Creme Patisserie- Makes Everything Fabulous

This is worth learning- not difficult, the most rewarding building block of the pastry world, and delicious on its own.. It is simply a pudding, enriched with egg yolks and finished with butter. If quality had a flavor, this would be it- you can taste everything- creamy, rich, subtle. You will be unable to use packaged substitutes after trying this; it is so simple you will not need to.

We will need:

450 ml/ 2 C whole fresh milk

4 egg yolks

50 g/ 4 T corn starch

130 g/ 2/3 C sugar

pinch salt

vanilla, or better still a plumped bean to steep in the milk

50 g/ 4 tablespoons butter

Heat the milk to simmering in a heavy-bottomed pan, with the vanilla bean if you are using one. Beat the yolks, add the sugar slowly and carefully as you beat, and then the cornstarch and salt. Very slowly spoon warm milk into the yolk mixture, whisking as you do, to bring it slowly up totemperature. When you have added half of the milk ad the mixture is quite hot, you can add it all back into  the pan with the warm (not boiling) milk. Continue to whisk over medium heat- making sure the whisk makes contact with the bottom of the pan all over, until it thickens, which will happen all at once at the end. Keep whisking and let it nearly boil another minute. Remove from the heat, and genty whisk in the butter in small pieces, one at a time. Squeeze the seeds from the vanilla bean into the cream if you are using one, or add a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Pour through a fine-mesh strainer into a bowl (even with the most careful whisking) into a dish and cover with a round of non-stick parchment. Cool, then chill, then use as you like for instance in a creme chibouste to fill a meringue.

Read More »

Greece's Classic Holiday Cookie- Rich with Butter, Light as a Snowflake.

Many cultures lay claim to Kourabiedes- Mexican wedding cakes, Russian tea cakes, Swedish tea balls, Viennese crescents. The reason there are so many versions of this cookie is because it is divine. This barely sweet shortbread, rolled while hot and buttery in powdered sugar to make a layer of creamy icing, then dusted with more sugar after cooling so it's white like snow, is everywhere during the holidays here in Greece (along with the moist, syrup-kissed, walnut filled melomakarona). It has just 3 ingredients, so it is also divinely tricky- we are not relying on showy spices or splashy chocolate for impact, but texture. A little care and three simple steps and your buttery Kourabiedes will be rich, crumbly, and ethereal as a snowflake. 

We will need:

250 g/ generous 1 C butter

1/4 tsp/ salt

60 g/ generous 1/2 C powdered sugar

a little vanilla 

300 g/ 2 1/2 C flour

then-

lots more powdered sugar for rolling, at least 400 g/3 1/2 C

The first step to a light texture is beating the butter (together with the salt) to make it as airy as possible. Use an electric mixer, and scrape the sides often (turning off the mixer before you do so). After 5 to 7 minutes, it will be nearly twice the original volume, and have lightened from pale gold to nearly white:

Beat in the powdered sugar and vanilla. The second step to keeping them light is to add the flour gently by hand (beating the flour in could toughen and deflate the batter), stopping just as soon as it is smooth.

These are good plain, but most Greek versions have almonds:

Toasting them deepens their flavor- just put them in the oven for about ten minutes as you are heating it up, and chop them roughly with a serrated bread knife. A teacup's worth will be generous enough.

A difference between the Greek version and the many other international versions of this cookie is that Kourabiedes are quite large. This generous batch will yield just 20 - 24 cookies. The advantage of size (apart from the obvious)- they are less likely to dry out, and you can best appreciate the melting crumb of them when you can take a good bite.

Typical shapes are flattened ovals, and crescents:

In this batch, the ovals are plain, the crescents with toasted almond, and the balls with walnuts and cinnamon- a departure altogether (Polverones).

The third step to a light and crumbling kourabie is watchful baking- Bake at 170 C/ 350 F for about 20 minutes- they will have puffed slightly and the surfaces will be entirely dry. But they will have taken on nearly no color at all except for the bottoms, which will be gold. They will yield slightly when you press them, then firm up as they  cool. If you wait until they are firm to come out of the oven, their texture will be dry rather than melting.

Have ready a large bowl of powdered sugar for rolling, and a tray where they can all fit without touching one another. Roll them generously in the sugar one by one while still hot from the oven and place them on the tray- if they touch they will stick together. The powdered sugar draws the warm butter to the surface, clings to it, and forms a layer of icing. You will see them go from white and dry to yellow and moist as the sugar absorbs the butter. Once cool, roll them again generously- the dry sugar will stick to the icing, and look like snow.

Read More »

Fresh Corn, Risotto Style- As Decadent as Vegetables Get.

Fresh corn on the cob has returned to the market for a fall encore. Its crisp sweetness is just as nice in October as it was in June. But with the busy season in full swing, we are less likely to be grilling for lunch. The pic-nic barbeque mood has given way to the sit-down lunch. Never skimping on glamour, we sometimes do skimp on time. This is such a dish.

We will need:

6 ears of fresh corn

50 g/ 4 T butter

200 ml/ scant 1 C heavy cream

salt and pepper 

grated fresh parmesan, for serving

Shuck the corn and slice the kernels off into a large basin (it is a little messy). With a serrated knife, like a bread knife, scrape the cob to get all the tender bits of corn and rich corn milk. This second step makes the dish. Put the corn and its pulp and milk into a pan and add a half glass of water and a little salt. Cover and simmer for about ten minutes to let the corn start to get tender. Add more water if necessary. When it seems nearly as soft as you'd like it, add the butter, and then half of the cream, plus salt and pepper to your taste, stirring all the while, until the cream turns golden with the corn. Taste again. Like a risotto, it will continue to absorb moisture on the plate and we will want plenty of sauce. Depending on how rich you want it, add water or the rest of the cream, or a little of both, aiming for a little saucier than you ultimately want it to be.

Just like for risotto, make everyone sit down before you serve.This is delicious very hot! Serve in mounds on plates or shallow bowls, top with a tangle of parmesan, and more fresh ground black pepper. It is sweet and creamy and rich and can take the drama of a lot of heat if you like, which we do.

Read More »

Rich Chocolate Zucchini Cake- Health Springs Eternal (But Secretly....)

Our cake- black, rich, and so moist it is nearly juicy- promises nothing but pleasure. Delicate, nearly weightless, it is nonetheless filled with every good thing. Tea-time revives; seven pieces with a glass of milk (it happens often with hungry teenagers) make for a substitute meal (so many eggs!). The cake is all indulgence, all health: olive oil, eggs, wheat germ, oat bran, whole wheat flour, and of course a lot of zucchini. This is our other "summer cake,"-  perfect with summer's zucchini, just as nice with the golden squash of fall-

Of course there is some sugar, but as the cake took shape- having cocoa added, taking out some flour, adding the wheat germ and wheat bran, making all the flour whole wheat- we cut it down too. Whole wheat flour and wheat germ are naturally quite sweet; the cake needs less sugar than it does when you make it with white flour. Winter squash are even sweeter than the zucchini. 

The only not so indulgent thing about the cake is its modest height- the thinner the layer, the lighter it rises. The fat finger-width of batter in your largest pan rises to a perfectly nice height; it's just not very dramatic.

We will need:

400 g/ 2 C sugar
85 g/ 1 C cocoa powder
240 g/ 2  C flour- whole wheat pastry flour works very nicely
2 teaspoons each of salt, baking soda, and baking powder, put through a fine mesh strainer into the flour
80 g/ 1/2 C wheat germ
50 g/ 1/2 C oat bran
6 eggs
360 ml/ 1 1/2 C olive oil
400 g/ 4 C zucchini, grated on the large holes of the box grater and loosely packed
lemon zest

Orange and chocolate is a delicious and classic combination. Using lemon zest instead is unexpected- more floral than citrus, giving some balance to the richness of the cocoa. Finely grate the zest of half a lemon (or an orange) and blend it with the sugar in a large bowl to release the fragrance. Add the eggs and the oil, then the cocoa and blend. Add the rest of the dry ingredients and blend again:

Then add the grated zucchini, which adds quite a lot of moisture. If using winder squash, divide into workable pieces and slice the thick outer peel off in segments:

Grate as you grate the zucchini. This is a much harder job.

Line a large pan with non-stick baking paper- we used the sheet pan that fits directly into a standard European oven. Bake at 180 C/ 375 F for 30-40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. 

Let cool before slicing- for such hearty ingredients, it has a fragile texture. This makes an enormous cake, but as it is perfect anytime, and as everyone likes it so much, you surely will not find it too large.

Read More »

Hamentaschen- For a Day of Feasting and Gladness.

A pastry even richer with nostalgia than with fruit.

When I was a little girl we lived in the St. Lawrence valley- a frozen, barren landscape inhabited mainly by Catholics, most of whom were sadly not Italian. The supermarkets were stocked with hamburger helper and canned potato salad. The food was terrible. Two or three times a year though we would drive to New York City. The Lower East Side, it was a juicy mouthful of paradise- toasted buttered bialys from Kossar's, cheese blinzes with sour cream and applesauce at Ratner's, Russ and Daughters' lox in all its supple lavishness. You know how we see those people coming to Greece from the northern counties and laying on the sand drinking in the sunshine like it's water and they're parched? It was like that- all this Jewish food quenched; it warmed. It sated a deeper, colder hunger of months, not hours.

The first hamantasch I ever had came from Moishe's Bakery on Second Avenue- an institution now but pretty new then. The pastry was a massive triangle- bigger than my hand, bulging with rich fruit filling. I tried one for the sheer dazzling size but kept getting it for the crumbling sandy crust, the almost chewy, bright tasting apricot puree (lekvar). They are made all year, but they are traditional for this holiday, Purim. No community has ever fed me better- ok, maybe the Italians (it would be a tie). In honor of this, and lots more, and despite the fact that I am barely even an *Episcopalian- let alone Jewish- when it's Purim, I make hamentaschen.

Inspired by the hamentaschen of Second Avenue in spirit only, these are quite a bit richer, and more petite (The buttery dough could not support such grand proportions. So just eat two.) I'm neither blessed nor bound by tradition, so I have been free to make up my ideal version.

We'll need:

250 g/ 1 generous C butter

150 g/ 3/4 C sugar

2 ml/ scant 1/2 tsp. salt

5 ml/ 1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 ml/ scant 1/2 tsp. almond extract

1 egg

320 g/ 2 1/2 C flour

For the filling:

Dried fruit of your choice, and a little bit of sugar if we need it.

Let's start with the filling-

Take about a cup of your favorite dried fruit and cover it well with water. Put a lid on the pot and set it on to simmer for quite a while, making sure the water doesn't boil off and they scorch. 

Prunes (pitted) are a great favorite. Here we have some dried nectarines. They have that same rich tanginess as the Blenheim apricots we have in California, and make a hamentasch beautiful to behold. I added a few pinches of sugar and a vanilla bean as they poached (with prunes, perhaps I would not). When the fruits are plump, boil the poaching liquid down rapidly (to keep in all the flavor) and then let them cool. Puree them in a food processor, test for sugar, and blend again until smooth. It should be a puree, not a paste- add some of the poaching liquid if it seems too dense.

The dough:

Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the salt and the vanilla and almond and beat again:

Add the egg, beat more, then blend in the flour gently. The dough will be soft enough to sink your fingertips into. Put it in the freezer for a few minutes so it is easier to work with. 

I've shaped the hamentaschen using a method that is unorthodox (in every sense), but just as quick, and more fun. Rolling out dough is messy- the flour all over the place, the dough sticking to the counter, and the scraps needing to be patched together and rolled out again, usually toughening in the process. Instead, you could form them with your hands- much more fun, less messy, and no waste. Form the dough into smooth balls the size of a very large walnut- this made 2 baking sheets of a lucky 13 pieces each. Then take each ball and pinch it into a round the size of your palm. Put a large spoonful of filling in the center, and fold the sides in to form a triangle:

These look more rustic than those from rolled dough cut with a wineglass, but I think they are the lovelier for it:

The rough edges hint at their buttery, crumbly texture when baked.

The dough has proportionally more butter than most recipes, so to help keep them from schlumping in the oven, I let them firm up in the freezer for 15 minutes before putting them in to bake at 180 c/ 375 f. They are petite, but dense with filling, and needed a full 25 minutes in my oven. Start checking them after 20 minutes. They should turn golden, with a little golden brown in the corners, but the dough will still be soft when you press it. It will firm up right away as it cools. The bottom takes a deeper color:

Be careful not to overbake them, as they will become less delicate. 

As you see, some of them will still schlump. They taste none the worse for it.

I also made a fig batch.

Indeed, it is a day of feasting and gladness. (And I am very glad for the community that taught me how to feast.)

*No food traditions. If you Google "Episcopalian food" the results are praiseworthy- lots of feeding of the hungry, but you'll find almost no recipes. People do joke about molded Jello salads- I confess a fondness for them.

Read More »

Better Late than Never Panettone

Panettone, ready for the oven.

True, we are full into January now. But traditions are so pleasurably acquired through the years, and usually none are discarded along the way, and so it is possible, likely even, to have missed one or two rituals during the holiday season proper. No matter! Although a royal-icing decorated snowflake cut-out cookie may be December-specific, many classic recipes are simply winter, and festive- and panettone is one of these. Add to this that, in the richness of life, there will always be someone else you are grateful for- it is an endless affair.

Panettone hits all the right notes- lavish, festive, rich, fruit laden, and basically wraps itself. But- it is a bread. Therefore it is technically sensible, and never "too much" after a season of indulgence. It is also sturdy, shipable, and maybe even better stale than fresh. This particular panettone became a family tradition after my mother gave me a pre-season gift of a small, gimicky-looking Williams-Sonoma cookbook called "Gifts from the Kitchen." Well, I am not going to squirt some wine vinegar into a glass bottle and add a strip of orange zest and a sprig of rosemary and call it a gift. But the baked recipes are consistently excellent. The first time I made this a friend burned his fingers in his greed to dig it out of the extra large San Marzano tomato can it was baked in, then went on directly to burn his mouth with the steaming hot bread. It was hysterical and very gratifying.

This recipe has been gently scaled up, made metric, and has non-Sonoma temperature kitchen times. 

We'll need:

about 800 g/ 5, 51/2 C flour

100 g/ 1/2 C sugar

12 g. 1 1/2 T/ 1 1/2 envelopes dry yeast

about 8 ml/ scant 2 tsp. salt

180 g/ 3/4 C butter

140 g/5 oz/ about 1/3 C honey

360 ml/1 1/2 C milk

zest of 2 large oranges and one large lemon

3 eggs

5 ml/ 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Scant liter/ 4 C mixed dried fruits- cut into pieces if necessary. Here we used figs, sugared dried pineapple, and prunes.

This makes 2 large panettone forms, or three large tomato cans. 

This rich bread, which requires only minimal mixing and no real kneading, nonetheless needs time. This batch here took all day- I started around 10:30, and just made it to the courier (it was going to Athens) before the 8 o'clock pick up.All of the steps are fun, and hard to mess up. It just needs to sit a long time- much longer than the original recipe indicates.

Start by putting half of the flour and all of the rest of the dry ingredients (except the fruit) in the bowl of your mixer, or a large bowl if you will use a hand mixer or simply a wooden spoon (another advantage of this fine recipe- you really don't need a mixer at all):

Zest the citrus:

Measure out the butter and honey (so much easier to measure sticky honey with a scale):

Then heat the milk, butter, honey, and zests- this is the only part where you need to be careful- it should be heated to about 52 C/125 F- warm enough to dissolve and start activating the yeast, but not so hot as to kill it. No thermometer? Put your little finger in to the second joint, and count to 13 ("One one-thousand, two one-thousand...."). You should just be able to stand it.

When it's ready, the butter will have melted/
Stir it a little. It smells heavenly.

With the mixer on low, blend the warm liquid into the dry ingredients to make a thin batter. Beat a couple of minutes, add the eggs and vanilla, and beat again to combine well. then add as much of the rest of the flour as you need to make a stiff, sticky batter (really it's not so much a soft dough as it is a stiff batter). Put it into a large oiled bowl:

You can see the texture, the stickiness of the batter. Not a dough.

Now the batter can be covered and set aside to rise, and here we differ from the original instructions, which claim an hour and a quarter rise will see it doubled. In a winter house, even near the heater, the batter needs a few hours to rise. Imagine the air slogging through the weight of the eggs and butter and honey! It takes a while. In the meantime, we can cut up the fruit (scissors make this easy) and have it ready:

We punch the batter down- revealing the web of dough and air bubbles that have slowly developed. Now we blend in the fruit- there's a lot of fruit, and the dough is quite sticky- lightly oiled hands work best:

Now we divide it into the molds:

and then cover them with plastic wrap, which helps them create their own warm, moist environment to rise in. I also put them directly on the radiator this time, to hurry things along.

Let them rise to almost double- certainly about 2/3 more- and get the oven ready. Put the rack in the second lowest position, and turn the oven on to 170 c/350 f. In the meantime get the loaves ready too- cut a deep "X" in the tops with scissors, brush them with an egg wash, and dust them if you like with pearl sugar or crushed sugar cubes. When the oven is warm, transfer the loaves. They will gain some more height in baking:

Before...

and after. A little gain in height.

How to tell when they're done? As you see, they darken easily. Also, being so rich with egg and butter, the hollow tap sound will not be of help. Try testing like we test a cake- a wooden skewer (a toothpick is too short for our tall breads) inserted into the center should come out clean. Have a thermometer? The interior temperature will be 85 c/185 f.

These take a while to cool, but they're great hot, and great stale- toasted lightly, spread with a little butter for gloss and show. To wrap- classic is gathering them in a big sheet of cellophane and tying with a bow:

Read More »