Rose, Honey, Salted Tart

I had some friends round for dinner the other night, and decided to try a new recipe out.  Including making my own pastry (something I’ve previously ignored).   This of course seemed like a less good idea, when I was half way through on one of the hottest days of the year so far with no alternative dessert to offer them if this one went tits up.  

Fortunately it all turned out ok in the end, and I think it’s something I’ll make again.  I even got to serve it with some of our home-grown strawberries and a quenelle of vanilla cream.

I suspect I've also finally come around to thinking that homemade pastry is much better.

Ingredients:

 Rose Pastry

2 and 1/4 cups flour

2 tablespoons sugar

1 cup butter, cold and hard

1 tablespoon rose water

4-7 tablespoons ice water

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Salted Rose & Honey Filling 

3/4 cup sugar

3 tablespoons corn flour

1/2 cup butter, melted

2 teaspoons rose water

2 teaspoons white vinegar

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 eggs

1/2 cup cream

Salt For Sprinkling – 2-3 teaspoons of good quality sea salt, depending how salty you like it to be

First make the pastry. Mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the cold butter, cut into as small pieces as you can manage.  I used  the food processor to make mine.   Blitz together the dry ingredients and the butter, them add in the rosewater before slowly adding  a couple of tablespoons of iced water (one at a time), until the pastry comes together.

Line the tart cases, leaving some hanging over the top, this can be trimmed later. Pop in the fridge for ten minutes.  Then line with foil and baking beans and blind bake for ten minutes at 170C. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before starting on the filling.

Preheat the oven to 170C. In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the eggs and cream until smooth. Set aside. Combine the butter, sugar, salt, and cornflour until well blended. Add the rose water, honey, vanilla, and vinegar and mix until combined, then fold in the egg mixture until incorporated.

Pour the mixture into the cases and bake for 35-45 minutes until the top of the tart turns golden brown and the custard sets.  Leave the tarts at room temp for two hours before serving, trim any excess pastry before plating up. 

Rocky Road Chocolate Treat

What do new mothers want most?  Other than a good night’s sleep, I understand that the answer is ALL THE SUGAR IN THE WORLD.  Presumably to keep them going when they’re cluster feeding at 3am and then need to get up again at 6.

My gorgeous big sister has just had her second baby, and I’m off to see them next week.  I’ve knocked together one of the most decadently calorific treats that I can think of for her.  It keeps and travels well and is always well received.  This is a recipe that I was given by my friend Helen, which I don’t make often because it’s incredibly bad for you. 

Rocky Road

300g chocolate (70% coco solids if possible)

125g butter

3 tbspns Golden Syrup

Bag of mini marshmallows

Large bag of malteasers

Box of white chocolate finger biscuits

Box of dark chocolate finger biscuits

Tub of glacier cherry halves

Plain flour

Icing sugar.

Take all of the dry ingredients. Crush the malteasers into large pieces, break up the fingers and combine along with the marshmallows and cherries in large bowl.  Sieve in a couple of teaspoons of icing sugar and toss until all the ingredients are coated.

Melt together the chocolate, butter and syrup over a water bath. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.  Stir in tablespoons of plain flour, one at a time. You want the chocolate to lose its gloss slightly and become slightly plastic looking.  Normally 2-3 spoons of flour is enough for me.

Pour the chocolate mixture over the dry ingredients and stir until completely combined.  Pour into a Clingfilm lined cake tray and smooth the top.  Put in the fridge overnight and then dust with icing sugar and cut into bars (or small squares, really small ones)

Gluten free brownies

My best friend has had problems with gluten for as long as I’ve known her.  At times she’s been really ill with her gluten intolerance, but she’s also had extended periods where it’s been ok.  Unfortunately she’s moved back into a phase where it’s making her really sick again.

So to cheer her up, and so that she doesn’t have to go without cake, I knocked up a couple of batches of Flourless Brownies.  She can stick them in the freezer and have a square every time she needs a sweet treat.  I think I’ll be looking at some more gluten free recipes before long.

225 grams dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids)

225 grams butter

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

200 grams caster sugar

3 large eggs (beaten)

150 grams ground almonds

100 grams chopped walnuts

Melt the chocolate over a water bath and then stir in the butter.  When these are completely combined mix in the vanilla extract.  Leave to cool slightly.

Whisk together the sugar and eggs and then pour in the chocolate/butter mixture.  Stir until fully combined. 

Add the ground almonds and chopped walnuts and stir until combined.  Cook at 170C for 25-30 minutes. Cut while warm in the tin, leave to cool.  Then remove from the pan and freeze.

These are delicious whether you’re gluten intolerant or not. 

Slow Cooked Oxtail

So to counteract the healthy vegan goodness of my last post, let’s have some more meat.  Slow cooked meat.  After the success of the ox cheeks, I approached my butcher about procuring some oxtail.  I think he’s got wise as he charged me substantially more for the tail than the cheeks.  It was delicious anyway.

The beauty of this recipe was that it genuinely just got thrown in the slow cooker overnight; no browning, no softening. Leave overnight and then switch off in the morning.  Sit to cool for the day and then skim to remove fat, and there will be quite a lot of fat.  You can then either remove the bones, the meat will just fall off them, or serve with the bones still in.  Reheat in the oven at 160C before serving.

Slow Cooked Oxtail

A whole oxtail – cut into 2 inch chunks.  Your butcher will do this for you if you ask nicely.

2 carrots - diced

4 stalks of celery – diced

1 red onion – diced

1 pint of beef stock

1 bottle of red wine

1 tin of tomatoes

2 tblsp tomato puree

Handful of chopped rosemary

Salt and black pepper

The plan had been to reserve some to use in the filling of some homemade ravioli.  The Very Tolerant Boyfriend bought a pasta maker for us to try out.  Unfortunately our first attempt at homemade pasta was a raging failure, so I guess that will be a blog for another day.

Vegan Sweets

We had the Very Tolerant Boyfriend’s parents to stay last weekend.  As they are his parents the Very Tolerant Boyfriend did most of the cooking.  He produced a beautiful tea smoked duck breast with fondant potatoes and wilted spinach.  He’s a pretty good cook.  

I offered to make a dessert, which is less easy than it sounds as the Very Tolerant Boyfriend’s mother is quite intolerant to a lot of food.  These include but are not limited to wheat, gluten, yeast, dairy, eggs, chocolate and pork.  So that kind of excludes most of my tried and tested “show off and impress people desserts”. 
I figured that it was going to have to be a vegan dessert, so I spent a couple of hours trawling through Pinterest.  You’d be surprised how many vegan desserts have chocolate in them; but finally I came up with the below.   

The recipe only included a list of ingredients, so I had to make up in the instructions.  It seems to have worked ok though.


Vegan Pear Tart Recipe (makes 4 small individual tarts)


crust:
1 1/2 cup gluten free flour
1/2 cup almond meal (ground almonds)
2 tablespoons ground flax seed
6~8 tablespoons melted coconut oil
2~3 tablespoons agave syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
Mix the whole lot together, until a squidgy dough consistency.  Break into 4 pieces and push into the tins.  Line with foil and baking beans and bake blind for 10mins at 160C


filling:
2/3 cup almond meal
1 tablespoon gluten free flour
7 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons melted coconut oil
1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/8 teaspoons brandy
a few drops of almond extract
a pinch of salt

Mix the whole lot together.  Fill the tart cases and then arrange the sliced pears on the top.  Brush the sliced pears with lemon juice to prevent them browning.
Bake at 170C for about 25 minutes.

The tarts were actually very nice.  The crust was crumbly and biscuit and the filling was moist.  However, I personally felt that the coconut oil was too overwhelming a flavour.  I think making it again I would swap out half of the coconut oil for a vegetable oil.  I would also swap the agave syrup for honey, or at the least half the syrup as it was too sweet. 

For the filling, I think I would up the apple sauce content and reduce the oil content.

Which is handy, as I have some vegan friends coming to dinner next month, so I can fiddle with the recipe then.