Monday, January 9, 2012

Random Recipes Challenge: Summer Fruit Cream Slice

As it's a new year I thought I'd try a new challenge and what better than Belleau Kitchen's Random Recipes to fit in with my new year's resolution of resisting the urge to buy a new recipe book for the whole of 2012!!

This month the idea was to pick your newest cookbook and then flick through the pages with your eyes closed and whichever recipe you land on is the one you have to make! As previously mentioned my last cookbook (for the year) was McDougall's Better Bakers Guide. I flicked through and before me was a recipe for a Summer Fruit Cream Slice...slightly at odds with a cold dull January but a little something to remind us of summer.

This is a great challenge as not only does it encourage you to use the cookbooks you already have (as per my resolution) but it also encourages you to try new things. I for one have never tried making flaky pastry, it's something I've always wanted to try but may have never gotten round to... so thanks Dom at Belleau Kitchen for a great challenge.
Making the flaky pastry, it is essentially a puff pastry and requires lots of folding, rolling and chilling. As you can see the pastry was rolled out into an oblong and then roughly divided in to three, knobs of butter were scattered over two thirds of the pastry before folding it over on itself and rolling out. This process was repeated several times and eventually gave the lovely layers you can see in the picture.
This is essentially a Mille Feuille and to prevent the pastry puffing up in the oven an empty baking tray was placed on top of the pastry to keep it relatively flat! My three layer slice ended up as a bit of a humdinger, for a slightly more elegant slice you could remove the top layer as above.

I really enjoyed trying something new...why not join in with next month's challenge!

14 comments:

  1. good LORD this looks good... basically shall we just strap this to our thighs and be done with it?... I love that you made your own flaky pastry too, that's dedication... my mouth is actually watering at the thought of stuffing my face into this beauty!... thanks so much for taking part x

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  2. Your homemade flaky pastry is amazingly perfect! And your Mille Feuille is so beautifully made. I wouldn't think the 3rd layer is a bit of humdinger :D

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  3. This looks stunning! Perfect for the January blues. I take my hat off to your for making your own flaky pastry, it's definitely something I would shy away from making.

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  4. Oh dear...I don't think there's any hope for my thighs...I had two!! :-@

    Thanks Zoe and Jo...it was a good challenge to make the pastry and not as difficult as I thought, just time consuming!

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  5. That's a great idea! I have so many cookbooks I hardly ever crack open!!

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  6. Wow we must have been doign the pastry aroudn the same time as I did the plamiers! It is so time consuming and hard work but amazing. I have never tried these one's I guess I have an option now with pastry still in the freezer! Amazing and beautiful.

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  7. wow these look amazing!! Very summery indeed but I would eat them anytime :) I am impressed with your pastry making skills. Slightly hesitant to try but I will as that was one of my resolutions.

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  8. Thanks

    TLPs... it's a tough challenge to resist the urge to buy any cookbooks but going well so far!

    Cakeboule, we should swap you can make Mille Feuille and I'll do the palmiers!

    Baking addict, you should definitely try pastry. I'm going to give some other pastry recipes a go too!

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  9. I really want to try these. I can't quite cope with the amount of butter in them so I always buy ready made pastry so I can pretend it's not there. Yours look so neat and pretty!

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  10. Yes there was rather a lot of butter but I'm thinking that the pastry ends up so thin that it doesn't really count... at least that's what I'm telling myself!! :-@

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  11. So pretty! That's some RR dedication making your own pastry too. Worth it, though, by the look of the end result :o)

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  12. Thanks Ruth...think I may have another go at some pastry as it was successful!

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  13. wow! I'm so impressed you made your own flaky pastry, I've not done that since school and it wasn't very successful then! This looks great, really fresh. Perhaps I should take myself in hand and get making that flaky pastry rather then buying it. GG

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