Raspberry and Cumin ‘Cheesecake’ Tarts: an experimental emergency dessert!

Tonight I desperately needed a dessert after dinner and came up with this little experiment…

The pastry tart shells were left over from a savoury vegetable tart I’d made ages ago, and had frozen left over tart shells. These were reheated in the oven to crispen up and revive.

I whipped up the soft cheese with some icing sugar and a little vanilla paste.

Then the raspberries were cooked up with some icing sugar into a sweet and sharp syrupy sauce.

All these ingredients were then made up into little tarts within 10 minutes of being taken out of the fridge and freezer!

The cumin in the pastry was very strong and over powered the raspberry flavour. The taste was nice but a little too much on the savoury side I think!

Overall a nice little experiment but I probably wouldn’t have it again 🙂

Coriander Paneer and Jeera Rice

Coriander Paneer and Jeera Rice

This isn’t the first time I’ve made Dimple’s recipe for Coriander Paneer Curry but this time I’m trying it out with a SJ’s Jeera Rice.

Coriander Paneer

The base sauce for this curry is so simple! All ingredients are blitzed in the blender and cooked through then the paneer then left to simmer and soak up the lovely spices. I added a little yoghurt as I was a little heavy handed with the chilli!

Cumin Rice

I  made this rice using the ‘absorption method’ as this is the way I learnt to cook rice. It results in the rice being a little more sticky but that’s the way I like it. The mild fragrance from the spices gives the rice a gorgeous flavour, enough to make you want to eat the rice just on it’s own! It’s my first time cooking rice in this way but I’ll definitely be doing it again!

Coriander Paneer with Jeera Rice

I love learning how to cook from people who cook for their families. Home cooking tastes amazing, I think its the love that goes into it. The best thing about the world of blogging is learning how people cook traditional home made dishes so I know how to recreate them too! None of the ‘westernised’ and mass produced curries found in high street restaurants for me!

Thanks to my fellow bloggers for their inspiration and lessons learned, special thanks to Dimple from Shivaay Delights and SJ from Cooking with SJ too! My life (and that of my partner’s) is infinitely better for knowing you! 🙂

Goats cheese, Caramelized onion, Spinach, Sun-dried tomato, and Pine nut tart

Caramelized onion, Goats cheese, Spinach, Sun dried tomato, and pine nut tart

I often start cooking and get a little carried away with the different flavour combinations. This tart is one of many examples of such cooking exploits. This started off as a goats cheese and caramelised onion tart but then I also wanted a feta and spinach tart. The end result is a layered Caramelized onion, Goats cheese, Spinach, Sun dried tomato, and pine nut tart.

Caramelized onion, Goats cheese, Spinach and Sun dried tomato tart

  I didn’t actually follow a recipe, so don’t have one to share! Here’s the basic steps I took: 1) make caramelized onions 2) make bechamel sauce and add some frozen spinach 3) part bake pastry case 4) layer on the onions, then the spinach bechamel sauce 5) crumble over the goats cheese then chopped up sun-dried tomatoes 6) half way through baking add pine nuts and freshly ground black pepper I used shop bought short crust pastry (it is mid-week after all!) but sprinkled on cumin seeds and rolled them into the dough before pressing the pastry into the tin. The end result was a lovely crisp, fragrant, pastry edged tart. However all the moisture from the filling meant the base remained wet. Anyone who is a massive fan of baking (like me) will know of Mary Berry, she’s more recently better known for being a judge on ‘The Great British Bake Off’. Whenever I bake now, I always wonder what Mary would think of it. On this occasion she would say ‘good flavour combination, just a shame about the soggy bottom!’ Sorry Mary! Lesson learned: cumin seeds in pastry is delicious! Second lesson learned: self restraint, every so often, is worth observing…

Related articles

• Red Onion and Goats Cheese Tart (acookbookcollection.wordpress.com)
• Great British Bake Off: is Mary Berry using shortcut pastry? | Media Monkey (theguardian.com)