Little pecan tartlets

Most of the supermarkets seem to have nuts on offer at the moment, so I've stocked up and now need to use some of them.
I love pecan pie, but it can be very sweet and rich. These tarts are little versions, but still give you that lovely pecan fix. The recipe comes from a magazine supplement on 'Nuts', from Woman's Weekly, I think.
As it's Thanksgiving Day today, pecans seem appropriate.


Recipe makes 18 tartlets, so you need 2 x 12 bun tins.

I love this pastry as it uses ground almonds as well as flour, which gives it a soft texture.

You need:

Pastry:
150g plain flour
25g caster sugar [golden's best]
50g ground almonds
85g butter, cubed
1 medium beaten egg
2 tspns lemon juice

Filling:
70g melted butter
50g light muscovado sugar
2 medium beaten eggs
2 tbspns golden syrup
juice of 1/2 lemon
100g pecan nuts, chopped but not finely

The pastry is easy to make as you put the flour, sugar, almonds and butter into a food processor and whizz it quickly, or of course you can rub the butter in by hand. Then you add the egg and the lemon juice and a quick whizz again then bring the dough together with your hands.
Wrap in clingfilm and put in fridge for 15 mins.
Roll the pastry out thinly on a floured surface and cut out 18 circles with a 7-8 cm cutter, fluted or plain.
Put into the tins, pressing them in gently. Prick the bottom of each with a fork and chill for about 2 hours or leave overnight in the fridge.

Preheat oven 190C/gas 5

Beat together all the filling ingredients except the pecans, then add the nuts. Put some of this mixture into each pastry case and bake for 15-20 mins till golden. Leave them to cool in the tin for about 10 mins then put onto a wire rack.

I love the filling - not too sweet [for my taste anyway] and with a nice crunchy texture from the pecans. Have already said that the almonds in the pastry give it a great soft texture, a nice contrast to the nutty filling.

Chocolate and pecan loaf

I like making dough for buns and bread, so this month's We Should Cocoa challenge, to make a yeasted dough bread with chocolate, meant that I could try out this recipe which I've had for ages. It was in a leaflet given out with a bag of strong flour. The only difficult thing about the recipe was the size of the tin it was baked in - a 1.8litre or 3 pint loaf tin, as this recipe makes a large loaf. Most of us have a 1 or 2 lb loaf tin, but this size? Anyway, I couldn't find one locally so bought one from Ebay. Maybe you could make the loaf without a tin? I'm sure regular bun/bread makers could tell me? It probably wouldn't keep its shape?

 I've suggested at the end of the post that you use the dough to make sweet rolls instead.

500g strong white flour
3 tbspns butter
1/2tspn salt
50g caster sugar
11/2 tspn fast yeast
2 beaten eggs
175ml milk, warmed

Filling:
125g dark chocolate, chopped finely
125g pecans, walnuts or other nuts roughly chopped
2 tbspn caster sugar
1 egg yolk for glazing

Preheat oven 200C/gas 6
Grease a 1.8l [3pint] loaf tin

Put flour in a large bowl and rub in the butter till it looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in the salt, sugar and yeast. Then add the eggs and gradually add enough warm milk to make a nice soft dough.
Knead well on a lightly floured board for 5 mins till dough elastic. Put it back in the bowl, cover with cliongfilm and leave to rise in a warm place till doubled in size.
*Tip out onto a lightly floured surface/board, knead well then roll out to a 27cm square.
Spread with 3/4 of the chopped chocolate and nuts and all the sugar, leaving 2 cm border around the edges.Roll the dough up like a swiss roll and put into the greased tin. Cover with clingfilm and again leave to rise for 30mins or till dough gets to the top of the tin.
Take film off and brush the top of the loaf with the egg yolk mixed with 1 tbspn water; sprinkle on the rest of the chocolate and nuts.
Bake for 35-40 mins till the loaf is well risen and deep brown colour. While baking, cover top with foil after 10 mins to stop the nuts browning too much.
Cool on a wire rack.

You can use a breadmaker to make the dough and then continue with the recipe from *. [Because the recipe contains milk and egg, you can't use the delay timer facility on the breadmaker.]

 You could use the dough to make small chocolate and nut filled rolls instead, then you wouldn't need to buy a tin! Cut the dough into squares, roll a piece out and put some chocolate and nuts in middle and wrap dough around it.Brush with the egg yolk and water mixture and put them on a greased baking sheet. Not sure how long they would take to cook - you'd have to keep an eye on your oven - about 12-15 mins I should think.

This photo is of some rolls I made ages ago, just with chocolate chips, but it explains what I mentioned above. Put them on a baking sheet with the smooth side on top.

We loved the texture and filling of this loaf. The crunch of the nuts with the melted chocolate and the soft dough - delicious. It's certainly something I'd make again.

We Should Cocoa is a monthly challenge started by  Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog and Chele of Chocolate Teapot blog, and which sometimes has a guest host;  this month it's Nazima of Franglais Kitchen blog. You can read about her challenge here .

Celebration Chocolate Cake

It's Tea Time Treats 1st birthday - congratulations! So the November challenge is to make a suitable Cake.

For me, celebration cakes mean chocolate, so this nice and easy Celebration Chocolate Cake is my offering to the challenge. It's our family recipe which my Mum used to make for my birthdays, and on many other special occasions. Using buttermilk and a combination of sugars gives the cake it's special taste.

125g butter
175g golden caster sugar
175g light muscovado sugar
2 eggs
225g self raising flour
50g cocoa powder
1/4tsp bicarbonate of soda
284ml carton buttermilk

For the icing:

300g golden icing sugar
2tsp cocoa powder
1tbsp light, mild olive oil
3tbsp boiling water
25g plain chocolate, grated

I added:
6 wafer roses

Preheat oven 180C/ gas 4.
Grease and base line 2 x 20cm round cake tins.

Put the butter, caster and muscovado sugars into a bowl and cream together with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, whisking well between each one
Add the flour, cocoa and bicarbonate of soda into the mixture, then pour in the buttermilk. Stir together to create a smooth mixture.
 Divide the cake mixture evenly between the greased tins. Bake for 20-25 mins, until risen and firm.
Cool in tin for 5 mins, then cool cakes on a wire rack.
Sieve the icing sugar and cocoa into a bowl, then pour in the oil and boiling water. Stir until smooth.
Spread half of the icing onto the base of one sponge, then sandwich together with the other. Spread the rest of the icing over the top, using a palette knife dipped in hot water.
Sprinkle on the grated chocolate, and I decorated with some wafer roses I found in the cupboard, as it's a celebration cake.

This is a lovely chocolate cake that’s rich but not too rich – using different sugars gives it a great texture. Easy to make, but a good celebration cake. My daughter gave me the pretty cake stand recently as a 'thank you' for looking after her dog!

Tea Time Treats is a monthly challenge hosted alternately by Karen of Lavender and Lovage blog, and Kate of What Kate Baked blog. This month it's Karen's turn to host, and as I said above, it's the challenge's 1st Birthday so Karen has chosen Cake. Have a look here for more information about the November challenge.

Jammy rings

A while ago I posted a few recipes for biscuits I'd been making.. It's basically one easy recipe which is then tweaked to make variations. This is yet another variation.
 I've had great fun lately making biscuits with my 11 year old grandson, and as one of his favourites is a jammy dodger, we thought we'd have a go at making some. We liked the idea of adding another layer, so there's a thin layer of buttercream under the jam. The first few results were rather wobbly, so the photo is after he and I had cut out and filled a few!
These biscuits fit in with this month's challenge from AlphaBakes, as November's randomly chosen letter is J. More about the challenge later.

Basic recipe is as usual:

225g soft butter
140g caster sugar plus a bit more for sprinkling
1 egg yolk
2 tspn vanilla extract
280g plain flour
pinch salt
1 egg white lightly beaten

For the filling:

55g soft butter
100g icing sugar
5 tbspn jam of your choice - we used strawberry

Preheat oven 190C/gas5
Line 2 baking sheets with some parchment paper or silicone sheets

Beat the butter and sugar together and then beat in the egg yolk and vanilla.
Fold in the flour and salt and stir till well mixed.
Cut the dough in half, make into balls and wrap each piece in clingfilm and put in fridge for about an hour.
Remove from fridge and roll our between 2 layers of clingfilm or baking parchment.
You need 2 cutters -  7cm fluted one and 4cm plain round one.
Recipe makes about 15 complete cookies, so you need to cut out 30 biscuits with the fluted cutter. Put 15 of these on one of the prepared baking sheets, leaving a space between each one, and cut out the middles of the other 15 with the round cutter and remove. [The bits from the middle can be baked separately and iced - great fun!]. Put these rings on the second baking sheet.
Bake for 7 mins then remove from the oven and brush the rings with egg white and sprinkle with sugar, then bake for another 5 mins or so till golden.
Leave biscuits to cool on the sheets for 10 mins then put them on a wire rack.
Jam filling - beat the butter and sugar together till nice and smooth. Spread a layer over the complete biscuits then top this with a thin layer of jam. Put the rings on top and press them together gently.

I have to admit that some of the holes cut out weren't in the centre, but that was part of the fun.

It's a good biscuit mixture, having a nice crunch and it's such a versatile basic recipe.The layer of buttercream gives a surprise element to a jammy dodger. These were a great success according to my grandsons!

AlphaBakes is a monthly baking challenge hosted alternately by Caroline and Ros of Caroline Makes and The More than Occasional Baker blogs. November's host is Caroline. Have a look at the rules here:

http://carolinemakes.blogspot.co.uk/p/alphabakes-challenge.html

Each month a letter is chosen randomly and this month's letter is J, and you bake something beginning with this letter.

Norfolk apple cake

I love apple cakes and am always very happy to find a new recipe. It's a very country looking cake with little chunks of apple and dried fruit. Nothing refined about it, but the taste is good. I love spices and this one has cinnamon and mixed spice.
It's made using the rubbing in method, and I found it difficult to get all the ingredients together. I didn't think I'd mixed it properly, but it came out fine. There's a lot of mixture for 1 egg!

400g apple chopped into dice
125g mixed fruit
125g brown sugar
125g butter
1 large egg
1 tspn cinnamon and 1 tspn mixed spice

Preheat oven 180C/gas4

Grease and line a 20cm springform tin.

Rub together the butter and flour till it looks like breadcrumbs.
Add the egg, sugar and spices and mix together.
Then add the apple and mixed fruit.
Bake for about 35 mins till the middle feels firm when you touch it.

I didn't have any mixed fruit so used raisins. You can see that the apple stayed in little chunks; it's very moist from the apples. It's more of a dessert cake than one to have with a cuppa; we had some with creme fraiche. I like it's chunky look and spicy flavour, and it's a cake I'll make again.