Mango and Kiwi Cheese Tart

Assalamualaikum


For my wedding last November, my lovely colleagues gave me an amazing microwave oven. This baby can grill, bake, heat up food....you name it. THANK YOU GUYS! Since then, they kept on pestering me to bring baked goods to the office. AS IF I HAVE SO MUCH TIME TO BAKE! Leaving the apartment at 7.30 am in the morning and coming back home nearing 7 pm with a pile of laundry to sort, dinner to be cooked and well..trying not to pass out of exhaustion. When will I have the time to bake?!

It's quite tricky for me to adjust myself with this oven. I usually use the oven that is connected to a stove top and they work wonderfully. Since this oven is smaller and full on fancy schmancy,  I need to amend the baking time as well as the temperature for most of the recipes that I swore by. Oh well. Nothing is easy in life!

I've been wanting to try a mango tart/pie for almost two years, I think. But Mangoes are EXPENSIVE in Canada! Why buy mangoes when you can get berries there, right? In Malaysia mangoes are easy to find and quite reasonably priced. Especially if you go to the markets or even Money Back Guaranteed (MBG) Stores and you get to try em. Yeay! When I was in MBG, kiwis were on sale, hence the mango AND kiwi cheese tart.

Why Cheese filling instead of the usual custard filling? First off, hello? It's cream cheese! This shouldn't even be a question in the first place. Second, if you get the right and ripe mangoes, they are VERY SWEET. Pairing it with custard would make it tooooo creamy and sweet. However, by using cream cheese, you can reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe accordingly and let the tartness of the  cream cheese shine. (GOD! The way I write is very MKR-ish!). The tartness of the cream cheese will balance out the sweetness of the fruits.

Funny story. I made a Mango Tart for my officemates. It was cray cray! Trying to bring a tart in a CRAMPED LRT, what was I thinking?! Once I reached the office,  I sighed with relief. This was about less than 5 minutes before I accidentally dropped the tart on the floor.  I DIED! My friends thankfully are as crazy as I am. They ate it anyways! Obviously I feel bad and made another one on the next day. :p

Mango and Kiwi Cheese Tart

3/4 cup (185g) creamcheese, room temperature
3/4 cup  (170ml) whipping cream
1/3 cup sugar
1-2 ripe Water Lily mangoes
2 ripe kiwis
1 cup digestive biscuit crumbs / 250g biscuits
1/2 cup (125g) melted butter

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degree Fahrenheit.
2. In a bowl, mix together the biscuit crumbs with the melted butter. Press the mixture onto a 9-inch tart pan. (If you feel that your crumbs are a tad too dry, add more melted butter)
3. Put the crust in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes. Let cool slightly.
4. Beat your creamcheese with sugar until light and fluffy. In a different bowl, whip your whipping cream until it reaches medium to hard peak. 
5. Fold the whipping cream into the creamcheese mixture.
6. Once your crust has slightly cooled, pour the creamcheese mixture onto the crust.
7. Peel your fruits and slice them thinly.
8. Arrange your sliced fruits to your liking.
9. Serve immediately 

This tart can be made ahead of time. Just slice and arrange your fruits right before you serve to avoid the fruits from drying or going bad!

It is not that easy to find digestive biscuits near my area. Because I ran out of digestive biscuits, I had to mix some Tiger Biscuits in my crust. Tiger biscuits, for the love of God, do not absorb melted butter well. So I ended up using more butter than usual. The crust tasted fine, thank God!Phew... and I didn't dropped it this time. :)


Till then.

Love,
Sofhan Hasni

Apple Tarte Tatin

Assalamualaikum.


Working is tough. or should I say I am currently working in a tough environment. I am going for a longg long break soon. I need keep reminding myself to breathe. In my final year of university I had anxiety issues. Panic attacks were quite frequent. Although I don't get them that often anymore, I do need to realize when to step back and chill. Most weekends I try my best to chill out. It's hard when your weekend is only Sunday!

On a happier note, my favorite TV show My Kitchen Rules are back on! So happy. I was binge watching the show the other day and all of a sudden I felt like baking! I remembered that we had some apples and puff pastry left in the fridge. Voila, in a couple of minutes, an Apple Tarte Tatin was baking away happily in the oven!

This is an easy recipe where you only need 4 ingredients! Unless you want to make puff pastry from scratch! (good luck!)Tarte Tatin is usually made using an iron cast skillet.Since I do not have one, I caramelized my apples in a pan and then transferred it onto a baking pan.You do watchu gotta do :)

Apple Tarte Tatin

1/4 cup butter

6-8 apples
1/2 cup sugar
1 sheet of frozen puff pastry

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit.
2. Peel,core and cut apples. Set aside.
3. In a skillet on a low to medium heat, melt butter in pan and then add sugar.
4. Once sugar is melted, put in the apples. 
5. Coat apples with caramel and cook until the caramel is amber in colour. Make sure you don't burn the sugar! 
6. Turn off the heat and put aside.
7. (If you are using your pie pan, transfer the caramalized apples along with whatever juiciness left on the skillet on to you pie pan)
8. Take out the puff pastry from the fridge, and roll out the pastry big enough to cover your pie pan/skillet.
9. Cover your caramelized apples with the puff pastry and bake for 20-30 minutes or until pastry is golden brown.

It is so easy to make and incredibly delicious! The crispiness and flakiness of the puff pastry combined with the velvety caramelized apples are just too lovely for words! Pair it with some coffee or tea! Perfect for tea time or a light dessert after dinner. My husband who is not too keen of pies LOVED it! So yeay! I might add some cinnamon next time because why not?

Hope I get my sanity back soon!

Cheers

Love,
Sofhan Hasni