Strawberry Tarts

Posted in Pies and mini Tarts by a little Swiss, a little Canadian

Summer is just around the corner, we already had a few hot days. I’m looking forward to all the seasonal fruit and veggies growing here in Ontario, especially all the delicious berries!

For my birthday, beginning of June, I’ve made the Strawberry-Coconut-Cake: Strawberry-Coconut-Cake

One if my favorite strawberry desserts are these yummy and pretty strawberry tarts. It’s a staple in every bakery in Switzerland, that’s usually what I would pick out!

First you need to prebake the tart shells. I used a mix of ground almonds and shredded coconut to give it a bit of a different taste, it was really good! The cooled tart shells can be filled with custard or just simply with sweetened whipped cream! Topped with Strawberries and glazed with warmed jelly.

Strawberry Tarts

For the tart shells:

125 g spelt flour
pinch of salt
3 tbsp maple syrup
50 g butter, cold, cut in little pieces
50 g ground almonds
40 g shredded unsweetened coconut
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

-Mix flour and salt, add butter and mix like a pie dough until it resembles fine crumbs. Combine with the almonds and coconut. Add the maple syrup, vanilla extract and egg, stir first and then knead only until soft dough forms.

– Let rest in refrigerator for at least one hour.

-Between plastic wrap roll out dough thinly, cut out circles to fit into muffin form.

-Press dough into greased muffin form, prick bottom with a fork.

– Bake in preheated 350 F (convection oven), for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool completely.

Filling and garnish:

– Fill tarts with a vanilla custard or just simply with whipped cream, I used 1 cup of cream, sweetened with 2-3 tbsp of honey and added 1 tsp of vanilla extract.

-Top with Strawberry halves. Optional step is to brush the berries with a jelly glaze. I used warmed up red currant jelly.

Enjoy!

Happy June and stay safe and healthy!

Ursula

17Aug2019

Yellow Plum Cake

Posted in cake by a little Swiss, a little Canadian

I’m finally back from my vacation! We spent 3 weeks visiting my family in Switzerland! Daily trips and a 3-day trip to Venice left us with many wonderful memories!

I might share some pictures in a separate blog post;))

This yellow plum cake is similar to previous recipes I’ve shared using plums or peaches, but this is the first time I used yellow plums. I was really happy with the result, so yummy!

Yellow Plum Cake

Ingredients:

150 g butter, soft
4 eggs
120 g honey
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
250 g spelt flour
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
400 g – 500 g yellow plums

-Cut the washed plums into halves and remove pits.

-Grease and flour a 26 cm Springform. Preheat oven to 350 F /180 C.

-Cream the butter with the honey and vanilla extract, then add the eggs one at the time, add a pinch of salt. Mix the baking powder with the flour and add to the wet ingredients. Mix until well combined.

-Fill into prepared Springform or baking dish then arrange the plums on top with cut side up, lightly pushing into dough.

-Bake for about 40 minutes or until tester inserted into centre of cake comes out clean.

– Let cool completely before removing from baking dish.

Tip: I brushed the top of the cake with some honey.

-Dust with icing sugar if desired.

I hope you’ll give it a try!

Enjoy!

Ursula

11Aug2017

Peach Tart

Posted in Pies and mini Tarts by a little Swiss, a little Canadian

Simple, rustic, delicious fruit tarts, in this case I used peaches. Niagara peaches are in season now and they are so yummy. Of course I had to make some kind of dessert!

This is how you make pies in Switzerland. It is the Swiss version of North American pies I guess;) I just like to call it a tart, rather. This is a very traditional “meal” in Switzerland, documents writing about tarts dating back to as early as 1556!

Easy pie crust filled with either fruit, veggies, cheese or meat. I slightly changed the usual crust, adding some ground almonds. We also add some ground nuts onto the crust before adding the fruit to absorb some juice while baking. And maybe the filling is different as well, a egg-milk-sugar filling.

Delicious Niagara Peaches

Peach Tart

Pie dough:

100 g unbleached all-purpose flour
100 g almonds, ground
1/2 tsp salt
85 g butter, cold, cut into small pieces
2 tbsp honey
4-5 tbsp cold water

-In a small bowl mix together flour, almond, salt and honey, add the butter and mix with your hands until resembles fine crumbs. Add the cold water and knead quickly until dough holds together. Wrap into plastic wrap and let rest in refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Filling:

5-6 peaches thinly cut into slices
100 ml milk
1 egg
3 tbsp honey
optional: cinnamon, vanilla sugar or extract
2 tbsp ground almonds or hazelnuts

-Whisk together milk, egg and honey.

-Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Grease a 8 or 9-inch pie form.

-Roll out dough and put into prepared form. Sprinkle the nuts onto the dough then add/layer the peach slices. Pour milk-egg-honey filling over the fruit.

-Bake for about 45 minutes or crust is golden brown and liquid is set. Enjoy warm with some vanilla ice cream or let cool completely.

Enjoy!

Have a great weekend!

Ursula

You can find me on Instagram: @littleswisslittlecanadian

5Aug2017

Raspberry-Streusel-Muffins

Posted in cake by a little Swiss, a little Canadian

Hello, happy weekend everyone!

I’m finally back with writing another recipe. I took a little break because my brother, with his family, were visiting for the last two weeks. The weather was pretty good, we went to Huron Lake for a swim, drove to the St. Jacobs Farmers Market, went Go-Kart driving and played mini-golf. Over the weekend we went to Niagara Falls, which is a three hour drive from home. They went now alone travelling to Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto before they’ll fly back home to Switzerland on Monday.

Our garden is doing very well this year. For now we have a lot of beans, red beets, salad, zucchini, swiss chard and now the first potatoes! Raspberries are done for the season and the following recipe was one of the desserts we’ve made.

Raspberry-Streusel-Muffins

Yields: 14

Ingredients:

2 eggs
100 g butter, soft
175 g coconut sugar or regular sugar
2 tsp vanilla sugar or vanilla extract
1 pinch salt
250 g unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
150 ml buttermilk or non-dairy milk
200 g raspberries, fresh or frozen

-Separate eggs. Whisk together butter, sugar, egg yolks, vanilla sugar and salt.

-Preheat oven to 350F/180C.

-Whisk egg whites until stiff. Mix together flour and baking powder and fold in alternately with the milk and egg whites, to the butter mix. Gently fold in the raspberries (if using frozen berries you do not need to defrost them).

-Fill into prepared muffin forms, top with streusel if desired. Bake for about 35 minutes or until tester inserted comes out clean.

Tip: Streusel topping is optional but of course delicious! You can use about half or less of this streusel recipe: Peach-Crumble-Cake/ Pfirsich-Streuselkuchen

Huron Lake

Niagara Falls:

Enjoy!

Ursula

You can find me on Instagram: @littleswisslittlecanadian

14Jul2017

Peach-Crumble-Cake/ Pfirsich-Streuselkuchen

Posted in cake by a little Swiss, a little Canadian

Here is another Streusel cake I’ve made. You can find my Apple-Crumb-Cake here: Apple-Crumb-Cake/ Apfelstreuselkuchen. With all the amazing summer fruits and berries in season now, we just had to have another Streuselkuchen:) This time I used peaches and it was so good. It is not quit the same recipe as the Apple-Crumb-Cake, I think it was even better:)

My kids are having their long summer vacation now, that means we have more time to do things together like baking! These are some of the things my daughter and I’ve created so far;)