COOKBOOKS GALORE

I had one more lot of butter puff pastry left over from Christmas, and I've been wanting to make these tarts for ages, as I love custard tarts in any form. I don't think this is exactly like the famous ones, but they're made to a secret recipe! The tarts were first made by Catholic monks in the 18th century. Large amounts of egg whites were used to starch clothes, so the yolks left over were used to make cakes and pastries. Preheat oven 200C/gas6 These are easy to make - you need 250g of puff pastry which you roll out. Lightly grease a muffin tin, cut out 12 small circles and  and line the tin with these. Put the tin in the fridge for about 20 mins. For the filling - beat 4 egg yolks with 100g caster sugar till thick and white. Add 1 tspn of flour and the zest of a lemon, then mix in 25cl of crème fraiche. Pout into a saucepan and bring to the boil over a gentle heat, stirring all the time. As soon as it comes to the boil, take it off the heat and allow to cool. P...

Off on holiday to France tomorrow, so thought I'd post a French recipe. Will be back posting in 2 weeks. At the weekend I picked just enough rhubarb to make some kind of dessert. Wanted something different, and browsing through some old French cookery magazines, I found a recipe for a meringue tart with a difference, as it has a custard layer on the rhubarb before you add the meringue topping. Sounded like a great idea. I love rhubarb, but we haven't a very big garden so I have to make good use of what we can grow! It uses a 27cm tart tin, which is quite big. So, you need: 350g of shortcrust pastry 1 kg rhubarb 1 egg and 2 yolks 20cl of cream 1 tbspn vanilla sugar 150 g of caster sugar (50g for marinating the rhubarb and about 100g or a bit less in the custard] 1 tbspn cornflour For the  meringue :  2 egg whites 50g caster sugar per egg Preheat oven 220C/gas 8 Make the pastry and chill. Cut the rhubarb stems into 2cm pieces, taking the strin...

I'm making the most of the British asparagus season [hence the clafoutis in my previous post] so decided to make a tart. I wanted the asparagus to be the main feature, so no tomatoes nor other veg. Creme fraiche and eggs makes a good savoury custard, so that's what I used. To add some flavour I chopped up a spring onion [oh, I did say no other veg, but these aren't a strong flavour] and it needed some kind of herb, so I used some finely chopped thyme. I made some shortcrust pastry for the case. So, for the pastry: Put 200g plain flour and 120g butter in the food processor and blitz to breadcrumbs, then add 1 medium beaten egg mixed with 1 dspn water. Put it in the fridge in a polybag for 30 mins, then roll it out into a 20cm loose-bottomed flan tin. There was some pastry left over, so I put it in the freezer. I think this amount of pastry would be just right for a 22-23 cm tin, but I don't have one.  Bake the pastry blind, plus baking beans, in oven preheated  to 1...

One of my favourite French desserts, which you find in most French Patisserie shops and supermarkets, is a 'flan'. It's like our custard tart but with flour added to the custard mixture, which makes it more solid, just like a set custard. I've never made one, but browsing on the web I found a few recipes. Apparently, French pastry chefs use a 'Flan' powder. Some recipes used sweet shortcrust pastry, others puff pastry, but the method was usually the same. Some added seeds from a vanilla pod, others vanilla extract. I decided to make some sweet shortcrust pastry  - these ingredients make 250g of pastry. 125g plain flour 80g cold butter cut into cubes 25ml milk pinch salt 10g caster sugar 1 small egg yolk Put the butter and flour onto a working surface and rub the butter in till it's fine breadcrumbs. Make a well in the middle and pour in the milk, then add the salt and sugar and dissolve them in the milk with your fingertips. Add the egg yolk and...

I’ve made a lot of cakes lately, large and small, and decided I wanted to make a tart. I bought a large bag of walnut halves last week, so decided they were just what I needed. My lovely friend who runs a cake shop gave me a few more of her recipes when we met up recently, and this tart is one of hers. You can use shop bought short crust pastry or make your own – enough for a 25cm tart tin, so it’s quite a good sized tart. I made 12oz /350g of pastry – that is 350g of flour and 175g of fat, and I used a mixture of sunflower margarine and Trex, but you could use all butter for a very short pastry. This was just the right amount for the tin. The tart’s made in 2 stages, the baked part with the eggs, sugar, butter and finely chopped walnuts and the topping with the walnut halves topped with caramel. So if you like walnuts, this is the tart for you! Preheat oven 180C/gas4      You need a 25cm tart tin [with sides at least 2.5 cms] You beat 2 eggs and 10...

I wanted to make the traditional Galette de Rois, to celebrate the arrival of the 3 Kings. We ate many of these during our time in France, but only from the boulangerie or the supermarket. My friend who has the teashop, always makes one, and she kindly gave me her recipe. There's a bean or feve in the galette, and the person who finds it in their piece, gets to wear a crown and be king or queen for the day. Preheat oven 180C/gas4 You take a sheet of butter puff pastry and fill it with a delicious almond cream. For the cream - you need to beat 125g of butter till nice and creamy. Put 125g of caster sugar, 130g of ground almonds,1 tbspn of cornflour and a pinch of salt in a bowl and mix together.Add this to the butter and mix till smooth.  Add 1 drop of almond extract then 2 eggs, one at a time. Put the cream in the fridge covered with clingfilm for an hour or overnight, to chill. Roll out a pack of  puff pastry [about 500g] and divide into 2. Roll again and cut out...

A very easy, quick dessert. My younger daughter came yesterday. She is a chocaholic, so dessert had to be something chocolate. Recently I was given a bar of pistachio nougat so decided to use this with the tart, but any nougat would work as it's only the topping. I made a sweet pastry using 200g of flour, 120g butter and 70g of caster sugar, binding it together with a beaten egg. Put in the fridge for 30 mins. Preheat oven 190C/gas5 and grease a tart tin or flan dish. Roll the pastry out to fit the tin/dish and bake blind in the oven for 20 mins. leave to cool. Grate 200g of dark chocolate finely. Bring 20cl of single cream to the boil, take off the heat and add the chocolate. Carefully mix together and leave to cool. Spread it over the pastry case and smooth it out. Put in the fridge for about 20 mins.  Chop up 100g of nougat and use it to sprinkle over the chocolate tart. Sorry, am still having problems with my camera, so photo is a bit blurred! It's an ...

This is a really quick dessert I did to use up some plums which were going soft. It was in a supplement in Woman's Weekly magazine ages ago, and I've made it with various fruit - apricots, pears, apples as well as the original plums. I add cinnamon as we love it. It uses bought puff pastry and store cupboard ingredients, plus the fruit. You need 500g puff pastry, 10 plums which you halve and stone, 4tbspn ground almonds, 1 tbspn icing sugar, 1 tbspn vegetable oil, a tspn cinnamon, about 55g flaked almonds, 2 tbspn honey and milk or beaten egg to brush around the edges of the pastry. You can also use 100g marzipan which you grate, but I didn't use any. You preheat oven 190C/gas5 and you need a baking sheet. Roll the pastry out to a 30x20cm rectangle. Score it 2cm in from the edge all the way round, but don't cut it through. Put the ground almonds, icing sugar and oil in a blender a make into a paste. I used a little more than 1 tbspn oil as my paste wouldn't ...

My friend Jenny came to stay recently, and as usual, brought me a few recipes she thought I'd like. We've always exchanged recipes, and her cheesecake is legendary in my family. I have to say that I cheated a bit, as I used tinned peaches because I couldn't find any ripe ones in the shops; it still tasted great. It's very simple - peaches in frangipane. You can use bought pastry too. Jenny said that it tastes better if you grind whole almonds, instead of buying ground almonds ready done. It didn't take long to whizz them in the food processor.                              400g shortcrust pastry [can use butter JusRol if you're feeling lazy]                             200g whole blanched almonds                             150g caster sugar       ...

As I said in a recent post, plums are one of my favourite fruit. I love making crumbles and tarts with them, but wanted to find something different to try. This recipe is from a Woman's Weekly magazine; it's one of the hundreds of recipes I have to sort out in my cuttings folder! I bought a punnet of plums from the supermarket which were marked as seconds, and they were really hard. Anyway I thought I'd use them in my new recipe, and they turned out soft and juicy. 250g plain flour 170g chopped up butter 1 egg yolk I used my processor to make the pastry, putting in the flour, butter and egg yolk and adding a tbspn of water and blitzing till the pastry started to come together. Roll out and line the flan tin and chill for 30 mins. it's a very short pastry and breaks easily, but is easily patched up. Filling: 1 tspn cinnamon 2 tbspns soft brown sugar 750g plums, stoned and quartered Topping: 1 egg + a yolk 125g creme fraiche 45g soft brown sugar ...

I have some apples to use up, so decided to hunt through my collection of apple recipes to find something different. This recipe is from a booklet I had many years ago in a magazine called 'Home and freezer Digest' which sadly no longer exists. I thought I'd also use this as my offering to Ruth's [of 'Pink Whisk'] October challenge -  to use apples in a recipe - which you'll find here Pastry: 75g butter 175g plain flour 25g ground almonds 1 egg yolk 15ml cold water 1/4 tspn almond essence Topping: 115g plain flour 1/2 tspn mixed spice 50g butter in cubes 50g light demerara sugar 50g flaked almonds Filling: 675g cooking apples 25g sultanas Preheat oven 190C/375F/gas5 I used a food processor to blend the flour and butter for the pastry, then stirred in the sugar and ground almonds. Whisk the egg yolk, water and almond essence together, then add them to the mixture and make into a nice soft dough. Put into the...