Chocolate Caramel Tartlets

Lately I have found myself slightly more obsessed with high tea than usual, to the extent that I’ve been requesting high tea recipe books from the library to read. This has been a dangerous move as I’ve spent lots of time (when I should be doing other things) pouring over the pages and marking recipes that I want to try. I find a huge conflict in myself in how much I enjoy making/eating sweet foods and how much I also value healthy eating and a balanced lifestyle with exercise. Everything in moderation I suppose. So in saying that, I want to share my favourite recipe that I’ve found so far – Chocolate Caramel Tartlets. They are so cute and yummy (and tiny so you don’t need to worry about your waistline unless you eat 10 in one sitting). I really need to find some ‘healthy’ high tea recipes (if there is such a thing)…

 Chocolate Caramel Tartlets

Ingredients:
Tart cases
110g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup desiccated coconut
1/2 cup soft brown sugar
125g butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla essence

Caramel filling
1/2 a 395g tin sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup soft brown sugar
80g butter
2 tblsp golden syrup

Chocolate topping
100g dark chocolate (I used 70% cocoa)
15g butter

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius. Grease two 12-hole mini muffin tins.
2. For the cases, mix all of the dry ingredients together in a medium sized bowl. Add melted butter and vanilla essence, mix until combined. Press firmly into tins to cover the bases and sides. (NB. The recipe I used suggested that the base mix would make double the tart cases to what I made, so I guess it depends how thinly you can spread the base. I quite like a thicker base because it means the tart isn't so sweet with so much caramel. If you do make more cases you will need to increase the amount of caramel filling and chocolate topping that you make).
3. Bake the tart cases for 12 minutes, or until light golden and crisp. Every oven is different, so keep an eye on them.
4. To make the caramel filling, mix all of the filling ingredients in a saucepan over a low heat until the sugar dissolves. Bring to a simmer for 5 minutes or until the mixture darkens - make sure you are stirring it constantly so it doesn't catch on the bottom of your saucepan.
5. Spoon the filling into the tartlet cases straightaway and bake for 5-8 minutes until caramel is bubbling around the edges.
6. Allow to cool for 10 minutes  and then transfer to a wire rack to cool. If you have greased the tins they should come out easily enough - I just turned the tins upside down and tapped the bottom of the tin.



Tartlets after the caramel filling has been baked.




7. For the topping, break the chocolate up into small pieces into a microwave safe bowl and add butter. Melt in microwave for 30 second bursts on medium, stirring in-between, until chocolate has mostly melted. Continue stirring until topping is smooth. Using a teaspoon, spoon each tart with enough topping to cover the top of the tart. Leave to set.

Makes 24. Apparently they're meant to keep in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks, but mine haven't lasted that long...

Recipe adapted from High Tea: Recipes with a Sense of Occasion.

Gluten Free Red Velvet Cake

I know this is a little unrelated to high tea, but I had to share this gluten free recipe that I found online last week. I had dinner with some friends over the weekend and offered to bring dessert, and was given a joking request for gluten free red velvet cake (my friend is gluten free). Not one to shy away from a baking challenge, I spent a lot of time online searching for a recipe and below is the one that I found that looked the best. My friend was amazed at how good it was (she has previously had some bad gluten free experiences) and I was impressed at how it turned out as it was my first attempt at baking gluten free. I altered the recipe a little due to availability of ingredients and the comments below the original recipe so I’ve included the original link so you can check that out too. The texture is a little different due to being gluten free but it’s moist and tasty and doesn’t take too long to make. A winner I would say. I like to serve a sponge cake when serving high tea so this could be an alternative?

Gluten Free Red Velvet Cake (this was all that was left when I remembered to take a photo)

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups canola oil
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs, beaten


2 1/2 cups gluten free flour mix (I used Orgran Gluten Free all purpose plain flour which is a mix of maize starch/cornflower, tapioca flour and rice flour and the vegetable gum guar. This was just bought from my local supermarket)
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

1 cup buttermilk (or 1 tbsp white vinegar and 1 cup milk left for five minutes to stand)
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp red food coloring
2 tbsp cocoa

Cream cheese icing:
50g butter, softened
150g icing sugar (this is approximate, I generally just keep adding icing sugar until I get the desired consistency)
125g cream cheese (I like using low fat cream cheese but this makes the icing quite soft)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Cream the oil and sugar with an electric beater. Add one egg at a time while still beating, ensuring that the eggs are well combined with the oil and sugar mixture.
   
3. Sift dry ingredients into a clean bowl.
4. Add dry ingredients to the batter in four parts, alternating with the buttermilk, mixing each part in before adding the next.
5. Mix a paste with the cocoa, red food coloring, and vanilla essence. You may need to add a bit of water to this to make sure that it becomes a paste. Gently stir it into the mixture.
6. Pour the mixture into two cake tins (I used 8-inch cake tins) that have been lined with baking paper and the sides sprayed with non-stick baking spray. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for approximately 25 minutes
7. When the cakes are completely cool, ice with cream cheese icing.

Cream cheese icing: Beat butter and icing sugar together so there are no large lumps of butter remaining. Add cream cheese, beating slowly until combined. Increase speed of electric beater and mix until soft and fluffy. (You can use your favourite cream cheese icing recipe on this cake as long as it's not citrus based.)

Adapted from http://www.glutenfreecookingschool.com/archives/gluten-free-red-velvet-cake/

Bacon, Cheese & Parsley Savouries

Ingredients:
3 sheets frozen puff pastry, thawed
2 cups grated cheese
4 rashers rindless streaky bacon, chopped into small pieces
2 eggs
3/4 cup cream
2 tablespoons parsley
Salt and pepper

Bacon, cheese and parsley savouries

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius and spray two tartlet tins with non-stick baking spray.
2. Cut 24 circles out of the pastry (use a cutter that fits your tins) and place into the tray. Sprinkle these with equal amounts of cheese and bacon. (Make sure to not overfill them).
3. Beat eggs, cream, parsley, salt and pepper together in a bowl. Pour into and small jug and fill each tartlet to 3/4 full.
4. Bake for 15-20 minutes until puffed and golden. Twist the savouries to loosen them from the tins and cool on a wire rack.
5. Serve warm or reheat later. Apparently they also freeze well but they didn't last long enough at my house to find out...

They were quite rich but delicious! They are also really quick and easy to make.

Recipe taken from It's Easier than You Think by Jo Seagar. (I definitely recommend this recipe book, it has some fantastic recipes).

Custard Fruit Flans

Ingredients:
1 pack of sweet short pastry (you can make it yourself but I prefer to buy it premade - it tastes just as good and is much faster!)

Custard fruit flans (top and middle tier of the cake stand)

Custard Cream
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 egg yolks
1/3 cup caster sugar
2 tbsp cornflour
1/3 cup cream, whipped

1. Grease two 12-hole mini muffin tins. Roll out half the pastry between sheets of baking paper or on a lightly floured bench. Cut out rounds to fit the mini muffin tins and press into pans. (My Mum always recommends using a small ball of pastry to push it into the tin to avoid stretching or poking holes in the pastry). Repeat with the remaining pastry. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
2. Preheat oven to 220 degrees Celcius.
3. Bake cases about 12 minutes (different ovens will take different lengths of time, just keep an eye on them). Cool on a wire rack. (I made these the day before I needed them to save some time - store them in an air tight container).
4. Custard cream: Combine milk and extract in a small saucepan; bring to the boil. Meanwhile, beat egg yolks, sugar and cornflour  in a small bowl with an electric mixer until thick. While still beating, gradually beat the hot milk mixture in. Return custard to pan and stir over heat until the mixture boils and thickens. Cover the surface of the custard with Gladwrap and refrigerate for one hour. Fold cream into custard in two batches.
5. Spoon the custard into the pastry cases and top with fresh fruit - raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, kiwifruit, mandarin segments, grapes, etc.

These are really good! The custard cream isn't too heavy and has just the right balance of vanilla and custard flavouring.

This recipe was taken from The Australian Women's Weekly Afternoon Tea recipe book.