Dark Chocolate Pecan Tart

 This simple, elegant dessert is every chocolate lovers dream. The easy to make pastry uses pecans, giving this chocolate tart something deliciously different.

Creamy Chicken and Mushroom Puff Pastries

These puff pastry parcels, packed full of delicious creamy chicken and mushrooms, make a fun and different meal idea.

Shepherds Pie

Shepherds Pie is just one of those classic, warm and comforting dishes and it's so easy to prepare at home, packed full of your favorite veges. 

Apple and Peach Crumble Pie

I love nothing more than a nice hot dessert. When I'm not craving chocolate I adore fruit pies and crumbles. But sometimes it's so hard to decide which to make. This Apple and Peach Crumble Pie solves that issue, combining the beautiful flavors of pie AND crumble into one dessert.

Hazelnut Tartlets

We were looking around a home ware store the other weekend and they had mini tart cases on sale at 60% off - I brought them (of course). I also HAD to use them straight away and these cute little hazelnut tartlets are the result.

I adored these tarts. The pastry was deliciously short and reminded me of the pastry in the tarts from a specialist bakery (I was pretty impressed with myself actually!!)  and the simple, no bake filling was light and bursting with delicious flavor. This tarts make a fantastic, simple dessert. They also keep very well in the fridge for about 3 days.

Caramel Apple Pie

Apple pie has always been one of my favorite desserts. When I was young I always got so excited when our Sunday night roast dinner was followed with delicious hot apple pie and cream. And now I have discovered how to make the humble apple pie even more amazing - caramel!

Chocolate Mousse Pie

This Chocolate Mousse Pie is the true definition of a decadent dessert. I originally made the mousse filling as just a regular mousse, then after eating (far too much) of the dreamy chocolate, I decided that it would be a fantastic pie filling. It really was.

What makes this pie even more perfect? It's no bake!! This is a really easy dessert, and sure to please the whole family. 

Chocolate Mousse Pie

Serves 8-10

Base: 

350 g (12 oz) vanilla cookies (shortbread cookies would work well too)
100 g (3.5 oz) butter, melted

Filling: 

200 g (7 oz) dark chocolate (50% cocoa)
70 g (2.5 g) butter
200 mL double cream (thickened cream)
2 Tbsp sugar
2 eggs (separated)
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Make the base by processing the cookies to a fine crumb. Add the butter and process until mixed well. Press into the base and up the sides of a greased pie dish and refrigerate.

2. Melt the butter with the chocolate in a heat proof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Set aside to cool. Stir in the egg yolks.

3. Whisk the egg whites with the sugar and vanilla until stiff and they can hold their shape (if you can hold the bowl over your head without getting egg through your hair, you're done!).

4. Fold in the double cream and chocolate into the whisked egg whites.

5. Spread over the chilled base and refrigerate until set.

Chocolate Orange Tart

Chocolate and orange are one of my favorite flavor combinations. But by this stage if you have been reading my blog for a while that is probably pretty obvious!

This is the last recipe in my series of "I have more chocolate oranges than I know what to do with!" posts. This tart was really easy to make, has minimal ingredients, lasts well in the fridge, and it D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S!!

Chocolate Orange Tart

Serves 8-10

Pastry:

1 1/2 Cups plain flour
125 g  (4.4 oz) chilled chopped butter
1/3 Cup caster (superfine) sugar
1 egg yolk
1 Tbsp chilled water

(Store brought sweet shortcrust pastry is perfectly okay!)

Tart Filling:

1 1/4 Cup cream
1/2 Cup skim milk
200 g (7 oz) Terry's chocolate orange (or orange essence + milk chocolate), chopped
1/4 Cup brown sugar
3 eggs, lightly whisked

1. Prepare the pastry by combining the flour, butter, and sugar together in a food processor. Add the egg yolk and water and process until it comes together. Tip out onto a clean surface, knead a couple of times. Wrap in cling film and chill for at least 30 minutes.

2. Combine the cream, milk, chocolate, and sugar together in a medium saucepan over a medium heat. Stir until smooth. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool until just warm.

3. Add the eggs to the chocolate mixture and mix well.

4. Preheat the oven to 180C (350F). Roll out the pastry and press into a tart tin. Blind bake for 10 minutes. Allow to cool slightly.

5. Pour the prepared filling into the pastry case. Bake at 180C (350F) for 30 minutes.

6. Serve the tart chilled or at room temperature.

This post can also be seen on nzgirl bloggers club: http://www.bloggersclub.com/nzg_cpt_recipes/chocolate-orange-tart/

Mini Potato Top Pies

Everyone loves a good pie, not only are they delicious but they are the perfect winter warmer for both lunch and dinner. These mini beef pies with a potato top are easy to put together and taste as great as anything you would find in your favorite bakery.

Instead of making one big pie, I used a 6 hole giant muffin pan to create these little one serve pies, using my icing icing tube to pipe on the potato. I was a bit paranoid about whether this would work or not. I spent a while making sure my potato was super well mashed but even so I was still scared that the potato would get stuck in the tube tip. Turns out that this wasn't even a slight problem, thankfully it worked beautifully!

This recipe is a good way to sneak those extra veggies onto the kids' plates too!

Mini Potato Top Pies

Makes 6

600 g (21 oz) ground beef
1 onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 large carrot, peeled and cubed
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 Cup beef stock
3 Sheets of reduced fat savory short crust pastry
Mashed potato (I used 4 large potatoes)

1. Heat a dash of oil in a large fry pan. Fry the onion and the garlic for a couple of minutes. Add the beef and continue to cook until the beef is browned.

2. Add the carrot, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, and beef stock. Bring to a simmer and simmer gently for 30 minutes, until the sauce is reduced and thick.

3. Preheat the oven to 180C (350F). Grease a Giant/Texas muffin pan and line the base and side of each hole with pastry. I rolled out the store-brought pastry sheets a bit, cut in half and used half a sheet per hole. (I also blind baked the pastry for 10 minutes, but this is up to you!)

4. Spoon in the beef mixture, top with potato and bake for 30 minutes, until the top of the potato is golden and the pastry cooked.

Chicken, Bacon, and Spinach Quiche

There's just something about quiche that I really love. Maybe it's the fact that you can eat it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Or maybe it's that it's so incredibly easy to make. Or maybe it's just the cheesey, eggy deliciousness?

To be completely honest, I didn't come up with the ingredient combination in this quiche. That credit goes to Emmet, who came up with this in the middle of the store. 

I absolutely LOVED this quiche, this is definitely my new favorite quiche. It keeps exceptionally well too. It will last in the fridge for a few days.

Chicken, Bacon, and Spinach Quiche

Serves 6

Short Crust Pastry (homemade or store brought)
4 eggs
1 Cup trim milk
1/2 Cup reduced fat cream
1/2 Cup self raising flour
150 g (5.5 oz) chicken, cooked and shredded
6 rashers streaky bacon, diced
1 onion, finely diced
1 Cup spinach leaves, roughly chopped
1 Cup grated cheese (I use Edam)
salt and pepper to season.

1. Preheat oven to 200C (400F) and grease a quiche or pie dish. Roll the pastry into the dish (you can blind bake if you like!).

2. Whisk the eggs, milk, cream, and flour together in a large bowl. Heat a dash of oil in a fry pan and fry the bacon and onion for a few minutes.

3. Add the chicken, bacon, onion, spinach, and cheese to the bowl with the egg mixture and mix well. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Pour over the prepared pastry and bake for 45 minutes, until the quiche is cooked through.

5. Serve warm or cold for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Leftovers make a fantastic lunch the next day :)

Apple Pie

Nothing beats a nice big slice of freshly baked, warm apple pie for dessert on a cold winters night, and lately here in Dunedin, NZ it has been FREEZING! Needless to say, this was the perfect way to end a meal on a cold, snowy evening.

If you have been following me here for a while you will probably recognize this recipe from right back at the start of this year, again this was a recipe that, looking back, I wasn't completely happy with the old photographs so out came the recipe and new camera again! I hope I have now given this lovely pie the loveliness it deserves.

Apple Pie

Serves 8 - 10

Sweet Shortcrust Pastry:

2 1/4 Cup plain flour
225 g butter, chopped
1/2 Cup caster (superfine) sugar
2 eggs (1 whole + 1 yolk)

Pie Filling:

7 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and diced
1/4 Cup white sugar
1/4 Cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1. Make the pastry by mixing the butter with the sugar until just combined. Mix in the flour followed by the egg and egg yolk. Keep the extra egg white aside for glazing the top of the pie before baking. Combine the mixture together into a dough using your hands. Shape into a ball, wrap with cling film and refrigerate for at least 45 minutes.

2. Roll 2/3 of the pastry out on a flat, lightly floured surface and press into a greased pie dish. Blind bake at 200C (400F) for about 10 minutes.

3. Place all the filling ingredients into a bowl and combine well. Pour into the pie case. Roll out the remaining 1/3 of the pastry for the pie top. Arrange top piece of pastry over top, use a fork to pierce a couple of holes in the top, glaze with the egg white mixed with a dash of milk, and bake at 180°C for 45 minutes.

4. Serve warm with cream, ice cream, or custard. 

Tip: If the pastry is too hard to work with when rolling out, put it in the fridge for a while to firm up a bit and it will make it easier to roll out

Ham and Cheese Quiche

Quiche is an easy weeknight meal that can be thrown together in no time and using whatever you have laying around in your fridge. The leftovers keep well and can be eaten hot or cold. But my favorite thing about this recipe? It makes a perfect breakfast, lunch, OR dinner!

I originally posted this recipe back in April, but I remade it (yet again...) over the weekend for some much needed photography updates. It's looking a million times better now! 

Ham and Cheese Quiche

Serves 4-6

Short Crust Pastry (store brought is also fine!), blind baked and cooled
4 Eggs
1 Cup trim milk
1/2 Cup cream
1/2 Cup self raising flour
200 g (7 oz) ham (or bacon), chopped
1 Onion, finely diced
1 Cup grated cheese (I used Edam)
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease a quiche pan. Roll out the pastry and line the base and sides of the pan with the pastry.

2. Heat a dash of oil in a fry pan over a medium-high heat. Fry the onion and ham until the bacon is cooked to your liking.

3. Whisk together the eggs, milk, cream, and flour.  Add the ham, onion, and cheese. Mix well and season with salt and pepper to suit your tastes.

4. Pour the mixture over the prepared base and bake for 45 minutes.

Bacon and Egg Pie

Bacon and egg pie is one of those meals that every New Zealand kid grows up on. It's so easy to throw together for a weekend lunch, it's great cold making it perfect for picnics and it's just so simple and delicious.

Bacon and Egg Pie

Serves 4

2 Sheets of Puff pastry (I use 40% reduced fat)
8 Rashers of bacon, fried or grilled and chopped
8 eggs
4 tsp milk
1/2 Onion, finely diced

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) Line a dish with one sheet of rolled out pastry.

2. Spread the chopped bacon over the pastry base, crack 7 of the eggs over the top:

3.  Whisk the remaining egg with the milk and a bit of salt and pepper, mix in the onion and pour evenly over the top.

4. Cover with the other pastry sheet, seal the edges, brush the top with milk and prick a couple of times with a fork.

5. Bake for 40 minutes, until the top is nice and golden.

Apple Tart

I had some pastry left over from the Steak and Cheese Pie that I made for dinner on Sunday. I told my boyfriend I would make him a tart with it, and asked what he would like. He said he wanted an apple tart, so here we go!

You can use whatever sort of apple you like, but a sour apple like Granny Smith works well for baking. Also, if you have extra pastry you can very easily turn this into an apple pie by simply popping on a pastry lid.

Apple Tart

Serves 6

Short Crust or other sweet pastry
8 (approx) granny smith apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
1 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp Sugar
2 tsp vanilla essence or vanilla bean paste
40 g butter, melted.

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Press the pastry into the base of a reasonably deep tart pan (I could only find my really shallow one so my tart ended up having to be very flat, so I need to repeat this for sure!). Blind bake the pastry if you need/want to.

2. In a large bowl, mix the apples, cinnamon, and sugar. Arrange the apples over the pastry base.

3. Stir the vanilla into the melted butter and pour over top of the apples. Sprinkle the top of the tart with sugar, if desired. This will give the finished tart a golden look, as well as adding sweetness.

4. Bake for about 40 minutes, until the apples are soft and golden. Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Steak and Cheese Pie

Steak and Cheese Pie is a real Kiwi classic. Homemade in the slow cooker it's a real melt in the mouth delight.

Chicken, Leek, and Mushroom Pie

Homemade pies are always a great weeknight dinner. I had been wanting to write a pie recipe for a while now and thankfully this one went down a treat. It was simple to make and uses common ingredients that you probably would usually pick up from the supermarket anyway. 

I made my own pastry for this pie, but if you don't have the time then store brought pastry would work just fine as well.

As this recipe uses cooked chicken, it would be a great way to use up leftover chicken from your Sunday roast.

I forgot to take a picture once I had cut into the pie, was pretty impatient to start eating it. So you'll just have to believe me that it looked lovely from the inside too. 

Chicken, Leek, and Mushroom Pie

Serves 4

Short crust pastry or 2 Sheets store brought shortcrust or puff pastry
Olive Oil
4 Cloves garlic, crushed or finely diced
1 leek, finely sliced
200 g button mushrooms, sliced
400 g chicken breast. Cooked and finely shredded
2.5 - 3 Cup chicken stock, warm
3/4 Cup milk
1-2 tsp wholegrain mustard
salt and pepper
1 egg + 1 Tbsp milk, beaten together


1. Make the pastry according to the directions. Make the pie filling while the pastry is chilling.

2. Roll out half the pastry and press into the bottom of a greased pie dish (I used a 20 cm springform cake tin and it worked wonderfully).

3. If you don't want the pastry going soggy after cooking the pie then blind bake for about 10 minutes at 190°C. Remove the baking paper and beads and cook for another 5 minutes. Set aside to cool while you finish the filling.

Pie Filling:

1. Heat the oven to 190°C, if not done already. Heat a dash of olive oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat.

2. Cook the garlic, mushrooms, and leak for 5 minutes. Add the chicken, stock, milk, mustard, salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer and cook until the sauce thickens (about 10 minutes). Leave to cool for about 10 minutes before transferring to the pie dish.

3. Roll out the other half/sheet of pastry and lay over top of the pie, brush with the egg wash and bake for 30 minutes, until the top is golden.   

Indivdiual Raspberry Tarts

Pastry recipes can seem a bit daunting sometimes, especially if you aren't an experienced baker so I wanted to create a simple pastry recipe for you guys.

As long as you have a food processor, the base for these tarts only takes a couple of minutes to make. By chilling the base for a while before adding the filling and baking, I didn't see the need to blind bake the pastry first, again making things a lot easier.

I am really happy with how these turned out. I was so nervous about whether I had the consistency right to allow them to set while cooking. Then I was also nervous that they would be really difficult to get out of the pan. Both of my worries turned out to be unnecessary!

Individual Raspberry Tarts

Makes 10

Base:

125 g butter, softened
1 Cup flour
1/2 Cup icing sugar
2 tsp vanilla essence

Filling:

1 Cup caster sugar
1 1/2 Cups raspberries (fresh or frozen)
3 Tbsp custard powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla essence

1. Make the base by placing all of the base ingredients into a food processor and running until the pastry forms a clump around the blade. With floured hands, divide the pastry into 12 portions and press into the base and up the sides of a greased 12-hole muffin tin. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

2. Preheat oven to 180°C. Place the raspberries and 1 Tbsp water into a saucepan and bring to a simmer to liquify the raspberries. Pass through a strainer to remove the seeds.

3. Place all the filling ingredients into the food processor bowl (wipe it clean first!) and combine. Pour over the chilled bases and bake for 15 minutes, until the filling is set. Leave to cool in the tin before gently removing.

4. Dust with icing sugar before serving.