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Nectarine & Cherry Almond Tarts

July 20, 2013 by TheWhiteRamekins

Nectarine & Cherry Almond Tarts 7

This humid weather and false hopes of rains by the Weather Gods has been a damper from past couple of weeks. Although there’s a respite from the sultry sun of peak summers, but humidity keeps me low. The continuous sweating and the need of air conditioner refrains me a lot from stepping out. And all that made me more dull and lazy. So, I needed some really good dessert  to cheer me up. And I made these bright colored stone fruit tarts.

Nectarine & Cherry Almond Tarts 6

The buttery flaky almond shortcrust pastry,  velvety crème pâtissière, and fragrant and juicy nectarine and vibrantly red cherries, when all married together, made up to these wonderful tarts.

Nectarine & Cherry Almond Tarts 4

Here in India, we get fresh seasonal locally produced peaches, plums, cherries and apricots, loads and loads of them, but not the nectarines. And I missed them a lot {from my short stay in US}, their super peachy fragrance, bright red skin…totally totally adorable they are! But recently, I spotted them at a local fruit seller. I was all excited and bought a kilo of them. Came home with a bag full of nectarines and gobbled them up as is within an hour {it was a nectarine and a fruit yogurt meal, I had that afternoon}.

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But I wasn’t satisfied yet! So rushed back to the same fruit seller, hoping they were not sold out completely. And to all my happiness, the fruit seller welcomed me back with a big smile on his face {perhaps, he could read that excitement on my face}. He gave a shout to his helper and the helper ran away disappearing from the scene. Puzzled by the act, I stared at the fruit seller and the seller responded back with a reassuring smile, once again!

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So before I could get anymore restless, the helper came back with a fresh new unopened box full of nectarines. Yay! I said to myself, this time without being looked ecstatic {I didn’t want to give that fruit seller any chance to think that I was mad, though I know he must have figured that out by that time.}.

Nectarine & Cherry Almond Tarts

I already knew, what I was going to make with them, so I thought to perk up these tarts by adding some fresh bright red cherries and some mint leaves, which I also picked from the same vendor. Those beautiful fruits stayed in my fridge for two days, before I eventually got to made these tarts. I had planned to make them on Saturday early morning, before I left for a friend’s wedding outstation. But that last minute planning didn’t help. So when I came back on Sunday afternoon, I had ample time and finally gave these tarts a shot!

Nectarine & Cherry Almond Tarts 1

The recipe yielded four of these tarts. I took two to my friend’s, reserving remaining two for myself, to be enjoyed later. Tarts came out really wonderful with a perfect balance of texture and flavors. And do you know, they brought some good luck too, I suppose. It’s been raining here since morning, while I share these thoughts with you 🙂

Nectarine & Cherry Almond Tarts 2

Recipe adapted from BBC Food & Food Network

Ingredients

For the shortcrust pastry:
Heaping 1/3 cup blanched almonds
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons chilled butter, cubed
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 egg white

For crème pâtissière:
250 ml full fat milk
1 vanilla pod, seeds removed and pods retained
3 eggs yolks
60 gm caster sugar
25 gm plain flour

Filling:
2-3 sliced nectarines
1 cup of pitted cherries
2 tbsp clear apricot jam
few mint sprigs
1 tbsp water
crushed almonds, to top

Instructions

  1. For the pastry, preheat the oven to 190 degree C.
  2. Grind the almonds in a food processor to a fine crumb. Add the pastry flour, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar to the almond in the processor and pulse 5 times to incorporate.
  3. Add butter and oil and pulse for about 20 seconds, until mixture forms small clumps. Add the egg white and pulse an additional 20 to 30 times, until mixture forms a ball, being sure not to over-process.
  4. Dough will hold together, but be slightly sticky. Evenly press dough into the bottom and sides 4  2 1/2-inch tart pans with a detachable bottoms. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until surface of tart is no longer shiny and edges become golden. Remove from oven and let cool.
  5. For the crème patissière, place the milk, vanilla seeds and pods into a large saucepan and warm though.
  6. Place the eggs, sugar and flour in a large mixing bowl and whisk until the color changes and becomes pale.
  7. Gradually add the warm milk and vanilla to the egg mixture, whisk together, then return the mixture to the pan. Cook on a low heat until it the mixture thickens, then pour into a clean bowl. Place a circle of grease proof paper on the mixture, to stop a skin forming.
  8. To assemble the tarts, spoon the crème patissière in a piping bag, and pipe into the pastry cases. Top the tarts with the sliced nectarines and pitted cherries.
  9. Put the apricot jam and water in a small sauce pan and warm it through, so it loosens up and becomes more liquid. Lightly brush the fruit to glaze. Garnish with mint sprigs and crushed almonds.

Filed Under: Pastry, pies Tagged With: almond shortcrust pastry, cherries, crème patissière, dessert, food, fruit tarts, nectarines, stone fruit, summer

Lychee Ice Cream With Praline Almonds

July 8, 2013 by TheWhiteRamekins

Lychee Ice Cream With Praline Almonds

This has occurred to me previously too. A certain syndrome or phenomenon, whatever you might want to name it. That everything’s been running smoothly and peacefully on a steady pace. No hiccups, no hurdles. Almost reaching to a stage of complacency {read getting used to the ease of life here}. That peace and smoothness starts taking  it’s own toll. And slowly starts killing the creative being inside me.

Lychee Ice Cream With Praline Almonds 2

The inner me wants to surge out like ASAP, knowing that something’s not happening right. But it takes it’s own time.  Not sure, if this could be a reason I am somehow not able to conjure up my thoughts here and hence I have been finding reasons to stay away from this space. In fact, I have been talking to a close friend about this, but all I could put forward was a bunch of lame excuses. Though, I have been spending a lot of my time in kitchen besides work, churning, whipping, baking, cooking. Every time I  cooked and shot, I fell short of thoughts, that kept me away from all you lovely folks. {I know, all this blabbering sounds so lame…ain’t it!}. Yeah, I am still trying to figure this out. OK…I can’t burden you anymore with all this non-sense silly talk.

Lychee Ice Cream With Praline Almonds 5

Let’s talk about food, for the reason you and me are here. So, I ordered this wonderful and literally splendid book on frozen desserts, Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home, a couple of weeks before. I went through all the recipes in the book, like I always do, as soon as I open the book for the first time. The way Jeni’s found a unique way of creating artisan american ice creams in home kitchens, is awe inspiring. And all that astonishingly yummy stuff is minus eggs.

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I fell in love with her ice cream base instantaneously. And I knew, which flavor I was going to make first. This one is not from her book, rather my own imagination fired by the abundance of this in-season fragrantly sweet juicy plump Lychee fruit. And for the Jeni’s ice cream base, I used all local produce. Made me all the more happy. Mother liked this one a lot, specially knowing that this was en egg-free dessert she could relish.

Her recipe uses cream cheese and double cream, which I replaced with locally available cream cheese spread and low fat cream (Amul). And I served the ice cream with some crushed praline almonds and that doubled up the joy of the most splendid ice cream, made at home.

Lychee Ice Cream With Praline Almonds 4

Lychee Ice Cream With Praline Almonds 1

Recipe adapted from Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home

Ingredients

1 cup whole milk
1 tbsp plus 1 tsp cornstarch
3 tbsp cream cheese, softened
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
2 1/4 cup low fat cream
2/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp honey
1 cup Lychee pulp, divided

Instructions

  1. Take half of the lychee pulp and puree it in a blender or food processor and let it chill in fridge.
  2. Chop remaining lychee pulp and spread on a shallow glass dish and freeze.
  3. Mix about 2 tbsp of milk with corn starch in a small bowl to make a slurry.
  4. Whisk together cream cheese and salt in a medium bowl until smooth.
  5. Combine the remaining milk, cream, sugar, honey in a sauce pan and bring to rolling boil over medium high heat and boil for 4 minutes.
  6. Remove from heat and gradually whisk in the cornstarch slurry. Bring the mixture back to boil and boil over medium high heat and cook stirring about 1 minute. Remove from heat.
  7. Gradually whisk in the hot milk mixture into the cream cheese until smooth. Let the mixture come to room temperature. Chill it in fridge, stirring in between.
  8. Add the lychee puree to the ice cream mixture once cooled completely and chill the mixture completely until ready to make the ice cream.
  9. Freeze the ice cream n the ice cream maker as per the manufacturer’s instructions. Mix in the frozen lychee bits, just before ice cream is about to be ready in the ice cream maker. Store in freezer. Top with chopped praline almonds, while serving.

Praline Almonds

Ingredients

60 ml water
100 gm sugar
135 gm whole almonds
1/8 tsp coarse salt

Instructions

  1. Mix the water, sugar and almonds in a sauce pan. Put the pan on a medium high heat and cool, stirring constantly with a spoon, until sugar dissolves and liquid dissolves.
  2. Lower the heat to medium and continue cooking until the liquid crystallizes and becomes sandy. Very soon the crystals of sugar at the bottom of pan will begin to liquify. Stir the dark syrup at the bottom of pan over the nuts to coat them. Continue stirring and coating the nuts until the almonds are glazed and have a bit glossy and shiny skin.  Remove from heat and sprinkle the salt and scatter in a baking tray lined with silicon mat. Let cool completely. Break up the clusters if they stick to each other, once the nuts have completely cooled.

Filed Under: ice cream Tagged With: dessert, egg free, eggless, food, frozen, jeni's splendid ice creams, litchi, lychee, summer

Beat the heat with Watermelon Mint Lemonade

April 21, 2012 by TheWhiteRamekins

It’s true that nature maintains its balance, even if it is food. If it gives you the harsh beatings of scorching sun, it then rewards you with the coolness of fruits and vegetables. Watermelon and mint are two such examples, which we get in abundance in summer.

I remember my childhood days, when my sister and me used to race around for having this gorgeous fruit more and more. Even today, it gets added to my daily diet, as an evening snack. Though such kind of silly competitions are there only to remember and laugh about.

There has been a recent addition to the family of plants of my kitchen garden. And that bush of Mint has sprung up huge, that I could not resist myself of doing something with it. Fresh mint leaves straight from that bush and the watermelon concocted together to make this refreshing and hydrating drink. A perfect drink to refresh you from the inside out, without any extra calories.

Ingredients

1 kg watermelon (rind removed and flesh cut into chunks)
3 lemons sliced
3 tbsp dark brown sugar
1/2 cup mint leaves (washed)

Instructions

  1. In a large pitcher, squeeze lemons and add sugar and mint leaves.
  2. With the help of a wooden spoon, crush the mint leaves so that they are bruised and the sugar is dissolved.
  3. In a blender, puree the watermelon until smooth.
  4. Using a fine mesh sieve or a cheesecloth, strain pour through the puree into the pitcher.
  5. Stir to combine and refrigerate.
  6. While serving, fill the long glasses with ice cubes and pour over the chilled lemonade.

Filed Under: Drinks Tagged With: drink, fruit, lemonade, mint, summer, watermelon

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Hi! I'm Himanshu - a home chef who loves to cook, bake, style and photo shoot... Read More…

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