tart

Crack Pie

- Michael 3 Comments

Crack Pie - Butter Tart

This is going to be my last post of 2017 and I feel like it’s a good one to sign out on. It’s actually been in the works from as far back as last August, when I went to New York. Whenever I’ve baked this recipe in that time the photos I’ve taken just haven’t been good enough, and for a recipe as good as this one, the photos need to do it justice. So lets rewind to August of 2016; after a day walking around Manhattan in the baking heat we sought out Milk Bar, part of the famed Momofuku group, to stock up on some bakes. Crack Pie had come recommended, and with such a ludicrous name, it sounded like something I needed to try. I didn’t realise that I was about to have one of the single most decadent desserts of my life. Crack Pie is essentially a butter tart, so think a dense layer of gooey, buttery filling sitting on top of a biscuit base.
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Vegan Chocolate & Caramel Tarte

- Michael 1 Comment

Vegan Chocolate & Caramel Tart

I’m almost 3 weeks into Vegan May and so far, so good. Yeah, OK, I miss cheese a little bit, but having gone to Club Mexicana last weekend and eaten some of their Vegan Cheese Fries the craving was satiated slightly. We hosted some friends over the weekend for Eurovision and I decided to try and bake something for us all to share after we’d had a little bit too much to drink. Having tackled vegan cinnamon buns I wanted to do something else which usually relies pretty heavily on dairy, a Vegan Chocolate & Salted Caramel Tart. Caramel usually has stacks of cream and butter, a ganache filling is filled with cream and pastry, almost by definition, is crammed full of butter. Read more

Blackberry Sloe Gin Tart & Gin Explorer Box

- Michael 2 Comments

Blackberry Sloe Gin Tart

Gin is good. If you’ve ready any of my other posts on the matter you’ll know my feelings about it by now, but if you’re unsure then go look at them here and here. It’s obviously best when drinking, but every now and then it’s fun to cook or bake with it. It lends itself best to go alongside citrus or floral flavours, like lemon or earl grey, but in this recipe I wanted to go for something more autumnal, and wanted something to partner with the sloe gin from my Gin Explorer Box.
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Chocolate & Whipped Cream Pie

- Michael Leave a comment

Chocolate Pie

I haven’t blogged in a month, and with good reason. There’s more on that later but for now, lets talk chocolate. I was given the Mast Brothers cookbook for my birthday and, as much as they may have been surrounded in controversy in December, that doesn’t effect the quality of the book. It is still packed with a great range of chocolate based recipes. From the simple all the way through to the more complex. I wanted to make something that wasn’t just one of their basics, but wasn’t in the mood to properly spend the time tempering chocolate. This left a few intriguing looking recipes, and with the realisation that I’ve not made a proper chocolate tart since last summer, I decided to make their Chocolate Pie with Whipped Cream.
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Chocolate Tart

- Michael 10 Comments

Chocolate Tart

I have a bit of a backlog. I seem to open half my posts with that. I need to get my act together. I’ve been so busy (again, and I was expecting such a quiet July…) and a lot of that is blog related. I took advantage of working from home during the tube strike last week though to do some baking (gaining a couple of hours back in a day is pretty hand when you don’t have to travel). Having said that, it did take me 2.5 hours to get home from a Selfridges event I attended on the Wednesday night (more on that to come soon). The great thing about a Chocolate Tart is that while it needs plenty of chill time, the actual hands on time is fairly minimal.
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