I just LOVE Christmas ... or most importantly, the smell of it! Today my home is smelling of shortbread baking, and fruit mince bubbling ... it makes the heart feel good knowing the family will come home to this. Ill start with the shortbread recipe that I use for my pastry cases ... many years ago when I was working at the Dome (nothing exciting ... doing dishes but that was okay ... I could still look around at what everyone was doing and continue learning ... he he!) ... and I asked the baker what pastry he used for his fruit mince tarts, as mine always seemed to go a little soft over a few days. The chef told me to always use shortbread as that would hold up so much better ... so that is what I started doing. Then three years ago I saw a recipe for Cheats Shortbread on Best Recipes and converted it to the Thermomix with a little adjusting, and have been using that recipe ever since ... it is terrific and I love it for its simplicity and taste. The recipe will be in the next post as I want to load up my pics to help you with the process first, and I cant do both at the one time (well, at least I dont think I can because every time I try to do upload photos AND a recipe, my photos get deleted!). So the pics are: * Sugar being milled ... dont forget to put a piece of paper under lid to stop the sugar from sticking to the inside of the lid and making a mess * Sugar nicely milled * All the other ingredients now added (there is only 4) * Ingredients mixed ... looks dry and lumpy but that is fine * Removing half the mix onto some baking paper ... place paper onto a bread mat if you have one as it will stop it from moving around * Mixture pressed together * Second piece of baking paper on top and start rolling * First use for the dough is to make 6 small pastry cases for some lemon tarts I need for tomorrow night so I am cutting out six * Pressing the mix into the tart shells ... if there is a break that is okay, just press mix together ... patching is fine as no-one will see it * Lifting the dough with a thin spatula makes it easier than trying to lift with your fingers * Pressing the dough into the corners * Six tart shells ready to bake * Next lot of dough in TM bowl is added to what is left on the baking paper and repeat process of pressing together and rolling * Need to make 12 mini fruit mince tarts also for tomorrow, so before putting strips of paper into the tin I have dabbed a little coconut oil in the base to hold the paper in place * Paper all ready in the baking tray * First lot of pastry going in * Gently push pastry into the base ... any cracks just cover with a little more pastry (in other words patch) * The tray ready to be filled * Pastry cases filled * Star put on top * First lot of tart shells out of the oven and resting * Shortbread biscuits cut out and prepped onto baking tray * Pastry cases out of tins and on cooling rack * Mini fruit mince tarts out of oven, so biscuits go in * Removing the tarts using the paper to pull them out of tray * Biscuits out of the oven and ready to go on cooling rack too * Everything baked and ready to cool * Store biscuits and shells in container until ready to use * Store tarts in fridge and dust with icing sugar before serving ... they can be frozen and refreshed on the day of serving is you wish to make ahead. Recipe coming up next :)
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 09:59:33 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015