Very Rustic Silverbeet and Bacon Tarts

A savoury tart for the final day, a day in which we edged closer and closer to that $2,000 target. And we are so close. SO CLOSE! Who knows what the night will bring? 

In the meantime, a quick recipe in case you thought a bacon and silverbeet tart might be just the thing for your weekend brunch. Bubbly optional, but wholly appropriate.

To make six individual and rather rustic tarts, you will need: 

1 quantity shortcrust pastry (or if your food processor is on the blink and you're in a bit of a rush, use frozen sheets - they're perfectly adequate and two will make six small tarts)

splosh of olive oil

160g bacon or speck, diced

1/2 clove garlic, crushed

1/2 bunch silverbeet, washed, leaves shredded

3 eggs

1/2 cup cream

parmesan cheese, grated

Line individual tart tins with pastry. Blind bake according to these instructions.

Heat oil in a small frypan and cook bacon until golden. Remove to a plate lined with absorbent paper. Add garlic to pan with silverbeet and cook over gentle heat until the greens have wilted nicely - about 5 minutes. Return bacon and mix it all together. Season well with salt and pepper.

Whisk eggs and cream in a jug. Distribute silverbeet and bacon mixture between blind-baked pastry cases. Pour over egg mixture. Sprinkle parmesan on the top of each. 

Bake at 160 degrees for 20-25 minutes until just set.

For a larger, cheesier version of these little tarts, see my recipe here.

Did you see Claire's beautiful guest post back here? Did you enter the giveaway back here? (Winner announced tomorrow night!) Do you think calling it a savoury tart makes it sound fancier than a quiche?

Pear and Pecan Brownie, Oh, Yeah

So, you know how I feel about coffee. It's one of life's absolute necessities, and a dear, darling old friend. I have a vague memory of a time in my very early twenties when, on visits to cafes, I would order a chocolate milkshake. I can't even imagine it now.

Another of life's necessities would have to be chocolate, and if it has to take the form of an oozy, gooey brownie, then so be it. I will not argue.

You will need:

200g dark chocolate
200g butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup pecans
3/4 cup poached pears, diced (you could use tinned whole pears)

Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius.

Toast pecans in a dry saucepan, being careful not to burn. Reserve 12 whole ones and roughly chop the rest.

In a saucepan, melt chocolate and butter over gentle heat. Combine sugar, eggs, flour and baking powder in a bowl. Pour over melted chocolate mix and stir it all really well, until it gets lovely and glossy. Fold through chopped pecans and pears.

Line a 15x25cm slice tin with baking paper. Pour in brownie mixture. Place the reserved whole pecans evenly on top of the brownie mix like little soldiers all in a row. Bake for 35-40 minutes until just cooked but still a bit oozy.

Brew coffee. Pour into cup. Grab a square of brownie. Eat, quick, eat!

At last count we'd raised $1,635. I don't even know what to say. You guys!!! I wonder can we hit the $2,000 revised target by close of business tomorrow. Spread the word if you feel you can. It'd be pretty cool if we did. And thank you, thank you, thank you so much. A square of pear and pecan brownie for everyone!!!

See you back here tomorrow to celebrate our final day. Emphasis on 'celebrate'!

Lemon and Ginger

I'm fond of a nice tart. Sweet or savoury, you'll have trouble keeping me away. And if there's even a suggestion of a curd on that tart - lemon, passionfruit - well, I'm anybody's. I've always stuck to Stephanie's lemon curd recipe, based on butter, sugar and eggs. But I recently tried out the Bourke Street Bakery one, which replaces the butter with cream. Mmmmm. I've changed it up a bit and added some springy zingy ginger for something different, and to complement that lemongrass and ginger tea just begging to be sipped.

You will need:

2 eggs

40g caster sugar

50ml lemon juice

rind from 1 lemon, finely grated

60ml pouring cream

1 tsp fresh ginger, finely grated

In a heatproof bowl, whisk eggs, sugar, lemon juice and rind until the sugar has dissolved. Add cream and whisk until smooth. Place bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and continue whisking until it thickens. It should take about 10 minutes. Make sure you whisk continuously or else it will go lumpy. Use a silicone spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl as required. Spoon into a jar or bowl, place plastic wrap so that it touches the curd and refrigerate overnight.

Spread it on toast, dollop on a scone, fill tiny shortcrust pastry cases, or place atop some cakey almondy tarty things, as described below.

For the Cakey Almondy Tarty Things, you will need:

100g plain flour

90g almond meal

60g caster sugar

30g brown sugar

100g butter, cold

1 egg yolk

Place dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Dice butter and rub it into the dry mixture until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. This will take several minutes and give you muscles on your fingers. Add egg yolk and use a spoon or your hands to combine it evenly. It should now resemble a soft pastry. Form into a disc shape, wrap in plastic and place in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius.

Grease a mini muffin pan, preferably silicone. I used olive oil spray but melted butter would do. Roll out the pastry between two sheets of baking paper to a thickness of about 8mm. Cut 6cm rounds and squeeze into the mini muffin holes, pressing with your fingers to create a slightly concave shape. You're not trying to make a thin pastry case, rather a slightly dented cakey base that will hold some filling.

Once you've filled all the holes, bake for 6-8 minutes until the cakes are lovely and golden and cooked through. Allow to cool in the tin then pop them out onto a rack.

To serve, either spoon or pipe the curd onto the tops of the cakes. Arrange them on a dainty doily and place alongside your finest tea set. Have your butler pour the tea.

For the lemongrass and ginger tea, bash a lemongrass stick a few times with the handle of your knife to release its goodness. Squish it up and shove it in your teapot. Slice a few thin pieces of ginger - don't worry about peeling it - and add to the pot. Pour boiling water over the lot and leave to steep. 

Pistachio Cardamom Choc-Chip

Homemade choc-chip biscuits are a favourite around here. And I've always held firm to the belief that you shouldn't sully them by adding nuts or sultanas. (Just like my belief that tomato can ruin a good sandwich...)

But I must have come over all exotic when I thought up these little wonders. Cardamom - one of my favourite spices - and pistachios, complementing beautifully all of that chopped dark chocolate. Dunked in a mug of spiced hot cocoa? Well, there's not much more I can say, really. Bake them, eat them, don't say I didn't warn you.

You will need:

125g unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp ground cardamom
150g dark chocolate, chopped
50g pistachios

Cream butter and sugar until it is light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl if necessary. Add flour and cardamom and mix until just combined. Add chocolate and pistachios and mix further until distributed evenly.

Divide the mixture in two and roll each half in a sheet of baking paper to form a log shape. Refrigerate for 20 minutes to firm up.

Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Line two trays with baking paper. Using a sharp knife, slice biscuit logs into 1cm thick rounds. 

Lay on trays and bake for 10-12 minutes until golden.

Once cool, put them in a vintage biscuit tin then sit on your hands until your guests arrive because there's nothing more embarrassing than inviting people over and having to confess you've eaten their morning tea.

A Very Bloggy Morning Tea - Day Two

Did I mention it was cold here in the highlands? Some of you are visiting from milder climes, so I hope you've packed your thermals. I decided that we might have been all tea-and-caked out after yesterday, so today I've been brewing up a saucepan full of spiced hot chocolate. And the cookie tin is full! Pistachio and cardamom choc-chip, anyone? Yes, I thought so.

It's the perfect day for a knit and a natter, so I hope you've brought your project bags. It promises to be a sunny day. We might be able to rug up and head out for some fresh air later, feel the crunch of autumn leaves underfoot. Whatever takes your fancy...it's that kind of week.

Another lovely blogging friend will be over in a couple of hours to share her thoughts on tea and coffee. I can't wait to share this story - it's a beautiful one! And you can have the recipe for those biscuits on your way out.

It's only day two and, thanks to your generous support, we've already nearly reached our goal of $1,000. Don't let that stop you. If you can spare a few dollars, every bit counts. I say we go gung-ho and double the goal!!!! You can donate here. And don't forget to pop back here to enter the giveaway if you haven't already.

Hummingbird Celebration Cake

I'm not sure where this recipe originated. It's handwritten into the recipe book I left home with way back when. It's essentially a banana and pineapple cake with a relentlessly moreish cream cheese frosting. For such an impressive looking and tasting cake, it sure is easy. And it makes a great alternative to the stock-standard butter cake for when you want to layer up a tower of deliciousness to celebrate something wonderful…like a birthday, a christening, or the launch of a Very Bloggy Morning Tea.

For the cake, you will need:


3 cups plain flour
2 cups caster sugar
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp bicarb soda
2 mushy bananas, mashed
440g tin crushed pineapple in natural juice


Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Throw all the ingredients in a bowl and beat with mixers. Distribute evenly between 3 or 4 greased and lined 20-22cm cake tins. If you've only got two matching tins like I do, do it in two lots.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

For the cream cheese frosting, you will need:

125g butter
250g cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla essence
500g icing sugar mixture

Soften butter and cheese in the microwave for one minute. Beat until smooth. Add vanilla and icing sugar and beat until well combined. Try to resist eating huge spoonfuls of it straight from the bowl. Layer cakes with frosting between each layer, then smother the entire thing with more frosting.

Serve fat slices on tiny plates, and when you're done, go back for seconds.

Donate to my Very Bloggy Morning Tea here. Check out the great giveaway here. Did you see Vanessa's beautiful cakey tale back here? Go on, it deserves a read.

You Say Pissaladiere...

Is it right to call something something even if it's not exactly the something, but takes that lovely something as its inspiration? This is definitely not a pizza. In fact, it's really just a tart. And a pissaladiere is also just a tart. A tart at heart. With no tomato sauce or cheese in sight, it's more tart than pizza. But they put tandoori chicken on pizzas these days, so...

A traditional Provencal pissaladiere is topped with caramelised onions and decoratively placed anchovies and olives. I used the onions, but added sauted mushrooms and goats cheese.

I've seen a lot of pissaladiere recipes that use puff pastry, but I think it's meant to be a bread or pizza dough. This is an olive oil shortcrust - the first time I've made one - and I was delighted with how beautifully it handled and tasted. I also liked how virtuous I felt to skip the butter.

I love caramelised onions. Making this recipe reinvigorated my love for them, slow-cooked in a little oil over the lowest temperature, helped along towards the end with a dash of balsamic and a sprinkling of brown sugar. I made them again a week later, adding some to a frittata and turning the rest into onion soup. 

French onion soup, perhaps? Perhaps no more French than this pissaladiere. But entirely delicious and entirely worth making for lunch this weekend.

You can find my recipe for this tart here.

Late Summer Tart

After all our efforts last spring, we haven't harvested a single tomato. That's if you don't count the funny, knobbly little green one Pearl picked yesterday with the greatest of glee. Which leaves the total number of tiny green fruit left on the few straggly, surviving plants in the patch at about four. 

But summer equals tomatoes, even if they have to come from the greengrocer. I made this delicious little tart for Kidspot recently - I hinted at it here - and promised you the recipe. The tomatoes are slow-roasted. Herby ricotta is smeared onto puff pastry, then topped with the tomatoes. It's baked till puffed and golden, then drizzled with a simple thyme oil.

You can find the recipe here.

Honey Plum

Remember that tree? Turns out it's a plum. I was out there the other day, looked up, and saw a little yellow fruit. Then another, and another. A few days later they were red, soft and sweet. 

On the weekend I picked a handful. Gazed at them on the kitchen bench for a while. Decided to make them into a cake.

A honey plum cake for a wet Sunday when the heat finally broke and things started to feel a bit normal again. Normal, not necessarily because of the drop in temperature, but because I was in the kitchen, baking.

Rich and squishy honey plum cake

100g butter

1/3 cup caster sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup honey

1 egg

1 cup self-raising flour

3/4 cup milk

squeeze of lemon juice

tiny plums plucked from a tree in your backyard on a hot summer's day

Preheat oven to 160 degrees C. Grease and line a 20cm springform cake tin.

Beat together butter and sugars until creamy. Add honey and egg and continue to beat. Add flour, milk and lemon juice and beat till smooth. Don't worry if it curdles a bit.

Pour batter into cake tin. Cut the cheeks off your tiny plums and scatter them over the batter. Don't worry about getting fancy - they're going to sink. Place tin in oven and cook for 50-55 minutes, until a skewer inserted comes out cleanish.

Allow to cool slightly in tin, then remove to a rack. Invert onto a plate to reveal the sunken plums. Drizzle with extra honey, and eat.

Bits and Pieces

Weaving in and out of all of that kid crazy, a lot has been going on here. Perhaps that's part of the problem - trying to do too much with too little. I'm not a perfectionist. I don't strive to have everything just so and I've always been able to live with good enough. But the big thing hovering over all of my thinking and doing in the years since I had babies is the great ticking clock. I wish I'd known this, or felt this, back when I was single and fancy-free, with ludicrous amounts of spare hours on my hands. But only now, with time at such a premium, am I aware of how quickly it goes, how little there is left, how much there is to be done, and how foolish it would be to waste it.

So I've been pushing towards finding work doing what I love, rather than spending all of those precious hours earning money but feeling empty. And there's a lot of exciting stuff slowly coming into focus. My ever-so-softly announced Etsy shop selling handknits is getting closer. There are a few bits and pieces to sort out, and the plan is to launch it as soon as I return from our holiday in early November. Watch this space.

And on the food front, I recently contributed a handful of my recipes and photos to Kidspot Kitchen, with the happy result that I've been asked to do it on a regular basis. Great, huh?

To celebrate, here's one of them - a reworking of the cakes I baked during my Very Bloggy Morning Tea back in May. These little pear and raspberry cakes look and feel like spring, even though pears are decidedly an autumn fruit. The Kidspot recipe used tinned pears, but I like to poach mine, peeled, cored and quartered, in a light sugar syrup (4 cups water to 1 cup sugar) with some sliced lemons and a scraped vanilla bean. The vanilla flavour infuses the whole cake and it's so good. Of course, you could always substitute with tinned pears and a teaspoon of vanilla essence, and I reckon, with summer approaching, any type of berry or stone fruit would be lovely too.

Little Pear and Raspberry Cakes

160 g unsalted butter
1 cup natural yoghurt
2 eggs
1 1/3 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 cup poached pears, cut into small pieces
3/4 cup raspberries, frozen or fresh

Preheat oven to 190 degrees C. Line a 12-hole muffin pan with paper cases. 

Melt butter and allow to cool. Whisk in yoghurt and eggs. Place flour, baking powder and sugar in a large bowl and whisk to combine. Pour in the butter mixture and whisk until smooth. Stir through pears.  

Spoon mixture into lined muffin pan, and dot each one with a few raspberries, pushing them into the batter. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until lightly brown and cooked through.

If you've made it this far, be sure to check back tomorrow. I'm giving away a beautiful knitting book. And everyone needs knitting books.

Sunday Lovelies

 

It's the last day of school holidays, the first of daylight saving. Summer's a-comin', and we've spent so much time this week outdoors. A busy week it's been, full of friends new and old, and the discovery of new favourite places.

1) To the creek (part 1)

2) A posy picked from our garden. Our garden!

3) Digging for worms.

4) A visit from a favourite.

5) Home-baked bread.

6) To the creek (part 2)

7) Collecting flowers.

Here's to a lovely week filled with late-sleeping babies, now that dawn has shifted forward an hour!