Mini Ham and Egg Tarts

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all my family, friends and fellow bloggers !

May the year 2011 bring us everything we wish for. I don't know about you but I am sure glad to see the back of 2010 !

Little ham and egg tartlets are always a hit. In fact anything to do with pastry are crowd pullers. Every time I have pastry leftover from a pie, I keep it all together in the freezer in a ziplock bag. And once in a while to use it up, I make these little tarts. It is versatile in the sense, you can use whatever you have in your pantry, freezer or garden.

I would like to thank everyone for all their messages during my hiatus from blogging.

Ingredients :
Liquids (enough to make 20 small plus 1-11cm tart) :
3 large eggs
200ml milk
100 ml cream
black pepper
sprinkling of salt
dry mixed herbs

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Bacon and Egg Pie

Mr Redneck is a bacon and egg pie fan and he has given this pie the thumbs up. The combination of potatoes, peas and bacon makes the filling light and moist.

This is my first time making a big pie from scratch and I found this recipe to be surprisingly simple to put together. To make things easy for myself, as I wanted to have the pie ready by lunch time, I made the pastry the day before and left it to chill in the fridge. The long hours relaxing in the fridge may have help to really relax the gluten as I didn't have to fight with it at all when rolling out. I didn't even break out in cold sweat !

Makes 1 double crust 20-23cm pie

Ingredients
Quick Flaky pastry
4 rashes bacon, lightly cooked and chopped
1 cup cooked peas
1 cup chopped cooked potatoes or kumara
5 large eggs

Method
1. Follow the steps on making the flaky pastry here. Roll out on a floured board to make 2 thin rounds to fit a 23cm pie plate.

2. Ease one lot of pastry into a lightly greased pie plate.

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Quick Flaky Pastry

I don't make pastry very often. In fact I have a phobia when it comes to pastry. So when I saw the recipe I thought to myself, this looks do-able ... I should try it. Truth be told, if it was not for the tempting photo in the cookbook I would not have given the recipe a second glance.

The dough was a breeze to roll thin and did not break or shrink. Flaky pastry is a quick and easy alternative to puff pastry. The pie crust turned out light and flaky. We loved it.

A real confidence booster especially for a non pastry person like me. No sweat to make and is much cheaper than buying readymade pastry from the shop. Do note that this dough uses milk instead of water for binding.

Makes 1 thinly rolled double crust 20-23cm pie

Ingredients
185gm flour
1 tsp baking powder
125gm very cold butter, cubed or grated

85ml - 100ml milk
1 tsp vinegar (add to milk)

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Thousand Layers Spiral Mooncake

My last trial of this mooncake was back in 2006. Yes, it took me a good 2 years to get over the 'trauma' and give this another go. Not a mooncake for the fainthearted to attempt. What is tedious is sealing the dough without destroying the spiral pattern. But the end result is very rewarding. The pastry is very very crispy, crunchy and light.

Apparently the secret to getting the mooncake to bloom like a snail shell....'dunking it in very hot oil 3 times'.

The traditional filling for this is yam but there is nothing to stop you from putting your own spin into this by using a lotus or bean paste or whatever takes your fancy. Hence I am not putting a recipe here for the filling. Mr Redneck likes his with a savoury mung bean filling.

Makes 6 mooncakes

Ingredients
Water dough
75g plain flour
20g shortening
10g (fine) sugar
35g water + 2-3 drops white vinegar

Oil Dough
65g plain flour
40g shortening

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Short Crust Pastry with 25% less fat

I have always been apprehensive about handling pastry and even more so making it. I have only ever attempted making short crust pastry once, more than a decade ago and that experience was enough to stop me dead in my tracks.

Here I am again, taking up the challenge, all because I bought myself a pie maker. It was on special for $10 and too good an offer to pass up.

Pastries are by nature quite fattening. I played around with trying to reduce the ratio of fat to flour as even a slight reduction in the fat content will help in the cholestrol and calorie count. In this recipe I have successfully reduced the fat used by 25 percent without affecting the flaky texture of the pie.

This short crust pastry was easy to handle and did not crumble . When baked the pastry was tender, flaky and crispy right through to the inside. I usually make a batch, pre-cut the pie tops and bottoms, and freeze them thus making the task of making the next lot of pies less tedious. We have used the pastry to make curry mince and bacon n' egg pies and they were delicious.

Makes 5 - 5" pies

Ingredients
260 gm flour
60 gm butter
40 gm shortening
¼ tsp salt
95-105 ml ice cold water
1 tsp vinegar or lemon juice (add to water)

Method
1. Add flour, salt, butter and shortening to food processor. Cube the butter and shortening. Pulse a few times until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

2. Sprinkle the water over the flour mixture. Pulse until it starts to clump together (fig 2). Pinch a little of the mixture between your fingers, if the dough is too dry and crumbly, add a little more water and pulse for 1-2 seconds more. It is very important not to overprocess the dough. Do not allow the pastry to form a ball in the food processor. The dough should not be wet or sticky.

3. Transfer the mixture to a plastic wrap (fig 3). Gather the wrap round the dough and flatten the dough to form a square (fig 4). Do not knead the dough.

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