Apple Frangipani Tart

Andrew's sister and family from Melbourne are in Sydney for a visit. I made this tart for 12 people for the dinner which we had tonite at his parent's place. I researched a few recipes for frangipani filling, including that of Guillame Brahimi's, Nick Nairn's and Allison Thompson's. The shortcrust pastry is essentially adapted from Maggie Beer's pastry recipe which I love, it has a lovely crumbly melt in the mouth texture, simple to make. I have adapted all these recipes essentially reducing sugar, and substituting some butter and fat content (for eg extra egg yolks) with yoghurt. The tart was well liked and I am very happy about it. The frangipani texture was nice and moist without being overwhelmingly buttery rich as is sold in most cafes.

Ingredients - 12p
Shortcrust Pastry
250g flour
150g butter
125g sour cream (about 1/2 cup)
A pinch of salt
Frangipani Filling
225g of almond meal
150g butter
4 eggs
25g flour
1/2 cup of vanilla bean yoghurt
110g castor sugar
1 tsp of seasalt
2 tbsp of contreau
Apple topping
2 pink lady apples, sliced thinly
30g castor sugar
2 tsp ground nutmeg
2 tsp of ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 200 deg (fan force)

Pastry
Put the flour and butter and 1/2 of the sour cream into a food processor.
Pulse until light breadcrumb texture.
Add remaining sour cream and pulse till mixture comes together in few clumps (you will know it is ready, when it starts to come off the sides of the processor).
Lay a large sheet of cling film on clean table.
Pour the mixture onto the cling film, and lightly knead to form a rectangle. Dont overwork the dough if you want a light crumbly texture pastry.
Wrap the mixture and rest in fridge for 20 minutes.
Once rested, rub some flour onto large rolling pin and kneading surface, and roll pastry in one direction, about 2mm thick.
Pastry should be large enough to fill tart dish and overflowing on sides by at least 1 cm extra, to allow for shrinkage.
Using the rolling pin, lift the pastry, and work into tart dish.
Using a fork, prick all over the top of the pastry ( this tiny holes helps to prevent "bubbles" forming as the pastry is being baked).
Cover the top of pastry with baking paper, and fill top of baking paper with either baking beads or rice. (to stop it from rising).
Bake for 10-12 minutes.
Take out of oven, remove baking beads/rice and baking paper. Bake for another 5 minutes. (till slightly golden).
Set aside.
Reduce oven temperature to 170deg.

Frangipani filing
Cut butter into squares and place into a hot bowl (place in toaster oven at say 120deg for 10 minutes). The heat will melt the butter gently. Leave to cool.
Mix almond meal, flour, sea salt and 30g of the sugar in a large mixing bowl.
Whisk eggs till creamy and very pale yellow, adding in remaining sugar, slowly and progressively.
Add butter, yoghurt, contreau and then finally egg mixture into flour mixture, and fold till combined.
Spread the mixture evenly onto pastry.

Apples
Peel the apples.
Cut the apples in halve and soak in salted water (to prevent from browning/oxidation)
Thinly sliced the apples.
Dip apples into sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon mix.
Lay apples, slightly overlapping each other, on top of frangipani mixture. Press the apples down into the mixture, without submerging them.

Cut a long thin strip of aluminium foil and cover the sides of the pastry, to prevent it from burning.

Bake at 170 for 40 minutes. Then turn off heat, leave in oven for 5 minutes.

Sprinkle cinnamon powder all over top of apples while semi warm.

Leave to rest at least 30 minutes, preferably 1 hour, before slicing and serving.

Its delicious on its own, but can also be served with cream or vanilla ice-cream.

Note:
In Maggie Beer's pastry recipe, she would use 200g butter, you will have a very rich buttery pastry. I find 150g is good enough for a nice crumbly pastry.

Bon Appetite!

Tiramisu

 

I made this today for Andrew's sister's son, Alex's 18th birthday dinner party. The theme of the party was "Little Italy".  I adapted a recipe from the "Italian Food Safari".  The tiramisu turned out to be nicely creamy but yet light in texture. Everyone at the dinner party, liked it. I am not a fan of rich tiramisu, and I must say even I liked this one. :-). Very happy indeed with it.

Ingredients - Serves 10-12p
3 egg yolks
40g caster sugar
500g mascarpone
50ml Masala
1 tsp whisky
30 savoiardi biscuits
1 large hot coffee
4 tbsp organic cocoa
4 tbsp freshly ground coffee
Zest of 1 orange
50g hazelnut chocolate, grated finely (dark chocolate preferred, but I ran out of it today).

Italian meringue
45ml water
110g caster sugar
125ml egg whites (whites of 4 large eggs)

Place the egg yolks and caster sugar in a mixing bowl, and whisk on high speed until pale to almost white and fluffy. Add the mascarpone and, on a medium speed, whisk until it starts to thicken but smooth. Be sure not to overmix as you may split the mascarpone.

Add the liqueurs and mix until just combined. (You may adjust the quantity of liqueur according to personal taste.)  Place to one side and make the Italian meringue.

Add the water to a clean, grease-free saucepan, then slowly add the sugar, making sure that all the grains get wet. Place over a medium heat and bring to soft ball stage.  ( you can see lots of "bubbles" at this stage)

Making sure that your mixing bowl is completely grease-free, add in your egg whites and whisk on high speed until white and fluffy. As your egg whites reach medium peak, start to slowly add your hot sugar. Do not add sugar any sooner. ( A chef told me this would not overcook the egg whites, the sugar can go up to 120 deg and the egg whites would be fine). Once all the sugar has been added, continue to whisk until the Italian meringue has completely cooled. It would have stiffened such that when you turn the bowl upside down, the meringue would not fall. The meringue would start to look nice and glossy by this stage. Italian meringues are very stable and hold its form for a long time. Note: Use castor sugar otherwise you may get a grainy meringue instead of a smooth one.

Take your Italian meringue, and carefully fold into the mascarpone mix. Feel the mix "airing" as you fold. Taste and adjust the amount of liqueur if necessary.

Take your sponge finger biscuits, and soak in the coffee (add with 20ml of the masala) quickly, one at a time. Give the biscuits a light squeeze to remove any excess coffee. (Do not soak the biscuits all the way through.  There should still be a little portion in the middle that has not been soaked in the coffee so that there is still a little texture to the bite.)

Line the bottom of a serving dish packed with the biscuits. (I used a large pyrex round bowl, as I wanted the lid to cover for "transporting" the tiramisu). Sprinkle the top of the biscuits with cocoa evenly.

Using a large spatula, spoon in 1/2 of the mascarpone mix and level. Sprinkle with the ground coffee evenly.

Add another layer of coffee-soaked sponge finger biscuits.  Sprinkle again cocoa. Spoon in remaining mascarpone mix and level.

Cover the bowl tightly with cling film. Place in the fridge, and allow the tiramisu to become firm enough to cut, minimum 4 hours. ( I was told it is even better if left overnight to allow the flavours to develop)

Just before serving, sprinkle evenly with orange zest, then grated hazelnut chocolate and finally, the freshly ground coffee.

Note: In future, I will add lemon zest to the mascaporne/meringue filling. And try using sambuca/strega instead of masala.

Tip: For achieving light meringue and mascaporne mix, use stainless steel mixing bowls. Or glass, but not plastic. The steel bowls helps the "airation" process.
Bon Appetite!

Apple, Raisins and Spice Slice

I adapted this recipe from "BAKE Essential Companion" by Allison Thompson. I essentially replaced butter with olive oil. We enjoyed the resulting slice! It has a crunchy crust and very moist content. The olive oil maintain the moisture but not the rich buttery "after eat" feeling. Great for snacks and dessert. And so little prep work required.

Loaf tin size
110g self raising flour
55g plain flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
100g muscovado sugar
1/2 tsp of sea/river salt
1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil (100g)
1 large egg
1tbsp of milk
150g dried raisins
1 pink lady apple, cut into 1cmx1cm squares
2 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp nutmeg powder

Line loaf tin with baking paper.

Preheat oven to 180 deg (fan force).

Mix apples with 1 tsp cinnamon powder, nutmeg powder, and 20g of the sugar. Add raisins and mix.

Separately in a mixing bowl, mix all the remaining dry ingredients together.
Create a well in the middle, pour in olive oil, then milk and combine the ingredients together with the fruit mix.
Whisk eggs till pale yellow.
Fold eggs into the mixture.
Spread mixture into loaf tin.

Bake for about 23-25 minutes.

Bon Appetite!