Yvette Van Boven’s Home Made Cookbook Review

Recently I was sent Yvette Van Boven’s New cookbook “Home Made The Ultimate DIY Cookbook, featuring over 200 From – Scratch Recipes”, in exchange for a review.  Does this book deliver?  Oh, yeah and then some!

This book has everything in it!  Not only does it have everything in it, but it’s also a beautifully photographed, Do it yourself, wonder.   From Making Jam, Bread, Ginger Coffee, Teas, Cocktails & Liqueurs, Soups, Preserving Fruits, Preserving Meat & Fish, Gnocchi, pastas, Smoking foods, Roast it, On the side, Cheese Making, to making homemade, DIY, Ice creams, Sorbets and Semifreddo’s, Desserts with eggs including Zabaglioni, custard, fondant, pavlova, tarts, and everything in between.  Making chocolates, marzipan, shortbread’s, cookies, and truffles.  A chapter with making mustard’s, ketchup, mayonnaise and barbecue sauce and there’s even a chapter to cover man’s best friend, our four-legged companions, “Do not forget the Dog”.

For my recipe, I decided (and it was a hard choice, out of all these delectable recipes) on Parisian Apple Tartlets.  These were some of the best Apple tarts I have ever tasted. And the recipe is user-friendly and easy to follow.

Parisian Apple Tartlets

From: Homemade – by Yvette Van Boven

For 6 individual tartlet bases:

2 Cups All Purpose Flour

1 1/4 sticks chilled Butter

1/2 Cup Sugar

1 Egg

1 tsp. Cinnamon

Pinch of Salt

For the Filling:

3 Tart Cooking Apples, with red skin

1/3 Cup Superfine Sugar (Regular sugar works just fine here)

2 Tbsp. All Purpose Flour

2 Eggs

3/4 Cup Heavy Cream

Seeds from 1 Vanilla Bean

Mix of 1 Tbsp. Sugar & 1/2 Tbsp. Cinnamon

2/3 Cup Apricot Jam

2-3 Tbsp. Calvados

6 Tbsp. Creme Fraiche

Directions:

Combine the tartlet base ingredients swiftly into an even dough. This is easiest in a food processor.  Use a few drops of ice-cold water if necessary. (I did end up using 1 Tbsp. of Ice water)

Leave the dough to rest in the refrigerator for 1 hour.  Then roll out the dough on a countertop dusted with flour and use to cover 6 well buttered individual pie dishes.  Prick the bottoms with a fork.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F/Gas 4.

Blind bake the tartlet bases for 10 minutes (If you are making a large pie, say 9 inch diameter, bake a little longer, i.e. 15 to 20 minutes).

Quarter the apples, remove the cores, but not the attractive peel. (I peeled mine, I have tart green apples, and I don’t like the skin of the apple!, I know – Shame!) Cut the sections into very thin slices. Stir the sugar through the flour. Stir in the eggs to make a nice paste.  Heat the cream, vanilla, and bean, bring to the boil and then remove from the heat.  Remove the bean, and add the hot cream to the flour-egg paste, while stirring.  Pour that cream into the prebaked pie crusts and cover with the overlapping apple slices.  Sprinkle with the cinnamon-sugar mix.

Bake the tartlets in the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes (a larger version will be done in approx. 25 minute).  Leave to slightly cool.

Heat the apricot jam in a pan.  Dilute with a tbsp. of Calvados or water.  Press the jam through a strainer over a bowl and spread the collected apricot jelly on the tartlets.  Serve the tartlets with a tablespoon of unsweetened good quality creme fraiche.

Makes 6 individual tartlets.

This is one of those books that you will reach for time, and time, again.  An encyclopedia of Do it yourself treasures that has everything in it that you can imagine, and always wondered about how to do.  The quality of the book is first-rate, the pages nice and thick, not at all flimsy, and a nice touch that I really liked, 2 ribbons attached to the book to mark your place.  (Although, you’ll need many more book markers, to save the recipes you’ll want to try.)