Chocolate Brandy Pecan Pie

Tags

pecan pie, sweet pastry

Chocolate Brandy Pecan Pie

I just pulled this pie from the oven… The crust is a homemade sweet pastry.

Chocolate Brandy Pecan Pie

Ingredients

Sweet Pastry (preferably homemade)
1 cup dark chocolate pieces (I used 70.5% Belgian Chocolate)
1.5 cups pecan pieces
5 large eggs
2 cups (about 2, not packed) dark brown suger
1/2 cup real maple syrup
1/4 (50g) stick unsalted butter
1/4 cup brandy (I used XO Armagnac)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Method

1. Preheat oven to 165°C/325°F.

2. Roll out pie crust and line pie tin with sweet pastry.

3. Cover bottom of pie crust with dark chocolate bits. Add pecan pieces on top of dark chocolate bits.

4. Break eggs into large mixing bowl and whisk.

5. In a saucepan over medium heat add brown suger, maple syrup, and butter. Remove pan from heat and add brandy. Heat to a slow simmer until bubbly and combined.

6. At this point you may turn off the heat and let the mixture cool for 10 minutes, then whisk into eggs. Or, add the hot mixture immediately to eggs by tempering – whisk the eggs continuously as you add the hot mixture.

7. Pour mixture into pie crust and place on a rack in the middle of the oven.

8. Bake at 165°C/325°F until centre of pie wiggles only slightly and springs back when pressed (about 50 minutes). If the top of the pie browns before the pie is set, cover the pie with aluminium foil and continue to cook until pie is set.

9. Allow pie to cool completely before serving.

10. Top with whipped cream or whatever catches your fancy and serve.

Enjoy!

A Taste of Belgian Chocolate

Tags

belgian chocolate, chocolate

A box of Art De Praslin Belgian Chocolate

Tempted?

Art De Praslin

Key Lime Pie

Tags

dessert, key lime, key lime pie, lime, pie, the potted kitchen garden

It has been quite a few years since I last ate Key lime pie.  A couple years ago I found Key lime trees at a local nursery and took a couple home with me for The Potted Kitchen Garden.  I have tended these lime trees for a while now and finally had a crop large enough to make a pie.  I figured it would be worth the wait…

I am fortunate to have Key limes growing in the garden, as they are not readily available here in NZ.  I love the flavour of Key limes, but if you cannot find Key limes, you can certainly use the more common available limes.  Key lime food purists can go suck a lime!  If you do purchase limes at a supermarket or farmer’s market, please do search for organic limes, as you need to use the zest of the limes in this recipe.

As the limes from my Key lime tree are quite small, I had to pick all 12 limes on the tree, and there still was not enough juice, so I made up the difference with the juice of three Kaffir limes, also from The Potted Kitchen garden.

I substituted McVitie’s Digestives for Graham Crackers in the original recipe.

This recipe is based on the recipe for Key Lime Pie from Joe’s Stone Crab in Miami, Florida.

 

Key Lime Pie

Serves 8

Ingredients

Crust

1 cup plus 2 1/2 tbsp. Digestive crumbs

1/3 cup sugar

70g unsalted butter, melted

Filling

1 1/2 tbsp. lime zest (about 2 limes worth)

3 egg yolks

One 395g can sweetened condensed milk

2/3 cup fresh lime juice, preferably from Key limes

Topping

250 mL heavy cream, chilled

1 tbsp. confectioner’s sugar (icing sugar)

Method

Heat oven to 175 Celsius.

Place digestives in ziplock bag and crush with rolling pin or pulse in food processor.  Combine digestive crumbs, sugar, and melted butter.  Press evenly into bottom and sides of a 22 cm loose bottomed tarte tin.  Bake until lightly browned, about 10 minutes.  Let cool.

In a medium bowl, beat lime zest and egg yolks with a hand mixer until pale and thick, about 5 minutes.  Add milk and beat until thickened, 3-4 minutes more.  Add lime juice, mix until smooth.  Pour filling into pie crust; bake until filling is just set in the middle, 8-10 minutes.  Let pie cool.  Chill pie at least 2-3 hours before serving.

In a medium bowl, whisk cream and confectioner’s sugar into stiff peaks.  Plate slice of pie with a healthy dollup of whipped cream.

Alternatively… Instead of whipped cream, try topping the pie with crème fraîche mixed with 1 tbsp. of confectioner’s sugar – rather like the topping on a New York style cheesecake.

A blast of lime well balanced by crust and cream

Delicious and definitely worth the wait for a good crop of Key limes from The Potted Kitchen Garden.

A Very Good, Very Chocolaty Chocolate Cake

Tags

baking, chocolate, chocolate cake, chocolate ganache, the gourmet farmer

I’ve got Belgian chocolate feeling lonely in the cupboard and Gaby has requested chocolate cake.  Time to pay in the kitchen.

Cake just pulled out of the oven.

There is a great series out of Australia called The Gourmet Farmer, by Matthew Evans.

The cake is cool and ready for ganache icing

This recipe is from Matthew Evans recipe for A Very Good, Very Chocolaty Chocolate Cake in his cookbook, Winter on the Farm.

Doesn’t that look good?

I used crème fraîche instead of sour cream and used a 20cm springform cake tin, because that is the closest size I could find in the kitchen.  The dark chocolate was a Belgian dark chocolate with 54% cocoa.

A Very Good, Very Chocolaty Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

125g butter, softened
150g brown sugar (soft)
1 tsp vanilla extract (use the good stuff, it makes a difference)
3 eggs
100g dark chocolate, melted (at least 50% cocoa)
100g sour cream
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
100g self-raising flour
125g almond meal

Ganache
100mls whipping cream
250g chocolate, broken into small bits (at least 50% cocoa)

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 170°C. Grease and line a 22cm springform cake tin or similar.

Cream the butter and sugar with the vanilla. Beat in the eggs one at time. If the mix looks a bit curdled, don’t worry, it isn’t; it’ll come back together when we add the flour, if not before. Beat in the chocolate, then the sour cream until just combined. Fold in the sifted cocoa and flour and then the almond meal. Scrape into the cake tin and smooth the top a bit. Bake in preheated oven for about 40 mins or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Ice with the ganache (see below).

Ganache
Heat the cream in a small saucepan and when it comes to the boil, whisk in the chocolate, returning to the heat if necessary to melt it. Stir until the mixture is smooth. Allow to set just enough to be able to spread over the cake.

A slice of cake just for you

Crèpe à la Mandarine Napoléon

Tags

crèpe, mandarine napoléon, vanilla sugar

Today crèpes were requested.

Ingredients

• 115g all purpose flour
• 250mL milk
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 70g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 2 eggs

Add all ingredients into a blender and pulse for 10 seconds to incorporate. Pour into a bowl and place batter in fridge for 1 hour to let air bubbles rise to surface.

Remove batter from fridge.

Heat a cast iron or carbon steel crèpe pan on medium heat. When pan is hot, grease lightly.

Pour a ladle full of batter into hot, greased pan and swirl pan to coat evenly. Cook until top of crèpe becomes dull, about 3 minutes. Turn crèpe and cook for a further 30 seconds, then remove. Repeat with remaining batter.

Makes about 6 large crèpes.

Pour a ladle of batter into pan and swirl to coat evenly.

Cook until top of crèpe loses its shine, then turn. After I turned the crèpe, I added a squeeze of lemon juice and a good sprinkle of vanilla sugar.

The crèpe was folded into quarters, plated, and finished with a sprinkle of vanilla sugar and a splash of Mandarine Napoléon.

Delicious.

Pistachio and Cardamom Shortbread

Tags

baking, cardamom, cookies, pistachio, shortbread

Who doesn’t love cookies?

I love shortbread and these delicious shortbread cookies from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook are definitely worth baking.

The whole house will fill with the wonderful aroma of freshly ground cardamom.

If you do not yet have the book, I encourage you to get a copy in your hands and start cooking from it. If you don’t have the book, you can still make these cookies by following the recipe for Pistachio and Cardamom Shortbread Biscuits over at Chilli and Mint.

Chocolate Ganache Tarts

Tags

baking, baking beans, chocolate, chocolate ganache, ganache, pastry, tart, tart ring

Time for more pastry!

Yesterday I made a quantity of salted pastry and let it rest in the fridge overnight. Today, I rolled out the pastry and lined 8 tart rings, then let them rest in the fridge for 30 minutes whilst the oven heated to 190C.

After 20 minutes in the oven, I pulled off the beads and brushed the inside of the pastry cases with egg wash, then baked them for an additional 8 minutes.

I made a simple chocolate ganache filling by melting equal portions by weight of Belgian chocolate in simmering cream. These look good enough to eat.

I have some cream left over. I think I will serve these topped with whipped cream. Oh, that reminds me… I spotted clotted cream at the store the other day – need to pick up a pottle, I think.

I have already been thinking of what pastry to bake next. I suppose you will just have to wait for it.

Christmas Pudding

Tags

christmas pudding, grappa di amarone

There are many puddings in this world and none are to be taken lightly.

After four hours of steaming…

I’ve got a pottle of vanilla ice cream and a bottle of Grappa di Amarone.

Who wants a slice?

Chocolate Ganache Tartlet with Salted Pastry Shell

Tags

baking, chocolate, chocolate ganache, dessert, pastry

There was Belgian chocolate in the pantry. It looked lonely. There was only one thing to do: make it happy! How about chocolate pastry?

As it turns out, I just happened to have a measure of home made salted pastry in fridge. I used the salted pastry recipe from Richard Bertinet’s new book Pastry. I do not have fluted tartlet molds. No drama, as I do have 100mm stainless steel egg rings. Perfect. I will use the egg rings as tart rings for today.

I rolled out the pastry and lined the rings. I filled the rings with baking beads and let the pastry rest in the fridge for 30 minutes, whilst the oven heated. I baked the shells for about 20 minutes at 190C in my oven, until the edges of the pastry started to brown.

I pulled the beans from the pastry. Oops! I forgot to put the pastry shells back in the oven to finish baking. Oh, well. The pastry still turned out nice and flaky. I let the pastry cool and got started on the filling.

For the filling, I made a chocolate ganache with equal weights of chocolate and cream. I was not sure just how much filling I would need. I suppose I could work out the volume for a cylinder…

Let’s see… V = π * r^2 * h, so Volume = 3.14 * (100mm diameter – 8 mm for the pastry = 92mm. Radius = 46mm^2) * (20mm – 4mm for pastry = 16mm). Volume for each pastry case = ~106,000mm^3 = ~0.106 Litres * 6 shells = 0.636 Litres of ganache, ignoring irregularities in pastry thickness and shrinkage of the pastry…

I couldn’t be bothered. I used 225g of chocolate and 225g of cream. I figured there would at least be enough to fill the pastry shells. I would not mind too much if I ended up with more ganache than was strictly required…

Once the ganache was thoroughly blended, I filled the shells. I had just enough ganache to completely fill all the cases. Bummer! I was hoping for a bit extra so I could fill a ramekin for the chef… I let the tartlets cool until the ganache is set.

Dessert is ready!

Bread Pudding

Tags

baking, bread, bread pudding, cognac, dessert

When you bake bread at home, nothing goes to waste.

I put together a bread pudding using some stale bread.

I based this bread pudding on the classic Joy of Baking: Bread Pudding Recipe.

I used vanilla sugar and soaked 1/2 cup of sultanas in cognac and orange zest and let them get happy until they plumped up.

Into the oven at 150C for one hour in a water bath, until it firms up. Delicious.

Go ahead. Make it. You know you want some…