Category: Dessert
Blood Orange Chocolate Meringue Pie

Blood Orange Chocolate Meringue Pie

By | | Comments 0 Comment

Having just moved to a new place I’m meeting loads of new people and I’m going through that classic process of making friends. The classic what’s your name? Where are you from? What subject do you do? And so on.  Then once your past the go-to questions things get a little more creative, and sooner or later things seem to move onto ‘hobbies and interests’ at which point I inevitably get asked ‘what is your favourite thing to cook?’ It’s taken a while to work out what actually is my favourite thing to cook, and, whilst I don’t have a firm fave, the best answer I have at the moment is fruity meringue pies. This is somewhat ironic as I don’t really like them, but they’re fun to make for two reasons i) they’re my Grandad’s favourite so every time we see him I make a lemon meringue pie, and ii) they involve three really fun elements to make: pastry, curd and meringue.

I normally make traditional lemon meringue pies, but as I’m not a big fan of lemons I thought I’d try making a chocolate orange variation instead. However, the general concept of a meringue pie is that the curd is really sharp and that balances the super sweet meringue, so I’ve added some lemon juice in the curd of this one, not so much for the lemon flavour but more to give the filling a sharp kick. Since I made that almond and blood orange cake a little while ago I’ve been obsessed by blood oranges, and they work so well in this! They’re a little more floral and fruity than normal oranges, so you can think of this as orange-pie-plus!

(If you’ve never made pastry before and the thought of doing so makes you tremble, check out my last post on everything you need to know about making a pastry base!)

Recipe

Serves 12

Time: 2 hours

Ingredients

For the Pastry

  • 285g Plain flour
  • 30g Cocoa powder
  • 90g Icing sugar
  • Pinch of salt
  • 225g Unsalted butter
  • 1 Large egg
  • 1 tbsp Cold water

For the Blood orange curd

  • 3 Blood oranges
  • 3 tbsp Lemon juice
  • 65g Cornflour
  • 300ml Water
  • 110g Caster sugar
  • 85g Unsalted butter
  • 4 Egg yolks

For the meringue

  • 50g Dark chocolate
  • 5 Egg whites
  • 250g Caster sugar
  • 2 tsp Cocoa powder

Method

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C. Then grease a 9 or 10 inch fluted tart tin.
  2. Put the flour, cocoa, sugar and salt into a large bowl and mix together. Add the butter and cut it up into chunks with a round bladed knife.
  3. Then go in with your fingers and rub the butter into the flour to make a bread-crumb texture.
  4. Add the egg yolk and the vanilla to the mixture and then mix everything together with a round bladed knife until a ball forms. (You might need to go in with your hands again and squish the dough into a ball).
  5. Wrap the dough in cling film and then leave it to chill in the fridge for at least an hour.
  6. Lightly flour a surface and turn the dough out onto it. Roll the pastry into a circle at least 12inch in diameter. Flip the pastry into the tart case and then gently ease it into the flutes of the tin. Then use a rolling pin to trim off the excess by rolling it over the edge. Chill in the fridge for another 30 minutes.
  7. Line the pastry case with baking paper and baking beans. The easiest way to do this is to scrunch up a square of baking paper and then un-crumple it – this will make it super easy to line the tin with!
  8. Put the base in the oven and bake for roughly 15 minutes, until the base is cooked through but not necessarily crisp. Then take the case out of the oven, remove the beans and bake for another 5-10 minutes, until crisp.
  9. Next make the curd. Put the zest and the juice of the blood oranges into a heatproof bowl. Add the lemon juice, cornflour and mix together to form a paste.
  10. Put the water into a pan and bring to the boil. Then pour the hot water over the orange mixture, stirring constantly. When combined pour the mixture back into the pan and place over a medium heat. Stir constantly until the mixture starts to thicken. Then leave to boil for a minute.
  11. Take the mixture off the heat and stir in the sugar, butter and the egg yolks. Set aside until needed.
  12. When the pastry case is ready, pour the curd into the case and smooth over with a spatula . Lower the oven temperature to 140˚C.
  13. Now make the meringue. Put the chocolate into a heatproof bowl over a pan over simmering water (make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water!). Melt gently and then take the bowl off the heat and leave to cool a little.
  14. Next clean a metal or glass bowl and some electric beakers with hot soapy water. (You need them to be really clean so that the meringue will hold its shape).
  15. Put the egg whites into the clean, dry bowl and whisk until soft peaks form.
  16. Slowly add the sugar, one tbsp at a time, whisking constantly until stiff peaks form.
  17. Stir together the cocoa powder and the melted chocolate and fold it into the meringue to get a swirl effect.
  18. Spoon the mixture into a piping bag with a star shaped nozzle and then pipe swirls over the curd (or just dollop the meringue on top if you don’t want to pipe).
  19. Put the whole thing back in the oven for 10-15 minutes until it’s crisp but not brown. Then leave to cool slightly in the oven before serving!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x

 
Amaretti Stuffed Peaches with Lemon Cream

Amaretti Stuffed Peaches with Lemon Cream

By | | Comments 0 Comment

As it’s world mental health awareness day today I wanted to make a recipe that’s perfect for all states of mind. For me cooking is that relaxing, creative outlet for all my anxiety, anger and so on and I think lots of people similarly find that it’s a great de-stress activity. There’s also something very communal about making something you can share with others, and most of all making something that is tasty to eat. However there are times when the thought of going into the kitchen is not appealing and whilst I know it’d help me feel better, everything I can think of to cook feels too complicated. Bring on the stuffed fruit!

I’ve never been much of a fan of stuffing fruit for desserts; I generally prefer to stuff desserts with fruit. But if you want a quick, delicious dessert that is super easy to throw together and very hard to get wrong then I seriously recommend these! By crushing up some amaretti biscuits you can make a really flavoursome stuffing for these peaches in seconds, and it also works really well in plums, nectarines and apples so you can work with whatever fruit is in season. I realise that amaretti biscuits may be a little pricey and niche for the average student/household, so if you don’t have any amaretti biscuits around you could use a selection of nuts instead.

Recipe

Serves 3

Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

For the peaches

  • 3 Peaches
  • 30g Ground almonds
  • 20g Chopped almonds or hazelnuts
  • 20g Crushed amaretti biscuits
  • Zest of ½ a Lemon
  • 1 tbsp Caster sugar
  • 1 Small egg
  • A few drops of rosewater
  • A few drops of Vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp Amaretto (optional)
  • 250ml Apple juice

For the cream

  • 250ml Double cream
  • Zest of ½ an Lemon
  • 2 tbsp Icing sugar
  • 1 tsp Orange blossom water

Method

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C. Slice the peaches in half and then take out the stones. Put the peach halves into a deep gratin dish or roasting tin in a single layer.
  2. In a bowl mix together the ground almonds, chopped almonds, crushed amaretti biscuits, lemon zest, sugar, egg, rosewater and vanilla until combined.
  3. Spoon this mixture into the space in the peaches where the stones were, making a little mound.
  4. Mix the apple juice and the amaretto in a bowl and then pour this around the peaches.
  5. Then bake the peaches in the oven for 30-40 minutes until soft and slightly caramelised (the time will vary depending on the peaches ripeness).
  6. Now make the cream. Gently whip the cream with a hand whisk until soft peaks form. Then add the lemon zest, sugar and orange blossom water and fold in gently to combine.
  7. Serve the warm peaches with the cream and little of the poaching juices!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
Devils Fruit Pie

Devils Fruit Pie

By | | Comments 0 Comment

I’ve always loved a good bit of folklore and when I was down in Devon the other day I came across something I’d never heard before, so here’s some storytime for your day. We were on a coastal walk with some friends, winding our way through sandy dunes and forest paths, when we started walking past isles of blackberry bushes laden with tones of juicy fruit ripe for the plucking. My mum is a keen forager and at this time of year always carries bags and Tupperware on walks in case we pass anything edible that can be picked (if we hit Armageddon I’m sticking close to her!). So we pulled out the bags and started picking off the biggest blackberries we could find, eating a few, then bagging a few for later.

 Then, I can’t quite remember how, Simon began talking about the Devil spitting on blackberries and impending doom awaiting those who’d eat blackberries after 11th October, as you do. Being me I missed half the story through drifting in and out of the conversation, so when I got home I looked it up and to find out what the blazes he was on about. Apparently when Lucifer fell from heaven, on the 11th October (who knew!), he fell on a thorny blackberry bush. As a result he now spits on all the blackberries on 11th October and so anyone who eats them after this time is doomed . What a cheery story right?  You learn something new every day.

Luckily you have another week or so to forage for all the blackberries you can find and stuff them into as many pies, scones or tarts as you can before they get spat on by the devil! This pie is made up of a whole load of fruit we foraged for and just shows that pretty much anything can go in a pie (within reason – don’t go all Sweeney Tod on me). Here I’ve used apples, plums, damson and blackberries. I’ve also done a decorative top because I wanted to get a little creative, but you could also cover the whole thing in pastry to get the traditional look, or do something wacky yourself.

Recipe

Serves 12

Time: 1 hour, plus chilling time

Ingredients

For the pastry

  • 340g Plain flour
  • 150g Unsalted butter
  • 1 tbsp Caster sugar
  • A pinch of salt
  • 3 tbsp Water

For the filling

  • 1 Large cooking apple ( I used Bramley)
  • 4 Plums
  • A handful of Blackberries
  • 6 Small damsons (or 2 more plums)
  • 3 tsp Brown sugar
  • 1 tsp Ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp Ground ginger
  • 1 tbsp Plain flour
  • 1 tsp Cornflour

Method

  1. Begin by making the pastry. Put the flour and butter into a large bowl. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingers until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
  2. Stir the sugar and the salt into the flour with a round bladed knife and then keep mixing as you add the water until a smooth dough forms. Bring the dough together with your hands to make a ball and then wrap the dough in cling film and leave in the fridge to chill for at least 1 hour.
  3. Meanwhile prepare the filling. Peel, core and dice the apple. Then de-stone and dice the plums and damsons into similarly sized chunks to the apples.
  4. Put all the fruit into a large pan with the sugar, cinnamon, and ginger. Place over a medium heat and bring to a gentle simmer, stirring occasionally until the fruit is starting to soften and let out its juices. Add the flour and the cornflour to the pan, stir to combine and then set aside to cool.
  5. Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C. When the pastry is ready take it out of the fridge and place on a lightly floured worktop. If you’re going to make a full pastry top cut the pastry into two, if not cut 1/3 of the pastry off and leave to one side for later. Shape the larger block of pastry into a ball and then roll it out into a circle slightly wider than the pie tin (so you’ll have some over hang).
  6. Transfer the pastry disc into the pie tin, making sure it fits into any flutes or creases in the tin. Allow any excess pastry to hang over the edge for now. Pour the fruit filling into the pie and level it off so it’s an even layer.
  7. Now shape the topping. For this pie I cut 4 pastry strips to make a small lattice on top and then cut out some leaves for the boarder, but you could shape the pastry for the top in any way you like. Alternatively you could roll out the pastry into a disc to cover the whole top like an original pie.
  8. Once you’ve added any lids, pastry strips or the like, but before you add any decorations to the rim of the pie you’ll need to trim the excess pastry. Hold the pie in one hand and take a knife with the other. Cut around the edge of the pie at a 45˚ angle against the tin to cleanly cut off the excess.
  9. When the pie is ready brush with the beaten egg or milk to glaze and then bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes until golden brown and crisp. Serve with cream or custard!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x

 
Black Forest Amaretto Trifles  

Black Forest Amaretto Trifles  

By | | Comments 0 Comment

I’m heading off to uni in a couple of days where I’ll be in the land of little space and little money, so recently I’ve been doing a load of cooking to make the most of the time I’ve got left. The result of doing a load of cooking at once is that you end up having the weirdest niche ingredients lying around the kitchen which then work their way into new recipes. A little while ago I made some stuffed amaretti peaches (recipe coming soon!) and so I had half a bag of amaretti biscuits leftover. I found myself snacking on these biscuits for a couple of days before I realised that rather than snacking on them I should probably use them to make something else. They’re not something I have lying around very often but they can add great flavour to a dish!

So that’s how these came into being. Some crushed amaretti biscuits in the bottom of a glass, topped with some spiced, previously frozen cherries (keeping frozen fruit in the freezer is the most useful thing for speedy, quick desserts!) and then a chocolate custard type thing on the top. The custard layer in this takes a while to thicken as it doesn’t use eggs, so if you want to make this super quick you could just make a light ganache by heating up some double cream and pouring it over the same amount of chopped chocolate. Then add 2 tsp milk and mix until combined. This may make the dessert a little richer, but it’ll make it super quick to put together.

Recipe

Serves 4

Time: 20 minutes (may be a little longer depending on how long it takes for your custard to set!)

Ingredients

For the Cherry layer

  • 150g Frozen cherries
  • 50g Caster sugar
  • ½ tsp Ground cinnamon
  • ½ tsp Ground ginger
  • ½ tsp Vanilla bean paste

For the Chocolate layer

  • 500ml Milk
  • 1 tbsp Plain flour
  • 2 tbsp Caster sugar
  • 1 tsp Vanilla bean paste
  • 60ml Amaretto
  • 100g Dark chocolate
  • 50g Unsalted butter

For the Topping/Base

  • 250ml Double cream
  • 125g Amaretti Biscuits, plus a few extra to decorate

Method

  1. Begin with the cherry layer. Put the cherries, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, vanilla and 2 tbsp water into a pan and bring to a gentle simmer. Leave until the cherries are squishy and the juices are running out of them but the cherries are still in shape. Set aside for later.
  2. Now make the chocolate layer. Put the milk into a pan and heat gently.
  3. In another bowl put the flour, sugar and vanilla into a bowl and whisk together until smooth. Slowly pour the warm milk over the mixture, whisking constantly to combine, and then pour the custard mix back into the pan.
  4. Place the pan back onto a medium heat, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens and is smooth.
  5. Add the amaretto and mix it in. Then take the pan off the heat and stir in the chocolate and the butter until they’ve melted. Set aside for now.
  6. To prep the topping pour the double cream into a bowl and whisk gently until soft peaks form. Leave somewhere cool (like in a fridge) until needed. Then crush the amaretti biscuits and put them into a bowl.
  7. Now you’re ready to start layering the trifles. Take 4 shallow glasses or one large serving dish and sprinkle ½ the amaretti biscuits into the bottom. Then spoon over ½ the chocolate mixture, followed by the cherries, keeping a few aside to decorate. Portion out the rest of the chocolate mixture between the glasses and smooth over with a spoon to make an even layer. Dollop the cream onto the top of the trifle(s) and finish with a sprinkle of the rest of the rest amaretti biscuits and a cherry. Enjoy!

Thanks for reading!
Emma x
Apple Jalousie

Apple Jalousie

By | | Comments 0 Comment

It’s taken a while for me to get my head around the new direction of this blog, specifically how on earth am I going to combine food with mental health awareness? As food is such a social and communal thing you’d think it’d be the perfect medium through which to spark conversations, and that’s what I thought, but sitting here at my laptop typing away I’m stumped as to how to make this work from my end. I’m generally one of those people who thinks out loud so I’ve decided that’s what I’m going to do now. As always the hardest things is to know how to start. How do you introduce such a sensitive topic and how do you even begin to open up about your own problems? Y’ see, I don’t think of myself as a writer and yet I thought I could write a food blog because I feel like I know about food, but when it comes to writing about something more serious than puff pastry I get a little tongue tied.

As this is a food blog I wouldn’t be surprised if most of you clicked onto this post expecting to see lots lengthy descriptions of beautiful autumn apples or to find out what the hell a jalousie actually is – that’s what you’d expect to read and that’s what I still want to deliver.  So my challenge is to find a way to write mouth-watering food themed paragraphs, glossy recipes, and at the same time talk about what needs to be talked about without being way too long and boring. The question is how?

I’m afraid I haven’t come to a conclusion on that yet, but I promise I’ll keep working on it! My high school yearbook quote was “I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m doing it”, which I think is pretty applicable. I have no idea how I’m going to do what I’m planning on doing, but it’ll work out in some way, shape or form. In the meantime (talk about not giving you mountains to read!) let me introduce you to a little fun pastry called jalousie. I first made one of these way back in school when I was young and could burn water. This is a super easy and quick way of using up any apples you’ve got lying around and is a perfect dessert for autumn!

Recipe

Serves about 9

Time: 15 minutes, plus baking time

Ingredients

  • 1 Pack of puff pastry
  • 2 tbsp Apricot jam
  • 1 Large cooking apple (I went for Bramley)
  • 1 tbsp Brown sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
  • 2 tsp Plain flour
  • ½ tsp Ground cinnamon
  • 1 Small egg, beaten

Method

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C and line a baking tray with baking paper.
  2. On a lightly floured surface roll the pastry out into a rectangle about half the thickness of a £1 coin (or just buy ready rolled pastry to make your life easier). Using a knife score a 2cm boarder around the edge of the rectangle and then score a line down the middle. Transfer the pastry sheet to your lined baking tray.
  3. Spread the apricot jam over one half of the rectangle, leaving the 2cm boarder around the edge.
  4. Peel, core and thinly slice the apples. Bung them in a bowl with the sugar, flour, and cinnamon, and then mix together until combined. Arrange the apples over the pastry with the apricot jam so they cover the area evenly.
  5. Take a sharp knife and cut 1cm thick lines into the other half of the pastry, again leaving the 2cm boarder that you scored earlier around the edge.
  6. Crack the egg into a bowl and beat with a fork. Then brush a little of the egg around the 2cm boarder (this will help the pastry to stick).
  7. Fold the pastry top over the apples, separating the strips slightly so they’re separate. Then take a fork and press around the edge of the pastry to seal the top and the bottom together.
  8. Brush more of the egg over the pastry to glaze. Finish with  sprinkle of brown sugar and then bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes until puffed up and golden brown.
  9. Serve warm with ice cream, whipped cream and/or custard!

Thanks for reading! You can now follow/subscribe to The Mindfulness Kitchen on all kinds of social media – links in the side bar!

Emma x