Rhubarb Meringue Tart

Off on holiday to France tomorrow, so thought I'd post a French recipe. Will be back posting in 2 weeks.


At the weekend I picked just enough rhubarb to make some kind of dessert. Wanted something different, and browsing through some old French cookery magazines, I found a recipe for a meringue tart with a difference, as it has a custard layer on the rhubarb before you add the meringue topping. Sounded like a great idea.
I love rhubarb, but we haven't a very big garden so I have to make good use of what we can grow!


It uses a 27cm tart tin, which is quite big.

So, you need:

350g of shortcrust pastry
1 kg rhubarb
1 egg and 2 yolks
20cl of cream
1 tbspn vanilla sugar
150 g of caster sugar (50g for marinating the rhubarb and about 100g or a bit less in the custard]
1 tbspn cornflour

For the  meringue :
 2 egg whites
50g caster sugar per egg

Preheat oven 220C/gas 8

Make the pastry and chill.
Cut the rhubarb stems into 2cm pieces, taking the strings off when necessary. Cover with the 50g of sugar and leave for an hour to macerate.
Drain the rhubarb in a sieve to get rid of some of the liquid..
Grease the tart tin and roll out the pastry to fit. Prick the bottom with a fork then add the rhubarb.
In a bowl, beat together the whole egg, yolks, cream, vanilla sugar, 100g of caster sugar [or less if you haven't got a sweet tooth] and the cornflour.
Pour this over the rhubarb and bake for 30 mins.
While it's cooking, beat the egg whites into peaks, then add the caster sugar a bit at a time - using 50g per egg gives a meringue which is dry and will harden. Use less sugar if you want a soft meringue.

When the tart is cooked, lower the oven temperature to 140C/gas1 or even lower if you can.

Pipe or spoon the meringue over the tart and put in the oven to dry out gently for about an hour. Test gently with your finger to see if it's dried.

We love meringue, so I used more than the 2 egg whites in the recipe - I used the whites from 3 large eggs to make a nice thick layer and piped it using a large nozzle.
 The acidity of the rhubarb was great with the sweet meringue and the custard layer gave it another texture. Could use this idea with other fruit - maybe apple, or plums, but I think it's the contrast between the rhubarb and the meringue which makes this tart so good.

ps I inherited several cake servers from my Mum, so decided to use one of them in the photo - it's my favourite one.

       

Chocolate gingerbread

This recipe is for a 'pain d'épice' [spice bread]  type of gingerbread - a French classic. Each country has its own version of gingerbread, but I love the French one best.

I wanted to do something a bit different for a special tea, as I'd invited the French conversation group I belong to. I decided to push the boat out, so instead of making just a normal cake looking gingerbread, I made it into a sort of millefeuille version, and added chocolate to it.

The basic recipe came from my French friend's mother, and unlike our English gingerbread, it uses several spices. It's not difficult to make, but making it into a millefeuille was a bit of a faff!

You need:
100g of dark chocolate
100g of honey
*200ml cold double cream
130g flour [my friend's Mum used rye flour but I didn't]
11/2tspns baking powder
2 tspns vanilla sugar
20g icing sugar

for the spices:
1 tspn of cinnamon, 1/2 tspn ground ginger, 1 tpsn freshly grated nutmeg and 1 star anise [crushed in a mortar or a grinder]

100g bar of chocolate to make chocolate curls - or buy some
4 tbspns of cocoa powder

a little flour and 1 tbspn of oil to grease the cake tin

Preheat oven 180C/gas4


Grease and flour a 15cm springform tin - the original recipe asked for a small 'moule à manqué, so I judged that this would be about the right size, and it worked out fine.

Melt the chocolate, honey and 10ml of water in a bowl over a saucepan. Add the spices and mix together.
Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl then add to the chocolate mixture a little at a time. if the mixture seems too thick, add a little water.
Spoon into the tin and bake for 35-40 mins.
Cool on a wire rack.

Tip:
It's best to make the pain d'épice the day before you need it, as it's easier then to cut it into disks. This is what I did, and it wasn't too difficult to cut the layers.

Whip the cream till thickish then add the icing and vanilla sugars at the end and mix in gently.

Cut the cake into disks using a bread knife. Make a layer with a disk of pain d'épice then some cream, another biscuit layer and finish with a layer of cream.
Decorate the top with the chocolate curls and sprinkle the cocoa over [I used an old tea strainer].

Everyone enjoyed this, and loved the subtle spice flavours mixed with the chocolate and then the cream layer. It really is a cake of contrasts.


*Sorry, I originally said 20ml of cream - it was 20cl of cream in the French recipe and I just typed 20ml, but it's 200ml of course.

Moka Cake

Part of my husband's Christmas present to me was a 2 day Cookery course, which included making and decorating cakes.

I went to the first day last Saturday and brought home this Moka cake. We made tuiles and langues de chats too, but they were eaten before I had a chance to take a photo! I asked, and got, permission from the tutor to put this recipe on my blog, so it's legal, but I've written it in my own words anyway.

It's quite a complicated cake, and it pushed me out of my comfort zone, but it's worthwhile making for an occasion. As it was Mothering Sunday last w/e, it was the perfect special cake for tea.

It's a Genoese sponge cake which is cut in half and sprinkled with some coffee syrup. Then you make some crème au beurre [it's much posher than a buttercream, hence the French term!] and use this to fill the sponge, to cover the cake and to pipe around the top of the finished cake. It's a luxurious 'treat yourself' kind of cake.

For the Genoese cake:

4eggs

225g caster sugar

225g flour

15g butter

A 20cm springform cake tin and a sugar thermometer

Coffee syrup:

100g granulated sugar

75ml water

2 tbspns strong black coffee or coffee extract

Crème au beurre:

150g granulated sugar

75ml water

2 egg whites

225g unsalted butter

10g vanilla sugar

coffee essence

50g grilled flaked almonds

Preheat oven 160C/gas3

Use the 15g of butter to grease the cake tin.

For the cake:

Break the eggs into a bowl, add the sugar and set over a simmering saucepan. Beat with a wire whisk till doubled in size and warm when you touch it. Take the bowl off and beat till cold.

Beat in the sieved flour then pour into the tin.

Bake for 18-20 mins and don't open the oven door [a couple of people on the course had to have a look and their cakes were flat!].

Cool on a wire rack.

For the coffee syrup:

Boil the sugar and water together over medium heat for 5 mins. Let it cool a bit and then add the coffee.

For the crème au beurre:

Cook the sugar and water till it registers 220 on the sugar thermometer [or you can drop a bit of the syrup into some cold water and you should be able to make a soft ball when you roll it between your fingers].

Beat the egg whites to a stiff peak, then slowly add the boiling syrup beating all the time. Keep beating until the mixture is cold.

Soften the butter till creamy, then add the vanilla sugar and fold in the egg whites. Add a few drops of coffee essence to give it a bit of colour.

Cut the cake across and sprinkle the cut surfaces with the syrup.

Put cake onto a plate and spread the bottom half with some of the cream and put the other half on top.

Using a spatula dipped from time to time in water, spread some cream over the top and side of the cake, keeping as bit back to decorate the top.

Coarsely chop up the grilled almonds and press them over the top and side of the cake.

Put the rest of the cream into a piping bag with a fluted nozzle and pipe around the top edge of the cake.

Chill the cake in the fridge for a few hours before using.

Like I said earlier, this cake really took me out of my comfort zone. I hadn't made this kind of butter cream before - I really had to concentrate hard pouring the boiling syrup into the egg whites. I feel very proud of my effort - it's good to learn new techniques. The second day of the course is next month, and we'll be using yeast and making some biscuits.

And the cake? Lovely flavour from the coffee [I bought some extract from Lakeland], a light sponge cake, delicious cream filling, and added texture from the almonds. A little piece of heaven!

A French Apple Cake

Our computer has had gremlins, so haven't been able to post. Hopefully this is now sorted!

I'm always happy to find a new recipe for an apple cake, and this one comes from a French friend. It's nice and easy to make, is different from the usual apple cake, and is a nice change from the heavy Christmas pudds and cakes. I've translated it from French, hence the odd looking recipe with tbpns and grams!

200g of plain flour
10 tbspns of caster sugar + 100 g
2 eggs + 1 extra
6 tbspns of milk
2 tspns of baking powder
4 tbspns of sunflower or rapeseed oil
4 apples [I used Braeburns]
100g of butter
1 tbspn of vanilla sugar [or 1 packet]
Icing sugar for the top

Preheat oven 190C/gas5
Grease and bottom line a 23cm springform tin.

Beat the 2 eggs with the 10 tbspns of sugar; add the flour, baking powder, milk and oil.
Peel and slice the apples thinly, then add to the mixture and mix in.
Pour into the tin and bake for about 30 mins.

Meanwhile, in a bowl, beat together the 100g of butter, 100g of caster sugar, 1 egg and the vanilla sugar.

Take the cake out of the oven and pour this batter on top * then put back in for another 15 mins till the top becomes golden. Take out, and cool on a wire rack. Sprinkle with icing sugar.

*I forgot to say that I kept some apple slices back, and put them into the batter on top of the cake. They made it look more interesting!  The cake has a good apple flavour, a nice soft texture.

What does the topping taste like? It seems a strange mixture without any flour. The nearest texture I can think of to describe it is a British macaroon - the one with rice paper on the bottom and an almond on the top. It's not crunchy, but has a similar texture to the inside

. It doesn't really show up in this photo, but it makes a nice contrast with the apple cake.  

Pain d'Epices au Miel - Honey Gingerbread.

I was inspired by a recent post on the excellent Strong as Soup blog          http://asstrongassoup.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/black-sticky-gingerbread-random-recipe.html  to look for a recipe my neighbour gave me for a gingerbread made with honey. This is a very different gingerbread from the dark moist one on Phil's blog.
The method is unusual in that you put the dry ingredients into a bowl, then heat the honey and pour it over.
It's got a good spicy flavour and as Phil said in his post, gingerbread is great for taking on an Autumn walk, or with your afternoon cuppa, or even as a dessert with some custard.
The original French recipe used 'quatre epices' but I don't think there's much difference between that and our mixed spice, and I found some ground aniseed in a local deli, but you could leave it out if you don't like it.

250g runny honey
250g plain flour
100g caster sugar
1 tspn baking powder
1 tbspn vanilla sugar
1 tspn ground aniseed
1 tspn grated nutmeg
1 tspn cinnamon
1 tspn ginger
1 tspn mixed spice
2 eggs
10cl of warm milk

Preheat oven.160C/gas3

Put the flour, baking powder,sugars and spices in a bowl.
Heat the honey in a microwave or in a saucepan then pour the hot honey over the flour mixture.
Mix together with a wooden spoon then add the eggs a little at a time, then the warm milk and mix together.
Grease and flour a 900g loaf tin then pour the mixture in and bake for 1 to 1hr 15mins till golden.
Leave to cool in the tin and wait 24 hours before eating.

This cake keeps well, up to a week, if you wrap it in foil, so a useful standby for Christmas. Maybe a little cinnamon or ginger icing would make it look more festive? But with this cake, it's all about the flavour - spicy with a lovely honey flavour too.

Christmas biscuits

I haven't been well, so not posted on here for a while, but I have been baking. My dil is German and gave me the recipes for her Christmas biscuits and I made a selection of them.

This is the recipe for the melt-in-the-mouth vanilla crescents which are on the top layer of the cake stand.

Preheat oven 175C and grease 2 baking sheets.

200g flour

80g caster sugar

175g butter

2 egg yolks

100g ground almonds

1 tspn vanilla essence

6 tbspn vanilla sugar

Mix the flour, sugar, butter and egg yolks together then add the ground almonds and the vanilla esence.

Bring the mixture together with your hands and cut in into 4. Roll out each quarter and put in the fridge for 1/2 and hour. Cut the dough into small strips then loop each strip into a crescent.

Bake for 10 mins till light brown then roll in the vanilla sugar. Cool on a wire rack.

Christmas stars

Preheat oven 100C then 75C. Grease a baking tray lined with parchment paper.

3 egg whites

250g caster sugar

1 tbspn vanilla sugar

1 tspn cinnamon

350g ground almonds

Beat the egg whites till stiff and add the caster sugar.

Take out 3 tbspns to save for the top of the biscuits.

Mix the vanilla sugar, cinnamon and ground almonds together and add to the egg white mixture a little at a time. Make the mixture into a ball and put into a polythene bag. Roll the mixture in the bag till about 1/2 cm thick and a square shape.

Remove from bag and cut out star shapes. Brush the tops of the stars with the reserved egg white.

Put into the middle of the oevn for 15mins then turn heat down for about 30 mins. The mixture should be white, not yellow or brown - if the latter, turn the heat down. Cool on a wire rack.