rhubarb & raspberry meringue tart

This recipe isn't for the faint-hearted, or for those wanting something sweet in a hurry. It is by no means complicated, and it is so simple to make this tart look beautiful. But the constant chilling-cooking-cooling is incredibly time consuming, and you'll easily spend the better portion of your day on this baby. But honestly, it was absolutely worth every minute of my time. Rhubarb, raspberry and meringue. Can you honestly be surprised?

It's quite funny how these days, everyone is a food critic. Much the same as wine, the more people are exposed to different varieties and learn what they like, the more they feel comfortable in saying what's no good, or that something is unbalanced, or lacks acidity, or needs more sweetness. And whilst I laugh, I actually think it's a good thing! Why eat food that's simply ordinary? Why not explore other options and expose yourself to something new? Gosh, if I didn't have the varities of food that I currently do in my life, I would be a very different (and likely bitter) person. And if people weren't having such an increasing interest in food and trying more non-conventional recipes, regardless of their potentially snooty opinions as a result, we would have a much harder time finding the range of ingredients we do in a standard supermarket these days.

So, forgive me for sounding pretentious when I say this, but this tart has everything a dessert should. The very little amount of citrus rind the filling has is just the right amount to cut through what may have otherwise been a very sweet dessert. It's not sickly, at all. The almonds in the base add the perfect amount of crunch. And oh, that pillowy meringue… I was tempted to toast it, but it was simply too fluffy and white and pristine to touch.

Ingredients
Recipe from March 2011 issue of AGT

For the pastry:
180 gms butter, softenend
40 gms pure icing sugar, sieved
2 egg yolks
250 gms plain flour

For the frangipane:
75 gms butterm, softenend
80 gms caster sugar
70 gms almond meal
1 tbsp brandy
2 eggs
50 gms blanched almonds, finely chopped

For the filling:
1½ bunches rhubarb (about 6 stems), trimmed, sliced into 4cm pieces
250 gms raspberries
150 gms caster sugar
Finely grated rind and juice of 1 lemon

For the Italian meringue:
175 gm caster sugar
2 eggwhites
pinch of cream of tartar
For the pastry, beat butter in an electric mixer until pale, and then add icing sugar and beat until combined. With the motor running, add yolks one at a time, followed by 1 tbsp chilled water. Sieve flour over and stir to just combine. Lightly knead on a work surface then wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled, approximately 1 hour.

For frangipane, beat butter and sugar in an electric mixer until pale. Add almond meal, brandy and eggs and stir to combine, then stir through chopped almonds. Refrigerate until chilled, approximately 1 hour.

Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to a 30cm round. Line a buttered and floured 22cm diameter, 5cm-deep cake tin with a removeable base. Trim the edges, prick base with a fork and refrigerate to rest for another hour.

Meanwhile, for baked rhubarb and raspberries, preheat oven to 175C. Place rhubarb in a baking dish large enough to fit snugly, scatter over raspberries, sugar, lemon rind and juice. Cover with foil and bake, turning rhubarb once, until tender, above 15 minutes. You want the rhubarb to still hold it's shape! Set aside to cool.

Drain syrup from the rhubarb mixture and and place in a small saucepan over high heat, reducing it to about 125 mls. This should take about 5-10 minutes. Set aside to cool. Return 50 mls to the rhubarb mixture, and set aside the remainder to use when serving.

Line the tart case with baking paper and pastry weights, or uncooked rice or beans. Blind bake the tart case until light golden, approximately 15 minutes. Remove paper and weights and bake until golden, about another 5-10 minutes. Spoon the frangipane into tart case and bake until frangipane is golden and set, about 10 minutes. Set aside to cool until just firm, then remove tart from tin and cool completely on a wire rack.

Meanwhile, for Italian meringue, combine sugar and 60ml water in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir until sugar dissolves and brush down sides of pan with a wet pastry brush to remove any sugar particles. Increase heat to high and cook until syrup reaches 121C on a sugar thermometer. Meanwhile, when syrup reaches 110C, start whisking eggwhites and cream of tartar in an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Gradually pour the hot syrup over eggwhites in a thin stream, whisking continuously until cooled, thick and glossy, approximately 10 minutes.

Spoon the rhubarb and raspberry mixture over tart. Transfer meringue to a piping bag fitted with a large star tip and pipe in swirls. From here could brown the meringue with a kitchen torch, but the beautiful pure white meringue peaks looked too perfect for me to want to touch it. Serve with the remaining syrup.

Yeah, forget what I said about it being time consuming. Just make it. It's perfect. Take a weekend at home and do a step every couple of hours and thank me for the motivation on your Sunday afternoon of bliss.

Recommended baking soundtrack: Bowerbirds - The Clearing. Oh, how I love the Bowerbirds.

rhubarb & strawberry buckle (an ode to rhubarb)

Rhubarb. Oh, rhubarb. I tell people pumpkin is my favourite vegetable: your ambiguous nature means I constantly forget about you, but how I love you so. 

My sister and I had a wonderful childhood in that we always ate such a beautiful variety of fresh food, but I don't remember rhubarb as a part of this. It's one of the few foods my mother doesn't eat, so it wasn't until I was in my teenage years that I remember first trying it: in a cosy restaurant in the Gold Coast hinterland, as part of rhubarb crumble swimming in homemade custard. Love. at. first. taste. So now, rhubarb and me, we're making up for lost time. 

This 'buckle' is similar to a coffee or crumble cake, requiring the crunchy toping to be frozen before baking, ensuring it doesn't just melt and get absorbed into the cake mixture. It's incredibly easy to make, but has a slow cooking time, so is perfect to make on a cold Sunday afternoon. 

Ingredients

Recipe from June issue of AGT

250 gms each of strawberries and rhubarb, roughly chopped

110 gms each of caster sugar and rapadura* sugar

160 gms butter, at room temperature

2 eggs

220 gms plain flour

40 gms hazelnut meal

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsps each of ground cinnamon and ginger

165 mls buttermilk

For hazelnut topping:

80 gms rapadura* sugar

40 gms plain flour

40 gms hazelnuts, roughly chopped

20 gms butter, melted

*Use dark brown sugar if you can't find rapadura sugar. 

Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease a 24cm round cake tin, and line with baking paper. 

For the crunchy hazelnut topping, combine ingredients in a small bowl. Freeze until required - this will stop the topping from melting into the cake during baking. 

Combine rhubarb and strawberry in a bowl with 1 tbsp of each sugar and set aside.

Beat butter and remaining sugars in the bowl of an electric mixer for about 5 minutes, or until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then with motor running, add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the dry ingredients followed by the buttermilk. Stir in one third of the rhubarb mixture, then spoon into prepared tin. 

Scatter over remaining fruit mixture, followed by the frozen hazelnut topping. Bake for about 1 1/2 hours or until a skewer inserted withdraws clean. Cool cake in tin for 30 minutes before cooling on a wire rack. 

This cake is delicious served warm from the oven, but surprisingly tasted better when cooled to room temperature so the rubbly topping is crunchy and sweet. With un-iced cakes, I am usually known to heat and add cream, crème fraiche and/or custard to any I possibly can,  but I didn't need to with this wondrous thing! The hazelnut meal gives the cake a nice density, but by no means does it create a grainy texture like it can it larger quantities. 

This cake is very resilient and although best eaten within a day or two, will easily last for a few days before the fruit starts to lose its colour. This. This is my favourite cake of the year. 

Recommended baking soundtrack: Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring for My Halo. 

rhubarb & rosewater upside down cake

I have a new mistress. Anybody who stumbled across the December issue of Cuisine would understand. On its glossy cover was a ring shaped pavlova decorated to look like a Christmas wreath, covered in berries, cherries and "holly" leaves. After making it for my family's Christmas dinner, I was officially smitten.

Cuisine is like delicious magazine's mysterious, foreign cousin: The styling is just as gorgeous and the recipes equally as accessible, but there are also teasing reviews of New Zealand restaurants and bars and some unattainable brands not available in Australian delis. This could get frustrating, but it just adds to the allure in an always-want-what-you-can't-have kinda way. I still adore you, AGT and delicious. I just... need something difference every once in a while.

Ingredients
Recipe from September 2010 issue Cuisine

For rhubarb:
4 stems rhubarb
25 gms butter
25 gms caster sugar

For cake:
100 gms unsalted butter, at room temperature
150 gms caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs, separated
150 gms plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
125 mls milk

For the syrup:
150 gms caster sugar
150 mls water
1 rhubarb stem, chopped
1 tbsp rosewater
juice 1/2 lemon

Line the base of a 20cm springform cake tin with baking paper, and grease with butter. Preheat oven to 180C.

Cut the rhubarb on the diagonal into 3cm thick slices and set aside. In a small saucepan, gently heat the butter and caster sugar until the mixture begins to caramelise. Pour into the base of the tin. Arrange the rhubarb in the base and set aside.

Beat the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add the vanilla and yolks, one at a time, beating in between. Add the flour and milk in two alternate batches, mixing until combined. Beat the egg whites until at soft peaks, and fold through the cake batter. Spoon the batter on top of the rhubarb and smooth.

Bake for 40 - 50 minutes until cake is firm to the touch. While I didn't have any syrupy rhubarb drips, it's advised to bake with a tray in the bottom of your oven just incase - things could get sticky!
Allow to cool slightly in the tin while making the syrup.

Heat the sugar and water in a small saucepan until sugar has dissolved. Add the rhubarb and cook for five minutes - the syrup should be rosy in colour. Strain through a sieve and stir through rosewater and lemon juice. 

Remove the cake from the tin, firstly running a bread and butter knife around the edges. Invert onto a serving plate. Smother each slice with rosewater syrup and serve with cream. 

It's recommended that this cake is best eaten on the day of baking while the syrup is still warm, but honestly, it tastes just as wonderful the following day. Just be aware that the rosy rhubarb will eventually fade to a yellow. The cake is wonderfully light because of the egg whites, yet still has a pudding-esque texture when warm. This is an important quality for me. Would taste exquisite with custard.

 

Recommended baking soundtrack: Fruit Bats - The Ruminant Band.

rhubarb & custard crumble tart

There are few things I love more than custard. So when I found out that my boyfriend - while we were in our courting days - hated custard, I felt like he'd slapped me. How can someone hate custard? I soon thereafter discovered he was basing this statement on his only experience with custard... the carton variety. Gasp! 

Surely a distaste for something so heavenly is negotiable, right? So shortly after, I made (really, I did force him to) try fresh, homemade vanilla bean custard. And he changed his mind. Of course. 

Since then - and it has been a while now - I make custard based desserts as much as possible. Baked custards, crème brulée, custard tarts, custard tea cakes, cupcakes, whatever I can. This lovely tart combines two of his and favourite things. And it's pretty amazing.

Ingredients

Recipe taken from Delicious June 2010 issue (which, on a tangent is perfect)

For tart:

1/2 cup caster sugar

2 eggs, plus 3 yolks

Finely grated zest of 1/2 orange

1 tbsp cornflour

300 mls thickened cream

2 vanilla beans, split, seeds scraped

400 gms rhubarb, chopped

20 gms unsalted butter, chopped 

1 sheet frozen shortcrust pastry, thawed

For topping:

1/2 cup plain flour

50 gms unsalted butter, cold and chopped

2 tbsps brown sugar

For filling, combine half the caster sugar with eggs, yolks, zest and cornflour in a bowl. 

Place cream and seeds of one vanilla bean in a saucepan over medium heat and bring to the boil. Slowly pour hot cream over egg mixture, stirring. Return to a clean saucepan over a low heat and cook, stirring constantly until custard has thickened slightly (about 5 - 6 mins). Strain custard into a jug, cover surface with glad wrap to prevent a skin from forming, and refrigerate until needed. 

Preheat a baking tray in an oven at 200C/180C fan-forced. Place the rhubarb in a single layer in another baking dish with remaining caster sugar and vanilla seeds. Dot with butter, drizzle with 1 tbs water and add vanilla pod. Roast for 15 mins until rhubarb is tender but keeps its shape. Carefully remove rhubarb pieces and set aside, reserving juices. 

Use pastry to line a 21cm loose-bottomed tart pan and prick base with a fork. Line with baking paper, and fill with pastry weights (or uncooked rice). Bake for 10 mins on hot baking tray. Remove the weights, and bake for a further 5 mins until pastry is crisp and golden. 

Meanwhile, for the crumble, place the flour and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Add butter and rub with fingertips until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Stir through brown sugar. Scatter over a baking tray.

Pour cooled custard into the pastry case, then arrange the rhubarb on top. Place tart on the heated tray and return to the oven with the crumble topping. Bake both for 12 - 15 mins, shaking crumble tray throughout, until tart filling is just set and crumble forms golden clumps (it will harden upon cooling). Cool tart slightly before removing from the pan. 

Serve warm or at room temperature, scattered with the crumble topping and drizzled with reserved rhubarb juice. 

Recommended baking soundtrack: Songs of Green Pheasant - Songs of Green Pheasant.