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La Tarte Tatin

27 Monday Feb 2017

Posted by in Desserts, Tarts

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Tarte Tatin

Tarte Tatin

I made this a couple of months ago with a friend and didn’t get round to blogging it so I had to make it again as this is a sublime dessert. It’s one of those desserts that’s really easy to make but definitely impresses.

What you will need:

An oven proof pan
4 apples
100g sugar
100g butter
1 sachet of vanilla sugar (usually 7.5g)
1 tsp cinnamon

Short crush or puff pastry

Heat your oven to 180C. Peal your apples and remove the core and slice into 8 or 12 slices. Put your oven proof pan on a medium heat and add the butter, sugar, vanilla sugar and cinnamon. You want all the ingredients to turn into a caramel, continuously mix the ingredients so that they don’t burn or over-boil. Once you have a caramel add to it the apples slice around the bottom of the pan. Cook the apples on a medium heat for about 10 minutes. When the apples start to soften they are ready. Take the pan off the heat.

Roll out your pasty and cut a circle a little bigger than the pan. Place the pastry over the apples, you can have a bit of pastry going up the side of the pan but make sure that the pastry is slightly tucked in and air tight.

Place the pan in the oven for 30 minutes. Remove and let the tarte cool. Then use a plate to place over the pan and flip over and ta-da there you have it, a tarte tatin a la francaise.

I had a little pastry left so I rolled it out, added parmesan, sliced and then fried leek with chopped parma ham on top and put it in the oven for 25 minutes. A great little addition to our salad based meal before having our yummy dessert.

Enjoy
Mel

Onion and Olive bread

15 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by in pizzas and bread

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Onion and Olive Bread

After a busy Christmas season and getting settled into my new flat I finally got the time to do a proper bit of cooking this weekend. Making bread is a little messy but every time I make it I ask myself why I ever bother to buy it as it’s so easy to make, tastes great and there is a strangely satisfying feeling of seeing it rise.

One of the beauties of making your own bread is that you can put whatever you want in it. From cheese, olives, seeds to lardons.

What you need:
7g of yeast
Pinch of sugar
300ml warm water
500g of flour

150g of roughly chopped green onions
1 1/2 chopped onions
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp chopped dried rosemary

Add your yeast, warm water and sugar in a bowl and leave for 10 minutes.

In a pan fry the onions until they are golden.

For the dough, in a bowl add the flour and make a little well. In the well add the yeast mixture, onions, olives, rosemary, salt and pepper. Gradually incorporate the flour into the well and mix until it becomes dough. Add  more water or flour as necessary (the dough should not be sticky but elastic).

Place the dough on a clean floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes. Place the dough into a large bowl and cover with a damp cloth and leave to rise for 2 hours in a warm place. After the two hours knead for about a minute and shape into a flattish round shape. Place the dough on a greased baking sheet/ tray. With a knife make criss-cross cuts into the top of the dough and cover the dough for another 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 220C. Dust the top of the dough with a little flour and place the dough in the oven for 10 minutes. Then lower the heat to 200C and continue cooking 20 minutes. The loaf should sound hollow and have a golden crust.

You can eat it warm or cold. I had some for my breakfast with some smoked salmon, yum!

Enjoy
Mel

Berries-N-Cream Cups

21 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by in Desserts

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Berries have been on sale lately so I’ve been making danishes and strudels all week. The berry compote that goes inside a danish is so delicious that I wanted to try it with a sweetened cream cheese.
These cups can be served with coffee for breakfast or with an espresso for dessert. Either way, this gorgeous treat takes no time at all!

Here is what you need:

1 Package of Ready to Bake Pastry Cups
1 Egg
1 Tablespoon of Water
1 6oz of Blueberries
1 6oz of Blackberries
1 6 oz of Raspberries
1 6oz of Strawberries
1 Cup of Sugar
1 8oz Package of Cream Cheese
1/2 Teaspoon of Almond Extract
1/2 Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract
1/4-1/2 Cup of Confectioners Sugar
1 oz of White Chocolate
2 Tablespoons of Heavy Whipping Cream

Preheat your oven to 475. Beat your egg and water to make an egg wash and brush it on top of your frozen pastry cups. Place all 6 on parchment paper and bake for 15 minutes.
While your pastry cups bake, combine all of your berries into a bowl and smash. Add 1 cup of sugar and stir thoroughly. Place the bowl in the microwave for 18 minutes stirring 3-4 times.

Melt the white chocolate and cream in a small saucepan on low heat and set aside.

Your pastry cups should be done. Take them out and remove the tops with a fork. Also, remove as much of the dough on inside as you can without putting a hole in the cup. This has to be done delicately. Then, with your fork, press the remaining dough to the bottom and sides of the cup. You want to be sure you have space to fill these. Put back in the oven for 3 more minutes for extra crispiness. Set aside and let cool.

Take your berries out and stir. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Combine the cream cheese, almond extract, vanilla extract and confectioners sugar and beat until fluffy. Add 2 teaspoons of the white chocolate mixture and continue to beat.
*Pipe the cream cheese mixture into your pastry cups and use a fork to press the mixture into the cup. Next, place a spoonful of berry compote on top. I added a small dot of cream cheese on top for decoration but that’s optional.

Enjoy immediately!

*I put the cream cheese mixture into a baggie and snipped off one of the corners of the baggies and used this to pipe the mixture into the cup.

Enjoy!

Joy

Welcome to our lunch club!

23 Wednesday Mar 2011

Posted by in Welcome to The Lunch Club

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A lunch club across two continents, linking two friends together through their love of food and good company. We will be sharing recipes and tips on how to make good food whilst saving money and making friends at work. Through MELANDJOYTHELUNCHCLUB you will get snippets of our lives, Joy works for a consultancy agency in Chicago and Mel works for a charity in London. Our lives are very different but food is one of our common links. We COOK and we LOVE IT.

We try and meet twice a year in different places around the world. During our trip to Amsterdam in October we started talking about food (surprise!) and realised that we both have lunch clubs at work and they had so many things in common. We take proper breaks from our desks at lunch, save money as we don’t buy a sandwich every day, only bring food in every other day and become the talk of the kitchen with our yummy lunches. It’s great fun and it can’t be bad if it’s healthy (well, not always) and saves you money!

Mel and Joy