Rhubarb Apple Mix Berries Pie

Adapted from:

http://www.donnahay.com.au/recipes/rhubarb-apple-and-raspberry-pie

 

Filling:

•  50g unsalted butter, chopped       
• 3 small Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and chopped into 3cm pieces
• 700g rhubarb, trimmed and chopped into 3cm pieces
• 200g frozen raspberries or mix berries ( I used mix berries as this is what I had in the freezer)
• 1 cup (220g) raw sugar, plus extra, for sprinkling - adjust sugar to taste. 1 cup is actually fine as rhubarb is very sour
• 2 teaspoons finely grated lemon rind
• 1½ tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

Ginger and vanilla pastry

• 1⅔ cups (250g) plain (all-purpose) flour
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 tablespoons caster (superfine) sugar
• 180g cold unsalted butter, chopped
• ¼ cup (60ml) water, chilled
• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

To make the ginger and vanilla pastry, place the flour, baking powder, ginger, sugar and butter in a food processor and process until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. I pulse this with the Thermomix. With the motor running, add the water and vanilla and process until the mixture comes together to form a smooth dough. Roll the pastry out between two sheets of non-stick baking paper to 4mm thick and refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F). Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over high heat, add the apples and cook, stirring frequently, for 4–5 minutes or until softened slightly. Add the rhubarb, raspberries, sugar, lemon rind and juice and vanilla and cook, stirring occasionally, for 15–17 minutes or until the fruit is tender and the liquid has thickened.  Transfer to a bowl and refrigerate until cooled. Spoon the mixture into a 1-litre-capacity pie dish. Using various-sized fluted round cookie cutters, cut about 22 rounds from the pastry, re-rolling as necessary. Layer the rounds over the top of the rhubarb and sprinkle with the extra raw sugar (see tip). Bake for 20–25 minutes or until the pastry is golden and crisp. Serve warm. Serves 6–8.

tip: Place your pie dish on a large baking tray, to catch any spills while in the oven.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chicken Sausage Rolls with Vegetables

Adapted from:
http://foodforlittlesouls.com/2013/06/18/chicken-pumpkin-leek-sausage-rolls/

 Ingredients:
- 1 kg of chicken thighs (minced)
- 1/4 butternut pumpkin
- 1 large zucchini
- 1 large leek
- 3 small apples cored and grated
- 2 cloves garlic
- 25gm butter
- 2 tbs olive oil
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 2.5 cups of breadcrumbs
- 2 eggs (1 for egg wash)
- salt and pepper
- 1 teaspoon vegetable stock
- sesame oil
- sesame seeds (garnish)

Method:
1. I used the thermomix to do all the mincing. First goes the pumpkin. After mixing at Speed 5 for 2-3 seconds, remove and set aside. Then place the apple and zucchini together and mix on Speed 4-5 for a few seconds
2. I sliced the leek manually into small pieces and set aside
3. First cook all the vegetables. I wanted to make sure the vegetables juice are dried off before mixing into the sausage mix. I have been having issues with very soggy homemade sausage rolls, so trying out a different method this time as compared to mixing them raw into the meat mixture.
4. In a non stick frying pan add butter and oil. Over a low-medium heat, saute the leeks for 10 minutes or until they are soft and golden. Add the zucchini, pumpkin and apple. Cook for a further 10-20 minutes until all the moisture has evaporated out of the pan and the vegetables have collapsed. Set aside and cool completely.
5. Once cool, add the chicken minced, breadcrumbs, thyme egg,vegetable stock, dash of sesame oil and seasoning. Add the egg as well and mix with hands till well combined. I used a hand glove to get them all well mixed up.
6. Defrost frozen puff pastry sheets. Cut each square of pastry in half to make two rectangles. Using a clean spoon, place mince mixture along the middle of each rectangle. roll them up nice and tight, seal the ends by pressing with a fork. Then brush the bottom and top of the rolls with egg wash. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and then place in the oven to bake for 20 minutes at 180C. Remember to pre heat the oven first and line up baking trays with baking paper. I tried the first batch with the cooking raw as i wanted to make sure all the moisture drips to the bottom of the tray and pastry stays dry and flaky but it did not turn out well as the pastry got stuck in between the racks. So lining them flat is a better idea

7. I used up 10 pastry sheets for this volume of meat/mix. The pastry were not soggy due to the egg wash and because i have rolled them tight. Finally a good recipe for getting nice crispy sausage rolls.

8. those sausage rolls were very yummy and moist, too much herbs and must cut down on them next time.

Pineapple Tart Pastry- Must Keep Recipe

My dear friend from UK shared this recipe for pineapple tart pastry. It is the best I had tried so far after testing 3 recipes in total. I love my pastry soft and crumbly and this recipe nailed it. I tweaked it a little to make it even softer by incorporating cake flour. Results are perfect!

Ingredients:
250gm butter diced into small cubes
3 egg yolks
1 1/3 cup of cake flour
2 1/2 cup of white flour
3 tbs corn flour
6tbs icing sugar
1/2 tsp salt

this makes enough for my previous pineapple tart jam with extra jam to spare. Next time I will make extra one more batch of this recipe.

Method.
Sieve all dry ingredients together. I double sieved them
I mix butter and sugar together first in the Thermomix bowl just until nicely incorporated. The I add the yolk one by one and then the dry ingredient
I use the turbo button to mix them up into crumbly texture
Pour the mixture out and use your fingers to bring them together
I separate my dough into 3 large disc and freeze them as I am only using them a week later.
To use, bring them to soften at room temperature and roll them into 1/2 cm.
Use a cookie cutter or pineapple tart cutter to cut the shapes.
Place rolled jam into the cut dough and bake at 180C for 12 minutes or until golden brown at the edges
you can use the egg wash to have a nicer golden look but I was too lazy to go through that step. \

Lemon Curt Tart

Pastry method adapted from:
http://www.joyofbaking.com/SweetPastryCrust.html


We are having some guest over and i just thought of my homemade lemon curd in the fridge, getting very near to be thrown in the bin.

I decided to make a sweet shortcrust pastry from my old time favourite site. Joy of baking is the site i always go to when i started baking. It has clear instructions and video which really helped alot.

These are the ingredients:

Sweet Pastry Crust:

1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated white sugar

1 large egg, lightly beaten



 

I used the Thermomix to cream the butter and sugar. Speed 5 is all i needed.  I then add the dry ingredients and pulse it till it resembles crumbs.

 

 

 Transfer to a bowl and started bringing it together into a ball.

 Wrapped it in cling wrap as per recipe and in the fridge it went. For a good hour or so as I was busy with other chores.

 The pastry is nice and hard when i got to it. It is very difficult to roll this one as it cracks easily. I followed the video on how to get the pastry to the tin.

It was not hard at all. Hard part is fitting it in the freezer for 15 minutes.

 

I poke alot of holes in the pastry and then got it in the oven to bake.

 

 

the finished product. the curd is great. pastry was abit hard to cut through but all good.