Tempting Tuesday: Apple related fail

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

I haven't baked anything lately. Actually to be honest I haven't done much of anything lately. A little bout of the baby blues kicked in and I've been feeling utterly miserable. After a few shitty weeks, I finally realised that at the core of it was the fact that my little baby, who is probably my last baby, is about to turn one. The year has flown by and I've tried to relish the time but I always feel like maybe I didn't relish it enough. Ah, c'est la vie. Time to crack on.

So, my local supermarket had puff pastry on offer this week. I bought it with no real idea as to what I was going to make with it. I was going to make apple crumble but it turned out we didn't have enough flour in the house when I went to start it, so I made this instead. It didn't really work but it very tasty. Think danish gone wrong. Not pretty but hey, it's pastry and sugary apples, covered in more sugar...how bad can it be?

Thanks to the lovely people who hand me bags of apples every Autumn, which get chopped up and cooked up and placed in my freezer, there is always apples when I need them.

I defrosted a chinese take out pot full of apples in the pan, threw about half a cup of brown sugar in and stirred until it was defrosted. It was mostly apple puree with a few solitary lumps in by then.

I spread the whole lot over my sheet of puff pastry but it must've still been a bit too warm because that is when it started to go a bit awry. I rolled it all up like a swiss roll and tried to cut slices off to make something similar to cinnamon rolls (but with apple in obviously) but the pastry must've been too soggy as it just wasn't working.

This is the result of my slices once baked...

I baked it in the oven at 180°C for about twenty minutes. Then once it was all cool, I drizzled icing over the top. 

It was really yummy but super messy to slice up and crazy messy to eat. Next time I'll actually try to make them danish sized before putting the apple anywhere near the pastry...just talking about next time is making me hungry...

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Tempting Tuesday: Chocolate Fudge (Not)

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

As you can see, my attempt to make chocolate fudge hasn't been that successful.

It's super tasty, but I'm not sure it's fudge.

Saying that though, having left it in the fridge overnight, it is muchly improved.

he problem was that I couldn't find a straight forward recipe that wasn't in american cup quantities or used the ingredients I fancied using.

So I made it up.

Ingredients:

a tin of sweetened condensed milk

a 200g bar of dark chocolate

50g butter

pinch of sea salt

a handful of chopped pecans

Method:

Throw it all in a heavy bottomed pan, heat slowly until combined and a little bit longer to thicken it up.

Plonk it all in a greaseproof lined tin, try and spread it evenly but good luck. It's sticky and gloopy.

Leave for an hour or two in the fridge.

I found that it just didn't set.

So I scraped it all off the paper, but it back in the pan, melted it down again and added 100g icing sugar. I would have whisked it in but I didn't want to smash up my nuts, so I had to stir carefully.

I then put it back in the fridge for two hours (in new greaseproof paper, same tin).

When I came to slice it up, though it was much better than before, it was still really sticky and not how you think fudge should be, as you can see from my photo.

Most recipes seem to use twice as much chocolate, but I just don't have another spare bar and I'm unwilling to sacrifice one for something which might fail.

After it's night in the fridge, it was much firmer and more slice-able.

Oddly though, I managed to mould the edges I trimmed off back into squares. I'm pretty certain fudge shouldn't be mouldable.

After sharing, I think the general concensus is, it's tasty, but it's not fudge. I don't know why but it isn't.

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Tempting Tuesday: Chocolate Marshmallow Christmas Trees

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

Marshmallow, good. 

Chocolate, good. 

Chocolate covered marshmallow, goooooooood.

I was going to colour the white chocolate red and green to decorate the trees with but apparently this is what happens when you mix in the colour, so I gave up and just went with white.

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Tempting Tuesday: Pear & Cardamom Tart

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

My love for a good frangipane inspired this recipe. Think I just love ground almonds, and therefore bake with them as much as possible.

Ingredients:

Pastry case

15 cardamom pods

100g butter

100g caster sugar

Zest of 1 lemon

Juice of ½ lemon

3 eggs

100g ground almonds

35g flour

2 small pears

 Method:

Preheat oven to 180°C (170°C fan).

Crush cardamom pods with a pestle and mortar.

Remove the shells and grind down the seeds. Warning, this is painstaking.

Blend butter, sugar, lemon zest & cardamom seeds together. Add eggs, one at a time, then flour and ground almonds.

Pour the mixture into the pastry case. I made my own (I admit, I'm a bit of snob and have yet to buy a pre-made pastry case, but I kind of suck at making it still).

Peel and core both pears, slicing them into quarters. Score the tops, length-ways to make stripes.

Put pears into a small bowl with lemon juice and mix up so they are all covered in juice.

Arrange the pear pieces around the top of the tart. The original recipe had way more pears, but I couldn't squeeze them all on. It also had three pears which were to be left uncored, with the stalks still on (basically for show) which I was having none of. Can you imagine biting into that? Or at least having to faff with your pudding. No. Just no.

Bake for about 30 minutes, until the middle is almost firm.

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Tempting Tuesday: Ghost Meringues

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

You know the posts full of Pinterest fails you see on Facebook? I really thought, as I was making these that this photo would end up on one of those. 

But, having taken them to a party, and having eaten a few of them myself, I don't give a damn. 

They were tasty and they are all gone.

Saying that though, because the tubes of icing I thought I had turned out to be gel food colouring and I didn't have time to make some icing, I decided to use the food colouring regardless, which could have gone horrendously wrong, but it was...okay.

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Tempting Tuesday: Rainbow Dream Tart

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

We threw Zander's 'Welocome to the World party last weekend so I made this; the rainbow party version of the White Chocolate Dream tart I made a few weeks ago.

I made it three times as large, with each layer a different colour; purple, yellow, then red.

The pastry was much better this time, practise clearly making perfect and it was a big hit amongst our friends.

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Tempting Tuesday: White Chocolate Dream Tart

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

Because I forgot to buy a pastry case, this recipe meant I had to make one for the first time. I don't know why it scared me so much, though it didn't go to plan (of course).

I learnt two things; one, make sure your scales are working properly and two, a good pricking is incredibly important.

Crappy pastry, full of air bubbles.

Towards the end, as I was weighing out the chocolate, I discovered my scales were weighing half a 200g bar of chocolate as 430g. Safe to say that explains why I had to make a 'double' portion of pastry and why it still didn't fill the bottom of my dish.

When I'd baked it, it had bubbled up loads, making it kind of crispy. I can only presume I didn't stab it hard enough with the fork before I put it in the oven.

On the plus side, the title is correct, it is dreamy. Light and creamy and chocolatey.

The recipe asked for redcurrants, but I fancied blueberries, but it would be fabulous with strawberries too.

Ah, the recipe. Let's talk about the recipe for a minute.

I found it in the Morrison's magazine and it was like giving someone directions somewhere but forgetting a few left hand turns. Does nobody test these things? Or at least proof read them? Anyhoo, I made it through. Here's my version;

Recipe

Ingredients:

pastry case

175g white chocolate

250g tub mascarpone

150ml double cream

Fruit for topping

Method:

Melt 150g of the chocolate and paint a thin layer over the bottom of the pastry case.

Add half the mascarpone to the rest of the melted chocolate and stir well until smooth.

Whisk the cream until firm, then add the other half of the mascarpone and whisk again.

Gently fold together the cream/mascapone and chocolate/mascarpone until blended well.

Spread the whole lot evenly in the pastry case and chill for two-three hours.

Grate the rest of the chocolate and sprinkle over the top, then add the fruit.

Enjoy!

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