I’ve been looking to buy the jars for Isaac and I to do this for a long time now. It’s been very difficult to find jars that are just right. I’ve wanted to make a pie in a jar with Isaac for quite a while, ever since I saw this idea on Our Best Bites.

Who can resist a pie in a jar? That’s right up there with kittens and baby chinchillas on the cute scale. Poking pastry into small jars is just right for small fingers, and there does not need to be any heat involved if you make your fillings in advance to be popped inside the crust.

Silvermoon from Dragon Musings was having a Kids in the Kitchen Blog event so that was the required motivation to get this little project underway. Although I have to admit I would have made these pies regardless. I think having a single serving pie in the freezer is a great idea.

Don’t just think sweet pies. Think small savoury pies too, filled with chunks of steak and mushrooms, chicken and bacon, smoked fish with creamy bechamel topped with mashed cheesy potato. Sweet pies like rhubarb and strawberry, apple and cinnamon, apricot and apple or blackberry and peach can be heated and a cold scoop of icecream plopped on the top of the jar and just eaten as is.

These can go right from freezer to oven, no defrosting if you choose preserving jars of some kind. A small savoury pie can be a perfect afternoon tea when kids arrive home from school, team it up with a drink and some fruit and you have a filling snack to keep them going until dinner. If you can keep a few jars about, when you have pastry scraps or fruit languishing in the fruit bowl you can turn them into a teeny pie very quickly. They might make interesting conversation too for guests for a casual lunch or dinner.

Isaac and I made Apple, Strawberry and Rhubarb pies, I just happened to have some strawberries and rhubarb in the freezer so that seemed ideal. I tossed in a cinnamon stick, a little cornflour and some brown sugar to sweeten the filling slightly. The filling was all ready just for him to spoon into the pies.

You’ll notice there are a lot of photos in this post, I could not help myself, they were just so cute!

Fruit Pies in a Jar

• 1 packet of ready rolled puff pastry
• pie filling of your choice - cooked
• wide mouth preserving jars
• tiny shape cutters or a sharp knife to decorate with.
• Milk to brush the tops.

Choosing your jars is important, they need to be as wide at the mouth or wider than the rest of your jar to get the pastry in nicely and the pie out easily. You may like to eat the pie right from the jar, we did. I found these little jelly jars at my local shop, they are only small, just 4 oz but perfect for a single serve.

Line your jar with the pastry. We cut a disk for the bottom and the top and a strip to go around the inside of the jar, and pinched them together.

Put in your filling - do not fill all the way to the top leave a little room for movement.

Use a fork around the edge to press the pastry together and decorate with pastry scraps. Brush with a little milk and dust with icing sugar if cooking immediately.

Bake in a hot oven 220C/428F for 10-15 minutes.

If you are going to freeze it and put a lid on it, do not take the pastry all the way to the top.

Isaac had the most fun designing a variety of tops and patterns for the pies using a tiny star cutter. He got the hang of it very quickly and was soon quite confident making the little pies.

He came up with a lot of variations.

We brushed them with the milk and dusted them with a little icing sugar.

I popped them into the oven and we watched them through the oven door.

The best part was that he got to eat one for afternoon tea! I believe his exact words were “This pie is awesome!”. The interesting thing was that he ate the rhubarb, before he has always complained about it being sour. But I guess when you make things yourself, they always taste better.

It would be easy to make some small apple crisps and crumbles, you could even do mini cobblers if you were feeling creative. This was a lot of fun to do and I will continue to keep the little jars full in the freezer, ready just to put in the oven at a moments notice.

This was the one that Isaac picked out to eat.

Of course, there was a pie for the supervisor too.

Things Isaac learned making pies:

• 1.It’s hard to get pastry to do what you want and stick in the right place.
  2.You have to press hard when you are using a cutter.
  3.It’s easier to poke the shape out of the cutter than to try to pull it out.
  4.Pastry is sticker than playdough
  5.Rhubarb tastes good when you cook it yourself.
  6.You have to work out where to cut your shapes to fit them into a piece of pastry
  7.You can stop the pies burning if you tell Mummy she better check them again, because you noticed they were cooked and she didn’t.

Yummy pies! A great cooking project for kids and it’s nice to have some teeny tiny pies in the freezer.

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

Thanks Deeba and Aparna for choosing such an interesting challenge, I’ve never made any of these components before - except for the pastry cream, I really enjoyed putting it together!

Before I get started on the Tiramisu don’t forget about the Giveaway - tomorrow is the last day for entries to win either the Edmonds Cookbook or the eggcups.

To make the Tiramisu we had to make each individual component. Starting with the Mascarpone and Savoiardi, then Zabaglione and pastry cream.  I chose to make mine a traditional version since I had not made it before, minus the alcohol. I knew Isaac would be tasting this and I thought the coffee would be enough to keep him climbing the walls for about 24 hours on it’s own.

The Mascarpone

The mascarpone was surprisingly simple,  it’s one of those things that you would get better at the more often you made it. Cheese making is one of those things that you need to get a feel for I think.

The Mascarpone recipe is here over at Baking Obsession. The recipe is nice and clear and was easy to follow. I had no issues making it at all. I do think that using a stainless steel bowl was helpful since the cream came up to temperature easily, and also plenty of layers of cheesecloth - because the mixture is still very liquid when you pour it in after cooling.

You get roughly 3/4 of your cream turning into beautiful fresh and creamy mascarpone and all it takes is a little lemon juice and a thermometer. I’ll be doing this rather than buying mascarpone in future, it was much less expensive and really not that difficult to make.

The Savoiardi - Lady Finger Biscuits

The next step was the Savoiardi. I’m going to give you the recipe here, because I think it’s fantastic and I want to make sure I have it at my fingertips for the future.

(Source: Recipe from Cordon Bleu At Home)
This recipe makes approximately 24 big ladyfingers or 45 small (2 1/2” to 3” long) ladyfingers.

Ingredients:
3 eggs, separated
6 tablespoons /75gms granulated sugar
3/4 cup/95gms cake flour, sifted (or 3/4 cup all purpose flour + 2 tbsp corn starch)
6 tablespoons /50gms confectioner’s sugar

Preheat your oven to 350 F (175 C) degrees, then lightly brush 2 baking sheets with oil or softened butter and line with parchment paper.

Beat the egg whites using a hand held electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Gradually add granulate sugar and continue beating until the egg whites become stiff again, glossy and smooth.
In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks lightly with a fork and fold them into the meringue, using a wooden spoon.

Sift the flour over this mixture and fold gently until just mixed. It is important to fold very gently and not overdo the folding. Otherwise the batter would deflate and lose volume resulting in ladyfingers which are flat and not spongy.

Fit a pastry bag with a plain tip (or just snip the end off; you could also use a Ziploc bag) and fill with the batter. Pipe the batter into 5” long and 3/4” wide strips leaving about 1” space in between the strips.

Sprinkle half the confectioner’s sugar over the ladyfingers and wait for 5 minutes. The sugar will pearl or look wet and glisten. Now sprinkle the remaining sugar. This helps to give the ladyfingers their characteristic crispness.
Hold the parchment paper in place with your thumb and lift one side of the baking sheet and gently tap it on the work surface to remove excess sprinkled sugar. ( I could not get any excess to fall off at all - so I left it there and it was fine.

Bake the ladyfingers for 10 minutes, then rotate the sheets and bake for another 5 minutes or so until they puff up, turn lightly golden brown and are still soft.
Allow them to cool slightly on the sheets for about 5 minutes and then remove the ladyfingers from the baking sheet with a metal spatula while still hot, and cool on a rack.

Store them in an airtight container till required. They should keep for 2 to 3 weeks.

I absolutely loved these, so easy to make and they took no time at all. Much more flavourful than store bought and a more pleasant texture. I’ll be making these on a regular basis.

The Zabaglione

Honestly, I could have sat down and eaten the whole lot, I’m surprised I actually managed to restrain myself. It did in fact make it into the Tiramisu, but it did require some serious self discipline on my part. This is worth just making on it’s own really. But of course you would need to make a much larger quantity.

2 large egg yolks
3 tablespoons sugar/50gms
1/4 cup/60ml Marsala wine (or port or coffee)
1/4 teaspoon/ 1.25ml vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

Heat water in a double boiler. If you don’t have a double boiler, place a pot with about an inch of water in it on the stove. Place a heat-proof bowl in the pot making sure the bottom does not touch the water.
In a large mixing bowl (or stainless steel mixing bowl), mix together the egg yolks, sugar, the Marsala (or espresso/ coffee), vanilla extract and lemon zest. Whisk together until the yolks are fully blended and the mixture looks smooth.
Transfer the mixture to the top of a double boiler or place your bowl over the pan/ pot with simmering water. Cook the egg mixture over low heat, stirring constantly, for about 8 minutes or until it resembles thick custard. It may bubble a bit as it reaches that consistency.
Let cool to room temperature and transfer the zabaglione to a bowl. Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight, until thoroughly chilled.

The Crème Patisserie

I just used my standard Crème Patisserie recipe from here to make this, with the milk increased slightly to 3/4 of a cup.

Chill until completely cool.

Whipped Cream

1 cup/235ml chilled cream
1/4 cup/55gms sugar
1/2 teaspoon/ 2.5ml vanilla extract

Whisk together until stiff peaks form - do not overwhip.

Putting it all together

2 cups/470ml brewed espresso, warmed
1 teaspoon/5ml rum extract (optional)
1/2 cup/110gms sugar
1/3 cup/75gms mascarpone cheese
36 savoiardi/ ladyfinger biscuits (you may use less)
2 tablespoons/30gms unsweetened cocoa powder

Have ready a rectangular serving dish (about 8” by 8” should do) or one of your choice.
Mix together the warm espresso, rum extract and sugar in a shallow dish, whisking to mix well. Set aside to cool.
In a large bowl, beat the mascarpone cheese with a spoon to break down the lumps and make it smooth. This will make it easier to fold. Add the prepared and chilled zabaglione and pastry cream, blending until just combined. Gently fold in the whipped cream. Set this cream mixture aside.

Now to start assembling the tiramisu.
Working quickly, dip 12 of the ladyfingers in the sweetened espresso, about 1 second per side. They should be moist but not soggy. Immediately transfer each ladyfinger to the platter, placing them side by side in a single row. You may break a lady finger into two, if necessary, to ensure the base of your dish is completely covered.
Spoon one-third of the cream mixture on top of the ladyfingers, then use a rubber spatula or spreading knife to cover the top evenly, all the way to the edges.
Repeat to create 2 more layers, using 12 ladyfingers and the cream mixture for each layer. Clean any spilled cream mixture; cover carefully with plastic wrap and refrigerate the tiramisu overnight.
To serve, carefully remove the plastic wrap and sprinkle the tiramisu with cocoa powder using a fine-mesh strainer or decorate as you please. Cut into individual portions and serve.

I have to admit I did not feel all that confident putting it together, the cream mixture, while it tasted absolutely delicious seemed very loose to me. So I decided since I was making a tiramisu that would stand alone (it was not going to be in a glass) I would freeze it for a little bit instead of putting it in the fridge to firm up.

Traditionally Tiramisu is served in a glass and not as a cake, so I am sure usually it would be fine just chilled in the fridge and not in the freezer.

I made a handful of chocolate leaves for the top, I went down to the vege garden and pulled off a few leaves from the raspberry canes to paint chocolate on to; they have a beautiful shape and the veins on the foliage are well defined. I was pretty happy with the leaves, although not perfect I thought they were pretty good for a first attempt.

Well I did have all good intentions about leaving it to chill so that I would get a nice shot of the tiramisu all firm and lovely - but .. I could not wait to eat it. Not the kids, me; I was desperate to try it.

So when it looked close to firm enough I whipped it out of the freezer and cut a slice, so it’s still a little on the soft side in this shot but.. it was fantastic, creamy mouthfuls with a rich coffee flavour and I had a second helping without telling anyone.hmm I guess they know now….

This dessert was a bit of a mammoth undertaking to make each part of it from scratch, I am not sure that I would do the same again if I had to make a Tiramisu, just because of the time involved. But it was completely utterly delicious!

Don’t forget the Giveaway!

Ciao for now!

PS - the little straws around the edge are cappucino filled chocolates

PPS- Isaac helped me cut them to the right length - hence the ..errmm rustic nature of them.

That is an Apricot Tart with Honey and Almonds; for those of you that do not speak french - like me. This is a long standing recipe in our house; one that I just love. I don’t make it all that often, not because there is anything wrong with the recipe, but because I like to wait for apricots to be at their best, fat and ripe and in season. You can make this with canned apricots,which are a good substitute, just not quite the same as fresh.

I know most places in the northern hemisphere will not have apricots just yet, but perhaps you can tuck this away for the longer sunny days when the apricots are juicy and ready to be picked. It’s not far away now for you, even though I know many of you are still in your winter woollens and have snowy views out your windows.

It does take a little time to make this tart, but it’s absolutely worth every minute spent on it. A creamy almond crème patisserie filling dimpled with plump apricots in a crisp light pastry. What more could you want on a summer day?

Before I give you the recipe - just a reminder about the Giveaway, I’m really enjoying seeing the comments and suggestions for a recipe - I really don’t mind how creative you are with your suggestions - test my cooking skills and be adventurous!

Apricot Tart with Honey and Almonds

Pastry cream

• 2/3 cup of whole milk
• 1- 2 inch piece of vanilla bean
• 2 large egg yolks
• 3 Tbspns sugar
• 1 Tblspn of cornflour/cornstarch

One quantity of sweet shortcrust pastry -see pastry recipe here

Filling ingredients

• 1/2 cup of whole blanched almonds
• 1/3 cup of icing sugar
• 1/4 cup of butter - room temperature
• 1 large egg
• 1 tspn almond extract
• pinch of salt
• 6 to 8 apricots halved and stones removed

• 3 Tblspns of honey - to drizzle over

Pour milk into a small saucepan, scrape in the seeds from the vanilla bean and toss in the bean as well. Bring up to a simmer. Remove from the heat.

In a small bowl whisk together the egg yolks, 3 Tblspns of sugar and the cornflour. Gradually add the hot milk to the yolk mixture in a small and steady stream whisking continuously.

Add the mixture back into the saucepan and heat gently until it thickens.

It should look something like this.

Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap pressed directly on the surface and cool in the fridge.

Roll out your pastry to fit your tart tin chill until firm, I often toss mine in the freezer for about 20 minutes to speed things up.

Preheat the oven to 220C/400F bake your tart crust blind until golden.

For those of you unfamiliar with this term, it just means to place some baking paper on top of your pastry and fill it with beans or pie weights and bake for roughly 10 minutes. Remove the paper and beans and bake for another 5. This is just to ensure that the pastry is crisp and does not absorb the tart filling when you pour it in. It’s a really common method to use when you are baking a tart that has a wet filling.

Cool your pastry crust.

Preheat oven to 180C/350F

Finely grind your almonds and icing sugar in the food processor.

Add this into your cooled pastry cream, stir in your room temperature butter and the egg, extract and salt.

Pour into your cooled crust and arrange your apricots halves on the top

Bake until set and golden- this takes roughly 40 minutes. You might find you need to tent the edges of the crust with foil if they are looking a little brown.

Drizzle with honey while warm, serve at room temperature.

This is a really lovely tart and one that looks so pretty. If you are using canned apricots do drain them well, you do not want a lot of additional moisture from the apricots going into the filling.

I can imagine this working well with peaches,pears or plums as well.

We are getting into late summer here. Sunsets are earlier and the winter clothing stocks are coming into the shops and they are finished with the end of summer sales. I’m starting to keep my eyes open for mushrooms in the forests that are near our house and Isaac is making the most of his waterslide while he still can.

That means apricot season is almost over here, and I’ll put my apricot tart recipe away until next summer when the stone fruit is hanging on the trees and the apricots are ripe again.

I’ve never actually liked Neenish tarts much. I know that’s a strange way to start a recipe that I am sharing with you, but I felt I needed to confess that up front. I have always liked the way they look though. Small single serving tarts half chocolate half white, or half pink and white - or sometimes half pink, half chocolate. They always looked nice sitting in the bakery window displays. However when I bought one I was always disappointed.

Normally dry shortcrust pastry filled with a mock cream and jam. Occasionally I’d try again hoping that it would be better, and I’d strike one that had a condensed milk type filling, which was a moderate improvement on the mock cream, but still nothing to write home about.

I happened upon discussion thread with a person asking for a recipe for Neenish tarts like their mother used to make, the filling they described sounded more like a lemon flavoured pastry cream. That interested me, so I thought I would give something along those lines a go and see what the result was.

Neenish tarts are fairly specific to Australia and New Zealand and I am not sure if they are even known in other parts of the planet. This version is quite delicious, although I think a little fiddly to make. But if you have the time then give it a try, they are a very old fashioned afternoon tea treat that people can’t help but say “Mmmmmmm” over when they have that first bite. You can just picture these on a tiered china cake stand sitting in among the creamy sponge drops, cucumber sandwiches and scones.

Neenish Tarts with Lemon Crème Patisserie

No one is really sure how these originated and where they got their name, there are all kinds of urban legends around them. Including one about a Ruby Neenish - who has vanished into the mists of time - no record of her existing at all. I suspect Ruby Neenish is a little like Spiderman .. just a figment of someone’s imagination. The first recipe for these was published in 1929.

Recipe makes 6  10cm/4 inch tarts.

Pâte sablée (sweet short crust)

This pastry recipe makes a lot more than you will need to make the Neenish tarts. I simply froze the remainder for another day to use for a sweet full sized tart. It will make enough for two full sized tarts with a little left over for six Neenish tarts.

• 250g/9oz butter
• 200g/7oz icing sugar
• pinch of salt
• 500g/just over 1lb of flour
• 4 egg yolks
• 4 Tblspns cold water

You can make this in the food processor or by hand. Cream together the butter sugar and salt, rub or pulse in the egg yolks until the mixture just starts to come together looking like breadcrumbs. Add the cold water. Gently bring together and split pastry into two, forming two disks. Wrap and chill in the fridge for one hour.

You can freeze remaining pastry at this point, you will need roughly 250 grams of the pastry for your Neenish tarts.

When making pastry - it benefits from as little handling as possible. This will keep it flaky and light and reduce shrinkage.

Line your tart pans (I used 10 cm/4 inch tart pans with a removable base) and place in the freezer.

Lemon Crème Patisserie

• 2/3 cup of whole milk
• 1 2 inch piece of vanilla bean
• 1 2 inch long one inch wide piece of lemon rind
• 2 large egg yolks
• 3 Tblspns sugar
• 1 Tblspn cornflour/cornstarch

Pour the milk into a small saucepan, scrape in seeds from the vanilla bean and add the bean and the lemon rind to the milk. Bring to a simmer - remove from the heat.

Whisk the yolks, cornflour and sugar together in a bowl. Very gradually whisk the hot milk into the yolk mixture. Do this a little at a time whisking continuously, you don’t want to cook your yolks.

Add back into the pan again and whisk over a medium heat until the custard thickens. Transfer to a bowl to cool and cover the surface with plastic wrap to prevent a skin forming. When you are ready to use your pastry cream, remove the vanilla bean and rind and whisk lightly to remove any lumps. (can be made 2 days ahead)

Assembling your tarts

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F

Put your lined tart pans in the preheated oven for roughly 10-15 minutes. Check half way through cooking and pierce a small hole in each base with a skewer to remove any air from under the tart base. Cook until golden. Cool on a rack in the tins, remove from the tins when cool.

Fill with cooled pastry cream - making sure the top is level and ice with icing of your choice.

I chose to use royal icing for these and it was not a good choice honestly. The pastry cream was moist and consequently the royal icing started to weep after about 20 minutes. If I was doing this again I would most likely use a simple confectioners sugar icing - I suspect it would hold up better.

To ice your Neenish tarts - ice one half first spreading from the centre to the outside - allow to set for 10 minutes or so before icing the other half.

Despite the issues that I had with the icing on these, they were a sweet and light tart that everyone really enjoyed eating. You could also experiment with a mock cream and raspberry jam filling or perhaps try different flavourings for your pastry cream, a rum version of these is quite common also.

If you are having a last minute tea shower like my imaginary friend Ruby Neenish - these are not the tarts to make since they require cooling in between stages. But if you have a little time on your hands and would like to have an old fashioned afternoon tea treat, then these are just the ticket!

Golden Syrup pudding holds fond childhood memories for me. Sitting in my nightgown with my sister at a little blue table watching Mad Movies with Bob Monkhouse and eating dessert. Sometimes it was Tapicoa or apple dumplings, baked apples stuffed with dates and brown sugar or Queen pudding or just maybe - my absolute favourite - which I promise to share with you another day, Banana Fritters.

Today though it was a Golden Syrup pudding kind of day, cold wind, threatening clouds and spots of rain throughout a very cold and dreary day. Just the kind of day for cold weather food.

I’d made a huge pot of thick vegetable soup and some fresh dinner rolls, but I thought that the hordes at the dinner table might still be hungry, so a dessert as a little something extra seemed right.

Golden Syrup pudding is one of those things that you can make when you really only have the basics in the house. In NZ there is almost always a tin of Golden Syrup sitting in the cupboard with a sticky lid jammed on top.

I found one of those teeny tiny bottles of whiskey sitting forlornly in the pantry from a Christmas gift and a few bits of crystallised ginger winked at me as I grabbed the whiskey, so this was what I came up with.

Golden Syrup Pudding with Whiskey & Ginger

This pudding has a soft cake like top with a smooth thick golden sauce which bubbles underneath. This pudding comes together and is ready for the oven in roughly 5 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180C/350F and have a 10 inch, deep pie dish ready for your pudding.

Base

• 1 1/2 cups of self raising flour
• 1/4 cup of soft brown sugar (first measure)
• 100 grams of butter - melted
• 1 tspn vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup of crystalised ginger - chopped roughly
• 2 Tblspns good Whiskey
• 1 large free range egg
• 1/2 cup of milk
• 1 Tblspn Golden syrup ( first measure)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar (second measure)
• 1 Tblspn cornflour

Sauce

• 2 Tblspns  Golden Syrup
• 1 1/2 cups boiling water
• 30 grams of butter
• 1 tspn Whiskey

Combine your flour and first measure of brown sugar - mix together squashing any lumps. Add in your chopped ginger.

Add in your milk, whiskey, egg, vanilla, first measure of golden syrup, and melted butter. Mix until combined. Pour into your dish that you are going to make your pudding in.

Combine your second measure of brown sugar and cornflour in a small bowl - mix together and sprinkle over the top of your pudding.

Combine your sauce ingredients in a heat proof jug and pour over the top of your pudding.

Cook for roughly 40-45 minutes.

When you take your pudding out of the oven it should look something like this. Crackled on the top with a thick sauce bubbling underneath.

The sauce will be thick from the cornflour that you added on to the top.

If you are worried about giving this dessert to children, don’t be. The alcohol is all cooked off in the oven and all you are left with is a very subtle flavour. Isaac gave this warm gooey pudding a “100% tastiness rating” ..  I’m happy with that!

We had ours with a little plain yoghurt poured over the top.

It was just the perfect thing .. at the end of a grey day.

This is worth buying Golden Syrup for -

100 percent tastiness rating - guaranteed by Isaac.