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.

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.

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