How to Present Your “Last Hurrah” Peaches of the Season

August 28, 2011 by 5 Comments

Chocolate Tart with Peach-Flavored Pastry Cream Decorated with Liqueur-Marinated Peaches

I enjoy writing this blog, but I would enjoy much more if you would send me requests. For instance: would you like to read  about how to work with chocolates and recipes using chocolates, rather then what I wrote here? It takes me the same time to write about things that you are interested to read or learn about as compared to what I think you may be interested to learn. 

I love to teach, coach and educate. Why not take advantage of it?

I cannot get enough of the summer fruits. I always buy a ton of them when I am going to the market, because I feel as if they are conversing with me: “Take me. Take me! You will not regret it!” And you know what, they are right. Even dough when I get home, I do not know what to do with them. If I want to place all the fruits that I purchased during a single visit, into the refrigerator, I would need to take out everything else and leave just the fruits.

Since that is not possible, I also create myself a problem, because I refuse to throw out food (this feeling of refusing to throw out food is a remnant from my childhood, when we had periods when it was nearly impossible to get any food and we went to bed hungry. The truth of the matter is that my parents gave us, kids, whatever they were able to get, and they went to sleep hungry most of the nights – but this is another story for another time), so I have lots of jams, fruits preserved in alcohol, or just frozen fruits in a plastic bags, ready to be used in the entire winter.

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The Secrets of Successful Pate a Choux, Part I.

August 16, 2011 by 10 Comments

If you’ve ever eaten éclairs, cream puffs, gougeres (cheese puffs), or beignets (fritters), you’ve eaten pâte à choux (paht-ah-shoo).  It means “cabbage paste” in French.

This twice-cooked paste is probably the most versatile dough used in cooking and pastry making.  Pâte à choux can be savory or sweet.  It can be baked, poached, or fried.  It can be piped into various shapes, including my favorite, swans.

A lot of the appeal in making pâte à choux comes from the ease with which you can make a great variety of elegant pastries with it, including Gateau Saint-Honoré, or Croquembouches, stacks of profiteroles glued together with caramel.  And what kid wouldn’t love to make pets de nonne (nun’s farts)?

It achieves its puff not through leavening but through steam deriving from its high moisture content, like popovers.  The cavities that result can conveniently be filled with anything from chicken salad to chocolate mousse, while the exterior remains crisp.

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Easy, No Bake, Delightful Dessert for These Scorching Days

July 18, 2011 by 2 Comments

Flakey tart shell with cream cheese filling that is topped with blueberry compote

If you recall we were experimenting with the ratios of two types of flours (cake and all-purpose) in the preparation of tart dough shells for the summer about a month ago. If you want to refresh your memory, please click here. Also, I do not want to mislead you, but if you did not prepare pre-baked tart dough in June, then you will need to bake it now.

I hope you were with us in June and your freezer is filled with pre-baked tart shells, or at the least with “ready-to-be-baked” tart dough. However, it is never too late. Better late then never. Unfortunately (or fortunately for some of us) the heat wave is here to stay. I must tell you that for me heat wave is great, because I am suffering from a severe form of rheumatoid arthritis and I cannot tolerate cold (cold I mean like even in the 60s), but never mind that; this blog is not about me – it is about enjoying what we do, or what we want to do and learn what did not master yet.

This is July in New York City, in Hartford, in Boston, in Philadelphia and in DC.  What you expect? It is in the 90s for the entire week. There will be some thunderstorms with great humidity, as well so we can save some money by no need to visit a health spa for the steam room.

If you think that the weather wizard forgot about the Midwest; think again. OK. Lets stop taking about the weather and make a nice refreshing dessert in our cool, air-conditioned kitchen. If you will read this post to the  end, I will have a surprise for you.

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How to Bake a Golden Kugelhopf using Brioche Dough

May 18, 2011 by 2 Comments

The kugelhopf had a beautiful rise in the oven

I hope you read the post about the brioche in our May 12th post?  This is the second part of that post. Just to refresh your memory, the purpose of this post is to show how a minor difference in mixing method can deliver a totally different result. In the first report we showed you the method where the butter was added the last to the dough. The brioche dough (or kugelhopf) that is pictured above was prepared with the butter incorporated into the ingredients right at the beginning of the preparation of the dough.

All in all, both cakes are wonderful and both are best eaten fresh, right after taken out from the oven. If you would walk into my home while the brioche was in the oven, I guarantee you, you would not want to leave before tasting a slice.  The aroma of yeast dough baking in the oven is intoxicating, exhilarating and adrenaline stimulating.

Many of us shy away from baking yeast-leavened dough in our home, because we are frightened by people who rather buy ready-made stuff, then worry about how the cake will come out? Or how much work is involved? Etc. Let me assure you that once you will try to prepare your own home made, brioche, croissant, sticky buns, biegly, etc. you will never want to go back to store-bought ones. (Perhaps occasionally, if you are near to a top quality bakery, like Francoise Payard or the Levaine Bakery, both in  New York City). There is no substitute to the feeling of looking and tasting your own creations. It may take more time to prepare than a sponge cake, or a pound cake, but definitely not more work (the time is the rising time of the dough) and it is worth every minute of it.

Chocolate Kugelhopf Using Brioche Dough

Ingredients for the dough

  • 1 teaspoon (4g) and ¼ cup (1.75g) bakers’ sugar
  • 1 tablespoon (0.33 oz./9g) active dry yeast
  • 1 cup (237 ml) warm water (Temp: 110F/43C); it is advisable to measure the temperature of the water because too cold water kills the yeast
  • 4 cups (20 oz./500 g) bread flour
  • 2 cups (16 oz./454 g) unsalted butter, tempered
  • 5 large egg yolks (3.25 oz./9 g)
  • 3 large egg whites (3 oz./85g)
  • 1 3/4 teaspoon (10.5g/0.35 oz.) salt
  • 1 whole egg for egg wash (extra water cooking pray)

Ingredients for the filling

  • ½ cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
  • 1 cup bakers sugar
  • ½ cup golden raisins
  • 1 tablespoon butter

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HOW TO SAVE A BRIOCHE CAKE WITH IMPROVISING

May 12, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Tips and Techniques

Brioche dough used in making a Walnut-layered, apricot jam-filled Yeast-leavened Sweet Cake

If you recall, in my earlier post about yeast-leavened cakes, I promised to write a post about how seemingly minor differences in a recipe will create a substantially different cake.

I love to bake sweet yeast-leavened cakes, because they are great for a coffee break, they have a glorious appearance for presentation, and when eaten fresh out of the oven (Yum!) their spongy characteristics is delightfully satisfying. (BTW the cake can be frozen, but only while it is fresh; then re-warmed in a microwave for nearly the same soft, springy feel as it was when taken out of the oven).

This cake can be eaten as is (without any filling), but can be filled with cinnamon/golden raisins, cocoa powder/golden raisins, poppy-seed, sweet farmer cheese filling to enhanced its taste. The cake is also a great partner for baked fruit (you can wrap the dough around apples, pears, apricots and more) and the result is a delightful combination of the juicy aromatic fruit in a light and fluffy, melt-in-your mouth cake. I am sure you guessed by now that I am talking about the brioche dough.

French toast or bread pudding made with older brioche slices is not comparable to any other dough (not even the Challa Bread) and there is no better Beef Wellington on this Earth than the one uses brioche to wrap around the filet mignon. You must trust me on this.

Since I wanted to show the effects of different mixing methods on the characteristics and textures of the cake I needed to bake two brioche-doughs using the same recipe, but not the same method of preparation. Unfortunately, (or fortunately from a tutorial point of view) I also made two errors, so you have an opportunity to see the effects of these errors, as well, and the two preparation methods. With respect to the taste and texture difference you will have to trust my description. I will try to do my best to be poetically descriptive.

Ingredients for the Dough

1 teaspoon (4g) and ¼ cup (1.75g) bakers’ sugar

1 tablespoon (0.33 oz/9g) active dry yeast

1 cup (237 ml) warm water (Temp:110F/43C); it is advisable to measure the temperature of the water because cold water kills the yeast

4 cups (20 oz/500 g) bread flour
2 cups (16 oz/454 g) unsalted butter, tempered

5 large egg yolks (3.25 oz/92g)

3 large egg whites (3 oz/85g)
1 3/4 teaspoon(10.5g/0.35 oz) salt

1 whole egg for egg wash
may need some extra water
cooking pray

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How to Read Recipes for Baking

May 1, 2011 by Leave a Comment

A copy of the recipe I used for baking my sweet-bread. Please follow it to the letter for a great sweet-bread

Hi. Thanks for stopping by. I am still waiting for questions, because I enjoy explaining things, teaching, and in general helping people to create baking goods from scratch. There is no comparison between store-bought pastries and the one you creat in your kitchen (even if it is not perfect). So what are you waiting for?  There is no such thing as a “stupid” question (some answers maybe stupid, but it is only me who does the answering and I already forgave myself). I hope you will do the same.

Alternatively, you could share with us your latest masterpiece.

Won the Coveted Award of the Worst Looking Brownie in the West; No. 2 (Silver Award) for being the Best Useless International Cake, 2010

I am sure you are questioning the reason(s) for separating the recipes for baking and cooking.  In addition, you are puzzled by the title, because you are reading recipes for years and did not think there is a need to be educated about how to read them.

I do not blame you for being a cynic because I was at your place not so long ago.  If you are anything like me, you do not want to feel stupid or exposing yourself to be vulnerable, so you do not ask questions in public.  You will make every effort to find the answers to your secret questions by reading, by surfing on the Internet and perhaps even through consulting with a limited number of close friends. If none of these methods deliver results, then you just “file” the question.

Before I continue, I’d like to tell you that if you see a beautiful photograph of a cake in a cookbook that looks as if it wants to leap off the page right into your mouth, most likely, it was created by a person that asked a lot of questions and read and tested plenty of recipes.

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Ten Tips to Become a Better Baker

April 12, 2011 by Leave a Comment

 

Rigo Jancsi: The cake is named after Rigo Jancsi, a Hungarian gypsy violinist, who helped create it for the woman he loved!

There are so many books about baking, bakers, cakes, desserts, chocolates, etc., that it made me wonder how all these books are doing so well in a crowded market? How a publisher can accept to publish another baking book, unless the author accepts a sure failure?

But here we are in 2011 with more food bloggers getting ready to publish their book (e.g. Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen, in 2012), celebrities are having more fun writing cookbooks then acting (Suzanne Somers, Gwyneth Paltrow), and Joanne Chang, the owner of Flour Bakery in Boston, sold 20,000 copies of her new book before she could even start her book signing tour.

How can it be? Well, for one, there are so many of us baking enthusiasts who rather buy more bookshelves than miss a new book about baking. The truth of the matter is that it is one of the better ways to enhance our knowledge and understanding in baking and learn new techniques and creative recipes.

Pound Cake with Chocolate Ganache Frosting

Another great source to satisfy our thirst for understanding the culture of baking is the Internet, particularly the many blogs that appear to cover foods from appetizers to after dinner drinks and more. Chocolates & Figs is one these blogs, where we aspire  to be your resource  with problem solving and making sure that you are up-to-date in the baking world.  Our goal is assisting you to cut the events when your baking product is less than perfect. We are aiming to reinforce your confidence in baking (and in creating confections) and provide you with the necessary tools to be successful all the time, not only some of the time.

Dark and White Chocolate-dipped Strawberries

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The Ten Most Important Rules to Follow for Successful Baking

March 28, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Here is the first five:

I am going to embark on an expedition of analyzing the good, the bad, the ugly (no such thing)  and the beauty in baking and sharing every step of the way with you. Actually, I am hoping for more than that; I would like you to actively participate in the process. It is fun, educational, and most of all we can all enjoy and compare the end results.

One of the reason I like baking more than cooking is the discipline and knowledge one needs for success. In cooking, you can gather things into one dish and depending on your artistic abilities, create a great dish. In baking that would be a no-no. As a scientist you never take anything for granted. You always look on the how’s, why’s, and from what and where to…

1. Measuring/Units of Measurement

In baking, precision is of paramount importance; that is why I like to offer choices of measuring units in as many ways as possible in a recipe. Weighing everything is still the best and most accurate method; however, you do need a good scale for that, so we will check the scales on the market in upcoming posts. Tablespoons and “cups” measuring units have the potential to ruin your work and you will not even know why. Bakers need to be scientist in the kitchen, but please do not get alarmed; you do not need a science degree, only a basic knowledge that most of it you already have, just need to apply it in practice. In addition, a good recipe and someone to explain what matters and why would be helpful – information that you will find when visiting with us, or we are just an e-mail away.

I am not sure if you paid attention that bakers and pastry chefs  in North America are more and more using the metric system in their recipes. Not because it is more accurate, but because it is easier to use. Liquids, like milk, cream, and even eggs, that weigh comparably to water, need to be measured as volumes for accuracy. However,  fluids that are denser than water, such as oil, sugar syrup, or honey, are weighed. I had discussed measuring issues in a earlier post (dated: February 17, 2011 ) but it is so important that we will need to expand on it in a future posts, as well; preferably in the context of baking.

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MEASURING TIPS FOR SUCCESSFUL BAKING

February 17, 2011 by 2 Comments

Believe or not, I was just getting ready to bake some cookies (I have a new recipe that is actually considered a vegan recipe, so I want to try it out with respect to taste, texture, appearance, shelf-life, etc.), when I realized that I do not have my “crutch.” I never start to bake without it. I guess you are curious what I call crutch? I am going to let you on it: it is a notebook that has my notes of course, about mishaps, errors, accidents, etc., occurred while baking. Naturally, the important notes are the ones that explain how I handled these events? how I was able to correct errors? and more. I moved long-distance recently, and I am still sitting on some unopened boxes, so I am hoping that the notebook is in one of those unopened boxes. If not, I maybe in trouble.

In the meantime I am just going to jut down here some baking tips that I can recall from memory and hope for the best. Watch for the new cookies; I may post them by the end of the week.

MEASURING

Measuring ingredients for baking correctly is almost as important as using the correct blood type during surgery, or have the right instrumentation for flying an airplane. I hear someone commenting about my dramatization: “Sheer exaggeration”…Well, perhaps, because in this case there is no real life and death situation; however, your cake will need a resuscitating equipment (and it may not work?)

Last week, while watching the chocolate program on Food Network, Tyler Florence, the moderator, baked a flour-less chocolate cake. Although he is a great chef, I believe he should not venture to work as a pastry chef. You do not “eyeball” the sugar content of a cake and you do not “spoon” out the flour from a container and drop it into the cake batter. Of course we did not see the results of his baking because the cake presented at the end was prepared the correct way by his assistants. (although that cake did not look great either).

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