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Strawberry & Apple Galette

March 18, 2013 by TheWhiteRamekins

Strawberry & Apple Galette 3

Spring is so wonderful. It’s light, airy and refreshing and brings in a magical change from the cold and dull winters. And the whole body welcomes this change so whole-heartedly.

Strawberry & Apple Galette 6

During those foggy and mauve days of winters, when I would sit at home and slurp into hot and comforting bowls of hearty stews and soups, I’d rather get up early and start my day from a brisk morning walk on a cool spring morning.

Strawberry & Apple Galette 5

Such is the magic it does to you, that you would want to go out more often, have more lighter food. And while you go out for a walk or jog, the cool breeze caressing through the body makes you all rejuvenated inside out.

Strawberry & Apple Galette 4

Flowerbeds in the garden are all bloomed up, as if singing the song of pure joy and a new life.  Wonderful vibrant colors every where you see! Leaves which got fallen off the trees all throughout the winters have now dried up and they are all set to catch up the rhythm of cool flowing breeze and dance along.

Strawberry & Apple Galette 7

And the merriment continues to cheer up the food scene too. Red luscious strawberries and tart crisp apples ready to go in a light and perfect-for-the-weather dessert. Be it a crumble, crisp, tart or a rustic looking galette!

Strawberry & Apple Galette 2

Or for that matter, a few drops of lemon squeezed into a bowl of sugared berries with a bunch of hand torn mint leaves makes for a pucker-y and refreshing dessert….so harmonious! Encasing them within a buttery and crispy crust, takes the flavor to a new high. And if the tartness is too much to handle, slather the inside of the pastry with a sweet mulberry jam.

Strawberry & Apple Galette

Recipe minimally adapted from Baking with Julia

Ingredients

3 tbsp yogurt or sour cream
1/3 cup ice water
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
110 gm unsalted butter
1 cup stawberries, huled and diced
1 cup apples, chored and diced
2 tbsp plus 2 tsp suagr
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp cornflour
2 tbsp mulberry jam {or any fruit jam of your choice}
milk for brushing the pastry

Instructions

  1. Stir the yogurt and ice water together and keep aside.
  2. Put the flour, cornmeal, 1 tsp of sugar, salt in the food processor fitted with a metal blade and pulse to mix them together.
  3. Drop the butter pieces into the flour mixture and pulse them 8 to 10 times or until mixture resemble coarse grained bread crumb. If you don’t have food processor, you could rub the butter into flour with the help of your fingertips.
  4. Add the sour cream mixture and process just until the dough forms soft and moist curds.
  5. Remove the dough from the food processor. Divide it in half and press each half into a disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least 2 hours.
  6. Once the dough is ready, preheat the oven at 200 degree Celsius and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  7. Mix the strawberries, apples, 2 tbsp sugar, honey and the cornflour in a bowl and keep them aside.
  8. Taking a dough half one at a time, roll into an 11 inch circle that is about 1/8 inch thick. To avoid using flour while rolling, roll the pastry within two layers of plastic wrap.
  9. Spread 1 tbsp of jam over the rolled pastry, leaving a 2 inch border. Spread half of the fruit mixture over the jam.
  10. Fold the uncovered border of dough up over the filling, allowing the dough to pleat, as you lift it up and work your way around the galette.
  11. Dip a pastry brush in milk and give the edge of the crust a light coating and then sprinkle the crust with 1 tsp of sugar. Repeat from step 8 with the other half.
  12. Place the galettes on the prepared baking tray and bake for 35 – 40 minutes, or until the pastry is golden and crisp.
  13. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the galettes rest on the sheet for 10 minutes and then on the wire rack to cool completely. Serve at room temperature.

Filed Under: Pastry, pies Tagged With: baking with fruits, baking with julia, food, galette, spring recipes, strawberries

Pear Frangipane Tart

September 9, 2012 by TheWhiteRamekins

We’ve now officially bid goodbye to summer and to those wonderful fruits which it brought along. Saffron colored luscious mangoes, puckery, sweet,  juicy cherries, plums and apricots have disappeared from the market. While I feel content to some extent, having done some beautiful recipes with them {at least some of them if not all; mango, cherries, plums}, I wish they would have stayed longer.

Probably, I could have explored more. And it leaves me wanting them to come back next year. We’ve now ushered into the new season with newer and fresh seasonal produce. Pears are in abundance now. Carts are loaded with them and shelves are overflowing. You just can’t ignore them.

And how could I, when I have been eagerly waiting for them to come. Especially, when I had missed baking this frangipane tart with cherries, plums and apricots too. With stone fruits, it remained in the wishlist only, probably to be picked up next year. I have picked this recipe from Martha Stewart and adapted it to my taste.

Ingredients

Pate Brisse

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1 teaspoon salt
100 gm unsalted butter, cold, cut into small pieces
1/8 – 1/4 cup ice water

Pear Tart

Pate Brisse {recipe follows}
1 tbsp all purpose flour
1/2  cup blanched almonds
3/4 cup honey
1 egg
½ tsp salt
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 pears chored, thinly sliced lengthwise

Instructions

For pastry:

  1. Mix both the flours with salt. Add butter and rub with your fingers to create crumb like mixture.
  2. Add water 1 tablespoon at a time and mix well to make a dough until it comes together. Make sure not to over knead.
  3. Turn out the dough on to work surface, press to make a flat disc, wrap with cling film and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

For tart:

  1. Take the pastry out of fridge and roll it out thin so as to make a 12 inch round {you can roll the pastry between two cling wraps to avoid using extra flour}
  2. Fit dough into a 9-inch removable bottom tart pan lifting into and pressing up sides.
  3. Cover with parchment paper and fill the tart with baking beans and bake for 10 -12 minutes in 180 C preheated oven.
  4. Meanwhile, for almond cream, whiz the almonds in a food processor to make a fine powder.
  5. In a bowl cream the butter, sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and mix well.
  6. Fold in almond meal. Fill the almond cream mixture into the pre-baked tart shell and and level using a spatula.
  7. Top with pear slices and bake in 180 C preheated oven for 35-40 minutes until crust is golden brown.
  8. Remove from pan and cool before serving.

Filed Under: Pastry, pies Tagged With: food, frangipane, pear

Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse Tartlets

April 2, 2012 by TheWhiteRamekins

Since the day I have started writing this food journal, I am getting more and more attracted to the idea of pausing to snap  photos of the food before my mates and I get a chance to eat it. Collecting props, making small Do-It-Yourself apparatus at home etc. are the things which have taken over my mind partially, if not completely. Those wonderful food blogs and other resources all over the internet inspire me a lot and give me a reason to wander through a sea of endless opportunities; Opportunities to narrate a unique story, Opportunities to express a personal reaction to a recipe visually, and last but not the least, opportunities to get rewarded of all the fun and happiness.

This time I stumbled upon this luscious and creamy chocolate mascarpone mousse filled in a rustic almond pastry. My version of these mini mousse tarts has the goodness of both the recipes which I adapted through GourmandeInTheKitchen and PassionateAboutBaking. Thank you Sylvie and Deeba for writing such wonderful and inspiring blogs. Instead of making a quark cheese mousse or a chocolate ganache, I chose to make a mascarpone mousse filling {mascarpone, which I made the other day}. The sweet and luscious mascarpone gives a body to this chocolate mousse.

Ingredients

For the crust:
125 gm whole almond {with skin on}
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp melted unsalted butter or ghee
60 gm digestive biscuits

For the Filling:

100 gm dark chocolate
100 gm mascarpone
1 tbsp honey
100 ml low fat cream
cocoa powder for sifting

Instructions

  1. For the crust, grease 4/5 small tart molds and keep aside.
  2. In food processor, pulse together the digestive biscuits and almonds, till they resemble fine breadcrumbs.
  3. Add salt and baking soda and pulse again briefly.
  4. Add honey and butter/ghee to make a dough.
  5. Divide the mixture among the tart molds. Press firmly against the walls and base of molds to make an even layer of pastry.
  6. Chill the molds in refrigerator for 30 minutes.
  7. Preheat the oven at 180/350 degrees Celsius/Fahrenheit and bake the pastries for 12-15 minutes, until the edges are golden. Keep aside to let them cool completely.
  8. For the mousse filling, Melt the chocolate in microwave or double boiler and let it cool.
  9. Beat the mascarpone and honey, till it gets creamy.
  10. Mix in the melted chocolate, after it gets cooled completely.
  11. In a separate bowl, beat the cream lightly and then fold into mascarpone and chocolate mix.
  12. Fill the tartlet shells with the mousse filling. Dust over some cocoa powder, garnish with slivered almonds and chill in refrigerator.

Filed Under: pies Tagged With: almond pastry, chocolate mousse, Homemade Mascarpone, Mascarpone, vegetarian

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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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