Lemon Meringue Tarts

My farm grows the best lemons and limes. Perhaps its because of the all natural, no chemical fertilizers that we use. Oh, I don't really know why. It's not important. What IS important is that its RAINING limes and lemons in my farm and so, it's time to bake some fancy but easy Lemon Meringue tarts or pies!

I love lemon tarts! Give me a choice between chocolate tart and the lemon one, hands down I'll choose the lemon one every single time. The tangy-ness of the lemon pairs so well with the sweetness from the sugar in a way that your face will still contort to that expression of having bitten into something sharp tasting but at the same time your brain will be surprised from the pleasantness of it all.

There are three parts to this delicious dessert:

a) The tart crust

b) The lemon/lime filling

c) The meringue topping

The Tart Crust

Making of the tart crust is a fairly simple process and requires very few ingredients. This recipe makes 5-6 mini tarts (that is if you, like me, used a muffin tin in place of a tart tin.).

What you need to do is, using your fingers, rub 100 grams of flour with 50 grams of cubed small bits of cold cold butter, a small pinch of salt and a tablespoon of powdered sugar till the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Then add one egg yolk to the mix and form a dough.

Divide this dough into 5 or 6 (if you prefer your tarts with more crust, make 5 potions) equal potions and press each into a muffin mould, bringing it up on the sides. Then, using a fork, poke the crust all over and then cover the muffin tin with plastic and put it in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Bake at 180C (don't forget to preheat the oven first!) for 12-15 minutes or until the tops brown slightly. Take the tin out and let the cooked crusts cool completely in the tins.

The reason why we add cold cold butter instead of melted or room temperature butter is because those little bits of butter, when it hits the high oven temperature will result in a flaky, melt in your mouth crust. This is also the reason why we put the moulded uncooked tart doughs back in the freezer for 10 minutes before baking. You don't want the butter in the dough to melt more than it already has and also, the melted butter will have time to harden up a bit before we bake it in the oven. 

Another thing to keep in mind is to not over mix the dough. Mix all the ingredients just until you combine them. Over mixing results in a crust that is tough, non flaky and frankly not delicious. What happens is that when you continue to mix the flour with wet ingredients (in this case the egg yolk and to some extent the butter) for a prolonged period of time, you activate the already present gluten in the flour and your crust will become more bread-like and elastic than flaky. 

The Lemon/Lime Filling

Here, it's really difficult to come by lemons. Limes are more popular and used on a regular basis. So, even though this is a Lemon Meringue Pie, technically, It's a Lime Meringue Pie. I have made this with lemons and it tastes almost the same. The acidic citrus of the fruits are comparable and very similar in taste.

Take 4 Limes (If you're using Lemons, use 2) and grate its zest. To do this, you'll need a grater. Grate the outer skin of the lime till just before you see the white part of the lemon rind. Juice the lemons. In a separate bowl, mix 80 grams of icing sugar with 3.5 tablespoons of cornflour. Add a little water to this to form a thick liquid paste.

Bring 25 ml of water to a boil in a saucepan and add this water to the cornflour paste, mix and then put this cornflour  mixture into the saucepan again and stir (use a heatproof whisk) continuously with the flame on low. Add the lemon zest and juice into the saucepan and stir. Then, take this mixture off the heat and add in 3 beaten egg yolks. Mix till the egg yolks are incorporated then bring it back on heat (low flame). Stir continuously till the mixture thickens then add 30 grams of room temperature butter (while stirring the mixture.) Keep stirring till you feel that the filling cannot thicken any more. Take it off the flame. Taste and add more icing sugar if you feel you want your filling to be sweeter. At this point, if you want the yellowness of the lemon filling to be like that of the store bought ones then please stir in a few drops of yellow food colouring. Either ways, it doesn't matter. To me that is.

The Meringue Topping

Honestly, this next step is just an over the top, eye catching, unnecessary flamboyance but since we DO have 4 egg whites from all that egg separating that we did (Hopefully you haven't thrown the whites out. Hopefully.), why not make something with that.

I already have a meringue recipe here on my blog so follow that and pipe it out on top of the lemon custard filling. Or just dot it in places as the meringue can be a bit too sweet for this pie. 

The Assembly Line

Scoop the lemon filling into the tarts. 

Dot the uncooked meringue on top on the custard.

Bake at 140C for 20 minutes or until the top is a few shades darker in color. 

I recently bought a blow torch-because I'm awesome like that- and had been itching to try it on something. Hence the over-burnt the top of the meringues in this pie below. They weren't bad. Tasted like marshmallow when you roast them over pit fires. mmmm. 

So there you have it. Lemon Meringue Pie. Do let em cool down completely before eating. 

Cheers!

Chocolate Boozy Balls

Hello there lovely people. Its 17:20 on a Wednesday and I am famished...That isn't saying anything grave as I am always famished. Anyway, I thought I'd start the evening by writing up a quick Christmas recipe. Yes, I know that it's more than half year past Christmas so you can imagine my surprise when I was looking through my photo album and I found photos after photos of these chocolate bonbons... Then I looked at all my blog posts since then and found that I hadn't uploaded this one yet! 

I call these bonbons my Chocolate Boozy Balls because they really pack a punch...or two! They are basically a jazzed up version of the chocolate rum balls that you would probably find at your local bakery store but prettier with more of an ahem.. adult taste. You could substitute rum with tequila or even whisky if you don't particularly like the taste of rum. If you don't drink alcohol, then you could use some flavour substitute but you won't really get the warmth that a Chocolate Boozy Ball will give you on a cold winter's day. 

Making this is quite simple. 

It starts with you baking a batch of brownies. For my brownie recipe, please click here.

Usually, after you bake a cake or a batch of brownies, you would let it cool uncovered. However I found that if you cover the cooked brownies and then let it cool, it traps in all that moisture-that would have been otherwise evaporated-which in turn makes for the most amazing gooey, sticky brownies. This stickiness, according to me, is an essential part of this recipe. You may need to leave it overnight for it to cool down completely. 

Following this, crumple all of your brownies into a bowl and drizzle some rum in it. The amount really depends on how strong you want your Boozy Balls to taste. I usually put a couple of tablespoons of rum in as I like them quite strong. 

Following this, mash the brownies and rum mixture together till the rum coats every morsel of the crumpled brownies. 

Mr. Old Monk looking down at the mashed Brownies!

Now, make ping pong size balls out of this and keep them aside.

Melt 120 grams of dark, good quality chocolate with 60 grams of double cream in the microwave at 20 second intervals. Chocolate burns easily, so every 20 seconds, take the cream and chocolate mixture out of the microwave and give it a stir. Continue heating the mixture in the microwave till all the chocolate has melted into the cream. Mix a tablespoon of rum in the chocolate mixture. 

While the chocolate mixture is still warm, drop the chocolate balls into the molten chocolate, coating the surface of the chocolate balls. 

Finally, place your ready chocolate boozy balls on a sheet pan or any container, in one layer. Let it stand this way for 5 minutes, following which, put the sheet pan into the freezer till the outer layer of chocolate has set. Wrap each Chocolate Boozy Ball with cling film and you are done.

In my experience, these Chocolate Boozy balls do not harden fully in the freezer so all you need to do is to take them out just 5 minutes before you want to serve them (just to take the frosty edge out). These treats last about 2 weeks in the fridge, although I can't be sure. Mine get over in a few hours. 

Cheerios! 

Not your Grocer's Commercial White Bread Loaf

Ok. So it's not like we don't buy bread from the grocery store at-least once a week and it's definitely not like we are going to stop buying bread any-time soon. It's just that, when I flip the bread package around and read the the list of ingredients that it took to make that loaf of bread, I see the names of all these preservatives (which sounds like its written in some non human language) that are added to give bread a longer shelf life and I wonder just how fresh IS this loaf off bread and what AM I doing to myself by ingesting all these weird components.

Making bread isn't difficult at all. It is a little time consuming for sure as you have to proof your dough for a while. But if you have a free day then why not bake a loaf of some beautiful tasting bread?

At home you get to control the quality of ingredients. You get to choose what goes into the dough and you can envision the end product and how you would get to the end product. Having said that, it's not rocket science and you can bake a loaf using normal everyday ingredients.

Proof. That. Yeast

Being an avid baker, I always have yeast stored and in hand for my experiments. The thing about yeast though is that there are times when the yeast that you bought may already be dead before you add it your dough mix. Even if it hasn't reached its expiry date. So if you use that, you'd probably end up with a rock for a bread with none of the soft airy all so crucial bread centre.

To avoid this, always always always proof your yeast before baking. Even if your yeast package says that you can add it to the dough directly. 8 out of 10 times if you buy non expired yeast, you'll probably end up with really good bread... But what about those other 2 times? What if it was for a bread bake off? What if you wanted to show off your mad baking skills to Jamie Oliver when he popped over for tea? What about all the wasted ingredients? Not to mention the time and the energy (yours because of all that kneading. Electricity/Gas because of all that baking.)? Bottom line: Proof. That. yeast.

Proofing yeast is easy enough. You take lukewarm water and some sugar. Dissolve the sugar into the water. Add the yeast, stir it a bit and leave it for 5 minutes. Then, if you find that the yeast has created this layer of foam on the top, voilà! You are halfway there to a perfect loaf of bread. If not, repeat this entire process with yeast from a new pack (because all the yeast in the already opened pack is probably dead).

PS: Proofed or Activated yeast should look like so:

Bread Flour Vs. All Purpose Flour

The difference between bread flour and AP flour is that bread flour has more gluten forming protein in it which in turn means that the dough made from bread flour will be more elastic and you will thus need to use less flour to form a supple dough. This is not to say that you will not achieve good results out of ordinary AP flour. Just that it may not give you superfantabulous results. I use regular AP flour and in fact have never used bread flour (its so difficult to come by here where I live.). I still get amazing bread!

White Bread Loaf

Step1: Proofing the yeast

Proof the yeast using 1/2 cup of lukewarm water, 1 teaspoon of sugar and 1 tablespoon of yeast

The reason why we add sugar in the yeast proofing/activation process is because yeast like to feed off something. By adding sugar, you are giving it a feeding source so that it activates. 

Step2: Creating a slurry

Activated Yeast Mixture

3/4 Teaspoon salt

3/4 cup of flour

Transfer the yeasty liquid mixture into a large bowl and mix in the salt and flour to create a slurry. 

Cover and leave it to rest for an hour in a warm place (The warmest room in my house is the kitchen. I usually leave it on top on the oven. During the winter months, you could preheat your over to a temperature under 40 degrees Celsius, switch off the oven, place the covered bowl in there with the oven door slightly ajar). 

The active yeast will start feeding off the flour, fermenting it in the process and will release carbon dioxide. After an hour, your slurry should be risen to at least double and be slightly bubbly. 

Step3: Oil

I usually add one of two tablespoon of oil (more out of habit than necessity). You can totally skip this step if you want but I somehow prefer the texture that oil gives to the bread. You could also try using different infused oils like rosemary oil or garlic oil and then accentuate taste of the bread by mixing in some rosemary or garlic in the dough. 

For this particular bread I used some rosemary infused oil. I took a handful of dried rosemary and about 4 cloves of garlic and mashed them together in a mortar and pestle. I then added about 1/4 cup of regular non flavoured oil (I used sunflower oil) and continued to mash the rosemary and garlic into the oil for about 5 minutes. Since I was going for the je ne sais quoi factor, I didn't want my bread loaf to be too pronounced with the flavour of rosemary and garlic so I strained the mixture over a muslin cloth and squeezed out as much of the oil as I could. In total I got a bit more than 2 tablespoons of oil out of the mixture. If you are using just regular oil, I would not suggest adding not more than 2 tablespoons of oil. 

This is what I ended up with: 

Step4: Adding the remaining flour

After you mix in the oil into the slurry, add in the flour, 1/4 cup at a time and mix. Once you reach the stage when you cannot possibly continue using the fork, switch over to your hands and start kneading the dough. To get a supple dough I think I used a bit less than 1.5 cups of flour at this stage. In total you should knead the dough for 5-7 minutes. You will then get a smooth, baby-bum-bum type of springy dough. Then, oil the bottom surface of your bowl, place the dough in it and then oil the surface of the dough as well. Cover and leave to rise for 1 hour in a warm place.

Step4: Shaping the bread

If you don't have a loaf pan, you could just use a baking sheet and roll out the risen dough (carefully! Try not to deflate the dough too much!) into a ball and place it on the said baking sheet. Make sure that all your seams are on the bottom of the dough ball. I have a bread pan so I rolled my dough into a cylinder shape. Again, cover and let it rise for 30 - 40 minutes till it's doubled in size. 

Step5: Bake!

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees Celsius. Place the now risen dough inside the over and reduce the temperature to 220 degrees Celsius. Bake for 20 minutes. The top should be browned and should sound hollow when you tap on it. 

Let this cool completely in the pan then slice it and serve with butter or jam or anything your heart desires!

EnJoY!

Homemade Pizza

So weird.  I made this huge ball of dough today thinking that I'd make some Chinese Pork Buns but the yeast never got activated so my dough did not rise.

Never the less, the person that I am, I went ahead with making this beautiful Asian Style Pork mince filling with ginger, garlic, sesame seed oil etc. It was delicious. So I tried steaming 3-4 buns just to see if I could still manage an edible bun but of course, dead yeast equals a stuffed hard flour ball.

So, I decided to bake a pizza instead using the dough.

Naturally, due to the faulty dough, I could make only a thin crusy pizza. So I thinned out the dough as much as I could without tearing it and baked it with all its toppings at 250 degrees for 12 minutes.

This pizza was sectioned off into 4 parts, each with a different topping.

It came out quite well! Although next time I think ill preheat the pizza plate before I shift the pizza base onto it so that I get a crunchier crust.

I still have a whole pizza worth of dough left. Mebbe ill make a chocolate pizza next...

---------------------------------
Continuation: Wednesday, 22 May, 2012: My brother and I made another pizza using the leftover dough.

Can't go wrong with a Pepperoni Pizza! Excuse the burnt ends. Thats just how we like our pizzas.

Chocolateria San Churro: Seven Layer Chocolate cake

So last October my father got my birthday cake from here.

Here is their 7 layer chocolate cake. HEAVEN.

Click here for their zomato page.

Cheese Straws

I am a huge fan of Chef John of foodwishes.com and, the other day, he posted a youtube video of this really simple way of baking cheese straws which, like all of Chef John's creations, I had to make immediately. Only, I'm not a big fan of the puff pastry that the local store carries so I decided to use some filo (phyllo?) pastry. Also, unlike chef John, I didn't really use a lot of cheese, I used Doritos Nachos in cheese flavor (I was actually looking for a packet of Cheetos but couldn't find any, else I would have used that instead.).

I apologize for the out of focus pictures as, the freelance photographer that i had hired (read: my sister) couldn't be bothered to wake up to take the said photos. DOES ANYONE ELSE WANT THE JOB?

To make 4 Cheese Straws

Step One:

Take the packet of Filo Pastry out of the freezer and let it defrost at room temperature. Take out 4 sheets of pastry and keep it aside. 

Take half a can of Doritos Nachos (or cheese Cheetos) in cheese flavor (about 50 gms) and, using a food processor, mix it till the chips turn into fine powder. Add half teaspoon of salt, 1/3 teaspoon of red chilli powder and about 2 tablespoons of dried oregano and give the entire concoction a brief whirl in the food processor. Just till everything is blended. Divide into 5 equal parts.

Melt 50 grams of butter.

Grate 50 grams of Cheddar (or any strong cheese) cheese and divide into 4 equal portions.

Step Two:

Roll out the Filo pastry sheet on aluminium foil, brush its entire top surface with the melted butter and, keeping a 1/2 cm margin free on the shorter rectangle side of the pastry, line it with one portion of the grated cheese as in the picture below. Sprinkle a portion of the Doritos mixture onto the surface and pat it into place. 

Step Three:

Starting from the grated cheese side, roll up the pastry into a straw. 

Step Four:

Repeat the above steps to make 4 Straws.

Step Five:

Brush the outer surface of the straws with melted butter. Sprinkle the remaining 5th portion of the Doritos mixture onto the aluminium foil and coat the outer surface of the straws well. Place on an oven proof wire/grill rack.

Quite aware that these aren't on wire racks.. yet

Step Six: 

Preheat the oven to 180C and bake your straws on top of the wire racks for 17-20 minutes or until the crust is gold brown and your entire house smells of Doritos. 

Step Seven:

Take your straws out of the oven and let them cool down for 1/2 hour. 

And there you have it, Cheese straws. They look equally impressive in a glass.

Happy B'day to me!

Another year, another birthday gone. Turning 25 can be hard on a woman who still thinks of herself as a carefree 16 year old. When did I become old enough to have a job, earn money, live by myself? It's a bit scary when you think about your life and how everything you do has consequences. 

Having said that, this birthday was really bittersweet. I flew home (buying your own ticket, even an Indigo airline ticket, bought at the last minute can cost you a bomb. I miss Ryanair. £15 return ticket, Glasgow to Milan? Yes pls!) for a few days of much needed pampering only to find out that my dog had aged a few years since the last time I saw him 2 months ago. Poor thing can't stand up from a sleeping position until someone helps him up...

It's funny how cake makes everything okay. Dad ordered this massive 5 layer chocolate cake from this Spanish-Australian chocolate shop in GK-II called Chocolateria San Churro. It was the most delicious thing ever! The chocolate itself, apparently imported from Spain, just tastes so different from the stuff you get at other bakeries. Almost like there was a hint of some herb in it. I can't describe it. This shop even had Churros! I mean, where else in New Delhi can you get Churros? Seriously? 

I'm sure everyone wants to see the beast that was this cake so look no further! They even had these artistic white chocolate sheets on the sides and the top.

On the morning of my birthday, mum and I went to Emporio Mall where she bought me this patent leather Louis Vuitton wallet that I had been wanting since a year ago! That was such a nice surprise. I'm not putting up a picture of that though. Because this is a food blog. Not a high fashion accessories blog. 

Anyway, post that, we went for lunch at this Japanese restaurant called Izakaya at DLF Promenade. Delicious. Every Japanese food lover needs to go there at-least once. They have the most amazing Bentos. 

They also have really good sushi. Let me post a picture of the sushi patter that we indulged in.

I have nothing left to say except this: Can't wait for my next milestone birthday! 

Just a Box of Chocolates

Bought this make-your-own-box of chocolates from Bliss at UB City in Bangalore. Best chocolates ever!

One of them was this chilli chocolate and wow, so smooth and the chilli tang just hits the back of your throat without overpowering the taste of chocolate! Another favorite of mine was the Passion Fruit chocolate. The tiny yellow one.

I still have a few of these babies left (will power ppl!!!). Hmm... perhaps its time to try the heart shaped strawberry chocolate...

Futomaki

Found this place accidently while exploring Hauz Khas Village.

Really small take away place with only 6-7 sushi rolls variety. But really delicious. They even have vegetarian sushi!

A must visit!

High Tea at Elma Bakery

Mum n I went for tea today at Elma Bakery in Hauz Khas Village.

This is what we got:

Breakfast fit for a Princess

I love love love it when family members go and come back from Japan because that usually means delicious goodies for us!

For example: Right now I have two types of dangos in my fridge and a jar of grandma's umeboshi in my cupboard. Delicious stuff!

Anyway, the sasa-dongoes are a favourite of mine. I especially  love the smell of the bamboo leaves wrapped around it and the green colour of the dangoes.

What a great way to start the day! Sasa-dangoes and a cheese omlette!

Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf

What a nice way to escape the stormy weather!

Watching people getting soaked outside while you enjoy a cuppa at an award winning coffee house in an award winning mall!

Can life get any better?

PS: The Philly Cheesecake (not in the picture) is to die for!

Sigh.

Afternoon Tea

Nothing like a cup of green tea in the afternoon with your mum.

Lunch at Izakaya

My friends and I went to Izakaya at DLF Promenade and had a girly lunch there.

This here is the Pork Cutlet Bento. Can you say Delicious?

Egg n Soldiers

Originally, there were four soldiers but my dad ate one of them...

PS: The 6 minute Egg Boiling Technique really works!!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Completed six months at Egon Zehnder and I thought I'd celebrate by baking something for my colleagues! Not that I need an occasion to bake...
Plus one person at work went so far as to pretend it was her birthday. Sigh.

Saturday is Family Banana Pancakes Day!

Delicious banana pancakes taste better with friends and family!

And small wee teeny tiny ones are best for sharing...especially with friends who insist that they don't want a full peice...but instead end up eating more than 50% OF YOUR PEICE! Now you don't have to give them yours!