Currant Tart

After a busy day at work last week, followed by a quick catchup drink with a friend at a really lovely bar in Northcote that apparently has been open for years and years but I've only just heard of, I raced in the front door through the lounge-room past my flatmate and straight to the kitchen. I think I still had my handbag over my shoulder as I was putting all these ingredients together. Apart from the pastry, which can be done ahead of time if one is being very organised (I am not organised), this is a very quick tart. 

Now, the recipe calls for finely chopped nuts but unfortunately the actual nut required is unspecified. Peanut? Walnut? I didn't have nuts (see above comment re organisation) so had to race out to my local IGA and grab a pack of gourmet mixed nuts...which were salted. They were the only nuts I could find, but once I'd washed the salt off, using mixed nuts was probably the right thing. They added a lovely texture, without being overpowering at all. 

Currant Tart

Tart Filling

4 tbsp. currants
4 tbsp. apricot jam
1 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. finely chopped nuts
grated rind and juice of 1 lemon

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Mix together all ingredients, place into prepared pastry cases and bake for 15-17 minutes. Remove carefully from tins once cooled, top with cream or custard. 

Shortcrust Pastry

⅔ cup plain flour
pinch salt
120g. butter
cold water to mix (in hot weather, use iced water)

Sieve dry ingredients into a mixing bowl, and rub in the butter very lightly using your fingertips. With a knife, mix rubbed in ingredients with just enough cold water to bind the pastry together. Finish mixing with your fingers and press into pastry moulds, then blind bake for about 15 minutes or until lightly cooked and firm. You can also roll the pastry if you're concerned about evenness of the crust. 

Tip: to ensure the pastry doesn't go out of shape, make sure you place baking paper and baking beads in the mould.

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For those of you who are not in Australia, please find here a selection of Measurement & Temperature Conversion Charts which should help with the accuracy of your own cooking.

Apple Cakes

I'm keeping this recipe aside for future pastry needs, it has the perfect amount of sweetness, is perfectly short, and is the best accompaniment to large portions of custard. My personal recommendation is to have a cup (or large bowl, whatever) of warm custard and dunk these apple cakes into them. Oh wait not everyone is a glutton like me.

These apple cakes, on the face of it, could resemble Hot Apple Pies™ from a restaurant that I'll not McName on this blog. But they are better—not difficult I realise—but I really mean that mine are better.  

Apple Cakes

125g Self-raising flour

Pinch salt

3 tbsp. Sugar

115g Butter

1 egg

3 tbsp. Milk

1 Large apple, grated

Preheat oven to 160°C 

Sift flour, add the pinch of salt and sugar. Rub in butter until mixture is crumbley. Add the milk and beaten egg and combine until a smooth dough is formed. 

Turn onto a floured board and roll out as for biscuits (3-4mm thick). 

Cut into small rounds, put a teaspoon of grated apple onto half the rounds and cover with the remaining rounds. 

Press edges together. Bake in a moderate oven for about 10-12 minutes.

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For those of you who are not in Australia, please find here a selection of Measurement & Temperature Conversion Charts which should help with the accuracy of your own cooking.

Seed Cake

Goodness me it's been a while! I have finally finished study for this semester and received my marks for all assignments, feeling quite happy with the distinction I received for my last assignment to be honest. Of course, now that means I have to get a high distinction next time... 

So anyway, this window of free time now means I am baking almost furiously to try and finish the last few recipes I had decided to cook for this project. I have only SEVEN to go after this one. Happy days! Now I'm starting to think about some of the recipes I'll have to rewrite to make sure they work properly, and to rephotograph some of the very ugly biscuits and cakes I made early on. 

One very flat cake. 

Regarding this Seed Cake, again we are presented with a recipe that has a familiarly scant regard for detail. Who would think that including the number of eggs needed for a cake is important? By now, not me. The eggs which were mentioned halfway through the method! So I had to guess how many I needed, correctly I think. I did use the wrong type of flour and have amended the recipe accordingly so that you can get it right. 

You will see from my photographs that this cake really did need self-raising flour after all.
I think I dealt with the situation pretty well in turning these into cake-biscuits. They were almost like scones. Almost. On the topic of scones, you may all know by now how deeply I feel scones are my food nemesis, recently however, I made some that look like proper ones! A miraculous event aided by my mum giving me a very simple yet effective recipe (thanks Mum). I added cocoa to make chocolate scones and am now investigating how to make other kinds of scones too. An amazing turnaround. I really am channelling my Nanna now. 

Anyway, back to the Seed Cake, a very delicate and subtle flavour of citrus imbues this cake, it's soft and perfect with rich cream (what isn't?) and it's shockingly easy to make with so few ingredients.

Seed Cake
115 g. Butter
115 g. Sugar
170 g. Self-raising flour
2 eggs
2 tsp. Poppy seed
½ tsp. Ground cinnamon
1 tbsp. Lemon rind 
Water 

Preheat oven to 230°C   

Cream the butter and sugar, then add the flour, poppy seeds, cinnamon, egg and enough water (add a few tablespoons at a time) to make a thick paste. Roll, or pat flat, then place into a flat tin. 
Bake for about 15 minutes, letting it cool before turning out. 

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For those of you who are not in Australia, please find here a selection of Measurement & Temperature Conversion Charts which should help with the accuracy of your own cooking.