Recipe for Fig Frangipane Tart with Sour Cream Pastry and Creme Anglaise, Fizzy Passionfruit and Mint Punch for my Birthday Picnic

A deeeeeelicious tart that is actually really simple to make! 

I'm that person that have always been quite shy about my birthdays, believe it or not. 

Even though I always have a celebration every year, it really is more of an excuse for me to gather my friends/family together to share a meal. Just saying that it's for "my birthday" makes me kind of uncomfortable already. Maybe it's because I feel like it puts me under a really awkward spotlight for the day that I don't even know how to react to it. Same when people IRL ask me about my food blog. That said, I care about people coming together for the meals very, very much. Also, I am more than grateful for the great friends and family I have in my life. I appreciate every single one and me throwing a "birthday party" is more a celebration of the people I am blessed with in my life than anything else. 

So this year, I thought I'd invite my friends over to a picnic at the park. Chilling out at the park is one of my favourite things to do. Ever. And with food, friends and kickass weather involved, it really was my ideal "birthday celebration" to have. Although, my real birthday is actually on Monday and I'm looking forward to another get together then.

The menu is actually a reflection of food that I have come to LOVE to eat. The local food, cuisines and fresh produce that I have fallen madly in love with ever since I moved to Australia. Very different from the heavy, Asian and rice-centric (lol) meals I've grown up with in Malaysia. I don't prefer one over the other, but I must say that I do love my salads and Italian cold meats with good quality bread. Maybe it's because I've been having it so much with my colleagues at our weekly Friday lunches =)

To be honest, the past year has actually been the best year of my life. Got my PR. Graduated from Masters. Got a job that I love. Great friends and family. Really does feel like I'm rich in the things that matter. Counting my blessings each day and definitely going to look back on the year that I was 22. I know, I'm much younger than most people think. 

As much fun as it was being 22, I'm sure being 23 is going to be even more AWESOME. 

Here's a recap of what I prepared:

Bought 8 beautiful figs for $3 at Victoria Market

Still very new to figs but absolutely LOVEEE it. Whether it's in a salad, tart or just on its own, I've just loved every experience I had with it. YUM

Love this photo that my friend took!! 

Spread of food before us but whole party standing aorund and waiting for me to finish taking the photos one by one hahaha...

Sun-Dried Tomatoes Hummus using Yasmeen's recipe

It's so pretty and yummy. Thanks for that, Yas! Loved it and went so insanely well with the Turkish pide bread!!

Tuna Pasta Salad...

...Using the filling from my previous Tuna Melts Recipe

Gypsy Ham

Love that there's this awesome Italian deli near my workplace!

Capocollo

Sopressa

Mortadella with Black Pepper

Rustic Ciabatta with Italian Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar

This Ciabatta from Victoria Market was soooo good I couldn't get enough of it!

Also bought some delicious Turkish Pide and Olive Baguette (not pictured) for the day

Smoked Cheese and Gouda

Actually bought some delicious Jarlsberg cheese too, but I left them at home. Argh!!

Super easy and refreshing Fizzy Passionfruit and Mint Punch 

Personally love this so much

My homemade Fig Frangipane Tart with Sour Cream Pastry and Creme Anglaise!

With frangipane filling made with my buddy Elliot's recipe

The frangipane was a huge hit thanks for your recipe dude!

Shameless selfie! Lol

Happy days... 

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Fig Frangipane Tart with Sour Cream Pastry and Creme Anglaise

The reason this was the PERFECT dessert for me was:

1) One of the best pastries I had was the sour cream pastry I had at Maggie Beer's farm in 2010, so I re-created it

2) I love love love any baked goods with almond meal, hence the frangipane

3) Figs, figs, figs!

4) Don't have a sweet tooth but boy do I LOVE my custards...

A) For the pastry

(adapted from this recipe by Maggie Beer)

Ingredients:

200g butter (chilled and cubed)

250g plain flour

pinch of salt

125 ml sour cream

Method:

1) Preheat oven to 180degC. Pulse the butter, flour and salt in a food processor until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Alternatively: press the cubed butter into the flour with a fork until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs

2) Add the sour cream and pulse until dough is incorporated to a ball.

Alternatively: add the sour cream and knead with hands until mixture is incorporated

3) Wrap dough in cling wrap and chill in fridge for 20 minutes.

Note: Butter in the dough melts at room temperature and chilling it makes the dough easier to work with. Otherwise, pastry will be too soft and difficult to use.

4) Remove dough from fridge and roll out until 3mm thick

5) Line dough carefully into springform tart pan and remove excess from the edges. Poke holes all around the base of the tart with a fork (almost to the bottom)

Note: This helps prevent base from puffing up due to the pent up steam during the baking process

6) Line with baking paper and fill with rice or baking weights.

Note: Helps retain its shape

7) Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes, before removing paper and rice/weights. Bake for another 10 minutes, remove from oven and set aside to chill at room temperature until needed.

Note: Tart will shrink from the sides a little. It's normal because liquid in the tart is evaporated during the baking process. Removing weights halfway helps the base of tart to dry up

B) For the frangipane tart

(adapted from a recipe given to me by Elliot from Musings of a Young Gourmet)

Ingredients:

125g butter (softened)

1/2 cup caster sugar

1 egg yolk

1 egg

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup almond meal

1/2 cup plain flour

6 - 8 ripe figs (sliced in half)

Method:

1) Beat the butter and sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy

2) Add the egg yolk, egg and vanilla extract and beat until well combined

3) Add the flour and almond meal and beat until well combined

4) Spoon into par-baked pastry case and press figs into the filling

5) Bake in pre-heated oven at 180degC for 35 minutes or until golden brown

6) Remove from oven and let it chill at room temperature until ready to serve

C) For the creme anglaise

(adapted from this recipe by Food Wishes)

Ingredients:

1 cup heavy cream

1/3 cup sugar

2 large egg yolks

1 vanilla bean

Method:

1) Place the cream, sugar and egg yolks in a small pot. 

2) Use a knife to split the vanilla bean lengthways and scrape the seeds into the pot. Whisk mixture together with a fork until well combined.

3) Heat the mixture at low heat and stir constantly (while scraping the bottom) with a spatula until mixture thickens

Note: You will notice mixture will thicken when the volume starts to increase slightly and the waves you make from stirring move much slower than when you started

4) Strain mixture through fine mesh and chill in the fridge until required

Sounds like a lengthy recipe but if you read it carefully it's actually really quick and simple to do! It's just that I added lots of notes to help you guys along the way =)

Super yummy and delicious dessert... Perfect combo of flavours all round. Really good if I do say so myself!

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Fizzy Passionfruit and Mint Punch

 (an original recipe)

Ingredients:

3 (1.25L) bottles of Schweppes Lemonade

5 passionfruits

2 handfuls of mint leaves

Method:

1) Slice the passionfruit in half and scoop out the flesh. 

2) Mix everything together in a big container/pitcher

3) Chill in fridge until ready to drink and ENJOY!

Thank you also to my friend Grace for being such a nice model for the drink =)

In the end, it was a really fun, relaxed and enjoyable time spent. Looking forward to my dinner tomorrow night too! Take good care, everybody.

Strawberry Lassi Recipe

So... I'm taking a little break from my Sydney posts for a while even though I've still got just a few more to go (including our degustation at Marque!). But, I really don't feel comfortable rushing through it and more importantly, my FINAL exams of my entire undergraduate degree is just around the corner.

So... Forgive me if I take a little more time off this space than usual to focus on that because it's very, very important to me. After all, almost at the end of 4 hard years of going through an Engineering degree, I'm really at the final home stretch, so wish me luck!

For that reason, I will be sharing more recipes instead until my exams are over (yay!!) because I find them much easier to blog about than reviews. Again, I apologise if my posts are much shorter and I don't visit your blogs or reply comments as regularly during this time. But believe me when I say this that I am thinking of you guys and trying my best to juggle life as a student/blogger hehe.

ANYHOO, on to the recipe. I was thinking of sharing earlier recipes from my ever-growing "collection" but strawberries are on sale almost every day now so I don't want you guys to miss out!! Though, I actually wrote this up when the weather was really warm but looks like Melb's getting cloudier/wetter so I'm hoping you keep this in mind anyway when the heat wave strikes later on ;p

I bought 3 punnets of strawberries for $4 at Victoria Market (Vic Mark for short) last week and immediately knew I wanted to make this. The thing about fruits that go on sale is that they tend to be quite ripe. Which is fantastic because the flavours are sweeter BUT can be quite easily bruised and sometimes, a bit "mushy". In times like these, I firmly believe that the one of the BEST things to do with these ripe fruits is to blend them for desserts or delicious drinks such as this Strawberry Lassi instead of eating them as they are. This is to get their flavour and not the texture.

And whenever I make Lassi, I always use Greek Yoghurt instead of normal yoghurt. I just like the consistency that comes out of it very, very much. Though thick, but incredibly smooth down the throat. It's more of a personal taste but if you haven't made Lassi before with Greek Yoghurt, I suggest you try and see what I mean =)

The end result.... Amazing. I made 4 tall glasses of these which was PERFECT for last week's sunny weather. Each day that I came home, I just reached into the fridge to have one cold, mighty glass of these "bad boys" to cool myself down. Plus, I felt really healthy because everything was 100% natural and I was having such a high intake of fruits and yoghurt each day. Mum would be proud ;p

I love that feeling so if you haven't made one of these before, I suggest you try them because they're CHEAP, refreshing, healthy and takes close to no time to make -- WIN!! On a side note, feel free to use any berries/fruits that you find on sale too, they're equally as satisyfing =)

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Strawberry Lassi

(makes 5 1/2 cups or 1.4 L)

Ingredients:

3 punnets (or 3 x 250g) strawberries

500g Greek Yoghurt

1/2 cup milk *

3 tbsp caster sugar (or to taste) **

* Add more if you want to thin it out

** Add more or less according to liking

Method:

Briefly wash before removing the cap off strawberries with a knife.

Put everything in an electric blender (or use a hand blender) and pulse till smooth. Taste to adjust sweetness and consistency. Pour into glass, glad wrap the top and refrigerate before drinking.

Optional: Garnish with more diced strawberries but totally unnecessary. I did them just for the sake of photos, so no dramas =)

Sooo refreshing... Ahhh ~ =)