croissants

The Roux brothers are absolute favourites of mine. No doubt that they know something about gastronomy...consider the Le Gavroche, which was the first restaurant in the UK earning three (!) Michelin Stars (their first restaurant in the UK). Or the Waterside Inn in Bray, which has three Michelin starts as well, and managed to get hold of that in the last 26 years - now that's what I call perfection. (hm, people living in Bray are very lucky ones if you consider that Heston's Fat Duck is in Bray too...:) )

Now, how does it come to the fact that I made croissants last nite? Well, the thing is that I took my Michel Roux [Senior's] Pastry book and took a deep breath and embarked upon a journey of making croissants.
I must confess it has been haunting me, not the book, the croissant pastry that is. I have not managed to prepare good ones so far but this book gave me confidence. It helped me to understand flan pastry, shortcrust and the difference between puff pastry and croissant pastry.
Thanks to this book I prepared the first time acceptable croissants that were easy to make, involved minimum effort from my side, and gave me enough success and confidence to consider keeping it as a part of my repertoire. Lovely!

Chocolate and Hazelnut Cream Croissants:
(for 0,5 kg pastry)
7g dried yeast
125ml milk
250g flour
6g salt
30g sugar
cca. 135 g butter
egg yoke plus a dash of milk for the egg wash


1. step: warm up the milk in the microwave if taken out of the fridge, and add the sugar and the yeast. Let it bubble on room temperature for 5 minutes.
Mix the flour and the salt, add the milk/yeast and start to work the dough. Work only till it does not stick to the side of the dish. Don't overwork the base dough otherwise the pastry is not going to be light and fluffy.
Let the pastry rest on room temperature for an hour or as long as it doubles in size.


2.step: Knock the air out of the dough and work it on a lightly floured surface and form a ball shape out of it. Make a 3 cm deep cross on the top and roll out the pastry to 0,5 cm thick, and try to keep the shamrock shape.


3. step: take the butter out of the fridge, bash it into a flat rectangular shape with the rolling pin and put that in the middle of the dough. Fold the edges of the dough over the butter so it embraces perfectly and overlaps a bit.


4.step: Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to a 30X15 cm rectangle and fold into three. One side from the left, one from the right so they overlap on each other. Let the pastry rest in (wrapped in clingfilm) the fridge for 30 mins.


5. step: Take the pastry out of the fridge, turn with 90° and roll it out. Fold into three like previously described, wrap into clingfilm and put in the fridge for an other 30 mins.


6. step: Roll out eh pastry again but in an opposite direction as previously, fold into three again, put into the fridge for 30 more mins (but not more than an hour).


7.step: Take out the pastry from the fridge roll out to 3 mm and cut into 3-4 big rectangles. Half the rectangles at the diagonal line (use a sharp knife!) and you have 6 big (or 8 smaller) triangles. Take the triangle and make a 1 cm incision in the middle of the base, put a spoon of choc. hazelnut cream above the incision and roll it up carefully and tightly.

8. step: Put the croissants on a baking sheet, form quickly into a crescent and brush them with the egg wash. Let them double in size for 1 or 2 hs, brush with the egg before putting in the 170°C pre-heated oven and bake for 14 or 15 mins.  
Eat it fresh or if next day consumed then warm it up in the microwave. 

cocoa swirls aka. kakaós csiga

Colleagues of mine started joking around on the social networking site regarding the concept of the kakaós csiga (husband calls them cocoa swirls). If you are Hungarian, then I am sure that you know what a kakaós csiga is and you don't think of something odd, or don't start frowning when I mention it. If you are a non-Hungarian, then you might find it funny that we named a nice chocolatey swirl after a sloppy animal. Anyway, the inspiration came, action followed and I made one of my best kakaós csiga of this year (easy, it's only January:))  (-let me please mention that the inspiration came from Maci )
The swirls were so successful at work and at home that 1. I could not take any photo of them since they were gone by the time I was about to do that 2. I am making the second portion today to satisfy family demand...

first he was approaching it

Ingredients:
for the dough:
500g plain flour
250 ml double cream
50 ml milk
4 tbs caster sugar
10-15g of fresh yeast (or 7g if dried)
2 egg yokes
75g melted butter
1 pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

for the filling:
40-50g butter (on room temperature)
150-200g brown sugar
3-4 tbs unsweetened cocoa powder
1-2 tbs of hot chocolate powder (optional)

For the dough gently warm the milk and the cream with the sugar till it reaches room temperature (Use the defrosting function on the microwave). It should not be warmer otherwise, you will kill the yeast. If you use fresh yeast, then add to the milk/cream mixture and set it aside for 5 mins till the yeast starts working on room temperature.
Mix the flour and the salt, make a well in the middle. Add the yeast/milk/cream mixture and use your hands like claws to mix that in. Add the melted butter and the egg yokes and mix as long as your dough resembles to an elastic balls. Then kneed for 10-15 mins and let it rest for an hour in a warm place in your kitchen where there is no cold draught, since that would kill the yeast consequently the whole dough.
If you have a bread making machine then you can skip all of the above, and trust your machine to do the business for you.
After an hour rest, knock the air out of the dough and give it a good kneed again, but gentle now. Let it rest again for 10 more minutes.
Turn on the oven to 180 Celsius and roll out the dough into a rectangular shape, which is not thinner than 0,5 cm. Spread the butter evenly on the dough, and sprinkle with the brown sugar/ cocoa powder mixture (or hot choc. powder if you use).
Roll up the dough tightly, and using a 20-30 cm long thread cut the filled though into half, and then half again and half it as long as you reach 1,5-2 cm thick swirls. I don't like using a knife for cutting, as it squashes the "snail" and they would look rather like they have been run over by a car...
Place them on a baking sheet on their sides and if you want, you can sprinkle the top with some brown sugar and pour some hot milk/butter mixture (0,5 dl) on every swirl. Let it rest for an other half an hour before putting in the hot oven.
Bake in the oven for 15 minutes and pour the left-over milk/butter mixture (other 0,5dl), and bake till golden brown (an other 15 minutes). Eat it till piping hot! (no don't do that, I am joking...) Enjoy!

then he put his hands on it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

then he ate it

Kitchen Recycling 2012/January

Since it is a new year (and btw Happy New Year to all my readers!) we have the choice of making some new years resolutions.Something like I will learn, I will give-up, I will do this, I won't do that, I will enroll and finish you name it and then we all forget about these within a week or so...or sometimes life gives you no choice but you have to change your habits without any consideration and stick to that for a while (or a lifetime:)). Either way it is, I think that for 2012 a lot of people will make the resolution of saving, or not wasting (money, food, time, attention etc.) so why not starting that in your kitchen?

This is not a new invention, as women, having practice in cooking, know the tricks of "recycling" of food for hundreds of years. For example, we have the Italian Panzanella, the Hungarian Hortobágyi Palacsinta, the Cesar Salad,Spanish croquettes, the lovely Bread and Butty Pud that all British housewives know the best, and we could continue the list with a loads of other dishes that is created by creative chefs, wives, students in order to save the leftover.

A couple of years ago the BBC went as far as creating an entire series around the topic and filmed the TV program, the Economy Gastronomy, which was a successful attempt to make viewers realize how much food (and consequently money) goes into waste and what you can do with your leftover Sunday Roast besides chucking that into the bin.

I could also mention the great initiative of lovefoodhatewaste.com, which is trying to encourage us to get the most from every ingredient and giving us colourful ideas of serving up the leftover that would go into waste.

In the light of these said above I would like to give you some recipes this month that uses up some leftover from your fridge and helps you to clean out your cupboard, giving everyday food a bit of a twist but on a low budget.

The first recipe this month is a DIY chocolate rocky road, for which I got the inspiration from Nigella. She showed how to use up the remains of the Christmas Cake, turning it into posh (no offense but what else?) chocolate truffles and serving them like they have always meant to be posh chocolate truffles:)!
Since, I was not in the mood of faffing around with the truffles, I turned this recipe into (not a classical) Rocky Road, adding whatever I found in the kitchen.
If you want to have some fun in the kitchen, then be my guest and start making the little truffle balls. If you are lazy like myself, then follow me :)
The rules and the ingredients are really not strict here. I was trying to give you some idea where to start and the variation of the ingredients is up to your taste and (of course) purse.


DIY Chocolate Rocky Road:
Ingredients:
1/3 of a traditional fruit and nut Christmas Cake (or the third of a 23 cm sponge cake or cca. 200g biscuits)
200g of Dark chocolate (any type)
200ml double cream
cca. 50g butter (if I say a knob of butter would you know what I am talking about)
cca. 2-3 tbs hazelnut cream and the same amount of peanut butter
a handful of raisin, chopped walnut and coconut (or almond, pecan, Brazil nut etc)
a dash of vanilla extract
cca. 1 dl sweet champagne (port,sherry or any sweet wine or any liqueur from the bottom of the bottle)*

Melt the chocolate over water bath, add the butter and the cream and take off the heat when molten. Let it cool.
Crumb the cake (the drier, the better) into a big bowl and pour in some champagne and add some vanilla extract. Stir in the nuts, any dried fruit of your choice, the melted chocolate and add the hazelnut cream and the peanut butter.
Turn the mixture into a cake tin, let it rest in the fridge for 2-3 hours or overnight and serve it sliced.

*FYI: Nigella used Pedro Ximénez :) but if you are serving this to children use some fruit juice or squash

it was difficult to take a good shot of this

double chocolate and hazelnut cream (lethal) cake

I was baking this for a charity bake at my workplace. Again, this is a quick win if you are looking for something speedy for the Christmas. It is never too late :)

Ingredients:
250g digestive biscuits
100g butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
200g dark chocolate (60% cocoa content)
200g milk chocolate
200g hazelnut cream
0,5l double cream

Pre-heat the oven for 180°C.

In a blender blitz the biscuits and the butter together and transfer the crumble into a 24 cm cake tin. Press it down evenly with your hand and make sure that you make an edge on the side as well. Bake in the oven for 12 minutes (max) and let it cool.
In a bain marie melt the two chocolates (the temperature of the chocolate should not be over 60°C) and when molten fold in the hazelnut cream and the vanilla. Let it cool and gently stir occasionally.
When both the biscuit base and the chocolates are cool, then you can start whipping the cream. Beat until it  holds shape. When done, gently fold in the chocolate with a spatula and pour over the base.
Keep in the fridge for at least 12 hours, or until it sets.
I decorated my cake with chocolate pralines but that's only optional! :)

Top Tip: if you are not sure that the chocolate cream is going to set, then you can try adding some gelatin powder into the whipping cream, which helps the cream to set firm and nice :)

oozing

Speculoos

When I was doing my first university degree I won a scholarship to Belgium. I was studying at daytime, attending classes and writing my thesis and at nights well, I was studying the night life of Leuven with my fellow students...:)
Now you may ask how my post is related to my studies? Well, these little biscuits are the very specialty of Belgium (and the Netherlands) and traditionally are eaten on or around St. Nicholas day in December but these days Speculoos is given to you in every single household, cafe, restaurant to accompany your daily coffee or cappuccino :)
So, I was very happy to find this recipe on the internet at the website of Chocolate&Zucchini as I was able to recreate the biscuits of  my student life in Belgium and bring back good memories to myself.
If you have some time till Christmas even, then they can quickly and easily be done by then!

hearts

Ingredients:
500 g all purpose flour
150-160g butter (on room temperature)
1 whole egg
280 - 300g muscovado sugar (or brown sugar)
1,5 tsp allspice (or ground cinnamon and ground cloves, 1 tsp each)
1 tsp ground ginger (optional)

Turn on the oven and preheat to 170°C degrees.


In a food processor or by hand, mix the butter, sugar, spices and eggs. If you're using a food processor, transfer the dough into a large mixing bowl now, as the rest has to be done by hand. Add the flour in batches, and knead the dough until it comes together and gets greasy and brown.
Divide the dough in two. Chill for 15-20 minutes if you find the dough very sticky.
Roll out on of your doughs between two layers of clingfilm until it is about half a centimeter. Use a cookie cutter or if your are a pro then use a speculoos mold :)*

Bake the speculoos for 12-15 minutes (the biscuits still have to be a little bit soft in the center when taken out of the oven). Cool and store in a metal box!

Easy Christmas :)

Merry Christmas!

* this is how a traditional speculoos mold looks like:

(source: http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/recipe-roundup/cookie-molds-5-recipes-135164)