Pine nut ice cream

Rose Prince via Albino Barberis. Toast 4tbsp pine nuts in a dry pan until they change colour slightly. Set aside. Whisk 3 egg yolks with 2tbsp golden caster sugar until frothy.

In another bowl, wishk 10.5fl oz/300ml whipping cream until thickened. Fold in the egg yolks then stir in the cooled pine nuts.

In a third bowl, whisk the three egg whites until thick and foamy, then fold carefully into the egg and cream mixture, using a knife or metal spoon so as not to knock the air out.

Pour into an 8in/20cm loaf tin lined with cling film an freeze until solid. There is no need to churn or stir. It will set to a lightweight ice cream to serve with thin, crisp sweet biscuits. Barberis wouuld pour over a little syrupy, aged balsamic vinegar.

Can also be done with hazelnuts or cobnuts.

Nigel Slater’s damson ice cream

I think I’ll make this in the next couple of days too – God, the quantity of cream and sugar I’m buying this week is shaming…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2005/oct/09/foodanddrink.shopping4

2 days later – I’ve made it and it’s delicious but there’s a typo in lovely Nigel’s recipe  – it needs 500g damsons, not 50g.

Blackberry ice cream

I make this every year at the cottage. The girls helped today, dyeing themselves purple in the process. Iris’s hands are still stained three hours later despite scrubbing. The quantities below make two 1200ml tubs (the size of the white ones with coloured lids at the cottage). The ice cream machine can only do one at a time so you need to do one batch, then wash, dry and return the machine to the freezer overnight, then do the second batch the next morning (or obviously halve the quantities).

800g blackberries
200ml cold water
400g caster sugar
Juice of 4 lemons
6 tablespoons creme de mures or kirsch
600ml (1 pint) double cream, whipped to ribbons – but do this in two batches when you’re ready to churn the ice cream

Puree the blackberries with the water in the magimix for about a minute. Sieve this into a large bowl (the big plastic jigs at the cottage are best), pushing it all through until only the pippy mush is left in the sieve. Add the sugar, lemon juice and creme de mures to the pulpy juice in the large bowl. Divide this mixture into two (around 750/800ml each) and put one of these into the fridge until you can make the second batch. Fold in 300ml of the whipped cream, pour into the ice cream maker and churn the mixture for about 15 minutes until it’s half-frozen. Scrape this into a container and freeze immediately. Do the second batch in the same way.

The recipe for this (from Michel Roux in an old Master Chef cook book) is originally for raspberry ice cream. I did that once too and it was also good, but not as unusual as the blackberry one and there are so many at the cottage in August it seems like a good way of using them.

Blackberry and almond tarts

We had this at Glyndebourne yesterday, and I made some mini ones with left over scraps of pastry and frangipane. I think the little ones were even more cute and I didn’t bother baking them blind. I made them in the white earthenware pots that you get free with (I think) Gu hot puddings (or a Waitrose equivalent). The recipe is a combination of Tamasin Day Lewis’s pastry (Art of the Tart) and Skye Gyngell’s blackberry and almond filling from A Year in My Kitchen. I did the big one in a 9inch tart tin. Alice took photos so I must ask her to stick them up here – it was pretty (she says vainly)…

 

Pastry:

120g plain white flour (I used 00 flour because I was in a posh mood but have never worked out if it really makes a difference – my pastry tends to work if I’m an a good mood and fail if I’m in a strop and the ingredients don’t seem to affect it)

60g unsalted butter – v cold

1 tablespoon sifted icing sugar (I probably didn’t)

2 egg yolks (stick them into the freezer 5 minutes before you start, especially if you don’t keep eggs in the fridge)

Chop the cold butter into small cubes and blast it in the magimix with the flour and icing sugar until it looks like fine sand. Add the egg yolks and pulse it until it starts to come together. When it’s almost coming together, stop the magimix, take the blade out (grandmothers sucking eggs etc but I have dropped the blade on my big toe in the past leading to several stitches so I’m assuming wider incompetence) and bring it together with your hands into a ball. Wrap this in clingfilm and leave it in the fridge for at least 40 minutes. It’s quite sticky pastry so needs chilling more than standard shortcrust. After 40 minutes take it out, roll it out to the size of the tin (greased etc) and fit it in, patching any holes and cracks as you need to. Put it back in the fridge for another half an hour (or overnight, which is what I did as I had a ghastly hangover and had to go to bed at that point (Blyth/Shakespeare/whisky combination). Pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees or just over 150 for the cottage’s Baby Belling. Cut off a piece of greaseproof paper that’s large enough to cover the tart tin and put this on top of the pastry shell and fill it with baking beans, rice or whatever you use. Bake it blind like this for 12-15 minutes, then take it out, empty out the beans and paper then stick it back in for another 5 minutes (or 3 at the cottage). Let it cool down.

 

Filling:

200g ground almonds

200g sugar (I used nearly all caster and some soft brown)

200g unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

6 organic large egg yolks (eek – need to make lots of meringues this week)

250g blackberries (so says the recipe – I just picked half a jug from the lane, no idea of the weight)

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees/gas 4.

Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the vanilla extract, then add the egg yolks one at a time beating until just combined. Finally add the ground almonds, gently mixing until they’re all combined. Scrape and splodge this mixture into the pastry case, but do this gently and carefully as the pastry is very crumbly and fragile and the mixture is quite dense. Stud the backberries into the mixture all over. I found this intensly pleasurable and -bad mother – wouldn’t let Nell help me as I was enjoying myself too much to share it.

Bake the tart for 20-30 minutes until the filling is golden and browning round the edges.

Serve this at room temperature with pourable double cream.

 

For the little tarts, I just shaped the pastry into the little moulds (greased well), filled them with the almod mixture and added as many blackberries as I could fit into the tops. I think I cooked them for about 15-20 minutes but wasn’t really concentrating. They were very sweet and helpfully slipped out of their little pots looking golden and so pretty.

Coconut crème caramel

Serves six to eight
Caramel: 140g sugar
Custard@ 600ml medium coconut milk
1 vanilla pod
1 cinammon stick
2 cardamom pods
4 eggs
30g caster sugar

Stand six to eight ramekins in a roasting tin in an oven at 150°C/300°F/Gas 2. Put caster sugar for carmel in pan with 5tbsp water. Stir over moderate heat until sugar is dissolved, brushing in any stray crystals. When syrup is clear, bring to boil and boil hard until it caramelizes to a hazelnut brown. Don’t stir, but swirl pan around to even out hot spots. As soon as caramel is done, remove roasting tin and pour caramel into ramekins, tipping each to cover bottom and sides. Leave ramekins to cool then return to roasting tin.

For custard, put coconut milk in pan with vanilla pod and cinnamon stick. Open cardamom pods, take out black seeds and crush. Add to milk. Bring gently to boil, then remove from heat. Cover and infuse for 15 minutes in warm place. Whisk eggs with caster sugar. Bring coconut milk back to boil and pour onto eggs, stirring constantly. Strain custard then pour into ramekins. Add hot water to raosting tin so it comes about halfway up the ramekins. Cook in oven for about an hour until custard has just set. Cool ramekins then store in fridge covered with clingfilm until needed. Invert them into shallow bowls to serve.

Rather good with double cream if in a greedy mood.

Baked Lemon Cheesecake

Base:
85g plain sweet shortbread biscuits
1/2 cup ground almonds
45g butter melted

Topping:
600g cream cheese
1 cup caster sugar
6 fl oz sour cream
6 eggs
Grated rind from 1-2 lemons, depending on how big they are and how lemony you like it

Pre-heat the oven to 140C.

Crush the biscuits in a plastic bag with a rolling pin, then mix them in a bowl with the ground almonds and the melted butter. Squash them into the bottom of a 9inch / 22cm spring-form tin and put it into the fridge until you’ve made the topping.

Put the cream cheese, sugar and sour cream in the food processor and whizz until smooth. Add the eggs and lemon rind and whizz again. Pour into the tin. Bake for 1 hour 10 minutes or until the topping is firm and you have a little bit of a wobble underneath, but not too much. Cool it in the tin. Run a sharp knife around the edge before unclipping the spring form. I find it impossible to get it off the base so usually just transfer it wholesale to a pretty plate, not letting it slide off en route to the table.

Nigella’s Lemon Meringue Cake (from Feast)

I’m going to try this for Edward’s birthday lunch. Possibly it’ll flatten us all, but hey ho…

125g v soft unsalted butter
4 eggs separated
30g plus 1 teaspoon caster sugar
100g plain flour
25g cornflour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarb of soda
zest of 1 lemon
4 teaspoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons milk
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
150ml double or whipping cream
150g lemon curd

Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees. Line and butter two 21cm sandwich tins.

Mix the egg yolks, 100g sugar, butter, flour, cornflour, baking powder, bicarb and lemon zest in a processor. Add the lemon juice and milk and whizz again.

Divide the mixture between the prepared tins – spread until smooth.

Whisk the egg whites and cream of tartar until peaks form then slowly whisk in 200g of sugar. Divide the mixture between the two tins, spreading the meringue mixture straight on top of the cake batter. Smooth one flat with a metal spatula and peak the other one using the back of a spoon. Sprinkly one teaspoon of sugar over the peaks. Put into the oven for 20-25 minutes.

With a cake tester, pierce the cake that has the flat meringue topping to check it’s cooked all the way through. Remove both cakes to a wire rack and let cool completely in the tins.

Unmould the flat-topped cake onto a cake plate, meringue side down. Whisk the double cream until thick but not stiff then set aside. Spread the flat sponge surface of the first cake with the lemon curd, then spatula over the cream and top with the remaining cake.

Kiwi and pear chocolate squares

200g/7oz chocolate
175g/6oz butter
500g/1lb cocoa3 eggs
5-10ml/1-2 tsp vanilla essence
150g/5oz flour
175g/6oz chopped nuts
125g/4oz caster sugar
2 kiwi fruit, chopped
2 pears, peel, cored and chopped

Melt chocolate and butter, then add cocoa. Whisk eggs and sugar and bit into chocolate mixture. Fold in the flour, chopped nuts, fruit and vanilla essence. Pour the mixture into a well-greased rectangular tin. Bake at 180°C/350°F/Gas 4 for c.30 minutes. Cool and cut into squares.

Apple Charlotte

Pre-heat oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas 5

6 Granny Smith apples
2 tsp ground cinnamon
3 tbsp brandy
125g/4.5 oz soft brown sugar
12 thin slices of bread
125g/4.5 oz butter, melted.

Peel and core apples and cut them into 1cm/0.5 inch dice. Place in very hot dry pan and sauté for c.30 secs. Add cinnamon and brandy then add sugar and cook for 10 minutes.

Cut bread into circles the same diameter as pot to be used as charlotte mould (or in ramekins) and strips the height of pot (or ramekins). Dip into melted butter and line pot.

Fill lined moulds with apple mixture. Seal with final round of bread and bake for 20-25 minutes until crisp and golden. Cool slightly and dip cut.

Serve with custard

Xanthe Clay crumble

675g fruit
100g self-raising flour
55g butter
55g demerara sugar
55g crushed flaked almondsPreheat oven to 180°C/Gas 4. Cook for 30 minutes.