14th of October - Chocolate tart

We went back to Spain last week. I wanted to celebrate my birthday with my family and it was going to be my last chance to see my sister with the bump before she delivered the baby.

We stayed just a few days and were very busy trying to see everybody. I didn't spend too much time with my sister, although she supposed to be due on the 7th of November, she started to feel Braxton-Hicks contractions so she wasn't feeling too well, but at least we'd get to have dinner all together at my parents' for my birthday!

My father and my sister have to be very careful with their sugar intake, they don't need medication, just to be careful with what they eat so I decided to make this dark chocolate tart, Jamie Oliver's recipe, but with fructose instead of sugar.

At nine o'clock that evening, we got a phone call from my brother-in-law telling us that my sister's waters had broken and he would keep us updated! My first reaction was to get quite upset. I was convinced that she would be twenty hours in labor and I wouldn't get to see either my sister or the baby as we were getting our flight back the afternoon after.

After an hour or so we got another phone call. Things were moving forward so they were taking her to the delivery room. Well, we couldn't do anything else, you never know how long these things are going to be, so we started dinner. After all, my parents live five minutes from the hospital!

Baby Emma arrived at 23:45 that night, the fastest delivery in history and the same day as her auntie Irma! I like to think that she wanted to meet me before I returned to Edinburgh.

She's tiny, super cute and I'm very happy she was born on the same day as me!

Here you have the chocolate tart recipe. I had to freeze half of the base dough, use half of the quantities or make two tarts!

PASTRY
325g unsalted butter
110 g fructose or 225g caster sugar
a pinch of salt
565g plain flour, sifted, plus extra for dusting
3 large free range or organic eggs
65g cocoa powder
Optional.... zest of 1 orange

FILLING
200ml milk
1/2 tube creme fraiche
30 g fructose or 65gr caster sugar
350g best quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), broken up
2 large free range eggs

First you will need to grease a loose-bottomed 28cm/11in tart tin with a little of our butter.
To make the pastry, cream together the butter, fructose and salt, then fold in the flour, orange zest (if using), eggs and cocoa powder.

When the mixture looks like coarse breadcrumbs, gently work it together until you have a ball of dough, then lightly flour it. Don't work the pastry too much, otherwise it will become elastic and chewy, not crumbly and short. Wrap the dough in cling film and put it in the fridge for at least an hour. Remove it from the fridge, roll out and line your tart tin with it and put it in the freezer for half an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180degC and bake the pastry case "BLIND" for around 12-15min or until its firm and almost biscuit like. Remove from the oven and turn the oven down to 170degC.

Meanwhile.... to make the choc filling, put the milk, cream and fructose into a saucepan and slowly bring to the boil, stirring gently. Take off the heat and add the broken chocolate, whisking until smooth, then add eggs and whisk again. Pour the filling into a jug. Put the pastry case back in the oven, carefully pull out the shelf and pour in the filling. Push the shelf back in and bake for 15min. It is cooked when the filling still has a slight wobble to it - remember it will keep firming up a little as it cools down.

Peach crumble pie

A quick post to introduce my proposal for the  la recepta del 15 challenge. This month is all about peaches!

I've chosen this recipe because it's so easy to prepare and I had all the ingredients in the kitchen. It's like a double crumble to put it in some way. Actually it reminds to a German Streusel.

 

For the filling:

3 diced peeled peaches
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 cup granulated sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg


For the dough:

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cinnamon and sugar-for sprinkling on top

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Spray a 9×13-inch baking pan with cooking spray and set aside.

2. For the peach filling- place the diced peaches in a large bowl and sprinkle with lemon juice. Mix gently. In a separate bowl whisk together flour, cornstarch, sugar, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Pour over the peaches and carefully combine. Set aside.

3. For the dough-in a large bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender until butter is mixed in, but you still have small chunks of butter. Mix the vanilla and egg together. Add into the flour and butter mixture and combine. The dough will be crumbly. Pat half of the dough into the prepared pan.

4. Spread the peach mixture evenly over the bottom crust. Crumble the remaining dough over the peach layer. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.

5. Bake for 45 minutes, or until the top is golden brown. Cool completely on a wire rack.

El vam menjar tebi tal qual, però amb un bon gelat de vainilla ha de quedar un postr la mar de complet.

Liz's apple pie

Ok, I'll try my best to describe her recipe. She wasn't very accurate with the mesuraments. Here we go:

350 gr flour
75 g margarine (feel free to use unsalted butter)
2 cooking apples2 large handfuls of sugar1 splash of water
1 pinch of salt

 Pre-heat oven to 200C. Cut apples into small chunks and cook them with a bit of water and sugar until they are soft, but not mushy.

Meanwhile put the flour and salt in a large bowl and add the margarine. Use your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour until you have a mixture that resembles coarse breadcrumbs with no large lumps of butter remaining. Lift it up high and let it fall back down into the bowl, which means that air is being incorporated all the time, that is what makes pastry light.

Using a knife, stir in just enough of the cold water to bind the dough together. I always thought a good shortcrust pastry should be made with iced-cold water and let it rest in the fridge for a while. You thought that too, don't you? She didn't bother!

 Take half of the dough and  on a floured surface and roll it out with the roller pin as thin as possible and transfer to a 18 cm pie tin. Fill it with the apple.

Roll out the other half of the dough for the pie lid, trim the excess dough and press the edges all around with your fingers. Make some cuts in the middle of the pie so the apples can steam away. Decorate as you like and brush the top of the pastry with milk.

Place the pie dish into the preheated oven and bake for 10 minutes. Remove it from the oven and sprinkle with granulated sugar. Put it back for 3 more minutes and it's done!

I was sure we were going to eat uncooked pastry, but we didn't!!