Fruit – Page 2 – The Art of Puddings

Queens Park Day: 11th Sept

Leave a Comment / Art of Puddings News, Event, Fruit / Sue

Art of Puddings came to Queens Park Day last Sunday and a fantastic day was had by all. We sold everything we brought along!!

300 dessert shots, Vanilla Cheesecake, redcurrant jelly, damson jam, damson cheese, plum jam & gooseberry jam, strawberry jam and elderflower cordial. We had a great spot in the park, close enough to the main food stalls. To our left we had Transition Town Kensal to Kilburn with their apple pressing team – they pressed 420 glasses of apple juice made from locally picked apples!! and on our right a delightful father and son with the 23rd Willesden Scouts stall. Their massive jar of loose sweets proved too much of a temptation and at the end of the day with plummeting blood sugar – we’d all succumbed.

We were selling our usual dessert shots – mango fool, chocolate mousse and rote gruetze (red fruit pudding) with a delicious new edition, Apple Snow. We had a bumper crop of cooking apples from the garden and so with a couple of kilos puréed and sitting ready in the fridge – apple snow fitted the bill, It’s quick and easy to make and everyone loves it. Apple Snow was one of my favourite childhood desserts and I used to beg my mother to make it when the cooking apple season came around. Here’s my recipe for Apple Snow adapted from my mum’s Apfel Schnee.

APPLE SNOW

Serves 8-10

1 kg cooking apples (peeled, cored and chopped)
5 tbsp soft brown sugar (according to taste)
small piece of cassia bark (or cinnamon stick)
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
4 egg whites
30g castor sugar
100 ml double cream

Put the apples into a pan with brown sugar and cassia bark, add lemon zest and juice, cover and simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring every now and again until the apples are cooked. Take care that the apples don’t catch on the bottom of the pan. Remove the lid and carry on simmering for a couple more minutes until the mixture is dry. Blend until smooth in a food processor or pass through a fine sieve or chinois. Transfer to a large bowl to cool.

Whisk the egg whites by hand or in a stand mixer to soft peaks then add 30g caster sugar and whisk briefly until stiff. Whip the cream separately until fairly stiff then carefully fold the egg whites into the cool apple purée finally adding the whipped cream. Spoon into invidual dishes or one large dish and chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours. Great with ginger tuiles or shortbread biscuits or sublime on its own.

Many thanks on the day to: No 1 son for his calm and charm, Monika M for liquid sustenance + sign ups and Sue D & family for photos and moral support . Also for ongoing encouragement from our new customers, potential ‘puddingistas’, friends and family. Where would we be without you!

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Tarte Tatin

Leave a Comment / Baking, Fruit, Tart / Sue

This delicious pastry made with apples established the reputation of the Tatin sisters who ran a hotel in the Loire Valley in 1898. According to tradition the sister who did the cooking, Stephanie, was making a traditional apple pie and over-cooked the apples. She rescued the dish by putting a pastry cover on top of the apples and quickly finishing it off in the oven. She inverted the cooked tart onto a plate and to her delight the hotel guests loved it. According to tradition the dish became so popular that the owner of Maxim’s in Paris sent down spies to discover the secret recipe.

The other day my friend Laurent, former pastry chef turned yoga teacher (yogalaurent), came over to make tarte tatin with me. A few days before he’d texted me a list of ingredients reminding me to get firm dessert apples (eg Braeburn, Jonagold) which would hold their shape and not turn to mush! He also checked that I had a heavy ovenproof frying pan. On a recent day trip to Paris, I bought two different sized black iron pans which were perfect for tarte tatin. Black iron pans are used all the time in restaurants – you can start a dish on the stove and put the pan staight into a very hot oven to finish it off. I love mine but you do have to temper them before use and always smear a little oil over the surface after cleaning them or they’ll end up rusty!!

As we had limited time, we used a good quality buttery ready-made puff pastry. Working together we decided to use two pans and divide the recipe according to the size of each pan. The larger pan held 7/8 apples, the smaller pan took 5/6 apples. Whatever size pan you use, you will need to pack the apples together so that they fit together snuggly. Shoulder to Shoulder….

Tarte Tatin Recipe
8 Braeburn apples
1/2 packet puff pastry
2/3 tbsp caster sugar
50g unsalted butter
1/2 small orange, zest grated plus juice
1/2 lemon, zest grated plus juice
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Core and peel all the apples and cut into half lengthways.

As we were using two different sized black iron pans – the smaller pan had 5 apples, so 10 halves and the larger pan had 7 apples or 14 halves. The next stage was the caramelisation which can take about 10/15 mins. We added some good knobs of butter into the apple filled pan and turned the heat to medium/high. Then we added 2 or 3 tablespoons of sugar and allowed the apples to take on a lovely golden colour as they started to caramelize. At this point we added a couple of teaspoons of the lemon/orange zest/juice mixture. You may well need to add more butter as it gets absorbed. You will need to hover over the pan with a fork and turn all the apples frequently making sure they get that all over golden tan.

Get your puff pastry and flour your surface well and roll each piece out to a rectangle of about 3mm depth and wide enough to cover your pan plus extra to fold under the apples. (Handy tip: I don’t wash my wooden rolling pin. If you just scrape off whatever adheres to it with the back of the knife – it will last forever.

Laurent pointed out politely that working with pastry benefits from a cold smooth surface and a piece of granite in lieu of an expensive kitchen surface makeover. (Note to myself check out my nearest reclamation yard!).

The next stage is a bit like tucking a blanket under the edges of a baby’s cot. Carefully tuck the pastry underneath the apples making sure you go all round the pan leaving no gaps. You may need to trim bits off here and there and use them to patch the gaps where there isn’t enough pastry to tuck underneath.

When you’re happy that your apples are cosily tucked up in their pastry blanket, lightly prick the pastry all over with a fork, being careful not to pierce through the pastry. The tarte is now ready to go into a hot oven (at least 200 degrees C) and bake until the pastry is a light golden colour. Approx 20 mins but definitely check it after 15 mins as temperatures do vary from oven to oven.

When your tart is cooked get it out of the oven with an oven glove, hold your pan firmly by its handle in one hand and get your serving plate as close as you can to the pan and with one swift manoeuvre invert the tarte onto your plate. Re-arrange the apples if they have became dislodged in the inverting process. Tarte Tatin is best eaten warm served with crème fraiche or vanilla ice cream.

If you’d like to learn how to make Tarte Tatin, White Chocolate Mousse or Pear and Hazelnut Tart, you can sign up today for one of my Art of Pudding classes starting again in September. If you book for any of my classes before 31st August 2011, you can save £20 per person off the normal cost of a class (£70). Cost: £50 per person!!!

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Pudding of the Month: July 2011

Leave a Comment / Frozen Desserts, Fruit, Pudding of the Month / Sue

Easy Cherry Sorbet

My local farmers market has a stall selling nothing but Kent cherries for £5 a kilo so this month I’ve been trying out recipes featuring cherries.

I’ve adapted this one from a recipe by David Lebovitz whose blog and books I’m a great fan of. I’m always on the look out for ice cream and sorbet recipes which genuinely work without an ice cream churner as I don’t own one (as yet!) – and this one fits the bill. It’s simple to make and delicious.

675g/1 ½ lbs sweet cherries, pitted

100 g sugar

250 ml water

1 tablespoon lemon juice

a few drops almond essence

1 tablespoon of kirsch (optional)

In a large saucepan combine the cherries, sugar, water and lemon juice and cook for about 10 mins, stirring occasionally until the cherries have softened and released their juices. Remove from the heat and add the almond extract and kirsch, if using. Set aside to cool completely.

Decant the cherries and their syrup into a shallow container, cover and freeze until firm, at least 2hrs.

Once the cherry mixture has frozen completely, take it out of the freezer, break it up, and process it in a food processor fitted with the metal blade until completely smooth. Serve immediately.

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Adventures with Jam and Jelly

Leave a Comment / Fruit / Sue

P1010520 — Westmoreland Damsons from Cumbria

P1010572 — Strawberries grown nr Colchester, Essex

Of the many culinary activities I enjoyed as a child, I have no memory of making jam at home. We always had a plentiful crop of soft fruit in our garden every summer – raspberries and gooseberries. The raspberries would be eaten on their own with sugar and vanilla ice cream and the gooseberries would be transformed into a magnificent fruit fool served in a heavy cut glass bowl. Like many other families in the 60s my first experience of jam was Roberston’s.

I remember my mother cutting open shop bought jam doughnuts, scraping out the lurid pink runny stuff inside them and replacing it with a generous dollop of Robertson’s strawberry jam.

So making jams and jellies is a journey of discovery on which I’ve happily embarked. Aided and abetted by my jam making friends, the internet and my jam making bible “The Basic Basics – Jams, Preserves and Chutneys” by Marguerite Patten, I’m slowly but surely extending my repertoire. From a humble home-produced Grape Jelly (courtesy of my neighbours’ grape vine) to plum, damson and gooseberry jams and more recently, an all time favourite, Redcurrant Jelly.

Last week I got a good deal on twelve punnets of redcurrants. I adore home-made redcurrant jelly. I find the commercially available ones way too sweet, masking the lovely tart flavour of the translucent red berries. Redcurrant Jelly is really very easy to make.

Redcurrant jelly on pain de mie

The joy of making jelly is that the fruit preparation is quick and simple. Keeping the stalks on and even the odd leaf, slowly simmer the redcurrants until they’re really soft. You can add some water if your redcurrants aren’t very ripe and then just plop the lot (stalks and all) into a sterilised jelly bag suspended over a large bowl and leave it to drip over night. The following morning you should have a good quantity of ruby red liquid. If you want a beautiful clear jelly, do resist the temptation to squeeze the last drops out of your jelly bag. If you’re not bothered about producing a cloudy redcurrant jelly then go right ahead.

I have discovered that jelly sets much faster than jam and if you’re not careful your jelly will start setting in the pan if you are not quick enough to pot them into their jars. After measuring the redcurrant liquid in my bowl, I warmed my redcurrant liquid on a low heat adding the sugar until it was all dissolved. I reduced the sugar content a fair bit as I prefer a tarter tasting jelly. After a fast boil my jelly reached setting point within 8-10 mins and after a quick skim, was ready to be potted into hot, sterilised jars. Redcurrant jelly is equally delicious on freshly baked bread and butter and its tangy flavour perfectly offsets the richness of roast meats or game.

In my early days of making jam, I made many batches which simply had to be thrown away either because I’d over boiled the fruit and sugar resulting in a solid mass of caramelized brown toffee or at the opposite end of the scale, my jammy mixture would refuse to set and I’d be left with jars of sloppy unset jam.

I’ve definitely learned from my mistakes. I’ve shared with other jam makers, read jam making blogs and have simply made a lot more jam over the years. I’ve learned that it is better to make a few small batches of jam than one large one. Cooking time is reduced which preserves more of the fruits flavour and in case it does goes wrong, you waste less of your precious fruit.

In June, with the early appearance of strawberries at the end of May, I set about making my first strawberry jam. Armed with my recently purchased preserving pan (JamJarShop), jam thermometer and strawberries, I set to work.

All went smoothly until I tried to get the jam to set. After hard boiling and trying all three jam setting tests – The Wrinkle, The Flake and The Temperature test. My jam would still not set!!

I know I’m not alone here – strawberry jam is notoriously tricky. Strawberries are low in pectin. I took immediate action, googled and found advice recommending the addition of rhubarb (high in pectin) to solve my jam setting problem. I happened to have a small quantity of stewed rhubarb in my fridge so tipped the lot into my pan and tried again. Reader……it worked like a dream. The rhubarb didn’t overpower the taste of the strawberries and it broke down quickly and disappeared into the jam. I now have 10 lovely jars of strawberry and rhubarb jam.

I love this time of year when there is such an abundance of produce and I can make something different every day. I’m off to make my next batch right now. Happy Jamming.

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