Following on from a recent post, Family Gatherings, Memories and Food
After we had finished our delicious brunch, having well and truly overindulged, I quietly mentioned to Olivia, that given it was school holidays, if Cooper would like to come for a visit, we would love it! We could pick him up the following day and return him on the Wednesday. There was no pressure at all – I really did not want him to feel pressured. She rang later that evening to say he was very excited to be visiting with us – I must admit that we were very excited too!
The following morning we went to Olivia’s mum and dad’s home, and from there Cooper joined us for the trip to our home in country Victoria. This was all impromptu – there was nothing planned, so for dinner we just had to wing it and use what we had on hand. We decided on beef noodles with broccoli, carrots and snow peas, and for dessert, custard, mango, berries, and at Cooper’s suggestion, meringues. Cooper helped, using his fabulous knife skills to chop mango and veg, then got to work with the noodle dish. While not really to his liking, I was super proud of the fact that he was willing to give it a try.
During his stay we did just a little more cooking! This is normal, so we made the obligatory chocolate sponge, some little tarts that we call mushrooms – sweet shortcrust pastry shells filled with a little plum and raspberry jam and whipped cream, and finished with a dusting of drinking chocolate, and working with veg that he liked, we even made chicken and vegie rolls. Meringues were also on the list, but he changed his mind and asked if we could make pavlova instead? I suggested that we make Aunty Elaine’s pavlova recipe, and popped into the study to retrieve the recipe, when I returned and showed it to him, he made the comment “you have a recipe for everything!”, it really made me smile.
It wasn’t all about cooking though, we also made time to visit our favourite place for a milkshake, to The Book Shoppe to browse the shelves, and to a farm for eggs for the breakfast – bacon and eggs of course!
I challenge anyone to stop at just one!
- 1 sheet of sweet shortcrust pastry (See notes for gluten free pastry)
- 9 teaspoons Plum & Raspberry Jam Jam
- 150 ml Pure Cream
- Caster sugar
- ½ tsp Vanilla bean paste
- Drinking Chocolate
-
Preheat the oven to 175˚C.
-
Roll out the pastry and line nine lightly greased, cup cake tins.
-
Cut 2 cm lengths of pastry about 8mm wide to bake with the tart shells (keep an eye on them while they are baking as they may cook quicker than the shells).
-
Chill in the fridge to seize the pastry.
-
Line each shell with a small piece of baking paper and top with baking beads.
-
Bake for 15 minutes, then remove the paper and baking beads.
-
Continue to bake until golden.
-
If desired, reduce oven to 50˚C and remove the tarts shells from the tins, and return to the oven to continue to dry the pastry.
-
Combine cream and vanilla, sweetened to taste with caster sugar, in a bowl and whisk until soft peaks.
-
Spread 1 tsp of jam into the base of each tart shell, cover with whipped cream, smooth with a knife and lightly dust with drinking chocolate.
-
Insert a strip of pastry into the middle of each tart, as for a stalk.
- For gluten free tarts, use my Sweet Short Crust Pastry - Gluten Free
Until next time,
Cherish your family, and…
Bon appétit!
Links:
