Peanut butter & blueberry pie

October 17, 2015

Michael and I unintentionally went over-the-top on peanuts in our contributions to Hayley's birthday picnic, doubling down on roasted peanuts and peanut butter in both dishes. While Michael's dressed a kale and quinoa salad, mine formed the base flavour for a sweet little pie.

My first contact with this pie was as a recipe tester for Leigh Drew's Wrapped in Pastry. The peanut butter caramel filling was always destined to win me over, but it was the fresh blueberry topping that proved to be the clincher. Instead of the depth and richness of a more predictable chocolate/peanut butter pairing, blueberries really lighten up the caramel and lend a hint of tartness. It makes for a really nice springtime dessert.

The shortcrust pastry was not my best effort. I think I added too little liquid, rendering it crumbly and difficult to roll (yet so very easy to swear at). By contrast, the peanut butter caramel was simple and completed in perhaps 5 minutes. I enjoyed taking a little longer over the topping, alternating decorative circles of blueberries and roasted peanuts to pretty, homely effect.

This isn't the kind of recipe that will ever enter our weekly rotation but I can see myself enjoying it all the more for pulling it out once a year, when blueberries are cheap-ish and there are friends to feed.

Peanut butter & blueberry pie
(a recipe from Leigh Drew's Wrapped in Pastry,
made available online through her blog)

pastry
2 cups plain flour
1/4 cup icing sugar
1/2 cup margarine
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 cup almond milk

caramel filling
1 1/2 cups smooth peanut butter
1 cup almond milk
1 cup icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

topping
1 cup fresh blueberries
2/3 cup salted roasted peanuts

To make the pastry, place the flour and icing sugar in a food processor and pulse them briefly to combine. Add the margarine and blend until it's thoroughly mixed through the flour. With the blades still rotating, pour in the lemon juice. Drip in the almond milk a tablespoon at a time and continue blending until the ingredients are well mixed; they might even pull together into a dough ball. Turn the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap, push it together into a dough ball with your hands, wrap it up in the plastic and refrigerate the dough for 2 hours.

Preheat an oven to 180°C and lightly spray a pie dish with oil. Retrieve the dough ball from the fridge, and unwrap it, leaving the spread out glad wrap between the ball and the bench. Arrange another piece of plastic wrap on top of the dough, and roll the ball out between the two plastic sheets to fit the pie dish. When it looks like a good fit, remove the plastic on top and ease the pastry into the dish open side down. Pull off the second layer of plastic and fit the pastry into the dish, trimming and patching where needed. Poke some holes in the base with a fork and bake the pastry until it's lightly browned, about 20 minutes. Allow the pastry to cool on the bench.

To make the filling, place the peanut butter and almond milk in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir them regularly until they're well-mixed and smooth, then take them off the heat. Sift in the icing sugar and add the vanilla, whisking everything together until it's very smooth. Pour the caramel into the pastry case and smooth over the top to even it out. Decorate the top of the pie with alternating concentric circles of blueberries and peanuts. Refrigerate the pie for around 2 hours before slicing and serving.

Peach & semolina custard tart

July 27, 2014

There was an open plastic jar of peaches in our fridge for the entirety of our overseas travels. The expiry date was still many months off, and they looked and smelled just fine, but I still hesitated to dip a fork in and eat them as they were. Within a week Haalo was posting about a peach and semolina custard tart and I knew what to do.

I was completely unfamiliar with semolina custard, but the premise seems pretty simple - semolina thickens milk just like eggs do! That had me thinking that I really should just go ahead and veganise the tart. I looked up Wrapped in Pastry for tips on sweet vegan shortcrust and blended it together with my usual food processor method. The pastry didn't brown as quickly as a butter-based version, but with a little extra baking it was crisp and comforting.

This tart is not quite as elegant as an almond frangipane, but it has its own casual charm. We didn't even bother with an (ice) cream garnish.

Peach & semolina custard tart
(pastry adapted from Leigh Drew's Wrapped in Pastry,
tart adapted from Cook (Almost) Anything)

shortcrust pastry
2 cups plain flour
a generous tablespoon of icing sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 cup margarine
1/4 cup almond milk
1 tablespoon lemon juice

semolina custard
2 tablespoons semolina
2 1/2 tablespoons coconut sugar
3/4 cup almond milk

8 peaches sliced into eighths, or an equivalent volume of canned peaches

Place the flour, icing sugar and salt in a food processor, pulsing briefly to mix them together. Add the margarine in small spoons and blend it all together until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add the almond milk and lemon juice, blending further until the pastry dough just starts coming together. Tip the dough onto a large piece of plastic wrap and pull it together into a ball with your hands. Wrap it up in the plastic and refrigerate the pastry for at least an hour.

Stir the custard ingredients together in a small saucepan. Set the saucepan over medium heat and continue stirring regularly as the custard cooks, turning off the heat when it has thickened. Let it rest for 10 minutes, then place a piece of plastic wrap directly against the surface of the custard to prevent it from forming a skin. Allow the custard to cool to room temperature.

Retrieve the pastry from the fridge and roll it out between two sheets of plastic wrap - aim for a circle that's a bit bigger than your pie dish. Ease the pastry into the dish (without the plastic attached to the bottom!).  Remove the plastic from the custard and give the custard a brisk stir; spoon it onto the pastry base and spread it out evenly. Arrange the peach wedges over the custard, and fold the pastry edges down, pinching it at intervals.

Bake the tart until the pastry begins to go golden - this took mine about 50 minutes.

Pâté en Croûte

June 10, 2013

It's very much time to crank the oven and warm up the kitchen, so I pulled out Wrapped in Pastry over the long weekend and invited rad relly Carol over for dinner, wine and a movie. This pâté en croûte was Michael's favourite of the recipes we tested for the book (and I made sure there was enough to share with him when he returned home).

Instead of fatty minced meat, this French-style vegan pastry loaf is full of mushrooms, lentils and herbs. Contrary to the whole winter-warming intention, it's actually supposed to be eaten at room temperature. I cheated and sloppily sliced steaming sections for Carol's and my dinner, then popped the remainder in the fridge. It certainly makes for more presentable, self-supporting slices in its traditional morning-after form (see photo above).

I couldn't track down tarragon on the fly and so my loaf came across a little strong on the sage, but not so's anyone else complained. You could doubtless tinker with the fresh herbs to suit your own tastes, just so long as you use lots of 'em! Along with some lemon zest they supply important top notes to a dish that could otherwise descend into brown stodginess.

Pâté en croûte
(adapted very slightly from a recipe in
Leigh Drew's Wrapped In Pastry)

lemon mushroom mousse
3 cups button mushrooms, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons lemon zest, finely chopped
1/3 cup chives, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt

lentil pâté
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions, sliced into half moons
2 teaspoons ground black pepper
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
2 cans brown lentils, drained
1/3 cup fresh sage leaves, roughly chopped
2 cups fresh parsley, roughly chopped
3 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes

4 sheets puff pastry, frozen

Use a food processor to grind the mushrooms to a fine mince. Heat the oil in a frypan and add the mushrooms, sauteing until the mushrooms release their juices and they have mostly evaporated, about 10 minutes. Take the mushrooms off the heat and stir in the lemon zest, chives and salt. Transfer the mushroom mousse to another container to cool.

Return the frypan to low heat and add the oil for the lentil pâté. Add the onions and saute them until thoroughly softened and beginning to brown, about 10 minutes. Add the pepper and garlic and saute the onion mixture for a further 5 minutes. Allow the onions to cool down.

When the onions are near room temperature, place them in the food processor with the 1/4 cup red wine vinegar and puree them thoroughly. Add the lentils and blend again until smooth. Fit as much of the sage and parsley in as you can and keep blending until all the herbs are blended into the lentil pâté. Sprinkle over the yeast flakes and remaining red wine vinegar for a final thorough blend. 

Preheat an oven to 200°C. Defrost the puff pastry sheets. Line two loaf pans with baking paper.

When the pastry sheets are ready and completely flexible, use them to line the loaf pans. Leave lots of pastry overhanging the edges to fold over the top later. Spoon one quarter of the lemon mushroom mousse into the bottom of a pastry-lined loaf tin, smoothing it across the base, and repeat with another quarter of the mixture in the other tin. Divide the lentil pâté evenly between the tins and spread it evenly. Spread the remaining mushroom mousse equally over the two pâté loaves. Fold the overhanging pastry across the filling and seal up the pâté en croûtes.

Bake the loaves until the pastry is cooked through, up to 45 minutes. Keep an eye on them and cover the tins with foil if the pastry looks at risk of burning. Allow the loaves to cool to room temperature, or even refrigerate them overnight, before turning them out of the tins and serving them in thick slices.

Wrapped in Pastry

available now

   

Here in Melbourne, now is the perfect time to preheat the oven and bake some pastry! And if you're seeking some inspiration, we can happily recommend the newly released Wrapped in Pastry by Leigh Drew. This time last year I acted as a recipe tester for this book (including team-testing a number of recipes with K), and I was lucky to receive my copy of Wrapped in Pastry as a thank-you gift from Leigh.

Inside are 18 fillings, sweet and savoury, as well as several start-from-scratch shortcrust recipes. Everything is totally vegan, and there are gluten-free and soy-free options on every. single. recipe. Here's some we prepared earlier!

   

This tartlet is filled with a tangy bean pate and topped with caramelised onions.

   

The Aussie picnic pie is pure theatre, filled with legume-based "egg whites" and "yolks" and marinated vege "bacon".

   

The cherry strudel may be the ultimate winter afternoon tea.

Michael's favourite was the Pate En Croute - there are no photos for you here since I accidentally filled this inside out and it burst a seam, but the loaf of lentil pate and mushroom mousse is photographed in all its refined glory in the book. Don't even try to resist it.

My recommendation is the peanut caramel blueberry pie, an oddball match made in heaven. The great news is that Leigh has released this recipe to promote the book. Try it for yourself to get a taste of what this book's about! On the savoury side, Leigh has also released her recipe for party sausage rolls - we haven't tried it out yet and can't help wondering whether it rivals our own recipe. (Please report back if you ever play them off!)

Not only do these recipes suit a variety of specialised diets; Leigh has also gone to some effort to focus on ingredients that are widely available and not excessively processed - while a little bit of nooch and black salt sneak in, there's no call for mock meat or fake cream cheese. Instead these pies and tarts are bursting with fruits, vegetables and nuts.

My one warning is that the recipes are rather involved, most requiring hours some even days from start to finish. They're not weeknight material for most of us but they're the stuff of some lovely winter evenings, working and waiting by a warm oven.

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Look out for Wrapped in Pastry at your local bookshop, or order it online from aduki. I received my copy of this cookbook in exchange for recipe testing and am under no obligation to review it, favourably or at all - I just want to promote an Aussie veg*n cookbook and the deliciousness of pastry!