Chocolate Fruit Tarts

Been craving for fruit tarts as I really love eating the tart base. Loved crunchy base each time I bite into a tart. ❤️

Saw this recipe while browsing cookidoo and saw this 2 recipes! Cant imagine how this 2 pairs together as a fruit tart!!! I totally love the custard, felt like can eat like a pudding with fruits as topping! 

I made some custard corn bread as I had a lot of custard! My kids love it so much that they were snatching the last corn bread! LOL. 

You can watch the simple video here. Bread recipe can be found here!

 

Chocolate Tarts (adapted from Cookidoo)

170g plain flour

30g cocoa powder

100g unsalted butter, cubed and freeze 30mins

50g icing sugar

1egg

1) Add all ingredients - Turbo 2s x6 times

2) Roll out on floured mat and shape into mould.

3) Fridge for 45mins and bake 180deg x 10mins

Cream Filling (adapted from Cookidoo)

70g caster sugar

40g cornflour

500g milk

2 eggs

2 yolk

1tbsp vanilla extract 

1) Add all ingredients - 7mins/90deg/sp 4

2) Pour cream filling out and cover top with cling and cool for an hour. Fridge for 2hrs before assembling

Easy Fruit Tarts

The other day my neighbor made us Pandan & Strawberry flavored Egg Tarts and the tarts make me crave for fruit tarts... My all-time fav and that is the only way I really eat fruits from. Haha~

I was tossing and turning last night so I went to search for a easy recipe and came across this one. The crust is wat I like hard enuf to handle after baking them and it's crunchy like butter cookies with flavour and goes well with the Longan and kiwi fruit. I forgot to get agar agar powder to make th glaze so I melt some chocolate to keep the fruits in place. It goes very well.. 

I definetely need improvement on the shaping and it definetely looks good if I added strawberry with tt hint of red. Too bad it wasn't the season... But defiantly recommend this recipe to try out.

Pie crust (adapted from PlayingWithFlour)

85g Butter, soften
50g Brown Sugar
1 yolk
140g Plain Flour (I sub 60g Cake flour as not enuf plain flour)
1/8tsp Salt

1) Beat butter n sugar well, add yolk and mix in. Do not over mix.
2) Add flour n salt together, mix into dough.
3) Measure 45g dough for each muffin hole. (I am using the standard muffin pan) Press down n slowly work dough up the sides. Freeze an hour.
4) Pre heat oven to 180deg, bake for 20-30min. (I baked approx 35-40mins til tarts are golden brown)
5) Cool before assembling.

Revisit: Pineapple Tarts (updated Jan 26, 14)

Definitely this year has to be this recipe, as I mentioned, hubby prefer this. Haha. And this year I specially cooked my own jam. But I dunno how much sugar added, as I add the sugar as I slow cook the pineapple and tasting them at the same time.

I used 2 pineapple from NTUC, can't rem the brand but it is the common ones that people are buying to make the paste. It's S&W or something like that. Sorry, poor memory... And I jus grate, slow cook and when it is almost dry, I added sugar gradually. I prefer it to be sour sweet so it will not be too sweet after wrapping them up.

After sitting in the fridge for 1wk+, lazy me decided to roll them into balls and bake my pineapple balls. Wonder why the dough is a bit difficult to handle, not sure if it's due to leaving in fridge for more than 10mins and didn't thaw properly or that I replaced Self-raising flour with Plain flour. But overall, I still managed to wrap them. Halve the recipe and baked 40 balls.

I simply love my pineapple balls, I was so worried when I had a hard time wrapping them. Now I wished I had more jam.... =( So tempted to get more pineapple to make the jam for more balls. Hope I can keep myself from finishing them.... Yumm...

I am submitting this post to Bake Along event, Chinese New cookies for the month Jan 2014

 organised by Frozen Wing, Bake for Happy Kids and  Kitchen Flavours.

****Updated with more pics of different looks. Criss-cross Pineapple Balls & Free-hand moulded Hearty Pineapple.

Bake-Along #41 误打误撞的Apple Pie - Impromptu Bake

Hands 'itching' badly cos half of me wanted to bake, half is so lazy.. LOL~ End up I decided to make some apple pie with my puff pastry that is sitting in my freezer. Have aldy thawed it night before as I tot of baking some puff etc. Final decision was to try Apple Pie. My idea was I could top a scoop of ice cream on top and viola - dessert for tonight!

I goggled and try to see if I can find some suitable recipe but all seems to be very big amounts. So I roughly see thru what are the main ingredients - sugar, cinnamon, lemon juice blah blah so I anyhow concocted my own version using 1 apple. 

I mix up the apple fillings then cut the pastry into circles, 6 of them and the balance, I cut into strips and intend to sprinkle sugar on top before I baked them. I freeze them in my freezer and intend to bake after dinner so that I can serve them warm.

Anyway I didn't manage to serve them after dinner cos we were all too full.. LOL. I ended up packing  for them to bring home. Hubby didn't like the puff pastry and feedback to apple not flavorful enough. My GF loved it so I guess individual preference? But next round I intend to cook a little to soften the apple and try again!

Apple Pie

1 Puff Pastry *i used 1/2 pastry for an apple fillings*

1 apple, chopped into small cubes

3tsp sugar

1tsp cinnamon

1tsp lemon juice

1/2tbsp plain flour

Pinch of salt

1) Mix all above well

2) Put fillings into cut-out pastry and close them using the fork to press down the edges

3) Bake for 15-20mins til pastry puff up and turns light brown

I'm submitting this post to Bake Along event hosted by Joyce of Kitchen Flavours, Lena of Frozen Wings & Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids

Another trial - Pineapple Tarts

Finally had time to update my blog, it was a busy busy time for me. First was my advance birthday treat - Phuket, then my gal's 4th Birthday which I promised to have a 3D Princess Cake and then all my CNY goodies orders. 

Managed to rushed out and did another trial for the tarts. Both recipes rave good reviews but I find this recipe slightly less sweet, plus hubby prefer this so I guess I will have to use this for coming years!!

This recipe is also a bit melt in the mouth, less sweet and a bit less buttery as compared to Table for 2's recipe. Maybe that's why hubby prefer this?? My opinion, both taste equally good!

Pineapple Tarts (adapted from LittleTeochew)

- 400g plain flour*

- 50g corn flour

- 1/4 (heaped) tsp salt

- 280g cold, unsalted butter (do not allow it to soften)

- 3 egg yolks, beaten

- 3 tbsp cold water (or iced water)

- 6 tbsp icing sugar**

- 1/2 tsp cognac or pure vanilla extract

- For glaze, mix 1 egg yolk + 1 tbsp water

1) Using rub-in method, rub butter with flour, sugar & salt

2) Add in beaten yolk, vanilla & cold water then jus scrap and mix til come together

3) Referigerate for 10mins and use 

4) I wrap 10g dough + 5g paste, bake at 180deg for 20mins, wash with beaten yolks+milk

Egg Tarts (Pastry from scratch VS BC Premix)

Attempt to make some egg tarts over the weekend for our mahjong session as plan to have a try but haven got down to work. Chanced upon this recipe that says it is soft and melt-in-the-mouth, I decided to give it a try. I made them into small tarts, halve the recipe but then the filling was more than enuf for another 12 small tarts so I open up my Betty Crocker Pie Mix and see what's the impact it wil have on the Egg Tarts.

End verdict, i still prefer the made from scratch tartlets compared to the premix pie mix, kinda saltish for my liking. But the filling, it's gonna be a recipe that I am going to keep for good. It is yummy and taste like those from outside. MMMmmmm...

Flaky Crust Egg Tarts (adapted from Bisousatoi)

**halve recipe**

Ingredients
Pastry
125g plain flour
1 tbsp castor sugar
1/2 egg yolk
75g cold butter, cubed

Filling
75g castor sugar
75ml hot water
125ml milk
Pinch of salt
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 large eggs
1/2 egg white (From the same egg where the yolk was used in the crust)


Method
Cream the butter with the egg yolk and sugar.
Add in flour. Mix well. (If the dough is sticky for you , well maybe your yolks are larger than mine, add in extra flour by the teaspoon until it no longer feels sticky, but got a slight flour feel to it, but not too much though, as it will toughen the crust. the borderline of stickiness and dry feel is very thin.. so, add extra flour with caution)
Roll out pastry in between two sheets of plastic into thickness of about 4mm. Stamp out 9–10cm circles of pastry with a pastry cutter.
Lightly press the pastry circles into foil tart cases or tart tins.
Refrigerate the lined foil cases for 2 hours or u can leave them overnight
Melt the sugar in hot water, add milk, salt, vanilla essence. Beat all the eggs lightly and mix in all together.
Sieve egg mixture and pour into the cold tart crust.
Bake at 175C for 25 minutes