Fig Frangipan Tarts

You know how you see things on telly and you think, I will try that out, well this was one of those.

I went for a sweet crust pastry as I was aiming for a really crisp almost biscuit like result.

I baked the pastry blind, but instead of trimming before baking like I usually would I followed Mary Berry and tried to trim after baking.  I don't remember what she did, did she saw with a serrated knife, she could not have done what I did because I got crumbs everywhere.

The frangipan with pistachio seemed fine, and I put a slice of fig on top to be pretty.  The fig does look really nice, in that the seeds really pop against the red of the fruit, but... the fig started to catch and so I took them out, they looked a bit soft so I turned the oven down and oput them back in and with all the tooing and froing the frangipan shrank. 

The pastry was good, but the frangipan was not sweet enough and was too oily, I did equal parts egg, sugar, almonds and butter next time, more sugar and less butter... then again cooking at the wrong temperature might have made more oil come out of the almonds.. even so it wasn't that sweet.

The fig was pretty but there wasn't enough to give flavour, perhaps next time, fig on the side is the way to go.  Raw or maybe baked with a little cinnamon and honey.  Perhaps make it even more simple and have the Greek yoghurt with honey and pistachios that I have used on my honey cake in the past.

Things don't go to plan sometimes, there is no shame in that. 

Does anyone have any tips on trimming cooked pastry?

Left over pastry

A couple of days ago I made my upside down beetroot pie, and it uses a small amount of puff pastry, and so I had some left over.

So my daughter is coming over for supper tomorrow and I thought we would be a little indulgent, hazelnut palmiers and apple plaits.

Palmiers are simplicity themselves, just roll out pastry, brush with egg to stick the ingredients, throw on all sorts of good things, hazelnuts, brown sugar, dried fruit whatever takes your fancy roll up from both sides to meet in the middle and then slice up and lay slices on a baking tin glaze and bake.

I used chopped roasted hazelnuts and my home made vanilla sugar as my filling.

Mine are particularly small and dainty, but you can make these a lot bigger.

The apple plaits are not much more difficult, the filling is a compote that I made a while ago from the Egremont russet apples in our garden, we have been having it in a varity of forms, with yoghurt for breakfast has been good, but it is getting a little old now, and we were not going to finish it in time, so I used it all up with the left over pastry to make my plaits.  They are glued and glazed with beaten egg and sprinkled with vanilla sugar.

This is my favourite type of recycling, delicious food and next to no work.
 

When it is time to serve, I will whip of the cling and warm them up in the oven...  And serve with something yummy, ice cream, cream, boozy whipped cream, what do you think?

Beetroot upside down pie 

(with new potatoes and salad)

When I was a kid the only time I ever had beetroot was out of a jar and did I miss out or what.

This is an upside down pie, essentially a filling with a puff pastry top which is then inverted and cooked a second time. Okay you could be posh and call it a kind of tarte tartin

The pie filling is simple, beetroots, onions, shallots, a dash of balsamic, chilli, a pinch of sugar,salt and pepper

Beets go really well with onions and shallots, they are both really sweet.
Beet go really well with chilli, they also go really well with horseradish and you get a great pink colour with them as well.

The onions and shallots are cooked until soft  with a little olive oil and the fresh cooked beetroot and other ingredients added.

They are then put in a lined tin and a pastry top put on a good egg glaze and into the oven.

Once baked is not enough, this pie is twice baked, so after coming out the oven it is turned over and left for the afternoon, (at room temperature with a net umbrella) come preparing dinner time, I put goats cheese on it and bake in the oven till golden.  I sliced a whole chevre blanc onto it, but you could crumble on or use less.

Pastry is not home made, puff pastry just seems too much hard work.  There is not that much pastry in it so calories be damned.

This incarnation has been slightly different, I cooked the onions at a lower slow heat with a lid on and they are more soft and a bit more juicy than on other times. I didn;t add any herbs, typically I would add sage and thyme, I backed off on the chilli a bit and whilst hot it was not over powering.

Normally when I get it out of the oven I turn it out right away, for some reason this time I didn't and you guessed it I got a bit of a soggy bottom, so for the second bake I put it on a rack so the hot air could get to it and it crisped up fine. The day was saved!

One of the best things about this dish is that the other half will make a gorgeous lunch.

Where to go from here:

Pastry, how about a Charlotte? bread an butter crust.

Cheese, perhaps put some cheese on the side instead of on top blue cheese would go well.

Fillings:
Artichoke and gruyere?
Celariac and parsnip?
Apple and cheddar?

...  and the left over pastry didn't go to waste.