Dorie Greenspan & my marriage

This year for christmas, my parents gave me a copy of Dorie Greenspan's
'around my french table'. A beautiful, charming book, full of equally charming and very french recipies.



Naturally, there's a whole bucket of recipies that I will try from this book, but one of them had my lovely wife instantly squealing with glee on her couch in the kitchen - proper éclairs. Vanilla éclairs, of all things. Right there, in her hands, with a husband easily swayed to make some for her.

Maybe I should add some more background information, otherwise my darling wife gets to look even weirder than usual in my posts.

She loves éclairs, those longish choux-pastry things, sugar-frosted and filled with pudding that you can get in any French pâtisserie deserving the name. Especially, she loves them with plain frosting and vanilla filling.
Unfortunately, that's apparently the least popular flavour in France, for they stock them only in the rarest cases. Which, naturally, leads to each of our vacations in France including at least one scavenger hunt through all bakeries in town hunting for vanilla éclairs.

In one case, we just gave up and asked our favourite pâtisserie in Cenac-et-St.-Julien how many we would have to order for them to consider making some vanilla ones in addition to their wide array of coffee-, chocolate- or caramel flavoured ones.
Suffice to say that her pleading looks and my 'rustic' French seemed to sway them rather easily, though we still ended up with a slighty embarassing amount of vanilla éclairs the next day. Though it was only embarassing in so far as we finished all of them that afternoon, but that's another matter entirely.

So basically, being able to make vanilla éclairs on my own would be a really grand thing in our household. 'Ganz großes Kino', as a friend of ours would say, 'big movie magic'.

And what can I say? Dorie might just have saved my marriage. Not that it was in any need of saving right now. But if ever there comes the day that I am in doubt, I'll now be able to whip up a batch of vanilla éclairs, and it'll work wonders. I just know.

This recipe is treasure. The éclairs are just as they are supposed to be, firm and rich and sweet and creamy and just right. Just look at them, lying in their little box, ready to be given away. For that recipe alone, Dorie Greenspan's book has earned a special place on my bookshelf, and in my heart.





vanilla éclairs
From Dorie Greenspan's 'around my french table', measures converted by me, so it's all my fault.
(makes about twenty)

for the filling

6 egg yolks

100g sugar

40g cornstarch
1,5 teaspoon vanilla extract
510g milk
50g butter


for the choux pastry
130g milk
120g water
110g butter
10g sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt
140g flour
4 eggs

for the icing (my style)
250g powdered sugar
30g warm water
50g butter


on the day before serving
For the filling, combine the yolks, starch, sugar and vanilla in a bowl and whisk until smooth.

Bring the milk to a gentle boil and take off the heat. Gently pour a little of the hot milk onto the egg mixture, whisking until well combined. Then add the remaining milk in increasing steps, then return the mix to the pot.

Heat again while whisking constantly, until it starts to thicken and bubble. Take off the heat and leave to cool for a minute or so.

Add the butter and whisk until smooth.

Leave to cool a little longer, then seal tight and keep in the fridge over night.


On the day of serving
For the choux pastry, bring the milk, butter, sugar and salt to boil in a large casserole.

Once the milk boils, add the flour in a single scoop and start mixing vigorously, all the while keeping the pot on the stove. Once the dough is smooth and a thin, white layer forms on the bottom of the pot, remove from heat.

Immediately, add one of the eggs and mix until smooth again. Add the remaining eggs idividually, mixing until smooth after each addition. Leave to rest for a few minutes.

Preheat the oven to 210°C.

Fill the dough into a piping bag with a big, plain nozzle. Pipe straigt dough fingers onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper.
With a little bit of luck, I manage to get ten pieces onto a sheet, but rather keep them well apart as they will rise immensely.

Bake for 15 minutes at 210°C, then lower temperature to 170°C and vent the oven for a few seconds to let out the steam. Keep baking for another 10 to 15 minutes, then open the door a little and continue to bake for 5 minutes more.

Take the éclairs out of the oven and leave to cool on a rack.

Continue with the remaining dough, until you have an assembly looking more or less like the one to the right.

As soon as the éclairs have cooled, transfer the filling from the fridge into another piping bag, this one as well with a big, plain nozzle.
Actually, I use sturdy freezer bags with a corner cut off for this, but that's just me making do. 

Cut the éclairs open along one side.
Make sure the cut is rather too high on the side, it's still better to have a less-than-perfect-looking sweet than one that spills its filling onto your lap at the first bite. 

Pipe the filling into the éclairs.
I usually have a little vanilla cream left over after a batch of these, but I am very sure that I do not have to tell you what you can do with this. 

For the icing, combine all ingredients and heat for a few seconds in the microwave until just warm. Mix until smooth and silky, then immediately pipe or spoon onto the éclairs.
Once again, I use a freezer bag for mixing and piping the icing, saves me a lot of stuff to clean. 

Chill until serving, best after a few hours in the fridge.

Keeps well in the fridge for a few days, though must be covered tightly as it will catch smells from surrounding food.
Goes perfectly with the hot caffeinated beverage of your choice, but needs very little in terms of company.
I could imagine them handsomely with some finely chopped strawberries in the filling and a cold glass of champagne, though...

average

It's an average though lovely warm spring weekend. Which means, baking bread, and lots of it.

a definite showstopper

Gorgeous, organic beef fillet in my eyes can only be prepared in one way: seared and slowly roasted in the oven until just pink. Served with lots of vegetables, mustard sauce, hollandaise and home-made mango chutney, Saturday's dinner war a definite showstopper:



Sundays's woodruff jelly was pretty harmles in comparison, but so pretty and full of childhood memories I just had to include apicture here.

I bet it's the terroir

'Übung macht den Meister', they say in Germany, 'With practice comes mastery'. Or, a little less stilted, 'practice makes perfect'.

Apparently, though, there are things that need much more practice than one might think to achieve even a modicum of mastery. Making baguettes seems to be one of those things, at least for me.

Ever since I started baking bread, baguettes had been on my mind. Wouldn't it be great being able to make those legendary breads at home? So many memories of my childhood, revolving around baguettes with rillettes, or with cheese, or just with leftover vinaigrette when there was nothing else I could see myself eating from the grown-ups' table.

So for the better part of a year now, I've been trying to bake baguettes.

The recipe below is deceptive simple, it's definitely authentic and everything. And yet, my baguettes still don't perfectly taste like the real thing.
They've sure got the look, and even that crust with bits of it flying all around the kitchen when you try to cut it.



But apparently, something is still different. Next time I'm in France, I'll check extra carefully to find any discernible differences. Maybe it's the flour. Or the yeast. Or something as intangible and sadly immobile as 'le terroir'.
I bet it's the terroir.

Still, despite the (percieved) lack in taste and my personal shortcomings in shaping and scoring baguettes, this recipe is way too good to be kept in the closet. After all, this already has become the go-to white bread in our household, and they turn out beautiful and reliable despite my sometimes rather creative scheduling.

Try it, for despite everything, it's so damn worth it.




Baguettes
(adapted from Anis Bouabsa's recipe via David Snyder here)
(makes two small baguettes)

500g hight-gluten flour (German type 550)
375ml cold water
1/2 teaspoon instant dry yeast
10g salt




One day before baking

Combine all ingredients and mix until the dough is smooth, about 3 minutes.

Leave the dough to rest for an hour, mixing again each twenty minutes for about a minute each.

Transfer the dough into a small(er) bowl and cover airtight. Leave to rest in the refrigerator for 20 hours.
I've retarded the dough for anything between 10 and 36 hours and have to say that 20+ hours works best for me.



On the day of baking

Take the dough out of the fridge and preshape into two rough rectangles.
The dough won't have risen by any noticeable amount, that's okay and no reason to worry. Also, I usually fold the dough a few times as if doing a 'stretch and fold', just to add some more stability.

Leave to rest at room temperature for an hour. Then shape into baguettes.
Shaping and scoring a baguette is an art in itself that I haven't completely mastered myself. Yet.
Luckily, there's tons of video's about the subject on youtube and its ilk. Here's my favourite.

Preheat the oven to 250°C. Leave the baguettes to proof for 45 minutes.

Score the baguettes and bake for 15 minutes at 250°C with a lot of steam. Then open the oven to let remaining steam escape and lower the temperature to 190°C for another 15 minutes. Leave to cool on a rack.

Keeps nicely for a day or two, then it'll get rather tough.

Goes with everything you'd put on a white bread.^^

one mean, cast-iron bastard

Just a quick update on Christmas week's activities:



Flammkuchen. Thanks to my baking stone, they now come out very close to perfect.



Note to myself: fresh baker's yeast is more active than dired yeast. Much more active.



Currently on my list of things to learn: making croissants from scratch. They already taste gorgeous, but only look good until baked. Need much more training.



This year, Santa brought me a paella pan. One mean, cast-iron bastard of a paella pan, and I couldn't be happier. Recipe coming soon.

To all of you, I hope you've had a wonderful Christmas and the coming year will be full of joy, health and inspiration!

a dark, unctuous wave

A few weeks ago, on a Spanish island, in an Italian restaurant, I had one of the best classic French desserts that I've had in my whole life.

And it had been a surprising evening all together already. We arrived too early (on vacation, we're early diners) and yet the staff was entirely charming and precise about when they would open. Which is not the usual way of doing business there, I have to add.
Despite the terribly touristy location at the heart of the fake 'old town centre' of Costa Teguise, the food was even better than what the staff had led us to hope. And when they insisted on the 'chocolate soufflé' being entirely house made, it wasn't really hard to convince me to order one despite already being close to bursting.

And, boy, what a luck I did.

Being used to the rather 'freestyle' translations of food on menus in Spain, I didn't actually expect a 'soufflé au chocolat', as defined by definitely not containing any flour. But the smallish chocolate cake on a huge plate that was put in front of me still smelled so good it made me grin like a four year old.

The real surprise, though, came right when I dug in my spoon and a dark, unctuous wave of molten chocolaty stuff flooded my plate.

Instantly, I was transported back to Paris, where the 'moelleux chocolat au coeur fondant' seems to be a basically canonized part of every menu. (When you're eating French, that is.) Having been to Paris countless times (and loved the food there almost as much as in the Perigord), this little cake triggered what felt like a million delicious memories. And it actually tasted as good as any of them.

Naturally, one of the first things I did when coming home was trying to figure out how to make these. Much to my profound surpise, they're almost embarassingly simple to make. The dough is whipped up in no time, they just need a few minutes in the oven and I am yet to find someone who doesn't love them.

The only drawback is that I still have to figure out a way to embed the preparation into a larger menu. So far, I've only had 'perfect' results when I baked them right after mixing. But on the other hand, it doesn't take much longer to mix and bake them than it takes to clean a table, so what. I'll probably just insert a course of cheeses and be done with the problem.

But one thing is for sure - I'll be making them often, and regularly, for my wife, or my friends or even just for myself, because they're a little piece of heaven in a cup.






moelleux chocolat au coeur fondant
(soft chocolate cake with liquid core)
(makes two small or four tiny portions)


50g dark, low-sugar chocolate (Herrenschokolade)
50g butter

two eggs
40g sugar

15g flour
30g ground almonds
10g cocoa powder (dutch process)

butter and flour for the forms


Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Gently melt the butter with the chocolate, allowing the mix to cool a little until it barely feels warm against the lips.

In a high bowl, mix the eggs with the sugar until pale and frothy. (soft peaks)

Combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and mix until well combined.
Is it just me or does it feel distinctively weird to measure so little flour?

Add both the molten chocolate and the flour / almond mix to the eggs and swiftly fold in, stirring as little as possible to retain the air.

Lightly butter and flour two small ramekins (about 8cm in diameter) or four espresso cups.
Make sure to carefully shake off excessive flour, or your cakes will look a little dusty. Supposedly, yo can unmold the cakes after baking, but honestly I've never dared to risk them in that way. I just took pretty cups instead.



Fill the batter into the prepared cups / ramekins. Only fill the forms until about two-third of their height, as the cake will rise impressively.

Bake for 5 to 8 minutes, depending a) on the size of your cakes (the smaller the faster) and b) how liquid you want them to be.
Those espresso cups pictured, for example, felt all but liquid after five minutes and were done all the way through verging on dry after eight. It'll take some attempts to get it right, but as the warm, liquid dough is pretty delicious in itself, I'd say rather err on too little time than too much. 

Serve immediately or at least warm. Can perfectly well stand alone but pairs well with anything else you would usually put next to a chocolate cake.
Next time, I'll try and put a boozy cherry in the bottom of each cup, or a spoonful of vanilla ice cream. Should really make for a nice surprise. 

this time of the year - part seven

What would a year be without the annual cookie craze? Not the same, I swear. So this year, we had a plain lineup of beloved classics, as we didn't really want to go all crazy on this.

But have a look:



First, the Pfefferkuchen, which turned out really, really good this year. One more iteration and I'll be ready to post an updated, much refined recipe here.



Second, plain 'black-and-white' cookies. Hardly noteworthy but for the admittedly pretty pattern that (accidentally) came up this year.



Third, coconut macarons. Not to be confused with the fickle french ones. These are slightly homely, crisp on the outside, chewy inside, easy to make and plain delicious.



Fourth - butter cookies. Like the french sablés, just a little more butter an sugar. These were gone so fast that I had to make another double batch right the following weekend.



The second batch of butter cookies, above. I didn't really have the mind to bother with different cookie shapes, so I just made those I like best and were easiest to handle. And they look pretty on the cooling rack, don't they?


And of course, last but not least, the Stollen. Very aromatic and moist this year, but oddly enough, the thick layer of icing sugar doesn't want to stick to the loaf properly. But that's not a real flaw, it only makes for rather messy eating.

Anyway, if the holidays pass as smoothly as the preparations so far, it'll be a lovely Christmas this year.