Quick: Memories of Australia

I've been traveling around quite a lot recently. And one of the places I went was my hometown Melbourne, Australia. At the risk of sounding like a tourist advertisement it's a beautiful city. 

above - the Vic Market

They have some seriously good bakeries, some hippy (organic, local etc), some traditional (Italian bakeries with hundreds of different biscuits, coffee and the ridiculously rich "European hot chocolate" thick enough to stand a spoon in it! well, not quite but it sounds like a good schtick to me!), and some good ol' Aussie bakeries. While I was there I managed to scarf down a good amount of hot cross buns (some good some not so good - I love the doughy kind,  to me a fail in the hot cross bun department is when it requires butter in order to appear good and doughy) but no vanilla slice (serious disappointment!)


The food scene is really nice there - so many places to eat, so much good food, and again I totally recognise I'm biased as hell - but I do love Melbourne.  

above - Hot Cross Buns from Prahran Market

We also went to Boston, Napa and Austin before the Aussie trip. I'm pretty exhausted from traveling and am eager to start the new business at the Farmers Markets in May (Yay!) We were going to go to Italy but decided against it due to well, I guess just being so tired from much travel within a 4 month period. 

Chocolate

I have just finished a 9 month stint as a chocolatier at a awesome chocolate shop. I haven't really shown what I worked on in this blog yet, so I thought that I would briefly show some of the things I helped produce. 

This is a fleur de sel caramel - made without the use of corn syrup. Seriously delicious, and pretty satisfying to make really. 

The marzipan - simple but lovely. 

These were both slabbed and hand dipped. I did quite a lot of molded chocolates as well, butter creams and such. It was an interesting medium to work with as I had briefly done some chocolates at school, but never worked with chocolate that much. I learned nice tempering methods (ice bath!) and that you have to be in a good mood to work with chocolate, as I swear it can sense your weakness!

New Business

I'm trying, yet again to begin a small business making food. Specifically I have decided to concentrate on baking French Macarons with various seasonal fillings (cherry, apricot, peach, sour plum) as well as some not so seasonal fillings ie. dark chocolate and Fleur de sel Caramel. My idea is that I will sell them at local farmers markets (as I love love LOVE the markets) and maybe do special commissions and such. 

I am currently underway to getting my commercial kitchen (note to self - HUGE expense), but I am looking forward to working in a space that a.) has natural light, and b.) has other people obsessed with food in it. I realize that I miss school for this reason, I love food talk, I love seeing food being made and learning how other people make it/consume it, so this part of the kitchen is a massive bonus for me, as is natural light obviously!

I have a facebook page for my business: 

http://www.facebook.com/LilliPilliBaked

and a twitter account: 

http://twitter.com/ LilliPilliBaked

So if you like a lot of food talk, and some picts about being obsessed with food, please join me on my new adventure. 

I plan on traveling quite a bit until June (Massachusetts, Hawaii, Australia and Italy) but June is my real starting date for the markets, but until then I will be concentrating on recipe testing, a whole lot of paper work, applications, exploring local bakeries and planing where to visit in those various locations. 

Thank you everyone for your support!

Macarons - Valentines Day

I made a ton of macarons for Valentines Day. They reminded me of my favorite ice cream I used to get as a kid:Neapolitan. I'm sure my grandparents bought it because having three grandkids meant that we were all bound to be pleased. And we were! I loved the strawberry, and I remember Jesse (my little brother) loved the chocolate. I'm not sure about my older brother, but I suspect it worked out that he liked vanilla. 


The flavors of these macarons were: beige = fleur de sel caramel (note to self: salt burns and looks blackish and weirdly peppery, so maybe don't do that next time...), the pink were raspberry filled with homemade jam and the brown were nutella with a nutella buttercream filling. 


This was a tough project. My oven broke (again, this is the 2nd time within three months and it makes me very sad!) but as I live in an apartment we have a shared kitchen space downstairs which I commandeered and so I dragged the sheet pans down 17 floors and baked in community kitchen in the middle of the night. At least these smell delicious!


I'm also finding the packaging a massive hassle. Who knew that there isn't any packaging in the States that suits macarons specifically, so I had to make do with what I found and make sure I lined them with food safe paper. 


This was a lot of work, but I'm pretty happy with the results!

I Heart Butter (specifically cultured butter)

I love butter, there is no hiding that fact. However, I'm pretty picky with the butter that I do consume, especially when I'm at home. For the past several months I have been making cultured butter at home. It takes a couple of days (mostly wait time) but the end results are pretty amazing.

Cultured butter is butter that has some cultures that are added to it to add flavor. I use a mesophilic lactic culture (lactic ferment) which thrives at room temp and imparts this amazingly buttery flavor to well, butter (people also add it to cheeses such as brie and camembert for the same buttery flavor). It's well worth the time and energy it takes.

As I really don't wish to lose this recipe I will document it here.

Cultured Butter (makes a ton of butter and buttermilk)

3 Lt Heavy Cream (I use organic)

Meso II or Aroma B starter culture

Method

1. Cool cream to 14-16C in a cool water bath.

2. Add 1/8tsp culture and gently stir in.

3. Allow to ripen at 14-16C for 20 hours.

4. Place cream in fridge for 4-6 hours.

5. Pour into churn and allow temp to rise to 12C.

Churn at 12C it will take 15-30min. Don't let the temp increase too much (if it hits 13C cool down in cool water bath).

6. Strain butter through cheese cloth and squeeze out excess buttermilk (save the buttermilk!)

7. Knead the butter gently and remove excess buttermilk, add salt then pack the butter and put it away in the fridge.

It has a shelf life of around 4 weeks in the fridge or several months in the freezer.

Use the buttermilk for anything you would normally use it for (cakes, pancakes, scones, biscuits etc).

My First Gingerbread House "Up"

I have been locked away over the fast few weeks working like crazy to finish my first gingerbread house. It's the "Up" house from the pixar film of the same name. I love the film, very sweet and quirky. And the house has colors and textures that looked like a heap of fun to make. I used the plans from the amazing "Themodelmaker" at http://themodelmaker.net/flying-house-model-pixar-up/ I scaled the model x6, then I cut it out of paper to form a template. I then made a foam backed version so I could see where things fitted and whether I needed to make some adjustments. After that I made the gingerbread from a recipe that I thought was pretty sturdy (no eggs, or chemical learners just flour, molasses, spices, veggie shortening) - I made the recipe x 6. It was a crazy amount of dough. Then I traced the templates over the dough and cut them out. Baked the gingerbread off and then let it cool completely before I even attempted to put it together.

Slowly, and I mean seriously slowly Josh and I put the house together (over a series of 3 days) and then I made masses of sugar paste decor for the house. This is what took a ton of time, you have to color it, shape it, texturize it (if you need to) and then let it dry for two days. Then came the assembly, which was the fun bit. I used Alton Brown's Royal icing recipe which

stood the test of time (and cement-ability). and that's it.

A fun, and yet epic amount of work, but I'm pretty pleased with the results! We are auctioning off the house at work and donating the money to a charity. So hopefully it works out!

A shout out to the awesome and incredibly talented 'themodelmaker' and Don Shank who's amazing pictures I stared at for three weeks, attempting to get the details right. Just a beautiful house (see Don at: http://donshank.blogspot.com/2009/08/fredricksen-house.html).

My love affair with tomatoes

I had a ton of tomatoes this year - seriously I filled up a massive bag with them and sorted them out between the "green" bag and the "red" bag. I actually love the idea of using green tomatoes in cooking. The idea that something doesn't have to be just about the awesome flavor that comes from a beautifully ripe tomato, but that it can also be about the blandness (think eggplant) and about the texture.

I made a whole lot of green tomato salsa this year out of the green tomatoes, and as I'm far too paranoid to can tomatoes I gave the majority of the salsa away (it was pretty awesome go here: http://www.farmgirlfare.com/2005/09/saving-harvest-green-tomato-relish.html for the recipe - she calls it a relish, I figure as I'm foreign and have no clue about the difference between a salsa and a relish I am hereby renaming it a salsa).

With all the lovely red ripe (sometimes VERY ripe) tomatoes I decided to slowly roast them with some garlic and onions, salt and pepper and make a simple red sauce with them. Out of this I made pizza sauce, and a simple pasta sauce. Man I love having a P-patch.

Mushrooms aka mushies

It's mushroom season over here! It is amazing the variety and the amazing flavors that different mushies imbibe.

Josh and I went mushy hunting on Saturday (at a undisclosed location) and it was amazing. We went a couple of times last year but failed pretty badly at finding any edible (and tasty edible) mushies. This year however was different, we found some amazing lobster mushies (which as we are on the West coast are edible) and also some beautiful chanterelles.

Lobster mushies are actually a mushrooms being consumed by a parasite. They are incredibly bright (hence easy spotting) and really crispy mushrooms. The few I found I cooked down with a ton of butter, shallots and thyme and put them with some gruyere and a simple thyme custard for a tasty quiche. The lobsters do keep their density, they are quite a bit "toothy" and a smidge crunchy, you know they are there. Their flavor is pretty subtle, but they go up a few notches in my books simply because we went out and found them (note that we did get our mushies verified by an expert).

The chanterelles were beautiful as well, yet not half as vibrant as the lobsters. They smell floral/fruity and we noticed that when we found one - we found quite a few others. Josh is going to go hunting next week again, so maybe we'll have another bounty!

P-Patch

This year we had a p-patch. Which, for those of you who don't know is a plot of land designated by someone to be a plot of land in which the public can grow things o - for people who can't have a garden. It was both a success and a disaster. We had broccoli raab, lovely red onions, tomatoes of three heirloom varieties, leeks, lovely carrots and a multitude of other things that sort of well, grew unencumbered. It's our first year, I'm sure it'll get better, as I do intend to have another p-patch next year. But, we did have a TON of tomatoes. Some rather ripe ones. So I quickly went about washing, halving and olive oiling them so that they could be slowly roasted (along with a ton of garlic and some yellow onions). I made a lovely sauce that will last through the winter months.

I'm ashamed to say I don't have picts of our P-patch, but I hope you imagine it to be a lovely jumble of plants growing like crazy!

Cripes! It's been ages! I think it's hard to gain momentum when it's been such a loooonnnggg time between posts. I have been baking (of course!). But I haven't been documenting what I bake. Here - this ends!

We had a few turbulent months that involved a couple of house moves and so I think we are fairly settled here, and so I have finally found the camera and am starting to document the whole baking thing once more.

The markets didn't work out this summer, but I do intend to try again next year, as I feel that I really want to bake food my way, in season and for only the lovely part of the year (sunny!). I did however, get a job at an awesome local chocolate shop, so I am making chocolates and learning a whole lot and in my spare time I'm playing with baking.

I'm back. I'll keep documenting what I bake, we'll see how it goes.

Chef of the Day (COD)

Chef of the Day or as the kids like to call it COD is our final project at school. We have to make 6 items and present them to our 3 chefs who then judge each item as well as our table set up. The items we have to make are:

A tart

A cake

A bread

A breakfast pastry

A chocolate

A plated dessert

It was a tough call - but a fun project. I think like any obsessive person I began thinking about this project the first quarter I started at school. I wanted something

simple and clean, using good local products if possible (although as it is winter quarter - there isn't a whole lot of produce available... and I don't know how a cabbage cake would work out...)

So my menu was:

Cake - A Honey Yoghurt Baklava Cake. Last quarter I tried making this cake that had this really tart, zesty mousse on top of a muesli base. It was pretty gross actually - so savory it was basically plain yoghurt on top of muesli. So I jazzed up the mousse a bit, added fireweed honey as my invert sugar used this amazing honey flavored greek yoghurt and added more milk chocolate to the mousse, and it worked really well.

Underneath that mousse I have a praline layer (basically

hazelnut, sugar and a smidge of salt), this layer melts, creating a type of syrup, rather than a crunch to the cake. It's the layer of caramel color that you see beside the cake. Under this there is a toasted sesame bavarian layer.I simply toasted sesame seeds, roughly ground them and then steeped them in hot milk for half an hour.Then there is the final layer, a roasted walnut sponge cake with a ed honey sponge.

I was really happy with this cake - it had the tang that I wanted from the yoghurt, the richness of the honey and the warmth of the sesame seeds and walnut.

Tart - An onion tart. This is a savory tart

made with a red wine onion confit (local syrah used), with a strong and seriously ripe muenster cheese, a creme fraiche custard, thyme and potatoes. It's a pretty pungent tart, made for small slices and best eaten when slightly warm.

Bread - the miche. This was such a beautiful bread - how could I not make it?

A breakfast pastry - Simple whole wheat croissants with a preferment. I love these croissants, so buttery, slightly sweet and slightly nutty. They are also slightly larger than your normal croissant (3oz as opposed to 2.5oz) which I have to say appeals to me as well. Just what I want for breakfast.

Chocolate - This is my beehive. It's a buckwheat honey ganache filling (the honey is from a local apiary) and a liquid honey center (which is simply

buckwheat honey). It has a milk chocolate covering. For those who don't really know buckwheat honey the descriptions I get when people smell/taste it are: horse, hay, farm. It's an incredibly earthy, natural taste which pairs brilliantly well with the warmth of milk chocolate.

Plated Dessert - This is a goat cheese cheesecake made with creme fraiche. It is covered in hazelnut toffee - so it has this earthy, nutty, crunchy texture/flavor. The sauce is a caramel blood orange sauce. The sorbet is a grapefruit and Gewurtztraminer (from a local winery) sorbet and it sits atop a rosemary sucree.

So that's it.

It's been so very draining, I didn't do a whole lot of baking outside of school because I was so intent on figuring out the baked goods for school.

Sorry once again!

The Future

As always I'm apologizing for being so incredibly slack with the posts of late. I have been baking (it's been the holidays how could I not) I just have been in such a rush to bake them off that I failed to take any picts of them.

It's my final quarter at school. I have to say that I'm looking forward to finishing, but am nervous about the "what do I do once I've finished?" I've decided to start my own business.

I've been working towards it for quite some time, mostly filling out forms and doing a whole lotta paper work, but once school is finished I intend to make this business my career.

I want to sell baked goods at two local farmers markets in the upcoming farmers market season (May - October). I plan on using local ingredients sourced from the vendors at the markets and making things such as fresh tarts (I love making tarts both savory and sweet), some breads, maybe some doughs (such as whole wheat croissants I don't have a sheeter so they'll all be hand rolled) and maybe some confiture (jams) as the seasons progress.

It's going to be a solo endeavor. Just me, both making and selling, and it's going to be a whole lotta work. I'm not expecting to earn a lot of money (who does as a baker right?) but enough to support my passion to bake.

Cakes and mix and match

I've been breading it up big at home lately - I realize just how much I seriously love to make breads.... But on the other hand I've also been playing around with cake ideas. I have my final quarter coming up at school early next year and I have a project called "Chef Of the Day" and I have to make a tart, a breakfast pastry, a chocolate (or a petis four), a bread, and a cake. Needless to say I'm worried about the cake portion as I feel it's something that I haven't really done much of.

As I've been learning more this quarter about cakes I've been liking them a whole lot more. There are so many variations to make, not only that but you can take parts of one cake you like and apply it to another one - it's really easy to integrate, and mix and match.

This cake is one I've been thinking about for a few weeks, sort of a baklava cake: the base is a walnut sponge, this is covered in a honey syrup. On top of this is a roasted pistachio and vanilla bavarian, then a layer of praline, and then a milk chocolate and honey yogurt mousse. I was pretty happy with the way it came out. I do need to work on presentation (it's a tad bland in looks), and also I'm going to change the bavarian layer to a roast hazelnut layer, but it's not bad. Al

so, all the layers are from different recipes, just proving you can make whatever you like as long as you have the basics down (ie. know how to make a sponge, a mousse and a bavarian).

Hearty Breads

Oh beautiful grainy, hearty breads I seriously like you. I think it's something that I have learned the more I make breads, the more I like some substance to them. For me, this means grains. Some serious grains at that. Lately I've been 'oohing' and 'ahhing' over rye. Not rye the flour so much as cracked rye. It has this lovely nutty flavor and a beautiful soft/chewy texture that I adore.

I've made a ton of bread at school: rye baguettes (the photo on the bottom of this post), dreikornbrot (the first photo. It has flax, rye chops, sesame and oats), a rosemary levain bread (which looked more like a roasted potato than a loaf of bread but was amazingly tasty and moist) miche, sunflower and rye bread, plenty of baguettes (ranging from straight dough to many preferment's), pumpernickel bread (takes 24 hours in the oven in order to get the color and taste that pumper has! AND it's basically all rye chops [cracked rye soaked with water]) and many more fabulously grainy breads.

Chocolates

I've been making chocolates lately. A lot of hard work, but I'm really enjoying it. Chocolate is challenging due to the finicky nature of sugar crystals - in order to make a pretty chocolate that has a beautiful shiny coat, with snap and an interesting filling. I've been loving the booze thing - all these exotic (at least to me) liquors such as St Germain (Elderberry), Pernod (seriously strong black licorice) and Absinthe (which I like to call "Van Gough" - just a really strong Pernod with a stronger 'chemicalness' to it).

I made Advocaat as well - it's an egg based liquor (egg yolks, brandy, condensed milk and vanilla bean) which I made into a ganache using white chocolate and filled dark chocolate molds. Chocolates are something I have really enjoyed. So watch out all you people I know (and like!) you may be getting some experimental choc's for xmas!

Pink Macaroons

I finally found a good recipe. One that really works - consistently works. An Italian meringue base (egg whites whisked until bubbly, then add soft ball stage sugar water slowly down into the egg whites while whisking) adds stability. Cook in a convection oven (low around 160C), cook until you can pick up the macaroons freely off the sheet pans.

Small things make all the difference! Macaroons are so fickle it's awfully nice to find a reliable recipe!

At School

I'm at school again. Busy, busy and seriously busy. I will try and post - I am taking picts of what I'm working on there it's just a matter of posting them!

Caramelized Fennel Tart

Ok, not the prettiest tart, and admittedly not the best I've had either. I do however, give this guy some points for using fennel. How many people really use fennel? How many people realize that the taste dramatically changes when it's cooked for a long period of time and is allowed to slowly caramelize? Let me tell ya, it changes. It becomes a really mellow flavor, very subtle. This one has been slowly cooked on a stove top for around an hour with olive oil, an onion and a few bulbs of fennel.

I remember when I had to travel into uni on the train. Fennel would grow wild next the railroad tracks. I always wondered if anyone actually picked it. At that time, I had no idea what I would use it for, nowadays I have a few ideas.

Oh! I was wondering if anyone else has noticed how much fruit surrounds them? I noticed plums in a local public park, no one picked them but the birds. I also saw a giant apple tree in an apartment complex, a fig tree on capitol hill (they are looking mighty ripe right now), there are blackberries a few hundred meters up my street... we need some sort of program that allows people to pick some of the bounty (of course I already obliged this with the blackberries a few weeks ago...)

Plum Danish

Although Tricia did bring plums over they were prune plums, and I happened to see some beautiful duarte plums at the market that very same week. These were a deep red plum, very fragrant. Little did I know that they had a beautifully sweet, ruby red flesh on the inside.

This is a simple Danish dough, cut into flower shapes. The filling consists of almond cream and the fresh pulp of the plums - no sugar added.

Danish's are such a simple pastry, and I think that as the base is simple the fillings should be simple. I like the taste of butter - and I like the taste of butter in these guys.

Simple Plum Tart

Yes, some more plums. Once again from the lovely Tricia.

I've taken to making tart dough like there's no tomorrow and just keeping it in the freezer until I have a filling to put in it. Once again this tart relies on the fruit to do it's best in flavoring the tart. It's a simple pate sucre, I put panko on the base to soak up the juice left by the plums, and then layered the plums.

No this wasn't as easy as I'm making it sounds...I had to do it twice. On the way to the oven I managed to hit the oven door and the pieces managed to stay within the tart, but completly lop sides. It looked rather good actually.. I figured it would be kinda weird to eat a tart that had nothing on one side and everything on the other. So I rearranged them again.

I sprinkled the top with cinnamon, sugar and cardamon, baked it. Glazed it with some apricot glaze and that was it.

It was a tart sweet tart. I should have precooked the base longer than the 10 min I did as it was a smidge unstable. But otherwise it was pretty alright.

Plum Scrolls

wow, its been a while!

A friend bough a ton of plums the other week - I mean seriously a lot. They were Italian prune plums. And so she made her way out to my place and we thought we'd see how much we could use.

These babies were inspired by a german plum cake. This usually means a very simple cake made with yeast dough, rolled out to fit a baking sheet and then plums layered on top.

We used the same yeast dough, rolled it out into a rectangle, slathered it with melted butter, sprinkled on some sugar and cinnamon, scattered some plum chunks. They were finished with a simple vanilla icing.

So very good, and very seasonal!

Nectarine Tart

I'm not usually a huge fan of nectarines, always been more of a peach lady myself, however it is the end of summer fruit season (sniff sniff) and so I thought I needed to use some nectarines.

This is a simple tart that relies on good, fresh nectarines that are at the peak of their season.

It has a simple almond cream base, with fresh nectarines cut, and arranged on top. That's it.

It smelled amazing, the texture was really nice, soft - like apricots from a can, but a lot more fragrant.

A tart I would make again.

Chocolate Stout Cake and No Cake Decorating Skills

So this may seems like an innocent cake - one with a whole lotta chocolate, a splash of booze and a bit of caffein. But this guy drove me to the end of my tether.

Easy to make, this cake sounded interesting because of the beer content - I was curious what kind of flavor and/or texture it would add to the cake. When I tried the batter (as you must) I could taste the beer, yet when I baked it, there really wasn't anything yet. The cake was a not-quite-chocolate cake. But not quite sure what it was kinda cake.

Whatever right? Just ice it and send it off.

I tried. I tried for maybe an hour and a half, and learned a very very good lesson. It takes time to ice a cake... specifically to ice it nicely. My forearms physically hurt - still.

Kudos to all of you people who can ice (you know who you are Wendy, Sarah N). It's something I really need to work on.

The recipe for the cake and icing is from: Octobers Bon appetit:http://www.bonappetit.com/magazine/2009/10/chocolate_stout_layer_cake_with_chocolate_frosting

Concord Grape Tart

I've been thinking about this tart for about a year. I first met the concords at a farmers market last Autumn. They looked pretty - like large blueberries, but they smelled of my childhood.....specifically a bubble gum I used to have a s a kid. So ate them. Then looked for them the next week at the market, but alas they had finished for the season. That day I vowed to exploit the grapes the next year.

All the grape tarts I looked at seem to begin the same way: pop the middle part of the grape out and save the skins.

Ingredients

Concord Filling

1 1/2 lbs. concord grapes
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. potato starch
pinch of salt
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

Oat Crumble

1/2 cup oats

1/2 cuptightly packed brown sugar

pinch of salt

not quite 1/2 cup of flour

1/4 cup unsalted better - melted

1 Tart base (mine was a pate sucree)

Method (preheat oven to 375F)

1. Wash the grape and gently squeeze the internal part of the grape into a bowl, keep the skins in a separate bowl.

2. In a small saucepan place the internal part of the grapes and boil for around 10 min.

3. Put them in a sieve over a bowl and using the back of a spoon squish the grapes until most of the pulp has been transferred to the bowl below.

4. empty the contents of the bowl into a medium saucepan, add the skins, sugar and melted butter. In a small bowl place the potato starch and lemon juice and stir until well combined (you may need to add a little extra water to make a paste). Add the paste to the grape mixture and stir to combine.

5. Heat over medium heat until slightly thicker.

6. Let cool a little

7. Meanwhile make the crumble. Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl, then add the butter and using your finger tips mix until all the dry ingredients have been integrated.

8. In your tart base place some of the filling - fill it up around 3/4 full. Then sprinkle your crumble on top.

9. Bake for around 45 min, but check for the setting of the tart - the consistency should be like that of a thick jam.

10. Let cool to room temp and serve.

A very good tart - a little tart, very nice with the sweet crust of the sucree. Also a slightly sweetened whipped cream works very nicely!

Naan

I adore Indian food; its complexity, warmth, the fact that you can eat it all with your hands. I have made naan before. Unfortunately, it wasn't a great experience.

At school when you are 2nd quarter you are in charge of supplying the bread rolls and other such sundries the schools restaurants require. The week I was doing my bread rotation just happened to be the week when they were doing a middle eastern/ Indian theme. All I remember is standing by the sheeter (a mechanical rolling pin essentially) and making flat breads for what felt like hours. Under stress - because they wanted the bread now.

But, I went to dinner at Tricia and Tim's place and well, it was Tim's birthday and he requested naan, so I had to make it!

It was alright. A little dry - I like my naan moist and filled with pannier- which I din't use in this naan. A really easy bread to make though, only requires one fermentation (rather then two) and has a little zing due to the yogurt used.

It was a good accompaniment for all the delicious Indian food we had made - so that means success for me.

It's really is funny though, how I'm never satisfied with what I make. It's never perfect. It can be 'alright' or 'pretty good' but usually not brilliant (note the exception below this post the tomato, mozzarella tart - go and buy yourself -if you are in the Northern hemisphere, some beautifully ripe tomatoes, some good buffalo mozzarella and make the tart tonight).

Raspberry and Bittersweet Chocolate Tart

A friend had their birthday last week, and he loves chocolate. I wanted to make something that I hadn't made before, something that used both fruit and chocolate. This tart seemed like the answer. It is a simple tart made with very high grade ingredients.

A simple ganache made with a bittersweet chocolate with 72% cacoa, raspberries were squished on the bottom, the ganache poured over the top and then a little decoration and that was it.

I simply used some left over bittersweet chocolate and a hand made chocolate piping bag (made with parchment paper) to pipe the decoration onto a sheet of parchment which I then froze.

Simple, rich, elegant. Recommended - a heavy dose of sweetened whipped cream on the side.

Mozzarella and Fresh Tomato Tart

Amazing. Seriously, really damn amazing. So very simple as well. This tart consists of a pate brisee base, dijon mustard smeared over the top, gruyere on top of that and then beautifully fresh tomatoes are placed between layers of buffalo mozzarella.

Over all of this olive oil infused with thyme, rosemary, bay leaves, garlic and salt and pepper. Bake.

Amazing. I can't really say anymore. A great tart that I will be making many summers from now.