Pastry Part II and mini cheescakes

I'm excited to share with you a bit of a revelation that I had this weekend about pastry, I think I've worked something out! Anyway as usual it all started on Friday morning, after boxing with my gym buddy down at Bronte Beach, I had to make a few things for lunch with the Friday mummy club. I'd put my hand up to make bread for us sensitive ones as well as a quiche and adapting an old favorite mini honey macadamia cheesecakes. The bread and the cheesecakes should be easy while the quiche was a little daunting since my previous savory pastry failures.

I'd scoured my gluten free baking books for a quiche recipe but didn't come across anything however I did find an old print out from the 'Taste' website for a gluten free bacon and spinach quiche - just what I was looking for. Only thing was the recipe used a pre-made flour mix. I was in a quandary on whether to make up my own flour mix or to use a pre-made one I had in the cupboard. I ended up going for the pre-made mix. One thing I noticed was that the mix was quite lumpy - even after I'd whisked it and it didn't absorb the butter as well and needed hardly any water to make it into a dough and it had quite a grainy texture. Needless to say when the case had come out of the over after its blind bake it was soft and crumbly to touch. Doh! However I decided to press on as it would hopefully have a yummy filling and you could eat around the pastry! And I must say it looked pretty good once it came out of the oven but the pastry just didn't stand up to cutting and serving that well and it wasn't that good tasting. Oh well, I decided to have another crack it the next day when I had a bit more time. I had to press on with making the mini cheesecakes.

Now its been a while since I made a honey macadamia cheesecake and I've not done it gluten free, but I didn't think I'd have any problem substituting gluten free biscuits for the base. Now my very kind sister-in-law had put me onto a nice mainstream biscuit that was gluten free when we were back in WA for our honeymoon - Arnotts Rice Cookies and they worked perfectly. Thanks Ros! The only other fiddling to be done would be convert a 22cm cheesecake to at least 7 mini cheesecakes and my only limiting factor was that I had 250gm of cream cheese. So this meant I halved the recipe, other than the eggs where I used two instead of three. It was quite surprising how much mixture the recipe makes, there was enough for 12 mini cheesecakes using a standard 12 muffin tin! Brilliant there were a few extras for Neil and I for dessert over the weekend. Anyway here is the recipe.

Mini Honey Macadamia Cheesecakes (from http://www.taste.com.au/)

makes 12
3/4 cups macadamia nuts, roughly chopped
100g sweet plain GF biscuits (such as Arnotts Rice Cookies)
50g unsalted butter, melted
1tsp mixed spice
250g cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup caster sugar
3Tbs honey
2 eggs
1/3 cup sour cream
Method
1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Line 12 hole muffin tin. Place macadamias on a baking tray and roast for 8 to 10 minutes or until light golden. Set aside to cool.
2. Crush biscuits until finely chopped (either using food processor or by hand). Add butter and process until well combined. Press biscuit mixture into base of muffin holes. Refrigerate until required.
3. Combine cream cheese, sugar and 2Tbs cup honey until smooth. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing until well combined. Add sour cream and mix until just combined.
4. Spread two thirds of the macadamias over biscuit bases. Drizzle with remaining honey. Carefully pour over cheesecake filling. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Turn off oven and open oven door. Allow cheesecake to cool completely in oven. Cover and refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight, if time permits.
5. Place a split macadamia on each mini cheesecake and drizzle with honey, if desired.
Note: to make a 22cm whole cheesecake, double the ingredients except for the eggs, use three. Baking takes about 50 mins.
Source; Super Food Ideas - September 2006, Page 78, Recipe by Janelle Bloom

 

Well the Friday mummy club was very polite and didn't complain about the crumbly funny tasting pastry although they were quite vocal about the cheesecakes, I think they were a hit. Luckily I had enough to go around otherwise there might have been tears! And of course its always great to catch up with friends and their new bubs. Although just quietly I'm not too sure about the birth stories, they have me crossing my legs and singing to myself, la la la la I can't hear you!

 

Anyway on Saturday morning after an early morning bike ride to La Parouse and a chai with my cycling buddy I was back in the kitchen determined to give the quiche another go. This time I intended to use the same pastry as for the Lemon Custard Tart (see archives for the 10 August) but to omit the three tablespoons of sugar and replace them with rice flour. So it was when I was sifting and whisking the flours and xanthan gum that I noticed the difference with the pre-mixed plain flour mix. This mix used rice, cornflour soy flours and it was a much finer mix that didn't clump at all. It also absorbed the butter and water easily so the ratios where more in proportion. And when it came out of the oven after its blind bake it wasn't soft or crumbly to touch. So I think the trick is to be careful with using pre-mixed flours and their texture as it really affects absorption of butter and water as well as the crumb and taste when baked. So here is my amalgam of recipes, pastry from Sue Sheppard's Gluten-free Kitchen and Taste.com.au/Fresh Living Nov 2004.

Bacon and spinach quiche

makes a 23cm fluted tart

oil

1 onion finely chopped

100g rindless bacon, cubed

100g baby/English spinach

4 eggs

3/4c cream

1/2c milk

1/3c grated cheese
salt and pepper to taste

optional extras: 1 small zucchini cubed, 1/4 red capsicum diced, 4 mushrooms diced, 2 shallots diced, 1 clove of garlic crushed.

pastry (The Gluten free Kitchen by Sue Sheppard)

30g fine rice flour

75g cornflour

45g soy flour

1tsp xanthan gum

3Tbs rice flour extra (or for sweet pastry caster sugar)

160g cold butter

120ml cold water

Method

1. Sift flours, and gum into a bowl and whisk to mix well. Process flours, sugar and butter in a food processor. Or if you don't have a processor rub butter with your fingertips into the flour and sugar mix until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

2. Continue processing, adding 1 Tbs of water at a time until a soft dough forms. Or mix by hand with a knife. Turn onto a board and knead for 3 minutes until smooth. Wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes (15 minutes in a freezer).

3. Grease a 23cm fluted tart pan. Roll out pastry between to sheets of baking paper to a thickness of 3mm. Ease into the tart pan and trim the edges, then refrigerate for a further 30minutes. (Or 15 minutes in the freezer).

4. Preheat oven 170C

5. Line the pastry case with baking paper and fill with baking beads or rice. Blind-bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown (this may take longer if its been in the freezer) remove from the over and set aside to cool.

6. To make the filling, heat oil in pan brown onions and bacon, then add any extras as desired and cook for 5-10 mins.

7. In a small jug whisk together egg, milk and cream (and diced shallots if desired)

8. layer bacon and onion mixture with spinach into the blind baked pastry case, then transfer to oven and at last minute pour in egg mixture and sprinkle with grated cheese. Bake for 30 mins.

Well a couple of slices of the quiche went with Neil and I to the 50's Fair at Rose Seidler House for lunch on Sunday and was eaten cold with salad. Yum!  I even took a slice to work today were I warmed it up a bit in the microwave and the pastry didn't go too soggy. Yum. And I'll probably have another slice for lunch tomorrow as well so its doing quite well as a lunch treat!

Now just one final note on pastry and the recipe from Sue Sheppard's, Gluten free kitchen - be careful of oven temperatures. To date I've assumed that my oven is the same as that used to create these recipes, however cooking times have been longer. So I've made minor adjustments on the assumption that the GFK uses a a fan-forced oven and cooking times are quicker, so I've adjust my oven temp accordingly - 170 degrees fan-forced equates to 190 degrees un-fan forced. I also remade the Lemon Custard Tart this weekend too and even at the adjusted temperature the tart took about three times as long to cook - ie. closer to an hour than 15-20mins. So I'm going to make a note on this recipe and invest in an oven thermometer to better gauge oven temperatures more accurately! Thanks Matt for that suggestion.

Happy baking!