On Sunday we sat down, scrolled through our
Virgin Media Netflix and finally decided upon watching Armageddon. You know, that film with Bruce Willis running around all hot and angry whilst his daughter secretly kisses range boy Ben Affleck in his bed and Willis threatens to kill him. In the end, ol’ sexy Willis takes a lift down to the core of some meteorite and blows himself up, I think this was his way of giving his blessing, finally letting his daughter kiss Affleck till death do them part. His suicide act saves the world as well by the way, it’s beautiful, and anyone with eyes is capable of crying at this film.
Unfortunately there is no hidden meaning behind my terrible synopsis and what’s going on in my life right now, I just thought I’d tell you about a film that’s been playing on my mind all week. Hopefully I can stop having visions of Willis now, please god.
Earlier that day, I baked the healthiest cookies - they contained no flour, no sugar, and zilch eggs! Just maple sweetness and oat flour, and a few hundred calories from the rich macadamias and chips of white chocolate, and they were nearly all eaten by the time we sat down to scroll through the endless list of films on the ol’
Netflix.
Naturally, this is the bit where I carry on telling you about how good these cookies were, and below there would be the recipe for them. And yes, they were really delicious, but they were also pretty damn ugly and
so flat, that when you picked them up they fell to pieces and the macadamias looked like overgrown warts about to pop on a witch’s face. No camera angle or £14 dishcloth could do them justice, so I’m sharing our dessert from the previous Saturday instead, whilst I work on a solution to make these coconut oil laden discs more plump and cookie-esque, like
The Flourishing Foodie's Maple Pecan Cookies.
These tarts are filled with a labour of love: homemade dulce de leche made with goats milk, inspired by Smitten Kitchen. It tasted so goaty I didn’t think I was going to be able to handle it (different brands have different goat tasting levels! I obviously went for the most potent), but then I blended a banana in and it softened the goaty edge. And if the butter to biscuit ratio in the base looks a little frightening, its there to help you get over the fact that goats milk tastes like farm. Of course, you could just use cows milk, but as Smitten says – goat’s milk adds a complexity to dulce de leche which cows milk is not capable of.
Goat's Milk Dulce De Leche Oreo Banoffee Tarts With Coconut Whipped Cream Dulce De Leche Adapted from Smitten Kitchen's Homemade Dulce De Leche Dulce De Leche 2 pints goat’s or cows milk 1 cup caster sugar Pinch of sea salt ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda soaked in 2 tbsp water 1 cinnamon stick (optional) 1 banana
Base
240g Oreos 100g butter, melted
Topping 2 x 400g can coconut milk, refrigerated for 12 hours Pinch of cream of tartar
Grated chocolate
Note: I used an expensive and less expensive can of coconut milk, to test if the expensive can had a better chance of separating in the fridge, yielding a thicker coconut cream. As it happens, the expensive brand did not separate at all whilst the inexpensive brand did! Check the cans in the shop, if they sound very liquid, chances are it’s a dud. On low heat bring the milk, salt, cinnamon and sugar to a simmer in a heavy bottomed saucepan. Take off the heat and very slowly add the bicarb water to it, this has to be added drop by drop, in case the mixture “foams” over. Keep the mixture at a medium-low heat, stirring occasionally until it turns a very light brown – about 1 hour 30 minutes. Now stir the mixture more often, until it turns a light shade of brown. As soon as it starts to thicken, stir the mixture continuously until you have a deep red colour. If you continue to stir after it looks like this, the mixture will stiffen into a hard caramel! Pour the mixture into a long jar and set aside to cool.
Whiz Oreos in a food processer fitted with the blade attachment on high speed. As the Oreos are whizzing, slowly pour in the melted butter until a crumbly dough forms. You can bash the biscuits with a rolling pin, transfer to a bowl and stir in the butter if you don’t have a food processor. Divide the crumbs into 5 deep loose-bottomed pastry cases and use a spoon to press the mixture around the sides of the case. Place in the fridge to set.
Place banana in the long jar of dulce de leche (or large bowl) and hand blend the banana in, until you have a gooey, less thick filling. If you don’t have a hand blender you can mash the banana up and stir it into the dulce de leche.
Take the coconut milk out of the fridge, open the can and separate the water from the blob of cream built up over the top. Place the coconut ‘blobs’ into a bowl with the cream of tartar and whisk on high speed until soft peaks form.
Pour the dulce filling into the pastry cases two thirds full. Spoon the coconut whipped cream on top, sprinkle with shaves of chocolate and leave to set in the fridge for 1 hour.