Double Caramel and Pear Tart

  
Ever since I heard of it’s existence, I have been dying to make a patisserie cream out of the new Lewis Road Creamery Double Caramel Milk! The way I see it is: Patisserie Cream=Deliciousness so adding caramel….deliciousness times infinity!!!!! So when it finally hit the shelves I dragged my flat mate to the supermarket with the hope that it’ll be in! And glory of glories it was!!! So anyway I wasted no time making a patisserie cream with it and my, questionable, patience was rewarded! The smooth creaminess matched with the rich caramel is a match made in heaven. So with the patisserie cream complete I decided to use it in a pear tart. This recipe is super easy and you can use any brand of caramel milk if you can’t get ahold of the Lewis Creamery brand 🙂

  
Ingredients:  (Makes 4 mini tarts)

For the Double Caramel Patisserie Cream:

• 300ml Lewis Creamery Double Caramel Milk
• 60g Egg Yolk (approx 3)
• 60g Caster Sugar
• 80g Corn Flour
• 20g Butter

For the Tart Shell:

• 170g Flour
• 80g Caster Sugar
• 80g Butter
• 35g Egg (approx 1/2 an egg)

For the Tart:

• Approx 2 poached pears per tart cut into thin slices 
• Chopped, roasted hazelnuts (optional)
• Melted dark chocolate (optional)

How to:

For the tart shell:

• Rub together the flour, butter and sugar until it resembles a sand-like consistency.
• Add the egg and mix until it forms a dough (it is important to not over mix this as it will make the dough hard to work with later).
• Cover dough and let it rest in the fridge for at least 30mins.
• When it has rested, take the dough out and roll it out to approx 2mm thick and line your greased tart shells (I will write a detailed post on how to make and roll sweet crust pastry in the near future).
• Blind bake for approx 20mins and egg wash (yay you can use the left over egg from the sweet crust dough! 🙌🏻) for the last 2-5mins of baking.
• Leave to cool.

For the Double Caramel Patisserie Cream:

• Measure your milk into a medium sized pot and gently bring to the boil.
• In a bowl whisk together egg yolks, sugar and cornflour.
• As soon as your milk has started to boil, pour about 1/3 into the egg mix and combine well.
• Pour the egg mix back into the pot and whisk over a low heat until it thickens.
• Continue to whisk over the low heat for approx 2mins to cook out the cornflour (trust me, you do not want to have a yucky cornflour aftertaste ruin your beautiful caramel patisserie cream 😖).
• Whisk in the butter and pour into a bowl and immediately cover with cling wrap to avoid a skin forming.
• Leave to cool down in the fridge.

Assembly: (now that you have patiently and agonisingly waited for everthing to cool; you may now put everything to together to create dessert perfection 😋).

• Fill each tart with your now cooled patisserie cream.
• Place the pears around the tart so that they slightly overlap and form a flower type shape.
• Sprinkle some roasted hazelnuts on top and drizzle some melted chocolate in a seemingly effortless but still controlled manor.
• Serve either on its own, (because after all the patience you’ve used waiting for everything to cool it’s hard to hold off scoffing it down), or with a generous dollop of whipped cream or ice cream.

I hope you enjoy this recipe, and be sure to let me know if you make it 🙂 
See you later,

Bex 

🙂

  

Chocolate Tempering

 

Hello there!

So tempering chocolate is one of the things that I always thought was way too tricky to try at home. Fortunately, (or unfortunately for my uniform and thus my laundry powder bill), 90% of my time at Le Cordon Bleu was spent tempering chocolate (the other 10% was spent cleaning chocolate…just kidding…not really).

So why temper chocolate? Basic answer? It makes chocolate set better. Tempering is essentially bringing all zee chocolate crystals together in perfect harmony 🙂 (well… you get the picture). In doing this the chocolate has a higher melting temperature. This means that doesn’t melt as quickly making it perfect for decorations.It also takes on a nice shine and has a nice ‘snap’ when it breaks. I have to be honest, this tutorial is going to be very simple. I will go into more detail and explore other methods of tempering in another post in the future. Also this tutorial is for dark chocolate, again, I will explore tempering milk and white chocolate in another tutorial =) This is a quick and easy (unfortunately not overly clean) method to do at home called the Tabling Method.

First things first here is the equipment you will need:

Thermometer (VERY IMPORTANT)

Stainless steel or glass bowl

Spatula

Palette Knife

Pot of water

IMPORTANT: Make sure all your equipment and work space is clean and DRY! (Water is like Kryponite to chocolate).

 

CHOCOLATE:

It’s important that you get chocolate that has at least 10% cocoa butter otherwise you can’t temper it. I have found that, here in NZ, Whittakers chocolate seems to work well for tempering. Otherwise there are the more expensive brands like Callebaut and Vahlrona.

How To:

1. Gently melt the chocolate over a bain marie to 50-55 degrees.
2. Take the chocolate off the heat and bring to a clean and dry work surface. Make sure to wipe the bottom of the bowl to get rid of any condensation from the bain marie.
3. Pour about 2/3 of the chocolate onto your work surface.
4. Use your palette knife to spread the chocolate out over the work surface and then to bring it back into one area. IMPORTANT: Once the chocolate is spread out it will cool faster, which is handy but you don’t want to cool it down too much. By bringing it back together it will slow the cooling process.
5. Once you have done this 2-3 times (working fairly quickly) scoop (as best you can – this is where it gets messy lol) the chocolate back into the bowl and mix with the remaining chocolate.
6. Check the temperature – you are wanting to cool the chocolate to 28-29 degrees. If it is still too warm pour about 1/3 of chocolate on the work surface and repeat the tabling process.
7. Once your chocolate is at 28-29 degrees put it back on the bain maire in short intervals and heat the chocolate back up to 32 degrees. This is your working temperature so you’re ready to start making your chocolate decorations.

When making decorations:

• You need to work quickly as the chocolate will set quickly.
• Have everything you need ready before you temper your chocolate.
• Keep an eye on your bowl of chocolate – you will need to periodically heat the chocolate back up to 32 degrees. If it gets too cool it will start to set and will be harder to reheat and you will need to potentially start the tempering process again. I can tell you now – this is not fun!!!!
• An easy way to slow the cooling process is to have the bowl of chocolate sitting on a tea-towel which will be a little bit warmer than your work surface =)
• Make sure to keep everything clean and dry!!!! Seriously I cannot stress this enough!!!! EVER!!!!

I hope you find this tutorial helpful. Just pay attention to your chocolate temperature and you should be fine =)

 

Catch ya later,

Rebekah =)