Olive Oil & Wine Pastry

Well behaved pastry that doesnt need pre-chilling or even a rolling pin!

This is my Go-To for savoury tarts and quiches. It is a beautifully elastic soft pastry which you can roll or press with your fingers. Because it is so pliable it creates very thin tart shells – a thin crisp astry and more filling!

Ingredients

This will line a deep (4cm) 20cm quiche ring so if you have a regular slightly less deep flan tin you will have a little left over – freeze it. Or 2 x 20cm regular quiche tins or 3 x 18cm

200g Wholemeal flour (adds flavour)

50g organic white flour

25g polenta (adds crunch)

25 g mixed seeds

15g poppy seeds

100ml white wine (or water)

80ml regular olive oil

1 egg beaten – saving one tablespoon of it

a pinch of salt

How To

Measure the oil and water/wine into one measuring container. I always like how the oil floats on the water…I know its nerdy but I like it.

Put all the ingredients in a bowl together and mix with a knife until a solid soft ball is formed.

Take care not to over mix

Ceate a disc of pastry with your hands

Roll with a rolling pin and use the rolling pin to lower into the tin – press in with your thums. Trim the excess

Press the pastry into your tin gradually working from the centre out so the pastry is one thickness. make sure the rim is properly thick not paper thin using your thumb to tap it down a little.

Preparing for the Tart Filling – Blind Baking

Scrunch up a piece of baking paper (it needs to become softer and pliable)

Fill with ceramic baking beans if you own them, a mix of beans, rice and grain as I prefer or salt (which works well but if spilt makes your tart really really salty so I avoid it).

Bake for 20 minutes at 180C

Remove the beans

paint the inside with the spoonful of egg – you just waterproofed the tart case to prevent a soggy bottom and we don’t want any of those

Bake again for 10 minutes

Leave to cool, fill with your chosen filling and bake gently until the filling is cooked.

Busy girl’s no churn ice cream

As the mercury soars past 40C its time for ice cream.

Ready for simplicity? Here it is. Take one quantity of ultimate cream cheese frosting and freeze it. That’s it. I promise you. The secret to this is the air – because it contains meringue and therefore air it is a mousse and so when you freeze it, it will still be soft.

I must admit to a certain feeling of satisfaction when I make one technique actually evolve into two or even three dishes. I guess its the elegant economy of it. Whatever it is…its really time saving and economical as you can whip up some frosting , double it up and freeze half for ice cream

Improvs & Ideas

Add whole fruit or my fave – chopped up pieces of crystallised ginger.

Ultimate Cream Cheese Frosting

The icing on the cake indeed.

Not for nothing is this a much used idiom. Soft billowy pillows of frosting lying on beds of moist sponge – this is the partnership that makes great cakes. This frosting works so wonderfully with (in the order as pictured) chocolate zucchini, chocolate & red wine, coffee, potato & walnut, carrot cake that its pretty much become my go-to frosting.

I was always frustrated with cream cheese frostings splitting and misbehaving on me and I find a classic frosting a little heavy. So I experimented and came up with this which is a meringue with cream cheese and mascarpone. The meringue locks in the cheeses thus preventing any weeping – and lets face it the less weeping in the kitchen the better – and adds a degree of airiness and lightness too. For those concerned with egg safety an Italian meringue should be used ie one made with a hot sugar syrup that knocks out any bacterial nasties.

Gadgets & Gizmo

An electric whisk unless you are possessed of the biceps of an Olympic shot putter.

Ingredients

200g sugar or 125g fructose
4 egg whites
1 tea spoon of vinegar or lemon juice (wipe the bowl and the whisk to be squeaky clean and grease free – dont skip this even if you don’t like the smell of vinegar…un puffed meringues are much worse)
1 250g tup of mascarpone
1 x 200-250g tub of cream cheese
1tsp of good vanilla essence

How To

First make the meringue. I know that you should add the sugar in stages but I don’t. I sling it into the Kenwood with the egg whites after Ive done my vinegar cleaning thing and turn it on to max. Then I wait until the meringue turns shiny. That’s it. Be bold!

Loosely mix the mascarpone and cream cheese together so that there are no lumps and bumps. Sometimes I use a little hand whisk for this. add in the vanilla essence.

The key now is to not knock out any air. So we employ a little trick a la making a genoise…

Take some of the meringue (a generous couple of spoonfuls) and mix this gently with the cheese mixture thus creating a halfway house frosting. Because if you were to dollop in the cheese directly into the meringue the two would never amalgamate properly.

Now take the half way house frosting and tip that into the meringue and gently fold in, using a figure of eight motion, taking care not to knock out any air.

Now your frosting is ready to use…slather over cakes…sandwich between sponges…dip fruit into…freeze for the easiest ice cream ever.

Ideas & Improvs

Takes readily to a good quality coffee powder and becomes coffee frosting. Some lemon or lime zest is magical too.