Category Archives: Pies & Tarts

A slice of apple pie a day keeps insanity away

Posted in Autumn baking, Baking Recipes, Must-Makes from Martha, Pies & Tarts, Timeless Treats by

Things have been crazy around here.

The effects of the flood have not, to put it mildly, been pretty. In fact, looking at the aftermath of it is depressing. We’ve packed a lot of old clothes and shoes for the relief drive, but on a personal level, the damage and loss we have sustained in our own family company is also brutal. Let’s just say we’ve been cleaning for three days non-stop and haven’t even made it to a quarter of the stocks and other things that need to be rescued. The paperwork on my desk is slowly piling up, neglected in favour of other more dire priorities. I reckon it will take about a month to get everything back in their original state, but I hardly feel like I am in a position to complain. I have to be resilient, just like everyone else. Just like those who received a worse beating from this storm.

A more optimistic picture after this horrible flood. I don’t have the heart to document anything else.

It amazes me how two very opposite things can happen in the same week– on the same day even. On Thursday the rains finally heaved its last sigh and it took only a few hours for the flood in our area to disappear completely. In the morning the streets had looked like a lake and come afternoon it was dried out, leaving not even a single sign that there had been a deluge. But it has certainly left something in me at the end of this week: a severe tiredness; and some paranoia with any sound that resembles that of rain. Every time the trees outside my window so much as rustle, I look up to see if it is raining again. Things are not normal yet despite how they may appear; not by a long shot.

But a dash of good cheer: One of the more admirable things about people is their ability to pick up the pieces after the storm is done and move on. That’s always the case isn’t it? You either carry on with your life and do the best you can, or let the negativity weigh you down and carry you off into a bad place. I choose the first option of course, and though it may be tiring at times, no one ever disallowed taking breaks to shake off the weariness.

Today is a Sunday, and in preparation for another long period of cleaning this coming week, all I want to do today is watch The Newsroom, play Rockband 3, visit a bookstore, and write about apple pie. Not necessarily in that order.
Continue reading for the recipe

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{Recipe Round-up} Some tips to get rid of feta cheese

Posted in Cupcakes & Muffins, Pies & Tarts, Recipe Round-Up by

Truth be told, I am not a cheese person. I don’t like cheese, but I don’t hate it either. However if I had a choice, I wouldn’t usually eat cheese. Or mayonnaise, but let’s save that for another time. It is really this indifference with cheese that has taken me this long to really discover feta. I mean sure, I’ve had it in salads, but never really in a conscious manner. I think I am at a point wherein my interest in food would encourage me to savour and appreciate in an objective way even the things I don’t usually eat or particularly like (ie. cheesy things), yet I actually kind of like feta. I like how tangy and just rightly salty it tastes, not as in your face salty as most kinds of cheddar cheese.

Spinach Feta Scrolls

Of all the feta-containing Mediterranean-style pastries I came across, I think this was one of my favourites. I am a sucker for filled pastries, and I am a sucker for the spinach-feta combination. So when I cam across this recipe on Souvlaki for the Soul, I immediately decided I needed to make this. (And really, with all his amazing photos on his blog, I constantly feel like making everything from there.)

The pastry was buttery fantastic-ness and super easy to work with. Paired with the winning combination of spinach and feta, I was expecting this to knock me off my feet. I would like to say I really loved it, but because I ended up putting a lot more walnuts than indicated in the recipe, the scrolls tasted more like walnuts with a salty kick rather than anything else. It was delicious fresh, still hot from the oven, and crunchy, with the cheese oozing and flavourful… But only if I picked out the chunks of walnuts first. I simply am not a fan of walnuts and could not get past how glaringly the scrolls tasted like them. To solve this problem, I dipped my scrolls in Sriracha sauce and it worked, like magic! So my advise to you (especially, if like me, you don’t care much for walnuts) is to stick with the measurements in the recipe. Do not go overboard with the walnuts, but the cheese and spinach might be a different matter. I feel like the scrolls could benefit from a bit more spinach flavour, but that’s just my veggie-loving side talking.

Feta Basil Muffins

It wasn’t until after I made these muffins that I found out they were actually adapted from one of my new cookbooks; one that I foresee will become another of my most-abused cookbooks. And because I really loved how this modified version turned out, I decided to feature them here. I’ve no doubt the original will make an appearance on the blog sometime soon, and by the sound of it -feta, roasted pepper and basil!- it will merit a full-on feature. But let us get back to the muffin on hand.

I came across this recipe on Teenie Cakes but I didn’t read the post as thoroughly as I did after baking (which is why I didn’t know that it was from the book). I was just too excited because I already had ideas about how amazing these were going to taste, and boy did it not disappoint! The Teenie Cakes version is made with thyme, which I did not have, so I decided to make it with dried basil, which I never seem to run out of.

These muffins were absolutely perfect! I loooove how fantastic they smelled as they baked. The taste of the muffins themselves is mild, and yet they have this magnificent, salty and herby flavour that makes eating piece after piece so effortless! It’s the sort of muffin you do not grow tired of. The dried basil leaves a very clear aftertaste, and the feta was there to add a salty dimension to the muffins. You can take this up a notch by spreading on some herbed butter. The muffins are easy enough to make that you can adapt as you please, using your favourite herb or a combination thereof.

Here are a couple of other yummy recipes featuring Feta Cheese to try:

  1. Layered Mediterranean Dip from Annie’s Eats
  2. Tomato Feta Scones from Savory Sweet Life
  3. Cucumber Feta Rolls from Good Life Eats
  4. Tomato, Zucchini and Feta Cheese Tarte Flambée from What’s For Lunch Honey?
  5. Feta Cheese Soufflé from The Delicious Life

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The Recipe Round-Up is a short write-up on recipes that almost made it but end up not getting featured on the blog for one reason or another. Most of the time the reasons will fall among these three: 1. my dissatisfaction over my photos; 2. I’ve done a similar recipe before and this is merely a variation; 3. the results of the recipe to me were almost there, but not quite. There will still be some commentaries on how I would’ve improved the process or the recipes, plus all my usual observations, but instead of providing my re-written version of the recipe, I will simply link you to where I found it.

Of 10 hour road trips and empanada hangovers

Posted in Baking Recipes, Experiments & experiences, Pies & Tarts, Traveling by

One of the things I love the most about traveling is getting to sample the local food of wherever it is I end up going. But beyond being able to try it is loving it so much you try to replicate it even in the comfort of your own home. There’s something to be said about food that leaves this kind of effect on people. Now technically, an empanada isn’t particularly special, nor is it particularly rare to be of note. But for reasons I will share with you later on, I felt a very deep urge to make empanadas after paying a visit to the province of Ilocos in the Philippines.

Read about my travel and the recipe

{Recipe Round-up} Fruity Comfort Food

Posted in Pies & Tarts, Recipe Round-Up, Yeasted breads by

What’s your favourite kind of comfort food? For a lot of people that is probably a tough question. I know I’ve got quite a few at the top of my mind, but one of them happens to be Apple Crisps or Apple Crumble. I just love the cinnamony scent and taste of the tender apples contrasting with the deliberate grittiness of the topping. I love how its simplicity, and the fact that it can be so easily and quickly thrown together, essentially epitomizes a lazy day at home in your pyjamas; hair unkempt, kicking back with a nice warm mug of coffee– no pretentions, no embellishments. Nothing else except plainly existing as who we are. In the same manner, an Apple Crisp is rather straightforward; just apples and crisps. And on the occasion that we do eat it with a little bit of Vanilla Ice Cream, well, I don’t know about you but I like eating ice cream on my lazy days the most.

I made this Apple Crisp from Joy The Baker a few weeks ago and ate it with a scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream for ultimate comfort. If you would notice on the pictures, there was more crisp than there were apples. That’s unfortunate because the apples are the best part for me. Why do I always seem to run out of apples at such a crucial time, but have a fridge full of them when I’m not in the mood for apple recipes? Such a profound question for the Universe.

I really liked the combination of flavours on this Apple Crisp. The topping is just chock full of deliciousness (pecans and oats!). Unfortunately I didn’t feel like this would be the one recipe I would love to keep making over and over when I’m in need of a quick fix. (Or when I’m in the mood for apple pie but am too lazy to make the crust.) Alas, something was amiss for me in this Apple Crisp. Because the topping is very flavorful and sweet, it has a tendency to overpower the apple flavour a bit; but it might be because I did not use enough apples. I also thought it takes too long a time to bake, the issue of which could be resolved by baking this in individual ramekins. That said, I would definitely urge you to try this recipe out at least once, because it still is quite a good, solid recipe. And maybe if you up the apples a bit, who knows, it might even become your favourite recipe!

The other recipe I made were these Blueberry-Cinnamon Rolls from Annie’s Eats. Anything with blueberries in them just make me feel all giddy inside. I think it is largely because I like how they pop in your mouth once you bite through the skin of the berries. I don’t know, I must not be eating enough. However it’s been quite some time since I’ve declared desserts or pastries with hot, bubbling berries in them as one of my comfort foods. (Mixed Berry Cobbler? Yes, please!)

If you’ll remember, I made some regular old Cinnamon Rolls last time with my version of Cream Cheese glaze. Yes, I liked them a lot, but I think this particular recipe is better in that this bread has a nicer, softer crumb. (I often find myself favouring recipes that use bread flour like this one.) Also, the bursts of blueberry flavor is quite delightful among all the cinnamon flavour. The berries give these that jolt of juicy tanginess, and I think that adds a lot to these rolls as a whole.

My main issue with this recipe is the glaze. I simply cannot bring myself to use 3 cups of confectioner’s sugar to make the glaze. So if you would notice, my glaze is quite thin, because I cut down to sugar to about a cup or so. The goal was to make it taste lemony, because blueberries plus lemon is a fantastic combination! But it still ended up being sweet with just a slight tanginess, and I think this overt sweetness takes away from the flavours of the bun itself (not to mention the berries). In any case, I must confess that this has become my go-to Cinnamon Roll recipe because the bread part is just really good. I’ll be sure to pair it with my version of Cream Cheese glaze.

Truth be told, I think this particular yeasted bread recipe deserves a feature on the blog! I’ll probably do it once I concoct some interesting filling to make it a bit different from the usual.

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The Recipe Round-Up is a review of recipes that almost made it but end up not getting featured on the blog for one reason or another. Most of the time the reasons will fall among these three: 1. my dissatisfaction over my photos; 2. I’ve done a similar recipe before and this is merely a variation; 3. the results of the recipes to me were almost there, but not quite. There will still be some commentaries on how I would’ve improved the process or the recipes, plus all my usual observations. But instead of providing my re-written version of the recipe, I will simply link you to where I found it.

{Dearly Dreaming Dorie} Flakiness is occasionally a good thing

Posted in Baking Recipes, Dearly Dreaming Dorie, From the books, Pies & Tarts by

And by that, I most definitely am not referring to people. Flaky people are one of the worst, and I don’t even want to go into detail because that would have to be a whole blog post on its own (I’ve got a lot of experience from my university days, believe me). But flaky pastries? Now that is the only good kind of flaky in my book. Wouldn’t you agree?

It’s funny how carefully I am going through Dorie Greenspan’s cookbook. I believe the correct term for what I am doing is savouring her book. Baking the recipes one by one is perhaps a testament to my love, positive review, and glowing recommendation of her cookbook. All the recipes I have made so far have been scrumptious, and I have been really pleased with the enthusiastic feedback from family and friends. I wanted to try something a little different instead of my usual quick breads and cookies, and it just so happened that I was in the mood for something flaky.

Continue reading for the recipe

Pineapple Tarts for a Lunar New Year’s treat

Posted in Asian cooking, Baking Recipes, Living traditions, Pies & Tarts by

The Lunar New Year comes rather early this year, at the tails of my birthday no less! We’ve hardly had any time to breathe and properly digest all the birthday food and suddenly here comes the New Year food. Though I must admit, we don’t celebrate the Lunar New Year as much as the other people who follow the lunar calendar do, because where I live, we follow the Western calendar and celebrate more of the same things that Westerners do. But being Chinese, it’s only natural that we would do a little bit of the traditions passed on to us by our ancestors. Temple visits and incense lighting aside, I decided to make these adorable little pineapple tarts that seem to make its way around the blogosphere most prominently around this time.

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