Monday, August 19, 2013

Squidgy Brownies

350g dark chocolate buttons
100g brown/caster sugar
100g butter, chopped up
50ml olive oil
3 XL eggs
1 tbsp of milk
Pinch of salt
50g of SR flour
1 tsp of corn flour
3 tbsp of almond meal
1/4 tsp of cream of tartar
1/2 tsp of baking powder
Optional: 1/2 tsp of orange oil

Preheat oven to 170C fanforce

Measure and mix SR flour, corn flour and baking powder. Set aside.
Melt chocolate on heated bain marie with butter. Then, add salt, oils, stir. Remove from heat, set aside. 
Meanwhile, separate egg whites and yolks.
Whisk egg whites till bubbly, add cream of tartar. When trails of ribbons forms, add 1/2 of the sugar and whisk till soft peaks.
Separately whisk egg yolks till bubbly, then put on bain marie, continuing whisking, add remaining sugar and whisk till light yellow. Remove from heat, and whisk till almost creamy white.
Add almond meal into the chocolate mixture followed by egg yolks in 2 batches, and fold.
Sift 1/2 the flour mix into the mixture, fold. 
Add half of the egg white mixture, fold.
Add remaining flour mix, fold. 
Add remaining egg white and fold. 
Pour into 20 cm square baking tin, lined with baking paper.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Open oven door slightly, kept apart by 1 wooden ladle, and bake a further 4-5 minutes. This removal of steam gives it a crispy top. 
Remove and cool at least 30 minutes before serving.

Note: Using part olive oil and butter makes this less rich than if all butter were used. 
 
Bon Appetite!

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Blackberry Raspberry Muffins with White Chocolate


 Ingredients - 6 large muffins
2 cups of berries - I used frozen blackberries and raspberries (if dont have both, either will do).
2 tbsp of sour cream. roughly 40g
100g of baking white chocolate buttons
60g of butter
1 tsp of pure vanilla extract.
3/4 cup of slightly luke warm soy milk
6 tsp of brown or castor sugar
180g of self raising sifted cake flour
1/2 tsp of baking powder (or 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder if using normal cake flour ie not self raising)
Pinch of salt
1 egg
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 180C fan force.
Put 6 large baking paper cups to line the muffin tray moulds.

Put white chocolate, sour cream and butter in a large glass or stainless steel bowl, sitting over pot of hot water like a bain marie, to melt the ingredients.
Take off heat and stir as soon as butter has just melted. Otherwise, it becomes very heavy as butter turns to oil.
Separately, mix the cake flour, baking powder well, salt, set aside.
Separately, whisk the egg till bubbly, add cream of tartar. Whisk till foamy, then add sugar slowly, and whisk till soft peak.
Sift 1/2 of the flour mixture into chocolate butter sour cream mixture and fold.
Sift in 1/4 of flour and fold. Add 1/2 of egg mixture to help loosen the mixture.
Slowly drizzle soy milk around edge of bowl, and add vanilla extract.
Add berries. 
Add remaining flour and egg.
Fold till combined. Distribute mixture evenly amongst the 6 muffin moulds.
Bake for 23-25 minutes.
Remove from oven.

(Note: if don't have sour cream, just substitute with 40 g of butter)
(Note: if you are using standard cupcake size moulds, probably can do 7, bake for about 20 minutes)

Bon Appetite!

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Will Woods Raspberry Tart

Cream Pattiserie tips

- 1 egg yolk to 100g flour for pastry
- 1 egg yolk to 100ml of milk
- put a handful of sugar when boiling milk to prevent milk from sticking to bottom
- Corn starch prevents egg from curdling when pouring hot milk into it
- Cool milk/egg mixture before adding cream to lighten up the mixture.

Fresh raspberry tart


Fresh raspberry tart
Recipe by: Careme Pastry
Preparation time: 40 min
Cooking time: 30 min
Serves: 6

Ingredients

Sweet shortcrust pastry
  • 250g plain flour, sifted
  • 100g unsalted butter, diced, chilled*
  • 100g pure icing sugar, sifted
  • Pinch salt
  • ½ vanilla bean, seeds scraped
  • 9 egg yolks
  • 1 tablespoon milk
Vanilla crème pâtissière
  • 500ml milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
  • 7 egg yolks
  • 125g caster sugar
  • 60g cornflour
  • 150ml thickened cream
  • 2 punnets (250g) raspberries
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Method

Sweet shortcrust pastry
1.      Place all ingredients except for egg yolks and milk into a food processor. Process mixture, tilting and gently shaking bowl until mixture resembles almond meal or breadcrumbs. Remove from processor and transfer to a bowl, making a well in the centre. Place 6 egg yolks into well, then using your hands, work egg yolks into crumb mixture until just combined. Do not knead the dough, the mixture should be crumbly. Form dough into a ball and place in a clean bowl, then wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes to rest.
2.      Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced). Lightly grease a 22cm loose-bottomed tart tin and line base with baking paper.
3.      Place pastry on a lightly floured work surface. Using a lightly dusted rolling pin, start to evenly flatten dough, keeping it as round and neat as possible around the edges, making an indent in dough at quarter turns. With even pressure, turn and lift pastry in a clockwise direction, rolling to a thickness of approximately 3mm. To check if the pastry is the correct size for the tart tin, place the tart tin over the pastry, there should be at least a 5cm border the whole way around. Line the base of the tart pan with baking paper. Carefully line the tart tin with the pastry, and chill in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.
4.      To blind bake the pastry case, line base with a cartouche made from baking paper. Fill tart shell with pie weights or a dried pulse (eg. chickpeas), to the top of the shell to help support the sides and weigh the base down during cooking.
5.      Place tart tin on a tray and bake in oven for 15 minutes. Remove tart tin from oven, check pastry is lightly golden before removing weights and baking paper. Combine remaining egg yolks and milk in a bowl and brush pastry well with the mixture, before returning to oven to cook for a further 10 minutes or until golden. Remove tart from oven, allow to cool completely.
Vanilla crème pâtissière

1.      For the pastry cream, place 400ml milk and vanilla in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Meanwhile whisk egg yolks and sugar in a bowl, then add cornflour and remaining 100ml milk, whisking until combined.
2.      Gradually whisk milk mixture into egg mixture until combined. Return mixture to a clean saucepan set over medium heat. Whisk vigorously and continuously until the pastry cream begins to bubble. Remove from heat and transfer to a bowl.  Cover with plastic wrap (the pastry cream should come into contact with the plastic wrap to form a seal) and refrigerate for about 1 hour or until cool. This can be made a day in advance.
3.      Once pastry cream is cold, whisk cream to soft peaks, then fold through pastry cream until combined.
4.      Fill tart shell with pastry cream mixture , arrange with raspberries, and dust with icing sugar to serve.
Notes: Tips:
When making pastry:
*Freeze butter to keep cold in warmer temperatures.
*Do not over-process or dough will form a paste and activate gluten.
*If your hands are warm when working with pastry, you can cool your hands down by dipping them into a bowl of iced water.
*Do not use rice when blind baking as the heat cannot penetrate the base of the tart causing the sides to burn. Use either pastry weights or chickpeas.

When making crème patissiere/pastry cream:
*Add a pinch of sugar when heating milk to prevent it from catching on the base of your saucepan.
Bon Appetite!

Friday, February 1, 2013

Grape Tomatoes, Rosemary, Roasted Garlic Foccacia


Serves 4-6

500g strong flour/white bread flour
1 heaped tbsp fine semolina
2 tsp of dried yeast or about 14g
About 50ml olive oil, plus extra for kneading
150 g of grape tomatoes, or any small sweet tomatoes (about 30)
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves only.
 Sea salt and freshly ground pepper.
In a jug, mix 120ml of cold milk from fridge with 150ml of just boiled water
1/2 a bulb of garlic ie about 6-7 cloves.

Prep 1
Wrap up the whole garlic in aluminium foil with skin on. No need to break the cloves apart. Put in oven. Turn oven on at 200C or 180C fan forced. Bake for about 25 minutes. Remove from oven, remove foil. Using a scissors, cut off top of bulb of garlic, and squeeze out all the melted roasted garlic into a bowl. Its like a garlic paste. Leave for later to spread over dough.

Leave oven on.

Prep 2
Separately, in a big mixing bowl, thoroughly mix flour, semolina and yeast with a pinch of salt, say half tsp.
Make a well in the middle, and pour in the liquid in jug and oil.
With a fork, mix the mixture until it comes together like a ball.
Cover with damp papertowel or cling wrap and leave for 15 minutes.
Tip the dough out onto a lightly oiled surface and knead for a couple of minutes, using push, fold, knead method, until smooth and elastic.
Cover with cling wrap to rest for 15 minutes.
Repeat kneading motion.
Cover with cling wrap and leave to rise about 1 hour or double in size.
Preheat oven to 200C.
Place the risen dough onto an oiled baking tray say 28x20cm. I used a large rounded pizza baking tray.
Grease your fingers with a little oil and prod out the dough to the edges of the tray, dough is about 2 cm thick.
Gently and lightly, rub roasted garlic all over the top of the oiled dough surface.
Press the whole tomatoes into the dough so that they are only slightly poking above the surface. Scatter rosemary, sea salt and pepper all over. Drizzle with a little olive oil all over.

Bake for 30 minutes until golden.

Turn out of tray onto a rack, cool down and rest for at least 30 minutes before slicing and serve. Or if you like, transfer to board and serve immediately, but the resting provides better texture.

Note: I also steam the oven with 2 ladles of icecubes before putting the dough in, to facilitate dough rising in the oven. If you are doing this, leave oven door open with heat still on at end of 25 minutes, and bake with oven door open for another 5 minutes to let steam out and let the crust crisp up.

Bon Appetite!

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Dan Lepard's Double Chocolate Lamingtons.



Too hard to pass up; possibly the world's most chocolatey lamingtons.







Ingredients
300g castor sugar
50g cocoa
75ml milk
50g unsalted butter
50g dark chocolate
50ml sunflower oil
4 medium eggs
100ml low-fat natural yoghurt
3 tsp vanilla extract
175g plain flour
3 tsp baking powder

For the coating (makes 750ml)
15g cocoa
50ml cold milk
175ml boiling water
200g dark chocolate, finely chopped
450g icing sugar
1-2 250g bags coconut (that is, much more than you would think)

Method
1. Line the base of a deep, 20cm square cake tin with non-stick paper and heat the oven to 170C (150C fan-forced). Put the sugar and cocoa in a bowl and beat in the milk. Melt the butter and chocolate in a saucepan, and add to the sugar mix along with the oil. Beat in the eggs until smooth, stir in the yoghurt and vanilla, and mix in the flour and baking powder. Pour into the tin, cover with a slightly domed sheet of foil and bake for an hour. Lift off the foil for the last 15 minutes. Remove, cool in the tin and, while warm, cover with cling film.

2. For the coating, mix the cocoa and milk until smooth, whisk in the boiling water, then stir in the chocolate until melted. Whisk in the icing sugar until dissolved and pour into a deep, wide jug. Cut the cake into nine, dunk each piece in the coating and fish out with two forks. Roll in coconut and leave to set.

Note: Lepard advises putting foil over the cake because it helps the cake rise more evenly. You'll have about 250 millilitres of coating left over - just the stuff, he says, for lamington milkshakes with ice-cream and coconut.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Sourcream Sandwich Loaf



This is an adaptation from Dan Lepard's sourcream sandwhich bread, to adjust for slightly smaller loaf and to use up my leftover doublecream. It has a beautiful tender crumb and crisp golden crust. I also mix with soy milk which further makes the bread softer. Very soft bread.

180ml cold soy milk (out of fridge)
100ml boiling water
*100ml double cream or sour cream (out of fridge)
1 tsp fine salt
1 tsp castor sugar or demerrara sugar
2 tsp of fast action dry yeast
450g strong white flour (bread flour) plus extra for dusting.
oil for kneading, I used olive oil.

Mix cold and boiling water together in large bowl/jug, stir in cream, sugar and yeast.
Separately in large bowl, mix flour and salt. Make a well in the middle.
Pour liquid content into flour bowl and mix till it forms a rough ball.
Cover bowl with cling wrap, and leave for 15 minutes.
Lightly oil hands and 30cm work surface (say 2 tbsp oil).
**Gently knead the dough, repeating twice more at 10 minute intervals, then leave dough covered with a cling film for an hour (or 50 minutes in warm weather). For 2nd and 3rd kneading, I dust work surface with flour before kneading.  Make sure cling film is a large enough as dough will about double its size.
Line a long 20-23cm long deep loaf tin with baking paper.
Pat the dough gently out to about 2 cm thick, roll it up tightly like a scroll, fold in the 2 pointy ends, and squish it seam-side down into the tin. Do not punch it, we want to hold on to the aeration in the dough.
Preheat oven to 200C/180C fan force.
Leave to rise until increase in size by 3/4 i.e about an hour, or 50 minutes in warm weather. Dust top with flour.
Just before putting dough in oven, put a large handful of ice into a baking tray in the oven below baking rack. This will create steam which aids the dough to rise further, otherwise the skin of dough will dry up quickly and form crust before dough gets a chance to rise further.
Place tin on baking rack and bake in oven about 35-37 minutes. Leave oven door slightly ajar to let steam out (by placing a wooden spoon in between) and bake another 5 minutes.

Note:

*The fat content in the cream is what gives the crust its tenderness, so do not be tempted by low fat substitutes. Make sure we give loaf plenty of headroom when come to bake it, as it has more "oven spring" than most. It actually rose 1 -2 cm within 5-8 minutes in the oven. For same reason, baking paper lining loaf tin need to be taller than height of tin if necessary. Dough rises to about 10-11cm height when final proofed, and to about 12 cm in the oven.

**When kneading dough, make sure movements are gentle, do not pound or tear the dough. Take edge of dough further from you and fold towards you, then with heel push down into the dough and slightly push and knead/stretch away from you. Give dough clockwise 1/4 turn and repeat folding, kneading, stretching.  Repeat this turn, fold, knead, stretch about 8 times, no more.

Bon Appetite!

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Heston's Lemon Tart

This was made using Heston Blumenthal's recipe, but I had to modify as my tart tin was smaller and I wanted the tart less sweet. Baking this tart was a good learning experience on how to bake a custard filling to just setting condition.

The pastry was tasty, soft and crumbly. The filling just set and no more, smooth, very lemon tangy and not too sweet.

Serves 6-8 (small serves)
24cm tart tin, 2 cm deep

For the pastry
60g icing sugar
3 L egg yolks
300g plain flour
150g unsalted butter
1/2 tsp salt
Zest of 1 lemon

For the filling
Finely grated zest and juice of 3 large lemons
250g double cream
120g white castor sugar
7 XL eggs

To finish and serve
50g unrefined castor sugar

Pastry
Blitz icing sugar and egg yolks in a tall container with a hand blender.
Use a mixer with a paddle attachment to mix flour, butter and salt on low speed until resembles fine cornmeal (about 2-3 minutes approx)
Add lemon zest, egg yolk mixture and mix on low speed until fully combine and a very soft dough has formed. The dough will "unstick" from the surface of mixer at this point. This can happen quite quickly especially on a warm day.
Mould dough into a flat square ad wrap in clingfilm, place in fridge for 1 hour.


Blind baking - Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan force
Roll pastry between 2 sheets of baking paper to 2mm thick, place in freezer for 30 minutes. 

Line the tart tin with pastry, prick the base with fork, then place back in freezer for 10 minutes.
Line pastry case with scrunched baking paper and beans/clean coins/rice on top.
Place in oven, blind bake for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, remove paper and contents, and return tart case to oven for further 10 minutes.
Take tart case out of oven to cool a little. Trim the overhanging pastry by running a sharp knife round the top of the tart tin and discard. Leave to cool completely.

When ready to bake filling, preheat oven to 120C/100C fan force.
Place all filling ingredients in a bowl and mix together using a spatula.
Place bowl over saucepan of simmering water and allow to warm up until temperature reaches 62C. At this point, strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a pouring jug. With a spoon, remove bubbles from surface, if any.
Slide the oven rack out a bit, pour the mixture into the warm pastry case inside the oven.
Fill the case to the top, slide the rack carefully back in.
Bake approximately 25 minutes or until temperature of filling reaches 70C.
Allow to cool completely at room temperature.

Just before serving, sprinkle a think layer of sugar on top of tart.
Using a blow torch, gently caramelise the sugar while continuing to sprinkle further sugar on top.

Bon Appetite!

Friday, January 11, 2013

Fresh tomato soup

Fresh tomato soup is best when tomatoes are in season, when tomatoes are ripe, juicy and sweet, and cheap.

For 4 p
12 large juicy tomatoes, about 1.5 kg - I used egg tomatoes.
1 tsp of dried oregano or any herb like thyme, basil etc.
Olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, skins removed, and bruised
1 large red onion chopped or 3-4 small ones.
1-2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt, or more if required
1/2 L of chicken stock, or water is ok.
A small bunch of fresh basil, chopped.

Preheat oven to 180deg.

Drizzle some olive oil onto a baking tray.
Cut tomatoes into halves and place on a baking tray, skin side down.
Sprinkle the dry herb all over the tomatoes.
Drizzle some olive oil over it, sprinkle with some salt and pepper.
Bake for about 30 minutes, or less if tomatoes starts to burn around the edges.
Separately in a thick based pot, saute the garlic and onion with some olive oil.
Add the roasted tomatoes, sugar and salt.
Saute 1-2 minutes.
Add stock or water, and simmer for 20-30 minutes.
Turn heat off, cool for a few minutes.
Blend with stick blender or food processor.
Pour content through a sieve and press out all the liquid.
Reheat the sieved liquid.
Serve, with sprinkle of fresh chopped basil.

Bon Appetite!