From Snowball Meringues to Mary’s Lemon & Raspberry Eclairs
2nd bake for 2023 🙂 I have made this before from a cookbook I bought in Portugal many years ago. As I’m having fun with baking this year, and that means, baking recipes from my cookbooks, I thought what better way to spend a new years day than making flaky Read more…
This is a showstopper by the way. Not sure my sponge was up to par, but they certainly looked the part, cuteness wise and tasted like a true showstopper. Speaking of showstoppers, have you ever wanted to go to a restaurant for years, never gotten around to it, then the restaurant closes. That happened to me with an Italian restaurant in the city. But fortunately for me it has reopened, under another name, in a different location so I finally got to go. It was amazing, beat my expectations hands down. Not to mention the fact we had a 5 course degustation menu.
So good, Monzù
taste of Napoli,
I’d highly recommend it. http://www.monzu.co.nz/ The answer is don’t wait to try something new, do it now. I guess I learnt that and got lucky.
Well I had never tried an entremet, didn’t know in fact what that was, so here goes.
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This was not a hard bake. With only 5 bakes to go, it feels like the end of a marathon and everything is a bit of an effort. I’m trying to grind on and get a second wind because I do still have some quite complicated bakes to do!!! Ahhhhhh. So this was a pleasant treat, a wee treacle tart with just a few ingredients. It’s actually one of those tarts you could whip up at the last minute if you needed a dessert because there are very few ingredients. The filling is just grated apple, lemon zest and juice, homemade breadcrumbs(!!) and golden syrup. It makes a nice textured, a little bit zingy filling and you know it’s good for you because its got apple.
To make the pastry, I added
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This chocolate fudge tart took a while but was extremely worth it. It’s already half gone and I’ve barely had a slice. Daughter was going to have dessert with friends so took a full quarter, then son came in and wammo another quarter was gone. I’m thinking about putting the last half away for a rainy day in the freezer. It is made with walnut pastry, and has a decadent fudge centre full of walnuts ( I added Brazil nuts too, my favourite nut as I didn’t have enough walnuts.) It’s so good, I’m giving you the recipe right here so you can try it. Here’s the link to the book btw, FYIhttps://shop.bbc.com/the-great-british-bake-off-big-book-of-baking-20861.html
Believe it or not, there is no actual chocolate in this tart, just cocoa, but it comes out super chocolaty. To make the pastry I added walnut pieces to the flour, salt and caster sugar and whizzed. Then added butter to make a fine breadcrumb. After adding cold water the fine crumb turned into
(more…)You would think that a berry pie would entail some apples somewhere, Apple and blueberry, Apple and blackberry, but no, this pie is ALL BERRY and delicious to boot, all 750grams of them, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, and raspberries. Now that’s a lot of antioxidants right there.
We know antioxidants are good for us but why? Because they fight free radicals. These chemicals cause oxidation that damages cells and their genetic material. Your body makes free radicals as it processes food, sunlight, and toxins. Antioxidants either stop free radicals before they form or break them down so they’re harmless. This pie then, has got to be good for you. And a great time of year for Berry pie!!! 🙂
The pastry of this pie was different too. It was made with flour, butter, sugar and egg yolk and cream cheese. This gave it a crisp texture when cooked as well as a luscious texture that rolled out easily.
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This one took a while, Luis’ Signature Bake. I had to make the pastry first, then blind bake it, make the custard, double boil that, then pour it into the pastry case and bake!!!! That sounded quick, it wasn’t. It was a delicious bake though filled with yummy things like rum and grated lime zest, grated orange zest and pureed mango! Mmmmmm delicious and fresh. It would make a great Christmas dessert. And here’s the recipe https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/tropical_manchester_tart_55667
I was feeling bright and fresh as I got up to go to the last market of the year to sell my wares yesterday morning, until I smashed the car into the house backing out! And I hadn’t even had any custard! That put me in a very upset and grumpy mood. Then I heard on the radio about a woman coping with her 7 year old daughter diagnosed with leukemia and a woman slipped outside the market in front of me and had to be taken to hospital, and I thought, you know what, we’re lucky, it’s just a car. There are people coping with a lot this Christmas.
By chance on the way home, I listened to the good old Band Aid track from 1984 organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure which was raising money for anti-famine efforts in Ethiopia. Great idea that was. Love that song. Have a listen 🙂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjQzJAKxTrE.
So for this bake, I made the pastry which involved adding butter to
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Fun weekend away with sisters obviously involved a lot of eating and a lot of shopping. And the eating and the shopping part combined at Matakana Market on Saturday morning. What a fantastic place to try fresh homemade products. I bought Puhoi Pantry Date and Apricot Chutney (find them on Read more…
I haven’t been baking for a week as I had to sew dresses for my market stall on Saturday. And then it rained!!! So today I baked, and choux pastry was the order of the day. I saw choux being made on the Australian Bake Off recently and apparently when it falls off the spoon in a triangle shape it is the right consistency. I was watching Food TV while I baked these eclairs. Jaime Oliver was “unlocking the secrets of the world’s healthiest diets.” He was in Icaria in Greece whose population live longer than most, the key being homegrown fruit and veges and daily physical activity. Walnuts too were one of their secret ingredients to provide energy to keep going all day, a source of copper which helps the immune system and folic acid and magnesium to reduce tiredness. Didn’t know that. And even better, a handful of nuts a day is said to increase life expectancy by two years. His savoury muffins full of sweet potato and cheese looked like the perfect solution for my daughter’s vegetarian dish for dinner so I made them. They turned out fabulous. I will post that recipe next. The choux pastry was quite easy to whip up. To make it I (more…)
Delicious and creamy custard
Yum!!! Sweet treat
It’s coming up to that dreaded Christmas time, when we have to think about doing all those extra chores, buying presents, making Christmas cake (oh, tick,) Christmas mince pies and of course going to all those Christmas parties and lunches. It can be quite stressful all this extra multitasking on top of our busy lives. I’m taking the approach to try and do a little bit at time, tick off those present buying obligations while I’m already out doing something else, make the most of the sales. It does take the pressure off. It seems to be my philosophy in life actually, drip feed things to make them happen. It’s how I aspire to write a novel too, 750 words a day, that’s 2500/week, 10,000/month and a novel in a year! It’s amazing what you can achieve by drip feeding, anything, tidying the cupboards, reading, any thing you think you don’t have time for, you can do if you do a little bit a day. Well this bake didn’t go exactly like that. It sat on the bench unbaked for about 5 days, (while I drip-fed other things!) and by the time I went to bake, I had run out of eggs, usual story. But I did it finally last night around dinner time which might not have been a sensible time to bake but it seems to be the story lately. I prepared the pâte brisée, (which is just a fancy word for pastry) in a way I had never seen before, by (more…)
With the whole family coming for dinner, I figured it was a good time to dip into the sweet pastry section, which scares me and always takes a long time, but I was struck by this tart. Rhubarb is not something I am familiar with, though I feel I should be. I have only cooked it once in my life. I set about making the pastry, with ground almonds and rosemary – interesting ingredients. As I was whizzing the ingredients to bind them together, my nephew arrived, so I had to contend with his chatter as I baked. But it was funny, he was so helpful, offering to take photos, fascinated by baking and talking about the time he made meringues and macaroons. 
He’s 9 years old. I offered him my meringue recipe from this book, The 32nd Bake: Snowball Meringues, the one with the cream and grated white chocolate!!!! Mmmmmm. It’s surprising and so great to hear kids taking an interest in baking. I love it.
I went to Scarecrow the other day, an amazing cafe on 33 Victoria St East just below Albert Park. They have divine cakes and slices including a Rhubarb & Fangipane Tart as well as an amazing selection of beautiful products to buy, from Fine & Dandy Green Tea with Rose Petals, to Orange & Ylangylang Swirl Blue Earth Soap. Check it out. 🙂 http://www.scarecrow.co.nz Onto the bake, I put the pastry in the fridge to chill, then made the rhubarb puree by (more…)