Tag: tarts

Easy Peasy Fig Tart

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FIGS. Believe it or not. Just a month ago was the first time I ever had fresh figs! When I tried it, I wish I had it sooner! Fortunately, I scored a bargain at Springvale Market and bought 7 for $2.50! I had to head back to buy more.

Just couldn’t get enough!

So the first time I had it, I slid the top of it twice and stuffed them with ricotta and topped it with honey. It was DELICIOUS! But to be honest, I preferred mine without the ricotta. Just honey! The mr loved his with the cheese though.

So after a few nights of having the same thing, I decided to do something different. Looked into the freezer, and VIOLA! Puff pastry! Perfect. A quick tart it is.

Trust me, it’s the quickest and yummiest thing you would have! The sweetest of the figs, with the buttery-ness of the pastry. That made our night. Of course, to top it up, some macadamia ice cream from Connoisseur. The mr had two! (: Always a joy to see him eat the food I make with the satisfaction on his face.

So for a quick fix to your sweet tooth, I urge you to give this easy recipe a try!

Easy Peasy Fig Tart

1/2 sheet of store bought puff pastry (with butter), cut into 3 or 4 rectangles

3-4 fresh figs, sliced into quarters

caster sugar, enough to lightly sprinkle on top of the pastry

tightly packed brown sugar, to sprinkle on top of the figs

scoop(s) of ice cream, to serve (flavour is up to you!)

Steps:

1) Preheat the oven to 170 degrees celcius. On the rectangular sheets of puff pastry, lightly sprinkle caster sugar on the top.

2) Place the figs, aligned in the middle. Leaving some space on the sides.

3) Sprinkle some brown sugar on the figs. Bake the pastry for 15-20 mins, or until the pastry is golden brown.

4) Serve with a scoop of ice cream and ENJOY!

ps : you can either place the ice cream on the side, or put it on top like the mr did! haha

A Pie Like No Other.

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Ever seen a recipe and add it to your bookmark list almost immediately but have no courage to give it a try? This was one of them. I got about 100 more recipes bookmarked and still trying to give them a go! I’m not kidding or exaggerating.

Truth be told, I never had a very good experience with pies. Or tarts for the matter. Especially food that involve the pie/tart tin. haha. One horrible experience was the Chocolate Ganache, Cream and Strawberry Tart that I tried to bake after watching Masterchef. It was a DISASTER! Free form tarts like Hot Apple Tart I could still handle. anything to do with short crust pastry or a tin, not so much.

But I decided to suck it up, and give tarts another shot. One consolation was that I didn’t need to make shortcrust pastry. But that’s not to say that this is any simpler! Although I have to admit, I love the fact that the base is made of oats! That made me push myself even more to try this recipe!

And so I did. As you can see from the picture above, it’s not a perfect looking pie. But I think I did pretty well! And boy was it yummy! The gooey-ness of the filling was just to-die-for. REALLY. Everyone should give this a shot! Don’t think about the calories, just have it. You will love it!

One of the challenges I had was taking the pie out of the tin, without the sides and corners crumbling on me. Let me tell you this, it is not a one person job. You need extra hands for this! Thankfully I had the Mr help me! (: And he also helped me in finishing up the pie! haha and after you do finish the pie, you need to head to The Training Geek to get some exercise tips and work the sugar off! But it will all be worth it, I repeat, worth every calorie intake!

So here’s the recipe from the Momofuku cook book! Enjoy every single crumb!

What’s better than hot gooey pie and ice cream?

Oatmeal Cookie for Crust

Ingredients
2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon flour
Scant 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
Scant 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup softened butter
1/3 cup light brown sugar
3 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
Scant 1 cup rolled oats

Directions
1. Heat the oven to 190°C.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. Cream the butter, brown sugar and sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Whisk the egg into the butter mixture until fully incorporated.
5. Stir in the flour mixture until fully combined. Stir in the oats.
6. Spread the mixture onto a 9-inch-by-13-inch baking sheet and bake until golden brown and set, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat and cool to the touch on a rack. Crumble the cooled cookie to use in the crust.

Crust

Ingredients
Crumbled cookie for crust
1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt

Directions
Combine the crumbled cookie, butter, brown sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse until evenly combined and blended (a little of the mixture clumped between your fingers should hold together). Divide the crust between 2 (10-inch) pie tins (I used a long rectangular tin and 8 small round ones). Press the crust into each shell to form a thin, even layer along the bottom and sides of the tins. Set the prepared crusts aside while you prepare the filling.

Filling

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup plus a scant 3 tablespoons light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup plus 1 teaspoon milk powder
1 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup plus a scant 2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
8 egg yolks

Prepared crusts

Powdered sugar to garnish

Directions
1. Heat the oven to 180°C.
2. Whisk together the sugar, brown sugar, salt and milk powder. Whisk in the melted butter, then whisk in the heavy cream and vanilla.
3. Gently whisk in the egg yolks, being careful not to add too much air.
4. Divide the filling evenly between the 2 prepared pie shells.
5. Bake the pies, one at a time, for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 325 degrees and bake until the filling is slightly jiggly and golden brown, about 10 minutes. Remove the pies and cool on a rack.
6. Refrigerate the cooled pies until well chilled. Serve cold, and the filling will be gooey. Dust with powdered sugar before serving.

You. Will. Love. It. I. Promise. (:

Pasteis de Nata

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in other words. Portuguese custard tarts. (: Yes! I tried making them again using another recipe (: hehe This time I had to cook the custard to make it thicker before filling the tarts up. I prefer this one as compared to the other. But this one doesn’t seem to caramelise the top as much so I cheated and used a blow torch! haha

The only thing I wasn’t able to do is to keep the pastry crispy long enough. After a few days in an air tight container, the tart goes all soft! So the only solution : finish all of them up within 2 days! haha

This recipe used puff pastry like I did before, and I still do prefer using puff pastry. I think it makes the tarts taste nicer. All the buttery goodness (:

so here’s the recipe! Let me know which you prefer!

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Portuguese Egg Tarts ; Baby’s Favourite

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Been watching the Gem of Life, a Hong Kong tv serial and they started talking about egg tarts. Although what they had are birds’ nest egg tarts, and of course I can’t afford getting birds’ nest here. haha I decided to do baby’s favourite – Portuguese egg tarts ! (:

who could resist this hot custard tart with a caramelised top ? I have been wanting to make these for the longest time. The last time I had a really good tart was at KFC in Guangzhou. hehe Sadly, mine didn’t turn out the same way. But I will be doing alot of trail and error to try and get it as close as possible! hehe

When I decided to make these tarts, I went around looking for a recipe and found one on Rasa Malaysia. They used pie crust as their tart base, but I decided to use puff pastry instead cause I wanted the buttery and flaky texture of the tart. It’s a pity my aluminium tart mould is too shallow, the amount of custard that could fill the tarts wasn’t enough! hehe so will try and find moulds that are slightly deeper (:

alrightie. Enough talking! Here’s the recipe of the egg tarts I’ve made! Hope you will enjoy it as much we did!

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Plum Tatin with Ice cream

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Ingredients :
(from The F Word)

4 large ripe but firm plums
60g cold butter
60g caster sugar
300g puff pastry (one sheet of ready made puff pastry)
Ice cream to serve

Steps :

1. Preheat oven to 200°C/Gas 6.

2. Make sure the plums aren’t too ripe or they’ll fall apart when you try to cook them.
Halve the plums and remove the stones.
Cut into quarters and arrange, cut side down, on a tray lined with kitchen paper.
If you have time, refrigerate the plums overnight to dry them out a little
(this will help prevent the plums from releasing too much juice during cooking).

3. Cut the butter into thin slices and use to cover the base of a 21cm ovenproof pan
(or four small separate pans if you’re making individual tarts), no deeper than 6cm.
Sprinkle over the sugar evenly, then arrange the plum quarters in a circle around the pan,
cut side down, adding one or two quarters in the centre.

4. Place the pan over a medium heat and let the butter and sugar melt,
gently shaking the pan once in a while to encourage the caramel to form.
When the syrup has caramelised to a terracotta colour, after about 10 minutes, take the pan off the heat.
Set aside.

5. If you’re using your own puff pastry,
roll out the puff pastry on a lightly floured board to a 24cm round
(or into four 6cm rounds if you wish to make individual tarts),
using a cake tin as a template.
if you’re using the ready made puff pastry sheet,
using a plate as a template, cut out the 24cm round.
Prick the pastry all over with a fork, then lift it up using a rolling pin and lay over the plums.
Carefully tuck the pastry edges down the side of the pan. Prick a hole in the top of the pastry.

6. Bake for 15 minutes, reduce the heat to 180˚C
and cook for another 10-15 minutes until the pastry is golden brown and crisp.

7. Leave the tart to cool for 10 minutes, then invert onto a large serving plate.
Slice into individual portions and serve warm with dollops of clotted cream.

before I flipped it over. nice and crisp and golden!

our individual portions (:

we were happy and so were our tummys!

Hot Apple Tart with Caramel IceCream

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this is one recipe I followed step by step
and because my blow torch had no gas
I couldn’t torch it
But it grilled it instead! hehe
and it turned out pretty good too

Ingredients :

1 sheet of puff pastry (buttered preferably)
2 granny smith apples
brown sugar to top the tart
melted butter

Steps :

1. Preheat the oven at 200 degrees celcius.
Using a 98mm round cutter, cut out 4 rounds and place on a baking sheet in the baking tray.
Prick the pastry with a fork to stop it from puffing up.

2. Peel, core and thinly slice the apples

3. Arrange the apples on the puff pastry, overlapping them slightly.
Brush them with the melted butter
and sprinkle the top with brown sugar

4. Bake for 10-15 mins and turn it to the top grill and grill till the top turns
Top the tart with a scope of ice cream (any flavour you want)
and serve.

DONE! (:

just came out of the overn
and looking super good! (:

just another close up of the tart.

we were really spoilt for the night (:
and I love it. hehe