Strawberry tart

Strawberry time is a beautiful time. We normally just eat the strawberries like they are or on top of some ice cream. But today I wanted to use them for a fruit tart. 

It's a recipe that can be used for just any kind of fruit topping. But when the strawberries are abundant there's no better way to decorate the tart than with the bright red berries.

My dad is usually the one making these kinds of tarts here at home. He uses puff pastry in his but as I am not a big fan of puff pastry, I decided to go on a different route and used a shortbread crust. Crunchy, sweet and nicely shaped to hold the vanilla cream and the fruit.
For the filling, I used pastry cream. You can also use plain vanilla pudding (freshly made), and that will make it less heavy on the stomach (as it will not contain the eggs). The pastry cream is just a touch more luxurious and therefore our way to go. To decorate you can use strawberry jam to get that shiny layer on top but this is not obligatory in any way. You can also put on some whipped cream or use some powdered sugar to sprinkle on top of the tart. 

Ingredients for the crust:
- 85 grams sugar
- 155 grams plain flour
- 1 egg yolk
- 115 grams butter
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- (optional) vanilla extract
Ingredients for the pastry cream:
- 1/2 l milk
- 2 eggs
- 50 grams of instant vanilla pudding powder
- 4 tablespoons of sugar
Ingredients to decorate:
- 200-250 grams fresh strawberries
- (optional) 3-4 tablespoons strawberry jam

How to:
First make the crust. Mix the dry ingredients and then add all the other ingredients. By hand or with an electric mixer, combine everything until the dough comes together in a big ball. Put the dough in a mall bowl and put away in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 190°C.
Butter and flour a tart pan (I used a silicone one of about 28 cm in diameter so I didn't need to grease it at all - easy!).
Take the dough out of the fridge and roll out. Put the dough in the pan and press well so that all the sides are evenly covered. I pressed the extra dough in with the rest but you can also make a few cookies with it.
Put it in the oven for about 30-45 minutes but check regularly. When the dough is golden brown and feels firm to the touch, it's ready. When ready, take out of the oven and let cool.

In the meanwhile, make the pastry cream:
Beat the eggs, the vanilla pudding powder and the sugar with an electric mixer until frothy and slightly whitish-yellow.
Heat the milk until just boiling. Take the pot of milk off the fire. Pour the egg mixture in the milk and mix thoroughly. Then put the pot back on the fire and let cook for a minute so that the cream can cook a little.
Take the pot off the fire and let cool up to room temperature. Regularly stir it to prevent lumps forming or a skin on top.

When the crust had time to cool off, take it out of the pan and you're ready to decorate:

Spread the cream in the crust. Slice the strawberries and cover the cream with the berries all over.

Heat the strawberry jam slightly until it's pourable and brush the tart all over the top with the jam to obtain a shiny layer on top.

Smakelijk!

Sweet and tart slices

I am a follower of a great many food blogs. One of them I visit on a regular basis is The English Kitchen because I like the food on it. Nothing very fancy, just good food that's not a pain to make or costs a lot because of exclusive or hard to find ingredients. 

On The English Kitchen I saw a very good looking recipe for strawberry and rhubarb slices and I had to make them. They are made up of two layers: a crust that's not overly sweet with a sweet and tart fruit topping. This topping is a nice contrast to the crust because it's pudding like (it sets but doesn't get dry like a cake). 
I loved these slices a lot, and so thought my mum. My sister doesn't like anything with rhubarb because her stomach doesn't tolerate it (a pity) and my dad thought he liked to have something more cake-like so he didn't think much of it. But that didn't matter because there was more for me of course! (I liked them that much I took a slice for lunch yesterday ...)

Below you can find the recipe for 6 good servings or 8 smaller slices:

Ingredients for the crust:
- 85 grams butter
- 105 grams flour
- 3,5 tablespoons of sugar
Ingredients for topping:
- 1 egg
- 95 grams white sugar
- 50 grams light brown sugar
- 70 grams flour
- 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 5 sticks of rhubarb (in 0,5 cm cubes)
- 4 big strawberries (in 0,5 cm cubes)
How to:
Make the topping in advance as it needs to stand in the fridge for at least half an hour.
Mix the eggs and sugars until fluffy with a hand mixer. Add all the other ingredients (except the fruit) one at a time and mix well. Then add the fruit and mix gently until all of the fruit is covered. Just make sure to not crush the strawberries altogether. Put in the fridge. 
After half an hour, preheat the oven to 180°C.
Mix the three ingredients of the crust well until you get a firm dough. Press this dough into a buttered ovenproof dish (I used a 15 x 20 cm glass oven dish) so that the dough covers the whole surface of the dish. 
Now pour the topping over the dough and make sure you spread the topping evenly.
Put in the hot oven and let bake for about 45 minutes or until the topping is set (doesn't wiggle) and is golden in colour.
Take out of the oven and let cool completely.
Serve immediately or up to several days afterwards (I kept them in the fridge).

Smakelijk!

Belgian (Brussels') waffles

What do people say when you ask them what they know about Belgium. There are two possibilities for this situation. In the first possible reaction, people stand and stare at you with their mouths wide open and, sometimes stammering something like 'Isn't Belgium the capital of Brussels?' (it's the other way round if you're wondering).
The second possible reaction is the most heard one. As a Belgian girl, I've heard people say the same things all the time: Belgium is the land of war (a term loosely interchangeable with political crisis for some), beer, chocolate and waffles. 

I'm an atypical Belgian because I'm not a huge lover of waffles and I dislike beer of all sorts. Saying you don't like these things is not a good idea when you try to be popular in Belgium. With hundreds upon hundreds of beer varieties, from sour over bitter to somewhat sweeter beers, there is a lot of it to choose from but so far I haven't met my match. 
Luckily I fit in because of my huge love of chocolate. I make cakes (my favourite) and biscuits with it and love eating it in a lot of ways. I have my ritual cup of hot chocolate nearly every winter night and I make single servings of cookies or cakes filled with chocolate just to have chocolate every day. 

Now, back to the goal of this post: I was going to introduce you to Belgian waffles. 
Belgian waffles do not exist for a start. This may come as a shock because abroad all they talk about is BELGIAN waffles. 
To clear this out for once and for all: there are a few varieties of waffles that are typical in Belgium. They are also acknowledged as regional specialties so we don't joke around with these. 

First of all, the waffles everyone calls Belgian are known as Brussels' waffles (Brusselse wafels). They are the one made with a yeast batter and that have a rectangular shape. They don't contain sugar and are served with whipped cream and icing sugar. Most people eat them plain like that but we also serve them with strawberries and that's a very nice addition.
I am not a huge fan of waffles but baking a sliced apple and some cinnamon in the batter while it bakes is very gooood! (a must try and the apple gives you all the more reason to eat them because the apple = fruit = healthy)

Secondly there are the sweet waffles, the so called Luikse wafels (waffles from Liège or gaufre de Liège). These are the rounded waffles made with sweet batter and these contain big sugar cristals. They are best eaten warm but they are also sold in supermarkets as snacks and these are cold of course (Suzy waffles for example).
When you walk in the streets of Belgium, especially during the colder Autumn and Winter months, you are literally drawn to the baking stands where they serve these waffles. The smell is irresistible and eating it when it's chilly warms you inside. Of course these waffles contain lots and lots more calories than their counterparts from Brussels. They are served plain and that is the best way. For tourists, the waffle stands serve these waffles also with chocolate sauce, whipped cream, strawberries, ... but trust me: they are more than sweet and tasty enough on their own and you'll just spoil the experience when you top them with extras.

My dad loves Brussels' waffles and one of the main reasons is his life long love of the series Nero. It's a comic book series by Marc Sleen about the adventures of Nero and his family and friends. Every story ends with a long table on which piles of waffles are being served for every character of the story. This end is called 'de wafelenbak' (the baking of the waffles). My dad insists on having a wafelenbak with these waffles a few times a year and for this occasion we always ask people around because it's a fun way to get together. 

As you see, unlike the customs in America for example, we Belgians don't see waffles as breakfast items. We serve them in the afternoon as a snack shared with family or friends and often there is enough to replace dinner with them.

A typical wafelenbak. Nero is on the far left. On this picture,
Marc Sleen (the author of the series) is also invited to eat
some waffles and he's the 4th person on the right. 

In our home town, Sint-Niklaas, we have an actual monument for Nero and his friends, next to the public library:

To make Brussels' waffles is not something you can do in a whim. You need time. Not because it's that hard to make or so time consuming but because the batter needs to rise at least a few hours and preferably about a whole day. 

You need to plan these waffles. Maybe this is a good reason why people here don't serve them for breakfast when everyone is rushing to get out of the house in time for work or school.

Also the best way to make these is in a big batch. The ingredients below are enough for 4 people but we usually make them for at least 8 people and we often triple the recipe just to have enough. Any left over can be eaten afterwards. You either not bake a part of the batter and bake fresh waffles the next day or you bake all of the batter and eat the waffles cold.

Ingredients:
- 500 grams plain flour
- 7 grams or one package of instant yeast powder
- 200 grams butter
- 1/2 liter milk, lukewarm

- 1/2 liter water (sparkling water or beer can be used to make an even lighter batter)

- 4 eggs
- vanilla essence

- 5 grams salt

How to:

Mix the yeast powder with the water.
In a deep (!) and large (!) pot, pour in the flour and make a hole in the middle. Pour the yeast and water mixture in the hole in the flour.
When you've let the yeast stand there for a while, pour in the lukewarm milk and add the egg yolks as well. Mix this batter thoroughly.
Melt the butter and add it to the batter, mix well. Then add the vanilla essence and the salt. Mix well.
Beat the egg whites until firm. Gently add them to the batter by stirring them in with a wooden spoon.

Put the lid on the pot and put the pot on a warm place in the house. Best is in the kitchen. I put the pot on top of the dishwasher that was on so that the warmth of the machine could help the batter rise.

Give the batter at least a few hours. Check regularly without wiggling the batter so that it won't sink. Just pull off the lid and check whether or not the batter has doubled in size. We always make the batter in the morning and bake in the late afternoon. 

When ready to bake, heat the waffle iron. When it's hot, grease the iron with neutral oil and ladle enough batter to fill the holes of the waffle iron. 

this is a very full waffle iron!

(it was the left over batter I squeezed
in all at once in the end), you see the
bubbles coming up

Close the iron and don't open it for at least one or two minutes. Check very carefully. When the iron can be opened without breaking the waffle, the waffle is done. You can leave it in for a little longer when you like them browned some more. 

ready!

Serve with lots of whipped cream (mixed with some icing sugar to taste), strawberries and icing sugar.

Smakelijk!

Trifles to share

If you ever wonder what to do with some cake that's left over, some cream in your fridge that needs to be used up or any type of fruit that's begging to be eaten soon, some booze in the cupboard, look no further: it's time for trifles!

Trifles are super simple and what I'm showing you isn't really a recipe. If you have above mentioned ingredients, you don't need to rush out to get something else (necessarily - unless you want to make them without having left overs or want to fancy things up with extras of course). 

Let me tell you the story of the heavy cream in the fridge:
At home we made waffles a couple of weeks ago for a bunch of family members that came over. In our waffle craze, we thought it was wise to buy more of every ingredient, just in case anyone went hungry (this is a typical Belgian trait, we always tend to buy a lot and serve a lot, even though we have already planned to eat something else the next day and won't be doing anything with the left overs ...). We didn't buy one liter of heavy cream but TWO. Two liters is a lot, I can tell you. Even after eating a pile of waffles each, the 10 of us, there was one and a half liters of cream left. Luckily we only whipped up one liter that time so we only needed to worry about working half a liter up as soon as possible. The other box would keep longer in the fridge. We made chocolate mousse with the left over half liter and that was that.

This week, we checked the box of heavy cream that had been in our fridge for weeks and we saw it was to be eaten this week unless we wanted to throw it away. 
What to do? What to do? We thought about inviting some extra people and eat waffles and my dad was all crazy about that idea as he LOVES waffles but we decided against it. Waffles for dinner two times in a month is really too much. 
Plan B was to prepare a number of things to use the cream up: we could use some for pasta alfredo and have a layer cake with whipped cream (these two things are going to be served to us and a bunch of family members who are again helping us out ^^)

For the cream that would be left (because pasta and cake on one night made with that much cream is a major attack on about everything healthwise), we would bake a batch of waffles for dessert for dad (waffles, strawberries and whipped cream, he'll be in heaven). And as I also had one piece of cake left over, it was decided I could make trifles. 

How to do this? Well that's very easy and a lot of fun with some children as well!

Take a piece of cake (regular, vanilla, yogurt or even chocolate), some fruit (berries are wonderful but it's all your choice), whipped and sugared heavy cream (40% fat is what I use). Those are the main ingredients but the trifle can be fancied up with a type of alcohol like Amaretto/marsala or decorated with almond slivers, grated coconut, chocolate sprinkles, ... The possibilities are endless: If you don't have cake, take biscuits and crumble them. If you don't have whipped cream on hands, use some vanilla custard.
The amount of each is not very important, if you prefer or have less of the cake it will be less heavy and more fruit makes it healthier.

Cut the cake in small cubes and sprinkle some drops of the alcohol on it if you like. I used some marsala for the almond flavour it gives. For my two glasses of trifle, I used 1 large piece of cake.

Take some fruit and cut it in smaller pieces. Fruit like raspberries don't need to be cut up, they're the right size. I cut the strawberries however, to have pieces the size of raspberries. When the fruit has the same size, it'll be a more even trifle in the end. I used couple of strawberries and raspberries. I didn't have them so I specially went to the shop for them, just because I wanted to eat berries in the trifle and not any other fruit (but that's me). 

Whip up the heavy cream with some icing sugar to taste. 

Then it's time to make the layers: Take a tall glass or any glass of any size you like. I took some larger round glasses and this makes these trifles BIG. Good to share or for big appetites :)  Smaller glasses are good when you need some portion control or when you serve it after heavy main courses.
With a little help from some spoons, layer the ingredients. I started with some cream, then some fruit and then cake cubes. You keep on layering until you've filled the glass. Anything left over can be eaten by the cook, the dog or anyone who's eyeing you hungrily. 

I wanted to decorate a bit with almond slivers but I couldn't find them. They must have been used up. But as they are just extra, no worries.

Put the glasses in the fridge until you serve them. 

Smakelijk!