Sunday, June 24, 2007

fancy apple pie


I know someone who is embarrassed about saying the word tart in public, even though we are referring to pastries and not the other kind. Anyway this is a tarte tartin, or fancy french apple pie. It came from here and tastes best freshly baked. I could have let it caramelise a bit more but I was late for meeting someone (not the mr-embarrassed-about-saying-the-word-tart) for lunch.

The trickiest bit is flipping the tart out of the pan, which is why this picture was taken over the sink.

Also made a great breakfast - lentils, sliced grapefuit and yoghurt over toast but it doesn't photograph as well as it tastes.

And most recently, baked cherry and chocolate muffins, which both joe and I agree is a keeper. This recipe is not exact, because I don't use measures, so feel free to modify it. It is based on a recipe for friands.

1 and 1/2cups almond meal
1/2 cup wheat or spelt flour
2-3 tablespoons baking powder
125-150g butter, melted over the stove
2 eggs or 3 small ones. You are actually meant to use 5 whites if this was a traditional friand recipe but I hate to waste 5 yolks.
Fresh cherries - pitted. Watch the squirting juice.
2/3 of a 200g block of cooking chocolate, dark or milk if you like.
1/2 cup milk or juice
1 to 1 and1/2 cups sugar - i used a mix of icing and regular sugar.
vanilla essence
dash of port or sweet alcohol

Mix all the powders in a bowl. Add in melted butter, and let it cool before adding eggs otherwise they will curdle. Add in the liquids till you get a good batter consistency, and more milk/juice if needed. Stir in the cherries and chocolate. I think you will get 6- 9 muffins with this, and don't fill the muffins all the way to the top, cos they will rise and leak all over the tray.

Saturday, June 09, 2007

what do you eat in a week?

what the world eats in a week - time photo essay. Check out the amount of packaging in the developed world! Then again, I rather have tim tams than boiled fresh sheep soup... maybe lentil would be fine...