Category: Cooking for children

Child favourite recipes

Blue Cheese and Asparagus Quiche

This quiche serves 4 to 6 people.  You can change the asparagus to asian mushrooms and use Parmesan instead of blue cheese. Get the children involved in the second stage, it is fun!

1.The pastry

Ingredients
  • 100 g of plain flour
  • 50 g of soft butter (see tip below if you only have hard butter)
  • Some tap water (cold)
Method

To make the pastry there are two ways: best practices and a quicker approach.  I am giving both below.

Shortcrust – best practice:

This consist in rubbing the butter with the flour to coat the flour.  You can use your finger tips or the palms of your hands, you will need your two hands. You will obtain a coarse sandy texture.  This is when the water comes in.  Add two tablespoon of water and make a bowl, if you need more water, add only a little at the time.  The bowl should not be sticky.  If you have added too much water, add a bit of flour. It is important that you do not work the dough (no, definitely no kneading!).

Shortcrust – quick acceptable method:

The quick method is handy when you do not have soft butter.  Melt partly or totally you butter, add to the flour with 2 tablespoon of water, use a wooden spoon to mix initially.  Form a rough ball, sprinkle a tablespoon of flour around the ball and roll it into the flour.  Again, do not work the pastry, there is no need to develop the gluten strands here.

Rest time:

In both case, you need to rest the dough for at least ½ hour.

Rolling the pastry:

Pre-baking the pastry is necessary because the fill is very wet and will not cook if you don’t do it, you would end up with a soggy mess! When the dough is rested and you are ready for the next stage, roll the dough with a little flour (to prevent sticking) on a rolling mat.   You can use baking paper if you don’t have a rolling mat.  Some of you may have a kitchen bench which is perfect for rolling the dough directly on, use it! Do not add too much flour or you will start changing the recipe.

Dust the rolling pin with a little flour.  To roll the dough, place the rolling pin inthe middle of the pastry and in one continuous movement gently push away from you.  Do the same pushing towards you.  At this stage, place your tart dish over the pastry to visualise the size of it.

Rolling the pastry, not exactly a perfect example, but fine

You will roll the pastry in a circle a few centimetres wider than the base (for the sides). Either turn your mat or turn your rolling pin to work in the diagonal direction.  Again gently push backward and forwards the pastry all the way.  This can be done in a few movements but please no back and forth in one location!

Now transfer to the dish by gently lifting the upper third (like on the photo) pastry over the rolling pin and then lifting the rolling pit with the pastry hanging from it.

Removing excess pastry
Removing excess pastry

Carry it across.   There is no need to butter the dish before. Gently bring it down over the tart dish.  To remove the excess pastry, roll the rolling pin on the top of the dish.

Blind Baking

To blind bake, heat up the oven to 160-180 °C.  You have two options here, either use a fork and with the fork teeth do small holes all over the bottom of the pastry.  This will prevent any bubbles forming.

The second method IMG_8887is to place a baking paper on top of the pastry and use baking stones.

Cook in the oven until light golden.  if you are using the baking stones, you may want to remove the tart shell from the oven, lift the baking paper and baking stones (in a metal colander for example) and put back in the oven 5-10 minutes on 140-160°C to get a bit of colour on the bottom part.

 

2. The filling and final bake

Ingredients:
  • 6 eggs
  • 250 ml cream
  • salt and pepper, a point of ground nutmeg
  • 1/2 cup blue cheese (if you do not have measuring cups, use a tea mug)
  • 1/2 cup of shredded mozzarella
  • asparagus and cherry tomatoes
Method:
  1. Preheat oven to 160°C if not already on.
  2. Mix the eggs and cream in a bowl with a whisk until combined, add salt and pepper . When adding the salt, be aware that the cheese may be quite salty already. Add the spice.Mix well.
  3. Crumble the blue cheese and add the mozzarella. Mix.
  4. Pour into the tart shell leaving at least 1/2 cm to the edge as the volume will rise when adding the asparagus and tomatoes.  The excess can be baked in a ramekin.
  5. Add the asparagus to make a forest, decorate with the cherry tomatoes.
  6. Bake until set in the centre.  It may be a bit lighter than on the photo, this is fine.

cheese and asparagus quiche before baking

 

 

Potato and prawn salad

This potatoes and prawn salad can be made early.  It is a great family dinner or picnic dish, even a great camping meal!

Use kipfler potatoes for this dish, they are a bit firmer and their taste is a bit nutty.

Ingredients:
  • 2 potatoes per person
  • About 10 prawns per person
  • For the mayonnaise: 1 egg yolk, 1/2 spoon of mustard, olive oil (about 1/2 cup), salt, juice of half a lemon, pepper
  • Coriander or chives or spring onions.
Method:
  1. Place the potatoes in cold salted water, bring to the boil and cook until soft
  2. Drain the potatoes, remove the skin, cut in slices.
  3. Bring to the boil a large pot of salted water, throw in the (uncooked) prawn. Cook for a minute or two until pink and cooked through. Drain the prawns. If you have purchased cooked prawns, discard this step.
  4. Peel the prawns, feel free to leave the tail end. Add to the potatoes.
  5. Prepare the mayonnaise: mix the yolk and mustard slightly, keep mixing while adding slowly the olive oil. The consistency will thicken, extend the mayonnaise until you reach the volume you need. Add the lemon juice, salt and pepper.  Use straight away by mixing with the potatoes and prawns.
  6. Add cut herbs.

Carrot salad

Easy and quick to make, the carrot salad is often forgotten.  It is as well an entree as a side dish. For lunch, it can be eaten with a slice of bread and paté.

Ingredients:
  • 1 carrot per person
  • 1 Dijon mustard (either the plain or the wholegrain)
  • Salt, vinegar, olive oil
Method:

Peel and grate the carrots, place in a bowl.

In another bowl, prepare the seasonning.  For 2 large carrots, place 1/2 teaspoon of mustard with 1/2 teaspoon of vinaigar at the bottom of the bowl, add 1/2 teaspoon of salt, some ground pepper and 3 tablespoons of oil. Mix well and transfer to the grated carrots. Turn over.

You can add sultanas or sliced almond to this carrot salad, it works really well.

Pear & Chocolate Tart

This pear and chocolate tart is a beautiful desert, it is light, fresh and delicious.  Nobody at the table will know what that chocolate is hiding!   This pear and chocolate tart combines the delicateness of the pears and of melted chocolate.  You will need ripe pears, you may want to plan ahead if your grocer only sells hard stone pears.

This desert does not need to be placed in the fridge, except if the weather is very hot, or the chocolate-butter cover will sweat like on the photo here when taken out of the fridge.  This results in a photo not quite so perfect unfortunately!

20160306_194828
Pear chocolate tart, out of the fridge (due to the heat) and having a sweat. I would not put it in the fridge normally.

As for the level of difficulty, it is easy to medium, you will need to make the pastry, precook it and then cook it again until set. Serves 8

Ingredients:

For the pastry:

  • 50 g of butter softened
  • 100 g of plain flour
  • some cold water (about 1/4 glass – see recipe)

For the filling:

  • 3 large ripe pear (Williams or Packham variety) cored, peeled and mashed up (use the electric mixer)
  • 2 tablespoons of flour
  • 4 eggs
  • 60 g caster sugar
  • 50 ml of cream

For the chocolate cover:

  • 70 g dark cooking chocolate
  • 40 g butter
Method
  1. Prepare the pastry: in a bowl rub the soft butter and the flour together until all of the butter sticks to the flour. Add water little at the time to obtain an homogenized ball.   Rest for at least half an hour at room temperature.Tip: if your butter is hard (from the fridge), cut the butter in small cubes and let to soften on top of the flour.

    Tip: you can prepare the pastry ahead of time, wrap it and place in the fridge.  Remove from the fridge  1/2 h to an hour before using. 

  2. Preheat oven to 180 º Celsius. Using a rolling pin, roll the pastry on a pastry mat or sheet of baking paper.  Transfer to the dish and trim the edges.  With a fork, make small holes at the bottom of the tart to prevent the formation of bubbles during the blind bake.
    Bake for 15-20 min or until light brown. Remove from he oven.
  3. Prepare the mix by adding to the pear puree, the eggs, sugar, cream and flour. Mix well. Place in the tart leaving 0.5 cm height at the top. Put back into the oven and cook until set. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
  4. Melt the butter and chocolate and spread over the top of the tart.  Leave aside and allow the chocolate topping to set.

Flan patissier

This flan patissier is a simple dessert for the whole family.  It is basically a cooked custard. You can make it plain, or add previously soaked raisins or dry plums or even chocolate chips.

Depending on the height of your tart pan you may have some left over (like for mine, 3/4 of the recipe below is sufficient).

Serves 8

Ingredients:
  • 2 tablespoons of plain flour
  • 1 L of milk
  • 50 g butter (you can choose to do without, the butter add some richness and silkiness)
  • 8 whole eggs
  • 200 g white sugar
  • Soaked raisins drained (prepare some tea, add some mirabelle liquor (plum brandy) or other liquor and let raisins soak for at least 3 hours)
  • Seeds of 1 vanilla bean
Method:
  1. Preheat oven to 170°C.  Butter and flour a tart pan.
  2. Place sugar, vanilla seeds, butter and milk in a large saucepan on the stove, heat up until close to boil.
  3. While the milk is warming up, in a large bowl, break the eggs, beat them and mix with the flour, use a ladle of the milk to help.
  4. When the milk is about to boil, pour half of the milk over the egg-flour mix while mixing (use a large whisk), transfer back to a slow heat and stir constantly. The mixture will thicken.  Be careful not to boil it. When it is clearly coating the back of a spoon, remove from the heat, insert the soaked raisins and pour into the tart pan.
  5. Insert into the oven and bake until set (there will be a golden brown (it can be a bit darker than on the photo).

 

Peach Crostata

This peach crostata is a simple and delicious dessert.  It can be done while you are preparing the rest of your dinner.  You could change the fruits with what you have available.  The difference with a more classic fruit tart is in the taste of the pastry and the presentation.

You have two choices when you make it: using the fresh fruits directly as such or cooking slighlty the fruits in butter and brown sugar until half done.  Both are delicious!

Serves 4

Ingredients:
For the pastry
  •  35 g of soft butter
  • 40 g of thickened cream
  • 80 g of plain flour
  • 1 tablespoon of caster sugar
For the fruits filling
  • 2 large peaches cut into thin slices
  • 1 to 2 table spoon of brown sugar (depending on how sweet the fruits already are)
  • if cooking the fruits : 2 tablespoon of almond meal, 15 g butter
Method

Mix all the pastry ingredients together, form a ball.  if it is too sticky add a tiny bit flour. Rest on the bench for 10-15 minutes.

Preheat oven at 180°C.

Roll the dough out on a piece of baking paper (you will cook the crostata on it) in a roundish shape 25-30 cm diameter. Place the rolled pastry on a baking sheet and refrigerate for 5 minutes.  This is necessary especially on hot days as the fat content of that dough is very high and you need to be able to handle the edges.  In hot days, the pastry will be very quickly too sticky and teary.

If cooking the fruits , place them in a fry-pan with the butter on medium heat. When they start cooking, turn over once being careful not to break the fruits.  Add the sugar, toss around, cook for another minute or two, then remove from the heat and add the almond meal, toss gently.  This is now ready to be placed on the pastry.

Take your pastry out of the fridge, place the fresh fruits or fruit mix in the middle.  If you are using fresh fruits, you can dispose the pieces on a round pattern.  With the cooked fruits, pour them gently in the middle.  In both cases, leave a 4 cm border.

Bring back the edges towards the middle.

Bake until golden brown.  Cool down completely or partly before serving.  Serve with thickened cream or whipped cream if desired.

peach crostata fresh fruits

Pear and chocolate flan

This pear of chocolate flan is a crowd pleaser.  I made it for morning teas at the office in the past and for desserts: children and adults love it.

In terms of difficulty level, it goes in the super easy basket. I get my children involved in the preparation.  Today, I lost them when it came to put the pieces of pear in the mix, they were too busy leaking off the remaining chocolate from the wooden spoon and empty bowl.

Ingredients
  • 150 g of dark cooking chocolate
  • 90 g of white sugar
  • 50 g of plain flour
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
  • 1/4 L milk
  • a nut of butter for the dish
  • 2 pears
Method
  1. Pre-heat oven at 180°C
  2. Butter a roasting dish (capacity of about 1 litre)
  3. Melt the chocolate.
  4. Add in the sugar, then the egg one at the time.
  5. Add the flour then the cinnamon and milk.
  6. Place the mix in the roasting dish, peel and cut the pears.  You can cut in thin slices or in cubes. Place over the chocolate (they will mostly sink in).
  7. Put in the oven and bake until all set.

Baked salmon tail with capers and grape tomatoes

This baked salmon tail with capers and grape tomatoes is perfect for a light lunch or diner. It serves 5 people.  You can bake a slice of salmon the same way if you want.  We generally get the salmon tails from the fish market, I have also seen them at some grocers vacuumed packed.

I did not get the time to take a nice shot when the dish was cooked, but you can guess it was yummy!

Ingredients:
  • One salmon tail
  • 2 tablespoons of capers
  • 1 long tomato grape (1 punnet)
  • 1 carrot peeled and sliced
  • Salt, pepper, olive oil
  • 1/2 cup white wine
  • Fresh rosemary
Method
  1. Pre-heat oven at 180°C.
  2. Place the salmon in a large sheet of baking paper in a roasting tray, you want to aim at keeping the juices close to the fish (i.e. no leak).  Place wine, rosemary, tomatoes and carrot in the tray.  Season with the salt and pepper.  Drizzle olive oil over salmon and tomatoes.  Add the capers.
  3. Bring back the baking paper more or less over the fish.
  4. Place in the oven. After 20 min baste the fish with the juices.
  5. Cook until the fresh pulls apart when inserting a knife along the main bone. Do not overcook.
  6. Serve with Steamed broccoli or beans and a green salad.

Roasted Strawberries

Roasted strawberries are very simple to make, yet quite a success with the whole family. They can be served with a cake or with yogurt or “fromage blanc”.  They are particularly good with chocolate cake.

In terms of difficulty level, it goes in the super easy basket!

Timing:

20 minutes

Ingredients:
  • 2 punnets of strawberries (or as many as you need)
  • 50 g caster sugar
  • 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
Method
  1. Preheat Oven to 180°C
  2. Rinse the strawberries and hull them or simply cut the leaves off
  3. Place the strawberry in a single layer pointing up in a roasting pan (possibly the one you will serve in as after roasting they are quite fragile)
  4. Mix together in a bowl the vinegar and sugar and pour all over the strawberries, make sure all strawberries are coated. Another technique would be to toss them in the juice and them put them in place.
  5. Roast for 10-15 minutes or so until they are soft and tender.  The timing will depend on the size of the strawberries and your oven.

chocolate cake with roasted strawberries

 

C is for Cookies…Choc Chip Cookies

C is for Cookies….The best Choc Chip Cookies

“C is for Cookies, that’s good enough for me
Oh, cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C”
I use these choc chip cookies for many occasions: lunch boxes, presents, travels, picnics, playdates, …

What I like with this recipe is that you can make them very small, bite size like or maxi over indulging size! This recipe describes medium (normal) size biscuits.

Ingredients

200 g of butter, melted
150 g of white sugar
200 g of brown sugar
2 eggs
450 g of flour
1 teaspoon of raising powder (1 sachet if using that version)
300 g of good cooking chocolate chopped with a knife (or use packets of chocolate chips from the shop)

Method
  1. Heat the oven up on 180°C
  2. Mix together the eggs, white sugar, brown sugar
  3. Add the butter and mix well
  4. Add together the flour, raising powder and chocolate chips.  Mix by hand.
  5. Cover 2 baking sheets with baking paper, with a spoon (or with your hands) place on the baking sheet little mounds the size of an apricot,push down very slightly.  Make sure the mounds are not to close to each other (at least leaving space of the size of one mound between two mounds) as they will spread during baking.
  6. Bake until the colour starts to change slightly golden brown. Do not overbake.
  7. Slide the baking paper with cookies on it on the cooling rack. Leave to cool for a few minutes before moving them.
  8. You should expect to need two bakes if using two baking trays at the same time.

 

 

Choc chip c

Star brioche

This star brioche can be made with chocolate (Nutella) but also as a savory brioche with vegemite and mozzarella.  There are endless combination of options for flavor such as adding nuts, using lemon curd, etc.  This recipe comes from a cooking class I attended.

Ingredients

500 g of bakers flour (in the shops in France, I think it is T45 flour), this is important
290 g of eggs (i.e. weight without the shells), you may have to use part of an egg to get to that number (keep the rest for egg wash)
50 g of milk
95 g of white sugar
10 g in salt
12 g of instant yeast
290 g of unsalted butter at room temperature

Method
  1. Mix all ingredients except sugar and butter on low for 4 minutes. This is important, sugar and butter are added later to enable the flour to hydrate otherwise sugar and butter would coat the granules of flour.
  2. Then increase to medium speed for 2-3 minutes (the dough will develop) and slowly add in the sugar over the next 5 minutes.  The dough will then be intensely developed which correspond to the gluten strands having taken a developed structure.  You may know about the window stretch, which is often used for yeasted dough, you can do it here.  If you take a walnut size of dough and gently pull it into a square, it should stretch easily, not tear and you should see through.  By hand it will take a bit of time and you may want to use a dough cutter/scrapper.  In any case, be mindful not to keep adding flour as you will then change the recipe.
  3. Then add the soft (not melted!) butter a little at the time still while mixing until the dough cleans the side of the bowl.
  4. Cover with cell wrap but not too tight so the dough can grow in size and leave in the fridge for at least 20 minutes (overnight is fine).
  5. This is where you get the dough divided in the parts that will be put together to make the desired shape. In the case of the brioche star, I divided it in 4 balls the same weight (weight of total dough, divided by 4).
  6. Preshape: gently spread in a rectangle by pushing and pulling with your fingers each ball onto the counter, perform 2 envelop turns (fold left third towards the middle then right third to join, turn the dough 90° and repeat).  Then bring in the corners to the centre, turn around and using both hands move the ball on the counter until it takes a nice round shape. It will stick to the counter a bit, this is fine. Scoop the ball with both hands pulling towards you and place on a tray. repeat for each ball. Don’t overwork it. Cover with cell wrap.  Place the tray in the fridge 20 min minimum or so.
  7. Get you baking tray out, line with baking paper. With a rolling pin, roll the first ball into a circle a bit smaller than the width of your tray. Place on the tray. Cover with Nutella (you may want to mix it first to make sure it is quite easy to use). Repeat for the next balls.  The last ball does not get any Nutella topping. Placea glass at the centre of your brioche, this will be the centre of the star and will not be cut in the coming process.  Using a dough cutter or sharp large knive cut in quarter from the edge to the external part of the glass, subdivide each quarter further in 3.
  8. With 2 hands seize one wage in each hand and fold both towards you twice (left hand turns clockwise, right hand counter clockwise), tuck together the ends. Repeat until you have gone all around.
  9. Eggwash avoiding the chocolate areas (not to smear it everywhere).
  10. Allow for a final proofing, at least 20-30 minutes at room temperature (22-25°C), it may take longer is colder.
  11. Preheat oven at 180-200°C.  Bake for 15-30 minutes (depending on your oven) until golden brown.

Galette des Rois

 

Galette des rois – Kings’ Galette

Early January (the 6th to be exact) is the celebration of the Epiphany.  In the Christian tradition, the epiphany represent the visit of the three kings to baby Jesus and the presentation of gifts.  In France, this is a very social occasion and celebrated by all with a spacial cake called “la Galette des Rois”.

The galette contains a small piece of ceramics, if you end up with it in your piece, you become the king or queen and get to wear a crown! Then you may choose a queen or king and even a buffoon.  To avoid cheating when distributing cake slices, the younger person (often a child) gets under the table and cites peoples at random as someone serves the cake.

IMG_2278

The cake is made of puff pastry and fragipane custard cream.  In France, you will find many at bakeries and in supermarkets that week, but in Australia, this is much harder to find.  Below is the recipe.

Ingredients

The filling cream consist of a small custard mixed with a small frangipane cream.

  • 2 sheets of puff pastries. Mine came as frozen squares, but the cake is more often of round shape
  • 1  ceramic piece (they come in all shapes) or a small coin (washed) or small shell (washed), this piece is called the “fève” in French.
  • frangipane cream: 125 g of almond meal, 100 g of softened butter, 80 g of caster sugar, 2 tablespoon of rum (optional)
  • Creme patissiere: 1 egg yolk, 1 tablespoon of cornflour, 1 tablespoon of caster sugar, 10 cl of milk, a few drops of good quality vanilla essence
  • 1 egg yolk dissolved with 2 tablespoons of water to seal the cake and glaze

Preparation – 20 min

Method

  1. Preheat oven at 180 ºC
  2. For the creme patissiere, mix the egg yolk, corn flour, vanilla, sugar  and milk together in a small saucepan. Heat up while mixing (with a whisk), as soon as the mix is about to boil remove from the heat and mix until thick and glossy. Add rum is desired. Cool down in a different recipient.
  3. For the frangipane cream, work the butter until soft and smooth with a spatulla.  If your butter is hard (was in the fridge), you may use the microwave on very low heat setting (max 30%) for 20 sec bursts until just soft.  Add sugar and almond meal and mix well. Then mix with the creme patissiere and place in the fridge until needed for use.
  4. On a baking tray, place a sheet of baking paper, place the first sheet of puff pastry on it. Using a pointy knife, score all around the edge first centimetre and brush with the egg yolk- water mix.
  5. Add the frangipane custard that was in the fridge making sure not to cover the scored area.  This is where you must put the ceramic piece.  Now try not to put it where the knife will go through where cutting. For example, if cutting in triangular pieces, not in the middle; if cutting in squares (works only for the square shape cake and if you need to share it among quite a few people), try to place in a middle of a square.
    IMG_2201
  6. Cover with the second sheet of puff pastry and seal by pinching the edges together.

IMG_2203           IMG_2251

  1. Using your sharp knife, draw a floral pattern on top or even simpler geometric intersecting lines. Brush with the egg yolk and water mix.  Put in the oven and bake until the top is well golden. Remove and transfer to a cooling rack, then on a serving dish.