Random Recipes Challenge: Summer Fruit Cream Slice

As it's a new year I thought I'd try a new challenge and what better than Belleau Kitchen's Random Recipes to fit in with my new year's resolution of resisting the urge to buy a new recipe book for the whole of 2012!!

This month the idea was to pick your newest cookbook and then flick through the pages with your eyes closed and whichever recipe you land on is the one you have to make! As previously mentioned my last cookbook (for the year) was McDougall's Better Bakers Guide. I flicked through and before me was a recipe for a Summer Fruit Cream Slice...slightly at odds with a cold dull January but a little something to remind us of summer.

This is a great challenge as not only does it encourage you to use the cookbooks you already have (as per my resolution) but it also encourages you to try new things. I for one have never tried making flaky pastry, it's something I've always wanted to try but may have never gotten round to... so thanks Dom at Belleau Kitchen for a great challenge.

Making the flaky pastry, it is essentially a puff pastry and requires lots of folding, rolling and chilling. As you can see the pastry was rolled out into an oblong and then roughly divided in to three, knobs of butter were scattered over two thirds of the pastry before folding it over on itself and rolling out. This process was repeated several times and eventually gave the lovely layers you can see in the picture.

This is essentially a Mille Feuille and to prevent the pastry puffing up in the oven an empty baking tray was placed on top of the pastry to keep it relatively flat! My three layer slice ended up as a bit of a humdinger, for a slightly more elegant slice you could remove the top layer as above.

I really enjoyed trying something new...why not join in with next month's challenge!