Basic recipe #3: Pȃte sucrée

It's not part of the next challenge, but today, it being December and me being British, I made some mince pies and decided to use traditional french pȃte sucrée instead of the usual shortcrust. You have to roll the pȃte sucrée thinner than shortcrust and then it develops a delightful, delicate, crispiness that makes you feel that it's OK to eat more than one mince pie. But then, in December, it's always OK to eat more than one mince pie. This is based on the traditional french recipe, but I have adjusted the measurements a little by trial and error.

Pȃte sucrée

155g / 1 1/4 cups plain flour
60g / 1/4 cup butter
60g / 1/4 cup
sugar
1 medium egg

1. Place the butter in a bowl; sift in the flour and sugar and rub the butter into the mixture with your fingertips. Keep going until the mixture has the consistency of rough breadcrumbs.
2. Add the egg, and mix with your hand until everything comes together to form a dough.
3. Allow it to rest in the fridge for at least two hours before using. 

Photo du Jour: 8 November 2013

Bouchée à la Reine

Whichever Queen the Bouchée à la Reine was named for, must have had a very big mouth. Seriously, I suspect that the name  is actually a corruption of Lorraine, which is the home of this puff pastry case,  filled with a comforting mushroom sauce—just right for a November picnic. In Anglosaxonia, we tend to use the Belgian name for this, vol au vent, which is just what I was about to do in the picture as it's windy in Paris today. 

Le déjeuner du laboureur

Since I have been up working since the crack of dawn, I decided that I deserved a good lunch. I went to the fridge and gave it a good clear out and made a meal of the leftovers: roast chicken, ceps, some fabulous Livarot cheese, and of course, baguette. It was sort of a ploughman's lunch with a heavy french accent. And for dessert? Well, I discovered some wonderful 100 per cent magenta rhubarb at the market this morning, and had a lesson in how to pronounce it from the stallholder—'Rhu' like 'la rue': one of the most difficult sounds in French. So, freshly baked rhubarb crumble and vanilla ice-cream for pudding. And for those of you that think that's not very Parisian, watch this space. What a treat!

Livarot cheese, baguette, roast chicken, and pan-fried ceps (clockwise from left)

Rhubarb crumble

Sunday breakfast

I was making some bread for Sunday breakfast and I was feeling in an artistic mood, so instead of making the rolls I was planning I made a plait. Good practice for the Zopf on my wish list. Excellent with coffee and nutella. Happy Sunday!

Soda Bread

This week, I have promised myself that I would not buy bread, but would make it myself. I made a nice loaf of wholemeal on Saturday which lasted me pretty much until today so I decided to make some more tonight: but being very tired after work, I decided to try Soda Bread as it is supposed to be very quick and easy. I also wanted to use up the buttermilk I had left over from the Hot Cross Buns and so this seemed perfect.
The recipe I used was:

150g plain flour
150g wholemeal flour
1 tsp bicarb
1 1/2 tsp salt
250g buttermilk

The recipe didn't mention it, but the dough was very wet and kept sticking to my hands. I persevered however, and after it was in the oven, googled it and found out that this was pretty normal. Once in the oven, the bread held it's shape and even rose a bit.

The end result was a really nice bread with a soft crumb and rustic appearance  It naturally breaks into four, so will last me four days. Very impressed and another staple in my house I think!

One a penny, two a penny ...

As, (officially) a Brit living abroad, Easter gets you thinking about Hot Cross Buns. Although I managed to find a french translation for them (brioche saint), these do remain almost unknown outside the English-speaking (post 1776) world.

The Hot Cross Bun was first mentioned in writing in the UK only a few years before this (1733: 'Good Friday comes this Months, the old woman runs, With one or two a Penny hot cross Bunns', according to the OED.) However, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that they date at least to Anglo-Saxon times and are possibly connected with the goddess Eostre, from whose name Easter is derived. Some people have linked the design to the moon, as the main festival of Eostre, as well as Easter, was linked to the phases of the moon: the cross would then represent the four phases of the moon. 

So, here are my Hot Cross Buns: my first ones made ever, and a delight since I left England about 7 years ago! I can attest that my non-English colleagues at work devoured them with enthusiasm! 

For those Hot Cross Bun novices, these contain  raisins, currants and sultanas as well as cloves and orange zest. I am not going to post the recipe as there are many available online and actually, the one I used was SO good, I don't feel like sharing it! You can find it yourself!

Happy Easter to all of you, or Schöni Ostara as they say here in Zürich! I also discovered another delicacy for Easter from this neck of the woods which I will post a picture of soon!

Brown Bread in the Ring

Just a couple of pics of my first attempt at a brown loaf! I must say it tastes delicious!!

Macarons

OK, I am sorry that you had to wait a couple of days before the news about the macarons, but actually you have to leave them for 24 hours after filling them before you can eat them.

I am not going to write extensively about how to make macarons and how to get the perfect macaron, for two reasons:

1. I don't know yet, as I have only made two batches
2. Gigabytes of internet server space is clogged up with such data

But, I will tell you that making macarons is the best way to learn about them and I can confirm that they are HARD!!!

The main problem I encountered was cracking. I need to experiment with where I position them in my oven since it was the oven that caused several of my macarons to crack. I know this because they were in the same part of the oven in every batch that I baked. (I ended up baking my two attempts in a total of 4 batches.) I already experimented during these batches with position in the oven and also timing: I think my first batch was undercooked and the final one overcooked which means that the next one will be just right!

The other thing I learned and cannot stress enough is the importance of allowing macarons to mature. After you have baked the shells, leave them in the fridge for a while and then after filling them leave them in the fridge for at least 24 hours. During this time an amazing alchemy takes place and faults such as hollow shells can even correct themselves, I kid you not.

I made two different types of macarons. Firstly, a dusky pink batch which I filled with buttercream, into which I had added and whisked in some fresh raspberries: this gave a really nice sweet but slightly tart filling. The second batch were chocolate flavoured and coloured, with a buttercream flavoured with nutella in the middle. I really like the tart fillings for macarons and always go for those, and would like to experiment with more types. However, I also love salty caramel as a filling and will be trying that one too.

I was really lucky that all my macarons developed the distinctive 'foot' which you read about and although I noticed many many faults with my first attempt, my audience (my best friend, whose birthday it was and my colleagues at work the next day) was very impressed.

Quotes:
'You made these yourself? Many I know have tried but all have failed!' (Swedish colleague)
'They were honestly the best I've ever had ...' (French best friend)
'You should sell these. When are you making some more?' (British colleague)


I will leave you with pictures of the macarons themselves, but watch this space as I think I will be making many, many more!

Le grand jour!

It's been a really busy week and so little time for baking, but now the weekend has arrived, it's time to pick one of the things of my future bakes list and go for it. So, Ladies and Gentlemen, today will the the day that I attempt, for the very first time ... (drum roll) ... les macarons! Roll over Sprüngli; roll over Ladurée, there's a new bueb in town!

Pop back later and see how it went!

Success at last (I think!)

So, the next chapter in my search for a recipe for soft baps. After the disappointment of the last ones, I did a google search for 'soft white baps / rolls' and ended up coming across a recipe by Dan Lepard from the UK's Guardian newspaper. I also found the same recipe repeated on a food blog by a British expat, who was missing soft white baps while living abroad. I won't repeat the recipe here as it's available on at least two other websites. but will tell you about my experiences and, of course, post pictures.
It is a very long and convoluted recipe which, like all bread, involves a fair share of waiting around doing nothing, but again, if you are having a quiet day at home, it would be easy to plan them into your day. There were two things which were a bit different from all the other bread recipes I had seen, in that you started off by making a sponge, to which after three hours proving, you add the rest of the ingredients to make the dough, and, apart from 30 seconds of brief action, there is no kneading!
The dough itself was very wet during the proving and kneading stages which was a little off-putting, but the blogger mentioned this and so I didn't lose heart.
The recipe was supposed to make 9 rolls and called for about 700g of flour, which seemed a bit of a waste if it didn't turn out. Also, I couldn't manage to eat 9 rolls on my own in a week without putting on serious amounts of weight, so I halved the recipe and made 6 small rolls. At least, I thought they would be small: at the final proving stage they grew into monsters and ended up joining together as batch rolls.
Once in the oven, they went a beautiful golden brown colour and I realised that I had forgotten to compensate for my rather hot fan oven. So, I watched them like a hawk and after 20 minutes they looked OK so I took them out.
My initial reaction was one of disappointment. The top of the rolls was very hard and crusty. However, the recipe said I should let them cool completely on the baking sheet. I also covered them with a cloth since, I had heard that that helped to make rolls soften as they were cooling. Halfway through the cooling process, I couldn't resist, so I peeked under the cloth and poked one again and ... deep breath ... they were soft! I picked one up and even though it was still warm, it felt soft and light, just like a proper soft bap. Success at last!

Sponge ingredients: flour, water, cornflour and fresh yeast

Spong before rising. It grew to twice the size

Ingredients for the dough: water, milk, flour, butter, sugar, cornflour, salt

Finished buns before final prove

Batch rolls after final prove

Et voilà!

Baps (Part three)

So the baps turned out to be really nice  bread rolls, but not the light and fluffy things I had anticipated. They would make great burger buns or sandwhich buns but they were not what I wanted. However, I immediately googled 'light and fluffy baps' and found something very promising. Watch this space for Baps (Part four). 

Baps (part two)

Before and after cooking pictures of the baps. I will post tasting notes later!

Baps (part one)

I do like to make my own burgers every now and again, but the problem living outside the UK is getting hold of really nice soft burger buns or baps. So, imagine my excitement when the other night, I was watching the Fabulous Baker Brothers and they made breakfast burgers from scratch, including the baps. Now, I got my favourite fool-proof white bread recipe from them, so I decided to give it a go.

The key to their recipe, which is basically for milk bread, appears to be to allow three proofs (first after a long knead, and second and third after shaping). I am writing this while the dough is proving for the first time. I will add an update when they are finished. Fingers crossed!

Sunday dinner

I made another batch of brioche dough on Saturday night and baked it on Sunday morning to provide my breakfast for the week. However, this time I didn't want to freeze the dough as last time that resulted in a loaf that didn't rise so well, so I baked one loaf and then eight individual muffin sized brioches. I  know that sometimes brioche is eaten savoury so I scoured the Internet for savoury recipes and found one for brioche stuffed with tuna. You make the tuna filling with emmental and gruyère cheese so ideal for a cold snowy Swiss winter evening. Bon appetit to me!

Some of my best friends use cups

Let me start out by saying that I have nothing against Americans, but the thing I hate more than anything else in baking are recipes that use cups, teaspoons and tablespoons, instead of units of weight. I have no problem with pounds and ounces even if I prefer the metric system, but recipes written in cups drive me nuts. The main reason for this, is that they are so unpredictable. Even with a set of standard measures, it's quite difficult to make sure that you are using exactly the amount called for in the recipe and also to replicate the volume every time, so that recipes that work once can turn out a mess next time. And scraping the flour off the top of the cup to make sure it's level makes such a mess!

The internet, whilst being an amazing source of recipes, is full of cups! Cups, cups, cups everywhere I look which frankly drives me nuts!!!

I am sure there are many people out there who cope quite happily with cups and maybe I should practise using them a little more, but I'm sorry, I find recipes with weights far more easy to work with and much more predictable.

Rant over, 'nuff said!

I'll leave you with a picture of a bread roll I made last night, using a recipe written in grams.

Real men DO eat

I learnt how quick and delicious it was to make Quiche Lorraine from scratch, while sharing an apartment with a very dear French friend of mine here in Zürich. I had always been of the opinion that French food was excellent but living with her was a real eye opener in terms of how the French actually cook view food. My daily repetoire of food was heavily dominated by Italian food, but now I am keen to add more classic French dishes.

Quiche Lorraine is remarkably simple but freshly baked is so much better than shop bought, even if only for the satisfaction of having performed alchemy with milk, butter and cheese. And, although it is possible to buy nice ready made pastry and even ready blind baked flan cases, it really is very simple, quick and satisfying to make your own.

Aside from watching my dear great aunt Ada baking in her kitchen, my first experience of making shortcrust pastry was when I was 11 years old, having my first term of Home Economics classes at secondary school. The fearsome teacher, Mrs Cook (I kid you not!) barking orders at us as we all got our hot little eleven year old hands stuck into the beige ceramic bowls in front of us clouding the room in flour and melting the butter. I don't remember what the pastry tasted like but I remember being put off by this experience.

It is a commonly held belief that you need cold hands to make shortcrust pastry by hand, as warm hand melt the butter in the initial mixing with the flour and ruin the final texture of the pastry. If this was the  case then I would be doomed from the start since I have the warmest hands of anyone I know. Even in subzero temperatures my naked hands feel warm: it can get to -15 here in Zürich in the winter, and if I do venture out in gloves, I have to remove them within a few minutes as my hands feel too hot. As a child, my snowballs always melted as I was making them. However, by following a couple of basic tips, even I can make good pastry by hand.

First, make sure your butter is really cold. Unlike making cakes, making pastry calls for cold butter and not room temperature. Secondly, run your hands under the cold tap before putting your hands into the bowl and thirdly don't work too hard. The correct technique for rubbing butter into flour is a gentle tickling motion, picking up small amounts of flour and butter and combining them as they fall from your hands. It's quite sensual really, but I will stop there.

So here are some photos of my Saturday Quiche Lorraine made with a home made shortcrust pastry shell.

Blind baking the case with beans

add some lightly fried lardons

and some grated Gruyère cheese 

milk, eggs, salt, pepper and nutmeg

et voilà!

Panis quotidianus

Bread is seen as one of the ultimate challenges for the amateur cook. It's something that we take for granted, but forms so central a part of our daily diet that even the slightest change can cause consternation. It is no accident that Jesus used it as a metaphor for food and that, in English at least, the word is a synonym for money, that other essential for sustenance. When I was living in Tuscany, I discovered that the local bread was made without salt and, to my palate brought up on salted English loaves, was simply unpalatable. Thankfully, someone had given me a Panasonic breadmaker a few years before, with which we were able to make delicious English bloomers!

Recently, I have started baking bread without the benefit of a machine which, unfortunately, takes a lot longer but is delicious. You can make good bread dough in a mixer with a dough hook very quickly, but there is a lot of waiting around for the dough to rise. But if you plan a morning or evening around it, you can have delicious, freshly baked bread on a daily basis.

I started with a recipe for a basic white loaf which is a good one to begin with and to learn the techniques before moving onto experiment with different flours and ingredients.

The recipe I use has five ingredients:

300ml of tepid water
5g of dried yeast
560g of white flour
10g of sea salt
20ml of oil

Bread ingredients

You can use any oil. The original recipe used rapeseed oil, but I prefer to use extra virgin olive oil.

Start with the yeast. Dissolve it in the water. If the water is of the right temperature it should feel neutral when you put your hand in it. Leave it for ten minutes to start working and you should be left with a frothy liquid. If not, then the yeast hasn't worked and you should throw it away and start again.

The bubbles show that the yeast has started working

Then mix the salt in with the flour. You want to try and keep the salt away from direct contact with the yeast as it will retard it. Then add the oil and the yeast mixture and work it with your hands into a dough.

Mix the salt with the flour to keep it away from the yeast

Next comes the kneading. This can be done in a mixer with a dough hook in which case it is ready when it clings to the dough hook and the bowl is clean. However, I think that anyone who is serious about making bread should do it by hand a few times to get a feeling for the process. After a few minutes of kneading the quality of the dough changes and the surface becomes soft and slightly silky. Keep going for about 10 minutes and you will be left with a tight soft ball which bounces back when pressed with a finger.

Dough after kneading

Transfer the dough to a clean bowl which has been rubbed with olive oil and wrap tightly with clingfilm. Then put it in a warm place for about an hour to prove. This is the process by which the yeast will make the dough grow to about twice the size it was before. I warm the oven to the lowest temperature, (50 degrees) and then turn it off and leave the bowl inside.

Before ...

... and after one hour

When it has proved, remove the dough from the bowl and hit it with your hand. All the air will leave and it will return to its original size, but don't worry, this is correct. The dough will feel different again now though: much looser and more pliable.

Shape the dough into a loaf and place it in a loaf tin, which has been rubbed with oil. Cover it again, and place in a warm place for another hour. During this time it will double in size again, so make sure that there is room beneath the cover for this to happen. Instead of clingfilm, I use a plastic bag for this to ensure that the dough can rise out of the top of the tin.








































Heat the oven to 220 degrees and place a backing tray at the bottom. When the loaf has risen, cut the top with a sharp knife once or twice, creating slashes. Then sprinkle with flour and place in the oven. Before you shut the oven door, take a glass of cold water and through it into the baking tray at the bottom of the oven. This will create steam which produces a nice crust on the bread.

After 30 minutes, remove the loaf from the oven. Knock the bottom of the tin. If it sounds hollow, then the loaf is cooked.  Leave it in the tin for a few minutes to cool and then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool fully. And voilà, white bread!

Qu'ils mangent de la brioche part deux :)

Some people have been asking me about the title of the brioche post. It is the original version of the phrase often attributed to Marie Antoinette during the french revolution given in English as 'let them eat cake'.

Qu'ils mangent de la brioche!

I decided I wanted to try to make the french classic brioche. This is a kind of bread enriched with that french staple, butter. It seemed obvious to look for a Julia Child recipe and found the following, although I am not sure if it is authentic Julia since it was quoted on a variety of websites but was also in a YouTube video featuring Julia but where it was demonstrated by Nancy Silverton. Anyway, it worked a treat as you will see!

The recipe was in two halves, first a sponge base and then the dough for the brioche. For the sponge base:

1/3 cup of warm milk (100-110 degrees)
2 1/4 teaspoons of active dry yeast
1 egg
2 cups flour

Now, being European I have always avoided recipes involving cups, but this time I decided to brave it, noticing that my IKEA measuring jug was marked in cups as well as deciliters. So the method was to put the milk, yeast, egg and one cup of the flour into the bowl of your mixer and then mix using a spatula. You were then directed to cover the mixture with the rest of the flour and leave for 30-40 minutes. When you looked at it, the flour covering was supposed to be cracked showing that the yeast had worked. As you can see, this happened right on cue!

Next came the ingredients for the dough.

1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
6 oz butter at room temperature

So back to the method. You put the sugar, salt, eggs and one cup of the flour to the bowl and then mix using the dough hook on low for about 2 minutes until things start to come together. Then you add the rest of the flour and then mix on medium for 15 minutes. This is a bit of hard work for your mixer. You will need to stop occasionally and scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure that it mixes properly. When it is finished, the dough should stick to the hook and slap the sides of the bowl. This is an excellent description as it's exactly what you will see.

Now you need to add the butter to the dough. To do this, you need to make sure that the butter is the same consistency as the dough. Now the dough is sticky and wet and you can get the butter to this consistency by whacking it with a rolling pin or wrapping in cling film and rolling.

Keeping the mixer on low speed, add the butter a tablespoon at a time. It will look like it's not working and the butter will spread on the sides of the bowl, but keep faith as suddenly it will disappear into the dough. When all the butter has gone, return the mixer to medium for 5 minutes. When done you will be left with a dough that is a little wet and feels cool. So put it in a bowl and cover it with cling film.

You can now have a rest as the dough rises. You need to wait a grand total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours until the dough doubles in size, which as long as the milk was the right temperature at the beginning, it will.

When it has risen, put your fingers under dough to lift it out of the bowl and it will deflate. Don't worry, this is all part of the process. Then cover it with cling film again and then place the bowl in the fridge for 4-6 hours. During this time it will double in size again. I didn't say this was quick!

Now, take the dough out of the fridge and divide it into six equal portions. Roll each portion into a ball and arrange in a loaf tin in two rows, as in the picture.

And guess what? You now have to wait for another two hours for it to double in size.

Next, brush the tops of the balls with egg wash being careful that the sides are not touched. This can stop the dough from rising. Then cut a cross in the top of each ball with a pair of scissors! This is truly the classic technique. I was shocked but then saw this video of Michel Roux doing the same so obeyed.

So this now goes in an oven, preheated to 190 degrees C for 30 to 40 minutes and when you have finished, voilà! You will see that the balls blend into each other and form a very attractive shaped loaf.

Perfect with Nutella or jam for breakfast with coffee, or more traditionally, dipped into a bowl of hot chocolate!
As you can see, brioche takes a long time, but if you plan it correctly, the final stages can be done in the morning, facilitating a wonderful fresh cooked loaf for breakfast!