Tarte au Chocolat

I like this rich chocolate tart especially its smooth and creamy texture. The chocolate filling has to be produced by a good quality of chocolate in order to get a rich and cremeuse (cremy) texture. I used 85% Lyndt chocolate for the tart and hazelnut paste that I bought from Sainsbury's. Its original recipe is actually arrange some chocolate curls on the tart but I'm quite lazy to do the chocolate curls so I toasted some chopped almond, hazelnut and walnut for the toppings.

Recipe from BBC Olive magazine:

Make 4 x 10" tartlets

For the pastry:

220g plain flour

110g unsalted butter

20g sugar powder
pinch of salt

2 egg yolk + 2 tbsp cold water

For the fillings:

275g hazelnut paste (or Nutella)

125g 70% dark chocolate, plus a block for brushing the pastry

300ml double cream

450ml milk

3 eggs, lightly beaten

some chocolate shavings or toasted nuts for topping

Making the tart case:

1. Mix the eggs yolks with 2 tbsp cold water stir with a fork until well combine.
2. Place the flour into the bowl of a food processor, followed by the cold butter and the salt. Turn the processor on and pulse several times until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Add the egg yolk/water mixture and pulse again. Be careful not to overwork the pastry. Stop pulsing when the mixture has the consistency of chunky breadcrumbs.
4. Turn the pastry out onto a clean, floured work surface and, with floured hands, bring together to make a dough, but don't knead.
5. Shape into a flattened ball, wrap in cling film and refrigerate for about 30 minutes. You can keep the pastry at this stage for 2-3 days if not using it immediately.
6. Remove the pastry from the fridge. On a clean, floured work surface, roll it out with a floured rolling pin until it's slightly larger than the flan ring. Using the rolling pin, lift the pastry and lay it over the flan ring.
7. With your fingers, lightly press the pastry into the sides of the ring. Run a rolling pin over the top of the ring and pull away the excess pastry at the edges. Using your fingers, gently press the pastry up to slightly build up the height of the pastry at the edges. Line the tart with a piece of parchment and chill it for 20 minutes so it doesn't shrink when you cook it.
8. Heat the oven to 200'C. Add baking beans or rice and bake it for 15 minutes, then lift out the parchment and beans and cook for a further 5 minutes or until the pastry is dry and a good brown colour. You must cook and colour the pastry properly, once the chocolate goes it it won't colour any further. Turn the oven down to 160'C.

Making the filling

1. Put the hazelnut paste and chocolate in a bowl. Bring the cream and milk to a boil and pour it over., mix everything together with a whisk until you have a smooth liquid.
2. Whisk in the eggs. At this point you'll find it hard to believe that the filling will set but it will end up with a beautiful creamy texture.

Putting the tart together

1. Melt a little chocolate and use it to brush the inside of the tart, this will make the pastry leak-proof and stop it from going soggy. The secret to this bit is to brush the tart while it i still warm so the chocolate soaks in and fills any little cracks.
2. Put the tart back on the oven shelf and pour in the filling right up to the top. Cook for 40 minutes, the tart should still be very wobbly but not liquid. Once its completely cool down, it'll set.
3. Top with chocolate curls or toasted nuts.

Cakes Corner | HT | 6:30 PM No comments Read More

Pumpkin Cheese Buns

It's always the busiest time for me at this time of year. Dinner, birthday party, holiday and X'mas really filled up my entire day. Somehow, I always enjoy the last two months in a year. This pumpkin cheese buns was made in the last 2 weeks but I didn't manage to post it.

The recipe extracted from 孟老师的100道面包. The bread was super soft and I guess that pumpkins puree helps to produce the extra soft texture.

Recipe:

(A) 200g bread flour

60g plain flour

35g caster sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp yeast

35g whole egg

35g fresh milk

35g water

(B) 65g pumpkin puree

20g unsalted butter

(C) 90g cheddar cheese

50g mozzarella cheese for toppings

How I made it:

1. For the pumpkin puree, peeled and cored the pumpkin then cut into small cubes. Steam until just soft. Puree the pumpkin with a folk then set aside.
2. Mix ingredients (A) at low speed using a dough hook mixer follow by the pumpkin puree. Turn to medium speed continue kneading until it become a smooth dough.
3. Add in the unsalted butter and knead with low speed until the butter combine with the dough. Turn to medium speed continue the kneading process until it become a smooth and elastic dough.
4. Place the dough into a lightly grease bowl and cover with cling wrap to proof for 80 minutes.
5. Divide the dough into 6 portions and round them into small balls. Then fill the doughs with cheddar cheese and shape it into a smooth balls. Let the dough proof for 30 minutes.
6. Egg wash the doughs and cut a cross at the top of each doughs then top with mozzarella cheese. Continue for another 10 minutes proofing.
7. Bake at 180'C preheated oven for 20 minutes until golden brown.

Bread Corner | HT | 1:05 AM No comments Read More

Roulade

It's a great pleasure to know Jxxx recently. We've some similarities such as buying a "weird" oven which had given us lots of headache and fun too! There are some sense of humour between our conversation. The most similarities is we've a same interest, BAKING!

We just notice we're baking swiss roll in the same time without telling each other until I saw her posting. And it'd given us so much things to talk about through the comments corner. That, I feel so much interesting.

I baked two roulade days ago, they're almost the same which is rolled with chocolate sponge with oreo biscuits crumbs. It's just the decoration had a bit different which had added strawberries. The oreo chocolate roulade taste richer whereas the strawberry chocolate roulade is much refreshing.

Recipe:

5 whole large eggs
125g sugar
1g salt
100g plain flour

2g baking soda
15ml oil
50ml milk
20g cocoa powder
200ml whipping cream

20g caster sugar

1 pack of oreo biscuits (punch it into crumbs)

some strawberries

How I made it:

1. Mix cocoa powder, milk and oil until a thick paste.
2. Whip the eggs and gradually add in sugar. Whip until very light yellow and fluffy.
3. Fold in shifted plain flour and baking soda. Do this gently.
4. Fold in cocoa paste (1) until well combine. Pour into a rectangular baking pan with baking paper.
5. Bake at 200'C preheated oven for 15 minutes.
6. Remove the cake together with the baking paper onto a wire rack and quickly put the whole thing into a big plastic bag until it completely cool. (Make sure no air will go into the plastic bag. This is to prevent the cake drying and keep moisture so that it wouldn't crack during the rolling process.
7. When the cake completely cool down, whip the cream until thicken. Fold in some oreo crumbs. Spread the oreo cream onto the cake evenly and roll in carefully.
8. Spread some leftover oreo cream onto the cake roll surface and garnish with oreo crumbs.
9. Put it in the fridge for an hour before slice. Best served in two days.

Cakes Corner | HT | 6:17 PM No comments Read More

Pumpkin Cream Puffs

At this time of year you will see many pumpkins appear everywhere in the markets. I bought half and made few pumpkin cheese bread but before that let me share with you the pumpkin cream puffs made by leftover pumpkins from the bread recipe. I mixed some mashed pumpkin with custard and whipped cream together to produce the fillings. It's something different and tasty too!

Recipe:
For the Puff: 70g plain flour/3 beaten eggs/100g water/60g unsalted butter/Pinch of sugar and salt

For the custard: 3 egg yolks/200ml milk/60g sugar/20g plain flour/10g unsalted butter/1 tsp vanilla extract/120g pumpkin puree/150 ml whipping cream/30g chocolate

How I made it:

1. For the puff, boil the water, butter and pinch of sugar and salt in a cooking pan until its bubbly. Off the heat, add in all the plain flour and mix with a wooden spoon until well combine and become a smooth dough.
2. Add half of the beaten eggs and mix (this stage is a bit hard work but please patient and keep stirring until the egg mix into the dough.)
3. Once the eggs completely mix with the dough, you will find it quite dry and hardly to mix. Add the beaten eggs little by little into the dough and continue mixing. You might not finish using the beaten eggs. You will need to have a smooth and silky consistency of the mixture. When you spoon up the mixture, it should drop back to the pan very slowly. The mixture should not too dry or too wet.
4. Once you get the right consistency of mixture, transfer it into a piping bag and pipe out about 20 dollops of mixture on a baking tray with baking paper.
5. Dip your fingers with some water and gently touch the top of the mixture. This is to prevent it over burning while it's baking in the oven. Then spray some water on the mixture surface. (Not too much)
6. Bake at 200'C preheated oven for 15 minutes until it puff up then turn the temperature to 170'C and bake for another 15 minutes.
7. Transfer the puff on a wire rack to cool down.
8. For the custard, boil the milk with sugar until sugar dissolve but not boiling. Meanwhile, mix the egg yolks and flour a thick paste but no lumps. Add two tablespoon of milk if you find it too dry to mix.
9. Pour the dissolve warm sugar milk into the egg yolks mixture, pour little by little and mix with a hand whisk until everything combine. Then, pour back the mixture into the cooking pan. Cook in very low heat and keep stirring until it thicken.
10. Once the mixture thicken, remove from the heat and keep stirring until the heat slightly cool down but slightly warm. Then add in the butter and vanilla extract. Continue stirring until well combine.
11. Transfer the custard into a plate and cover with cling film. Make sure the cling film touch on the mixture, this is to prevent it from skin forming on its surface.
12. When the custard completely cool down, mix in the mashed pumpkins until well combine. Whip the cream until thicken and fold into the pumpkin custard.
13. Transfer the pumpkin custard into a pipping bag and squeeze into the puffs.
14. Dip the pumpkin cream puff with some melted chocolate and chill in the fridge until cool to serve.

This is something very fun which I think it helps relating people who has the same interest with. The rules for tagging is link to my blog (tagger) on your blog. Give seven facts about yourself then tag another seven bloggers by leaving a comment on their blogs and letting them know they were tagged and listing them (and their blogs) on your blog. Here is how I followed:

• I bake madly in the kitchen. My hand feel itchy if I didn't touch my kitchen stuffs for some time.
• I spend lots of time in research of baking from the internet, books or friends. I've not attended any baking classes or courses yet. But looking forward to attend one day.
• I like to walk, I can walk many miles. But the land I'm living right now just too small and too hot for me to walk.
• I hate packing but I've got to do it as I'm moving country to country with my other half.
• I hardly understand myself until I've married because I wasted lots of time investing on my study then finally I realize what I really interested which was not relating to my study.
• I afraid of leaving. Leaving someone is just like a world war.
• Jesus is my best friend, only Him can give me the peace of mind.

7 bloggers that I'm passing on:

1. Passionate About Baking
2. Happy Home Baking
3. Happy Flour
4. Baking on Cloud 9
5. My Kitchen
6. Fresh from the Oven
7. Afternoon Tea

Cakes Corner | HT | 8:52 PM No comments Read More

Strawberry Ice Cream

"...once you start, this ice-cream making thing become addictive" from Nigella Lawson.

I think it's absolutely true as I'm getting addictive in making ice cream. Once you master the method of making custard, making ice cream is just easy-peasy. Again, this recipe extracted from the book "Forever Summer". This is a very refreshing ice cream with very rich strawberry flavor. It's so good to have a big scoop especially living in this hot and humid land.

Recipe extracted from "Forever Summer"

1. Hull and rougly chop the strawberries, put them into a bowl and sprinkle over 2 tablespoons of caster sugar and leave them to steep and infuse with flavour.
2. Pour the milk and cream into a heavy-based saucepan, and add the vanilla pod, split down the middle lengthways. Bring the pan nearly to the boil and then take it off the heat and leave to infuse for 20 minutes. (I used vanilla extract. So, I added it into the custard at the end.)
3. In a large bowl whisk the egg yolks and the sugar until thick and pale yellow. Take the vanilla pod out of the milk and cream and pour, whisking the while, the warm liquid over the yolks. Put the cleaned-out pan back on the heat with the cream, milk, egg and sugar mixture an stir the custard until it thickens, then take it off the heat and pour it into a bowl to cool.
4. Puree the strawberries in a processor, and when the custard is cool fold in the lemon juice and strawberry puree.
5. Freeze the ice cream in an ice-cream maker then put it into an ice cream container at least 20 minute before serving. (I used kitchen Aid Ice cream bowl for 20 minutes of whisking)

Craving Corner | HT | 6:09 PM No comments Read More

Parsley Buns

I think I was just not able to post my baking result on time recently. It's too much to do for the baking, cleaning, photo shooting and so on. Well, this parsley buns was made on last week for my friends. I've tasted one and it's absolutely delicious!

Recipe from 孟老师的100道面包

(A) 150g bread flour/50g plain flour/15g caster sugar/1/4 tsp salt/1/2 tsp yeast/130g fresh milk

(B) 15g unsalted butter

(C) 30g unsalted butter(soften at room temperature)/10g sugar powder/1/2 tsp salt/1 tsp fresh milk/1tsp dried parsley

How I made it:

1. Mix ingredients (A) at low speed using a dough hook mixer, then turn to medium speed until it become a smooth dough.
2. Add in the unsalted butter and knead with low speed until the butter combine with the dough. Turn to medium speed for the kneading process until it become a smooth and elastic dough.
3. Place the dough into a lightly grease bowl and cover with cling wrap to proof for 80 minutes.
4. While waiting for the dough, mix the ingredients (C) until it become a smooth paste. Put the parsley paste into a piping bag.
5. Divide the dough into 6 portions and round them into small balls. Let them rest for 10 minutes.
6. Roll each dough into a sausage shape and proof for 30 minutes.
7. Cut a line on the middle of each dough and continue proofing for another 10 minutes.
8. Egg wash the doughs and squeeze some parsley paste at the center. Bake at 180'C preheated oven for 18 minutes until golden brown.

Bread Corner | HT | 9:49 PM No comments Read More