With all the summer fruit around it’s so handy and fast to shape these adorable breakfast or tea pastries.  You can follow the amazing Tasty video, which as usual has no sound so is wonderfully clear for the entire world’s population!  Hurray!  I made another yummy batch as soon as I got home from holidaying in Wales (scroll down for photos, including a Welsh cake)!  You can have a cream cheese and icing sugar filling as in the original Tasty recipe with shop-bought all-butter puff or make my healthier version with homemade inverted spelt puff pastry, Quark and maple syrup.  Either way the result is delicious:  tada!  A basket of apricot, cherry and blueberry puff pastries fit for a luxury hotel guest or… us of course! 🙂

THE RECIPE

With the video it was easier folding and cutting the shapes than I’d imagined.  But it was rather hot and humid in my Barcelona kitchen so the uncooked shapes looked a bit limp and misshapen.  So I wasn’t inspired to take photos (sorry) until magically they came out of the oven looking not too bad!  Here they are before sprinkling with icing sugar.

I did take photos of my second recent batch when unbaked and they were even more misshapen!  It’s got even hotter here in Barcelona – that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!  Much the same way the pastry stuck to various things, tables, other bits of pastry, … 🙂   So my advice is shape them first, rest them in the fridge and only then pre-heat the oven!  Or shape them in the bedroom.  You’ll see my poor wilting pastries in the photos below.  Well, just goes to show they don’t have to look perfect!  Ahem. 🙂

And here’s the Tasty video on how to shape the pastries (I think they have air-conditioning).  You’ll probably need to press pause at regular intervals while following the instructions unless you’re a bionic baker with an eidedic memory.  For those of us without those skills I’ve drawn some accompanying illustrations for reference, which should help us stop flouring our computers or tablets… 🙂

I have yet to try the lattice but my favourite shape’s the flower and they’re all lovely – the pinwheels have lovely crisp triangle ‘legs’ sticking out.  Mine have apricot pieces, cherries in the middle and blueberries round the outside or just a combination.  I recommend the three fruit together on one pastry.  Or add your own choice of seasonal fruit!

These are the quantities that worked for me, but it’s all pretty flexible:

Makes 6 pastries (like 2 flowers, 2 pinwheels and 2 diamonds)

• 200g/7oz puff pastry – shop-bought all-butter puff pastry or my homemade inverted puff pastry (recipe here) if it’s cool enough in your kitchen!
• 100g/10 and a half tablespoons Quark (or cream cheese)
• 1 teaspoon maple syrup (or icing sugar), to taste (you might like yours sweeter)
• 1/4 to 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract, to taste
• a little beaten egg

Preparation 

• preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F (static, non-convection oven) or 180°C/350°F (fan-assisted) – or if it’s already hot in your kitchen wait until you’ve finished shaping the pastries and then preheat!!!
  
• line a large baking tray (30cm x 40cm/12in x 16in) with greaseproof baking paper

Shaping

1. Beat the Quark or cream cheese with the maple syrup or icing sugar and vanilla extract in a medium-sized bowl and store in fridge till needed.
2. On lightly floured greaseproof baking paper, roll the pastry out till it’s about 2mm thick and a rectangle as even as possible (about 20cm x 30cm/8in x 12in).
3. With a big sharp knife cut into 6 reasonably even squares (10cm x 10cm/4in x 4in).  If the squares are actually a bit rectangular don’t worry, just stretch slightly to make them more square-like.
4. Carefully place a square on your baking tray (lined with baking paper) in it’s ‘baking position’ (you can place it there after it’s shaped as in the video but before can help if your pastry’s a bit soft and fragile).
5. Shape your pastries.  You can watch the Tasty video first then check with my little drawings to save pausing or replaying the video.

Baking

1. Next I brushed mine lightly with beaten egg because they bake nicely this way.
2. Bake in the middle of the oven till lightly browned (don’t open the oven for the first 20 minutes).  I prefer them a little browner and crisper than they are in the video.  Check they’re lightly browned underneath too.   The pinwheels and diamonds take about 25 to 30 minutes and the flowers around 40 minutes.  Take them out separately when you see they’re done.
3. When baked allow to cool at least 15 to 20 minutes on a wire rack.  Sprinkle with icing sugar if you like and eat!  Yum yum yum… 🙂

Eating and storing

Best eaten on the day when the pastry is crisp.  But stored in the fridge in airtight tupperware these pastries are still delicious softer the next day.  You could also freeze some unbaked ones to bake another day.

WALES

Before leaving you just wanted to share some photos of one of my very favourite places.  Have been going there for years, originally to rock climb and it’s now become a yearly trip for me and mum.  It’s beautifully mountaineous, rugged, friendly and you eat really well.  If you love mountains you’ll love Northern Wales and a walk up Snowdon’s miner’s path, where we did suffer a little!  🙂  That’s my mum there.

Then we had an amazing and very moving Deep Mine visit to the slate caverns in the historic mining village Blanau Ffestiniogg.  They recount the incredible hardship and comraderie amongst the men and boys who worked the mines from the age of 8.  During its boom days following the 1850s the mines rooved the world but life expectancy among the miners was around 37 years old with deaths caused by the lung disease silicosis and detonations.  Originally the miners couldn’t even appreciate the beauty of the slate caverns as after a few minutes of expensive candlelight they worked in complete darkness, wrapping a chain around one leg as they handrilled up the side of caverns. On our visit there were photo opportunities to feel the weight of the hand drill and the chains.

And if you’re a fan of steam trains you can happily travel around Wales in one.  Hey, can you pronounce the words on the sign?  In Ffestiniogg around 80% of the population are Welsh speakers.  And of course, could not leave out a photo of the incredibly delicious traditional Welsh cake we found in Blaenau Ffestiniogg’s Tourist Information café.  Would quite like to make some…  Anyone got any tips or a trusty recipe?

We’re planning to go back to Northern Wales next year, naturally.

Anyway, back to these fruit puff pastries.  They’re lovely.  I made some with good-quality shop bought puff and they were great too.  So if you have some fruit hanging around waiting to be useful (pick me!  pick me!), there you go.  Make these fruit puff pastries.  Want to try one?

So farewell sweet reader!  Wishing you a lovely Summer (or Winter) with lots of do-able and maybe slightly healthy treats!  Happy baking, no-baking and eating! 🙂 Lili x

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