Purple rain...

by Karolina, 28th October 2012

"Autumn had come, giving not a damn for the inconvenience it caused"- these words by Andrey Kurkov say it all...

The short days have come bringing the chill with it. Beautiful Indian summer is over and rainy, grey time had taken over :(

To fight cold weather blues I made these...

Purple madeleines with a hint of lavender.

As a base I used Dorie Greenspan's recipe for madeleines. After all if you learn, learn from the best!

However I was making violet madeleines, so I infused the butter with little bit of dried lavender and for the colour I used a few drops of coloring. I didn't want to have just one plain colour. So I added tiny drop of colouring when the dough was already in the madeleine pan and then swirled it using wooden stick. Like this I got pretty purple swirls.

I'm really happy with the result. I got nice fluffy madeleines with hint of lavender which reminded me of summer and quite quirky look :) Together with nice cup of tea made be forget the weather outside - so definitely reccomended.

And how do you like my madeleines?

What is your way to beat autumn blues? I'd love to hear from you!

Lavender fields

by Karolina, 30th September 2012

I love the smell of lavender. I use lavender soap and air freshener. I have lavender on the balcony to remind me of Provence.

unfortunately this is not my garden...

But can you imagine -  I have never tried lavender in the kitchen!
I had to change it quickly...especially seeing some mouth-watering recipes online.
I managed to get dried lavender at the local farmers' market and went back home to experiment :)

So far, so good :) I made lovely lavender creme brulee using this recipe from No onions please.
Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to make any pictures...sorry...

Then I tried it again and again and again in different combinations, using different ingredients...

Today, I wanted to show you my super quick lavender peach tart.
This was my variation on the subject, as I needed some dessert and needed it now!
And that's how this tarte came to life...

Quick peach-lavender tarte

2 peaches (pitted and cut into wedges)
1 pack of puff pastry
1 cup of custard
1 teaspoon of dried lavender

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.
Roll out the pastry and fill the tarte (quiche) tin with it. Make little holes with fork or fill the pan with baking beans. Bake the pastry for about 15 minutes until starting to brown.
Fill the pastry with custard and arrange the peaches. Sprinkle the top with lavender.
Put back into the oven for about 10-15 minutes.

Done :)

Final effect was simple, rustic tarte with lovely sweet, peachy interior with delicate flavour of lavender.

Do you cook with lavender? I'll be happy to hear what you've tried to do with lavender.