Category Archives: Pastry

Plum Rugelach

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These little pastry creations are Rugelach. Have you ever heard of them? They are new to me, but I have fallen for them. Big time.

Rugelach are a traditional Jewish pastry – a little crescent made from cream cheese or sour cream pastry wrapped around a sweet filling. I discovered them in New York (next to the fug bahs), and have been desperate to recreate them at home.

The rugelach I bought looked more like pinwheels; they had just been rolled into a log and sliced, but all reputable recipes I’ve found have them cut into wedges, then rolled up from the wide end in – like croissants. This makes them messier and stickier but (or maybe therefore) infinitely more adorable.

Discovering the cream cheese pastry when you take the first bite is amazing. I don’t think I’ve come across proper cream cheese pastry in bakeries here, and I’ve gotta say, we are missing out, people! Especially in these rugelach with sweet, jammy fillings – it is like a toasted bagel with cream cheese and jam, but in pastry form.

I have many ideas for things to fill rugelach with (including raspberry & currant, apricot & walnut, dark chocolate, almond cream…). This time I used some of my plum & blackcurrant jam, along with a few raisins.

Plum & Blackcurrant Rugelach
Adapted from several recipes at and via kosherfood.about.com
Makes many many many.

Cream Cheese Pastry
200g butter
250g cream cheese (not spreadable or lite)
¼ cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups plain flour

Fruit Filling
Plum & Blackcurrant Jam (or any berry flavour, really)
½ cup raisins or currants

To glaze
1 egg
2-3 Tbsp sugar

To make the pastry, cream the butter and cream cheese together. Add the sugar vanilla and beat until smooth. Add the sifted flour and mix lightly. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill for at least an hour (I made mine the day before).

When you’re ready to make the rugelach, preheat the oven to 180°, and line a couple of baking trays with baking paper.

Divide your dough into four. Lightly flour a surface to roll on – keeping in mind that you need to cut the dough on it, so get a board if you’re not ok with cutting directly on your bench!. Roll your first portion out into a circle, about 3mm thick. Give the jam a good stir to loosen it up, and spread it over the circle, starting from the centre and moving outwards, and leaving about 2cm clear at the outside. Don’t spread too thickly or the pastry will be too messy to bake, and that would be tragic. Sprinkle the raisins on top of the jam.

This is where it gets sticky. Get a sharp knife and cut the circle into wedges like a pizza; I think I cut mine into 10-12 wedges. Starting from the outside (wide) edge, roll each wedge up. Ideally you end up with the point on the underside of the crescent, so you can place it seam-side down on a prepared tray. Repeat with the other three portions of dough.

Brush each pastry with a little beaten egg, and sprinkle with sugar, and bake 20-25 minutes, or until golden.

Fig in a Blanket

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I love trying out new bakery products. Especially when travelling. When I came across a golden little pastry in a bakery in New York (lucky, I know), and the sign said Fig Bar, I knew I had to have it. Right then. Right there.

There were two nice ladies behind the counter. I asked, “Can I please have a fig bar?”

One lady started giggling. The other bit her lip to avoid doing the same, and said, “Excuse me?”

I realised I had made a mistake. All they had heard was, “Ken Oi Pleez Hev Uh Fug Bah?”

I repeated the question in my best fudged American accent.

“Oh, a fig bar. Well of course, sugar!” came the reply.

And then, the little warm pastry roll filled with fig paste was mine. I had never tried a fig bar before, but I understand they’re very popular in the US. I think the Fig Newton is a mass produced version of the fig bar (am I right?). Anyway. This one was so good. I have set about trying to recreate it. I had a look through my books at home to see if I could find anything similar, and patched a few things together to make these ones. The pastry recipe comes from a book called “Sweet Food” that I got in a paper plus bargain bin years ago. It’s a small fat book – if you see it in a shop, buy it. It is actually full of great stuff.

I’d love to say I took this photo, but I didn’t. That credit goes to my photography tutor. Thanks, Alastair!

Back to the fig bars. They have a cream cheese pastry – slightly crisp, but not biscuit-y. The cream cheese flavour is really subtle, but goes nicely with the dried fruit mix. Instead of using just figs, I mixed in a few different dried fruits, and added a wee bit of dark chocolate. Enjoy!

Fig, Date & Chocolate Bars
Adapted from “Sweet Food”

Cream Cheese Pastry
90g cream cheese, softened (don’t use spreadable or lite stuff, it’s too soft)
60g caster sugar
1 egg, separated
3 Tbsp milk
1½ cups plain flour
pinch salt
1 tsp baking powder

Fruit Filling
220g chopped dried fruit, any mix you like*
60g dark chocolate, chopped (or dark chocolate chips)
1 tsp lemon zest
¼ cup runny honey
½ tsp mixed spice
½ tsp cinnamon

*I used mainly figs and dates, there were also a few dried apricots and raisins in there

To make the pastry, beat the cream cheese and caster sugar until fluffy. Beat in the egg yolk and milk, then sift in the flour, salt and baking powder. Mix to form a smooth dough. Wrap it in plastic wrap and chill for a couple of hours (I left mine in the fridge overnight).

To make the dried fruit filling, just put everything in a food processor and whiz until finely chopped. Best to use the pulse function here so you don’t end up with a mushy fruit sauce. I also made the filling the day before and kept it in the fridge too.

When you’re ready to make the fig bars, preheat the oven to 180°(c). These are funny things to make at this point. You need to roll really long strips of the pastry. The recipe suggested dividing both the pastry and the fruit filling into three to make this easier. So, roll each third of the fruit filling into a sausage shape about 30cm long. Then, roll each third of your pastry out to a 10cmx30cm rectangle.

Brush one long edge of each pastry rectangle with water, so it’s easily sealed when you roll it up. Then place one fruit filling rope on each pastry rectangle – closer to the side that you haven’t brushed with water. I flattened my fruit filling down a little, and then rolled the pastry over, pressing the damp pastry to seal it nicely. Get the pastry roll with the seam side down, and cut into bars, just like you cut up sausage rolls. I made mine about 4-5cm long. Then place the bars  (seam side down) on a lined baking tray.

Hopefully you kept the egg white when you made the pastry. Mix it with 1 Tbsp of water, and brush this over the bars as a glaze. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until they’re shiny and golden. Leave them on the tray for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool. It makes about 24 bars the size of mine.

Beef Empanada Crumble & Pork and Almond Meatballs

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I wanted a couple of meat tapas dishes as the main attraction at my spanish tapas night. These pork and almond meatballs were A. Mazing. You should definitely try them. As for the planned beef empanadas… well, that dough wasn’t my friend. The details are below, but long story short, they … evolved… into a savoury crumble. Actually, it was pretty good. And I was pleased with my resourceful cooking. Who knows, maybe I’ll make this savoury crumble again one day, this time intentionally.

Beef Empanadas, or in my case, Beef Empanada Crumble

Dough:
1 cup plain flour
½ cup polenta (coarse or instant)
1 Tbsp sugar
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
¼ cup rice bran oil
a third to a half cup cold water or dry white wine

I made this dough recipe up from several sources – one of my guests was dairy and soy free, so couldn’t use any butter. And I don’t do deep frying. So I wanted something I could bake. I was careful to keep quantities in the same proportions of other recipes, but as you’ll see, the Empanada Dough God wasn’t smiling on me.

Blend the flour, polenta, sugar, baking powder and salt in a food processor. Add oil and a little of the water/wine gradually until the mixture becomes crumbly. Take off the food processor and knead with extra water/wine if needed, until the dough comes together. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for at least an hour before using.

I got this far. I must admit I wasn’t entirely convinced it had ‘come together’, although it did feel ok. I put it in the fridge. After an hour, took it from the fridge. I dusted the bench with a little polenta. I turned the dough onto said bench. It was in no state to be rolled out. The plan had been to roll it out to 3mm thick, and cut out 8-10 circles, brush egg glaze around the edge of each circle, place a bit of filling in the centre (recipe below), and fold the circle in half, crimping the edges with a fork, brush the circle with egg glaze, and bake for about an hour.

But that dough wasn’t going anywhere. So I pressed it into a greased brownie pan. Not sure why, really. I baked that at about 175° for about 20 minutes I think, until it looked appropriately firm. Meanwhile, I made the delicious filling.

Beef & Spinach Filling: adapted from this Lauraine Jacobs recipe

150g beef mince
¼ a small onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
½ tsp allspice
½ tsp grated fresh nutmeg
½ tomato, chopped
1½ Tbsp tomato paste
¼ cup dry sherry
½ long red chilli, chopped
300g packet frozen spinach portions, microwaved (3 mins on high) and chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Heat a large frying pan and cook the mince for about ten minutes, until crumbly and lightly browned. Add the onion, garlic and spices, and cook a little longer until the onion softens. Add tomato, tomato paste, sherry and chilli and cook over a high heat until the juices start to evaporate, and the mince is cooked through. Stir in the spinach and adjust the seasoning. I served the hot beef mixture with the still-hot polenta dough crumbled on top. The crumble had a great polenta taste and ‘grit’ to it – the dish was pretty tasty despite its deconstructed state.

Pork & Almond Meatballs

These were so good. The meatball recipe was adapted from a Taste magazine recipe I found here, and the dipping sauce is a variation on my basic pasta sauce.

Meatballs
150g pork mince
½ Tbsp red wine vinegar
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
finely grated zest of ½ a lemon
½ Tbsp chopped Italian parsley
15g finely chopped blanched almonds
1 small egg, lightly beaten
¼ tsp salt

Mix the mince, vinegar, garlic, lemon zest, parsley and almonds together. Add the eggs and salt. With damp hands, roll into small meatballs (canapé or cocktail size – edible in one bite). Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour, bringing back to room temperature before baking at 200°, for about 15 minutes, or until cooked through.

Tomato Sauce
1 tsp olive oil
½ a small onion, very finely chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
¼ tsp smoked paprika
1 Tbsp tomato paste
4-5 fresh tomatoes, chopped (or use half a tin)
¼ tsp dried oregano
½ Tbsp red wine vinegar

Heat the oil in a frypan over medium heat. Add onion and cook until softened, then add garlic and paprika. Stir in tomato paste and cook for a minute or so, then add tomatoes and oregano. Simmer gently for 10 minutes or so, then add the vinegar and adjust seasoning to taste.

Serve the meatballs with cocktail sticks and sauce on the side.

Spinach & Silverbeet for Lunch

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I’m trying to get into the habit of cooking one vaguely ‘proper’ meal for lunch over a weekend, so we sit down to eat together. Nothing fancy - soup, pie, quesadillas, bruschetta, that sort of thing. A little more effort than toast and vegemite.

It’s nice to have a hot lunch over winter, it’s nice to have an extra meal together, and it is an excellent way for me to find new uses for whatever veges are still left at the end of the weekend.

This week, it was time for a … pie? quiche? flan? tart? I can’t decide! I don’t really know the difference between them, so that means I get to choose, right? Quiche, I think. I’m in a French sort of mood today.

The spinach and feta combination is nothing new. You may remember it from, um, almost every cafe in the late 90s. But I’m a big believer in not fixing what ain’t broke. Oldies are often goodies. This time I added silverbeet, which usually works well where spinach works well. Plus, to make it a bit healthier, I pulled back on the cream and feta and added cottage cheese, which is still nice and creamy, but not so fatty and salty. Enjoy!

Silverbeet & Spinach Quiche

olive oil
1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 bunch spinach, washed
4-5 silverbeet leaves, washed and white stems trimmed off
2 tsp mustard
2 eggs, lightly beaten
80g feta, roughly chopped or crumbled
150g light cottage cheese
1/4 cup light evaporated milk (or trim milk will work too)
2 Tbsp parmesan
salt and pepper to taste
4-5 sheets filo pastry
olive oil spray

Preheat oven to 180 (c). Heat a small dash of olive oil in a fry pan, and gently cook onion for 5 minutes or so until softened. Put the onion in a large bowl and set aside. Put the silverbeet and spinach in the fry pan, and add a splash of water. Steam until they wilt. Drain, cool, and squeeze out excess liquid. Roughly chop it up and place in the bowl with the onion.

Add the mustard, eggs, feta, cottage cheese, milk and parmesan, and mix well. I had run out, but if you have pinenuts, chuck a handful of those in too. Season to taste – for me, the feta is salty enough, but freshly ground pepper is welcome. Set aside for a moment.

Lightly spray a loose-bottomed quiche or tart pan with cooking spray. Place one sheet of filo pastry down to line the dish, spray again and add another sheet, repeating until the sheets are stacked up, overlapping, so that the pan is lined. Spread with the pie filling mixture, and scrunch the edges of the filo shell around to make a funky crust.

Bake for about 25 minutes, until the filling is set. Serves 4 for lunch if you make a salad to go with it. Bon appetit!

 

 

 

Pumpkin & Pastrami Tartlets

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These little filo tart cases are really good for cocktail parties, or you can use them as a dinner party first course. They are waaay healthier than shortcrust or flaky pastry, too. I used a warming pumpkin and pastrami filling, but you can fill them with whatever you want!

Pumpkin & Pastrami Tartlets (makes 24)

3 sheets filo pastry
cooking oil spray
300g pumpkin, diced
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp chilli powder
salt and pepper, to taste
6 slices pastrami, cut into quarters
approx 1/2 cup light sour cream

Preheat the oven to 180 (c). Spray 2x 12-hole mini-muffin tins lightly.

Place the first filo sheet on a clean, dry surface and spray lightly with oil. Place the second sheet on top, and spray again. Place the third sheet on top. Mark a grid pattern and cut the stack into 24 squares, each 6cmx6cm (so eight squares across the long side and three across the short side).

Carefully place each little square into the muffin holes and lightly spray the cases again. Bake for about 5 minutes, until golden. Remove from the oven and let them cool in the tin until you’re ready to fill them. You can do this in advance.

Meanwhile, microwave the pumpkin for about 3 minutes, or until tender. Mash with a fork and mix in the nutmeg and chilli powder, and season to taste. Spoon a little of this mixture into each tartlet case, with a little piece of pastrami. Top with a small teaspoonful of sour cream. Garnish with fresh herb sprigs if you have some handy.

Puff Pastry Twists

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OK, so puff pastry twists aren’t really anything new, but they are great party food if you don’t have a lot of time! You just need two sheets of bought, pre-rolled lovingly handmade puff pastry, and something to fill them up with.

Place your first sheet of pastry on the bench, and spread some filling over it - don’t be too generous or you’ll never get it rolled up neatly.

Last week, I used parmesan with chopped semi-dried tomatoes and peppadew peppers (I spotted the combination in a magazine recently). But you could use other classics like blue cheese and walnut, feta, pesto. Or you could make sweet ones with a bit of apple and cinnamon sugar, or spread with jam and cream cheese. And I’m not above vegemite and cheese!

Once you’ve spread your filling out, place the second sheet of pastry on top. Press all the edges together so the filling’s enclosed. If you run your rolling pin over the sheets a few times, the whole thing will stick together better. Then slice the square into strips – I get 10-12 out of the square.

You can either just twist the strips flat on the board, or I prefer to wind them around kebab sticks – easier to keep your hands clean when you eat it :) Just press one end of the twist firmly into the kebab stick, and wind it around til you reach the top.

Place the twists on a lined baking tray and bake for about 20 minutes or so, in quite a hot (preheated) oven – about 215. They’re good straight out of the oven, or cold.