Incorporating Creativity Into Your Cooking (Plus a Recipe for Raspberry Tartlets)

Do you love raspberries and flakey pastry? Scroll down to grab a yummy recipe for Raspberry Tartlets. Trust us, you won't want to miss it!

It is amazing to learn how art and creativity have been incorporated into food for centuries. Things like garnishing and food coloring are just but a few artistic elements that professional cooks and home chefs may include in their meals.

Just like these individuals, you can get creative in your culinary undertakings. All you need is a little creativity you can easily acquire by reading different resources, including this.

To that effect, I will be sharing a few essential tips to help you get started. Besides that, I will be taking you through how to make delicious, colorful, and visually appealing raspberry tartlets.

Without wasting time, let’s get started with the tips, all of which are geared towards adding color and visual appeal to your cooking:

1. Vegetables

With a bit of creativity, you can create a colorful delicacy simply by using colorful vegetables.

Red beets, vivid purple cauliflower, or rich blue potatoes all can do a great job here.

2. Fresh Herbs

Another way to add an eye-catching appeal to your cooking is by incorporating fresh herbs into your recipe. The herbs can transform a plain or dull recipe into a beautiful masterpiece.

Bonus: Blend herbs with ingredients like eggs, beans, or yogurt to create aesthetically appealing dishes like green eggs, herbed bean dip, and creamy basil sauce.

3. Fruits

Fruits provide some of the most beautiful colors that you can incorporate into meals.

African rainforest fruit, loquats, berries, clementines, kumquats, watermelons, and mangosteen, are some of the most visually impressive fruits you can use.

4. Flowers

Just like fruits, vegetables, and herbs, flowers (the edible ones) can significantly add aesthetic appeal to your cooking.

Edible flowers such as marigold, nasturtium, and lavender are common additions to colorful dishes.

5. Spices

Many people think of spices only as flavor enhancers for food. Yet they can serve another important culinary purpose: adding color and aesthetic appeal to dishes.

You won’t go wrong with spices such as turmeric, saffron, and paprika.

Raspberry Tartlets Recipe

Recipe makes: 18 raspberry tartlets.

Difficulty level: Easy.

Total cooking time: Approximately 20 to 30 minutes.

Source: wilton.com

What You Will Need

• Oven.
• Pastry cutter.
• Pastry brush.
• Muffin tray.
• Medium pan.
• Medium bowl.
• Whisk.
• Mixing spoon.
• Heat-proof dish.
• Grease-proof paper.
• Blender.
• Egg separator.

Ingredients

• 45 g all-purpose flour.
• 500 ml whole milk.
• One punnet fresh raspberries.
• 25g. organic, unsalted butter.
• Five organic egg yolks.
• One cup of pistachio nuts.
• One packet phyllo pastry.
• 1/2 tsp. Rosewater.
• 125 g brown sugar.

Sunbasket

Wondering about where to source the above ingredients? Well, these ingredients are readily available in your local grocery stores. And better if you have a subscription with Sunbasket. Examples of ingredients you can source from this meal delivery service are; all-purpose flour, raspberries, organic unsalted butter, organic egg yolks, and brown sugar.

For those who are not familiar with Sunbasket, it’s a great alternative to Hello Fresh or Home Chef. You can read the latest review post, which offers great insights into the company. These include; how Sunbasket works, what’s in a Sunbasket’s box, plus the menu and meal options together with the level of customer support offered by the meal kit delivery service. The author also talks about the potential pros and cons of Sunbasket.

Directions

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 190°C.

Step 2: Cut and brush the pastry with butter. Using the pastry cutter, cut the phyllo pastry into tiny, 10cm-wide squares. Then, melt the butter. After that, layer three pastry squares on top of each other, each slightly askew. Make sure to brush each pastry square with butter as you layer.

Step 3: Shape the pastry. Gently lay the pastry squares into the holes on the muffin tray.

Step 4: Bake the pastry. Put the pastry tray in the oven and bake until golden brown, or for 5 minutes.

Step 5: Heat the milk. Pour the milk into the pan and heat it until it reaches boiling point.

Step 6: Whisk the yolks. Using the egg separator, extract yolks from the organic eggs into the bowl. Now, add the all-purpose flour, rose water,  and sugar to the bowl and whisk until well combined.

Step 7: Make the custard sauce. Pour the milk you brought to a boil a few minutes ago into the egg mixture. Mix the contents of the bowl thoroughly to make custard sauce.

Step 8: Thicken the custard sauce. Transfer the custard sauce to the saucepan you used for milk and bring the sauce to a boil. After that, further cook the sauce, constantly stirring until thick and creamy.

Step 9: Cool the custard sauce. Pour the sauce into the heat-proof dish. Next, cover the dish with greaseproof paper(to prevent skin from forming) and let the sauce cool.

Step 10: Grind the pistachio nuts. Using the food blender, blitz the nuts until they turn into a fine powder.

Step 11: Assemble the tartlets and serve. Transfer the baked muffins to the muffin tray. Top the muffins with the cream mixture. Sprinkle the muffins with pistachio dust to make tartlets. Garnish the tartlets with raspberries.

Enjoy the tartlets with your favorite drink while still warm!

Final Thoughts

Food presentation is an important art for professional and non-professional cooks alike. The art seeks to modify, process, arrange and decorate food to enhance its aesthetic appeal. This can trigger even the pickiest eaters' appetite, making a real difference in the eating experience for the eater.

The recipe above explains how to make aesthetically appealing raspberry tartlets.

Are you a fan of raspberry desserts?