Gingerbread, pear and almond tart

I got hypnotized by this tart when I first saw it on the DH mag – it looked so beautiful and delicious! My first thought was to make it at the end of the year and post the recipe as part of my Christmas series, but then I remembered that pears are at their peak now, and I had a small amount of marmalade in the fridge (left from a cake I’d made a couple of weeks before) that ended up being the exact ¼ cup called for in the tart recipe; as the universe had conspired in my kitchen before and the results were wonderful, I went ahead and made the tart, and that turned out to be a very smart decision. ;)

Gingerbread, pear and almond tart
from the always gorgeous and delicious Donna Hay Magazine

½ cup + 1 tablespoon (127g) unsalted butter, softened
½ cup (88g) brown sugar, packed
2/3 cup golden syrup (I used corn syrup)
2 2/3 cups (373g) all purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
½ cup (50g) almond meal
1 ½ tablespoons granulated sugar
3 firm pears, halved lengthwise, each half cut in 4-5 slices
¼ cup (50g) granulated sugar, extra
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup orange marmalade
icing sugar, for dusting
whipped cream, for serving

Place the butter and sugar in the large bowl of an electric mixer and beat until pale and creamy. Add the golden syrup, flour, ginger, baking soda and salt and beat until mixture just comes together to form a smooth dough. Divide in two equal portions and form each one into a rough rectangle. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 1 hour.
In a small bowl, mix together the almond meal and the 2 tablespoons of sugar. Set aside. Place the pears, extra sugar, vanilla and marmalade in a large bowl and mix to combine.
Line a large baking sheet with foil. Roll each portion of dough between two pieces of lightly floured baking paper until you get a 20x30cm (12x8in) rectangle. Sprinkle the almond meal mixture down the center of each dough rectangle, leaving a 5cm (2in) border. Place the pear filling on top of the almond meal and fold the edges of dough over the pears. Transfer to the prepared sheet. Refrigerate the tarts for 20 minutes – in the meantime, preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.
Bake for 30-35 minutes or until cooked and golden. Cool in the pan over a wire rack – you can serve the tarts warm or at room temperature.
Dust with the icing sugar and serve.

Makes 2 tarts, each serving 4-6

Banana cake with rum glaze

“Artificial Intelligence: A.I.” was on cable last night and I after watching half an hour of the movie my opinion about it did not change after all these years: it is not Kubrick. I know that Kubrick worked on the project for many, many years and reading the movie trivia again I remembered that several details were chosen/decided by him, but I think it was just not enough; I find Spielberg to be a very boring director – and quite corny sometimes – so to me he shouldn’t have been chosen to work with something so dark and disturbing; leave it to Cronenberg, Fincher and even Nolan to deal with that kind of movie, and not someone who digitally replaces shotguns for walkie-talkies.
But there’s one thing I like about “A.I.”: I find Jude Law perfect as Gigolo Joe – he’s such a versatile actor and one of my favorites.

***

I loved this very tender and delicious banana cake – Lisa Yockelson’s cakes are always wonderful – but when I placed it in the oven I thought it would be too plain (very much like Spielberg); therefore, I drenched it in a rum glaze and that made things a lot more interesting. :)

Banana cake with rum glaze
adapted from the wonderful and delicious Baking Style: Art, Craft, Recipes and Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey: Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth

Cake:
2 cups (280g) all purpose flour
2/3 cup (80g) cake flour (homemade: ½ cup all purpose flour + 1 tablespoon corn starch)
1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
150g unsalted butter, softened
1 ¼ cups + 1 tablespoon (262g) granulated sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 ½ cups mashed ripe bananas
½ cup (120ml) buttermilk*

Glaze:
¼ cup (56g) unsalted butter
2 tablespoons water
¼ cup (44g) light brown sugar, packed
¼ cup (50g) granulated sugar
¼ cup (60ml) dark rum

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Butter and flour a 10-cup capacity Bundt pan.
In a medium bowl, sift together the all purpose flour, cake flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
In the large bowl of an electric mixer, using the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and scrape the sides of the bowl after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and the bananas.
In low speed, add the sifted ingredients in three additions alternating with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Scrape the sides of the bowl again. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until risen and golden and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cake in the pan over a wire rack for 15 minutes – in the meantime, make the glaze: combine butter, water and sugars in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium high-heat and bring to a boil. Immediately reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the rum.
Carefully unmold onto the rack and brush it generously with the glaze (you can save some to serve with the cake). Cool completely.

* homemade buttermilk: to make 1 cup buttermilk place 1 tablespoon lemon juice in a 240ml-capacity measuring cup and complete with whole milk (room temperature). Wait 10 minutes for it to thicken slightly, then use the whole mixture in your recipe

Serves 10-12

Glazed lemon biscotti

I know what you’ll think: since becoming a biscotti-fanatic it was just a matter of time before I baked lemon biscotti, right? So, here you have it, and to make up for all this time it is a double lemon biscotti: the biscotti are heavily perfumed with lemon zest and the glaze is deliciously tangy from the juice – as Brilynn would say, “go big or go home”. :D

Glazed lemon biscotti
slightly adapted from the wonderful Great Cookies: Secrets to Sensational Sweets

Biscotti:
2 cups (280g) all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon ground cardamom
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup (1 stick/113g) unsalted butter, slightly firm
finely ground zest of 2 lemons
¾ cup (150g) granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Glaze:
1 ½ cups (210g) confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon corn syrup
about 1 tablespoon hot water

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Line a large baking sheet with baking paper.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, cardamom and salt. Set aside.
In the large bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the butter and zest on medium-low speed. Increase to medium and add the sugar in a steady stream. Beat for 1 minute longer.
Beat in the egg, then the yolks and vanilla and beat for 1 minute. On low speed, add the sifted ingredients in two additions, mixing just until incorporated.
Spoon half the dough onto one side of the prepared sheet and, with floured hands, shape it into a 5x35cm (2x14in) log. Repeat with the remaining dough.
Bake for 18-20 minutes or until set on top and lightly browned. Remove from the oven and place over a wire rack for 15 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 160°C/325°F and line another large baking sheet with baking paper.
Carefully lift one log at a time from the baking paper and slice into 1cm (½in) slices. Lay the biscotti slices onto the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes each side or until golden. Remove from the oven and place onto a wire rack.
In the meantime, make the glaze: combine the sugar, lemon juice, corn syrup and the water and mix until the glaze has a drizzable consistency – add more water if necessary. While the biscotti are still warm, place them very close together in the sheet then dip a fork in the glaze and quickly move it back and forth over the biscotti. Let cool to room temperature and wait for the glaze to dry before storing.
Biscotti can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 weeks.

Makes about 40

Chestnut spice cake

I like my things organized but I'm not too strict about it: I try to keep things in place on a daily basis and from time to time I have "organization-craze" moments; having one of those with my fridge the other day I realized that the expiration date of my chesnut flour was a few months away only; since I don't want to waste such precious ingredient, I went into a chestnut-flour-baking-frenzy, which resulted in three different treats on the same day: one of them is this delicious and very tender fragrant cake, which smelled so wonderful while baking I had to really hold my horses in order to avoid eating a slice of it the minute it was out of the oven. :D

Chestnut spice cake
from the delicious Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen

1 ¾ cups (245g) all purpose flour
¾ cup (75g) chesnut flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¾ cup (170g) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup (200g) granulated sugar*
½ cup honey (chestnut if possible)
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon cognac
1 tablespoons Amaretto (optional)
1 cup (240ml) whole milk, room temperature
confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.Butter and flour a 23cm (9in) springform cake pan**.
in a medium bowl, sift together the all purpose flour, chestnut flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices. Set aside.
Using an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter, granulated sugar and honey until creamy and light. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, scraping the sides of the bowl after each addition. Beat in the vanilla, the cognac and the Amaretto. Scrape the bowl again.
In low speed, add the dry ingredients in three additions alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Scrape the sides of the bowl again then beat the batter for 15 seconds on medium speed.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until risen and golden and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cake in the pan over a wire rack for 10 minutes then carefully remove the sides of the pan and let the cake cool completely.
Dust with the icing sugar before serving.
The cake can be wrapped in plastic or stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

* the cake tasted delicious but if I were to make it again I would reduce the sugar just a bit

** I used a regular 23cm (9in) cake pan (no removable bottom), therefore I lined the bottom of the pan with a circle of baking paper, then buttered and floured the pan; I cooled the cake in the pan over a wire rack for 25 minutes, then carefully inverted in onto a plate, removed the paper, then inverted it again (top side up) onto the rack to cool completely

Serves 8-10

Cheese and onion scrolls and changing my mind after the first bite

The minute I pulled these rolls out of the oven I decided not to publish the recipe on the blog – they did not look cute like the ones on the magazine, and being the perfectionism-freak that I am I got really disappointed at how they’d turned out. But the smell in my kitchen was so wonderful that I felt the urge to try one scroll, and that was when I completely changed my mind: it tasted so delicious I would have to share the recipe with you. I immediately grabbed my camera because the rolls were so good I did not think there would be any left for the photos afterwards. :D

The dough is super soft and that made it difficult to shape the scrolls, but I advise you not to add more flour to it, even if you feel tempted to: you’ll love the oh, so tender texture of the rolls, and that great texture did not change after the bread cooled down.

Cheese and onion scrolls
adapted from the always gorgeous and delicious Australian Gourmet Traveller

1 onion, halved lengthwise then thinly sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 ¾ cups + 1 tablespoon (255g) all purpose flour
¾ cup (105g) whole wheat flour
1 ½ tablespoons light brown sugar, packed
2 ¼ teaspoons (7g) dried yeast
2 tablespoons finely chopped chives
150g fontina cheese, coarsely grated, divided use
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup (120ml) whole milk, plus extra for brushing
1/3 cup (80ml) water

Stir onion and oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat until tender (4-5 minutes), set aside. Combine flours, sugar, yeast, chives, 50g of the fontina cheese, onion mixture and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook. Warm milk and water in a saucepan over low heat until lukewarm, add to flour mixture, knead until smooth and elastic (4-5 minutes). Transfer to a lightly oiled large bowl, cover and stand in a warm place until doubled in size (45 minutes-1 hour).
Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F. Line a 20x30cm (8x12in) baking pan with foil, leaving an overhang in two opposite sides.
Knock back dough and roll out on a lightly floured surface to a 20x40cm (8x16in) rectangle. Scatter with remaining fontina cheese then roll to form a long cylinder. Cut into 8 pieces, place cut-side down onto prepared pan, 1cm (½in) apart. Cover and stand until slightly risen (10-15 minutes). Brush tops with milk and bake until golden (20-25 minutes). Serve warm (they tasted delicious at room temperature, too).

Makes 8