Passionfruit Lemon Meringue Tart

This is a variation of the more traditional lemon meringue pie as I am a big fan of passionfruit having lived in Africa for many years in my childhood. We grew these beautiful scented fruit in the garden. The mixture of lemon and passionfruit provides a tongue tingly sweet, but tart at the same time, filling which combines with the sweet meringue topping. This makes a great dessert or tea-time treat served with cream or ice-cream if you like.

I cheated for speed and used a ready made all butter baked pie shell so I won't give the ingredients or instructions for that element! By all means make your own sweet pastry case if you feel inclined. You can prepare the filling, which is essentially a fruit curd, well in advance as it needs to be cool before adding the meringue topping in any case.

1 x all butter ready baked sweet pastry case / shell (available from all good supermarkets)

For the filling:
1/4 cup (approx 1 lemon) lemon juice plus zest from 1 lemon
1/4 cup (approx 3 fruits) passionfruit pulp
2 x large free range eggs, yolks only (keep the whites for the meringue)
1 x large free range egg, beaten
1 cup caster sugar
1/4 cup  cornflour
1 cup water
25g / 1oz unsalted butter

For the meringue topping:
2 large free range egg, whites only
100g caster sugar

To make the filling mix the lemon juice, the passionfruit pulp the egg yolks and whole beaten egg and give a good whisk.

In a saucepan combine the caster sugar and the cornflour, mix in the water whisking well and then cook over a moderate heat, whisking all the time, until thick, translucent and boiling.  This should be about 5 minutes or so.

Remove this from the heat and whisk in a couple of tablespoonfuls into the fruit and egg mixture beating as you do so to stop the heat cooking the egg mixture unevenly.  Keep adding the cornflour mixture to the egg mixture until all combined.

Then put the mixture back into the saucepan and heat gently, whisking all the time until the mixture is thick.  Stir in the butter and lemon zest. Pour into the tart / pie shell. Let this cool completely.

Make the meringue topping by whisking the egg whites till very soft peaks then gradually beat in the sugar a tablespoonful at a time and beating well between additions. When all the sugar has been added the meringue mix should be quite firm and glossy.

To assemble and cook the tart - top the cooled fruit curd with the meringue and ensure that the meringue completely covers the fruit filling.  Bake for about 10 minutes at 180C / gas mark 4 until the meringue has set and is a pale golden colour.

Serve the tart either warm straight from the oven or at room temperature. 

Masterchef - some random thoughts ....

As I have been away on business quite a lot recently I have been recording the Masterchef Australia 2010 series on tv to watch at a later date.  I watched the 2009 series some time ago and whilst there were a lot of programmes and it did seem to last a long time, I personally felt that the tests that our friends down under have to go through to win the coveted title are hugely more onerous than our UK competitors.  Here I am talking about the standard Masterchef UK programme and not any of the derivations such as Professionals or Junior etc.

Double Chocolate & Hazelnut Mousse with Salted Caramel Hazelnut Shards

Double Chocolate & Hazelnut Mousse

This month's "We Should Cocoa" blog challenge hosted by the Chocolate Log Blog is to use chocolate and hazel or cob nuts. I decided to do a Double Chocolate and Hazelnut Mousse decorated with lightly salted caramel shards of roasted whole hazelnuts. The bottom layer is a rich dark chocolate mousse enhanced with Frangelico, an Italian hazelnut liqueur.  This is then topped with a milk chocolate layer into which I folded in some crushed hazelnut praline.

Originally I thought of having the top layer made with a caramel mousse made with Caramac bars (remember them?) But these can be a bit difficult to find these days - no idea why because everyone who I ever speak to about these all claim to love them but simply can't find them any more!  Then I considered doing a coffee mousse top layer as both chocolate and coffee sit well with hazelnuts and are a classic combination bewtween themselves.  However as my husband is not overly fond of coffee flavoured desserts and someone has to help me eat my creation, I opted for the double chocolate option!

Rough recipe follows but as is my style I kept forgetting to measure things out so that I could correctly relay the info! The quantity made 4 large dessert glass fulls but for a dinner party this would easily serve 6 - 8 in more delicate portions!

For the dark chocolate mousse layer:
6ozs Dark chocolate (go for a 50-70% cocoa solids) - melted
4 medium free-range eggs, separated
generous tablespoon / slug of Frangelico hazelnut liqueur (available at many good supermarkets or off-licenses and worth buying as goes nicely in coffee too ;-)

For the milk chocolate hazelnut mousse layer:
4ozs hazelnut milk chocolate (I used Lindt but you could just use normal milk chocolate as you are going to add caramelised chopped hazelnuts in any case)
2 free range eggs, separated
2ozs caster sugar
1 oz chopped and roasted hazelnuts

For the Salted Caramelised Hazelnut Shards:
4 ozs caster sugar
1/4 pint water
2ozs whole roasted hazelnuts (skinned if you prefer)
pinch of sea salt flakes - I used Maldon

First make the praline as it needs to cool and set before you can grind it into a powder for folding into the milk chocolate mousse layer.

To make the dark chocolate mousse:
Put the 2ozs caster sugar into a pan and gently melt, add the chopped roasted hazelnuts and coat well.  When the sugar has melted and caramelised, spoon the nut mixture onto some non-stick baking paper and leave to set.

Melt the dark chocolate however you like and works best for you (I do mine in the microwave), leave to cool a little (so the raw egg doesn't start to cook/scramble in the residual heat) then beat in one egg yolk at a time mixing well between additional yolks.

Then stir in the Frangelico liqueur.

Beat egg whites till bordering on stiff peaks (don't overdo it, better to be on the soft peak side) then stir in a large tablespoonful of the whisked whites into the dark chocolate mix to lighten it before gently folding in the remainder.

Pour into your dessert dishes (individual or one big one) and leave in fridge to set.

Make the milk chocolate and hazelnut mousse layer next:
Melt the milk chocolate next, cool a little (so the raw egg doesn't start to cook/scramble in the residual heat) then add one egg yolk at a time mixing well. 

Using either a rolling pin or other heavy object and lots of aggression or a grinder / mini food processor (which is what I used) grind the cold hazelnut praline you made first into a powder.  It doesn't need to be completely finely ground, a few small bits here and there will add some crunch to the texture of the mousse.

Fold the majority of this crushed praline into the melted milk chocolate mixture reserving some for decoration.

Whisk egg whites as above and fold into milk chocolate mixture as described above.

Carefully spoon on top of the dark chocolate mousse which should have set by this time and then chill again till just before serving.  Can do up to this stage well in advance or even the day before but there is a fair chance it will get sampled before you intended if you leave it this amount of time!

For the Salted Hazelnut Caramel shards:
Up to a couple of hours before serving you can make the caramel hazelnut shards but don't make much before this as the caramel will start to melt down again and it doesn't like to be refrigerated either.

Put the caster sugar and water into a pan and heat gently, swirling and stirring if need be to make sure that all the sugar crystals have dissolved and there are no sugar grains sticking to the walls of the pan.

Once all the sugar has dissolved, turn up the heat and boil rapidly without stirring till the syrup reaches a deep golden caramel.  You can very gently and occasionally swirl the pan as it starts to caramelise to evenly distribute the heat and colour.  As soon as the caramel reaches the required colour (I like my caramel on the dark side of golden so that it is verging on bitter rather than sickly sweet) add the whole roasted hazelnuts and then pour mix onto a sheet of non-stick baking paper. Add a very light sprinkling of the sea salt flakes to the hot caramel at this stage if you like this combination, but you can omit if salted caramel is not your thing. When set and cold, break up
into shards.

To serve:

Sprinkle the top of the mousse with the reserved crushed hazelnut praline and either stick shards of the whole hazelnut salted caramel directly into the top of the mousse at jaunty angles or simply place these on the side plate as I did. Serve with a cream if desired or a Frangelico liqueur coffee .....got to use up that Frangelico somehow!!  ;-)

P.S. - having eaten these after a roast dinner tonight I can safely say that this recipe would definitely serve 8 people as it is very rich and small portions might look stingy at first glance but your heart and hips would thank you for it ;-) 

Lakeland - retail therapy for foodies!

Yesterday I set off to visit Lakeland - the home of creative kitchenware™ as I was in need of an oven thermometer.  I did have one before moving to this house but somewhere in the move it got mislaid.  My husband ‘decided’ (was coerced if I was being honest!) to cook a roast chicken during the week and complained that the oven wasn’t hot enough and that the chicken and roast potatoes were not browning in the expected timescale. I decided I would get a new oven thermometer as it is always a good idea to have one in any case as many ovens do not run at the temperature you think you have set using the oven dials.

I love any excuse to go to the Lakeland shop for a browse around even if I am not looking for anything in particular.  It is my equivalent to my husband enjoying a wander around a Maplin store looking at unidentifiable (to me) bits of electronics and tools. The Lakeland catalogues are fine and even looking at their online store is a nice way to spend some time if feeling bored, but nothing beats actually being able to see and touch the real life items.  I was not disappointed and spent best part of an hour browsing through the shop looking at all the new kitchenware and gadgets.  Lakeland seem to have thought of everything, with some help from creative ideas from their customers, and sell “must-have” kitchen goods that you didn’t know you needed till you see them!

Authenticity - how important is it to you?

Random thought which crosses the vast, arid plains of my mind from time to time ;-) how important is authenticity in a recipe to you when you cook?

I confess to indulging surviving a Chinese takeaway meal last Friday evening, having just returned home at 6pm from a week away on business. I really just did not fancy the idea of trolley rage down at the local supermarket on a Friday evening. I also had not been organised enough to do an online shop (during a lunch break at work obviously and not in company time - God forbid!! ;-)

So my husband helpfully suggested that he would "cook." In "Pete" language this translates to "what sort of takeaway would you like?" We opted for Chinese and duly arrived back home with Sweet and Sour Pork "Hong-Kong style" (whatever that really means and yes I know that was a totally uninspired choice on my part but hey, I was dead tired and brain was functioning even less than usual!) and "Chicken Chinese-style."

Cookery Books and Food Photography – a minor gripe!

Now I don’t know about you but I rarely buy a cookery book unless a high proportion of the recipes are accompanied by colour photographs.  For me a large part of the inspiration to cook a recipe I have seen comes from the way the finished dish looks in the photograph or from an overall description or introduction from the author or a reviewer.

Part of the
cook book collection

I have recently bought three more cook books to add to my completely over-the-top collection (currently stands at over 500 and increasing at a rate that any self-respecting rabbit would be proud of!)  My defence is that I have very few other vices these days – I don’t smoke, I don’t drink (well not that much), I don’t subscribe to Tiffany’s, I am not addicted to handbags, kitchen is already gadgeted up to the hilt and I no longer keep horses (which my ex husband used to say it would be cheaper to dig a big hole and pour £10 notes into it as to have horses!) so cookery books and shoes are my main vices (oh, I guess my car isn’t overly sensible and does guzzle petrol but hey …. ).  Anyway, back to the subject of the latest additions to my cook book empire, I have noticed with these three new books that I have a bit of a minor gripe about the photography.

ABode. Glasgow - BarMC & Grill - a Michael Caines restaurant

This week has seen me in Glasgow on business and staying again at the ABode hotel, one of the group of boutique hotels operated by Andrew Brownsword and the two Michelin starred chef, Michael Caines.

I first stayed at the Abode, Glasgow in 2007 and was there every week for 5 weeks whilst working out my employer’s Glasgow city centre office.  In the 5 weeks I was there I stayed in a different room each week and I loved the slight quirkiness of this small hotel, formerly an Arthouse.  Located in the city's art district on Bath Street in an historic Edwardian building, ABode Glasgow is a unique boutique hotel that combines listed features such as the preservation of its white glazed bricks with contemporary style and design. The hotel has 59 bedrooms, rated Comfortable, Desirable, Enviable and Fabulous!  There are three upper floors housing the bedrooms, ground floor reception and main Michael Caines modern cuisine restaurant. The basement houses the BarMC & Grill for more informal bistro style atmosphere and menu featuring many char grilled items. The lounge bar serves a good selection of wines and cocktails as well.