Vanilla and Olive Oil Nougat with Macadamia Nuts

For as long as I can remember, every gift I've ever given my father, has involved nougat. He can't get enough of the stuff and can devour an entire stash in one sitting. No surprises as to who I get my sweet tooth from (she says as she licks her sticky nougat fingers in order to type this post)! 

This Christmas I've decided that I'm making all my own gifts, mainly because: 

1) It's cheaper.

2) I get to eat the 'off-cuts'.

3) Nougat tastes better than socks.

4) Nougat is more thoughtful (than socks).

5) Boney M doesn't play on repeat in my kitchen. 

So I'm making a gigantic batch of nougat - for not just my dad but the whole family. 

You get nougat! You get nougat! Everybody gets nougaaaaat!

Like all my favourite things, this one is versatile - you can pretty much design your own according to your - I mean your friends' - taste. I went for a fancy-sounding but uber delicious combination of vanilla, honey, macadamia nuts and proper extra virgin olive oil. I know we think of olive oil as great for salads and drizzling over literally everything savoury (a la Jamie Oliver) but I'm telling you that good olive oil adds something really special to desserts, not only adding complexity but balancing the sweetness too. I used Olive Pride's Extra Virgin Olive Oil in my nougat since it has a lovely peppery flavour that is just heavenly with the vanilla and honey. 

Nougat has always intimidated me a bit, I'm not going to lie. In fact, the last time I made it was probably in cooking school (eek!). But this recipe right here is gold! If you don't already have a sugar thermometer, then get yourself one as a Christmas gift because it is totally worth not running around the kitchen going 'Is it ready? Maybe I should wait... No, it's ready. Or not." The only chicken that should be headless in your kitchen at this time of year, is the one in your oven for lunch. And speaking of gifts to yourself, would you not be the happiest sugar addict on this earth if you received this:

A folded tea towel, a vintage baking tray (or box), some wrapped up sticks of your homemade nougat and a pretty bottle of olive oil - winning! You can also win at the fabulous competition that Olive Pride is running; simply SMS 'Olive Pride' and the last 4 digits of the barcode to 46797. Not only do all the SMS proceeds go to BrightStars, a safe home for children but you can also win a R2000 shopping voucher plus a R500 hamper of yummy olive products. 

Now while you go win stuff, I'm going to find out how to get nougat off a Macbook keyboard...

Vanilla and Olive Oil Nougat with Macadamia Nuts

Makes 12 bars 

2 x A4 rice paper sheets

350g liquid glucose (available from baking and health shops)

115g honey

550g (2 ½ cups) caster sugar

1 vanilla bean, split

2 egg whites

50g unsalted butter

50ml Olive Pride Extra Virgin Olive Oil

400g macadamia nuts, roasted

Line the base and sides of a 20cm square cake tin with baking paper. Cut the rice paper to fit the tin – place one in the bottom and keep the other aside for the top. Place the glucose, honey and vanilla in a saucepan over a low heat until melted, then add the caster sugar and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved and the syrup is translucent.

Bring the syrup to the boil and simmer until it reaches 130 degrees celcius on a thermometer.

Start beating the egg whites in an electric mixer to form stiff peaks so that by the time the syrup reaches 140 degrees celcius you’re ready.

Gently pour the hot syrup down the side of the bowl into the stiffly-beaten egg whites in a steady stream.

Beat for 1 minute or until thick and glossy then gradually add the butter and olive oil.

Working quickly, stir in the nuts and spoon the mixture into the lined baking tray. Top with the remaining piece of rice paper and press down to form an even slab of nougat. Allow to cool and set completely for 2-3 hours.

Slice into bars or pieces using a sharp serrated knife and a sawing action.

Wrap the nougat immediately in baking paper, wax paper or cellophane and store in a cool dry place in an airtight container.

VARIATIONS: Experiment using different nuts – pistachios, almonds and pecan nuts would be equally delicious in this recipe!

Disclaimer: This post has been sponsored by Olive Pride who produce a delicious range of olive products, including the Extra Virgin Olive oil used in this post. www.olivepride.co.za

My Family Milk Tart

It seems every nation has their own version of a custard tart - the Portuguese have pasteis de nata, the British have their vanilla custard tarts, Italians their 'torta di nonna' and our South African milk tart sort of falls somewhere in the middle with it's cinnamon topping. No matter what part of the world you're from, it seems we're all unanimously in love with the combination of a creamy egg custard and a crisp pastry base. 

With heritage in mind, I knew there was only one place to go for a proper milk tart recipe in honour of National Milk Tart Day which is today! So I dug out my Great Aunt May's tattered recipe book (I've written about her before). There, right in the very front, was our family recipe for milk tart. There are no notes on where it came from, but I found the same recipe scribbled in the margins of my grandmothers book so I know it's a family favourite!   

The pastry is an interesting one - it contains oil, which is a little odd for me, but ensures a ridiculously crumbly pastry. From her other recipes, I can tell Great Aunt May loved a good shortcut, and this one is no exception. This pastry? It doesn't need to be blind baked! Yes, you read correctly. Can I get a hallelujah on that?! 'Cos if you've ever had to fuss with beans and baking paper and all that nonsense, you'll be rejoicing with me now!

The filling is lusciously velvety with just the slightest quiver - I prefer my milk tart a bit softer than most so if you like yours more set, then just increase the cornstarch. This recipe also makes the sweetest little mini milk tarts - I made these using an old-fashioned madeleine tin which belonged to my grandmother. It seemed totally appropriate for the occasion. 

My Family Milk Tart 

Recipe by Great Aunty May

Makes 1 large tart or 24 small tartlets

No-fuss pastry

110g butter, softened

2 tbsp (30ml) castor sugar

2 tbsp (30ml) vegetable oil

1 egg

2 cups (500ml) cake flour

1 tsp (5ml) baking powder

pinch of salt

Filling

600ml milk

2 tbsp (30ml) cornstarch/cornflour

1 tbsp (15ml) cake flour

4 tbsp (60ml) sugar

3 eggs, separated

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp ground cinnamon, plus extra for dusting

Cream the butter and castor sugar until light and fluffy. Add the oil and egg and beat well. Mix in the flour, baking powder and salt to form a soft pastry. 

Press a thin layer of the pastry into a greased standard pie dish. Prick the bottom and bake at 180C for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to cool. 

For the filling, bring the milk to a boil (I added a cinnamon stick and bay leaf to mine). 

In the meantime, whisk together the cornstarch, flour, sugar, egg yolks, vanilla and cinnamon and a little of the milk to make a creamy paste. Pour the hot milk over the paste, whisking continuously then return to the heat and cook until thickened. 
Whisk the egg whites until stiff then whisk into the still-warm filling. 

Pour the mixture into the baked tart case and sprinkle with extra cinnamon. 

IF YOU LIKED THIS THEN YOU'LL LIKE:

Milk tart pancakes

Milk tart cake

Custard slices

Strawberry meringue crunch cake with whipped cream

This beautiful showstopper of a cake is for those times when you need to impress but simply don't have the skill or inclination to fuss about with a piping bag and frosting. The cake is what our American friends call a 'dump' cake, because everything gets dumped into a bowl and mixed. I love no washing up, don't you? And then comes the genius part, the meringue is baked on top of the cake. At the same time. So essentially the 'frosting' is already done! How cool is that?! Topped with lashings of softly-whipped cream and some beautiful summer berries - it's like a pavlova and vanilla cake had a love child. 

And if you're keen for a chocolate version ( I know right?!) here is an even more decadent Chocolate meringue crunch cake - and it's gluten-free too!

Strawberry meringue crunch cake

Serves 8-10

Cake

2 cups cake flour

3 tsp baking powder

1 ½ cups white sugar

½ cup oil

½ cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

3 eggs

pinch of salt

zest of 1 lemon

Topping

4 egg whites

1 cup castor sugar

Whipped cream and strawberries, to garnish

Preheat the oven to 180C. 

Mix all the cake ingredients together and beat for 1 minute. Pour into a greased and lined 25cm springform cake tin.

Make the topping by whisking the egg whites until soft peak stage with a electric mixer, then gradually add the Selati Castor snow into the whites to form a stiff, glossy white meringue. Spoon the meringue on top of the swirled cake batter then bake in the preheated oven for 45-50 minutes or  until the meringue is crunchy and a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Allow to cool completely before unmoulding. Top the cake with whipped cream and strawberries. 

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Crème caramel

There is something so beautifully old-fashioned about creme caramel. What's not to love? A velvety smooth, creamy custard and sweet hit of slightly bitter caramel that floods your plate? Heaven. It once enjoyed it's upside down life as an extremely popular pudding in the late 20th century where it apparently graced the top of almost every dessert menu. But since then, except for the sachets of instant creme caramel mix you can buy on the shelf (which taste nothing like the real thing), it's been abandoned and rarely pops up in cookbooks and magazines. Is it because people are scared of it? Set custard can be daunting and then you add caramel to that mix and the whole unmoulding bit is pretty terrifying I guess... I decided to resurrect the glorious classic, but to take away the terror, I've added gelatine to mine - just to be safe! And if vintage shoes and handbags can enjoy a revival, why can't a retro dessert? I'd certainly choose a pudding over prada anyday anyway!

Crème caramel

Makes 4-6

150g demerara sugar

80ml water

1 tsp powdered gelatine

180ml milk

180ml cream

2 large eggs

4 egg yolks

75g castor sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

Heat the demerara sugar and water until dissolved, bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes or until golden in colour.

Pour into the bottom of 4 small ramekins and set aside to cool. Sprinkle the gelatine over 2 tbsp water and allow to bloom. Set aside. Combine the milk and cream in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and stir in the gelatine. Whisk the eggs, yolks, sugar and vanilla together and slowly whisk in the hot milk. Pour into the caramel-filled ramekins, place in a roasting dish and fill half-way up the sides of the ramekins with hot water. Bake in a preheated oven set to 150C for 35 minutes or until just set. When the caramels wobble like jelly, they are ready. Remove from the roasting tray and place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. Turn out the crème caramels by running a knife around the rim and place a plate on top. Flip the plate over to release the caramels.

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Baked vanilla cheesecake with poached guavas

Photography by Gunther Schubert of Vorsprung Studio

I love how Mother Nature seems to give us exactly what we need when we need it, and I'm not talking about the cheesecake here (heaven help our waistlines if cheesecake started growing on trees! A girl can dream though...) 

We're right in the middle of guava season here in South Africa and they're at their plumpest, pinkest and most fragrant but also packed with vitamin C - perfect for fighting off nasty bugs. A quick google search tells you that the fruit actually has five times the vitamin C content of the good ol' orange. So yes, feel free to take that as an excuse to make the cheesecake - to go along with the guavas, of course!

Whipping up my favourite cheesecake on Expresso Morning Show on SABC3
Photography by Gunther Schubert of Vorsprung Studio

Baked vanilla cheesecake with poached guavas

Serves 10-12

400g digestive biscuits

100g butter, melted

800g cream cheese, room temperature

300g crème fraîche, room temperature

180g castor sugar

40g cake flour

4 eggs

200g white chocolate, melted

1 vanilla pod, scraped (keep the pod for the syrup) or vanilla extract

zest of 2 lemons

Poached guavas

2 cups water

150g castor sugar

4-6 guavas, peeled and halved

Preheat the oven to 100°C .

Line the bottom of a 20cm springform cake tin with baking paper then grease the sides. Wrap the outside of the tin in foil to make it waterproof.

Combine the biscuits and butter in a food processor and process until fine crumbs then press into the bottom of the lined tin.

Mix the rest of the ingredients together until smooth then pour over the crust in your cake tin.

Place the cake tin on a folded tea towel (to stop it slipping) in a large roasting dish and fill with enough hot water until the water reaches halfway up the sides of the cake tin.

Bake for about 1 hour 20 minutes or until the cheesecake is just set with a slight wobble in the middle.

Allow to cool at room temperature then refrigerate until set.

For the guavas, bring the water and sugar to the boil with the vanilla pod in a saucepan.

Add the fruit and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Remove the poached fruit and reduce the syrup further to allow it to thicken.

Serve the cheesecake, sliced, with the poached guavas on the side.

Photography by Gunther Schubert of Vorsprung Studio

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Here's the video if you want to see how to make the recipe step-by-step:

Vanilla custard slices

This recipe was given to me by my childhood best friend, Tammy whose mom used to send her to our farm with a tin filled with these creamy slices almost every Friday after school. We'd sit in the treehouse we built ourselves and devour them, getting custard all over our hands and then relishing the process of licking the creamy filling off our fingers. I must add that the recipe wasn't just handed to me, it was handwritten and carefully placed in a folder along with all my best friends' favourite recipes (also scribbled down on paper) for my 18th birthday. The title of the little cookbook? 

'Katelyn's Favouriteistest Favourite Flop-proof Recipe Cookbook - Made with love by all her friends' 

How awesome is that? Pretty awesome. 

Almost as awesome as these custard slices.

Photography by Gunther Schubert of Vorsprung Studio 

Custard slices

Makes 16-20

2 x 200g packets unsalted cream crackers

½ cup cake flour

100ml maizena or cornflour

20ml custard powder

pinch of salt

100ml water

1 tsp vanilla

3 eggs, separated

1L milk

1 cup white sugar

60g butter or margarine

Lemon glaze

1 cup icing sugar, sifted

juice of 1 lemon

Line a 20 x 30cm cake tin with baking paper and arrange the crackers in the bottom.

Make a paste with the flour, cornflour, custard powder, salt, water, vanilla and egg yolks. Heat the milk, sugar and butter and add to the paste while whisking. Return to the pot and cook until the custard is thick, stirring continuously.

Whip the egg whites until stiff then fold into the lukewarm custard. Pour the custard over the crackers and place another layer of crackers on top. Allow to set in the fridge until completely cool.

Mix the icing sugar and lemon juice together with a little hot water to form a paste and drizzle over the tops of the custard slices. Cut into slices and serve.

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!)