She's My Cherry Pie

"Tastes so good makes a grown man cry..."

Summer means a few things to me... hot hot weather, bugs, sunburn, jealousy that everyone else got holidays and fresh stone fruit. Cherries are something my family associates with Christmas particularly.
December was the last Grower's Market for the year. Greeting me when I walked in was this delicious pile of cherries. How could I resist? And with a simply enormous box for only $10, I snapped some up before they sold out.

When I got them home, BF asked if I could make cherry pie. I have never made one before, so set about searching for a recipe. Sadly, almost every recipe I found called for canned cherries, so I decided to make it up myself!

I have never made a lattice top pie, so you will notice that the two individual pies look rather different as I was experimenting! The pies were lovely, however, there was not much of a saucey consistency to the filling. Next time, I would prefer a more liquidy filling... do you have a recipe that you love? If anyone has a recipe they have used for a cherry pie with FRESH cherries (please no can fillings!), can you please post a link in the comments? I would love to see it!

Thin lattice (I like this one better)

I used this pastry base, and lined two individual pie tins with pastry. Pop the rest back in the fridge whilst you bake the bases.

Whilst the dough is in the fridge, remove the pits from 1 cup of cherries, and mix in a bowl with 2 tsp castor sugar, a good shake of cinnamon, and a splash of lemon juice. Leave to marinate whilst you bake the tart shells.

Thick lattice

Just before filling the cases, mix a small pinch cornflour through the cherries. Fill the cases with cherry mix, then use strips of pastry to form a lattice, pushing the edges onto the base.

Cook in oven at 180C for about 20 minutes and enjoy!

Christmas Celebrations Continue...

So after all the excitement of the Sydney Chicken Christmas Dinner, how does one continue celebrating? Easy! Head down to our hometown of Melbourne, for not one, not two, but THREE more Christmas dinners! Phew!

Me with no idea of how to cut a lobster!

First up was Christmas Day lunch. It was a delicious cold spread, consisting of lobster, prawns with avocado cream, ham, pork, tomatoes topped with pesto and bocconcini, cucumber topped with crab, fresh crusty bread, Christmas cake, pudding, fresh berries, custard and cream. Wow - I am full again just thinking about it! We spent lunch time relaxing with BF's family (those that were still in the country!) and drinking a lot of wine!

Table setting at Mum and Dad's

Then came Christmas Day dinner! We set off to my parents' house, where the three courses are always eaten at a relaxed pace, as they know we are all already stuffed from lunch!

Starter, light and refreshing

Entree was a simple, yet delicious salad of mixed leaves, pinenuts, cherry tomatoes, proscuitto and goats' fetta. The leaves and tomatoes were fresh from the garden that afternoon!

Dad preparing the bbq

Main was roast lamb, marinated with garlic and rosemary, and cooked on the barbeque.

Mmm... rare meat!

Dad was in charge of mains, so his side was potato, green beans, cherry tomatoes, olives and anchovies, roasted in the oven - yum!

Main by Dad

We followed this with dessert of more pudding and custard! And Christmas night always ends still sitting at the dinner table 5 hours after we started eating, drinking wine and laughing the night away.

Pudding with custard - my favourite!

The third Christmas meal was with the extended family - and was a HUGE buffet of roast pork, ham, Lebanese sausages, marinated chicken, whole snapper with tahini, four different salads, roast potatoes, mango salsa, apple sauce... the list goes on and on. The best part of this day was meeting my new cousin Belle, born just a few weeks before Christmas!

Belle

Our trip home was packed with fun, food, family and friends. Along with the above, there were BBQ's, yum cha, cricket... it goes on! I'm glad to see that all of you had a great time this Christmas, and hope that the new year brings you all health and happiness!

The Twice (!) Baked, Not Quite Souffle, Lemon Mousse

Confused?

The highlight of our dinner with Sis and MJ was supposed to be dessert. I know what you are thinking - after homemade pasta with rabbit sauce, it was the dessert that is the hightlight? But I was in the mood to impress.

Dessert did impress. But not for the right reasons! It was supposed to be lemon souffle. Not the easiest dessert to make (and definitely the hardest to photograph - apologies for the dodgy shots! They sank sooo quickly!) I got the recipe from a Commercial Cookery text book, and forgot that the cooking times would have been for an industrial fan-forced combi-oven. Basically, I should have doubled the cooking time for my home oven!

After we put them back in the oven - note spoonful missing!

I did make the mixture correctly, and had I cooked them for the appropriate time (24 minutes) I think they would have been great. Unfortunately I didn't realise my mistake until we had eaten them! I first took them out after 13 minutes, served them, and after 1 spoonful realised they were undercooked. Sis and I put ours back in the oven, but BF and MJ were enjoying their lemon "mousse" so much that they declined the extra cooking time! After 4 more minutes, Sis and I took ours back out - the edges where much more souffle-like, but the centres were still completely mousse-like. Ah well, we ate them anyway! And for warm lemon mousse, they were rather nice!

After the second bake!

I'll put the recipe here in case you are game enough to try them - you will need to cook for about 24 minutes, but I totally suggest a trial run if you don't want the same thing happening to you! All ovens are slightly different and souffles are fussy, so it may take a few tries to get the exact times for your oven.

Pastry Cream
3 egg yolks
60g castor sugar
20g plain flour
200mls milk
vanilla essence to taste

Whisk egg yolks and sugar until almost white, then mix in the flour. Bring milk to scald point (just before it boils), whisk it onto the egg mixture, return to a clean pan, and stir over medium heat until it thickens (it will start to look like custard). Add a few drops of vanilla and taste to check that the raw flour flavour is gone - if not, keep stirring over heat until it is. Pour into a bowl and cover with cling film, ensuring the cling film is pressed against the pastry cream to prevent a skin forming. If you are making this for a dinner party, you can prepare up to this point ahead of time.

Souffle
zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 egg yolk
1 tsp castor sugar
4 egg whites
butter for greasing

Preheat oven to 200C.

Add the egg yolk, zest and lemon juice to your pastry cream. Grease 4 ramekins with butter, place in fridge for 5 minutes, then remove and grease again with butter. Ensure that you do not miss any spots of the mould (this will cause the souffle to rise unevenly). Sprinkle sugar into each mould and move the mould around to ensure every inch is covered with sugar (for the same reasons as above).

Whisk the egg whites to firm peaks (add a little sugar partway through). Fold the whites into your pastry cream in 2 stages, first 1/4 of the whites, then the rest, as this helps to ensure maximum air retention.

Place into greased moulds, smooth the tops and place in oven for approx 24 minutes. Cross fingers, toes, arms etc and if successful, impress the pants off your guests!

Ooh, don't worry if the top of your souffle gets quite brown whilst cooking - it is more important the the centre is cooked. If the top is too dark for your liking, dust with generous amounts of icing sugar and ta da!

Cocoa Brownie Bites to die for...

In need of a chocolate fix (hmmm, isn't that all the time?), I went window shopping through my favourite blogs to find a recipe. I had 3 criteria: 1) chocolate (duh) 2) quick, easy and all pantry item ingredients 3) very VERY chocolatey. If it sounds like I have a chocolate issue, I do. It would be the first item on my desert island wish list. It makes me happy. It makes sad movies better. It makes me not care that the rubbish hasn't been taken out, the dishes need washing, or that my oven doesn't work (and it should be getting fixed on Thursday - finally!)

After some searching, I found this recipe of Pam's. Although I was a bit sceptical that cocoa alone could make something as chocolatey as I was craving, Pam's recipes always make me drool onto the keyboard, and this description of her's sold me - "Beware... these are very rich, and according to my husband and daughter, very addicting. They were dense and not too sweet but totally delicious. They had a perfect soft center and a nice crispy crust on top."

Sold! What more could a girl ask for? Well, some additional chocolate chunks of course! The addition of a very heaped 1/3 cup of broken choc chunks was my only change to Pam's recipe. And these brownies were a hit! I was so reluctant to part with them that I only allowed BF to take half of them to work - the rest stayed with me!And just in case you are not already convinced that Pam makes awesome brownies, last week she made them with peanut butter chips in - click here and admire them! If anyone knows where I can buy peanut butter chips in Sydney, please let me know as I am dying to make these!

142g butter (1 and 1/4 sticks)
1 and 1/3 cups white sugar
3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp cocoa
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup plain flour
very heaped 1/3 cup chocolate chunks

Preheat the oven to 163C (325F). Place oven shelf in bottom third of oven. Grease and line an 8 inch slice tin with baking paper, making sure it hangs over the edge of the two long sides.
In a heat proof bowl, combine butter, sugar, cocoa and salt, place over a pot of hot water and stir occasionally until melted and mixture is hot to touch. The mix should look slightly grainy. Remove from heat and cool slightly, then add vanilla. Mix in the eggs one at a time, stirring well after each one.
When the mix is well blended, smooth and shiny, slowly add the flour and stir until combined thoroughly. Now stir vigourously for 30 strokes (I don't know what this is for but it works! Can anyone explain?) Stir in the chocolate chunks. Pour into slice tin and bake for 20 - 25 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
Leave to cool completely before lifting out and cutting into bite-sized pieces. Remember, bite-sized pieces mean you can have seconds!

Spoilt (and an almost proposal!)

So I don't usually take photos of food at restaurants. This is for a couple of reasons - lighting isn't always that good, I'm not very good with the camera so it can take me a long time (!), I don't like to make others sit and wait, looking longingly at food that is cooling rapidly whislt I umm and ahh about how to take the picture, and most importantly, because I usually dig in before even stopping and thinking about it! Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE that a lot of other bloggers DO take photos when they are out - other blogs are one of the first places I look when thinking about where to eat. I just don't like to do it myself.

That being said, I didn't take my camera to my friend MM's house when invited for dinner. And I didn't realise that he was going to take pics - so just began eating when the food was presented (see pic below!) But the food was so good, and MM was very proud, so he whipped out his camera and took the following shots that he has been brilliant enough to provide for your viewing pleasure.

MM has just returned from a holiday in Italy, so was inspired to cook up an Italian influenced 3 course dinner for us - and it wasn't even a celebration! And just hearing what was being prepared was enough for me to ask my partner if it was okay for me to marry MM!!!

So enough waffling, on to the food.
The entree was hand-made gnocchi with tomato, basil and bocconcini. MM got the basic gnocchi recipe from Tobie Puttock. He did mention that he did not add anywhere near as much flour to the mix as Tobie suggests - and it was a great call. The gnocchi was deliciously light and the bocconcini was oozy, just the way I like it.
For main course, we were treated to pinenut and herb encrusted rack of lamb, with oven baked truss tomatoes and wilted spinach. This was my only contribution to the meal - wilting the spinach whilst MM was carving! I think MM and my partner both would have preferred the lamb a little more done, but I like a lot of blood in my meat so it was perfect for me!
As for dessert, we were truly spoilt, as MM had made vanilla bean pannacotta, with warmed strawberries. MM actually used the recipe that I used here, but substituted raspberry vinegar for the balsamic. It was brilliant! The strawberries were quite rich, but complemented the pannacotta beautifully.

All in all, it was a brilliant meal, enjoyed with a lovely bottle of Italian red (I can't recall exactly what it was!) I think now we will be forever in a battle of "trying to come up with something as good as what the other served at the last dinner party" - but boy, is it going to be a fun battle!

Tart au Citron

Recipes like this one frustrate me. You know the type. You measure everything exactly. You use the exact size tin the recipe asks for. Yet somehow you end up with almost 3 times the amount of pastry needed to make the tart. How? I do not know.

If I had been making this in the middle of the day I wouldn't have been as frustrated. I would have been excited to be able to make some mini tarts as well, with a different filling. But I was making this around 10pm (and I'm a bit of a nana when it comes to staying up late), so was merely annoyed at the waste of food.

Rant over - the tart came out really well, and actually tasted better the following day after sitting in the fridge for a while. It was pretty easy to make, and kept for 3 days (We would have eaten it much quicker but I am practising restraint - much easier said than done!)

Pastry
2 3/4 cups plain flour
150g unsalted butter
3/4 cup icing sugar
2 eggs, beaten
Sift the flour directly onto the bench. Make a well in the centre, place the butter in the well, and using a pecking action with your thumb and fingertips, work the butter only, until it is very soft. Add the sugar to the butter and mix, then add the eggs and mix. Now gradually add the flour until you have a rough dough. Bring together, knead a few times to make a smooth dough, cover in plastic wrap and place in fridge for at least 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 190C. Roll the pastry out to line a 23cm loose-based fluted tart pan. Chill in fridge for 20 minutes. Blind bake pastry for 10 minutes, then remove paper and weights and cook for a further 3-5 minutes, until pastry is just cooked.

Reduce oven to 150C.

Filling
4 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 1/4 cups castor sugar
3/4 cup double cream (thickened cream)
1 cup lemon juice
finely grated zest of 3 lemons

Whisk together the eggs, yolks and sugar. Add the cream, whisking, then the lemon juice and zest.

Put the pie tin on a baking tray and pour in the filling. Return to the oven for 35 - 40 minutes, until set. Cool before serving.
Recipe from Sweet Food.

Strawberries with Balsamic Vinegar

I got this one from Tobie Puttock's Daily Italian. This book is supposed to be full of "cookable" recipes - not dishes that seem too complicated to make. And they do seem straight forward... if you have 5 hours for the dough to rest/rise or 2 days to slow cook your bolognaise sauce. So for this reason I was pleasantly surprised to find this simple recipe for dessert. It takes about 2 minutes to prepare, 5 to cook, and 2 to rest. I made it when my partner asked if there was anything sweet in the house, and I didn't feel like serving up plain vanilla icecream, yet was too full from dinner to make something complex!

And if the combination of flavours sounds strange to you, try it anyway. The sugar balances the vinegar and forms a delicious sauce for the warmed strawberries.

1 punnet strawberries, hulled (and halved if large)
1 tbsp castor sugar
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 200C. Combine all ingredients in a bowl.

Take a large sheet of aluminium foil (Tobie suggests 40cm in length) and fold in half. Then fold each side in 2cm, leaving the top open. Stuff the strawberry mix in this hole, then fold over a couple of times to close and secure.

Place in oven and cook for 5 minutes. Remove and rest for a couple of minutes without opening the package. Whilst resting, spoon some icecream/cream/custard into serving dishes. Open package and share strawberries and cooking liquor amongst the bowls. Enjoy!

Chocolate and Raspberry Tarts

I thought I'd start with something indulgent. These tarts are brilliantly rich and bittersweet. Unfortunately I made them before raspberries were in season, so used frozen berries. I would definately recommend using fresh berries when available, as the chocolate is very bitter, and the fresh berries stop this from being overbearing.

Sweet Shortcrust Pastry

1 cup plain flour
1/8 cup icing sugar
a pinch of salt
90g unsalted butter

Place flour, sugar and salt in a bowl. Add butter and rub through with fingertips until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
Add 3 tablespoons of cold water and cut with a knife until the dough comes together in a ball.
Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Divide pastry into 4 portions and roll each piece out on a lightly floured surface until 3mm thick. Press pastry lightly into four individual tart tins and freeze for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 180C.

Line pastry shells with baking paper and baking weights or rice. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove paper and weights and bake for a further 10 minutes, or until pastry is golden and thoroughly cooked. Allow to cool on wire racks.

Increase oven temperature to 190C.

Filling

125g unsalted butter
200g good quality dark chocolate
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
30g caster sugar
1 and 1/2 cups raspberries
whipped cream to serve

Place butter and chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of hot water over low heat and warm until both have melted. Stir, remove from heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes.
Place eggs, egg yolks and sugar in a bowl and beat until thick and creamy. Add the chocolate mixture and mix well. Pour into pastry cases.
Bake tarts for 5 minutes. Remove from oven and arrange raspberries on top of the tarts. Leave to cool and serve with whipped cream.
Recipe from Bill Granger's "Bill's Sydney Food".

I found these tarts amazing, however my sister thought they were a bit rich and was only able to eat half. Not something that I am known for doing!