Tarte crème d'amande et fruits exotiques

I stole this recipe from a cooking podcast I subscribed to when I was in France (Casse-croute). I first made the tarte when my cousin came to visit me after becoming engaged (to her then fiancé, now husband) while traveling in Italy. Mon colocotaire, mon cousin et moi ate the tarte on a balmy evening on our little balcony while drinking champagne and listening to stories of their engagement and their plans for their life and love to come...



Anyway,
It's a little difficult to make as the sweet pastry is a bit of challenge to get it rolled out properly. However, the most difficult part is easily avoided if you want to buy a pre-made shell at a grocery store. But it's fun to do it from scratch.
Bon Chance!

Quantity: makes one 9" circular tarte or about 14-16 cupcake sized tartes
Time: 75mins prep time, 3hrs wait time, 20mins bake time

Sweet pastry crust
(stolen from http://www.joyofbaking.com/FruitTart.html):
1 1/2 cups (200 grams) all purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/3 cup granulated white sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten

First, mix flour and salt in a bowl and set aside. Then beat together butter (make sure it's been sitting out for a while so its soft) and sugar until light and fluffy. Then beat in the egg just until its incorporated, no more. Add in flour and mix until it forms a ball, but do not overwork or the dough will become tough and difficult to roll. Place in the fridge for about an hour before using.


La creme d'amande (the frangipane)
200g unsalted butter (just less than 1 cup)
200g ground almonds (store bought)
1.5 C icing sugar
3 eggs
50ml white rum (1 airplane bottle)

Second, Mix together the frangipane ingredients starting with the icing sugar and butter. You'll probably have to use your hands as it will just stick to a whisk. Once mixed, add the rum, eggs and almond powder. Mix very well et le mettre dans le frigo pendant 1 hour.

Take the pastry out of the fridge and roll it out flat (about 1/8 of an inch thick) and place it into a mold (I used a miniature loaf mold and muffin trays cuz that's what I had). Poke holes at the bottom of your pastry cups once in the mold to allow some air flow to bake evenly. Place your frangipane mix into the pastry mold only about 1/2 full as the mix expands. Place into a preheated oven at 350F for about 20mins.

Remove from oven and let rest for 5mins.

The third step is completely up to you. Select your favorite fruits and dice them up into aesthetically pleasing shapes. Arrange as you please. It's a little difficult to get very pretty designs but its more fun to design it yourself then to use a prettier store bought one I think. You can also glaze your tarts by purchasing store bought glaze packages or make your own by mixing equal parts (1 cup) sugar and water and a tablespoon of pectic or corn starch boiling for a minute in a small pot. Cover the fruit with the glaze and let sit in the fridge for at least 2 hours. Before serving remove from the fridge about 20 mins before serving.

Good luck and Enjoy!

Peace 'a' Pizza

El Delicioso "Rustic Roasted Vegetable Pizza"!




I never thought vegan pizza could be remotely tasty..... blah blah blah, I was surprised how good it ACTUALLY is.

Here's your recipe. As far as the toppings go, you can basically improvise and put on whatever sounds good to you. But here's what I did, and it was delicious!


Crust:
Option A: Buy One
Option B: Make it yourself (this is what I did, with a recipe very similar to this one, except I used 1/2 whole wheat flour)

Now the fun part...

Toppings:
Roasted Veggies:
5 or 6 cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 green pepper, sliced into smaller pieces
1/4 red pepper, sliced into smaller pieces
3 cremini mushrooms, sliced
1/4 to 1/3 garlic bulb (depending on how much you like garlic)
handful of pine nuts
rosemary, oregano (or italian herb mix) for seasoning

Base:
pizza/pasta sauce (homemade, storebought, whatever)
pesto (homemade, storebought, whatever)


Directions:

1. Crust: Make/buy your crust. Preheat your oven to 500 degrees.
2. Roast the vegetables: First, place your sliced veggies into a medium-sized bowl. Brush or drizzle them with olive oil, and sprinkle on some rosemary and oregano to season. Next, toss them, or spin them around in the bowl so that they are coated with a then layer of the oil and herbs. Put them onto an oven-friendly dish or tray, and bake them on the *top* rack in your HOT oven for 10-15 minutes (maybe more), checking every few minutes, until they begin to brown and soften up. Feel free to get in there with a spatula or a spoon to move them around a bit to cook them more evenly. The peppers may even get a couple dark, burnt spots - this is okay. After you feel they are sufficiently roasted, remove the tray and transfer the veggies to a new plate or bowl.
3. Make your pizza: First, the preliminary pizza sauce slathering - you know how that goes. Next, put a few large dollops of pesto sauce randomly onto the pizza. Layer on your roasted veggies. Top with pine nuts, and season with rosemary and oregano, and S&P if desired. Bake all this in your 500 degrees oven for about 10 minutes, until the crust begins to brown.
4. Remove from oven, cool for a few minutes on a cutting board, slice away...and enjoy!!! If you have a small-normal appetite this will last you 2 meals :)
   

fake it till you bake it

MARBLE CAKE. another classic chez moi. this egalitarian cake is perfectly light and moist and the amount of sweetness is just right. we'll have it for any occasion and it never gets old.

so it was my friend's bday this week and since im completely broke i thought i'd build her this cake instead. It is especially inexpensive (our friendship is priceless...) when all the ingredients are readily available at your parent's house. Also, your (my?) parents are more likely to have things like rum extract, and dr. oetker's vanilla sugar, and a glorious Kitchen Aid mixer. actually, i dont advise attempting this recipe without a stand mixer unless you have superhuman upper-arm strength. It's a good recipe to make when you have an assignment due tomorrow and you've already re-organized your entire room and are looking for another way to procrastinate. basically it takes fooorrrreeevvvveer to make. but the results are completely worth the while. your whole house will smell like vanilla, which is an aphrodisiac in case you didnt know. so people will love your cake and they will love you...probably.

first you'll need:

- 250 grams butter

- 250 grams sugar

- 1 package vanilla sugar

- 1 tsp vanilla

- 1 tsp rum extract

- pinch of salt

- 4 eggs

- 3/4 cups milk

- 500 grams all-purpose flour, sifted

- 5 tsp baking powder (mix this in with flour)

then you'll need:

- 5 tbs cocoa (unsweetened dutch-process) + 5 tbs sugar
- 3+ tbs milk
- 1 more tsp rum extract

ok, so traditionally this cake is supposed to be 2/3 vanilla vs. 1/3 chocolate but I sorta reversed that since chocolate is the best. if for some weird reason you prefer vanilla, only add 3 tbs of cocoa and sugar... it has something to do with math i think.......

1. Beat the butter until it's very very fluffy. This will take about 10-15 minutes, the butter will turn very light yellow. This is a crucial step so don't rush it!
2. Add sugar 1 tablespoon at a time. Make sure it's fully incorporated.
3. Add packet of vanilla sugar.
4. Add eggs, one at a time.
5. Now add the vanilla, rum, and salt.
6. Now you'll mix in the flour/baking powder and milk. Alternate between spoonfuls of flour and milk. You should end up with a smooth thickish batter so that when you dip a spoon into your bowl the batter will ooze off slowly.
7. Eyeball about 1/3 of the batter and spoon it into your buttered cake mold.
8. To the remaining batter add the cocoa, sugar, and rum.

9. Now its time to marble! This part is sortof hard to explain, so I've added this visual to help! You need to spoon the chocolate batter over the vanilla. Then using a fork swirl the batter around to get the marble effect.

10. Bake the cake for 50-65 minutes at 175 C. When you insert a knife into your cake it should come out clean! Once it's ready immediately remove from the mold otherwise it will continue to cook. Flip the cake over onto a plate and let it cool

down.

11. Dust the cake with some icing sugar et voilà!

Brioooooooche

Nasya, I saw this tonight and thought of you!!

* * * * * *

Brioche
1/2 Cup Garbanzo Bean Flour
1 3/4 Cups Plain Soymilk
1 .6-Ounce Cake Fresh Yeast
4 Cups Bread Flour
1/4 Cup Granulated Sugar
1/4 Teaspoon Black Salt
1 Teaspoon Table Salt
1/4 Cup Plain Soy Creamer
1 Teaspoon Apple Cider Vinegar
1 Cup Margarine, Cut into Small Cubes

Place the garbanzo bean flour in a medium saucepan and stir in a small amount of the soymilk to form a paste. Once smooth, add in the rest of the soymilk, and whisk thoroughly. Cook over medium heat for about 5 - 10 minutes, until bubbles begin to break on the surface and the mixture feels significantly thickened. Turn off the heat, and continue to whisk occasionally for the next 10 minutes to help it cool down without forming a skin on top. Place a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the garbanzo mixture, and let it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes, until just barely warm to the touch.

In your stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, crumble the cake of yeast into the flour, and mix briefly to incorporate all the pieces. Add in the sugar and salts, and mix once more. Once cooled enough that it won’t kill the yeast, (less than 120 degrees F) scrape the garbanzo and soymilk “pudding” in and begin to mix on low speed. Combine the soy creamer and vinegar together before introducing them to the main mixing bowl as well.

Once you have all of the dry and wet ingredients incorporated but the dough is still weak in structure, begin to add in the margarine, a few cubes at a time. They should get folded in to a point that you can’t see them any more, but be patient because it takes time. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes once it seems smooth.

After it has rested, dump the dough out onto a clean surface. DO NOT use extra flour here, despite how sticky the dough is. Simply use a bench scraper if you can’t get it off the counter. Kneed it briefly by hand, stretching and folding it to strengthen the structure, for about 10 minutes. Roll the dough into a ball, place it in a lightly greased bowl, and cover it lightly with a towel. Place it in the fridge and let it rise overnight, between 8 and 12 hours.
In the morning, cut the dough in half, and then cut each half into 3 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a smooth ball, and then place 3 balls all lined up evenly in a lightly greased 8 x 4 inch loaf pan. Repeat with the remaining dough. Cover with a towel again, and let the loaves rest in a warm place for around 2 1/2 hours, until doubled or tripled in volume. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees as your loaves near the end of their rising time, and lightly brush them with vegan egg wash. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes, until well-browned and a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
Let the loaves rest in the pans for 5 minutes before turning them out onto wire racks to cool.

Makes 2 Loaves.

Got it from http://bittersweetblog.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/bread-with-a-heart-of-cake/

<3

In England a 'tart' is an insult

Chocolate Truffle Tarts

It only seems appropriate my first blog here (and ever!) is of tarts.

I stole and mixed this recipe from two other sites which i will post below, so technically this is 4 recipes (it's finite math, trust me), not just 1!

Crust site: http://www.jonathoncihlar.com/index.php?Post=fruittart

Filling site: http://www.foodtv.ca/recipes/recipedetails.aspx?dishid=8907

This recipe makes enough dough for probably 8-10 tart shells and more than enough chocolate truffle to fill these cups sufficiently. If you have excess filling, consider covering your hand in the chocolate for a tasty treat for the grad student on the go!

Crust Ingredients

- 3/4 cups flour
- 1/8 cup sugar
- 1/16 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup vegan margarine
- 2-3 tablespoons ice cold water
- Apricot preserves

Crust Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
2. Blend the flour, sugar, and salt until well-mixed.
3. Chill the flour mixture in the freezer for 15-20 minutes
4. Using a pastry cutter, fork, or your hands, cut the margarine into the flour mixture until the mixture resembles small pebbles.
   
5. Chill this mixture in the freezer again for another 15-20 minutes.
6. Slowly add water by the tablespoon incorporating it with a wooden spoon until it just holds together. Do not add too much water and definitely do not overmix.
7. Let the dough rest in the refrigerator for about 10-15 minutes to relax the gluten.
8. Remove the dough from the refrigerator, and lightly flour the surface you will roll it out on. Take off a small walnut-sized portion for a 3-4 inch tart tin and roll it into a circle that is about 1" larger than the size of the tin. The dough should be about 1/8" thick.
   
9. Place the dough in the tart tin (I didn't have a tart tin so I used muffin tins) and press down lightly to fit the shape of the tin. Do not stretch the dough to fit the tin. Prick the dough with a fork to prevent excessive bubbling.
   
10. Bake the tart at 400°F for about 15 minutes. The edges should be turning slightly brown and the body should look dry and flaky. Remove from the oven and cool.
11. Once each tart has cooled to room temperature, brush a light coating of apricot preserves. This layer forms a barrier between the crème filling and the crust keeping the crust light and flaky.

Chef James’ Note: I didn’t do the apricot coating cuz I didn’t think it would jive with the chocolate filling, but might be worthwhile if you had a different filling.

Chocolate Truffle Filling

- 1/2 cup + 3 tbsp coconut milk, using thick cream (the junk from the top of the can, suggested you leave the can in the fridge, not shaking before opening and extract your portion from the top layer of coco milk, the fatter portion)

- 3 1/2 tbsp - 4 Tbsps organic unrefined virgin coconut oil (coconut butter) [I used sunflower oil cuz I couldn’t find coco butter]

- 3/4 tsp pure almond extract (or can use pure vanilla)

- 2 cups non-dairy chocolate chips (or can use non-dairy chocolate bars)

Directions:

1. In a double boiler (or fit a metal/glass bowl over a saucepan filled with several inches of water) over medium-low heat, combine coconut milk, oil, and extract, stirring occasionally for several minutes until melted.
2. Add chocolate chips (reserving a small portion, about ¼ cup), and stir until the chocolate chips are just about melted. Then, turn off the heat and add remaining chocolate chips and gently stir through.
3. Once just melted (do not overwork the chocolate), remove saucepan from heat and place in fridge to cool mixture while cleaning up.
4. After the filing has cooled slightly (maybe 10mins) pour the filling to the top of the cups. Place back in fridge for another 15mins to let the mixture solidify before arranging your own fruit mixture.
   

The incredibly artistic fruit decorations on the top (in case you didn’t notice i cut the strawberries into hearts as these were Valentine’s Day gifts) were my own creative genius. But I invite you to create your own designs! Possibly commemorating some other important days, such as Martin Luther King Day, Roshashana, or Waitangi Day (Feb 6, commemorating the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding document). One can only imagine what innovative designs you can cut strawberries into to celebrate these momentous occasions!

Enjoy!

Chef James

food is for lovers

Today at all-u-can-eat sushi (this still sounds wrong) we all decided that food is good, and Darryn suggested we start some sort of recipe-sharing-network thingy.  Five hours later I made this web log!  yeah that's how im spending saturday nite and on valentines day. all sorts of pathetic but this is not my bridget jones diary so back to biznass.  This is a blog about food but also sometimes about feelings and world issues and celebrity gossip (wtf chris brown?) but mostly about food.  so post your favourite recipes frequently and vigorously! 

I ripped this first recipe off my dad. its a salad, apparently from the city of shiraz. while it may be simple its bloody amazing and goes with just about any meal. im not sure of measurements, it depends on how much you want to make. there should be an equal amount of tomato and cucumber. the key is lots of lemon juice and to chop all the veg very finely or my dad will be vexed and make me go back to the cutting board and try again. 

salad for 2: 

- 2 ripe tomates, chopped  

- a chunk of cucumber, chopped 

- 4 green onions, chopped 

- juice of  approx. 1/2 lemon 

- 2-3 tbs olive oil 

- salt and pepper 

Toss all the ingredients together and done!  

happy v-day <3 

nas