Lemon Tarts

Ingredients

• Your favourite pie crust
• 2 lemons
• 150 gms sugar
• 55 gms unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 extra-large eggs
• 1/2 cup lemon juice (3 to 4 lemons)
• pinch of salt

Directions

• Grate the lemons carefully to get the zest. Put the zest in a food processor alongwith the sugar and grind.

• Cream the butter with the sugar and lemon mixture. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and then add the lemon juice and salt. Mix until combined.

1. Pour the mixture into a saucepan and cook over low heat until thickened (about 10 minutes), stirring constantly. 

• Remove from the heat and cool or refrigerate.

• Roll out the pie crust and bake blind at 180 C till done.

• Fill with the cooled lemon curd.

Baked Eggs and Toast

Its November and the weather has turned.  Its nice and chilly early morning but the afternoons are still warm.  Living on the 9th floor we have turned off the fans and are enjoying the fresh chilled early morning air.  My windows are open through the day and night.

The outcome of all this left me with a miserable cold and cough.  A week of not being able to taste anything I eat :( and this morning I had this craving for egss and toast.  Normally my breakfast is just a fruit smoothie so this was a nice change.

Take 2 slices of bread.  Butter one slice on one side only.  

Place if butter side down on your grill rack.

Using a cookie cutter, cut a round in the other bread piece.

Butter one side and place it over the first slice, butter side up

Break an egg in the center of the bread filling the hole

Season well with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Sprinkle with chives and chilli flakes.

Bake in a preheated 180C oven for 10 mins till white set and yolk still soft.

I used the cutout round and topped it off with some cheese.

Enjoy.

Molten Chocolate Pots

Chocolate ..... hmmmm,  you can never get enough of it, can you.  Though I must admit I personally am not a great chocolate fan.  Prefer anything citrus anyday.  But what to do - it is the ultimate in food fantasy :)


So it was all about chocolate these past few days - brownies, cakes, cheesecakes and of course the Decadent Molten Chocolate Pot.  Fairly simple to make and always a big hit.   Only once your spoon cuts through the crust do you find the molten center.

It rose beautifully - lovely cracked top - which you cannot see as I dusted it with icing sugar, and a soft molten center.  Do be careful when eating this because you will burn your tongue


What you need


Baking Chocolate - 115 gms
Butter - 115 gms
Eggs - 2 largs
Sugar - 75 gms
Flour - 40 gms


And now to make it

• Grease 4 ramekins with butter and keep aside.
• Melt the chocolate with the butter over a double boiler.  Please do not do this in the microwave nunless you are an expert in chocolate.  Its so easy to burn.
• Beat the eggs and sugar till light and fluffy.  I do find it easier to use a hand mixer rather than by hand.  This needs to be done for at least 5 min as this is what causes the cake to rise.  There is no baking powder or any other raising agent.
• Mix the melted, slightly cooled chocolate into the egg mixture till well incorporated.  
• Fold in the flour.  Fold and not mix - do not over mix.
• Pour into the ramekins, place on a tray and bake for 10-12 min at 180 C.
• Dust some icing sugar on top and serve with cream or strawberries

Note - to make options you could add coffee dissolved in water or cointreau to the chocolate.

Ice Cream Bombe

Hectic weekend with dinner and lunches out with friends.  Which automatically leads to the question from the kids - whats for us ?  So this was all about pacifying Aakash.  Poor Shreya had to take a backseat but its not such a problem cause she never eats the desserts anyways :)

So, courtsey my son, I did a icecream cake - my first attempt so its not finished the way I would have liked it to be.

Start with a good basic cake.  Not a sponge please.  I put some marmalade in mine to give it an orange twist.

Line a round basin with clingfilm and line this with the cake, sliced in the centre and cut into triangles.  Fill all the gaps with leftover cake and put in the freezer to set.  

Soften icecream - any flavour - I used vanilla and mango - and layer the inside of the frozen cake with this, following the shape of the cake.  First layer was vanilla and then mango.  I went adventurous and filled the centre with some Raspberry sorbet.  Cover with cling film and put back in the freezer to set.  

Made this in the morning so it got about 8 hours to set.  When ready to serve, upturn on a plate.  

  

Could have been a better looking presentation.  Next time this is going to get covered with Chocolate or cream. But I must admit it was really tasty

MERINGUES

One of the toughest things to find in Gurgaon or Delhi – meringues or meringue shells.  Fortunately one of the easier things to make if you have the time and inclination.  Made well, they are light and airy and only need a couple of ingredients to make them - something that can be found in most homes.  

The following recipe quantity is a reduced down version and is fairly simple. 

Serves – 8

Time – 30 mins + baking time

Ingredients

• 2 egg whites
• 55 gms castor sugar
• 55 gms icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Preheat a conventional oven to 110c.  Line a baking tray with butter paper
2. Separate the eggs when cold and bring the egg whites to room temp.  This is very necessary for beating the eggs to the required volume.  Using an electric beat, beat the eggs till they are fluffy and resemble a cloudy mass and should hold a stiff peak when the beater is lifted.
3. Gradually add in castor sugar, a tablespoon at a time, beating well for 3-4 minutes between each addition.  When all the castor sugar is incorporated the mixture should be nice, thick and glossy.
4. Sift one third of the icing sugar over the mixture and fold in with a spoon.  Continue to sift in the balance till all is incorporated.  DO NOT OVERMIX.
5. Using a wet spoon, scoop up a tablespoon of the mixture and drop it on the baking sheet in rough rounds.  Or, place meringue mixture in pastry bag fitted with star tip. Pipe meringue onto parchment paper to form eight 3-in. cups
6. Bake for 1 1/4 hours or until the meringues are crisp.
7. Leave to cool on a cooling rack
8. Serve sandwiched with sweetened whipped cream or crumbled over ice cream