Mulberry Baby-Tarts

Nothing special, just mulberry, strawberry and your favorite french dough, i.e. with cheese )))  Bake dough before, then add berries, powder with sugar and bake a bit more  )) Nice with ice-cream )))

Dreams about Caprese ...

I was gifted a couple of Latvian Cheeses, savoury and amazingly delicious, so I desided to capture them with my camera. Bored in the refrigerator Mozzarella keeps them an exellent company.

Nice Italian olive oil, fresh yellow and rose tomatoes, baby-basil and perfect Mozarella ))) Isn't it a gorgeous Insalata Caprese?

Rosemary and Strawberry Tart

My first Seasonal Strawberry Tart. And direct hit. )))  All my expectation were justified )) I like rosmary, I adore strawberry and I love tarts ))  Whant to follow?  

For dough:

1 cup AP flour

1 stick butter
3 oz sugar
1 eggzest from 1 lemon
3 drops of vanilla extraite
pinch of salt

Mix butter, sugar, salt, zest and vanilla. Pour egg and stir until smooth. Add flour and knead the dough quickly. Make a ball, wrap into a film and fridge at least 1 hour. 

Roll out the dough, put onto the pan, layed with greased parchment paper. Put over another sheet of paper and beans in order daogh not the increase and put into preheated for 375F oven for 20 minutes or until golden. 

I used only 2/3 of this dough and the rest part went to the Strawberry Meringue Tart.

Filling:
1/2 l milk
3 egg yolk
100 g sugar
35 g AP flour
25 g corn stark
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary  (or dry)

Stir corn stark with 2 tbs of milk. Bring to a boil the rest part of milk with rosemary,  let to infuse, discard rosmary. 

Stir yolks with sugar, add flour and stark, stir again.  Pour hot milk with a thin stream, stirring constantly.

Cook on low heat with constant stirring until thick. Pour into a baked base and cool.

Coverage:
500 grams of strawberries
juice of 1 / 2 lemon
2 tablespoons honey
7 grams of gelatin
1 sprig of fresh rosemary (I came around, decorated my tart with sprigs of chickpea)

Strawberries (entire or halved) put on the tart. Mix lemon juice with honey and 1/2 cup of water, add gelatin and heat to dissolve it. Cover berries with jelly using brush, garnish with rosemary herbs. Refrigerate at least 2-3 hours.

Russian version here.
Thanks to karaidel and mama-fenix for sharing.

Strawberry Meringue Tart

Those drops you could see at meringues are called Angels tears. There is a different recipe of cake, which is usually made with quark and I didn't want to follow it. They appeard surprisingly on the meringue surface after night staying in the fridge. Like a bonus )))  

This tart was made like a second session with dough and egg whites left from my first annual Strawberry Tart ))) And it still was good ))) So if you want to repeat, please follow the steps listed  below. ))

For dough:

1 cup AP flour

1 stick butter
3 oz sugar 1 egg

zest from 1 lemon
3 drops of vanilla extraite
pinch of salt

Mix butter, sugar, salt, zest and vanilla. Pour egg and stir until smooth. Add flour and knead the dough quickly. Make a ball, wrap into a film and fridge at least 1 hour. 

Roll out the dough, put onto the pan, layed with greased parchment paper. Put over another sheet of paper and beans in order daogh not the increase and put into preheated for 375F oven for 20 minutes or until golden. 

For filling:

 0,5-0,7 kg of strawberries 

2 eggs and 2 egg yolks

3/4 cups of milk

1 cup of sugar

Smash strawberries in the blender, add milk, eggs, yolks and sugar and pour over the baked dough. You can wrap tart edges with two layers of foil in order to avoid overbaking. 

Bake tart for 20 minutes or until filling will harden like a souflee.  

For meringue:

6 egg whites

1 cup sugar

pinch of salt

Whisk whites with salt, then add sugar and continue to whisk until firm peaks. Put over baked tart using pastry bag or just with a spoon. Bake for another 10 minutes or until start to golden. Turn oven off and let tart stay into for 40 minutes.

Decor with strawberries and mint )))))

For dough I used this recipe
For filling and meringue I used this recipe
Special thanks to karaidel, mama-fenix and mari-de-boshir .

Filo, Milk, Cardamom. And Raspberry.

I had half package of filo pastry after I had made spinach and leek pie. That was my first attempt with filo and I did not know what would be the next one. So I desided to go through the usual way and made milk pie, something on manner ructic gateau with my favorite custard from Gascony Culinary School. I made this Cream Patissière several times and each of my cakes was meet with applause from my guests. Apparently those applause should be addressed to Bernard Corbière who share this lovely recipe between everyone  attending his school. Belive me, it's perfect, I've only add cardamom this time ... cause this was recuired by my imagination ))) 

So for Cream Patissière we need:

1l milk

1/2 cup of sugar or a bit less (100 g)

1/2 stick of butter (50-70 g)

3 eggs

1/3 cup of All Purpose Flour (approx.50g)

1 vanilla bean or 3-5 drops of vanilla extraite 

6-8 cardamom shells with seeds

In a heavy bottom pan mix milk, sugar and butter. Put on a low heat. Add vanilla bean and ground into powder cardamom seeds without shells. Stir, continue to heat but do not let it boil.

Meanwhile mix eggs and flour in a bowl, pour hot milk blend. Put to the medium fire and boil for 2 minutes stirring continuosly.  Set aside.

For rustic gateau:

6-8 filo sheets

40g butter

2-3 tbs of olive oil

raspberry (optionally)

I used silicon pan which was layered with greased parchment paper. Then I spread it with filo sheet, oil it with butter and oil mix, repeat several times trying to set filo sheets crosswise.
Then I poured Cream Patissière over filo, folded the edges up and put it to the preheated to 375F oven for 20 minutes (or untill filo become tanned on it's edges). That is all )))
You can add raspberry before serve this pie, I used frosen, you can use fresh ) Bon appeti )))

For rose and other beauties

Saturday morning it was desided to visit my parents country house in order to pick up tea-rose petals ))) I'd like to make rose jam which is famouse for it's healthsome properties and generally very delicious thing.

Here some photos from our trip.

Rose Damascene or tea-rose

Window view

Rural Orthodox Cathedral

Snow Peas Salad

Or stir-fry? :)

I've just cut the tips and pull out all strings which go along the side of snow peas. Then I heat the wok, pour some vegetable oil (I used sunflower but you can also use sesam or peanut oil).

When it begin to smoke on a high heat I toss snow peas and fry them for a 30-40 seconds, then add chopped garlic and minced ginger. Stir and drizzle with soy sauce. Fry for another 20-30 seconds, turn off heat and place snow peas on a plate.

Add halved cherry tomatoes, chopped garlic, salted peanuts and dill. That's all, bon appetit :)

Click to enlarge:

Thanks for the hint goes to link and link :)