Made this tonight to take for dinner at a neighbours house.  I was worried when I made the filling because it looked lumpy and like it had curdled or separated.  Maybe my butter wasn't soft enough to mix in thoroughly    I cooked it an extra 10 minutes because it didnt seem set enough at first, then let it cool in the oven as recommended.  I used a 24cm pie dish, which was the right size.

 It turned out to be a light, delicious lemon tart and was very popular with everyone at dinner.  Most people had seconds.

I served it with the Berry Lime Coulis (FFS), which was very yummy, but I think the coulis overpowered the flavour of the tart.  I think next time I would serve it with just a few fresh berries and vanilla icecream.

5/5 will definitely make again.

Linked - JD

DH made this for dinner last night, and it gets a big thumbs up from us!  We aren't big fish eaters at all, but have been trying to eat more fish to be healthy.  We couldnt get king snapper, so used another white boneless fish.  The crust was easy to make, and very, very tasty.  

DH did comment that he wouldnt bother whizzing the zest first up, since all it did was spread the zest all through the bowl and he had to scrape it all back down again, but he had used a very fine microplane grater, so the zest was already pretty fine.  We were also not sure if we should have turned the fish over half way through the cooking time or not.

The fish was very moist and the crust was delicious!

5/5  Thanks Alyce for a recipe that has made fish palatable for me  

Linked - JD

Hi everyone,
I have been given a lovely recipe for a german Kutchen slice, which I have made several times.  The recipe for the base says to use 1 packet of commercial buttercake mixture, which you rub with butter to make a crumbly dough mixture that you press firmly into a tin and bake 20 mins and letting cool before adding the topping.

can anyone suggest an alternative for the commercial cake mixture to rub with butter?  I was thinking of plain flour and sugar, but am not sure if I should be adding anything else.  And I am not sure what quantities or proportions to add them in to make up the equivalent of a packet of commercial cake mix.

Thanks in advance!
Karen

This recipe came from a very good friend of mine, Susan, who found this handwritten recipe in her grandmothers recipe book when she was cleaning out her home after she had died (I have converted it into metric though)

Juice of 4 lemons
Grated rind of 2 lemons
700g white sugar
750ml boiling water
30g tartaric acid (available in supermarkets in cooking section, with the bicarb and baking powder)

Dissolve the sugar in the boiling water.  May need to keep heating it on the cooktop, stirring, until all dissolved.
Add other ingredients.
Allow to cool.
Strain.  Bottle.
Keep in fridge.
Add water to dilute it to taste.

This delicious recipe is converted from one by David Herbert in the Weekend Australian Magazine

Pistachio and Lemon Cupcakes
Makes 10-12

CAKE:
50g unsalted pistachio nuts
125g caster sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
125g butter, softened
125g SR flour
2 eggs
45g milk

ICING:
330g icing sugar
30g soft butter
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1-2 tablespoons boiling water

Preheat oven to 180 degrees (160 fan forced) and line a muffin tin with patty cases
Place pistachio nuts, sugar and lemon rind in TMX and whizz for 10 seconds speed 9.
Add remaining ingredients and whizz speed 4-5 for 20 seconds, scrape down sides and mix another 10 seconds.
Spoon batter into patty cases and bake 15-20 minutes until golden and firm to touch.  A skewer should come out clean.
Set aside to cool completely.

I made the icing with a hand-held beater, but you could do it in a clean TMX by mixing all the ingredients speed 4-5 for about 15 seconds.  Add just enough boiling water to get the consistency you like.

Ice with lemon icing and garnish with a pistachio nut.

NOTE:  the butter needs to be quite soft to mix in properly.

I used a medium muffin tin and filled them fairly full. It made 10.  The recipe I converted it from said it should make 12 though.

members' comments

KarenH - after making these again I think I prefer a cream cheese based lemon icing to the one listed in the recipe.  I found the icing made with pure icing sugar a wee bit sickly ..... just a thought but up to your own taste entirely.

jessie36 - these are the best cupcakes I have ever eaten, not too sweet and the nuts give it a lovely texture and taste. I used your icing as was running out of time but added a couple of drops of red colouring as it was pink ribbon day and had to add colour. Made two batches standard size and then the mini sized ones - absolutely divine.  If I need cupcakes to make - these will be first choice.  Had 2 for breakfast this morning.   I didn't have enough pistachio nuts so used hazel nuts, combined the two and the result were beyond description.  Just lovely.

Moo2 - These are so yummy. One of my favourite cup cakes to make and to eat.

jai9 - These are delicious. So light and moist. I made them for mothers group today and they were a big hit. Easy to make too, I whipped them up while DS 2 1/2 was having lunch.

Bonsai - These are lovely. I iced them with a mix of cream cheese and melted white chocolate tinted green - all my staff loved them.

kezza - Very easy and yummy.

Cuilidh - they are so delicious and very easy to make.  Didn't get a chance to ice them, they seemed to disappear somehow ... I don't understand how that happened!

I experimented with Faffas best yoghurt recipe (http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=10188.0)  making vanilla bean yoghurt last night.  I only did 1/2 the recipe, because I didnt want to waste the milk if it didnt work.  I sliced open a vanilla bean and put the seeds into the milk, then dropped in the bean as well for the first 20 minutes of heating, and for the cooling time.  I took the bean out just before adding the cultures, and left overnight as usual in the thermoserver wrapped in a blanket.

This morning - beautiful, thick, creamy vanilla yoghurt that was not overpowering in flavour (but definitely noticeable!) and not overly sweet like the commercial varieties of vanilla yoghurt.  You could add honey or agave if you wanted it sweeter though.

Am thinking of trying with lemon myrtle leaves next time .......

This recipe is adapted from one I found in a cookbook from the Australian Breastfeeding Association.

Ingredients:

250g dried apricots
150g fine dessicated coconut
120g icing sugar
200g sweetened condensed milk

Either crushed nuts or more coconut for rolling in.

Method:

Put the apricots in the TMX bowl and chop for about 10 seconds speed 6 - or until finely chopped.
Add all other ingredients and mix speed 4 for 10 seconds.
The mixture is quite sticky, and you may have to mix in the last bits with a spatula.

You can either roll this mixture into small balls and then roll in coconut or nuts
OR
The easier option is to roll the mixture out on the thermomat or baking paper or glad wrap into 2 long sausages.  Then coat the "sausages" in nuts or coconut.

Wrap in gladwrap/thermomat and refrigerate until firm.  Slice and serve.

Sourdough blueberry muffins:
Converted and modified from:  http://www.grit.com/food/recipes/sourdough-blueberry-muffins-recipe.aspx

80g rapadura sugar (or else brown or raw sugar)
Zest of 1 lemon
280g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
85g rice bran oil or grapeseed oil
120g milk
1 cup sourdough starter (I used rye sourdough starter from Yoke - sorry, forgot to write down the weight)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
1 cup frozen blueberries

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and prepare muffin tin.

Put the sugar and zest into the bowl and turn to caster sugar:  speed 9, 5 seconds. Scrape down sides with a spatula.

Add all the remaining dry ingredients and mix on speed 4 for 5 seconds.

Add all the wet ingredients, except the blueberries, and mix on speed 5 for 5 seconds.

Add the blueberries and stir on reverse, speed 3 for 5 seconds.  You may need to incorporate them a bit with the spatula at the end.

Put the batter into the muffin tin and bake for about 25 minutes.





These muffins were gorgeous while warm.  I will let you know how well they keep in the next day or two.

members' comments

Katiej - We did a taste test of these as Karen generously gave me 2 muffins when we met up yesterday. I really liked them - they have a real depth of flavour and were nothing like a bought, full of sugar and white flour muffin.
Unfortunately they were not sweet enough for my DH.

Update - I made these today - sort of. I used raw sugar instead of rapadura and I upped the amount of sugar to make them sweeter.  I was going to put an extra 20g of sugar more but slipped and ended up with about 40g extra.  I used my white starter, left out the lemon zest and blueberries, instead adding a mix of milk and white choc bits. Lovely!  I thought they were perhaps a little too sweet but my DH loved them and asked for a second one. Thanks for the recipe Karen!  Sorry though that I've changed it and made completely different muffins.