August 19th, 2009

tortina di crema di coco e mango

Ahhhh…a rather small victory today, making my first tortina in Indonesia. Everything is local ingredients, except the butter which is exported from France (still can’t believe I only can find margarine in Indonesia, no local butter, but will keep looking).

I woke up at 8 today, with an URGE to bake :) and I finished at 12. A rather long time for baking…errrrr…NOT only baking… this included chasing the chicken for eggs (not me, my tata…cracking, grating, squeezing coconut for the milk, looking for rolling pin and ended up with bottle…you know what I mean :) but if you have ready made coconut milk, some organic eggs and ready-to-use pastry sheet, then you can make this much faster. But in my small village (no supermarket, no organic grocer), if you want the good things, you just could not get them fast, but I am not complaining, for example, I needed fresh eggs, so my tata went to some old women who had hens at their house, and you just can’t get as much as you want, it all depends how many eggs the hens lay that day, we could only get three (they came not in plastic bag, but wrapped in banana leaves :). There is not organic chicken farming here, except those ‘industrial’ chicken and eggs (meaning poor chickens trapped in small cages with zillion other chickens), there is not even organic term here in my village, but there is kampung food (means village), and they are good food…Oh, I can go on and on about this, I will stop now and just tell you more about the urge :)

It is started yesterday by having some ripe podang mangoes on my table, with wonderful aroma that tempted me to turn them into something. That something happened to be tarts. I started to make the dough last night, leaving it in the fridge overnight, woke up at 8, and started baking the process:)

To give you a hint where I live at the moment (just in case you are curious about the banana leaves wrapping thing), this is like 5 minutes walking from my house:

and if you drive around 2 hours from my house, you will arrive here:

and if you drive 2 hours (to other directions), you will arrive near Indian Ocean (loaded with fresh and wonderful seafood):

Now back to the tarts :) This is how I made them. Nothing is convenient. Like I said before, when I need coconut milk, there is no canned one, I have to crack a coco, take the flesh, grated it and squeezed the coconut milk. There is no rolling pin, I used empty bottle, you know what I mean?

But I made it! Woohoo! :) This tart had been tested by marco, mom, dad and my two tata, and they all approved…we could not wait, we sliced them when they were still warm :P

And I might be pretty crap in forsting, but quite good in dusting :)

Here is the recipe, with LOVE :) xx

Tortina di Crema di Coco e Mango - Coconut Cream and Mango Tart - Tart Krim Kelapa dan Mangga

Makes 9 of 12 cm molds

Baking soundtrack: Baz Lurhmann’s Romeo+Juliet music :)

Pastry:

80g unsalted butter, chopped

110g rice flour

1 kampung egg

60g plain flour

20g corn starch

pinch of sea salt

2 tbsp brown sugar

3 tbsp cold milk or water

Coconut Cream:

350 ml Fresh coconut milk

2 tbsp corn starch

2 small kampung eggs (or organic eggs)

80g sugar

20g butter

Mango Filling:

3 small podang mangoes

cinnamon sticks

3 tbsp brown sugar

Crumble with hand the chopped butter, plain flour, rice flour, corn starch, salt and sugar until it resembles bread crumbs, add the egg, mix well, then add the milk, mix until the dough form a ball. Cover with cling film and put in the fridge for 2 hours or leave overnight (if you leave it overnight, don’t forget to bring it to room temperature before you roll it)

Preheat the oven to 180C. Roll the pastry and place it over the molds. Make some small holes on the bottom of the pastry and weight them with beans. Bake for 15 minutes or till golden. Let cool and set aside.

Heat the coconut milk until it almost boil, set aside. Whisk the corn starch, eggs and sugar with electric mixer until light and pale. Add the hot coconut milk to the egg mixture, return to the pan. Keep stirring over a low heat until the mixture thickens, remove from fire and add the butter. Mix until the butter dissolve. Set aside.

Peel and slice the 2 1/2 of the mangoes (like the photo) and puree the 1/2. Mix the puree with sugar and cinnamon sticks and heat for 5 minutes until caramelised. Remove from heat, mix the sliced mangoes and set aside.

Heat the oven to 200C. When the pastry is cold, fill it with the coconut cream then arrange the sliced mangoes on the top.

Bake for 30-35 minutes. Remove from oven and let it cool down.

I like mine cold, so I put them in the fridge :)

Buon apetito!

Filed under: food, sweet tooth