Tarty Tarts

My new obsession is French Macarons, they are so decadent, colourful and so so good. So how did I end up making tarts you ask? After hours of researching I found pastry chef Joanne Chang’s classic French Macarons. Long story short I made the fillings, lemon curd and chocolate ganache, then realised that my local supermarket didn’t stock almond flour and therefore I couldn’t make the macaron cookie itself! Trust me not to think these through but it occurred to me that I could use the fillings for tarts. So macarons to come but here are my tarts.

For the ganache I used the recipe from my earlier post, birthday banana cake and for the lemon curd I followed Joanne Chang’s curd recipe word for word. It’s the perfect curd; it’s sweet but not too sweet with the right amount of fresh lemon zest. Just a word of warning when you put the curd back on the stove be very careful as it thickens very quickly and you don’t want to over cook.

As for the tart base I put together a few different recipes until I got the dough consistency that I liked. For the dough:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1 large egg yolk

Sift the dry ingredients and combine. Many recipes say to use a food processor for this step but since I don’t have one I just used my freestanding mixer, combine the butter piece by piece until the butter break down into small pea size bits. This next bit needs 4-5 tablespoons of cold water to combine the mix. Add and combine the water one tablespoon at a time so the dough doesn’t get too sticky! Knead and gather with your hands and the dough should resemble play dough when you’re done. Once combined wrap in glad wrap and chill for a minimum of half an hour. Once chilled lightly flour your work surface and roll out the dough. Just a tip; the dough rises a bit in the oven so roll out the dough a tad thinner than usual so it doesn’t rise as much as mine did. I used metal measuring cups to cut out the dough and place into a greased tin.

Pat down the dough lightly so it shapes to the tin and poke tiny holes in the bottom with a fork to avoid rising. Then chill the dough again for about 30min because I read somewhere that when you chill the dough in the shape you want it tends to retain shape better and you know what its true! Because I am me and was totally paranoid that they would burn, I baked them in a 170 degrees Celsius preheated oven. Baking time varies obviously depending on your oven but bake until the bottoms of your tart shells are browned. 

  Once chilled fill to your hearts content!

So my piping skills need practice but you get the general idea and I don’t do anything by half measures so I finished them off with a caramelised peal dusted with icing sugar, divine!

Baking and Baileys

So a couple of weeks ago I had the sudden urge bake with Baileys. I made a very successful batch of Baileys cream cheese brownies a couple of years ago but I couldn’t for the life of me find the same recipe but this one comes pretty close.

 I got the recipe from Wee Kitchen but instead of layering I marbled the cream cheese and Baileys mixture.

I also added chocolate chips to add a bit of texture to the brownie!

And because I had to buy a whole litre of Baileys since my local liquor store doesn’t believe in miniatures, I had to think of something more creative to do with the Baileys than drink it desperate housewives style. Then while on my third shot it came to me, Baileys butter cream and so the Baileys espresso cupcake was born! 

Not only was this my first attempt at making butter cream but it was also my first attempt at piping it too! I learnt the following; first don’t use a piping gun (too messy and not enough control) I’ll try a piping bag next time and second and most important I later found out that alcohol does not go well in butter cream, it stops the butter cream from hardening properly. Hey you live and learn and on the upside they tasted great! The other upside I found this cupcake carrier at the supermarket for half price, SCORE!

Later that night..

So I’d made my vegan pops, it was midnight, I was high on chocolate fumes and this resulted in me making another batch!

 Bored with just the usual round pops I made the up a mix with double chocolate cake and chocolate frosting. Instead of leaving the pops round I flattened them and cut out star shapes with a cookie cutter. Dipping them in chocolate was almost impossible so I resorted to drizzling them with chocolate instead, understated but delicious.  

And then I went a tad ott with my chocolate cupcakes dusted with Oreo cookie topped with Oreo truffles!

Presentation is everything!

Vegan Pops

A good friend of mine is vegan and usually when I bake she misses out so last weekends project was vegan friendly goodies. The thing I love about these pops is that there is no actual baking involved, just assembly.

The filling is an Oreo truffle and it's then coated in vegan chocolate. Believe it or not Oreos are vegan and to combine the Oreos I used Tofutti which is a dairy free cream cheese that’s tastes no different to low fat cream cheese, I swear!

Crush up the Oreos as fine or as chunky as you like. Personally I like a bit of crunch so I just put them in a zip lock bag and crushed them with a rolling pin. In terms of proportions I used about 220g of Oreos and ¾ tub of Tofutti. There is really no hard and fast rule for the proportions; as long as your mixture can be rolled into a ball without crumbling you’re good. It also helps to use the cream cheese at room tempreture, alot easier to combine. Alternatively you can use a food processor, blend until you have the texture you want and add the cream cheese straight into the food processor.

Once you’ve got all the balls made up refrigerate until they are firm. In the mean time vegan chocolate! Now this is a little tricky. After much research I found this recipe on Gentle World:

1/4 cup cacao butter (optional)
1/2 cup coconut butter
2 Tbsp. cocoa (sifted)
1/4 cup agave
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
a pinch of sea salt

I couldn’t find cacao butter so I just substituted it for coconut butter as the website suggests and it turned out fine. The tricky bit is getting it to the consistency where you can use it. When you combine the ingredients the oils and the solids separate and the mixture is runny so to combine them you need to chill the mixture but don’t refrigerate! On my first attempt I thought I’d be a bit time efficient and refrigerate and microwave to soften, big mistake! It hardens too quickly in the fridge and then when you soften it, it burns. Instead, this is how the website suggests you do it, place the bowl of mixture in a shallow pan with water and a couple of ice cubes. Stir the mixture until it combines into a nice creamy chocolaty consistent. If it does get too hard repeat the same process but wit hot water.

Its best to coincide the finished chocolate with when the balls are hard so you can secure the sticks in the balls with the chocolate; dip the end of the stick into chocolate and push it just under half way into the balls. Give them a couple of minutes to harden and you’re ready to coat. My chocolate was slightly firmer than dipping consistency so I used a butterknife to smooth on the chocolate. This gave the truffles a slightly more rustic finish but I like it. To add an extra touch I put mini Oreos on half the batch and dusted the others with Oreo cookie crumbs.

Birthday Banana Cake

For my partners birthday he requested “my” banana cake and since all of my recipes are on my old dead laptop I had to find a new one! Now I am all for change except when in comes to “my” banana cake. After hours of research I decided to go with this one: 
2 large ripe bananas

1/3 cup (80 ml) sour cream, room temperature

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 large eggs, room temperature

1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar

2 cups (230 grams) cake flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)

10 tablespoons (140 grams) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature

From Joy of baking

To mix things up a bit I decided to make a three layer banana cake covered in chocolate ganache! I've never made ganache so I followed this video, How to make chocolate ganache for decorating cakes Inspired by Michelle Cake Designs, word for word and it came out perfactly yummy and was super easy to make. I used Cadbury milk chocolate but any chocolate will be fine. 

I made one and a half times the recipe and divided it into three lots, each baked in 23cm square pan.

 

This is where it started going a little wrong. To get perfectly straight sides you have to trim the edges but I decided to trim one cake at a time instead of all three at once. This resulted in a slightly wobbly finish.

 

In the video she lets the ganache cool to room temperature, refrigerates it over night and then brings it back to room temperature to use. Since I was pressed for time I let it cool to room temperature and warmed it a little so it was easier to spread. I spread the ganache in between the layers and then finally over the cake and used a spatular to even it out. 

 

As I said the cake was a bit wobbly on the sides and unlike icing ganache doesn’t hide the flaws in the cake so the sides looked a little uneven. I suggest putting the cake on a wire cooling rack and then pouring the ganache over the top and letting it run. This way you don’t get a pool of ganache like I did and the ganache spreads a lot more evenly.  

 

Ta da! The finished product, not bad for a first attempt, the hole on top is from the musical candle.  

  

Triple chocolate!!

So this is my first batch in my new kitchen! I did the bigger half in the maker and the smaller half with frosting.

And because one layer of chocolate over chocolate pops isn’t enough, I added white chocolate!

Pretty bouquet!

And all packed..

Moving maddness!

So since I am moving very ridiculously shortly I haven’t been able to bake (apologies) however while looking for things for my new pad I came across TheHappy Lab.

 Must have!