Ren Behan - Author Wild Honey and Rye

Food Writer

Afternoon Tea

Easy Summer Fruit Tartlets

I don’t very often have packets of puff pastry sitting in the fridge, which is a good thing. However, I had been meaning to try a recipe from Nigella Express for some time called ‘Nectarine and Blueberry Galette’ and so a packet was bought and earmarked. The disappointment was that my nectarines were not yet at their best and so were quite tart. Too tart for a tart, even. They would have required so much sugar that they would have made the pastry look much less calorific in comparison. But, I did have some British strawberries that were slightly better, so I used those instead with strawberry jam in place of apricot conserve. I also wanted to make mini versions, suitable for an afternoon tea. And so, these tasty Summer Fruit Tartlets were born. They were easy to make, too.

Here’s how to make them…

First, pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Then take a packet of ready-rolled puff pastry. Lay the pastry out on a cutting board sprinkled with icing sugar. Cut the pastry into smaller rectangles. I got eight out of one packet. Then carefully transfer the tartlets onto a flat baking tray lined with baking paper. Using the tip of a sharp knife, score a smaller rectangle about one cm from the edge, making it look like a picture frame. Don’t push the knife all the way through the pastry. Heat up a few tablespoons of strawberry jam in the microwave or in a pan for a few seconds to soften it and using a pastry brush, paint the inside of the rectangle.

Carefully pile some fruit in the middle of the tartlets. I used strawberries sliced in half and a few blueberries for each. You could use nectarines and blueberries, as Nigella does, or any combination of fruit that you like.

 Sprinkle over some brown Demerara sugar.

Place the baking tray into your pre-heated oven and bake for 10-15 minutes. Take them out when the pastry has browned in colour and risen.

Pile them up onto a pretty plate or cake stand and sprinkle with icing sugar.

Pour over lots of cream and enjoy!

I’m sending these tasty treats to three blog events, if I’m still in time!

Firstly, to Fleur over at Homemade by Fleur who is hosting Sarah’s Forever Nigella this month with a theme of Afternoon Tea.

Secondly, to Nazima at Working London Mummy who is hosting the One Ingredient Challenge jointly with Laura from How to Cook Good Food with a theme of Strawberries.

Thirdly, to Kate at What Kate Baked who is hosting Tea Time Treats  (co-hosted with Karen of Lavender and Lovage) with a theme of Summer Fruits!

Have you got any puff pastry, fruit and cream in your fridge?! Go on, you know you want to make these!

In Season: Lemonade Scones and Homemade Amalfi Lemon Curd

This week, we made our very first pots of homemade lemon curd, using some beautifully aromatic Amalfi lemons. I looked around for a few recipes, but decided to have a go at my friend Karen’s recipe, because I remembered bookmarking it at the time. Karen’s recipe is in fact from her mum, so it was also nice to try a recipe that I know had been handed down to her. Added to that I knew that I also had to try my hand at some scones for the March Tea Time Treat challenge, so I decided to marry the two projects together.

There’s something really special about inheritance recipes, perhaps with a little story attached to them. I also had the added benefit of being able to ‘tweet’ Karen for a bit of extra advice along the way!

I bought the Amalfi lemons from Natoora UK.  Now, whilst Amalfi lemons are imported and aren’t part of the UK season, I do have a bit of a fondness for them linked back to a wonderful trip to Amalfi, Sorrento and Capri on the Southern Italian coast. Their flavour, aroma and taste is pretty unbeatable.   They are generally quite large in size, and I love the fact that they arrive in a brown paper bag with their leaves attached. They are naturally un-waxed and if you grate the skin, you release the most amazingly intense aroma. I thought that they should be used in a recipe that really makes the lemons ‘stand out’ and lemon curd seemed to fit the bill perfectly.

 

Karen’s recipe for homemade lemon curd can be found here on her lovely blog Lavender and Lovage. It is such a versatile preserve; you can have it with toast, on scones as we did, or you can use it as a filling for a sponge cake or even add a few tablespoons to a butter cream as a topping for my Lemony Spring Cupcakes, too.

As for the scones,  I kind of went completely against tradition a little bit of research pointed me to a recipe for Lemonade Scones. You literally need three ingredients – self-raising flour, lemonade and double cream. I think I was intruiged by this recipe as much as anything else – how could it possibly work?

Well, it did (just about) some of the scones lost their shape a bit, but that could have been more to do with my oven.

Next time, I would add 75g caster sugar and the grated zest of one lemon, too. I also brushed a little beaten egg over the top for colour. They aren’t going to win any awards for authenticity, but what they lacked in buttery flavour, they made up for ease – the kids even had a go at mixing and messing.

I’ve had a really intermittent Internet connection this week, so as well as this post going to Karen late, I’m typing pretty quickly as I don’t want to lose the connection again.

We had our lemonade scones and homemade Amalfi lemon curd with lightly whipped double cream with a tablespoon of sugar and vanilla bean paste to sweeten them up a bit. A perfect sunny spring afternoon treat!

 

If Karen allows my slightly late entry, these are for her March Tea Time Treats challenge (co-hosted with Kate) – Scones.

 

The best scones I’ve ever eaten? Without a shadow of a doubt, the scones we ate with Afternoon Tea at The Ritz. What’s your favourite scone or Afternoon Tea memory?