Category Archives: food

Chocolate tart with gingercrunch crust

Image

1

And so slowly but surely I am becoming more confident with this whole baking stuff. My time googling stuff versus actual baking has reduced by 1/4 therefore reducing the time it takes to me to create anything.  I’m also guessing that it helps that my kitchen is stocked with more baking stuff than actual pots and pans. Yes I live with a cake geek, one who quietly asks me how I am approaching to do something and then provides the better alternative – like tonight with melting chocolate and suggesting the double boiler technique.  Feeling confident from the Vanilla cake with strawberry filling success – I decided to once again try something new – this time a sweet tart.  I perused a few of my favourite baking blogs and found one that seemed  simple to replicate.  A chocolate tart with gingersnap crust from the wonderful blog Smitten Kitchen.   This tart is so decadently good that once served it will be consumed within minutes.  Its rich, velvet, melts in your mouth with little hints of ginger to complement.

chocolate puddle

Image Source: Smitten Kitchen

Crust:
A packet of gingercrunch biscuits (though you might want to add half of another packet since the original recipes mentions crust on the upper edges of the pie dish)
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) salted butter, melted or 120grams

Filling:
1 and half packets of chocolate (either Whittakers or Old gold)  bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped ( I used Old Gold, purely because they were on special  but I normally prefer Whittakers)
1 cup cream
2 large egg yolks
1 large egg
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

For crust:

Preheat oven to 170 Celsius . Break up ginger crunch cookies and process in a food processor until fine. Mix in melted butter until all combined. Press crumb mixture into bottom of pan and up the sides.

For filling:
Combine finely chopped bittersweet chocolate and heavy whipping cream in a bowl and place over a medium saucepan (with hot water inside). Whisk over low heat until chocolate is melted and smooth. Remove saucepan from heat. Whisk egg yolks, egg, sugar, flour, ground black pepper, salt and cinnamon in  a separate medium bowl to blend. Very gradually whisk chocolate mixture into egg mixture until smooth and blended. Pour chocolate filling into crust.

Bake chocolate tart until filling puffs slightly at edges and center is softly set, about 30 minutes. Cool tart in pan 20 minutes, remove sides if you have one of those removeable side pans.  Serve at a dinner with friends where they will be impressed with your culinary skills and will love you forever.

#I covered and refrigerated mine and served as morning tea at work. So that is an option too.

Vanilla buttercake with strawberry filling

Image

2

A month or so ago I bought in my first baking into work, a gluten free chocolate cake that was ravished by all.  It was a successful day in the world of baking pride and boast posts everywhere (i.e: my flat and my work pod and possibly twitter).  The success was enough to make me think I could expand, go BIGGER…. make something that doesn’t have chocolate inside.

And so here is Vanilla buttercake with strawberry filling and cream cheese frosting

Vanilla Buttercake (reciped adapted from Forgiving Martha)
340 grams of  butter, room temperature
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk, room temperature ( I don’t think I did this so no idea what difference it makes)
1 tablespoon vanilla
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs

  1. Preheat oven to 180.  Generously butter and flour pans.  Tap pans to remove excess flour.
  2. Sift dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and salt) together.  In a measuring cup, combine milk and vanilla.
  3. In the bowl of a stand mixer using the whisk attachment, cream butter until fluffy.  Gradually add sugar.  Beat until smooth (3-4 minutes).
  4. Add eggs, one at a time, beating in between each addition.
  5. Reduce speed to low and alternate adding flour and milk mixtures, ending with flour.  When there are only a few streaks of flour remaining in the batter, mix the rest by hand.
  6. Pour batter into the prepared pans.  Firmly tap the pans (on counter) to remove air bubbles.
  7. Bake until light golden brown (about 60 minutes.)  Cool in pan for half an hour, invert on rack to cool completely before frosting

Strawberry Filling (my own recipe)

  1. 250 grams of frozen strawberries or just about – I bought a 500gram bag and used approximately half
  2. 1/4 cup Water
  3. 6-8 spoons of sugar, I say spoons because I did a lot of taste tests and altered between tablespoons and teaspoons
  4. Few squirts of  lemon juice

Simmer strawberries, water and sugar for 5 – 10 minutes. Strain strawberries and place strawberry sauce aside.

Once you have your  two cakes and your strawberries – cut the top layer of one cake, then place strawberries on top and pour a quarter of the strawberry juice onto the strawberries.  Place second cake on top then frost with a simple cream cheese frosting.  I added a little bit of the strawberry juice to the cream cheese frosting which made it peach coloured but not really strawberry hinted. And oh garnish if that’s is even a term used in baking with coconut if you want. 

Voila!

A Weekend in Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Posted on by
Reply

Hi Everyone! My name is Erin from Constants Become Surreal.

Currently guest-posting for Rochelle today (or yesterday here Stateside) and I have to say I’m really excited. I spent quite a bit of time thinking about what to post about and I figured why not Williamsburg, NY? With spring in the air here, I find myself outside wandering the streets of Brooklyn in search of nothing more than some aesthetics, a good cup of coffee, and apartment gazing. Here’s a snapshot of my weekend plans in Williamsburg, where I’ll be moving back to come June 1st!I’m confused as to whether this is a walrus or a pig. Either way, in Brooklyn and a lot of areas in NYC, the urban art is fascinating!Spring is in the air here in NYC and you can see by the way all these trees are blooming, even on an overcast day! I believe they’re dogwood, but they’re all over NYC dropping petals in the soft breeze and making everything so lovely again!
Flea markets abound in Brooklyn. This indoor one in Williamsburg held my interest because of the old attic feel to it with things piled high everywhere. Definitely makes that special find even more special! With everything so cheap, it’s hard to not get lost in here and consider coming out with armfuls of goodies!

The bar scene in Williamsburg is really the reason to come (and stay for a while). This bar is called Drink and they sell alcoholic punch by the bowl (and also by the glass if you’re not sharing with a large group). This Jamaican punch was just what we needed with a bit of rum, mint, and probably 10 million other things.

No weekend in New York is complete without brunch. So after a long night out, my friends and I ventured into Manhattan for brunch at an internationally renowned place called Freemans. It looks a little sketchy at the beginning, as it’s down a long dirty alley way. But that’s what really makes the experience worth it. I say internationally renowned because any Aussie or European you ask will mention Freemans as one of the brunch places they have to hit up while in the city.

That’s a wrap up for my weekend in Brooklyn. What did you get up to this weekend? Any rituals you follow or routines that are an absolute must? I now flea markets once it starts to warm up here a bit more will definitely be incorporated into my weekend plans!

I’m a big caffeine addict and I do coffee review posts about the coffee culture that dominates most of NYC. Stop by ConstantsBecomeSurreal sometime and enjoy the relaxing pictures of caffeine and the occasional wine post even. I probably drink more calories that I do eat them, but there are plenty of food posts on the blog too! Thanks so much to Rochelle for this opportunity to guest post! It’s been great and I would love to interact with you all!

Editors Note:  Erin and I have known each since for 6 or possibly nearly 7 years. I really can’t remember – whenever Myspace was still popular but kinda fading out and Facebook was starting. That period of time. We’ve gone through so much together that I’m proud to say she is one of my closest friends even though we have never actually physically met.  I guess we’re the cyber versions of the vintage letter writing pen pal.  If you’re like us and like coffee and food then check out her blog. If you live in New York or visiting sometime soon, GO CHECK IT OUT.  

Bought some wine and some papercups

Image

4

So tonight my flatmate made a peanut butter cake  which I think was inspired by this for a baby shower.  I got to have a bit of the cut offs and omg is it super rich and probably not the greatest idea in the world to do when your tummy is already dodgy.  I’m so sure my body is telling me to lay off the sugar and the caffeine for a while so I might start doing that tomorrow, when there is no cake near me.

What goals do you have this week?

Don’t be afraid of the man of the moon, its only me.

Image

3

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well”. Virginia Woolf 

Alfred Eisenstaedt, Remembrances.

I started writing this post with the intention of sharing the Rice Noodle Salad I made for lunch with friends on Wednesday but then I realised I didn’t note down how I actually made the salad.  You see when it comes to creating dishes, it mostly comes down to convenience and subconsciously what I’ve been reading on the blogsphere. For example few weeks ago my work colleague mentioned an ice cream she tried few years ago (lemongrass and ginger) which made me start to think about tea, then thai food but how I’m not a fan of curries especially during the summertime even though Wellington summers are extremely mild compared to the Northern regions. I can’t recall where this whole train of thought was going but it ended up in a self hosted lunch with friends.  The dish: Thai Noodle Salad with lemongrass coconut ginger ice cream with lime syrup

The noodle salad was fresh, summery with hints of coriander, mint, toasted peanuts, sesame crusted tofu and very lightly drizzled with a homemade lemon sweet chilli sauce. If I create this again – would anyone be interested in the recipe? I’d probably be more consciously aware with measuring and noting things down  and so on if I knew that someone else may be inspired by my limited culinary skills. AND the ice-cream – pretty much 5 gold stars in terms of first time ice cream making skills.

Spoonfuls of Thought

Coconut, lemongrass and ginger icecream (adapted from Nordjus) 

5 lemon grass stalks
370ml coconut milk ( I used a standard can of coconut milk which came to about  400mls)
3 egg yolks (whoops used the whole egg, don’t think it made much difference)
90g caster sugar ( I was a bit liberal with this one and added a bit 10g more)
10ml cornflour (2 teaspoons)
120ml double cream ( for NZ readers -regular cream worked just fine)
finely grated rind of 1 lime

8 slices of fresh ginger cut into quarters

For the lime syrup

70g caster sugar
70g water or in my case of not knowing how you convert water into grams – enough water to cover the bottom of the pan
1 lime, thinly sliced
30ml lime juice ( I used lemon juice. Limes are expensive yo.)
Cut the lemon grass stalks in half lengthways and bruise them with a rolling pin or any other heavy object, I used a watermelon. Go figure. . Place in a saucepan with the ginger , add the coconut milk and bring to just below boiling point. Remove from the heat and leave to infuse for about half an hour. Remove the lemon grass and ginger if you want . I left some of the ginger in to give the ice cream a bit more POW.

Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl with the sugar and cornflour until pale. Gradually add the coconut milk, whisking constantly.

Return to the saucepan and heat gently, stirring until the custard thickens. Remove from the heat, strain into a clean bowl and leave to cool. Chill.

Stir the cream and lime rind into the custard. Churn in a machine until thick. Freeze. ( or If you know the process on how to make ice-cream without a machine, I’d be interested in learning how)

To make the syrup, heat the sugar and water in a saucepan until the sugar dissolves. Boil for about 5 minutes without stirring. Reduce the heat, add the lime slices and juice and simmer for another 5 minutes. Cool.

Drizzle the syrup over the ice cream and then serve with fresh mint as a garnish.

images from weheartit

p.s I’m currently trying out themes for the blog as I’m currently annoyed that the previous one totally messed up my lists.