make life sweeter!

Today is my little brother's birthday, so Happy Birthday Z! I call him little brother but he's far from little (nearly 2 m / 6'6”) but he's younger so he's my little brother ;) Now that we're on the subject of my brother, he has a blog too. Not a food blog but (nowadays) a blog with mainly pictures. If you like out of the ordinary pictures of (usually) very ordinary things take a look at his blog Zz.
About the picture, I didn't actually make these treats for my brother but I had to post something ;) Plan on making something tonight because we'll be seeing him tomorrow at my parents place.
The first time I made lemon grass ganache I used it to fill bite-size tartlets. I piped the ganache (at room temperature) into the tarlet shells. That time I also made dark chocolate ginger ganache (with fresh ginger) but I let it set a bit too long and was therefor unable to pipe it. Popped it in the microwave for a tiny bit but that made it sort of runny so I just poured the ganache into the tartlets instead of piping it. Looked ok too. Only it didn't taste ok :( Not to me at least. Fresh ginger and bittersweet chocolate don't create synergy. And no synergy no photograph, ha!



The lemon grass and white chocolate ganache however was really delicious! I'm a big fan of white chocolate - I know that this doesn't make me a sophisticated chocolate eater :p - so probably I'd like most flavour combinations with white chocolate. But I think even for people who aren't into white chocolate that much, the fragrant and fresh lemony taste of the lemon grass makes the white chocolate a lot less white chocolate-y.
A week later I made the lemon grass ganache again to use as a filling for hazelnut cookies. The ganache never actually made it between the cookies until a week later though. Instead I used the chilled ganache to make truffles. They were a present to a friend of mine. I wasn't sure if she was into white chocolate so to take the edge off the sweetness I dipped them in bittersweet chocolate and rolled them in cocoa powder.

To make the photograph I bit off part of a truffle while it was still cold from the fridge (I was in a hurry so there was no time to waste). Should have let it come to room temperature because the filling would have been less firm and that would have looked better in the picture. It's just a detail but stil ;)



White chocolate & lemon grass ganache

75 ml (2 ½ fl oz) whipping cream
1 stalk of lemon grass, chopped into ½ cm (1/5 in) pieces
200 g (7 oz) white chocolate, finely chopped

Heat the cream with the lemon grass until just simmering. Let it steep for 30 minutes. Strain through a fine meshed sieve into a measuring cup. Press onto the lemon grass with the back of a spoon to get more flavour out of it.
Fill up the measuring cup until you have 75 ml (2 ½ fl oz) again. Reheat the cream again. Pour the cream over the chocolate and allow to stand for a few minutes. Stir until smooth. If not all the chocolate melts, pop it into the micro wave for 10-20 second intervals at 40% power until the chocolate is nearly melted. Or alternatively heat it au bain marie. Stir until everything is melted.
Allow to come to room temperature for a several hours.
Use at room temperature if you want to pipe the ganache.
Chill if you want to make truffles.

Making truffles

cocoa powder, sifted
white chocolate and lemon grass ganache
400 g (14 oz) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

Put a piece of baking paper on your working surface to put the truffles on.
Put the cocoa powder in a bowl.
Scoop out balls with a melon baller. Roll between your hands to make a smoother ball. Place on the baking paper.
Melt the chocolate au bain marie (or in the microwave). Allow it to cool down (if necessary) to 40°C (104°F). Place a ganache ball on a fork, submerge the ball in the chocolate. Use a spoon to cover the top with chocolate. Tap the fork a few times on the bowl and slide the bottom of the fork over the lip of the bowl to remove excess chocolate. Tip the truffle in the cocoa powder and use your hand to move it around covering it completely with cocoa powder. Place the truffle onto the baking paper. Repeat with all the truffles.

Sweet shortcrust (from Modern Classics Book 2 by Donna Hay)

135g (1 cups) flower
1 ½ tbs caster sugar
75 g (2 ½ oz) cold butter, chopped
1-1 ½ tbs iced water

Process the flour, sugar and butter in a food processor until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. While the motor is running, add enough iced water to form a smooth dough and process until just combined. Knead the dough lightly, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Divide the dough in 12 and press into a 12-cup mini muffin pan. Blind bake for 10 minutes. Remove the baking weights and bake for another 10 minutes or until the crust is golden. Allow to cool completely.

I have been baking all week for a high tea I organized for some of my dearest friends. This tart was one of the goodies I made and it's also my entry for the 'Topless tart' edition of WTSIM that is hosted by Cook Sister! this month. The tart has a simple egg-less sweet shortcrust basis and is filled with clementine and lemon curd. The crust and curd are then baked for 25 minutes.
It was the first time I made a curd and I must say that clementines make one delicious curd! I didn't read the recipe very well before started so I didn't process the clementine zest with the sugar before mixing it with the eggs. Instead I put the rind in the clementine juice and allowed it to steep for a couple of hours in the fridge. Even though it turned out delicious it would probably have been even better if I followed the recipe (and maybe a little more orange). I raised the temperature that was needed for lemon curd from 71°C (160°F) to 77°C (170°F) degrees because only then it had the right consistency. In the recipe it says that it will take about 5 minutes for the mixture to reach 71°C but it took me much longer, I think about 25 minutes.
The only time I ever had curd was years ago and that was lemon curd. I don't remember the taste very well but I would say this one is less tart. At first you taste lemon, but after that you taste a very destinct clementine taste. The tarty sweetness combines especially well with the shortcrust pastry...yum! Definitely will be making more curd in the future...maybe next time I'll try it as cookie filling.



Clementine and lemon curd (adapted from The Secrets of Baking by Sherry Yard)

170 g (⅔ cup sugar
2 tbs finely chopped or grated clementine zest
3 eggs
5 egg yolks
½ cup clementine juice
¼ cup lemon juice
50 g (4 tbs / 1/2 stick)

Prepare an ice bath. Use a large bowl to hold the ice.
Combine the sugar and and clementine zest in a food processor and pulse until the sugar is yellow and very fragrant (about 1 minute).
Combine the clementine sugar, eggs, and egg yolks in a medium heatproof bowl and whisk together for 30 seconds. Heat the contents au bain marie while whisking continuously. Whisk until the sugar is dissolved.
Add the clementine and lemon juice and cook, whisking continuously. Check the temperature from time to time. Cook and whisk until the mixture reaches 77°C (170°F) and the mixture has the consistency of sour cream.
Transfer the curd to a large bowl and whisk in the butter piece by piece. Continue to whisk until the mixture is homogenous.
Strain the curd through a fine-mesh strainer into a medium bowl and place the bowl in the ice bath to cool down. Cover the surface with plastic wrap to avoid the forming of skin. Stir the curd occasionally until it has cooled completely.

It keeps for up to a week in the fridge.




Sweet shortcrust pastry (from Modern Classics Book 2 by Donna Hay)

makes 3 small tarts or 1 large tart

270 g (2 cups) flour
3 tbs caster sugar
150 g (5 oz) cold butter, chopped
2-3 tbs iced water

Process the flour, sugar and butter in a food processor until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. While the motor is running, add enough iced water to form a smooth dough and process until just combined. Knead the dough lightly, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Grease three 15 cm (6 in) tart tins (or springforms). Divide the dough in three and press into the tins. Blind bake for 10 minutes. Remove the baking weights and bake for another 10 minutes or until the crust is golden. Allow to cool down. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Divide the curd over the 3 shortcrust pastries and bake for 25 minutes. Allow to cool down.

I never really bother to roll out tart dough: why roll when you can press is my motto ;) I know it is the easy way out but it works fine for me.
It's not the rolling itself I dislike but what you have to do after that: transferring the dough in one piece into a baking tin and making sure it fits nicely.
I don't even remember the first time I did try but I remember I didn't like it....and still don't (like the other roll out thing). However, being a person who bakes on a regular basis I thought I should be able to roll out dough too. So behold: a tart with dough I actually rolled out! It worked out pretty good, even though I need to pratice getting it neatly into the baking pan. I rolled the rolling pin over it before pressing it a little bit against the sides so there was a little bit too much dough in some places...practice makes perfect, right?
Anyway....this is my entry for this month's Hay Hay it's Donna Day. Created by Barbara of Winosandfoodies and hosted by last month's winner: Trinigourmet. This month's theme is tarts!
The crust recipe I used is Donna's sweet shortcrust dough from Classics Book 2. It is the one I use for pretty much all my crusts. I settled for a chocolate ganache filling but wasn't sure about an extra flavour. Should I infuse the cream with something or just keep it as is and add something else to fill the crust? So many important choices a baker must make ;)
In the end I went with something I made for last SHF: Haagse Hopjes or coffee caramels. I still had most of them tucked away in my cupboard. Not because were not tasty but - I did not mention this in the original post - I couldn't cut more than a few caramels because the mixture had cooled down too much. When I first cut them, it was too soon so the cut marks were gone after some time. The second time I was just in time to cut only a few caramels in the middle, the rest of the mixture was already too hard to cut. In other words, I had a few big pieces of caramel that were not very convenient to nibble on. Luckily I discovered that you can recook caramel. You just dissolve the caramels in water and cook till the required temperature. To make the original caramels I cooked them to hard crack stage, this time I cooked them till soft ball. That way the caramel would stay soft. I used the caramel as the bottom layer, the chocolate ganache was poured over the caramel. The dot decoration is white chocolate. I like making dot decoration as you can see here, here and here.
The tart tin I used was about 10 x 34 cm (4 x 14 in).

Notes to myself when making something similar:
- cooking caramels to soft ball is too soft to use as filling at roomtemperature, that is if you don't want the caramel to sip out when you cut the tart (the recipe below is the corrected version of medium ball stage)
- don't rush to finish the tart before you go to bed and pour ganache over caramel that has not properly cooled down. If you do, expect the caramel to creep up at the sides instead of staying on the bottom of the crust ;)
- when piping chocolate dots, lift the piping bag in an upward motion instead of a sideward motion in order to create neat dots that don't have to be corrected by piping bigger dots on top of them
- make sure the tart is level when put in the fridge that way the tart filling will be level too
- don't use your silicon roll out mat because 2 sheets of baking paper works much better

As for the taste: the ganache was delicious in its simplicity. The coffee caramel taste was not very present, I think because mine was to fluid and therefore it blended with ganache too quickly when taking a bite. I suspect that a more set caramel would solve this 'problem'.

Sweet shortcrust pastry (from Modern Classics Book 2 by Donna Hay)

270 g (2 cups) flour
3 tbs caster sugar
150 g (5 oz) cold butter, diced
2-3 tbs ice water

Process the flour, sugar and butter in a foodprocessor until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. With the motor running add enough water for the dough to cling together. Knead lightly and wrap in plastic wrap. Allow to sit in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
Roll out the dough between 2 sheets of baking paper until 2-3 mm (⅛ in) thick. Line the greased tart tin. Blind bake for 10 minutes. Remove the baking weights and bake for another 10 minutes or until the crust is golden.

Coffee caramel

about 300 g (10 ½ oz) Haagse Hopjes (or other coffee caramels)
1- 1 ½ cups water

Dissolve the Haagse Hopjes in the water on low heat. Turn the heat up to medium and allow to cook till 118-121°C (245-250°F or medium ball stage). Pour the caramel into the baked pie crust. Allow to cool completely.

Chocolate ganache

200 g (7 oz) bittersweet chocolate (70%)
200 ml (6 ¾ fl. oz) whipping cream

Chop the chocolate in ½ cm (¼ in) pieces. Transfer to a bowl. Bring the cream to a boil. Pour the boiling cream over the chocolate and allow to stand for 1 minute. Stir until well combined. Pour the ganache over the caramel filled crust. Allow to cool completely.

White chocolate decoration

30 g (1 oz) white chocolate, chopped

Melt the chocolate and transfer to a piping bag made out of baking paper. Snip off the tip and pipe dots onto the ganache.

Another recipe from the wonderful Coffee & Bites by Susie Theodorou. These individual tartlets are filled with frangipan and apricot. I didn’t use her recipe for sweet pastry but used my favourite Donna Hay recipe. I was a bit disappointed by the – in my opinion - too subtle almond taste. Maybe it was because I cheated and used slithered almonds instead of whole ones. It could be that slithered almonds have less taste. If you like a stronger almond taste I suggest adding a little bit of almond flavouring or maybe adding one or two bitter almonds to the mixture. The apricot however was really delicious; the baking enhanced its natural sweet- and tartness. They look like they might be a little dry but that’s just appearances.

(Again) I didn’t roll out the sweet pastry, it’s not that I have a rolling-out-dough-phobia but I don’t like doing it. The rolling out part is okay but the whole transferring to the tin is nerve-wracking to me. Donna Hay recommends rolling out the dough between baking paper. Very good tip only in Israel I cannot find baking paper on a roll. They sell it ready cut into rectangles and folded twice. The folds cause problems when rolling out the dough. Rolling it out without the baking paper is not really an option because I only use all-butter dough and my kitchen is pretty hot. I promise that after we move back to the Netherlands I shall practice rolling out dough ;)

Sweet shortcrust pastry (from Modern Classics Book 2 by Donna Hay)

270 g (2 cups) flower
3 tbs caster sugar
150 g (5 oz) cold butter, chopped
2-3 tbs iced water

Process the flour, sugar and butter in a food processor until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. While the motor is running, add enough iced water to form a smooth dough and process until just combined. Knead the dough lightly, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.


Frangipan tartlets (from Coffee & Bites by Susie Theodorou



150 g (5 oz / 1 ¼ cup) whole blanched almonds
115 g (4 oz / ½ cup) butter, softened
75 g (3 oz / 1/3 cup) caster sugar
2 medium eggs
6 large fresh apricots, halved, stoned, then cut into 10 wedges
4 tbs apricot jam
2 tbs water

Preheat the oven to 180ºC (350ºF). Place twelve 6 cm (2 ½ in) diameter rings onto 2 baking sheets. Divide the dough into 12 pieces. Thinly roll out each piece (between no-stick baking paper) to line the metal rings. Trim the top, prick the bases and chill for 10 minutes. Line each pastry with non-stick baking paper or aluminium foil and fill with baking beans or dried beans. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove the paper with the beans. Bake the pastries for a further 5 minutes or until the bases are pale brown and dry.

Lightly toast the almonds in a heavy-based pan for 1-2 minutes until they begin to release their aroma. Cool the nuts slightly, then process them in a food processor until finely ground. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the almonds. Gradually beat in the eggs.

Reduce the oven to 170ºC (325ºF). Spread 3-4 tbs frangipan into the base of each tartlet. Press apricot wedges into the mixture. Bake the tartlets for 25-30 minutes until the frangipan is just set and the fruit is starting to caramelise at the tips.

Heat the jam with the water and pass it through a sieve. Allow the tarlets to cool for 1-2 minutes before brushing the glaze on the fruit, frangipan and pastry edge. Allow to cool before serving.

1 tartlet – 380 kcal
100 g – 400 kcal

carbohydrate 32 g – protein 6 g – fat 27 g (saturated fat 13 g) – fibre 3 g

Nearly forgot to make my pud today! Did some research on English puds a couple of weeks ago and decided to go with Chester pudding. Meanwhile my best friend arrived to stay with us for a couple of days and all of a sudden I just forgot that it was St. George Day! When I realised that it was, I quickly ran to the kitchen and made the Chester pudding I was planning to make.
There are actually two varieties of this pudding, baked and steamed. They share the same name put don’t share the same ingredients (baked Chester pudding here and steamed Chester pudding here). As for the history of Chester pudding....I couldn’t find anything unfortunately...if anybody knows, please enlighten me.
And before I forget: Happy St. George Day!



I used this recipe from Jane Grigson for Chester pudding. Instead of baking a big pie I made 10 small tartlets.

60 g (2.1 oz) butter
grated rind and juice of a lemon
125 g (4.4 oz) granulated sugar
4 egg yolks, beaten
24 almonds, blanched, grated in a nut mill or processed
4 egg whites
125 g (4.4 oz) sugar

Line 10 small tartlet tins with sweet short crust and bake them blind until lightly coloured.
While the pastry cases bake, make the lemon filling. Melt the butter in a small heavy pan. Off the heat, whisk in the rind and juice, sugar and egg yolks. When smooth add the almonds. Put back on the stove and stir until the mixture is very hot but not near boiling. Spread it into the warm pastry case (or into the cold pastry, if it has been baked in advance). It will already be setting into a thick jelly.
Preheat the oven to 220ºC (425ºF). Whisk the egg whites until stiff, pour the sugar in and whisk again until very stiff and a creamy-smooth texture. Pile onto the tart, right to the pastry edges. Put into the oven. After five minutes, check and if the peaks of the meringue are beginning to turn dark brown, lower the heat to 160ºC (325ºF); if they are not dark brown, leave for another five minutes before turning down.
Leave the meringue to go crisp on the outside. This can take nearly 30 minutes. Keep checking and tapping the crust gently. When it is ready, remove and put onto a warm plate. Best eaten warm, with cream, but good cold as well.