Chocolate Pastries

Chocolate Pastries are SO easy to make.  They are pretty much like Pain-Au-Chocolats.  All you need is roll-out puff pastry and some good quality chocolate.  I made these with Jus-Roll "all butter" puff pastry and a bar of Lindt dark 70% chocolate, which is the darkest I can go and it goes perfectly with the pastry.  Don't forget to have icing sugar handy to dust, and some milk and a pastry brush handy.

First off, put your oven on at Gas 7 / 220C/ 425F.  Our oven can only acommodate one tray per shelf, so I baked one tray at the top and one tray in the middle of the oven, so be sure to adjust your shelves like so.  Next, get two baking trays and line them with greaseproof paper.

Okay, so roll out your puff pastry.  We used leftovers from making the Bakewell Pudding (see blog contents) so this was handy.  Don't roll it out too thin or the pastry won't puff up as much.  Cut your pastry into 3.5" or 9cm squares and set aside.  Take your bar of chocolate and break it up into small pieces.  You don't need to chop it up tiny with a knife, but its handy to have small squareish pieces!

Fold one of your pastry squares in half and open up tp see the crease.  Place some chocolate pieces in the centre of one half, leaving about 1cm around the outer edges.  Brush these outer edges with a little milk, fold over the other half of the square and press down the edges of the pastry with a fork to seal it.  It doesn't matter if you poke a hole in the top of the pastry by accident! :o)

Place all your little pastries onto the baking trays giving plenty of room for the pastry to puff out.  I managed to fit in around 4 per tray.  Brush the top of each one with a little milk, then pop them in the oven for 15 - 18 minutes until golden and puffed.  I usually take out the top tray, and move the tray from the middle shelf onto the top for another 3 minutes to brown them off.

Put them onto a cooling tray and dust with icing sugar.  Leave to cool a little bit before eating - the chocolate inside will be quite hot so you don't want to burn your tongue :o)  Enjoy!

Bakewell Pudding!

Okay, Raspberry Bakewell Pudding.....its SOOOOO nice! ;oD  So, here's the recipe - it's from the Hairy Bikers Food Tour of Britain book :o)

Ingredients:
1 loose-bottomed flan time with a diameter of 25cm
1 packet puff pastry
4 - 5 tablespoons seedless raspberry jam
150g (5oz) fresh raspberries
100g (just under 4oz) unsalted butter
100g (just under 4oz) caster sugar
5 eggs
150g (5oz) ground almonds
a few drops of almond essence or extract (I used about 2 cap-fuls)
icing sugar and clotted cream to serve (a good creamy vanilla ices cream is just fine!)

Instructions!

Preheat your oven to 190C/Gas 5.  Roll out the pastry and line your flan tin.  We buttered ours and it worked fine, our was non-stick so you can decide which to do :o)  Leave your excess pastry hanging over the edges of the tin, and trim once the tart is assembled.

Carefully spread the raspberry jam on the pastry base.  Take 3 or 4 spoonfuls of raspberries and crush them slightly before placing them evenly over the jam.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy.  Gradually add the eggs one at a time, followed by a good spoonful of the ground almonds .  Repeat alternating eggs and almonds until they have all been used up.  Add a few drops of almond essence/extract (I LOVE almonds, so I used the cap of the bottle.  2 capfuls were just right!).  Pour this mixture into the pastry case and grntly spread the mixture evenly with a palette knife.  You can trim off the excess pastry now or once cooked - it's up to you.  We trimmed it before it went into the oven, and used the remainders to make "Chocolate Pastries" (see blog contents).  Bake your tart on the middle shelf of the oven for 35-45 minutes, until lightly browned on top.

Dust with icing sugar and serve with clotted cream, cream or ice cream!  Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm!!

Top Tip:  Multitask your Bakewell Pudding with Sunday Roast!  When we made this, we were having a Sunday Roast.  We decided to make the Bakewell Pudding first thing, and set it on a cooling tray whilst the Sunday Roast was being made.  We left it in the tin, and after the oven was finished with and turned off, we put the tart back into the oven on a low shelf and took the ice cream out of the freezer while we ate the roast dinner.  After dinner, we took dessert out of the oven, out of the tin (loose-bottomed tins are ideal for this kind of dessert!), dusted with icing sugar, and served with soft ice cream.  MMmm Mmmm MMmm! ;oD