Lime and Pear Tart with Shortcrust Pastry

We baked this to bring over to Andrew's parents place, Annie, his mum, made super delicious pea soup and spicy beef casserole. The tart was a success, and I must say, I liked it too. The lime flavour came through, but yet not overly tangy, easy to the taste buds. And the thin shortbread pastry adds a nice crunch. Very moist, tangy, crumbly, melt in the mouth texture.

Juice and zest of 2 large limes.
1/2 cup buttermilk (or milk with 3 tsp of lime juice)
75g unsalted butter, cut into small squares
75g raw/castor sugar (I used a mix of both)
75g (1 cup) almond meal (ground almonds)
3 large eggs
2 tbsp Contreau (or any orange liquer)
1 tbsp double cream
1 pear, thinly sliced, soak in lemon/salt water to prevent from turning brown, until ready to put into tart.

Preheat the oven to 180degC fan force

Grease a 9 inch round tart tin.
Ground 5 pieces of shortbread biscuits** in a processor till it is like breadcrumbs.
Pour it into tart tin to form pastry base. Compress the crumbs till it forms an evenly thin layer of pastry bottom and sides.

Put the juices, zest, butter, sugar, cream, into a heavy based pan, and heat gently stirring till thickened.
Separately whisk eggs till creamy, add slowly buttermilk, and whisk till creamy.
Very very slowly pour whisked eggs into juice pan, and stir as you are pouring, continue to stir till thickened.
(Note, heat must be gentle so as not to overcook/curdle the egg). Easy test: pan must not be too hot for the hand to touch.
Fold in almonds, liqueur.
Pour 3/4 mixture into the tart tin with shortbread pastry.
Arrange the slices of pear on top of the filling.
Place into oven. And pour in rest of mixture.
Note: Tart tins are usually not deep, so to prevent spillage as you put the tart into the oven, it is suggested to pour rest of mixture after tart tin is in the oven. Also, if you have one of those with removable bases, it can be fumbly.
Lower oven temperature to 160 degree.
Bake for 28 minutes.

** Tip: I used leftover shortcrust pastry from making another tart a few days ago, and baked into shortbread. And now, I am using the shortbread to make the biscuit base for this tart.

Bon Appetite!

Maggie Beer's Quince Almond & Chocolate Tart

For 12 p

Pot Roasted Quinces750g Quinces, peeled, cored and cut into large wedges
Squeeze of lemon juice
300ml water
200ml verjuice
165g castor sugar

Chocolate and almond cream120g unsalted butter, softened
150g fine castor sugar
200g ground almond meal
2 free range eggs
1 free range egg yolk
80ml vino cotto
50g dark chocolate cocoa

Sour Cream Pastry200g Chilled unsalted butter
250g Plain flour
125ml Sour Cream

1 Pre-heat fan forced oven to 170c.

2 Once you have peeled and cored the quince place in pot of water with a squeeze of lemon and set aside, to help stop oxidising.

3 To pot roast the quinces, place the quinces, water, verjuice and sugar into a medium sized pot, place this over a high heat, bring to the boil, cover with a lid and place into the oven.

4 Cook for 1 hour, then give the quinces a very light toss making sure not to break up the wedges. Place back into the oven.

5 Check the quinces every 15 to 20 minutes to make sure that the liquid has not all evaporated, if it starts to and looking like that they will catch on the bottom and an extra 100mls of verjuice. They will take between 2 and 2 ½ hours to cook.

6 Once the quinces are cooked they should be a beautiful ruby red colour and a small amount of syrup left in the base of the pot. They should not be dry or the caught on the base of the pot. Remove the quinces from the pot and place onto a plate or tray and set aside to cool.

7 Increase the temperature oven to 200c

8 To make the almond cream, place the butter and castor sugar in to a food mixer, beat until light and creamy (approx 6 minutes).

9 Add the eggs and yolk (1 at a time) then cocoa, vino cotto and mix for further 1 minute.

10 Add the almond meal, mix until well combined. Set aside until ready to use.

11 To make the sour cream pastry, pulse butter and flour in a food processor until it looks like breadcrumbs.

12 Add ¾ the sour cream, pulse a couple of times then add the remaining sour cream and continue to pulse until the dough just starts to come together.

13 Tip the pastry out onto the bench, bring it together and form it in to a rectangle (approx 2cm thick) with your hands. Wrap in plastic film and refrigerate for 10 to 20 minutes to rest. No more than 20 minutes.

14 Roll out the sour cream pastry to 3mm thick.

15 Grease a flan tin (23cm x 2.5cm) and line with the pastry, cut off the excess pastry around the edge but allow the pastry to come above the fin tin by 5mm, this is due to the pastry shrinking during blind baking. Place in the fridge for 15 mins to chill.

16 Remove from the tart shell from the fridge, spike the bottom with a fork, line the top with bake well paper and place blind baking beans on the top.

17 Blind bake for 15 mins, then remove the beans and bake well paper, cook for a further 5 minutes then remove.

18 Reduce the oven temperature to 175c

19 Place one third of the chocolate and almond cream mix on the base of the tart shell. Top with cooked quince wedges and dot the remaining amount of chocolate almond cream on top of the quinces.

20 Return the tart to the oven and bake for 50 minutes to 1hr, this time will depend on the oven, but need to make sure that the almond cream is cooked in the centre.

21 Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Bon Appetite!

Maggie Beer's Roast Chicken with Garlic and Verjuice

Last Friday, (2.5.2011) Maggie Beer gave some MasterChef contestants a class on making roast chicken with roast garlic. It looked really good, nice golden brown, very moist and tender, melts in the mouth, including the chicken breast!. Here are the notes I took.

1 large size range free chicken (2kg)
50ml olive oil
About 30 cloves garlic unpeeled (4 cloves peeled and chopped, the rest blanch in boiling water for 4 minutes)
About 1 tsp sea salt and pepper
125ml verjuice
125ml water
1 cup chicken stock
3 rosemary sprig
1 lemon, cut into half

Preheat oven to 200deg

Prepare chicken to be at room temperature (so that it cooks evenly).
Place chicken on a trivet/rack sitting on top of a shallow oven baking tray (5cm deep). (a deep oven tray would trap some heat at the bottom of the tray, distorting heat circulation throughout the chicken)
Massage into the skin of the chicken the olive oil and the chopped garlic, sprinkle with sea salt.
Stuff the rosemary and squeeze the lemon juice into chicken cavity, leave lemon in
(Note: The chopped garlic is my personal choice/addition to the recipe.)
Tucked the wing tips under the chicken, for even cooking.
Place chicken, breast side up on the rack.
Cover breast (from neck to bottom) with foil, leaving only the legs exposed. This protects the breast from overcooking/drying.


Bake in the oven for 40 minutes.
After 40 minutes. remove chicken from the oven.
Pour verjuice all over chicken.
Baste the chicken with the juice in the tray.
Shift foil, so that it now exposes the breast, cover the legs.
Place blanced garlic onto the oven tray.
Pour water into base of tray to prevent garlic from burning.
Return to oven, cook for 20 minutes.
Remove immediately from oven to rest chicken.

Remove foil and turn chicken upside down, ie breast facing down.
This "returns" the moisture in the chicken back into the breast keeping it moist.
Loosely cover (not wrap) the chicken with foil.
Let chicken rest for at least 20 minutes (40minutes preferred) in room temperature. I guess it depends on the season!
Chicken will continue to cook in own heat while resting.

To make the jus, pour all the pan juices from the baking dish into a small saucepan and add 1 cup of warm chicken stock, pour into a narrow serving jug, then refrigerate this while the chicken is resting. Just before serving, scoop away the fat that has risen to the top, warm the remaining jus.

Carve the chook, then pour over the jus and serve accompanied by the roasted garlic, parsnip and pear mash and salad.

Bon Appetite!

Annie's tomato tarte tatin

This is a great savoury tart for lunch or as a starter for dinner. The depth of the tomato flavour is simply delicious, well at least the one made by Annie. I havent yet tried to make it myself.

For 6-8p
15 medium size tomatoes (peeled and halved lenghtwise)
3/4 cup olive oil
3 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
110g (1/2 cup) of sugar
1/4 cup water
30 shallots peeled and olive oil to fry
80g (1 cup) freshly grated parmesan cheese

Pastry
150g (1 cup) flour
50g butter, melted and cooled

Steps in order of preparation

1.Tomato preparation
Place tomato, cut side up, in a roasting pan.
Pour over oil & vinegar, sprinkle with garlic, season to taste.
Bake at 180deg fan oven for 1 hour.
Remove tomatoes, drain on absorbent paper for at least 10 minutes.

2. Pastry
Sift flour and 1/2 tsp salf into a bowl.
Add 1/3 cup water and mix with a wooden spoon to form a dough.
Turn out on a lightly floured sudface and knead lightly until smooth.
Roll into a circle and brush with half the butter.
Cut round into 6 wedges.
Stack wedges in a pile, wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.

3. The Tart
Line shallow 28cm tin with baking paper
Combine sugar and water and stir over low heat until sugar dissolves.
Bring to the boil and cook, without stirring, until golden.
Pour immediately over base of tin.
Heat extra oil in frying pan and cook the shallots over medium heat until golden.
Firmly pad tomatoes, cut side down over base of prepared tin.
Fill gaps with shallots.
Sprinkle with cheese.
Knead pastry wedges together until smooth.
Floured surface to a 30 cm round.
Place over tomatoes, making folds in pastry to fit.
Brush with remaining butter.

4. Baking
Bake at 180deg for 30 minutes, draining any excess liquid during cooking if necessary, till golden brown.
Stand in tin for 5-10 minutes to cool slightly before inverting on a plate.
Remove paper and serve at room temperature.

Bon Appetite!

Ricotta Pancakes

I used to Buy the White Wings Pancake Mix to make pancakes, but a friend encouraged me to make it from scratch. I finally did. It was easy, and turned out just as well, or maybe slightly better even. The pancake turned out to be light but creamy.

Serves 2 - about 4 pieces each
1 cup self raising flour
1 cup buttermilk (or milk mixed with a tsp of lemon juice)
1 tbsp of raw sugar
A pinch of salt
1/4 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp of nutmeg powder or cinnamon powder or vanilla
3 large tbsp of light ricotta cheese
1 egg

Whisk egg till foamy, then add flour and milk slowly, bit by bit, till mixture combines evenly.
Add rest of ingredients and combine.
Leave mixture to rest for 1/2 an hour.
Heat a pan to medium heat, then lower to low when pancake is being cooked.
Using a handtowel, lightly grease the pan with butter.
Pour mixture into pan.  A large pan usually makes like 3 pancakes at one time.
When pancake bubbles, it is ready to be turned. The bottom is usually golden brown by now. It usually bubbles say in 2 minutes or so, if not, adjust heat accordingly.
After turning, cook for about 1 minute, ie till lightly golden brown.
Serve and eat immediately while it is still warm.

We love to have it with pan fried bacon, sausages, fresh fruits, and maple syrup.

Bon Appetite!

Pear Ricotta Muffins

We bought a whole bucket full of pears, and finally down to last 2, which have turned very soft and yellowy. It wasnt rotten yet, and since I also had ricotta cheese in the fridge I thought pear and ricotta might go pretty well together! It did, both taste and texture were very light and Andrew said it was one of my best!

For 6 muffins

Wet ingredients
2 very ripe (soft) peckham pears - skin off, core removed, and mashed up.
3/4 cup of light ricotta cheese
3/4 cup milk
2 tbsp of lemon juice (juice of a 1/4 of a lemon).
A handful of large dried golden raisins
A handful of dark cooking chocolate chips

Dry ingredients
1 3/4 cup self raising flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 full tsp cinnamon powder
1 full tsp nutmeg powder
1/3 cup raw sugar
pinch of salt

1 large egg

75g butter

Lightly grease 6 muffin ramekins with butter.
Lightly sift some flour onto the sides of the ramekin.
Line the bottom with baking paper.

Preheat oven to 200degC, fan forced.

Gently mix all the dry ingredients together. Create a well. Set aside.
Mix all the wet ingredients together. Set aside 1/4 cup of milk mixed with some lemon juice (buttermilk).

Pour melted butter into the well of dry ingredients, and combined till it turns into breadcrumbs like texture.

Whisk egg together with the buttered milk set aside, till foamy and airy.

Gently stir egg mixture and wet ingredients to combine with dried buttered ingredients. Do not overstir. It is ready once all flour is wet. Pour mixture into ramekins.

Bake in oven for 17.5 minutes.

When remove from oven, place ramekin on a rack to cool off for at least 30 minutes before serving.

Bon Appetite!

Lemon Polenta/Semolina Cake

I tried to make this 2 days ago, it is quite nice. Zesty, quite fluffy and moist. I used a mix of fine semolina and course polenta - the rough polenta gave it a slightly rough texture. Next time, I will try using just super fine semolina.

Wet ingredients
Zest and juice of 1 large lemon.
3 eggs
3/4 cup of vanilla yoghurt
1/2 cup buttermilk (milk added with a little lemon juice)
1/2 cup of canola/olive oil.

Dry ingredients
1 cup self raising flour
1 cup of extra fine semolina/polenta
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1/3 cup castor sugar
A little pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 170 deg fan forced.
Lay a 15cm round cake tin with baking paper covering all sides.

Mix all the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl. Creat a well in the middle.

Whisk the eggs, add the buttermilk and whisk till very foamy.
Separately combine the rest of the other wet ingredients.

Pour all the wet ingredients into the well of dry ingredients. Fold together gently.

Pour mixed ingredients into cake tin.

Bake for 47 minutes. Rest for 30 minutes before serving.

Bon Appetite!