[Elise] Danish Braids

This last minute addition for February, Danish Braids, was a little bit of a reach for me. But oh, was it worth it. The final result was something straight oaut of a bakery. Buttery and flaky, oozing with a rich chocolate filling. The recipe I used was very detailed which came in helpful, having never done anything of this magnitude before.

To start, the dough was made  by carefully mixing wet and dry ingredients, precariously on my kitchen table.

I put this initial ball of dough (detrempe) in the refrigerator while I mixed two sticks of butter with a 1/4 cup flour (beurrage). These both chilled for around a half hour.

The detrempe is rolled out to about 1/4" thick, and the beurrage is spread over two thirds of the dough. The left third is then folder over the center third, and the right third over that, creating alternate layers of butter and dough. This is one fold. The whole thing is then chilled for a half hour before rolling out and folding again in the opposite direction. In total, the dough is folded four times. The final time the dough is left to chill overnight. This process is very much like that for puff pastry. As far as I can tell, the main difference is that Danish dough uses yeast, while puff pastry does not. The use of cardomom as well 

THE NEXT MORNING:

 After a night of chilling, the fourth fold is ready to be portioned in two and rolled out.

First thing to make is the filling. This could also be done the night before, depending on the kind of filling and how much time it needs to cool. It is important that whatever you use as a filling be more solid than liquid. I ended up making a quick chocolate ganache (with one cup of cream and two cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips) and whipping it after it had chilled for about a half hour. This worked out really well.

The assembly:

First the folded dough was cut in half (I rolled it a little bit first to make sure both halves were about even)

So many delicious flaky layers!

Next the dough is rolled out, and the outer thirds are cut at an angle in one inch strips. The middle third is loaded up with filling.

Then the top and bottom edges are folded, and the strips are "braided."

 

Finally, the finished Danish Braids are placed on a baking sheet lined with parchament paper, and glazed with an egg. 

And then finally, baked at 400 F for 10 minutes, and 350 F for another 7.

My goodness, YUM. While the amount of effort rules this recipe out for most weekends, it is absolutely scrumptious and totally worth it for special occasions (I think U.S. v. Canada gold medal hockey counts, right?)

[Inez] Inez to Elise! Come in, Elise!

Alternate title: This is Bowie to Bowie, can you hear me out there, man?

So, it's February 24. That means two things. First of all, tomorrow is my baby sister's birthday! ("Baby" to distinguish her from my "little" sister. They're both, as you well know, actually getting really tall.) Happy almost birthday, Christina!



Second, and more importantly to this blog, it's almost March. What do you think should be our March theme? My mom recently made this AMAZING cake for Celeste's birthday (because you know Celeste would rather everything in the world be blue, maybe).


It's pretty inspiring, right? I kind of want to have our March theme be Things With Ridiculous Amounts of Food Coloring. What do you think?

[Elise] Not-So-Rolled Swiss Roll

This weekend I tried to make a Swiss Roll from a recipe I translated from the Food and Drink section of DN.se. I think it is safe to say some things may have been lost in translation, mainly dealing with eggs. So while the result was still a scrumptious pastry, it was not a Swiss Roll. Instead it was something more like those strange layered pastries that show up in a lot of European bakeries. So I will share the recipe how I made it along with where I may have gone wrong.

Cake

4 eggs
2/3 c sugar
1 1/3 c all purpose flour
1 T vanilla sugar (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)
1 T baking powder

The instructions were to beat the eggs and sugar with an electric mixer until white and puffy; sift the dry ingredients together then fold into the wet mixture.

Now... this is what I did, skeptical, but trusting, but no matter how long you beat them, unseparated eggs will never become white and fluffy. Despite that, when I mixed in the flour the eggs made lots of nice air pockets.

The next step is to spread the batter out on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. This should be as thin as possible. I don't think I got mine thin enough, but it was sort of like spreading out rice-krispy bars (well, not that bad) I would try either adding more liquid of some sort or else using a little less flour (1 1/4 or so).

Finally this was baked at 475 F for 6 minutes. I think this may have been what made the roll so stiff, I would try 350 F until golder brown next time. When this is done, take it out, sprinkle it with powdered sugar, and flip it over to cool on another piece of parchment.


Lemon Curd


Juice from 2 lemons
1 egg + 2 yolks
5/6 c sugar (approximately)
1 stick of butter in cm cubes

Lemon curd was fun to make. You start by whisking together the eggs and sugar in a saucepan  (heavy bottomed is best, but I was able to not burn it with a regular stainless steel pan by stirring frequently bordering on constantly). Then you put this on low heat and mix in the lemon juice (the recipe also called for the zest, but then to strain it when you're done, and that seemed messy, which I think was fine, it still tasted overwhelmingly lemony). Stir this until it thickens. It took longer than I thought it would, so be patient. It will be thick enough around a minute after it starts to get nice big bubbles (you have to stop stirring for a few seconds to see this) When its thick, take it off the heat and stir in the butter cubes until it's all dissolved. Put this in the fridge to let it cool.






Whipped Cream


1 pint heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup of raspberry jam

Whip the cream and jam until it is just past the nice soft peaks, when everything starts to look a little bit sticky.

Assembly!


So, you're supposed to spread the lemon curd and the whipped cream (and fresh raspberries, but let's be realistic... it's February) and then roll the whole thing up. But the final cake, on top of being an inch thick, would have broken all over if it had been roller. Being more bread-like, I treated the whole thing like a giant sandwich. I carefully slicked it into a top and bottom half, spread the lemon curd on the bottom side, whipped cream on the top side, and put the whole thing back together pb&j style. Tasty!

[Elise] Quick pie crust.

Pastry month is mostly about making fancy delicious pastries that, let's be honest, look kind of scary to make. But tonight, I just really wanted quiche. And I really didn't want to put lots of effort into making a crust for what is otherwise a pretty simple dish. After a brief review of several simple recipes online (and a quick look at what's in my fridge) I came up with this. It took about 3 minutes to measure, mix, and press into the pan. All measurements haphazardly approximate.

2 cups of flour (approximately)

some salt

1/3 cup of sour cream (in a liquid measuring cup)

2/3 cups of vegetable oil (fill up to the one cup line... see, easy)

Then mix it with a wooden spoon until the flour is all mixed in.

The recipes generally said to split in two halves, press into a half inch thick disks between waxed paper, refrigerate, roll to 1/4 inch take off one sheet waxed paper, press into pan, take of the other sheet. Simple enough, right?

Hah. I put about 3/4 of the soft crumbly mess straight into the pan and pressed roughly even. This gave me a slightly thicker crust which is what I really like in my quiche (and I didn't have waxed paper). I put this in the fridge and went to work on the filling.

For the quiche part I sauteed some onions, brocolli, corn, and red pepper. I put this in the pan, covered liberally with shredded cheddar cheese. For the filling I mixed four eggs, a cup and a half of milk, a tablespoon of melted butter, salt and pepper. This part didn't turn out quite how I wanted (but still tasted good). Next time I might try five eggs and 1 1/4 cups of milk (or else a different recipe altogether). I poured this over the veggies and cheese and topped with chopped scallions.

After baking at 350 F for 30 minutes it came out nicely browned and delicious!

Note about the crust: The you could taste the sour cream in the crust (yum) which isn't something I would like as much for a sweet pie. I would try plain yogurt for something sweet (also recommended was buttermilk, but that is not a staple item for me).

[Inez] Chocolate hazelnut tarts

I've been eying this recipe from The Baker's Daughter for a while now. February being pastry month on the blog is as good an excuse as any to get moving with the tarts. I had kind of been thinking about making this recipe next weekend, following my one year tradition of making extravagant chocolate desserts for Valentine's Day rather than, you know, celebrating with a special someone or something silly like that. (Wow, the formatting on that one is all weird now that we switched to the new template for the blog.) Turns out having a giant blizzard is more of a motivator to make chocolate deliciousness than a Hallmark holiday.

Here's why I wanted to make this recipe:

and

Hazelnuts and chocolate. Proof that there is a Higher Power who loves us.

I'm going to walk you through the recipe, because parts of it made me a little nervous. I'm here to reassure you that it will be all right. The recipe you see below has been modified slightly to make it, in my opinion, even better.

Crust:

• 1/2 cup hazelnuts
• 1/2 cup sugar (or maybe as little as 1/3 cup)
• 7 T butter
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 cup + 3 T flour
• a few pinches of salt

The recipe originally says to use a food processor, but I don't do that. Therefore, stick your hazelnuts (either toasted or raw) in a blender or a coffee grinder and grind them up until they are like hazelnut meal.

Throw the hazelnuts, sugar, flour, and salt in a bowl and mix it around. Cut in the butter, or if the butter is frozen you can grate it in.Then, mix in the egg yolks.

This is where I got nervous. You're supposed to add the egg yolks -- yes, two eggs yolks are the only liquid you add -- and then form the dough into a disk and refrigerate it for an hour. But I didn't have a disk, I had a crumbly mess. Trust in the process. It will turn out all right. Form something resembling a disk, wrap it tightly, and refrigerate an hour.

Meanwhile, make the filling:

• 1/2 cup cream
• 10 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped (you really do want bittersweet, not semi-sweet, for this)
• optional: liqueur or other flavoring (e.g. Frangelico, Kahlua, etc)

Heat the cream till just about to boil. Pour over chocolate in a heat-safe bowl and let sit 5 minutes. Then whisk it together and drool. Don't eat it yet! Refrigerate (covered) for 1 hour.

Ding ding ding! One hour's up! Turn your oven to 350F. Grease and flour 6-9 tart tins (see below for an explanation of the numbers). Then take the crust out of the fridge. Now, the recipe originally says press the crust into 6 3-inch tart tins, so that's what I did (okay, 6 ramekins, but whatever). Having done this, I would like to advise that you turn this recipe into 8 or 9 tarts rather than 6. These babies are intense, and you want the end result to be slightly soporific bliss -- not a coma. Also, having personally made the bottom much thicker than the sides, I would advise that you try to keep the crust to an even 1/4 inch or slightly less, including on the bottom. Once you've pressed all the crusts into the tins or ramekins, fill them with parchment paper and baking beans (so the crust holds its shape). 

Bake 15 minutes. Remove parchment paper and beans, bake another 5-10 minutes. Let them cool and then -- this is neat -- remove the crusts from the tins or ramekins. Actually you could probably wait until after the next step to remove the crusts. If you try that, let me know how it goes.

Now take the ganache out of the fridge and whip it on high for 1 minute until "it doubles in size and becomes fluffy." I'd say fluffy is an exaggeration, but maybe I did it wrong. Divide the filling between the crusts and smooth the top of the fillings as best you can. 

Whip another cup of cream (do not sweeten it!) and put a healthy dollop on top of each tart that will be immediately consumed. 

Consume.

Side note: Elise, have you tried the new Blogger editing thing? I don't know if they have it for browsers other than Chrome since that's all I've used it in, but it makes dealing with images a lot easier. You can drag them around and decide after you've uploaded them how big you want them to be and how you want them to be centered.

Happy Birthday!!!

As of this week, our blog is now one year old. So while I was in D.C. last month visiting Inez, I made yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting, for the first time, from scratch. They had their shortcomings (somehow they came out tasting a little bit like sweet cornbread and the frosting was slightly over whipped) but nonetheless, they were delicious.

We pondered some about how to make this blog more cohesive. While the beautiful part of the blog is largely hard to plan and decidedly individual, the delicious portion is somewhat easier to control. So we've decided to give each month a delicious theme. February's theme: Pastries. So far, I have plans for at least one Swedish translation, and I believe Inez has her eye on a tart of some kind. Any suggestions for other delicious pastries to make this month, or theme ideas for future months will be entirely welcome.