Tag Archives: sugar

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

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Rhubarb Crumble

30 Saturday Jun 2012

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Individual Rhubarb Crumble

I work on Lower Marsh, a fantastic little street hidden behind the imposing Waterloo Station. If you’re ever in London it’s definitely one of those hidden gems that’s worth a visit.

The local fruit and veg guy, Dave had a pound of rhubarb for 90p so I though I’d try making rhubarb crumble. I used honey instead of sugar for the rhubarb.

What you need:
4 sticks/ 1 pound of rhubarb
4 tbsp honey
4 tbsp water
2 tps cinnamon

For the crumble:
100g flour
80g brown sugar
50g butter
(optional crushed walnuts and cinnamon)

Heat your oven to 180C.
Cut your rhubarb into small chunks or small slices. I cut them into slices as I made small separate crumbles and thought they would look prettier, but this is really up to you. If you are making one big crumble then place your rhubarb in the oven dish you will be using to make the crumble. Add the honey, water and cinnamon and mix all together. Place in oven for 20 – 30 minutes, check every 10 minutes and stir if necessary. It is ready when they are tender and soft.

Rhubarb

When choosing what oven dish to use make sure not to use one that’s too big as the rhubarb shrinks as it cooks so you want it to be stacked up quite high.

For the crumble
In a bowl place the flour, cut up butter and sugar, and rub all the ingredients together until the mixture has a crumb like texture. You can add in cinnamon, crushed walnuts or any other (dry) ingredients you fancy trying. You will probably have some crumble left-over, it is perfect for freezing and takes minutes to reuse once removed from the freezer for any future crumbles you fancy making.

Once the rhubarb is ready place the oven dish you want your rhubarb crumble to be cooked in. Then sprinkle the crumble over. How much you sprinkle is really up to you.

Sprinkle the crumble

Place your dish in the oven for 30 minutes – it’s ready when the crumble takes on a golden colour. Serve hot or cold with a drizzle of fresh cream or custard.

Enjoy!
Mel

Mini fruit crumble

28 Friday Oct 2011

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The girls were coming over for tea and I was determined to make a fruit crumble. The problem was that I had one pear, one nectarine and one apple. Not enough of one fruit to fill a pie pan. I had made the crumble topping already so I got out my cupcake pan instead!

Here’s what you need:

Filling:

1 nectarine (Diced)
1 pear (Diced)
1 apple (Diced)

Crumble:

1 1/4 cups of packed brown sugar
2 cups of uncooked quick oats
2/3 cup of cold butter, cut into small pieces
1/8 teaspoon of cinnamon
2/3 cup of flour

Mix oats, brown sugar, and flour. Add butter and rub evenly in with fingertips until mixture is crumbly.
Press the crumble topping into each tin to make a base. To this, I added a tad more butter into each tin and then baked it for 10 min at 350 degrees.
You want this base to be nice and crispy.

Dice the fruit and dust with cinnamon.
Put a little of each into the cupcake pan.
I kept the fruit separated, but could’ve combined the fruit.
Then, I topped it with the crumble.
I baked it for 30 min at 350 degrees.
The topping didn’t look crisp enough so I put it in the broiler for a few minutes.

The apple got drizzled with melted caramel, the pear was topped with toasted chopped pecans and the nectarine got a dollop of whipped cream.
The ladies LOVED it and thought I spent a lot of time making individual crumbles, when it really took no time at all!
Enjoy!

Joy

One Fantastic Peach!

18 Tuesday Oct 2011

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I recently had a dinner party with the intention of making a peach cobbler for dessert but completely ran out of time. I literally had no dessert when dinner was finished.
I had grilled peaches in the past and decided to try broiling them. The result was so tasty and it only took 5 minutes!

Here is what you need to serve 4 people:

2 Peaches
4 Pads of Butter
1 Tablespoon of Brown Sugar
1/8 Teaspoon of Cinnamon (optional)
1 Cup of Heavy Whipping Cream
1 Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract
1-3 Tablespoons of Powdered Sugar (depends how sweet you like it)
4 oz Mascarpone Cheese

Slice the peaches in half and remove the pit.
Put a pad of butter in each center and sprinkle the brown sugar over all 4 peaches.
Place in broiler for 5 minutes
Remove the peaches and scrape off the burnt sugar
Lightly sprinkle the cinnamon over all four peaches
In a cold mixing bowl, pour in the heavy whipping cream and Mascarpone Cheese.
Once it starts to thicken, add the powdered sugar and vanilla.
Continue to whip until you see stiff peaks.
If you beat too much, you will get butter, so be careful!

Joy

Cherry jam

05 Sunday Jun 2011

Posted by in Jams and chutneys

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Cherry jam

I went to my parent’s home in France for a long weekend with a few friends. We had a fantastic time enjoying the sun, swimming in the pool and best of all picking cherries in the garden. This year they came early and if we’d arrived any later they would have been too ripe. The tree was covered in cherries and in just 15 minutes we had a big basket full of them, yum! The only problem was that they were so ripe we couldn’t have eaten all of them before they started to rot, so we made jam.

It feels so satisfying to pick fruit and then make something from them.

What you will need:

1kg of cherries
1kg of sugar
Empty jars

Cooking time – 1 hour

You can either de-stone the cherries before making the jam or after (it will not change the flavour). I didn’t remove them before as they were so ripe and used that weight to measure the sugar.

Put the cherries in a big pan with the sugar and mix so that the sugar covers the cherries. Put on a medium heat and stir occasionally until the sugar has completely melted and then turn the heat to low, cover the pan and leave to simmer. Stir the jam from time to time for about an hour. A white foam will create on the top of the jam, remove as much as possible.

Just before the jam is ready, get some empty jars, boil water and pour into the jars, this will disinfect them. Once the jam is ready, empty the water and pour in the jam – using a ladle or a jug can make this easier. Immediately seal the jar with the lid. Leave to cool and then refrigerate.

To make jam the rule I always use is the same weight in sugar as fruit, or a little less sugar if the fruit is nice and ripe.

Jams and chutneys can make great presents, all you need is some nice material, some beads and a label for it to look that bit special.

Mel

Frosted Violets

05 Tuesday Apr 2011

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My parent’s garden in France was beautiful and full of springtime flowers this weekend. There were loads of violets and so I thought I would try making frosted violets. I had no idea how to make them and so asked my mum. She said that she thought they were made with egg whites and sugar. So there I went picking the purplest violets I could find. I have to say they all thought I was a little mad but were quite impressed with the end result.

So what you will need is one egg white, sugar and violets. I slightly beat the egg white and then made sure to cover each violet in egg. I then sprinkled the flower with sugar making sure that they were completely covered in sugar. Now you need to do each violet at a time, that is cover it in egg white and then sugar, have a plate ready to put the flowers on and leave them to dry.

My grandmother came over for lunch the next day and brought dessert (a cake and mini meringues) so we decorated the cake with the violets, a nice touch. It’s a fantastic home-made way of making pretty dessert decorations and gives it that little extra touch.

Mel

Blackberry Upside Down Cake

30 Wednesday Mar 2011

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With 4 weeks left of my pregnancy, I find myself wanting to eat sweets to calm my nerves. Normally, a chocolate shake would do the trick, but I’ve been lactose intolerant for almost 2 months now and can no longer splurge on ice cream. 

So, I went to the store on a mission to find a sweet treat but saw that blackberries were on sale again. I’ve been dying to use them for something. So, instead of making Pineapple Upside Down Cake, I used blackberries instead. I couldn’t believe how easy and delicious it was!

What you will need:

2 1/2 cups fresh blackberries
1/2 cup plus 1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk

I got 2 bowls out, like I do when making chocolate chip cookies.
In one bowl, I whisked the flour, baking soda and salt.

In the other bowl, with an electric mixer, I beat the butter and 1/2 cup of remaining sugar.
Then I added the egg and vanilla.
Once that was all mixed, I slowly added the flour mixture and buttermilk.

I didn’t have a round 8 X 2 cake pan, instead I used disposable tin bread pans that were 8 X 4 ( I bought them for banana bread) 

These worked better because I didn’t have to grease the pans or even use parchment paper.

I divided the berries up between the three pans. Then I sprinkled the berries with 1 1/2 tsp of sugar.

Then I poured the mixture in all three pans and baked in the oven at 400 degrees for 30-35 min.
It’s important to immediately take the cake out of the pan so the fruit doesn’t get too soggy.

Because I cannot have whip cream or ice cream, I sweetened some greek yogurt with honey and put a dollop on top.

It was a huge treat as a dessert and perfect with my tea in the morning 🙂

Enjoy!
Joy