Tarting it up!

Lime is one of my favourite fruits.  Not to stick down and eat, of course but it's just so fresh when squeezed into a glass of sparkling mineral water or as part of a marinade for chicken or fish.  Now, I am not one for artificial lime flavours or syrups but give me a Key Lime Pie and I will be one happy girl!  This recipe is a delightful one.  While traditionally, this pie is baked, this easy cheat's version is a pretty fantastic interpretation.  Containing a good amount of sweet condensed milk, this seems like the perfect candidate for a too-sweet dessert (as if that's really possible).  However, the lime lifts it on the palette and it's crisp flavour prevents this from being an issue.  What you have here is a beautifully light pie of cheesecake-like consistency.  Drizzled with bitter dark chocolate, it is a stunning dessert.  You can easily see how this is elegant enough to provide the perfect finale to a dinner party and yet unpretentious enough for a friendly barbeque.

No-Cook Key Lime Pie

Base

200g digestive biscuits

70g unsalted butter, softened

2 heaped tbsp cocoa powder

4 tbsp dessicated coconut

Filling

juice and zest of 4 limes

397g tin of sweetened condensed milk

300mL double cream

Put all of the ingredients for the base into the food processor and pulse so you have oily crumbs.  Press the crumbs into 4 small tart tins or one large flan tin.  Place these into the freezer to set while you get on with the filling.

With an electic mixer, whisk the zest, juice, condensed milk and cream until thick and creamy.

Pour into the tart shells and put into the fridge to set.

F. x

In a whizz...tizz

This week marked the first week back at school after holidays.  Please don't take my lack of postings during the week as I didn't have time to cook.  Oh no, lovelies.  I just didn't have time to post!  And now you reap the benefits of this as you are about to be in absolute sweetness overload.  I begin with Sunday night... 

During the working week, dessert in the evening is not a regular occurrence - despite what my lovely husband would prefer.  However, weekends mean baking time, cookbook reading time and....dessert time!  Sunday night mean soft, sweet Sticky Date Pudding.  While the dish itself oozes effort and time, in reality, it was whizzed up in the blender in about five minutes and cooked in the oven while we were eating dinner.  This is the easiest Sticky Date Pudding recipe you will ever come across.  You can just cook these in your muffin pans for perfect individual serves or in a dariol mould, as I did, for presentation. What you end up with is a delightfully moreish sponge pudding which becomes dense and sickly sweet with the addition of the warm butterscotch sauce - oooohhhh yes!!!

Sticky Date Pudding

200g dried dates, roughly chopped

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/4 cups boiling water

60g unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup dark brown sugar

1 cup S R Flour

2 eggs, lightly beaten

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees and grease your chosen moulds.  Put the chopped dates, bicarb and boiling water into the blender jug and leave to soak.  After around 5 minutes, add the butter and sugar before pulsing 2 - 3 times.  Any more and your dates will be mush.  Tip in the flour and eggs and pulse again until just combined.

Use an icecream scoop to divide the mixture between the moulds.  This will ensure even distribution.  Bake for 25-30 minutes, depending on your oven.  You want a few crumbs on the skewer when tested.  Remove from oven and allow to sit for 5 minutes before turning out.  While they are resting, you can get on with your butterscotch sauce.

Butterscotch Sauce

1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar

300mL single (pure) cream

125g unsalted butter

Put all of your ingredients into a saucepan over a low heat.  Stir continuously as all ingredients melt in together.  Put into a pouring jug to serve with your puddings.

Don't forget the Vanilla Bean Icecream!

F. x

A Banoffee Moment

In my lovely, food stained, handwritten recipe book, I have a number fail-safe recipes for kitchen basics that I turn to again and again.  This is the case for sweet shortcrust pastry.  I think that it may have originally been a Donna Hay recipe but over the past couple of years, I have tweaked it so that it works just so in my kitchen.  This recipe is just so versatile and easy.  Whip it up in the food processor, bake and then fill with whatever takes you fancy.  It has that perfect buttery bite that you look for in a good shortcrust so I urge you to tuck this little number into your kitchen tool box because there are a few sneaky tips hidden in this recipe.

When looking for a dessert a couple of nights ago, I needed only look as far as the front of my pantry for inspiration: beautiful ripe bananas and sweetened condensed milk.  I very rarely make Banoffee Pie because my best friend, Nicky does such a fantastic rendition of it.  However, I just couldn't go pass it in this instance.  While my pastry was baking in the oven, I whipped up a basic caramel with condensed milk, butter and brown sugar.  As soon as the pastry came out of the oven, I poured in the thick, warm caramel and left to cool completely before putting in the fridge to chill down.  Just before you are ready to serve, whip some cream, fold in some chopped bananas and top with grated chocolate.  Ah-mazing!

Sweet Shortcrust Pastry

1 3/4 cups plain flour

1/4 cup icing sugar

125g cold unsalted butter, cubed

1 egg, lightly beaten

Place flour, icing sugar and butter in a food processor and process in short bursts until mixture has a fine crumb consistency.  Add egg and process again, in short bursts until mixture starts to come together - it will still seem quite crumbly.  Turn the mixture onto a floured work surface and press dough together.  If you are making one large tart, bring dough together into a large, thick disc.  If you are making a number of smaller tarts, divide mixture into 2 smaller discs.  Either way, wrap pastry in glad wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.  Roll out dough on a sheet of glad wrap or baking paper (this stops it sticking to your surface), ease into the corners of your buttered dish and trim edges.  I now put the pastry (in the dish/es) into the freezer for 20 minutes.  This removes the need to blind bake with pie weights.  The pastry doesn't puff up when you cook it from frozen - so much easier!  From the freezer, put the pastry straight into a 180 degree oven and bake for about 15-20 minutes.  You will notice that the pastry has 'dried out' and started to brown slightly.  Perfection!

As much as it always seems easier to buy a pre-made pastry case, you will no longer wish to take this option once you make your own.  It is infinitely better and so much more satisfying! You can make pastry that tastes and looks better than the frozen option.  Now, don't just take my word for it...give it a go!

F. xx

An Anticipated Visit

Today was the day that I have been waiting for since the end of November.  Today was the day that I got to see my wonderful BFF, Nick! Naturally, this meant some celebratory cooking in the form of Chocolate Blueberry Tarts (blueberry in honour of my lovely guest).  And wouldn't I like to see Nigella try to make pastry in Central Queensland heat?  It is a bit of a mission, possibly best saved for winter.  Luckily, the pastry gods were favouring little ol' moi today.  Soft, crumbly chocolate pastry; creamy white chocolate mascarpone filling; and topped with fresh blueberries.  These are sweet perfection.  While they should be sickly sweet, the balance of chocolately bitterness with the subtle cream and juicy blueberries is simply gorgeous as the flavours work in perfect harmony.

As Nick and I scoot off to spend a few wonderful, girly days in Yeppoon, I urge you to look out for the recipe that I will be sure to share with you in the latter half of this coming week!

F. x

Home Sweet Home

This weekend, I will be travelling back to Brisbane to see my family.  After almost three months in Blackwater, the thought of returning to Brisbane to stay with my parents and younger siblings has me overwhelmed with warm fuzzy thoughts of the comfort of 'home'.  No matter how long you've been away, somehow Mum's place is always referred to as 'home' and I love that.  My Mum is my favourite cook (well on par with Maggie Beer and Margaret Fulton).  One thing that my Mum is an absolute master of is custard.  And another is pulling a homey dessert out of nowhere, on demand.  Crumble has always had a soft spot with me, for this very reason.  It was one of the things that Mum would make on a weekend (dessert is not for school nights) to accompany her champion of custards. 

Funnily enough, I found myself rubbing butter into flour one night this week, pulling together a crumble as a mid-week treat for Mitch and I.  There is really nothing more flexible.  Whatever you happen to have in the cupboard goes in.  Once you have a base of butter, flour and sugar (raw, castor, brown or a combination), throw in whatever takes your fancy.  For me, it happened to be coconut and chopped walnuts.  Thinking about it now, a little nutmeg would have also been delightful.  Juicy tinned peaches filled the bottom of darling cream Wedgewood ramekins (a present from Mum for this very purpose!), before crumble is packed over the top.  I am by no means a minimalist when it comes to crumble toppings.  Twenty minutes later, the smell of baking fills the house and out comes perfection in a jar....golden, knobbly and lucious.  The smell and taste of home.

F. x

Mint Mousse Magic

As soon as I discovered this Nigella recipe, I just had to try it out.  I am a huge fan of white chocolate and will quite happily nibble away until my tummy can't take the sickly sweetness any longer.  This lucious richness can overpower in some desserts which is the only reason I can imagine that someone may be put of white chocolate. If you are such a person (or you happen to be married to one, as am I) than this is not a dessert to shy away from.  The peppermint in this recipe seems to tone down the white chocolate, and while incredibly subtle becomes the hero of the dessert.  White chocolate provides the initial flavour hit, while the peppermint discretely comes through at the end acting as palatte cleanser.  Admittedly, this doesn't mean that the sweet richness is eradicated completely and even though it looks a little stingy, a small portion is a must if you don't wish to find yourself beaten by an unassuming mousse.

Having had a particularly stressful day, this recipe was exactly what I needed.  It is so perfect in its simplicity and yet presents so elegantly, given the impression of a lot of time and effort when the reality is quite the opposite.  The making of this mousse encompasses quite a number of my most adored techniques.  Firstly, the melting of the chocolate.  Now normally, I am the first to pop the chocolate in my Tupperware microwave jug and stir every thirty seconds at the ping.  Tonight though, I employed the technique of glass bowl over boiling water and let my mind still as I focussed on the transition of the chocolate from matte to glistening and smooth.  Chocolate set aside to cool, I beat out my nervous, anxious energy on the egg white, cream and peppermint and whipped them into a luxurious softly-peaking mixture.  Feeling relaxed and content, I gently folded the cream into the chocolate.  I find folding to be a gorgeous, mind-stilling action which is entirely satisfying as two mixtures seamlessly come together, maintaining the beautiful whipped lightness of the cream.  By the time I was spooning the soft, creamy mousse into shot glasses, I may as well have had a massage in a candle lit room, all the stresses and tension of the day forgotten. All of this before I'd even managed a taste!

Needless to say, once chilled, these went down a treat.  Topped with mint leaves for a little drama, the delectable shots of heaven provided the perfect conclusion to a slightly heavy pasta main.  Happy days.

F. x