Lemon Meringue Pie

So here it is, the most anticipated recipe of the weekend. As I explained in my post about the brownies, I was handed a bag of lemons the other day. Now while most people's response to that would be - TEQUILA! I knew it could only mean one thing. I had to make pie. To say I was fearing this would be an understatement. First, take into account that everyone likes their pie with different degrees of tartness, add to that the various ways people prefer their meringue and finally put on top the fact I've never made anything like it... Recipe for disaster! My friends are lucky I love them!

Not too bad even if I do say so myself!

Lemon Meringue Pie
Serves: 12 (maybe more maybe less) I used a 23cm pie dish  so it really comes down to how big your slices are
Prep Time: 1 hour (plus extra for cooling) Cook Time: 40mins

For the Base:
2 1/4 cups plain flour
3tbs icing sugar
190g chilled butter (chopped)
3 3/4tbs chilled water

1. Place icing sugar and flour in a bowl, rub the butter into the flour mix until it looks like fine breadcrumbs.
2. Add the water and use a spatula to stir until a dough forms. Use your hands to bring the dough together. Turn onto a worktop and roll out to 5mm thickness. Line your pie dish and trim the excess. Place dish into the fridge to cool for 30mins
3.Preheat oven to 180C. Cover the pastry with baking paper and weights (I used beans because they're all I had). Bake for 15mins, remove weights and paper cook for a further 15-20mins, or until crisp and golden. Allow to cool. (I made this the day before just to give me a bit more time).

First time using my new pie dish and I must say I am impressed

For the Filling:
75g cornflour
3/4cup water
1 1/2 cups lemon juice
Zest of 1 lemon
1 1/2cups caster sugar
90g butter
6 egg yolks

1. Combine the cornflour, water, lemon juice, zest and sugar in a saucepan. Use a whisk to stir over medium heat for 4mins or until boiling. Continue cooking and stir constantly for another minute. Remove from heat, whisk in butter and egg yolks. Pour mix into a bowl, cover and put in the fridge for 3hrs or until completely cool.

Zesty lemony goodness

For the Meringue:
6 egg whites
1 1/2cups caster sugar

1. Preheat oven to 190C. Use an electric beater to beat the egg whites in a clean dry bowl until soft peaks form. Add the sugar one tbsp at a time until the mix is thick and glossy.

Making the pie:
Spread the filling over the base of the pastry case. Spoon the meringue mix over the top, making sure it goes out to the edges. Use the back of a spoon to form peaks. 

Pie - pre oven
just so I had proof it looked good at one point in case the meringue collapsed

Bake in the oven for 5 mins or until the meringue peaks are light golden. 
Set aside to cool.


For all the fear I had of this dish, it wasn't too bad to make, but it was time consuming and a little stressful - I sat on the floor of my kitchen watching the meringue cook just to be sure it didn't burn. Also evidenced by my lack of photos during the process, always a sign that I am preoccupied.
It hasn't had a taste test yet either but my friends will be here soon so time will tell. I guess if they don't like it they can always make their own and show me how it's done...

Braided Fruit Loaf

I love bread, have I mentioned this before? The trouble is the bread here is sweet and well, awful! The altitude messes with the rising process and it seems the bread will either taste yeasty or they'll have loaded it with sugar so that you can't taste the yeast. As a result I bought myself a bread maker for those times that I want a fix of what bread is meant to be like. However, as this is a bucket list item and it infuriated me (when I didn't have a bread maker) when a recipe called for proofing the loaf in a bread maker, I have made this loaf from scratch. The sun was playing hide and seek this morning so I had some trouble getting things to work, but nothing that sitting the dough in front of a hot oven can't fix.

I love bread...

Braided Fruit Loaf
Serves: 2 loaves (or 1 with a 6 strand plait)
Prep Time: 2 1/2 hours (includes proofing x2) Cook Time: 45mins

120g butter
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup caster sugar (we can't get this here so I throw normal sugar in the blender for 10 seconds)

2 2/3 cups flour
1tbs dried yeast
3 eggs (beaten)
1 cup dried apricots (chopped)
1tbs flaked almonds

1. Melt butter with milk and sugar in a saucepan on low, stir until sugar is disolved. Cool until lukewarm.

Getting ready

2. Place flour and yeast in a bowl and mix together. Add the eggs (keep 1 tbsp to brush) then the milk mixture, beat for 10 minutes until dough is soft and elastic.
3. Place on a floured surface, shape dough into a rectangle, scatter 1/3 of the apricots then fole the dough over. Repeat until all the apricots have been used. Knead for 2 mins.

Adding the apricots

4. Make a ball and place it in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with lightly oiled plastic wrap. Let stand in a warm place for 1hr (or until doubled)

Plaiting, easy when you know how!

5. Punch down dough and divide into 6 pieces. Roll each into a long strand. Press the tops together and form the loaf by creating a 6 strand plait. (Alternatively make 2, 3 strand plaits). Place the dough onto a baking tray, double lined with baking paper, cover again and leave to proof once more.

Ready for baking

6. Preheat the oven to 180C, brush the loaf with the reserved egg and sprinkle flaked almonds on top. Bake for 40-45mins until lightly golden. I was worried about this bread not being cooked so I checked online and discovered an internal temp of 190/200F is right for a loaf so I went with that.

All done

7. Cool on a wire rack.

This smelt great, it hasn't had the taste test yet as it's being served this afternoon, but if appearance counts for anything, then it's a winner. I'm hoping if this looks good enough, when my meringue is a flop, no one will notice.

Tandoori Salmon

I warned you it was a bucket list kind of weekend... Here's item 2 of the 4 I have planned. I decided Rory and I should have something nice for dinner and this seemed like an easy way to get this. We actually picked up some tandoori powder (ok some might be a slight understatement, try 5 boxes) while we were in Australia, but should we use all of that up before we get chance to replenish supplies, then I thought I'd try making the powder from scratch.

Dinner, just delicious.

Tandoori Salmon
Serves: 2
Prep Time: 5 mins (plus 4+ hours to marinate) Cook Time: 10 mins

500g salmon
150g yoghurt
1tbsp lemon juice
1 clove garlic minced
2tsp ginger powder
1tsp cumin
1tbsp paprika
1/2tsp turmeric
pinch of salt and pepper
pinch of cilantro

1. Prepare salmon into 2 fillets and place skin side down in a glass dish.
2. Mix together all the remaining ingredients to form the tandoori paste.
3. Pour paste over the top of salmon and make sure they're completely coated. Cover the dish with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 4 hours (no longer than 24)

Fillets marinated and ready for refrigeration

4. Take fillets out, remove excess marinade and place them, skin side up, on a greased grill for 5 mins.
5. Turn fillets over and baste with remaining paste. Grill for a further 5 mins or until the salmon flakes apart when tested with a fork.
6. Sprinkle top of fillet with cilantro.

This was delicious! Better than the packet stuff (even if I do say so myself). We had it with hasselback potatoes, sprinkled with paprika to keep with the theme. I had wanted to have asparagus with it but I'm beginning to think the supermarkets here make a choice between asparagus and lemons... Regardless, divine.

White Chocolate, Cherry and Almond Brownies

OK so a friend at work handed me a bag of lemons the other day, it was her subtle hint to get me to make lemon meringue pie. Now the thing is lemons are rare in these parts so I understand her excitement but sheesh, talk abut pressure. As a result I have decided to make a weekend of bucket list creating, then have some friends round for afternoon tea tomorrow. So in an attempt to avoid the pie for a little bit longer, I made this...

You'll notice the pinkish tinge caused by the cherries...

White Chocolate, Cherry and Almond Brownie

Serves: 15 

Prep Time: 5 mins Cook Time: 45mins

200g white chocolate

125 g butter

200g glace cherries (halved)

1 cup caster sugar

1 1/4 cups flour

2 eggs

50g flaked almonds

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Line a baking tin (20x20 square) with paper.

2. Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler making sure you stir constantly, allow to cool slightly.

3. Put cherries, sugar, flour and eggs in a bowl and mix together with the chocolate and butter.

Ready for mixing

4. Pour into the baking tin, smooth over the top with a spatula and sprinkle with almonds.

Pre-oven

5. Place in the oven and cook for 45mins, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

6. Allow to cool completely in the tin and then cut into pieces.

Post-oven

I was a little disappointed with the end look of this, I think my glace cherries must have retained too much liquid (I went for ones from a jar because they're about 1/10 the price of the dried ones) and it tainted the colour of the brownie (it's now a cute pink colour) and the brownie itself is almost too moist still despite being cooked properly, next time I'll leave the cherries to dry out for a bit longer. That said, the taste is good, and I'll still put it out on offer for my guinea pigs tomorrow, so really what else matters. :)

Spinach and Ricotta Triangles

It's been a while since I've had chance to do anything blog worthy... Rory and I went home for Christmas and despite the temptation to use that opportunity where yellow lemons were plentiful to make Lemon Meringue Pie, I just never got around to it. Not that I spent 4 weeks having other people cook for me, but there wasn't really the time for creative cooking. Rather we had 4 weeks of enjoying all those things that we miss most and dining on Christmas-time favourites.

I'm back into the swing now, until I go back to work on Monday, so here's another item crossed off the list. Which reminds me I really must get around to updating my list...

Delish

Spinach and Ricotta Triangles

Serves:8

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 20 mins

300g Ricotta Cheese

300g Spinach

2 eggs

Pinch of salt and pepper

1/4 tsp paprika

1/4 tsp chilli flakes

Filo pastry sheets

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Lightly grease a baking tray. Cook spinach in a small saucepan of boiling water until just wilted. Drain and rinse under cold water. Squeeze excess water from the leaves.

Everything ready...

2. Place ricotta, eggs, salt, pepper, paprika, chilli flakes and spinach into a bowl and mix well.

All mixed up

3. Take 1 sheet of pastry and cut into thirds. Place a spoonful of the spinach and cheese mixture on it and fold into a triangle.

Folding into triangles

4. Place on the tray and cook for 20mins until golden and crisp.

Golden crispy goodness

Quick, easy and perfect for a jet-lagged brain and body!

White Chocolate Peppermint Bark

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... Yes it's that time of year, well if you ask Rory it's not that time of year until Christmas Eve, however he is a bit of a scrooge and I figure if everyone else is getting excited about Christmas then why can't I? We have Christmas concerts, bonfire/fireworks night tomorrow at work so I'm getting that festive vibe and our plan for after work is to get together for an early celebration, so I figured it was time to pull out the first of the Christmas recipes. 

If this doesn't make you think Christmas, nothing will!

My original intention with this recipe was to go all white chocolate but after a bit of hunting on the web I discovered the "top deck" version so I decided to go with that instead. 

Adding in the candy cane crumbs

Melty, chocolatey, minty, crunchy goodness

Adding the white chocolate layer

Sprinkling the candy cane chunks

Cutting...

Top Deck Christmas Bark

Serves: 30
Prep Time: 2 mins Cook Time: 10 mins (plus time for the chocolate to set)
500g milk chocolate
500g white chocolate
10 candy canes
Mint essence

1. Line a baking try with wax paper. Smash all the candy canes I used a meat tenderiser for this and it did the job quickly and perfectly then separate the larger chunks from the smaller crumbs
2. Place milk chocolate in a saucepan and melt over low heat. I know my mother is cringing when she reads this, knowing I've gone against everything she ever taught me about melting chocolate and using a double boiler but a) I don't have one and b) this worked just fine, I made sure that I stirred constantly just in case...
3. Add a couple of drops of mint essence I wouldn't have done this if I had real candy canes, but unfortunately they don't have those here and instead I had things that looked like candy canes, thanks to some brilliant hunting and gathering by Rory. So to ensure it has the right taste to go with the look, I added it in.
4. Stir the finer candy cane crumbs (reserve 1/4 to sprinkle on top) into the chocolate then pour into the baking tray. Place in the fridge to set.
5. Melt the white chocolate.
6. Pour over the top of the set milk chocolate and then sprinkle the larger candy cane crumbs on top. Lightly press down on the candy cane coating to ensure they'll set into the chocolate.
7. Place in fridge. When set use a hot knife and cut into pieces.

On reflection I would have used a bigger baking tin to create thinner layers but I really wasn't sure if I had enough chocolate to cover that surface area. Oh well next time!
This was possibly the easiest recipe ever, the challenge came in the cutting, I've never been great at cutting chocolate and as Rory volunteered to do the honours I left him to it. (It also means I can blame him for the less than perfect edges :) )

Happy Turkey "Cake" Day

So in my last blog post I promised something big and exciting was brewing and now that Thanksgiving has been and gone and I successfully managed to keep my Thanksgiving dessert a surprise for my host, it's time to share what I did.

You may or may not have seen on my original blog post that I have listed - Roast Turkey. A good friend of mine here in Bogotá promised on that posting, she would teach me how to make it, she even suggested I could prepare the turkey for this year's Thanksgiving... I suggested as it's her last one here, she probably didn't want to put the biggest event on the American Calendar into my hands. That said, after receiving this year's dinner invitation I knew I wanted to do something special. I began searching for Thanksgiving dishes and stumbled upon the idea of a cake made to look like a roast turkey. How could I say no, there it was; a great and creative dessert that also let me cancel from my list the one thing I'm most worried about cooking! 

I checked with Susan that if I brought a "clever" dessert that it wouldn't lower the quality of her Thanksgiving dinner party and she assured me she was up for something that was interesting and (I hoped) tasted good. And there began my journey to this...

Turkey Cake, 100% edible

Turkey cake

Serves: Millions (ok, not quite but there was a whole lot of cake...)

Prep Time: DAYS! Bake Time: HOURS

Peas and Carrots
500g fondant
food colouring

I rolled these from fondant that I bought and coloured as desired. I wouldn't recommend using liquid food colouring but it was all I had so I made it work and it ended up looking much better than I thought.

If I never roll another pea in my life I'll be happy.
This was only half of what I made!

These took a few days to go solid, or at least hard on the outside so I would definitely recommend doing these in advance.

Drumsticks and Wings

6 cups Rice Krispies

10oz. regular marshmallows

30g butter

250g fondant

1. Place marshmallows and butter in a bowl and microwave until the marshmallows have all melted.

2. Stir in the Rice Krispies.

3. Cover hands lightly in butter and then take scoops of the mix and shape as desired.

I made double just in case of breakage

4. Put into the fridge to set.

5. Remove from fridge and let them return to room temperature before covering them in fondant and leaving for a day or two to air dry The mix will become very fragile once it's back at room temperature so handle them as little as possible when covering in fondant. I could have left them uncovered but I really liked the texture this created and I was worried that they wouldn't have held their shape one they were out of the fridge for too long.

Wrapping in fondant

Perfect parts!

White Chocolate Mud Cake 
(I cooked 2 of these to make the body, I managed to find an oval baking tin which made my life a million times easier, however a rectangle would work just as well, it just needs extra carving)

300g unsalted butter

300g white chocolate melts

280ml water

2 3/4 cups plain flour

1 cup self-raising flour

2 cups sugar - caster sugar would have been ideal but isn't easily found here, so I put mine in a zip lock bag and attacked it with a rolling pin to try and get it a bit finer.

3 eggs

pinch of salt

1/2tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line the tin with baking paper

2. Put the butter, chocolate and water into a saucepan and stir over low heat until the chocolate has melted, then remove from heat.

3. Sift the flour into a bowl then add the sugar and salt. Add the melted chocolate mixture, eggs and vanilla stirring until completely combined.

4. Pour the mix into the tin and bake for 1 hour and 30 mins (or until a skewer poked into the centre comes out clean)

5. Leave the cake in the tin until completely cooled then turn out onto a rack.

I was much happier with this than I thought  I would be.

Ganache

500g milk chocolate

250g cream

1. Put the chocolate into a saucepan over low heat and stir in the cream until it has all melted into a consistent texture.

2. Set aside to cool and thicken.

I went with milk chocolate so my turkey still had white and dark meat!

Butter Cream Icing

500g unsalted butter

4 cups icing sugar

colouring I used brown, yellow and red to get the desired colour

1. Beat the butter using an electric mixer until smooth

2. Gradually add in the icing sugar (my original recipe used a lot more icing sugar than this, but I stopped when I had a consistency that I was happy with)

3. Add colouring until desired colour is achieved (I had thought my icing was a bit light but happily I can report overnight it darkened to the perfected roast turkey tinge!

Assembly

1. Carve the top, bottom and side off the cakes

Carving

2. Cut down the centre of both cakes, then take half of one cake and cover the top surface with ganache

Cutting

3. Raise both halves of the first cake and press them together using the ganache to hold them to one another. (Lift onto your serving tray/plate at this point as it will be too hard to move later.)

This was a stressful time so the only photo is once it's together.

4. Using the second cake, cover both halves with ganache and lift onto either side of the first arches.

Refer to the caption above

5. Use the knife to carve the arches into more of a turkey shape (thanks to my oval tin I didn't need to do much of this, just a little tapering in at the back and leveling off the different layers

Getting things to the right shape...

6. Cover the body in butter cream icing, creating as smooth a finish as possible

Icing it up!

7. Press the wings and legs onto the sides (I contemplated using skewers to be sure they'd hold but in the end didn't bother) Then cover in a thin layer of butter cream icing

Adding the wings and legs

8. Place peas and carrots around the base of the turkey (I also used these under the drumsticks to try and help support them and stop them from falling/sliding down my cake).

Covering the wings and legs with icing to get them the
same colour as the body.
Complete with peas and carrots to decorate!

9. Use cake crumbs from anything you carved off to make the stuffing at the back

I knew all those cake recipes I tried and didn't like would come in handy. :) 

All covered up and ready for transporting to dinner the next night!

This cake was put together in stages; I baked my first cake on Monday, the second on Tuesday and then did the assembly the day before Thanksgiving (Wednesday) as I was going straight from work to dinner on the Thursday night. I did think, had there been any problems overnight I could fix them with bamboo skewers but as it turned out I didn't need them.  I should also admit that I was able to put stuffing on the back of my turkey because in my quest to find the right cake recipe I found myself with a lot of spare cake which I crumbed and put into freezer bags. This however, was obviously not essential.

It was a big hit last night and again today when I took left-overs to work. I don't ever want to see cake again and I think this has well and truly given me the right to cross turkey off my bucket list.