Cherry and Almond Frangipane Bake

Don't those cherries just look so good?  A real taste of summer in the middle of winter. I received them in a parcel of ingredients from the French company, Sabarot.  The company was formed in 1819 by an ancestor of the current manager and Sabarot aim to maintain the traditions and know how passed down through the family. 

Sabarot specialise in red fruits, dried vegetables (including puy lentils), dried mushrooms and snails, and they sent me a selection of their produce.

I haven't tried all the products yet, but I have cooked the mushrooms in some risotto and they were very good quality.  I decided to use the cherries in a Cherry and Almond Frangipane dessert.  These cherries have had the stones removed and presented in a jar with a light juice.  The juice and cherries are not particularly sweet which means you can regulate the sweetness yourself or even use them in savoury dishes.  As I was making a dessert and wanted a slightly thicker and sweeter syrup, I heated the juice gently in a pan and added a teaspoon of cornflour slaked with a little water, once cooked out this created the texture of a cherry pie filling as shown in the first photograph.

Cherry and Almond Frangipane
Serves 6

1 jar Sabarot cherries in juice
100g caster sugar
1 tsp cornflour

for the Frangipane
55g butter
55g caster sugar
40g ground almonds
1 large egg
15g plain flour

1. Heat the oven to 180C/170C fan oven
2. Put the juice from the cherries and the sugar in a pan and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved.
3. Mix the cornflour with a little water and add to the warm, sweetened cherry juice and bring to a gentle boil.  Cook for 2 minutes,stirring all the time until the starch is cooked out.
4. Add the cherries to the sauce and place in a shallow dish, leave to cool slightly. 
4. Using an electric mixer or a wooden spoon, beat together the frangipane ingredients.
5. Spoon the frangipane mixture over the cherries.
6. Bake at 170C for 20 minutes until risen and golden brown.
7. Serve with cream or greek yogurt.


I was very pleased with how the cherries worked with the frangipane.  I've made a cherry frangipane before with fresh cherries but the bottled cherries had a lovely intensity of flavour and were a good contrast to the soft, almond sponge.


I was supplied with these products by Sabarot for review.  I was not paid for this post and all opinions are my own.

Labels: Almond, cherries, cherry, dessert, dired mushrooms, frangipane, puy lentils, review, Sabarot, snails

posted by Janice @ 20:46 23 Comments

July Dish of the Month Round Up

The one advantage of having only a few entries to a blog event is that the round up doesn't take as long to write up! I guess the warm weather is responsible for all but the regulars deserting us and who could blame them, I know I haven't entered many challenges myself. Of course, the standard of the entries we have received is, as usual, exceptionally high, a tribute to Mr Nigel Slater and his lovely recipes.

Let's start with this month's 'hostess with the mostess' my friend and co-conspirator, Sue at A Little Bit of Heaven on a Plate with a delicious plate of Pistachio and Lemon Cookies This recipe is a little extra provided by Nigel in the inside of the slip cover of The Kitchen Diaries II.

Rachel Kelly of Marmaduke Scarlet is making a bit of a name for herself appearing almost weekly in the Guardian Cook Magazine on a Saturday, I always look out for her contributions to Felicity Cloake's themed reader recipe pages. Rachel is also a regular here at Dish of the Month and this month brings us these glowing Baked Tomatoes with Fragrant Spices and Coconut In true Dish of the Month style, Rachel didn't stick rigidly to the recipe making a few subtle changes, they don't seem to have had any negative effect on this rather unusal recipe of tomatoes stuffed with tomatoes.

I also took a few liberties, this time with Nigel's recipe for Plum (or greengage) and Almond Tart in the Kitchen Diaries II. I didn't have plums or greengages and I didn't have time to make pastry. I did have cherries, ground almonds and eggs though and the result was these Cherry Frangipane Ramekins which I served warm with some lovely vanilla ice cream.

Camilla at Fab Food 4 All has gone preserving mad, especially after winning her local show with her Peach and Apricot Jam. Congratulations Camilla! This Mixed Tomato Chutney was inpsired by some lovely multi-coloured cherry tomatoes and based on Nigel's recipe for Mixed Tomato Chutney.

Many thanks for entering July Dish of the Month and we hope to see you again in August when I will be hosting. The link and details of a GIVEAWAY will be posted on 1st August.

See all the dishes on our Pinterest Board or have a look at the round ups on the Dish of the Month page here at Farmersgirl Kitchen.

 

Labels: A little bit of Heaven on a Plate, cherries, cookies, Dish of the Month, Fab Food 4 All, frangipane, Marmaduke Scarlet, Nigel Slater, Round Up, The kitchen diaries II, tomatoes

posted by Janice @ 20:43 7 Comments

Cherry Frangipane Ramekins - Dish of the Month

Nigel Slater might not recognise this recipe as one of his, but it is an adaptation of the Plum (or greengage) and almond tart from the July chapter of The Kitchen Diaries II.

I was planning to have some homemade icecream for dessert (more of that in a later post) but my ice cream machine bowl appears to have a leak and is not working properly, so it needed longer to freeze.  I had about half an hour before I needed a dessert, so had a quick look through The Kitchen Diaires for inspiration and found this recipe.

I didn't have time to make pastry and had no plums or greengages, but I thought I could bake the frangipane in a ramekin and had a punnet of lovely ripe cherries that would do in place of the plums.

Frangipane is a mixture of butter, sugar, eggs, ground almonds and a little flour.  I've posted other recipes that include frangipane before such as Rhubarb Bakewell Tart,  Pear and Blackberry Frangipane Tart and most recently the Belleau Kitchen Rhubarb Frangipane Tart.


I can certainly recommend this recipe, it was quick, easy and very satisfying, especially served warm with a big scoop of Madagascar Vanilla Icecream.

As well as being my Dish of the Month, I am also entering this for Tea Time Treats as this month's theme is Fresh Fruit.   Tea Time Treats is a monthly blogging event that showcases treats from our favourite meal of the day: teatime! Hosted alternate months by Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Kate from What Kate Baked. 
Karen is hosting this month and you can read all about in her blog post Fresh Fruit Treats.


Frangipane also begins with F so fits with the Alphabakes Challenge run by Ros at The more than occasional baker and Caroline at Caroline Makes.

• Make a Dish of the Month from ANY recipe by Nigel Slater
• Link to Farmersgirl Kitchen or A Little Bit of Heaven on a Plate
•  Use the Dish of the Month logo in your post
• If you use twitter, tweet your post with @serialcrafter or @Heavenona_plate and #DishoftheMonth and we will re-tweet it to our followers. 

Rules:

• If you own The kitchen diaries II please do not publish the recipes on your blog without permission, they are copyright.
• If you are using recipes from the BBC Food website, please link to the recipe on BBC Food rather than publishing the recipe.  Likewise recipes on the Guardian Lifestyle website.
• One entry per blog.
• Recipes must be added to the linky by the 28th of each month.

Labels: cherries, Cherry Frangipane Ramekins, Dish of the Month, Fruit, ice cream, Nigel Slater, Tea Time Treats, The kitchen diaries II

posted by Janice @ 20:34 11 Comments

Fresh Cherry Crumble Cake with Glamour Cherries

Fresh Cherry Crumble Cake with Cherry Frozen Yogurt and Fresh Glamour Cherries

As I had so many cherries, I thought it would be nice to make a cake with some of them, so I had a bit of a search online and found a recipe for Fresh Cherry Cake with a hint of cinnamon at the BBC Good Food website



The cake is easy to make as it uses a batter-type mixture made with melted butter rather than creaming.  The cherries go on top of the batter, as I don't have a cherry stoner, I halved the cherries and removed the stones with a knife.
The cherries are then topped with a crumble mixture.  I found the recipe was rather heavy on butter and light on flour so added a bit more so I could get it to the correct crumble consistency (like breadcrumbs) I used spelt flour for the crumble as I love the added flavour and texture that it provides.

You don't get a lot of rise with the cake, probably due to the moisture in the fruit, the cake is not over sweet and I would say it is more suitable for dessert rather than as a slice of cake, but we did eat, and enjoy it as both.

Labels: baking, cakes, cherries, review

posted by Janice @ 09:50 9 Comments

Chocolate and Cherries - We Should Cocoa #24 Round Up

Many thanks to everyone who joined in the We Should Cocoa challenge this month.  It's quite a responsibility to host this well-established challenge and I wanted to do justice to it.  Any anxiety I had at the beginning of the month has long gone, as the trickle of entries turned into a regular flow with a few last minute minnies coming in at the last gasp!



First up is Lapin D'Or and More with this Paul Hollywood inspired Chocolate and Cherry Loaf made with dried sour cherries. 

Susie at Fold in the Flour is a bit of a brownie addict and has been experimenting with The Ultimate Brownie Recipe to create these Dark and Delicious Cherry Brownies.

More brownies, this time from 'reluctant baker' Fiona at London Unattached.   Fiona was persuaded to take part in the challenge and turned out these glorious Chocolate Cherry Brandy Brownies


Quite possibly the prettiest entry for the We Should Cocoa challenge this month, is White Chocolate and Cherry Mousse which comes from Kit at i-Lost in Austen.  Kit accompanies her gorgeous creamy dessert with a quote from Jane Austen's Persuasion.  Personally, I think that dessert is worthy of a picnic at Box Hill!


Do you like Biscotti?  If so you are going to love these Triple Chocolate Cherry Biscotti from The Spice Garden, apparently they are truly orgasmic!  You can't ask for more than that, can you?

When Tiffin met Rocky Road at Lancashire Food, Cherry Choccy Rocky Road was born! Linzi has created a melange of all things chocolately and sugary and come up with a real winner.


Ros, the More than Occasional Baker has had these cookies on her 'bake list' for ages. She brought back some Hershey's Kisses from a holiday in America just to make them! Cherry Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies are sure to be a hit combining almonds, cherries and chocolate in a bite sized morsel.

More cookies, this time from Kate at Turquoise Lemons.  Kate chose to make Cherry and Dark Chocolate Cookies using chopped dark chocolate and glace cherries.  A simple but effective recipe which could easily be adapted to carry other ingredients.

This is a really pretty dessert created by Elizabeth at Tango Like Raindrop: Black Forest Waffles. It was a special treat for 'Wednesday Pudding Night' and went down a storm with Elizabeth's family.

A childhood favourite now with Australian Crunchies from Karen at Lavender and Lovage, perfect for a lunch box treat.

I feel a little bit responsible for Dom, of Belleau Kitchen, not achieiving 1st prize in the Aby Village Show with his Deep Filled Cherry Pie with chocolate shortcrust lattice top, could it be that he was placed third because of the chocolate pastry?  Whatever, it's done and dusted now and I think that pie looks fabulous and he was robbed!

This little Chocolate and Cherry Pudding was cooked in a Slow Cooker!  Baking in Franglais discovered it while looking for a slow cooker recipe and was so taken with the idea that different pudding combinations are already planned.

Hannah took us on a beautiful trip down memory lane with her Kentish Cherry Fondant Cake at the Corner Cottage Bakery.

 Chocolate Rum and Cherry Cheesecake is the entry from Cake of the Week.  This indulgent dessert is actually made with a sugar substitute so a bit more healthy than you would think!

Choclette of the Chocolate Log Blog, Queen of all things chocolately, and co-owner of the We Should Cocoa challenge brings us a traditional cherry dessert from the Limousin region of Francewith a chocolately twist: Chocolate Swirled Clafoutis. It also gave Choclette a chance to show off her lovely red clafoutis dish.

My own entry was a Chocolate Cherry Cake and very tasty it was too!

Hungry Hinny had planned a Black Forest Gateau but in the end made these cute little Cherry Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes with a cherry surpries hidden inside.  These cakes were destined for a friend who is gluten intolerant so with a little extra thought from the Hungry Hinny, no one had to miss out on a treat.

Now for some Chocolate and Cherry cookies from Sharky Oven Gloves.  I love the big chunks of chocolate, hazelnut and dried cherries in these cookies.

Homemade by Fleur really excelled herself with this stunning Chocolate, Cherry and Blackberry Profiterole Mountain inspired by her holiday in France. 


These little Cherry Ripe Bars submitted by Mainly Baking come from a Dan Lepard recipe and are inspired by an Australian confection of the same name.  Chewy, sticky and very rich, but totally delicious in small quantities.

A slice of rich Cherry Chocolate Cake from Cookbooks Galore who describes it as "a Black Forest Gateau without the topping".  It doesn't look like there is much left anyway!

 Congratulations to Anne at Anne's Kitchen on passing her English and Maths GCSEs.  Anne celebrated with Cherry, Cranberry and Chocolate Oaty Cookies another big success.



Thank you so much to everyone who took part, I hope I haven't missed anyone, these were all the recipes on the Linky.  Remember to check The Chocolate Log Blog on 1st September for the new challenge ingredient.

PS:  I was pretty sure I would miss some entries, a couple went to the WSC email address rather than the linky so here are a few more chocolate and cherry treats for you.

Labels: challenge, cherries, chocolate, We should Cocoa

posted by Janice @ 21:01 19 Comments