Mille-feuille, the classic french pastry. Just the word puts a shiver down my spine. I'm no trained pastry chef and I think others would agree with me in saying that this is one of the hardest things to perfect - looks wise! I can never quite master the uniformity aspect, some custard always manages to seep its way out the sides either in cutting or by overfilling!
Reading about rhubarb (well, to be honest mainly just looking at pretty Pinterest images ) got me thinking about how much I love these stalky vegetables and it turns out - way more than I thought I already did ( yes! They're vegetables posing as fruit!! Sneaky eh?)
A new year brings new year resolutions, but I'd like us all to stop right there. Before you say it, can we all just skip the no more sugar plan and bake on, let's carry on with sweet deliciousness, because I always believe and what everyone else should too is that we all deserve a little bit of it now and then, just in moderation - that's what I say! So, as every other foodie blogger and recipe book writer releases their sugar-free, raw and just about everything else 'free from' (namely just because it's January), I'm saying try my apple custard tarts. They're not sugar free or anything else in that league, but what they do is bring us something familiar; comforting and nostalgic at a time of year when change is happening all around us.
This is some sort of an invention that I concocted after wanting to recreate a cannoli I had ages ago and remembering thoughts that they'd be awesome to make myself. Cannoli are Sicilian pastry desserts, the singular is cannolo, meaning "little tube" can be filled with either fresh ricotta or pastry cream ( à la American style).
It's embarrassing to have to say how many cookbooks I have on the subject of baking, but let me tell you, I can never have enough! I was recently in that well known bookstore just looking in the cookbook section as you do, and came across Scandinavian Baking by Trine Hahnemann, I was instantly hooked just from reading the title - never mind the beautifully styled berry-spectacular layered cake on the front cover. So of course that's why I put it onto my birthday wishlist immediately.
I've been inspired by the Great British Bake Off this week to make some of my own eclairs which are a step away from the bog standard cream and chocolate (not that there is a problem with them at all).
