Banoffee Slab: caramelised guilty pleasure

This slab is insane.

I feel queasy just thinking of the amount of butter and sugar that went into it. When I took it out of the baking tray after letting it cool off, the baking paper underneath was covered with an oily yellow substance that continued to slowly leak from the pastry. Even after replacing the paper with paper towels, which are far more absorbent, it took three more paper cycles before the ooze stopped. It was rather unsettling to say the least.

However, despite that I would not cal it a failure. Far from it. This Banoffee slab is utterly devine. The caramel and banana filling complement each other so well and the chocolate pastry is fantastic. The melted chocolate on top can make it difficult to slice, but it just completes the taste overload. PIE suggests serving with whipped cream, but for me that is simply going too far. It is already ridiculously sweet, so much so that my Dad complained he could not get to sleep because it had induced some kind of sugar rush. I have (tried) to limit myself to very, very small slices so far and I can certainly understand how it has the potential to make you feel ill. Like some many rich deserts though, it can be difficult to stop yourself before reaching that point of over indulgence.

Just look at that

As for the baking itself, I used a few tools which Dean might consider cheating. For the first time, I used a blender for the pastry making instead of only using a wooden spoon. And I’m glad I did. I’m sorry, but to reach a ‘creamy’ consistency of butter and sugar is nigh impossible unless you got at it for an hour. Using the blender meant for the first time I was able to get a pastry texture similar to what was asked for in the recipe. So in future, despite what the book may say, I’m going to continue using it.

After baking the pastry blind, I made the caramel filling which consisted of condensed milk, butter and golden syrup. once heated in a saucepan and mixed together, it was poured into the pastry mould. Then the chocolate was melted with another large amount of butter. The method stated in the recipe said to ‘double boil’ where the contents is held over simmering water in a heatproof container. This took forever! I eventually started leaving it in the hot water for short periods to speed the process up, despite the recipe saying you should not do this (sorry Dean).

A quick somewhat shaky shot of the chocolate going onto the banana and caramel. It had to be done quickly or the chocolate would set. So it all done.

I had it all ready for my interview on Monday, only to find out once again that my efforts were in vain. the interview still went ahead, only it was on Skype. At this point I had a quiet chuckle and took it as a sign I shouldn’t take baking to an interview.

And once again, my family is left to devour my creation. Only this I think this one will go quite slowly…

Pecan Tarts

These tarts were made with for a different reason than why I normally do baking. They were made to be a part of an interview, where I hoped to blow the interviewers away with my culinary skills as they have previously asked about my blog. Sadly, the interview was postponed until next week and I now have to share these lovely tarts with my family, much to their delight.

These tarts are a variation of the well known American Pecan pie, which is considered a specialty of Southern Cuisine. It is synonymous with special occasions such as Christmas and Thanksgiving.  Traditionally the primary ingredients are corn syrup and pecans, although there are many syrup substitutes such as molasses, maple syrup or honey.  After doing a bit of research (quickly scanning Wikipedia), it turns out there isn’t any concrete evidence of when the Pecan  pie was created. There are claims it was being made in Alabama during the early 1800’s but no recipe has been found prior to 1886. There are some who claim the French invented the pie after settling in New Orleans and being introduced to pecans by Native Americans. The makers of Karo Syrup claim the dish was a 1930’s discovery, owing its creation to a sales executive’s wife who discovered a new use for corn syrup.

My baking started the night before when I used some ready made pastry to test how molds would work. They were a bit larger than what was used in PIE, but I decided to go ahead with them anyway.

The next morning I got started on the pastry, which was a sweet short pastry. Again the pastry was the most difficult part. When mixing all the ingredients I could tell it was not the same as how it was described in the recipe, with the texture being the main issue. It was rather humid, and I wonder if the temperature has a big effect on pastry texture. Regardless, I finished it up and refrigerated it.

Then I got onto the tart filling.

The filling included the items pictured above, the only variation on the recipe was using golden syrup instead of liquid glucose, but as I understand they’re pretty similar and a bit of googling suggested it was an acceptable substitute. The apricot jam isn’t in the mixture, it gets used for the glaze at the end.

After mixing it all together into a brown goopy substance, it went into the fridge.

A few hours later and the pastry was ready to be cut and shaped into the molds.

Once again the pastry proved to be tricky. It kept sticking to the rolling pin (despite plenty of flower and the rolling pin being chilled). It was also impossible to get the pastry to 3 mm in thickness as stated in the recipe. I actually found later on that if the pastry was too thin the bottom would disintegrate when put in the oven.

Here is a quick picture of how they looked with the mixture and pecans arranged on top before going into the oven.

I would be using the new oven for the first time and luckily I decided to do a test with one tart. As it turns out, the new oven cooks a lot faster than the old one.

After burning the test tart, I lowered the temperature and kept a close eye on their progress. The filling rose quite a bit which led to some of it dripping onto the base of the oven. Needless to say mum was not impressed. Aside from that little hiccup, I was pretty happy with the way they turned out.

I then boiled my apricot jam+water and strained it to get my glaze. This was brushed on to the hot tarts, and a few minutes later they were removed from their molds. Amazingly, there were only two out of 8 that had issues. One had a weak bottom and the other somehow got sticky around the outside of the pastry. But 6 perfect tarts was pretty decent.

 I was able to then slice up the two defect tarts for the family to have a taste. Another PIE success. They are very rich and oh so decadent. One is certainly more than enough. As you would expect they’re very sweet and the pecans give it that different texture and flavour. The pastry did a good job of staying in one piece and tasted really, really good.

I had them all ready to go the following day for the interview, only to hear it was postponed to Monday! Now I’m going to have to come up with something else on the weekend, while slowly devouring these terrific tarts.

Pecan praline and chocolate tart: Where does the time go

I had a great post all set up for my latest PIE creation. Unfortunately, when trying to get a photo in the page seemed to crash on me, losing the few hundred words I’d already done. Not fun at all.

 

So now I can add another thing I’ve learnt. Always save your work! (obviously the daily reminders in high school and university didn’t get through to me)

 

So the tart. I had to wait 18 and a half hours before I got to try it! In future I think adding up the preparation time hours might be a useful thing to do so I know what I’m getting into. A simple pastry and a short filling list does not mean it’s going to be a walk in the park!

Having started at 3:00 pm on Sunday, it wasn’t until 9:30 Monday morning that I got to taste my PPC tart.

The pastry making began at 3:00 on Sunday afternoon. Pretty straight forward and it was in the fridge for the first time at 4:00.

After an hour or so, the pastry ball came out and was shaped into the tart tin. Then back into the fridge.

An hour (or so) later, it came back out and I baked it blind, although I didn’t feel my vision was impaired too much. groan.

Then the praline filling creation began. Brought the sugar and water together over heat, roasted the pecans and drizzled the caramelized syrup over the nuts.

It was as easy as it sounded in the recipe.

It was a bloody fiasco.

Dean’s recipe says:

“Mix sugar and water in a small saucepan and stir over a medium-high heat until the sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil, cook until caramel in colour (6-8 minutes), then pour over peacans. Stand until set (10 minutes) then blend in a food processor until finely ground.”

You could say this is what happened when I tried it. But I feel it would lack a few key details.

The caramelized syrup hardened very quickly after pouring it onto the nuts. I was left with a hardened, sticky clump of candied pecans and heaps of those fibres you see in candy floss machines. After nearly breaking a knife trying to separate the toffee train wreck, it had to go into the oven to soften it up enough just so it could be broken up and put into the blender.

Somewhat smashed up, but still glued together.

Even the blender struggled to separate it. It took several attempts and many goes at it with a knife to get it resembling ‘finely ground’.

After that, the milk chocolate cream mixture came together without a hitch. I added two thirds of the ground pecans and mixed it in. The pastry came in from the cold and the nutty chocolatey goodness was poured in.

Anyone fancy a chocolate bath?

Then, back into the fridge it went for over 90 minutes.

There wasn’t much to do at this point so I watched ‘Making New Zealand’ on Prime. A lovely show, they really need more historical documentary stuff like it on TV. It was pretty neat seeing how they built some of the biggest roading projects in the country and hearing the old men wax lyrical about the good old days.

Back to the Tart. I got onto the last part, the Ganache Topping. Bring cream and dark chocolate together. Stir until smooth. Easy.

Nope. Somehow, probably too much heat, the fat separated from the creamy part and I had to drain a whole lot of it down the sink. But it kept seeping out and the mixture kept shrinking. So I had no choice but to bring out the pastry and filling then spread my fat-seeping Ganache on it. Isn’t that nice imagery.

Back in the fridge for it’s final time, I had to wait at least an hour until it would be ready. Watched Pan’s Labyrinth again, great movie. Despite having studied it in English at high school, I could still watch it and not feel like I was re-living some NCEA essay on the significance of  film themes. Blah.

By the time the tart was ready again, everybody had gone to bed. So it would wait until morning.

I managed to hold off until after breakfast, and at 9:30 I was finally able to taste the fruits of my labour.

It was mmmmmmmmmmmmm. Soo good. The praline, despite having some toffee like chunks, it heavenly. An excellent combination of rich chocolate and pecan flavour. The remainder of the praline sprinkled on top gave it a crunchy texture which really complemented the smooth praline and ganache. The pastry itself is great too, it’s firm but not too hard and has a nice biscuity flavour.

Before eating it though, I took my tart on a morning photoshoot. Hope you enjoy it. Much better photos than I’ve had previously.

Enjoying some sun

Uncut