Berry Meringue Cream Delight

This one was an unintended invention test that I set myself when I discovered Bilo didn't have coconut macaroons which was meant to be an ingredient... Plus I realised after the fact that I forgot to add custard to the cream... Despite this, I managed to get rave reviews from both Mr Pink and Mr Pizzaman who were very impressed with my creation!

This one made 4 serves, and took less than 15minutes from start to finish - I dont' think I'll ever have another dessert that is done in only 3 steps!

Ingredients:
- 300ml thickened cream
- 2tbs sifted icing sugar
- 100g meringue (I used a box of little star-shaped meringues from Bilo)
- 200g mixed berries (I used strawberries, raspberries and blueberries)
- chocolate flake (or similar) to sprinkle over top

Method:
Step 1: Whip cream and sugar in a bowl with electric mixer until soft peaks form.

Step 2: Crush meringue(s) and then fold into the cream

Step 3: Layer berries into serving glasses with berries and top with crumbled chocolate flake.

White Chocolate & Strawberry Muffins

Sooooo yummy, especially when they are warm!

Makes 1 1/2 dozen muffins

Ingredients: 
- 225g unsalted butter
- 225g caster sugar
- 225g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
1 tsp strawberry essence
100g white chocolate chips

Icing: 
200g cream cheese, softened
175g icing sugar, sieved
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 tbsp unsalted butter
3 tbsp chopped fresh strawberries (this is how much I used, and I thought there could be more... so I would recommend upping this to 5tbsp or so)

Method:
Step 1: Preheat oven to 175degreesCelcius. Place 18 baking paper cases in muffin cases.

Step 2: Combine the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, eggs and strawberry essence in a medium bowl. Beat with an electric whisk until light and creamy, about 2-3 minutes. Stir in the chocolate chips. Note: I used chocolate chips that were about 1.5cm in diameter but they tended to all sink to the bottom of the muffin, so next time I'll be using small chocolate chips)

Step 3: Spoon the batter in to the cases and bake for 20min.

Remove tins from the oven and cool for 5minutes. Then remove the muffins and cool on a rack.

Step 4: To make the icing, beat the cream cheese, icing sugar, vanilla and butter until smooth and creamy.

Stir in the chopped strawberries and spread on top of cooled muffins.
Note: I'm not really a cream cheese person... And although I liked the icing, I think I actually preferred the muffins with no icing and warmed in the microwave for 10-15seconds.

Honey Pear Tarte Tatin

This one received hearty accolades from both Mr Pink and Mr Pizzaman, which is all the proof you need, to know that its a good one! And there's no sugar in the ingredients so it must be healthy! (Yes yes, I am choosing not to realise how much sugar is in honey...)

Serves 6 and ready in less than 30min!

Ingredients:
- 150gm honey
- 3 beurre bosc pears, quartered (recipe online actually says 2 1/2 pears, but I used the whole 3 pears so I guess my cake pan may have been bigger or the pears may have been smaller... regardless, don't make my mistake and look forward to eating half a pear only to discover there's none left!)
- 375gm sheet of butter puff pastry

Honey cream:
- 200gm double cream
- to taste: honey
- 1 vanilla bean, scraped seeds only

Method: 
Step 1: Preheat oven to 200degreesCelcius.

Step 2: Cook honey in an 18cm-diameter cake pan over medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until dark caramel colour, remove from heat and let bubbles subside.

Step 3: Arrange pears over honey caramel, overlapping slightly, and stand until caramel cools.

Step 4: While the caramel cools, make the honey cream: For those who haven't done it before (like me!), to get the vanilla seeds out you have to awkwardly slice the vanilla bean in half length-ways and then gently scrape a knife along the inside of the halves to collect the seeds.

Combine ingredients in a bowl, whisk until smooth and set aside - Note, it doesn't take long to whisk! I stupidly whisked a teeeeensy bit too much and it became too stiff... still yummy, but too stiff.

Step 5: Using a plate slightly larger than the cake pan as a template, cut a round of pastry (as best you can if you're using frozen pastry like I do you'll end up with an octagonal shape but it does the job... for the most part) Place the pastry over the pears, tucking in edges then bake for 20min or until pastry rises and is dark golden in colour.

Step 6: Stand for 5 minutes then place a large serving plate over cake pan and carefully invert onto the plate (be very careful as the caramel will be hot!) At this stage I drained a fair bit of the honey away because it was so runny - not sure if it would have set and been fine anyway, but there was plenty of honey to the tart anyway!

Serve with the honey cream and enjoy!!

Creme Brulee

Santa (aka Mummy and Daddy) gave me a Creme Brulee Set for Christmas, and it was about time I gave it a go... What followed was not exactly a disaster, but I think I'll definitely need to practice this one. One or two of the four I made turned out 'ok', so although this is a fairly quick dessert (if you dont count refrigerating time of 2-3hrs, which I reckon you shouldn't if you make it the night before!), apparently its not so easy to get right...

Ingredients: 
- 1 cup cream
- 2 tablespoons caster sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
- Extra 1/3 cup sugar

Method:
Step 1: Preheat oven to 150degreesCelcius.

Step 2: Combine cream and 2 tablespoons sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir occassionally for 5-6 minutes until small bubbles begin to appear around the edges of pan. -This may have been my first mistake; I walked away for a minute and when I came back it was bubbling a fair bit... So, lesson to be learnt: don't walk away at this stage!!

Set aside.

Step 3: Beat egg yolks and vanilla in a bowl until light and smooth. Gradually pour hot cream into egg yolks while stirring constantly, until well mixed.

Step 4: Strain mixture through a fine sieve and pour evenly into 4 ramekins. Possible mistake number 2: I noticed when I poured it into the ramekins that they didn't all look the same - some had a slightly frothy top, others did not... Maybe I should have strained it twice??

Step 5: Place ramekins into a bain-marie (baking dish with boiling water up to halfway on the ramekins). Cover pan loosely with aluminium foil - possible mistake number 3: foil may not have been 'loose' enough...

Step 6:  Bake for approximately 25min until set. Possible mistake number 4: After 25 min they still didn't look set, so I left them in another 15min (checking on them every few minutes)... they still weren't all 'set' but at that point I figured they weren't ever going to...

Remove carefully from oven, cool, then refrigerate for 2-3hrs.

Step 7: Sprinkle extra 1/3 cup of sugar evenly over the custards.

Using a circular motion, heat the sugar with a Creme Brulee Torch. Continually move the flame over the sugar until it mels and becomes golden brown and bubbly.  

Tip: add sugar and then torch it one ramekin at a time... I found that by the time I got to the 3rd and 4th ramekins the sugar had sunk into the custard. Now this could just be because the custards didnt 'set' like they were meant to but I figure it can't hurt to do it one at a time anyway