a millygram of sugar

chronicling an oven affair

Tuesday, 29 January 2013

chocolate truffle swirl cookies

Been feeling rather uninspired and lacklustre of late, which unfortunately has translated into increasingly poor photography. Hopefully I'll snap out of it soon.

In other news, I have been wanting to try out this chocolate chip cookie recipe since I first chanced upon Kathryn's blog. I've been in awe of Heston Blumenthal since watching the first episode of Heston's Feasts. And having been fortunate enough to snag a table at The Fat Duck last June, I'm thoroughly convinced the man is a genius. While I'll definitely never be able to recreate his amazing dishes, this chocolate chip cookie recipe seemed manageable enough. (Though I'm sure his end-result looked and tasted a million times better.)

Technically it's a chocolate chip cookie made with bits of chocolate truffle. Unfortunately, mine turned out to be chocolate swirls rather than chips, hence the re-christening. I guess I should have anticipated the weather might be an issue and chilled the ganache for longer.

The last time I baked cookies was about 2 years(?!) ago so I had some difficulty gauging the doneness. Baked these in 3 batches and every batch turned out different. While you can't possibly use the skewer method like for cupcakes, I've learnt that, like cupcakes, you can tell they are done by the sudden burst of aroma issuing forth from the oven. Pretty intriguing stuff.

When baked evenly through (i.e. golden brown), these cookies are nice and crisp. Kind of like the Famous Amos sort. I preferred my cookie to be slightly undercooked (i.e. a little pale in the middle), such that it's crisp around the edges but soft and chewy in the middle. I liked that the little swirls of truffle gave the cookies a pleasant hint of bitterness (I used 70% dark chocolate).

Chocolate Truffle Swirl Cookies -- makes ~35 (6cm-diameter) cookies
(adapted from Kathryn's Heston's Chocolate Chip Cookies)

Chocolate Truffles:
Ingredients
10g light corn syrup
70g whipping cream
65g dark chocolate (I used 70% cocoa)
pinch of salt

Directions

Place chocolate in a heatproof bowl and melt over a saucepan of simmering water. Set aside.
In a separate saucepan, pour in whipping cream and corn syrup and bring to a boil.
Take off the heat, add salt, and pour cream mixture into the melted chocolate, 1/3 at a time, stirring well.
Leave to cool to room temperature then pour onto a tray/baking sheet lined with baking paper
Freeze for 4h (or overnight if you're from my sunny island).
Remove from freezer and and cut into small pieces. Put back into the freezer until required.

Cookies:
Ingredients
220g plain flour, sifted
¼ tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
5g salt
¼ tsp instant coffee
115g unsalted butter, cubed and kept cold
250g caster sugar
1 egg
1 vanilla pod (scrape out the seeds and discard the pod)

Directions

Preheat oven to 190˚C.
Using a whisk attachment, cream together butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
Add in the egg and vanilla seeds and continue whisking
Change to paddle attachment, add in the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and coffee and mix well.
Gently stir in the frozen chocolate chips with a spatula/wooden spoon until well distributed.
Using a melon ball scoop, place small balls of dough onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. The balls of dough should be spaced well apart (leave a radius of at least twice the diameter of the dough).
Bake for about 15min until edges are golden brown (or until all the pale cookie bits turn golden brown, if you like them more cooked)
Leave to cool on the baking tray. The cookies should start to harden as they cool.

Thursday, 10 January 2013

spicy red pepper bread

Sometime during the festive week we finally went on a picnic. I say finally because we had actually been intending to go on one approximately 9 months ago and had been constantly postponing it because, well, the weather here just makes staying indoors a much better option. But the temperature cooled considerably with the December rain so we filled up the lovely picnic basket he bought 9 months ago, and went in search of a nice patch of grass to set up camp.

I don't know about you, but at every picnic I've been to, we usually end up with a huge amount of leftover food. Thankfully, this time round our calculations weren't too far off and we only ended up leaving with an unopened bag of chips and a small tub of spicy red pepper dip. We bought the dip from the supermarket and it tasted pretty good so I was quite reluctant to see that go to waste. The elf mentioned that it would taste superb on bread and I thought, "why not put it in bread?"

So that's what I did! Naturally, I used the Japanese milk bread tangzhong method again, having been so impressed with the results. To be honest, I don't think I can go back to making bread any other way. Perhaps one day when my palate and masticatory muscles have developed well enough for me to start appreciating the tough, chewy, funky-looking kind of bread so highly favoured by my parents.

The thing about using pastes which you don't make yourself is that you have no idea what went in it. I got a bit nervous when my dough turn a lurid orange hue and even more so when it did not seem capable of rising. I was fervently hoping it was due to the lower ambient temperature brought about by the torrential downpour that started just as I was about to proof the dough, and not some secret antifungal in the dip that killed my yeast. Come to think of it, the same thing happened the last time I made my olive herb loaf. I assume it must be the rain because that's the only common variable? So after the skies cleared I quickly brought my dough out to sunbathe and it eventually rose. Lesson learnt: avoid baking bread during the monsoon season.

The bread is sufficiently tasty on its own but I prefer to eat it warm--either fresh from the oven or toasted--and with a generous chunk of salted butter.

Spicy Red Pepper Bread (makes two 21cm x 11cm x 5.5cm loaves)
Ingredients
295g bread flour
40g caster sugar
4g salt
5g full cream milk powder
6g instant dried yeast
1 tsp garlic powder
1 egg beaten (and 1 more egg, for eggwash)
30g whipping cream
27g milk
92g tangzhong (instructions here)
25g melted salted butter (cooled to room temperature)
100g spicy red pepper dip (I bought mine from Cold Storage's deli section)

Directions

Add bread flour, sugar, salt, milk powder, yeast and garlic powder into mixing bowl.
Pour in the egg, whipping cream, milk and tangzhong.
Knead using a dough hook attachment on speed 2.
When ingredients start to come together, add the melted butter.
Add in the spicy red pepper dip and continue kneading for ~20min until dough is smooth and elastic. (You can add more flour if the dough appears too wet. This varies according to the consistency of the dip you use.)
Place a damp towel over the mixing bowl and leave to proof in a warm place until dough doubles in volume (mine took about 1h).
Transfer dough to a clean, floured surface and punch it down.
Divide dough into portions weighing ~70g.
Shape it as instructed here.
Leave to proof again.
Preheat oven to 180˚C.
Brush tops of risen dough with eggwash.
Bake for ~20min or until golden brown.

Friday, 28 December 2012

swiss meringue buttercream

Been so busy baking for our charity project I haven't had time to update this space! I actually have loads of recipes lined up, waiting to be tested, but until I find the time to carry out my ambitious plans, we'll just have to make do with this basic Swiss Meringue Buttercream (SMBC) recipe.

2 factors I like about SMBC are its stability and its versatility. I've tried the standard buttercream before but it was just too unstable in our sweltering heat. SMBC tends to hold up a bit better, which is a blessing when you've got a staggering number of cupcakes to frost and deliver. Plus, it's so easy to flavour! You can add in chocolate, fruit purees or salted caramel like I did--the possibilities are endless, really.

The thing to take note while making SMBC is that during the mixing stage, the mixture goes through different phases. It starts out looking watery and 'soupy', then it turns into a curdled-looking mess (that got me panicky the first time I made it), and eventually it morphs into a thick, luscious, smooth buttercream. Despite having made the stuff many times in the past month, witnessing this transition never fails to amaze me.

Other important things I've learnt:

1. ALWAYS use fresh eggs. In addition to giving you peace of mind (and GI tract), fresh eggs are easier to separate.

2. When making the meringue, some recipes indicate heating the egg white-sugar mixture to a temperature of 140-150˚F. While I've tried 140˚F before and escaped unscathed, the recommended minimum cooking temperature for eggs is actually 160˚F (or ~71˚C) so you might want to go with that instead.

Basic Swiss Meringue Buttercream -- makes enough to frost ~30 cupcakes
Ingredients
4 egg whites
120g caster sugar
168g unsalted butter, softened

Directions

Pour egg whites and sugar into a clean, heatproof bowl
Heat egg white + sugar over a saucepan of simmering water, whisking constantly, until the mixture reaches 71˚C. I use a digital probe thermometer to check.
Transfer to mixing bowl fitted with whisk attachment
Whisk until stiff peaks form and meringue cools to room temperature
Switch to paddle attachment and add in the butter
Mix until thick, smooth buttercream is formed
Add flavouring as desired (for chocolate buttercream, I add about 100g melted good quality dark chocolate)
Frost cupcakes/cakes!

Monday, 10 December 2012

berry tart

When I visited the UK a few months back, I was delighted to find strawberries and blueberries going for about £1 a punnet. It was my first purchase upon touching down on English soil and they tasted absolutely amazing after starving for 14h on the plane. Sadly, the berries we get here in Singapore are not only hideously expensive but are often horribly sour/tasteless. I try to avoid buying them unless they're on sale at the supermarket.

I was planning to make a mixed berry tart with strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries but the eye-popping price tags on the berries made me decide on a 2-berry tart instead. Might have gone with a plain blueberry (my favourite berry!) tart if weren't for the irresistible lure of the strawberries' vibrant hue. Just seeing all the bright colours in this post makes me so happy.

The blueberries were surprisingly sweet and the strawberries weren't too bad either. Sadly, I think I'd overworked my pastry this time round so it was a bit tough intially. But a night in the fridge helped it to soak up a bit of moisture from the crème pâtissière and it was just right when we ate it the next day. As you can see from the photos, I went a bit overboard with the crème pâtissière on the larger tart but it was soooo good I couldn't resist flooding the tart with it. Can you tell it's my favourite thing at the moment?

I got the recipe for the pâte sucrée from Michel Roux's Pastry: Savoury of Sweet. I strongly encourage you to get the book if you haven't already done so. It's well worth the money! (Not that you have to fork out all that much for it anyway.)

For the filling I used a mixture of whipped cream and crème pâtissière. I did some guesstimation when it came to proportions so I can't give you the exact measurements but it's approximately a 1:1 ratio in weight.

Sorry for the sketchy recipe this time round! That's the problem with leaving it too late to blog a recipe (and failing to record it down in the first place)--you forget everything! I'll be sure to update this post the next time the berries go on sale at the supermarket.

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.)

Recipes adapted from Michel Roux's Pastry: Savoury & Sweet

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)

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