Persimmon, Cinnamon and Yogurt Brioche Tart

When I saw Lemon Pi's post for the Persimmon, Cinnamon and Yogurt Brioche Tart, I thought I HAVE TO MAKE THAT.

As Lemon Pi doesn't specify a brioche recipe, I started fossicking around on the internet and found that this is not a dough that people recommend making by hand. A hand mixer won't do the job either, as the dough is so thick that it will break most hand mixers - apparently only a stand mixer with a dough hook will do!

... of course I have nothing of the kind.

Unable to lay my hands on a stand mixer in time, and not willing to wait to borrow one, I decided to just take the plunge and do it by hand. Despite almost psyching myself out of it - "omg I will never finish kneading this stupid dough!" - in the end the process was a lot more fun than I'd expected.

The brioche recipe below, sourced from The Madison Bistro, makes about 1kg of dough (twice as much as you need for the tart) so I also made a batch of mini brioche loaves which I served up with Maggie Beer's pheasant pate.

The two brioche dishes, plus Chengy's Pear Pudding, and delicious Milky Oolong Tea from Zensation, made for a chilled out public holiday afternoon tea.



Brioche

This is more of a bread than a cake, so you need to set aside the time to make the dough and then let it prove overnight. On the day of baking you'll again need to wait for this to prove for at least a couple of hours - this is not a recipe to be done on the spur of a moment!

Below is the recipe for mixing by hand, but you can find the stand mixer instructions at the original post. Again, note that this will make twice as much dough as you require for the tart.

1/3 cup warm water (about 40 C)
1 package yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
6 large eggs (room temperature)
4 cups bread flour, divided
2 tsp salt
230g unsalted butter (room temperature)
1 large egg (for egg wash)


In a large bowl, combine water, yeast, and sugar. Mix with fingers and let sit for 10 minutes. The mixture should be foamy - if not, start over with fresh yeast.

Add six eggs and mix with a hand mixer or wooden spoon until well blended. Add two cups flour and mix on low for about five minutes.

Switch to a workboard. Add remaining 2 cups of flour and salt and work the dough by hand until it starts coming off the surface of your workboard. It will be really sticky and it's going to be sticky for a long time, so make sure you've got a long playlist on your music player going BEFORE you get to this stage. Or be prepared to get dough all over your ipod.

Stretch the dough out and add 1 tablespoon of butter at a time, folding the dough over and working to incorporate. Repeat until all butter is added, and the dough pulls away from workboard and looks kind of shiny. The original recipe says this will take about 25 minutes - I was quite a bit slower! More like 35 minutes.

Refrigerate the dough overnight in large buttered bowl covered in plastic wrap.

The next day, bring the dough to room temperature (about 1-2 hours). If you went by the measurements above, you should have about 1kg of dough.

500g is enough for the tart - see below for assembly and custard instructions.

You can freeze the remaining 500g of dough for later, or bake it in a loaf pan (instructions), or, as I did, make mini brioche rolls.

To make the mini rolls, divide the dough into 12 equal pieces. For each roll, stretch the dough slightly and tuck ends under to form ball. Place seam side down in a greased or non-stick muffin pan, cover with kitchen towel and let rise for 2 hours. Brush each with egg wash and bake at 180C for about 18-20 minutes, until golden-brown.




Tart

500g brioche dough
5-6 ripe persimmons
120g Greek yogurt
60g caster sugar
4 egg yolks
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon cornflour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract


Grease a 28 cm fluted tart tin. Roll the brioche dough out to a rough circle that is large enough to fit the tin and line the tin with the dough.

Lightly press the edges up against the sides of the tin (this, I found hard to do - my 'edge' was almost non-existent!). Cover with clingfilm and allow to prove until double.

Slice the persimmons as thinly as possible and arrange them, slightly overlapping, on the dough.

To make the custard: whisk together the yogurt, sugar, egg yolks, cinnamon, cornflour and vanilla extract. Pour the custard over the persimmon slices (here I failed a bit - I had too much custard for my tart, and so my tart looks a bit drowned in custard, as in the photo below!).

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes at 180 C, then reduce the temperature to 150 C and continue baking for an additional 25 to 30 minutes or until the brioche is golden brown.

Allow the tart to cool until just warm before serving. This tart is best eaten on the day it is made. It's not too sweet and quite light, so it's a good tart to have with tea or coffee.



Adapted from Lemon Pi and The Madison Bistro.

Bitter Chocolate Tart With Bailey's

I baked this for a dinner party with friends. They made polite impressed sounds, and then we eated it all up. Om nom.



Pastry

75g butter
75g caster sugar
75g ground almonds
125g plain flour
A pinch of salt
2 tbsp iced water, or more as needed

Start by sifting the flour and salt into a large bowl. I used wholemeal flour which is ridiculous to sift because you end up with beautifully sifted flour but a sieve full of hard bits - just tip the hard bits back into the bowl and stir it all around. No one will notice.

Take your room temperature butter (because you totally remembered to take it out of the fridge an hour ago, right?) and chop it up into little blocks. Add it to the bowl. Using your fingertips, massage the butter into the flour until the mix resembles breadcrumbs. The aim is to avoid melting the butter so don't use the palms of your hands, as they will be too hot.

Stir in the sugar and the ground almonds, then dig a little well in the centre of the mix and pour in some of the ice water. Take a knife and mix the whole thing together by cutting the mixture back and forth, rather than stirring it round and round. If it's not coming together, add a little more water, but don't over-mix or add too much water. It should look crumbly rather than being a smooth dough.

Gently knead the dough into a ball and cover it with plastic wrap. Put your dough into the fridge and leave it for 20 to 30 minutes. You can use this time to check your email or make a sandwich.

Take your dough and put it into the centre of your favourite tart tin. Gently push the dough down and outwards from the centre so it covers the entire tin base and up the sides. Using a 23 cm non-stick tart tin, this recipe made juuuust enough to cover the base and make a small (like, 1.5 cm high) edge. If you use a 20 cm tin, you could probably get more of an edge. Try and make it tidy and pretty-looking, and then put the tin and dough back in the fridge for another 20 to 30 minutes. Make another sandwich.

Pre-heat oven to 180 C and get your tart out of the fridge. Line the base of the tart case with baking paper and baking weights (for example, rice grains or dried beans – though you can also purchase fancy ceramic weights from home ware stores) and put it in the oven for 15 minutes. This is to make sure the tart keeps its shape and has a nice texture. Then remove the weights and baking paper before baking the tart for a further 5 to 10 minutes or until it looks golden and delicious. There. You have a tart case. Leave it in the tin and let it cool.


Filling

300ml thickened or whipping cream
200g dark chocolate (70 per cent cocoa), finely chopped
50g butter, chopped
2 or 3 tbsp Bailey's Irish Cream

When the tart case is almost or completely cool, you can start on the filling. Don't do this too early because you don't want to pour this into a hot tart case or to have it sitting around for ages either.

Start by pouring the cream into a saucepan and heat it until just before boiling point – so it 'trembles' but doesn't bubble.

Put the chopped chocolate into a heatproof bowl and pour in the heated cream. Let it sit for 1 minute and then mix with a spatula, working from the centre outwards.

Add the butter, and stir until the mixture is smooth. Last of all, add the Bailey's and stir again - you're almost done!

Pour the chocolate mixture into the tart case and leave in a level place to cool. Put it back into the fridge for at least 3 hours before serving.

This tart is rich enough to be eaten on its own but you might like to put some berries or cream on the side, or perhaps a few leaves of fresh mint.


Adapted from a recipe by Jill Dupleix

Coconut Bread

This made the whole house smell heavenly as it was baking and was a hit with the housemates. However, it crumbled a bit too much when sliced, so next time I might try less coconut, or more flour.





2 large eggs
300 ml (1 1⁄4 cups) milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 1/2 cups flour, more for dusting pan (I used wholemeal flour)
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup castor (superfine) sugar
150g (1 1⁄2 cups) shredded coconut
75g (2 1⁄2 oz) butter, melted


Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).

In a small bowl, lightly whisk together eggs, milk and vanilla.

In a medium bowl, sift together 2 1/2 cups flour, baking powder and cinnamon. Add sugar and coconut, and stir to mix.

Make a well in the center, and pour in egg mixture. Gradually mix with dry ingredients, until just combined.

Add melted butter, and stir until smooth. Do not overmix.

Pour batter into a greased and floured 8 1/2-by-4-inch loaf pan. Bake for about 1 to 1 1/4 hours, or until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Leave to cool in pan for 5 minutes, remove bread from pan, and finish cooling on a rack.


Adapted from Bill Granger's Simply Bill, via bakebakebake