Bettys Cookery School - Patisserie Course

Wee Jan and I were treated to this class for Christmas.....thank you Roger!


Here you can see Mum's thank you present for him. I must confess that her Sachertorte icing came out waaay better than mine. Mum also averted disaster when someone's tea towel caught fire!


Within the day we learnt Sacher torte; lemon & strawberry torte and a fresh fruit tartlet made with pâte sucrée & crème pâtissière


I think creme patissiere would feature in my 'Condemned Man' meal.

I'd highly recommend a tip to Bettys. We fitted a huge amount of technique into the day, had lovely lunch and were sent home absolutely laden with goodies.

Chrimbo Eve

Aaah Christmas Eve. Time for relaxing with nice food and drinkies. No red meat/poultry on the menu for us tonight cos our friend Heidi is a pescatarian. Luckily I've had a monster trout in the freezer awaiting its fate for a couple of months (thank you Annie for the monster trout!). In fact I had nearly all of the ingredients in stock...wahooo! *mental note* must get out more

So on the menu........Italian-style trout en croute......you will need....

1 large trout fillet

200g puff pastry, rolled out nice and thin - freeze the rest for another time

1 tbsp sun-dreid tomato pesto

2 large tomatoes, in thick slices

1 ball mozzarella

Fresh basil

1 egg

And using my handy step-by-step piccies this is how you do it.

1. Spoon the pesto onto the centre of your rolled out pastry, spread out to match the shape of your fillet. Lay fillet on top (Pic 1), tear over the basil, add salt/pepper.

2. Lay the tomato slices down the centre of the fillet, then tear the mozzarella into chunks and place that over the fillet (Pic 2)

3. Now crimp the edges in a very loose/messy way (Pic 3), egg wash the visible pastry bits and bung it all in the oven for 35 mins at 200C(180C fan)

And here's the end result. To accompany Green salad plus Stokesy made couscous salad with loads of herbs, sun-dried tomatoes plus the oil from the tomatoes (hahaha there goes his rough tough builder image...sorry Stokesy!).

Beautiful Buns

Saturday daytime was 'Beautiful Buns' day. Learning the art of baking was: Anna, Angela, Viv and Callum. On the menu......Rhubarb and Ginger Upside-down cake, savoury scones, shortbread cookies, pastry turned into Pea and Ham tart and Torta di Ciocolatta (Italian style tiffin). Needless to say it all turned out perfectly and a good time was had by all.

Pea and Ham tart with lovely crispy/crumbly pastry

Oooh baby

It looks so innocent doesn't it. A little egg custard tart sitting demurely, a little oozy around the edges but not a bit show off dessert. But beneath it's exterior lies a new range of delicious-ness that makes you eat it all before you friends come round so that you don't have to share it.

Stokesy has been demanding egg custard tart since we ate it at The Elephant in Torquay (Oh yeah The Elephant, brilliant restaurant have the squid risotto). Because I am such a dutiful girlfriend (stop sniggering people who know me) and pander to his every need there was only one thing to do.....make it! Joe at Ashburton kindly gave me a recipe and I used their version of sweet pastry too. But naturally took all the credit when it turned out super tasty.

Final dishes - Surf n Turf and Lemon tart

Ponce about for long enough with your presentation and this is what you get (oh and slightly cold food in my case). Beany tomatoey stew into little piles, topped with crispy fried mackerel, slices of pork belly and all finished with a meaux mustard sauce.........oh and don't forget to crush the crackling and add that as sprinkles (ooh I like my sprinkles). Ta daaa! Perhaps Gordon Ramsey should change his catchphrase from 'Done!' to 'Ta daaaaa!'

Nestling in that group as we all looked on in amazement........Penny was putting the perfect brulee crunchy top onto our lemon tart.

The finished lemon tart

Ooh what a motley crew. Here you can see our group in their full.........errmm.......glory

Day 4 @Ashburton - Ham hock tartlet with salad

Lurking under the garnish is a beatifully crumbly tart with a very rich filling of ham hock, spring onion, cheese and plenty of cream. There is no chance of Devonshire dairy farmers going out of business whilst this cookery school is in operation.

The tart was garnished with salad leaves and a simple vinaigrette

Little pies

Today I did some final testing for a party next week. One of the items they're having are cute little 2-bite size chicken and leek pies. The testing was to determine the amounts I'll need for next week. Portion control plays a big part in catering, too much and you're wasting money. Too little and people go hungry, not good. I'm still learning about portion control and all the amounts get written in my little book for future reference.

Plus my mum (Wee Jan) was coming round for lunch so it was nice to make these for her. Wee Jan makes very good what I would call classic food and I'll add her stuff to posts the odd time as well. Let's hope she makes her amazing Eve's pudding (gooey apple sponge stuff) sometime soon. When me and my brother used to come home from boarding school that was always our request for the first meal at home.

Pastry Time

I was doing some catering work at the weekend for a surprise birthday party. Included in the menu is quiche, so it’s pastry time. Making your own pastry is time consuming I admit (make pastry, chill, roll, chill, bake blind) but there is no way I would serve anything else. I got the eggs from a nice lady (Jenny) from Staarvey Farm at The Green Mann market in St.Johns on Thursday, check out the product placement in the pic! But also check out the lovely yellow of the filling, delicious. I usually get my eggs from Dot Price, also at The Green Mann, but her chickens are on strike due to the adverse weather conditions and short days. I think Dot’s chickens have got the right idea.


So here you can see the pastry case with it’s lovely crinkly edges (I love crinkly edges) and then with it’s filling of spring onion, pea and parmesan. Oh if you’re doing pastry try using coins instead of ceramic beads for the baking blind bit. the coins conduct the heat a lot better to give crispier pastry. Well that’s what Heston Blumenthal (mmmm the lovely Heston) says and I hear his food is pretty good so I’m happy to follow his advice.