Lemon meringue tartlets

I love lemon cakes, tarte au citron, basically anything lemony. Tonight I made these lemon meringue tartlets. I had some difficulties with the pastry, and I cheated with the lemon curd (next time I'll do it properly, I promise!) but meringue at least is one thing you can't cheat on, and these ones came out beautifully. My biggest mistake was that I meant to make these for a friend who just had surgery… but I forgot she can't eat gluten. I'll be thinking of something else to cheer her up. In the mean time, someone has to eat these babies..

(Recipe below, since I couldn't find a link to one)

 

The recipe. To make short cuts, buy a good lemon curd and a good sweet pastry and skip to the last part. There is no way to skip the meringue, though. Luckily, that's easy!

Lemon curd

200ml lemon juice (4-6 lemons)

grated zest of 4 lemons

200g caster sugar

4 eggs

4 egg yolks

180g unsalted butter, cut into cubes

1. Put all the ingredients in a large, heavy-based saucepan, leaving out roughly half the butter. place over a medium heat and, using a hand whisk, whisk constantly while you cook the curd. Reduce the heat if it starts sticking to the bottom of the pan. Once the curd reaches boiling point, you will notice large bubbles coming to the surface. Continue whisking vigorously for another minute and then remove from the heat.

2. Off the heat, add the remaining butter and whist, until it has melted. Pass the curd through a sieve and into a plastic container. Cover the surface with cling film, allow it to come to room temperature and then chill for at least 6 hours, preferably overnight, for it to firm up well. It will keep in the fridge for up to 4 days.

Sweet pastry tartlet cases

330g plain flour

100g icing sugar

grated zest of 1/2 lemon

1/4 tsp salt

180g cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

1 egg yolk

2 tbsp cold water

1. Put the flour, icing sugar, lemon zest and salt in a bowl and add the butter. Rub it in with your hands, or more easily, use a mixer fitted with the beater attachment, or use a food processor. In all cases, you need to mix the ingredients until you get a coarse breadcrumb consistency, making sure there aren't any large lumps of butter left.

2. Add the egg yolk and water and mix just until the dough comes together, being careful not to mix any longer than necessary. You might need to add a tiny amount of extra water.

3. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and knead very lightly for a few seconds only, just to shape it into a smooth disc, 5-6cm thick. Wrap in cling film and chill until ready to use. The pastry will keep in the fridge for a week and at least a month in the freezer.

4. To bake, roll out the pastry 2-3mm thin, and quickly so it doesn't get warm. Cut out 6 circles using a pastry cutter and press inside small, buttered tins (a cupcake rack works fine). Rest them in the fridge for 30min so they stay firm and don't sink when you put them in the oven. Preheat oven to 150C. Line the cases with greeseproof paper and fill with baking beans. Bake for about 25min, then remove the paper and beans. If they don't have a golden-brown colour yet, bake for another 5-10 minutes. Remove the cases from the tins when they are still slightly warm, then leave to cool completely.

Lemon meringue

1/2 quantity of lemon curd (chilled for at least 6h)

6 pre-baked tarlet cases

120g caster sugar

2 egg whites

1. Preheat the oven to 200C. Spoon the cold lemon curd into the tart cases, filling them three-quarters full. Leave aside, preferably in the fridge.

2. To make the meringue, spread the sugar over an oven tray lined with baking parchment. Place in the hot oven for 5-6 minutes. The sugar should become very hot but musn't begin to dissolve. Remove from the oven and reduce the temperature to 150C.

3. At the last minute of heating up the sugar, place the egg whites in the bowl of a freestanding electric mixer. Whisk on high speed for a few seconds, until they begin to froth up. Now carefully pour the hot sugar on to the whisking whites in a slow stream. Once finished, continue whisking for a good 15 minutes, until the meringue is firm, shiny and cold.

4. Use 2 spoons or a piping bag to dispense the meringue on top of the curd and create a pattern. at this point you can either leave the meringue totally white or you can place it in the oven for 1-3 minutes to brown the top very lightly. Serve at once or chill for up to 12 hours.

Rum raisin chocolates

To help my colleague celebrate the publication of his new book at work over sparkling wine, I made some rum raisin chocolates. I got the recipe from my friend Metti, who in turn got it from her French friend, which is why I like to think of these as French, though they don't really have a nationality. They're very easy to make: melt some coconut butter, add the dark chocolate, let it melt, then mix in crushed nuts (almond or hazelnut for example) and the raisins that have marinated for at least 3 hours in rum (or cognac). Then the melty mix is poured into a dish and tossed into the freezer until it has hardended, after which it can be cut into bitesize pieces. Mmmm.

Larousse gastronomique

Made a surpise find today at Stockmann's Hullut päivät sale: a beautiful soft covered edition of the classic Larousse Gastronomique for just 9 euros. No kitchen shelf is complete without it. I guess mine is now.

Macarons, served

The first macaron, oozing with lemon curd:

The first bite of the first macaron. Nice and full on the inside with a pleasant chewy texture moistened by the lemon curd:

Macarons: Baking

This afternoon I made maracons, the subject of many urban kitchen legends. As I wrote in my earlier post, I used the Italian meringue method, which entails heating the sugar and water to 120C before slowly stirring it into the beaten egg-whites. This part wasn't so easy. I soon discovered that it can turn into a disaster very quickly if you let the syrup go even a little above 120C. I found my heartbreaking when all of the sudden my precious 24h-old eggwhites were squandered as the sugar turned brown and hardened into a big lump. No, one cannot make macarons from baseball-like lump of sugar hard enough to break a window. So I started that process from scratch.

In the end, I managed to get everything mixed and form some sorts of circles on my baking sheet (above). It was the longest 10 minutes of my life waiting for the first batch to be done. They didn't come out as beautiful as I had hoped, but pretty enough, and as I discovered later after patting some lemon curd between two halves, they were very chewy and lovely tasting. Success in some department, at least! The second batch, however, was a complete disaster, even though they were from the same dough. The only thing might be a slight fluctuation in temperature (to 190C) by my moody gas oven, or that the baking tray was different, made of a more heavy metal as opposed to the aluminium tray used for the first batch. Who knows. The other general problem was the food colouring. For some reason the macarons did not come out as yellow as they should have, but were more cream coloured (though in the photos below they are fine, thanks to some editing...). Did they get too toasted on top? Too little colouring? Again, these are the mysteries of macaron baking that few know the answers to.

Next time I'll give the French method a whirl. This wasn't so bad, but was a little stressful. I am happy with the result, though I have some way to go before I can boast my macaron skills.

Macarons: Preparations

This week I will try making macarons for the first time. Friends say that they are quite simple to make, but require patience and precision. There's also the question of whether to make it with the 'Italian' or 'French' method of meringue preparation. I have recipes for both, and am oddly attracted to the more complicated (but apparently also fool-proof) Italian method. Here's a baking blog with recipes for both and an explanation of the difference between the two methods (in Finnish).

I went supply hunting today. All I really needed was a proper decorator bag and a tip for it. I got the tip and a reusable, machine-washable (!) bag from Kokkipuoti, hands-down the most beautiful and well-equipped cooking utensil shop in Helsinki. I also got some yellow food-colouring powder. The remaining ingredients I got from the Herkku foodshop; organic sugar, organic eggs, and this 'luxurious' lemon curd. Yes, you guessed it, I'm making yellow lemon curd-filled macarons.

Blog after blog recommends letting the egg-whites sit in room temperature for 24-48h before baking. I'm not taking any chances! Tomorrow then we'll see how it all works out. Miserable failure or jubiliant success?

Tarte Tatin

It was love at first bite. I first had Tarte Tatin about six years ago and have relished the experience every since, from the caramelised apples and nectar to the crispy sweetness of the crust on the edges. Sheer luxury!

Tarte Tatin is a French upside-down tart made with apples caramelised in sugar and butter. There are a few stories about its origins at the Hotel Tatin in 1898, but apparently it was accidentally invented by one of the sibling owners, Stéphanie Tatin, when trying to fix an attempt at an apple pie in a rush. (A good reminder that making mistakes is not always a bad thing but a most valuable source of creativity!)

Tarte Tatin surprisingly easy to prepare. All you need is the dough, apples, sugar, butter, and an oven-proof frying pan. I leaned mostly on Finnish chef Hans Välimäki's recipe, but also took some tips from Julia Child's classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Needless to say it is not a diet food, but dessert never is. Yesterday was my second try ever, but my three dinner guests all seemed very pleased with the result, enjoyed with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream.