Hi everyone and welcome to Kitchen Extra… thanks to all of my new subscribers feeling very happy this connection has been made.
We are feeling vine 🍇 this week 😂. Although grapes are more of a summer fruit, with really warm weather this year and it going on for longer there are still lots of amazing grape varieties out there at the markets.
I personally don’t think there are enough grape desserts (or even dishes with grapes), would you agree with me? You certainly don’t see too many options on dessert menus in your favourite restaurant or cafe, and a quick flick through your cookbook collection would probably come up short. Why is this? Grapes are so fantastic, lots of different colours and varieties, they are not just useful for wine (although 🙏🏼)… they can make elegant and delicious desserts as well, and dishes with a point of difference. This pretty looking tart (above) heroes grapes but also balances the flavours of fragrant rosemary, toasty pine nut and fresh fruit. It’s all brought together with a luxurious cream and crumbly tart shell and is a perfect baking project for you to sink your teeth into. Read on for more…
Grape, Pinenut & Rosemary Tart
This could possibly be the most luxurious dessert you have ever had. How so? Well I always think peeled grapes = luxury. Picture the scene… sitting back on a comfy recliner, perhaps by a pool, it’s hot and you have no responsibilities. Someone feeds you peeled grapes… bliss!
Certainly I can appreciate the effort of peeling grapes after this recipe. Cath and I set to work on peeling 40 grapes and it wasn’t the quickest job we have ever done! Worth it though, the fruit here really shines with the skins removed. It softens the fruit and leaves the flesh exposed, which also leaves it open to absorbing a flavour packed syrup and some vibrant colour.
I have had a lot of experience with peeled grapes in my time. I trained at the Savoy Hotel in London in the 90’s, and many of the dishes and traditions established by the Chef Escoffier almost a century earlier were still evident in the kitchen. One of his dishes Lemon Sole Veronique was always on the function and restaurant menus. The description of the dish according to my copy of La Repertoire de la Cuisine goes as follows:
Poached with fish stock and curaçao, garnished with muscat grapes peeled and pipped, coated with reduced stock mixed with butter. Glazed and finished with a fleuron*.
The dish would have 5 or 6 peeled grapes which some poor chef(s) in the Garde Manger section had to prepare. Imagine the scale of this job if there was a function for 300 persons and our Chef de Cuisine decided Sole Veronique was on the menu! That’s a lot of grape peeling… and if they wernt’t perfect they would be tossed aside so you always had to present more than you needed.
*I worked as chef Tourner at The Savoy Hotel in charge of all things pastry. This could be sweet pastry, savoury or quiche dough or puff pastry. The word Tourner means to turn and it was my job to make the puff pastry and laminate it with butter by turning. Fleurons were fish shaped shiny egg washed baked garnishes made out of puff pastry and they were always required for dishes that had a poached fish in sauce.
For a detailed puff pastry recipe on Studio Kitchen you can click here Puff Pastry.
This dish celebrates the often overlooked grape. Sure they do all the heavy lifting in the wine world but dessert wise they are shamefully under represented. Let’s fix this shall we?
The tart consists of a buttery sweet pastry tart shell, a slightly sweet/salty pinenut butter, a thick and richly delicious creme diplomat and those peeled and macerated grapes perfumed with rosemary and glazed to perfection. Lets go through the components in more detail.
Sweet Pastry
The contents of the tart are held together but a thin pastry tart shell, I use a basic sweet pastry recipe that I have been using forever. The tartlets are blind baked ready for assembly. A tip for you when making these is to assemble them at the last minute, that does not mean you can’t get ahead with some of the components but if you are not planning on serving within a couple of hours hold off on the assembly. If the contents sit too long in the tart shell they may make the pastry soggy. The recipe is below but if you would like to view it on Studio Kitchen click here Sweet Pastry. For some handy information on rolling pastry and lining tins you can view a Pro Tips page on Studio Kitchen.
Pinenut Butter
A toasty element, think peanut butter and you’ll be on the right path. It is a simple recipe (only three ingredients) but it packs a punch in terms of flavour. Toast the pine nuts first and then blitz with honey and a pinch of salt. Adjust with water if necessary and this goes into the base of the tart. I have used this element in past creations most notably in my Violet, Lemon & Pinenut Cake (see above), from my first cook book Sweet Studio - The Art of Divine Desserts published in 2012.
Creme Diplomat
One of my favourite creams in the pastry kitchen. Lighter than pastry cream and richer, sweeter and fuller than just whipped cream, this is the love child of the two. Used in classic French patisserie to fill tarts, eclairs, Paris Brest and much more, this is easy to make and a great recipe to add to your repertoire.
Peeled Grapes
Sweet and juicy. We used red grapes here for the colour. The skin of red grapes contains reservatrol, which has antioxidant properties and reduces inflammation. As mentioned above, the grapes took a while to peel! Cath helped so four hands were quicker than two. You could use any grapes you like but if using green you will not get that vibrant purple colour we achieved. A bit like wine making we are using those grape skins to extract flavour and colour for our macerating liquor to infuse back into the peeled grapes. The exposed flesh will absorb this easily.
Rosemary
I am a huge fan of Rosemary in desserts but it does need to be handled with care. It can be quite strong and if used heavy handedly it can make a dish bitter or throw off the other flavours. Balanced skilfully it can produce such a beautiful perfume to your dish. We found Rosemary with flowers still attached (lucky us) so we snipped them off to save for garnishing our tarts, a nice bonus touch.
Recipe
Ok onto the recipe, this will take you more than a few hours if making from start to finish so you could do it in stages or components at a time over a couple of days? Perhaps make the pastry and line the tarts on day, leave them in the fridge to rest before blind baking the next day. Or make the pastry cream the day before assembly. Same with the grapes you could blanch, peel and macerate them overnight. Choose a schedule that suits you and it will be easy.
Sweet Pastry
280 g plain flour, sifted
90 g icing sugar, sifted
pinch salt
1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped
135 g unsalted butter, cold diced
55 g egg (approx. 1 large egg)
20 g egg yolk (approx. 1 large egg yolk)
Peeled Grapes
40 grapes, we used red seedless
Rosemary & Grape Skin Syrup
150 g blanching water (see above)
150 g caster sugar
1 stem rosemary, fresh cut into small pieces with scissors
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Kitchen Extra... with Darren Purchese to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.