Fruit Tartlets

I am on a serious blogging roll tonight! After many months of silence, it's like you can't shut me up!  I figure that now I have the time (and motivation), I am going to keep posting until I run out of material, and fortunately for you followers, I've almost run out of material for the meantime!

Funnily enough, I've never made a fruit tart before.  I've made the different components that go into a fruit tart several times, namely, sweet shortcrust pastry and vanilla creme patissiere, although usually when I happen to make the two together, I make little mini cupcake size tartlets and top it off with a single hulled strawberry as that is all that will usually fit on it.

Given all these fruits are in season and they all happened to be stocked in our fridge, I decided to put these on the afternoon tea menu.

I love the array of colours, the vibrant red of the raspberry, orange from the apricot, green from the kiwi and the blue from the blueberries.

Of course, the apricot glaze makes these colours glisten beautifully!  

Fruit tarts are best eaten immediately as the pastry cream really softens the tart shell.  As these had been sitting out at room temperature for a bit, unfortunately by the time I bit into it, this was a goopy mess.  But they were still tasty in my opinion!

Passionfruit Mousse

So after the official afternoon tea function in October, I said to myself, never again!  That's not to say that it didn't go well, in fact, the compliments I received were really humbling and it couldn't have been more of a success! But it was the stress that got to me! Anyone who knows me, knows that I'm a natural stress head and perfectionist and being such an amateur baker, I have to admit I found the task, well, stressful! Let's just say, behind the scenes in the kitchen, you did not want to be near me! C can attest to that!

Just this weekend, a very dear and close couple to us came to visit from London.  They've been tracking the posts I put up on the blog and on facebook about my baking adventures and have always commented about wanting to sample a bit of sweet pea creations!! So it was only fitting that I took my afternoon tea out of early retirement! 

I am very pleased to say that this time around, the behind the scenes action in the kitchen were actually very boring! A sign that things were going smoothly and seamlessly! No stuff ups! Such a stark contrast to the last event!

Given the desserts in an afternoon tea are usually very sweet, I wanted to balance all the sweetness with a tart and light dessert.  I love passionfruit, so I attempted this passionfruit mousse.  I used the recipe from a blog by Daily Delicious (found here).  The recipe is very quick and easy, perfect when you're pressed for time!

The flavour was definitely there, it had what I think is the perfect ratio of tart to sweet.  Although I found that the mousse wasn't as light as I would have liked it - it was too gelatinous for me. 

All in all, I was very happy with this afternoon tea - it's exactly what I needed to give me inspiration to pursue a future in it!

Chocolate Christmas Log

Okay, so for those that have been following my blog, I am still alive and I have not abandoned my blog (not completely at least for the time being)! I cannot believe its been almost two months since my last post! How terrible of me!

That's not to say that I've not been baking! I have been, although since little girl's birthday extravaganza, it saddens me to say that baking has been a luxury I just don't have much time for these days :(  (and yes, baby girl is grown up and turned into a little miss).  I've recently gone back to work returning to my legal roots, and on top of trying to run two cafe businesses and juggling little girl, well, you can see why baking hasn't been high on the agenda!

So with the explanations done, belated Merry Christmas to all!!  I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas catching up with family, friends and loved ones!

This year, we were adamant about keeping Christmas very low key! After last year's stressful Christmas, I wanted to keep out of the kitchen as much as possible on the day and I am very happy to say, I managed to do just that!  Well, I was responsible for making a dessert this year, which was the least I could do!

So I decided on this chocolate christmas yule log! It's a chocolate sponge, filled with whatever you like! Some recipes call for a chocolate filling (like ganache) although I decided to opt for a simple whipped cream.  And the log wouldn't be complete without the frosting on top (I used ganache) and a dusting of icing sugar!

To get the log texture, I ran a fork over the ganache, although you could easily leave off the ganache.  I am pleased that my sponge didn't crack, although I wasn't too fussed if it did as the cracks would have added a really nice log texture.

If you're adamant about not having the sponge crack, apparently the secret is to roll up the sponge using a tea towel as soon as it is out of the oven and let it cool while wrapped in the towel.  The tea towel retains the moisture.

I have to admit that a part of me is regretting that I did not embark on some crazy Christmas themed baking project like I did last year.  Although I did manage to bake some gingerbread men for our wonderful customers at the cafe and some red velvet cupcakes for my work Christmas party! But no crazy gingerbread house project! Oh well, there's always next year!

Merry Christmas all! xx