Crema Bruciata, or Crème brûlée, with nectarines, plums and cherries

The original recipes comes from my book Sweet As... ,  my own recipe which doesn't require steam baking in the oven and includes nectarine slices. Plum slices and cherries were also added here, and the result was delicious!  In Italy we also call this crema bruciata, but crème brûlée is most commonly used now as it sounds sophisticated :-).

To make the crème you will need one egg yolk for each 100ml of cream and 1 tbsp of sugar, for this recipes I used 5 egg yolks (thus 500ml cream and 5 tbsp of sugar) and I filled 8 ramekins, plus I had a little left to fill three miniature ones. Of course if you don't put any fruit on the bottom you will need more crème.

It is up to you how much fruit you put in, generally I just line the bottom of the ramekins with 4-5 think slices, this time I think I overdid it (thus the leftover crème) sicne stone fruit season is not long in NZ, and I wanted to use more fruit than crème! Don't use watery fruit and remove any juice from from cutting: you don't want to have a soggy base!

For the crème you need to mix well the egg yolks with sugar, then add the cream and either some vanilla seeds scraped from a vanilla pod, or a few drops of pure vanilla essence. If using vanilla essence add it when the crème is thick. A whole pod of vanilla is good too, but I find it to be in the way while stirring the crème!

Put the bowl with the mixture over a saucepan of boiling water and cook at bain-marie stirring constantly. It will take a long time, at least 30 minutes, possibly more, and your wrist will get tired and you will get bored. You can read a book at the same time, as long as you are careful. When you cannot take it any longer the cream will magically thicken, and when it is thick enough (remember that it will need to set in the fridge, not in the oven) and it looks bright yellow, remove from the heat and let it cool down lightly, always stirring.

Then pour over your fruit (or into the ramekins if you don't have any fruit). Refrigerate for at least 6 hours, better overnight, or a whole day. One hour before serving spread some brown or sugar over the top and caramelize under the grill, or with a blow-torch. At this stage I realized that I got rid of my old oven upstairs, the one that I never used since moving the kitchen downstairs 16 years ago except for the grill, and crème brûlée. The grill in the downstair kitchen is not as good, the oven is too big and it takes too long, still, I managed to melt the sugar (mostly).

Then refrigerate again for one hour and serve. The top should be crunchy and the centre smooth. It will be more creamy than the standard crème brûlée puddings that we find in restaurants, which have more of a 'set' texture, but if the crème is far too runny it means that you didn't cook it long enough at bain-marie, so you will know next time :-). If the top is not crunchy it means that you have left it in the fridge too long after caramelizing the sugar.
Mine was yummy and delicious, although thinking back at the grilling part (and seeing the details in the photos) I think that is it time for me to get a blow-torch. I never had one, it should be fun!

And the miniature ones? Well, they were so pretty next time I am just going to make a tray of them!

And now for the flowers of the day, all from my garden!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Plum and strawberry smoothie

This is the season for plums, and we also have a few last strawberries in the garden, enough to add to smoothies and make them sweet! In fact I love the fact that plums are a little tart, but they do benefit from the strawberry sweetness. As a base I used half apple juice and half coconut water. Perfect breakfast!

And now a few things from my garden!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Frutta sotto spirito

The easiest way to preserve fruit, if you like alcoholic fruit, that is! The Cape gooseberries are with whisky, and the cherries and plums with Cognac (I added a bit of sugar to the plums because they were a little sour). I will try them soon!!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Plum jam with a little brown sugar

I am back to New Zealand and it is still plum season in the Oratia orchards! But is it so hot that plums don't last long after picking, so I had about 1 kg that was far too ripe and soft for eating. I washed them and then place them in a pot with a little water and boiled them, then I strained the 'paste' to discard stones and leftover skin and tasted it. I usually add 50-60% of sugar (I don't like the 1kg fruit for 1kg sugar ratio they do in NZ), but this paste was already sweet! So I added just 2 tbsp of brown sugar and a pinch of citric acid (as a preservative) and, fearing that the jam wouldn't set, 1/3 tsp of agar agar. If I were to keep this jam longer maybe I would have added more sugar, but I only made 5 small jars and two are gone already!

It is a really delicious and sweet jam, and it is the first time (after 18 years in NZ for me) that plums seems to be so sweet when ripe (almost like in Italy), and a jam need so little sugar - I guess it is due to the dry January we had.

But I really want to try to make a jam with even less sugar (or no sugar at all) to keep, any suggestion?

Remember that the first pears and the famous Oratia Beauty apples are also in season at the Dragicevich Orchard, 556 West Coast Rd, Oratia, Auckland. The Oratia Beauty apples are the first fruit to be added to the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity Ark of Taste

  

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Plum jam and the last of the summer sun?

It feels like summer is slowly coming to an end. I had the very last of the plums from the Oratia orchard and made some jam. I usually blend my jams as my husband like them smooth, but I prefer jams with chunks of fruit and peel in it, so I just remove the stone and cooked the plums with a little water and some jam setting sugar (this was a present, and I wanted to try it). The NZ jam tradition seems to be 1kg of sugar for 1 kg of fruit (or even more sugar if you make raspberry jam) for an Italian this is too much. I go for 40 to 60%, with the latter being my preference if I need to preserve the jam for a long time (it helps agains botulin). You can taste the fruit better with less sugar :-).

Finally I am getting sunflowers in the garden, now that summer is ending… well, I got three now, and they are my little personal suns!

And our cats, Nikita (left) and Marameo (right) are also enjoying the last of the sun, sleeping outdoors all day long! Marameo is 18 now, an old lady cat 

 Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Plum smoothie, and purple heaven

Another day, another smoothie. I used some free stone plums from Oratia Orchard (they have many variety of plums, freshly picked), drinking yogurt, one banana and ice cubes. Perfect for breakfast and I love the colour! In fact I love all hues of purple and plum, here are some of my favourite.

Well, my blueberries should be blue by now, bus a bug ate half of my plant form the inside, and
the birds tend to get to the berries before me as soon as they turn blue! No blueberry jam this year,
but they look pretty in the garden. 

And these I adore, tiny little pansies from the garden.

Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini

Louise Plum Cupcakes, perfect for summer and Sweet New Zealand

I love summer and stone fruit! The orchard near my house sells a variety of plums, and these Louse plums are just a treat! You could also use some black doris or any free stone plums for this recipe.

Ingredients

120 g butter

3 eggs

130 g sugar

1/2 tsp lemon zest

200 g self-rising flour

60 ml milk

3 large or 6 small Louise (or other) plums

Makes 12 cupcakes

Preheat the oven to 175°C. Line a 12-muffin tray with cupcakes paper cups.

Melt the butter in a jug, either in the microwave or in the oven (while the oven is warming up for the cupcakes). Place the eggs and sugar in a mixing bowl and whisk, using an electric beater, until the mixture looks light and pale yellow in colour. Slowly add the melted butter and the lemon zest. Keep beating at a low speed now; add half of the flour followed by half of the milk. Add the rest of the flour and milk and keep beating making sure that there are no lumps. In the meantime wash the plums and cut into quarters (or halves, depending on the size). Divide the mixture between the 12-cupcake cases and top each cupcake with a slice of plum, skin facing up. Bake for about 18-20 minutes, until golden brown at the top. You can also check by inserting a toothpick into the cupcakes: if it comes out clean the cupcakes are ready. Remove the cupcakes from the tin and let them cool down. 

This recipe is for Sweet New Zealand, the sweet monthly blogging event for Kiwi Bloggers, this month of February 2013 hosted by Michelle from the blog Greedybread. 

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Vegan "Cape-pops", and a vegan pie too...

Almost cake-pops because they look like cake-pops, but they are not made from cake! In fact these are Cape Gooseberries (therefore I am calling them Cape-pops :-)), dipped in dark chocolate. I left some plain, while I rolled the others in shredded coconut, ground pistachio nuts, and plum powder (my new discovery, I talked about it already in here). I let them set first at room temperature and then, because it was a warm day, in the fridge.

I am entering this recipe for Sweet New Zealand #9 (April 2012) hosted by Frances of the Bake Club

But I am not finished yet...

I had melted far too much chocolate for the Cape gooseberries, so I made a pie which, I must say, came out better than I had anticipated. But sometimes new discoveries are born out of chance, or leftovers!

I had a few sheets of filo pastry left, I placed them into a 23 cm pie dish lined with baking paper, leaving the corners to spill out. I peeled and cut four pears and placed the slices over the pastry, then drizzled the lot with Frangelico liqueur. I added the melted dark chocolate and closed the four corners of pastry over the filling. I wetted the top pastry with water and I added the rest of the coconut/pistachio stuff on top too (why waste it!). I baked the pie until the pastry was golden, and then I sprinkled a little icing sugar on top (this was the only sugar needed). I pie was perfect! Bittersweet and with an amazing texture, the chocolate had 'melted' into the pear slices... I will need to work on this and make it again, on purpose, and with more filo pastry, but I wanted to share it with you now because to me this was the perfect Vegan pie!!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Plum Cupcakes and a sweet review on 3News

Photo by Shaun Cato-Symonds,  and Recipe by Alessandra Zecchini ©

These Plum Cupcakes are from Party Food for Girls, they are fruity and dairy free, and you can find the recipe here. 

On the same page there is also a lovely review by Lyn Potter for the 3News website. Lyn was helped by an almost 11 years old girl to make four recipes out of the book, and Arantxa and I really appreciated this :-). 

The verdicts by both mother and daughter were really positive, in particular we like one of the comments the young reader made: 

"I like having a party book that a girl my age helped to write: she knows what kind of party food we like". 

Read the rest of the story here: http://www.3news.co.nz/Party-food-for-girls/tabid/420/articleID/231917/Default.aspx#ixzz1d4M33W5o

Quince Jelly, Plum Paste and a cup of Ginger Lemon Mint tea

Quince Jelly

Living in the bush means that I don't have many fruit trees, but from time to time I am lucky enough to get fruit from friend's trees.

One of my favourite has to be quince; it looks so retro and photogenic (ok, I am talking about my dress as well!) and I love quince paste! But this year I decided to make quince jelly, just for a change.

Cut the quinces and remove the pips, add the juice of half a lemon and then place into a pot with a little water. Cook until the quinces are a soft mush. Now you will have to place this 'mass' into a jelly bag or cloth (I use a cotton pillowcase which I bought just to make jellies) and hung it overnight over a bowl to collect the juices. Drip drip drip you will collect some lovely red-orange coloured juice, but do not squeeze the bag, or the jelly will become cloudy!

Measure the juice and add the same amount in sugar. Bring to boil and simmer for about 20 minutes. Test to see if the jelly is setting by picking up a little on a teaspoon: if it hardens when cold then the jelly is ready, otherwise boil it a little longer. Once ready pour into a rectangular container. After a few minutes skin the top (this will have all the 'scum' which rises to the surface and needs to be discarded).
Let the jelly set for a few days, then cut into cubes and serve.

Plum Paste

I got the plums from Arfi, when I went to her house for an Auckland food bloggers get-together.

Wash the plums and place them in a large saucepan with a little water. Bring the fruit to a gentle boil. 

Simmer the jam for about 20 minutes and then pass through a sieve, discarding the stones.
Put back into the pot and bring back to the boil.  Add the sugar (I used 60% sugar to the weight of the fruit) and stir well. Simmer until you are happy with the consistency (the more you cook it, the thicker the paste. You can also add an apple (not peeled, just chopped and pips removed) for a thicker paste. 

Place the paste into plastic containers, jelly moulds, cups... anywhere you can let it set for a few weeks. I used a silicon muffin tray.

When you need to use the paste tip it over a plate. I did this a bit too early (I couldn't wait to try it) and the top was still soft, but the longer you wait the harder it will become.

And for my cuppa: One of my favourite hot drinks: lemon, fresh ginger (peel it first) and a few mint leaves from the garden. All into the teapot, add boiling water and let it rest for 5 minutes. Serve with honey, if you like.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©