Ginger, custard and red wine pear tarts

The second part of my obsession with red wine poached pears continues with this fabulously simple tart. Because who doesn't love a pretty tart? Erm. This dessert has everything going for it, simplicity, beauty and a delicious variety of textures - the crunch of ginger biscuits, the smooth custardy-creamy-airy filling and the soft bite of those gently poached pears. Heaven on a fork I tell you! The red wine pears add a lovely flavour to the dessert but feel free to experiment with other seasonal fruit and biscuits. Dark chocolate biscuits and pomegranate rubies or coconut and caramelised pineapple or buttery shortbread and stewed vanilla guavas!  

Ginger, custard and red wine pear tarts

Makes 4-6

200g gingernut biscuits, crushed 
75g butter or margarine, melted
3 egg yolks 1⁄3 cup castor sugar
1 cup cream

1t vanilla extract 
21⁄2T corn flour 
2 cups milk
4 pears poached in red wine, sliced (click here for the recipe)

Mix the crushed biscuits and butter or margarine and press into 4-6 small springform tart tins then refrigerate until set. 
Whisk the egg yolks, sugar, vanilla and cornflour to form a paste. 
Slowly add the milk, place in a saucepan and simmer until thickened. 
Cover the surface with plastic wrap and allow to cool completely then refrigerate for 1 hour. 
Whip the cream until thick and stiff peaks form then fold in the custard. 
Spoon into the tart cases and top with thin slices of poached pear. 

How to crack the cronut recipe

If you're in any way as obsessed with baking and desserts as I am, you will have already heard about all the fuss that's being made over a trendy new confection that's tipped to kick the cupcake off it's pretty little throne (although, let's be honest, the same thing was said about macarons, cake pops and whoopie pies and yet we still adore the good ol' cupcake). Dubbed the 'cronut' (it's already trademarked by the way) this hybrid dessert sensation has caused quite a stir. Half-croissant and half-doughnut, it sure does have a bit of an identity crisis but the New Yorkers queuing around the block at Dominique Ansel Bakery don't seem to care as these deep-fried delicacies sell-out in minutes each day. There is even a limit as to how many you can buy! French pastry chef, Dominique apparently had to try 10 different recipes before getting the creation spot-on and his perseverance is clearly paying off. But since I draw the line at flying half way round the world to taste a dessert, I attempted to create my own cronuts. You know, so I could see what all the fuss was about. 

 

If you've made croissants from scratch before, you'll know that it takes an incredible amount of love, patience and muscle. And butter. Lots and lots of butter. But the problem with all that butter (incase you didn't know, half the weight of a croissant is made up of it - eeeek!) is that if you were to deep-fry the dough just like that, as Dominique's recipe (and name) suggests, it's low melting point means it would just seep out into your oil when frying and you'd land up with a flat mess. So, I used margarine. First problem solved. 

The second problem was the fact that, although the cronuts claim to be made from croissant dough, the texture in all the pictures resembles that of danish dough instead. Croissant dough, as I experienced, contains way too much fat, which makes it incredibly oily, as I discovered. So, that meant reducing the amount of fat in the dough. 

There were a few more problems I encountered but I won't go in to detail as by now I'm pretty sure you just want to see the recipe don't you? Well, here it is, the recipe for Kronuts (my version of Cronuts).

P.S. My verdict? Personally, I think these things are not for the faint-hearted. Essentially it's fat deep-fried in more fat and after just one my arteries were screaming. I baked a few rather than frying them (yes, I know that doesn't really make them a 'doughnut') and they were delicious (and far more healthy!). 

Kronuts with vanilla cream and orange blossom glaze

(makes 50)

Roll-in
350g baking margarine (I used Stork Bake)
40g cake flour (or pastry flour)
15g cornstarch/cornflour

50g fresh yeast

400g lukewarm water

100g granulated sugar

100g margarine

20g salt
1kg cake flour

Oil, for deep-frying (I used vegetable oil but Dominique uses grapeseed oil)

Vanilla pastry cream

500ml milk

1 vanilla pod, split and seeds scraped

4 egg yolks

80g castor sugar

40g cornflour

500ml cream, whipped

Glaze

1 egg white

2 cups icing sugar, sifted (plus more, if necessary)

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp orange blossom water

Start by making the roll-in. Mix the margarine and flours well then spread out onto a sheet of cling wrap. Spread out roughly then top with another sheet of cling wrap. Using a rolling pin, roll the fat out until 1/2cm thick to make 30 x 20cm rectangle. Close the ends of the cling wrap and place in the freezer until hard. 

In the meantime, prepare the dough by mixing the yeast and water in a mixing bowl. Cover and place in a warm place until frothy. Then add the rest of the ingredients in the bowl of a mixer using the dough hook attachment. Add the flour gradually to form a stiff dough (depending on the gluten content of your flour, you may use more or less, so adding it gradually is important.) Knead for about 4 minutes then allow the dough to rest for 20 minutes. 

Roll the dough out on a floured surface to 1cm thick then place the chilled butter roll-in on top. Do a simple 3-fold (like folding a business letter) and roll out again to 1cm thick. Cover and place in the freezer to rest for 20 minutes. Roll the dough out once again to 1cm thick then do another 3-fold. Rest again in the freezer for 20 minutes before doing the last fold and rest. 

Roll the dough out again to 1cm thick and cut out with a round cookie cutter and a smaller one, to create the hole in the centre. Place the pastry circles onto a lined and floured baking sheet, cover lightly and allow to proof in a warm place until doubled in size. 

Preheat the oil to 165C and deep-fry the cronuts in batches until golden and puffed. Drain on paper towel and allow to cool completely. If you would like to dredge them in sugar, do so while hot. 
If, like me, you would like to bake them, bake in a preheated oven at 200C for 10-15 minutes or until golden and puffed.

To make the pastry cream, heat the milk and vanilla until just below boiling point. Cream yolks, sugar and flour then gradually pour in the hot milk while whisking. Return the mixture to the pot and cook, while stirring until thick. Place in a bowl, cover the surface with clingwrap and allow to cool completely before folding in the whipped cream. Place the cream in a piping bag with a small plain nozzle. 

To make the glaze, whisk the egg white slightly then add enough icing sugar to form a stiff paste. Add the lemon juice and orange blossom water. 

To assemble, poke 3 holes in the bottom of each cronut with a chopstick or knife then pipe pastry cream into the bottom of each. Dip the tops in the glaze and allow to set. Serve immediately. 

UPDATE: Here's a little insert I did for the television show I work for, Expresso Breakfast Show on the Cronut phenomenon. 

*A special thank you to my baking partner in crime and pastry extraordinaire, Nino from CocoaFair, for helping to develop this recipe with me (and for doing all the muscle-work!)

World Baking Day Challenge: Milk tart cake

It isn't every day that two men in black suits with aviators and ear pieces arrive at your office carrying a locked box. It also isn't every day that you hear the words, 'Katelyn, do you accept the challenge to bake brave?' Erm, hells yes I do! Even though I had no idea what that meant! What kind of an awesome/stupid question is THAT?! After tweeting my answer (I had to resist the urge to just type 'duh') I received the secret code that unlocked the padlock. 'What was in the box?!' I hear you screaming, well, in it was everything I needed to make a ridiculously beautiful-looking milk tart cake. This cake.

It was created by gateau queen Katrien van Zyl for the World Baking Day website and is ranked at level 45/100. Those chocolate curls?! That intricate collar?! Oh my, this was going to be quite a challenge! So the box sat on my counter for a week in the run up to World Baking Day on 19 May in the hope that it would  psyche me up and drum up my bravery. Instead it haunted me until that fateful Sunday morning... 

First up, I sussed out my ingredients (brace yourself, it's quite a list!):

‘Milk tart’ Filling Ingredients

500 ml (2 cups) full fat milk

30 ml (2 tbsp) butter or margarine

1x 385 g can of sweetened condensed milk

1 large egg

45 ml (3 tbsp) cornflour

5 ml (1 tsp) vanilla essence

Powdered cinnamon, to taste

Cake Ingredients:

360 g (3 cups) self-raising flour

350 g (1¾ cup) white sugar

350 g (1½ cups) butter or margarine, softened (or at room temperature)

6 large eggs

80 ml (⅓ cup) milk

15 ml (1 tbsp) vanilla essence

Ganache Coating Ingredients:

125 ml (½ cup) whipping cream

15 ml (1 tbsp) butter or margarine

1 cinnamon stick

375 g white chocolate, chopped into small pieces

Decoration:

50 g dark chocolate, melted

500 ml (2 cups) full fat milk

30 ml (2 tbsp) butter or margarine

1x 385 g can of sweetened condensed milk

1 large egg

45 ml (3 tbsp) cornflour

5 ml (1 tsp) vanilla essence

Powdered cinnamon, to taste

1 x Chocolatier (optional, but definitely advised), preferably Italian, and hot 

Although the original recipe started with the cake, I made the milk tart filling first so it could cool. The filling  is basically a creme patisserie made with condensed milk, because in South Africa, everything is made better by adding condensed milk. Fact. I wanted mine a little lighter, so I folded in some whipped cream once it has cooled. More whipped cream is never a bad thing - ever.

Heat together the milk, margarine and condensed milk in a pot on the stove at medium heat until the margarine has melted. Whisk the egg, cornflour and vanilla essence in a bowl and while whisking, pour some of the heated milk mixture onto the egg mixture. Pour the milk and egg mixture back into the pot and heat it on medium heat on the stove while stirring continuously for about 3 minutes, or until the mixture thickens. As soon as the mixture starts to boil, remove from the heat. Pour the thickened mixture into a bowl, place cling wrap over the surface to prevent a skin forming and place it in the refrigerator until cool, preferably overnight.

That wasn't SO hard! I felt quite chuffed with myself. 

Next, I tackled the cake. I've never actually prepared a cake using this method before - the ingredients list hints at it being a pound cake but the process is somewhat different. Chocolatier then informed me that it is actually a German 'Sandkuchen' or sand cake (you will notice that Chocolatier comes in handy quite often in this post). 

Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and add the sugar, softened margarine and eggs. Mix for 30 seconds with an electric mixer on medium speed. Add the milk and vanilla essence and beat for another 1 minute and 30 seconds or until the mixture looks light and fluffy. Spoon equal amounts of batter into two 20cm lined cake tins and bake for about 50 minutes at 160C or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Cakes done, filling done - now for my favourite part, the chocolate! Chop the white chocolate finely so it melts properly - or get a chocolatier to do it for you. I just happened to have one lying around so...

\

Gently heat the cream with the cinnamon stick in a pot on the stove. Bring the cream to just below boiling point. Remove the pot from the heat and leave the cream to cool for the cinnamon stick to infuse the cream with its subtle flavour. Place the chopped chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl. Remove the cinnamon stick from the cream and pour the cream over the chopped chocolate. Heat the chocolate and cream mixture in a microwave oven at 20% power or at the Defrost setting. Stir at 2-minute intervals until the mixture is melted and smooth. Leave the ganache in the refrigerator to set for a few hours or overnight.

The next part of the recipe made me shake in my apron. Chocolate curls? Ask me to eat them, I can totally do that. Make them? Ain't nobody got time for that! So, again, having a Chocolatier lying around I put him to work and watched him melt his magic while I sat and enjoyed a glass of wine. This is advisable. No wait, actually it is a must.

Chocolatier warmed the slab of chocolate with his hands (although I strongly suspect the chocolate actually melted because he was standing near it... If you know what I mean!) and then used a knife and a round cookie cutter to make beautiful chocolate curls for the top of the cake. 

Spread three of the layers with ‘milk tart’ filling; sprinkle powdered cinnamon between the layers and stack the layers on top of one another. (It's advisable to assemble the cake back in the springform tin to stop everything squishing out!) Spread some of the ganache over the cake to cover completely then refrigerate until set. Melt the remaining ganache and pour over to make a thin coating. 

Oh be still my beating heart! I got hot Chocolatier to put 2 layers of ganache on the cake, mainly so I could watch him do it twice. Oh yes. 

Measure the height and circumference of the cake and cut a piece of greaseproof paper to this size. Pour 50 g melted chocolate into a zip-lock bag, snip off a small piece at one corner of the bag to make a piping bag and pipe swirls on the greaseproof paper. Before the chocolate sets, lift the paper off your workbench and fold it around the cake with the decorations on the inside. Peel the paper off the chocolate to reveal a lace pattern on the cake.Decorate the top of the cake with powdered cinnamon, cinnamon sticks or chocolate curls.

And then it should look like this... ta-da! NAILED IT! 

This cake really was delicious and not just a pretty face! The challenge here is the chocolate work, leave that out and it's actually a pretty straight-forward, simple and yummy cake! So give it a go!

Now, to come up with another excuse to get hot Chocolatier back in my kitchen...