Smokin'

I always joke that I should take up smoking. I actually find it to be a pretty gross habit, but man those smokers get a lot of breaks. Well as of this past weekend, I believe I am converted to the cause, thanks to this recipe for bourbon smoked chicken.

The great thing about the recipe is that there is no need for a smoker: You can do it right in a normal grill, even a gas one. We do have both gas and charcoal grills, but we use the charcoal one for special occasions (we'll be grilling a T-Bone on it for the long weekend, for example.) For weeknight cooking (or long cook times where we'd have to add more coals) it's hard to beat the convenience of turning on a knob.

The equipment and layout is shown here. Other than the grill, you just need a few disposable pans, a trustworthy thermometer (see below (we call this foreshadowing)), and some wood chips. In the layout shown, I am only heating the front burner, which is why the chips are piled in that area. The chicken in at the back of the grill, where it has the most clearance (the lid slopes more in the front.) Following the recipe, we tossed in half the (presoaked) chips and placed the brined and patted dry chicken over a pan of water (to help keep the temperature more even) and then kept the grill at 275 for two hours, adding more wood chips halfway through. We used a probe thermometer to monitor the temperature of the bird, so we didn't need to do anything other than adding the extra wood chips.

The other key piece of equipment is a comfy place to sit for two hours and a beverage or two. Unfortunately, the grill thermometer was right over the one active heating element, so it reported the grill as being hotter than it really was. Because of this, our two hour smoke turned into a three and a half hour one. Our probe actually has two readings, one for in the bird and one for the ambient temperature. In the future we will trust that, which should shorten the cooking time to the recommended length. And will there be a next time? Oh yes. Despite the long cooking time and some frustration with grilling in the dark due to that, the chicken had a great flavor and texture. It was totally cooked, but still very juicy with a great flavor imparted by both the brine and smoke. Definitely a keeper.

Cucumber Mojito Sorbet

When one is in a CSA, one sometimes finds him or herself buried under a mountain of something with no idea how to use it all. For many it is zucchini, for us last year it was cucumbers.

I set out to find an interesting application that was delicious and consumed as many cukes as possible. I settled on sorbet, since it's something I enjoy making anyway. It helped that it was off kilter enough to seem odd, but plausibly delicious.

I fairly quickly got the flavor to a place I liked, and found that the cucumber itself brought a nice melon-like flavor once sweetened. Sadly, I had a lot of issues getting the texture to be anything but rock solid once it was frozen. I fiddled with adding more rum and higher proportions of simple syrup to overcome this, but to no avail.

Reading over a melon sorbet recipe more recently, I saw a comment that all the water in the melon meant that the texture would be extra icy. I wondered if I could psych out the simple syrup by making it with cuke juice rather than water. That was the key. This batch is still a little crumbly, but still scoopable when frozen and great tasting. Take that, cucumbers!

Cucumber Mojito Sorbet
1.5 Pounds cucumber
.5 Cup sugar
2 Tablespoons corn syrup (also helps reduce iciness)
.75 oz mint (that's one supermarket packet)
1 Shot of rum
Juice of 2 limes

1. Peel, chop, and puree the cucumber. If you are working with small-seeded varieties (as I was) go ahead and leave them in. For other types, you'll probably want to remove them.
   
2. Pour the cucumber puree into a strainer over a measuring cup and collect 2/3 cup juice. Keep the remaining solids and liquid (which in my case was about 1.5 cups total.)
   
3. Combine the cucumber liquid, sugar, corn syrup, and mint in a saucepan. Boil to dissolve sugar. Allow syrup to cool to room temperature and mint to steep. Remove mint.
   
4. Mix the room temperature syrup, cucumber solids, lime juice, and rum. Chill the mixture, then freeze in an ice cream machine.
   

Pickles! Science!

Having received a bag of small cucumbers this week that were clearly intended to be pickled, I searched around for recipes. Most require full sterile bottling, though I did find some quick pickling recipes.

One thing that all of these recipes did in common was time. Since I am not filling my larder for the long winter months with Ma Ingalls, I don't really need these fellows pickled but just want to infuse in some extra flavor. I was reminded of an article I had just read on using a wine vacuum saver to quickly infuse flavors and figured I'd give it a try.

For the test I made a brine with:

• 1/2 cup white vinegar
  
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
  
• 1/4 cup sugar
  
• 1/4 tsp mustard seed
  
• 1/4 tsp celerey seed
  

I popped the brine ingredients into the microwave for two minutes on high to boil in the sugar and salt, and then let the mixture sit for an hour to so to come back to room temperature.

Next I cut a cucumber into spears and put it into a wine bottle. I had to cut them thinner than I may normally have (eights rather than quarters) to get them through the neck. Over the cukes I poured the cooled brine.

Now, the science! I used the wine savor to suck out all of the air in the bottle, then released the pressure as described in the article. Just to be sure, I repeated this step a second time. I upturned the bottle (over the same measuring cup I had had the brine in) and dislodged the logjam of (hopefully transformed) cucumbers with a bamboo skewer.

How did they turn out? Interesting. Because it was a very quick pickling, there was a much more overt cucumber texture and flavor, but the brine had clearly infiltrated. There was too much sugar for my taste and the seasonings were barely present, so I think next time I will reduce the sugar by half (which will put it at 1/4 what the original recipe had) and up the brine additions. I may also try boiling the brine for a longer period to help the added herbs infuse it.

The amount of brine I made was way more than was required, but that dumb bump at the bottom of wine bottles fooled me into thinking I would need more than I did. Next time I'll push my luck and see how many cukes I can fit into this amount of brine.

Pastry Camp - Day Five

Before we get into the last day of pastry camp, I have to do a follow up on the macarons. After tasting the demo ones straight from the fridge, I had reported them good, not great, and the earl grey flavor to be very mild. Allowed to mellow at room temperature for a day, however, the ones I brought home were pretty spectacular. Now that I have sampled these, I may actually embrace the madness and attempt them at home.

On to day five! Before class I snuck into my office and left a care package for the folks there. We had a lot of pate d fruit for just Mary and I, as well as a ton of macarons. I left some of both of those for the guys, and also some of the nougatine crisp which was a bit too bitter for Mary (though I really like it's sharp taste.)

Out of the first demo, we got going on making guimauve (pronounced gee-mowve, but you can call them marhmallows) so that they would have time to set. When she got to the point of pouring them into trays to set during the demo, she mentioned that if we wanted to we could pipe them into peeps by whipping them a little longer. Exactly one person in class got excited -- luckily you are reading his blog.

Creating the marshmallow was a pretty similar to creating the italian meringue that we prepared as part of the macaron dough, but we whipped it slightly longer to get it to the proper texture. Since my partner wanted to take some actual marshmallows home, we pulled them at the proper texture for pouring and poured half into the prepared tray. After settings these got cut into cubes and dusted with corn starch and powdered sugar.

I let the other half of the mixture cool in a piping bag, periodically testing it to see if it was firm enough to hold its shape once piped. It took a long time for it to get to the point where it could, and left a trail of sad puddles where piped peeps had collapsed. Sadly it held this temperature for shockingly short time, and I was left with just one ok peep. Still, it had been an experiment, and since Mary doesn't care for marshmallows much it wasn't much of a loss to only have one success. If I do these again (and really, why wouldn't I?) then I will whip until the dough holds it's shape and then pipe more quickly. Hopefully keeping them whipping until they get to the right place will let them keep that pipability a little longer next time.

Next up was making our warm chocolate cakes. These are the plated dessert where you have a lovely chocolate cake and then cut in to find that it's totally undercooked. Have I sold you yet? The chef told the story of their creation. A junior chef undercooked the cakes for a large event by accident and the guests loved them. While I know a lot of folks who love these, they are just too richly chocolate for me. The mix was pretty straightforward, though once we baked them we got to make fun chocolate swirls for them. We served them plated with a scoop of the hazelnut ice cream from the previous day's demo and the chocolate swirls. I have to say, the best part was the hazlenut ice cream, which had a wonderful toastiness to it that just stole my heart. I brought home two (frozen) cakes to make later, and I will probably cook them almost all the way set when I make them, to help offset the richness.

We followed the cakes with lollipops. The chef had all sorts of flavorings, but when she used the lime in the demo the kitchen was filled with such a true fresh lime flavor that we just had to go with that. We died our pops green (though I threatened to make them red to through folks off kilter) and then used a neat trigger-action funnel to pipe them onto a pan. This was another recipe that made a ton, so I brought a lot home. Since each group only made one flavor/color, we did some horse trading at the end to make sure everyone got to bring home a variety. It is interesting to compare the caramel from yesterday with the lollipops from today, because even though the lollipops were cooked to a much higher temperature, the sugar didn't brown at all. It's amazing how much difference the amount of liquid you add can make.

Our last two tidbits where cutting and wrapping our chocolate caramels from the day before (again with some trading so that everyone got a mix of the chocolate and the plain) and brulee our creme brulees. The chocolate caramels were actually much tastier than I expected, but I was still happy to have ended up with more of the regular kind. I am a real sucker for caramels, and Mary prefers them as well. The brulee was fun, but fairly straightforward. At this point I was pretty wasted from all the tastings we had done, so I only ate about half of it. It was a little less set than those I have had in the past, but surprisingly light. The passion fruit puree that we added really brought down the richness, though it was still a lot of flavor. Overall this week has been pretty amazing. I have learned a lot of neat recipes, and better understand why they do the things they do. I am excited to experiment with some of the techniques I picked up, and to repeat some of the things that I would never have tried on my own otherwise. It was a great experience, and I am very happy that I did it. I'd suggest the week to anyone with the time and inclination, and will likely look into some of the other classes (bread baking, I'm looking at you.)

Pastry Camp - Day Four

Since day three was about preparing a lot of parts of products, day four was all about finishing those up. The morning demo covered a lot of smallish things, and since very little oven time was needed folks seemed to all attack them in different orders.

We started out by preparing Passion Fruit Creme Brulee, since they had to cook the longest and were likely to have the most oven contention (only one deck oven was set for this, so only three could bake them at once.) This was a pretty easy mixture of eggs, sugar and creme, which got baked in dishes in a water bath. The chef warned us that if we didn't mix the sugar into the eggs (but rather just dumped it in and left it in a lump) then it can actually cause some of the protein to coagulate. A good tip, and I'll be more careful in the future when I am mixing these particular ingredients. This was placed in the fridge overnight and will get bruleed tomorrow.

We then made a chocolate custard to fill our small tart shells. This was pretty similar to the lemon curd in process. We had to give a few of our shells foil collars, since we had been a bit over-aggressive when pressing the dough into the rings and left some holes behind. The other shells mocked them relentlessly. This was baked in the deck oven until almost set and then once cooled decorated with the nougatine crisp from yesterday. The demo tarts were delicious, with a great bitterness balanced by just enough sweetness. We had a ton of nougatine crisp leftover, so we broke that up and brought it home to have just as candy. We also had some leftover chocolate custard mixture, which we froze and brought home. This is actually perfect, because we also have some spare dough in the freezer for making tart shells. Problem, meet solution. Delicious, delicious solution.

The earl grey ganache was next deployed in filling our macarons and as truffles. Some folks had had issues with their ganache, so the intern Laura (not to be confused with the chef Laura) had made some flavored with Darjeeling so we'd have spare. While our ganache was good, we decided to leave a few macarons for the darjeeling so we could sample another flavor. Here I will admit that I am fully converted to the piping bag. We filled many, many macarons in not a lot of time since we could easily and quickly pipe filling onto them. These got smooshed together into little sandwiches and packed away. Since my partner is staying at a hotel, I ended up with way more than half so I sense another delivery to work coming up.

The truffles were pretty easy to make. These were rolled ones, so we didn't need any special molds for them. We piped little marble sized dollops of the ganache and chilled them in the fridge until they stiffened up. We then rolled them between gloved hands and let them chill again (again to stiffen.) From here they got two thin coats of chocolate and a dusting of cocoa powder. Let me tell you, these suckers are something I will make again. The earl grey ganache was good but subtle in the macarons, but in the truffles it was miraculous. The flavor of the tea really came through, but melded so well with the chocolate of the ganache and the thin shell.

The second demo was to show us ice creams and sorbets (which only got demoed since it'd be hard to take home.) They approach this in an even more scientific way than other foods, and thus have recipes that perfectly balance solids versus liquids, water versus fat, etc. They use a stabilizer to help control the ice crystal formation some, and I may actually look it up online to help keep my ice creams smoother at home.

The last thing of the day was to make caramels or chocolate caramels (each table did one or the other.) Both followed similar patterns, and diverged just in what got mixed in in the end. Though I make toffee at christmas, that involves heating sugar with a fair amount of liquid and fat from the get go. For these, we heated just sugar and glucose (think corn syrup) until it was way on the brown side of golden brown (she warned us that she was going to make us take it past where we were comfortable.) Then you whisk in butter and cream (carefully) and heat and whisk even more, until you get the right temperature and consistency. At this point we added melted chocolate and brought it back to temperature, then poured it into a prepared pan. That will set and cool overnight, then we'll cut and wrap it tomorrow.

We also got back the meringues that we made on the first day, and used the 'petals' to decorate our lemon tarts. We were given some bags, boxes, and ribbons to put the remaining meringues, nougatine crisp, and truffles into. We had an incredible amount of food to bring home today, and it's pretty overwhelming. I asked the chef (who had been through the full program) what one does when they get this much candy and sweets every week. She said that you become your doorman's favorite person, your dry cleaner's favorite person, your friends' best friend, etc. Because we spent so much of the day finishing up the products that we had started on previous days, I could really feel the finality of the impending program end. We have one day left, and I am quite sad that it's coming to a close. I've really had a blast.

Pastry Camp - Day Three

I am learning to love the piping bag. When I came to the demo at the school, I was struck with how much they (over)used the piping bag. It seemed like anytime they wanted to put something somewhere, they would pipe it. Now that I have used it a bit more, I am seeing the wisdom of this -- It's a really easy way to portion things cleanly and quickly.

Today's first demo featured the bulk of the products for the day, with macarons being the day's big challenge (more on that later.) Only making lemon curd and filling the lemon tarts was set for later, and even that was optional (it could be pushed to the next day.) Because the macaron recipe made a large number and needed the smaller convection oven, we did them in shifts (this time working backwards from table nine so they weren't always at the end.)

We started out with making Earl Grey Ganache, which was to fill the macarons and be rolled into truffles. We steeped the loose tea in cream and it smelled so amazing. I love earl grey, and am really looking forward to tasting this once it's worked into the final products. This was a fairly straightforward process, and involved getting things to proper temperature and mixing.

Ganache is an emulsion (fat suspended in water,) which means that it is prone to breaking. We hoped that someone's would break so that we could see the fix for it, and alas that someone was us. We cooled it too unevenly, so that when we mixed in the butter it ended up looking grainy. Not to worry, however, because fixing it just involved heating a tablespoon of cream and slowly whisking in the broken ganache (which I refered to as 'making chocolate vinagrette'.) It ended up glossy and smooth and ready to go for tomorrow's products. I learned later that two thirds of the class had theirs break, so I didn't feel so bad about it.

Next up was Nougatine Crisp, which would decorate the top of the chocolate tarts. This is a hard candy, similar to brittle but thinner and with some chocolate flavor. We heated it in a pan, mixed in some cocoa powder and almonds, and then baked it in the oven until it was at the right consitency. It's not too sweet and very brittle, without sticking in the teeth.

We baked and cooled our tart shells, since they would be accepting fillings that did not need extensive baking times. Again the chef had us push the limits of done-ness with these, taking them all the way to the brown side of golden brown. At the end of the baking we brushed the bottoms with a little egg yolk and baked for an extra minute or two, which will help seal the bottom and prevent it from getting soggy when the custard hits it. I am hoping that this works, because the tart shells looked gorgeous and had a wonderful, toasty aroma.

The last thing we had to do before we took our turn for macarons was cut the Pate d Fruit from yesterday. There is a fancy device for this named a guitar, which is a frame holding a series of guitar strings in place, hinged over a slotted board. One places the candy on the board and draws the strings through to cut it. When we got to the guitar, however, I noticed that one string was pretty loose. Since I wanted nice, square candies (ever the perfectionist) I asked the chef if it was easy to tighten. Sadly, while doing so she snapped the bolt holding the string. Back to the drawing board for us. We ended up putting off the cutting until after the macarons, since the guitar needed extra tools to fix.

At this point, we took a break. The snack today was banana bread with banana butter, which was much better than it sounds written. We chatted about the beignets (how we all just had to finish them last night since they wouldn't keep) and other delights from the previous day. Everyone had nothing but raves for all the products we had created so far.

Back in the kitchen, we attacked our macarons. These are fussy, fussy fellows. For starters, the almond flour and sugar need to be left out for a day or more to dry out or the final product will not form a good shell. You then make a very rough dough with that and some egg white. At the same time, you make an italian meringue, which involves cooking sugar with a little water to the correct temperature and then whipping it into half beaten egg whites. I had tried making nougat once in the past, and when adding a similar mixture to my kitchen aid had managed to get some on the whisk, turning it into a very fast moving paddle which sent partially mixed candy everywhere. Thankfully, I avoided that this time thanks to the awesome demo of how to do it properly (when it says to drizzle down the side of the bowl, drizzle down the side of the bowl.)

With these two mixtures done, we gently combined them and then mixed until just the right texture. Mixing either too much or too little will result in macarons with cracked shells. This mixture is then put into a piping bag (of course) and piped into small circles. I have to say, it was here that I really grew to love the piping bag. We filled two and a half full sheet trays with quarter sized dollops of dough in several minutes, with almost no mess or spilling. After a few iffy dollops, I caught my stride and ended up very happy with my piping; I may get used to this after all. Once piped, the dough needs to sit out for ten minutes to help dry out the surface (again, it's all about the shell here) before going into the convection oven (a regular oven won't, that's right, develop the shell enough.)

If you have not commited any serious misteps to this point, what you will see come out of the oven is pretty amazing. Beautifully smooth domed tops, with a rough bit of dough peeking out from underneath. While not all of ours were perfectly smooth or round, the bulk of them were gorgeous. We had a few mutants near the edge that got smooshed into the side of the pan, so we tested these for taste -- they were richly chocolatey, but not overwhelming. Overall I am very excited to try them with the ganache filling.

We had just enough time before the second demo to cut and roll our pate d fruit. The guitar was back up, so we converted our sheet into little squares, which we rolled in sugar. These were flavored with passion fruit and apricot, and were delicious. It's a little bit like eating jelly (though more set-up in texture) but if you can get past that, excellent. These freeze well, and seem like a good way to preserve some of the spring berries for a fall treat. I can also see making some with pomegranate or orange and cranberry to send with our holiday cookies.

With the day almost over, we got a quick demo of making the lemon curd and filling the shells. This process went smoothly for us, though pressing the final curd through a sieve (to remove any lumps from egg or gelatin) did take a while. The tarts baked for just a few minutes to set up the centers, then went into the fridge overnight. They look great, and tomorrow we'll be decorating them with some of the meringue shapes from Monday.

Overall, it was another very busy day. This one had much more precision timing and temperature control, and I really enjoyed the challenge of it. I am particularly proud of the macarons, since there are so very many ways to go wrong and ours came out so well. I'm excited to finish those tomorrow, though I'm very sad that the week is over halfway done.

Pastry Camp - Day Two

French (the language) is more than a little bit my nemesis. I am very bad at looking at a word in french and coming anywhere close to pronouncing it correctly. Because of this, I have been very careful to write down everything phonetically near it's actual spelling. Ben-yay. Fin-an-SEE-ay. Pot duh Fwee. It's not very graceful, but at least I don't sound quite as dumb when I speak. Now if I ever had to write these words without a reference handy, I would be in a world of hurt.

Much of day two was spent progressing or finishing the products we started on day one. Despite my fears, the two yeast doughs managed to survive the air conditioner blast and rose appropriately in the fridge overnight. We shaped the Beignets into little balls and proofed them in a makeshift proofing oven (the school's real one being taken up by a bread baking class.)

We also used the starter from yesterday to make the dough for our beer bread. This is a rustic loaf with part bread flour and part rye, as well as potato flakes to help hold in moisture. The beer comes in later in the afternoon. Because there is only one mixer in the kitchen large enough to mix this much and this stiff of a dough, we had to pair up tables (four students total) and mix in batches. The dough proofed for another hour before shaping.

Finally, we baked the Financiers. We piped cupcake-like molds one third full, topped that with a few pieces of candied orange peel and hazelnut chocolate chips, then repeated the process. These baked in the deck oven for a while and came out wonderfully. They were lighter and less sweet than a normal brownie, and had a fantastically rich flavor. I will definitely try these again, both as is and without the cocoa powder but with chocolate chips in place of the orange peel. During the break, we had housemade raspberry and mango jam with some lovely tender, but not rich, rolls. They seemed like they would be sweet, but ended up being very savory and delicious. I sat with a few other folks in the class and we chatted about bread and other topics. One of the women with us was given the class as a mother's day gift from her daughter, who had graduated recently from the full program. It was interesting to hear her talk about her daughter's and her own experiences.

Back in class, we got busy frying our beignets. Three frying stations were set up, using vegetable oil in a heavy pot rather than a deep fryer, which they don't have. It seems like beignets are they only thing they fry, so a fryer would be wasted. The dough was lovely and soft, having been enriched with butter and egg. As they fried, they puffed up and took on a golden color. Just a quick roll in sugar, and they were done. Still warm from the oil, they were the best donuts I had had in a long while. Even now having cooled for a bit they are still pretty amazing. Since my partner is staying in a hotel, she only took a handful home, leaving the rest for me. I myself am going to a cubs game tonight, so I snuck half of the batch to the folks at work to enjoy while they are still fresh.

The beer bread, once done with the first proof, got portioned and shaped into rustic triangular shapes. Some more rustic than others. It was a pretty soft dough, so it was challenging to work with. The really fascinating part of this recipe, for me, was that a wet paste was made with beer, water, rye flour, and yeast and brushed on top of the shaped dough before the final proof. This was then dusted with a liberal coating of rye flour. Once baked, this resulted in a dried riverbed look on the top of the loaves (they called it 'leoparding',) which was gorgeous. We sampled the bread that the chef had baked in demo and it was amazing -- I can't wait to eat the three loaves we brought home. With the tart dough from yesterday, we lined two large tart rings (for lemon tarts) and six small ones (for chocolate tarts.) This was a fascinating process, since we used tart rings rather than more normal fluted tart plates. To line the ring, you roll the dough out to an eighth of an inch thick (they had guides for us, which were very useful.) You then drape the rolled dough over the pastry ring (which has no bottom) and push it down and against the side. A little smooshing and a cut later, and you had lovely round tart shells all ready to go. The real trick is that when the dough is cold it isn't too sticky but cracks easily, but when it is warm it is sticky but doesn't crack. This makes it an odd race to get the dough to the right thickness and pushed into the ring while it's not too hard to work with. Overall, our shells look good and I was happy with how this went. I am not usually great with pie crust-like items, so I was pleased to have made these work so well (even if I did have to toss one shell when it went very awry.) The last quick thing we did was prepare Pate de Fruit. This is basically a fruit flavored gelled candy that will get rolled in sugar once cut. It was pretty easy to make, and just involved getting things to the right temperatures at the right times. The really interesting bit was talking about the science behind it. If you wan to use different fruits (we used apricot and passion fruit) then you need to be sure to balance the amount of sugar and pectin you add so that you end up with the proper amount. Every fruit has different content of these items, and having them at the right concentration is what makes things set up. Overall day two was a bit more involved than day one with more going on, but still incredibly fun. Even when the one tart shell went south I was having a good time, which is certainly a good sign.

Pastry Camp - Day One

Every day on the way to work, I walk past The French Pastry School of Chicago. Since I love baking bread and making candy, it calls to me a little bit each time I pass. Eventually I found myself on their website, browsing their glorious pictures of pastries and other delights.

In later winter I went to their two hour open house and demo, where all manner of sweets were created by two of their chef instructors. This was pretty amazing to see, since they even did some pulled sugar work. After that class, I poked around the website some more and finally decided to try out the week long pastry boot camp. My hope was to get some exposure some areas of pastry that I have not been so great with in the past (pie crust, I am looking at you) as well as some more advanced learning on the stuff I already know pretty well.

When I arrived at the school, there was a little confusion since not only was the pastry camp starting today, but the main program had four new classes starting as well. When I found my right group, I discovered that I was the only dude in the class. This will make it hard to follow through on my promise to partner with another guy. We got a quick tour of the kitchen we'll be using and then paired up at the stations. I ended up with a girl who is going into her senior year of college with plans to take the full program after. She is absurdly young. Turns out she's a ringer: She spends her summers interning in a pastry shop. About half the class are there to try it out to see if the full program is right for them, a few already seem to be involved in the industry, and a few are there just for fun.

The class takes the form of a demo of about half the plan for the day, where the chef executes each recipe. We then go off in our pairs and do the same. There is a short break after this, then a second cycle of demo and us executing. In the break, we had a snack of puff pastry with caramelized hazelnuts, which was delicious. They must make their own puff pastry, which is such a marvel. Sadly, for things that advanced, one needs to take the full program. Throughout the entire session, the chef is available to answer questions and help out, as is her intern (though the intern seems to focus mainly on keeping up with our dirty dish output.

While the first day is a full day, the only product that we complete is a lemon pound cake. It's much lighter in texture than most pound cakes, and very delicious (we tasted the demo cake once it was out of the oven.) I suspect this is a recipe I will make again, and at night while eating mine and drinking gingered ice tea the idea of adding some ginger with the lemon zest strikes me. Everything else we make is prep for a dish we will do later in the week.

We prepared two yeast breads/starters (one for beer bread and one for beginets) both of which are retarding overnight in the fridge. I am a little worried about these guys, since where we set them to proof was in direct line of the air conditioner. We ended up letting the beginet dough rise for the rest of our session on our table to make up for it, and I was relived to smell the odor of yeast when I punched it down after this longer rise. The sponge is just a starter, so my fingers are crossed that it will be fine once it is incorporated into the main dough.

We also prepared finacier batter and tart dough, which need to rest in the fridge overnight to develop. Financier are defined by having brown butter and almond flour in them. That sounds pretty good on its own to me, though I almost always see these with chocolate in them. If they turn out well, I may try making them at home without the chocolate. Note to those using almond flour: Don't wisk until all lumps are gone, those lumps are bits of almond.

Finally, we made meringues which are baking in the oven overnight. These are almost entirely whipped egg whites and sugar, and will just dry in the ovens rather than actually baking as I would think of it. If all goes well, they should pick up no color from the baking and remain snow white. They were mostly little piped piles with the star tip to serve as petit fours, though some will decorate our lemon tarts that we are making later in the week.

So far, most of what we have learned isn't necessarily news to me. We talked about gluten formation and different flours, which are already things I am pretty familiar with. We did get to use a piping bag to shape the meringues which was Something I have not done. This is where the hustler nature of my partner came out. After having claimed that she had not really done much as an intern, she knocked out consistently good looking meringues with the star tip. Some of mine came out malformed, but after watching what she did I made them a bit smaller and was happy with the result.

Two useful tidbits that I learned today that I will definitely apply in the future:

1. If you are making a quickbread (or pound cake) you can draw a line of melted butter across the top (dabbing with a pastry brush, since the surface isn't really paintable) and it will cause it to split there. This is nice because the bread is going to split anyway, so this lets you make it nice and even when it does.
   
2. When covering bread dough with plastic wrap, I should be laying the wrap directly on top of the dough's surface. I always worry that this will restrict the dough's rise, but apparently I am worrying for nothing. This prevents a skin from forming and lets the dough expand enough.

English Muffins

I've always been a fan of english muffins. With all the wonderful nooks and crannies, they are the best vessels for butter out there. Now that I have gotten more into baking bread and understanding what is going on, I have wondered more and more how these delightful little fellows get all those butter holders, so I decided to try making some.

The dough is a heavily enriched one, made entirely with milk and a little shortening instead of water. I used 2% because it's what we had on hand. The dough came together easily, and was lovely to knead. The higher fat content really kept it tender and easy to work with -- barely requiring any extra flour to keep it from sticking to my hands. This bread is done without a starter, so it's just a mix, knead, and two risings and you're ready to go.

For the second rise, the dough is divided and formed into small boules. Once they have risen (which mine did nicely) they are then cooked for 5 minutes per side on a hot skillet. At this point, they are supposed to swell up and out, widening and flattening a little. You'll note the use of the phrase "supposed to" up there. Mine cooked to a lovely golden brown on the first side, but never quite managed to swell. This is odd, because I usually do get a nice oven pop when I make bread. I suspect that I had too dry a dough, and will probably try using more liquid (and maybe higher fat content) the next time I attempt this. Once cooked on both sides, the muffins go into the oven to finish cooking the centers.

The final results were ok, but not stellar. As I suspected would happen when they failed to swell, the muffins did not have any nooks and crannies to speak of. The texture was more like that of a rustic white bread. Without the crannies to justify an artery clogging amount of butter, the flavor was just ok as well. Without a pre-ferment, this lacked the sharpness that I prefer in breads.

I do think that I'll try this again, with a few notable changes:

1. Hydrate the dough for longer and with more liquid.
   
2. Aim for a (slightly) higher fat content in the final dough.
   
3. See if I can work in a pre-ferment, perhaps using water in that and then cream once I form the final dough.
   
4. Clean my stove and tea kettle before posting pictures of them on the internet.
   

Naansense

It's summer, which in Chicago means heat and humindity -- hardly bread baking weather. Still I do love bread and since we had soup for dinner tonight, I decided to look up a recipe for grilled bread. I found a promising looking one for naan and decided to give it a go.

The dough is fairly straightforward. There's no real fancy work or a pre-ferment so I was able to do it the day I decided to take it on, which is nice. It is a very soft (wet) dough though, so it might be a bit of a test of patience when kneading and shaping. I found that for the shaping into portions, I was much happier if I kept my fingertips oiled and kept the dough moving a lot.

After the first rise, you punch the dough down and knead in garlic until it's distributed. I used green garlic from the CSA, which had a pretty mild flavor. Next time I'll be more careful to get it evenly distributed: As it was, I ended up with some pieces having very little garlic and some having a lot.

The dough is then divided into golf ball sized pieces, shaped into balls, and risen again.
Once the grill is hot, you stretch the dough balls and place them right on the grill. The recipe doesn't specify how thin the dough should end up, and I started with some pretty thick pieces. With practice I found that the thinner you can stretch it, the better. If you can see the gluten, toss those suckers on the grill. The dough does not stick as it would to the side of an oven (where the bread is usually baked) so it does contract a bit in the cooking.
Once the first side is done (which only takes a few minutes, depending on the heat of the grill) you brush the naan with melted butter (ghee would probably be more traditional, but plain ole melted, unclarified butter worked great too) and flip them over. They puffed up a lot during the cooking on the first side, even when they had been stretched extremely thinly during the shaping. At this point, you brush the just cooked side with butter as well. Mmmmm...so much butter.
The recipe made quite a bit, but it was so good that volume was not a problem. The 'loaves' were not huge, and were amazingly delicious. Of the twelve pieces that came off the grill, seven were eaten within a few hours.
The resulting crumb for the bread was very nice. The puffed up parts had nice large holes, and the bread was pleasantly chewy throughout. The early loaves that I had not stretched as thinly were very slightly undercooked, but even those were excellent and not at all doughy. In reality, the dough seemed very forgiving of cooking time and temperature, and loaves ranging from very lightly colored to deeply browned were all wonderfully textured and endowed with great flavor. I had been concerned that the melted butter brushed on the done side of the bread might make it greasey, but it didn't.

Overall, this was an excellent recipe and one that we will certainly add to our normal rotation. Being able to cook the bread on the grill rather then baking it in the oven makes it a great summer option, and the quality of the resultant bread means you really aren't missing anything by going that route.

Update: Yesterday I read some of the comments on allrecipes for the original recipe, and it seemed like some folks had complained about the toughness of the bread. I realized that while I had measured out the full amount of flour, I used way less than it called for. This lead to a much softer dough, which probably explains the difference. It makes it a little harder to knead and shape, but I would certainly repeat this decision, based on the quality of the final bread.

More Bread

Despite the complete lack of update here, I've been pressng forward with my bread making over the weekends. We are both loving all the fresh baked bread, and I am definitely getting better at using my instincts on hydration and whatnot.

As a follow up to the french bread, I baked another batch of Ciabatta. I was more aggressive with the hydration this time. I still didn't quite get the crumb I was looking for, but at least it didn't look like a chicken. We managed to eat it all before I got a picture, so you'll just have to trust me on that.

I followed that up (last weekend) with Pain a[funny accent here] l'Ancienne, which Reinhart spends much of the 100 page intro to the book rhapsodising.

This bread uses deferred fermentation, which means that you retard rising overnight by using ice water in the dough and putting the bread in the fridge. This allows the secondary reactions that usually occur concurrently with rising to get a head start, leading to a very different flavor. While most of the breads using a pre-ferment have a sharper, more savory flavor, this one has a smoother, sweeter one.

My loaves came out a bit rustic (which is the polite way to say 'ugly') but they had a great, open crumb and wonderful flavor. I wanted to make baguettes, but because of the size of my baking stone had to keep them pretty short. I made six, fifteen inch long loaves and by the end of the first day half of them were gone. The taste and texture of this bread was just great, and we really enjoyed it. It did seem to lose freshness a little quicker than some of the other breads I've done from this book, but a quick visit to the toaster fixed that just fine.

This was a truely amazing bread, and was one of the easiest to make. No pre-ferment is needed, and because of the hydration level all the keading is done by machine. This guy took very little effort, and made a wonderful loaf.

So far in this bread frenzy, I have been using only all purpose and bread flour. Since over the past few years Mary and I have managed to accumulate quite a collection of flours, I was interested in making a recipe that would use something else as well.

This weekend, I found that in Pain de Champagne, which uses a small amount of wheat flour. This bread is back to the more standard method (pre-ferment mande the prior day and kept in the fridge overnight after rising) and according to Reinhart is the one most often used around France for creative shaping.

I chose to knead this one by hand rather than with the Kitchen Aid in order to get a better feel for the dough. I was very pleased with the hydration level and feel of the dough, so I'll probably continue this habit in the future. The hand kneading doesn't take that much longer, and once you get the hang of it and don't constantly have dough sticking to your hands is quite fun.

Mary had suggested that I make rolls so that we could have meatloaf sandwhiches, so most of the dough got shaped into small batards for that purpose. I did, however, save out a chunk in order to attempt the most absurd of bread shapes -- the Epi or sheaf of wheat. To shape bread in this way, you first shape a baguette and then perform a series of cuts and pulls to make the lobes of the wheat berries.

I was very pleased with my shaping this time around, and only had one real ugly duckling in the rolls. The baguette for the Epi came out so wonderfully that I considered just baking it in that form. Because I was going to bake it in a sheet pan rather than on the stone, it was long and slender and I had managed to shape it to a very even thickness. Still, the Epi was so silly that I just had to press forward. While you won't mistake mine for the picture in the book, I do think I did a good job of at least approximating the proper shape. Next time, I'll cut a little deeper and at a sharper angle, in order to allow the 'wheat berries' to be pulled a little further out from the loaf. After baking, I realized why this was such a great shaepe: The ratio of crust to crumb was way higher than with a regular baguette, so we ended up with a loaf full of end pieces. Could there be anything better?

Chickenbread

Since we have somewhat limited kitchen space and are not packrats by nature, I am always a little cautious about buying new cookbooks. I've been giving a library copy of The Bread Baker's Apprentice a test run to determine if I wanted to pick it up, and after making two breads from it I have pulled the trigger.

The book is all about artisanal breads, which tend to be more rustic and have more character. They are also a bit more involved than the breads I have made out of the Better Homes and Gardens book, but the flavor and texture (even when I mess that second bit up) are beyond compare. Most of the breads use a pre-ferment, where you make a sponge (basically a less-risen, unkneaded dough) the previous day and let it take a long, slow ferment in the fridge. You then incorporate that into the final dough and put it through the twelve (!!) stages of bread baking and end up with a delicious, salty, sharp-flavored loaf of wonderfulness that may or may not look like a chicken.

Last weekend, I was inspired by our Italy trip and took a stab at ciabatta. Ciabatta is a rustic italian bread with a soft crust and (in theory) a very open crumb (that means lots of big holes.)

The starter is very moist (think pancake batter) and the final dough should be quite hydrated as well. Now after reading the hundred page introduction telling me that the baker should trust his instincts and bake by feel and texture, did I listen? Or did I just slavishly follow the recipe and hope that the pretty clearly underhydrated dough got moister later? You guess. It wasn't until after trying to shape the first loaf using the instructions in the book (which lead to the lovely loaf on the left) that I realized I was being dumb and just used pushing and prodding to get the second loaf into shape.

Ultimately though the final bread lacked the open crumb that it should have had and looked like we were about to shove stale bread in it's cavity, it still tasted great. There are several recipes for ciabatta in the book with various savory ingredients added, so I think I'll try one of those soon and aim for redemption.

This weekend, I decided to attempt french bread. The starter and dough are much firmer, and this time I was more sensitive to the feel of the dough early on. I started out with a little extra water after the troubles the prior weekend, only to end up keeping it under the dough hook for an extra ten minutes trying to get enough flour in to reduce the hydration. Still, the dough ended up closer to the firmness it should have had, so it was worth it.

Since one is supposed to handle the dough minimally to prevent degassing, I decided to try a batard (wider, shorter loaf) rather than full baggettes. In reality, I think I fell somewhere inbetween, since the batard should have been a little shorter and fatter. Still, no chickens this time, so...that's a win.

The bread tasted great and had a fairly good texture, though I still felt that it should have had a looser crumb. It had a great crunchy crust, with a slightly chewy and tangy interior.

Overall, I'd say that both breads were winners. I can't wait to try these again, as well as some of the other recipes in the book. Of particular interest is the foccacia, where you bake the bread covered in a half cup of herb infused olive oil. That's a lot of oil, but wow it sounds good.

Christmas Candy

Over the past few years, it has become tradition for my wife and I to bake cookies and make candy for Christmas. We tend to make three types of cookies, plus toffee and send it off to the various members of our families. The cookies vary, but the toffee tends to remain the same. My family in particular is fond of it, and I enjoy making it. It's very science-y.



The mise en place. This candy is awesome, because it's really just a few simple things converted by science into pure deliciousness. It's basically just a cup of sugar and a cup of butter, with a little water and corn syrup added to prevent bad crystalization. The almonds will come in at the end.

Note that we've gone with the double Skinny Elvis/Fat Elvis CD here, but you could probably get by with one of the single albums without loosing too much flavor.


Here the butter has just melted. Not much is going on yet, and at this point it seems that the ingredients are not going to come together. The sugar lies lifeless on the bottom, while the melted butter hangs out. This is soon to change though.


The candy has started to boil and has combined. It's still very light in color, and smells very much like sweetened melted butter.

This is the begining of the confectionary magma stage, so watch those splashes.


As the candy cooks it darkens and begins to smell more and more of caramel.


And here it is just before it hits it's temperature. You have to work pretty quickly at this point. Since the temperature determines the hardness of the candy you don't want to overshoot, and you need to stir pretty much constantly to avoid scorching the sugar.


Once you hit temperature, you pour the molten candy over half of the toasted almonds, which have been coarsely chopped. It's pretty hard to get it to spread evenly, but I've found that not pouring it all in the center helps. I sort of pour in an S curve around the pan, going back to spots that aren't getting filled by the spreading candy.

Note that the candy cooking pot cleans much easier if you fill it with boiling water. I usually do it at this point, but it can actually happen at any point. The hardened mess will disolve pretty easily.


What kind of candy doesn't have any chocolate? Not this kind, that's for sure. Once the candy has set, but not cooled all the way, you sprinkle chocolate chips on the surface and let the residual heat melt them.

Once that is spread, you sprinkle with some remaining almonds which have been finely chopped. I used the food processor for almond chopping for the first time this year, and while it was easier, my topping was practically ground. I'll need to practice a bit more with that, I think.


The finished product. Once it has chilled to solidify, you break it into pieces and enjoy the result. It has a rich, toffee flavor with a lot of toasted nuttiness. Since the breaking up of the candy happens on a second day (or much later on the same day) I completely neglected to get photos of the pieces of candy. Still, it basically looks like this only with jagged edges. Also, the only folks who actually read this have seen it in person, so...yeah.

Hope you all had a good christmas, and have a great new year.