Tag: pastry

DARING BAKERS do BAKEWELL TARTS…& I do a few HEARTS too!!

“The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, All of a summer day,
The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts And took them quite away!”
Lewis Carroll

The June Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart… er… pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800’s in England.
Inspirations and References: Allan Davidson, Tamasin Day Lewis, Anton Edelmann, Jane Grigson, Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver
A giant tart, medium tarts or little tartlettes
Mandatory element 1: Sweet Shortcrust Pastry. Yes, it’s a pie pastry.
Mandatory element 2: Frangipane – it’s rich, sweet and slightly luxurious.
Optional element: Home made jam or curd
My inspiration for the frangipane: Aran @ Canelle et Vanille
Rich, delicious & indulgent. That’s what the tart was… & more.
The pastry excellent & crisp.
The challenge providing an optional opportunity to make jam, something I love to do.
The timing just right for jam as stone fruit flood our market, & I bottled up some peachy memories in a jar. You can view my ‘Peach-Rosemary Jam’ recipe here. I posted it a short while ago.
A Wonderful Challenge!
I adapted the shortcrust recipe a bit as am vary of egg in pastry. It’s more of a psychological thing, & I cannot enjoy it if I knead egg into it. Nevertheless, with the family in mind, I amended the recipe slightly. The resultant pastry was still beautiful, light & crisp. The only little hassle I had was that it remained soft, actually far too soft to roll after a couple of hours in the fridge as our weather is HOT (42-44C) & not pastry rolling/making weather. I rested it in the fridge overnight & got up early the next morning & rolled it out. It still broke up a few times, but patchwork in this recipe works magic, & I got a decent base. We had it at room temperature the first day. Seconds were delicious served cold the next day, & the base remained crisp in the fridge. I think the frozen butter & quick, minimal handling of dough is key here. It’s a beautiful recipe, a keeper! Sweet shortcrust pastry
Ingredients:
as adapted from the recipe here
225g (8oz) all purpose flour
30g (1oz) vanilla sugar
2.5ml (½ tsp) salt
100g (4oz) unsalted butter, cold (frozen is better)
1 egg yolk
2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract
5ml (1 tsp) pure vanilla extract
15-30ml (1-2 Tbsp) cold water
Method:
  • Sift together flour, sugar and salt. Grate butter into the flour mixture, using the large hole-side of a box grater. Using your finger tips only, and working very quickly, rub the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Set aside.
  • Lightly beat the egg yolk with the almond & vanilla extract and quickly mix into the flour mixture. Keep mixing while dribbling in the water, only adding enough to form a cohesive and slightly sticky dough.
  • Form the dough into a disc, wrap in cling and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes . I rested it overnight.

Frangipane
adapted from Aran @ Canelle et Vanille
Ingredients:
100gms unsalted butter, softened
100 powdered vanilla sugar
1 egg
1tsp almond extract
1tsp vanilla extract
100g ground almonds
30g all purpose flour

Method:

  • Cream butter and sugar together for about a minute or until the mixture is primrose in colour and very fluffy. Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the egg and beat well one The batter may appear to curdle. In the words of Douglas Adams: Don’t panic. Really. It’ll be fine. Pour in the almond extract and mix for about another 30 seconds and scrape down the sides again. With the beaters on, spoon in the ground nuts and the flour. Mix well. The mixture will be soft, keep its slightly curdled look (mostly from the almonds) and retain its pallid yellow colour. Use immediately or refridgerate for a day in a ziploc/baggie.
  • My Peach-Rosemary Jam recipe can be found here, as adapted from Martha Stewart.

Assembling the tart

  • Place the chilled dough disc on a lightly floured surface. If it’s overly cold, you will need to let it become acclimatised for about 15 minutes before you roll it out. Flour the rolling pin and roll the pastry to 5mm (1/4”) thickness, by rolling in one direction only (start from the centre and roll away from you), and turning the disc a quarter turn after each roll. When the pastry is to the desired size and thickness, transfer it to the tart pan, press in and trim the excess dough. Patch any holes, fissures or tears with trimmed bits. Chill in the freezer for 15 minutes.
  • Preheat oven to 200C/400F.
  • Remove shell from freezer, spread as even a layer as you can of jam onto the pastry base. Top with frangipane, spreading to cover the entire surface of the tart. Smooth the top and pop into the oven for 30 minutes. Five minutes before the tart is done, the top will be poofy and brownish. Remove from oven and strew flaked almonds on top and return to the heat for the last five minutes of baking.

The finished tart will have a golden crust and the frangipane will be tanned, poofy and a bit spongy-looking. Remove from the oven and cool on the counter. Serve warm, with crème fraîche, whipped cream or custard sauce if you wish. When you slice into the tart, the almond paste will be firm, but slightly squidgy and the crust should be crisp but not tough. The origins of the tart are not clear, however the generally accepted story is that it was first made by accident in 1820 when the landlady of the White Horse Inn left instructions for her cook to make a jam tart. The cook, instead of stirring the eggs and almond paste mixture into the pastry, spread it on top of the jam. When cooked the jam rose through the paste. The result was successful enough for it to become a popular dish at the inn, and commercial variations, usually with icing sugar on top, have spread the name. The name is believed to have come from a customer who decided that the tart was “baked well” thus the inn called it their “Bakewell” tart, a pun on the town of Bakewell and a well baked tart.

The tart tasted spectacular. An easy & delicious challenge for the month, with room for creativity in the filling once again. I was thrilled to see it because I have been enamoured with the name frangipane for ages. A romantic sounding name, I often wondered how it tasted. Have seen it used beautifully by Aran @ Canelle et Vanille, & that recipe stuck in my head. The moment I read the challenge, I was off to compare recipes. Aran’s recipe appealed to me primarily because it used fewer eggs, & marginally less butter. The portion was enough for 1 rectangular tart, though I had some pastry dough left sans filling.I could have left the pastry a few mms thicker to use all the dough. Made a few rustic heart shaped tart cases with the left over dough. I filled those with some left over Bavarian cream from my peach monster’s 10th birthday cake. I used the recipe for the Bavarian cream from Helen‘s post @ Tartlette here. These little hearts were divine too.

Thank you for another great challenge ladies – Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict & Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. I love being a Daring Baker, & the family loves being a Daring Baker family, because now they’re also interested in what the next challenge is going to be. The good thing is the pin-drop silence & tip-toeing around when they know it’s the baker being daring in the kitchen!! LOL!

To see how well the other bakers have done on the tart, do stop by at our blogroll here.

Posted by Deeba @ PAB

Stone Fruit Strudel … getting stoned on strudel!

“I have no truck with lettuce, cabbage, and similar chlorophyll. Any dietitian will tell you that a running foot of apple strudel contains four times the vitamins of a bushel of beans.”
S.J. Perelman
The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers. These are exciting times for the Daring Bakers. I’ve reached a stage where the next challenge seems more exciting than the one gone by. Month after month, one keeps wondering what the next challenge is going to be, & the excitement is palpable. I checked a 100 times on the 1st of May but it hadn’t been posted, because we wake up to a new day before the West. Courtney aka Coco aka Glamah caught the buzz the minute it was posted, & twittered about it. I swooped down almost instantly. YAY…An ‘Apple Strudel’, with room for creativity on the filling. First thoughts:
YAY, no eggs (I love that)
A dough to knead…yes! And it was a simple dough at that, & LOW FAT!!

Stone fruits creeping into the market = YUM filling options!

Strudel dough
from “Kaffeehaus – Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague” by Rick Rodgers
Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups unbleached flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons water, plus more if needed
2 tablespoons vegetable oil, plus additional for coating the dough
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar
Method:

  • Combine the flour and salt. Mix the water, oil and vinegar in a measuring cup. Add the water/oil mixture to the flour and knead to a soft dough. Continue kneading by hand on an unfloured work surface. Knead for about 2 minutes. Pick up the dough and throw it down hard onto your working surface occasionally (check the hosts blog for making it by machine).
  • Shape the dough into a ball and transfer it to a plate. Oil the top of the dough ball lightly. Cover the ball tightly with plastic wrap. Allow to stand for 30-90 minutes (longer is better).
  • It would be best if you have a work area that you can walk around on all sides like a 36 inch (90 cm) round table or a work surface of 23 x 38 inches (60 x 100 cm). Cover your working area with table cloth, dust it with flour and rub it into the fabric. Put your dough ball in the middle and roll it out as much as you can.
  • Pick the dough up by holding it by an edge. This way the weight of the dough and gravity can help stretching it as it hangs. Using the back of your hands to gently stretch and pull the dough. You can use your forearms to support it.
  • The dough will become too large to hold. Put it on your work surface. Leave the thicker edge of the dough to hang over the edge of the table. Place your hands underneath the dough and stretch and pull the dough thinner using the backs of your hands. Stretch and pull the dough until it’s about 2 feet (60 cm) wide and 3 feet (90 cm) long, it will be tissue-thin by this time. Cut away the thick dough around the edges with scissors. The dough is now ready to be filled.
I love kneading doughs, however nonsensical that might sound, but I do find it therapeutic. This dough was no different. I kneaded it, I flung it on the counter several times…& I think the more you hit it, the better it gets. Was beautiful to work with after 2 hours of rest, and overnight on another occasion. I divided it into 2 because I wanted to ambitiously try 2 different sweet fillings, & almost got cold feet halfway through. It’s the peak of summer here & the market is flooded with stone fruits. Apricots, plums & mangoes were just surfacing in the first week of May, so my strudels got ‘stoned’! Mango strudel
adapted from “Kaffeehaus – Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague” by Rick Rodgers
Ingredients:
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup vanilla sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted, divided
1 1/2 cups fresh bread crumbs (made from 3 slices of fresh brown bread, edges trimmed)
1 recipe strudel dough (recipe above)
1/2 cup toasted walnuts, coarsely chopped
1 ripe mango, peeled & chopped (300-350gms)Method:
  • Heat 3 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium-high. Add the breadcrumbs and cook whilst stirring until golden and toasted. This will take about 3 minutes. Let it cool completely.
  • Put the rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat the oven to 200°C. Line a large baking sheet with baking paper (parchment paper).
  • Make the strudel dough as described below. I used 1/2 of the dough & half filling ingredients for the each variant.
  • Spread about 1 1/2 tablespoons of the remaining melted butter over the dough using your hands (a bristle brush could tear the dough, you could use a special feather pastry brush instead of your hands).
  • Sprinkle the buttered dough with 1/2 the bread crumbs. Spread 1/2 the walnuts about 3 inches (8 cm) from the short edge of the dough in a 6-inch-(15cm)-wide strip. Mix the mangoes with the raisins & the vanilla sugar. Spread the mixture over the walnuts.
  • Fold the short end of the dough onto the filling. Lift the tablecloth at the short end of the dough so that the strudel rolls onto itself. Transfer the strudel to the prepared baking sheet by lifting it. Tuck the ends under the strudel. Brush the top with the remaining melted butter. Sprinkle with vanilla sugar.
  • Bake the strudel for about 30 minutes or until it is deep golden brown. Cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing. Use a serrated knife and serve either warm or at room temperature. It is best on the day it is baked.
  • I made this little ‘pouch strudel’ with the left over trimmings…

Check for some handy tips on the hosts blogs – Courtney of Coco Cooks and Linda of Make life sweeter! Apricot and plum strudel
Sugar roasted fruit and toasted walnuts make a fabulous filling for sweet crisp strudel
Inspired by Mike Robinson, as adapted from UKTV Food
Ingredients:
250g apricots & plums
1 sachet of vanilla sugar (or icing sugar, for dusting)
Handful dried cherries (snipped)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon,
1/2 tbsp cornflour
Juice of 1/2 lime
50g walnuts, toasted and roughly chopped
2 tbsp vanilla sugar (or golden caster sugar)
1/2 quantity strudel dough Method:

  • Peel, core and slice the apricots and plums. Lay them on a baking tray and dust with vanilla/icing sugar. Bake for 15 minutes. Leave to cool and then transfer to a large bowl.
  • Stir in the fruit, lime juice, cinnamon and cornflour. Mix well.
  • Then follow the recipe for the mango strudel above.

They were pretty straightforward to make, & very really scrumptious because of the crisp breadcrumbs within. I think the pastry works better if rested overnight, and is one of the simplest I’ve ever made. Apple strudel has been on my to-do list for absolutely ages, ever since I saw it on Manggy’s blog ages ago. I went on to make a savoury version too a few days later as I was quite taken in by the ease & lightness of the dough. I did this one with shredded grilled chicken, roasted red bell peppers, mango/peach salsa & mozzarella. This savoury version was very delicious too, & served as part of the main meal.

THANK YOU Courtney and Linda for hosting a great challenge … Please do stop by at the Daring Bakers blogroll and take a look at all the fantastic strudels Daring Bakers across the globe have rolled out!
Posted by Deeba @ PAB
Please wait...

Subscribe to my newsletter

Want to be notified when the article is published? Do enter your email address and name below to be the first to know.
SIGN UP FOR NEWSLETTER NOW
Exit mobile version