I made that!

Yesterday was the 1 year anniversary of me and John moving into our cute little apartment. To celebrate we had our landlords come down to eat dinner with us, as well as Nir (close friend and previous tenant), who allowed us to move in here by purchasing a home and moving into it! After all the chocolate I’ve been cooking, it’s time for a berry dessert! I do love a trifle, and my pastry boss (Rachel Leising, pastry chef extraordinaire) introduced me to this lovely combo…

I started by tossing blueberries, strawberries, raspberries & blackberries with lemon zest and sugar.

Then I cooked them in a heavy pot for about 7 minutes, long enough to have them release their juice,

Meanwhile I roasted some peach halves…

and baked a sheet of buttermilk cake.

I used a cookie cutter to cut circles out of the cake. I chose a small one and a larger one, to fit into the glasses.

Then I made a cream. I started by whipping some heavy cream, and then mixing in vanilla creme anglaise and homemade creme fraiche. I whipped them until I had a nice stiff and flavorful cream.

Then it was time to start layering! First I pressed in a layer of the buttermilk cake.

Then I ladled in some of the berry compote, to soak into the cake.

Then I added some thin slices of the roasted peaches.

And finally a big scoop of the cream mixture.

And repeat!

Delicious! And perfect for this hot weather, it actually feels like summer in San Francisco…

BUTTERMILK CAKE RECIPE (Flo Braker):

2 1/2 cups (250 g) sifted cake flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 large eggs, room temperature

6 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/2 cups (300 g) granulated sugar

1 cup buttermilk, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla

– Preheat oven to 350.

– Butter, flour baking pan and line with parchment.

– Triple sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and set aside.

– Crack the eggs into a small bowl and whisk.

– Pour the buttermilk into a liquid measuring cup. Add the vanilla and stir to combine.

– Place the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer. Cream the butter with the paddle on medium speed until it is light in color, clings to the sides of the bowl, and looks satiny.

– At the same speed, add the sugar in a steady stream. When all of the sugar is added, turn off the machine and scrape the gritty, sandy mixture clinging to the sides into the center of the bowl. Continue to cream at the same speed for 4-5 minutes, or until the mixture is very light in color and fluffy in appearance.

– With the mixer still on medium speed, add the eggs a tablespoon at a time. continue to cream, stopping the mixer and scraping the sides of the bowl at least once. When the mixture is fluffy, white and increased in volume take the paddle and bowl off of the mixer.

– Add 1/4 of the dry ingredients, sprinkling over the top of the creamed butter. fold it in with a rubber spatula, then add 1/3 of the buttermilk mixture. Repeat, alternating dry and wet ingredients. With each addition, scrape the sides of the bowl and continue mixing until smooth.

– Spoon into pan and bake until done (the baked surface springs back slightly when touched lightly in the center and the sides begin to contract from the pan).

– Place the cake pans on racks and cool for 5-10 minutes before removing cakes from the pans. Cool cakes completely before icing or cutting.

For the past several weeks I’ve had souffles on the brain. They just keep coming up in conversation. So when someone suggested souffle for dessert 2 nights ago, I had had enough. It was time. I recently bought “The Sweet Life” by Kate Zuckerman (The pastry chef from Chanterelle) and she devotes a whole chapter to souffles. So I picked out a chocolate one with a caramel base and jumped right in. First step: melt the chocolate down with some butter.

Then begin preparing my base by boiling up some caramel syrup.

I whipped the hot caramel syrup into some egg yolks until they were nice and fluffy.

And then made an Italian meringue. In an Italian meringue, you make a hot sugar syrup that you slowly pour into your egg whites as you whip them. This was where things went a little off for me. I don’t make souffles too often, but I do know that any time you make a meringue that will be folded into something else, it’s important not to over whip it. Once a meringue goes stiff there’s no turning back. I screwed up my timing on this one and definitely overworked my meringue.

Next I started assembling my souffle. I whipped together the caramel yolks with the melted chocolate.

Then I folded in my meringue. Definitely not my best work, but I got the meringue in without totally deflating it.

Then I poured the souffle mix into ramekins and let them chill in the fridge while I prepared a sauce.

Because really, you can’t have dessert souffle without creme anglaise… First I steeped my milk and cream with a vanilla bean.

Then cooked it with sugar and egg yolks until I had a nice custard…yum…I love custard…

Then it was time to bake those little ones. Important reminder when baking off souffles: just don’t open the oven. Leave them be. Pop them in, set your timer for 17 minutes and walk away. A successful souffle will add at least 50% to its height when baked, so I was feeling good about these guys!

Before we could devour them we cracked them open.

And filled them with that creme anglaise.

Total happiness. Enough to make you forget about healthcare reform. If only for a minute or 2.

CHOCOLATE SOUFFLE RECIPE (adapted from Kate Zuckerman):

3 1/2 oz butter

1 cup plus 5 tbsp sugar

7 1/2 oz dark chocolate

8 eggs, separated

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

2 tbsp brewed espresso

1/4 tsp salt

– Melt 1 1/2 oz of butter and grease the souffle ramekins. Refrigerate and grease again, then coat with sugar. Put them back in the fridge.

– Place chocolate and 2 oz of butter in a bowl. Set the bowl over a pot of simmering water to melt together. Once melted set aside.

– Put 5 egg yolks in a medium bowl. Discard the other 3 egg yolks.

– Combine 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 tsp cream of tartar & 3 tbsp water in a heavy pot. Stir to blend and heat on low to melt the sugar crystals. Once they are melted, increase heat to high and boil until water evaporates and sugar caramelizes. Turn off heat and carefully pour in 2 tbsp water. Stand back because it will sputter out. The  caramel will boil for a bit. Once it stops, slowly stream it into the egg yolks as you whip them. Continue whipping until the yolks cool and double in volume, about 2 minutes. Whip in espresso and salt.

– Combine 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar and 3 tbsp water in a small saucepan over medium heat and attach a candy thermometer. Meanwhile, place the 8 egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer and whisk on medium high speed. Once the whites foam up, add the cream of tartar. When the egg whites are completely foamy and begin to hold the lines of a whisk, turn up the heat under the sugar syrup. While that heats up, slowly pour in 2 tbsp sugar into the whites, 1 tsp at a time. Keep whipping until they are almost, but not quite fully whipped. At this point the sugar syrup should close to 248 degrees. Once it reaches, slowly stream it into the whipping whites. They should be shiny and satiny. Keep whipping until they cool off.

– Add the melted chocolate into the whipped yolks and whisk until smooth and shiny. Take 1/4 of the meringue and mix it into the chocolate mixture to lighten it. Fold the meringue into this, careful not to deflate.

– Pour into ramekins and smooth out the top with a spatula. Place them in the fridge until you are ready to bake them.

– Bake at 375 degrees for 17 minutes, until they have risen by 50%.

– Eat up as soon as they come out of the oven.

Just a quickie, to let you know I’m still alive.

For my birthday this year John got me a waffle maker. As one usually does with odd kitchen items, I stored it away in the pantry and kinda forgot about it. Then while trying to think of things that cook themselves for a brunch party, I remembered about it. It was perfect. I measured everything out so that once my guests arrived I could just hand them bowls to mix and whisk and then all that was left for my broke-ass self was pouring the batter into the waffle iron.

We did 2 kinds, a cornmeal waffle with bacon bits in the batter and a sweet buttermilk waffle that I served with a whipped mascarpone cream and berries.  A savory waffle and a sweet waffle. Here’s a pic of the sweet one.

Now that I know how easy they are to whip up, I see many more waffles in my future!

I should be writing about 4th of july foods. I had PLANS people. BIG PLANS. Plans involving BBQs, homemade sloppy joe sliders on homemade brioche buns, cucumber pickles, baked beans (and I make some mean baked beans), pies, popsicles. But instead I’m on leave of absence from my job. “But Brandi”, you say, “doesn’t that leave you more time for painstakingly tedious kitchen experiments?” Yes, it does. Except I’m on leave because of a nasty flare-up of tendinitis in my left hand, which is the good one. So I’m gonna slow down a tad, let my hand rest a bit. It’s actually strapped into a sinister little sleeve, so I don’t have much choice. I’m banking on making puppy face at my friends until they cook for me, and then I’ll write about that. But until that happens, it’s all takeout and Trader Joes frozen chicken tikka masala meals. I did manage to convince John to chop up our CSA box veggies for a soup, so there’s hope that I don’t die of missing homemade food sadness disease.

Next week I’m heading to Bama for my R&R. Mostly to get out of John’s hair, but also to give my grandma the pleasure of taking care of me. I’ll be gone for 10 days and hoping to return with happy and usable fingers…

I’m on this new kick. It started at work, and now I can’t stop doing it at home. It’s a fairly laborious task, one that will surely make me and my friends fat, but I just can’t stop making puff dough. I’ve gotten to where I feel like I need to have homemade puff in the freezer at all times, ready to be rolled into flaky deliciousness at a moment’s notice. Of course lately I feel that way about a lot of things, and our freezer is feeling the love. But really, who doesn’t keep sheets of galette dough, pie dough, pate sucre dough along with strawberry scones, several quarts of fresh stock, 20 lbs of various nuts and a collection of odd flours in their freezer? But that’s another story, back to my puff habit. Puff is total magic. The most architectural of the doughs. The most sectional, and in many ways the most pure. You literally fold butter into flour until it creates hundreds of layers. It’s kind of a several hour process, great for rainy days or days when you’ve got other long winded kitchen projects, since most of that time is spent resting in the fridge. Let me show you how it works…

First you make a smooth and stretchy dough with high gluten flour, water and melted butter. You let that sit in the fridge for an hour or so to relax all that gluten and allow it to firm up a bit.

After an hour you whip up some butter (equal in weight to the amount of flour in the earlier dough) with a bit of flour (equal to the amount of melted butter in the dough) until it’s smooth and pliable. This is called a “beurrage” or “butter block” in English.

You roll your dough into a rectangle of considerable size.

And then smear your butter on one half of it, being careful not to let the butter get warm. If it gets warm, you have to stop everything and pop it in the fridge to firm back up (but not too firm!). If you haven’t guessed yet, the hardest part about puff is understanding and regulating its temperature. But once you know what you want, it’s super easy.

Then you fold over the other half of the dough, to make a giant pop tart, making sure the edges are sealed tight. I get a little anal at this point and trim away any thick doughy edges. This is called a detrempe. I don’t know if it has an english name, so you can just call it a pop tart. You then place your detrempe in the fridge for 30-45 minutes to relax and firm up some more.

You take out your detrempe and roll it out on the short side (basically make it longer) into a long strip about 3/8″ thick.

Then take the edges and fold them in until they meet at a point 1/3 from the new folded edge.

Then fold the whole thing over. This is called a double fold, or a book fold.

It should look like this. You then place it in the fridge to rest for 30-45 minutes. You take it back out and repeat, rotating it so that you are again rolling out the short side to make it a long strip, folding it the same way and letting it rest another 30-45 minutes. You want to do this a total of 3 times. You’ll notice on the 3rd fold that it starts getting really delicate. If you poke it too hard it will tear, so you have to be gentle. At this point it’s very easy to get too warm, so you must also work quickly. If your butter melts, it will merge with you flour, eliminating all those layers you worked so hard to roll in…

Once you finish your 3 folds you have what’s called a “paton”. You can store your paton in the freezer, or in the fridge if you are going to be using it in the next few days.

When you are ready to bake your puff you just roll it out into 1/8 inch sheets. This size recipe will yield one really large sheet or 2 more manageable sized sheets. I wanted a little caramelization action, so I sheeted the dough in sugar rather than flour. I decided to make little puff squares to serve at my dinner party last night, so I used a pizza cutter to slice up my sheet. Once again, it is important that your puff stays cool. If you try cutting it up while warm, it will pinch the edges together, making it hard for your dough to rise up in the oven.

I placed my squares on a parchment lined sheet tray, then placed another sheet tray on top. The top sheet tray is basically there to reign that puff in. When you heat your dough up, it’s gonna start to puff like crazy, while this is a good thing, you don’t want to go TOO tall… You place the tray in a 400 degree oven and bake until the puff is cooked all the way through. Even with a sheet tray on top, my puff rose from 1/8″ to 3/4″, which is an ideal size I think!

When you break open your baked puff, it should be filled with little flakes.

I served my puff squares with a big bowl of vanilla pastry cream and some pitted strawberries for a “make your own strawberry napoleon” dessert. It was a hit. But you can do so many things with puff…I’m sure I’ll have some more posts about it throughout the summer!

PUFF PASTRY RECIPE:

Puff Pastry

Yield: 2 1/2 lbs

Dough:

12oz bread flour

4oz cake flour

4oz melted butter

1 1/2 tsp salt

9oz cool water

– Mix flours and place in stand mixer bowl. Use dough hook attachment.

– Pour water in measuring cup. Melt butter with salt in saucepan. Pour melted butter into measuring cup of water and stir well.

– With mixer on low speed, start pouring in the liquid mixture. Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, by hand if needed.

– Wrap in plastic and chill in fridge for 1 hour. This will allow the gluten to rest so that it isn’t too stretchy to roll out, causing tough dough and affecting your ability to work fast to keep the butter cool.

Butter Block:

16oz pliable butter (about 60 degrees)

3oz bread flour

1oz cake flour

– Place butter in stand mixer bowl and beat with paddle attachment on medium speed until smooth. On low speed add the flours and mix until smooth and uniform.

Detrempe:

– Roll the dough out to a roughly 12″x18″ rectangle, the dough should be about 1/4″-3/8″ thick.

– Use a spatula (your hand will warm the butter) to spread the butter over half of the rectangle (along the short side). You want to stay about 1/2″ from the edge.

– Fold the dough over and cinch the edges. Trim if necessary.

– Wrap in plastic and chill in fridge for 30 minutes.

Paton:

– Roll out 3 times in a book fold, or 4 times in a letter fold, resting for 30 minutes in between each turn. Monitor the butter temperature by it’s softness. It should be cold enough to make you work for it when you roll the pastry, but not enough to rip through the dough. If it is too soft, let it chill 10-15 minutes longer in the fridge.