Simple sublime Maple Syrup Tarts

What a little beauty this is - simple, elegant, unassuming in the looks department but packing a complex wallop with it's flavour - another one of those wonderful recipes that belies the simplicity of it's ingredients and method. These Maple Syrup Tarts are marvellous! They are like a cross between an English custard tart and a pecan pie minus the nuts. They are creamy, buttery, custardy, chewy and sweet without being cloying. If you like Maple Syrup make them as soon as you can. I found this recipe at
Kitchen Vignettes by Aubergine 

and decided to try a half recipe because I don't have much syrup and felt, and rightly so hooray!, that this might work well as mini pies.

Once again this year I have made my own maple syrup with sap from my one big old maple tree - it has been a strange sap season thusfar - it started really late because of the never ending cold and there's only been one day so far with it really flowing, the last 2 days it hasn't flowed at all even though it seemed like the conditions were right - above freezing and sunny but narry a drop has dripped so perhaps my syrup making days are already over for this year.

Sap freezing on the way to the pail. 

So - to the recipe: Enough for 10 small delights

PASTRY: Please do weigh your ingredients if you can - the result will be much more reliable!

Start with everything cold, cold, cold - I even put my flour and sugar in the fridge for at least 1/2 hour before I start making the pastry!

5ozs/ 1 1/4 cups of white flour 

4ozs salted butter - hardened in the freezer  

2oz/heaped 1/4 cup of sugar 

about 2 to 4 fluid ounces/1/8 to 1/4 COLD water - the amount will vary depending on the weather and your flour 

METHOD: This is by hand and not in a cuisinart but if you want to use a machine adaption should be easy - you just swish a couple of times for each step until the dough comes together in a ball. 

1. Sift the flour and add the sugar and blend.

 2. Grate the hardened butter into the flour:

3. Gently work butter into flour until it resembles coarse meal or swish in a food processor to achieve the same.

4. Add some of the water and start squushing the pastry and keep adding bit by bit of water until it can be formed into a non-sticky ball - less water is better so squush hard until it comes together: 

5. Put into the fridge to rest for at least one hour - or as long as you like. 

6. Remove your dough from the fridge and allow it to warm slightly for a few minutes then roll out to about a 10" circle, cut as many circles as you can and then reroll the rest to end up with 10 circles - I am making these tarts in small muffin tins and used a 4" diameter glass to make my pastry circles to fit into the tins as seen below - note the pastry does not go all the way up the sides of the tin.

7. Now pop the pastry back in the fridge while you make the heaven that is the filling. By the way - I only have one muffin tin with six holes so I made mine in 2 batches of 6 and then 4. 

Have your oven at 325F

MAPLE SYRUP FILLING:

Enough for ten mini tarts but double this if you want to make a single 9" tart

2oz/ 1/4 cup of salted butter

4 fluid ounces/ 1/4 cup half and half/light cream

1/2 tablespoon white flour

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1 large egg whisked

6 fluid ounces/ 3/4 cup maple syrup

1. Gently boil the maple syrup for a few minutes to thicken.

2. Take off the heat and whisk in the butter until it is melted. 

3. Mix in the cream.

4. Put the flour into the measuring jug you had the maple syrup in, and add some of the maple butter mix and whisk until smooth:

5. Then add the egg and whisk some more, then add the rest of the maple butter mix and the salt and whisk until smooth.

6. Take the pastry cases out of the fridge and pour the filling into the pastry cases all the way to the top.

 7. Bob into the pre heated oven and bake for about 35 minutes turning the tin around half way through to get an even bake.

8. Your tarts should look like this and if you jiggle them a little the centres should still have a bit of a wobble.

 9. Allow to cool for about 5 minutes before running a palette knife around the edge of each tart to make sure they aren't stuck, then allow to cool completely in the tins.

As usual get the kettle on, kick your shoes off, put your feet up and enjoy a few of your new favourite recipe tarts!

Chewy top, creamy centre, slight weep as in most custardy tarts but a nice weep, yummy pastry - an all around delight!

I do hope I get some more maple sap so I can enjoy these again with my own syrup.

BTW if you like my Blue Rhapsody napkins as pictured in the background of these pics you can find them HERE!

Finally, finally, finally the seemingly never ending winter is over (better keep my fingers crossed there just in case) and nearly all the snow has gone - although you can see some in the background of this pic of my favourite ancient apple tree bare as can be

and the daffs are starting to show through the leaf mulch in the woods beside the house - I cannot wait for the first balmy day and the first blooming flower, this spring and summer I am going to absolutely, undeniably, cross my heart enjoy every single second of every day!

Happy Baking - please be in touch if you make these tarts and feel free to post your pics of such on my 

Facebook page - thanks!!!

Patricia

My next post will be about my latest design

"Gilding the Lily"

Stay tuned!

Irish Marmalade Cake for Saint Patrick's Day

 This is a lovely simple, elegant cake to celebrate Saint Patrick's - it surely does have a wonderful Gaelic bent as I used Scottish marmalade which has a nice deep flavour. I used the recipe from this book by Ruth Isabel Ross - one of my 'go to' favourite books for Irish recipes.

These last few weeks I have been eating a lot of organic tangelos and realized - wait why am I throwing away the peel when I can so easily make candied peel on the ever cranked wood burning stove - it has been wicked chilly these last few weeks, nary a day above freezing so the old stove has been doing a fine job of keeping us toasty! Anyway when I decided to do the Irish Marmalade Cake I decided a topping of home made candied 'orange' peel would be a good addition to the simple cake - and boy was I right - was a lovely extra. On the first day when it is poured atop it is shiny and delicious but the next day when it has dried a little and crystallized - it is that much better, as is the cake itself, it is one of those cakes that improves in flavour with a couple of days keeping.

FOR THE CANDIED PEEL

So if you'd like to add your own candied peel to the cake here's what to do:

2 oranges or 3 tangelos - maybe 4 tangerines if you use them

1 cup/8oz  of sugar approx

1/2 cup/8 fl oz of water approx

My method is not very scientific - I chop the peel into small pieces - maybe 1/4" square - and then I boil them in plenty of water for 10 minutes, I drain them and then repeat that process 3 times which helps to debitter the peel.

Then I add the sugar and 1/2 cup/8 fl oz water and boil gently until the peel is somewhat transparent and very shiny - then I taste to see how they are - if they need more sugar I add more and also add more water if the syrup is too thick and then I boil them a little longer. Basically I get them to where they are soft, taste good and have some syrup left for me to use on the cake - it usually takes about an hour or so to get them right. 

THE CAKE:

Please have all your ingredients at room temperature - makes a much better cake!

Have the oven at 350F and butter and flour a small cake pan - I always use my 6" round that gives a nice high cake - but if you only have a bigger pan then use that and expect a lower cake - keep your eye on the timing too as a shallower cake may take less time to bake.

INGREDIENTS:

4oz/125g/1 stick of butter (I always use salted in my sweet recipes - I like the taste it gives)

4oz/125g/ 1/2 cup sugar

4oz/125g/ 1/2 cup marmalade - as you can see I used Dundee - a good strong flavour but Ruth suggests a whiskey marmalade and if you can find one, which I couldn't , why not use it?

8oz/250g/ 2 cups white flour

(in the UK use self raising flour - in the US add a 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda to your flour to make it self raising)

2 large eggs beaten

2 UK tablespoons/ 2 1/2 US tablespoons of milk

(I don't know for sure as I am not a scientific or technical baker - I do my baking for fun BUT you may be able to exchange the milk for whiskey without changing the recipe but I'll look into that and see if I can find any info on that matter)

THE METHOD:

1. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

2. Add the marmalade and beat in well.

3. Sift the dry ingredients together and add the milk to the eggs. Add one third of the dry to the mix and fold in well, then add half the wet - fold well, then one third of the dry and fold well...then the rest of the eggs/milk and end with the last of the flour and fold well until well blended and smooth.

4. Now dollop the batter into the cake pan and smooth the top with a wetted palette knife or spoon, the water stops the batter from sticking to the utensil - to leave a well in the centre - this cake rises a lot so making it lower in the middle helps it not to crack so much when baking.

5. My cake got brown really fast so next time I make this I will make sure to put a circle of aluminium foil over the pan at the beginning and then check for colour half way through - I think it will brown well enough without removing the foil but you will have to check. The marmalade in this cake makes the whole cake go nice and dark as in the pictures below.

6. Bake for about 1 hour until a skewer/tooth pick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the pan.

Incidentally if you like the background fabric "Rolling Star Quilt" you can purchase it at my Spoonflower shop HERE

 When the cake is nearly completely cool rewarm the candied peel, remove the cake carefully from the pan, set on your prettiest plate and spoon the candied peel and luscious syrup over your cake thusly:

You can eat this cake right away, as above, or leave for the next day for better flavour as below - if you wait the candied peel will have lost it's shine but gained in texture and the syrup will be wonderfully crystallized and YUMMY!!!!!

And here's a close up of the inside texture:

So off with you now and bake yourself a lovely cake for Saint Patrick's Day!

The first time I made this cake there was not a jar of marmalade to be found in the whole of Belfast, Maine so I used Bonne Maman's Yellow Plum jam - it came out beautifully - I did add the candied peel to that one too - what's surprising though is that cake did not go brown - it stayed a really light yellow so the marmalade does make for a very dark cake. I am sure you can use any jam or marmalade to good effect in this cake and I'd love to try it soon with ginger preserves and candied ginger atop - what do you think would taste good?

Here are some other recipes I have made for this special day, CLICK ON THE NAME TO GO TO THE RECIPE:

IRISH DATE AND WALNUT LOAF 

IRISH APPLE AND OATMEAL CAKE

DATE WALNUT AND GUINNESS CAKE

POTATO AND APPLE CAKE, that's more like a pie!

"Friends Forever"

 Meanwhile in Maine the sap is slowly beginning to flow - stopping and starting because we have one warm day and then lots of cold ones - still I am hopeful buy this time next week I'll be having maple syrup on some nice thin crepes!

HAPPY SAINT PATRICK'S DAY

This Marmalade Cake is part of the Tea Time Treats Challenge for April being hosted by Lavender and Lovage and The Hedgecombers

Welsh Honey Cakes, Tiessennau Mel, for St. David's Day March 1st

The simplicity of the look and recipe for these little Welsh Honey Cakes, Tiessennau Mel in Welsh, belies their deliciousness - they are absolutely wonderful and quite unique in a very subtle way. You'll have to bake them to see what I mean. I made them in honour of Saint David's Day - the feast day of Wales. I found this recipe, which I have adapted slightly, by V'nut-Beyond Redemption on Food.com. They taste very good dunked in a nice hot cuppa - if you are so inclined and would give Proust and his Madeleines a run for their money!

UPDATE: I've been tapping my maple tree, yes just the one, and made these lovely cakes with my own Maple Syrup instead of honey and they were equally as delicious and good.

 INGREDIENTS for 6 little muffin cakes:

recipes doubles perfectly

2 ounces/ 3/8 cup honey - a really flavourful honey is best,
or maple syrup if you'd like

 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 ounces/ 1/2 stick butter ( I always use salted because I like that flavour in my baked goods and still I add a little more salt to brighten the flavour - goes well with honey!)

2 ounces/ 1/3 cup sugar

1 egg separated

1 tablespoons milk

4oz/ 1 cup flour

a pinch of salt

DIRECTIONS:

 
1. Preheat oven to 375F/190C

2. Grease and flour a muffin tin

3. Sieve together flour, cinnamon and bicarbonate of soda.

4. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. 

5. Separate the egg yolk from the white.

6. Beat the yolk into sugar and butter, then add the honey in three goes beating well in between.

7. Stir in the flour with a little milk as required to make the batter a little softer and mix all together gently. 

8. Whisk the egg white until stiff and fold into mixture in three goes - the mix is quite stiff so do this part very gently so as to not pop all your hard earned bubbles.

9. Half fill the 6 cups of the muffin tin and smooth the tops with the back of a wet teaspoon to stop them from crowning too much then sprinkle each with a teaspoon or so of sugar.

10. Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes. These do brown quickly and are actually browner than a similar cupcake or muffin would be but do keep your eyes on them so they don't get too brown or burnt.

11. Leave the cakes in the tin for a few minutes before turning out to cool

And there you have your little Welsh Honey Cakes or Tiessennau Mel. You could if you liked break them in two and butter but I really didn't feel like mine needed that but it wouldn't hurt to try them that way! I do hope you make these, please let me know if you do and feel free to post your pictures on my FACEBOOK PAGE. Thanks!!

Some more pictures of the yumminess:

If you are interested in my "Blue Rhapsody" design, featured as the background of these pictures, you can find it at my Spoonflower shop HERE and my CafePress shop HERE

Wales/Cymru is a spectacular country, I visited there often as a child - it is well worth the visit if you ever get the chance. Home of stunning Snowdonia:

 The Welsh flag:

The daffodil is the Welsh National flower:

My Daffodil painting available over at my Etsy shop HERE

and LEEKS are the National emblem :) Here's a LINK to some of the Welsh celebrations for their National Day.

SO....
"Dydd Gwyl Dewi hapus!" 

Other Saint David's Day recipes I have done for my blog:

Monmouth Pudding

Welsh Cakes

Snowdon Pudding

Bara Brith - Welsh raisin teabread

New Ticker Tape Parade Design and more free worldwide shipping

Welcome to my latest design "Ticker Tape Parade", so cleverly named by my Facebook friend Beryl! After asking for help naming this design Beryl came up with "Ticker Tape" which so perfectly captures not only the ebullient and festive New Year's Eve/somewhat retro spirit of the design but also the sense of traffic lights and busy sidewalks that also spring to my mind.
THANKS BERYL!!

I originally created this in design in gouache on paper before scanning, cleaning in Photoshop and then sizing and formatting for the items you see pictured here. I also made it into an allover repeating pattern for wallpaper and fabric too - doing the repeat is always fun for me as it has the aspect of puzzle piecing to fit the design side to side and top to bottom so there are no breaks or obvious joins in a length of fabric.

I love creating geometric designs like this as they are very meditative in their execution, I plan out the design in pencil line first and then enjoy the process of 'colouring in' the shapes just like a paint by numbers canvas - my illustration paintings/designs created in watercolour require constant mindfulness, and as such they can be quite satisfyingly tiring and time consuming to paint.

I have populated my online shops with Ticker Tape on all manner of items including, but certainly not limited to:

At my Society6 shop
where there is free worldwide shipping until Sunday February 23rd

As you can see I now have wall clocks available at my Society6 shop too

and from my CafePress shop:

"Ticker Tape Parade" is also available as fabric, wallpaper, wrapping paper and wall decals from my

SPOONFLOWER SHOP

...as a print on wood from my PRINTS ON WOOD SHOP

...and as signed archival prints from my ETSY SHOP

Next on the blog in terms of CAKE - my favourite thing - will be Honey Cakes for Saint David's Day March 1st and then Irish Marmalade Cake for Saint Patrick's Day - stay tuned!

Happy Australia Day with English Madeleines which are very similar to Lamingtons!!

This is an English Madeleine - yes I know French Madeleines are the famous version of this dessert but in Blighty this is what you would get if you ordered a madeliene with no specification AND it is very similar to an Australian Lamington with the exception of NO cherry on the top, square instead of castle shaped, if you have a strawberry Lamington it would be coated with strawberry jelly/jello instead of jam and it seems a lot of Lamingtons are actually chocolate covered and not strawberry. 

I'll give links to said Lamingtons at the end of the post including to a luscious looking one for Lamington Biscuits from the fabulous raspberri cupcakes blog

You will need 6 dariole moulds or as I used popover moulds – mine was a set of twelve but James cut them in half for me so I can make a small batch at a time for there are only 2 of us to eat the desserts I make and if we bake a lot we eat a lot. If you do't have this kind of mould you can use muffin/cupcake pans and the cakes will just be shorter and larger in girth.

This is a simple and charming little cake perfect for afternoon tea or a snackette with your elevenses!

Set the oven to 350F/ 180C

INGREDIENTS:
 
4oz/ one stick/100g butter, softened

 
4oz/100g/mounded 1/2 cup sugar 

2 large eggs

 
4oz/100g/1 cup white flour

 
1 level tsp 

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract/essence

For the coating:

4 tbsp strawberry jam

 
4oz/100g/1 cup desiccated coconut unsweetened is preferred - this is approximate as you just need it to coat the cakes and it will vary on how thickly you coat them. 

3 natural glacé cherries

 

1. Grease the moulds then line the base of each with non-stick baking parchment. 

  2. This step seems odd but you put all the cake ingredients into one bowl and beat until well and evenly mixed - this is why you want the butter nice and soft or you'll get lumps.

3. The batter is quite stiff - spoon a dollop into the moulds, filling them about half full and smooth the tops with a wet spatula - the water helps non stickage of the batter to the knife.

4. Bake for about 20 minutes until well risen and firm to the touch - it doesn't matter that they might rise above the level of the mould as you'll be cutting off the bottoms to even up the cakes when they stand. Leave to cool in the moulds for 5 minutes.

5. Turn out the cakes - they may need a swish around the outside with a knife to encourage them to leave the moulds, then peel off the parchment 'hats' and finish cooling on a wire rack. My advise is to keep the hats to put the cakes on after you've rolled them in their fillings as they are pretty tricky to handle once coated.

6. When the cakes are completely cool, trim the bases so that they stand firmly. Warm the strawberry jam in a small pan until quite fluid and strain through a sieve to get a nice smooth jam. Spread the coconut out on a large plate.

 6. Use a fork to spear the bases of the cakes to hold them. Spoon the warm jam over them as evenly as you can and then roll them in the coconut to coat. 

Here are my little dahlingks all ready and assembled and awaiting their little glace cherry tops.

and a close up of said dahlingks:

7. Cut the glacé cherries in half and pop one on the top of each pretty madeliene.

Now put the kettle on and get yourself a cuppa to enjoy with these delights.

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY to my Aussie friends! Are you having a Lamington today?

Lamington recipes:

raspberri cupcakes Lamington Biscuits

Taste Australia Strawberry Lamingtons

Taste Australia Chocolate Lamingtons with white chocolate cream - want to try these!! 

Little Box Brownie chocolate lamingtons 

If you're interested in the fabric featured in this blogpost - here's a link to it "Homespun Quilt Patchwork" in my Spoonflower shop - Thanks!!