jewels.
Makes about 15 sweets
Using up off-cuts of pastry is something I end up doing a lot. It’s my family thriftiness, where all wastage was rehashed into the next meal, fed to the chickens or dogs, or put in the compost. It is a natural reflex. So if you have some leftover pastry, after making a tart, you are already halfway there. I’m cheating by calling it pudding, because it is really just something to munch on with coffee that will look effortless. In the shop I make these with cinnamon, to treat my special customers, a surprise nestling in the saucer of their cappuccino. You could also try spreading with a film of chocolate or jam – fig or quince is delicious. It is not that far from a fig roll, after all. You can really experiment.
off-cuts of pastry, about a handfu
some plain flour for rolling
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
3 tablespoons ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons warm full-fat milk
Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4 and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface so that it forms a long but not too wide sheet, about 10cm in width, and as long as you can make it. Create a paste by mixing the olive oil with the sugar and ground cinnamon. Add 1 tablespoon of milk to the paste to loosen it. With a palette knife, spread this evenly over the pastry. Using a pastry brush, dab some of the remaining milk along one side of the pastry sheet. Now roll it from the opposite side to create a long thin sausage. It should seal where you have dabbed it with milk when pressed. Paint the top of the sausage with the rest of the milk. Slice into 2.5cm pieces, and bake on the lined baking tray for 10 minutes, or until the pastry colours. Remove from the tray to cool, and serve with good coffee.
For 2
This is a great way of doing something super stylish with zero effort. Perfect, therefore, for a date. It is, quite simply, ice cream drowned in espresso. There is something amazing about the contrasts of hot and bitter with ice cold and sweet. It throws your tastebuds into confusion. The added brilliance is that you can really experiment with the ice cream flavours here, though I would avoid fruit ice creams. Anything nutty works really well with the espresso. My favourite is Amaretto, but Jude’s (www.judes.co.uk) do an awesome butterscotch one too that is delicious here and perfectly sweetens the coffee.
2 small strong cups of espresso coffee (I use Molinari because it’s what I serve up at Rosie’s)
4 balls of good-quality ice cream
Boil the kettle to make a strong pot of coffee, like espresso, pouring over the water and letting the mountain of coffee settle until it can be easily plunged. You can leave it to sit for 10 minutes or more. The stronger the better, as it will get the heart racing. Meanwhile, bring the ice cream out of the freezer so it has time to soften enough for you to scoop it out. I sometimes serve this in my little Pyrex coffee cups, which I bought in France at a brocante. Put a couple of scoops in each coffee cup and bring to the table with the cafetière. Pour over an espresso-sized amount of coffee, or one part coffee to one part ice cream. Eat sooner than immediately.
For 2 with leftovers
My first experience with a serious lemon tart was in Toulouse on a mini-break. The boy in question and I had just shared a sturdy cassoulet by the cathedral, and were walking through the back streets when we stumbled on a beautiful teashop. This idyll was a heavenly Alice in Wonderland boudoir, with cakes piled high on tiered stands, and chic, sleek, gossiping French women. My eyes were on stalks and we shared the most delicious lemon tart. So delicious that it famously caused a stir in his trousers and it has been our joke ever since.
Here is my re-creation. It’s something to do with the contrast of the sweet pastry and sharp custard that does it, making your jaw ache with longing for more and more citrus custard. And it being a classic pudding means that pretty much anyone you are entertaining will fancy a slice. This sunny tart goes down a treat at Rosie’s because it’s just so perfectly tangy.
The Pastry
100g plain flour, plus extra for rolling
25g caster sugar
50g fridge-cold unsalted butter
1 medium free-range egg yolk (keep the white for meringues)
For the pastry, sift the flour and sugar together into a large bowl, and chop the butter into this. Quickly and with cold dry hands, rub in the fat until it looks like damp breadcrumbs. Separate the egg and throw the yolk into the pastry mix. With a knife, cut through the mixture to combine into a dough ball. You may need a little extra cold water to fully draw it together.
On a floured surface, roll out the pastry to fit a loose-bottomed rectangular flan tin measuring about 8 × 23cm. Sweet pastry, or pâte sucrée, is stickier than the average shortcrust, so make sure you have plenty of flour to hand. Then roll it over the tin and push in the edges, being careful not to split the pastry. Roll the pin over the tart tin to cut off any excess pastry (which you can keep aside for pastry swirls, see 69), and place in the freezer for half an hour.
Meanwhile, heat the oven to 200°C/Gas 6. When the oven is piping hot, and the pastry is really cold, you are ready to blind bake. Line the pastry tin with greased paper or tinfoil, and scatter with baking beans or dried chickpeas. Place in the oven for 10 minutes, or until the edges are beginning to brown. Keep a close eye on it. Remove the baking beans and lining paper and bake for a further couple of minutes to dry out the base. Remove from the oven to cool while you make the lemon custard filling. Keep the oven on, but reduce the temperature to 180°C/Gas 4.
The Lemon Filling
2 lemons
2 medium free-range egg yolks
2 medium free-range eggs
90g sugar (caster or icing sugar)
150ml double cream, plus a little extra for serving if you like
For the lemon custard, grate the lemon zest and combine with the egg yolks and eggs. Sift in the sugar and then add the cream. Lastly mix in the juice of the lemons. Return the pastry case to the oven shelf, and pour the filling in now. That way you can’t spill it over the edge of the pastry case in transit. Bake for about half an hour, or until the top has just stopped wobbling.
For 2
My grandmother Bunty is a great cook too. When people knew little of Mediterranean food in the 1950s and 1960s, she was churning out moussaka and pasta for her large and extended family. This dish is her moniker. Though perhaps it’s brandy that is her signature really. Brought up in France, she has a tipple in her coffee every morning to jump-start her day. The brandy is a good way to inject a little life into your