Sugar et al, Author at Sugar et al

Dark Chocolate Cheesecake Tart With Summer Fruits

28|03|2015

So, we are well into Autumn! There are no color changing maple leaves where I live. The sun hasn’t started to set earlier either. There is a very slight chill in the morning. But it is still Autumn. Because it is no longer summer. Because the beautiful raspberries, nectarines and plums are getting replaced with apples and oranges. I will be waiting a long wait before I play with them again. The change of the seasons, more specifically the end of summer does have a slight depressing effect on me. It could have something to do with my love for colors and my need for sunshine. It could also have to do with the other side of the world, where nature is presenting itself in the form of my favorite produce.

This cheesecake tart is once again one of those excuses for me to get hold of the last summer produce and lay them out generously on the top. I wanted a nice crumbly chocolate-y crust and a rich filling to complement the fruits. I fully baked the shell till it was nice and crisp and then added the cheesecake filling. Once the filling was set, I poured chocolate ganache on top for another layer of chocolate indulgence. So, three layers of chocolate and some gorgeous berries, grapes and figs and you have an impressive dessert.

Dark Chocolate Cheesecake Tart With Summer Fruits
Serves 8-10

For the Tart Shell (adapted from here)
125 g chilled butter
1 cup (150 g) plain flour
1/3 cup (60 g) icing sugar mixture
1/4 cup (30 g) almond meal
1/4 cup (30 g) cocoa powder
1 egg yolk

For the Chocolate Cheesecake Filling
250 g dark chocolate, melted and cooled
400 g cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup castor sugar
125 ml heavy cream, whipped to stiff peaks

Chocolate Ganache
200 g dark chocolate
1/4 cup heavy cream

Make the tart shell: Place the butter, flour, icing sugar, almond meal and cocoa powder in the bowl of a food processor and process until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolk and process until mixture just comes together. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead until almost smooth. Shape into a disc. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to rest.

Preheat oven to 200°C. Roll pastry on a lightly floured surface to a 4mm-thick disc. Line the base and side of a 20cm (base measurement) round, fluted tart tin with removable base. Use a sharp knife to trim the edges. Place in the fridge for 15 minutes to rest.

Place the tart tin on an baking tray. Line the pastry with baking paper and fill with rice or beans. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes. Reduce temperature to 180 degrees C. Remove the rice or beans and bake for a further 15-20 minutes or until pastry is perfectly cooked through. Remove from oven and set aside to cool (do not remove from tart pan).

Meanwhile make the cheesecake filling : Melt chocolate in a double-boiler over medium heat. Leave to cool. You can also use a microwave, just follow the instructions on the chocolate packet.

Whip cream cheese and sugar until smooth and creamy. Add the whipped cream and mix till smooth. Stir in melted chocolate until mixture is smooth and well blended.

Pour mixture onto the tart shell. Level out the surface with the back of a spoon. Chill for at least 5 hours. Remove from refrigerator and pour over chocolate ganache. Allow to set in the fridge for 15 minutes. Decorate with fresh fruits, just before serving.

To make the chocolate ganache, heat the heavy cream in a small saucepan. Before it reaches boiling point, remove from heat, add the chocolate. Leave aside for 10 minutes. Mix till chocolate is well blended and smooth. Alternately, you could place the cream and chocolate together in a microwave safe bowl and microwave for a few seconds.

Styling And Shooting For Styling Magazine. An experience!

25|03|2015

“I had rescued the moment by using my camera and in that way had found how to stop time and hold it. No one could take that image away from me because I owned it.”
― Alice Sebold

This is a favorite quote of mine that I had saved a long time ago in a folder named ‘Inspiration’. Being food bloggers, photographers, creatives we are quite used to freezing wonderful, luscious, lip-smacking moments with our cameras. Sharing them with the world so that they can create the emotions that they were meant to create. But there are some moments, some emotions that even the camera cannot capture. Pieces in time that can only be left in the internal memory of our minds to be played and re-played over and over again. Experiences so rich and special that they almost change you as a person. Moments that you own but too large to fit into an ‘Inspiration’ folder.

I had many of these moments recently while working with Styling Magazine and the wonderful Coty Farquhar, the creative director and stylist extraordinaire behind this beautiful collection. I was blown away the first time I spoke to her and with great delight the next thing I realized was that she was the only person on earth who could totally read into my fascination for food styling and my obsession with symmetry and placement of objects. At last!

I hope this also explains my sporadic presence in blog-world this month. I was having way too much fun styling and shooting images for this gorgeous magazine that is filled with inspirational stories, breathtaking landscapes, creations, art and beauty. There is something for everyone! It is a huge honor for me and my work to be showcased at a place that I just cannot stop admiring. So here is the link to the current issue. You will find exclusive shots that I have created for Styling Magazine and photos from the blog as well. You will also get to know me a little better.
I hope you will take time to go through the entire magazine! It is just so beautiful. Enjoy!

Cream Puffs With Orange Whipped Mascarpone

18|03|2015

Today we attended a cross country carnival at the twin’s school. This was a first for my boys who have just started school this year. A first among the innumerable races they will perhaps run through childhood and adulthood and the many ‘finishing lines’ they will persue in real life. To say that they were excited would be an understatement. One of them was up way past bedtime yesterday. ‘I can’t sleep. What if I don’t win?’ I was surprised, happy and a wee bit disappointed that my baby boy appeared to have grown up in leaps and bounds in the past one month. I told him what my mum told me as a child ‘It is more important to give your best’.

It was evident that he was not convinced with my answer and continued to fret till he fell asleep holding his teddy bear who in recent times has been lovingly named after their school house. In the morning, everyone was in high spirits at the school. Mums and Dads had decided to wear respective house color clothes to support their children and the school pretty much resembled (for lack of a better description, sorry!) a giant box of mobile Nestle Smarties (can’t stop thinking about food, eh?)

The race began. Despite being forbidden by the Housemaster to come close to the running track and causing distraction to the boys, the parents made a mad dash after the little ones with their mobile phones. ‘OMG he is running for the first time’, ‘OMG he is running first time in his house t-shirt’ ‘OMG I have taken the day off for this landmark event’ You know what I mean! As much as I love photography, I am actually terrible at using my phone camera. So I don’t even make an attempt and leave that bit for my husband who is quite a pro in taking pictures with the phone. I stood in one corner and thoroughly enjoyed the race and watching frantic parents running uphill and downhill alongside the boys.

I had made these cream puffs for an after school treat. I am crazy for choux pastry! I thoroughly enjoy making it and almost always use the same batch to make cream puffs or profiteroles and eclairs at the same time and at home every one loves to eat 2 or 3 at a time. They are such light, delicate, addictive little treats. If you haven’t made choux pastry before, do give them a try. They aren’t difficult to make. The only thing is that you will need to pay attention to details the first time. Once you get a feel of things, you will want to make them over and over again. When they raise their little brown heads in the oven, you will feel a sense of excitement. They are in fact creating a little hollow inside for you to fill up with your favorite cream, custard or chocolate filling. I have filled these with whipped mascarpone that has been infused with orange zest. Easy peasy but very tasty.

You may want to serve them with a chocolate sauce but here, since the filling is slightly rich, I thought a dusting of icing sugar is good enough.

Cream Puffs With Orange Whipped Mascarpone
Makes 15

60 g butter, chopped
3/4 cup (185 ml) water
3/4 cup (115 g) plain flour
3 eggs

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C (180 degrees C for fan-forced). Line a baking tray with non-stick baking paper.

Heat the butter and water in a medium saucepan over medium heat until butter melts and the mixture comes to the boil. Remove from heat. Sift in the flour. Use a wooden spoon to beat for 1-2 minutes or until mixture comes away from side of pan. Transfer mixture to a heatproof bowl. Set aside, stirring occasionally, to cool slightly.

Using an electric mixer, beat in the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, until mixture is thick and glossy.

Pipe the mixture or place tablespoonfuls of mixture on the prepared baking tray 3 cm apart from each other. Use wet hands to pat down any peaks of dough. Sprinkle trays with water to create steam. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until puffed and golden.

Turn off the oven. Use a knife to pierce the base of each puff. Place the puffs in oven for 20 minutes to dry out. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

To assemble, using a serrated knife, slice through the top third of the choux puff. Leave the top aside. Pipe or fill up the base with whipped orange mascarpone (recipe below). Put the top back. Dust with icing sugar. Repeat with all the choux puffs.

Orange Whipped Mascarpone

1 cup mascarpone cheese
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup castor sugar
1 tbsp finely grated orange zest

To make the orange whipped mascarpone, place all the ingredients in a medium bowl and beat with an electric mixer until cream is thickened and smooth. Keep refrigerated till needed. Place mascarpone mixture in a piping bag fitted with a star tip just before assembling.

Rose And Cardamom Cheesecake Mille-feuille

13|03|2015

With puff pastry, I think the sky is the limit when you think of recipes. Remember my story about my fridge overload. One of the things I always stock up on is puff pastry. I stopped making my own a couple of years ago. It is not difficult to make at all but time consuming. With two little boys on tow, I would never remember to take the dough out on time after it had rested between the different stages of rolling. When I would remember, it would be too hard to roll. I would leave it on the counter and forget again. But now that I keep the rolled sheets at home, I find it really helpful to make sweet and savory food in a jiffy.

Mille feuilles are a great way of using puff pastry. Layers of pastry cream or even whipped cream and fruit sandwiched between crumbly layers of pastry. Visually, they are beautiful in their little rustic stacks and the perfect marraige of contrasting textures. Here I’ve use whipped cream cheese between the layers for a no-bake cheesecake kind of dessert. So basically it is a fusion of two desserts that come together in minutes. I’ve infused the cheesecake with rose water and tiny bit of cardamom powder and sprinkled them with with ground pistachios. You could go with vanilla, orange or even lemon if you do not have rose water at home.

Piping the cheesecake certainly makes them look pretty but if you are not comfortable with piping, you could spread the cheesecake mixture on the layers. I would insist though that you give piping a try. A plain round tip will work nicely too or if you do not have nozzles and piping bags at home, just cut a tiny opening at one corner of a zip-lock bag and use that to pipe on the pastry layers. These mille feuilles can be stored in the fridge but is best assembled just before serving.

Rose And Cardamom Cheesecake Mille-feuille
Makes 4

1 sheet (25 x 25 cm) frozen ready-rolled butter puff pastry, just thawed
250 g cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup icing sugar, sifted
1/2 cup cold whipping cream or heavy cream
1 tbsp rose water (or 1 tsp rose essence)
1/2 tsp cardamom powder
1 handful pistachios, skinned and finely chopped

Line a baking tray with non-stick baking paper. Using a pizza cutter or knife, cut the pastry sheet vertically and horizontally. You will have four squares. Cut each square equally to get 8 rectangles.

Place the pastry rectangles on the lined tray. Top them with another sheet of baking paper and another baking tray. Bake in oven for 12-15 minutes. Turn the trays over and bake for a further 5-10 minutes or until the pastry is crisp and golden. Set aside for 30 minutes to cool completely.

Meanwhile, make the cheesecake filling. In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the icing sugar and beat until smooth. Gradually add the heavy cream, rose water and cardamom powder and whip until the frosting is thick enough to pipe. In case you are using a brand of heavy cream that does not whip easily, then whip the cream separately to stiff peaks and fold it gradually into the cream cheese mixture. Refrigerate till needed.

To assemble, pipe the cheesecake filling onto one pastry rectangle. Sandwich with another pastry rectangle. Pipe filling again. Sprinkle with pistachios. Decorate with edible rosebuds.