Bravetart

Bravetart, the dessert cookbook from Stella Parks has some very approachable recipes for the home cook. She explains things clearly an simply. No weird ingredients and excellent results. I have made her coconut cream pie and the no knead English muffins. Both turned out very well (although I didn't regulate the flat top temperature well enough for the muffins).

In making the coconut cream pie, I ended up with left over pastry (I was only making 1 pie), toasted sugar and left over marshmallow meringue. So what to do?

Her "No stress all butter pie-crust" is as advertised a really easy pastry. It bakes up nice and flaky - almost biscuit (English short biscuits) like. That inspired me to try the following:

Ingredients - Biscuits

1/2 Bravetart Pie dough recipe, rolled into an 5x7 incch rectangle.

3 oz thin crystallized ginger pieces

Granulated sugar (or better still toasted sugar) to top

Method

Preheat the oven to 375F. Shingle the crystallized ginger onto the rolled out pastry rectangle. Arrange the shingle parallel with the short side, and only cover 1/2 of the dough.

Fold the uncovered dough over the ginger covered half, and press the edges to seal. Using a pizza wheel cut the packet into strips. Lay the strips onto a silicone or parchment lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with the sugar.

Bake in the 375 oven for 30 - 40 minutes, until the bars are browned and cooked through.  

Marshmallow Meringue Macaroons

The coconut cream pie recipe calls for 8 egg yolks. That means we have 8 egg whites. Making  the marshmallow meringue is essentially a Swiss meringue technique, but  with the egg/sugar mixture heated to 175F before whisking.

Preheat the oven to 375F. If you have just made the pie or the biscuits, the oven will be at 375.

Once the meringue is made, and spread onto the pie, combine the left over meringue with about 6 oz sweetened shredded coconut. Form into small mounds on a baking sheet.  

Place the baking sheet onto a rack in the middle of the oven. After 15 minutes, turn the oven heat off, but leave the fan running.  After a further 10 minutes, turn the macaroons over to dry out their flat edges and leave in the cooling oven for a further 30 minutes.