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Chocolate Tart

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Last night for dinner, I decided to try a new recipe and made Chocolate Tarts. They turned  out great, so I decided to share the success.

Ingredients

Pastry:
1 cup flour
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
2 Tbsp icing sugar
pinch of salt
50g butter
1 egg yolk
2 Tbsp cold water

Filling:

1 1/2 cups of chocolate chips
2 Tbsp butter
100g greek yogurt
100g sour cream
1/4 cup cream
1 Tbsp rum

In a bowl place flour, cocoa, icing sugar and salt. Add pieces of the butter to the flour and use fingers to rub the butter into flour until its appearance is like crumbs. Lightly beat the egg yolk and add to the flour with a folk. Add 1-2 Tbsp of cold water to finish the pastry.

Place pastry in the fridge wrapped in plastic wrap for 20 mins. Heat oven to 375 degrees F (190 Degrees C). Roll the pastry out – I used individual pie dishes but you can also use a 22cm spring form. Place pastry in the pie dishes, cover with baking paper and pie weights. Place back in the fridge for 20 mins.

Place into oven for 15 minutes, after 15 mins take off the backing paper and bake for an additional 5 mins. Take out of the oven and leave in tray, cool.

In a bowl which is sitting in a pot containing about an inch of water, melt the chocolate and butter over heat. Once melted use a metal spoon to stir in greek yoghurt, sour cream and cream. Place about 1/3 cup of filling into each pie crust.

Leave in the fridge for 4 hours. Serve with a dollop of whipped cream and slice strawberries.

Never fail cupcakes

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I am still recovering at home from my sinus surgery. This week has been a little more painful than usual, which makes it a little hard to do all the things I wanted to accomplish this week. I have wanted to make updates to posts, with regards to craft projects and the new backyard project, but first I have to finish them somewhat to take photos. After all a photo speaks a thousand words and that is not happening this week unfortunately.

So in the meantime, its been a week or so since I posted recipes. I have recently been trying out some recipes for cupcakes – one specifically for my son’s 5th birthday. Cupcakes, I find a lot of fun as you you can experiment a lot with them and usually end up something all will like.

I have a never-fail recipe I use as a batter starter and from there I get creative. This recipe is very easy to double if you want more than 12 cupcakes.

Vanilla Cupcake Batter (from New Zealand Edmonds Cookbook)

125g butter
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup milk

Cream butter, vanilla and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs  one at a time, beating well after each addition. Sift flour and baking powder together. Fold into creamed mixture. Stir in milk. Place 12 paper cupcake cups in a muffin tray. Spoon mixture into the paper cups. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 C) for 15 minutes or until the cakes spring back when lightly touched. Transfer to a cooling rack. When cool decorate as desired.

Chocolate cup cakes
Omit 2 Tbsp of flour. Replace with 2 Tbsp of cocoa (unsweetened).

Here are some of my creations using this batter.

Lemon Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

Use the Vanilla Cupcake batter above. Once cupcakes have cooled, use a corer (like an apple corer) and take out the center. Fill the center with lemon curd. To make the Lemon cream cheese frosting:

Mix in a bowl, 2 Tbsp of melted butter, 1/4 cup cream cheese, 1 cup icing sugar (confectionary), 1/2 tsp grated lemon rind, 1 tsp lemon juice.

Frost the cupcake.

Dinosaur Cupcakes (my son’s 5th birthday party cupcakes)

For this recipe, I again used the vanilla cupcakes but I switched out the all purpose flour with white whole wheat flour and added 1 cup of milk chocolate chips. This made a chocolate chip cupcake.

 

From there I made vanilla frosting and sprinkled that with green sugar or chocolate frosting with hundred’s and thousands (colored sprinkles). I purchased little dinosaur cupcake toothpicks for decoration.

  

By the way, I loved this double cupcake tin from Crate and Barrel – it provides a way of carrying 24 cupcakes.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cupcakes

For this recipe, I used the Chocolate flavored cupcake batter above. I placed the batter into the cupcake cups and before baking pushed a mini Reeses peanut butter cup into the center, then spooned ~1 tsp of batter over the peanut butter cup. Bake following the directions above.

Frost with Peanut Butter Frosting. Freeze 12 mini Reeses cups for 10 minutes. Use a fork or a rolling pin and break up the mini cups. Top each cupcake with one of the broken peanut butter cups.

A few of my favorite things: Savory Pies

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Pies! Pies! Pies! oh I miss Georgie Pie – a fast food chain that was around when I was a kid in New Zealand.

  

(Photo credits: kiwianarama.co.nz; georgiepienewzealand.blogspot.com)

When I go home to New Zealand, one of my must haves are meat pies. Meat pies and ketchup are part of our culture, hence on my list of one of my favorite things.

I have three savory pies that I love…smoked fish pie, the classic bacon and egg pie and lastly the potato top pie (filling is typically mince with vegetables – mince=ground beef with gravy for the US folks 😉 ). Here are the recipes for the bacon and egg pie and the potato top pie – I hope you enjoy them 🙂

Bacon and Egg Pie (makes 4 individual pies)

Ingredients 

1 sheet Pillsbury Pie Crust
5 eggs (lightly beaten)
1/2 onion (diced)
4 slices Canadian bacon (diced)
salt and pepper
1/4 cup frozen peas (optional)
1/2 cup grated cheese

  1. Preheat oven at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C)
  2. Unroll the sheet of pie crust, cut out the 4 circles – you may need to re-roll edges to get the 4th one. Place each into the pie dish.
  3. Place the chopped onion,  bacon and frozen pies on the bottom of each pie crust.
  4. Add the egg mixture, salt and pepper over the top to cover the filling (~3/4 fill). I stir the ingredients slightly.
  5. Sprinkle the cheese on the top
  6. Place in the oven for 30 mins or until the egg is cooked through
  7. Take them out of the oven and let stand and cool for 5 -10 mins
  8. Serve with either ketchup or a tasty tomato relish (my preference ;-))

NOTE: The egg will rise to look like a mountain – don’t worry as when it cools it will deflate slightly.

Potato Top Pie (makes 4 individual pies)

Ingredients

Mashed Potatoes:
2 russet potatoes (peeled and diced)
1 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup milk
salt

  1. Cook potatoes in salted boiling water for ~15 minutes.
  2. Drain the water when cooked, add butter and milk and mash. Allow to cool.

Mince:
1 tsp oil
1/2 pound ground beef (250 g mince)
1/2 onion (diced)
2 tsp flour
1/4 cup beef stock
2 Tbsp Ketchup
salt and pepper
1/4 cup frozen peas

  1. Heat fry pan, add oil.
  2. Add the onions and cook until clear.
  3. Add ground beef and brown.
  4. In a cup add the flour and slowly stir in the stock, you are making a gravy – you don’t want lumps :-). Add it to the ground beef.
  5. Add Ketchup, seasoning and 1/4 cup of frozen peas.
  6. Take mixture once heated through off the heat and put aside to cool.

Pie
1 sheet Pillsbury Pie Crust
1/2 cup grated cheese

  1. Preheat oven at 400 degrees F (200 degrees C)
  2. Unroll the sheet of pie crust, cut out the 4 circles – you may need to re-roll edges to get the 4th one. Place each into the pie dish.
  3. Put a 1/4 cup of the mince in each of the pie crusts, fill 3/4 of the pie.
  4. In a piping bag, add mash potatoes. Pipe the potatoes in to rosettes on the top of the mince mixture. Cover the top completely with rosettes.
  5. Sprinkle with Cheese (you could add a sprinkle of paprika for color on the cheese).
  6. Cook for 15-20 mins or until the top becomes golden.
  7. Take it out, allow to cool for 5 mins. and server with ketchup ;-).