Saturday, 24 November 2012
profiterole part 2: filling up on crème pâtissière
Finally got down to making some crème pâtissière last weekend so we are good to go with this post!
Ok, so you've got the perfect choux buns, but what's the point if you haven't got some luscious filling to stuff it with? There are many options when it comes to stuffing a profiterole. You can use run-of-the-mill whipped cream, ice cream, chantilly cream, or crème pâtissière (aka pastry cream). You can even opt to branch out into flavours aside from the traditional vanilla. The last time I made choux pastry, we had an appalling amount of durians waiting to be used so I made a batch of durian puffs. My elf says we no longer need to buy them from Goodwood Park Hotel. (But that's for another post, perhaps when the durians come flooding in again.)
I find a combination of chantilly cream and crème pâtissière works best for my profiteroles. Crème pâtissière can be a little bit heavy so combining the two results in a more desirable consistency. The resulting mixture was so good we piled it on top a bunch of strawberries and polished off the punnet. (Better than the strawberries & cream at Wimbledon, in my opinion.)
There are various methods to filling a profiterole, depending on the type of filling you choose. If you're going with a stiffer filling like ice cream, you can section the choux bun transverely (like a hamburger bun), pipe or scoop the filling onto the bottom half, and then top it with the choux lid. If your filling is of a thinner consistency, you can use my method which is to pour the cream into a squeeze bottle, poke a hole in the bottom of the choux bun and slowly squeeze the filling in. Be careful, though. The pastry is rather delicate so using too much force or overfilling can result in unwanted extrusion at the other end. (Like a badly done root canal. Sorry I couldn't resist.)
Crème pâtissière -- makes ~370g
Ingredients
3 egg yolks
60g caster sugar
20g plain flour
250ml milk
1 vanilla pod, split longitudinally
Directions
- Whisk egg yolks and ⅓ of the sugar together in a bowl to a light ribbon consistency
- Whisk in the flour
- Pour the milk into a saucepan and add the vanilla pod (and the seeds scraped out from the pod)
- Heat the vanilla-milk until it comes to a boil, then pour the milk into the egg yolk mixture, stirring as you go.
- Transfer the mixture back into the saucepan and bring it to a boil over a medium heat, stirring continuously with a whisk until mixture starts to thicken.
- Pour into a bowl and place a clingwrap film on the surface of the mixture to prevent a skin from forming
- Leave to cool to room temperature then chill in the fridge for ~1h
Chantilly Cream -- makes ~250g
Ingredients
200ml whipping cream, chilled
10g icing sugar
pinch of vanilla powder or ½ tsp vanilla extract
Directions
- Pour the chilled whipping cream, icing sugar and vanilla into a mixing bowl fitted with a whisk attachment and whisk until soft peaks form.
**Assembly
- Gently fold the crème pâtissière into the chantilly cream with a spatula until combined.
- Fill a squeeze bottle (or piping bag with small round nozzle) with the cream mixture
- Poke a hole in the base of the choux puff with a toothpick/skewer
- Fill puff with desired amount of cream
- Coat the top of the choux puffs with ganache (optional)
Friday, 26 October 2012
lemon & maple syrup cupcakes
Next step was trying to figure out how to incorporate it into a cupcake. Lemon and maple syrup frosting on a butter cupcake base would have been the obvious choice. But I had been wanting to try out Glory's Perfect Vanilla Cupcake recipe for the longest time so I chose to omit the butter component and play up the lemon and maple syrup parts more.
So vanilla cupcake + lemon and maple syrup frosting then? I wasn't entirely satisfied with that. I wanted something less...predictable. And so we threw in a surprise lemon curd centre!
Final product: vanilla cupcake with a lemon curd centre, topped with a lemon-maple syrup cream cheese frosting, served with a drizzle of maple syrup.
Lemon & Maple Syrup Cupcakes
(yields ~ 16 cupcakes)
Vanilla Cupcake Recipe
Ingredients
1¼ cup cake flour
1¼ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
2 eggs
¾ cup sugar
1½ tsp pure vanilla extract
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup buttermilk
Directions
- Preheat oven to 175 deg Celsius
- In a bowl, add cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir the dry ingredients together and set aside
- In a mixing bowl, beat eggs for ~10-20s. Add in the sugar and continue to beat for 30s on medium speed.
- Add in vanilla extract and oil and beat again.
- Add in half the dry ingredient mixture and mix together on low speed
- Add half of the buttermilk, then rest of the flour, followed by rest of the buttermilk, mixing well in between each addition
- Line muffin pan with cupcake liners and pour batter into liners until ~⅔ full
- Bake in oven for ~15min or until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean.
Lemon Curd
(adapted from Valli Little's recipe on taste.com.au)
(Note: There will be quite a bit left after filling the cupcakes. You can use the rest on pancakes, toast, biscuits, as a tart filling, in crepes and so on.)
Ingredients
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
82g caster sugar
40g unsalted butter
zest and juice of 1 lemon
Directions
- In a saucepan, whisk together the egg, egg yolk and sugar until smooth.
- Place pan over a low heat
- Add the butter, lemon juice and lemon zest, whisking continuously until mixture thickens
- Remove from heat, pour into a jar and leave to cool
Lemon-Maple Syrup Cream Cheese Frosting
(adapted from Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting recipe on allrecipes.com)
Ingredients
150g cream cheese, softened
40g unsalted butter
20ml lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest
¾ tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp maple syrup
¾ cup confectioner's sugar (this is subjective, you can add more/less depending on your preferred level of sweetness)
Directions
- In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, butter, lemon juice, lemon zest, maple syrup and vanilla together until smooth and fluffy
- Add the sugar gradually, tasting in between additions until desired level of sweetness is attained.
*Assembly
- Use a sharp paring knife to core out the centre of the cupcake, taking care to leave a little bit of cake at the base.
- Cut the core in half (in a transverse direction), leaving the upper segment as a lid and discarding the other segment (or you can eat it!)
- Add a tsp of lemon curd into the hole you just made and fit back the upper part of the cupcake core (or the lid) to close the hole
- Pipe frosting as desired
- Drizzle maple syrup over the frosted cupcake before serving
Tuesday, 16 October 2012
olive herb bread
I haven't really had time to do my weekly baking lately, what with Saturday duties and wedding preparations getting in the way, so Profiterole Part II is still work in progress! Thankfully I've got a few unblogged recipes to fill the gap in the meantime.
First up is a bread recipe! Have I mentioned how much I prefer baking bread to anything else? It's so much quicker and cleaner! As opposed to desserts where you have to wash your mixing bowl multiple times (depending on how many components you have), not to mention the frosting paraphernalia like nozzles and couplers which are such a pain to clean (thank goodness for interdental brushes!) And everything is just so greasy that I find myself constantly depleting the detergent supply. Bread, on the other hand, is a single component so you only have to use the mixing bowl once (or not at all if you knead by hand) and the flour soaks up all the butter/oil so it's much less greasy.
Anyway, having been so thoroughly satisfied with the Japanese Milk Bread using the tangzhong method, I decided to use it as a base for my herb bread. I was a bit worried initially because my dough didn't seem to want to rise. Had to wait much longer before expansion became evident. Perhaps it was because I did this on a cold, rainy day and my little yeast friends were feeling a bit lethargic? Whatever the case, they eventually rose to the occasion (hurhurhur) and a beautiful tasty loaf was born.
Creamy scrambled eggs piled on top of slice of this makes for a perfect weekend breakfast, in my opinion. Or you could eat it plain, which was how we phagocytosed half the loaf after it came out of the oven.
Olive Herb Bread
(base Hokkaido Milk Loaf recipe obtained from Christine's Recipe)
Ingredients
270g + 25g bread flour
43g caster sugar
4g salt
4.5g full cream milk powder
5.5g instant dried yeast
125ml water
1 egg, beaten (and 1 more egg for the eggwash)
30g whipping cream
27g milk
25g salted butter, melted and cooled to room
temperature
¼ cup chopped black olives
1 tsp dried oregano
1 ½ tsp garlic powder
Directions
- In a saucepan dissolve 25g bread flour in 125ml water
- Cook in medium-low heat, stirring constantly with whisk, until mixture starts to thicken and forms streaks when stirred.
- Pour thickened mixture (or tangzhong) into bowl
- Place clingwrap film over tangzhong (film should be sticking to tangzhong to prevent surface from drying up) and leave to cool to room temperature
- In a mixing bowl add 270g bread flour, sugar, salt, milk powder, oregano, garlic powder and yeast
- Add in egg, whipped cream, milk and 92g of tangzhong
- Mix using dough hook attachment on speed 2
- When ingredients start to come together, add melted butter and chopped black olives (picture 1)
- Continue to mix until dough is smooth and elastic (about 20min)
- Leave to proof for about 40min or until dough doubles in volume (picture 3)
- Transfer dough to a clean, floured surface and punch it down
- Divide dough into portions weighing about 70g
- Roll it out into a flattened circle and fold (as in picture 4)
- With seal upwards, roll into a cylinder (as in picture 5)
- Place in a bread pan and leave to rise (picture 6)
- Preheat oven to 180 deg Celsius
- Brush tops of risen dough with eggwash
- Bake for 30min or until golden brown
Wednesday, 3 October 2012
profiterole part I: conquering the pâte à choux
I had tried making choux pastry before and while it wasn't a complete disaster, it wasn't fantastic like I'd hoped. The puffs would come out of the oven golden brown and well, puffed-up, so to speak, and I'd be all happy. But a short while later, they--and therefore, I--would start to deflate.
In hopes of improving my culinary skills, I have been reading more pastry books to better my knowledge on the subject. An important lesson I learnt in university is that you need to know what you are doing in order to do it properly. (Otherwise you should get out of the clinic kitchen.) The problem with recipes from such books is that, more often than not, you get products that do not turn out as well as they appear in the drool-worthy accompanying photographs. Thankfully, this was not the case in Michel Roux's Pastry. I've always maintained that the French are the best when it comes to pastries and he's proven me right with his recipes. I tested out his choux paste recipe and it worked beautifully! The puffs inflated impressively and held their shape, and the texture was amazingly light and fluffy. It was so good you could happily eat it sans filling.
But of course, they taste even better stuffed with crème pâtissière and coated with chocolate so that's what I did.
I highly recommend getting his book. It's got all sorts of pastry recipes and, more importantly, pictures to guide you every step of the way. I can't wait to test out the croissant and brioche recipes! My goal for this year is to successfully make a croissant but it's really labour-intensive and time-consuming so I'll have to wait till I'm on leave to attempt it. For now, I'll leave you with the choux recipe.
Pâte à choux -- makes 40-50 choux buns
(adapted from Michel Roux's Pastry: Savoury & Sweet)
Ingredients
125ml milk
125ml water
100g unsalted butter, diced
½ tsp salt
1 tsp caster sugar
150g plain flour
4 eggs
eggwash (1 egg yolk mixed with 1 tbsp milk)
Directions
Once cooled you can then proceed to fill them up with chantilly cream or crème pâtissière. I used the latter for my profiteroles and will share the recipe once I've taken better photos. So stay tuned for profiterole part II: filling up on crème pâtissière
But of course, they taste even better stuffed with crème pâtissière and coated with chocolate so that's what I did.
I highly recommend getting his book. It's got all sorts of pastry recipes and, more importantly, pictures to guide you every step of the way. I can't wait to test out the croissant and brioche recipes! My goal for this year is to successfully make a croissant but it's really labour-intensive and time-consuming so I'll have to wait till I'm on leave to attempt it. For now, I'll leave you with the choux recipe.
(adapted from Michel Roux's Pastry: Savoury & Sweet)
Ingredients
125ml milk
125ml water
100g unsalted butter, diced
½ tsp salt
1 tsp caster sugar
150g plain flour
4 eggs
eggwash (1 egg yolk mixed with 1 tbsp milk)
Directions
- Combine milk, water, sugar, salt and butter in a saucepan and set over low heat (picture 1)
- Bring to a boil and remove saucepan from heat
- Add in flour and mix with a wooden spoon until smooth (picture 2)
- Return pan to medium heat and stir continuously for 1min to dry out the paste
- Transfer to a mixing bowl and fit on a paddle attachment
- Add eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition, until you get a smooth paste (picture 3)
- (optional step) Using a pencil, draw staggered rows of circles (~2cm in diameter) on a baking paper, leaving about 1.5cm space between circles. (I used a nozzle for this as shown in picture 4.) Turn paper facedown on baking tray. The pencil markings should still be visible.
- Preheat oven to 180 deg Celsius
- Pour paste into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm plain nozzle and pipe small mounds of paste the size of the drawn circles (picture 5)
- Brush choux with eggwash, flattening the pointed ends with the pastry brush (picture 6)
- Bake in oven for ~20min or until tops are golden brown (picture 7)
- Use a spatula or tongs to separate the choux buns from the baking paper immediately after removing from the oven. The excess eggwash will cause them to stick
- Place on a wire rack and leave to cool
Once cooled you can then proceed to fill them up with chantilly cream or crème pâtissière. I used the latter for my profiteroles and will share the recipe once I've taken better photos. So stay tuned for profiterole part II: filling up on crème pâtissière
Sunday, 23 September 2012
matcha & white chocolate cheesecake cups
Green tea-flavoured KitKats are one of my favourite snack foods (Kinder Bueno being my all-time favourite) even though I'm not really fond of green tea itself. I like my matcha in small doses as excessive bitterness is not exactly my cup of tea. (Hohoho!) Cheesecakes, too, I prefer in small doses. More often than not, they tend to be cloyingly sweet and rich, and I find myself giving up after the first 2 bites. Fortunately, this cheesecake manages to find the perfect balance of bitter and sweet.
I opted to divide the cheesecake into cups rather than bake it as a whole cake to facilitate portioning. I was pleased to discover that doing so enabled the cake to be baked more evenly (and quicker!) No more problems with centres that take forever to set!
Matcha & White Chocolate Cheesecake - makes 10 cups
(adapted from Evan's Kitchen Ramblings)
Ingredients
80g digestive biscuit crumbs
30g unsalted butter, melted
250g cream cheese, room temperature
80g + 1.5tsp caster sugar
50ml + 20ml whipping cream
1/2 large egg, beaten
1 tbsp cake flour
4 tsps matcha powder
100g white chocolate couverture
Directions
- Mix together biscuit crumbs and melted butter and press onto base of soufflé cups
- Preheat oven to 150 deg Celsius
- Whisk together cream cheese and 80g sugar until creamy
- Add in 50ml whipping cream, followed by egg and cake flour
- Measure out 25g of batter and set aside
- Add matcha powder and 1.5tsp of sugar into remaining batter and mix well
- Pour mixture onto biscuit base
- Heat 20ml whipping cream and pour over white chocolate
- Mix chocolate mixture into 25g of cheesecake batter previously set aside
- Add a dollop of chocolate-cheesecake mixture into each of the cups and swirl it with a toothpick
- Bake for 30min until cakes are firm but the centres are slightly wobbly
- Switch off oven and leave cupcakes to cool completely in oven
- Refrigerate overnight (or at least 2-3h) before serving
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