Rhubarb Bakewell Tart

I don't even remember when did I make this. But I remembered I was hosting a dinner for relatives.

I was hesitant to post this, as it didn't look pretty, because I compared it with Tesco's picture.
Why did I didn't get the same effect?

I thought I will bake this again one day and get a nicer shot, as it tasted really good. But after all these years... I just never got around doing it a second time. I shouldn't wait any longer.

Fruit Pie Cake, Frozen themed for my Lyanne

Happy New Year!

A last minute decision to bake. Her birthday was on 31st Dec, just few days back.

I celebrated Lyanne's birthday few days earlier with a red velvet snowflake cake (to be blogged next time) ... and when it was her real day.... I felt bad not making her a Frozen themed cake. She had been asking for an Elsa cake as well weeks before. I had a meeting until 4pm and rushed to the shop to get something related to Elsa or Frozen. I only managed to get these mini figurines at RM18.90. Plastic and so expensive. But thinking they can play with it after the cake was gone, I bought it.

I had 2 hours to get it done.
Now a Frozen themed cake... there must be snow. A quick cake with white snowy look..... so I made this cake that I once made for my niece.

Kiymale Pide @ Turkish Minced Meat Pita

Pita as known by many  is as round flat bread with a pocket inside.

But in Turkey, the local pita known as 'pide', is a pizza like food with toppings.One can use Turkish wind dried beef, Turkish sausages, chicken, minced beef or lamb, cheese, potatoes and many other ingredients.

Pineapple Lattice Tart - Pineapple #2

There are times  when I am totally craving for pineapple tarts and it's not Chinese New Year.
And those times, I am not that diligent to form bite sized ones.

With this big big tart (If I made a tighter lattice, I'll call it pie), I can eat a lot of pineapple filling and pastry with a lot less work. That's total satisfaction!

Quick Apricot Coconut Pie - Stone Fruits #2

A pie... how is it a pie? hmmm.
A coconut crust, apricot filling and covered with almonds? LOL. Don't ask me.

This is another recipe from my "good to see only" cookbook. I took the idea, and ditched all the liquids in the recipe, added in lime zest to boost the coconut and apricot, and changed whatever I think is the better way. The result was perfect for me. I wonder what will happen with that extra 1 cup of milk in this. It'll look like baked oatmeal I guess. It's already so moist now.... it will crumble if the golden base is not formed properly

Cow Dung Pile @ UFO Tarts 牛屎堆 - MFF Sabah #5

cow dung piles :-)

I'm not trying to be disgusting.... but don't you think they do look like it?

I grew up in an area where I do see cows walking around. They don't walk around freely, but are guided by their owners to feed at the field near my old house. Therefore..... the roads are also decorated with brown piles from the cows. It's no longer a common sight.. it makes me miss those days.

Strawberry Custard Cream Buns - Fruity Buns #1

The blueberry buns that Pook made were soooo pretty. Can't take my eyes off them. And so, I wanted to make them too. I chose to use strawberries because of the price factor and personally I love strawberries.

My girls thought these were cupcakes due to the form it takes in. And they were in for a surprise when they tried eating it.

Durian Egg Tart - MFF Pahang #6

I had my first durian egg tart or durian custard tart  bought from Karak in 1999.. long ago.
It was a treat from my housemate from Kuantan. She always passes by Karak whenever she drives back to KL. She told me, whenever she passes by and if they are available, she must buy. Back in those days, the amount they make is not as much.

Durian bakes are extremely popular in Karak. I used to buy it from Yik Kee, I'm not sure if there are other shops doing it as well. It's situated on the main road. I do hear they have branches in Klang Valley and in Genting Highlands too.

Blueberry Yeasted Sugar Tart - Berry Week #5

Remember the Apple Yeasted Sugar Tart? It was so delicious that I made another version 2 weeks later with blueberries. My blueberries were wrinkled... hahaha. But then it won't matter when it's smothered with cream and baked.


Recipe here

Simply sprinkle the blueberries on top instead of pressing the apples in at step (8). The rest of the instructions remain the same.
Because the blueberries weren't pressed in, the yeast tart might puff up during baking and cause the cream topping to flow down the sides. To prevent this, I shaped a ring around it, with small pieces of dough.
I also changed my baking temperature to 180C (first bake) and 150C(second bake after putting on the cream). Colour was better this time. The baking temperature may vary with your oven.

Verdict:
Frankly, I preferred the apple version. The inserted apples gave the tart a moist and soft texture. This version is not as soft, but still nice.

I'm taking a week off.

Happy School Break to all parents and students

and see you again on

21st March 2011

I am submitting this to Aspiring Bakers March 2011 Fruity March

Apple Yeasted Sugar Tart -Fruit Week #1

Sick of soup already? I'm going to drown you with fruits this week. *Evil look*

Apples. I bought 2 granny smiths 3 months back (post done in Sept 2010). Yes. And one was still with me after the apple crumble.
Then I saw on technicolour kitchen (again!!!!) , an apple yeasted sugar tart, and it looked so so appealing to me. I knew I will be having some cream after the birthday cakes and oh yes!!! I definitely will make this very soon.

Today I finally used the 3 month old apple, and it still looked fine, just like the way it was when I bought it. Hahah!! The wax really does a good job preserving the apple. Can I use the wax on my face???? Hahaha!!!

My oven is always too hot for breads made with milk. It always browns too fast when baked according to the instructions and I always, always have to do it at 150C, which is far far lower than recommended. And today is no different. How hot you need to bake this with, you really have to gauge it yourself. I gave you the original temperature, so make your own decisions.

Apple Yeasted Sugar Tart
Recipe taken from Technicolor kitchen who sourced from "The Cook's Companion"

245gm all purpose flour
1 Tbsp sugar
Small pinch of salt
1 tsp yeast
120gm warm milk
1 egg, room temperature
28gm softened butter
2-3 eating apples (I used 1 large granny smith, and it was enough)
67gm demerara sugar (I used a mixture of demerara with brown sugar, as I ran out of demerara)
120ml whipping cream (I was left with 100gm of it, just used this)

Method: If you think I'm being too long winded here, please check out Technicolor Kitchen's version. Hers is a lot more "compact"
1. Combine flour, sugar, salt and instant yeast together in a mixing bowl. Make a well in the center.
2. Mix milk and egg together and pour into the well.
3. With a spoon, try to bring the flour in gradually and form a dough.
4. When everything has come together, knead in softened butter. Continue to knead (I did this by hand), it is very soft and sticky at the beginning and knead it (by pulling the dough from the bowl and putting it back, and pull it away and put it back cos the dough is the soft tacky type) until it no longer feels sticky, and a smooth dough is formed. *I used only my right hand to knead and kept my left hand clean. I used my left hand to test the dough’s stickiness as the right hand is always covered with the glob of dough. When the dough is ready, you rub the dough off your working hand, touch the dough with your working hand and it should not stick too, but it will still be very soft.
5. Then cover and let it proof for 30 minutes. Meanwhile prepare a loose bottomed 9 inch tart pan. Generously butter the pan.
6. Punch down the dough and give it a 1-2 minutes knead. Let it rest for 5-10 minutes before flattening it into the pan.
7. Let dough in pan proof for another 30 minutes.
8. Meanwhile, peel and cut apple(s). When 30 minutes if up, the dough looks puffy. Press the apples in and sprinkle the demerara sugar onto the apples.
9. Preheat the oven at 200(fan)/220C, the tart will continue to proof until the oven is ready and bake the tart for 10 minutes. (I found this too high for my oven, I think I’ll do it at 180C next time, cos my tart was nicely browned at 8 minutes)
10. Meanwhile beat the whipping cream to soft peaks.
11. Remove tart from oven and spoon the cream over the apples.
12. Return tart back to oven at 180(fan)/200C (I used 150C only) for 20 minutes or until the base of the tart sounds hollow when tapped.
13. Remove from oven and transfer tart to cooling rack, remove mould and let it cool on rack.
14. Slice only when tart turned warm to touch, if not the cream filling will be runny.

Verdict:
Darn it. This tasted so good. The baked cream topping is super!!! I wanted to make another one the next day to bring to my mom, but I ran out of cream. I don’t want to buy another large carton, cos I won’t be around for days.
This is the perfect "bread" for lazy kneaders. Even with the short kneading time, I assure you that you'll get the soft bread fresh from the oven due to the moisture from the apple being baked in the bread. It's best eaten warm, but then, it's still not hard later. Well, not as soft as fresh and warm, but acceptable even to the next day, but please keep air tight.
But for those who are thinking of trying this out, I suggest you mix the topping sugar with some cinnamon or scraped vanilla. That’s the only miss about this yeasted tart, if not it’ll be perfect!!!

Chocolate Orange Hazelnut Tart

I bought this bottle of Grand Marnier after seeing so many recipes using this. And this is my first bake using Grand Marnier.

I’ve been trying to clear things in my fridge, and when I saw this recipe , I just knew this will be made very soon, to clear the half eaten chocs in the fridge. So soon that it was the afternoon itself.

Actually I didn’t plan to make this so soon after I saw the recipe, but when I went to the baking supplies shop looking for white choc chips of which they ran out of, I then asked for hazelnut, and hahaha, I made this instead. That baking supplies shop in KK is just walking distance from my house. Altho it’s small, but the ingredients there are quite complete, I mean, don’t go there looking for rye flour or mascaporne cheese or vanilla beans, but cake flour, bread flour, pau flour and other common flours are all there, flavourings (whatever essences and colouring they have), nuts like pecans, pistachios not to mention common stuff like almonds and walnuts of course. That small shop even carries couverture chocolate!!!!! Imported from Indonesia. Now, I no longer need to shop like crazy(baking goods) when I go to KL. Well not that Ipoh doesn’t have baking stuff, but one shop in Ipoh is superhard to find parking, and another shop is selling flours at RM4.80/kg, of which is 30% more than other shops, and everything in the 2nd shop is more expensive. I only go to the 2nd shop only if I’m in a rush of ingredients, if not I won’t go there.

So, this recipe makes 16-18 tarts, I think, cos I used 15 cases and they were all so so full!!!!!
But that was all that I have in my freezer.

Chocolate Orange Hazelnut Tart
16-18 cold tart cases filled with your favourite short crust pastry (I used my egg tart crust, or you use the almond galette pastry recipe)
90gm butter
150gm soft brown sugar
2 large eggs
210gm very finely chopped hazelnut
1 Tbsp orange zest (ran out of orange and was lazy to buy, so I used the tangerine that has been sitting in my fridge for the longest of time)
100gm chopped dark chocolate (had a few bars of half eaten dark chocs in the fridge, and one of them is a hazelnut dark choc, what a nice addition)
2 Tbsp Grand Marnier or any other orange liquer

1. Preheat oven at 170/180C
2. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Add in eggs, one after another, beating well after each addition. After both eggs are in, beat for 2 minutes on high.
4. Add the chopped hazelnuts, chopped chocolate, orange zest and liqueur to the bowl and combine all the ingredients
5. Spoon filling into cold tart cases and level the surface.
6. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes(lower shelf) or until surface of filling is set and golden.

Fresh Apricot Almond Tarts

Remember I said I saw some more apricots going alot cheaper, at RM8.90 for 8 pcs. Did I buy them??? Of course I did.

This time, they are a bit sweet and very slightly tart only. Hahaha....

I saw this recipe on Tartelette and I’ve got tart cases in the freezer, yeah from the galette and some extra from egg tarts. So I halved the recipe and made this. And loved the fact that she used honey here and most recipes I’ve seen before uses sugar.

BTW, do you know that sugar is hard to come by now??? Read here.  Many grocery stores are no longer selling them, due to government restrictions. But I can still get honey everywhere..

The original recipe called for cream, but to open up a carton for 2 Tbsp???? Nah, a bit wasteful right? Unless I'm doing other stuff, but nope, not that that time. So, I replaced it with milk
Anyway, with honey (and not sugar) in the filling mixture, it's runny enough and the filling almost couldn't hold my apricot slices up.

Fresh Apricot Almond Tart
Makes 8 tart

8 small cold tart cases (any recipe you like)
55gm softened butter
55gm honey
1 egg
2 Tbsp milk or cream (I'll omit this next time)
50gm ground almond

4 ripe rosy apricots, sliced

1. Preheat oven at 170/180C
2. Combine softened butter, honey, milk, egg and ground almond together until combined. Do not whisk too much.
3. Pour into prepared cold tart cases and top with sliced apricots.
4. Bake for 30 minutes (I baked for 23mins)
5. Sift icing sugar over baked tarts and serve warm.... yummy.


Oh.. the smell of the tart baking in the oven is just heavenly. If only I could fleet and float, I will fleet, float and fly to sky

The taste, yeah.. what do you think? Butter, honey and apricots..... simply marvellous. My kids shared and ate 4 tarts that evening, 2 at 6pm, another 2 at 9pm. They wanted more, but I had to stop them.
The tartness of the apricot seemed to have intensified after baking, but it was still much better than the galette. My kids didn't bother about the tartness of the apricots cos they are lemon suckers. Apricots are nothing compared to lemons :)

Fresh Apricot Galette with Almond Crust

The dough became a batter.
That was what happened when I followed the recipe (not telling the source ;-P ).

Then I checked other recipes out,
My Baker’s Dozen Cookbook says
1 cup flour and ¾ stick butter

Another site says
1 and ¼ cup flour for 1 stick of butter.

So how can this recipe I used call for 1 cup flour with 1 and ½ stick of butter. That’s like double amount of butter compared to the one in Baker’s Dozen. Gosh…. Learnt my lesson the hard way.

I added more flour and almonds to make the dough pliable, it’s still soft, but way harder than before. At least it's manageble.
With all the additional flour and ground almonds, I had such a big piece of rolled out dough that it didn’t fit my freezer or fridge, so I had to cut it out to a 12 inch circle. I’ll use the cut outs later for a tart,

I felt so “urgghhh!” that I didn’t even feel like glazing the side with butter and sugar before baking.

Now, look at these pretty rosy apricots and cool down...............................
They turned rosy after spending more than 2 weeks in the fridge. If you want them to ripen quick, just leave them overnight in a paper bag at room temperature.

Ok, I've cooled down.


This recipe below should be the one that works, I cut 33% of what I actually used in total for the dough today, since there were extra dough.
I rewrote the original recipe to be a logical recipe based on other recipes after everything was baked.

100gm all purpose flour
30gm almond meal
1 Tbsp icing/confectioners sugar
80gm salted butter (original needed 115gm, and trust me, it doesn’t work)
2-4 Tbsp ice water

5 ripe rosy apricots (they look yellow when unripe), please taste them at this point to determine how much sugar to sprinkle later
3 Tbsp sugar, more if they are tart.

Some melted butter
Extra icing/confectioner’s sugar for sprinkling

1. Preheat the oven at 180/200C. Prepare 2 pieces of non stick baking paper about 13 inches square
2. Mix almond meal, icing sugar and flour together. Rub in butter until mixture looks like crumbs.
3. Add water bit by bit until dough can be formed. You may not need all the water.
4. Lightly flour dough and place dough in between the baking paper. Use a roller pin and roll out the dough to be come a 11-12 inch circle with about 3-4mm thickness.
5. Peel upper piece of paper. Place paper back onto dough, lightly smoothen paper onto dough. (This is to ease removal later)
6. Place flattened dough, with the “upper” paper side down in your baking tray. Now, remove the lower paper that is now on top.
7. Place the whole tray to freeze for 10 minutes (or chill for 30mins).
8. Meanwhile, slice the apricots (you can use them unpeeled).
9. After 10 minutes, remove the dough from the freezer and arrange all the apricot slices onto the dough, starting from 4-5cm from the edge. Sprinkle sugar over apricots. Be generous if they are tart.
10. When arrangement is done, fold edges of dough over fruit (use the baking paper to help you fold), overlapping each other, so that there will not be tears or gap that will allow the juices to escape while baking.
11. Brush folded edges with melted butter and sprinkle with icing sugar.
12. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until golden brown. (I did 30 mins only as my apricots were starting to burn)

Verdict:
The apricots were so so tart!!!! I squinced when I ate them, even after I sprinkled sugar on, the sweetness went undetected. Only the sweetness from the crust tried to overcome the tartness of the imported apricots. I asked Mike’s aunt who also ate this whether the apricots she had back when she was in the UK tasted like this, she said no, they were much sweeter. Sigh, will sweet apricots ever arrive on our shore???? Even these super sour ones were RM10.90 for 5 pcs. I went to Jusco again the following week (after I got these) and I saw them at RM8.90 for 8 pieces. Prices do change fast.

Despite the super tart apricots, the crust was good. The ground almonds madethe difference. I’ll do this again next time, maybe with apples, or plums or canned apricots, hahaha. But not with fresh apricots again, unless I manage to get sweet ones.

No Bake Strawberry Yoghurt Tart 草莓酸奶挞

Actually I planned to make Yoghurt Cheesecake…. a Secret recipe copycat.. But I didn’t get hold of cream cheese and my yoghurt’s coming to it’s use by date.. And I got a lot of fresh strawberries in the fridge (just went to Camerons the week before, Strawberries were on sale, RM20 /2kg @ 4 big boxes).

So, this came as a sudden idea. I planned to use digestive biscuits for this, but the minimart nearby didn’t have it. So, I changed plans to use Oreo and Weetameal instead.


No Bake Strawberry Yoghurt Tart Recipe

Ingredients:

Weetameal Crust
130gm Jacob’s Weetameal (1 small pack)
2 Tbsp honey
65 gm melted butter

Oreo Crust
150gm Oreo (1 tube)
50 gm melted butter

Yoghurt Filling
500gm / 2 cups good creamy strawberry yoghurt
1 cup milk
2 Tbsp sugar
1 ½ Tbsp gelatin
2 Tbsp water

Topping
2 cups of strawberries (cut into halves)
1 cup water
2 Tbsp sugar
½ Tbsp gelatin

Method:
1. Weetameal crust: Blend biscuits in a food processor, mix in honey and melted butter. Mix well.
2. Oreo crust: Blend whole cookies in a food processor and mix in melted butter. Mix well.
3. Press crumbs into a deep dish or tart foils. Freeze.
4. While tart cases are freezing, prepare filling. Bloom gelatin in water. Boil milk and sugar. Pour onto bloomed gelatin. Stir until gelatin is totally dissolved. Leave to cool down.
5. Pour yoghurt into milk, mix well. Ladle yoghurt mixture into chilled tart cases.
6. Place tarts into the fridge again to set and then prepare topping.
7. Boil water and sugar, remove from heat and sprinkle in gelatin. Stir to dissolve. Leave to cool until syrupy consistency.
8. When yoghurt filling has set, arrange strawberries on top of filling and spoon in a 5mm layer of gelatin mixture.
9. Chill in fridge until everything is set.




The tarts I made, 2 big and 2 small




Weetameal crust






Weetameal crust cut up







Oreo crust







Oreo crust cut up



****

I personally prefer Oreo crust

Egg Tarts 蛋挞

This a cookie crust egg tart..not puff pastry like with layers, neither is it firm or crunchy.. It's a rather fragile egg tart. I'd recommend eating this with a spoon.

I've tasted something like this from Bee's Bakery in USJ Taipan, they call it Hong Kong egg tart.

My colleagues love this. My family loves this too... Maybe you'll like it too...

Please don't substitute this with margarine or "Buttercup" or "Farm Cows".. It will not taste the same, definately.

Egg Tart Recipe

Pastry
250g plain flour

2 tbsp castor sugar

1 egg yolk

150g butter,

Filling

150g castor sugar

150ml hot water

250ml milk(1 small pack of milk)

1/8 tsp salt

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

3 large eggs

1 egg white (From the same egg where the yolk was used in the crust)

Method

1. Cream the butter with the egg yolk and sugar.
2. Add in flour. Mix well. (If the dough is sticky for you , well maybe your yolks are larger than mine, add in extra flour by the teaspoon until it no longer feels sticky, but got a slight flour feel to it, but not too much though, as it will toughen the crust. the borderline of stickiness and dry feel is very thin.. so, add extra flour with caution)
3. Roll out pastry in between two sheets of plastic into thickness of about 4mm. Stamp out 9–10cm circles of pastry with a pastry cutter.
4. Lightly press the pastry circles into foil tart cases(I’m lazy to wash up the tart tins).
5. Refrigerate the lined foil cases for 2 hours (I left them overnight)
6. Melt the sugar in hot water, add milk, salt, vanilla essence. Beat all the eggs lightly and mix in all together.
7. Sieve egg mixture and pour into the cold tart crust.
8. Bake at 180C (fan)/200C for 25 minutes.

**

I used disposable foil tart cases... this pastry is rather difficult to be removed from the regular tart moulds. They cost me RM6 .25 for 125 pcs, bought from Bake with Yen.