Goat's Cheese Soufflé Tart

This is the second time I've written about this recipe, for a Goat's Cheese Soufflé Tart, which is given extra flavour with a layer of onion chutney in the base, but the first was several years ago, so it was definitely time revisit the recipe!

I had a lot of cheese left after a meal with friends, including a large piece of soft goat's cheese, which wasn't going to keep for long. I was in two minds as to which kind of tart to make - this recipe or a more conventional leek and goat's cheese quiche with an egg and cream custard filling. In the end, I decided to make this soufflé-style tart again, as it was such a success the first time.

It's a little more fiddly to make than a traditional quiche, but from my previous experience, more likely to be successful, as the semi-solid, meringue-like, soufflé filling prevents any possibility of a soggy pastry bottom when the tart is cooked. I made my own pastry from 200g plain flour, 100g butter, 25g grated parmesan cheese plus water to mix, and used it to line a 22cm (9") deep fluted flan tin, which was then baked blind. I then followed the recipe closely for the soufflé filling, except for using finely chopped rosemary instead of thyme.

Once again, this was a resounding success! The onion chutney I had chosen was flavoured with a little chilli, nigella seeds and cumin, so added an extra piquancy to the layer between the pastry and goat's cheese filling. The souffléed filling was moist and creamy - completely different to the custard filling of a conventional quiche - and the pastry was light and crisp. The goat's cheese which was crumbled over the surface of the tart didn't brown much during cooking, so the tart looked pale and interesting rather than well-cooked, but this didn't affect the flavour. My goat's cheese was quite strongly flavoured and this came through well in the tart.

Cauliflower Cake (Yotam Ottolenghi's recipe)

I noticed that there is a bloggers' celebration of cauliflower taking place, co-hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Choclette at Tin and Thyme.

I love cauliflower as it's extremely versatile and always tasty, however it's cooked. One of my favourite ways to eat it is gently fried with whole spice seeds, such as nigella, black mustard and cumin, and a few flakes of dried chilli. It then makes a delicious accompaniment, alongside rice or bread, to a curry.

Then there's cauliflower cheese, to which I often add pasta, to make a cross between cauliflower and macaroni cheese. And along with numerous others, I'm a fan of cauliflower 'rice' to reduce carbohydrate intake, although I do prefer to mix it with some Basmati rice, so that it will still absorb sauces.

However, the recipe I want to add to this collection of cauliflower recipes is Yotam Ottolenghi's recipe for Cauliflower Cake. This is a delicious, well flavoured cake which is like a frittata. The addition of flour makes it lighter, yet sturdier, than a traditional frittata. The cake is flavoured with cheese, rosemary, onion, basil and sesame and kalonji seeds and can be eaten both hot and cold, which makes it ideal for picnics and parties.

I made and wrote about it back in September 2014, but rather than edit that post for the cauliflower link-up party, I thought it better to write a new post.

Yotam Ottolenghi's Cauliflower Cake

Yotam Ottolenghi is a chef I admire greatly; his recipes often have Mediterranean or middle Eastern influences and he's perhaps best known for recipes based on vegetables - perhaps not 100% vegetarian, but where vegetables take the starring role.

This cauliflower recipe, which comes from his new book 'Plenty More'; is called a cake, but the texture is more like a frittata; flour and baking powder are added to a lot of eggs to give a lighter, but somehow also sturdier, texture than the traditional frittata.

The picture of the cake, which was published in the Guardian Weekend magazine, along with a few others from the book, instantly attracted both of us. My husband liked the pattern of onion rings on the top and I liked the description of something more appealing than a cauliflower cheese! I followed the recipe exactly, although I was slightly short of basil - the plant on the patio didn't really recover from the last harvesting; I suspect it hasn't had enough sun this year. The tin I used was slightly larger than the tin specified - I had the choice of using either a larger tin or a smaller one, and went with the larger one - but the cake still needed the full cooking time to get enough colour on top.

There are lots of big flavours in this cake - cheese, rosemary, onion, basil, sesame and kalonji seeds - and they do rather overwhelm the cauliflower, but nevertheless this is a really delicious and unusual way to use the vegetable. This makes a good dish to eat at room temperature, with a salad or hot vegetables, but is also something suitable for a picnic or buffet table. It's sturdy enough to withstand transportation, especially if it's left in the tin until required, and can be eaten as a finger food.

I can't resist adding this last photo - just to prove that this recipe turned out looking as it should!

Orange and Rosemary Polenta Cake

It's officially mid-summer, if you go by the lunar calendar - yesterday was the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere. Once again we've had pretty unseasonal weather here - some really cold days with north winds, but yesterday was one of those warm days which make you think of summer cooking - lighter flavours and seasonal ingredients. I'm a bit hampered by the Chief Tester here, as he doesn't like much summer fruit, so there's no point baking it into anything I expect him to eat. The next best thing would be a cake to eat with some of the fruit from the garden, and it would make it really seasonal if it could include some of the herbs we have growing at the moment.

A long search online, using various ideas for herby cakes eventually turned up this Cornmeal Rosemary Cake with Orange Glaze from the blog Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner & Punch. I didn't really want to put the glaze on top, if I was going to use it as a dessert cake, but otherwise it fitted the bill perfectly - basic ingredients and flavours that the CT would eat, and it used a herb which I had growing in abundance. I've never used rosemary in sweet baking but was willing to take a chance on it.

I did a quick conversion to metric weights, and followed the slightly unusual method for the cake exactly.

Ingredients: 200g plain flour; 100g polenta; 35g pine nuts (toasted and coarsely chopped); 1 tablespoon finely chopped rosemary leaves; 1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 1/4 teaspoon salt; 165g cream cheese; 4 eggs; 270g sugar; 115g unsalted butter, melted.

For the syrup to brush over the cake I used the juice of one large orange and 2 tablespoons of sugar, and after heating, I left 3 small sprigs of rosemary infusing in the syrup while the cake cooked.

I left the cake in it's springform tin while I slowly poured the syrup over the top, as brushing seemed too tedious for the volume of syrup to apply. This was a bit of a mistake as it was then difficult to get the cake off the base, as the top was so sticky (the rosemary sprigs in the photo are an attempt to hide where the surface came away on my fingers). There didn't seem to be excess syrup seeping from the cake so I think putting the cake on a plate first (as advised) would have been better.

This recipe made quite a shallow cake, with a light, close texture. Even after adding the syrup to moisten the cake it was still quite light. I'm always surprised that using polenta doesn't affect the colour of cakes more. It was only 1/3 polenta and 2/3 flour, but I still expected a more yellow colour. I had chopped the rosemary really finely so the tiny specks of green don't show up as well in the photograph as the toasted pine nuts.

This is a really well flavoured cake, which I will certainly be making again - perhaps adding the orange glaze to make it a tea-time cake. The orange was the predominant flavour, with occasional bursts of the more pungent flavour of the rosemary coming through. The pine nuts added more to the texture than the flavour - perhaps a stronger flavoured nut would have been better, but pine nuts add to the overall Mediterranean feel to the cake and give a nice crunch.

After the event, I traced the original recipe through Fine Cooking, where I don't have a membership, so couldn't read the recipe, to Once Upon a Plate. Here I found out that the original Tom Douglas recipe used mascarpone cheese, rather than cream cheese - a possible improvement for the future. I was also slightly out in my conversion of the polenta and cream cheese, using a little less polenta and more cream cheese than specified - it didn't seem to affect things greatly.