A White Cherry Tart for Christmas & A Cookbook

This cherry tart is an amalgamation of two very good recipes. The pastry comes from Bill Granger’s book ‘Holiday’, and the filling comes from Sophie Hansen’s book ‘Local is Lovely.’ The pastry is easy to make as it doesn’t involve using a food processor, doesn’t need chilling or rolling out. It also has a lovely shortbread-like quality, so is quite crisp and buttery once cooked. 

Many different fruits or berries could be used for this kind of tart. I chose white cherries, as I saw them in a green grocer and had never tried them or heard of them before. A couple of days later I picked up some more at a local produce market. Cherries are also quite a staple for the Australian Christmas, so I think this tart would make a nice addition to any Christmas Day. It’s also a good way to use up any leftover cherries after Christmas. 

Most tarts I have made before contained a fair few eggs and some cream, so this frangipane version made quite a welcome change. It also meant that apart from the cherries, I already had everything I needed for the tart at home already. 

My only problem with using white cherries for this tart, is that once they are cooked, they do look a bit like tomatoes! Which wasn’t exactly the look I was going for, but it does taste good! 

Ingredients for the Pastry: 

125 g unsalted butter, melted & cooled 

90 g caster sugar

175 g plain flour 

1 tbsp almond meal 

Ingredients for the Filling: 

120 g unsalted butter, softened

115g caster sugar 

80g almond meal 

1 tbsp plain flour 

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg 

165 g white cherries (approx. 18 cherries), rinsed, halved & pitted

Method: 

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. To make the pastry, combine the melted butter and sugar, in a large bowl. Add the flour and stir until combined. Press the dough evenly into a 24 cm loose bottomed tart tin, ensuring you cover the base and sides of the tin. Place in the oven for 12-15 minutes, or until the pastry has puffed up a little. 

Remove from the oven and sprinkle over the almond meal. Set aside. 

To make the frangipane filling, cream the butter and sugar in an electric mixer until they are pale and fluffy. Add the almond meal, vanilla, egg and flour and mix until combined. 

Place the frangipane mix into the prepared pastry case, and smooth it out. Place the cherries into the frangipane mix, pressing them down slightly. 

Return the tart to the oven for a further 25-30 minutes or until the frangipane filling is golden. 

Recipe for pastry originally found in ‘Holiday’ by Bill Granger (2007), p. 34. 

Recipe for frangipane filling originally found in ‘Local is Lovely’ by Sophie Hansen (2014), p.79. 

My next piece of exciting news, is the cookbook I have helped put together has been published this past week. 

This project has been in progress for about 18 months, and I have been assisting with it for just over a year now. I helped compile the recipes, and write short introductions for each recipe or person. 

All recipes were donated by clients of The Maxx Hair Salon in St Ives, Sydney. All profits are being donated to Barnardos Australia. 

Click here to purchase the book, or contact me on kulinaryadventuresofkath@gmail.com and I can sort something out for you. 

All baking, styling & photography for this post by Kathryn Vincent of Kulinary Adventures of Kath. 

Summer Afternoon Tea with The Girls

In my last post, I mentioned that soon I would have a couple of things to share with you all. This is one of them! 

I am very excited to share, that in collaboration with Liveability, I have created an event guide for a Summer Afternoon Tea. 

I organised, styled, catered and photographed the event, and have put together the guide and mood board for the event which can be viewed on the Liveability site. 

A few of the recipes made on the day, and shared in the Liveability post are my own creations as well. 

I have always enjoyed a good afternoon tea. I love a good pot of tea, especially when the tea can be drunk from a lovely tea cup. Scones are of course, essential, as are a few sweet treats. As the weekend of this event was fairly warm, I opted to have more cold drinks than actual tea. I made an iced tea, a cordial and also provided water. 

Much of the tea ware and serving plates were vintage, mostly from my own collection. In the Liveability post I have listed my favourite shops to find vintage wares. My current favourite is The Lost and Found Department, which is based on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. 

To see the event guide in full click here. 

Many thanks must go to Cecille and Liveability for allowing me the opportunity to do this. I really appreciate it. Thanks! 

Thanks also to those who attended the event. Thanks for being my wonderful hand models for the afternoon! It means a lot that you came and made the effort for me. 

Thanks also to Jackielyn (Inside the Treasure Chest) for my head shot. I didn’t realise we were shooting one at the time, but I’m very glad you took that photo! Thanks for sharing it with me. 

If you are interested in my catering, styling or photography, please contact me at kulinaryadventuresofkath@gmail.com, or via the contact form on this site.

All baking, styling & photography for this post by Kathryn Vincent of Kulinary Adventures of Kath. 

A Little More from the Local is Lovely Workshop

Here are a few more photos from the Local is Lovely Workshop. I really tried not to post too many last time, but I just wanted to share a few more! 

I have also made a couple of Sophie’s recipes since the Workshop, all of which have been successful and enjoyed by all (except that attempt at pasta… don’t try make pasta from scratch with bread flour and no pasta machine… it won’t work!). 

Sophie's Zucchini Tart - Recipe Here

Sophie's Buttermilk Scrolls - Recipe Here

Mum also stopped by Willa’s bakery, Racine Bakery in Orange, as she was passing through. We all met Willa at the Local is Lovely Workshop, as she was helping Sophie with the food. Willa brought with her some breads and croissants from the bakery, and they were all so delicious! Mum bought some croissants, olive oil bread and an apple pie. All were lovely. The croissants were particularly good heated up in the oven and served with jam! If you are ever passing by Orange or staying there a while, Racine Bakery is definitely worth going to. 

Goodies from Racine Bakery, Orange

I have a few things in the works at the moment, and with Christmas fast approaching I am hoping everything gets completed in time for me to do some Christmas baking. This year will be the first that I haven’t been studying or working over the Christmas break, so I am looking forward to enjoying the time and actually being able to bake for us for once! 

Hopefully I will have a couple of things to show you soon! In the mean time, this is the gingerbread recipe I will be using this Christmas. I discovered it last year and it is one of the best, and easiest I have made. One batch makes quite a few biscuits, and they are nice on their own or with icing.

Local Is Lovely Workshop

As I’m sure many of you have already seen, last week I was lucky enough to attend an amazing workshop hosted by Sophie Hansen, of Local is Lovely. The workshop was held at her family’s farm, Kimbri, in Rydal. It was a lovely place, and I surprisingly enjoyed being outside and on a farm (for those who know me well, know that I am not much of an outdoors person!). It was calming being out of Sydney for a few days, and like always with such workshops, invigorating to be around like minded creative people. 

By now it must seem like I’m a bit of a ‘workshop junkie’, having attended 4 workshops in the last few months. I cannot properly explain how much I have learnt from these workshops. They have been exactly what I needed, and each has added to my photographic skills and most importantly, creative confidence. 

When I first saw Sophie’s post announcing the workshop, I knew that I 100% had to go. There are times when something like this comes up, and I just know that it will be fantastic and exactly what I need. One of those things that you get so excited about, that not being able to go just can’t be an option! This was especially so when I saw that the lovely Luisa Brimble was going to be at the workshop, along with stylist extraordinaire Stephanie Stamatis. I was also rather excited about getting an art lesson from Sophie’s Mum Annie Herron.

The time I spent at Kimbri was just amazing, and I had a really great time. It was wonderful meeting new people, and catching up with those I had met at previous workshops. The food Sophie cooked, with the help of her friend Willa, was amazing. Before attending the workshop, I was in somewhat of a ‘food rut’. I had no motivation to cook anything much, particularly things that would be appropriate of lunch or dinner (read: you can’t have cake for lunch/dinner every day). After enjoying a couple of cooking-free days where I didn’t spend half the day deliberating what to make for dinner (then giving up at about 5:30pm and just having Vegemite on toast…again), I felt ready to tackle the daily dilemma of dinner again. First point of call was re-creating the zucchini galette made for lunch on the first day of the workshop. Luckily, after an ok first attempt, Sophie posted the recipe on her blog, so I could make it again properly! 

Now, a week on, I am still in a slight workshop day-dream, re-living those couple of days through the photos and reading others blog posts about it. So now, I’ll add to those other posts, and go get myself a second helping of zucchini galette!

Stephanie making Turkish coffee.

Styling by Stephanie, photography instruction by Luisa.

Flower arranging with Amelia from Flower Era. 

The finished product. 

At Fabrice's Farm.

Styling by Stephanie. 

Sophie making pasta. 

Styling by Stephanie. 

Art with Annie. 

Pickling. 

Many thanks to Sophie, Luisa & Stephanie for a fantastic couple of days. 

Some sites to look at: 

http://www.local-lovely.com 

http://artclasseswithannieherron.com.au

http://www.stephaniesomebody.com

http://www.luisabrimble.com

http://www.theflowerera.com.au

http://www.racinerestaurant.com.au 

https://www.facebook.com/firstfarmorganics

ABC Delicious Food Photography & Styling Workshop with Olympus and Megan Morton @ The School

Here are a few of the photos from the latest workshop I attended. The location was wonderful, right next door to Kitchen by Mike. The workshop was split into two areas, one shooting dishes made by Kitchen by Mike with the help of the ABC Delicious and Olympus Teams, and the other setting up and shooting props with Megan Morton. 

Raspberry & Rose Muffins and Like Minded People

I like making muffins. They are quick, easy and lend themselves to a multitude of flavour combinations. This recipe is slightly different to the one I usually cook with. I was introduced to it by someone I used to work with. We worked together one day a week, and the whole day would be spent talking about food, restaurants, markets and cooking. Oh and we did some work as well! 

I always find it fantastic to talk to like minded people who enjoy food. Many of my friends aren’t as passionate about food as I am, and I sometimes start to feel a bit of a weirdo when I get excited about food stuff. So, it’s nice to have these other people around me who are just as passionate and interested in food as I am. That is one thing I do miss about not working at the moment. While there were frustrations with working, some of the people I had the pleasure of working with were passionate foodies and I learnt a lot from them. Often when I worked with another colleague I would be met with lists of foodie go-to places I had never heard of, or food related newspaper articles about something we had recently discussed. 

Another dear work friend and I could always be found in quiet moments searching through the cookbooks for sale, and talking about what we could make for dinner. My friend’s dinners always sounded so gourmet, it put my dinner of boring pasta or a vegemite bagel to deeper shame than they already were. 

When new cookbooks arrived, my friend could always be heard calling to me, ‘hey Kath luv, you could make this!’ or ‘There is a cookbook out there I know you would like!’. Which usually meant the rest of us from the coffee shop scrambling to take a look at the new delivery and laughingly fight over who would buy the books (sorry customers!).

One time another friend & colleague of mine and I ran to each other each holding Bill Granger’s book ‘Easy’. We both were holding on to our copies for dear life, thinking the other would want to buy it too. We laughed when we each saw the other clutching our books saying ‘This is mine!’ Thank God someone ordered two copies of that one! 

This recipe yields about 10 (smallish) muffins. If you double the recipe you will get a good 20 or so (smallish) muffins or 12 seriously massive ones (similar to the size of from a texan muffin tin). 

Ingredients: 

220 g flour 

2 tsp baking powder

125 g sugar 

1/2 tsp salt 

1 egg 

3/4 cup vegetable oil 

3/4 cup milk 

200 g raspberries, roughly chopped

2 tbsp rosewater 

Method: 

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line a twelve hole muffin tin with cases (minus 2). 

In a large bowl add the flour, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl whisk together the vegetable oil, egg and milk. 

Add the raspberries to the flour mixture and gently mix. Add the oil mixture and the rosewater and gently mix until just combined. 

Fill muffin cases about 3/4 full, then bake for about 30 minutes. The muffins will be cooked when they are golden on top and spring back when touched. 

Recipe Adapted from ‘The Cook’s Companion’ by Stephanie Alexander, p.123 (1996).

All baking, styling & photography for this post by Kathryn Vincent of Kulinary Adventures of Kath. 

For more recipes showcasing the best of rose, check out my eBook Baking with Rose by clicking the link below!