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 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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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…)