passover week 2017 - raspberry craquelin profiteroles

passover week 2017 - raspberry craquelin profiteroles

4 Apr 2017

Welcome to Day 2 of Passover Week. Many years ago I used to make Passover 'bagels' which were made from choux pastry using matzo meal instead of flour. Last year I tried making passover profiteroles using my Passover baking mix and they were an abject failure. The potato flour when cooked was a nasty thing so I went back to the drawing board and decided to try again this time using superfine matzo meal by itself.




For the choux pastry, I used this Trine Hahnemann recipe swapping superfine matzo meal for the flour. I wanted to top the profiteroles with something other than chocolate so I made a crumble or craquelin topping.



Traditionally this topping is made using brown sugar but I couldn't track down any brown sugar in the passover section of the supermarket so I used plain sugar and it turned out just fine.



I lightly adapted the filling from Trine Hahnemann's recipe and I added some lemon curd I had in the fridge.



Here's the recipe for you which makes 12 profiteroles. Please note for all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.



Raspberry Craquelin Profiteroles – makes 12
Craquelin
50g Passover baking mix (equal quantities potato flour and superfine matzo meal)
50g caster sugar
40g unsalted butter, softened

To make the craquelin, place baking mix in a small food processor and blitz with the sugar and 40g butter and whiz to combine until a soft dough forms. Place dough between 2 sheets of baking paper and roll out to 2 mm thick. Place on a tray and refrigerate or at least 30 minutes to firm up. Cut out twelve 5cm circles and refrigerate until needed.

Choux Pastry
100g butter
200mls water
100g superfine matzo meal
½ teaspoon caster sugar
Pinch salt
3 eggs, lightly beaten
butter, for the tray

Cream Filling
300ml cream
3 tbs caster sugar
1 vanilla pod
150g raspberries
Optional – lemon curd

Method
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Line a buttered baking tray with baking paper. Mark twelve 5cm circles on the paper leaving space between.

Put the butter in a saucepan with 200ml of water and let it melt over a gentle heat before bringing to the boil. Meanwhile, sift the matzo meal, sugar and salt into a bowl. Take the saucepan off the heat, add the meal and stir with a wooden spoon until a firm, smooth paste is formed. Return to the heat and beat until it comes away from the edges of the pan and forms a ball, then remove from the heat and leave to cool for 10 minutes. Add the eggs to the dough a little at a time, beating well after each addition, until the mixture is smooth. You may not need all the egg.

Put the dough into a piping bag fitted with a 2cm plain nozzle and fill each circle. Brush the top of each profiterole lightly with any remaining egg then top each bun with a craquelin circle. Bake for 30 minutes; do not open the oven door for the first 10 minutes or the pastry may not rise. With a sharp knife pierce a hole in the side of the bun to let the steam out, then reduce oven to 160°C and bake for a further 10-15 minutes or until dry to the touch. The pastries are done when they are golden brown and firm. Transfer to a wire rack and with a sharp knife, slice the profiterole in half. Remove any uncooked mixture and return to the oven to dry out for a further 10 minutes. Leave to cool.

Cream Filling
Put 12 whole raspberries to one side. Whip the cream together with the sugar until soft peaks form. Slit the vanilla pod lengthways with a sharp knife and scrape out the seeds with the tip. Add to the cream with the raspberries, whipping again briefly to mix in the vanilla and roughly break up the berries. Pipe or spoon some of the raspberry cream on the bottom half of the choux bun. Place a whole berry on top of the cream before placing the other half on top, being careful not to press them together. Refrigerate until serving time.

I had some leftover lemon curd in the fridge so I spooned 2 teaspoons of the curd in the base of the profiterole before filling with the cream and decorating with a single berry. If you’d like to do the same, the recipe is below.

Lemon Curd
2 egg yolks 
1/3 cup caster sugar 
1 tablespoon potato flour (starch)
Grated rind and juice of 2 lemons 
¼ cup (60 ml) water

Method
In top of a double saucepan mix the egg yolks, sugar, potato flour, lemon rind and gradually stir in the lemon juice and water. Cook stirring over boiling water until the filling is smooth and thick. Cool before storing in an airtight container. Keep refrigerated until serving time.



Yes these are a little bit of a fiddle but I think they're worth the effort and I'll definitely make them again. 

See you all again tomorrow with Day 3 of Passover Week 2017.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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passover week 2017 - flourless chocolate cake

passover week 2017 - flourless chocolate cake

3 Apr 2017

Welcome to Passover Week 2017. I've been baking up a storm in the kitchen and this year the items are on the slightly more ambitious end of the spectrum so I hope you'll like what I've been working on. Here's the first recipe for you, a flourless chocolate cake.

Sometimes it's easy finding recipes to bake for Passover that are conveniently flourless. Sometimes the recipe just needs a small amount of renovation before it's Passover ready. Often times you can't source the Kosher for Passover items you need for the recipe so find yourself looking for substitute ingredients then keep your fingers crossed that all will work out in the end. 



This first recipe is one of those conveniently flourless recipes - a slightly modified version of Flour and Stone's Chocolate Manjari Cake. I didn't have a choice of chocolate so I made this cake with the only Passover dark chocolate I could find. 




I baked a small version of the cake so the quantities were reduced to fit my tin but the original quantities can be found in the recipe, which I've linked above. I did slightly modify the technique to reduce the number of steps in the recipe. This cake requires endless beating and folding so I needed to wash my mixer and beaters three times during the construction phase.



I have to say, the end result was worth it because this cake was gorgeous - a little mousse like and intensely dark and chocolately. I haven't tried this myself but I'm sure it could be made dairy free by using almond milk and swapping the whipped cream for olive oil, slowly added to the whipped eggs and sugar. One day I must give it a go.



Here's the recipe for you. Please note, for all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 gm and my oven is a conventional oven, not fan forced. If your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the cooking temperature by 20°C.

Flourless Chocolate Cake – Flour and Stone
125 gm dark chocolate 
60 ml (¼ cup) milk
Juice of ½ lemon
25 gm Dutch-process cocoa, plus extra for dusting
1 egg plus 1 yolk
60 gm caster sugar
75 gm egg whites (about 2 large eggs)
100 ml pouring cream, whisked to soft peaks, refrigerated until required

Preheat oven to 160°C, conventional. Line a 16cm-diameter springform cake tin with baking paper. Coarsely chop the chocolate and place in a heat proof bowl. Bring milk and lemon juice to the boil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat while stirring (don’t worry if it curdles). Add to the chocolate and gently stir until the chocolate melts. If there are a few unmelted chocolate pieces then microwave the bowl on high for 30 seconds and stir again until the chocolate has completely melted, then fold in the cocoa.

Whisk eggs and 45gm sugar in an electric mixer on high speed until thick and fluffy(5-6 minutes). Add the egg mixture to chocolate in 3 batches, gently folding to combine between additions. It’s okay if the mixture is streaky – there’s a lot of folding yet to do and we want to preserve as much of the air as possible.

Whisk egg white and a pinch of salt in an electric mixer on medium speed until egg white forms soft ribbons form (2-3 minutes), then gradually add remaining sugar and whisk to soft peaks (1-2 minutes).

Gently fold the cream into chocolate mixture in 2 batches followed by egg white in 2 batches. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake until centre springs back when pressed (1-1¼ hours). Turn off heat and cool in oven with door slightly ajar to reduce the amount the cake falls as it is cooling. When cake is cool, dust with cocoa and serve. The chocolate cake will keep for 4 days in an airtight container, though I doubt it will last that long!





See you all again tomorrow with some more Passover baking.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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lemon ricotta and polenta cake

lemon ricotta and polenta cake

27 Mar 2017

I first saw a photo of this cake in Delicious magazine way back in 2014 and I've been thinking of making it ever since. With soon to expire leftover ricotta in the fridge, I decided the time had come to make the cake.




The recipe is quite similar to an Ottolenghi upside down orange cake I make quite often, so I changed the proportions a little based on that tried and true recipe. If you compare the recipe to the original, there's more egg in my recipe, lemons were used instead of the limes and I've added a little bit of flour.



Here's the recipe for you which makes a small loaf tin. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C. To make a regular size loaf cake, just double all the ingredients and bake for the same length of time.




Lemon Ricotta and Polenta Cake - adapted from a Darren Robertson recipe via Delicious magazine 2014

Ingredients
55g fine (instant) polenta
2 tbs plain flour
1 cup almond meal
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch of sea salt
115g unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup caster sugar
zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 eggs
125g fresh ricotta, cut into 1-2 cm pieces
Sprig fresh rosemary

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Grease a 17cm x 9cm x 8cm pan and line the base and sides with baking paper.

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl and set to one side.

Cream the butter and sugar and lemon rind in an electric mixer. Still beating, slowly add the eggs until completely mixed. Mix in the dry ingredients alternating with the lemon juice to make a soft batter. Allow the mixture to stand for a few minutes before gently folding in the ricotta, trying to keep the ricotta pieces whole.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin, then sprinkle a few rosemary leaves over the cake mixture. Bake for 1 hour, or until golden brown and cooked when tested with a skewer. If the cake is browning too much, cover the cake with a piece of baking paper. Allow the cake to cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes before turning out.



This makes a moist dense cake. The rosemary adds an intriguing flavour but next time I'd add some finely chopped rosemary to the cake batter rather than on the top of the batter. The rosemary sprigs dry out as the cake bakes and they get a little bit too crunchy.



I've been baking up a storm in preparation for Passover week. I have lots of good things to share with you. 

See you all again soon.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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shopshoot - the design twins

shopshoot - the design twins

20 Mar 2017

Sydney traffic is pretty awful so I avoid using the car and use public transport as much as I can. It does mean most weekends I don’t stray too far from my home.

Last Sunday I decided the time had come to do some furniture shopping. I’ve been looking for an armchair for 2 years now and I’m yet to find ‘the one’. Into the car I went and drove over to Precinct 75 in St Peters where the Design Twins shop is located. 

They’ve moved premises since my last visit so I needed to hunt around the precinct a bit before finding the showroom. 



They're waiting on a shipment, so they didn’t have the chair I was looking for but that didn’t stop me from roaming around the store. I asked if I could take a few photos to share with you and once I had the okay, I snapped away.

This is what I found inside - an eclectic assortment of furniture and homewares.

The Design Twins also fabricate concrete pots.

I loved this light fitting.

There is plenty of artwork on display as well.



Another view of the store.

and finally, the beautiful bouquet you may have seen on my instagram account.

I hope you enjoyed my visit to the Design Twins. If you'd like to visit you can find them at 1.04 75 Mary Street St Peters NSW.

See you all again next week with some baking.

Bye for now,

Jillian 

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semolina and fig tart

semolina and fig tart

13 Mar 2017

It's fig season in Sydney. As the season is so short as soon as figs appeared in the fruit shop, I bought a few and took them home with me.



Normally I'd use them to make a fig frangipane tart but on this occasion I decided to adapt the semolina and raspberry tart recipe from Ottolenghi, the cookbook. I used my own pastry recipe but adapted the filling recipe a little and of course swapped out the raspberries for figs.



Unless the figs are perfectly ripe, they're not very sweet so I added a little sugar to the cut figs before baking.



I increased the sugar in the filling a little but still found the tart wasn't quite sweet enough for my taste buds, so I've adjusted the quantity of sugar a little.

Here’s the recipe for you. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 gm and my oven is a conventional oven, not fan forced. If your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the cooking temperature by 20°C.

Semolina and Fig Tart Recipe – makes a 16-18 cm tart (filling from Ottolenghi - The Cookbook)

Pastry
110 g (4 oz) cold unsalted butter, diced
¼ cup icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar)
¼ cup almond meal
1⅓ cups plain flour
1 egg, lightly beaten

To make the pastry, combine all the dry ingredients in a food processor, and whiz for a few seconds until well combined and free of lumps. Add the cold butter and whiz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg and if necessary, a small amount of cold water and whiz until a soft dough just starts to form around the blade.

Remove the dough from the food processor and gather the pastry into a ball; flatten slightly before wrapping in plastic and placing in the fridge. Refrigerate the pastry for 30 minutes. You won't need the whole amount of this dough for the tart. Wrap the pastry in cling film and freeze for another day.

Lightly brush a 16-18cm loose-bottomed cake tin with a tiny amount of oil and set aside. Make sure you have a clean work surface. Dust it with a bit of flour and, using a rolling pin, roll out your dough. You should have a disk that is about 2-3 mm thick. Once you have reached the right thickness, cut the pastry into a circle large enough to cover the tin and most of the sides comfortably. Carefully line the tin and patch up any holes with excess pastry if necessary. Once you lined your tin, trim the pastry with a sharp knife, so you have a nice edge, about 3-4 cm high. Place in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 190°C, conventional. Cut out a circle of baking parchment large enough to cover the base and the sides of your cake tin. Place inside the case and fill up with baking beads or dry beans or rice so that the sides of the pastry are totally supported by the beans and won't collapse during baking. Blind bake the case blind for 25-35 minutes or until it is very light brown. Remove from the oven and take out the beans of rice (you can keep it for future tarts).

Filling
80g unsalted butter
180ml cream
350ml milk
75 - 90g caster sugar
½ tsp vanilla paste
60g semolina
1 egg
6 small figs, quartered
1 tbs sugar
50g apricot jam (optional)
icing sugar, for dusting

To make the filling, put the butter, cream, milk and 75g sugar and vanilla paste in a saucepan. Place the saucepan onto the stove and bring to the boil. Let it simmer while you slowly whisk in the semolina. Continue whisking until the mix comes back to the boil and thickens up like porridge. Remove from the heat and whisk in the egg. Taste the filling at this stage and if not sweet enough, add a little more sugar.

Pour the semolina mixture into the pastry case. If you use a 16 cm tin you won't use all the filling, you'll use about 2/3 - 3/4 of the filling. Decorate the top with some of the quartered figs allowing them to show on the surface. Lightly sugar the figs before baking. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the filling is slightly golden. Remove from the oven and cool slightly before removing the tart from the tin.



Put the apricot jam in a small pan with a tablespoon of water and bring to the boil. Strain it through a sieve and brush over the tart. Finish with the remaining figs and dust with icing sugar.



Now I'm itching to make this again but this time with the raspberries!

See you all again next week with a little shopshoot.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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spring vegetable tart

spring vegetable tart

6 Mar 2017

I just love ricotta cheese. I recently bought a kilogram of it so needed to find ways to use it. I used it to make a pasta sauce; made a cake with it and even made some ricotta gnocchi. Whilst looking through my copy of The Cook and Baker, I saw a recipe for an asparagus, pea, leek and ricotta tart. I needed to buy leeks and asparagus but everything else was either in the fridge or in the cupboard.



Now I made the tart shell using a pastry recipe I've used many times in the past. I started out using the filling recipe in the book but found the proportions didn't work for the tin I used, so I rejigged the recipe and changed the technique a little.



Let's be clear, it might be called a tart but this is a quiche and excellent lunch time fare served warm with a salad.



Here's the recipe for you. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C. It's a little time consuming to make but I think it's worth it.



Spring Vegetable Tart - adapted from the asparagus, pea, leek and ricotta tart recipe from the Cook and Baker
Pastry
1 cup (150 gm) plain flour
Pinch each salt and baking powder
60g butter
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons iced water
Squeeze lemon juice

Filling
20 g butter
1 leek, pale part only thinly sliced
1 bunch asparagus
½ cup frozen peas, defrosted
4 tbls grated parmesan
50 g baby spinach leaves
2 eggs
75 g fresh ricotta cheese, drained
½ cup milk
½ cup cream
½ teaspoon salt
Pinch nutmeg

Pastry
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Rub the butter in lightly until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Combine the egg yolk, water and a squeeze of lemon and sprinkle over the flour stirring with a knife to form a dough. Add a little extra water if necessary. Knead lightly on a floured board to bring together, then wrap the pastry and chill for 30 minutes or until required.

Roll the pastry out on a lightly floured board to fit a 10 x 34 x 2.5 cm loose based rectangular tart tin. Roll the pastry into the flan tin pressing the pastry well into the flutes leaving a small overhang. Chill the pastry for 30 minutes before trimming the pastry level with the top of the flan ring. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line the pastry shell with a piece of baking paper and pour in some baking beads or uncooked rice. Blind bake for 20 minutes then remove the paper and baking beads and bake for another 5-10 minutes or until the pastry is dry and golden. Cool a little.

Filling
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Heat a small frying pan over medium heat. Melt the butter and saute the leeks for 3-4 minutes or until softened. Trim the asparagus. Cut the tips and set aside for garnishing and chop the stems into small pieces. Mix together the asparagus, the peas, the cooked leek and 2 tbls of parmesan.

Place the spinach leaves in the base of the tart, nestle the leek and asparagus mixture amongst the spinach. Garnish with the asparagus tips and sprinkle over the remaining parmesan cheese.

In a medium size bowl combine the eggs with the ricotta cheese and mix until smooth. Mix in the milk and cream; add the nutmeg and season to taste. Place the tart shell on an oven tray then pour in as much custard as you can without the mixture spilling over the edge.

Bake at 200°C for 10 minutes before reducing the temperature to 180°C. Bake for another 20-30 minutes or until the filling is set and the top browned.

Serve hot or at room temperature.



When spring vegetables are back in season, I hope you get a chance to make this. 

See you all again soon.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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