Recipe Wednesday - A Himalayan salted dulce de leche meringue

A good friend, Laura Solis, asked me to create a sweet for her. Laura runs 'Sol is you' where she offers some beautiful pampering services and also sells a range of Himalayan salts.  I made a variation of a dulce de leche meringue, with the added zing of her salt.  I love salted caramel like a boy loves his mother, I tell you.

This is, it must be said, a slightly epic recipe.  Set an afternoon aside, send the kids to a sitter, and prepare to create something amazing. Laura and I had a great time making these!

HIMALAYAN SALT DULCE DE LECHE MERINGUE 

MERUINGES 

8 large egg whites
400 g caster sugar
1 ½ cocoa
1 block dark choc (grate and small chunks for texture)

FILLING 

380g Dulce de leche (Caramel)
½ tsp Himalayan salt
600ml cream
1 tbsp caster sugar
½ tsp vanilla essence
3 beurre bosc pears
2 cups water
2 tbsp brown sugar

TOFFEE FLOSS 

100g caster sugar
water
Himalayan salt

Preheat the oven to 130°C
Whisk the egg whites in a mixer until they form stiff peaks, then with the mixer still running, very gradually add sugar. Turn to the highest setting and leave to mix for  6 minutes. Add cocoa powder, mix for another 2 minutes or until fully dissolved. Fold in the chocolate.

Line 2 large baking trays with greaseproof paper, then draw 24cm circle on each sheet of paper. Divide the mixture between 2 sheets and spread it out just inside your circles, then use the back of a spoon to flick up peaks and make troughes in the mixture to give your meringue a rustic look.

Bake  for 1 hour 20 minutes then turn the oven off, leaving the meringues in until the oven is cool.

Peel and cut the pears into halves then core with a teaspoon and cut into sixths, leaving some with the stem intact, set aside.

Combine water, sugar and cook in medium saucepan over low heat. Cook stirring until sugar dissolves, then add the pear and stir to combine. Cover for 10-­15 mins until the pear is tender. Use a slotted spoon to remove, set aside to cool.

Identify the prettiest meringue and set it aside (this will be for the top.) Spread the dulce de leche onto the swirly side of the other meringue and smooth it out right to the edge. Sprinkle the Himalayan salt over the dulce de leche.

In a mixing bowl whip cream with the caster sugar and vanilla essence until soft peaks form (making sure not to over whip). Dollop half of the cream over the dulce de leche place half of the pears (the ones without the stems) over the cream, bring some to the edge, so as they poke out when sandwiched with the top layer.

Place the second meringue on top, swirly side up. Spoon the remaining whipped cream over the top. Place the remaining pears with the stems if you have kept them intact, decoratively over the cream, make it look decadent and elegant.

For an extra wow factor, make the toffee floss. Melt the sugar in a medium pan with a splash of water over a medium heat until lightly golden-­don’t stir! Allow it to cool a minute till thick, using one or two forks flick the toffee over pears, the fine strands should look gorgeous, get as creative as you like.

School holiday eating and a recipe Wednesday.

Ahh, school holidays... No rush means there are more raspberry ricotta pancakes being made.

I even made Pie. We love pie here. In fact it was a pie kind of night, I'd made a chicken pie for dinner  and then a sweet potato pie for dessert.

My eleven year old missed out because she was away on a holiday with her best friend, when she saw these pictures she almost wept. This is a sweet potato pie.

I had a baked pie crust leftover so 2 days later I made Banoffee pie. My golly gosh this is so good. This is my sons favorite pie. In fact we argue over who loves it more.

I owe Miss Beatrix one of these.

I have continued baking my own bread, Aaron makes about half of them now as well.  His contributions lead to an over-all loss, though, as he eats so much of it.

We are buying one loaf a week and the rest we do our own couple of  loaves every second day.

I made a batch of these yummy sausage rolls, these have been a lunchtime hit.

I baked about a third of what I had made and froze the rest uncooked. Today I defrosted another third this took an hour sitting at room temp. I love that these have rice and carrot in them as well, so much healtier than store bought.

 Sausage rolls.
Ingredients
1 large onion chopped
3 medium carrots grated
1 cup of white or brown cooked rice,cooled.
500g good quality sausage mince.
1 cup of homemade breadcrumbs
3 sage leaves finely chopped.
small handful of parsley finely chopped.
2 teaspoons of salt
few shakes of black pepper
1 pkt of puff pastry thawed.


Method

Use a food processor to puree your onion you may add the parsley and sage here too, blitz it all. Remove and set aside.
Make the homemade breadcrumbs,( I always have a bit of stale bread in the freezer to make quick breadcrumbs, you can grate it really easily.)Or you can make your breadcrumbs in the food processor. 

In a large mixing bowl add the sausage mince,cooled rice and your blitzed ingredients including the salt and pepper. Wet your hands slightly and squish away, till well combined takes a couple of minutes.

Now take your sheet of thawed out puff pastry and halve them. With wet hands add a row of the mixture as seen in the picture, it help here to do a couple of sheets at a time. (Your hands get pretty messy!)

Now take your long edge and fold it over to meet the other edge. crimp the edges shut with your fingers. Fold the crimped edge under the roll so as to keep it from opening up.

Repeat this process till you are done. 

Next you need to cut to your desired portions, then lay baking paper on your tray and lay these little babes out! They should have space between them but not too much. You can brush the tops with beaten egg, I don't.

Bake at 180 deg for 15 min till the pastry is golden and all flaky.

Enjoy these with tomato sauce, chutney, or relish whatever you like. 

Coming up: I'll show you our school holiday crafting. 

Chicken Tikka Masala with the best carrot salad

carrots, by various brennemans.

Chicken tikka masala.

This is based on Jamie Oliver's Chicken Tikka, but he marinates and grills the chicken first. I am doing this one the fast-and-easy way which is still fantastic. This is my family's favourite curry.

It serves 4-6 people. (I never make enough so you could do 1 1/2 this recipe.)

Someday I will double it and actually have leftovers. Please note if you do double it though you will need two saucepans.

2 tbsp vegetable oil or ghee

6 chicken thighs or 3 chicken breasts cut into chunks

1 onion diced

1 tbsp ground cumin

1 tbsp ground coriander

1 tsp sweet paprika

1 tsp turmeric

2 tbsp garam masala

4 cm fresh ginger grated

4 cloves garlic crushed

a handful of ground almonds or cashews.

1 tin of crushed tomatoes

1 tin of water

salt pepper

120 ml cream

fresh coriander

Natural yoghurt.

4 cups of steamed basmati rice.

* if you like it hot add 2 fresh chilli de-seeded whilst cooking.

Heat oil or ghee, in a heavy based saucepan or deep skillet, add the diced onion, garlic and ginger cook till onions are transparent. 

Add the cumin, coriander, paprika, turmeric, garam masala cook till fragrant.

Add the chicken and cook till golden on both sides. Then add the crushed tomatoes and ground almonds or cashews.

Fill the empty tin with water and add also, stir often to ensure it isn't burning and that the amount of liquid is ok, add more water if you need to.

Cook for 45 minutes on a moderate heat, season to taste.

Stir in the cream and cook for another minute, serve with fresh coriander and natural yoghurt.

I am adding a carrot salad which is from one of my favourite cookbooks Falling cloudberries. This salad absolutely rocks. I have added cucumber to mine and sometimes I use spring onion instead of red onion, all in all this is a great side to any Indian curry.

Carrot Salad, with cardamon.

* This is best made an hour or more ahead of time.

2 carrots grated.

1 cucumber (if you like) also grated

1/2 red onion diced finely.

1 cm of ginger grated.

2 tbsp olive oil.

juice of half a lemon.

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp ground cardamon

a pinch of white pepper.

a handful of mint leaves torn.

Put the carrots, onion, cucumber into a bowl.

make the dressing by whisking together the oil, lemon, salt, pepper, ginger and cardamon.

You may need to tweak the flavours here, just add more sugar, salt or lemon. It sound be tangy yet slightly sweet.

Recipe Wednesday - just bagels

hot, by various brennemans.

These bagels are chewy yet crispy when baked, they are fantastic, don't even think you are making them to freeze cause there will be none left.

Just bagels
3/4 cup warm water
1/4 cup extra water for the dough if needed
(not needed if you put 100 grams berries in)
2 tsp (one sachet) dried yeast
1/2 cup (70g) caster sugar
2 1/2 cups (375g) plain flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
8 cups (2 lt) water, extra
1 egg yolk
1 tbs milk
1/4 cup (60g) white sugar
cream cheese, raspberries, blueberries to serve

0. Preheat the oven to 180 C.

1. Combine water, yeast and two tablespoons of caster sugar in a jug. (Berries if you're using them, too.) Set aside until frothy, which should take five minutes or so.

2. In a big bowl combine the flour, cinnamon and salt and make a well in the centre. Pour the yeast mixture into the well, and stir it until the dough just comes together.

Add slightly more water if needed. I found I had to add another 1/2 cup without berries, but it should not be wet at all, just right.

Now for an upper-arm workout: Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board and knead it. For ten minutes! Stop when dough is smooth and elastic. Put it in a really large bowl and loosely wrap with cling wrap. Find a warm, draught-free place and pop it there for thirty minutes, or until the dough rises by half. (So pay attention when you put it in the bowl how much there is, ok?)

3. Put the extra two litres water and remaining sugar in a large saucepan, put the heat on high bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium, or whatever gives you a simmer.

4. Brush oil on a flat tray. Divide the dough in half three times, to get eight even portions. Roll each dough-eighth into a ball and push a gentle-and-lightly-floured finger through the middle. Bagels have holes, you know. Flatten the ball a little and put on the oiled tray. Leave aside for ten minutes to rise a bit.

5. Carefully pop a few of the bagels to simmering water, my pot holds four at a time. Use your judgement but don't crowd them. The need for three minutes on each side, use a slotted spoon to turn the little suckers over. Then use the same spoon to fish them out and return to oiled tray. Keep going until you've boiled every bagel.

6. Finally, in a medium bowl whisk egg yolk and milk together. Brush it over the bagels and sprinkle with sugar. Then into the preheated oven for twenty minutes or so, until they are the stereotypical "golden brown" and are cooked through. (You'll probably have no problems finding a guinea pig to see if one's cooked.)

7. Take them out of the oven and set aside to cool. Here I recommend either an electric fence of some barbed wire to keep little fingers out. Nothing less will work. Serve hot or toasted.

Recipe Wednesday - Chocolate chip cookies

Chocolate chip cookies

125g butter softened

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1 3/4 cups self raising wholemeal flour

1/2 tsp salt

big handful of choc chips

1/2 cup of pecans

Method

Cream butter, sugar and vanilla.

Add lightly beaten egg gradually, beat well.

Mix in flour and salt

Add chocolate chips and pecans, mix well.

Shape into small balls, flatten and bake on greased tray in moderate oven for 10-12 minutes.

This recipe is adapted from "The little pigs cookbook," put out by a child care centre and a long-time staple in our house.

These biscuits come out just right for dunking in milk!

Recipe Wednesday - Chocolate salted carmel slice.

dark, originally uploaded by various brennemans.

Ohh, how my heart loves anything made with condensed milk. Maybe it has something to do with the health nurse having my Mum put me on it as a baby. I know, what were they thinking.

The salted caramel, is just a great combination, so please don't leave it out.

Chocolate salted caramel slice.

Base

1 cup plain flour, sifted

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 desiccated coconut

125g butter melted

Filling

400g can sweetened condensed milk

2 tbsp golden syrup

60g butter melted.

1 tsp Maldon sea salt

Topping

200g good quality plain chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids, hide this from husband)

Preheat oven to 180 deg c. Line a 3 cm deep, 28x 18cm (base) lamington pan.

Combine all base ingredients in a bowl. Mix well.

Press into prepared lamington pan.

Bake for 15 to 20 min, or until lightly golden. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.

Make filling

Melt the butter slightly in a pan over a low heat for 2 minutes, add the condensed milk and golden syrup. whisk the mixture well till butter is thoroughly incorporated. cook for 8 minutes stirring constantly, until thickened and light golden in colour.( never take your eyes off it, it will burn very easily)

Pour over the cooled base, sprinkle with the salt.

Bake for 10 minutes until set.

Cool completely.

Break the chocolate into pieces and place in a microwavable bowl. microwave for 1 min 45 sec on high, or until fully melted. stirring halfway.

leave to cool slightly, then pour over the caramel.

Refrigerate to set. Cut into squares to serve.

Recipe Wednesday - Beetroot relish

I will admit I have not made this relish this year, actually  I did not even plant beetroot, the photo is from last season. I am now regretful as I am down to my last jar of this relish and I will have to make do with store bought fresh beets. 

I know that some of you will have a glut of beets about now and have probably exhausted the many ways in which to enjoy them.  I love having a jar of this relish handy to take along to a special party a Christmas dinner or to have as an alternative to cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving. My favourite way to serve it is alongside a baked ham, fresh baguette and persian fetta, these flavours together are perfect especially if you have a glass of red in your hand.

Beetroot relish.
750g beetroot
1 brown onion
2 cups balsmic vineger
1 cup water
3 teaspoon mustard seeds, optional.
2 cups brown sugar
2 cloves or a pinch of cloves. 
2 5 cm orange rind
sea salt and cracked black pepper.


Peel and process the beetroot and onion. 
In a frying pan heat mustard seeds till popping
Add all other ingredients, cover and bring to the boil.
Cook for around 30 minutes, on moderate heat, till liquid is reduced and thickened slightly. 
Taste and season accordingly.
Pour into sterilised jars, seal, and let cool.



  

Recipe Wednesday - Coconut cream pie

Whenever I bake there are certain things I gather together, it is really quite ritualistic.

I like to have time and not be rushed. For me when I make pie I always take out my Betty Crocker Picture Cook Book, printed in 1950. I remember having to walk through my mother in-laws house after she'd passed away in the United States two years ago. It was as she'd left it, a book unfinished by her favourite chair her spectacles in the bathroom.

I had never been to this apartment before, I had visited her in a different house. Looking out her kitchen window I could see the cold winter sky she'd written about with the feeling of snow. I imagined the cookies and snikerdoodles she said she had baked. Her kitchen was tiny, but laid out well. I could see the words she would have had clear in her mind as they scrawled onto the Christmas card we had received only two months before.

We were here to divide her things I knew the most important things for me to cherish her memory would be cookbooks, utensils, linen, blankets. This cookbook was one of the things I took as well as a sifter, rolling pin, measuring cups and mixing bowls. I wanted to have these things to share with my children so they could touch the things her hands had touched hundreds of times before.

We always talk about her when we bake, Eliza loves to sift the flour turning the little bead on the handle. She talks of Gramma the most, funny as she never had the chance to meet her. I think though that there is a very strong bond between them. Eliza was only 19 months old when we made our journey to see Aaron's mum, tried to let her see her smallest grandchild at least once. It was in vain though. I tell her how much Gramma wanted to see her to meet the little girl she'd spoken to and heard so much about. I have since had another baby girl and she too is getting up on the stool and wanting to mix and stir. I will tell her all about her Gramma too.

The recipe for the coconut custard filling comes from the Betty Crocker book mentioned above. The pastry recipe comes from the "Jamie does..." book. I use this as I find it to be just right and his directions are easy to follow.

Coconut cream pie

For the pastry.

250g plain flour,plus extra for dusting
50g icing sugar
125g good quality unsalted cold butter,cut into cubes
1 large egg beaten
a splash of milk
oil to grease the pie dish

You can make your pastry by hand or with a food processor. From a height seive your flour and icing sugar into a large mixing bowl. Using your fingertips work the butter into the flour and icing sugar until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.Add the egg and milk and gently work it together using your hands till you have a ball.Don't overwork the pastry too much or it will become chewy and elastic. (if you have used a food processor, turn it off as soon as it just comes together. Take it out and then gently bring it all together.Sprinkle some flour on your work surface, and pat the ball into a thick flat round. Sprinkle with a little more flour, then wrap the pastry in clingfilm and pop into the fridge to rest for 30 minutes. Dust a clean surface and a rolling pin with flour, and carefully roll out your pastry, turning and dusting it every so often,until you've got a circle about 0.5cm thick. Roll the pastry over the rolling pin, then unroll it onto the greased pie dish, making sure you push it to the sides. Trim the excess pastry and use it to patch any holes, then prick the base of the case with a fork,cover with clingfilm and pop into the freezer for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180 deg.

Meanwhile make your coconut custard filling.

Coconut custard filling
Mix in a saucepan....................2/3  cup sugar
                                     1/2 tsp of salt
                                     2 1/2 tbsp cornflour
                                     1 tbsp plain flour

Stir in gradually....................3 cups of full cream milk. 

cook over a moderate
heat stirring constantly
until mixture thickens and boils.
Boil for 1 min. Remove from heat.
Slowly stir half the mixture
into.................................3 egg yolks lightly
                                        beaten.

Then blend into hot mixture into 
saucepan. boil for 1 min more, stir
constantly. Remove from heat and
blend in.............................1 tbsp butter
                                     1 1/2 tsp vanilla.

Now blend in ........................3/4 cup shredded coconut.

Allow to cool, drape a damp tea towel over the top to prevent a skin forming.

Back to the pie shell.   

....................................500ml of thickened cream

                                    2 tbsp caster sugar

                                    vanilla

                                    1/2 cup shredded coconut.


Take a large piece of baking paper and lay it into the uncooked pastry case. Take some uncooked rice, beans or baking beads if you are lucky enough to have them, fill the case right to the top.and blind bake for 10 min in your hot oven. Carefully remove the rice, beans or beads and the baking paper. Be very careful here I have dropped these before and they went everywhere, I am still finding beads.
The shell needs another 10min to cook,it needs to be firm and almost biscuit like. remove and allow to cool.

Putting it all together.
Fill the pie shell with the cool or slightly warm custard. Refrigerate this with some clingfilm over the top, for 30 min. In the meantime whip up 500ml of thickened cream sweetened with 2 tbsp of sugar and a dash of vanilla.
In a warm oven 160 deg toast up 1/2 cup of shredded coconut.(From personal experience be careful here, it takes about 5 minutes. I made 3 lots before it was perfectly toasted. Nobody likes burnt coconut.)

Top the pie with the whipped cream and scatter the toasted coconut on top. If you can let it cool and set for an hour you will have a nicely set easy to cut pie.

Now put the kettle on for some tea, and enjoy your slice of pie.