by Jamie Oliver
Turn the oven down to 170°C/325°F/gas 3. Whip the ricotta, mascarpone, icing sugar, finely grated orange zest, vanilla seeds and egg yolks together until smooth and shiny. In a separate bowl, whip up the egg whites until stiff — you can test if they’re done by holding the bowl upside down over your head. Obviously the mixture should stick to the bowl and not fall on your head! Gently fold the egg whites into the mixture. Pour into the cooled tart mould and sprinkle the chocolate over the top. Lay 7 strips of pastry across the tart, equally spaced, and then place the other 7 the other way on top of them like a lattice. Use your thumbs to trim any excess pastry off the side of the mould — this will stick it to the pastry below. Brush the pastry with a little beaten egg, then dust with a little icing sugar. Bake in the oven for 40 to 45 minutes, or until golden and cooked through.
Serve hot or cold with some ice cream, crème fraîche, or yoghurt.
hazelnut torte
I must have made this torte hundreds of times when I first moved to London — it was one of the first classic Italian dessert recipes that I learned to make and it’s great!
SERVES 10
100g unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing
125g blanched hazelnuts
125g caster sugar
4 large eggs, separated
1 orange
30g plain flour
125g ricotta cheese
2 tablespoons poppy seeds
3 heaped tablespoons quality jam, preferably apricot
50g quality dark chocolate (70%), finely grated
Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/gas 5. Grease and line a 28cm loose-bottomed tart tin or cheesecake mould and place in the fridge. Roast the hazelnuts in the oven for 5 minutes, or until lightly golden. Allow to cool, then whiz to a fine powder in a food processor — be careful not to over-whiz. Bash the nuts in a tea towel using a rolling pin if you don’t have a food processor.
Beat the butter and sugar together either in the food processor, or in a bowl with a whisk, until pale. Add the egg yolks one by one, and finely grate in the orange zest. Sieve in the flour, crumble in the ricotta and stir in the hazelnuts and the poppy seeds. In a separate bowl, whip up the egg whites with a pinch of sea salt until really stiff — you can tell if they’re done by holding the bowl upside down over your head. Obviously the mixture should stick to the bowl and not fall on your head! Then fold them slowly into the hazelnut mixture. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until lightly coloured on the top. To check if it’s ready, stick a cocktail stick into the middle — it should come out clean and not sticky. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Meanwhile, place the jam in a little pan with 4 tablespoons of water and bring slowly to the boil. Brush over the top of the torte and, once cool, sprinkle with the grated chocolate. Serve with crème fraîche or yoghurt.
nectarine meringue pie
A really lovely dessert with a gorgeous peachy flavour. It can, however, be made with any fruit combination you fancy — try apricots, peaches or plums. Delicious!
SERVES 10
½ × perfect sweet pastry recipe (see page 282)
1.2kg ripe nectarines or peaches
250g vanilla sugar (see page 304) or caster sugar
a little unsalted butter
1 level tablespoon cornflour
5 large egg whites
Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4. Make the pastry and use it to line a 28cm loose-bottomed tart tin, then place in the freezer. Run a knife round each nectarine and twist to remove the stone. Slice up and put into a small baking dish with half the sugar, the butter and the cornflour. Stir well and cover with tin foil.
Place the chilled pastry case in the oven with the dish of nectarines on the shelf below, then bake for 15 minutes, or until the pastry is lightly golden and the nectarines have softened. Whip the egg whites until stiff — you can tell if they’re done by holding the bowl upside down over your head. Obviously the mixture should stick to the bowl and not fall on your head! Whisk in the remaing sugar.
When the pastry case and nectarines are ready, remove from the oven. Pour the nectarines and all their lovely juices into the pastry case. Dollop the meringue on top and peak it with a fork so it’s not all smooth and flat. Put the tart back into the oven for 8 minutes, or until the meringue is lightly golden. Serve this either hot or cold.
‘the tarts in this chapter are so great – you must try them all!’
plum & almond tart
This is a great filling for a tart. It gives you a lovely frangipane mixture, with the delicate taste of almonds, and the lovely texture of baked plums.
SERVES 12
½ × perfect sweet pastry recipe (see page 282)
350g blanched whole almonds
280g unsalted butter
280g caster sugar
3 large eggs
1 handful of shelled unsalted pistachios
6—7 plums, halved and destoned
3 tablespoons vanilla sugar (see page 304)
Make the pastry and use it to line a 28cm loose-bottomed tart tin. Bake it blind (see page 285) and allow to cool.
In a food processor, blitz the almonds to a fine powder and tip into a bowl, then whiz the butter and sugar together until light and creamy. Add to the almonds with the lightly beaten eggs and fold in until nice and smooth. Stir in the pistachios, then place in the fridge to firm up slightly. Once chilled, pour the mixture into the tart case, so it’s three-quarters full. You don’t want to overfill it otherwise it will spill over the edge when you add the plums.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Toss the plums in the vanilla sugar, let them sit for 10 minutes, then push them into the tart mixture. Bake on a tray in the oven for 1 hour, or until the almond mix is firm and golden on the outside but is still soft in the middle. Allow to cool for about 30 minutes, then serve with ice cream or crème fraîche.
citrus curd tart – my favourite ways
The great thing about this recipe is the way in which it can be varied. The classic lemon curd tart is still my favourite, but sometimes it makes a nice change to blend some lime or orange juice in with the lemon. Or try a straight orange tart. Just make sure your juice amount is always 320ml.
SERVES 12
½ × perfect sweet pastry recipe (see page 282)
14 large eggs
375g caster sugar
320ml any citrus juice (plus zest)
280g unsalted butter, at room temperature
Make the pastry and use it to line a 28cm loose-bottomed tart tin. Bake it blind (see page 285) and leave to cool. Seperate 7 of the eggs. To make the filling, put the 7 yolks, remaining whole eggs, the sugar, and the juice and finely grated zest from the citrus fruit into a thick-bottomed pan and whisk over a very low heat (save the egg whites for another recipe, or see tip below). Keep whisking for 4 minutes, or until the mixture slowly begins to thicken, then you can change from a whisk to a wooden spoon. Add the butter and continue stirring. Make sure you stir up every bit of curd mixture from the bottom of the pan. As soon as it nicely coats the back of the spoon, like really thick custard, you can remove it from the heat and allow to cool a little bit. Give it one final whisk so that it’s nice and smooth. At this point pass the mixture through a sieve to get rid of the little pieces of citrus zest. Using a spatula, scrape every last bit of curd mixture into the tart case while it’s still lukewarm and shake gently to flatten the mixture. Allow to set and cool for 30 minutes, then serve as it is, or try one of my favourite ways below.
Try this: I love dusting the tart with a good layer of icing sugar then caramelizing it with a blowtorch to give a thin snappy layer of caramel. Or try chilling, then topping it with meringue using the leftover egg whites, whisking them with 200g sugar.
Or this: This tart is fantastic served with any seasonal fruit, especially raspberries and strawberries.
baked pears stuffed with almonds, orange & chocolate in flaky pastry
I’ve
been mucking about with filo pastry quite a lot at home recently — it’s dead cheap, and just by brushing a couple of sheets with melted butter you can wrap or line things to give you a fantastic texture. I’m cooking whole pears in this recipe, but you can try it with poached apples or nectarines as well. I chisel out each core (with nectarines, remove the stones as carefully as possible), then stuff with my kind of frangipane, cover with filo and bake. Simply amazing.
SERVES 4
4 ripe pears
40g blanched almonds
100g unsalted butter
50g caster sugar
1 orange
1 vanilla pod, halved, seeds scraped out (see page 304)
70g quality dark chocolate (70%)
16 sheets of filo pastry
Preheat the oven to 170°C/325°F/gas 3. Peel the pears and carve out each core from the bottom — this will give you a 4cm-deep hole.
Put the almonds into a food processor and whiz until fine — you could also do this by placing them in a tea towel and bashing them with a rolling pin. Put in a bowl with half of the butter, and the sugar. Finely grate in the orange zest and squeeze in the juice. Add the vanilla seeds, then mix until nice and smooth. Bash the chocolate into small pieces, adding these to the mixture, too. Divide into 4 balls and put to one side.
Melt the remaining butter in a little pan for brushing on to the filo. Wet a clean tea towel and wring it out — use this to cover the unused filo pastry so it doesn’t dry out and become too brittle. Working with one piece of filo at a time, spread it out in front of you and brush the sheet with melted butter. Lay the next sheet of pastry on top and repeat until you have 4 brushed layers of filo pastry. Cut the layered pastry down to a 20cm × 20cm square.
Take a pear and one ball of almond mix and fill the hole in the base, packing the excess filling around the base. Place in the middle of a filo square, then gather up the pastry around the stalk and pinch tight to seal. Leave it looking nice and rustic and flopping all over the place, as this will look really good when it’s cooked. Repeat with the remaining pears. Brush the pastry with the remaining melted butter, then cook in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden and crisp. Delicious served with crème fraîche or vanilla ice cream.
banoffee pie
When I was little we used to make banoffee pies at the pub which everyone loved. To make a big batch the trick was to boil up loads of unopened tins of condensed milk in one big pan for about 4 hours. I suggest that at home you boil a couple of tins up, because when you’ve made this banoffee pie once, you’ll definitely want to make it again. It’s really important to keep the water topped up though, so make sure you keep checking it — if the pan boils dry the tins will explode and you’ll have toffee all over your ceiling — not only dangerous, but a bugger to clean up! When the tins are boiled and left unopened, they keep for months in the larder and even longer in the freezer. It is also important to let the tins cool down on their own and make sure they have cooled completely before you open them. However, jars of pre-made toffee are now sold in the supermarkets, so I’ve used one in this recipe, but feel free to boil your own if you want to live life on the edge!
SERVES 12
200g blanched, whole almonds
280g icing sugar
½ × perfect pastry recipe (see page 282)
1 jar of dulce de leche or 2 × 397g tins of condensed milk, boiled
6 ripe bananas
450ml double cream
1 tablespoon Camp coffee
1 vanilla pod, halved, seeds scraped out (see page 304)
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Give the almonds a quick rinse in cold water, drain, then mix with the icing sugar in a bowl until sticky. Place on a baking tray and toast in the oven for 15 minutes, or until golden and crisp, turning every 2 minutes. Allow to cool. Make the pastry and use it to line a 28cm loose-bottomed tart tin (or you could try making smaller individual ones). Bake it blind (see page 285) and leave aside to cool.
Spread the dulce de leche as thick as you like across the base of the pastry, then slice the bananas and place on top. Whip the cream, then add the Camp coffee — add a little less if you’d like a more subtle coffee flavour — and the vanilla seeds. Dollop the cream on top of the bananas, as high and as rough as you like. Sprinkle the almonds over the top and serve immediately.
clementine chocolate salad
I love the idea of having a refreshing salad for dessert. You can have some real fun with this, sprinkling different nuts, herbs and chocolate over the top.
SERVES 4
8 clementines
1 large handful of flaked almonds
a few sprigs of fresh mint, leaves picked and finely sliced (see page 114)
6 tablespoons caster sugar
1 vanilla pod, halved, seeds scraped out (see below)
100g quality dark chocolate (70%), shaved
Peel the clementines, slice across thinly and remove any pips. Arrange on 4 plates and sprinkle over the almonds and mint. Put the sugar and 4 tablespoons of water into a pan, bring to the boil, add the vanilla seeds and allow to simmer until the liquid becomes a light golden syrup. Try not to stir it at this stage. Drizzle the syrup over the clementines and top with shaved chocolate before serving.
REMOVING SEEDS FROM A VANILLA POD
1. Halve the pod lengthways.
2. Scrape the seeds out.
3. Put any leftover pods into a jar of sugar to make fragrant vanilla sugar.
scrumptious baked figs with mascarpone, orange, pistachios & hot cross buns
This is a really quick and tasty little dish which always makes me happy.
SERVES 6
250g mascarpone cheese
1 handful of shelled unsalted pistachios
4 tablespoons runny honey
2 oranges
optional: 100g quality dark chocolate (70%), bashed up
unsalted butter, for greasing
4 hot cross buns, or currant buns
12 ripe figs (green or black)
2 tablespoons icing sugar
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Put the mascarpone in a bowl. Chop half the pistachios and add to the mascarpone, with half the honey. Finely grate in the zest of one orange and squeeze in the juice. Add the chocolate at this point if you like. Mix everything together and taste for sweetness — you may need a little more honey.
Grease a baking dish with butter. Slice the hot cross buns any way you like into 4 or 5 pieces and lay these in the dish. With a sharp knife, carefully cut across the top of each fig, but not quite all the way through — you want to leave a sort of hinged lid. Poke your finger into each fig to make a little extra room, then spoon some of the mascarpone mix into the gap so it almost oozes out. Keep any leftover filling to one side. Place the figs in, around and on top of the buns. Drizzle with the remaining honey and sprinkle with the extra pistachios, then finely grate in the remaining orange zest. Dab any leftover mascarpone mix around the buns in the baking dish, then dust the whole lot with the icing sugar. Bake in the oven for 35 minutes, or until the bread is golden and crisp and the figs look yummy. Serve with some really cold crème fraîche or ice cream.
Try this: Hot cross buns, or currant buns, are great, but you can also try using some lovely brioche bread or croissants.
funky coke float
This is a ridiculous dessert which brings back a lot of old memories of when I lived in my parents’ pub. I used to make coke floats for all my mates — we would all creep into the pub between lunch and dinner service and take the homemade ice cream cartons out of the freezer. If I was in luck there would be some melted chocolate in the pastry section — I’d pour this over 2 scoops of ice cream in a glass and top it off with Coca-Cola and a sprinkle of sugar-coated pecans and almonds. These are dead easy to make — just dip the nuts in water, shake off any excess, then mix with plenty of icing sugar until they are sticky. Place them on a baking tray and toast in the oven at 180°C/350°C/gas 4 for 15 minutes, or until go
lden. You can serve this as a dessert or a drink, and it’s obviously OTT, but to this day it always seems like a bit of a treat — although now I’m a big boy I’ve replaced Coca-Cola with a double shot of espresso, which works just as well!
my perfect cheese plate
I really want to get you lot into cheese. I know I’m lucky as I’ve got the lovely Patricia from La Fromagerie down the road, but if you love your food, you’ll manage to find somewhere near you that does good cheese. And with farmers’ markets and family-run delis becoming more prominent, you’re bound to find some half-decent stuff somewhere local.
The other day I asked Patricia to do a cheese-tasting with the fifteen Jamie’s Kitchen kids — a brave woman! I was being quite forceful, to make sure that every one of them tried every cheese — even the ones that they thought smelt horrible. You’ve got to remember that a lot of these guys have not had an enormous repertoire of food throughout their lives, so most of the shapes, sizes and smells were completely new to them. I knew just how they felt, because I knew bugger all about cheese until about six years ago, when Patricia did a similar tasting at the River Café, where I was working. But the great thing was watching their faces light up when they realized they’d never tasted a Brie or a Cheddar like that before. Or seeing them really tucking into some of the more unusual ones, like goat’s cheese with truffles or rolled in ash, going back for seconds of the humming Taleggio and Torta Gorgonzola. Or watching their total amazement when they tasted the difference between buffalo mozzarella and rubbery cow’s mozzarella. And, yes, some of them did say that they still preferred the more predictable Bries and Cheddars they’d grown up with, but it was a real pleasure hearing some of the others say their favourite was one of the more obscure cheeses, which shocked even them.