Fig, goat’s cheese & chocolate tartlets

This month’s We Should Cocoa challenge ingredient, hosted by Choclette at Chocolate Log Blog, is “cheese.”  That’s right, we’re supposed to make something involving cheese… and chocolate.  I think the most obvious way of combining the two would be in the form of a cheesecake, but I’m not a fan of cheesecake (to put it mildly).  I have made cheesecake a grand total of once in my entire life, as a birthday gift for somebody who absolutely adored cheesecake.  However, the cheesecake, which, by the way, was delicious – and I know that for a fact because Kat and Craig tested the trial run for me, and I definitely trust them to tell me the truth, especially in this particular situation – suffered a terrible fate which I’m just going to refer to as the “cheesecake incident” (but if you desperately want to know what happened, I’ll refer you to point number 4 in this post) and move on, because the incident still irks me, over a year later (in case you couldn’t tell).  Somewhat ironically, the white chocolate and lime cheesecake in question was my entry for the We Should Cocoa challenge back in March 2011.

Since it’ll clearly be a while before I ever attempt another cheesecake, I had to come up with some other way of combining cheese and chocolate.  I’ve just remembered the cream cheese Kahlúa brownies that I made a few months ago – they would also have been perfect for this challenge (a bit late to think of that now though!).  Now I must admit that I’m what can only be described as a cheese fiend, but I have never considered combining cheese (proper cheese, not cream cheese) with chocolate and I was at a bit of a loss.  For inspiration, I looked the combination up in the Flavour Thesaurus, which only had an entry for chocolate and goat’s cheese, but said that they went surprisingly well together.  Initially I wasn’t sure how I could combine the chocolate and goat’s cheese, but then I hit upon the idea of a chocolate pastry case and a goat’s cheese filling of some sort.  My inspiration sort of stopped there though, and it wasn’t until a few days later that somebody mentioned something about figs and I suddenly thought of the roast figs with honey and goat’s cheese that I’ve previously posted, and wondered if I could do something similar… but in a chocolate pastry case.  There was only one way to find out…

I picked up some delicious figs at the Farmers’ Market this morning, headed home, dug out a chocolate shortcrust pastry recipe, and gave it a go.  Conveniently, the pastry requires some resting time, so I got some reading done (though unfortunately it was really boring – the biochemical workings of elasmobranch electroreceptors anyone…?  No?  You surprise me.).  I’d never tried the pastry recipe before – it tasted good, but it was very fragile, possibly because I might have rolled it a little too thinly, so I had difficulties getting a couple of the tartlets out of their tins in one piece.  I’ll have to try it again but not rolled as thinly to see if it’s a problem with the pastry in general or just this particular attempt.  The chocolate isn’t an overpowering flavour in the tartlets, but you can definitely taste it, and it goes wonderfully with the fig and goat’s cheese filling.  All in all, except for the pastry, I’m really pleased with how these turned out!  And they would definitely make an unusual but super-tasty dessert.  Since figs are in season here (did you know that they grow figs in NZ?  I didn’t!), I’m also submitting this to the Simple and in Season blog event over at Fabulicious Food – although the pastry is a bit of a faff, they’re actually super simple to throw together.

Makes 6 tartlets
Pastry recipe from Petits plats entre amis
Filling recipe from my imagination

The number of figs required may differ depending on the size of the figs that you are using.  The rosemary is totally optional, but it adds a subtle flavour that’s a little different and unexpected.  For the chocolate pastry, make sure not to roll it too thin as I found that it’s very fragile and quite difficult to get out of the tins without breaking.  Mini springform pans would be ideal, or silicone bakeware that can easily be “peeled off” the tartlets.  The pastry needs to rest for 2h before being used, so remember to plan accordingly!  The pastry recipe makes twice the amount required for the recipe, so either double the filling ingredients or make something else with it (it works for biscuits).  These tartlets won’t keep very well, so they are best eaten the day they are made.

Ingredients

For the pastry (makes double the amount required):
250g all-purpose flour
200g unsalted butter
120g icing sugar
50g cocoa powder
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp cold water

For the filling:
12 medium-sized figs
A few sprigs of fresh rosemary (optional)
100g crumbly creamy goat’s cheese
6 tbsp walnut pieces
6 tbsp honey

Directions

For the pastry:
1.  Pour the flour into a large mixing bowl, and make a well in the middle.  Add the rest of the pastry ingredients, and mix together with a fork.  Then, knead together until the pastry comes together and is well incorporated (don’t worry if this seems to be taking a while – it does come together eventually).  Form into a ball, wrap in cling-film and rest for 2h in the fridge.

Assembling the tartlets:
2.  Remove the pastry from the fridge, and allow to acclimatise a little for about 10-15 mins.  Meanwhile butter six 10cm tartlet tins and pre-heat the oven to 180°C.

3.  Split the pastry into six even pieces, and roll each one out individually to fit a tartlet tin.  Make sure not to roll it too thinly (no less than about 6mm).  Line the tins with the pastry, and prick it with a fork.  Line each pastry case with a piece of baking paper and some baking beans, and bake blind for 12 mins.

4.  Meanwhile, quarter the figs.  When the tartlets have been blind-baked, remove from the oven, and remove the baking beans.  Make sure that the pastry case loosens from the tin.  Arrange the fig quarters in the pastry cases (8 quarters per tartlet).  Strip the sprigs of rosemary and sprinkle the leaves evenly between the tartlets, followed by the crumbled goat’s cheese and walnut pieces.  Drizzle 1 tbsp of honey over each tartlet and bake for 15-20 mins.

5.  Once baked, allow the tartlets to cool a little in their tins (the liquid will bubble down a bit and become a little less liquid-y) before turning out onto a wire rack.  Eat warm or cooled.

Enjoy!

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World Domination vs. mini-croissants

For this month’s Random Recipe challenge, Dom banked on the high likelihood that food bloggers received at least one recipe book for Christmas.  The theme is “new year, new book“, which I think is pretty self explanatory – this month’s recipe had to be chosen from our newest book.  As correctly predicted by Dom, my newest recipe book was, indeed, a gift for Christmas.  It was a wonderful gift from my friend Emma, whom I went to visit in Paris to bring in the New Year.  It wasn’t just a recipe book, it was a recipe gift set.  Although I didn’t immediately realise that.  On opening the gift, my eyes were drawn to the shiny part and I thought she’d given me some sort of torture implement to help me on my way with my (not so) secret plan for World Domination.  I then saw the accompanying book entitled Mini-croissants pour l’apéritif, and realised that it wasn’t a torture implement at all but a mini-croissant cutter.  Uhm, hello amazing idea (the croissant cutter, not torture.  Obviously.).

The random number generator on my trusty calculator directed me to a recipe for goat’s cheese and rosemary mini-croissants.  How yummy do those sound?!  So with the deadline for the challenge rapidly approaching (not that it’s today or anything, ahem) I put my plans for World Domination on the back-burner (for now) and decided to give these mini-croissants a go.  I wasn’t dreading making them or anything, I just haven’t been organised enough.  Speaking of lack of organisation, I totally failed to take part in last month’s Random Recipe challenge.  And you know why?  Because we left for France a whole two days earlier than I was expecting, and when I realised this it was too late because the recipe required overnight soaking.  I will eventually make that recipe though.  I might need to work on my planning skills before World Domination becomes a reality.

In the meantime, I’m all about the mini-croissants.  They are so cute!!  And delicious!!  I clearly need to work on my croissant-rolling skills, but I’ll let myself off since these were my first try.  I didn’t make the puff pastry, so these were super-quick and easy to prepare.  Which is always a good thing.  The original recipe called for pine nuts rather than walnuts, but guess who forgot to check whether we had any pine nuts?  Ya, me.  How did you guess?  The walnuts worked perfectly with the goat’s cheese and rosemary though, so potential disaster was averted.  I wasn’t sure whether these would come out a bit dry, but they came out perfect.  If I didn’t have to share them with my mum, I could easily have inhaled the whole batch!

Goat’s cheese, walnut & rosemary mini-croissants

Makes 16-18 mini-croissants
Adapted from Mini-croissants pour l’apéritif

These are perfect to serve as little appetisers, or as a savoury snack, and are delicious whether served warm or cold.  Using shop-bought puff pastry is absolutely fine (I usually do), though do make sure that it’s good quality butter-based pastry (rather than margarine or something).  For the goat’s cheese, I used a soft and crumbly cheese, but I’m sure a grated hard goat’s cheese or even a creamy goat’s cheese would work, although the flavours and texture would change a little.

Ingredients

200g puff pastry
3 sprigs rosemary
80g fresh goat’s cheese
20g chopped walnuts
Freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 egg yolk

Directions

1.  Line a baking tray with baking paper.  Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.

2.  Roll out the pastry to about 3mm thickness.  Use the roller to cut out 18 little triangles.  If you don’t have a mini-croissant roller, use a knife to cut strips of pastry of about 8cm in width.  Then divide these strips into triangles (the base should be about 9.5 cm wide).

3.  Strip the rosemary leaves from the sprigs, chop and set aside.  In a small bowl, mix the goat’s cheese, chopped walnuts and some freshly ground black pepper (add to taste) together.  Deposit about ½ a teaspoon of the cheese mixture at the base of each triangle, and sprinkle with a small pinch of the chopped rosemary (there should still be some rosemary left over once all the triangles are done).

4.  Starting from the base of the triangle, roll the triangle up towards the tip to form a croissant, sealing them as best as possible (to prevent the filling from leaking out whist baking).  Place the mini-croissants on the baking tray.

5.  Brush the croissants with the egg yolk (add a couple of drops of water if the egg yolk is too thick) and sprinkle with the remaining chopped rosemary.  Bake for 20 mins, until golden.

Enjoy!

Roast figs with honey & goat’s cheese

My mum is currently on holiday, which means that I’ve been left to fend for myself for two weeks.  I managed to fend for myself, feed myself, and generally survive during my four years of university, so this isn’t exactly a challenge.  Far from it, in fact.  Since I don’t have any essays or deadlines to worry about, I can play around with food-related ideas without having to feel guilty because I should actually be reading papers or pulling my hair out analysing data.  Not that that ever really stopped me anyway…  In theory, I could try out recipes and churn out a batch of cupcakes or macarons or cookies every day.  There’s just one teeny tiny little problem…  I have nobody to share all these theoretical baked goods with, and there’s no way I could eat an entire batch every single day without making myself feel sick (plus, I already don’t go to the gym nearly as often as I’d like, so eating a batch of baked goods every day probably wouldn’t help matters.  And I’d also like to avoid diabetes for a little longer, thanks).

In St Andrews, it was easy to find eager recipients for baked goods – I suspect that a large proportion of my friends were only friends with me because they wanted cake.  In Edinburgh, I have a grand total of one friend (actually that’s a lie, I managed to bump the total up to two yesterday.  Oh the achievement.  Actually, it’s not even much of an achievement – I already knew them, I just didn’t know they were currently studying in Edinburgh).  So I can’t really try a new muffin/cookie/macaron flavour every day and share the results.  But I still want to try out new recipes, particularly since I currently have the time.  The obvious solution is to experiment with savoury recipes, because even if I don’t want to eat a batch of cupcakes every day, I’ll definitely be eating lunch and dinner, thanks very much.  And breakfast, too, obviously, though I’m usually not too keen on having to put a significant amount of effort into breakfast before I can sit down and actually eat it (muffins baked the night before though, no problem).  I’ve cooked quite a few delicious dinners or lunches that I would have liked to share, but haven’t been happy with the photos.  I find it quite difficult to make savoury foods look really appetising in photos and I would also quite like to eat my dinner warm.  I think I just need more practice in styling food brilliantly and quickly.  A lot of practice.  Ideally, I’d also like a proper camera, but my little five-year old point-and-shoot camera usually manages alright with cupcakes and macarons, so I don’t think my camera is really the problem…  (Any tips on photographing savoury food appetisingly are definitely welcome!)

Anyway, you well wonder where all this rambling is going (I may or may not be wondering the same thing).  My original point was that I’m currently on my own, which means that if a particular food experiment fails miserably doesn’t quite work, having toast and pâté for dinner is a totally acceptable back-up plan.  I’m not sure that my mum would agree, so I’ve been trying a few ideas out.  Ideas of the I’ve-no-idea-what-I’m-doing-so-I’ll-just-make-this-up-as-I-go-along-but-I’m-sure-it’ll-be-fine variety.  When I was in Waitrose a few days ago, I saw they were selling fresh figs at half price, and since it’s getting to the end of fig season, and they were in really good condition and just looked so tempting, I bought a packet (I’m like a retailer’s dream customer sometimes – ooo it looks pretty, ooo it’s half price, yes please!).  When I got home, I remembered that I don’t really like fresh figs.  I know, I know.  But they looked so beautiful…  Anyway, I decided that roasting them with honey would probably make them a delicious dessert, because honey makes everything better.  Then I had a moment of inspiration yesterday, and I decided to make them savoury by adding walnuts, goat’s cheese and rosemary and have them for dinner.  My theory was that the goat’s cheese and rosemary would make it savoury enough to work as a dinner, even with the honey (back-up plan: toast).  And you know what?  It totally worked!  The dish turned out to be ridiculously easy to throw together (except that I couldn’t find our stash of rosemary, so I had to use thyme instead), and it turns out that I love roasted figs.  Now, excuse me whilst I go see if Waitrose have any beautiful half-price fresh figs left…

Serves 2 as a starter, 1 as a light meal
From my imagination

I’d originally planned to use rosemary, but our supply appears to have run away, so I used thyme instead – both work really well, so just use whichever you prefer or have available.  This recipe is super easy and quick to throw together, so it would make a delicious but easy starter or quick lunch.  The ingredient quantities are more guidelines than anything else.

Ingredients

Handful of walnut halves
4 fresh figs
4 tbsp of runny honey
Several sprigs thyme or rosemary (or about 1 tbsp if using dried herbs)
70g crumbly goat’s cheese

Directions

1.  Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.

2.  In a small frying pan, lightly toast the walnut halves for a few minutes, until they start to release their smell (make sure not to let them burn).  Remove from the heat, allow to cool a little and roughly chop (depending on how large you want the pieces to be).

3.  Cut a cross in the top of the figs to about half way down the fig so that they open up a bit if gently squeezed at the bottom (I cut a little too close to the bottom on mine so they opened right up when roasted) and place in a small roasting tin.  Sprinkle the chopped toasted walnuts into the opened figs, dividing evenly between the four.  Drizzle about 1 tbsp per fig of honey over the walnuts (don’t worry if some of the honey spills out of the figs).  Finely chop the thyme or rosemary and sprinkle over the honey (or add a large pinch of dried herbs to each fig), followed by the crumbled goat’s cheese (don’t worry if some falls out of the fig), finished off with some roughly ground or cracked black pepper.

4.  Roast in the oven for 10-12 mins, until the goat’s cheese begins to melt and just turn golden.  Serve immediately on a bed of salad (peppery rocket works really well) with the juices from the roasting tin drizzled over the top.

Enjoy!

Breakfast Club #11: Goat’s cheese & rosemary muffins

This month’s Breakfast Club challenge is hosted by Johanna at Green Gourmet Giraffe, and the theme is “Savoury vegetarian.”  Sounds straightforward enough, but it was actually a real challenge for me, because I’m not really a savoury breakfast person – sweet breakfasts all the way, thanks very much.  Still, that’s the whole point of a challenge, so time to bite the bullet and come up with something savoury (I wasn’t too worried about the vegetarian thing – I’m not a fan of meat in the morning anyway, so that was unlikely to be an issue).

So, a savoury breakfast.  Gosh.  I’m a total cheese fiend I quite like cheese, and will happily eat it at pretty much any time of day, and I absolutely love muffins, so I decided to go down the cheesy muffin route.  I had some goat’s cheese in the fridge that conveniently needed using up, and some rosemary in the freezer that also needed using up, and they happen to make a lovely combination, so I decided to give goat’s cheese and rosemary muffins a go for breakfast this morning.

The problem with making muffins for breakfast is that they take forever to make.  Well, ok, not forever, but I’m a pretty impatient person, especially in the morning.  But oh they are so worth it.  Yummy.  They’re tasty both warm or cold, and whilst lovely for breakfast, they would also work wonderfully as picnic food, or an afternoon snack (I might be munching on one as I write this).  I have to admit though, I’m still firmly in the sweet breakfast camp.

Goat’s cheese & rosemary muffins

Makes 16 muffins
Adapted from Mad About Muffins

These are lovely warm, but are also super tasty when cool, which makes them great for picnic food.  The original recipe calls for thyme rather than rosemary, and I’ve made both versions, and they’re both yummy, so really just use whatever you’ve got to hand (assuming it will go with goat’s cheese).  Using a goat’s cheese log with a soft rind means that you don’t have to remove the rind and it will melt into the muffins.  Also, using a cheese that hasn’t matured too much means that it will be easier to cut and separate.  If you’re making these for vegetarians, do make sure you choose a goat’s cheese suitable for vegetarians.

Ingredients

200g goat’s cheese
100g butter
300g all-purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
15g caster sugar
Pinch salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
5g fresh rosemary (about 5-6 sprigs) + extra for topping
2 eggs
185ml milk

Directions

1.  Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C.  Grease and flour 16 muffin tins sections, or line with paper liners or set out silicone moulds.  Roughly chop the goat’s cheese into 1cm dice.  Melt the butter in a small saucepan.

2.  Sift the flour, baking powder, caster sugar, salt and pepper into a large bowl.  Tip any bits of black pepper that haven’t gone through the sieve.  Strip the leaves from the rosemary and roughly chop them, before adding to the dry ingredients, stirring well.

3.  In another bowl, beat the eggs and milk together with a fork.

4.  Pour the egg and milk mixture and the melted butter to the dry ingredients, and fold together with a metal spoon until just combined.  Then add the diced goat’s cheese, and fold in gently (try not to over-mix).  Spoon the batter into the muffin tin sections/liners/moulds.  Top each muffin with a small sprig of rosemary to decorate (optional).

5.  Bake for 22-25 mins until golden and well risen and the tops spring back when gently pressed (watch for hot cheese).  Transfer to a wire rack to cool before eating (though they are also tasty warm).

Enjoy!

Random Recipe #2: Roasted tomato & red onion salad

Another month, and another food blog challenge that I happen to have discovered…  Now I already participate in three monthly food blogging challenges (Breakfast Club, Mac Attack and We Should Cocoa) and as much as I love my blog and baking/cooking and posting new recipes, well, I am also supposed to be working on a dissertation.  A dissertation, I should add, that is worth a quarter of my final degree classification (no pressure).  So ya, three challenges are quite enough – priorities and all that…

But here’s the thing – we all have cookbooks full of recipes that, despite our best intentions, we never quite get around to trying out.  And Belleau Kitchen‘s Random Recipe challenge addresses exactly that: basically, it involves randomly picking a cookbook and then randomly picking a recipe within it, and then trying it out.  Genius!  So even though I’d decided to draw the line at three challenges, I couldn’t really not get involved in this one, could I?

So for this month, we had to line up our recipe books and pick the 18^th from the left, which in my case was a French one, “La Cuisine des paresseuses,” which loosely translates as “Cooking for lazy people.”  It’s a lovely little book that my French Aunt and Uncle gave me for my 18^th birthday (were they trying to tell me something?).  It’s full of tasty recipes that are straightforward and reasonably quick to prepare, which as a student, can be really helpful!  So I happily plucked it off the shelf, knowing that whichever recipe I landed on was unlikely to be particularly complicated or time-consuming in its preparation, meaning more time for dissertation-ing (totally a word).

The next step was to pick the actual recipe.  We’re supposed to flick through the book and stop randomly, but well, that’s not a particularly rigorous methodology (I won’t bore you with a mini analysis of the multiple sources of bias), so I had to be all scientific and use my trusty calculator to generate a random page number: page 42.  There were two recipes on this page, neither of which I’d tried before, so I had a choice between a roasted tomato and red onion salad or a tomato, broad bean and basil salad (page 42 happens to fall in the gloriously titled second chapter: “How to make a salad without dying of boredom.”  Could salad be the meaning of life?).  I was most tempted by the first option, because it’s a warm salad and it’s still pretty cold outside at the moment (after all, it is March).  This turned out to be a brilliant choice…!  Not only was it super easy and rather delicious, but it was quick to prepare (5-10 minutes to throw everything together) and I managed to read two papers whilst it was in the oven.  Hah!  Take that, dissertation.

Roasted tomato & red onion salad

Serves 2
Recipe from La Cuisine des paresseuses

The original recipe suggests either serving this salad as a side dish alongside, for example, fish, or as a starter or lunch with some goat’s cheese crumbled over the top and some good French bread.  I went for the second option, obviously with the added goat’s cheese, which actually works wonderfully because it perfectly balances the ever-so-slightly caramelised onions.  I sautéed the second portion the next day with some couscous (minus the goat’s cheese though) and that was scrumptious, too.  In a moment of sheer Frenchness, I automatically added garlic, even though it isn’t specified, and I also used some garlic-and-rosemary-infused olive oil that I happened to have.

Ingredients

4 firm tomatoes
2 red onions
1 clove garlic
4 sprigs of rosemary or thyme (or both!)
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp olive oil (I used garlic-and-rosemary-infused oil)
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
50g crumbly goat’s cheese (optional)

Directions

1.  Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.

2.  Quarter the tomatoes and onions and scatter them into an oven-proof dish with the herbs (in sprigs), and the roughly hashed garlic.  Drizzle with the olive oil and vinegar.

3.  Bake in the oven for about 1 hour, gently mixing the dish’s contents after 30 mins.  Season with salt and pepper once roasted and remove the herb sprigs and bay leaves (I stripped the leave form one of the rosemary sprigs and sprinkled them back into the salad).  Serve as a side dish or allow to cool slightly before crumbling the goat’s cheese over the top (optional) and serving with some French bread on the side.

Enjoy!

Spinach & goat’s cheese muffins

Savoury muffins are so much fun and so versatile!  They’re perfect as party food, as nibbles for a chilled film night or if you just feel like having something for lunch that’s a little different but still fairly healthy.  I have a lot of love for muffins (sweet or savoury) so I always get enthusiastic about baking them, and these are no exception!  I also kind of love that they are green – I’m obviously easily amused…

Kat and I made these for a birthday nibbles-and-drinks that we threw for a friend the other evening.  They were snaffled up in no time – so I think it’s safe to conclude that everybody loved them!

Makes about 15 muffins
Recipe from Channel 4 Food

These are great both in the summer or the winter, and can be served warm or cold – perfect for picnics and packed lunches!  This is a fairly straightforward recipe, but my one main note is to remember to add the egg (no kidding, I know – but the first time we made these, we somehow forgot.  Ya, oops!)

Ingredients

25g butter
200ml milk
100g fresh spinach
250g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Several pinches cayenne pepper
Several pinches freshly ground black pepper
50g parmesan, grated
1 egg, lightly beaten
200g rindless goat’s cheese, chopped (if it has a rind, it tends to melt a bit funny)

Directions

1.  Preheat the oven to 190°C/fan oven 170°C/gas mark 5.  Line 15 muffin holes with paper liners, or set out silicone muffin moulds.

2.  Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl, and add the cayenne pepper and black pepper.  Stir in the grated parmesan, and set aside.

3.  Heat the milk and butter in a large saucepan over a medium heat.  Once the butter has melted, stir in the spinach and bring it just to the boil (the spinach takes up a lot of room, but quickly wilts).  Remove from the heat and pour into a liquidiser or food processor (I only have a mini blender, and it works perfectly fine for this, you just have to do it in several stages – takes a little longer, but not really much of an issue.  Make sure you don’t fill the blender up with the liquid though – it will go everywhere).  Whizz until the spinach is finely chopped, and allow to cool for about 5 mins.

4.  Add the spinach mixture and the lightly beaten egg to the dry ingredients, and mix with a big metal spoon until just combined.  Fill each of the muffin holes about half full with batter, and add some of the goat’s cheese.  Cover with the remaining batter, and top this off with any leftover goat’s cheese, pushing it down into the batter.

5.  Bake for 20-25 mins until risen and firm to the touch.  Turn out onto a wire rack and allow to cool a little.

Enjoy!