Chocolate Tart with Nougat

A very easy, quick dessert.
My younger daughter came yesterday. She is a chocaholic, so dessert had to be something chocolate. Recently I was given a bar of pistachio nougat so decided to use this with the tart, but any nougat would work as it's only the topping.

I made a sweet pastry using 200g of flour, 120g butter and 70g of caster sugar, binding it together with a beaten egg. Put in the fridge for 30 mins.

Preheat oven 190C/gas5 and grease a tart tin or flan dish.

Roll the pastry out to fit the tin/dish and bake blind in the oven for 20 mins. leave to cool.

Grate 200g of dark chocolate finely. Bring 20cl of single cream to the boil, take off the heat and add the chocolate. Carefully mix together and leave to cool. Spread it over the pastry case and smooth it out. Put in the fridge for about 20 mins. 

Chop up 100g of nougat and use it to sprinkle over the chocolate tart.

Sorry, am still having problems with my camera, so photo is a bit blurred! It's an easy basic chocolate tart to make, and it can have whatever topping you fancy - chopped up Mars bar, Maltesers, rosettes of double cream, little Easter eggs at Easter etc. -  the sky's the limit!

Pistachio and pear cookies

This is another variation of my basic cookie recipe.  We love pears and finding some dried ones, I had to make some cookies. You could use other nuts if you prefer, other dried fruit too - I've used dried cranberries and cherries and these are good.

Here's the basic recipe again:

:Oven 190C/375F/gas5. Grease a baking sheet or line with parchent paper or a silicone sheet.


Basic recipe:
225g soft butter
140g caster sugar
1 beaten egg yolk
2 tspn vanilla extract
280g plain flour
pinch salt
Beat butter and sugar together in a bowl with a wooden spoon, then beat in egg yolk and vanilla essence. Stir in the flour and salt. Mix together to make a ball of dough.

Additional ingredients:
55g ready to eat dried pears, chopped finely
55g pistachio nuts, chopped
some whole pistachio nuts to decorate

This time, add the nuts and pears after the flour and mix it all together into a ball of dough.
Take spoonfuls and roll into balls, put on baking sheets and space well. Flatten a bit and put a whole pistachio into the centre of each cookie.
Bake 10-15 mins till golden. leave to cool on sheet, and then put on a wire rack.

Not a very inspiring photo, but I didn't have a chance to take another one as all the cookies were whisked off to Luton Airport! The cookies have a crunch from the pistachios and I really like the flavour of the pear.

Spelt and honey cakes

I've started making bread again and trying different flours. I bought some spelt last week and made a lovely loaf with it. I had some left, so made some of these little cakes for my friend, who came to have a cuppa with me yesterday. The recipe was on my bag of flour.

175g butter, softened
175g caster sugar
3 eggs
150g spelt flour
pinch of salt
1 tspn baking powder
25g cornflour
3 tbspn milk
10tbspn honey, warmed
25g hazelnuts or pistachios, chopped

Preheat oven 180C/gas4
Grease 10 - 12 small rectangular tins, a 12 hole 'financier' tin [I bought mine in France] or a 12 hole muffin tin.

Beat the butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add the eggs slowly, beating between each addition.
Fold in the spelt flour, the salt and the cornflour. Add the milk and mix till smooth.
Divide into the tins and bake for 20 mins, till golden and firm.
When cool, drizzle each cake with a tbspn of warm honey and sprinkle with the nuts.

You can make a loaf cake in a 900g tin instead of small cakes. The spelt give the cakes a slight nutty taste which goes well with the nuts in the topping. There are so many types of honey to choose from; I used a heather honey from my local farm shop. I'll certainly make this recipe again, but as a large cake. Another quick and easy cake to make.