I had no ideas for Wednesday. Ben suggested I make something that may be served in a french bistro, perhaps a chocolate mousse. The main meal is going to be pork. I suggested a few things which we ummed and arred, nothing sounded good. I said lets leave it for a few hours and I would come up with something to go with chocolate mousse.

I picked up a few cook books nothing jumped out as inspiration. A new cook book was sitting next to the shelf at III Bean; I flicked though and I saw a picture of brioche french toast with poached fruits, and because I want to turn everything into a tart I though I could make a strawberry and brioche tart and the chocolate mousse. Originally I was going to just poke the strawberries into the dough then bake. Then I remembered a Nancy Silverton “youtube” video I had seen with her making a creme fraiche brioche tart, we dropped the mousse and the tart became a “Creme fraiche and strawberry brioche” served with cream. I have no idea if you would be served it in a French bistro but tonight you can have it at III Bean.

It turns out you may have had something like it if you had a German Grandmother

I also made creme fraiche for the first time

Ingredients:

1 cup of 35% fat cream

2 tbs of buttermilk

Method:

Combine and leave in a warm place for 24 hours.

Notes:

I read a few recipes that suggested I heat the cream to blood temperature like when making yoghurt then stir in the buttermilk and I would do this in winter. Seeing as my kitchen  is about 20 degrees C at the moment I just stirred the two together put in a glass jug and sat on the bench for about 16 hours by morning it was thick and tasted divine. I had to stop myself from pouring it all over my bircher muesli. It makes a great alternative to straight cream for a baked custard, and seems less oily.

It has been so long since my last post it took me several attempts to remember my password to log into this blog account. Things have been getting a little crazy, which is good but I am having a little trouble keeping up with demand. Which means I have purchased a bigger and better oven, it hasn’t arrived yet but that should  give me time to sort out the other things I will need, because a bigger oven alone is pretty useless. I will also need a bigger mixer and a freezer.

I have still managed to keep challenging my self with desserts for Wednesday nights at III Bean. This and last week is the one I am most happy with in a while. I made individual pithiviers which is a type of french puff pastry pie. I filled them with almond cream and sour cherries, made spun toffee and chocolate mousse to be served on the side, a sort of nod to black forest cake. (This week I will try and cram more filling inside without them exploding).

Hand rolling that much puff pastry is a labour intensive job but not hard, and well worth the taste. I like to have the edges of the puff just starting to go black; so there is a hint of bitter and caramel to cut though all the buttery goodness. Anyway I really have loads of puff pastry to roll so I must get back to it and I promise to write a better post next time.

When I was about nine-years old my parents took me on this wonderful trip to Europe. We spent christmas in a castle that has been converted into a hotel, which I am sure there are a lot of in Europe but it was pretty magical for a nine-year old. That year for christmas I got given my first camera, and a bottle of rose perfume. The bottle of perfume had a slow leak and the smell of rose permeated everything in my suitcase for the rest of the trip. Even now when I smell rose I am taken back to this holiday. Most of the recollections are of food. Having bocconcini for the first time in a packed lunch, while walking the ruins of Pompeii after my mum had been out shopping and seen people making this strange fresh cheese in a deli. Minestrone soup in Rome after the waiter dropped the first attempt at delivering our meals all over us. Garlic snails in a Greek restaurant Paris while we shared a table with friendly group of people, and at the other end of the table and a little band played. The first time I had polenta was in Venice, and I loved to order oxtail soup and stuffed potatoes in the pubs in country England. The whole time everything smelled of rose. Last stop was America, I rember it beeing so bitterly cold in Washington and the perfect antidote was a huge urn of hot mulled apple cider in the hotel lobby. In America I must of bought some lollies and chocolates becasuse I rember when I got home eating these sweets that were all infused with my rose perfume. The best rose combernation was with the lemon jubes.

A couple of months ago I bought some dried rose buds from the Essential Ingredient, I wanted to make something for a Wednesday night at III Bean inspired by the rose and lemon combination. I didn’t make a tart which was my initial thought. After several failed attempts I decided to make a vanilla mousse cake with a lemon centre and a rose jelly top, I soaked the almond sponge at the base of the cake in a lemon rose sugar syrup. It is a pretty cake and quite different from anything I have made before, but I am very happy with the outcome. Mum and dad; thanks for the holiday all those years ago, and if you are reading this and you feel like revisiting my memory of this holiday I have some spare cakes in the fridge at home.

About a year ago some friends sent me a picture on from their mobile phone of a strawberry tart they bought after breakfast at Fratelli Paradiso in Sydney, it was topped with a crumble and icing sugar having never got around to going there to buy one this is my interpretation of that little picture on my mobile phone.

Last night III Bean had a Confit Duck night, and again I made a tart to finish off the meal. This week I made a pear and licorice tart. Probably not a flavour  as popular as citrus, as I know how much licorice makes my sister squirm; but I love it. I even used a licorice toothpaste for a while when I found a little shop in Canberra stocked it.

I am really enjoying exploring tart combinations, having come from an art background making tarts to me is like creating a series, all I need is a pastry shell and the fillings are limitless; maybe one day I should do a tart installation and invite people to a giant afternoon tea…100 tarts? At the moment I am happy to come up with a new tart every few Wednesdays.

This tart consisted of licorice frangipane, pastry cream, pear and a piece of my favorite Green Grove organic licorice .

I just delivered my first batch of sour cherry and pistachio tarts and am quite happy with the way they turned out. I often use a pistachio frangipane as the basis of a seasonal fruit tart, like when raspberries are at their peak I can just pile fresh ones on top of the baked tart. As it gets colder and I have less brightly coloured fruit available I thought I might use a winter favourite of mine preserved sour cherries. Last year I made sour cherries in red wine cream but this year I have decided to make  a sour cherry and pistachio tart. The tart is filled with a pistachio frangipane and topped with sour cherries baked then sprinkled with a pistachio crumble.

Tomorrow is the first Cassoulet night at III Bean, and I have the privilege to make the cake course again. I have decided to make a “Lemon Brulee”. I love making brulee tarts however they are not the easiest tart to wholesale; as they just don’t transport or last in a cake fridge, so the perfect time to make them is for a specific order like this. I haven’t ever made a lemon brulee tart before, but any form of lemon or lime  tart is by far the most popular tart I make (sometimes to my dismay, as I would love people to try some of my more adventurous tart combinations). I am however hoping after the warming and rich main course of Cassoulet this tart will be the perfect finale.

Last night was the last “meatball night” at III Bean. I made a Lemon Truffle tart, I am not sure yet if this tart is to everyone’s taste, and I have yet to get the feed back from the night. To me lemon and chocolate is a refreshing but satisfyingly rich combination, and as a friend said the best gelato selection. Usually when I make a chocolate tart I make some form of ganache but this time I wanted it to be a bit lighter, so I made a rich mousse and spooned it onto a lemon cream, sprinkled it with bitter Dutch cocoa and placed a piece of candied lemon zest for colour on top.

Next week they are making their winter favourite; Cassoulet, I hope they want me to make the cake again.

The “meatball night” was a success and is running again tonight. I was asked to make the sweets again this week I made a plum and pistachio tart topped with spun sugar. I also moved into a new kitchen (more on that latter).

The special ingredient in this tart is the honey from up the road from my house. I only noticed a little sign in the window of a house when walking my dog about three weeks ago (“honey for sale $2 and $3), so I knocked on the door and a man came out and said that he had none left, but come back in a couple of weeks and he would be taking his last harvest from the hive before winter. I promptly walked straight over to the house after this phone call to see if he had harvested any honey yet, and I was greeted by the bee keeper in the middle of the harvest. The hive is kept in his garden all year round, the bees travel up to 2 kilometers which means they may just fly past III Bean Cafe, and perhaps they pollinated the citrus in my garden.

Today I have to make 75 Citrus, Thyme and Honey Tarts….