Since today was my family’s weekly dinner, I decided to put the chestnut cream to good use and be creative with it. One thing led to another and so the chocolate and chestnut tart was created.

To recreate, you will need:

Crust:
100 grams cold butter
170 grams flour
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons salt sugar
2 tablespoons ice water mixed with 1 egg yolk

In a food processor, pulse the flour with cold butter until it resembles fine bread crumbs. Add salt and pulse again. Sprinkle the water mixture and pulse a few times. Continue working with dough on tabletop, sprinkle more water if its too dry. Make sure not to overwork it. Form the dough into a disc and cover with plastic wrap. Place in fridge for 1 hour or until firm.

Remove from fridge and roll pastry to fit a 9 inch buttered tart pan. Line the pan with the pastry dough and fridge for another hour. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

Line the tart crust with parchment paper and baking beans or uncooked rice and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the parchment paper and beans and bake for additional 10 minutes, until light golden brown. Leave the crust to cool. Reduce oven temperature to 170 degrees Celsius.

For the filling:

• 500 grams of chestnut cream
• 200 gram good quality dark chocolate, chopped
• 200 ml whipping cream
• 1 egg
• vanilla extract
• fresh chestnuts
• simple syrup*

Bring to boil the whipping cream and add to the chocolate. Mix until velvety smooth. Cool for 5 minutes and then add the egg and vanilla extract and mix.

Once the crust is cool add half the chestnut cream and half the chocolate mixture, and then add the rest of the chestnut cream and end with the chocolate mixture. Bake for 30-35 minutes until firm around the edges but slightly jiggles in the center.

Leave to cool completely before removing from tart mold. Meanwhile, make the candied chestnuts. Bake the chestnuts until their done in a high oven, for around 30 minutes. Peel and add to a small sauce pan. Add enough simple syrup to cover the chestnuts and cook until the syrup is thickened and the chestnut has absorbed the syrup. Leave to cool completely and then chop roughly.

Decorate the cooled tart with the chopped candied chestnut and icing sugar. Slice and enjoy!

* To make simple syrup bring to boil equal quantity water and sugar for 15 minutes and then remove from heat to cool completely.

Last Friday for my uncle’s futoor gathering, I created a kanafa with a creamy semolina filling.

This is the easiest kanafa with the shortest prep time.

All you need is:

• 1 shredded kanafa packet (500 grams), defrosted
• 1.5 sticks butter (150 grams), melted
• 1/2 cup fine semolina
• 2 cups milk
• 1/2 cup thick cream

I asked her if her mother would agree to be a guest blogger on The Oven Experiments and she did!

I drafted a couple of questions to send to her mother about the cake.

What is the name of the cake?

• German Apple Cake

Did you find the recipe in a book? On a website? TV? Or did your come up with the recipe?

• I found the recipe in a cookbook by Lucinda Scala Quinn. I bought it after watching her cooking show on TV. The book is called Mad Hungry. 

If taken from somewhere, how did you modify the recipe to make it yours?

• I haven’t modified the recipe, I follow the same one that’s in the book

Why did you choose this cake?

• I wanted to try a new dessert and this one seemed easy to make. The end result turned out to be very good.

Any memories attached to it? Or a story behind it?

• I liked Lucinda’s simple way of cooking healthy, homey food for her family and I enjoyed watching her show because she would
  sometimes turn cooking into a family activity where her boys and mum would help her out in the kitchen.

Would you like to add anything?

• The only thing I think that is missing in her book is that there aren’t a lot of pictures so you would have to imagine what the dish
  is going to look like.

Kindly list the ingredients and clear steps for making the cake.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp coarse salt
• 8 tbs (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 & 1/3 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 3 to 4 tart apples, such as Granny Smith, Cortland, or Winesap

Method:

• Preheat oven to 375F (190 degrees Celsius). Butter an 8 inch square pan or equivalent size baking dish
• In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and 1 cup of
  the sugar. Stir in the eggs and vanilla. 

• Add the flour mixture and beat until combined. Spread the mixture evenly in the prepared pan.
• In a small bowl, combine the remaining 1/2 cup sugar with the cinnamon. Squeeze lemon juice into a medium bowl. Peel, core,
  and slice the apples into the bowl. Add the cinnamon-sugar mixture and toss to thoroughly coat each apple slice. 

• Arrange the apple slices on top of the batter in overlapping rows, pressing lightly into the batter.

• Bake for about 45 minutes, until a cake tester or toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 to 15 minutes before serving.

Thank you Friend’s Mom for sharing this wonderful recipe with us! It looks like the perfect weekend treat. I will definitely try it once Ramadan is over. 

I always thought they looked weird and very unappetizing. The first time I tried figs was this summer in the cutest bakery in Toronto. We had a savory fig tart and it was amazing. I fell in love and gave myself such a hard time for not giving them a chance earlier in my life!

When I returned to Kuwait, I grabbed  a container of fresh figs and had no idea what to do with. They stayed in the fridge for two weeks until they rotted and had to be thrown away. I was determined the other day to make something with figs so I bought another container.

And this is what I came up with:

a maple fig tart

Rye Pastry recipe taken from Good to the Grain (only my favorite baking book ever)

• 1 cup rye flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1.5 sticks butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 tablespoon apple vinegar

In a food processor, pulse the the flours, salt and sugar together. Add pieces of the butter, one at a time, pulsing between each addition. Add the apple vinegar and 8 tablespoons of ice cold water until the dough comes together. Form the dough into a round disc and put in the fridge for an hour.

Remove the pastry dough from the fridge and roll to an 8 by 11 inch rectangular shape on a lightly floured surface. Fold the dough three times like a letter. Roll again until you get an 8 by 11 inch shape and fold again like a letter. Repeat this one more time. Place in the fridge for at least an hour.

When you’re ready to bake the tart, remove the dough from the fridge and divide the dough in half. You will only need half of the dough, the rest save it for another tart.

Roll the dough to fit a 9-inch buttered round or square tart pan. Place in freezer until your oven preheats to 175 degrees.

Meanwhile, prepare the filling.

• figs, as many as you can fit the pan, quartered
• zest of 1 orange
• maple syrup
• half stick of butter, cut into small pieces
• a handful of walnuts, chopped

The maple syrup

I still have a lot of whole grains and alternative flours stored in my fridge so I wanted to use them before they go bad. The only thing I can think of that was quick and used both flour and maple syrup is to make pancakes! 

I also found a bowl of dates in the kitchen so I decided I should experiment with date pancakes and chose the four grains flour to complement the flavor. I used a basic pancake recipe to work with and substituted the flour, the sugar and of course added dates.

You will need this:

• 2 eggs
• 1.5 cup milk
• 5 tablepoons melted butter
• 1 1/4 cups four grains flour (which you can buy fresh from AlRaha Stone Mill)
• a pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon mascobado/muscovado sugar
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 5 dates, chopped

This post is long overdue! This was planned for months and months ago! But let me stop with my excuses and share this sinfully rich chocolate, chestnut cake.  Click on continue reading for a step by step procedure with pictures! 

So what do you need to make this decadent dessert?

• 425 grams chestnut puree (can be purchased from here)
• 1 stick butter
• 1-teaspoon vanilla
• 6 eggs, separated
• 280 grams dark chocolate, melt and cool
• 1 pinch salt
• 1/4-cup sugar
• 170 grams dark chocolate, chopped
• 1/2-cup whipping cream

Preheat the oven to 175ºC.

Line a 9 inch springform pan with a circle of baking parchment.

In a large bowl, using the paddle attachment, mix the chestnut puree with the butter. Then, mix in the vanilla, the egg yolks and the 280 grams melted chocolate until blended.

In another clean bowl with clean whisks, mix the egg whites until it foams, increase speed and sprinkle in the sugar

Whisk the egg whites until it forms glossy peaks but be careful not to overwhisk!

Fold one third of the egg whites into the chestnut mixture and using a large metal spoon, mix well. Then, gently fold in the remaining egg whites in two parts, taking care not to deflate the mixture.

Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 35 to 45 minutes.

Cool the cake in the pan for 20 minutes, then move to a wire rack.

Meanwhile, prepare the chocolate ganache and the chocolate curls.

Bring the whipping cream to a boil and add the 170 grams chopped chocolate. Remove from heat and stir until all the chocolate melts. Cool in the fridge until it has a consistency of cake frosting.

As for the chocolate curls, use whatever chocolate pieces you have left and melt in the microwave until melted. Leave to cool for a minute or two. Spread the melted chocolate thinly on a cleaned, cool flat surface. I use our kitchen counter top. I found that using a cheese slicer works best! When the chocolate is dry, use the cheese slicer and move from from top to bottom to form the chocolate curl. (This just gave me an idea; I need to make a video tutorial!)

Invert the cake onto your serving plate. Cover the sides of the plate with aluminum foil or parchment paper. Using a flat spatula or a knife spread the chocolate ganache all over the cake. Garnish with chocolate shavings and dust with sifted icing sugar.

Always keep chilled.

When you are ready to serve, clean the cake knife after each slice.

And after we devoured it…

Enjoy!

I absolutely love this easy, quick, makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside sweet dish.

Apples in Kuwait are available year-round  but having this when it’s cold outside makes it magical!

It was one of the most popular orders during BDesserts days.

So to make it you need:

Pastry

• 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons shortening
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 stick butter (1/4 cup)
• 3 tablespoons ice-cold water

• 5 apples, peeled, cored and quartered
• 1/2 stick butter (1/4 cup)
• 3/4 cup sugar

The problem is, I have no idea where I got this recipe from but I do remember how good this ice cream tasted. My mission is to find it!

Until then, enjoy the picture…

Update:  click here for the link