Pear and Almond Tart

Pears and almonds are really a match made in heaven. It is not that the flavour explodes in your mouth as some things do, it is more of a subtle pleasure that lingers and please. It leaves you longing for more and what better can you have from food that you make?

This little lovely is made from pears that I had bottled myself when we had a glut of them earlier on this year and they were waiting for me to transform then into this delicious tart.

The pastry is my usual.
200g plain flour
120g butter
60 caster sugar
1 egg.

The method is standard and I am not going to bore you with the details. Roll out and line a deepish 8 inch tart tin. About 24cm. You will have pastry left over so please do not try to use it all as the pastry will be far too thick. You can freeze the left overs and use for something else. Mince pies come to mind as we are approaching Christmas.

For the filling
1 tin of pears in natural fruit juice. If you have bottled your own so much the better but if not these are good too. Strain well or you will make a soggy tart! Put onto the pastry base.

Topping

1 egg

the weight of the egg (in the shell) in butter, ground almonds and caster sugar.

a few drops of bitter almond essence (do not be tempted to put more, it really is very strong)

Put all of the ingredients in a bowl and beat until all has been amalgamated and smooth. Top the pears and smooth. Sprinkle with some flaked almonds if you have them but it is not then end of the world if you don't.

Cook at 180 C for about 30 mins but do check as all ovens are different.

Enjoy

Torta Parisina after Luca Montersino

Luca Montersino, just has to be one of the most talented and amazing chefs around at the moment. I bought three of his books when I was in Italy this year because I couldn't resist them. Could anyone? The following cake is not exactly as he made it because it was devised for prople who are alergic to wheat and thankfully I don't have that problem. I converted the recipe back to traditional ingredients and this is the result.

The recipe will follow shortly, so if you have stumbled upon my blog then please call back to see how to make this cake.

For the Peaches:

Take 3 ripe peaches and put them in a bowl that is large enough to cover them with  boiling water. Now boil your kettle and pour over the peaches. Leave for a few minutes and remove from the water. If you have left them long enough the skin will peel off easily.

Slice into eights and put them into a saucepan with a sugar syrup of about 50g sugar to 100ml water anf the juice of half a small lemon. Simmer for about 5 minutes. Leave to cool in the syrup. Drain and they are ready to use in your pie.

Start by making the pastry with

200g of plain flour

120 g butter

50g caster sugar.

1 egg

Rub all of the ingredients except the egg together to resemble fine breadcrumbs. Mix in enough egg to bind. Form into a ball and refridgerate for about 30 mins to firm uo the pastry.

Torta di Ricotta my way

Torta di ricotta is an Italian version of cheesecake but it a very light one compared with the usual American version. In the picture you can see a fairly yellow cheesecake and this is because the eggs in Italy are a beautiful yellow colour and all of the things that are made with them look delicious.

This kind of cake often has pine nuts sprinkled on top but, while I like pine nuts on things, they are expensive in Italy and I prefer almonds so that is what I used.

What you will need:
Pastry
150 g flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
75g softened butter
50g sugar

Filling:
250g tub of ricotta
grated rind of 1 orange
100g sugar
100ml double cream
3 medium eggs
1 teaspoon of cornflour
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
apricot jam
flaked almonds
icing sugar

Make the pastry by rubbing the ingredients for the pastry together and add a little water to bind.
Roll out and line a greased, deep flan dish. I used an 8 inch dish that was about 2 inches deep.
Bake blind for about 15 minutes and remove from the oven. When the pastry case has cooled a little spread a thin layer of jam on the base.

For the filling
Bring the cream to scalding point.
Blend the sugar the eggs and the cornflour and pour on the hot cream, stirring well to avoid getting any of those so annoying lumps.
Add the ricotta, the grated rind of 1 orange and vanilla essence and mix quickly together to get a smooth cream.

Pour over the jam lined pastry and sprinkle with as many flaked almonds as you like.

Cook at 160C for about 30 mins. The cooking time really will depend on your oven. What you need to aim for is a filling that is set but still slightly wobbly. It will set up as it cools.

When cool dust with icing sugar and enjoy.

Almond Croissants

Don't you just love almond croissants? They are the prize of the flavoured croissants as far as I am concerned and as far as my husband is as well. So it's a good thing to know that they can be reproduced easily and far more cheaply than those in the supermarket. However, you will need to rely on the supermarket for the basic butter croissants that are used here. I haven't gone the whole hog and made the croissants myself.

I don't know if you are aware of it but almond croissants were originalt produced by French bakers to use up stale croissant that they didn't want to dump. Someone had the bright idea of filling them with a frangipain mixture and the almond croissant was born and thank God for that is all that I can say.

These almond croissants are really easy to make and this recipe will make the filling and the topping for 6.

6 stale croissants... buy the reduced croissnts that the supermarket sells off. They are perfect for this and so cheap.

Filling
1 egg
70g of ground almonds
70g butter
70g caster sugar
a few drops of bitter almond essence
flaked almonds for the topping.

All you need to do is mix all of the filling ingredients, except the flaked almonds, together until you have a smooth paste.
Slice the croissants in half horizontally and fill with the croissant mixture. Be sure to keep some back to spread on top of the croissants and then sprinkle with flaked almonds as shown in the picture above.
Cook in a medium oven about 180 degrees C for about 10 to 15 mins. watch them as you don't want te mixture on top to over cook. The filling should still be a bit soft. It will continue to cook for a few minutes even when taken out of the oven. See the picture below.
Now, if you can resist and I do recommend that you do, leave them alone for about 10 minutes. This will allow the filling to finish cooking and the croissants to cool down to an acceptable temperature. They are not good if they burn your mouth.


Enjoy.

Cinnamon Almond Ring Coffee Cake

This is a superb recipe that I got from the following site.

http://www.cookscountry.com/recipe.asp?recipeids=3843&bdc=46116&extcode=L8CN1BG00



It's all explained there so there's no need for me to go into detail, except to say that the filling was so runny that I had to add more almonds to stop it running off the dough.


It's delicious with coffee and even on it's own when no ones looking. I suggest that you keep it in the cupboard out of sight. Saying that it does not keep fresh for longer than a day or two so bake when there are lots of people coming around for brunch.