No-Frills Recipes ... cooking, baking & excerpts on travel

This is a simple recipe, no-frills tart that attracts your eyes as well as your taste buds.  A refreshing and appetizing dessert for your sweet tooth after a  scrumptious meal.  You can also choose to enjoy it for tea with a piping hot cup of coffee or tea.  Tastes best when warm. Puff Pastry Peach Tart ~   水蜜桃挞 Ingredients 1 puff pastry sheet, 8 inch square, thawed and cut into 4 pieces 1 can of Peach halves, cut egg white icing sugar to dust Method Roll up the 4 sides of the pastry dough, about 1/4 inch. Brush some peach syrup on the dough and place the peaches on it. Brush some syrup over the peaches and apply egg white all round the pastry dough. Bake in a preheated oven @ 200 deg.C for about 20 mins. till the pastry is brown and all puffed up. Dust on icing sugar before serving.   Best to serve warm. Yield :  4 tarts

This is a quick and easy recipe made with store bought puff pastry.   Delicious with fresh apples and sheets of puff pastry.  Serve them for dessert with a scoop of ice cream or just drizzle on some cream. Apple Puff Pastries  ~   简易苹果派           Ingredients 1.1/2 sheets of 8 inch sq rough puff pastry (store-bought) 2 crunchy red apples 2 tsp cinnamon 3 tsp sugar 1 egg lightly beaten icing sugar for dusting Method Thaw the pastry and cut into 6 pieces. Cut apples into half, remove the core and slice into 4 mm thick slices. Arrange the pastries on a parchment lined baking tray. Prick the pastry with a fork and brush with beaten egg. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar on the pastry. Arrange apple slices on top and sprinkle more cinnamon sugar.   Bake in a preheated oven @ 200 deg.C for 20 to 25 mins. Let cool and dust with icing sugar. Yield :  6 puff pastries.

I took the opportunity to try my hands at making puff pastry from scratch when I was on vacation as the weather was quite cooling and I assumed that the dough wouldn't be sticky and messy to handle. I could make both oil and water dough easily and there were no 'sweat and tears', LOL!  The pastries turned out nice and flaky and everybody gave their thumbs up for this dim sum, especially my dear grandnephew who asked for more! Oil dough - Sieve the plain flour into a mixing bowl, add in the cold, cubed butter, mash with a fork and slowly combine to form a soft dough.  Wrap up with clingwrap and keep in the fridge for 30 mins.  (You can do this with a food processor if you wish), Water dough - Sieve the plain flour into a mixing bowl, add in the slightly  beaten egg yolks, mix well, add ice cold water gradually ,( you may not require the whole amount of water as too much water can make the pastry tough), mix well and form into a dough.  Wrap up ...

We in Malaysia had a very exciting weekend as Sunday, 5th May 2013   was our  long awaited 13th General Election.  The day seemed to drag on at a snail's pace and to keep myself busy, I made these nutty tarts so that we can snack on them while waiting eagerly for the results to be announced.  The nibbed almonds blended very well with the bittersweet chocolate to which I've added some Kahlua. Recipe for Almond Chocolate Tart (please refer  here   for the sweet crust pastry) Ingredients for the filling 40 gm nibbed almonds 1  Tbsp golden syrup 1  Tbsp Kahlua 1  Tbsp melted butter 1 oz dark unsweetened chocolate, melted 1/2  egg 1.1/2 oz sugar Method Melt the chocolate, set to cool. In a bowl, whisk the eggs, add in sugar, golden syrup, melted butter, salt and Kahlua.  Continue whisking, stir in the melted chocolate, mix well. Pour the filling onto the tart shell. Sprinkle on the nibbed almonds. Plac...

Chinese New Year is not too far away and a quick look at the supermarkets and bakeries revealed that the prices of the festive goodies have gone up again.  Prices of  food stuff have gone up drastically and look like they are here to stay.  It's much more economical  to DIY when you know how to do so....... These Pineapple 'Closed' Tarts are a bit different from the  Nastar   I posted previously.  Shaping the tarts this way is less time consuming and moreover they taste just as good! Recipe for Pineapple Tarts ~ CNY 2013 Ingredients  125 gm butter/margarine 25 gm icing sugar 1 egg yolk 190 gm plain flour 1 Tbsp cornflour 1/8  tsp salt 1/4  tsp vanilla 370 gm pineapple paste 1 egg yolk + 1  tsp water = egg glaze Method Sift the plain flour with salt, mix in the cornflour, set aside. Cream the butter with icing sugar till light, add in the egg yolk, vanilla.  Mix well. Add in the fl...

Walnut Tart ~ My first attempt at making tarts.  I  googled for an easy crust recipe to make the tart shell and after watching a video from Joyofbaking.com., set out to experiment.  I was overjoyed when the tarts came out well but on scrutinising them further, found that the edges were  thick.  Nonetheless,  the tarts were yum and my family loved it! See the thick edges .... never mind more crust to munch on!   Will definitely try to improve. Recipe for Walnut Tart  ( Sweet crust pastry adapted from Joy of Baking.com) Ingredients for Sweet Crust Pastry  210 gm plain flour  1/8 tsp salt 113 gm butter/margarine 50 gm sugar 1 egg Egg white to seal the crust  Method Whisk the plain flour and salt, set aside.  Beat the butter till softened, add in sugar and beat till light and fluffy. Gradually add in the egg, beating just till incorporated. Add flour mixture all at once and mix just unti...

  These rolls/tarts are shaped like a pineapple but instead of pineapple paste, I put in unseeded dates, for a change.  'Wong Lai', that's Cantonese for pineapple which literally means 'luck coming' is auspicious for the coming Chinese New Year which will fall on 3rd February, Thursday, and this year is the year of the Rabbit. 

I made these Tartlets using the silicone boat shaped moulds, a gift from MaryMoh of   'Keep Learning Keep Smiling  '  when we met up in London a few months ago.  Do hop over to her blog to view her many fabulous recipes some of which are her original creations.  These tarts are indeed delicious and will be great as finger food or  as a light and refreshing dessert.  The recipe for the pastry was adapted from my post on    'Egg  Tart'.

There are two popular outlets for Egg Tarts in Ipoh, one is   Hong Kee confectionary @ Kedai Kopi Weng Seng in new town and the other is Choy Kee @ Simee wet market.  Hop over to their sites to see what else they have to offer. Now, coming back to my post.  My first attempt at making puff pastry egg tarts was a failure, the pastry turned out hard!   So I flipped through my old recipe books and came across a 'Pate Sucree' foundation recipe for pastries which looked easy enough to experiment with.  The result was satisfactory and even though it's not puff pastry, it did go down well with the egg custard, well at least the guinea pig remarked that this time around, the tarts do have some 'standard'!  That's a consolation! I followed 'Frozen Wings' egg custard recipe but tweaked it slightly.  Also, I adhered to Christine's instructions on baking the tarts and indeed her tips were good and very useful.  A big thank you to bot...

I just made these today ...... Nastar, the Indonesian version of Pineapple Tarts/Rolls.  This is a festive must have as it's symbolic.  Pineapple which is 'wong lai' in Cantonese carries a homonym that sounds like 'good luck, good fortune coming'! I didn't make the pineapple jam as it's a tedious task of stirring and stirring for an hour or so and in this hot weather, it's definitely not for me.   Took the easy way out, bought the pineapple paste from the baking ingredients outlet.  Nevertheless, I've posted the recipe for the pineapple jam just in case some of you may like to have this home made. The pineapple paste made into small balls to be used as filling for the roll.  The nastar mould which is used to press out the strip of dough.  Press out out into a strip of about 3.1/2 inches in length, place a ball of jam on one end and roll up the pastry as in a Swiss roll. This melt-in-the-mouth pastry has always been a hot favo...