Creamy rhubarb tarts

I know; I know. It's rhubarb again. But its amazing! I love that bit of zing to tickle your taste buds once in a while!

I've decided to place rhubarb on puff pastries this time. and yes - I've already figured out that I am obsessed with puff pastry too. I came across this recipe the other day as I was looking for ways to finish off my rhubarb from the muffins I made before they started to go bad :(

For this recipe, it states to use crème fraiche as its base to give that extra "creaminess" to indulge you into rhubarb tart land. It has certainly worked in making the puff pastry less dry and adding some texture to it. Also, it hasn't seem to make my base "soggy".

These immensely easy peasy to make tea-time treats are great for desserts or parties. They are also super quick to make!

Here's the recipe; from BBC goodfood:

Creamy Rhubarb Tarts
Ingredients:
375g all-butter puff pastry
1 egg, beaten
1 tbsp demerara sugar
1 tbsp creme fraiche
2 sticks rhubarb, thinly sliced on an angle
2 tbsp icing sugar

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 220C fan/200C/gas 7. Roll the pastry out thinly and using a cutter, cut out 4 circles about 14cm in diameter. Using a slightly smaller cutter, cut out a circle out of the middle and trim away the outside border, reserving these trimmings.
2. Lay the 4 circles on a baking sheet, prick all over with a fork and brush the edges with egg. Use the pastry trimmings to make a border around the edge like a vol-au-vent and press down gently with your thumb. Chill until needed. This can be done up to 1 day ahead or frozen for up to 1 month.
3. In a small bowl, mix the demerara sugar with the crème fraiche and spread a thin amount over the base of each tart. Neatly arrange the slices of rhubarb, overlapping in a floral pattern (I was too lazy to do this and just slapped everything on!) over the crème fraiche. Dust generously with icing sugar. Bake the tarts for 20 mins until puffed and golden. leave to rest for a few minutes and eat warm. Delicious with a scoop of ice cream!

Rhubarb Crumble muffins.

Looks like a breakfast; WAS my breakfast. A good brekkie as well!
Its absolutely super duper healthy. well, to me anyway.

These muffins are stuffed with the most zingy fruits of all -rhubarb. Don't you just love that smell of sticky, cooking rhubarb when you wake up!?

They are best eaten when freshly made as the muffins are the softest and fluffiest and the topping is crispiest then. I came back to them the next morning and by that time, the crumble had gone a bit soggy :(

If planning to eat them after a day or two, I would advise zapping it in the microwave for a few seconds and then pouring custard over to make it nice and moist again. Sounds like dessert to me as well! Anyhow, enjoy the recipe :)

Rhubarb Crumble Muffins - makes 12

 Ingredients:
 375g self-raising flour
130g brown sugar
100g butter, melted
250ml milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
Rhubarb filling:
190g chopped rhubarb
55g caster sugar
2 tbsp water
1/4 tsp grated lemon rind
Crumble topping:
35g plain flour
65g brown sugar
2 tbsp toasted muesli
1 tsp grated lemon rind
30g butter, melted

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 200C/180 fan-assisted. Grease a 12 hole muffin pan or use muffin cases.
2. Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl and stir in the remaining ingredients.
3. Half-fill muffin pan/cases with the muffin mixture and spoon the rhubarb filling into wells. Top with the remaining muffin mixture and spread the crumble topping on, pressing gently onto the muffin mixture.
4. Bake for about 20 minutes then stand muffins for 5 mins before turning top-side up onto a wire rack to cool.

Rhubarb filling
combine all ingredients in a small pan and bring to boil. Simmer uncovered for 5 mins or until mixture is thick and rhubarb is soft. let it cool.
Crumble topping:
Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and mix well.

Strawberry Macarons

So I'm back! - with a whole lot more of macaron cravings to show you. I came across a blog the other day as I was hunting down a strawberry macaron recipe.

It was sure hard looking for this recipe as many macarons were identified for its flavour of the filling, not the actual shell; if you get what I mean. In other words, macarons filled with a strawberry filling came up instead of strawberry flavoured shells.

I was really surprised when I saw the secret ingredient in flavouring the shell. Ok, not as much of a secret now, by HEY. I was surprised.

So the secret ingredient was in fact strawberry nesquick! surprised as I was, I dug out my box of milkshake and away I sailed.....

To be honest with you, I wasn't quite happy with my macarons this time. The "feet" weren't evident and the macarons have seem to gone all flat :( So I'm afraid the only pictures are of the "best ones". Oh well, nutella makes things better!

Green tea macarons

Carrying on from my macaron craze....
These macs are sure to die for. They came out perfectly as well! The looks, the texture; WOW!
My favourite flavour has been green tea in BIG time. I totally love the aroma of it. Everything that has the option of green tea I will get. This goes from ice creams, to cakes, to cheesecakes, to macarons!

 I am so proud of these macs this time that you won't believe it!

The last time I made them, chocolate was still an option, but I'm afraid these green tea ones have won me over completely!

I've sandwiched them with a buttercream filling, o0o0o0o0o.....tastyyyy.

Strawberry and Cherry Cupcakes

Sounds berrilicious to me! These super moist cupcakes are the ones to complete your saturday afternoon. 

Its such a shame the cream started melting when I finally had the time to photograph them - I couldn't resist them! 

Smothered and jam with chewy glacé cherries and topped with a hint of cream, I'm definitely making these again!

Personally, I think that these dainty cupcakes look great on its own. However, you can add some crushed raspberries to the whipped cream to give an even berrier taste and decorate it with an extra raspberry! 

Anyway, here's the recipe:

Strawberry and Cherry cupcakes

Ingredients

50g seedless strawberry jam - or raspberry!

50g glacé cherries

125g unsalted butter, softened

100g caster sugar

2 medium eggs

1 tbsp milk

150g self-raising flour, sifted

decoration - 

300ml whipping cream

50g icing sugar, sifted

crushed raspberries (optional)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 190C/170C fan oven/Gas 5. Line 9 paper muffin cases in a 12 hole tin.

2. Chop up the cherries with kitchen scissors finely and mix with the jam. 

3. Whisk the butter and sugar with an electric whisk, or beat with a wooden spoon until pale and creamy. Gradually whisk in the eggs and milk until just combined. 

4. Fold in the flour until just combined, then carefully fold in the jam mixture to get a "marbled" effect. Being careful not to over mix the batter, divide the batter among the cupcake cases. 

5. Bake for 20 minutes until golden and risen. Leave it to cool in the tin for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

6. For the decoration, whip the cream and icing sugar until stiff peaks form. If adding crushed raspberries, carefully fold it in. 

7. Using a star nozzle, fill a piping bag with the cream and pipe swirls onto each cupcake and decorate with a raspberry if you wish.

A Pound A Day

My goal: the "get a new camera appeal".
I know, it sounds stupidly insane to get x2000 of these:

But theres got to be a starting point in order to get a wonderful dslr!

I've done me maths; I will need 5 years and 8 months to actually get my two thousand. Yes, 5 years and 8 months until I can get one of those ma-hoosive cams. And I might as well drop in my first pound! I'm not sure how long this will last, but I'm gonna be pretty consistent with this one this time...

So....all I can say is come back in 5 years time and check out whether I have my new cam yet! :)

Chocolate macarons

First post of 2012 it is! although the first month has already swiftly passed.... It has been SUCH a busy month - exams, birthdays, events and just random bits and bobs. Nevertheless, I got some baking going, and guess what? - I've started in some big macaron craving!! They have always tasted ever so wonderful especially seeing the different colours and flavours in Waitrose or Sainsbury's but I have never had the idea of making them...until now!

 These macaroons got my head scratching as I knew they were the difficult ones to handle. I have heard various things - don't under-mix your batter, don't over-mix the batter, make sure a "skin" has formed before baking them in the oven etc.. etc.. Oh well, at least these tips haven't put me off yet!

I decided to go with the good 'ole chocolate flavour to start with and decided to sandwich them with nutella. So I started on my macaroon journey. I researched and googled, research and googled until I think I have found the most trustworthy chocolate macaron recipe.  it's all worth the fuss because my macaroons actually looked like macarons on my first attempt!! Overjoyed, I didn't even care if I had to leave them for 24 hours before eating them. And oh my, I could taste all my effort in just a bite of it. And to end this post? I love macarons.