Well this is turning into one incredible weekend...and I've already been partying for the past week with
Vicki's Grow Your Blog party invitation. I've met some lovely fellow bloggers across the globe, collected some followers along the way, which is always exciting and I've still got so many people to visit.
To add to this weeks partying today is
Australia Day and everyone is up for having lots of fun and activities with family and friends during the long weekend. There's been a 'cool change' here in Melbourne, which doesn't mean we've all changed into designer clothes or trendy sunny's (sunglasses for those people outside of Australia) but the wind has changed it's direction from the North to the South, which means the high temperatures we've been experiencing have dropped. One night last week the night-time temperature didn't drop below 27C degrees! Yuk! I had visions of floating about in the pool all night in order to try and get some sleep...but eventually I managed to grab a few hours.
Finally at one point it did plummet...about 10 degrees in an hour!
As I've said before...there's never a dull moment with Melbourne weather!
Maybe that's why this Brit feels so at home here...there's always something to say about the weather!
So with the cooler temperatures everyone will be able to enjoy the long weekend.
Someone started extremely early though...we woke to find
Arthur had already got an early start!
By the look of him he's a serious partying bear.
So let the partying commence....
Yesterday I watched Andy Murray in the Melbourne Tennis Open qualify for the Final beating Roger Federer. He will meet Novak Djokovic on Sunday...and I'm already excited.
Here's a poster that appeared in a local newspaper called the
Herald Sun that gave me such a giggle...
For those of you who don't know Andy is from a little town called Dunblane in Scotland.
Sunday is going to be a busy day because after brekkie, we'll be off go-karting with friends, then later on to a pool party in the evening with neighbours! Hopefully I'll be able to see the match in between these activities!
We're also out later to dinner but I thought I'd just have time to post a quickie because there has been some interest in the Classic Lemon Tart recipe that I posted as part of the GYB party...and I've now become aware that what I thought I'd done...namely including the recipe into the post...I'd obviously dreamt because there's no sign of it anywhere!
I know that for Australia Day it should be a Pavlova, but I'll include that another day.
So here it is...I hope you'll give it a try and let me know what you think of it?
It's my hubby's favourite ;D
Classic Lemon Tart (serves 12 at least)
Ingredients:
- 10 eggs
- 380g caster sugar
- 500 ml Double cream
- zest and juice of 8 lemons
- butter, for greasing
- 225g sweet shortcrust pastry (see recipe below)
To Serve100g mild goat's cheese
50 ml double cream
2 tbsp icing sugar, plus extra for dustinga little whipping cream
1. Preheat oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas Mark 6.
2. To make the filling, break the eggs into a bowl and whisk gently to break up the yolks.
3. Add the sugar and continue to mix, then add the cream and lemon juice, but not the zest.
4. Pass the mixture through a sieve, add the lemon zest and leave to one side.
5. Butter a 20cm plain, loose-bottomed flan tin with softened butter and roll out the pastry to get a thin even depth to the pastry.
6. Carefully roll the pastry back over the rolling pin, lift over the tin and roll the pastry back over the tin very loosely. If you don't leave the slack, the pastry will rip or shrink too much when cooking.
7. Tuck the pastry down the sides of the tin, pressing into the bottom edge well, but be careful not to tear or stretch the pastry. Don't trim the pastry.
8. Line the tart with a circle of greaseproof paper that is bigger than the tart and allows the paper to rise above the ring.
9. Fill the tart with either baking beans, rice or ceramic baking beans. Bake for 10 minutes.
10. Remove from the oven and remove the beans and greaseproof paper, then place back in the oven to colour the bottom of the tart. This should only take 3-4 minutes.
11. Turn the oven down to 100°C/225°F/Gas Mark ½.
12. Pour in the lemon mix to reach the top of the tart and bake for 1 hour until the tart is only just set.
13. Remove from the oven and trim off the edges of the pastry. Leave to cool for about 1 hour.
14. To make the accompanying cream, mix the goat's cheese with the double cream and icing sugar.
15. To serve, dust the tart with plenty of icing sugar and grill under a hot grill to caramelize the top.
16. Remove from the grill and cut into wedges and serve with a spoonful of the cream.
Rich shortcrust pastry ~ makes 300g
200g plain flour
¼ tsp salt
2 tbsp icing sugar (if making sweet pastry)
100g cold unsalted butter, cubed
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp iced water
Method
Mix
together the flour and salt (and icing sugar if making sweet pastry).
Add half the cubed butter to the flour. Gently and swiftly, rub the fat
into the flour until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add the rest of
the butter and mix until it's the size of small peas. Make a well in the
centre of the dry ingredients.
Mix
the egg with the lemon juice and water and gradually pour into the well
a little at a time, rubbing it through your fingers, until it forms a
dough (you may not need all the liquid).
Turn out onto a floured board and knead lightly until smooth.
Shape into a ball, wrap in clingfilm and refridgerate for at least 30 minutes.
To line a tin or mould, roll the chilled pastry onto the rolling pin, then unroll over the tin, draping the pastry into the tin or mould. Gently press it in place using your fingers.
I tend only to bake this tart for special occasions...but to simplify the recipe I suppose you could use (sharp intake of breath) packet pastry!!!!
I have to warn you that it tends to disappears very quickly.
If you are struggling with the quantities then check out my side bar where I have included a conversion table.
And because it's such a special weekend...I've got an offer on...it's a sort of buy one get one free.
One recipe being the lemon tart but here another favourite...as a bonus!
I've checked and this time the recipe is definitely contained within the link!
Well that's me off to put my glad rags on...there's more partying to be done.
Don't forget to leave a comment in my previous GYB post if you want to be entered into my 'GIVEAWAY' draw...click
here for the link and details.
Have a fantastic weekend everyone...
"HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY" to all of my Australian readers
and I'll hopefully see you all again soon.
