JohnT

Interesting! Just remember that in the period of development of this dish, well, "cream" was just that - thick and unpasteurised, as I remember it as a kid skimming it off the top of the milk. It was thick like syrup and had flaviour, unlike the watery white substance we find today that is called "cream" and has zero detectable flaviour.

This from Jamie Oliver's web site - http://www.jamieoliver.com/magazine/recipes-view.php?title=cambridge-burnt-cream

Pastry Cream (Crème Patissière) Ingredients: 12 egg yolks 250g caster sugar 80g corn flour (or ordinary flour) 1 vanilla pod split 1 litre milk Method: Put the egg yolks and about a third of the sugar in a bowl and whisk until they go pale and form a ribbon. ( I find it much easier to do this using an electric hand whisk or stand mixer). Sift in the corn flour and beat well. Put the milk, the rest of the sugar and the split vanilla pod in a saucepan and bring to the boil. As soon as the mixture boils, pour 1/3rd into the egg mixture and stir well with a whisk. Pour the egg and milk back into the rest of the milk, and return to a gentle heat. Stir well until it begins to thicken. Simmer for 2 minutes, stirring with a whisk. Take off the heat and continue to stir for 2 minutes. Put some knobs of butter over the surface to prevent a skin forming or simply lay a sheet of plastic wrap over the top. Let cool. Note 1: For a coffee cream, infuse fresh ground coffee in the milk (leaving out the vanilla pod) and strain carefully. I actually use 60ml instant coffee granules. Note 2: For a chocolate cream use 30ml of unsweetened cocoa powder in place of the vanilla pod. Source: Sven 1977 The above recipe comes from the Swiss pastry chef who tutored me and I have been using is ever since. It makes quite a bit but you can halve the recipe for convenience. There is nothing really technical about it other than you need to use a hand whisk to stirr it properly and ensure that there are no lumps. Just as a matter of interest, when making choux products, I quite often use chantilly cream in place of pastry cream. John.

A knob or two of butter can be added to the surface after making and just before cooling to prevent a skin forming on the pastry cream. Normally I just put a sheet of plastic film on to prevent the skin forming - no butter. I have not come across a recipe that you mix butter into the actual pastry cream, not that I have looked for a pastry cream recipe as my old one does me fine.

On arrival of your guests - Sherry, a choice between dry or medium cream!

Are you not, by any chance, referring to the old fashioned "baked macaroni and cheese"? It has gone out of fashion but I still make it on a regular basis. Here is my recipe, which can be made in a large dish or individual pasta dishes. The inclusion of the eggs makes a richer base and sets the product, which can be cut Into portions or simply spooned onto serving plates. The left-overs can be covered and refrigerated and make a good snack for lunch, cut into slices and eaten cold with a small green salad on the side. BAKED MACARONI & CHEESE Ingredients: 500g macaroni 15 ml salt 3 litres water 2 Kabanosi sausages, cut in half lengthways and sliced 2 frankfurter sausages, cut in half lengthways and sliced 1 medium onion, diced 1 green pepper, seeded and diced 125g sliced button mushrooms 2 tomatoes, diced 15 ml butter 200g mature cheddar cheese, grated 3 eggs 1 litre milk salt and freshly ground black pepper 45 ml Maizina (corn flour) Method: Dice the onion, green pepper and tomatoes and add the sliced Kabanosi and frankfurter and sliced mushrooms. Place 3 litres water into a pot and add the salt. Bring to the boil and add the macaroni, cooking for about 8 minutes or as directed on the packaging. Drain the water completely and add the diced vegetables and sliced sausages. Mix well and place into dish(es). Clean the pot and make a cheese sauce by melting the butter with a little milk. Mix the Maizina with a little milk to make a watery paste then add to the pot with the remaining milk and bring to the boil, stirring continuously, until thickened. Once thick, remove from the heat and stir in the grated cheese, stirring until the cheese has melted and is fully incorporated. Add salt and pepper to taste. Let the sauce cool for 5 minutes and add the eggs, whisking the sauce to incorporate the eggs fully. Pour the sauce into the pasta filled container(s). Bake in a preheated oven, 200°C (fan 180°C) until slightly browned, about 20 to 30 minutes, and until the product has set. Note: you can leave out the diced sausages if you wish or use diced bacon instead. I just find the sausages give the dish quite a bit of extra flavour as modern commercial pastas really has no flavour, unlike the old days when pasta was made with egg yolks and flour.

Ha, did not expect you to! It now gives me a better idea as to size - they are quite big. English muffins available here are a bit smaller and a bit thinner, but I have not bought them for years, so I will have to go and visit one of the upperclass supermarkets with my little tape measure to see what is available these days. Thanks for posting the pic - it now gives me the incentive to make them myself. John.

Thanks for that. Had to do some maths to get that in metric - 95mmø x 25mm. Most appreciated.

Shelby, just as a matter of interest, can you let me know the diameter and height of your rings? I want to get my pan manufacturer to knock out some for me as they are not readily available here. John.

The recipe you refer to has an oven temperature of 275°F (135°C). Is this for a standard oven? I use a bakers convection oven where I normally subtract around 20°C from a standard recipe temperature and was wondering if your recipe already had the compensation built in? I am also at sea level. John.

It is a pleasure. We get "cake margarine" in South Africa. It is just a hard margarine designed for baking and is sold in brick form instead of in a tub. It is available in yellow or pure white. I bought a brick of it about four years ago and used some to test in baking a vanilla cake. It has no flavour and thus I never used it again - reverted back to butter.

There is a link to a recipe on the left of the Cornish Pasty Association web site: http://www.cornishpastyassociation.co.uk John

I know the link below is not quite pertaining to your query, but if found it to be quite an amazing 1 minute YouTube video, where the PC presses a whole tray of mini tart pastry in one minute! Sorry, I do not know how to embed the link. John. Edit: seems to have embedded the link automatically!

Oh, it tasted (past tense) darn good! If you read the text, I said: "The photograph above is one still frozen" - what you see is frost on the chocolate. Also, they hold up very well after defrosting and the biscuit crumbs do not go soggy. John.

I am still experimenting with my individual portion desserts - yesterday I made "Peppermint Crisp Tarts" in 7cm ring moulds. I do not think it should be called a "tart" as they have no pastry case. The bottom was made using crumbled Tennis Biscuits (cookies), but no butter used as a binder. Tennis Biscuits are a thin commercial biscuit made with a coconut pastry. The "mousse" is made out a can of caramalised sweetened condensed milk with stiffly whipped cream folded in with a crumbled bar of Peppermint Crisp. This is a chocolate bar made by Nestlé in South Africa, that envelopes peppermint sugar strands, which are bright green. I think this chocolate is only made and available in South Africa. Normally you just let the dessert set in the fridge, but I froze them to be able to take them out of the ring moulds and then let the samples defrost. The photograph above is one still frozen - they need about 20 minutes to defrost before serving. I had some mousse left over, which I also froze - it makes a devine ice cream! Normally this dessert is made in a large dish and spooned out. I thought of doing it in individual portions to see how that would work and to test what happens when they defrost. I have a bunch still in the freezer and am letting a couple sit and defrost in the refrigerator overnight to see if there is weeping that would affect the product. John

Glenn, is this to be a lunch, afternoon or evening celebration buffet?

It could also be chopped fresh coriander leaves (aka: cilantro or dhania), which I find has an "earthy" taste and which I find not to my liking.

I think you answered your own question - to my knowledge, a traditional Italian cheesecake has a baked crust and is made using ricotta cheese, whilst a NY cheesecake is made mostly with a crumb crust and is made using cream cheese. Both are baked. John.

Mmmmm, they always say the the seed needs a good amount of compost when planted. By the way, I had to look up a picture of your Charentais melon on the net to see what it is. It is our most common melon here in Southern Africa and called a "Spanspek". Use your name or even "cantaloupe" and folk will wonder what you have been smoking!

Metallic taste with lemon juice? There could be three reasons I can think of that have nothing to do with pots and cooking utensils. These are just my thoughts, with no scientific evidence or knowledge. 1. Do you have an old tooth filling done used with amalgam? Could be a reaction between the acid and the filling. 2. Farmers sometimes "spike" the soil of lemon trees with large quantities of iron to promote growth. 3. Are your lemons 100% ripe? I was told once that using juice from lemons not fully ripe produces a bad taste and also the lemon curd will "weep". I also read somewhere that using confectioners sugar with lemon juice sometimes causes a metallic taste if the sugar is old and has oxidized. How true this is, I have no idea. I have never come across this, other than other people saying they have experienced it and what other posters have written above. As a matter of interest, in the mid 70's, in an upmarket hotel kitchen, we used to regularly make lemon curd using a Hobart mixer that had an aluminium bowl and I never experienced a metallic taste then either.

Anna, no, I did not make the puff pastry myself. My kitchen has become too small for doing puff pastry (or should I say that it has reached its limit to house all my equipment, leaving me with just enough space to work in). However, I have a friend who runs a bakery and they make proper puff pastry with butter for a retail chain. He makes a few extra kilo's for me whenever I need some, which is great as it cuts down a lot of time in my small production runs. John.

My next experiment with single portion desserts was accomplished on my second attempt at using ring molds for unbanked cheesecakes. I did a small batch of them yesterday afternoon and froze overnight. The first batch was a disaster as I had just finished putting in the product when I realised I had forgotten to use the acetate strips in the molds. Oh well, my only employee went home with a good amount of cheesecake for her family and kids. This batch worked out brilliantly and produced 15 individual portions. The base is digestive biscuits whizzed in the food processor with some cocoa powder, small amount of sugar and a bit of melted butter as a binder. The cheesecake part is cream cheese, melted white chocolate, cream and a bit of gelatine to help stabilize it a bit. Then I just dripped a bit of melted dark chocolate on top and swirled it a bit with a skewer. A close-up of one. 15 of the cheesecakes in their foil containers, ready for packaging.

A few folk asked for my recipe for the creamed lemon curd. I think is a pretty standard curd recipe but I was always told that it has extra butter whipped in to add smoothness to the texture. If this is correct or not, I do not know as I have never made any other curd recipe. I have scaled down the original recipe - it was 4 times the quantity. CREAMED LEMON CURD - FOR TARTS Makes about 700ml Ingredients: 225g sugar finely grated zest of two or three lemons 4 large eggs 190ml fresh lemon juice 225g butter, cut into 15mm cubes and at room temperature Method: Over a pot of simmering water and in the metal bowl of a stand mixer, rub the sugar and zest together until the oils from the zest are incorporated into the sugar. Whisk in the eggs well by hand then add the lemon juice, whisking until incorporated. Simmer the water and cook the curd until it reaches just over 80°C and turns thick, stirring continually with a whisk. Then remove from the heat. Set aside to cool to 60°C, then clip the bowl to your stand mixer with the paddle fitted. Whip on medium slow adding the cubed butter, a block or two at a time. Continue whipping on medium speed for 4 minutes after the last butter has been incorporated. Spoon into prepared tart shells and cool. Makes sufficient for 6 x fluted 12cm shells or 2 x fluted 23cm shells. Note 1: Ensure that the lemons used to extract the juice are fully ripe or else the creamed curd will release moisture into the pastry shell. Note 2: If you want no zest in the finished product, pass the curd through a fine sieve after incorporating the butter. John

Ah! "Ignorance is bliss", or so I am told. I was sent that exact same Lindy's cheesecake recipe many years ago by a friend in Australia, who passed away about 10 years ago. It was titled LINDY'S ORIGINAL NEW YORK CHEESECAKE and makes two cakes - double the quantities given in the first link. I never tried it as I thought "what the hell does an Australian woman know about making a New York cheesecake". I always thought that "Lindy" was somebody's mother living down-under who tried to make a NY style cheesecake! Now, I just have to find the time to convert it to metric and make one.

Nice thread! With spring approaching (bottom tip of Africa), this past week I started producing mini mushroom and sweet onion quiche. Puff pastry into 12cm pans and the filling added (together with a small amount of fried bacon and grated cheddar) followed by a normal egg and cream mix. They taste really good, even if I say so myself!