on the baking sheet, to a cooling rack and allow it to cool for at least 20 minutes before removing it from the pan. The tart is ready to be served when it reaches room temperature.

6) Best served on the day it is made, slightly warm. However it can be kept in the refrigerator overnight; bring to cool room temperature before serving.

Peach Puff Pastry Tarts

I had some left over puff pastry in the freezer which I made previously for a mille-feuille. So I decided to make something simple such as open-faced fruit puff pastry tarts. At first I was thinking of doing a mixed berry dessert, maybe with blueberries and raspberries but ended up with a peach puff pastry tart instead. Why the switch? That's because I had two sad looking peaches sitting in the fridge, looking somewhat wrinkled and with a couple of brown spots on them. I guess it's an indication of the peaches starting to be too ripe! So I transformed the "ugly ducklings" into 4 delicious peach puffs and we had it over a Sunday afternoon with a cup a coffee. Can't think of a better way to spend a lazy Sunday afternon!

Peach Puff Pastry Tarts
(Serves 2)

Ingredients:

2 peaches, peeled, remove the seed and slice thinly
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp brown sugar
* Mix above together and set aside

Method:

1) Preheat oven to 190C.

2) Roll out the puff pastry (recipe below) thinly about 1/4" and cut out 4 pieces measuring about 5" by 5" square. Using a knife slightly indent a border of about 1". This will allow the outer rim to puff out slightly more, thus creating a dam in the centre. (If you're not in the mood to make the pastry from scratch, you can always buy frozen butter puff pastry which will work just as well)

3) Brush the inner square of the pastry (4" by 4") with your favourite jam spread. (I used raspberry as this was all I had in my fridge).

4) Nicely arrange the peach slices in a straight row, overlapping each other.

5) Sprinkle the stop with almond flakes and bake for about 15 - 20 minutes until golden brown.

6) Serve immediately whilst warm. You can brush the top with some more jam to create a glaze. Accompany the tart with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream.

Simple Rough Puff Pastry:
(Makes 350g)

Ingredients:

200g plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
150g butter
1 tsp lemon juice

1) Mix together the flour and salt. Cut the butter into small cubes and mix the butter into the flour without breaking up the lumps. Mix to a stiff doug with 100ml cold water the lemon juice.

2) On a floured board, roll the dough into rectangle three times as long as it is wide - about 30cm x 10cm.

3) Fold the top third down and bottom third up. Turn the pastry sideways and seal the edges. Continue to roll adn fold four times, leaving the pastry to rest for 15 minutes between each folding and rolling. Wrap in clingfilm and leave to rest and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes before using. (Left over pastry can be frozen in the freezer.)

Chocolate Valentino

By the time this auto-post, I will be on a flight to Bangkok, Thailand for a long deserved holiday .... gosh it's been so long! I hope to post up some pictures of my trip and also to visit each of your blogs when I get back later in the week.

This month's Daring Bakers challenge comes to us from Wendy at A Charmed Life and Dharm at Dad-Baker & Chef. Both Wendy and Dharm are passionate about baking for their families and their blogs speak a lot about this. As hosts for this month, Dharm has chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan (recipe comes from Sweet Treats by Chef Wan) whilst Wendy picked a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe to accompany the cake. (We were given the option of making any ice-cream of our choice though)

I was very excited by the fact that one of the hosts happens to be a fellow Malaysian. You can image how my excitment went on "over-boil" when I read that the recipe for the flourless chocolate cake is from Chef Wan, the flamboyant Malaysian chef. How much of a coincidence is this ...! I've watched Chef Wan so many times on television and he is a very talented chef. As this is February and the month where Valentine's Day falls, I guess it is timely that a chocolate cake had been chosen. Romantic lore commonly identifies chocolate as an aphrodisiac. The reputed aphrodisiac qualities of chocolate are most often associated with the simple sensual pleasure of its consumption. Thus it's no wonder that chocolate is one of widely given gifts to loved ones during this particular day, besides red roses of course!

I only managed to squeeze the last weekend to complete this challenge. The cake itself was pretty simple as the ingredients and steps were very minimal. I've not tried a flourless cake, be it baking it or eating one either, so I was quite keen to try this out. I did half the recipe for an 6" version. The cake very much resembled a brownie when it came out of the oven. However I must honestly say that I was not too keen about it and would have much preferred a conventional brownie or better still a chocolate cake. As for the ice-cream, I already had a couple of tubs of home-made flavours sitting in the fridge, so that was easy-pessy. The flavours were Raspberry Ice-cream, using a Strawberry Ice-cream recipe I had previously made (but substituted with raspberries instead) and the other was a Peanut Butter Ice-cream. I also decided to try out another ice-cream flavour for this challenge, a Lemon Curd Ice-cream.



Chocolate Valentino
(receipe from Sweet Treats by Chef Wan)
Preparation Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

454g semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
146g unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated

Method:

1) Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.

2) While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.

3) Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.

4) Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).

5) With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.

6) Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.

7) Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter. {link of folding demonstration}

8) Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C

9) Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C. Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.

10) Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.


Lemon Curd Ice-cream
(serves 6)
(receipe from Taste Australia)

Ingredients:

50g butter, chopped
2 eggs, lightly whisked
60ml (1/4 cup) fresh lemon juice
2 tsp finely grated lemon rind
215g (1 cup) caster sugar
300ml thin cream
250ml (1 cup) milk
4 egg yolks

Method:

1) Combine the butter, egg, lemon juice and rind, and half the sugar in a medium saucepan. Cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, over low heat for 5 minutes or until mixture thickens slightly. Remove from heat. Strain lemon curd through a fine sieve into a medium heatproof bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to cool.

2) Meanwhile, place a metal container in the freezer to chill. Combine the cream and milk in a medium saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Remove from heat and set aside to cool slightly.

3) Whisk the egg yolks and remaining sugar together in a medium heatproof bowl until thick and pale. Gradually stir the warm cream mixture into the egg mixture.

4) Pour into a clean saucepan and place over low heat. Cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, for 10 minutes or until the custard coats the back of the spoon. Transfer to a medium heatproof bowl. Set aside for 10 minutes to cool.

5) Gradually stir the custard into the lemon curd and stir to combine. Place in the fridge for about 2 to 3 hours until completely cold. Then pour into an ice-cream maker and chill according to manufacturer’s instruction.

Note, if you are making this by hand, skip (4) and (5) above:

1) Pour into a clean saucepan and place over low heat. Cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, for 10 minutes or until the custard coats the back of the spoon. Transfer to a medium heatproof bowl. Set aside for 10 minutes to cool.

2) Gradually stir the custard into the lemon curd and stir to combine. Place in the chilled container. Cover with foil and place in the freezer for 6 hours or until almost set.

3) Roughly break up the ice-cream with a metal spoon and transfer to a large bowl. Beat with an electric beater until smooth. Quickly return to the metal container. Cover with foil and freeze for 4 hours or until firm.


Peanut Butter Ice-cream
(recipe from Martha Stewart)
(makes 4 cups)

Ingredients:

2 cups heavy cream
2 cups whole milk
1 cup salted cocktail peanuts
6 large egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup chunky peanut butter (I used smooth peanut butter and omitted the peanuts)

Method:

1) Heat cream, milk, and peanuts in a medium saucepan over medium heat until bubbles begin to form around edges. Remove from heat, cover, and let steep at room temperature for 3 hours (or refrigerate overnight).

2) Prepare an ice-water bath. Uncover cream mixture, and reheat until hot but not boiling. Whisk yolks, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Add cream mixture in a slow, steady stream, whisking constantly until well combined. Return mixture to saucepan, and stir constantly over medium heat until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 8 minutes. (Do not let the mixture come to a simmer.)

3) Strain through a fine sieve into a bowl. Discard solids. Set the bowl in the ice-water bath. Stir in vanilla, and let cool, stirring occasionally, until cold, about 20 minutes.

4) Freeze mixture in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions. Transfer to a large bowl, and fold in peanut butter until ice cream is swirled. Use immediately, or freeze for up to 1 week.

Rubies in Coconut Milk - Tub-tim Grob

"Tub-tim" when translated means ruby in Thai . Tub-tim grob means crunchy ruby, thus the name Rubies in Coconut Milk. This dessert originates from Thailand and is probably something you would see on the dessert menu in most Thai eateries. I particularly love this dessert due to the crunchiness of the water chestnuts and the chewiness of the tapioca flour coating.

I decided to make this dessert to coincide with my upcoming trip to Bangkok this weekend .... oh I'm so looking forward to this. I promise to post up pictures when I get back. This is a really simple dessert to prepare and the only hard part for me was peeling the fresh water chestnuts. This task was assigned to my hubby! I guess sometimes I'm mean in the sense that I'll complain from the kitchen and make excuses that a particular job is difficult, and that's when he'll step in. This was one of the many occassions. There are three part to this dessert, the ruby, the syrup water and the coconut milk. If you have kids, you can get them involved in this as it's quite a fun activity.


Rubies in Coconut Milk ("Tub-Tim Grob")

(Serves 2)

About 12 - 14 pieces of fresh water chestnuts (or use about 1/2 can of water chestnuts)
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/3 cup sugar
4 - 5 drops red food coloring
1/3 cup fresh or canned coconut milk/cream (mixed with a bit of water)

Method:

1) Slice each chestnut into half, making two round disks as far as possible.

2) Make two cuts into the two disks to make 6 equally sized pieces. Set chestnut pieces into a bowl and drop the red food coloring and a teaspoon of water and mix well.

3) Drain the chestnuts of any juice. Put tapioca flour in a big bowl. Drop the chestnuts in and shake the bowl around to coat the chestnuts with flour.

4) Scoop the chestnuts into a strainer to get rid of the excess flour. Put it into another bowl. Sprinkle the chestnuts with a bit of water and then coat them with flour again. If you want bigger rubies, repeat the spraying and flouring. Thus the coating outside the ruby would be thicker.

5) Boil a pot of water. When boiling, dump the coated rubies in. The cooked rubies will float up. Scoop them up in a strainer and dump them in ice water to quickly cool them down.

6) To make the syrup. In a small cup add sugar and water and microwave the cup for 3-4 minutes. Divide the rubies into equal amounts and set in two bowls. Pour out water from the bowls. Add half of the coconut milk and half of the syrup to make one serving. Serve with crushed ice in the summer time as it makes for a delicious dessert.

Vongole Sauce

My husband always says to me, "give me any pasta and I'll be a happy man". That's almost his precise words and it is true! His favourite Italian food has to be pasta and pizza - the 2 basic Ps. So this particular weekend I decided I'll cook his first favourite dish, pasta. I had quite a few bottles of white wine lying around (it's the cheap white wine) which would be just nice to be added into a pasta sauce.

The only sauce that I could think of that would use white wine was vongole. It's a pretty simple pasta dish to put together and is certainly tasty enough. Vongole is basically small clams served in a rich tomato sauce and tossed with pasta. It makes up the classic southern Italian dish, sphaghetti vongole. Just be sure to boil your pasta with plenty of salt to flavour it and also remember never to rinse your cooked pasta after that. (Long time ago, I used to do this until I saw some cook shows which advises you against it. Why not, well the starch in the cooked pasta will help the sauce to stick to the sphaghetti).



Vongole Sauce
Adapated from "Pasta" by Joanna Farrow
(serves 4)
Ingredients:

1 kg small fresh clams
150 ml dry white wine
4 Tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed and minced
2 x 400g cans chopped tomatoes
1 tsp caster sugar
2 bay leaves (fresh or dried)
Small handful of flat leaf parsley chopped
Finely grated rind and juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp dried mixed Italian or spaghetti herbs
Salt and black pepper, to taste

Method:

1) Scrub the clams, discarding any damaged ones or open ones that do not close when tapped with a knife.

2) Bring the wine to the boil in a large. heavy-based saucepan. Tip in the clams cver with a tight-fitting lid and cook for 3 - 4 minutes. shaking the pan frequently until the shells have opened. Remove the clams, reserving the liquor, and sheel about half of them. discarding any that remain closed.

3) Heat the oil in a clean pan. Add the nion and cook gently for 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for a further 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, sugar, bay leaves and the reserved clam liquor and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer gently for about 10 minutes until the sauce is thickened and pulpy. Add the mixed herbs, salt and pepper to taste.

4) Stir in the clams, parsley and lemons rind and juice. Heat through for 1 minute. Check the seasoning and serve.

Classic Ceasar Salad

One of our favourite salads would have to be ceasar. Every time we go out to a restaurant, this would be one of the salads which we would order. And if we have it at home, the dressing would be something from a bottle purchased from a supermarket. However I've yet to come across a delicious bottled dressing - the ones that I've purchased in the past were either too sour, too watery and somehow never up to a "restaurant" standard. So it was with glee when I came across this recipe from a cookbook by Karen Martini. Her picture of a plated ceasar salad looked so delicious that I was immediately drawn to try out the recipe.

All I can say is it's so delicious that I'm never going to look at a bottled ceaser salad dressing again. (Guess what ... I made another batch again the week after!) Furthermore it's so easy to whip up and you will be done in no time at all. Both my hubby and I are great garlic fans, so for us, the more garlic the better. Guess you could say that even a vampire would have stayed clear of us that evening! Another plus point about home-made salad dressing is that you can control what goes into it and balance out the flavours as you go along.



Classic Ceasar Salad
Recipe adapted from Karen Martini "Where the Heart is"
(serves 4)

Ingredients:

1 bulb garlic
1 cup egg mayonnaise
2 Tsp sour cream
8 anchovy fillets, finely chopped
1/2 lemon, juiced
1/2 clove garlic, finely chopped
splash of white wine vinegar
3 baby cos lettuce, very outer leaves removed and each cut into 6 wedges
1 red onion, finely sliced (optional)
3 Tsp small capers
10 slices of streaky bacon, either fried till crispy or roasted in 170C oven for about 10 to 12 mins, till crispy and brown
150g shaved parmesan (optional)
extra lemon juice
freshly ground black pepper
A handful of croutons
Olive oil, to serve

Method:

1) To make the dressing, roast the garlic buib at 150C for 30 mins, then cut and squeeze out the flesh.

2) Combine roasted garlic flesh, mayonnaise, sour cream, anchovies, lemon juice and chopped garlic in a food processor and process until smooth. (I just mixed everything into a bowl). If mixture is too stiff, add a little lemon juice until dressing is sauce-like. Set aside.

To Assemble:

Arrange lettuce on plates and drizzle over dressing. Break the bacon over the salad and top with croutons. Shave over some parmesan, sprinkle with some black pepper and finish off with a drizzle of olive oil. (I added a sprinkle of dried garlic flakes as well)

Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes

I was very intrigued by this recipe as it called for the addition of stout as one of its key ingredients. Who would have thought of using beer in a cupcake! I guess for beer drinkers, they would probably consider this as a sheer waste of good stuff!

Instead of using Guinness as stated in the original recipe, I bought a can of ABC stout. For those of you who are not familiar with this, it's a beer manufactured for Asian market. The fact that it cost much less than a can of Guinness prompted me to pick it up from the supermarket shelf. For your info, beer plus all other alcoholic beverages are very expensive here in Singapore. The government truly does not encourage it's citizens to drink, thus such beverages are slapped with a very high import duty. This can of ABC stout put me back by SGD3.70 (USD2.50). Thus economies of scale had to be applied here (I knew my 101 Economics would come in useful one day) as a Guinness would have set me back by another SGD1.00.


I halfed this recipe and it nicely produced me with 12 cupcakes, which is neat in my books as it just required me to use one cupcake pan only, plus one baking rack. Any more I would have to think of who to "off-load" it to since my hubby doesn't eat cake at all. Surprisingly there is no whiff or taste of the stout at all once the cupcakes were baked. My hubby did comment that it smelt "like bread" when it was in the oven. The cupcakes were extremely moist and soft, with a hint of chocolate. To sum it, it was yummy!



Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes
(makes 24 cupcakes)

Recipe from Nigella Lawson

Ingredients:

1 cup stout (such as Guinness)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar (I reduced the sugar slightly)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

Method:

1) Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners.

2) Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

3) Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in large bowl to blend.

4) Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend.

5) Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine.

6) Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined.

7) Divide batter among cupcake liners, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, rotating them once front to back if your oven bakes unevenly, about 17 - 20 minutes. Cool cupcakes on a rack completely before icing it with creme chantilly which I had used in another cake recipe. This icing is light and not sweet at all. The cupcakes can be kept in the fridge for 2 - 3 days.

Crème Chantilly:

2 cups heavy cream
3 Tbsp icing sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Combine the cream, sugar and vanilla in a chilled bowl and whip until the cream is stiff but not too thick or buttery.