Recipe: Raspberry tart with apple chip

Makes: 12 mini tarts  (~6cm in diameter)

Time required: 3 hours

Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆

Inspiration:

Most of the time my baking ideas come while walking through the supermarket to see which fruits are available. One of the (many) great things about Hong Kong is that we get fruit imported from all around the world which means that fruits like raspberries are available throughout the year and usually at a reasonable price. Given raspberries are super cheap at the moment, I decided to make a dessert bursting with raspberries. The elements of this tart are:

  • Sable base (my first time making a sable and it was super buttery and delicious that I was hoping some of the bases would crack so I could eat them straight from the oven)
  • raspberry cream
  • fresh raspberries
  • chocolate disc
  • apple chip

Ingredients:

Sable base:

  • 150g butter
  • 70g icing sugar
  • 70g almond meal
  • 100g plain flour
  • 10g salt

Raspberry cream:

  • 300g butter
  • 200g raspberries
  • 150g icing sugar

Chocolate disc:

  • 200g dark chocolate

Apple chip:

  • 1 green apple
  • 20ml lemon juice
  • 40+100g caster sugar
  • 1 gelatin leaf
  • 10g butter

Instructions:

Sable base:

  1. whisk together butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy
  2. sift in the flour, almond and salt and mix until well combined
  3. flatten into a disc on a baking sheet and refrigerate for 1 hours
  4. roll out to ~1cm thick and return to the fridge for another 20 minutes
  5. cut out 12 circles around 6cm in diameter and bake  the circles inside the rings at 160C for 15 minutes, removing the rings after around 10mins in the oven

Raspberry cream:

  1. puree raspberries in a food processor and simmer over medium heat until slightly reduced
  2. whisk together butter and sugar then slowly add in the raspberry and whisk until well combined

Chocolate disc:

  1. temper chocolate over a double boiler
  2. spread onto a sheet of acetate
  3. when slightly set, cut out 12 circles, around 5cm in diameter

apple chip:

  1. place apple and lemon in a food processor
  2. bloom gelatin, then drain and place the bowl over a pot of simmering water to melt the gelatin
  3. add the gelatin and 40g of sugar into the apple/lemon then process until well combined
  4. add the apple puree, remaining sugar and butter to a pan over medium-high heat and simmer until slightly reduced
  5. spread the puree over a baking sheet (in different shapes) and baking at 150C for 5-10 minutes until lightly golden

Assemble:

  1. for each sable base: place raspberries around the edges and fill the hole in the middle with some of the raspberry cream
  2. place the chocolate disc on top of each tart then pipe another dallop of raspberry cream
  3. top with an apple chip (or any other decorations) … i also tried decorating it with a chocolate leaf
raspberry tart - apple chips
shaping the apple chips before placing into the oven
raspberry tart 1
Assembling the raspberry tarts
The finished raspberries tart, decorated with a chocolate leaf
The finished raspberries tart, decorated with a chocolate leaf

Recipe: Lemon Meringue Tarts with blueberry gelee

Finished: lemon meringue tart with blueberry gelee

Makes: 16 small round cakes (~5cm in diameter)

Time required: 2 hours over 2 sessions (~2 hour at a time)

Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆

Inspiration:

One of the things I love about entremets is that you can take different desserts, flavours and textures and layer them into a small delicate cake. For this cake, I wanted to “recreate” a lemon meringue pie – have all the elements of a normal lemon meringue pie (buttery crust, lemon curd, meringue) but create it in a different form. To add a twist … I included a bluberry gelee which oozes out when you cut into the cake – the sweetness (but also subtle flavour) of the blueberry is a great contrast to the sour lemon curd.

Elements of this cake:

  • buttery biscuit base
  • lemon curd mousse
  • blueberry gelee
  • meringue
  • blueberries and chocolate leaf to decorate

Ingredients:

Tart base:

  • 3 egg yolks
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 150g plain flour
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 70g pure icing sugar
  • 120g butter, cold

blueberry gelee:

  • 125g blueberries
  • 30ml water
  • 70g caster sugar

Lemon curd:

  • 200g caster sugar
  • juice from 3 lemons
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 2 whole eggs
  • pinch of salt
  • 50g butter

Lemon mousse:

  • lemon curd made above
  • 2 gelatin sheets
  • 450ml whipping cream
  • juice from 1 lemon

Meringue:

  • 2 egg whites
  • 120g caster sugar
  • 40ml water

To decorate:

  • blueberries
  • tempered chocolate leaves

Instructions:

Tart base:

  1. whisk together the egg yolks and vanilla and set aside
  2. in a separate bowl, sift together the flour, salt and icing sugar
  3. cut the cold butter into 1cm cubes and beat into the flour mixture until it resembles a coarse sand. Careful not to overmix
  4. mix the egg into the flour/butter mixture until just combined
  5. roll into a flat disc and refrigerate for at least an hour
  6. once all the other elements of the cake have been prepared roll the dough to 0.5cm thickness and cut out 16 circles just slightly larger than the round moulds
  7. bake at 170C for 12 minutes until the edges of the biscuit base is golden

Blueberry gelee:

  1. bring all ingredients to a boil and then simmer for ~5 minutes until the mixture thickens
  2. place into a piping bag and then set aside in the fridge to cool as you prepare the lemon mousse

Lemon curd:

  1. whisk together all ingredients except for the butter
  2. place all ingredients (including the butter) into a saucepan over medium heat and continue whisking until the mixture thickens into a curd
  3. place three quarters of the curd into the fridge to cool while leaving the remaining quarter at room temperature

Lemon mousse:

  1. bloom gelatin sheets in iced water for 10 minutes
  2. bring the lemon juice to boil then melt in the bloomed gelatin sheets
  3. mix in the room temperature lemon curd and set aside while preparing the rest of the mousse
  4. in a separate bowl, whisk the cream to medium peaks
  5. whisk together the room temperature lemon curd with the cold lemon curd until light and airy
  6. gently fold into the whipped cream to form the mousse

Meringue:

  1. place sugar and water over low-medium heat to create a sugar syrup
  2. meanwhile, begin whisking the egg whites in a large bowl
  3. when the sugar syrup is ready, pour the sugar syrup in a slow steady stream while constantly whisking the egg whites at maximum speed
  4. continue whisking until stiff peaks

To assemble:

  1. pipe the lemon mousse into the round moulds 3/4 full
  2. pipe in a blob of the blueberry gelee then top the remaining of the mould with more lemon mousse
  3. Freeze the moulds for at least 3 hours, until they can be smoothly removed from the moulds
  4. remove the mousse from the moulds then place each lemon mousse piece over a biscuit base
  5. pipe on the meringue, torch the meringue then decorate with blueberries and chocolate
Tart dough - mixing the butter into the flour. Be careful not to overmix
Tart dough – mixing the butter into the flour. Be careful not to overmix
tart dough - pressed into a flat disc and refrigerate for at least 1 hour
tart dough – pressed into a flat disc and refrigerate for at least 1 hour
tart dough - rolled out and cut into round discs
tart dough – rolled out and cut into round discs
circle moulds with lemon mousse and blueberry gelee
circle moulds with lemon mousse and blueberry gelee
lemon meringue tart - decorated with blueberry and chocolate
lemon meringue tart – decorated with blueberry and chocolate
lemon meringue tart with blueberry gelee
Finished: lemon meringue tart with blueberry gelee

 

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Ideas: Christmas baking – macarons and cakes

Christmas baking: reindeer macarons

Christmas is always an exciting time of year … work is quieter … people are in ‘holiday mode’ … the weather in Melbourne is lovely … AND I have more excuses to bake (and plenty of time to bake since the footy isn’t on).

Leading up to Christmas the past two years, I’ve baked for family dinners as well as charity fundraisers which both present their own challenges. This post showcases the cakes I baked for Christmas dinner in 2015 and as well as the macarons baked for a fundraiser leading up to Christmas in 2014.

For Christmas 2016 … check out the posts on my Gingerbread House and Croquembouche journeys.

Christmas themed macarons:

I really enjoy baking macarons and will find an excuse to bake more macarons whether it’s for a wedding, Christmas, Easter or just any party. Here’s my selection of Christmas macarons for a Christmas charity fundraiser:

  1. Christmas pudding macarons: decorated with tempered white chocolate
  2. Christmas coloured macarons: raspberry and matcha flavoured
  3. Reindeer macarons: red m&m’s for the nose and pretzel antlers

Christmas cakes:

Being in charge of dessert for my family’s Christmas dinner is always a challenge – trying to keep all 9 people happy which includes: my parents who don’t like anything too sweet, my sister who always requests something coffee flavoured and a brother-in-law who wants nothing but a tart (more specifically … the Strawberry and Berry Tart from Le Petit Gateau in Melbourne).

Given these requirements, I came up with the following desserts:

  1. Opera cake: to meet the request of a coffee flavoured dessert
  2. Matcha mousse cake: something not too sweet for the parents
  3. Raspberry & passionfruit tart: not quite the same as the tart from Le Petit Gateau, but still a tart with berries
  4. Mango Cheesecake: At this stage I may as well keep baking and use up everything I have in the fridge
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All the cakes after four nights of baking

Opera cake:

A decadent cake made from layers of almond sponge soaked in coffee liquor syrup, chocolate ganache and coffee buttercream – this cake is always one of my favourites to bake (recipe to be posted soon).

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Opera cake – one of my favourite cakes to bake and always a crowd pleaser

Matcha Mousse cake:

Following the matcha trend – I decided to bake a matcha and white chocolate mousse cake for my ‘not too sweet’ dessert. Sitting on top of the matcha almond sponge is a layer of white chocolate mousse which adds a hint of sweetness to the bitter matcha cake.

img_9964
Matcha Mousse cake

Raspberry and Passionfruit tart:

Although the tarts from Le Petit Gateau look amazing, I opted for a more ‘traditional’ tart … baked in a tart pan with plenty of custard and topped with fruit. I made a passionfruit curd to add a bit more flavour to the custard and topped the tart with raspberries, raspberry jam and chopped pistachios. Not quite Le Petit Gateau standard … but still relatively happy with the finished product given it was my first tart or pastry crust attempt.

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Raspberry & passionfruit tart

Mango Cheesecake:

I wasn’t joking earlier when I said that I was using up the ingredients in my fridge. We had several ripe mangos in the house and cream cheese in the fridge. The bright colour of the mango also looked great with the red/green/brown of the other cakes.

This was a very simple cheesecake to make, comprised of a Arnott’s Nice biscuit base, vanilla cheesecake (recipe to be posted soon) and a mango jelly.

img_9903
Mango cheesecake

I’m always looking for new ideas and challenges for Christmas themed baking, so if you have any great posts or recipes, please share below 🙂

 

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Recipe: Passionfruit & Chocolate Tart

passionfruit chocolate meringue tart cake recipe

Makes: 12 mini dome cakes (6cm in diameter)

Time required: 3 hours in total, over 2-3 nights

Difficulty: ★★★☆☆

Inspiration:

The flavours for this cake were inspired by Koko Black’s ‘Passion’ chocolate – bitter, sour and sweet all in one small chocolate. I first tried this passionfruit & chocolate blend four years ago in Melbourne and it is still my favourite flavour combination.

The inspiration for the meringue coating is from my favourite cocktail – the Lavendar Meringue pie from Hong Kong’s Quinary Bar. Although the cocktail itself is very lemon-y, the richness of the meringue with each sip of your cocktail provides a great balance of sweet & sour.

Ingredients:

Chocolate ganache:

  • 150g dark chocolate
  • 100ml cream
  • 10g butter

Passionfruit dome:

  • 200g passionfruit, seeds removed
  • 100g sugar
  • 1 gelatin leaf
  • 175ml cream, whipped

Shortbread crust:

  • 225g butter
  • 100g sugar
  • 350g flour

Meringue:

  • 2 egg whites
  • 180g caster sugar
  • 60ml water

Instructions:

Chocolate ganache:

  1. Bring cream to boil and pour over dark chocolate. Set aside for 2 minutes
  2. Mix in the melted chocolate with the cream
  3. stir in the butter, and set aside to cool while making the passionfruit dome

Passionfruit dome:

  1. Place sugar and passionfruit over low-medium heat until all the sugar has dissolved and the passionfruit slightly thickens
  2. stir in the bloomed gelatin sheet and set aside to cool
  3. once the mixture is at room temperature, gently fold in whipped cream
  4. pour the passionfruit mousse into dome moulds (around 6cm in diameter), leaving a little space for a the chocolate ganache
  5. pipe in around 2tsbp of chocolate ganache. Alternatively, if you have more time to make these cakes you could freeze the chocolate ganache the night before and cut out circles to place into the passionfruit mousse
  6. place the domes into a freezer for at least 3 hours (preferably overnight) to harden

Shortbread crust:

  1. Preheat oven to 160ºC fan forced
  2. cream the butter and sugar in a bowl
  3. add in the flour and mix well with a wooden spoon until a dough has formed
  4. roll out the dough and slice it into 8cm discs. We want the shortbread crust to be at least 1cm wider than the passionfruit dome to be able to hold the meringue
  5. bake for 8 minutes until golden

Meringue:

  1. whisk egg whites until foamy
  2. heat sugar and water over low-med heat until the syrup reaches 120ºC
  3. while whisking the eggs, pour the sugar syrup in a thin stream down the side of the whisking bowl
  4. continue to whisk the eggs until it form stiff peaks

Assembling the cake:

  1. remove the passionfruit mousse dome from the freezer and un-mould the domes
  2. place one dome over each disc of shortbread crust
  3. cover the dome in meringue using a spatula (you could also pipe the meringue in flowers or spikes) and torch until golden brown

I also topped off my cakes with mini candy flowers chocolate decorations

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the finished cake – showing the passionfruit and chocolate encased in meringue
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another photo of the finished passionfruit & chocolate tart

 

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