Gluten-free Coconut Lemon Tart

Coconut is one of the great alternatives to flour when it comes to gluten-free baking. I use just the coconut flour as a substitute of flour for my Coconut Swiss Roll, which works very well. However, for tarts or cakes that requires more height, you do need some more fine flour substitutes such as gluten-free plain flour or rice flour.

With this coconut tart, I used gluten-free plain flour, same as my Gluten-free Bakewell tart, but replaced some flour with the coconut flour and I also used coconut flour in the filling. When the tart was in the oven, the kitchen was filled with the smell of beautiful coconut and refreshing lemon... I couldn't wait to taste it!

Ingredients:
Pastry

Gluten-free plain flour 200g

Coconut flour 50g

Butter 100g

Sugar 100g

Egg 1

----

Lemon filling

Lemon 2 (juice and zest)

Sugar 150g

Egg 1

Butter (melted) 85g

Coconut flour 30g

1. Prepare the pastry. (follow the Sweet pastry recipe).

2. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Blind bake the pastry for 10 minutes.

3. Make the filling. Combine all the ingredients together, and mix well.

4. Pour the filling in the blind baked tart. Bake 35 minutes. (If the top of the tart start to brown, cover with foil.)

5. Chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours, or overnight.

The crusty coconut pastry is a perfect match with the sweet lemony filling... ;D

More tart?

• Lemon Meringue Tart
• Nut About Nut Tart
• Chestnut Tart
• Pumpkin Tart
• Apple Almond Cheese Tartlet
• Glten-free Bakewell tart
• Plum tart

Gluten-free Bakewell tart

I've made gluten-free cakes and biscuits before but I'd never used what-so called gluten-free flour until now... However, the other week Andy bought me a bag of gluten-free flour (I got Doves Farm plain white flour), and said to me that one of his colleagues was gluten intolerant and hadn't been tasting my cakes that I bake for him to bring in almost every Monday...

So, that's how I came to try gluten-free flour for the first time. I made a sweet pastry with it for my Bakewell tart. I used the gluten-free flour the same way as I do with usual plain flour. When I was preparing the pastry, I felt it was a little wetter than normal, and it was a bit too soft to roll it out so instead I flattened it by pressing on to the prepared tart tin directly, which indeed worked very well. ;D

As the filling of Bakewell tart doesn't have any flour in it, I didn't need to worry about that part.

The result of my first gluten-free tart? It was a great success! The gluten-free pastry was really nice. The more crumbly texture reminded me of shortbread. (Maybe it's because the Doves Farm flour has rice flour in it...) The almond filling was sweet and moist, went really well with the pastry.

I got a good feedback from Andy's colleagues too, and most importantly everyone in the office could have a piece. ;) I can definitely see this gluten-free flour appearing more often in my cakes and pastries. ;D

Plum Tart

I love this time of year because there are so many fruits available and they look nice and fresh, and also cheap!

So, I bought quite a few plums from a market, and as they were getting softer and softer each day, I decided to make a Plum Tart with them. I used the classic sweet pastry and almond cheese cream as a filling.

I haven't made tart for a little while but making a tart case reminded me of how much I like making tart...
It is very therapeutic;)

The smooth filling, sweet plums and the crusty pastry is nice as is but even better when you add a scoop or two of ice cream on the side. ;D

More tarts?
• Lemon Meringue Tart
• Nut About Nut Tart
• Chestnut Tart
• Pumpkin Tart
• Apple Almond Cheese Tartlet

Christmas party at Tinny's

This Saturday we had a Christmas party at Tinny's and, OH YES! I was responsible for desserts and cakes (What Tinny calls Yumicakes...;D).

I was so excited to make cakes for everyone and had so many ideas about what to bring, and...I ended up making... profiteroles, fruits tartlets, Swiss rolls, cheesy scones, mini croissants, and a loaf of bread...

For the profiteroles, I made mini choux buns and filled them with three different creams, cream patissiere, vanilla flavoured fresh cream, and chocolate cream.

There were also two different tartlets. One with vanilla tart and cream cheese topped with strawberries and blue berries, the other with chocolate tart and chocolate cream cheese topped with banana and cherry.

Swiss rolls came in twos too... a soft vanilla and a rich chocolate...

I was too busy eating that I forgot to take phtotos of scones and mini croissants... (they were the ones that appeared on my blog before.) I brought them in the edible bread bowls.

After all those food, my belly was so full (I felt still full even the following day. I had to go for a run...)!

I had such a good time and it was very nice seeing and catching up with everyone.

And of course..., special thanks to Tinny for a great time and letting me bring so many cakes. ;D

Chestnut tart

As I mentioned on the previous post, now I've got a lot of chestnut jam, I will be making quite a few chestnuts stuff. :D

First off, it's a chestnut tart! I put a generous amount of chestnut jam in the filling. The tart is simple but the combination of the sweet pastry and dense, moist, aromatic chestnut filling is for me a perfect winter treat.

A few slices of that and a hot milky tea in front of TV.., what else do we need...?

Ingredients:

Sweet pastry 1 (see here)

Chestnut jam 200g (see here)

Almond powder 100g

Egg 1

Sugar 50g

Cream 50g

1. Prepare the sweet pastry. Line the pastry on a 9 inch tart tin. Prick the bottom of the tart case with a fork. Rest it in the freezer.

2. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Make the filling. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

3. Pour the mixture into the tart case. Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes.

Pumpkin tart

Another day with pumpkin;) I made a very rich and creamy pumpkin tart using my pumpkin cream (it's the same cream I used for the pumpkin cream bread).

I kept two pieces for Mr and I and shared other pieces with Andy's mum and dad and neighbours.

The bright orange smooth filling and well baked sweet pastry with a hint of cinnamon was such a comforting treat in an autumn afternoon. Yum yum yum...

Oh... Halloween is coming soon. Why not try it then?
Ingredients:

Sweet pastry 1 (See here)

Pumpkin cream 500g

Sugar 150g

Salt pinch

Cinnamon powder 1/2 tsp

Vanilla pot seed 1/4tsp

Egg 3

Flour 80g

Crème fraiche 180g

1. Prepare the sweet pastry. Line the pastry on a 9 inch tart tin. Prick the bottom of the tart case with a fork. Rest it in the freezer.

2. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Make the filling. Beat sugar, eggs, salt, cinnamon and vanilla together.

3. Sift flour into 2 and mix.

4. Add pumpkin cream and creme fraiche into 3 and mix well.

5. Take the tart case out from the freezer and pour the filling into the case.

6. Bake in the preheated oven (180ºc) for 60 minutes.

Apple almond cheese tartlet

We had more apples from our garden so... this time...I made Apple tartlets. Ooh, I love little tartlets. Especially with two apple wedges on top they looked very pretty. ;D

And of course, the look wasn't the only thing about these little ones. The sweetness of apple confiture and creamy almond and cheese filling was so spot on! In fact, it was so good that I scoffed one when we came back home at 1 o'clock in the morning!  (guess where we were... no...not partying... we were in IKEA for 5 hours!!!)

Here is how these little treats are made...

Ingredients:

Sweet pastry 1

Filling

Cream cheese 200g

Apple confiture 140g

Almond powder 100g

Egg 1

Topping

Apple 1 (cut into 8 pieces)

Sugar 50g

1. Make sweet pastry (see my lemon meringue tart for the recipe). Line the pastry on each tartlet tin. Preheat the oven to 180ºc.

2. Make the topping. Put sugar in a pan on a low heat. When the sugar is melted, add apple and cook for 5 minutes.

3. Make the filling. Combine all the ingredients for the filling and mix well.

4. Pour the filling mixture evenly into each tartlet case.

5. Put cooked apples on top of 4. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes or until the top of the tartlets are slightly golden. 

Nuts about nuts tart

This weekend, sun was out, my mum and dad came from Japan to visit us... So, we all got together for BBQ:) As usual, Andy was in charge of the grill and I did the pastry.

Although our oven got broken half way through my bread making, I managed to prepare buns and rolls... phew...

For dessert, I made Nuts about nuts tart. As the name says..., Not only is the sweet pastry filled with rich almond cream, but also it has a nice thick layer of caramelised mix nuts. Yes.., this is indeed a nuts heaven! Ooh, yum yum yum :D

The topping was a little bit hard but nice and crunchy like a peanut brittle. It can be made as its own and served with tea or coffee.

Ingredients:

Sweet pastry 1 (see my Lemon meringue tart)

Filling

Crème fraiche 25g

Sugar 100g

Almond powder 100g

Egg 1

Vanilla extract 1tsp

Topping

Mix nuts (roasted) 200g

Sugar 150g

Corn syrup 90g

Butter 45g

1. Prepare the sweet pastry. Follow Lemon Meringe Tart recipe 1-5.

2.Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Make the filling. Combine all the ingredients for the filling and mix well.

3. Pour the filling mixture into the tart case. Bake for 40 minutes.

4. Once the tart is cooled, make the topping. Combine sugar, corn syrup and butter in a sauce pan. Place the pan on a low heat until all the ingredients are melted.

5. Add mix nuts into 4. Stir until it is lightly coloured.

6. Quickly put the topping on the cooled tart and spread evenly.

7. Cool in the fridge until the topping is set.

Jubilee tea party

Britain was filled with a festive feel as people celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. We enjoyed the last day of this long weekend too in a very English style... Afternoon tea.



The menu of our Jubilee tea party was...;

- Variety of sandwiches with homemade bread (I baked my super easy bread and Andy made the sandwiched.)
- Homemade scones (For the recipe, see The World of Sweets: United Kingdom)
- Berries & cream tartlets (For the sweet pastry recipe, see my Lemon meringue tart)
- Union Jack Battenberg. I made one too in a slightly different style for the royal wedding a year ago. (Have you seen my royal wedding battenberg?)

All the food was really good and I loved this cheesy setup too:D Now I'm thinking we should have afternoon tea more often ;)

Oh and these are the cupcakes that I made for the street party on Sunday which didn't happen in the end because of the bad weather... So we just ate them and took some to Andy's mum and dad. Raspberry cupcakes and Blueberry cupcakes for the colour of Union flag... tastes yum yum too... :)

Let's hope we'll have another Jubilee tea party in 10 years...

Lemon meringue tart

Tart is one of my favourite cakes to make, and of course to eat:)

For the party we had a few weekends ago, I made this lemon meringue tart. Once the tart case is ready, this classic lemon tart is very easy to make. I made the tart myself (since that's the bit I like the most about tart making;D), but ready-to-roll sweet shortcrust pastry will do the job.

The fresh and tangy lemon filling, and crunchy outside, chewy inside meringue on the crispy golden pastry.... It was simply unbeatable... sooooo good... 

This time I made it in a 9 inch tart tin but I've decided that I'll use little tartlet tins next time so that I don't accidentally eat too much... (I must have had quarter of the big tart...ooops...)

Here is how to make this all time classic ;)

Ingredients:

Sweet pastry

Flour 250g

Sugar 125g

Butter (cold diced) 125g

Egg 1

Salt pinch

Lemon filling

Fresh lemon juice 150ml

Lemon zest 1 tsp

Sugar 100g

Double cream 60ml

Egg 3

Egg yolk 4

Meringue

Egg white 4

Sugar 200g

1. Make the sweet pastry. Mix sugar, salt and egg in a bowl.

2. Sift flour into 2 and stir until the mixture becomes sandy.

3. Add butter into 2. "Cut in" the butter by using a dough scraper.

4. When the mixture has combined, take the dough out on a floured surface and knead lightly until it becomes smooth pastry. Cover  and chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

5. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface to 5mm thickness. Line the pastry on a buttered and floured tart tin. Chill in the freezer for 30 minutes.

6. Preheat the oven to 190º. Line the pastry with baking sheet and fill with uncooked rice. Bake for 10 minutes and remove the baking sheet and rice and put the pastry back in the oven for 15 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown.

7. Prepare the filling. Combine lemon juice, lemon zest and sugar and mix well.

8. Add cream into 7 and mix well.

9. Beat eggs and egg yolks into 8 one at a time.

10. Pour the filling into the tart case. Bake for 15 minutes until the filling is set. Let it cool.

11. Make the meringue. Beat the egg white and sugar together in an electric mixer until it forms stiff peaks. Pipe the meringue on the tart.

12. Put the tart in the oven (120ºc) to colour the meringue.

Melktert

Melktert, meaning milk tart, is a South African dessert which has a lovely milk flavour. It is much more milky than those custard based tarts.

There are quite few different versions of recipe for this sweet tart, some have eggs in the pastry, use butter instead of margarine, and so on...

This time I went for a bit of change from the traditional recipe. Instead of using normal milk, I used condensed milk in order to give this cutie more rich milky taste.

It may not be traditional and raise some eyebrows, BUT taste amazingly nice and sweet.

Try this recipe if you want to twist an usual recipe up!

Ingredients;

*Pastry

Margarine 60g

Sugar 45g

Flour 130g

Salt pinch

Ice water 25ml

*Filling

Condensed milk 200ml

Water 200ml

Egg yolk 3

Egg white 1

Sugar 40g

Flour 15g

Vanilla extract 1/2 tsp

Cinnamon stick 1

Cinnamon sugar 1tsp

1. Prepare the pastry. Cream margarine and sugar until it's fluffy. 

2. Add flour, salt and cold water and mix well with your hands.

3. When the pastry has stuck together, place it on a floured surface and knead for a couple of minutes.

4. Wrap the pastry and let it rest in the fridge.

5. Meanwhile, make the filling. Mix condensed milk and water well.

6. In a separate bowl, mix well egg yolk and sugar.

7. Place the milk mixture on a low heat. Heat it up until it becomes just a step away from boiling. (Be careful not to burn!)

8. Slowly shift in flour. Mix well so that there is no lump.

9. Take the pot off from the heat. Wait 1 minute, and then pour egg mixture in.

10. Mix well to make it smooth.

11. Put the pot back on a low heat. Simmer until it's thickened. Take off from the heat, and let it rest.

12. Back on the pastry... Pre heat the oven to 180º. Roll out the pastry about 5mm thick. Place it on a tart tin. Make sure the pastry is stuck on the tin tightly.

13. Pour the filling into 12. Dust cinnamon sugar on top.

14. Bake in the pre-heated oven (180º) for 30 minutes.

Pasta de nata

They aren't squeezy cheese on puff pastry...but they are the lovely Portuguese cream tarts.

The custard filling came out with a really heart-warming home-made taste. My hard mixing action not to make the eggs into scrambled egg has paid off in the end:)

Maybe I could have left them in the oven a tiny bit longer to give them a nicer tan.. still taste pretty good.