tarts Posts

Summer fruit and cream tart for a hot night

Fruit tart with pastry cream, stone fruit and grapes

I love trawling the web for interesting or tasty-looking recipes in my spare time, then clipping them to Evernote. Then whenever I need a baking fix I can look at my little collection and choose what to tackle next.

A disproportionate amount of these recipes have been clipped from the food blog spicy icecream, run by a Sydneysider named Lisa. I think I’ve mentioned her blog before but just to emphasise the point: I love it. Lisa’s incredible photography and styling makes every dessert and sweet snack look sooo good.

A few nights ago I had Sib, Future Sib and Welshman’s Mammy over for dinner and I needed something to sweetly conclude the crispy chicken and salad. It was a hot night so something light and refreshing was in order. When I trawled through Evernote, the Summer Berry Tart jumped out and demanded I make and eat it without delay.

What’s your favourite dessert for a warm, balmy night?

Fruit tart with pastry cream, stone fruit and grapes

Summer fruit and cream tart
Adapted from spicy icecream’s Summer Berry Tart
(more…)

Posted by Katy in Cooking with fruit, Tarts and pies, Uncategorized and tagged with cream, fruit, tarts

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Chocolate tart and crème brûlée at Fraser’s in Kings Park

Chocolate Tart at Frasers Restaurant

Through a combo of working away and family holidays, the Welshman and I hadn’t seen each other in a few weeks so we decided a fancy dinner was in order. We considered the usual favourites, but decided to try something different: Fraser’s in Kings Park.

I’d never been to Fraser’s before, and truthfully, I’d heard its reputation relied on an outstanding location and not much else. But I’d also heard rumours of an impressive refurbishment, so I put on a little black dress and some ridiculously high heels, and we fronted up for an early dinner on a Friday night.

Parking was free and plentiful; always a good thing. There was a wedding reception in progress on the upper level, which is where we entered (The poor bridal party had their backs to the Perth skyline – what’s with that?). We walked down to the lower floor and into a beautiful wood-panelled room with two levels of seating, lots of booths and floor-to-ceiling glass windows with a view through the trees to the skyline. It was a lovely dining area.

Frasers Restaurant Interior

We chose a bottle of Redbank Long Paddock Pinot Gris, and started with ciabatta bread with Margaret River olive oil. The wine was light and smooth, and the ciabatta did exactly what it says on the tin. I guess bread can’t always be too exciting.

For entrée we shared the sashimi (Tasmanian salmon, bluefin tuna, hiramasa kingfish,
soy, pickled ginger and wasabi) for $22. It was served on a bed of ice slivers, and the taste matched the presentation – just beautiful. We also shared the pan fried goats cheese gnocchi with wild mushrooms and burnt butter sauce, also $22.

Look, I never order gnocchi. It’s just potato balls in sauce, right? But this gnocchi… it was incredible. It was served as four big cheesy chunks with a light coating of mushrooms and sauce. Very very rich, but sooo good. I’m sold.

For mains we shared the roast duck breast and confit ‘sausage’ with pistachio and beetroot for $44, and the 350g Kilcoy scotch fillet of beef served with salt roast potato, braised shallot and béarnaise sauce for $44. Usually I love a good duck dish but I found this one a tiny bit lacking – it just wasn’t as tasty as I expected. The steak, however, was cooked perfectly and the béarnaise sauce was very morish.

But on to dessert (my favourite part!) The Welshman scorned the idea of sharing only one dessert (do you see why we’ve been together this long?) so we ordered two, at the waitress’s recommendation: Rich Valrhona chocolate tart with brandy snap and vanilla bean ice cream, and crème brûlée with pistachio ice cream and pashmak, both $15.

Creme Brulee at Frasers Restaurant

The chocolate tart was a little less smooth than I expected – even a tiny bit cake-y – but tasted pretty good nonetheless. And the crème brûlée was rich and delicious, and has renewed my desire to make a successful crème brûlée at home.

The final bill was eye-wateringly pricey, especially when we found out our bottled water cost $8. But the service was fantastic throughout the whole night and the view through the trees to the sparkling lights of the city was pretty enchanting.

Frasers Restaurant City View

I’d definitely go to Fraser’s again. Next time we might save a few dollars by sharing an entrée and dessert, while still enjoying the beautiful atmosphere and sense of occasion that Fraser’s creates.

Check out more opinions and details about Frasers at

Posted by Katy in Fine dining, Restaurant & Café Reviews and tagged with chocolate, custard, ice cream, tarts

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Classic lemon meringue pie, Amelia Bedelia style

Classic lemon meringue pie

I’ve had a love and fascination for lemon meringue pies since I was young. It started when I read a picture book called Amelia Bedelia, in which Amelia is a woman hired as a maid for a rich couple who leave instructions such as ‘draw the curtains’ and ‘put out the lights’. Amelia takes these instructions literally, sketching a portrait of the curtains and hanging the lightbulbs on the washing line.

Her employers are pretty cheesed off when they get home, but luckily Amelia also had time to bake a lemon meringue pie, and when her boss tastes it he thinks it’s the BEST THING EVER, and all is forgiven.

Classic lemon meringue pie

And that sparked my love of lemon meringue pie – a seemingly mythical dessert that I’d never tasted, but sounded so amazing. I think I had my first slice when I was about 10, and a few intermittently here and there up to my early 20s. I was very excited when I found frozen ones at the supermarket, despite their pretty crummy taste. I guess it never occurred to me that I could actually bake one myself. It felt so… out of reach.

I can’t remember what finally made me download a recipe and get my mitts into some lemon curd and egg whites, but since I found an awesome recipe from Exclusively Food, I’ve been hooked. Lemon meringue pie has become my go-to dessert when I need something that looks incredibly impressive, but is also quite hard to screw up.

There are three separate elements to create – pastry, lemon curd and meringue – so it’s best to make it the night before or in the morning. While each element is pretty quick to whip up, you need plenty of time for their various baking and cooling periods.

Slice of lemon meringue pie

I made this one when some friends came over for dinner last week. I was cutting it a bit fine by making it in the afternoon, but it had just enough time to cool in the fridge before I served it. And it was goooood. There was plenty left over so I took it to work the next day, and it didn’t last very long.

Head over to Exclusively Food to get their awesome recipe for lemon meringue pie.

Was there a delightful-sounding dessert or food that you were captivated with when you were young?

Posted by Katy in Cooking with fruit, Tarts and pies and tagged with fruit, meringue, tarts

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Rich chocolate tart with strawberries and ice cream

Aria chocolate tart with strawberries and ice cream

Back when Masterchef contestants spent their time cooking instead of navigating obstacle courses, one of the challenges in the final weeks involved creating chocolate tart. Not just any old choccie pie, but the Aria Chocolate Tart, from the kitchen of Matt Moran’s two-hatted Aria restaurant, and involving not just some pastry with chocolate filling, but also a chocolate glaze, chocolate sauce, chocolate sorbet, a chocolate curl and a chocolate macaron. Just in case you were leaning towards thinking it might be a passionfruit-themed dish.

I obsessed about making it for a long time, but had neither the time nor the money to burn on seven sets of ingredients. Recently, however, I was poking around Sydney food blog spicy icecream and came across a simplified version that looked almost as good as the Moran version. And before I knew it, I was buying copious amounts of chocolate, butter and cream (three of my favourite ingredients) and maniacally sprinkling every available surface with flour. (Sorry, carpet).

We’d invited some friends over for dinner so while the Welshman busied himself with a vegetarian lasagne, I pulled out sugar, cocoa, butter, eggs and self-raising flour to make pastry. Alas, my first mistake – I meant to grab the plain flour. Unfortunately I used up all the cocoa before I realised my mistake, so once the pastry was lining the tart tin I popped it in the freezer for 10 minutes then weighed it down with masses of rice before it went in the oven.

It was my first time using this oven and I’m not familiar with the electric kind, so it’ll take me a while to get used to it – but meanwhile I managed to singe the underside of my pastry shell. I pretended not to notice (too late to re-make!) and instead gloated that although the edges of the crust had puffed up a bit, the freezer/rice combo had prevented too much rising.

The tart filling was easy-as-pie to make (see what I did there?). Just some boiling cream poured over chocolate, then some eggs mixed in. Then into the tart shell and the whole caboodle back into the oven for a while. I think the underside of the pastry copped yet another smoking, and I’m beginning to sense that placing delicate desserts 2cm above the heating element may not be my best idea yet.

Once the tart had cooled a bit it was a dream to slice, and I served it with a quenelle of Connoisseur vanilla bean ice cream and some chopped up strawberries. The tart itself was very rich with a slightly bitter taste, which I assume stemmed from the 70% Lindt dark chocolate I used. It also had a hint of burned flavour, and I have NO IDEA where that came from.

I think the ice cream and strawberries were a good idea as we needed something light and sweet to cut through the rich bitterness or the tart. Next time, I’ll up the ratio of milk chocolate, and try not to use the wrong flour and burn the pastry, oui?

Aria chocolate tart with strawberries

I fridged the leftover tart and had a slice the next day, but it had solidified and lost that truffle-like consistency. I plan to try some more after letting it warm up a bit to room temperature, and I suspect that it will regain some of that softer texture. It’s all in the name of experimenting. Science is very important. I’m making the world a better place. Right?

You can find the full recipe for the simplified version of the Aria Chocolate Tart at spicy icecream.

Posted by Katy in Cooking with chocolate, Recipes, Tarts and pies and tagged with chocolate, Matt Moran, strawberries, tarts

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Dark chocolate almond cake and fruit custard tart at IKEA

I apologise for not posting much recently. Moving house and having my wisdom teeth extracted made September a bit of a write-off as I spent half my time anaesthetised, highly medicated, or in a stupor; and the other half packing, moving boxes, unpacking, or – like many other furniture-seeking 20-somethings – at IKEA. A place that has many flat-pack furniture options and a surprisingly good range of snacks.

Working standard office hours means that along with most of Perth, my IKEA shopping happens on a Saturday. Oh joy. But getting there at 9am on the dot has its benefits – the Welshman and I scored a plum parking spot and cruised through the furniture maze without any elbow-induced broken ribs or our toes run over by prams. By 10am we’d pinched a good haul of paper tape measures and stubby pencils, and were settling in at a table in the IKEA restaurant with our $3.95 breakfast fry-ups and two desserts. Because it’s never too early for dessert.

The desserts were also $3.95 each, which seems like a high price for IKEA food so we decided the baked goods mustn’t be massed-produced in the IKEA kitchen, but maybe mass-produced at some bakery that charges normal wholesale prices. But some of the cakes seem quite IKEA-specific… oh, I don’t know. Either way, they were there and we bought them. And that’s a lazy justification for zero research if I ever saw one.

The Welshman chose the fruit and custard tart, which is a tart shell with custard topped with layer of mandarin, kiwi fruit and strawberries, with a slight glaze. The tart shell seemed very mass-produced (my new favourite phrase, it seems) but it was still sufficiently sweet and crumbly, and the fruit was very fresh. I wouldn’t expect anything more or less from a shopping centre bakery.

I picked the almond cake with dark chocolate (or Tårta Mörk Choklad, the internet tells me in a Swedish accent), which consists of several layers of almondy stuff, almond bits, macaron-shell-style egg white stuff, and some other layers I couldn’t define but enjoyed immensely. The slice is only a few centimetres high but it’s so rich that you don’t need much of it.

As the savoury options are so inexpensive, you’re definitely justified in dropping a few dollars on some sweet goodies at the IKEA restaurant. I haven’t tried the chocolate mousse, the cinnamon rolls or any of the other options, but I can vouch for the Tårta Mörk Choklad. It’s really quite delicious.

By the time we rolled out of there with our flatpacks in tow, the crowds were starting to jostle in and our car bay had become prime real estate. Ah, IKEA. What would our living rooms do without you?

Check out more opinions about IKEA’s restaurant at

Posted by Katy in Restaurant & Café Reviews and tagged with cake, custard, fruit, tarts

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Lemony Custard Raspberry Tart with Vanilla Cream

A few days ago I expected the title of this post to be ‘Raspberry Tart with Lemon Crème Brulee’, simply because that’s the name of the recipe I followed. Alllllways the optimist.

Pies Pies and More Pies by Viola Goren

My friends Chris and Michelle came over for dinner on Friday night and like usual, I picked out a savoury dish to make (practically at random) while saving all my mental and physical energy for an impressive dessert. After poring through Viola Goren’s Pies, Pies and More Pies during my lunch break, I selected the Raspberry Tart with Lemon Crème Brûlée because it looked deliciously wintery but not too stodgy. Plus who doesn’t enjoy a good tart? (Hardy har har).

I got a head start by blind-baking the shell the night before. The pastry was a dream to make, even though my kitchen looked like a coke lab by the time I shoved the pastry into the tart pan. The recipe reminded me to give the pastry a quick stint in the freezer before baking it – something I usually forget – and that made a big difference in keeping the sides from shrinking down like Ewan MacGregor pushed into a cold corridor after a big night.

The next day I managed to make the raspberry and crème brulee filling and whack it in the oven and out again before Chris and Michelle arrived. This gave it enough time in the fridge to cool down before dinner was finished and it became time to add the sugar and caramelise the top.

This is the part where I admit I’ve never made crème brûlée before, and in the absence of a blow torch or a ‘preheated broiler’, which I’d never heard of, I thought… well… how about I just put it under the grill?

My logic went a bit like this: “Crème Brûlée needs top cooked. What else needs top cooked? Toasted cheesies. What do I use for that? Grill!”

The 1/3 cup sugar looked like… a lot. But that’s what the recipe called for, so we (that’s right, ‘we’, I am now making Chris and Michelle share the responsibility for this) sprinkled it on merrily and placed the whole caboodle into the grill. I tried to shut the little door but Chris, quite rightly, stopped me. That’s when I probably should have twigged that a) I Have No Clue About Most Things, and b) This Was Doomed To Fail.

I swear we kept an eye on it but when we took it out, it looked like this.

At least the caramel was hard. Very hard, and very inedible. But fuelled by wine and a never-say-die attitude reminiscent of Rebecca Black’s singing career, we picked the burnt top off, sprinkled some more sugar on, turned the heat down, and vowed to watch it closer.

The traumatised tart sobbed quietly as we tortured it under the grill for the second time, and it was reluctant to harden up as much as before. Still, we shoved it into the fridge to cool, then started sawing it into pieces.

Wow-wee, it was sugary. And I don’t use that sort of grandpa-worthy exclamation often. I can eat caramel by the spoonful, much to my dentist’s horror, so it’s quite a feat to put me off by too much sweetness. We neutralised it a bit with some ice cream, but the combination of raspberries and sickly-sweet sugar was still a lot to handle and put me in such an energy spin that I cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom after my guests left.

But I didn’t want to leave it as a failed dessert and I knew it had potential if I could incorporate some creaminess into the dish, so the next day I whipped up some cream with some vanilla extract and spread it on the top, then topped it off with a few raspberries. I wasn’t expecting a massive change, but to my surprise it tasted lovely! I think the original recipe was a great concept, but for me the combination of sweet pastry, sugar, cooked raspberries and more sugar is just a little too much to take without a contrasting element like the cream.