Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Jackdaws are posh birds

They eat at restaurants now.

Rhubarb and coconut tart with curd

It's rhubarb season! Yesterday I went to the market and bought 2.5 kilograms of rhubarb. This will definitely not be the last rhubarb based thing I make this year. No sir.

Rhubarb and coconut tart with curd:

Crust:
1/2 of the crust recipe from here. Line a 26cm baking tin and set aside.

Filling:
500g rhubarb, chopped
400g curd paste (or cream cheese, I suppose)
grated zest of 1/2 lemon
1 egg
~100g sugar
100g coconut flakes
1 tbsp potato starch (second thought: skip it)

Mix everything together and pour into the prepared crust. Bake at 175C for about an hour or until it looks done. Cover with a towel and let it cool.
Serves 8-10 people.

Strawberry - rhubarb tart

Springtime! What does it mean? Rhubarb. Lots and lots of rhubarb to be made into delicious tarts.

Strawberry - rhubarb tart

1 yeast dough recipe
500g rhubarb, chopped
200g strawberry jam (I used frozen wild strawberry jam)
2.5 tbsp potato starch
~120g sugar

Line a medium sized baking tin with rolled out yeast dough and let it stand for about 10 minutes. In a large pot, mix the sugar, 1.5 tbsp starch and rhubarb and shake it up until the rhubarb pieces are covered in sugar. Mix the remaining 1 tbsp of the potato starch into the strawberry jam.
Spread the strawberry jam over the dough and cover it with the rhubarb-sugar mix. Bake at about 180C for about an hour or until the crust is nice and golden.
Cover it with a towel and let it cool for about an hour. Serve with vanilla ice cream.
Makes about 16 servings.

Even my mum liked this one.

Cherry bakewell tart

Writing a masters thesis is hard work and one has to reward themselves for a job well done. The cherry bakewell tart is one of my favourites, but making it is quite a hassle, so I only make it on special occasions. Finishing a thesis is a good enough reason, I think.

Cherry bakewell tart

Crust: 1/2 of the crust recipe from here.
Use it to thinly line a medium size baking tin. Preheat the oven to 170C. Cover the dough with baking paper and fill it with rice for weight. Bake the crust for about 15 minutes, then remove the rice and bake it for 5 more minutes. Set aside to cool.

Filling I: The cherry jam
300g cherries
 1tbsp potato starch
70g sugar (or to taste, I never measured that)

Boil the cherries and sugar with a little bit of water until cooked. Homogenise(sciency!) it with a blender. Mix the potato starch with 2 tbsp cold water or cooled(!!) cherry juice from the pot and quickly stir it into the cherry mush. Cook the jam for a little longer until it thickens and set aside.

Filling II: Almondy goodness
150g ground almonds
3 eggs
100g butter, softened
100g sugar
almond extract (1/2 tsp)

Whisk together the butter and sugar, followed by eggs, one at a time. Add the almond extract and fold in the ground almonds.

Assembly:
Cover the bottom of the crust with the cherry jam. Carefully pour Filling II over the jam. Bake at 175C for about 30 minutes until it's golden brown.

Glaze:
100g caster sugar
juice of 1/2 lemon

Once the tart is ready, let it cool a little, then pour the glaze over the tart and let it set for about an hour.
In theory, it should make about 12 servings. In practice...well, it's an amazing tart.


The tart can also be made in muffin tins. These tiny cherry bakewell tarts were made for Aapos birthday in November.

Recipe stolen and modified from here