Mini Tuna Tarts Recipes

We were hit by two snowy days last week. When it snow I like stay at home, curl up near the fireplace with a cup of hot Milo and watch TV. I’ve been watching so much TV especially the Food Channel, TLC and Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) until my head nearly go bonkers. So I decided to take a break from TV and bake something. I made these little mini tarts so we can have it for our afternoon tea.

These quick and flavorful tarts are easy to make. If you don’t feel like making the dough from scratch you can always use store bought short crust pastry or puff pastry. As for the filling, no cooking required. Just used canned tuna and a few other ingredients and you have fresh tarts with you tea. These tarts are great for entertaining too.

Ingredients:

Short crust pastry – refer to the recipe here

Filling:

2 cans of 6 oz tuna in water – drain well
1 tomato – roughly chopped
1 red chili – chopped (optional)
2 spring onions – cut small
1 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp low fat mayo
1 tsp mustard
2 tbsp ketchup
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Mix all the filling ingredients together and set it aside.
2. Roll out the dough thinly and cut out into circle using 2” or 2 ½” diameters round cookie cutter. Brush the edge with some egg, fill the center with a tsp of filling and cover the top with another piece of pastry. Seal edge with a fork.

3. Place it in a lined baking pan. With a sharp knife, cut 3 slit on top of the pie. Brush it with egg wash and bake in a pre-heated 375 degree F oven for 30 minutes or until golden brown.
4. Serve warm or at room temperatures.

Note: We are expecting another round of snow this evening until Wednesday. I will take some pictures and post it here.

Apricot and Apple Braid Recipes

This braid is very similar to my Blueberry Cream Cheese Loaf but this time I made the dough from scratch rather than using the store bought kind. I mix the dough and let it rise overnight and in the morning I just shape it up and we have freshly bake bread for our breakfast or brunch. It might takes some time to prepare this bread but the results are worth the extra effort.

Ingredients:

2 ¼ cups bread flour
¼ cups sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 packet (7 gram) dry yeast
1 egg
½ cup + 2 tbsp milk
¼ cup butter

Egg wash:

1 egg - beaten

Fillings:

3 apples – peel and sliced thinly
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tbsp butter
¼ cup raisin
4 tbsp apricot jam

Glaze:

½ cup confectioners’ sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice

1. In a mixing bowl combined flour, sugar, salt and yeast.
2. In a saucepan melt the butter, turn off the heat and then add in the milk. Let it cool down and beat in the egg.
3. Add the milk mixture into the flour and knead into smooth dough. Cover the dough and let it rest in the refrigerator overnight.
4. To prepare the filling. Melt the butter and sugar; add in the apple and lemon juice. Cook until the apple is soft and the juice nearly evaporated. Turn off the heat and add in the cinnamon and raisins. Mix well and set it aside to cool down.

5. Punch down the dough and turn it out onto a lightly flour work surface. Roll out the dough to about 18" x 12” rectangle. Spread the apricot jam down the middle and top it up with the apple filling.
6. On each long side, cut about 1” wide strip and about 2” into the center. Starting at one end, fold alternative strips at an angle across the filling. Pinch end to seal tight. Cover and let it rise for 30 minutes.
7. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degree F, brush the braid with egg wash and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Remove and let it cool completely on wire rack.
8. Combined the glaze and drizzle all over the braid.

I am submitting this bread to Yeastspotting

Mushroom, Tomato and Camembert Tarts Recipes

Marcus of Ile De France sent me a sample of Camembert to try out. This mild soft and creamy cheese which has a wonderful aromatic mushrooms and nutty undertones is crafted in Normandy from local RBST free pasteurized cow milk. The herds spend most of their time outside, grazing in the fields of Normandy; known for its temperate climate and rich soil.

I made these wonderful tarts with the mushroom and tomato and pair it with the camembert. The combination of flavors is just great and this one is a real winner. Why not try this out for your coming Thanksgiving gathering or Christmas party. I am pretty sure it will be a crowd pleaser.

Ingredients for pastry

2 cups all-purpose flour
10 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1 tsp of salt
6 tbsp ice water (more or less)

1. Pulse in a food processor the flour, butter, and salt just until the mixture resembles a coarse meal with some small (pea-size) butter lumps.
2. Slowly drizzle in the ice-water, one tbsp at a time. Squeeze a small handful of the dough, if it doesn’t hold together; add more ice water. Do not overwork the dough, or the crust will be tough.
3. Turn the dough out onto a work surface. Gather the all dough together and wrap it up with plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for an hour.

Ingredients for Filling

1 pound of button mushroom – wipes with a wet paper towel and slice thinly
2 shallots – sliced thinly
1 clove garlic – chopped
3 tomatoes – slice thinly
4 slices of roasted turkey - cut small
1 cup milk
3 eggs
4 oz of Camembert cheese – slice and cut into cubes
Salt and pepper to taste
Some chopped parsley for garnish

1. Heat up about 2 tbsp of olive oil in a sauté pan. Add in turkey, shallots and garlic. Sauté until fragrant and lightly brown.
2. Add in the sliced mushrooms and continue to sauté until lightly brown and the mushroom liquid evaporated. Season with some salt and pepper. Dish out and let it cool down slightly.
3. Lightly whisk eggs and milk until combined. Add in some salt and pepper to taste and set it aside.
4. Roll out the pastry and line it on the tart pans. Divide the mushroom equally among the tart shells. Top it with the cheese and slice tomatoes. Pour the custard mixture into the shells.
5. Bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 35 minutes or until brown.

Stone Fruit Tarts Recipes

The last batch of peaches I bought tasted like potato. They were not juicy and tasteless. I was pretty upset with it as I bought it from Wegmans. Normally they sell the top quality produce but I am not sure what happen to this batch. I even went back to Wegmans to complaint about it and they were pretty apologetic about it. Anyway, since we won’t be eating it fresh I decided to make some tarts out of it with some leftovers plump and nectarines. If you are looking for a quick and easy dessert to serve up, this tart is for you. You may use any stone fruit for this recipe like plums, cherries, apricots, nectarines, peaches, etc.

Ingredients for the dough

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
10 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
some ice water

1. Mix the flour, salt, and sugar together in a bowl. Cut in the butter by hand or using a mixer with a paddle attachment, leaving some pea-sized chunks.
2. Sprinkle the ice water over the top by the tablespoon and toss it with the flour mixture until you can bring the dough together into a ball. 3. Press it into a disk and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Ingredients for the fruit filling

2 cups of sliced and chopped stone fruits
3 tbsp sugar (more if you like it sweeter)
1 tsp lemon zest
1 tbsp of cornstarch

1. Mix all the ingredients together and set it aside. Greased the muffin pan or tart shells.
2. Roll out the dough to about 3 mm thick and line it on a muffin pan or tart shells.
3. Put about 1 ½ tbsp of filling in it. Bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 25 min until golden brown.
4. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Plum Galette/Plum Crostata Recipes

We’ve got plums coming out in abundance now. I bought a big bag of it the other day and it just cost me $1.98. I left it on the counter to ripen and they were so sweet and juice. With the leftovers I made this free-form crostata or gallette, it is the easiest way to make a pie. You don’t need a pie pan, no elaborate edge crimping, and no lattice weaving. All you have to do is roll out the dough and fold it up over the fruits of your choice. This rustic plum galette is bright, delicious and a great way to finish up all the plums that you has at home.

Ingredients for the pastry:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
10 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
some ice water

Mix the flour, salt, and sugar together in a bowl. Cut in the butter by hand or using a mixer with a paddle attachment, leaving some pea-sized chunks. Sprinkle the ice water over the top by the tablespoon and toss it with the flour mixture until you can bring the dough together into a ball. Press it into a disk and refrigerate for 30 minutes before rolling it out.

For the filling:

6 plums – core and cut into thin wedges
2 1/2 tbsp of sugar – for sprinkle
1 egg – beaten for egg wash

1. To form a galette, roll it out on a lightly floured counter into a 13” circle about 1/8 inch thick. Transfer the dough into a line baking pan.
2. Arrange the plums all around the dough leaving about 1 ½” away from the border, then sprinkle the 2 tbsp of sugar on top of the fruits.
3. Fold in the edge of the dough to cover the outer rim of the plums. Brush it with some egg wash and sprinkle the remaining ½ tbsp of sugar all over the pastry.
4. Baked in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 40 minutes or until fruit is tender and pastry golden brown. Let the galette cool on the baking pan for 10 minutes before transferring it to the cooling rack. Serve warm or cold.

Note: The amount of sugar needed depends on the tartness of the plums.

Custard Raisin Fan Rolls Recipes

Carlos take his breakfast at home every morning so each week I will baked something for him to have with his coffee. I think he is pretty bored with my regular banana bread and cinnamon rolls weeks after weeks so I decided to try out something new.

I remember eating some kind of custard snail like looking rolls from a bakery in New York many years ago. The bread was soft and it has some kind of custard and raisins inside. Inspired by that custard rolls I decided to try my hand in making it.

Dough

460 gram bread flour
2 tsp yeast
60 gram milk powder
70 gram sugar
½ tsp salt
1 egg
150 - 160 ml milk (you might need a bit more or less)
70 gram butter
100 gram water roux

Custard fillings

80 gram unsalted butter - soft
60 gram sugar
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp custard powder or cornstarch
100 gram milk powder
¼ tsp salt

1 ½ cups raisin
I egg white (beaten for egg wash)
Some sliced almonds (for garnish)

1. Fit the mixer with the dough hook attachment. Combined flour, milk powder, salt, yeast and sugar in the mixing bowl. Mix well. Add in the egg and water roux. Turn on the mixer and slowly add in the milk until the dough comes together and forms into a nice ball of dough. Continue to mix for 5 minutes and add in the butter. Continue to mix for another 5 minutes.
2. Cover the dough and let it rest in a warm place until double in size. In the meantime mix all the filling ingredients together (accept raisins) and set it aside.

3. Punch down the dough and roll it out to rectangle shape (about 17” x 12”). Spread on the custard filling and sprinkle on the raisins. Roll up the dough as tightly as possible. Flatten the log slightly with the palm and slice the log into 10 pieces (depend on the size you like).

4. Then using a scissors or a pizza cutter, make another 2 cuts into each piece. Twist each slit slightly to make it lay somewhat flatter. Place on a greased baking pan and cover and let it rise until almost double.
5. Brush it with some egg wash and sprinkle on some sliced almonds. Baked in a pre-heated 350 degree F oven until golden brown. Remove from oven and let them cool.

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Spring Onions Paratha Bread Recipes

This is an easy but most important quick flat bread to make. I’ve tried out a few versions but I like this the best. The texture was great, a bit chewy just the way I like it.

I sprinkle some spring onions to it but you can actually put any type of fillings like mashed potatoes, steam cauliflowers, spinach to it. Brush it with some butter or oil and pan fried the paratha till golden brown and savored it with your favorite curries.

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
2 tbsp melted butter
Enough water knead the dough
½ tsp salt

Fillings:

Some chopped spring onions
Some melted butter

1. Combined flour, butter and salt together. Rub the flour to get oil and salt well mixed. Then add water little by little, knead and make slightly stiff dough. Rest the dough for 20 to 30 minutes. Cover with wet towel, so that dough doesn't dry out.
2. Give the dough a few more knead and divide it into 6-8 balls of dough (depend on the size you like) and roll it out with a rolling pin.

3. Brush some butter and sprinkle some spring onions and roll it up like a Swiss roll. Coil it up and set it aside. Finish rolling the rest of the dough.

4. Flatten the paratha again with the rolling pin. Heat up a non stick pan, brush the pan lightly with some oil or butter and pan fried the paratha on both side until golden brown.
5. Serve with your favorite curry.

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Spiral Coffee Cake/Giant Cinnamon Roll Recipes

This is not exactly a cake or should I say it's more like a giant cinnamon roll. Instead of inidividul rolls I made it into one giant roll. This awesome coffee cake with its beautiful spiral and layers of cinnamon has a texture of soft fluffy bread and not overly sweet like the usual cinnamon rolls. The dough is a joy to work with but I did encounter some minor problem along the way especially coiling up the dough. I did the coiling on the kitchen counter rather than right in baking pan. When I was done coiling I have problem picking the whole dough up as it was too heavy and soft. So if you plan to make this try doing the coiling steps in the baking pan.

Ingredients for the dough:

2 1/2 to 2 3/4 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 tsp yeast (about 7 gram)
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup milk - lukewarm
1/2 stick/56 gram unsalted butter - melted
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

For the glaze

1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
4 Tbsp. unsalted butter
3 Tbsp. honey

Cinnamon-Butter Filling

2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

1. To Make the Dough, stir together 2 1/2 cups of the flour, sugar, yeast, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer; set aside. In a bowl combined lukewarm milk, melted butter, vanilla and eggs together.
2. Attach the mixing bowl to the mixer, and fit the mixer with the dough hook attachment. Slowly drizzle in the milk mixture over the flour-yeast. Mix until dough comes together. At this point if the dough is too sticky you can add in the extra ¼ cup of flour by putting in 2 tbsp as a time. Resume mixing on medium speed until the dough is smooth, still soft, and slightly sticky, about 2 minutes.
3. Place the dough in a large bowl, cover the bowl securely with plastic wrap, and let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, 45-60 minutes. The dough is ready when a finger gently pressed into it leaves an indentation.
4. Meanwhile prepare and greased an 8” baking pan. To prepare the glaze combined brown sugar, butter and honey and cook over low heat until butter is completely melted. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and tilt the pan to cover the bottom evenly.

5. To Assemble the Coffee Cake: Gently deflate the dough. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough into a 16 by 12-inch rectangle. Using a pastry brush spread the melted butter over the dough. Sprinkle the cinnamon powder and sugar over the dough
6. Cut the dough lengthwise into 1 1/4 inch-wide strips. (A pizza cutter is helpful here.) Loosely (so the dough has some space to expands in the oven) roll up 1 strip and place it in the center of the prepared pan on top of the glaze.

7. One at a time, coil the remaining dough strips around the center strip, starting each strip at the end of the previous one, to make a single large spiral. As you roll the dough strips around the coffee cake, the butter-cinnamon side of the dough strips should be facing inside. (When you finish forming he spiral there will be some space left in the pan. The spaces around the dough will fill in as the dough bakes. Loosely cover the pan with plastic wrap and let the cake rise in a warm place until it is almost doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

8. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degree F. Bake the coffee cake until the top is deep golden brown, about 40-45 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes. To remove the cake, gently run a share knife around the edge, and then invert it to a serving plate. Leave the pan on the cake for 1 minute, so the glaze transfers to the cake, and then gently lift off the pan. Using a rubber spatula, scrape out any glaze remaining in the pan and spread it over the warm surface of the cake.
9. Serve the cake warm or at room temperature, cut into wedges gently with a serrated knife. This coffee cake is best the day it is made.

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Chinese Crullers/Yau Char Kwai Recipes

Our group of Malaysian ladies attempted making Yau Char Kwai this month. We tried out two recipes and one turn out really well and one failed miserably. Not sure what went wrong with the failed recipe as we follow the ingredients and instructions to the T. Anyhow, we were glad Agnes Chang recipe turns out so well with less work and proofing time compare to the other one. The YCK were light with hollow texture on the inside. So the next time if we are going to make this again we will just stick to this recipe.

For more information about the Chinese Crullers/Yau Char Kwai please read here. As for more information on Ammonia Powder please refer to here. For me information for Alum please refer here .

Ingredients A
(Adapted from Agnes Chang’s Hawker’s Delights with minor changes)

1 tsp dried yeast
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp lukewarm water

Ingredients B

250 ml water
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp Ammonia powder (chow fun)
½ tsp of Alum (pak fun)

Ingredient C

300 grm bread flour (we used 320 grm)
1 tsp salt

(I put both successful and failed YCK together for comparison. Just look at the difference in size)

1. Mix all the ingredients A and set it aside for 10 – 15 minutes until it get foamy.
2. Mix ingredients B. Sift ingredient C into a mixing bowl. Add in mixture of A and B into the flour. Used a wooden spoon, mix the dough until well combined. Knead it for 5 minutes and if the dough is too sticky to work with add a little bit more flour.
3. Cover with a plastic wrap and let the dough rest for 2 hours.

4. Turn the dough out to the well floured work surface. Sprinkle some flour on the dough and roll the dough out into a long rectangle. Cut into 1” strips. Place two strips, one on top of each. Let it rest for another 5 minutes.
5. In the meantime, prepare oil for deep frying.

6. Press lightly on the two strips of dough with a chopstick. Holds both ends of the dough and stretch the strips a little and lower into hot oil. Deep fry, turning constantly until each cruller turns puffy and golden brown.

Note: The dough is pretty sticky to work with so make sure your work surface, hands and utensils are well coated with flour.