[Recipe] Great Irish Bake Off - Week 5 - {Key} Lime Pie

Last week was only great. All my fretting about the wobbli-ness of my crème caramels paid off and I was chosen as the Week 4 winner of the Great Irish Bake Off. Chuffed does not come close to describing how I felt. The challenge for Week 5 was to make an American classic, Key Lime Pie. Given the challenge in sourcing Key Limes in Ireland, the parameters were relaxed to a Lime Pie. I love limes (mainly in cocktails), so I was very much looking forward to this challenge. I decided to use a recipe from the classic Delia Smith.

I made a sweet shortcrust pastry following the recipe from one of my staple references, Michel Roux's Pastry. This book is currently selling for a mere £6.99 on Amazon, and if you don't have it on your bookshelf, then you really should. (You can of course, take the cleaner and simpler option and buy a good, chilled pre-prepared shortcrust pastry). Once the pastry was chilling in the fridge, I headed for brunch at Beckett & Bull, followed by a pitstop for pie ingredients.

Only one thing went wrong during my bake - just one thing. But of course, it had a major impact on the whole adventure. I pulled out the ring from my 23cm pie tin, but I couldn't find the flipping bottom. I turned the cupboard upside down, but it was no where to be found. Given that we have a tiny kitchen, losing the base was a major achievement. Anyway, I resorted to my bigger pie tin, but this meant that ultimately I would have a thinner pie, not the deep luxurious fill I had envisioned. 

Lime slices - ready to be candied

I wanted to decorate my pie with homemade candied lime slices, so while the base was blind baking, I thinly sliced some lemons. These were blanched for 2 mins before being added to a simple sugar syrup, where I cooked them gently for 15 -20 mins or until the slices were translucent. I drained them on a wire rack and left to cool, before dredging in some castor sugar.

Meanwhile, my pastry case was out of the oven. Despite some shrinkage around the edges, things were looking good, so I left it to cool while I prepared the filling. Opening the tin of condensed milk took me right back to childhood cooking and making my first ever batch of millionaire squares. The filling came together quite nicely, but as I had predicted, it just wasn't deep enough when poured into the tin. It baked well, and once cooled, I transferred to the fridge to rest and chill thoroughly.

American pies are often decorated with lashings of cream and toppings, and I decided to top mine with a soft meringue. I had 3 egg whites left over from the pie filling, so this was really simple economics. I've always loved the magic of making meringue, and it was fun to pipe concentric rings of little rosettes onto the top of my grill. I whizzed the pie under a hit grill, until the peaks were gently browned. DONE!

The finished product - with gently browned meringue topping

The mandatory base shot - nothing soggy here

A slice of lime pie with homemade candied lime slices

The finished result was a wonderfully tangy pie, but I was disappointed by the filling depth. This would be so much more decadent with a deep layer of lime custard. Ah well, that's what happens when you can't find the base of your loose-bottomed tin.

Great Irish Bake Off - Week 4 - Crème Caramel

Last Tuesday was Week 4 of the Great British Bake Off, where we saw the contestants' creativity tested with the design of a large flourless torte, followed later by a creative layered meringue cake. The surprise technical challenge was a classic crème caramel, chosen by Mary Berry for it's precise requirements. For us Irish bakers, the Great Irish Bake Off continued in parallel, with a choice between the crème caramel and layered meringue cake. 

I really wanted to tackle both challenges and I had even spent my latest drive between Cork and Dublin thinking about flavours for the meringue cake. But time makes fools of us all, and I had to choose. Given that I had recently received 2 lovely sets of vanilla pods as a prize from Goodall's Ireland, and the simple fact that I love custard, I chose to make crème caramel.

My prep board - eggs, vanilla pod and my new ceramic knife

I started by reading the recipe, very carefully. This recipe involves making a sugar syrup and boiling it until it turns to caramel. I have a respectful wariness of sugar work, so I wanted to get this one right. One thing I do know is that you should use a clean, smooth saucepan. Unfortunately, most of my cookware is cast iron, so I had to dig out the small egg pan. I added the sugar and water and placed on a low heat, stirring occasionally until all the grains had dissolved and I could no longer feel any grittiness. 

In the meantime, I preheated the oven and placed my ramekins in there to warm through. Once the syrup was ready, I turned up the heat and watched it keenly. You're not really supposed to stir the caramel, so I had to make do with gentle swirls of the saucepan. It seemed to take forever, but eventually the syrup started to turn from clear to gently golden. It then progressed very quickly to the desired copper colour, at which point I pulled it off the heat and poured a generous layer into the base of my ramekins. 

The dangerous part - making the caramel

First hurdle complete - caramel in the ramekins

I left the caramel to set and turned my attention to making the custard. I took out one of my new vanilla beans and split it down the middle. I added the seeds to my egg and sugar mixture, while the empty pods were added to my milk. The milk must be heated until it's just about too hot to dip a finger into. At this point, I poured a tiny amount into the egg mix and beat well (If you add too much hot milk too fast, you will scramble your eggs). Once the egg mixture was tempered, I was able to pick up the pace and mix in the rest, bit by bit. 

A good layer of butter is required on the ramekins, followed by pouring in the custard (through a sieve to catch all the vanilla pod bits). The ramekins were placed in a deep dish, which I placed in the oven, and then partially filled with boiling water, creating a bain-marie. This helps the custard cook evenly and gently.  The BBC recipe calls for 20-30 minutes baking time, so I dutifully checked after 23 minutes! Some of my ramekins had picked up a little colour, while the others were wobbly. I decided to trust my instincts and take them out of the oven to cool.

After the bake - cooling down

Once cooled, the creme caramels were transferred to the fridge to chill and allow the caramel layer to dissolve around the custard. To free the cremes, I ran a knife around the inside of the ramekin, and then placed a plate of top. A quick prayer and a little shove, and the creme plopped out surrounded by a lovely puddle of rich coloured caramel. This was of course followed by a rebel yell of delight from myself!

Turned out - successfully!!

A cutaway shot for the #GIrishBO judges

After a few photographs, we settled down on the sofa to eat the fruits of my labour. I was amazed at the texture of the creme, which was silky smooth and as good as anything I've eaten in a fine restaurant. The rich, slightly dark flavour of the caramel was beautifully balanced by the smooth coolness of the creme.

I'm delighted that I chose to make this classic French dessert. Taking part in the Great Irish Bake Off has challenged me to tackle something new, and the results have been impressive. Here's hoping for some more interesting challenges from the #GIrishBO crew!

Great Irish Bake Off - Week 3 - Tarte Tatin

The Great British Bake Off is back on BBC and I have my UPC box set to record. I've loved this programme since it first appeared on our googlieboxes, but this year it's even better thanks to Caítriíona from the blog Wholesome Ireland. She had the bright idea of running a parallel competition whereby Irish baking fans tackle the same challenge as the contestants. The competition is called the Great Irish Bakeoff and you can follow the discussion via the #GIrishBO hashtag on Twitter.

This weeks challenge was either a Treacle Tart (the technical challenge) or a classic apple Tarte Tatin. I was going to be at home over the weekend, so I decided to bake the latter. Once I got back home (after two weeks away for work), I went straight to my Michel Roux books, where I found his recipe for Tarte Tatin.

Roux's recipe is actually quite a good bit easier to follow than the methods I saw on Episode 3. Each contestant made their syrup or caramel separately, even leading to 7 ruined syrups in the case of one contestant. Roux's recipe is really more of a "one-pot" technique, easier to execute but the results are superb. 

You can either make your own rough-puff pastry (relatively easy actually), or purchase a good quality ready to roll puff pasty. Roux's recipe calls for 5 apples, but I ended up requiring only 3 (and I was packing in the slices at that).

Classic Apple Tarte Tatin

Rough puff pastry, or ready to roll puff pastry

120g butter, softened

160g castor sugar

3-5 apples, peeled, cored and sliced

Take a 23cm/9 inch cake tin or pie dish - the key thing is that is has to be sealed and able to sit on a cooker top. Take the butter and spread it out evenly in a thick layer in the tin. Pour the sugar on top and make sure it is distributed equally. 

Arrange the apple slices in a neat pattern on top of the butter and sugar layer. I started with a rosette in the centre of the tin, and then filled in the outer ring with more slices. Take the chilled pastry and roll out until it more than covers the cake tin. Lay the pastry carefully on top and trip around the edge, leaving about 1cm overhang. Cover the tin and place in the refrigerator to chill for at least 20 mins.

Preheat your oven to 180 C and turn a cooker ring to a medium heat. Remove the tin from the fridge, uncover and place on top of the cooker ring. After a while the butter will melt and a caramel will start to form. You can use a knife to carefully lift up the pastry lid to keep an eye on the caramel. After about 10 mins, roll up the pastry edges to form a seal on the tin, making sure to prick plenty of holes in the pastry lid and transfer to the oven. Bake for about 25 mins, or until the lid is golden brown.

Just out of the oven - look at all that caramel

I used a Pyrex baking dish to hold my tarte tatin, which turned out to be a great decision as it meant that I could see the apple slices and caramel in action. When I took the tarte out of the oven, it looked like I had too much caramel, but I decided to hold faith in the recipe.

I left the tarte to cool for about 5-10 minutes before I inverted it onto a serving plate. Sugar and caramels get incredibly hot when cooking so take great care when inverting the tarte. I placed a large flat plate over the pastry and quickly flipped the dish over. Thankfully, all my fruit came out without sticking and I ended up with a near perfect execution. My careful rolling of the pastry lid had paid off, as it had formed a natural lip on the tarte, holding the caramel from spilling out.

Tarte Tatin turned out - with no disasters

Roux recommends serving the tarte straightaway, but I have learned to be wary of hot caramel, so I left the tarte sit and rest while we ate our dinner. Once we were ready, I carefully cut some slices, taking great pleasure in watching the delicious apple-caramel oozing out. I've also included a shot of the underneath of the tarte, just to prove that I didn't suffer from the dreaded "soggy bottoms".

A slice of delicious Tarte Tatin

No soggy bottom here - just lovely flakiness and caramel

So there you have it, a classic French Tarte Tatin, made according to the recipe of one of the great modern French chefs. That might make it sound intimidating, but it's quite easy to make, and there is little risk of ruining your saucepans with burnt caramels :)