Daring Bakers August 2012: Pate a choux Swans

Kat of The Bobwhites was our August 2012 Daring Baker hostess who inspired us to have fun in creating pate a choux shapes, filled with crème patisserie or Chantilly cream. We were encouraged to create swans or any shape we wanted and to go crazy with filling flavors allowing our creativity to go wild!


I knew as soon as I saw this challenge that I would be using this to introduce my neighbors to my baking obsession. I could have made a half batch that would have still been too much for just me and my husband, but when you can take something like this over to the neighbors, what an introduction! They all looked at me kind of strange and asked "you just did this.... for no reason?" and I had to explain about the monthly challenges I do with the assurance that this would be the first of many food presents.

Bingley would like a swan, please.

I have never done pate a choux before, and looking at other bakers' pictures I think mine was a little runny. It didn't take too much time and wasn't all that difficult so I'm not too intimidated to give this another try. I think that these would be so much fun for baby showers or similar events.



Pate a choux
Ingredients
½ cup (120 ml) (115 gm) (4 oz) butter
1 cup (240 ml) water
¼ teaspoon (1½ gm) salt
1 cup (240 ml) (140 gm) (5 oz) all-purpose flour
4 large eggs

Directions:
Line at least two baking sheets with silicone mats or parchment paper, or grease pans well.
Preheat oven to moderately hot 375°F/190°C/gas mark 5 .
In a small saucepot, combine butter, water, and salt. Heat over until butter melts, then remove from stove.
Add flour all at once and beat, beat, beat the mixture until the dough pulls away from the sides of the pot.
Add one egg, and beat until well combined. Add remaining eggs individually, beating vigorously after each addition. Resulting mixture should be somewhat glossy, very smooth, and somewhat thick.
Using a ¼” (6 mm) tip on a pastry bag, pipe out about 36 swan heads. You’re aiming for something between a numeral 2 and a question mark, with a little beak if you’re skilled and/or lucky.
Remove the tip from the bag and pipe out 36 swan bodies. These will be about 1.5” (40 mm) long, and about 1” (25 mm) wide. One end should be a bit narrower than the other.
Bake the heads and bodies until golden and puffy. The heads will be done a few minutes before the bodies, so keep a close eye on the baking process.
Remove the pastries to a cooling rack, and let cool completely before filling.

Assembly
Take a swan body and use a very sharp knife to cut off the top 1/3rd to ½.
Cut the removed top down the center to make two wings.
Dollop a bit of filling into the body, insert head, and then add wings.

Vanilla Crème Patissiere

(Half Batch)

Ingredients:
1 cup (225 ml.) whole milk
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
6 Tbsp. (100 g.) sugar
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
2 Tbsp. (30 g.) unsalted butter
1 Tsp. Vanilla

Directions:
Dissolve cornstarch in ¼ cup of milk. Combine the remaining milk with the sugar in a saucepan; bring to boil; remove from heat.
Beat the whole egg, then the yolks into the cornstarch mixture. Pour 1/3 of boiling milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so that the eggs do not begin to cook.
Return the remaining milk to boil. Pour in the hot egg mixture in a stream, continuing whisking.
Continue whisking (this is important – you do not want the eggs to solidify/cook) until the cream thickens and comes to a boil. Remove from heat and beat in the butter and vanilla.
Pour cream into a stainless steel/ceramic bowl. Press plastic wrap firmly against the surface. Chill immediately and until ready to use.

Daring Bakers September 2011- Croissants!

 The Daring Bakers go retro this month! Thanks to one of our very talented non-blogging members, Sarah, the Daring Bakers were challenged to make Croissants using a recipe from the Queen of French Cooking, none other than Julia Child!

Croissants have been on my to-bake list ever since I got the Julia Child cookbook for Christmas. I looked at the recipe and thought to myself "12 hours is much too long for a just-any-day recipe. I'll make them for Christmas next year". Then the September challenge was posted, and I was so excited. And a little nervous. This recipe takes a long time to make (if you're counting all the rising times, which isn't active baking time, so don't count it). It involves making layers of dough and butter and getting it all rolled out and perfect so it will be flakey and delicious. Don't worry so much about that. Make sure your butter is cold and you're good to go. And that you didn't just begin a weights program for your arms the day before rolling all this stuff out.

Cinnamon-Sugar flaky deliciousness!

I made the original Julia recipe and two off-shoots. The first was fairly straightforward: cinnamon and sugar croissants. The second was in homage to my husband, who for whatever reason loves white chocolate: raspberry white chocolate croissants. Because really, I didn't get to work with chocolate enough in the last challenge.  The raspberry white chocolate croissant definitely won the day. Everyone who tried it at our Packer Party loved it and it was by far my favorite of the three. Even with white chocolate. I found it fairly easy to just roll whatever filling into the croissant, so the possibilities are truly endless. Next time I'll try some different variations!

Look at that yummy raspberry oozing out!

Croissants (basic recipe, ala Julia Child)
One dozen 5½ inch croissants

1¼teaspoon dry-active yeast
3 Tablespoons warm water (not over 100℉)
1 teaspoons sugar

1. Proofing the yeast: mix the yeast in the warm water with the sugar and let liquefy (a foam should form on the top of the mixture, this shows that the yeast is "alive")

1 ¾ cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons sugar
1½ teaspoon salt
⅔ cup milk warmed to tepid in a small sauce pan
2 tablespoons tasteless oil (such as vegetable oil)

1. Measure the flour into a large mixing bowl. Dissolve the sugar into the tepid milk.
2. Combine oil, yeast and milk mixture into the bowl with the flour. Blend with a rubber spatula until completely combined.
3. Turn dough out onto a surface that has been lightly floured. Let rest for 2-3 minutes while you wash and dry the mixing bowl.
4. Start kneading by lifting near the edge, using a scraper or spatula to help, and flipping it over to the other side. Rapidly repeat from one side to the other and end over end 8-10 times until the dough feels smooth.

5. Place dough back into the large bowl, cover with plastic wrap or plastic bag. I then placed the bowl into the oven, slightly ajar, with the oven light on. Allow the dough to rise for about 3 hours, or until tripled.
6. Deflate by loosening dough with a rubber spatula, and turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Pat and push the dough into a rectangle (8x12 inches) with the palms of your hands. Fold the bottom third up, and the top third down, like a business letter. Return dough to bowl, cover again with plastic and let rise for about 1 ½ hours, or until doubled. (At this point, the second rise may be done overnight in the refrigerator)
7. Loosen dough from edges of the bowl and turn out onto a plate. Cover airtight and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

1- 1¾ sticks chilled unsalted butter

1. Julia advises that if this is your first try at making croissants, use only 1 stick of butter. If you've done this a few times the larger amount may be used.
2. Beat butter with a rolling pin to soften it.
3. Smear the butter out with the heel of your hand or a scraper or spatula until it is an easy spreading consistency but still cold. If it gets too warm (i.e. oily and soft), return it to the refrigerator for a bit.

4. Place the chilled dough onto a lightly floured surface. Push and pat it out into a rectangle 14x8 inches.
5. Spread butter as evenly as possible over the upper two thirds of the dough, leaving a 1/4 inch unbuttered boarder all around.
6. Fold the bottom third of the dough up, and the top third down (again, like a business letter).

7. Turn the dough so the edge of the top flap is to your right, as though it were a book. Roll the dough into a rectangle, about 14x7 inches. Roll rapidly, starting an inch from the near end and going to within an inch of the far end.
8. Fold again in three. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 1- 1½ hours.
9. Unwrap dough, deflate by tapping lightly several times with a rolling pin. Cover and let rest 8-10 minutes.
10. Being sure that the top and bottom of dough are lightly floured, roll dough into a rectangle 14x6 inches. If you notice that butter has congealed into hard flakes, beat dough with firm taps for a minute or so to soften.
11. Fold rectangle in three again. Wrap and chill for 2 hours, or leave overnight (put something heavy on top so it doesn't rise too much)

12. Forming croissants: unwrap chilled dough and place on a lightly floured surface. Deflate by tapping several times with rolling pin. Cover with plastic and let rest 10 minutes.
13. Roll dough into a rectangle 20x5 inches, cut in half crosswise, chill one of the halves.
14. Roll the piece of dough into a rectangle 15x5 inches, cut into three equal pieces. Chill two of the pieces.
15. Roll the piece of dough into a 5½ inch square and cut into two triangles. Stretch the triangle to transform from a right triangle to an isosceles triangle.
16. Roll the croissant first by folding the large end forward onto itself. Then, holding the point with the fingers of one hand, roll the larger end up with the other.
17. Bend the two ends down to form a crescent shape and place on a lightly buttered baking sheet, with the point resting into the curve and against the surface of the baking sheet. (Formed croissants may be wrapped airtight and frozen for a week, if the dough was not previously frozen.)
18. Repeat with the remaining pieces of dough. Cover croissants loosely with a large sheet of plastic wrap. Let rise for 1½ hours.

1 egg, beaten with 1 teaspoon water, for egg wash

1. Just before baking, paint the croissants with the egg wash.
2. Set in the middle of a preheated 475℉ oven. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until croissants are nicely puffed and brown. Cool on a rack for 10-15 minutes before serving.

Variants:
Cinnamon Sugar Croissants: Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on dough just before rolling to form croissant.

Raspberry White Chocolate Croissants: Spread dough with raspberry preserves and roll a piece of white chocolate in the larger end of the croissant.

Edit: I forgot!! I thought that since I'm  a musician by trade it might be fun for me to upload a playlist of music I listened to while making each challenge. This one is decidedly French, full of artists I love to listen to regardless of whether or not I'm knuckle deep in croissant dough and covered in flour. So here is a link to my "croissant" play list on Spotify. Let me know what you think about this idea- I'm still playing around with how to share the playlists, so if you have any tips on that, do share!

Strawberry Tart

When I went grocery shopping this week I saw 2lb packages of strawberries on sale. I thought, these can't possibly be good, they're probably selling them at a discount because they're about to go bad or something. Surprisingly though, they looked really good! Then I had to figure out what the heck I was going to do with 2 lbs of strawberries! 

A visit to Confessions of a Tart and the gorgeous photos of her fresh strawberry tart gave me a pretty good idea.

The recipe starts with a Sweet Tart Dough that is frozen before you bake it so no pie weights are necessary (although I just got some at a bridal shower that I have been dying to use)

Ingredients: 

1 ½ Cup all purpose flour

½ cup confectioner's sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

1 stick plus 1 tablespoon cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1 large egg yolk

1. Combine flour, sugar and salt. Scatter butter pieces over dry ingredients and combine with a pastry cutter. (Confessions of a Tart has directions for doing this with a food processor. I am not lucky enough to have one, but it works just as well by hand.) Stir egg yolk to break it up and add to the dough.  Turn dough onto a work surface and very lightly knead dough to finish incorporating dry ingredients.

2. Butter a 9 inch tart pan (I have an 11 inch, it worked really well, so either would be fine) and lightly press dough evenly into pan. 

3. Prick dough with a fork 4-5 times. Freeze for 30 minutes or preferably longer.

4. To bake crust, center a rack in your oven and preheat to 375˚. Butter the shiny side of aluminum foil and fit, buttered side down, tightly against the crust. Put the tart pan on a baking sheet and bake crust for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and carefully remove foil. If the crust has puffed, press down gently with the back of a spoon. Bake for another 8 minutes without the foil until firm and golden brown.  Transfer pan to a rack and cool to room temperature. 

The next part is a Pastry Cream. I've never made a pudding or custard, except from those instant pudding packages that you really can't mess up. I'll admit that the first batch I tried of this sat, sadly liquid, in the fridge with me hoping it would magically firm up. It ended up going down the drain. I guess while waiting for your milk to almost boil is not the most opportune time to begin talking to your fiancé about where you may someday move for some job that you don't even have yet. The second time when I actually stayed in the same room as the stove, the custard turned out just right. 

Ingredients: 

2 cups whole milk

½ cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar

2 large eggs

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

¼ teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Pour milk into a heavy saucepan. Add salt, place over medium-high heat and cook until just before boiling point, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, whisk together cornstarch and sugar. Add the eggs and whisk until smooth (don't let the eggs and sugar stand for long). 

2. When milk is ready, slowly drizzle a third of the hot milk into the egg mixture, whisking continuously. Pour the egg- milk mixture back into the hot milk and continue whisking until the custard is as thick as lightly whipped cream, about 2 minutes. 

3. Remove from heat and immediately pour through a sieve into a bowl. Stir in vanilla extract. Let cool 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

4. Cut butter into 1 tablespoon pieces and whisk into pastry cream 1 tablespoon at a time until smooth. 

5. Cover bowl with plastic wrap, pressing directly onto top of cream to prevent skin from forming and put into fridge to cool.

Then assemble the tart! 

Fill the tart shell with pastry cream

Hull and slice 1 lb of strawberries (more for an 11in. tart pan), reserving one perfect strawberry for the center

Arrange strawberry slices in circles on top of the pastry cream. Put the reserved whole strawberry in the middle. 

Pop-tarts

On one of our new (salad size) plates, thanks Aunt Vicki!

Pop-tarts are one of those things that I used to eat as a kid that, for whatever reason, my mother didn't let my younger brothers eat because they "aren't good for you". I am not about to argue with that statement, I stopped eating them myself after reading the nutritional info on a package once. I suspect she didn't let them eat poptarts because they always chose the chocolatey- s'more flavored ones, or anything that didn't even hint at fruit fillings. When I saw a recipe for homemade pop-tarts I got really excited, these have to be at least healthier due to the lack of preservatives and the fact that I get to choose what gets put inside, right? 

Making these was fairly easy, it is a nice cool day (read: rainy and chilly, ugh April in Wisconsin) so the dough was really easy to work with. The biggest issue I had was moving the tarts from the counter, where I had rolled them out, filled and topped them, to the baking sheet. If you push down on those edges hard, you end up sticking the tart to the counter even more. I was also a little surprised at the small size of these. I am not a pro at cutting things perfectly evenly, so I had some that came out fairly regularly sized, and some that were tiny. But none of them were comparable in size to the pop-tarts you buy in the store. Not a problem, just not what I was expecting. 

This was also one of my biggest forays into the kitchen since I've started working full (and then some) time again. It was good to start with something so simple and easy, I didn't have to re-check the recipe a million times, and once I got started it was nice to just let my instincts take over. Additionally, I got to break out a bunch of new cooking tools. Dave's mom threw me a bridal shower last weekend and we got so many nice things! It was nice to use a substantial mixing bowl (rather than the plastic ones I've been using up to now.) We are also loving our new dishes! We are so lucky to have such wonderful and loving people in our lives.

Homemade Pop-tarts (from King Arthur Flour/Smitten Kitchen)

Ingredients (pastry)

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into pats

1 large egg

2 tablespoons milk

1 additional large egg (to brush on pastry)

Fillings: you can use anything for a filling, we did the cinnamon-sugar filling

Cinnamon Sugar Filling

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon (or less if you wish)

4 teaspoons all-purpose flour

Jam filling 

3/4 cup jam

1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with tablespoon cold water

Other good ideas (that my mother most definitely would NOT APPROVE of) include Nutella and chocolate chips

Using my new mixing bowls. Thanks Aunt Lisa!

1. Whisk together the flour, sugar and salt. Work in the butter with your fingers, pastry blender or food processor until pea-sized lumps of butter are still visible and the mixture holds together when you squeeze it.

2. Whisk the first egg and milk together and stir them into the dough, mixing until everything is cohesive, kneading briefly if needed.

3. Divide the dough in half, shape into a smooth rectangle, about 3/5 inches. If you'd like to wait to finish the recipe, these dough rectangles can be wrapped in plastic and refrigerated for 2 days.

4. Place one piece of the dough onto a lightly floured workspace and roll it into a rectangle about 1/8 inch thick, large enough that you can trim it to an even 9x12. Repeat with the second piece of dough. Set trimmings aside.

5. Cut each piece of dough into thirds horizontally and vertically (forming 9 rectangles).

6. Beat the additional egg and brush it over the surface of the first dough. Place a heaping tablespoon of filling into the center of each rectangle, keeping the edges clear (so you can seal them). Place a second rectangle over the first, pressing firmly along the edge of the rectangle. Repeat with the rest of the dough/filling. Press the tines of a fork along the edges of the rectangles. 

You can't tell, but these are on my brand new HUGE baking sheet, again, thanks go to Aunt Lisa!

7. Place the tarts on a parchment lined baking sheet. Prick the top of each pop-tart with a fork or toothpick so steam can escape while baking. 

8. Refrigerate the baking pan of tarts for 30 minutes while the oven is preheating to 350 F. 

9. Bake the pop tarts for 20 to 25 minutes, until they're a light golden brown. Cool in pan on rack. Store in an airtight container for up to a week.

 Remember those trimmings you saved? You can sprinkle those with some more of the cinnamon-sugar filling and bake them for 13-15 minutes and have a nice little bite sized snack!

Birthday... Pie?

As I mentioned before the fiancé prefers pie to cake. So, for our joint birthday celebration last weekend, I made a birthday cake for myself, and a birthday pie for him. I gave him free reign over what kind of birthday pie he wanted, and after looking through a ton of recipes, he decided to try a variation on a pecan pie. I'd never made a pecan pie before, always played it safe with fruit pies, so this was a fun little adventure for me too.

I was a little nervous, though, since this was going to be served at a birthday party with his family, and you never want to bring a poorly made pie to a party, much less a party with your future family-in-law. Everything worked out fairly well even though it was ridiculously hot in the kitchen, again, and I did quite a lot of raging after the pie crust refused to transfer easily from the table to the pie dish. I managed to get everything to work eventually, though, and it was DEFINITELY worth the headache.

English Toffee Pecan Pie

Crust:
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup shortening
2 tablespoons cold butter, cut into pieces
3-4 tablespoons ice water

1. In a large bowl, whisk together flour and salt. Using a pastry cutter, cut in shortening and butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs, about the size of peas. Sprinkle with water, 1 tablespoon at a time, and mix lightly with a fork after each addition, until mixture is moistened. Turn out dough onto a clean work surface and shape into a flattened disk. Wrap in plastic; transfer to refrigerator and chill for 30 minutes.

2. Lightly flour a pastry cloth (which I didn't have, but if I'm making lots of pies in the future, I definitely will be looking into getting some!) and roll out dough on cloth, using a covered rolling pin, to a 12 inch round, about 1/8 inch thick. With a dry pastry brush, sweep off excess flour, fit dough into a 9 inch glass pie plate. Trim to a 1/2 inch overhang all around. Fold under and trim edges.

Filling:
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
2/3 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract (make sure it's ONLY 1/2 teaspoon, or even slightly less, this stuff can easily overpower the other flavors)
1 cup toffee bits (you can buy Heath brand already chopped up in the baking aisle)
1 cup chopped pecans
22+ pecan halves, for garnish

1. Preheat oven to 375 (rack in lower third of oven). In a large bowl, mix together eggs, corn syrup, brown sugar, butter, salt, vanilla, almond extract, toffee bits and chopped pecans.

2. Pour filling into pie crust. Top with pecans by evenly spacing 14 around outer edge of pie filling. Make a second row by evenly spacing 7 pecans in a smaller circle in the center. Place 1 pecan in center. (I ended up using more pecans in my two outer circles, I just placed them closer together)

3. Transfer pie to oven; bake for 20 minutes. Cover with parchment paper-lined aluminum foil and continue baking until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, 20-30 minutes more. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.


Unfortunately, I only have one photo of the pie, since after we cut it I didn't have a chance to take more. Also pictured is my chocolate cake and a loaf of banana bread I just happened to make the same day. It was a very busy, but very very fun day in the kitchen, even with the heat.