My mince pie experiments

I love the flavours of Christmas and I especially love the fruitcake my mother makes.  But seeing that she has long perfected the art of fruitcake baking, I had to try something different to get in the mood for Christmas. 

I found a recipe for mince tartlets in Maggie Beer's book - Maggie's Table, where you actually have to make the fruit mince yourself, instead of using the ready made mincemeat - so it was an obvious choice.  What I like about the recipe is that it needs no cooking and that it does not use suet.  Way back when, fruit mince also contained meat and most recipes still calls for suet, but this one only uses melted butter.  In the recipe she mentions that she normally makes 36 mini muffin-sized tartlets, but it turns out that the quantity fruit mince is way more than that.  I ended up with around 2 kg of fruit mince! That's when I decided to experiment with a few different recipes.

Although Maggie Beer calls her pastry "to die for and perfect", Nigella Lawson's Frangipane Mince Pies, won hands down!  Her pastry includes ground almonds and the fruit mince filling is topped with frangipane.  They look lovely and tastes wonderful, and is actually quite straight forward to make.
 (I also tried shortbread pillows and a tray bake crumble for an Australian Woman's Weekly Cookbook)

So, first Nigella's recipe, and then my version of Maggie's fruit mince (reduced...)

For the pastry:

175 g flour

30 g ground almonds

65 g icing sugar

pinch of salt

125 g cold butter, diced

1 egg, whisked with 2 T of ice cold water

Place the flour, almonds and icing sugar in a food processor and pulse to combine.  Add the butter and process to a crumbly mix.  Now add the egg/water in a drizzle, down the funnel pulsing as you do so, until the pastry comes together.  Press to form a cohesive dough, divide into two flat discs, wrap in clingfilm and rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

In  the meantime make the frangipane topping:

2 large eggs

90 g caster sugar

90 g butter, melted

90 g ground almonds

Whisk the eggs and sugar, then stir int he butter and almonds.  Set aside.

To assemble you also need 200 g fruit mince and 4 tablespoons of flaked almonds.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

Roll out the first pastry disc, to a thickness of 3mm and stamp out 12 circles slightly larger than the tart indentations.  Press gently into the tin, and return to the fridge for 15 minutes.  Repeat with the other half of the pastry.

Put a teaspoon of fruit mince into each and top with a tablespoonful of frangipane.  Sprinkle with flaked almonds and bake for 15 minutes until golden brown.  Leave to cool in the tins for 5 minutes. 

If you're in the mood for some chopping then try your hand at making your own fruit mince.

400 g dried fruit selection (try to use equal quantities of the following: seedless raisins, Turkish apricots, dried figs, sultanas, currants, cranberries, cherries, mixed peel - maybe less figs, because they are expensive and also less peel, seeing that it might be to bitter)

1 Granny Smith apple

juice and zest of one orange and one lemon

120g soft brown sugar

1 T honey

1 t mixed spice

40 ml brandy

60 g butter

Finely chop all the fruit and peel and grate the apple.  Blend together the fruit and all the other ingredients, except the butter and leave at room temperature for 24 hours, stirring occasionally.  Next day, melt the butter and stir it through the fruit mince.  Keep refrigerated until ready to use.

Hake in Beer Batter

One of my favourite food writers is Maggie Beer.  In Maggie's Table, she gives her mother-in-laws recipe for beer batter.  I am all for healthy grilled fish instead of deep-fried, but seeing that it was weekend and that the batter needs only 3 ingredients, I had to try this.  She mentions that the lightness is due to the resting of the batter for 24 hours, so that's what I did, and it was amazingly crispy and light.

If you are in Cape Town, head down to Fish 4 Africa, the hake is as fresh as it gets and really affordable compared to other stores.

6 fresh hake fillets (if using previously frozen fish, make sure that you dry it well on paper towel)

pure sunflower oil

250g self raising flour

125ml light beer

250ml cold water

Whisk the flour, beer and water together until smooth.  Cover and refrigerate overnight.

When you are ready to cook, pour the oil into a heavy based frying pan, 2 cm deep, and heat until hot.  Dip the fish fillets into the batter to coat, then gently lower them into the hot oil.  Fry until crisp and golden brown, then turn to cook the other side.  Remove and drain on crumpled paper towel.  Serve with salt, pepper and lemon wedges.

Perfect Roast Chicken and Haricot Bean salad

Although I am usually the one to cook in our household, there is one thing that I always entrust to my husband - Weber roast peri-peri chicken.  The whole family agrees that he does the best roast chicken and even put in their requests, as soon as they are planning a visit. 

I do not know the exact quantities for the basting sauce, but from watching I reckon the following will do: start with about 1/3 a cup of olive oil, to which you add 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, 1 teaspoon per-peri (or more to taste) and season with salt and pepper.  Brush one large free range chicken liberally with the basting sauce and set aside.

Build an indirect fire in a Weber and allow it to burn down for approximately 20 minutes until there is a layer of grey ash on the coal.  Place a drip tray under the grill and place the chicken on the grill.  Close the lid and cook for 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes.  Remove and cover with foil (shiny side inside) and rest the chicken for 10 minutes before carving. 

Haricot Bean salad.

I wanted a "deli look" in my kitchen and bought quite a lot of beautiful tins of Haricot Beans to display on one of the shelves.  Seeing that I also love all kinds of beans I started experimenting with the beans, and at the moment this salad is one of my favorites.  My cider vinegar salad dressing is an essential ingredient - so make sure you have some stock in the fridge!

1 tin white haricot beans

1 large red onion - finely diced

1 yellow pepper - finely diced

a handful of Calamata olives, pitted and roughly chopped

250g Baby Rosa tomatoes

lots of freshly chopped Italian Parsley

Combine the beans, onion, peppers and olives in a bowl and drizzle liberally with salad dressing.  Leave in the fridge for at least 2 hours, or even overnight.  Just before serving, half the tomatoes and add with the parsley to the beans.  Season with lots of black pepper.

Vanilla Cupcakes

Once you have children there is one recipe that you have to add to your repertoire.  Kids and adults alike love cupcakes.  This is a basic sponge cake recipe, so you can also bake it in a oven pan.  I always use this recipe when baking cakes for kiddies birthday parties.  So especially for those of you with little ones, try this recipe this weekend! Makes 36.

6 egg yolks

2 cups sugar

1 cup oil

1 cup warm water

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups self raising flour

3 tablespoons cornflour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

6 egg whites

Whisk together the first 5 ingredients until all the sugar is dissolved, approximately 8 minutes.  Sift the dry ingredients together three times and then gentle stir into the egg mixture.  Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks from and fold gently into the batter.  Fill cupcakes 3/4 full and bake at 180 degrees until well risen, approximately 20 minutes. 

Basic vanilla icing:

125g butter at room temperature

500g icing sugar, sifted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon lemon juice

milk

Beat the butter until soft then add the icing sugar gradually.  Add vanilla and lemon juice and thin down with a little bit of milk if necessary.

Variations:

For chocolate cake, use 3 tablespoons of cocoa instead of cornflour

For coffee cake, use strong black coffee instead of water

Gooey chocolate stack

I heard a story that not all Nigella Lawson's recipes are really tested and that some of them do not even work.  I only own one of her books - How to be a domestic goddess.  I've only made a handful of her recipes, but so far, they all came out pretty good.

One that I found quite impressive is her Gooey Chocolate Stack.  It is a bit of work, but not complicated. 

The recipe will be enough for 8 - 10 people.

Meringue:

6 egg whites (I always use extra large eggs)

300g caster sugar

3 tablespoons cocoa

1 teaspoon vinegar

Filling:

6 egg yolks

100g caster sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

2 tablespoons flour

350ml  full cream milk

250ml cream

100g good quality dark chocolate, chopped (try NoMU Chocolate Chunks)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Line three baking sheets with greaseproof paper and spray with non stick cooking spray. Mark a circle with diameter 20cm on each.  Prepare the meringue mixture (see Pavlova recipe), replacing the cornflour with the cocoa.  When adding the cocoa the mixture will become a little bit  more runny.  Divide equally between the three sheets and spread evenly.  Bake for 1 hour at 140 degrees.  Switch off the oven and leave to dry out and cool completely.  Keep in an airtight container  until ready to assemble.

There is one thing that I always use my microwave oven for and that is any kind of custard.  Heat the cream and milk until nearly boiling.  Blend the sugar, egg yolks, cocoa and flour until smooth.  Now add the heated milk/cream a little bit at a time, stirring continuously.  Return to the microwave and heat until the mixture starts to thinken from the sides, stir and repeat once more.  Add the chocolate and leave to melt for a few minutes, then stir through and add the vanilla.  Place into a sinkful of ice cold water and stir until cooled.  When completely cooled down, assemble the cake.  If you are making it in advance, refrigerate the filling, but remove from the fridge well in advance because it will become too thick when refrigerated.

Place one meringue disk on a serving platter, spread with a third of the filling.  Then carry on layering.  Decorate with chopped nuts or berries.