Toasted Oatmeal Strwaberry Tart

A perfect summer treat, mimimal baking involved in the crust and the simplicity of the topping lets the flavour of the strawberries through. Recipe is originally from oregonlive.com.

Tasting Menu Chez Moi

Mini quiches with gorgonzola and red onion confit.











Parsnip and honey soup shots with spicy crisps.













Celeriac Remoulade*













Tuna ceviche in corn cups.










Baked mini-potatoes with horseradish creme fraiche and smoked salmon.











Mini-corncakes with avocado and lime salsa.










We also at some point had "Cannellini bean bruschette with capers and slow roasted tomatoes" but they were all snaffled up before I could take any pictures.








Blancmange with Basil Coulis*











Mojito Cheesecakes










Both the Remoulde and the Blancmange came from the Chocolate and Zucchini cookbook by Clotilde Dusoulier (author of the food blog of the same name). It's a great book with very original recipes and flavour combinations - including chocolate and zucchini cake.

Celeriac Remoulade
serves 6 as a starter

700g celeriac
200g plain Greek yogurt
2 tsp string Dijon mustard
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 garlic clove, crushed
S+P

• grate the celeriac - easiest way is in a food processor
• mix immediately with the yogurt, mustard, lemon juice and garlic in a large bowl
• season, cover and refrigerate for 1 hour min but ideally for a day
• I used old beans cans as my mould - simply use a can opener to remove the bottom and you have a cylindrical mould
• Spoon the remoulade into the moulds and serve immediately
  

Blancmange with Basil Coulis
serves 4 - or 8-10 of my small servings

Basil Coulis
20g basil leaves
2 tbsp icing sugar
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

• process all ingredients in a food processor until smooth
• keeps for 1 day in the fridge
  

Blancmange
125g whole blanched almonds, chopped to small chunks
125g whole hazelnuts, chopped to small chunks
375ml milk
250ml cream
70g sugar
1 1/2 sheets gealtine (I used 3 as the sheets I bought were 1/2 the size of my normal ones, it gave a just barely wobbling set).

• soak the gelatine sheets in cold water for about 10 minutes
• add the nuts (minus 2 tbsp for decoration) to the milk in a saucepan
• bring to a simmer, remove from the heat leave to cool (covered) for 10 minutes
• whisk together the cream and the sugar in a mixing bowl
• set a sieve over the mixing bowl and strain the milk mixture into the bowl
• press on the nut to extract as much of the liquid as possible
• rinse the saucepan and return the milk/cream mixture to it
  
• squeeze dry the gelatine leaves and add to the saucepan
• cook until the mix just starts to simmer
• strain through the sieve into a mixing bowl and leave to cool for 5 mins
• transfer to ramekins/glasses and chill until set in the fridge
• remove from the fridge 5 mins before serving and top with basil coulis
  

Be My Valentine

I love Tastespotting but over the weekend there were a selection of rather dubious 'Valentine's' offerings, beet sorbet anyone??. The perfect Valentine's dessert should be just that little bit decadent and special, but not necessarily lurid pink. I found the perfect recipe in my Ice Cream Ireland book. I used a pink champagne which added just a hint of subtle colour.

Baby It's Cold Outside

And what better to warm up with than a crumble? This is a very simple one from Tartlette but the addition of some cardamon to the topping brings a little extra to the mix. A big fat mug of tea in the other hand and what more could you ask for?

Last of the Summer Strawberries

There are still some Irish strawberries available, on my drive back from Wexford on Saturday I passed numerous stalls selling their wares that would normally be well finished by this time of the year. If you get some good quality ones a simple recipe that showcases their beauty is best. I found this one in the Chocolate and Zucchini book by Clotilde Dusoulier, author of the blog of the same name. It's a really quirky little book and has earned a place on my shelves simply because everything in it is original and just that little bit different. The only change I made was to replace one large egg with one medium one plus another yolk which makes the filling just a little bit richer.

The pastry for this recipe is the same as she uses for her plum tart here, prepare and bake blind as she describes.

Filling:
500g strawberries
1 medium egg + 1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp caster sugar
2 tbsp cornflour
120 ml milk

• whisk eggs, vanilla, sugar and cornstarch together
• bring the milk to the boil, pour it over the egg mix and whisk
• return to the saucepan and whisk over a low heat until thickened
• cool slightly and then spoon into tart shells
• leave to cool and then topped with washed, sliced strawberries
  

On the other hand if your strawberries have seen better days then I recommend this recipe from Smitten Kitten, the strawberries add that little bit of sweetness to the rhubarb (no pics as my camera was broken for the last few weeks).

Raspberry Lemon Tiramisu

I’m very proud of this one because it’s the first recipe that I thought up from scratch myself. When in Italy I purchased a bottle of limoncello and I’ve been thinking of ways to use it (other than the obvious aperitif). So here it is – lemon raspberry tirsmisu.

Serves 10-12
40 savoiardi biscuits
Juice of three lemons made up to 200 ml with water
3 tbsp caster sugar
50 ml limoncello

• Warm the juice and water together with the sugar until it dissolves
• Add the limoncello
• Leave to cool

200 ml cream
20 ml limoncello
500 g mascarpone
4 tbsp caster sugar
Zest of 3 lemons
4 egg yolks

• Whip the cream
• Add 20 ml limoncello
• Whip until firm again
• In a clean bowl mash the mascarpone and lemon zest together
• Beat in the sugar and then the egg yolks
• Fold in the previously whipped cream

600 g raspberries

I used a 7 by 7 inch square pan with a removable base. Dip ½ the savoiardi biscuits in the cooled lemon syrup and line the bottom of the dish. Spoon over ½ the raspberries and top with ½ the mascarpone mix. Repeat the layers finishing with a mascarpone layer. Cover with cling film and refrigerate overnight to let the flavours meld together.

Serve with some fresh fruit salad.

Party in the Park

Ok, the Party in the Park. My friend S decided to invite a few friends to celebrate her birthday with a picnic in Bushy Park. If you remember last Sunday in Dublin she possibly picked our one day of summer for this event. Nobody should have a birthday without a cake so I provided this one.

An American friend gave me a cookbook of cookbooks Food & Wine ‘Best of the Best’ Vol 8 (thanks BJM). I’m not a big fan of very sweet desserts. I like dark chocolate, lemon and raspberries. I especially don’t like overly sweet icing/fillings, the filling in this cake is white chocolate rather than frosting based which made it jump out at me immediately. It is originally from ‘Pure Chocolate’ by Fran Bigelow. I know my recipe is a mixture of imperial and metric - the original is in American imperial and I converted the sugar and butter to metric because I can never get my head around a 'stick' of butter!!

First things first – when a recipe has an instruction like ‘chill overnight’ it’s probably for a reason. I baked my cake on Saturday evening and simply left it out to cool overnight, as a result it was quite stick and difficult to cut. Thus my cake had slightly-less-than-perfect edges but the taste was still good. It's quite a rich cake and you will easily serve 16 from this recipe. You do need to start this the day before you intend to eat it.

Ganache Filling
½ cup double cream
8 oz white chocolate

• roughly chop chocolate and place in a bowl
  
• heat the cream until just boiling
  
• pour over the chocolate and keep stirring until it's smooth and glossy
• cover with cling film (touching the surface) and leave to cool overnight

Cake
8 oz chocolate, chopped
115g unsalted butter, softened
5 eggs, seperated
340g sugar

• preheat the oven to 150º C
  
• grease, line and grease again a 9 x 13'' swiss roll tin
• melt the chocolate
• remove from the heat, stir in the butter until the mix is glossy
• set aside to cool for 20 mins
• whisk egg yolks + 170g sugar together until tripled in volume
• fold the melted chocolate
  
• in a clean bowl whisk the egg whites until firm
  
• add the sugar and whisk until firm again
• slowly and gradually fold the egg whites into the chocolate mix
• spread the mix evenly in the pan
• bake for 25 mins
  
• CHILL UNTIL COLD IN THE FRIDGE (wrap in cling film)
  

Cake Assembly
Put the white chocolate filling in a mixer and whisk for 3-4 mins until it is lighter in colour and texture. Turn the cake out onto a cake board and cut into three lengths of equal width. Spread ½ the filling on slice 1, top with slice 2 and spread it with the remaining ½ of the filling and top with slice 3. Chill for at least and hour before proceeding.

Chocolate Ganache
8 oz dark chocolate, chopped
1 cup double cream

• heat the cream until almost boiling
• pour it over the chocolate and stir until smooth and glossy
• put ¼ the mix in the fridge for 25 mins and leave the rest to cool at room temperature
  

Writing Icing
2 oz white chocolate
2 tsp vegtable oil

• melt chocolate
• stir in oil

Icing the Cake

Use the chilled ganache to thinly coat the top and side of the cake (this seals in the crumbs and provides a smooth surface for the rest of the ganache). Pour the rest of the ganache over the sides and then the top of the cake. For the writing icing I put it into a squeezy sauce bottle but you could use a parchment cone instead. Pipe three lines down the centre of the cake. Then using a cocktail stick draw a continuous series of figures-of-eight down the centre of the cake. Finally chill for about 2 hours so the ganache can set.

Gravity Defying Yoghurt??

Is that what has happened to this Glenilen yoghurt? Or are your eyes deceiving you? I'm a great fan of these yoghurts (especially the raspberry flavour). They come in fab glass containers which are perfect for making individual desserts in. These are actually vanilla pannacottas with a strawberry topping. The recipe comes from the original blogger herself, Clotilde. She says they take about an hour in the fridge to set, at this stage mine were still liquid!! They took a good 3-4 hours to be suitable for serving and are really best made the day before. Even when 'set' they are still quite wobbly - this is the way I like pannacotta but I think if you turned them out onto a serving dish they would probably collapse. But why would you turn them out when they look so pretty like this?

Warm Chocolate and Raspberry Tarts

From the moment I first flicked through Claire Clark’s "100 Perfect Desserts" I have wanted to make these. It’s a well-known combination but there is just something special about chocolate and raspberry. I just needed a dinner when there would be more than just me and The Doc. Once we had been invited to his parents for Sunday dinner I immediately offered my dessert making abilities.

My previous experiences with chocolate pastry have been a bit hit and miss, it can be very delicate and prone to breaking but this pastry crust is a dream to work with. I managed to roll it out really thin with ease, resulting in a crisp crust (you really do have to get the pastry thin when making individual tarts in order to get the optimum crust to filling ratio).

The chocolate filling is really a variation on chocolate mousse and I can confirm that it tastes good all by itself. It doesn’t set firm, as you break the crust with a spoon there is an unctuous flow of chocolate, so I wouldn’t advise scaling this up to a big tart. I served mine with crème frâiche which I much prefer it to cream with rich chocolate desserts; I just feel that it cuts nicely through the richness.

This would make a really wow dessert for a dinner part, all the constituent parts can be assembled well in advance and the tarts then just need 8 mins in the oven to finish them off.

Pastry:
100g unsalted butter, softened
100g icing sugar
1 large egg
¼ tsp vanilla extract
225g plain flour
25g cocoa
Pinch salt

• Cream together butter and sugar
• Beat together egg and vanilla
• Add in stages to butter/sugar mix, beat well between each addition
• Sieve in flour, cocoa and salt
• Bring together with your hands
• Rest in the fridge for 30 mins

• Roll out on a lightly floured surface
• Cut out 8 15-cm diameter circles to line 10-cm individual tart dishes
• Rest again in the fridge for 15 mins
• Line tartlets with greaseproof paper and baking beans
• Bake @ 160°C for 15 mins
• Remove beans and bake uncovered for a further 10 mins

Filling:
400g raspberries
3 eggs
4 egg yolks
50g caster sugar
200g unsalted butter
300g good-quality 70% chocolate

• Whisk together eggs, egg yodlks and sugar until tripled in volume (you really need an electric whisk for this unless you are looking for a sore wrist)
• Melt together butter and chocolate in a bowl over a pot of simmering water
• While it is still warm fold the chocolate mix into the eggs

• Place 6-8 raspberries in each tart shell
• Spoon over the chocolate filling and level with the back of a knife
• Bake @ 180°C for eight minutes until the middle still retains a little wobble
  

Gooey Chocolate Puddings

No pics for these - I had guests and couldn't really intrude with my camera. There must be hundreds of different recipes for this kind of chocolate dessert, firm on the outside with a molten, oozing centre. I saw an episode of Masterchef last week where they said that 'the route to the final is scattered with failed chocolate fondants'. I think one of the keys to this recipe is to resist the urge to open the oven to check on them. Once the top starts to crack the centre should still be liquid.

This recipe comes from Nigella's 'How to Eat', I'm not a fan of her books that go with the TV series but this one is a gem. I've bought a few copies as presents as I think it's a great introduction to cooking.

125g dark chocolate
125g unsalted butter
3 egg yolks
150g caster sugar
35g plain flour

• Gently melt together chocolate and butter
• Whisk together egg yolks, sugar and flour
• Stir in the chocolate mix
• Grease four ramkins
• Bake at 180 degrees for 12-15 mins

I served mine with the last of Kieran's orange ice-cream, yum.

Chocolate Mousse

Although I enjoy experimenting with recipes, when it comes to entertaining I like to stick with things that have been tried and tested. Trying to assemble complicated dishes while the clock ticks ever closer to your guests' arrival is just stressful and takes from the enjoyment of the occasion. The following recipe for Chocolate Mousse is one of my favourites, I like to flavour it with orange zest and a drop of Cointreau but leaving it plain and sprinkling the top with some crushed Ameretti is good also.

Chocolate Mousse (this recipe came originally from a National Dairy Council Publication circa 1988 - I'm not sure how close my version is to the original, it has undergone a number of refinements over the years)

225g dark chocolate
6 eggs, separated
25g caster sugar
125ml cream
50g butter

• melt chocolate and butter in a bowl
• whisk in the egg yolks and sugar
• whip cream and fold in lightly
• whip egg whites until stiff and fold in in three batches
• chill for at least 4 hours
  

Chocolate Yule Log

I'm starting the New Year with a Christmas recipe. I made this Chocolate Yule Log for Christams Eve and again for a family gathering yesterday. It's inspired by a recipe in the December issue of Delicious magazine where the creamy chocolate filling is offset by the sharp tang of cranberries. I prefer a lighter sponge so I used a version from Good Food (Dec 06) which whisks the egg whites separately. On Christmas Eve I didn't have the required amount of cream so I reduced the ganache by 1/3 - there was still loads - and I have continued to use these proportions.

Sponge:
5 eggs
140g light brown sugar
100g self-raising flour
25g good-quality cocoa

• preheat oven to 190 deg
• butter an line a Swiss roll tin
• Beat together egg yolks, sugar and 2 tbsp water until light and thick
• Sieve in flour and cocoa and fold in lightly
• Whisk egg whites until still and fold gently into cake mix in 3 batches
• Bake for 10-12 minutes and turn out onto some clean greaseproof paper
• Leave to cool and roll up tightly in the greaseproof paper (along the long edge)
  

Cranberries:
200g fresh/frozen cranberries
75g caster sugar
2 tbsp water

• Put 3 ingrediants in a saucepan and heat together gently until cranberries pop
• Leave to cool
  

Filling:
450ml cream
300g good-quality chocolate

• Break chocolate up and place in a bowl
• Warm 300ml cream up to boiling point and pour over the chocolate
• Whisk gently until chocolate is melted - leave to cool
• Whisk reamaining cream into soft peaks - fold in 5 tbsp of the cooled ganache

Unroll the sponge and spread with the chocolate cream and then the cranberries. Roll up tightly, I then cut 1/3 of the log at an angle and placed it at the side to resemble a log. Spread over the cooled ganache, I put some greaseproof paper around the log to catch any ganache that drips down.


The sponge can be made a few days ahead - or even frozen for up to 3 months. It was reported that the first log tasted even better 2 days later - the second one didn't last long enough for me to test this hypothesis!