Paris Sweets in Seattle

Moving...

2011-08-23T21:54:00.001-07:00

As of today, I'm no longer living in Seattle! I'm currently on my way driving cross country, (hopefully) in time for the start of my masters program at the MIT Media Lab.

However, you can follow my adventures in Boston, food related and otherwise, here.

Note to self: never name a blog with your current geographical location.

White Chocolate Green Tea Cookies

2011-08-15T01:19:00.000-07:00

I've been neglecting this blog due to the whole move-to-Boston-to-be-a-grad-student thing. But I really, really need to share this recipe. I tweaked the original recipe so there'd be more matcha and white chocolate (I also ran out of sugar, but I ended up really liking the reduced sugar version). I'm so excited about this final recipe that I just had to share it!

Green Tea White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Source: adapted from Joy the Baker

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons green tea powder (matcha)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cups granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup white chocolate chips

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, and green tea powder. Set aside.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together butter, and granulated sugar until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Stop the mixer and use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract, and beat on medium speed until mixture is fluffy, about 1-2 minutes.

3. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and beat on low speed until just combined. Fold in the white chocolate chunks or chips with a spatula. Cover dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 45 minutes.

4. Place racks in the center and upper third of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

5. Scoop heaping tablespoonfuls of cookie dough onto the prepared baking pans, spacing them about 1 1/2-2 inches apart. Bake in preheated oven for about 12 minutes, until edges are lightly browned. Remove from oven, and allow cookies to cool on pans for about 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Post-Wisdom Teeth Celebration, a Photographic Essay

2011-05-17T01:13:00.000-07:00

Okay, this should really be called "stuff face with Kathy and Colin". If you're sensitive to food pornography, please turn away now.

We went to Huong Binh last weekend for what was to me authentic and outrageously tasty Vietnamese food. It happened to be the first time I ate real, proper food in a week. All I remember from the meal, really, is a feeling of supreme contentment. ("All this food! I can eat it all! Everything's so delicious! Oooh duck!")

To illustrate the ridiculous nature of the meal, we started with dessert - glasses of sweet coconut milk full of goodies like jack fruit, tapioca, and agar jelly.

Then the duck arrived.

And the bahn beo.

And some sort of mushroom-filled rice noodle roll with fried shrimp and mung bean cakes and fried pieces of pork-shrimp paste ham.

And grilled pork/shrimp/meatball vermicelli.

Pretty soon, the table looked like this. I was in my happy place.

We left no prisoners.

Who Needs Chinese Bakeries? Part I: Red Bean and Coconut Buns

2011-05-15T21:28:00.000-07:00

The last time I visited my grandparents in China, my grandmother took me by the hand, looked me straight in the eye, and said "You know, you're almost twenty-five. It's time to get married..."

So, dear readers, seeing that I'm already twenty-five, I'm going to boost my husband-catching chances by learning how to make things he might like to eat, like these fluffy baked buns you might find in Asian bakeries. Surely I'll be able to lure a host of serious, steady-income potential husbands with my baked goods!

All joking aside, I wanted to learn to make these so I wouldn't have to venture out to the Boston Chinatown in the snow whenever I had red bean bread cravings.

I got the recipe for the bread dough from here. The technique involves making a water-roux (mixture of water and flour) cooked to 65C, which supposedly allows the flour to absorb more liquid, leading to a softer, more tender dough. I'll have to consult with Harold McGee later (his book, anyway).

I made two types of bread, red bean and coconut. The red bean is just filled with red bean past, the coconut is filled with a deadly mixture of butter, sugar, flour, milk powder, and coconut. It's so very dangerous.

Next up, custard buns and Portuguese egg tarts!

Oral Surgery = More Baking

2011-05-10T02:42:00.000-07:00

Wisdom teeth extraction sucks. The worst part, though, is not the pain, or the swelling, or the nagging feeling that you have four deep suture-bound holes in your mouth. The worst part is that, for days afterwards, you're haunted by the visions of food-you-can't-eat.

Day 1: Trying to come to terms with the fact that half of your face is numb. Once the gauze situation is under control, protein shake and apple sauce is about all you can handle. Taking pills is a difficult operation.

Day 2: You go to town with the frozen fruit and yogurt you stocked up before the operation. Lacking a blender, you use the food processor. You uncover a talent for making smoothies.

Two smoothies later (strawberry banana and blueberry-banana-peanut butter), you can't stand the sight of smoothies.

By dinner time you're dying for something savory. You heat a can of tomato soup for dinner, and slightly craved with hunger and pain killers, you throw in some ancient potatoes that you've uncovered from the fridge. The oxycodone acts up an hour later and makes you want to puke all night long. No more tomato soup for you! Ever!

Day 3: Another protein shake for lunch. It's okay, because you know what's coming for dinner.

The first bite of real food is amazing. Tofu rocks.

And then, out of spite for traditional post-oral-surgery foods, you bake a blueberry browned-butter pound cake.

Day 4: You graduate to hummus for lunch. Your friend gives you rhubarb. Beautiful, firm, fresh-from-the-farm-stand rhubarb. So you grab some tiny organic strawberries and make this:

Which turns into this:

Your coworkers will have a field day tomorrow. And then maybe, just maybe, they'll all end up at the dentist's.

For the strawberry rhubarb cobbler, use the same cobbler dough as here, except bind a pound of chopped rhubarb and 6 ounces of strawberries with 1 1/2 tsp of cornstarch and 1/2 cup of sugar. I topped mine with crunchy Turbinado sugar.

Exploring My Southern Roots, Part I: Peach Cobbler

2011-05-04T21:12:00.000-07:00

A standard piece of cocktail party trivia I like to tell is that I was raised in the South. I love to tell people I grew up in Texas* and watch their reactions. To be fair, it's not like I lived on a ranch and lassoed cows after school. I lived in a cookie-cutter suburb and hung out at the local Barnes and Nobles when I wasn't at math club practice. Still, I was left with a deep love for cornbread and a tendency to blast country music out of my trusty rusty Honda Accord.

Lately, however, I'm realizing I should extend my Southern upbringing to desserts...

*There's a school of thought that Texas is not part of "the South". I don't want to hear it.

Last Sunday was one of those freak days, where the weather goes up to the 60's and no one knows what to do with the obscene amount of sun. Well, except for those who own boats. They can be found out on the water. The rest of us have to settle for sunny spaces on land. Luckily, my friend Lincoln had a party on the rooftop deck of his condo building. Check out the view!

As if the view that wasn't enough, Lincoln had also smoked twenty pounds of pork shoulder the night before. Endless amounts of pulled pork plus an ample supply of beer and sun meant a good time (and sun burns) for all.

Below is a picture of my second plate of pork. The first plate disappeared too fast to be photographed. By the second plate, I realized that the "Atkins method" is way more efficient. Forget the bun, all I want is a pile of pork, slathered with South Carolina-style sauce and smothered with red cabbage slaw. It's not the most photogenic dish, but it's sure tasty.

Back to my self-proclaimed Southern heritage - my contribution to the party was a very large, very full pan of peach cobbler. This was my first attempt at making cobbler. I got the recipe from my trusty America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, which turned out to be one of the best recipes ever (recipe listed below). It's so much less fussy than pie, and you get a higher fruit/filling ratio. For me, at least, that's a good thing.

Is this blue-ribbon worthy or what?

Seattle is such a strange place. Most of the time it's cold and rainy, but just when you think you'll never see the sun again, the clouds will part for a little while and you'll see what a gorgeous city it is. Walking around Gasworks park at sunset, I realized that these rare days of sun is what I'll remember and miss most.

I'm super excited about Boston (yay play time!), but I'm not quite ready to leave Seattle yet. Give me one more summer.

Lazy Raspberry Peach Cobbler
Adopted from America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook
(Makes a 9x13 pan, because why would you want to make anything less?)

For the fruit:
3 lb frozen peach (you can substitute whatever frozen fruit you like, really. I added some raspberries because that's what I had on hand)
1/2 cup (100 g) sugar
6 tsp corn starch
1 tbsp lemon juice (to taste, really)

Mix everything together, then bake in a 400 F oven until the fruit starts releasing liquid, about an hour if you put in frozen fruit, 20-30 min if you mixed the fruit mixture and left it in the fridge overnight, like me.

For the biscuit dough (feel free to double the dough if you like):
1 cup (125 g) flour
1/4 cup (50 g) sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup buttermilk
4 tbsp (2 oz) butter, melted and cooled
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Whisk together the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients. Stir the wet mixture into the dry with a spatula, until the dough is just combined.

Prepare the cinnamon sugar topping by whisking 1/8 tsp of cinnamon with 2 tsp of sugar.

Assembly:
Stir the partially-cooked fruit filling to distribute the juices. Then pinch off pieces of biscuit dough and place them on top of the hot filling. Sprinkle the dough with the cinnamon sugar.

Bake in a 400 F oven until the topping is golden brown and fruit is bubbling, about 15-20 minutes. Let cool for 15 minutes or just go at it with a spoon, whatever.

Chocolate Mousse Cake for Maggie

2011-05-01T19:00:00.000-07:00

I'm a firm believer that cakes are for special occasions. And truthfully, the kind of cakes I make really should be reserved for special occasions only, for the health of everyone involved. Last week, I had the opportunity to dust off my cake ring and offset spatula for my friend Maggie's last day at work.

Maggie and I shared an office together as interns. When we both decided to come back the same team after college, we (surprise!) ended up in the office again. Even though we are in different disciplines and look completely different, I can't tell you the number of times I've been called Maggie, even after almost three years!

Last days are work are a funny thing. When someone leaves the company to pursue their own interests, like starting their own company, people celebrate. Taken out of context though, it could seem pretty horrifying. When Maggie went to the cupcake shop on the morning of her last day, the conversation went something like this:

Sales girl: "So what are these cupcakes for?"
Maggie: "It's my last day at work."
Sales girl: "Oh my god I'm so sorry! What are you going to do next?"
Maggie: "I... don't really know yet."
Sales girl: "..."

I got the idea for the cake from the SmittenKitchen blog. I knew I needed a chocolate cake since Maggie's a certified chocolate fiend, but the problem is, I'm not a fan of chocolate cake; it's usually sickeningly sweet and tastes like cheap chocolate. Restaurants have further ruined this for me by always having some ridiculous "death by chocolate" concoction on the menu, where they slather all sorts of sugary frosting on a over-sized piece of chocolate cake and expect people to eat it up (literally and figuratively!). Really, why dilute the flavors of chocolate with cake when I can just have a (large) square of proper single-origin Valrhona?

This cake, however, had promise. I was intrigued by the contrast between the dense, almost-flourless cake base and the thick layer of airy mousse in the middle. The whole thing is topped by a layer of unsweetened whipped cream, which cuts the richness and intensity of the chocolate below. (Yes, my heart cringes whenever I have to use cream to "cut the fat" of the dessert. But I do it anyway.)

For the occasion, I brought out the Valrhona Manjari chocolate I've been hoarding. The Manjari has a nice acidity which usually pairs well with red fruit; I decided to use it in the mousse to brighten up the chocolate flavor. I also added half a teaspoon of espresso powder to the cake base to give it more intensity. I have to say, the recipe makes a killer cake. It's dense and fudgy and oh-so-delicious when paired with the mousse.

For the health of my coworkers, I sincerely hope that no one else leaves the team anytime soon.

"Healthy" Desserts

2011-04-24T12:53:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't gone completely mad. I still love butter and cream, and you won't see recipes for tofu cheesecakes or fat-free brownies any time soon. It just happened that I made some desserts this weekend that might seem healthy at first glance: banana coconut chocolate chip cookies and plain frozen yogurt.

I read about these "healthy" cookies on Heidi Swanson's 101 Cookbooks blog and was immediately seized with a morbid curiosity to make some for myself. This is possibly the strangest cookie recipe I've ever seen.

Here are the things this cookie does NOT contain:

- butter

- sugar

- eggs

- flour

Is this possible? Yes. Does it taste good? You bet.

To be fair, this isn't so much of a cookie in the conventional sense as a baked ball of banana coconut oatmeal stuffed with chocolate chips. I bet the dough would make fantastic fritters when deep fried!

I did use one trick to up the tastiness factor. Instead of just mashing the bananas, I first roasted the bananas in a foil pouch in a 350F oven. (You'll know the bananas are done when the kitchen starts smelling like banana bread stands in Maui). Pre-roasting bananas is a trick I had learned from Cooks Illustrated's banana muffins. The heat caramelizes the sugars in the bananas, revealing the headily fragrant, intensely flavorful tropical goodness inside.

I wasn't a huge fan of the chocolate chips. Next time, I'll use cranberries and walnuts and call it breakfast.

The other recipe I tried this weekend was David Lebovitz's plain frozen yogurt. It's so easy that I shouldn't even call it a recipe: take 3 cups of Greek yogurt*, stir in 150 grams of sugar, chill in the fridge for an hour, then churn in an ice cream machine. Done. I added some lemon zest and lemon juice because I like my frozen yogurt quite tart. This makes delicious frozen yogurt, the only caveat is that it freezes up pretty solid, so some patience is required before it becomes soft enough to scoop.

In any case, I don't think I'll ever buy frozen yogurt again.

* Before anyone accuses me of making "skinny" food, I used full-fat Greek yogurt, thank you very much. 18 grams of delicious milk fat per serving :)

Baking Orgy at Kathy's

2011-04-20T15:41:00.000-07:00

I haven't had time to post in a while due to grad school application/decision craziness. Thankfully that's all settled now, and it'll be "Paris Sweets in Boston" come September (note to self, don't include geographical information in the blog title next time).

Last week, I was suddently struck with the desire to make bread. Beautiful, warm, domestic-goddess-style bread, and lots of it. Some people have dreams about wanting lots of babies. I wanted bread. I knew I couldn't possibly handle all this bread-making by myself, so I turned to my friend Kathy.

Kathy's my partner-in-crime when it comes to baking. She's technically my coworker (along with 90,000 other people), but we really bonded over food (I made her wedding cakes last summer). Once in a while, we'd get together and unleash our culinary prowess in furious, multi-hour baking sprees. And Kathy's sugar-loving husband Colin usually ends up with lots of mixing bowls and spatulas to "clean".

Really, we're scary efficient when it comes to churning out baked goods. This time, we whipped up sage garlic bread, blackberry coconut bread, cinnamon bread, and mango tres leches cake in less than three hours.

(At least we had one savory item this time. Last time we made cranberry tart, French apple cake, and Paula Deen's insanely decadent pumpkin pie. My heart still hurts when I think about that one.)

Kathy made no-knead bread with sage, garlic, and black pepper. Look at the gorgeous bread!

We were both highly impressed by how well the bread turned out. To be fair, we didn't have the highest expectations. Something along the lines of "Wow it actually looks/tastes like bread!" was repeated many times that afternoon.

The loaves were crusty on the outside and soft on the inside, and they tasted like garlic! What's not to love? (Kathy posted the recipe on her blog)

We also made coconut bread. Kathy had blackberries on hand, though, so the conversation went a little like this.

"Hm, what can we do with blackberries?"

"Add it to the bread?"

"But they'll break down and get watery."

"Puree it and add it to the bread?"

"Then it'll just be kind of blah and pink"

"Cook it down and swirl it?"

"Like a jam? Yeah!"

"Yeah!"

The blackberry swirl was gorgeous.

The bread baked up beautifully, with a tender, moist crumb and nice coconut flavor. The blackberry swirl complemented the bread amazingly. In fact, I think I'll add more fruit next time (and there will definitely be a next time!).

We also made cinnamon bread. We didn't have raisins so we added some toasted pecans instead. There was a slight toasting incident, but I learned that pecans are pretty tolerant when it comes to not tasting like burnt woodchips.

Due to an oversight, we ran out of loaf pans. So we made individual sized buns in muffin tins instead. They made the cutest rolls, but were a little on the dry side.

Last but not least, there was mango tres leches cake. Oh New York Times, why do you have to put such ideas into my head?

Really, with the holy trinity of coconut milk, mango puree, and condensed milk, how can you go wrong?

The extra mango puree went into a blender with ice and greek yogurt. Waste not, want not.

As if the coconut-mango-condensed milk bath wasn't enough, the cake was topped with mango whipped cream and more mango puree.

In case anyone thought baking was all fun and games, you should know that by this point, I was curled up on the sofa with a snuggie and a Cooks Illustrated, trying to nurse my poor stomach and overcome the nauseating effects of sugar overdose. The last thing I wanted was another bite of cake, but I had to suffer, for the sake of knowledge.

Curse you, New York Times.

Salmon Head in Agar - Jet City Gastrophysics' Modernist Dinner

2011-03-10T17:58:00.000-08:00

I recently had the privilege of being a guinea pig for a group of wildly creative and talented gentlemen who go under the name Jet City Gastrophysics.

Their mission? To learn modernist cooking techniques. It isn't easy when one doesn't have a research kitchen and bottomless funding, but sous-vide machines can be built for under $100, and ebay is a great source for lab-grade equipment. (One person's blood sample centrifuge is another's pea butter maker).

They had been preparing for a "Thesis dinner" in April to showcase their newfound knowledge to some very special guests, and a small group of friends and family were invited to attend the trial dinner (it was limited to friends and family, so we'd be too polite to sue in case of food poisoning).

You can read the official writeup on the Seattle Weekly blog, but I've got more, let's say, disturbing, pictures.

The dinner started with a plate of gorgeous home-cured duck breast prosciutto, topped with a drizzle of olive oil and edible flowers. Mr. Eric Rivera has some serious knife skills.

It was an Asian-themed dinner, so chopsticks were the primary utensils. It should be noted that authenticity was not the point of the dinner; the flavors are Asian-inspired, but the food is uniquely Jet City Gastrophysics.

We had a second appetizer of sesame risotto. Sesame seeds were cooked in a pressure cooker with some beef stock, then served with fried shallots, sliced green onion, and hot chili oil.

The first course consisted of a deep-fried, sous-vide egg yolk sitting on a nest of cilantro stems, served with Sriracha salt and sous-vide mayonnaise. The egg yolk was impossibly creamy, thanks to the cooking process.

What came next was proof that you don't need your own serving dish designer to create amazing presentations. What was once a tea candle holder from Crate and Barrel became an elegant serving dish for shrimp tuilles and cocktail sauce.

Restructured shrimp with clementine segments, chili oil, and grapefruit peel on sesame tuille. Sous-vide shrimp with cocktail sauce.

The next course was pho with "playful accompaniments".

Clockwise from the top: lime zest, sliced jalepeno peppers, sliced onions, Sriracha sugar, basil oil. Bean sprouts in the center.

Pho before soup:

Pho after soup:

The next course might have been the general favorite: good old-fashioned braised oxtail, formed into balls and then deep-fried, served on a zen garden of soy sesame soil.

We ooh'ed and ahhh'ed over the laser cut nori bonsai tree. Then we ate it.

At this point of the dinner there was a general restlessness in the air - was this a, god-forbid, dry dinner? We were inching towards the bottle of Patron on the sideboard when Jethro carried a gigantic block of ice to the dining room. Chilling inside was a bottle of locally brewed sake.

(The elegant bamboo-in-ice presentation sat on top of an upturned-trashcan. Symbolic, no?)

And then the B-grade science fiction part of the meal kicked in.

A whole salmon was cut up and deep fried for fish n' chips. I won't get into how insanely good the homemade fries were, especially with wasabi mayo.

Wait a second, what happened to the head and tail?

Salmon parts set in agar! You could just make out the salmon bits in the semi-opaque blocks. Creepy, eh?

They make great coasters.

Continuing with the seafood theme, dessert was a play on the banana split.

Traditional Banana Split:
- banana
- vanilla ice cream
- strawberry marshmallows (ok, this is a UK thing)
- hot fudge sauce

Jet City Gastrophysics Banana Split:
- caramelized banana slices
- cashew ice cream
- sea urchin marshmallows
- eel sauce

Can't get your kids to eat their sea urchins? Make them into marshmallows!

The final mignardise was "sushi" with lima bean gel and coconut rice.

Needless to say, the dinner was great fun for all involved. The amount of creativity and talent that went into the meal was truly something else. I wish Jet City Gastrophysics the best of luck at their formal debut next month. Keep up the amazing work, guys!

I just hope the raw-fish-in-agar thing doesn't catch on.

Lemon Blueberry Bundt Cake

2010-10-25T18:39:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, I had a lovely Friday lunch in a cute neighborhood cafe with a friend. The food was comforting (mmm wild boar shepherd's pie), but the real attraction was the baked goods piled behind the glass counter. The whole display was, well, rather American. There were buckets of cookies bigger than my head and five different types of bundt cakes. Despite my usual preference for feather light sponge cakes and delicate custards, I have a soft spot for moist, buttery cakes, especially when they are richly perfumed with citrus and spices.

The slice of lemon bundt cake I bought was...disappointing. I could taste the lemon, but it was missing the lemon fragrance. As commonplace as they are, lemons and oranges have surprisingly elegant aromas (Close your eyes the next time you smell a lemon). Forget passionfruit and lychee, citrus fruits need to take back their status as exotic fruits!

I went home and consulted my trusty America's Test Kitchen Cookbook. It might not be fancy or European, but when it comes to American baked goods, ATK rocks. I used their recipe for lemon bundt cake and added some blueberries to the batter. The cake at the cafe had a soaking syrup, so I made up one with some vodka added for extra flavor (I'm sure lemon has alcohol soluble flavonoids...). I didn't have enough lemon juice left for a glaze, so I made up an almond glaze, which complements the lemon very nicely.

The cake was moist and fragrant, with a tight crumb. It was fantastic paired with a cup of Earl Grey tea.

Lemon Blueberry Bundt Cake
Cake recipe adapted from The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

Pan Coating:
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 tablespoon all purpose flour

Cake:
3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup buttermilk
3 large eggs
1 egg yolk
2 1/4 sticks (18 tablespoons) butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons lemon zest

Soaking Syrup:
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
4 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon vodka

Almond Glaze:
2/3 cups confectioner's sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1/12 teaspoon almond extract (a few drops really)

1. Preheat oven to 350F. With a pastry brush, coat the pan with butter/flour mixture.
2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together lemon juice, vanilla, and buttermilk. In a third bowl, whisk together the eggs and yolk.
3. Rub the sugar and lemon zest together until fragrant. Beat the butter and sugar together until fluffy (I find a few whacks with the rolling pin does wonders with softening butter. It's a Le Cordon Bleu trick.). Beat in eggs in two batches until incorporated.
4. Alternately mix in the flour (divide in three parts) and buttermilk (divide in two parts), starting and ending with the flour.
5. Pour batter (it should be fairly thick) into the pan and bake for 50-60 minutes.
6. While the cake is baking, make the soaking syrup by combining all the ingredients together. I find it helpful to microwave it for 30 seconds to melt the sugar. Once the cake comes out of the oven, poke it a few times with a skewer or knife, then pour the soaking syrup on top.
7. Wait until the cake is cooled completely, then remove the cake from the pan. Warm, soaked cake will likely crumble and fall apart if you attempt to invert it from the pan.
8. Make the glaze by whisking all the ingredients together. Let it sit for 10-20 minutes until the consistency is thick (it really depends on how thin you like your glaze to be when you use it). Pour the glaze onto the cake in a decorative pattern.

Birthday Cake Part II: Ispahan Charlotte

2010-10-17T20:16:00.000-07:00

I know sometimes I seem schizophrenic, but really, I just like variety. In college, I went from singing Brahms in choir to playing guitar in a rock band, sometimes in the same day, even. (In hindsight, I totally should have rocked out in my choir outfit. Nothing says "stick it to the man" like a high-waisted, floor-length skirt.) The second birthday cake was a complete opposite from the tiramisu cake. Whereas the tiramisu cake had bold, popular flavors, the charlotte was delicate and floral and complex, with a name that only pastry buffs would recognize.

So what is Ispahan?

Ispahan is one of the signature flavors of celebrity pastry chef Pierre Hermé. It consists of raspberry, lychee, and rosewater. I've actually never had any of the Ispahan desserts, but the name is so evocative of Arabian Nights (it'd make a great cocktail too, I need to remember that next time I go out). I was going to make a pear charlotte, but then I remembered that I had all the ingredients for Ispahan on hand. I do love my pantry.

The charlotte was a breeze to make, especially as I had a friend helping out in the kitchen. I think I really like ~~giving orders~~ teaching. The shell is pipped out from a simple ladyfinger batter and soaked in almond syrup. The filling was a simple mousse flavored with raspberry puree, rosewater, and lychee pieces. I used agar agar as a stabilizer to make it vegetarian-friendly. The mousse was delicious, especially with the pieces of lychee for textural contrast.

I was originally going to decorate the top with powdered sugar, but I didn't realize I had run out until it was too late. I made a last minute substitution with toasted sesame seeds. I quite like the look, actually. If I had more time, I would have done a smooth top with lychee flavored glaze marbled with raspberry puree, and with a handful fresh raspberries and rose petals scattered on top. Who wants cake for Valentine's Day?

Birthday Cake Part I: Tiramisu Cake

2010-10-17T19:08:00.000-07:00

I'm used to making birthday cakes for other people, so when it came to my own birthday, it seemed natural that I'd be making it too (a friend told me he was too intimidated to make me a cake, hah.) I ended up making two joint birthday cakes. One was a joint birthday cake with my sister, and the other one with a friend at work.

(Incidentally, does it seem like you know a lot of people whose birthdays are close to yours, or it just me?)

The first birthday cake was a tiramisu cake because my sister adores tiramisu. The recipe comes from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours. The recipe is fairly straight forward: soak two disks of gorgeous yellow cake in coffee syrup, sandwich with mascarpone cream and chopped chocolate, and top with espresso-flavored whipped cream.

Making the cake was interesting, especially as I had to bring half of my baking equipment across the border to Canada. It's a good thing I didn't fly, because I don't think security would be too happy with my Le Cordon Bleu knife set...

There was also some pressure since this was the first time my parents have seen me bake, aside from the simple sponge cakes I made in high school (and the fantastically disastrous attempt at Cantonese egg tarts in seventh grade, but that's a story for another time). My cousin was visiting from Victoria, so I had quite an audience watching me decorate the cake.

I used the polka-dot stencil pattern from Ikea (I'm a fan of stencil patterns). The bottle of chocolate-covered coffee beans I got from a friend's company launch party also came in handy.

The cake came out pretty well. The yellow cake recipe is great, although I would have used more soaking syrup (and more alcohol!). The key take-away from the experience, however, is that espresso-flavored whipped cream is seriously addictive, even when it's made with espresso powder.

Weekend Pastry Adventure

2010-10-09T23:44:00.000-07:00

People usually ask me what my favorite bakery in Seattle is, to which I usually firmly but gently assert that I've been spoiled by the great pastry shops in Paris* and refuse to visit any in Seattle. But when my friend Edilyn (of Le Cordon Bleu fame) came to visit, we went to a few local bakeries "for research". The results were rather surprising.

Can I find good pastry in Seattle? Why yes!

*Actually, I had my moment of ideological despair in Paris where, surrounded by half-eaten pastries from Pierre Hermé, I realized that I can no longer be enchanted by any pastry. I was saved by some ripe peaches and a deceptively humble teacake from Pain de Sucré, but that's another post.

I've been meaning to check out Hiroki bakery for a while now. I'm a big fan of Japanese/French fusion bakeries, their products are usually less offensively sweet and there are often interesting flavor combinations. Let's just say that I was really glad I went with another pastry aficionado, of course it was normal to order five things between the two of us so we can try everything!

From top to bottom: sweet potato custard roll, kabocha pumpkin cream puff, Gâteau Basque, Hawaii (coconut haupia with lilikoi jelly on top). We also got a peach cream cheese roll, shown on the bottom. In general, everything was subtly sweetened, so the flavor of the ingredients really came through.

The peach in the cream cheese roll really stood out, I'll have to use that idea myself...

I was surprised to see Gateau Bâsque on the menu. It's been making a comeback in France, but I didn't except to see it in Seattle. Hiroki's version didn't contain any fruit, just pastry cream. I rather liked my version with sour cherries better :) The pumpkin cream puff had a wonderful pumpkin filling, but the choux pastry itself was soggy and tasteless. I really enjoyed the Hawaii cake (to be fair, it's hard to go wrong with passion fruit and coconut) and the sweet potato custard roll. I learned that soft, custard-flavored cream and smooth sweet potato puree is a delicious combination; I'll be baking chestnut puree cakes come Christmas time.

The next morning, we headed over to Honoré Artisan Bakery on a pilgrimage for some kouign amann. (For the uninitiated, kouign amann is a delightful pastry from Brittany, a buttery, salty, caramelized cousin of the croissant.) Apparently there is a lack of kouign amann in San Francisco, because Edilyn was very excited to find a source in Seattle and wanted to bring back at least half a dozen for her friends.

When we got to the shop, however, there were only two lonely kouign amanns sitting in the display case. We got some other pastries (They had Gâteau Basque too! Is Seattle more trendy than I give it credit for?) and were ready to leave disappointed. Thankfully, the sweet saleslady (bless her heart) inquired in the back and told us that, if we were willing to wait two minutes, there was a fresh batch coming out of the oven.

Oh man. There's nothing better than a warm kouign amann... Except maybe a half dozen of them, neatly tucked into a box and exuding their heady smell all the way to the airport.

Yes, there is hope in Seattle.

Kinako Ice Cream with Soy Sauce Caramel

2010-10-09T21:58:00.000-07:00

A friend had the brilliant idea of hosting a homemade ice cream party last week, which gave me the chance to try something unusual. My original idea was to make a peanut stracciatella gelato, but while I was leafing through The Perfect Scoop, I landed on a recipe for kinako ice cream.

Kinako is Japanese toasted soy bean powder. I first learned about the term while reading Clotilde's blog entry on warabi mochi, although in hindsight, I've eaten it in pastries while growing up in China (there's a famous Beijing specialty that's basically red bean-filled mochi dipped in kinako). Maybe my palate is biased - after all, I was raised on soy products - but I'm a big fan of kinako's nutty, toasty, unmistakably-soybean taste.

I had a fun time coming up with something to pair with the kinako ice cream. A certain photographer from Scotland suggested caramel, so I made a batch of David Lebovitz's salted butter caramel ... and enhanced it with soy sauce. I learned that trick from Alton Brown, and it just makes so much sense to pair soy with soy.

Anyway, I absolutely loved the ice cream. It's one of those flavors that I'll definitely make if I ever opened my own ice cream shop (for the record, it'll also have strawberry rhubarb and lemon speculoo flavors).

I think that next time, I'll follow the latest NYC trend and flavor my caramel with miso instead...

Kinako Ice Cream
Adapted from The Perfect Scoop

1 1/2 (375 ml) cup whole milk
3/4 cup (150 g) sugar
6 tablespoons (55 g) kinako powder
pinch of salt
1 1/2 (375 ml) cup heavy cream
4 large egg yolks

Whisk together the milk, sugar, kinako, and salt in a medium saucepan. Pour the cream into a large bowl and set a mesh strainer on top. Put the bowl in the fridge to chill while you make the custard.

Warm the kinako mixture. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the kinako mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape everything back into the pan.

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. Puree in a blender for 30 seconds (I skipped this step).

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions.

Chocolate Strawberry Birthday Cake

2010-09-19T23:36:00.000-07:00

I was on birthday cake duty last Friday, when three friends hosted a spectacular joint birthday party. There were no allergies, but chocolate had to be involved. I briefly toyed with the idea of making three cakes, each one with a different spin on chocolate cake (chocolate sponge with fresh fruit and whipped cream for a modern look, chocolate cake with malt buttercream for the five-year-old in everyone, and a hefty chocolate and stout pound cake for the "too cool for birthday cake" crowd). Alas, all the recent moving and tango classes left me with very little free time, so I settled for one cake - a towering concoction with four layers of tender chocolate buttermilk cake and strawberry-filled chantilly cream in between.

Speaking of moving, the cake matches my new furniture quite well, don't you think?

I got the cake recipe from an old article in America's Test Kitchen for the old fashioned chocolate cake. I improvised a little by adding two teaspoons of espresso powder - it just adds that depth to chocolate desserts without tasting like coffee (for all the coffee connoisseurs out there, yes I know espresso powder doesn't taste like "real coffee", but I like the taste anyway!) I was really pleased with the way the cakes turned out; I was afraid they would be too tender to be sliced and handled, but these were very sturdy after a quick chill in the fridge.

Assembly was (dare I say it?) a piece of cake. I had four disks of cake and a giant bowl of barely sweetened, berry studded whipped cream. Just layer and repeat. I had to really press down the cake layers so I didn't get bubbles in the whipped cream. By the way, I apologize for the ugly parchment paper crown, I really need to find some acetate strips in Seattle.

After an hour of chilling, the cake can come out of the ring for decoration.

Hm, I have a set of concentric cookie cutters. Excellent.

The sides get covered in whipped cream...

And some pipping goes on top... Voila!

Here's a cross-section of the cake, you can see the layers quite clearly. I daresay the birthday boy and girls approved : )

August 2010 Daring Bakers' Challenge: Ice Cream Petit Fours

2010-08-27T00:43:00.000-07:00

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop".

Having missed out on the July challenge (I was doing enough baking in Paris), I'm very glad I chose to do this one. Why? Because the browned butter pound cake is the most delicious cake I've ever made. I don't know why I don't use browned butter more - it caramel, nutty smell is amazingly seductive. Honestly, it's one of my favorite smells. And it's so easy to make too! Just melt some butter until the milk solids are caramelize and turn brown.
Here's what browned butter looks like after you let it set (which you'll need to do for the pound cake recipe):

The pound cake recipe is very simple. You cream the butter with sugar and eggs, then whisk in flour and baking powder. The browned butter is the star here. (Don't worry, the recipe is at the bottom. This isn't one of those medieval recipes where you just "styre everything togither").

To make the petit fours, trim off the top of the 9x9 cake, then slice it in half horizontally. Not having a 9" knife, I found the cake much easier to slice if I quartered it first.

Line a 9x9 pan with plastic, then put one half of the cake on the bottom.

I had some leftover orange coconut ice cream on hand, so I used that for the filling. The ice cream was simplicity itself - 1/3 milk, 1/3 cream, 1/3 coconut milk, barely sweetened and infused with orange zest. I've recently become a fan of eggless ice cream - the flavor is much cleaner and sharper (and I don't need to clean the custard pot...)

Cover the ice cream with the other half of cake, and press it down a little to get everything packed down.

Once it's frozen solid, slice it into small pieces. Again, I kept to the quarters to make slicing easier.

You can cover the petit fours with chocolate glaze, fondant, marzipan, whatever you like. I made a hasty chocolate ganache with a touch of honey for shine (I was out of corn syrup). The original recipe called for dipping the entire petit four in chocolate. When I tried that, I got a clumpy, uneven mess - especially because the chocolate in contact with the ice cream immediately hardened and fell off in pieces. To avoid total disaster, I ended up glazing just the top of the petit fours. I rather like the minimalist look.

Browned Butter Pound Cake
Adapted from October 2009 edition of Gourmet
-------------------------------------------
275 g butter
200 g sifted cake flour (alternatively, 4 tablespoons of corn starch + rest of the weight in all-purpose flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
110 g packed light brown sugar
75 g white sugar
4 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
------------------------------------------
1. Preheat oven to 325 F. Butter and flour a 9x9 pan.
2. Brown the butter in a skillet until the milk solids are dark brown (or when your kitchen starts to smell like a French bakery). Chill in the freezer until just congealed, 15-30 minutes.
3. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
4. Beat the brown butter and sugars with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. I'm too lazy to clean the electric mixer, so here's the Cordon Bleu method: rub the butter into the sugar with your hands until everything is incorporated. This method is much more fun and takes about the same time. If you're lazy like me, wear latex gloves.

5. Beat in eggs one at a time, then the vanilla extract. Stir in the flour mixture until just combined.

6. Scrape into pan and cake until golden brown on top and a toothpick comes out clean. The recipe states 25 minutes but it took me about 40 minutes. It all depends on the oven, and mine's frequently under-heated. The best way to tell whether something is done is by smell and touch.
7. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto a cooling rack to cool completely (Being short on time, I just stuck it in the freezer. Half an hour later, I had a cooled cake to work with).

Kathy's Wedding Cakes

2010-08-10T02:07:00.000-07:00

I had the privilege of making wedding cakes for my friends Kathy and Colin's wedding on Sunday. I spent all weekend working on two cakes and a batch of mango-mint macarons - I don't think I could work as a pastry chef full time, it was very hard work - but it was super rewarding to see the cakes sitting prettily on the table.

I made two cakes inspired from La Pâtisserie de Pierre Hermé. I felt so grown up using a real professional pastry book, but it's actually kind of difficult working with recipes that deal with kilos of butter...

Regardless of scale, both cakes had fantastic flavor combinations; one was a mango/litchi/coconut/caramel cake, and the other a chocolate/coconut/banana cake. I had some mishaps on the way (mango mousse will stick to parchment paper like nobody's business), but I was happy with the way both cakes came out in the end. I especially like using flowers for decoration, it's much prettier than marzipan or fondant!

The wedding itself was gorgeous, small and intimate and very unique. The groom had button nosegays and the bride had a gorgeous handmade ribbon bouquet.

And the food! Kathy made everything by hand - down to the ketchup and mustard and caramelized onion jam.

There were gorgeous vases of fresh flowers everywhere (which came in handy come cake decoration time...).

It was the best food I've ever had at a wedding - the food was fresh and tasty and homemade (hey, I had fun manning the grill in a silk dress and heels).

I wish the happy couple many fun days ahead : )

Last Meal in Paris

2010-08-04T23:48:00.000-07:00

Since I posted about my first meal in Paris, it's only appropriate to bring things full circle with a description of my last meal in Paris. Both meals took place in my tiny kitchen, but whereas my first meal was entirely purchased and quite traditional, the final one was prepared entirely from scratch and took a stretch of the imagination.

I returned to Paris from Edinburgh Sunday afternoon. I had just one more night to spend in Paris, and I wanted to make it memorable. I had plans to meet up with friends for dinner, but on the (very slow) train ride from CDG, I decided I wanted to cook instead. Going out to yet another French restaurant on my last night seemed...impersonal.

I had planned to make homemade shrimp dumplings and chocolate passion fruit mousse. What I didn't realize, however, was that it's impossible to buy groceries on Sundays after 6 PM. I finally found one tiny corner store that was still open. No shrimp, but there was frozen Norwegian salmon fillets.

Salmon dumplings it is, then.

Constraint must be the mother of creativity, because those dumplings turned out fantastic. I mixed chopped salmon with peas, mushrooms, ginger, scallions, and cilantro. Not entirely traditional, but it worked out very well.

Dessert was an impromptu affair. I still had a passion fruit left over from my passion fruit tartlet experimentation, but I was pressed for time. In a pinch, I stirred the pulp into some whole milk yogurt and added some orange peel for flavor.

Passion fruit yogurt is really, really good.

For a final toast to the city, we took the bottle of champagne my landlady had kindly given me up to Montmartre. I guess it would have felt more special if tons of people didn't also have our idea. The steps of Montmartre were packed on a Sunday night with people drinking and chatting. At least we were the only ones with champagne.

Being out at night with a crowd of people reminded me of watching the fireworks at Bastille Day. It had only been two weeks prior, but felt worlds apart. Back then, we were busy speculating about the upcoming written exam and gossiping about chefs. Now that class was over, Paris felt different, like I didn't belong anymore...

We had a quick toast, then gave away the rest of the bottle to a nice-looking couple sitting on the steps. I had just under seven hours to pack and clean the apartment. It was time to leave.

Last Demo, Final Exam, Graduation (and David Lebovitz!)

2010-08-04T15:18:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday and Friday were kind of a blur. We had a final demonstration Thursday morning, followed by the practical final exam in the afternoon. Friday was spent rushing from Versailles to graduation to the airport (curse the malfunctioning RER trains), finally landing in Edinburgh.

The final demonstration was on chocolate bergamot mousse cake. It was the most complicated cake we've seen so far, with a sponge base, two mousses, and an orange almond crunch. Not that anyone was paying much attention, though. We were all madly revising, trying to memorize all ten recipes that we might be tested on that afternoon.

The chef seems to have guessed our intent, because the demonstration only lasted two hours - to give us more time to study, presumably. The cake itself was not too interesting - I would have included orange segments in the bergamot mousse and done away with the chocolate glaze - but we got champagne to go with our cake : )

The practical exam was one of the most memorable events in my life. When I walked into the school, I could feel the nervous excitement in the air. Everyone was reading through their recipes, trying to remember every last step (do we need to butter the dacquoise mold? what's the pipping pattern on the Saint-Honoré?). For the actual exam, we had to draw lots to determine which recipe we actually make.

All I can say is, thank god I didn't get the Saint-Honoré. The memory of second-degree burn was not something I wanted to be reminded of during the exam.

What I actually got was the dacquoise. Aside from a lot of whisking, it was a nice, easy cake. The only hitch was that the kitchen was too hot for the buttercream to hold its shape, but some ice and fast pipping solved the problem. I even made a decent marzipan rose to go on top. I held back my usual recipe-tampering because there was a tasting portion on the exam, so the buttercream had more praline than usual, but otherwise I went by the book. I even used the gold side of the cardboard for once!

The technical portion of the exam involved making a tart pastry and lining a mold with it. I was the most afraid of this section because my crimping has never been good, but I managed to do a passable job on the first try.

Unfortunately there are no pictures. We didn't get to take anything home, and I was too afraid to bring a camera into the exam.

After the practical exam, my friend Edilyn and I rushed to David Lebovitz's book signing. I've been following his blog since college, so it was great finally meeting him in person. I'm now the proud owner of a signed copy of The Perfect Scoop (where I found fantastic recipes like the lemon speculoo ice cream).

(I feel much more like a real food blogger now that I have a picture with David Lebovitz!)

I spent the first part of Friday at Versailles. I'm glad I visited, but it wasn't the most enjoyable experience for me. I'm not a fan of the superficial château or gardens (or the hordes of tourists), but I did like the chandeliers.

We had to rush back from Versailles in order to attend the graduation ceremony at 4 pm. It felt weird being at the school for one last time, without my uniform or knife kit. The ceremony itself went by in a blur, I vaguely remember getting my diploma, taking a picture with the token pastry chefs (I was sad that the chefs we worked with the most weren't at the ceremony), and signing the alumni book.

I didn't quite agree with the scores I got on the final exam (10.8/20 for presentation? I liked my presentation!), but that doesn't matter. I would have been okay even if I failed the course. I've learned enough to make this trip worthwhile, and that's what really matters.

Here's a picture of everyone in my practical class with our favorite chef. I miss everyone already.

Living on the Edge

2010-07-29T06:17:00.000-07:00

(Sorry for the lull in the posts, life has been pretty crazy since the middle of last week, with the final exam, graduation, and a quick trip to my beloved Edinburgh before rushing back to Seattle and going back to work. I'll try to keep the posts in chronological order for the sake of completeness)

In the last week of class I started getting a little, well, rebellious. I made changes to the recipes to suit my tastes, like adding cinnamon to the pastry cream for the pithivier and increasing the ratio of pistachio to almond paste in the chocolate pistachio log above. I also became more creative in my decorations, abandoning the more classical styles for my own designs. I'm not sure if the chefs entirely approved of my decorations, but at least no one yelled at me for it (then again, maybe it was because chef Nicolas had already gone on holiday...).

Speaking of my designs, I think I've been on a nature kick. There's the flowering branch on the pistachio log above, and I turned my truffles into acorns for the Alhambra cake below.

The last two cakes we had to do were both heavy, chocolate-laden affairs. The chocolate pistachio log is quite clever - layers of pistachio sponge and ganache are stacked in a mold to look like a log. The entire thing is then covered with chocolate glaze (another one of those looks-nice-tastes-horrible things) and decorated with more ganache. Here are some that the chef made in class.

Personally I think the students did a better job decorating.

I'm very fond of my flowering-branch-on-top idea, especially when the cake is served on black (as opposed to gold) cardboard. It just looks more elegant, don't you think?

The last cake we made was an Alhambra cake. Again, like with the Mogador, I have no idea how certain regions came to be associated with certain cakes. The Alhambra is also a layered cake, this time chocolate-hazelnut cake is soaked with rum-coffee syrup before being encased in ganache and glaze. It's a very masculine cake, with all the dark chocolate and rum and coffee. Of course, if I had it my way, I would use a scotch soaking syrup (Islay of course for the smokiness) and coffee ganache, with sea salt and caramelized hazelnuts sprinkled in for crunch.

Hm, that sounds like a good recipe to try out. Who wants a birthday cake?

Back to the class, this time I quite liked the demonstration chef's decoration. It's balanced and elegant, without looking too old-fashioned.

Of course, I also have a weakness for free-form chocolate pieces and gold leaf.

I just wish the cake didn't taste so stodgy. It's basically dense brick of cake and ganache. Maybe they should have named the cake after some British city instead...

Galette des Rois Revisited

2010-07-22T05:43:00.000-07:00

We had another puff pastry class on Tuesday. This time, we made Pithiviers (puff pastry cake with almond cream) and Sacristains (puff pastry twists). Pithiviers are really like the Galette des Rois (kings' cake) that one eats during Epiphany, except without the ceramic baby jesus inside.

Pithiviers have a special place in my heart because that was the first "hardcore" French recipe I tried when I started this blog. Here's a picture from my first attempt at handmade puff pastry.

(My second pithivier is a lot more presentable, no?)

I'm really surprised that my puff pastry turned out so well. I was able to get a really good rise out of the dough, and even the chef called it "magnifique". Then again, the French has some sort of obsession with height...

Even though my first pithivier didn't look so good, I have to admit that it tasted better. Dorie Greenspan's recipe uses a mixture of pastry cream and almond cream, which I prefer to straight almond cream. Straight almond cream is too dense and moist, it should be lightened with something creamy. Flavor-wise, eggy almond cream with rum is kind of boring. Sadaharu Aoki apparently makes green tea and red bean ones for Epiphany. I think I'll try black sesame and chestnut for next January : )

Mogador Cake

2010-07-21T15:24:00.000-07:00

We made the Mogador cake on Monday. Apparently it's one of the classic French cakes, although I've yet to find where the name comes from... As far as I know, Mogador the place is a city in Morocco, and Mogador the dessert is a cake flavored with chocolate genoise, raspberry jam, and chocolate mousse.

I'm proud of my marzipan rose for this cake (it looks like a rose!), although the leaves turned out a little funky. Marzipan is a lot stickier and softer than plastic chocolate, so the leaves wilted in the heat. The star design might look familiar since I used the same tip for the Moka cake, I think I just like the whimsical look on cakes. (Update: after having made a pistachio chocolate log with flowering branches and a chocolate hazelnut cake with acorn-shaped truffles, I can definitely say that I'm a fan of whimsical designs).

The chef's designs during the demonstration on Saturday were more traditional. I especially like the tempered chocolate pieces added for height. The gold leaf doesn't hurt, either.

This is my favorite cake out of the five. The dark chocolate and gold leaf really adds nice contrast to the red background, and it's got such a luxurious feel to it. I may not like the style, but I can still appreciate it : )

Unfortunately, the cake doesn't taste as good as it looks. The chocolate genoise and the chocolate mousse are quite good, but the imbibing syrup and raspberry jam are way too sugary. In fact, I've taken to diluting the syrup with water to cut down on the sweetness. Adding some lemon juice to the raspberry jam wouldn't hurt either...

Pear Charlotte, Written Exam

2010-07-19T12:56:00.000-07:00

On Friday, we actually made a dessert that doesn't contain butter! The pear charlotte contains a shell of pipped lady finger sponge, filled with diced pears and pear mousse.

It's certainly one of the prettiest desserts we've made so far. The pear decoration on top is quite clever. A pear is thinly sliced, then scorched with a blowtorch so the slices become clearly delineated. The leaves are made from plastic chocolate (cocoa butter, sugar, and glucose). I have to say, making leaves is a lot easier than making roses, although my marzipan roses are getting better. They look less like cabbages now!

During the pear charlotte demonstration, the chef showed several different ways of decorating the cake. The traditional way (which is what we did in practical) involves putting a lid of pipped lady fingers on top of the cake. The more modern way does away with the lid and just has pears on top. I prefer the cleaner look.

Here are all five of the cakes the chef made during demo:

On Friday we also had our written exam. The ingredient list section was the worst because we had to memorize the ingredients and quantities for six recipes. I wouldn't have minded so much if the recipes covered all the basic components and didn't overlap with each other, but instead, four out of the six recipes contained slightly varying tart crusts!

Actually, the recipe memorization ended up being a fun exercise in pattern-finding. I reduced the recipes to their basic ratios so I could have an easier time memorizing them (I'm a big fan of Ratio). For example, apple tart crust has a 10:5:1 ratio of flour to butter to sugar, but the crust for Saint-Honore has a 5:3:2 ratio. Then you'd have weird recipes that call for 150 g of sugar but 160 ml water. Seriously, does the extra 10 ml of water really make a difference?

The test itself went pretty well, there were some trick questions and I probably should have read all the material in the recipe binder, but all in all it was painless. Now I just have to worry about the practical exam that's worth 40.5% of my final mark...

p.s. Speaking of recipes, I wish all recipes were listed in reliable, precise measurements. Sloppy recipes drive me crazy, especially the American ones that call for "2 eggs and 1 cup flour". Eggs have different weights and volumetric measurements are hardly consistent. If I had my way, all baking recipes should list error tolerances and be given in multiples of the weight of the eggs; so instead of "2 eggs and 1 cup of flour", you'd have "2 eggs and 2.5 x weight of the eggs".

Origami and Anger Management

2010-07-17T16:46:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we covered the subjects I was most looking forward to learning about - croissant and brioche. I've never worked with either dough due to my crippling fear of yeast. After having made croissants and brioche bread, I think my attitude has changed a little; I'll still pray to the wild yeast gods every time I make bread, but at least I know that sometimes yeast can be my friend. The brioche worked out fantastically, the croissants, er, not so much.

The croissant demonstration on Tuesday was really interesting for me because it allowed ample opportunity for illustration. I haven't mentioned this before, but as a visual thinker, I have a thing for making illustrations and diagrams. Fortunately, the croissant demonstration was, well, exceedingly technical.

It's like origami, except with dough.

Croissant:

Pain au Chocolat:

Cherry Pinwheel:

The chef made a dazzling array of croissant dough-based pastries. The best one, though, was the pistachio-cherry rolls made from leftover dough scraps. Cinnamon rolls don't even come close.

Clockwise from top left: pistachio cherry rolls, croissants, pain au chocolat, cherry pinwheels, apricot almond croissants.

Everything tasted pretty good except for the croissants, actually. Instead of being light and soft on the inside, it was doughy and undercooked. I think it needed more time in the oven.

For the practical we made croissant and pain au chocolat. The results were pretty disastrous in my opinion. To be fair, the room was warm and our dough didn't get enough time to rise properly in the proofing oven. My croissants were sad and small (see cover photo). On top of that, most of the croissants ended up being fried in the oven because so much butter leaked out of the dough.

I don't know if I'll try croissants again. It'll take a lot of work to perfect the recipe, even though making the dough is fun (I really like making puff pastry because it's somewhat mathematical. By the way, the chef's way of making croissants has 48 layers.).

Now for the anger management part:

What did medieval chefs do to punish their apprentices? They invented brioche. Probably.

I used to think brioche was easy, you just chuck eggs, yeast, flour, and butter in the stand mixer and let it do its thing. Well, it turns out that without a machine, brioche was the most labor-intensive dough I've ever worked on. Much worse than the hellish Gateau Basque. It involves 10 minutes of kneading once the eggs, yeast, and flour are combined, and another 20 minutes to incorporate all the butter.

Did I explain that "kneading" involves repeatedly scraping up the sticky, wet dough and slapping it on the marble as hard as you could? I really wish I was listening to Norwegian black metal at the time; brioche-making is totally a viable alternative to head banging, except it's more violent.

Next time I get stressed out at work, I'll make brioche : )

p.s. I learned that brioche and ice cream is a match made in heaven. Especially when you have homemade licorice ice cream.

p.p.s. One of these days I'll put up an entry called "All the ridiculous things we managed to cook in my 10 sq meter kitchen". On top of the licorice ice cream, the list includes dumplings from scratch, lots of pasta, and more salads than I can shake a fork at.

Moka Cake

2010-07-14T17:20:00.000-07:00

The demonstration last Saturday was on Moka cake. The cake itself is quite simple - a genoise sponge soaked with coffee syrup and topped with coffee buttercream. The interesting aspect was in decorating the cake, both in getting a perfect mirror-smooth finish on top, and in pipping the buttercream decorations. Of course, hand-whipping the eggs in the cake batter and the beating the butter into the buttercream took plenty of elbow grease, but we're used to hard work by now.

Here are the cakes the chef prepared for the demonstration:

This was my favorite one, I'm a fan of whimsical design (if you couldn't tell by the cover picture already...).

The practical session on Monday morning turned out to be more fun than I expected. I added loads of coffee extract to my buttercream to make it taste like something other than sugar. My cake turned out to be quite a few shades darker than most other people's cakes, but I quite liked the look. Also, learning my lesson from the praline dacquoise, I was careful to keep my buttercream at the right temperature before pipping it out. I was quite proud of my design (any irregularities in the pipping is for the sake of whimsy and purely by design, yeah.)

At the end of the practical session, the chef made us line all our cakes up in a row so he could grade them. It was awesome seeing everyone's unique designs for their cakes.

Doing Things My Way - Passionfruit Orange Tartlet

2010-07-12T22:38:00.000-07:00

The demonstration and practical class on Friday was all about sweet tart dough. The chef made a variety of tartlets in the demonstration. I love the four inch tart rings; they're adorable and we don't have to painstakingly shape and crimp the dough once it's in the ring.

From bottom up: orange tartlet, chocolate tartlet, lemon tartlet, Brittany apricot tartlet, pear almond tartlet, almond tartlet.

For the practical, we had to make orange tartlets and chocolate tartlets. With the petit four experience from the day before fresh in my head, I was skeptical if these dainty tartlets would be any good. The chocolate was, not surprisingly, boring. The chef had overcooked the tart crust with the soft chocolate cake layer, so the bottom of the tart was quite dry. The tartlet was saved by the creamy chocolate ganache layer on top, but I would have preferred if the ganache had a more pronounced chocolate flavor.

The orange tartlet was surprisingly delicious. The chef had brushed the blind-baked tart shells with eggwash and baked them a second time so they don't turn soggy against the lemon curd, and it really worked! The crisp dough was great against the soft, creamy orange curd within. The caramelized sugar trick on top was neat, although it didn't really add any flavor

The practical was a little bit of a disaster (well, maybe it was a good thing)
because we ran out of time towards the end. The tart shells for the orange tarts had to be pulled out of the oven while it was still under-baked. I didn't want to fill semi-raw tart shells with orange curd (you wouldn't be able to eat it), so I scraped my orange curd in a bowl and took home the shells and curd to cook it myself. Technically it was probably against the rules, but as everyone was scrambling to get out of the kitchen we weren't graded on our final products.

I was originally thinking of adding lime to the (rather bland) orange curd to make it more interesting, but then we stumbled upon passion fruit in the grocery store. I'm a bit obsessive about passion fruit now, but you have to believe me, orange lime passion fruit curd is one of the best things ever.

We served leftovers on soft white cheese for breakfast on Sunday (more on our crazy weekend adventures later). It was one of the most delicious things I've had, um, ever.

It's Not So Fun Anymore...

2010-07-09T16:21:00.000-07:00

There's a heat wave in Paris, and even nights are becoming unbearable. What's worse is that the air conditioning in the school has been spotty. The normally cool demonstration room has been uncomfortably warm for the past few days, which makes it easier than usual to doze off. The locker room is toasty as always (maybe hellish would be a better description, after all it is in the basement). What really hit a nerve, though, was that the practical kitchen we were working in yesterday had absolutely no air conditioning. Even the refrigerators were not working.

Working with pastry in a stifling hot kitchen while in full uniform is no fun for anyone. Especially when the only thing you've eaten that day are pastries.

We only had two classes yesterday, a demonstration of petit fours followed immediately by a practical session. I thought it would be a quick day, but the heat and sugar-overdose made it seem much, much longer.

For starters, the demonstration class lasted a record full three hours (they're usually two and a half, so we can have a break between classes). There were only four cookies, and three of them were quite simple. The chef took less than an hour to make the raisin biscuits, cigarettes, and marshal's batons (egg white and almond cookies).

Clockwise from the top: macarons, marshal's batons dipped in chocolate, raisin biscuits, cigarettes, plain marshal's batons, more raisin biscuits.

And then, the chef started making macarons. I was really excited during the first batch because I've been quite obsessive about making them, and I wanted to see how they were done at Le Cordon Bleu. My excitement wore off quickly though when the chef made a second tray, and then a third tray, and then a fourth tray... I think there might have been six trays in total, it became hard to keep track.

They look quite cute all presented on a plate, don't they?

You have to realize there were a lot more macarons that didn't make it onto the tray...

After what seemed like forever (it was only around two hours), the chef finally finished filling all the macarons. To my surprise, the macarons weren't that much better than mine! Some were nice and tender, but all of them had air bubbles, and some were downright awful, with a thin hard layer of congealed almond goo underneath the air bubble. To be fair, I think two days of resting in the refrigerator - which is what shops do before selling them - would have made the macarons a lot better.

The practical session was a nightmare. We had to work in a hot kitchen with our full uniform on, and on top of that I made the mistake of not eating lunch before coming to class. Apparently, eating sweets on an empty stomach makes me feel sick and cranky. I was already in a bad mood because the cookies we had to make (raisin biscuits and marshal's batons) don't taste good. The heat and sugar didn't help things.

The raisin cookies were the fussiest little things ever. It's just a simple cake-like batter with rum-soaked raisins studded on top. But no... the cookies need two layers of glaze! After the cookies came out of the oven, we had to brush them with apricot glaze, and when that dries, a layer of rum glaze goes on top. The cookies are then put into the oven briefly to set the glaze. I just about flipped out when the practical chef showed me a "well done" cookie, covered in a thick layer of hardened sugar glaze. They're just little cookies, for god sakes. They don't need all that varnish.

The marshal's batons were even worse (see cover picture). The cookie itself is pretty upsetting for me. It's an egg white and almond cookie that is disturbingly soft and chewy, like an old sponge. The covering of crispy crushed almonds help somewhat, and the chocolate covering is just unnecessary. You can't fix a bad cookie.

Lesson learned: bad pastries make me angry.

The good news is, I made an amazing passion fruit-lime-orange curd today that totally reaffirmed my faith in pastry. But that's for another post : )

Gateau Basque, Pâte Sucrée

2010-07-08T01:52:00.000-07:00

We had another 9 hour day yesterday - two practicals and a demonstration. The first practical (at 8:30 in the morning, no less) was on the basque cake the chef had demonstrated the previous night. We all thought it'd be a cinch, just roll out the dough and put some pastry cream inside, right?

Wrong. Basque cake "dough" was designed to make baking apprentices cry, I'm sure. It's not a dough, it's a cake batter that we're supposed to roll out as if it were dough. It's soft, sticky, and very difficult to handle. On top of that, the practical room we were in had almost no AC, so the dough softened at an alarming rate. After much cursing and swearing all around, we finally got the dough into the ring mold. I had to patch my upper crust because it fell apart when I was draping it over the ring - hence the crack you see down the middle of the cake. The dough is supposed to be worked super cold, so you can display a clear, pretty pattern on top. My talented neighbor had better luck : )

(Seriously, isn't it supposed to be hot in Basque country? How did they ever come up such a warm-weather-averse recipe?)

Despite the uncooperative dough, we finished in record time (two hours!) and had a four hour break before our next class. We're getting much faster in the practicals, especially because people started helping each other in terms of gathering ingredients and equipment. Team work is really effective!

The Rodin Museum was a very nice place for a midday break.

The afternoon demonstration was on pâte sucrée, or sweet tart dough. The chef made caramelized pear tart with crunchy meringue topping, and honey-almond tartlets. There was also dark chocolate sorbet to eat with the almond tartlets.

The chocolate sorbet was only a little sweet and very dark (but personally I wouldn't use cocoa powder, it takes the texture grainy). It was beautiful paired with the crispy almond tart.

The pear tarts were okay. I like the contrast between the crispy topping and the soft pears, but I'm not a fan of the tart dough recipe. It's on the dry side and doesn't contribute any flavor to the tart. Now if you had a chocolate or browned butter crust...

We had the practical right after the demonstration. Again, the kitchen was hot (I think the AC gave up on itself), which meant even handling normal tart dough became a pain. The chef said I had caramelized my pears too much - that the compote should still be pale instead of golden. But isn't this a caramelized pear tart? Oh well, I'm sure it'll taste good.

The topping involved whipping eight egg whites into stiff peaks. Hand-whisking egg whites is a pretty good workout, apparently, because everyone was huffing and puffing by the end. Of course the meringue deflated at an alarming rate due to the warmth and humidity, so we tried to get them into the oven as soon as possible. I'm starting to miss Seattle and its dry, chilly weather.

I went to watch Eclipse with a friend after class. Normally, I'm not a huge fan of going to the movies, but it felt like such a treat after a full day in the strict, regimental atmosphere of the school. Thankfully, the movie only had French subtitles. A bunch of French-speaking vampires and werewolves would just be...too much.

Longest Day of the Term: Meringues, Pastry Shop Visit, Basque Cake Demo

2010-07-06T16:33:00.000-07:00

(Warning: loads of food pictures ahead.)

Today was the only 12 hour day in the entire term - two demonstrations, a practical, and a pastry shop visit. It was a long day, but I think I'm getting used to the rhythm of things - I made sure to eat throughout the day, and I didn't fall asleep in class!

The first demonstration was on meringues. It was definitely the prettiest demonstration so far, the chef made praline dacquoise cake and meringue-sorbet-whipped cream cake (there's a French term for it, but google came up empty).

The three brown cakes are the dacquoise cakes. A dacquoise is a French meringue with almond powder and flour mixed in. I expected something crisp and hard, but it actually makes a fairly fluffy cake. Here's what a slice looks like:

I absolutely love the praline-flavored buttercream filling. The rich, nutty, caramel flavor is just perfect with the light cake.

The chef made a marzipan rose demonstration as well. I'm not a fan of the unnatural colors and the concept of inedible decorations, but I guess it looks impressive (technically you can eat marzipan, but it's like play-doh). The chef's pipping job is top-notch, though. Look at those perfect round teardrops!

The meringue and sorbet dessert was really interesting. The chef topped disks of meringue with disks of strawberry sorbet, then decorated the whole thing with whipped cream and fresh fruit. It makes for a very pretty and light summertime dessert. I'll have to do it with mangoes and passion fruit!

We made the praline dacquoise cake for the demonstration (see cover picture). The nice grandfatherly chef (see the puff pastry post) was away and we had chef Nicolas again. Nothing against him personally, but he just makes me nervous with his disciplinarian ways. I mean, honestly, he made us go downstairs to see how the other group was moving faster than us - maybe if he didn't intimidate everyone we would get through faster, jeez.

Ranting aside, my dacquoise came out fine but I didn't whip my buttercream enough. I still need to work on pipping, and it doesn't help that buttercream is ridiculously temperamental - too hot and it won't hold its shape, too cold and it starts cracking. It's something I can easily adjust for at home, but a bit harder when we're under the clock in the practical. I'm not proud of my marzipan rose because it looks more like a cabbage than a rose, which is apparently a common novice mistake. The chef recommended that we all go home and practice with play-doh.

The pastry shop visit was a fun change because we got to go outside, in our "civilian" clothes. We visited Christian Lecoq, a small artisanal pâstisserie run by Mr. Lecoq himself.

We got to visit "the laboratory", which was small but very clean and orderly. They make chocolates, candies, pastries (sweet and savory), and ice cream all in-house. Mr. Lecoq kept on emphasizing the importance of first-rate ingredients in making quality products. We got to sample apricot tart, lemon tartlets, and almond tuiles. Everything was delicious, but my favorite was the apricot tart (I'm a little biased since apricot is my favorite baking fruit). The gorgeous fruit definitely played the dominate role, with the pastry and almond cream complimenting the tartness of the apricots.

Inspired by the visit to such a gourmet destination, a couple of us took a detour on the way back to the school and grabbed something to eat.

(We really needed something non-pastry-related, okay? Don't judge.)

The last class of the day was a demonstration for basque cake (butter cake filled with pastry cream) and diplomat's pudding (a fancy word for bread pudding). Watching the chef make cake after cake, after cake, after cake, got a little monotonous, and we all just wanted to go home after a long day.

Four basque cakes in the back, the rest are different presentations of the diplomat pudding, served with creme anglais, raspberry and apricot coulis, and strawberries.

I'm not a huge fan of the basque cake. The pastry cream is very thick, and the cake itself is fairly dry (I think it's overbaked!). The chef said the cake is traditionally made with jarred cherries, that would probably make the cake more moist. It'd be delicious with blueberries or raspberries too, I'm sure. Here's a nice cross-section of the basque cake, you can see the pastry cream layer nicely.

I get to make the basque cake at 8:30 AM tomorrow! Nothing like cake for lunch...

Eclairs and Chouquettes

2010-07-05T16:19:00.000-07:00

Back to class after a relaxing weekend of touristy activities! On Saturday we had the choux pastry demo (thank god, only one class). There were five different recipes for small choux paste pastries, with variations on shape, size, filling, and topping.

From the top in clockwise order:
1) chouquettes (choux pastry puffs rolled in pearl sugar)
2) acorns (teardrop shaped choux pastry with cognac-flavored pastry cream, green fondant on top)
3) eclairs (chocolate pastry cream filling, chocolate fondant on top)
4) cream puffs (with ridiculous amounts of chantilly cream)
5) salambos (oblong shaped pastry filled with cointreau-flavored pastry cream, topped with caramel and sliced almonds)

My favorites were the salambos, because the caramel and sliced almonds provided a nice crunchy contrast to the soft citrus-flavored cream and tender pastry. Chouquettes were a close second though - I can't believe I've never seen them in the states! I guess the problem with chouquettes is that they need to be eaten fresh, while they are warm and tender on the inside and slightly crunchy on the outside. That said, I could totally make a killing operating chouquette carts at farmer's markets (like mini-donuts, but healthier!)

After class on Saturday, I rushed to the Louvre and got myself an annual pass.

Now I can go to the Louvre every day without waiting in line! Maybe I'll even be able to visit all the pieces!

On Sunday I spent half the day wandering inside the Musée d'Orsay. For some reason, half the people inside look like zombies - the benches inside the main gallery are packed with people with dead eyes and vacant expressions. Too much art to digest, I guess. I find it helpful to keep my focus by jotting down notes on the pieces I like and taking frequent breaks. Next time I'll even bring a sketch pad : )

After the museum, I had the occasion to take some pictures around Montmartre. It's a gorgeous district, I just wish there were fewer tourists...

This morning, we had the practical class for eclairs and chouquettes. I thought it was going to be a piece of cake, but choux pastry is such a pain to work with. It's so slippery and sticky and gets on everything, especially when you're continually scraping up your failed eclairs and putting the dough back in the pastry bag. Pipping eclairs is not easy. See my uneven ones? The chef said mine were "correct", if not pretty.

Eh, I don't even like eclairs anyway (that's what I tell myself).

I promise tomorrow's post will be more interesting. I have two demonstrations (meringue and basque cake), one practical (hazelnut dacquoise with marzipan flowers), and one pastry shop visit. It'll be a very long day...

Saint-Honoré, Puff Pastry, and My First Le Cordon Bleu Injury

2010-07-03T02:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the toughest day we've had yet - three hours of practical followed by three hours of demonstration followed by another three hours of practical, all in a row with almost no breaks in between. On top of that, we're not allowed to leave the room during the demonstration (in case you're wondering, no one would dream of leaving the room during a practical). In some ways, the cooking profession reminds me of the military. There's a clear hierarchical system and a major emphasis on discipline (and sharp, deadly tools). Imagine if a university professor said students weren't allowed to take bathroom breaks during a three hour lecture because if he couldn't leave during lecture, then no one could.

For the first practical we made Gâteaux Saint-Honoré, which consists of a shortcrust base with choux pastry pipped on top, topped with caramel-dipped choux pastry puffs (think cream puffs without the cream filling) and filled with chantilly cream (vanilla flavored whipped cream).

Everything started off well. I made my shortcrust pipped my choux pastry without major incident, and I felt such a sense of accomplishment when I made whipped cream by hand. In fact, I was so excited I over-whipped the cream a little and got yelled at for it later. Well, at least now I know what properly whipped cream is supposed to look like.

And then, we had to dip our choux puffs in caramel. I've done it before for the croquembouche without incident, but I also didn't have a chef breathing down my neck. Long story short, I dropped a puff in the caramel and instinctively tried to pick it up without thinking. At least I had the presence of mind to wipe the sugar off on my apron, like we were told in class, instead of putting it in my mouth (which would have burned my mouth as well). It didn't really hurt much in the rush of things, so I carried on - without the use of my right thumb - and finished my cake. I thought my cake looked pretty good, but the only thing chef Nicolas said was "your cream is overwhipped". So much for my hard work.

We had to rush to the next demonstration class, which was on puff pastry. For once I had no trouble staying awake in an afternoon class - a quarter-sized blister on your thumb will do that. The instructions required careful attention, since he used one batch of dough for three products, and you had to pay attention to which one he was working on and how many turns he has given the dough and whether he was coating the dough with flour or sugar.

From top to bottom: Palmiers, two plates of raspberry straw mats on right, apple croustade on left, apple turnovers on the bottom.

The chef made the apple croustade for us as a treat. As a specialty of southwest France, apple croustade consists of two disks of puff pastry sandwiching apple slices, with biscuit crumbs to soak up the juices. There's usually a healthy dose of armagnac sprinkled in as well.

By the time we rushed to our next practical, we were about ready to collapse. Thankfully, our practical chef was a kindly old gentleman (instead of the dashing but strict chef Nicolas) who wanted us to relax and enjoy making pastry. For once, the practical didn't feel like a fire drill. Everything was calm, no one got yelled at, and everything went pretty smoothly. I was pretty proud of my handmade puff pastry, the palmiers puffed up nicely in the oven.

My apple turnovers were smaller than the ones chef made in demonstration - I should have relaxed the dough before cutting out circles with the mold - but the double egg wash and syrup glaze made it look appetizing nonetheless.

I finally stumbled home a little after ten at night, tired but still high from the adrenaline rush of the last practical session. I felt like I had accomplished something, looking at all the pastries I had made by hand, without the help of store-bought dough or electric appliances. I even felt some sort of connection to the generations of bakers before me - surely that's the way they made their Gâteaux Saint-Honoré and apple turnovers (see, I was clearly high from all the butter fumes). I even forgot about the ominous-looking blister on my thumb.

I hope it heals soon, I'd like to regain the use of my opposable thumb one of these days...

Saint-Honoré Demo, Class Dinner (All-Dressed-Up and Squished in the Subway)

2010-07-02T02:49:00.000-07:00

Paris is getting pretty hot these days. Having lived in Southern California and Texas, I don't really mind the heat because one can always seek the refuge of air-conditioned rooms. Well, let's just say that AC isn't so prevalent here in Paris. Thankfully, the pastry kitchens at Le Cordon Bleu are nicely air-conditioned (think of the precious pastries!). Unfortunately, places like the demonstration and locker rooms, and the subway and certain nice restaurants - more on that later - aren't so accomodating.

In the morning practical yesterday we made madeleines and fruited pound cake with rum syrup. The batters were pretty straight-forward. The cool trick chef showed up for softening butter was to spread it on parchment paper and beat it mercilessly with a rolling pin. Although...I think the chef was afraid I'll smash my thumb with the way I was going at it, because he took my butter aside and stuck it in the microwave. The wonders of technology!

My madeleine batter didn't get chilled enough in the fridge so it was a mess trying to pipe it out into the molds, but it baked up well in the oven. They were moist, tender, and delicious. Aren't they cute?

And here's my fruited pound cake. I gave one away (along with everything I've accumulated so far) to my landlady. I'm wrapping up the other one in plastic and stashing it in the freezer for a while - apparently it tastes better after you keep it for a few days/weeks/months.

I was looking forward to the afternoon demonstration because it covered Gâteaux Saint-Honoré and Paris-Brest. Both are essentially elaborate excuses for gigantic cream puffs (the Saint-Honoré has a contrasting short crust or puff pastry base, the Paris-Brest is really just an overgrown cream puff filled with praline cream). Unfortunately, there was a guest speaker at our usual demonstration room, so we had to use the smaller (and much hotter) upstairs room. Dressed in our chef's jackets with long sleeves and high collar, we were all subjected to a nice, slow roast for three hours. The pastries looked amazing, but I couldn't wait to get out of there!

From top to bottom, clockwise: standard Saint-Honoré, small Paris-Brest, monster Saint-Honoré, large Paris-Brest. The standard Saint-Honoré is what we'll be making at the practical.

At night we had a class dinner at Le Train Bleu, an elegant grande dame restaurant at the Gare de Lyon train station. A group of us girls met up at the Vaugirard metro station and went together, turning heads left and right with our high heels and short dresses. It would have been quite Sex-in-the-City-esque if it wasn't the middle of the week during rush hour, in the stifling heat of the subway station...

We finally arrived at the restaurant after several subway transfers and a bit of confused meandering at the Gare de Lyon. The restaurant itself is very large and elaborately decorated in the Belle Epoque style. It would have been very impressive if it wasn't stifling hot inside the restaurant.

The menu was a five-course meal with wine pairing. The food was well-executed and strongly-flavored, not bad for the fact that they had to serve the same thing to about a hundred people.

The leek lasagna with chanterelle mushrooms was very nicely done. I couldn't really taste the leeks, but the flavor of the mushrooms really came through.

The duck was, well, you can't really screw it up if it's cooked rare and you leave a nice layer of fat on top...

For dessert there was a chocolate tart with white chocolate ice cream. For me, the only saving grace was that the ice cream was so welcomingly cold. I think we've been so spoiled by the pastries made by the chefs at school that it's hard for other desserts to measure up. The pastry chef who sat at our table did not touch his dessert.

After dinner, we had to endure another long, crowded, sweaty subway ride before getting home. Maybe I should have come here in the winter instead...

Tarte aux Pommes, or How Pastry Wore Me Out

2010-06-30T14:53:00.000-07:00

I left the apartment at 8 this morning, and came home at 9:30 at night. Baking is definitely no joke. Who thought three-hour baking lectures could be so draining? But I kid you not, by the third class of the day at 6:30 PM, I was falling asleep in my seat. Of course, it didn't help that I was running on near-starvation all day long. Breakfast consisted of three different types of apple tarts, and dinner was two different types of pound cake, and a quarter of an exquisite madeleine cookie (and no, sampling bits of pastry does not make you full).

The first demonstration of the day was all about pâte brisée, or butter shortcrust. For some reason they were all about apple tarts too - there was the classic French Tarte aux Pommes, a meltingly tender Tarte Tatin, and a rich Tarte Normande (apple custard tart).

From top to bottom: two Tarte Normande on the left, two Tarte Tatin on the right, three Tarte aux Pommes below.

The emphasis of the class was definitely on fitting the dough into the tart ring. Again, the meticulousness of the pastry profession definitely showed itself. After draping the dough over the tart ring and tucking it tight into the corners, we had to

1) Pinch in the dough along the upper edge of the ring
2) Roll the rolling pin over the tart to cut off excess dough
3) Push up the overhanging dough along the inner upper edge of the ring
4) Crimp the edges with a crimping tool

To show us what the border should look like, the chef demonstrated the crimping tool on a dough snake:

In the afternoon, we had a practical session where we made Tarte aux Pommes, the classic French apple tart covered with thin slices of apples. Unlike yesterday's leisurely cookie session, today's class moved at a much faster pace. It wasn't bad, except the thing with chefs is that they all want things done their way, which meant that the practical chef did things differently than the demonstration chef. So when we tried to do things the way we saw in demonstration, we were stopped and told to do things differently. I understand that in a restaurant, the chef is boss; it's just a little annoying to not know if at any moment you're doing something the current chef doesn't approve of.

Lessons learned from the practical:

1) Peeling apples is really difficult
2) Cutting uniform pieces is really important if you want to overlay the apple pieces evenly on top
3) Apple tarts need time to be properly baked
4) The apple compote on the bottom needs to be cooked long enough so the apples release their juice. Juicy apples on the bottom + not enough time in the oven to bake property = soggy crust on one side.

I took my sad apple tart home (I couldn't bear to give it away, I spent so much time layering the apples on top - it's a feat of engineering), and stuck it in my antiquated oven to finish baking. The resulting tart looked much better, and it tasted wonderful. I'll definitely be making it again in Seattle.

Right after the three hour practical, we had a demonstration on basic butter-based cakes. The chef made pound cake with candied fruit, lemon pound cake, and madeleines.

Madeleines on the plate, four lemon pound cakes in the inner circle, five fruited pound cakes in the outer circle.

I was struggling to keep myself awake after the first hour, but managed to shake myself awake once the chef moved onto decorating the cakes.The chef put special emphasis on the appearance of the products because, after all, that's what catches a customer's eyes in a bakery.

The takeaway message was that
1) Create height
2) Avoid symmetry
3) Use glaze

I'm not a fan of using inedible decoration (cinnamon sticks, vanilla beans, large pieces of candied fruit), but I have to admit, the use of decoration really makes a big difference!

The most exciting part of the demonstration was the madeleines. I have been trying to find the perfect madeleine for ages - I've probably tried six different recipes so far - but I've never been really satisfied. Somehow, none of them came close to my vision of an ideal madeleine (Honoré Artisan Bakery in Wallingford gave it a good shot, but theirs is too dry and coarse for my taste).

That is, until I tried the madeleines the chef made.

Oh my god. They were slightly crusty and crunchy on the outside, but perfectly soft, fine-crumbed, and tender on the inside. They are exactly how I imagined madeleines to taste like, but have never actually experienced until now. The Le Cordon Bleu technique for baking madeleines is very interesting - I won't share that now, but I'll definitely be experimenting back in Seattle.

For me, Paris is like the light at the end of the tunnel. It's living proof that near-perfection (in pastry anyway) is in fact possible. Yes, there are moist madeleines. Yes, there are fluffy macaron shells. Maybe I'll even stumble upon a well-balanced, texturally interesting chocolate cake!

One can only hope.

First Day of Class - Shortbreads

2010-06-29T16:50:00.000-07:00

I had my first day of real classes today! There were two demonstrations followed by a practical. The first demonstration covered basic things like pralines, fondant, and coffee extract. Other than having to sit in a stifling room in our uniforms, the demonstrations are pretty cool. It's pretty much like lecture in university, except the room smells like butter and sugar (note to professors: you too can have three hour lectures if you keep the room smelling like baked goods).

Clockwise from the top: fondant, coffee extract, raw almond paste, apricot glaze, praline.

The recipes covered in the first class were pretty basic, but the chef had useful tips, like always adding sugar to pectin before dissolving it in water, to help it mix better. The most thrilling part of the demonstration was when chef Tranchant tested sugar temperature by dipping his fingers into a pot of boiling sugar and dropping the resulting pinch into a bowl of water for the softball test. I guess candy thermometers are for wimps.

The second demonstration covered a variety of sablés, or sandy French butter cookies. They're called sablés for their crumbly texture. The smell of butter quickly pervaded the room as soon as the first batch of cookies went into the oven. I wonder if long-term contact with butter aromas can make you fat?

Clockwise from the top: Sablés nantais, chocolate shortbreads, diamonds, Brittany shortbread, glasses.

All of the cookies have a similar preparation of mixing cut-up pieces of butter with the dry ingredients, then (optionally) adding a mixture of egg and water as the wet ingredient. The chef was very meticulous about preparation ("for small pieces, it's better to line them up in neat rows on the baking sheet so you can count them more easily"), and took some pains to do the decoration for the chocolate shortbread rounds (chocolate dough wrapped in regular dough, topped with crushed hazelnuts and a single almond). Here's a better view of the cookies:

Clockwise from the top: glasses, Brittany shortbread, diamond, and chocolate shortbread in the middle

The cookies turned out to be nice and crumbly, with a good butter flavor. I wonder if the butterfat content in the butter made a difference in the texture, but I couldn't get a definite answer out of the chef (he thinks it's 85% butterfat, but says it doesn't really matter until you're making laminated dough). My favorites were the glasses - because the raspberry jam provided such a nice contrast - and the diamonds, which are crumbly orange-flavored shortbread cookies with no eggs added.

We made diamond cookies for the practical. The cookies themselves were fairly easy to make, I think for the first day it's the experience of working in a pastry kitchen that counts. The refrigerated marble counter (yes, it's a marble counter with a fridge built in on the bottom. I totally want one at home.) is such a luxury to work with. It's amazing what a difference a sharp knife and a large, cool work surface makes. The important lessons of the day were to always keep the work area clean and organized, and move anything you're not using (like the balance) out of the way.

The only problem is, I came home with a box of around a hundred shortbread cookies...

At the end of the practical class, chef warned us not to get too confident, because the recipe complexity will quickly pick up. Tomorrow, for example, we'll be making apple tart. And on Friday it'll be Gateau Saint-Honoré, albeit with a simplified recipe.

I'm totally looking forward to making croissants and tempering chocolate in the weeks to come : )

Le Cordon Bleu Orientation + Macarons

2010-06-28T17:11:00.000-07:00

I started my day running down the streets of Paris as if my life depended on it.

Instead of waking up early and leisurely making my way to the school - maybe stopping for a croissant au beurre on the way - I found myself starring in disbelief at a watch that clearly showed I should have been at the school half an hour ago. Lateness is punishable by expulsion from Le Cordon Bleu (you get kicked out if you are late more than five times), and I was certainly not off to a good start.

Thankfully, I was not immediately expelled. Instead I joined the rest of my classmates in a lecture room as the administrators covered school rules and schedules. The intensive program turned out be indeed quite intensive, with 6-9 hours days being the norm (I only have 3 hours of class on Saturdays, thank god). Sitting in the lecture hall with everyone else, I felt like I was in some sort of anti-Caltech/Microsoft universe. Out of 52 students, there were only a handful of men...the rest of the crowd consisted of attractive, slim women. I wonder why there aren't more men in the program?

The downside to having a majority of women in the class is that locker space becomes an issue. In fact, they positively ran out of locker space and I had to haul all my equipment and uniforms back to the apartment. And let me tell you, a solid set of Wüsthof knives gets pretty heavy after a while...

The uniforms turned out to be, well, obviously tailored for men. On the plus side, there's plenty of room for butter fat accumulation : ) The logo on the jacket is pretty awesome though.

In the afternoon, I indulged in some luxury foodie shopping at La Grande Epicerie and Lafayette Gourmet. I love the large European food halls associated with department stores. Sure, it's not as authentic as going to boutique shops, but when it's 30 Celsius outside it's nice to stay in. Moving onto the loot...

Feeling very, very French, I picked up some Mariage Frères tea and Christine Ferber jam from La Grande Epicerie.

Actually, it wasn't just jam. It was Maltese orange with 64% chocolate. It tastes like Nutella, if you take out the hazelnut and replace it with orange instead. Next time I need to seek out more adventurous flavors like strawberry with lemon grass or green tomatoe and orange with baking spices.

The downside to La Grande Epicerie is that they only have the in-house bakery. I really like Layette Gourmet because they have stalls from Eric Kayser, Dalloyau, and Sadaharu Aoki.

Instead of a baguette, I decided to go with a pavé de campagne from Eric Kayser. Pain de campagne is my favorite bread from the local Seattle bakery Le Panier because it's usually more flavorful and chewier than a baguette. Eric Kayser did quite nicely.

I picked up macarons from Dalloyau and Sadaharu Aoki from a pure research perspective. Like any self-respecting home baker with a scientific bent, I've been obsessing over macarons for some time. Sadaharu Aoki is my favorite source of macarons in Paris (along with Pierre Hermé, of course), and I haven't tried macarons from Dalloyau before.

From the top, going clockwise, chocolate, genmaicha (toasted rice tea), and hojicha (roasted tea).

Left to right: caramel passion, cognac.

I'll save the technical discussions for later, but I can say that the textures of the these macarons are much more fluffy and tender than anything I've had in Seattle (I'm looking at you, Bakery Nouveau). In addition, the shells are barely sweet, unlike the sugar-laden disks I've encountered in the states (I plead guilty to it myself). Enough to say, my faith in macarons was re-affirmed. It really is possible to make a good macaron!

Much experimentation will follow once I go back to the states.

First Meal in Paris

2010-06-27T18:55:00.000-07:00

In My Life in France, Julia Child describes her first meal in France as a sort of sensual awakening. The food was "absolute perfection", with oysters, sole meunier, and fromage blanc. The experience kindled her love for food and inspired her to pursue a career in cooking.

For those of you expecting a raving review of a Michelin-star restaurant, sorry, I'm not Julia Child. Heck, it's not even my first meal in France. Severely sleep-deprived and starving, I went shopping at the corner grocery store and came back with cheese, paté, and a baguette from the bakery down the street.

I wouldn't call the food life-changing, but it was good. Especially when I ate it in the comfort of my own kitchen.

I still haven't decided whether I'll brave my tiny, antiquated, gas-mark standard oven. Apparently, none of the tenants ever used it. Here's to hoping that the next Daring Bakers' Challenge doesn't involve any real baking : )

Tomorrow, I start my basic pastry certification at Le Cordon Bleu. During the next four weeks, I'll also be wandering the streets of Paris, documenting pastries from the best pâstisseries. It'll be an (sugar-filled, highly caloric) adventure.

June 2010 Daring Bakers' Challenge: Chocolate Pavlovas with Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse

2010-06-27T16:16:00.000-07:00

The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard

The recipe consists of three parts: the chocolate meringue base, the chocolate mascarpone mousse, and the mascarpone cream. In addition, I chose the option of making my own mascarpone cheese (sounds scarier than it actually is).

I was very skeptical of the recipe at first. I didn't know if the meringue would hold up against the rich chocolate mousse, and the mascarpone cream seemed a little excessive. As it turns out, the components work very well together! The mousse is light enough to not completely overwhelm the delicate meringue shell, and the rich custard cream rounds out the sharpness and acidity from the dark chocolate and Grand Marnier in the mousse.

The only flop was with the chocolate meringue shell. Instead of baking up crisp and light, it settled into a hard disk. As luck would have it, I only discovered this in the morning, right before I was going to assembly the whole thing and bring it to work. Adrenaline rushing, I quickly whipped up a vanilla meringue shell replacement (for future reference, it only takes two hours to make, bake, and cool a 10" meringue shell).

In hindsight, I had probably added too much cocoa powder; instead of measuring by volume, I should have done it by weight. Besides, the combination of egg whites and cocoa just makes me nervous. Meringues seem to be highly sensitive to the amount and type of cocoa powder added (natural cocoa powder is acidic, dutch-processed cocoa is slightly basic), and it's easy to end up with unreliable results.

p.s. Here's a link for homemade mascarpone cheese. It really is easy, honest.

p.p.s. I'm posting this from my apartment in Paris. Le Cordon Bleu classes start tomorrow!

Fresh Strawberry and Orange-Flower Water Marshmallows

2010-06-20T21:06:00.000-07:00

First of all, I know I haven't updated this blog in a while. I spent a week in New Orleans earlier this month, and I've been busy with work and with Paris preparations (I leave in less than a week!). New Orleans is a fantastic food city, with so much warmth and vibrancy and culture. Coming back to the chilly Northwest - figurative and literally speaking - took some getting used to. I'll have to write a full post on it later, but here's a few pictures.

Back to the subject of this post, I figured it was due time for another post from Paris Sweets. I had some aromatic strawberries from the farm market on hand, and I finally found some orange flower water from DeLaurenti near Pike Place Market. The combination of strawberries with orange flower water seems straight out of Arabian Nights, a fitting flavor for whimsical pink puffs of candy.

I'm no stranger to homemade marshmallows, thanks to a good friend back in Scotland who used to make homemade marshmallows all the time. Passion fruit and green tea were some of my favorite flavors. Last year, when a coworker had overabundant plum trees, I cooked down some plums with sugar and made plum marshmallows. People are always surprised when I tell them about homemade marshmallows. It's not hard to make, but you do need to be organized. As with candy-making in general, timing is critical. You want to be ready to add hot syrup to the beaten egg whites as soon as the syrup reaches the right temperature.

Homemade marshmallows can also be a messy business. Pouring hot sugar syrup into beaten egg whites - with the mixer on - always poses the risk of splattering, and then there's the potato starch factor. Any time I have to work with large quantities of starch or confectioner sugar, it's pretty much guaranteed that my counters (and me) will be covered with tiny specks of white. The results are worth it though. Instead of the sugary, tasteless stuff from the grocery store, you get tender, fluffy chunks of candy with real flavor.

These marshmallows are tangy with fresh strawberry flavor and delicately perfumed, thanks to the orange flower water. Speaking of which, before I actually acquired a bottle of orange flower water, I always thought it'd smell like oranges. Instead, the smell is intensely floral - it reminds me of jasmine blossom tea.

Fresh Strawberry and Orange-Flower Water Marshmallows
Adopted from Paris Sweets, which is adopted from Ladurée.

Makes 1 pound, fills a 9x12 pan for 1/2" tall marshmallows, use a 9x9 pan if you like them taller.
(I cut down the original recipe by half because 2 pounds of marshmallows is a lot, and it'd be hard to work with)

Approximately 1/2 cup potato starch
6-7 ripe strawberries, puréed (approximately 70 g)
2/3 cup (150 g) cold water
1 1/4 cup (250 g) sugar
1/8 cup (40 g) corn syrup
2 packets (14 g) powdered gelatin
3 large egg whites
1/2 teaspoon orange flower water

Line your baking pan of choice with parchment paper or silpat, then dust heavily with potato starch. Don't be shy, or you'll get stuck marshmallows later.

Next, you'll want to do three things in close succession:
1) Make the sugar syrup. This will take ~10 minutes.
2) Whisk the egg whites. You'll want to do this before the sugar syrup is ready, but not too much before.
3) Dissolve and heat the gelatin so it's in a nice liquid state after the syrup has been added to the egg whites. You should dissolve the gelatin ahead of time, and then put it in the microwave right when the syrup is about ready.

1) Sugar syrup: combine 1/3 cup water, sugar, and corn syrup in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring just until the sugar dissolves. Once the sugar dissolves, stop stirring and cook until it reaches 265 F.

2) Egg whites: whisk until it forms firm, glossy peaks. I find it helpful to add a few teaspoons of sugar to help the egg whites stabilize.
3) Gelatin: Sprinkle the gelatin over the remaining 1/3 cup of water. Let it sit for 5 minutes, and then heat for 40 seconds in the microwave.

As soon as the sugar syrup reaches the right temperature, drizzle it into the egg white foam with the mixer running on medium, taking care to not drizzle directly onto the spinning whisk (unless you want flying bits of hot sugar flung everywhere). The meringue will turn shiny and glossy once the syrup has been added. Next, drizzle in the melted gelatin with the same technique. Beat for another minute or so to fully incorporate the syrup and gelatin.

Fold in the strawberry purée and orange-flower water into the hot batter, then turn it out onto the dusted baking pan. Smooth the top and dust with more potato starch. Let it set in a cool, dry place for 3 hours or overnight.

To serve, cut the marshmallows into squares and cover the freshly exposed sides with more potato starch. I find that a pizza cutter is great for the job. Shake off any excess starch before serving.

May 2010 Daring Baker's Challenge: Piece Montée

2010-05-27T23:44:00.000-07:00

The May 2010 Daring Bakers' Challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump's Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

Fancy names aside, this dessert is essentially a tower of cream puffs, held together by caramel or chocolate sauce. It's a traditional French wedding cake where they can be very, very tall and decorated with all sorts of fantastical sugar creations. Spun sugar is very often wrapped around the tower like a fluffy golden shawl.

Unfortunately, I am not an expert in sugar works. My attempt to create a nest of sugar ended in clumps of sugar connected by spindly threads. It was still darn tasty, though.

The challenge has three components: the choux pastry, the pastry cream filling, and the caramel sauce. I was totally confident about the challenge since I've made cream puffs before with surprising success. I even invited people to come watch me assemble the whole thing.

As it turns out, luck wasn't on my side. I burned half of my cream puffs because I accidentally turned on the broiler instead of the oven. At 400 F, my puffs soon charred to a crisp. I had to quickly make a second batch of dough before the guests arrived to make sure I had enough puffs to build a decent sized tower.

Assembly was, well, exciting. There's nothing quite like the thrill of putting your finger tips millimeters away from boiling hot sugar. Martha Stewart suggests dipping the cream puffs twice - first to cover the top in caramel for a glaze, then to dip the bottom when stacking. I valued my fingers too much to attempt double dipping; instead I only dipped the bottom, then poured some caramel on top for extra crunch.

For all the potential danger this dessert poses, I have to admit that it's really fun to eat - as long as you accept the fact that you won't be able to daintily pluck off individual puffs, as Martha claims. What really happens is that you inevitably tear off the top of the puffs immediately below. Caramel forms a very strong bond between the puffs, which means the weakest link becomes the middle of the puffs. The jagged pieces, dripping with vanilla pastry cream and crunchy with caramel, are very good eats indeed (and kind of fun if you have a destructive streak) .

Apricot Blackberry Crisp

2010-05-25T01:53:00.000-07:00

Most of the time when I bake, I'm baking for someone else, like this and this. My personal tastes tend towards the tart and bitter and salty. I like licorice ice cream and dark gingerbread and salty smoky caramel. What I really have a soft spot for, though, are tough, sour fruits that take a bit of coaxing to come out of their shell, like rhubarb (yes it's technically a vegetable), sour cherries, and apricots.

I feel like apricots are not appreciated enough in the states. There's apple pie, peach pie, blueberry pie, but who's heard of apricot pie? Apricots are the darlings of French pastry cooks though (at least it seems that way after reading three Pierre Herme cookbooks). Fresh apricots are meant for buttery pastry, and dried apricots pair wonderfully with chocolate desserts.

I baked up a storm this Sunday, making walnut butter tarts, chocolate tartlets, mango coconut ice cream, and this gorgeous apricot blackberry crisp. While the other three were meant to be shared, the crisp was my private treat. The buttery, nutty topping was a perfect foil for the intensely aromatic and tart (not to mention vibrant!) fruit below.

Apricot Blackberry Crisp
Topping adopted from The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

Topping:
6 tablespoons flour
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch pieces and softened
3/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Mix the dry ingredients together. Add the butter pieces and rub until the mixture look like wet sand. Add the nuts and toss to incorporate. (Alternatively, put all the dry ingredients in the food processor, drop in butter pieces while the food processor is running, then add the nuts and pulse until combined)

Filling:
6-8 apricots, sliced
1 cup blackerries
1/4 cup sugar (more if you like a sweeter filling)
2 teaspoon corn starch

In a 9" pie pan, toss fruit with sugar and cornstarch until evenly combined.

Assembly:
Top fruit with crisp mixture, then bake at 350 F for 40 minutes, or until bubbling and golden brown on top.

Chocolate Bread

2010-05-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

I can handle tarts, cakes, gelatin, and caramel, and I'm damn proud of my ice cream. But I have a serious handicap. I'm very, very afraid of yeast.

I purchased a bread machine two years ago, after a friend raved about his fluffy, freshly baked loafs. For the initial run, I carefully followed the directions in the manufacturer's manual for basic white bread. I closed the lid and hoped for a puffy, bouncy white loaf. For some reason, my bread came out tough and dense and smelling suspiciously of yeast gone wrong. I made a few more attempts, but every time the bread came out tough as a brick. Maybe it was the yeast, even though I bought fresh packets every time. Maybe it was the humidity in the apartment. Maybe it was the altitude (I lived on the twenty-fourth floor then). Maybe I simply forgot to make an offering to the wild yeast lord.

I've had somewhat better luck with sweet yeast breads. It only took me two attempts before I made respectable cinnamon buns (to the fair, the first time was a total disaster). I still haven't mustered up the courage to tackle kouign amanns, but someday, their salty crunchy caramel goodness shall be mine...

So why am I making bread? From scratch no less?

See if you can resist this post. I love David Lebovitz. What's there not to love about a man who 1) lives in Paris and 2) makes ice cream? Seriously. But this chocolate bread is something else. It's such a refreshing change from all the heavyweight ganache-filled desserts with the word chocolate attached to their names. It's sophisticated even, with all the chocolate and coffee in the yeast dough (okay, the sophistication kind of takes a hit when you add all the nuts and chocolate chunks, but it's still charming!)

What's really exciting, though, is that my yeast did their job. Here's the dough before the all important "rise".

Here's the dough, two hours later. It's alive!

Then you stir in all sorts of goodies. David called for only dark chocolate, but I added in some white for contrast.

Let the dough rise a second time in the pan before sending it to the oven...

... and you'll be greeted by bready, chocolately goodness 40 minutes later.

This is not a fluffy, wimpy bread. It's dense and filled with chocolate and nuts (come to think of it, dried fruit would be nice too). It's delicious toasted, accompanied by a cup of black coffee (for the adult-minded) or cold milk (wheeeeeee!)

Oh yeah, does anyone want a slightly-used bread machine?

Custard Tips

2010-05-10T00:30:00.000-07:00

I used to be terrified of making custard. The idea of mixing hot liquid with eggs just sounds like a sure-fire way to end up with egg-drop soup. So, whenever I had to make custard, I would drizzle the hot liquid into the egg yolks ever so slowly, and I used a hand mixer to make sure every hot droplet was distributed into the eggs as quickly as possible. After a couple of successful custards, though, I started getting complacent. I ditched the hand mixer for a whisk and started pouring faster and faster, until...

Yesterday, I totally screwed up a batch of custard. We're talking big time egg-drop soup, pieces-of-coagulated-protein-floating-in-liquid style screwed up. This wake-up call reminded me that cooking is a science, and it requires due attention and care.

That said, I decided to write up some points that I've learned, so you won't make the same mistakes.

The typical custard recipe has the following steps:
1. Heat the liquid (milk, cream, etc) with sugar and flavoring (ex. vanilla) until boiling.
2. Add the hot liquid to beaten egg yolks
3. Cook the mixture over the stove top until "thickened to coat the back of the spoon".

Step #1 is fairly straight forward.

The goal for step #2 is to incorporate the hot liquid into the egg yolks in as gentle and gradual a way as possible, so no bit of egg yolk gets overcooked.
- Add some sugar to the egg yolks before tempering with hot milk/cream. I think it helps to add the sugar to the egg yolks to create some insulation, especially when the pot is heavy and it's easy to slop more than you intended into the eggs.
- Start by slowly drizzling the hot liquid into the egg yolks and whisk frequently. Once half of the hot liquid has been mixed in, you can start pouring faster.

The goal for step #3 is to increase the heat of the egg dairy mixture as gently and thoroughly as possible.
- Keep the heat low. Having the heat too high means the bottom will cook faster than the top, and you risk getting bits of egg stuck to the bottom of the pan.
- Use a silicon spatula, or something that will get into the corners. The unreachable regions in the corner of the pan will get too hot and solidify. Besides, a spatula is good for the next tip, which is...
- Stir, but not too much. When cooking custard, it's important to know when the custard has thickened. I made the mistake of using a whisk once. All that did was to create a lot of foam on top, which obscured my view of the actual custard. You want to stir it frequently to distribute the heat, but not so much that it foams up.

What's custard good for? Well, you can churn out the most rich and smooth ice cream, like the cookies and cream one below...

Toasted Almond Gelato

2010-05-06T16:50:00.000-07:00

Even though French pastries get all the spotlight on this blog (okay, most of the spotlight, sometimes I feel perverse and do this), I'm always curious to explore the desserts of other cultures. I stumbled upon a wonderful book at the library a few weeks ago. Dolce Italiano by Gina De Palma, the pastry chef at Mario Batali's Babbo Kitchen, takes you on an amazing cultural journey through Italy. She describes not only the desserts of various regions, but their wine and cheese as well. I tend to read cookbooks for the vicarious pleasure of traveling to other places and pretending I'm living among the locals, rather than to get recipes, so I had a blast with this book. One day, I'll be sipping vin santo in my Tuscan villa, surrounded by my vineyards...

There was a toasted almond gelato recipe in the book that I just had to try*. I wanted to make something refreshing and fragrant, but with enough toasty body to be fulfilling.

This recipe is perfect for someone who likes almonds. For those of you who don't (shame on you), replacing the almonds with hazelnuts, and amaretto with frangelico, would probably yield equally amazing results.

* Okay, so there were other recipes, like fried orange cream and custard donuts, that I wanted to try more. But I know better than to purchase a deep fryer.

Toasted Almond Gelato
Adopted from Dolce Italiano

1 cup sliced blanched almonds
1 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 tablespoon flavorful honey
pinch of salt
2 teaspoons amaretto
1/4 teaspoon pure almond extract

Toast the almonds in a 375F oven for 12-14 minutes, until golden brown and aromatic.

Place the toasted almonds in a saucepan. Add heavy cream, milk, sugar and honey. Cook over medium heat until the mixture comes to a boil, then let steep until the mixture cools to room temperature. Strain to remove the almonds, then stir in salt, amaretto, and almond extract. Don't throw away the leftover almonds. You can grind them up in a food processor and use them in place of ground almonds in recipes (financiers, frangipane, tart dough, etc). I had enough to make a rhubarb bakewell tart, but that's for another day.

Chill the gelato mixture thoroughly in a covered container for at least 3-4 hours, then freeze in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions.

Pierre Herme's Criollo Cake

2010-05-01T17:27:00.000-07:00

Now that my WSET exam is finally over, I can catch up with blogging. No more late-night flashcard making! I don't know how much more geography and region names I could have crammed into my head. (Although I have to admit, I wish I had an iPhone flashcard app back in school. It totally beats lugging a stack of cards everywhere).

This is a cake I made two weeks ago to celebrate the new office move. The new building is decidedly more labyrinthine, I think it was built before people realized that right-angle intersections are a good thing. And don't even get me started on the garage. Let's just say that it's the traditional location for intern puzzle hunts.

On the bright side (no pun intended), I finally get a window view (even if it's through someone else's office).

Let's talk about the cake. The Criollo cake is a multi-layered affair consisting of two coconut daquoise disks, lemon-ginger chocolate mousse, and caramelized bananas. It sounds a little fussy, but it's actually quite simple to make (it's definitely one of the easier cakes in Chocolate Desserts). As a testament to it's simplicity, I made it because I had four egg whites to get rid of and I happened to have all the ingredients in the pantry.

Assembly (with recipes below):
2 coconut dacquoise disks, 9" in diameter
1 recipe caramelized bananas
1 recipe lemon ginger chocolate mousse

1. Place one dacquoise disk on the bottom of the cake ring (in my case, springform cake pan).

2. Spread a third of the chocolate mousse on top.

3. Layer the caramelized bananas on top, then cover with another third of chocolate mousse.

4. Place the second daquoise disk on top, and cover with remaining mousse.

5. Chill the cake until set, at least 3 hours.

6. Pierre suggests decorating the cake with toasted coconut on the side and a crescent of glossed caramel bananas on top. I ran out of bananas at this point...

Coconut Dacquoise
Adopted from Chocolate Desserts

I was highly skeptical of the coconut daquoise at first. It's basically a meringue with ground almonds and coconuts mixed in. I worried that the baked meringue would be limp and spongy, like the cotton stuffing in an old cushion. Boy was I wrong! It turned out crisp on the outside and meltingly soft on the inside, the just chewy enough to remind you of an almond joy bar but with none of the coconut pieces left itching in your throat. It was one of the best thing I've ever baked (to clarify, I was feasting on the extra batter that I had piped into meringue buttons.)

1/2 cup (40 g) unsweetened dried coconut
1/3 cup (45 g) blanched almonds
3/4 cup (75 g) confectioners' sugar
3 large egg whites, room temperature
1/3 cup (70g) sugar

Preheat oven to 325 F. Process the coconut, almonds, and confectioners' sugar in a food processor and process until powdery. Sift through a strainer.

Beat egg whites, gradually adding sugar until firm peaks form. Fold in the sifted dry ingredients in 3-4 additions.

Now, you can either put half of the batter into a pastry bag and pipe out the batter in a spiral (think snail shell) until it forms a 9 inch circle. Or, you can be like me and dump half of the batter onto the sheet and shape it into a circle. Either way, it's going to be hidden inside the chocolate mousse so appearances don't really matter.

Caramelized Bananas
Adopted from Chocolate Desserts

2 medium bananas
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
1 1/2 tablespoons (20 g) unsalted butter
2 1/2 tablespoons light brown sugar.

Cut the banans on a slight bias to 1/2 inch thick slices. Toss with lemon juice to avoid oxidation.

Melt the butter in a skillet. Stir in the brown sugar while the butter is bubbly. Toss in the bananas over high heat, stirring constantly, until caramel-coated. Try to avoid getting them mushy. Transfer bananas to a plate and cool.

You can spoon any leftover caramelized bananas over ice cream.

Lemon-Ginger Chocolate Mousse
Adopted from Chocolate Desserts

The recipe may seem fussy and yes, there are three separate steps involved. Good organization and a thorough reading of the recipe before you start will definitely help. The resulting mousse is rich and fluffy, with just a kick from the zest and ginger to keep you on your toes. If you're not making the cake, this would be a sophisticated dessert on its own, served with a dollop of whipped cream and a few crisp cookies.

2 large eggs
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup (70 g) sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 cup (250 g) heavy cream
6 ounces (170 g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
1/4 teaspoon finely grated peeled ginger

Whisk together the eggs and yolk. Cook the sugar and water over medium heat until the sugar melts. Turn up the heat and cook without stirring until it reaches 257 F (5-10 min). In the mean time, have a mixer ready to whisk the syrup into the eggs. Once the syrup is hot enough, immediately pull the pan from heat and slowly pour the syrup into the eggs, with the mixer running at its lowest speed. Once all the syrup have been mixed in, turn up the speed to high and beat for 5 minutes, until the eggs are at room temperature, pale, and more than double their original volume. It's very important to have the syrup hot enough, otherwise the sugar cools down too fast and you get lumps of hard candy at the bottom of the bowl.

Beat the cream until it holds medium peaks.

Melt the chocolate over a double broiler or microwave. Pour it into a bowl large enough to hold all the ingredients for the mousse. Stir in lemon zest and ginger. Then cool the chocolate until warm to the touch (114 F). Fold the whipped cream into the melted chocolate in two batches, then fold in the whipped egg mixture.

April 2010 Daring Bakers' Challenge: Traditional British Pudding

2010-04-28T00:39:00.000-07:00

The April 2010 Daring bakers' challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

I was super excited when I first read about the challenge. Heroic, pioneer-woman-esque visions of rendering lard filled my head and I couldn't wait to tell all sorts of cocktail-party horror stories. Unfortunately, my dreams were dashed when I found out that none of the butchers at Pikes Place Market carried suet.

With only days left, I turned to Nigella Lawson. I'm a huge Nigella fan, not so much for the recipes as for her evocative writing style. Each recipe comes with a story, and it just makes me feel so British, in a polished, sultry sort of way. Out of the four Nigella books I own, only one, How To Be a Domestic Goddess, carried a steamed pudding recipe. Geez, steamed puddings must be so unfashionable that even Nigella doesn't give it much attention...

The recipe I did find was for a lemon-y syrup sponge. As someone firmly entrenched in modern baking techniques, I found the instructions totally bizarre. To make the pudding, you fill a bowl with corn syrup and lemon juice, pour a cake batter on top, then steam the whole thing for two hours. Nigella promised a feather light pudding, but I had my doubts.

Let's walk through the recipe together. I didn't have a proper pudding basin, so I used a large 5-cup ceramic bowl. The amount below has been scaled down to make about 3 cups of batter, enough to fill the bowl and make 4-6 servings.

Steamed Syrup Sponge
adopted from How To Be a Domestic Goddess

In a food processor, blitz together:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter at room temperature
1 1/8 cup (146 g) cake flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1/3 cup (67 g) sugar
2 eggs
zest of 1 lemon + juice of 1/2 lemon
4 tbsp milk

The batter should be thick but pourable. Add more milk if needed to thin out the batter.

Butter the pudding vessel of your choice (make sure you have a pot large enough to fit the pudding bowl into). Pour into the bowl 2/3 cup + 1 tbsp light corn syrup. I find it easier to weigh out 250 g with my scale than to fiddle with sticky measuring cups. Add the juice of the other half lemon and stir together.

Pour the batter over the syrup. Cover with foil (or the lid of the pudding dish, if you have one).

Put the pudding bowl into a large pot. Pour enough boiling water into the pot to reach 1/2 to 2/3 of the way up the bowl. Cover with the pot lid, and keep the pot boiling over the stove for two hours.

And yes, it will work.

Working quickly, turn the pudding out onto a plate. Watch out for the hot syrup on the bottom of the bowl.

I was surprised how well the pudding turned out. It was light and airy, with a moist, syrup-soaked top. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought it was a baked dessert. With the long two hour cooking time though, I think I might stick to my oven.

Lemon-Speculoos Ice Cream

2010-04-21T00:54:00.000-07:00

If I ever open my own ice cream shop some day, this will be my signature flavor. The combination of cakey, spicy gingerbread and aromatic, creamy lemon ice cream is so nicely balanced and addictive...

Before I start raving about how much better my own ice cream is compared to commercial ones, I have a confession to make: I used to be a non-believer. Sure, I churned out batches now and then from my Cuisinart machine, but the ones I made were so rich that I felt like I was eating clotted cream. I like my ice cream creamy, but with enough icy-ness to be refreshing as well. When I was making this recipe, I lowered the ratio of cream to milk to 1-1, and that made all the difference.

Now I make homemade ice cream once a week :)

(Vanilla ice cream with leftover caramel sauce)

Lemon-Speculoos Ice Cream
Adopted from The Perfect Scoop

2 large lemons
100 g sugar
1 cup 2% milk (the recipe specified whole milk, but I only had 2%. I like the resulting consistency a lot)
1 cup heavy cream
pinch of salt
3 egg yolks
Speculoos, crumbled

Zest lemons into blender. Add sugar and blend until zest is very fine. Warm the milk with sugar, 1/3 cup heavy cream, and salt in medium saucepan. Let infuse for 1 hour.

Rewarm the lemon mixture, slowly pour into whisked egg yolks, whisking constantly. Scrape back into the pan and cook until thickened. Strain the custard and stir into remaining 1 cup of cream. Chill mixture, then churn according to manufacturer's instructions. Fold in crumbled speculoos.

Speculoos
Adopted from The Perfect Scoop

30 g salted butter, room temperature
45 g packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon molasses
1 egg yolk
70 g flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground allspice

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Beat butter and brown sugar until smooth. Stir in molasses and egg yolk. Stir together flour, baking soda, and spices, then stir the dry ingredients into the butter mixture. Pat the batter in a 5 inch circle on the baking sheet, then bake for 18 minutes. Break into bite-sized chunks once cooled.

Nutella Tart

2010-04-12T22:45:00.000-07:00

I made this as a birthday tart since the birthday boy wasn't too into cakes. I have an indecently large supply of Nutella, so I jumped at the chance to use up some (it was the result of a momentary lapse of judgment at Costco, I have since learned that no one can eat that much Nutella).

This tart from Pierre Herme shows off his genius at combining textures. A crumbly tart crust is first topped with a dense, creamy layer of nutella, then a layer of rich moist chocolate filling (half way between pudding and ganache) is spread on top. Crunchy hazelnuts complete the picture. Taking a cue from his Tart Grenobloise, I piped some caramel sauce on top to add some smokiness and depth.

Here's a cross-section from one of the tartlets I made. You can see all the layers very clearly.

Need I mention that everyone loves this tart?

Nutella Tart
Adopted from Pierre Herme's Chocolate Desserts

1 Tart crust, fully baked
2/3 cup Nutella for the bottom layer
Chocolate filling for the top layer, recipe below
1 cup hazelnuts, toasted, skinned, and roughly chopped
Caramel sauce to drizzle on top, optional, recipe below

Assembly:
Spread Nutella evenly on the bottom of the tart shell.

Spread the shiny chocolate filling on top. I love the contrast.

Spread the chocolate filling evenly, then sprinkle hazelnuts on top.

Bake in a 375F oven for 11 minutes. The center of the tart will still be jiggly (it was kind of hard to tell with all the hazelnuts on top). Wait until cooled, then pipe caramel sauce on top. It's very important to let the tart cool down first, otherwise the caramel topping will melt onto the surface, like this.

I had to re-pipe the caramel a second time. Oh well, extra caramel never killed anyone : )

Chocolate Filling

4 1/2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
7 tablespoons unsalted butter (there's a typo in the book that gives the weight of 7 tablespoons of butter as 200 grams, it should be 100 grams)
1 large egg, at room temperature, stirred with a fork
3 large egg yolks, stirred with a fork
2 tablespoons sugar

Melt chocolate and butter in separate bowls. Allow them to cool until just warm to the touch (~104 F).

Stir the egg into the chocolate gently, without beating air into the ganache. Stir in the egg yolks little by little, then the sugar. Finally, stir in the warm melted butter. By now the mixture should become very shiny. Work rather quickly, or you'll find that the chocolate will cool down too much and the mixture becomes too hard to work. If that happens, just pop it into the microwave for 10 seconds to loosen up.

Strawberry Ice Cream + Gianduja Stracciatella Gelato

2010-04-05T22:25:00.000-07:00

I hosted an ice cream and movie party after picking up David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop from the library. Some flavors, like green pea ice cream, were a little out there (but then again, even Le Berthillon sells foie gras ice cream). Gianduja seemed like a safer choice since everyone likes hazelnut and chocolate. Plus, I learned a really cool tip for making the chocolate stracciatella - tiny chocolate shards that permeate the creamy ice cream so you get a little bit of (alarmingly addictive) crunch with every bite. But more on that later.

I wasn't really planning on making strawberry ice cream until I came back with a 5 lb flat of strawberries from Costco. Yes, I realize they weren't fraise du bois, but they smelled pretty good and I couldn't resist the bargain. I used a old-school recipe from Alice Waters The Art of Simple Food, but tweaked it a little by marinating the strawberries with balsamic vinegar and some home-grown basil leaves. I couldn't really taste the basil, but the balsamic vinegar definitely enhanced the fruitiness of the strawberries.

Strawberry Ice Cream
Adopted from The Art of Simple Food

In a small bowl, whisk together 3 egg yolks.

Heat 3/4 cup half-and-half and 1/2 cup of sugar over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. While hot, whisk a little of the hot liquid into the egg yolks to temper them, then whisk the yolks into the rest of the hot liquid. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and coats the back of the spoon. Strain, and add 3/4 cup heavy cream. Cover and chill.

Slice 1 1/2 pint strawberries, stir in 1/4 cup of sugar (plus vinegar and/or basil to taste). Let the berries marinate until the sugar is melted and the berries turn glossy. Puree the strawberries (I like my ice cream smooth, you can mash it for a chunkier texture), then add it to the cold custard. It makes a really mesmerizing pattern when you begin to stir in the strawberry puree.

Flavor with a pinch of salt and a few drops of vanilla extract and kirsch (optional, but I do love the smell of kirsch). Chill thoroughly, then churn in ice cream maker following manufacturer's instructions.

Gianduja Stracciatella Gelato
Adopted from The Perfect Scoop

Toast 1 1/2 cup of hazelnuts. Rub to remove their skin, then finely chop with the kitchen tool of your choice. Warm 1 cup whole milk with 1 cup of cream, 3/4 cup sugar, and 1/4 tsp salt. Add chopped hazelnuts to warmed mixture, then cover and let steep for 1 hour. Strain and discard the hazelnuts. You will be rewarded with a richly aromatic elixir that's quite nice to drink, especially with a shot of kahlua and some ice cubes...

Ahem. If you still want to make ice cream, chop 4 ounces milk chocolate. Heat 1 cup of cream, then pour it over the milk chocolate. Stir until homogeneous.

Whisk together 5 egg yolks. Rewarm the hazelnut infusion, then slowly pour it into the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Pour the warmed egg yolk and cream mixture back into the pan and cook until it thickens and coats the back of the spoon. Strain the hazelnut custard and add it to the milk chocolate mixture. Add 1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract and cool over an ice bath. Chill thoroughly in the refrigerator, then churn in ice cream maker following manufacturer's instructions.

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about the stracciatella.

Melt 5 ounces dark chocolate, then drizzle it slowly into the ice cream machine while the ice cream is almost finished churning. The churning motion will break up the rapidly solidifying chocolate stream into tiny shards. I was skeptical when I first read about it, but it really works!

Sour Cream Banana Chip Muffins (Best.Banana.Muffins.Ever.)

2010-04-03T16:14:00.000-07:00

I love America's Test Kitchen. I'm a regular subscriber to Cooks Illustrated and I love their experimental approach to cooking. I wish they would take me on as a contributing writer. I'd have a grand time being scientific in the kitchen (I have a devoted kitchen calculator, a kitchen laptop equipped with matlab is on the horizon), and I already have an established taste tester pool at work. I just hope moving to Vermont isn't part of the deal...

I own the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, a giant 5-ring binder of recipes that can be conveniently unclipped and taken individually to the kitchen. I was looking for ways to use up some ripe bananas, and I inadvertently stumbled upon a culinary bombshell.

You can ripen bananas by roasting them in the oven.

The idea is to pop whole bananas, unpeeled, into the heated oven while you prepare and measure the other ingredients for banana cake. After 15 minutes, the skins will turn black but the flesh will be brown, soft, and sweet.

And let me tell you, it totally works. I was rewarded with a very fragrant kitchen and lusciously sweet bananas that tasted slightly caramelized. Hmmm... I think that's how they make those intensely aromatic banana breads in Maui.

I know it's not the prettiest picture, but man, this banana bread from Eastern Maui is ridiculously good. They sell it in plastic bags, all the better to keep the heady aromas of banana and caramelized sugar inside. I can still smell it in my head, really.

Vacation memories aside, I took my precious roasted banana pulp and made a batch of muffins with sour cream and chopped chocolate (I recently discovered the banana+chocolate combination when a coworker - whose wife is a very talented baker - brought some banana chip muffins to work).

The muffins were deliciously aromatic, and had a fluffy, tender crumb (I think the sour cream helped). I love the tiny - and not so tiny - flicks of chocolate that melts on the tongue.

There will be a lot more roasting of bananas in the future.

Sour Cream Banana Chip Muffins
(Makes 12 very overfilled muffins, and probably 16 normal ones)
Adopted from The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook's Banana Chip Snack Cakes

2 cups all purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 stick butter, softened
2 eggs, at room temperature
2 large ripe bananas, roasted and mashed
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup chopped bittersweet chocolate (or as much as you like, really. You can use chocolate chips but I like the texture and visual appeal of chopped chocolate)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.

Cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, then beat in bananas, sour cream, water, and vanilla.

Fold in the dry mixture into the wet until just combined. Stir in the chocolate.

Pour the batter into muffin tins and bake until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out with a few crumbs attached (it'll be most likely covered in melted chocolate as well, just check that there's no wet batter). With my very tall muffins it took around 30 minutes. Let it cool (or not), and eat.

March 2010 Daring Baker's Challenge: Orange Tian

2010-03-27T15:29:00.000-07:00

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

I was initially skeptical of the dessert; it seemed so stiff and old-fashioned - I think the ring molds and "Alain Ducasse" threw me off. I was blown away when I tasted it, it was clearly one of the best desserts I've ever made!

According to wikipedia, a tian is both the name of a French braised vegetable stew and the tall conical clay pot it was cooked in. Nowadays, it just refers a layered dish, both savory or sweet. The orange tian in this recipe has several contrasting layers:

(in bottom to top order)

1. Crumbly pâte sableé (butter cookie) base

2. Smear of tart homemade marmalade

3. Orange whipped cream

4. Orange segments marinated overnight in caramel sauce

5. Orange caramel sauce

Whew. That's a lot of layers. Yes, this is a fussy dessert, but it's worth the effort (especially if you have someone to impress). I fed it to my boyfriend while he was operating a drill press, very romantic non?

Assembly:

In a dessert ring (I used round cookie cutters), place a layer of orange segments on the bottom. Try to fit them as snugly as possible.

Spoon the whipped cream on top until the ring is almost filled.

Spread marmalade on the cookie base, then place the cookie into the ring, marmalade side down. I forgot that cookies will expand slightly in the oven - jamming cookies into the ring = broken cookies. One daring baker used a microplane to file down her cookies so they'd fit into the ring, she's a better engineer than me.

Put the whole thing in the freezer for about 10 minutes to firm up, then very carefully invert onto a plate. It's quite gorgeous.

Run a thin knife blade around the inside edges of the ring to unmold.

Spoon caramel sauce on top and serve. I should probably invest in a squeeze bottle. In terms of taste, though, this was incredible. The caramel sauce perfectly complemented the juice orange segments, creamy mousse, and buttery cookie base.

If you want, you can even put it in the freezer and call it a semifreddo. Unfortunately the orange segments loose their juiciness, but it's sure more photogenic : )

* All the recipes can be found here.

I. Cookie Base

Roll out your pâte sableé dough to 1/4 inch thick, then cut out circles. Bake until golden brown. Leftover dough makes great mini-cheesecake bases.

II. Orange Marmalade

A food processor is great here. You basically want to slice the oranges very thin, then blanch them in hot water a few times.

Chop the cooked orange slices, then cook it with sugar and pectin until thick.

I didn't really like the chunky texture, so I pureed the whole thing until it was smooth.

III. Stabilized Whipped Cream

Whipped cream is flavored with the orange marmalade from part II and stabilized with gelatin. I added a slug of Grand Marnier for good measure.

IV. Orange Segments

Segmenting oranges is the single most slavish thing I've ever done. You have to first peel the orange, taking care to trim off all the pith, then carefully cut out each individual segment. I feel for the poor guy in the resort hotel who has to do this all day long. Here's a youtube video about segmenting oranges.

After you have your bowl full of hard-earned orange segments, pour half the orange caramel sauce from part V onto the segments and marinade overnight. You'll be rewarded with beautiful juicy syrupy orange segments. It is actually worth the effort.

V. Orange Caramel Sauce

Heat sugar in a pan to make caramel, then stir in orange juice. Done.

Opera Cake, a Step-by-Step Guide

2010-03-25T01:40:00.000-07:00

I gave myself a challenge last week.

When some departing coworkers requested a cake, I immediately thought of opera cake. To me, it's the epitome of French pastries - grand, complex, and decadent. As with many desserts, I had an idea what I wanted it to taste like, but I've never had a good one. In fact, I've only ever tasted one opera cake, at a culinary institute bakery in Vancouver, but I was sorely disappointed by the harsh sugary ganache and bone-dry sponge cake. Opera cake should be rich and complex, with each layer contributing both flavor and texture.

I. The Anatomy of Opera Cake (bottom up):

1. Almond Sponge (Jaconde): The sponge should be dry, so it can soak up liberal amounts of coffee syrup. Syrup drenched cake is luscious and moist and very, very delicious (it's my favorite part of the cake). The bottom piece of sponge is coated with melted chocolate on the bottom, to keep it from being soggy and to help hold up the cake.

2. Coffee Buttercream: The buttercream needs a strong coffee component to balance it's rich and creamy texture.
3. Almond Sponge.
4. Chocolate Ganache: The ganache should be melt-in-the-mouth creamy and taste like real chocolate.
5. Almond Sponge.
6. Chocolate Glaze: Personally I think the glaze should be made with unsweetened chocolate so it delivers a extra chocolate kick at the end. I never understood sugary glazes.

II. Assembly:
Components: 3 pieces sponge cake, coffee syrup, coffee buttercream, chocolate ganache, chocolate glaze. I used the recipe from Paris Sweets, except for the sponge cake, which I took from Indulge.

1. Coat the bottom of one piece of sponge cake in chocolate (I made a big cake and a smaller practice cake). You'll want to coat the side that's less spongy, to save the spongy side for syrup love later.

2. Once the chocolate is dry, flip the piece over and soak it liberally in coffee syrup. As Claire Clark puts it, there should be no white sponge showing. She's the head pastry chef at The French Laundry, so I'd take her word for it (in fact, even though I thought I soaked the cake thoroughly, once I tasted the cake I wish I had put on more syrup).

3. Cover the cake with most of the coffee buttercream. Try to level it as best as you can.

4. Cover with another layer of sponge. Soak liberally with coffee syrup. Chill it in the fridge a bit to harden up.

5. Spread chocolate ganache on top, as level as possible. I found it useful to warm the ganache slightly so it's easier to work with.

6. Put the last layer of sponge cake on top. Soak with syrup, then spread a thin layer of remaining buttercream on top to create a smooth surface for the glaze. Chill again to harden.

7. Spread on the glaze. Try to get a level surface on top without working the glaze too many times (otherwise it loses its shine). I had a lot of trouble with this part, because I wanted it mirror smooth. Eventually I settled with "kind of flat". I found that if you heat the surface with a blow dryer, it'll melt the glaze on top and soften any hard edges on the surface of the glaze.

8. Wait until the glaze is set, then trim off the edges to make a neat rectangle/square (I settled for quadrilateral, I have trouble with right angles).

9. Snack judiciously on the trimmings. It may be tempting, but eating all of it will make you feel very, very sick.

10. Wrap the cake tightly in plastic wrap and store in the fridge until ready to serve. Let it come to room temperature (~ 1 hr) before serving. I found that the texture and taste of the cake improved after I let it sit for a day in the fridge.

My Kind of Brownies

2010-03-24T02:12:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present apricot-walnut-cocoa brownies.

After the last batch of French-style brownies, I wanted something bolder, chewier, more, well, American. Recently, there's been a resurgence of chewy brownie recipes that try to mimic the texture of box mix brownies without the box. The recipe from Smitten Kitchen looked promising. I added a touch of Pierre Hermé by tossing 3/4 cup of chopped apricots into the mix, along with the 3/4 cup of walnuts. Ever since making his Linzer tart, I've been a huge fan of mixing fruit with chocolate - the acid cuts through chocolate's richness, and the fruit echoes floral notes in the chocolate. Okay, it just makes the dessert so much more interesting and balanced, very good compliments in my book.

The batter was a cinch to whip up, and you can do it all in one pan (a very welcoming change after making buttercream and jaconde for opera cake).

Happy Macaron Day!

2010-03-21T00:47:00.000-07:00

I'm not making this up, the 20th of March is Macaron Day! In Paris (and apparently New York*), bakeries give out free macarons. In honor of the occasion, I'll post some pictures of my latest (4th) attempt at making macarons.

Not to be confused with macaroons, macarons (I always get made fun of when I use the I'm-choking-on-broccoli French 'r') are almond and egg white cookies that sandwich buttercream, ganache, jam, even ketchup. The little cookies should have a delicately crisp shell on the outside, fluffy and slightly chewy on the inside, and most importantly, have a frilly skirt or "feet" on the bottom (otherwise they can't be called macarons). They're notoriously difficult to make, since they require precision and accuracy in temperature control, beating time, moisture, etc.

My first attempt was a total disaster, the cookies turned out crisp and flat as a pancake. But it wasn't really my fault, since the recipe for chocolate macarons in this book had a egregious typo (someone was too copy/paste happy). The second time I used the standard recipe from the same book, but I over-beat the batter (there's even a verb for beating macaron batter, macaronner). The third time, I used the Italian meringue recipe here (there are different schools of macaron-making, mainly based on what type of meringue is used in the batter. An Italian meringue is hot syrup beat into egg white foam. A French meringue is sugar beat into egg white foam). The batter had the right consistency, but it was too sweet and I ended up with molten sugar everywhere. I was too disappointed to make a filling, but I shamelessly fed the shells to my coworkers.

Incidentally, this is what happens to your beater when you whisk soft-ball syrup into egg whites.

I switched back to the French meringue school. This time, I picked a recipe that had the highest almond powder to sugar ratio I could find. I want my macaron to be fluffy and tender on the inside, not sticky sweet. Armed with two oven thermometers (I found out my oven's about 50 F off) and two professional baking sheets from the restaurant supply store (which ironically cost less than one of my regular nonstick flimsy sheets), I carefully made another batch of macarons. I even made coffee buttercream to go with it!

The macarons were pretty good, definitely sell-able in Seattle, especially after they've been refrigerated for a day (to be fair, coffee buttercream makes most things delicious). I'm not too happy with the shells - the fluffy texture in my favorite Parisian macarons still eludes me, you can see how the top crust crumbles into the air pocket in the shell - but I'm making progress.

There'll be a lot more tinkering in the kitchen. Stay tuned.

*I'm rather alarmed by New York's "Macaron - the New Cupcake" slogan. Does that mean in a few years Seattle will also be flooded by mediocre macarons? Given that macarons are a hell lot harder to make than cupcakes, I'm curious how bakeries will adjust. Maybe I should get ahead of the curve and start a chain now. Macaron Royale, anyone?

Le Cordon Bleu

2010-03-16T00:48:00.000-07:00

My acceptance letter came in the mail today for Le Cordon Bleu's intensive Basic Pâtisserie program. I'll be spending a month in Paris this summer, learning the art of French pastry-making and clumsily making use of my forgotten high school French. There'll be plenty of "research" trips to pâtisseries and lots of picture-taking and (hopefully) blogging.

My biggest concern (other than paying an arm and a leg for a month's stay in Paris in the summer, or jostling with sneaker-wearing tourists for Pierre Hermé's macarons) is that I'll have to work with butter-laden pastry dough in the blustering July heat. I hope they have air-conditioning at Le Cordon Bleu.

Cream Puffs

2010-03-14T00:40:00.000-08:00

You know how sometimes, things just work out? That's what happened between me and choux pastry.

Choux pastry, or Pâte à Choux, is a little scary. It's got an identity crisis. You cook the dough first over the stove top, like polenta, but then you stir in some eggs and bake the whole thing in the oven. What you get, though, are beautiful crisp shells ready to be filled and dipped in all the Good Things of Pastry, like custard cream and chocolate and ice cream.

I got the recipe for choux pastry from Michael Ruhlman's Ratio. It's a very interesting read for the scientifically-inclined since it breaks down common batters, doughs, sauces, etc into their component ratios. For example, the ratio for choux pastry is, by weight,

2 parts water : 1 part butter : 1 part flour : 2 parts egg

The dough comes together surprisingly quickly (I'll post the recipe below). It can be pipped into balls for cream puffs or logs for eclairs.

My pipping skills are somewhat limited. Don't look at the bottom row : )

After half an hour in the oven, you'll be greeted by some of the cutest things to ever come out of your kitchen. They're just so cherub-like in their cheery plumpness.

As for filling, I had a batch of pastry cream from Paris Sweets on hand. It seemed a little heavy on its own so I lightened it with some whipped cream.

I created, like, The Most Delicious Thing Ever.

To be fair, I have a weakness for all things custard, but this was drop-dead sexy. It's like the custard filling in Beard Papa cream puffs, but with the richness and fragrance of real cream and vanilla beans. To make a good thing better, I made a matcha version.

It turns out the boyfriend avoids green tea-flavored stuff like the plague, so I had to eat all the matcha ones. I'm sure my waistline hated me for it.

The other good thing about homemade cream puffs, you get to fill it with as much good stuff as you want : )

Pâte à Choux
Adoped from Ratio

8 oz water
4 oz butter
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
4 oz flour
8 oz eggs (4 large)

Bring the water, butter, salt, and sugar to a simmer over high heat. Reduce heat to medium, add the flour, and stir rapidly. The flour will absorb the liquid and form a dough that pulls away from the sides of the pan. Cook the dough for 1-2 minutes more, then take off the heat. You want the dough to cool a bit before mixing in the eggs. I'm morbidly afraid of cooking the eggs too quickly, so I waited until the dough was warm. I also used a hand-held mixer to beat in the eggs, but traditionally it's done with a spoon. Beat in the eggs one at a time. The dough is done when it becomes smooth and silky.

Pipe the dough onto a baking pan, to golf ball sized portions. Bake at 425 F for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350F and bake for 10-20 minutes longer. I found that I needed the 20 minutes to cook the insides through.

Le Brownies

2010-03-11T02:14:00.000-08:00

I have a love-hate relationship with brownies. To me, they rank on the same level as chocolate chip cookies. It has the potential to be amazingly good, but the typical result is sadly mediocre. It's so American. So blasé. So over produced. Sometimes I cave in and grab a piece, thick with grainy frosting and smudgy in its plastic wrapper. It satisfies my sugar craving, but I always regret it later.

Brownies is one of those foods that's best cooked at home. I used to eat box mix brownies, fresh from the oven, at middle school sleep-overs. We would playing Mario Kart, trade school gossip that more often involved the math club than cute boys, and help stir the brownie batter. We ate the brownies warm out of the oven - I made sure we made it to the kitchen in time - with mugs of cold milk. My friend's mom would always urge us to have seconds, and I always did. Looking back, I suspect I had a greater appreciation for food than most people my age, or maybe my friends had more refined palates that rejected the industrial stuff.
Now that I'm older, I can eat as many pieces of brownies as I want without mortification (as long as I hide in the kitchen, hah).

I didn't mean to bake brownies today. I planned to make an elaborate multi-layered chocolate cake-lemon cream-whipped chocolate ganache affair, but all the recipe searching and scaling calculations wore me out. I wanted something simple, something comforting and familiar, something like Pierre Hermé's brownies.

These brownies are nothing like the ones I used to eat. It uses real chocolate and real butter. Lots of butter, actually. The butter is first creamed, then blended with melted chocolate, eggs, sugar, flour, and nuts. The batter comes together like a dream, soft and creamy and studded with pieces of toasted walnuts. After baking, it takes on a tight, velvety crumb and delicately crunchy crust.

It's not quite the all-American brownie. It's more polite and elegant, without the brash chewiness and in-your-face cocoa punch. Still, it was comforting, especially with a glass of milk.

I'm not going to say how many pieces I ate.

Mango-Nectarine Mousse Cake

2010-03-08T23:12:00.000-08:00

I had a craving for mousse cakes last week, the type you find in Asian bakeries with bright flavors like strawberry or mango. I wanted to make something light and delicate, but with an intense fruit flavor (I also had a new springform pan I wanted to try out, so there).

I got fruit mousse cakes from two bakeries to do some background research. I learned that:

1) The mousse layer should be light, but well-flavored.
2) The sponge cake needs to have presence. It should be light in body, but the layer should be thick enough so that it provides contrast with the mousse layer.
3) The cake layer should be lightly soaked.
4) A layer of fruit puree really boosts the overall flavor of the cake.

I used the recipe from Florence. The cake has three components - light sponge cake, fluffy mango mousse, and intense fruit puree gelee on top. I didn't have enough mangoes, so I made a mango-nectarine mix. The fruit puree was beautiful and aromatic.

I added lime juice and Grand Marnierto the puree before fortifying it with gelatin and folding it into whipped cream. Voila, mango-nectarine mousse.

After the sponge cake was baked, I brushed the cake with a mixture of orange juice, Grand Marnier, and candied orange peel.

After the mousse layer went over the cake, I tried to come up with a way to make the top level. I couldn't use a spatula since it would leave trails in the mousse. Jiggling the pan quickly in small circles worked fairly well.

I made the gelee by adding gelatin to more fruit puree. I added some meticulously chopped nectarines for texture (meticulously chopped, because I had thoughts of making some sort of cubical fruit sculpture on top... that thought didn't last long).

The next morning, I fearfully unmolded the cake.

It was easy to cut and plate too.

The mousse was a little too firm for me, although it had a delicate fruit flavor. The gelee was very fruit-forward, but I would have liked it a little sweeter. The sponge cake, however, was spectacular. It was just sweet enough, light, yet rich in taste. I will definitely re-use the sponge cake recipe again.

Next time (oh there will be a next time, believe you me), I'll make a softer mousse and make multiple layers to get a 1-1 ratio of mousse to cake. I'll also use a lot more soaking liquid for the cake layer. Overall, I think the cake is missing a crunchy component - maybe some caramelized almond flakes on top...

A Baker's Pantry

2010-03-04T22:33:00.000-08:00

Ever since I started this blog, I constantly found myself running out of pantry staples like sugar, flour, and butter. After one too many mid-whisking runs to the grocery store, I decided to stock up on supplies, Oregon-trail style.

Need to make three tart doughs, a batch of sables and a loaf of brioche? No problem when you've got a twenty five pound bag of flour! And speaking of bread, I've got a pound block of dried yeast : )

I didn't quite have the nerve to get the twenty pound bags of sugar, so just five pounds each of granulated and powdered sugar (it came in handy for the most wicked icing).

My only regret is that I only got one four-pound-pack of butter.

Blueberry Lemon Cake

2010-03-04T01:21:00.000-08:00

I got the inspiration for this charming cake from Molly Wizenberg's thoughtful blog, Orangette. I found out about her blog writing workshop through the awesome food distribution list at work. (One of the quirks of working at a big company is that there's bound to be people who share your interests. Don't even get me started on the daily deluge of cute cat pictures in my inbox).

I've read Molly book, A Homemade Life, and was impressed by how she wove simple, heart-felt stories around themes of food. After signing up for the workshop, I decided to drop by her blog and see what's new on Orangette. I was intrigued by the Marmalade cake, which involves pureeing whole boiled citrus fruits and incorporating it, peel and all, to the cake batter.

I didn't have an orange like the recipe specified, but I did have plenty of lemons on hand. I also had a box of blueberries in the fridge. I put two and two together and voila, blueberry lemon cake.

I used the same recipe, except substituting two lemons for the orange and lemon, and stirring in a cup of blueberries at the end.

Instead of baking one large cake, I divided the batter into four mini loaf pans (I got them for making pound cake, they're just the cutest things ever).

I learned that dividing batter between four pans is really easy if you have a scale. Hours of chemistry lab at one of the world's best research universities has taught me how to measure things on a scale. Tuition well spend, eh?

Forty minutes later, I had four little loafs of dense, fragrant cakes.

This the favorite cake I've made, ever. I love its bright, fragrant, bitter-edged lemon-ness and the pockets of sweet blueberry. I also like the dense coarse crumbs. It's rustic, in an elegant Mediterranean way (must be the toasted almond flour and olive oil). I love it even more because it's a cake that keeps on getting better for days afterward.

Leo agrees with me : )

Pioneer Woman's Chocolate Sheet Cake, Y'all

2010-03-04T00:40:00.000-08:00

Howdy folks. For this cake, the Paris in Paris Sweets refers to Paris, Texas.

Once in a while, I need to embrace the fact that I grew up in the South. I love country music. Sometimes I fantasize about driving a rusty truck, or even a tractor! Okay, maybe more like a cabernet sauvignon harvesting machine than an International Harvester, but I digress.

Whenever I'm feeling particularly "homesick", I like to read Pioneer Woman's blog. I love her blog, especially the incredible step-by-step pictures she provides. When I first read about her Best Ever Chocolate Sheet Cake, I was at once repulsed and fascinated. The entire cake uses almost a pound of butter. On top of that, the icing itself uses a pound of confectioner's sugar. Sweet god.

Of course, I had no choice but to bookmark the recipe and wait for an occasion to make it. An occasion like a friend's birthday. A friend who conveniently works down the hall at work, where there's always plenty of volunteers to help finish a cake, no matter how much sugar went into it...

See this box of butter? Most of it (15/16) went into the cake.

And the icing? It took this much sugar.

It's a good thing I got that five pound bag from Costco.

I followed the recipe, but with one modification. After making the linzer tart, I became a fan of mixing the sharp acidity of fruit with the rich intensity of chocolate. Oh look, I happened to have a jar of real marmalade on hand.

I boiled a cup of marmalade with a good slug of vodka (vodka seems to enhance the brightness of fruit flavors) and some lemon juice for extra tang. I brushed this mixture onto the cake before I poured on the dangerously large pot of frosting.

If you look closely, you can see the layer of marmalade underneath the icing.

The cake was very, very, very sweet. At some places the frosting was almost as thick as the cake (!). The marmalade didn't cut through the sugar as much as I would have hoped (although the places where I could taste the marmalade was delicious). The sugar-forward recipe isn't really my style, and I probably won't make it again, but I sure had a lot of fun making it!

Tarte aux Pommes au Four / Baked Apple Tart

2010-03-01T10:42:00.000-08:00

"When life gives you apples, make apple tart."

A coworker brought a case of Fuji apples to the office last week. The nerve! With the goal of fattening coworkers in mind, I couldn't stand idly by while people helped themselves to healthy(!) snacks. I stealthily commandeered the last half dozen apples, resolving to return them back to the office in a more sumptuous and calorie-laden form.

Fuji apples aren't usually used for baking, but the Baked Apple Tart in Paris Sweets actually recommends using Fuji apples. It's a very sophisticated take on a homey dessert: the apples are caramelized on the stove top, then baked in the oven until they're soft and tender. In the tart, the baked apples are surrounded by a fragrant puffy almond cream, and topped with cooked grated apples.

*Adopted from Dorie Greenspan's Paris Sweets
I. Almond Cream
(Makes enough for a 9" tart. With something this easy and tasty, I'm tempted to make a huge batch and use it for everything. I see nectarine tarts in my future.)

1 1/2 tablespoons (20 g) butter
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 cup (30 g) ground almonds
1 egg
2 tablespoons (30 g) heavy cream
1 tablespoon Calvados or vanilla extract

Whisk butter and sugar together until the sugar dissolves, then whisk in the almonds and egg. Finally, whisk in the cream and Calvados. Cover the bowl and refrigerate until needed (it'll keep for up to 3 days).

II. The Apples

6 large apples (2 1/4 lbs, 1 kg) preferably Fuji or Granny Smith
7 tablespoons (100 g) butter
1/3 cup (75 g) sugar
2 tablespoons Calvados or 1 1/2 tsp vanilla

For the grated apples: Grate two apples (I used a mandoline). Melt 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of sugar in a large skillet, add the apples and cook until golden brown, about 3 minutes.

For the baked apples: Cut 4 apples in half, and slice each half into thirds. Melt 6 tablespoons of butter with the remaining sugar. When the butter is bubbling, toss in the apple slices and cook until the caramelized, 5-7 minutes. Your kitchen will start smelling really, really good.

Pour in the Calvados, turn off the heat, then touch a match to the liquid. When the flames die down, pull the pan from the stove and bake in at 350 F oven for 20 minutes. Resist the urge to eat all the warm, caramelized, intensely perfumed apple slices.

* Disclaimer: I didn't have Calvados, so I poured in 2 tablespoons of rum. It did not flambée. I have never managed to set rum on fire, and I didn't feel like testing out the "just add more rum" solution.

III. Assembly

Line a 9" tart shell with sweet tart dough. (Yes, this is a 6" tart shell. Consider this the "cooking demo" tart)

Spoon the almond cream into the crust.

Top with the baked apples, arranging them attractively in a single layer (mine's not quite so neat, but it'll all get topped with grated apples anyway).

Fluff up the grated apples, then arrange them over the apple slices. Leaving a bare border for an inch or so (so the almond cream can puff up attractively around it).

Bake for 40-50 minutes in a 350 F oven until the almond cream has puffed and the apples are browned (the 6" tart took around 35 minutes). Cool the tart, serve when it's just warm or at room temperature.

I foolishly waited until the tart was cool, but I compensated by eating it with vanilla ice cream : )

I was surprised by the apple-ness of the tart. Unlike some American apple pies that taste like cinnamon and glue, this tart had a clean, pronounced apple flavor that went well with the floral scent of the almond cream. The entire 6" tart was quickly demolished by two greedy people. I hope the 9" tart lasts longer at the office.

After we were more than half way done with the tart, I remembered that Dorie Greenspan recommends topping the tart with a dusting of confectioner's sugar before serving. With my mind addled by all the sugar and rum and butter, I tried to be clever and attempted to brûlée the top instead .

Charred apple slivers are definitely not good eats.