Drunken Muscatels

Ingredients

• 150ml rich sweet sherry (eg. Pedro Ximinez*)
• 150g bunch of dried Muscatels, cut into small clusters.

Method

1. Heat the sherry to just below boiling point. Place muscatels in a medium bowl and pour the hot sherry over the top. Cover the bowl and leave to soak overnight until muscatels have softened and plumped up.
2. Place the muscatels on top of the ganache tart and serve.

*Pedro Ximinez is a rich sweet style Spanish Sherry, can be substituted for Australian Muscat or Tokay.

Main recipe: Chocolate Ganache Tart

The Sydney Seafood School shared this delicious fish pie recipe using Carême butter puff pastry.

“These clever free-form pies don’t even require a pie dish or ramekin – and the layered filling looks very attractive when they’re cut open. You can serve them hot or cold, so they’re ideal for the picnic hamper or as a snack any time.”

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

• 4 x sheets Carême Butter Puff Pastry, defrosted
• 500g silver dory fillets, skin off, pin-boned, cut into bite-sized pieces
• ⅓ cup anchovy-stuffed green olives, roughly chopped
• 1 tablespoon capers, rinsed and roughly chopped
• 2 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, crushed and peeled
• 1 cup well-drained canned tomatoes, roughly chopped
• ¼ teaspoon dried oregano
• Tabasco sauce, to taste
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• Plain flour, for dusting

Garlic & Coriander Mayo

• 1 cup whole-egg mayonnaise
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• ½ cup coriander leaves, finely chopped

Method: 

1. Combine fish with olives, capers, parsley and garlic. In a separate bowl combine tomato, oregano and Tabasco sauce.
2. Preheat oven to 220°C.
3. Cut each pastry sheet into four squares and brush with egg. Divide the fish mixture between the centre of 8 of the squares. Spoon the tomato mixture over the top of the fish, leaving a 1cm margin around the edges of the pastry. Cover each square with the remaining pastry squares and press the edges firmly with a fork to seal. Brush with egg and cut 2 or 3 slashes in the top. Place on a baking paper-lined baking tray and bake for 15 minutes or so, until lightly browned.
4. Meanwhile, make Garlic and Coriander Mayo: combine all ingredients.
5. Serve pies with Garlic and Coriander Mayo.

*Alternative species: Leatherjacket, mirror dory, whiting.

To coincide with Australia Day, the wonderful people at Queen Fine Foods approached us to run a joint Vanilla Slice Baking Competition. Open to bakers all across Australia, the entrants would be vying for a bakers dream of a prize, including a 1kg personalised jar of Queen Vanilla Bean Paste and a year’s supply of Carême All Butter Puff Pastry.

We were so impressed by the incredible entries and would like to thank everyone who entered.

And to the winner, Maelisa’s Kitchen – who baked this Summery Coconut, Peach and Lime Vanilla Slice – a huge congratulations!

Here’s Maelisa’s Vanilla Slice recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Cut 2 sheets Carême All Butter Puff Pastry in half. Place 2 pieces of pastry on baking trays lined with, baking paper, then place another sheet of baking paper on top of the pastry, followed by the remaining 2 sheets of pastry. Place a baking tray on top and bake for 15 minutes then drop temp to 180C and bake for 5 minutes. Line a brownie tray (27cm x 17.5cm) with baking paper lengthwise and widthwise, leaving an overhang on each end. Tip: store pastry in air tight container once cool.
2. Combine 250g caster sugar, 90g corn flour, 60g custard powder, 250ml milk, 250ml coconut cream in saucepan, whisk until smooth. Tip: pass through a sieve to remove lumps. Add a further 250ml milk and 250ml coconut cream. Stir on medium heat until mixture boils and thickens (at least 1 minute). Reduce heat to low, add 60g of butter (Tip: cut butter into cubes) and 2 teaspoons Queen Vanilla Bean Paste, whisk until combined. Remove from heat, whisk in 3 egg yolks.
3. Place pastry in base of lined tray. Spread evenly with custard. Place another piece of pastry on top, gently press down. Place in fridge to set.
4. Place 1 litre of water, 300g of caster sugar and 1 Queen Finest Vanilla Bean pod (cut and scraped) in a large saucepan, stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Add 8 peaches (score bottoms with a small cross) in a single layer. Place a small plate (top side down) over peaches. Bring to boil, simmer gently for approx 10 minutes, or until tender. Remove from pan with slotted spoon. Cool, then peel peaches, cut in half and remove seed. Place flat side down on a tray and put in fridge to dry (Tip: do not pat dry – you want to keep the black specks of vanilla bean on peaches).
5. Mix together 225g icing sugar (sieved), 40ml of lime juice (Tip: if not enough juice make up difference with milk), finely grated rind of 1 lime and 1 teaspoon Queen Natural Vanilla Extract. Spread over third pastry sheet. Set in fridge.
6. Remove custard from fridge, arrange peach halves on top (5 rows of 3) and place iced pastry on top. Cut into 15 pieces to serve.

Tip: best eaten with hands and don’t worry if custard oozes and pastry crumbles!

We’ve been in the kitchen today baking little apple frangipane tarts for some special guests this afternoon (hint: for our visiting Western Australian distributors, Blue Cow).

Rather than using our sweet vanilla bean pastry for this recipe, like we did on these apple frangipanes, we’ve used our puff pastry – both our classic butter puff pastry and our spelt wholemeal puff pastry.

If only you could smell the aromas coming from the oven right now!

We thought you might want to give these a go yourself, so here’s the method. Enjoy!

To make the frangipane:
• Beat 110g caster sugar with 100g butter until pale.
• Add 1 egg, beat until just combined.
• Add 100g ground almond meal, tsp cornflour, pinch salt, mix until combined.

Tart process:
• Cut 10 rectangles from a sheet of pastry.
• Top each with a teaspoon of frangipane.
• Slice 6 apples into thick (1/2 cm) slices, and place on top of frangipane.
• Brush apple with melted butter, then sprinkle with Demerara sugar.
• Bake at 220c for 10 minutes, then reduce oven to 190c and continue to bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until pastry is golden.

The spelt puff tarts ready for the oven.

Voilà! The finished spelt butter puff tarts.

And the finished classic butter puff tarts.

Chefs all around the world know the struggles of making the perfect puff pastry from scratch. Flaky texture and impressive lift are always sought after but rarely achieved. Pies and other pastry dishes are served with unimpressive, flat lids due to poorly made pastry. Fundamentally, the recipe for pastry sounds easy to perfect as it is essentially two parts water to one part fat, however this is far from the truth. Making puff pastry with impressive lift and exquisite taste is both an art and science.

Carême Pastry have perfected this science over the past decade to bring you a perfect puff pastry that showcases remarkable lift. In fact, the all butter puff pastry records 7cm of lift from just a single sheet. See the video below to see just how much rise is possible from one sheet of Carême pastry.

Puff Rising from Caremepastry on Vimeo.

How do we do this?

The secret is in the production process and nailing the recipe. Pastry dough must be kept between 8C and 11C to prevent the butter from becoming too soft. To combat this, Carême work in small, 10kg batches of dough to ensure that the temperature is kept within this range.

Another important process Carême undertake is the resting of dough between turns. This enables the gluten strands within the pastry to link up and retain the layering of the dough. In fact, creating Carême pastry is a two-day process. The base dough, known as the detrempe, is prepared on day one and then rested overnight. The following day the laminating will then begin. The butter is then hand folded into the dough, which is followed by the first set of turns.

In total, the dough is turned four times, which creates 81 layers of butter and 82 layers of dough – for a combined 163 layers of dough and butter in the one sheet of Puff Pastry. The 7cm of lift is possible due to the large number of layers expanding from steam generation in a hot oven. This is also why Carême recommend starting baking at 200C (fan forced) and then to reduce the temperature once the dough has lifted.

The Carême production process enables chefs and cooks across Australia to easily create great looking dishes that taste as good as they look. Using high quality pastry will enable a restaurant to command a premium price for the dish as diners will be delighted by the melt in your mouth texture. Carême create the pastry so you have time to make the dish.

Potato, Chorizo & Gouda Tart

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 50 minutes
Serves: 8 individual pieces

*Recipe and photos by Anastasia Zolotarev for Harris Farm Markets.

Ingredients:

• 1x 375g Carême Butter Puff Pastry, defrosted or
• 1 x 375 Carême Spelt Wholemeal Butter Puff Pastry
• 2 x medium potatoes
• 200g chorizo (cut in 20 pieces)
• 5 x dried bay leaves
• 2 x cups Gouda (grated)
• olive oil
• salt

Method: 

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
2. Place roll of puff pastry onto the bench approximately 30 minutes before starting the recipe to allow it to come to room temperature before rolling it out.
3. Prepare the potatoes by slicing them into roughly thin slices, then place on a baking tray and top with olive oil. Bake the potato slices in the oven for 20 minutes then set aside (see note below).
4. Prepare the chorizo by cutting it into 20 medium-thick pieces and then place them in a hot pan. Cook each side until slightly crisp. There is no need to add any cooking oil because the chorizo will release enough oil on its own. Once cooked remove the chorizo pieces from the pan but keep the pan on the side to use the oil in it for a later step.
5. Grate the Gouda cheese and set aside.
6. After the pastry has come to room temperature it can be used. Using your hands just roll out the pastry so it’s flat, don’t use a rolling pin. We want to keep the shape and thickness of the pastry. Place the pastry onto lightly greased baking paper and onto a baking tray.
7. Using a knife just lightly cut into the pastry creating a rectangle – cut into it 1 cm from the edge (see note).
8. Using a brush, dip it into the pan with the leftover chorizo oil and then brush the edges of the pastry with the oil.
9. Place the grated Gouda cheese evenly around the tart, followed by the potatoes, chorizo and bay leaves.
10. Place in the oven and bake the tart for 30 minutes.
11. Remove from the oven and eat immediately while still warm!

Notes:

• The potatoes will be cooked twice, the first time is just to cook through the potato slices and then once again when the potato slices are arranged on the tart.
• Slightly cutting into the pastry will help the edges rise.