You’ve been warned.
Things are heating up in the kitchen AND in iVillage Food Blogger Idol competition.
After receiving hundreds of amazing and delicious entries from some extremely talented home cooks, and after deliberating for many hours, we managed to narrow the list down to the five. And now? It’s time to vote. So let’s meet our finalists…
Jane Collins
Well its all about flavour for me, I guess all those years of being a chef has made me a slave to it, as well as texture, and taste, and aroma ….I go on. But what's this no sugar thing? I can't do that, although I wanted to give an alternative a go .Last week on a photo shoot for a web based client, she used an unprocessed sugar, called panela.... so I thought I would give it a run! I wanted to re create a Portuguese tart and use fresh fruit along with the panela. It worked a treat! I doubled decked the pastry and sprinkled it with panela and my favour type of sweet spice -cinnamon. ( I once wanted to name my first born cinnamon! )
The colour of the panela is almost coffee like and the flavour has a caramel edge. Doubling the pastry and hiding the sweet & spice in between the layers really gives a flavour boost to these little beauties. Its just a quick roll out, to make the layers a little thinner. If you don’t own a rolling pin, a smooth bottle will do. I reckon you could substitute your favourite fruit in here no problem. Cook them slowly at 170 degrees that way there's lots of custard. Definitely eat these while they are hot straight out of the oven. Enjoy with a coffee I think, and hey they have blueberries, eggs and dairy in them, could almost past them off as breakfast! I am a trained chef and I now work as a freelance food stylist, interested into getting into the food blogging scene. I have a web site which showcases my creations, and work.
Blueberry Tarts
Just as an FYI, you should know that this post is sponsored by PAMPAS Pastry. But all opinions expressed by the author are 100% authentic and written in their own words.
Ingredients
- 2 sheets of frozen PAMPAS puff pastry, thawed
- Cooking oil spray
- 2 tsp cinnamon powder
- 2 Tbsps panela sugar, plus 1/3 cup panela sugar extra
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 egg
- 2 Tbsp cornflour
- 1 vanilla bean, scraped
- 300ml pure cream
- 1 punnet blueberries
Makes: 12 Prep time: 15 minutes Cooking time: 20-25 minutes
Method
Step One.
Preheat oven to 170 C. Spray x 12 hole 1/3 cup capacity muffin tin with cooking oil spray.
Step Two.
Lay one sheet of the PAMPAS pastry on a clean work surface and sprinkle with combined cinnamon and sugar, place remaining sheet on top. With a rolling pin, lightly dusted in flour, roll out pastry to double till approx 30 cm x 30 cm. Or about 2-3 mm thick.
