“You are the creative type. We all are – even if we don’t know it yet.”
Oprah
I’m late and I’m racing. It’s World Nutella Day today, the 5th of February. Though I had 2 jars of Nutella in the larder, I kind of got the dates all wrong. A tweet fromthe wonderful Michelle @Bleeding Espresso, one of the WND co-hosts, caught my eye … and she said ‘You still have time. It isn’t until tomorrow’. Sara @ Ms Adventures in Italyis the other host of this delicious event.Tomorrow is already here, and I have battled to get this post rolling after an afternoon of baking with yummy Nutella.
Nutella is the brand name of a hazelnut flavored sweet spread registered by the Italian company Ferrero at the end of 1963. It is a tasty hazelnut spread that contains quality ingredients such as skim milk and a hint of cocoa. Nutella contains no artificial colors or preservatives.
Nutella® spread, in its earliest form, was created in the 1940s by Mr. Pietro Ferrero, a pastry maker and founder of the Ferrero company. At the time, there was very little chocolate because cocoa was in short supply due to World War II rationing. So Mr. Ferrero used hazelnuts, which are plentiful in the Piedmont region of Italy (northwest), to extend the chocolate supply.
I thought I’d just do a rectangular puff pastry tart with Nutella and strawberries, but then the inner passion took over. My sweet & spicy friend Meeta’sMonthly Mingle was on my mind. The theme – Small Bites – Soul Food for your Loved Ones, hosted this month by the lovely food blogger, Astrid @Paulchen’s Food Blog. February is Astrid’s birthday month, and she says “I’d be more than happy if you surprise me for my Birthday with lots of suggestions for a luscious and seductive Valentine’s Day Dinner”! Nutella and strawberries offer quintessential seductive pairing; serve them in crisp puff pastry hearts, and I think you’d hit bulls eye!The morning was a race to the finish as Saturday is an early morning soccer league match for junior. We made it to the game in time, and thankfully the lads team won. I drove back, dirty soccer kleats and boy. It was laundry time again! Oh the mundanities of life. Got back to find the teen had finished all the granola and asked if I could make more. {That post is coming soon… it’s a granola that changed my life!}. ‘LATER‘, I boomed!! Nutella was the only thing on my mind.Kebabs for lunch √. Happily polished off by the troops. Finally time for me and my Nutella. A creative streak kicked in while rolling the puff pastry, and out came heart cookie cutters. I have PLENTY of those in every size and avatar possible! Don’t even ask me why! I’m not a mushy person, and would never think of baking hearts for Mr PAB. Practical, level headed, creative and pretty stubborn am I, baking is my guilty pleasure. I baked hearts to feed the blog in honour of World Nutella Day! I managed to make sweet little bites and tick it off my list-to-do for the day. Are you like me? Before I sleep every night, I have a list of things to do in my mind for the next day. Often it’s a fight to the finish as I try to get them ticked off before the ‘dwarves’ come home from school. And often, they find me running breathless and tired to the bone, but I almost always achieve my targets.I ran a small heart past the mister to check if it was fine to post. He ♥’d it… crisp buttery pastry, slightly tart strawberries and luxuriant chocolate cream! “Indulgent“, he declared … and so they are! I think these are fabulous served for tea, or would make for great V Day dessert served with a dollop of unsweetened whipped cream for dessert! Happy Nutella Day!
Nutella Strawberry Puff Pastry Hearts
250gm rough puff pastry
1/2 cup Nutella
100gms strawberries, slice
2 tbsp apricot glaze
Pistachios Method:
Roll out the puff pastry to 1/4″ height. Neatly stamp out 6 3″ heart shapes. {Reroll the pastry gently if required for the 6th shape}.
Take a slightly smaller heart shaped cookie cutter and mark a border about 1/2″ inside, not cutting the pastry right through.
With a offset spatula, or butter knife, spread about 1 tbsp of Nutella over the inner heart. Top with 5-6 slices of strawberries, overlapping slightly. Brush the sides with low fat cream {or egg glaze if you like}
Heat the apricot glaze till runny. Bake at 220C for 30-40 minutes till risen and puffed up.
Remove to a cooling tray. Paint over the strawberries as soon as the tarts come out. Garnish with chopped or slivered pistachios.
“It is, in my view, the duty of an apple to be crisp and crunchable, but a pear should have such a texture as leads to silent consumption.”
Edward Bunyard
They’re rolling off shelves this year; apples are ruling the bazaar. Rosy, red and delicious like in Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, my heart leaps with joy when I see local varieties tempting us with almost a forbidden promise! No more guilt ridden shopping for imported fruit this year. The past few years saw a drastic fall in local apple production. Tempting, shiny rosy apples bore the Washington stamp, with Chinese Red Fuji and Australian Granny Smith jostling for space alongside – priced high and positively jet-lagged. This year has been wonderful with record breaking local production in the Kullu valley, which is nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas. A snowfall in the higher climbs of the mountains 2 days ago brought more relief to the native population of the region as prospects for an record high output shine! Good for them, and good for us too!
With local produce flooding the market, and the family reeling from an overdose of apple crumble, the next best option was apple pie, a first for me. I have loads of ‘apple to bake somethings‘ bookmarked, but had an open apple pie in my head! My father came by and dropped kilos of apples and small pears a few days ago. Some HAD to be baked, and the idea of a pie had me enchanted. The lad had seen me dig into cookbooks, turning pages, screeching to a halt at a delicious looking American Apple Pie. He had been on my case since, but I was in no mood to do a double pastry one. Calories had to be cut, and I decided that my next best bet was an open pie, and the tiny pears would go in too.
This was my first ever Apple Pie … and was it good! I added the pears to keep the apples company. The pie is baked for about an hour, loosely covered with foil. This way the apples get cooked but retain a bit of bite, the pears silently accompanying them {somewhat like the quote above says}! The walnuts and currants add to deep warm flavours, tying in nicely with the cinnamon and nutmeg. I let the pie cool for a bit to let the juices thicken. The hub liked it served warm with some low fat unsweetened cream, and the rest of us enjoyed it cold, with the cream of course!
Pears are an excellent source of dietary fiber and a good source of Vitamin C. An apple, on average, contains more antioxidants than a large vitamin C dose of 1,500 mg. Apples are also full of phytochemicals that help with antioxidant activity, as well as in preventing cancer. Antioxidants combat particles in the body called free radicals, which can significantly damage the cells and may contribute to the development of certain cancer types. Apples can help turn all this around … read more here
Which brings me to the mingle. I am happy to host Monthly Mingle this month, the brain child of lovely Meeta of What’s For Lunch Honey. Being a HUGE fan of ‘fruit in baking‘, it was my my natural choice for the theme. Trying to include fruit in bakes, keeping it seasonal as far as possible, continues to be a passion with me. I enjoy following fruits in season, and discovering what more I can do with them. I loved doing the Chocolate Plum Clafoutis that Meeta beautifully wove into the MM badge below, and also recently, a Quark Mousse with Roasted Balsamic Strawberries.If you bake with fruit this month, do send it to the Monthly Mingle. I will set the table up at the end of November, where we can meet over tea & coffee, fun, food, stories and laughter … and of course fruity bakes! Would love to see what you did with fruit this Oct/Nov, and yes, pumpkin is very much a fruit{Er, as is a tomato, well technically!!}. Also, If you don’t have a blog, but still have a picture, do drop me a mail at vindee{at}airtelmail{dot}in, and I will be happy to include you in the round-up.
Create a dish that fits the Fruit in Baking theme as described above, and post it on your blog from now till 22 Nov 2010 {Entries must be in English, please}.
Your creation should be prepared for the current Monthly Mingle theme and only shared with a maximum of 2 other blog events. Let’s try and keep the creations as fresh as the ingredients you use.
You must provide a link to this post and/or the official Monthly Mingle page.
Once you’ve posted your dish, please send your entries to vindee{at}airtelmail{dot}in with your name, location, post link and a 300px wide picture {not bigger than 1 MB}
I am kicking the event off with this ‘Open Apple & Pear Pie’, and hope you’ll join me with ‘FRUIT in BAKING’.
Apple & Pear Open Pie Pastry recipe and inspiration from Baking Course, Isabel Moore Shortcrust Pastry
1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbsp/80gm butter, chilled, cut into pieces
2-4tbsp iced water Method:
Run the flour and salt in the bowl of your food processor for a few seconds. Add butter and run until you get fine breadcrumb like mix.
Drizzle in 2 tbsp of water. The dough should begin to come together. Take out flour mix into a large bowl. Add another tbsp of chilled water, and knead the dough till it is smooth and silky. Add more chilled water if required, but make sure the dough is silky and pliable {This is important, else it won’t roll out}
Once it leaves the sides of the bowl cleanly, make into a ball, flatten, wrap in cling-wrap and chill for 30minutes. Filling:
4-5 medium apples, cored, peeled, diced
8-10 small baby pears, cored,peeled, diced
Juice of one large lime
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup black currants
2 tbsp cornflour
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg Method:
Toss the ingredients together in a large bowl as soon as the fruit is cut, mixing well. Assemble pie…
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Roll out the pastry to line a 9″ pie dish {greased if you like}, and line the dish. {I used a 10″ loose bottomed dish, so the dough fell slightly short}. Add the filling to the pie base, dot over with 2 tbsp of unsalted butter, and bake at 180C for 20 minutes. Then cover cover loosely with foil and bake for a further 40 minutes. Cool on rack. Allow to sit for a while so that the juices thicken. Note:Serve warm, at room temperature or chilled with unsweetened whipped cream, or a dollop of slightly sweetened cinnamon cream. Vanilla ice cream would certainly offer luxury on a warm slice!
