Savory Brioche Pockets

This week our Tuesdays with Dorie group is trying a new recipe from Baking with Julia using brioche dough – Savory Brioche Pockets by contributing baker Nancy Silverton.

Boiled potatoes, caramelized onions, asparagus, and goat cheese are piled high on a circle of brioche dough and covered with another circle of brioche dough. Kinda like half an empanada or a giant ravioli.

This time around I followed the recipe word for word. Well, on a second thought I simplified the making of the brioche dough and used:

roasted asparagus instead of boiled asparagus,

fresh garlic from our garden instead of chives,

and purple sage from our herb garden.

The pockets baked beautifully! Unfortunately, we were not fond of the brioche dough combo with the savory filling. Kinda could not wow our taste buds…

If you would like to see for yourself, if a savory filled brioche is your thing, please visit Carrie of Loaves and Stitches who is the host for this week’s recipe.

* If you are interested in simplifying the brioche dough making, keep reading… I skipped the sponge making step and I just proofed the yeast with the warmed milk and a little bit of sugar for 10 min or so. Then, in the mixer bowl of my mixer I mixed the eggs with the proofed yeast and added the flour and sugar (used powdered) at once and beat for 1-2 min. Incorporating the butter after that was so much easier – I was adding two tablespoons of butter at a time and mixing for 2-3 min after each addition. The whole mixing took 10 min!

Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake

This week our Tuesdays with Dorie group is celebrating Spring and baking with rhubarb. It is that time of the year when we are drawn to lighter tasting desserts and indulging our sweet teeth in fruit-based baked goodies is a must.

The recipe is by contributing baker Johanne Killeen and yields eight baby cakes, each four inches in diameter or one large twelve inch cake. After an energy draining debate with myself, I decided against the purchase of eight new pans and baked one eight inch cake. Had to tweak the recipe and that involved some college-level calculus. Here is the problem, in case you are wondering:

If a recipe yields eight one-inch cakes and you are to bake one eight-inch cake, how would you adjust the ingredients? Please convert to metrics and make sure that you account for the butter that is used to make the caramel sauce.

At the end I halved it and it worked! Well, not exactly…I used the original amount of rhubarb and walnuts and added some orange zest for extra oomph.

The surprise ingredient in the cake batter was crème fraîche. I decided to make my own following the instructions in Baking with Julia. After 24 hours of inoculating the whipping cream and yogurt, the crème was still liquid. Getting a little panicky, I shook the jar and decided to give it another 24 hours. In the meantime I bought a container of crème fraîche, just to be on the safe side…Let me tell ya, after 48 hours I had an amazingly thick crème fraîche and I was left wondering what to do with the store-bought one. Ooo, all the drama ! Another cake ? Any recommendations ?

And I have left over rhubarb – should it be rhubarb chutney or rhubarb ginger ice cream ?

If you would like to feel Spring in your kitchen, please visit Erin who is the host for this week’s recipe.

 

Madeleines

This week our Tuesdays with Dorie group is baking the quintessential French cookies – madeleines using a traditional recipe based on a génoise cake batter.

Madeleines are quite often linked to Marcel Proust since he used one of his madeleines memories to explain the difference between voluntary and involuntary memory. Believe it or not there are actually studies being conducted that have tried to assess the accuracy of Proust’s ideas. I am ready to bet the idea to research such a topic was born in the head of a foodie researcher.

Edmund Levin in The Way the Cookie Crumbles even went on a madeleines recipe testing quest trying to find the recipe that Proust might have referred to. Come on now, don’t try to guess if the recipe in Baking with Julia by contributing baker Flo Braker made the cut!

Last year when we baked the French Strawberry Cake using the Perfect Génoise, I had to bake the cake twice because it kept deflating. This time around – not a chance! I was determined to bake the recipe only once and try to use what I have learned about génoise. A picture is worth a thousand words – cliché but so true:

The whisk attachment – the real superstar in this recipe:

Since I could not figure out how to use the extra cup of sugar that the recipe called for, I made a lemoncello glaze from 1/4 cup icing sugar, 1 Tbs butter, and 1 Tbs Meyer Lemon Limoncello. Also, added some crushed cardamom to the cake batter.

The not so pétit madelines:

Quite dry but flavorful, this is the perfect cookie to dip in your hot drink of choice. It would be great in a tiramisu type of desert. I still prefer biscotti though!

If you are trying to decide between madeleines and biscotti for yourself, please visit Katie and Amy of Counter Dog who are the hosts for this week’s recipe.

Rustic Potato Loaves

Bread with a mashed potato inside, anyone? This week our Tuesdays with Dorie baking group is making a potato bread using a recipe contributed by Leslie Mackie.

Grain shortages and slowing down economy back in the day are to blame for the birth of the Potato Bread. Later on bakers discovered that potatoes and yeast are good friends indeed and when they play nicely together they create a nutty yet light bread with a deep dark crust.

This is one amazing tasting bread! The recipe yields two loaves. I made one plain that we toasted and enjoyed with Seville orange marmalade for breakfast.

Delicious Seville Orange Marmalade or do you prefer a confiture?

The second loaf was a savory one that we enjoyed for dinner. I rolled the dough into a rectangle and I spread it with ½ cup parsley, 1 egg, 1 tsp fennel seeds, 200 gr ricotta, and 100 gr feta cheese. Then starting at the long side of the rectangle, I rolled it up and pinched the seam to seal.

If you would like to mash some potatoes and add them to your bread dough, please visit Dawn at Simply Sweet, who is the host for this week’s recipe.

Mocha Chocolate Chip Cookies

This week our Tuesdays with Dorie baking group is all excited about using 1 (one!) pound of chocolate for a chocolate chip cookie recipe contributed by Rick Katz.

The story behind this cookie recipe is very sweet and when reading it I decided that this recipe will not be halved no matter the four dozen cookies it is supposed to yield. The more gluttonous reason was that I was also curious to try the combination of apricots and dark chocolate in a cookie.

Chocolate chip cookies are the most American dessert for me. Period. Move away apple pies and brownies! Since their incidental discovery in 1930s by Mrs. Wakefield and attributed to a Nestle chocolate bar falling off and shattering into an industrial mixer that was mixing dough for butter drop cookies, for cookie lovers rarely is there another recipe that is more dearly loved than the classic chocolate chip variety.

How come a cookie that is made by more or less staple kitchen ingredients such as flour, eggs, butter, sugar, leavening agents, and chocolate is sending cookie aficionados on “Find the Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Quest”? I admit – I am one of them and no matter how many new recipes I try, I am always on the look out for a new and better tasting cookie. Did I mention that we have picked to stay in a particular hotel just because they were serving chocolate chip cookies to their guests upon arrival?!

What’s exciting about this particular chocolate chip cookie recipe is that uses espresso powder to give the cookies their mocha flavor and also dried apricots. Oh, and did I say ONE POUND of chocolate?

The recipe stated that it would yield 48 cookies, I baked and counted 36 cookies. In the process of baking and counting, I was accused of secretly eating the missing 12 cookies. I am not admitting anything!

The cookies tasted better the second day after baking although when they were straight out of the oven it was fun to bite into the melting chocolate. The mocha flavor was really there! Unfortunately, the apricots became an unknown extra when staying beside the chocolate superstar. Also, they made the cookies very, very sweet… Walnuts or pecans would be a great substitution for the dried apricots.

And I used my own vanilla extract that I made by soaking vanilla beans in grappa for 4 months. Pure insanity flavor-wise!

If you would like to add another chocolate chip cookie recipe to your baking arsenal, please visit Peggy of Galettista who is the host for this week.

Croissants

It’s Complicated!

Watching Meryl Streep make croissants for Steve Martin looked so easy and classy!

This week our Tuesdays with Dorie baking group’s kitchens are experiencing a croissant epiphany after a three day baking project involving lots of butter, flour, dough rolling and folding.

Tackling croissants at home was a fussy, long-lasting, messy and intricate adventure. I did not even bother cleaning the kitchen counter. This is how it looked for 3 days:

A couple of years ago I made Mirelle Guiliano’s croissant recipe from French Women Don’t Get Fat. Now was the time to try the recipe by Esther McManus. I ended up with a compilation between the two recipes. Blame it on the lack of fresh compressed yeast! I used the proportions from Mirelle Guiliano’s recipe and the folding and shaping technique from Esther McManus’s recipe.

Now was my chance to make almond croissants for first time…Half of the dough was for almond croissants and the other half was for plain croissants. See, I was thinking that almond croissants will be for the breakfast and we can make sandwiches with plain croissants for lunch.

For almond croissants, I shaped them the night before and in the morning on Bake Day I brought them to room temperature for about an hour before putting them in the oven.

For plain croissants, I let the dough rest in the fridge overnight and shaped and proofed the croissants after we ate all the almond croissants This was the better technique – the dough was easier to work with and the butter has worked its magic in all the dough layers. So next time I will stretch croissant baking over four days. This is a half-eaten plain croissant shot in eating action:

Word of advice: If you put the baking sheet with the proofed croissants on the stove, when preheating the oven, there will be butter and almond filling leakage.

If you would like to add extra buttery complexity to your life, please visit Amanda from Girls Plus Food who is the host for this week’s recipe.

Note:

For the dough: 1 cup milk, 2tsp active dry yeast, 2 ¼ cups plus 3 Tbs flour, 2 Tbs sugar, 1tsp salt, 12 Tbs butter.

For the glaze: 1 egg yolk mixed with 1 Tbs milk

Shhhhhhhh! Top Secret Chocolate Mousse

Another one of Dorie’s recipes in lieu of the Boca Negra – this time from Around My French Table.

Failure and Success

The failure…

Focaccia

Our Tuesdays with Dorie baking group’s kitchens are emitting yeasty smells because this week we are baking Focaccia!

I imagined the warm bread coming out of the oven drizzled with olive oil and generously sprinkled with zaatar (Middle Eastern dried spice made from dried herbs, sesame seeds, sumac, and salt) and I was hoping that:

(a) testing the limits of my Kitchen Aid mixer when mixing the dough
(b) leaving the dough in the fridge for more than 24 hours
(c)  in super glorious Ikea zip lock bags with stripes

would get me a fluffy focaccia, but alas this became my FFF – flat fail focaccia…Two questions remain:

(1) What do I do with the other two bags of dough that are still in the fridge?
(2) What went wrong with this bake?

After the scars from this baking experience heal a bit, I will be giving this recipe another try. Well, maybe…

A coincidence or not that happened on the last day of the Canadian Penny.

Please visit Sharmini of Wandering Through to see how actually the focaccia should look like!

The success…

French Apple Tart

I am so glad pies and tarts have their different nuances! Pies are flaky and crispy. Tarts are crumbly, tender, and buttery.

The French Apple Tart that our Tuesdays with Dorie baking group baked on January 22, 2013 was by the contributing baker Leslie Mackie. I did not have a chance to bake the tart earlier, so I am trying to catch up with this recipe today.

The French Apple Tart recipe uses a traditional pie dough that is filled with oven baked and pureed apples and topped with a stunning apple rosette.

Since I rather prefer crumbly to flaky crusts made with shortening, I used Pierre Hermé’s Sweet Tart Dough. I baked his Nutella Tart using this dough recently and it was indeed perfect! As a matter of fact, this is how he calls it – Perfect Tart Dough!

After the Pierre Hermé’s perfect tart crust was baked and chilled, I filled it with the apple compote. I used one generous teaspoon of cinnamon and substituted the bread crumbs in the filling with ½ a cup of quick cooking oats. Arranging the rosette on top of the tart was fun and challenging. There were some apple rosette shrinkage, but nothing a superior taste can’t fix!

If you would like to learn how to do an apple rosette, please visit Law of the Kitchen who was the host for the recipe.

Pierre Hermé’s Sweet Tart Dough

Adapted from Desserts by Pierre Hermé by Pierre Hermé and Dorie Greenspan

Ingredients

Note: These ingredients are sufficient for three 10-inch tarts or four 9-inch tarts.

10 oz (285 g), unsalted butter at room temperature
150 g (1 ½ cups) confectioner’s sugar, sifted
100 g (1/2 cup) finely ground blanched almonds
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean pulp or pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs at room temperature, lightly beaten
490 g (3 1/2 cups) all-purpose flour

 Directions

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on low speed until creamy.
2. Add the sugar and mix.
3. Add the ground almonds, salt, and vanilla pulp and mix.
4. Add the eggs and mix.
5. With the mixer still on low, add the flour in three additions.
6. Mix until the ingredients form a soft and pliable dough that holds together. Do not overmix.
7. Divide the dough into balls and wrap each ball in plastic, gently pressing each ball into a disk.
8. Allow the dough to rest for at least 4 hours and for up to 2 days.
9. If you are not planning on using all the dough, it freezes very well up to a month.
10. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into a circle.
11. Butter a tart pan with a removable bottom and transfer the rolled dough to the tart pan.
12. Prick the crust all over and chill for at least 30 minutes in the refrigerator.
13. To bake the crust, preheat the oven to 350F (180C) and position the rack in the middle. Line each crust with aluminum foil and fill with pie weights (I use rice). If your tart pan is dark-colored like mine, preheat your oven to 325F.
14. To partially bake, bake the crust for 15 minutes. Carefully remove the pie weights and foil. Return the tart to the oven and bake for another 3 to 5 minutes, or until lightly golden.
15. Transfer to a cooling rack and allow the crust to completely cool before you fill it in.

Pizza with Onion Confit

Our Tuesdays with Dorie baking group is starting 2013 with a pizza recipe. Not an ordinary pizza, but one that has onion confit as a main topping instead of the more traditional tomato sauce! Or should I say Confit D’Oignon?

The original recipe does not specify the types of onions that should be used for the confit. I used equal amounts of yellow and red onions. Shallots and leeks would be excellent also. Red wine and Crème de Casis added a much appreciated flavor to the orange marmalade. White wine or Cognac would be worthy replacements.

 

And a half-eaten slice featuring the crust:

Since one of my favorite winter salads by the name of Beets Caviar is made of caramelized onions, steamed beets, and pickles I decided to use a similar toping combo for the pizza. Sunday dinner was delicious with Onion Confit Pizza topped with steamed beets, pickles, goat cheese, and walnuts! And of course a glass of young pinot noir…

Please visit Paul from The Boy Can Bake who is hosting the recipe for this pizza of Provence.

Finnish Pulla

Our Tuesdays with Dorie baking group is getting ready for the Holiday season Scandinavian style. Finnish Pulla is our last recipe for 2012!

The name sounds quite exotic, doesn’t it? Pulla is a sweet cardamom spiced bread that is traditionally braided, sprinkled with pearl sugar, and served for breakfast.

Instead of using white sugar in the dough I opted for Bob’s Red Mills date sugar. After I rolled the dough into a large rectangle, I sprinkled it with ½ cup dried cranberries, soaked overnight in Marsala wine, ½ cup almonds, orange zest. I rolled the dough and I cut it in half lengthwise and I braided the two strands.

We loved the cardamom kick! The bread reminds me of a traditional Easter bread that we make. Maybe this is why I have the feeling that Spring is around the corner although I am planning snowshoeing hikes and ski trips

Please visit Erin from The Daily Morsel who is hosting the recipe for this Finnish delight.

Wishing you a happy holiday season filled with peace, love, happiness, and delicious food wherever you might be!