First pottery piece..

...that I made in my new course (started in April). The progress i this course is much slower but the pieces are finished better and I learn a lot more then before. One down side is that the glazes are a lot less spectacular then in my last class. But at the same time it's nice to glaze thing simply and make a form that suits that.

This cake stand is the the perfect piece to present these small savoury tarts on (made with some delicious Cashel Blue and left over beer and coconib jam)and it was soon empty again.

Hay Hay it's Donna Day #15

A last minute assembly tart for this months edition of Hay Hay it's Donna Day hosted by Sarini from Trinigrourmet. We're about to leave for a long weekend in Paris to see some rugby, take in some culture, do a bit of shopping and eat lots of nice food.

I've been using a lot of chickpea flour lately but mainly in savoury dishes but wanted to try a sweet version as well. So along with the half pomegranate at the back of the fridge I thought they would make the great basis for an Arabic/Mediterranean inspired tart. I made a simple dough using chickpea flour (200g), butter (75g), sugar (2 tbsp), ground green cardamom (1 tsp) and a bit of water. The dough does not "come together" as there is no gluten in this flour so I just divided it over 4 buttered mini pastry cases. These were baked 15 minutes at 180°C and in the mean time, I diluted some Membrillo with a bit of water to make it into a softer paste. I spread this on top of the case, then applied a thin layer of ricotta, dusted this with more ground cardamom and finally sprinkled pomegranate seeds on top. All done in 25 minutes.

The tart was beautiful to look at and the taste pleasantly surprised me. I know you can't go far wrong using all good ingredients but still, it turned out better then expected. The nutty crust combined perfectly with the sticky sweet quince paste and the creamy ricotta whereas the pomegranate seeds provided a nice tart and fresh contrast. Definitely worth a repeat performance.

Update: the round up has now been posted....what a fabulous collection of tarts! A lot of inspiration/yummy things there to try out soon

SHF #34 - going local!

Moving to a new country can be quite a shock to the system. You have to deal with a new language, culture and customs whilst settling in, looking for an apartment and finding which isle has what in the supermarket. Lucky for me when I moved here, I spent the first two weeks living with a colleague (and now close friend) of mine who helped Barry and me settle in so much here in Basel.

She made me feel really at home in her apartment, translated house adds, helped me to make viewing appointments (my German is ok but I often struggle with Swiss-German), introduced us to Fastnacht and fed us our first cheese fondue in Basel. We also spent evenings baking Christmas biscuits together and made many nice walks in the Jura. Without her it would have taken us a lot longer to settle in and we forged a great friendship in those two weeks (and since then). I think it helped a lot that we share a love for the outdoors and great food and I'm learning lots of Swiss recipes from her. One of them is this red berry meringue tart that is her signature dish. The recipe came from her mother and before that I don't know. I thought it a very fitting entry for this months SHF hosted by Johanna as for me it will always remind me of Basel and settling in here.

You can only make it for a few months in summer as in Switzerland the produce is extremely seasonal (and even regional!) but it is delicious. A buttery nutty crust filled with a mix of tart red berries and a fluffy sweet meringue. Its very fresh and looks beautiful (although unfortunately no pictures due to death of digital camera). This year, I will also try to make it in winter by freezing some red berries to use and perhaps substituting them for cranberries.

Simone’s red berry meringue tart
Fort he crust
-200g butter
-100g sugar
-300g flour
-1 egg
-2tbsp ground almonds

For the filling
-3 egg whites
-130g sugar
-1 Tbsp ground almonds
-500g red berries
Mix the ingredients for the crust together, roll it out and place into a buttered tart dish.Bake this blind for 15 min 190°C. In the mean time, whisk the egg white till thick and add the sugar slowly. Then stir the in ground almonds and berries. Pour the mixture into the base, first bake 10 min at 190°C. Then reduce the oven temperature to 160°C and bake for a further 20-25 min.

A Taste of Yellow

Having lost my grandparents and family friends to cancer I figured this was a very worthwhile event to take part in. I have so much respect for people who have to deal with this every day. For this occasion I made a passion fruit tart based on a recipe from this book. Very simple to make and with a sweet zingy taste this beautiful yellow tart would brighten anybody's day!

Passion fruit tart serves 8
*for the pastry
200g plain flour
100g butter
75g sugar
pinch of salt
water

*for the filling
150 ml double cream
100g caster sugar
200 ml passion fruit pulp (about 9 fruits)
4 eggs
icing sugar, for caramelizing

Mix together flour, butter, sugar and salt till you have a crumbly mixture. Then add water until it comes together into a firm dough. Wrap this in cling film and place in the fridge for about 30 min-1 hour. Preheat the over to 190C, grease a 20cm tart tin and cover with the rolled out pastry. Prick the base with a fork, cover with baking paper and fill with beans. Bake 10 min, then remove the beans and bake another 5 min or until golden. Take out of the oven and reduce the temperature to 140C. Warm the cream in a small pan. In a large bowl, whisk the butter, sugar and passion fruit pulp , then whisk in the eggs. Finally, add the pre-warmed cream and pass everything through a sieve to get rid of the seeds (press these down well to get as much juice from them). Pour the mixture into the tray and bake 50-55 min or until the filling is just firm at the edge but still wobbly in the centre. Leave to cool completely, remove from the tin and chill for several hours to allow the centre to firm. Just before serving, dust the surface with icing sugar and place it under a hot grill to caramelize and make a thin, golden glaze.

Waiter, there's something in my ... Easter basket!

When we were younger, we always knew Easter was coming when a big beautiful chocolate egg like this one appeared at home. These would come from my dad's latest trip to Geneva. Luckily for us, he had to go there a few times a year for work resulting in a steady supply of great chocolate! The bottom half of the egg would be made out of solid chocolate and the top was covered in parlines and truffels. The total was topped off with a huge bow, which my brother and I claimed/argued owership over . Now I've grown up and I know it's a pretty commercial event (especially here, with aisles of decorations) but still I can't help but get excited about the huge display of chocolate that the shops have put on.

And as Johanna is hosting this months rendition of Waiter, there's something in my ... Easter basket it only seems fitting that the first item will be chocolate. But as this isn't very exciting - to prepare that is - I also include two more Swiss traditional Easter customs/dishes. The first one is Osterfladli, a creamy custardy tart containing golden sultanas encased in a crunchy puff pastry that is eaten specially around this time. We'd had it a few times over the last few weeks in the bakeries and I was interested to make one myself. I used a recipe from my Swiss cookbook and was surprised to find that it's made using old bread. I also didn't realize it was a slightly more complex then a normal custard. But it's well worth the little bit of extra effort both for the taste and the texture. My only problem with the recipe was that I couldn't figure out how long to bake the tart for. My recipe called for a "sic" or 5 quarters of an hour?? I figured this would be 75 min? But after 1 hour the top of my tarts were very brown instead of a golden easter yellow I've seen in the shops so I took them out. They still tasted fine and weren't burnt but still. I'm not sure if this is a problem with my oven but just keep an eye on them. I was also sceptical about not baking the puff pastry blind but the long baking time made this really nice and crunchy. I just dusted the top with a little bit of sugar to hide the brown. The end result was scrummy anyway, with the occasional raisin popping up for a texture/taste change. They were even better the next day and I prefer these to the shop ones.

The second is dyed eggs. The Swiss love their eggs, on their Rosti or just as is. The whole year round you can buy boiled, dyed eggs but the last few weeks, the piles of trays have been getting bigger and more prominent in the shops, there are lots of kits for sale to paint or dye them. In addition, in the local pubs (the traditional Swiss ones) you can find little trays of them on the table that you can help yourself from and pay when you leave. This is where I first saw eggs dyed the old fashioned way. beautiful brown coloured eggs with patterns of grasses and flowers on them. So I decided to dye mine this way too. I saved some onion skins and picked some flowers. I wasn't quiet sure what to tie mine up with so I used an orange net, which gave a nice added effect in the pattern (but I guess for a clean finish some linen would be better. Then boiled them like they were normal eggs. I was quite pleased with how they turned out, although they were a bit more blurry than expected but I guess this will come with practice....and they tasted great on our walking/foraging trip today (but more about that some other time)!

Osterfladen
Easter tart, makes 6 small ones
25g White bread (without crust)
milk
1 egg, separated
65g coarsly chopped almonds
65g sugar
25g golden sultanas
175 ml cream
125g puff pastry

Heat the over to 180°C. Crumble up the bread and soak this in milk. Pour off the excess liquid and mix in a large bowl with sugar, almonds and egg yolk. Add the dried fruit to the mix. Whip the cream into soft peaks and in a seperate bowl, beat the egg whites till stiff. Fold the cream into the mixture and finally the egg whites. Roll the pastry out thinly and line 6 buttered mini quiche pans. Pour the mixture and bake for 1 hour (keep an eye on this, might need longer/shorter).

Finally found!

The first time I heard about cocoa nibs was August 2005 in this post. I was intrigued by the description of these roasted cocoa beans and tried to find them both in Dundee and Edinburgh but without success. Time went by, I gave up on finding them in Scotland and forgot about them again. Then this summer, making the same jam again, my interest was rekindled. I figured living in Switzerland, famous for it's chocolate, I should be able to find them. So I visited the chocolate shops, bakers, high end department stores but everybody looked at me like I'd gone mad. "Roasted cocoa beans? What on earth is wrong with a normal chocolate bar or praline??" I could see them think.

Then by fluke last saturday I found another chocolate shop, in an alley next to my favourite bakery, I figured I had nothing to lose, walked in and shyly asked if they had perhaps ever heard of roasted cocoa beans in my bestest broken German... and by a miracle, without blinking the lady said:"yes of course, we carry 2 different kinds, which one would you like?" I was so surprised that I didnt hear her description and picked the ones with the yellow label as it looked more pretty. Chuffed to bits I cycled home, I couldn't believe I'd found them and just in time for Sugar High Friday. Originally started by the Domestic Goddess, this month it was hosted by Chocolate in Context. But now to decide what to cook?! I thought about these cookies or this jam but in the end I settled on a small tart using up some chestnut jam and eggwhite to fit the wintery cold we had this weekend.

I made a simple pate brisee, lined two small tart tins with the pastry and baked them blind for about 15 min. I ground down a handful of the beans, mixed this with a few tablespoons of chestnut jam and put this on the pastry. I covered this with an eggwhite stiffly whisked with sugar. Popped it in the oven for 30 min at 150°C and let it cool to room temperature. I was really pleased with the result. The sweet gloopy chestnut jam was balanced nicely by the bitter cocoa beans and the meringue was light and fluffy on top. Next time, I think I would add a tiny bit of cornflour to the jam, to thicken it a bit as now some syrup was dripping out. But I still have lots left so I can try again and finally make all those other recipes :-)