Banana tart

Banana dessert is not my favorite,  I only have one recipe of banana, that is banana cake. As I borrowed some cooking magazines from a sister, I saw this banana tart recipe and the photo looks nice. Though the ingredients and instructions may not be perfect (based on my experience), I modify it to make it even better.

Ingredients (2 X 6" tart rings)
Pie crust: You can use either 
- ready-made crust bought in supermarket
- homemade crust, click links - easy pie-crust or short-crust pastry
- homemade chocolate cracker crust - see instructions below

Homemade chocolate cracker crust:
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 sugar
2 cups chocolate crackers

Chocolate ganache:
140g chocolate, 70% cacao
140g heavy whipping cream (OR at least 30% fat)

Crème pâtissière:
1 1/2 cup half-and-half
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar
3 egg yolks
2 tbsp cornstarch

3-4 ripe bananas

Whipping cream


Instructions
1. Prepare the crust, if you need to bake them, do that at least 2 hour ahead before you start prepare the fillings

If you make chocolate cracker crust, combine butter, sugar & crackers 
Place the mixture on the bottom of mould, use a spoon to press the mixture evenly, put it in the fridge to cool for at least 15mins

2. Prepare chocolate ganache, in a medium mixing bowl, place chopped chocolate & cream
In a small saucepan filled with water, at medium heat, place chocolate & cream bowl, melt the chocolate by heat. Stir regularly until the chocolate is completely dissolved into cream

3. Pour the chocolate ganache onto the crust, when it is at room temperature, put it in the fridge to cool down further

4. Prepare Crème pâtissière, you can do that ahead, even a day before
In a small pot at medium heat, heat up half-and-half and vanilla extract, let it simmer until steam starts appearing, turn off the heat

In a medium mixing bowl, beat sugar & egg yolk until color becomes paler, then add in cornstarch little by little until blend well

Add in half-and-half mixture little by little into the egg yolk mixture, try to whisk the mixture at the same time, the best is to use stand mixer

When everything is well blended, pour the whole mixture back to the small pot, heat up at medium-low heat, stir regularly until it is thickened, you can tell when you stir there is stirring mark, then it is ready
Transfer the crème pâtissière into a mixing bowl, cover it with plastic wrap - which touches the crème pâtissière - no air allow so the surface won't be dried, leave it aside to cool down

5. Slice the banana into 1/4" thickness, set aside

6. When the crème pâtissière is cooled down, place it on the top of chocolate ganache, cover it completely

Place banana slices on the top of the crème pâtissière
Let the tart cool down in the fridge and let it set for 4 hours

7. Place whipping cream on top, you can also sprinkle some cacao powder on the top

Enjoy!

Spinach quiche (meat-free)

Quiche night yay! Got some spinach to finish up... ok let me make a spinach quiche :)

Sometime important to note - You don't cook Spinach ahead, or it becomes too old, but since spinach release juice when cooked, you'll need to reduce the quantity of milk or cream, but I rather like richer taste so I only reduce milk quantity here.

There is no parmesan cheese on the top in this photo

Ingredients
300g pastry dough, click here for the recipe

1 onion
4 shallots

olive oil

250g cream in liquid (I used 30%)
100g milk (I used 1.5%)
3-4 eggs

400g Spinach

60g parmesan cheese

Salt & pepper

Sprinkle on the top: parmesan cheese

Instructions
1. Wash spinach
Chop onion & shallots

Set aside

2. In a big mixing bowl, mix onion, shallots, olive oil, cream, milk, eggs. Mix well
Then add in spinach & parmesan cheese, mix well
Add in salt & pepper

3. Preheat the oven at 200°c
Place a baking sheet on a pie mould

4. On a floured working surface, roll out the dough until it's 0.3cm (not thicker than 0.5cm) thickness
Lay the dough on the pie mould

5. Use a ladle to transfer the egg mixture to the pie mould carefully

6. Put the quiche into the oven for 30mins or until the surface becomes golden

Note: I used large cake mould since I have no pie mould at home. Because of the height of the quiche is about 4cm, I baked it for 1 hour

Serve hot with some parmesan cheese on the top!
Enjoy!

Mushroom quiche (meat-free)

I rarely make quiche, I am not fan of ham, lardon... I prefer veggie quiche, that's why I bake this mushroom quiche! It is actually quite simple to make.

One thing to pay attention is that whenever you bake mushroom with something else, like quiche, flan, soufflé... if you don't fry the mushroom and discard the juice ahead, you may probably unable to cook well the flan... you will have it end up watery...

Ingredients
300g pastry dough, click here for the recipe
2 onions
500g mushroom

olive oil

250g cream in liquid (I used 30%)
150g milk (I used 1.5%)
3-4 eggs
Salt & pepper

Optional: chopped Scallion


Instructions
1. Rinse, sliced the mushrooms
Chop finely onions

2. In a sauce pan, at medium heat, fry oil with onions & mushroom, until you see the juice from mushroom released

Discard mushroom juice

3. In a big mixing bowl, whisk eggs with cream and milk until they blend together

Add in salt & pepper, then mushroom & onion mixture
Mix well

Note: You can also add scallion at this stage

4. Preheat the oven at 200°c
Place a baking sheet on a pie mould

5. On a floured working surface, roll out the dough until it's 0.3cm (not thicker than 0.5cm) thickness
Lay the dough on the pie mould

6. Use a ladle to transfer the egg mixture to the pie mould carefully

7. Put the quiche into the oven for 30mins or until the surface becomes golden

Note: I used large cake mould since I have no pie mould at home. Because of the height of the quiche is about 4cm, I baked it for 1 hour

Serve it hot!
Enjoy!

Berries tart with mascarpone filling & chocolate crust

My cousin mailed me a lot of nice recipes from Harrods (UK)!! The pictures look very beautiful and stunning... yummm.... I can't wait to try one of the recipes!

This recipe is berry tart with mascarpone filling and chocolate crust.
Honestly I have never made any chocolate tart, it will be my first try :D It makes me feel excited when I try new recipes :D

The best thing is that I got both mascarpone and lime at home, which is quite rare for me to have these both ingredients at home :) Perfect, no need to fetch them in the supermarket!!

This is really a new combination for me - chocolate crust, lime mascarpone and berries! wow. I love it!

Ingredients

Original recipe of crust 
(21cm X 30cm rectangular mould or 11" round mould) :
300g chocolate cookies
100g butter

Crust (9" deep mould):
2 cups flour
3tbsp cocoa powder
3tbsp sugar
170g unsalted butter, cold and diced
1/3 cup brewed coffee, cold*

*I used 1 1/2tsp instant coffee and fill up to 1/3 cup water

Instructions

1. To prepare the crust, in a mixing bowl, mix all dry ingredients until they blend well

2. Add in butter, mix well with a wooden spoon or your finger tips, until butter blended well in the flour mixture

3. Add in coffee, little by little. You can see at the end the dough becomes non-sticky to the bowl = ready

4. On a lightly floured working surface, knead the dough briefly with your hand, press it flat

Wrap the dough with the plastic wrap

Store in the fridge at least 1hour before use (up to 2 days)

5. Take out the dough from the fridge and let it rest for 5 mins

6. Roll out the dough flat
Place it on the mould, remove the excess edge if there is any
Use a fork to pinch some holes at the bottom

7. Place the dough in the fridge for several hours to cool it down and relax the dough

8. After several hours, preheat the oven to 180°c
Put the dough in the oven and bake for 25-30mins

Remove the mould at least after 10mins
Let it cool down completely

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Filling:

250g mascarpone

4tbsp sugar

100g strawberries

Instructions

1. Mix all the ingredients and beat them until blended well

2. Store it in the fridge in an air-tight container

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Toppings:

Fresh strawberries**

Icing sugar

** I think you can use as much as you want, as long as you ensure it can cover the mascarpone filling

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Assemble:
1. Use a spetula to transfer the filling onto the chocolate crust

2. Place fresh strawberries on the top of mascarpone filling
Sprinkle icing sugar on the strawberries

Enjoy!

Apple tart in rose

I got some apples left in the fridge... hmmm... let me turn them into something beautiful and tasty :)
This rose decoration is from a photo that I saw on internet, not in cupcake size but bigger size! As I wanted to make something for my husband's colleagues, so I tried to make one.... it turns out nicely, yay :)

Now let me share my observation and things to be careful when you make this rose apple tart.

I think the most important thing to be careful is to cook the apple slices, so that they won't break when you make them in rose shape.

Ingredients (11" ring mould)
3.5-4 medium size apples

2tbsp cane sugar
1tbsp honey
3tbsp water
cinnamon or nutmeg (add more or less according to your flavor)

300g Short crust pastry

*6" mould needs about 2-2.5 apples

Instructions
1. Roll out the pastry flat and evenly, place it on a ring mould or any tart mould
Use a fork to pinch some holes on the dough surface
Store in the fridge for the moment

2. Cut the apples into half, trim the top, bottom and the middle part of the apples, do not peel off the skin :)
Carefully cut them into thin slice, I tried to slice them into about 0.1-0.2cm in average... but don't worry, once they are cook, they become soft. Try to slice them as thin as you can

3. In a pan, put the 2/3 sliced apples (all small & medium slices should be cooked), sugar, honey and water
Bring it to boil, then keep it at low heat, let it cook for 3-5mins or until they are soft => you can tell by the texture and color

ATTENTION: you'll notice they are in different sizes, try to sort them into different sizes, for example, place the same size on the same plates

Note 1: using a pan is better than a pot because you can spread them out instead of stacking all together, you will find it less chance to break them

Note 2: the thinner slices are easier to cook, so when they are cook, remove them from the pan, I used chopsticks to help, I think better not to use fork to pinch them, you might use a clip... 

4. Once you take out all the apple slices from the pan to a plate, you'll notice water remains on the pan, do not throw it away, you can add some honey, stir constantly and let it cook until you start seeing many small bubbles start popping out, turn the heat off immediately => then you make the topping (to glaze the apple tart at the end)!

Cover it and set it aside 

Note: If you found the topping is rather sticky, you can add water: drop by drop! otherwise it will become watery again

5. When the apple slices are cooled down or you are able to touch it without burning your fingers, you can start laying the slices on the tart dough

6. We start the rose from the middle and spread it outward
We start with the small size (but not the smallest one, keep them until the end), take one slice and roll it tightly, hold it, take another one to cover the first one tightly
Repeat the same process until you can't hold the rose any more, you can try to place it in the middle of the dough, normally it will stick to one another nicely

7. Each time you add one more slices, make sure you overlap the previous one, at least half of the size of the previous one, so that they look nice

8. When you lay the fresh apple slices, you might find it difficult to stick to the previous slice, but be patient, try to overlap more to the previous one and use a hand to hold it and another hand grab slices and lay them

When you come to the last big slice on the dough, you will notice that there will be only the smallest ones left
You can now place them on the edge and hide them

You might also notice that the slices are all standing up straight especially the outer part around the tart, if that's the case, gently press down the fresh slices towards the edge, it looks more natural like the flower is blooming

 This is how it looks before baking

9. Now you can put the tart back to the fridge for 1-2hours to let the dough relax

10. After 1-2hrs, preheat the oven at 180°c, when it's ready, put the tart into the oven and bake for:
Medium size (6") = about 25-30mins
Large size (11") = about 40mins

If you think the tart edges are not in golden color but the apple starts looking burn, you can:
i/ Turn the oven function to "heat only at the bottom". If you don't have this function, you might need aluminium foil to cover the surface, but I am afraid that would stick on the surface. When you remove the foil, you might pull out the slices as well...

ii/ Remove the ring and put it back to the oven until you see the edge turns golden color

11. When the tart is cooled down, remember the topping, glaze the top with a brush - to keep the tart shiny and look nice. Also it adds some sweetness especially to the fresh apple slices at the outer part of the tart

------------------------------------------------
Q: You might also encounter this problem - You finish laying all the apple slices but you don't have enough apple slices to lay on the rest of the dough. What should you do?

A: Do not panic. Take out 1 fresh apple or more if you think you need more, repeat step 2 cut them into slices. In this case, you won't cook them but try to slice them thin so it won't break easily.

If you can fit the small ones between the layers or at the edge, go ahead and do it, or you can eat them all :)

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Q: You might find 1/2 apple or more left, what to do with them?

A: 1. You can eat them fresh
2. If they are not cook, make detox water - put them in a jar with cinnamon stick (ONLY, not powder) OR with other fruits such as lemon slices... fill the jar with 1L water and let it sit for few hours before serving!

Enjoy!

Lemon tart - Recipe Ladurée

I have a super lemon tart recipe and everybody likes it ;) but when I see the bakery in France, they have different texture of the lemon filling, I wonder how they do it.
Now I found this recipe! yay!

Shortcrust pastry/pie crust
If you want to make your own pie crust, you can choose between the following recipe
- Shortcrust pastry (highly recommend)
- Fast & easy pie crust

1. Prepare the pie crust the night before, store in the fridge in plastic wrap (well wrapped -> to prevent it from drying)


2. 1st thing to do when you wake up => take the dough out from the fridge, let it warm up a bit, place it on a slightly floured working surface, roll it out, place it on the mould, pinch some holes at the bottom by using a fork

Let it rest in the fridge or freezer

Lemon filling 
3 large eggs 
150g sugar (Original recipe = 200g))
zest of 2 lemons
145g fresh lemon juice (about 1.5 lemons)

270 g butter at room temperature

1. In a mixing bowl, mix eggs, sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest.
Use bain-marie method to thicken the lemon mixture - cook at medium heat for 25-30mins until the mixture becomes thickened.

Note: The temperature of my mixture was about 60°c. At last 10mins you will feel the mixture becomes thicker, then I turned it down to low heat

2. Let it cool down at about 45-50 °C, add butter into the mixture, with the help of a whisk, combine them for 5mins until it becomes smooth

3. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and store it in the fridge for 24hours before use
Note: place the plastic wrap by touching the surface of the filling, ensure there is no air can enter => it is to avoid the filling being dried out in the fridge

Assemble crust & filling
1. Preheat the oven at 180°c
When the temperature hits 180°c, take the crust out from the freezer / fridge, put it in the oven

Bake for 10-15mins or until it becomes golden

Let it cool down

2. After the crust is cooled down completely, take the lemon filling out of the fridge. 

Use a spetula to pour the filling onto the tart

3. Put into the fridge for several hours to let the tart fix

Enjoy!

Apple tart - recipe Cordon bleu

It has been long time that I made apple pie! Autumn is coming, apple pie is the best match with the weather :)

If you want to make your own pie crust, you can choose between the following recipe
- Shortcrust pastry (highly recommend)
- Fast & easy pie crust

For the topping I recommend to use green apples because when you bake in the oven, the red apples become soft and collapse while the green apples hold better the shape

Ingredients (for 16.5cm/6.5"ring mould)

Apple filling
2.5-3 red apples, peeled and chopped into small pieces
30g butter
30g cane sugar/ brown sugar
vanilla
cinnamon

Topping
2-2.5 green apples
some butter
cane sugar/ brown sugar


Instructions
1. Prepare the pie crust the night before, store in the fridge in plastic wrap (well wrapped)

2. The next day: roll out the pie crust evenly, place it on the mould
Use a fork, pinch some holes at the bottom
Put in the freezer (you can also put in the fridge)

3. Prepare the apple filling
Put all ingredients EXCEPT apples in a sauce pan, stir them until they blend together

4. Add in red apples, let it cook at medium heat until the apples are not too soft
Use a fork to test:
if you need some force to poke into the apple => not ok
if you can poke into the apple quite easily => ok
be careful overcook the apples = too soft, you can tell by appearance by the cut edge becomes round

Let it cool down

5. When the apple filling is nearly cool down, prepare the topping
Slice the green apples
Melt some butter

Preheat the oven at 180°c

6. Assemble:
Take the crust out from the freezer / fridge
Place the apple filling on the crust, avoid the juice pouring into the crust, which will soften the crust during baking

7. Place carefully the sliced green apples, place them around the edge, then towards the center

Brush some melted butter on the apple topping carefully!
Then sprinkle some cane sugar on the top

8. Bake for 40mins or until the crust becomes golden

You can serve with crème fraîche or greek yogurt or vanilla ice-cream or caramel sauce ... yummmmm

Enjoy!

Lemon tart recipe

I have found that I haven't posted the recipe of lemon tart, yet I made it quite often! :s

Each time I made it for somebody or even for ourselves, we just love it. It is a super recipe. It is also very simple, all you need is egg, sugar, lemon/ lemon juice.

I have already showed you the recipe of shortcrust pastry/ basic pie crust.
For any tips to make perfect crust, click here

Ingredients of lemon mixture:
75g butter
3 eggs
150g sugar
2 lemons

Instructions:
1. Pre-heat the oven at 200°c. Melt butter 

2. In a mixing bowl, mix eggs with sugar well to become foamy mixture

3. Rince the lemon under warm water to remove dirts and pesticides, grate the lemon zest into the mixture of step 2. Then squeeze the juice into the mixture
Note: If you don't have fresh lemon at home, don't worry, I have tried to use 1/4 cup of lemon juice to replace 2 lemons, the taste is good also. You might want to increase or decrease the amount of lemon juice indicated.

4. Mix in melted butter

5. Pour the mixture into the pastry dough/pie crust ready in the mold. Put the mold into the oven and bake it for 25mins.

Enjoy!

Cantonese Egg tart

I have seen some egg tarts in a wedding, my friend said she liked eating egg tart and she missed it! So I said I could try to make some for her, that is why I found this recipe from Christine.

Ingredients
Crust:
225g flour
55g icing sugar
125g butter (cold)
1 whisked egg
Vanilla extract

Custard:
150g hot water
1 egg
50g sugar*
75 g evaporated milk
1/2tsp vanilla extract

*In the original recipe, it is 70g, but I found too sweet

Instructions
Crust:
1. Mix flour, icing sugar, and butter together with a flat beater. You can also use your fingertips to mix well the ingredients

2. Add in egg & vanilla extract

3. Knead the dough and then roll it out on a lightly floured surface to 1/2cm (do not roll out too thin), better keep the thickness more than less

4. Use a round cookie cutter to cut the round shape out, the size is ideally a bit smaller than the opening of the tart mould (it is normal if you found that the dough cannot completely cover the mould when you first place it on the mould)

5. Then press the dough from the bottom towards the side of the mould while you turn the mould clockwise or anti-clockwise, now you can fill the dough over the mould
Put it aside

Custard:
1. Preheat the oven to 200°c
Boil the water until hot, not necessary to boil it up to boiling point

2. In a bowl, mix eggs, sugar, evaporated milk & vanilla extract

3. Add in the hot water into the mixture little by little! It is not to cook the egg

4. Pour the egg mixture into the crust, fill in 70% - max.80%
The reason is that the crust may shrink, if it doesn't, you can fill up to 90%

5. Put the tart into the oven for 10-15mins until the crust become brown

6. Lower the heat to 180°c, watch out the tarts! When the egg puffs, you can slightly open the oven door and bake for another 10-15mins or until it is cook
Why? avoid the egg collapse once it is cool down
How to know if the egg is well cook? insert a tooth pick in the tart, if it stands = well cook!

Enjoy!

How to make a perfect pie crust?

Some friends ask me why their pie crust is not successful. There are few factors and technics that you need to remember when you make it.

Q: Why finger tips to blend the butter into the flour?
A: Because finger tips are cold, which can keep the butter being not melted so quickly into the flour, so that you can blend evenly the butter into the flour.

Q: Quantity of water is important?
A: Yes indeed! Imagine the dough is too wet, you can't roll it out since it sticks on the working surface! The humidity of the environment affects the dryness of the dough, you can't strictly follow the quantity indicated in the recipe. That is why usually in the recipe they ask you to add the water little by little, NOT ALL AT ONCE!

Q: Why the crust is tough?
A: Mix the ingredients quickly, do NOT overknead the dough, do NOT roll the dough too much. That is why when you rework the trimmed dough off the pie pan, the crust becomes tough.
OR, when your dough is too wet, at this moment, you may want to add more flour to make it "dry", but that can make the crust becomes tough since the ratio is changed!

Q: Why the dough crazily stick on the working surface when rolling out?
A: Dough temperature is not right - too warm & soft.  In this case, you will need to add a lot of flour on the working surface and on the rolling pin, it can affect the texture of the crust when you bake it.
Solution - put the dough in the fridge for 1hour or more to relax the dough. You still need to slightly flour the working surface and the rolling pin.

Q: Why the dough shrinks when rolling out?
A: Because the dough is kneaded too much, specially you find this problem after you collect & combine/fold the leftover dough to make the 2nd batch... So try to just combine all the ingredients in the mixing bowl, when the dough starts to form & starts becoming non-sticky, place the dough on the working surface and roll it out immediately. It is especially the case when you use KitchenAid or other machines to form a dough. You will need patience to observe it.

Q: How to ensure the thickness of the dough is even?
A: When you roll out the dough, start towards 12 o'clock, when you roll out towards the edge, ease your force so that the edge won't become too thin. Then, pick the rolling pin up back to the center and roll it towards 6 o'clock. Repeat the same steps for 3 & 9 o'clock, 1 & 7, 2 & 8 o'clock etc. 
Also, turning the dough when you roll it out helps to even the thickness.

Q: Why the dough still stick on the working surface even though it is slightly floured?
A: When you roll out the dough, you need to check regularly if the dough stick on the working surface, use a knife and put it underneath. If the dough becomes sticky, add some flour underneath; yet brush away the excess flour.

Q: What can we do to prevent the dough shrink while baking?
A: When the dough is cooled in the fridge, it becomes relax. When you roll it out, you can easily flatten it without shrinking back. However, when you put the cooled relax dough immediately in the oven, the hot environment makes the dough shrinks because of the big temperature difference... 
My suggestion is either: 
1. Let the dough slowly back to room temperature. After you place the dough in the mould, let it sit for like 30mins or 1 hour. When the dough becomes warmer, you can preheat the oven
OR
2. If the dough is not soft & sticky (probably during winter), you can skip the fridge step, just roll it out and place on the mould. When it's ready, bake in the oven

Q: Why the crust appears a lot of bubbles after baking?
A: Because there is no air pass through the dough when the heat is rising in the oven. What you can do it to making some some holes by using a fork. Pinch the dough regularly so the small holes are spread evenly over the dough.

OK... now you should be an expert of pie crust ;)

If you have any other questions. Please leave me a message, I will try to answer you :)

Super easy pie crust - recipe

I have posted the shortcrust pastry recipe from the kitchen aid cook book last time, this time I would like to post a super easy recipe to make pie crust.

As I said last time that the main ingredients of making a pie crust are butter, water, flour, salt. YES!! You just need these 4 ingredients, then you can bake delicious crust and you can save a lot of time!

Ingredients:
1 1/4cup flour
1/4tsp salt
1/2cup butter (cold & diced)
1/4cup cold water

Instructions:
1. In a big mixing bowl, mix the flour and salt together

2. Add in diced butter, use your finger tips to squeeze the butter so that it can be easily blended into the flour

3. Add in cold water little by little, you may not need all the quantity of water or you might need a bit more water than indicated. It depends on the humidity of the environment

Enjoy!

Delicious shortcrust pastry - recipe

There are quite many people ask me how to make pie crust. They said they can't make it, usually they said it is too wet or they look terrible after baking it...

Actually there are 3 different types of pie crust in French cuisine - pâte brisée (shortcrust pastry), pâte sablée (sweet shortcrust pastry) & pâte feuilletée (puff pastry).

There are quite many different recipes to make these pastry. However, the basic ingredients are butter, water, flour, salt.

OK, so now I would like to share the recipe that I followed in kitchenaid cookbook, it is about 300g.

Ingredients
200g flour
1/4tsp salt
2tbsp icing sugar (for Sweet shortcrust pastry)
100g cold butter
1 beaten egg
1tsp lemon juice
1-2tbsp iced water

Instructions
1. Place the flour, salt and icing sugar (if using) in the mixing bowl

2. Dice the butter and add to the bowl. Mix until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs

3. Add egg, lemon juice and iced water. Knead until a smooth dough is formed

4. Knead on a lightly floured working surface. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least 30mins
Note: I keep the dough in the fridge for about 1h

Enjoy!