Baking Bouchon - Recipe 13: Caramel Popcorn

Am I the only person who didn't know you don't need a popcorn popper or a microwave to pop popcorn?  You can just put some oil in a pot with some popcorn, turn the stove on and it will pop.  Well, you learn something every day.

The truth is I don't really care that much about caramel corn.  You know those big tubs you get at Christmas with the three kinds of popcorn in it... butter, cheddar and caramel?  I always eat the caramel last.  In fact, I do my best to find people who like the caramel so I can eat all the cheddar.  The butter is good too, but the cheddar is my absolute favorite.  The best part is that it turns your fingers orange.  That means it's good for you, just like Cheetos.

The first step to making caramel corn is to pop popcorn... shocking.  There are apparently other ways to pop the stuff without a popper, like putting the popcorn in a paper bag and microwaving it, but I tried the stove top method first and it worked so I called it popped and moved on.

Now, you must make caramel.  I love making caramel!  Watching the ingredients transform from sugary liquid to gold, delicious, caramel goodness puts a big smile on my face.  This caramel gets heated to a whopping 300 degrees which ensures that it gets nice and crunchy around that popcorn.

So, I've got my popcorn popped and my caramel almost ready and then my photography skills jumped off a cliff.  You see, once the caramel is ready you have to act really quickly to get it on the popcorn and mixed before the caramel cools and hardens.  So, I apologize for the lack of documentation of the next steps.

Just picture in your mind 300 degree caramel.  It's hot, be careful.  I added baking soda and salt to it and totally foams up as I stirred it in.  Apparently this foaming helps the caramel coat the popcorn better.  Then I stirred in some peanuts and dumped the whole mixture into a hot bowl with the popcorn and stirred with purpose.  Having the bowl hot give you a little more time before the caramel hardens.

I kept stirring and stirring and stirring until all the popcorn was coated with the caramel, peanuty goodness.  It didn't take long (1-2 minutes tops) before the caramel cooled and stirring didn't really do any more good.  I think I did a fairly decent job getting all the kernels coated.

There you have it, caramel corn.  I've never had caramel corn with peanuts in it before, but I really like the addition.  The fact is that I've been picking out the peanuts and eating them.  Who needs popcorn when you've got caramel coated peanuts.

Now, somebody pass me the cheddar popcorn.
Julie

Baking Bouchon - Recipe 12: Baguette Bâtard

Stop trying to put an "s" in there people, it's just a bâtard.  Actually bâtard means that word with the "s"... it's what they call an illegitimate baguette because it is not shaped like a legitimate baguette, it's wider and fatter in the middle and a better shape for, say, a sandwich.  Not that I have any intention of making a sandwich;  I'll just take mine warm with butter, thank you very much.  The butter helps me identify with the little chunker by getting a little wider in the middle too.

 The ingredients are nothing earth shattering... flour, salt, yeast and water. 

All the breads in this cookbook start with some kind of pre-ferment, which basically means a lot of waiting (not my best skill).  This one uses a poolish which is a mixture of flour, water and yeast that you let sit out for a day so the yeast can activate.  The other kind used is a levain which is similar but takes a week to ferment.  Thank goodness those are later in the book because that's even more waiting.

So, the poolish gets all bubbly and fermenty (see top left of the picture above) and you add it to a bowl with more flour, yeast and water and make yourself some dough.  Then comes the fermentation (aka, more waiting).

The fermentation basically consists of folding the dough a couple of times and then letting it sit for an hour... three times.  That's three hours of waiting.

After that you shape the dough into its illegitimate shape and proof the dough.  Yep,  you guessed it, more waiting.  Another hour this time.

FINALLY, the FUN part begins.  I whipped out my rocks, chains and water gun and baked some bread.

What?

Yes, you read that right; rocks, chains and a water gun.  These are the components of a steam generating kit that most of the bread recipes in this book use.

You basically set your rocks and chains on a sheet tray and put it in the oven while the oven is pre-heating, in this case to 460 degrees.  Super hot. 

Then, as soon as you put the bread in the oven, you blast the rocks and chains with water from the water gun and quickly shut the door to trap the steam in the oven.  Pretty cool, huh?  Apparently, this steam is the key to getting a great crust on your bread.

Plus, it's fun.  I got to play with toys.  However, please don't mention that I thought the trigger on the water gun was a pressure pump and accidentally sprayed the wall.  Thanks for not mentioning that.

The outcome was some darn good bread.  I was happy that the little bâtard rose beautifully with pretty little pockets inside.  I thought the crust could have been a little crispier, but hopefully as I perfect my super soaker technique that will improve as well.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go stop CA from chasing our dog around with the water gun.

Julie

Pierogi 3 Ways

Since CA and I cook a lot at home, it's hard for us to find something new that we haven't tried before.  I'm not entirely sure how I stumbled on the idea of making pierogi but I'm so very glad I did.  Pierogi are simply Polish dumplings.  I feel like most cultures have some version of this food.... ravioli... empanadas....  This one is extra awesome because it's Polish and I'm Polish.  Well, I'm a quarter Polish.  Not that that is something that affects my daily life or makes me an authority on Polish food.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I haven't even eaten a pierogi before today.  I digress.

The first thing I did was make the dough which came together really easily with flour, butter, eggs, olive oil, salt and sour cream.  I found a lot of different versions of the dough, but liked this one because it has sour cream in it.  Since pierogi are traditionally served with sour cream, I thought it made sense to have some in the dough as well.   The other versions I saw seemed too much like pasta dough for me.

I had a hard time deciding what type of pierogi I wanted to make.  I always want to try everything, which is why I like Tapas and eating appetizers for dinner.  Apparently, you can put just about anything inside pierogi, but the three I found most often were meat, potato and sauerkraut so I decided to make all three.  Dilemma solved.

I'm really glad I opted for the variety pack.  Yes, it was more work, but it was nice to have a protein, starch and vegetable option.  Plus, it was like a little surprise each time you cut into once because you didn't know what kind you would get.

My meat filling was ground beef browned with onions and garlic and creamed up with a little bit of goat cheese.  The potato filling is essentially mashed potatoes sauteed with onions and some of the same goat cheese used in the meat filling.  Finally the kraut is just store bought sauerkraut, drained and sauteed with onions.  It was all very peasant foodish and comforting.  Of course, if you want to make just one kind of pierogi,  you can simply triple the filling ingredients for that version and make them all the same. 

The dough gets rolled out, cut into circles, stuffed and sealed.  This is a very similar procedure to making ravioli.  It's time consuming, but fairly mindless once you get going.

The dumplings are quickly boiled just to cook the "pasta" through, then you saute them in a little butter to get a nice brown color on both sides.

As I mentioned before, these are traditionally served with sour cream, which is what we did as well.  I can't tell you how happy I am with how these turned out.  I'm even happier that I only cooked half of them and I have more of them stored in my freezer for another day.

The dough was definitely denser than a ravioli or a wonton, but not overly so... more like an empanada in density.  However, I think including the sour cream gave it a really nice texture and flavor.

CA and I both had trouble selecting our favorite filling.  CA finally settled on the meat.  Coincidentally, the poor guy took some leftovers to work the next day and ended up with all kraut and potato.  I think I agree and would rank them meat, potato, kraut.  I was a little surprised because I really do love sauerkraut, but the flavor of that one was pretty mild because you drain all of the brine out of the kraut before using it.  Maybe next time I'll reduce it out over the stove instead of draining it all.  Regardless, a totally successful meal.


Dough recipe adapted from Food Network

For the Dough
2 cups Sour Cream
5 cups All Purpose Flour
2 T Butter, melted
2 Eggs
1 Egg Yolk
2 tsp Salt
2 tsp Olive Oil

Combine all the ingredients in a standing mixer fitted with the dough hook and mix on low speed until smooth, about 4-5 minutes.  Let the dough rest for 10 minutes before rolling.

For the Potato Filling
12 oz. Potato (1 medium baking potato)
1 T Milk
3 T Goat Cheese
Salt & Pepper
1 T Butter
1/3 cup Onion, finely chopped

Peel, cube and boil the potatoes until tender.  Mash the potatoes with milk and goat cheese and season with salt and pepper.  In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat and saute the onions until soft.  Add the mashed potatoes and stir until combined.  Set aside.

For the Sauerkraut Filling
1 cup Sauerkraut, drained
1/3 cup Onion, finely chopped
1 T Butter
Salt & Pepper


In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat and saute the onions until soft.  Add the sauerkraut and stir until combined and any remaining liquid has evaporated.  Set aside.

For the Meat Filling
1/4 lb. Ground Beef
1/3 cup Onion, finely chopped
2 cloves Garlic, finely chopped
3 T Goat Cheese
Salt & Pepper

In a skillet over medium heat, cook the beef with the onion and garlic until the beef is brown and no more pink remains.  Remove from the heat and stir in the goat cheese until it melts.  Season with salt and pepper.  Set aside.

For Assembly, Cooking & Serving
1 Egg, beaten
4 T Butter
1 Cup Sour Cream

To assemble the pierogi, roll out the dough on a floured surface to a 1/4" thickness.  Cut the dough using a 4" round cookie cutter.  Brush the edges of each round with the beaten egg.  Place a heaping tablespoon of filling in the center of each circle and fold it over into a half moon shape, pressing and pinching to seal the edges.  Repeat with the remaining dough and fillings, re-rolling the dough as necessary.

Turn the oven on to warm (approx. 200 degrees) so you can keep the pierogi warm as you cook them in batch.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  In batches (6 or so at a time), boil the pierogi for about 2 minutes or until they float (the potato ones usually do not float).

Melt 4 T of butter in a skillet over medium heat.  In batches (6 or so at a time), sear the pierogi for 2-3 minutes per side until they are golden brown.  Once one batch is done, put those in the oven to keep warm while you sear the remaining pierogi.

Serve with sour cream.


I'm worn out after all that.  Good thing CA is in charge of dinner tomorrow.
Julie

Baking Bouchon - Recipe 11: Chocolate, Praline and Cocoa Nib Tart

If you hopped over from the Bouchon Bakery Book Project, Welcome!! I'm super happy that you made the jump.  I'm also baking my way through the cookbook, but in a different order and pace than the nice folks over at the Project.  I also talk about other stuff... which you can read all about here.  Thanks for stopping by!

This just got real.  I initially read the recipe for this tart weeks ago and I almost closed the book, put it back on the shelf and called it quits.  Why?  Because I couldn't pronounce half the ingredients let alone know what the frick they were.... feuilletine, trimoline, glucose.... seriously?  So, I turned to my trusty friend the Internet.  She told me what it all was, but I had to find it all for myself.  You know how I get grumpy when I have to go to two stores?  Try five stores and still having to order something from the Internet.  No wonder it took me so long to make this tart.

Let's review....

Hazelnut-almond praline paste: 
What is it? 
One of the least scary on the list, it's a paste made with almond and hazelnut butter and sugar, and it's used to make candy and other desserts.   It's kind of like Nutella without the chocolate.
Where the heck do you get it?
I found this at a local Gourmet store in Old Town Alexandria called La Cuisine.  I loved this place!  The lady there was so nice and helped me find everything I needed that they actually had.  I was able to get a few things for this recipe and a bunch for other recipes as well.  Since this was the first stop on my trek, she even gave me advice on where to find other ingredients, what good substitutes were or what might be completely unnecessary.
Cocoa butter: 
What is it?
No, not the stuff you rub on stretch marks; it's a pale-yellow, edible vegetable fat extracted from the cocoa bean that pastry chefs usually use to thin out chocolate. (btw, don't eat this stuff by itself, it's like eating Crisco.  Gross.)
Where the heck do you get it?
The Internet.  Seriously, I looked everywhere for this stuff and finally broke down and ordered it.
Feuilletine:
What is it?
Let's just call this wafer crunch.  It's basically a super thin cookie that is crumbled up and added to ganache, candies and pastries to add crunch.
Where the heck do you get it?
You don't, you make it!  The lovely woman at La Cuisine advised me of this, I looked up a recipe and it was super easy.   We'll discuss later.
Cocoa Nibs: 
What is it?
The particles of the cocoa beans left after the beans are roasted and shelled for making chocolate.
Where the heck do you get it?
You can find these covered in chocolate all over the place, but I finally found them plain at Whole Foods.
Trimoline:
What is it?
Also referred to as inverted sugar, it is a combination of glucose and fructose which makes baked goods retain moisture and less prone to crystallization. Blah, blah, blah, Science.
Where the heck do you get it?
You don't.  After some research and talking to the nice woman at La Cuisine, I decided to skip it and substitute corn syrup.  This stuff is much more important in professional bakeries where you are trying to keep things fresher longer.
Glucose:
What is it?
Another kind of sugar that delays sugar re-crystallization and keeps pastries from drying out for a better product preservation.
Where the heck do you get it?
They had this at La Cuisine so I went ahead and got it since I a few other recipes in the book ask for it.  I figured having at least one of the non-crystallizing sugar things in my ganache would be good enough.

OK, enough learnin', let's get cookin'!

This recipe has a ton of ingredients and really 4 components; the crust, the praline layer, the ganache layer and the dentelle garnish.  I'm going to talk about them in the order of assembly, not necessarily the order I made them since some had to be made days earlier due to freezing times, etc.

First, the crust.  This is the Pâte Sucreé we talked about yesterday; pretty much a sweet cookie dough type crust.  He's been sitting in the freezer for over a week so I set him out on the counter for a bit, rolled him out and put him in the tart pan.  I used my handy pie weights on top to keep the crust from rising in the oven and baked it.  The tart doesn't get baked again once you put the fillings in it, so it needs to be cooked through and golden brown.  Success!  ...although the instructions had it baking for about an hour while mine only took 40ish minutes.

The next layer is the praline.  One component of the praline is the feuilletine which is one of the ridiculous ingredients we talked about above.  I couldn't find it in the five stores I went to so I made it with the help of this recipe by the aptly named blog "Brave Tart".  You mix butter, brown sugar, baking soda, molasses, vanilla, flour and milk together and spread it as thin as possible on a sheet pan.  Bake. Crumble.  You then have some tasty, almost gingerbready, crispy crumbles to add texture to your praline.  I cut the recipe in half and still had way too much so I've been doing a lot of drive by eating and putting in on ice cream in an ode to waffle cone.

The praline itself consists of hazelnut-almond paste, chocolate, cocoa butter and the feuilletine, which all gets mixed together, rolled out super thin and frozen.  Once it's thoroughly frozen, you cut it the size of the tart and it becomes the base layer.  Preferably, it doesn't crack in half while you're moving it, but we can't all win all the time.  Not surprisingly, the praline tastes like Nutella... chocolate, hazelnuts... yep, that'll do it.

The third component is chocolate ganache.  Mmmmmmm, ganache.  I have to give all the credit for how yummy this ganache is to the chocolate I used.  I often use regular old store brand chocolate but for this puppy I used Valhrona chocolate that I bought at my new favorite store, La Cuisine.  Totally worth it!  The melted chocolate is mixed with hot cream that's got the glucose and trimoline (corn syrup) in it.

So, we've got a crust, with a layer of praline topped with ganache.  We can't just leave it like that can we?  No, we need lace.

The Dentelle ("lace" in French) is the decoration or garnish of the tart.  It is made of butter, sugar, corn syrup and milk heated and mixed with hazelnuts, cocoa nibs and cocoa powder.

It gets rolled out and baked until it's nice crispy.  Then cut into a circle to garnish the top of the tart.   It's got a pretty bitter chocolatey taste (in a good way) due to the cocoa nibs.  See how it kind of looks like lace?

OK, so this tart is really pretty.  It was also very, very tasty.  The crust was nice and firm, but a little bit flaky and the ganache was no joke.  The ganache set up so nicely and held up perfectly when the tart was cut.  CA said it was a "restaurant quality" dessert.  Fine.  But while I was eating it, I found myself questioning whether it was all worth it.  Finding all the crazy ingredients and the multiple days of preparing the different components was a lot of work.  Could I have taken a sugar cookie, spread Nutella on it and topped it with chocolate syrup and been just as happy?  I'm still not sure.  I do know it will be a special occasion if I ever make the entire tart again, but I think this ganache recipe may become a staple.

Julie

Baking Bouchon - Recipe 10: Pâte Sucreé

I didn't actually get to bake this yet, but I feel like this recipe deserves its own post since it's such an important component of a bunch of upcoming recipes.  Pâte Sucreé is a basic sweet dough that is the crust for many of the tarts in the cookbook.  The other crust he uses is Pâte Briseé which is more like a traditional pie dough.  The first tart I get to make is a Chocolate, Praline and Cocoa Nib Tart, but before I get started on that, I must make the crust.

Interestingly, this recipe calls for powdered sugar and a combination of regular flour and almond flour.  What I've typically seen is granulated sugar and regular flour - similar to making a sugar cookie.  Thomas says the powdered sugar blends better with the butter and the almond flour adds more flavor.  I'll buy that.

The dough comes together pretty easily.  You cream the butter with most of the sugar, add your vanilla beans, then sift in the dry ingredients.

You know you have a serious baking addiction when you think one of the most beautiful things in the world is a batter specked with vanilla beans....  Isn't she pretty?

After the dough comes together, you wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it overnight.  But before you do that, you break off a little piece, put it on a baking sheet, bake it and eat it.  It tastes like a sugar cookie.  Not the best sugar cookie you've ever had, but one that's not quite sweet enough because you're going to put a bunch of other stuff on it... like chocolate and pralines.

Alternatively, you can stick the dough in the freezer for a few days because you have to order ingredients from the Internet to make your tart.

Juli

Breakfast Burritos - in bulk

A few months ago, on the time suck that is known as Pinterest, I came across a post from some smart lady who made a bunch of breakfast burritos and stuck them in the freezer so her family could quickly grab one, microwave it and have a nice hearty breakfast.  I totally stole her idea.  This is the third batch of these I've made and CA is a big fan.  On a day he doesn't have time to eat breakfast at home, he'll grab one out of the freezer before leaving for work and microwave it when he gets there.  Wife prize, right here.

I switched out some of the ingredients from the original recipe to make them a little healthier....

Here is where I would normally post a photo of all ingredients for what I made..... Unfortunately, the photo I took is so highly inaccurate, it wouldn't do you any good.  I forgot to put the cheese in the photo and you can't have a burrito with no cheese.  I also made some serious quantity adjustments as I went along so that's inaccurate too.  Oh well, at least you get the recipe this time.

The great thing about this recipe is that you can cook it all in one pan.  In a large non-stick skillet, brown up the turkey sausage, then set it on paper towels to drain.  Add olive oil to the skillet and cook up the potatoes & onions.  Dump that out, add the eggs to the pan and scramble those.

I find assembly to be much easier when I have everything all laid out so I set up four bowls with all my burrito guts... sausage, potatoes, eggs & cheese.  Then, I lay out my tortillas and start building.

 Once they're all built, roll and bag.  Easy.

Full disclosure.....  this time I tried to make the burritos even healthier and use whole wheat, low carb tortillas.  It was a disaster.  Every one of them tore when I tried to roll them.  Some worse than others.  Below are the two worst culprits.  They got dumped into a bowl, microwaved and eaten with a spoon.  I was hungry anyway.  Moral of the story... just use regular flour tortillas.

Recipe... adapted from this blog

Ingredients:
12 large Flour Tortillas
1 lb Turkey Breakfast Sausage
1 T Olive Oil
5 small potatoes, 1/4" dice
1/2 onion, 1/4" dice
Salt
Pepper
Seasoning for potatoes (I used Penzey's Northwoods)
3 1/4 cups Egg Substitute (approx. 17 eggs)
6 oz Shredded Part Skim Cheddar Cheese

In a large, non-stick skillet, brown turkey sausage.  Set aside on paper towels to drain.
Heat olive oil in the same skillet, add potatoes and onions, season with salt, pepper and any other desired seasonings and cook until soft on the inside and browned and a bit crispy on the outside.  Set aside.
Add egg substitute to the same skillet, season with salt & pepper and scramble eggs until just set.  You don't want them to be too dry.

Lay the tortillas out on a flat work surface and layer on your ingredients;  to each tortilla add approximately 1/4 cup potatoes & onions, 3 T sausage, 1/4 cup eggs and 2 T cheese.

Roll each tortilla into a burrito shape and put in a plastic baggie (mine fit into sandwich baggies) and freeze.

To reheat, remove the burrito from the baggie, wrap it in a damp paper towel and microwave for  2 minutes or until it is warmed through and the cheese is melted.

Enjoy!
Julie

Baking Bouchon - Recipe 9: Cream Puffs

This recipe caused me a lot of anxiety.  Not because it was exceptionally complicated, but because of CA's very high cream puff standards.  You see, he's been to the Wisconsin State Fair countless times and guess what the signature dish of the fair is?  Yep, cream puffs.  Apparently they sell hundreds of thousands of them at the fair each year and someone thinks they are the standard to which all cream puffs should be measured.  I've seen him scoff at lesser puffs so the bar was set quite high.

This recipe is actually two recipes (well, three, but we already talked about Pastry Cream).  One for Pate a Choux which is a light pastry dough that has a very high moisture content which, when cooked, creates steam and makes the dough puff.  It is used for cream puffs, eclairs, cheese puffs and beignets.  The dough itself has no sugar in it, the sweetness in this recipe comes from the pastry cream which fills it and the cookie which bakes on top of it.

The second recipe is the cookie which gets placed on top of the unbaked puff and is intended to ensure the top is crispy and gives it a "visually appealing appearance".  As if puffed dough filled with cream could NOT be visually appealing.

The cookie is the first thing one I worked on.  The ingredients are super simple; brown sugar, flour, almond flour and butter.

I put all the ingredients in the mixer and mixed and mixed and mixed.  Thomas warns the dough will be crumbly and will only come together into a ball once you mush it together with your hands.  I tried that and I got no ball so I cheated and put in 1 tsp of water.  It worked and the dough did eventually mush together... barely.

You then freeze the dough and attempt to roll it very thin.  Thomas warned me that this would be difficult and to persist by patching the dough and rolling again.  It eventually worked, but it took a while.  Once the dough is rolled out, it goes back in the freezer and waits for its partner to be done.

For the Pate A Choux, you melt butter with water and salt, then add flour and stir rapidly until the dough pulls away from the pan and is glossy and smooth, but not dry.  The whole "glossy and smooth" thing never happened to me and I kept waiting for it, but then I got freaked out that the dough might be too dry so I stopped.   See how chunky it is?  I thought I'd screwed it up, but in hindsight, it was ok.

Next, put that dry, chunky mess into the mixer, gradually add a lot of eggs and mix, mix, mix.  At this point, you pipe out the dough into individual, future puffs.

Thomas is very concerned that each puff is exactly the same size so he prefers to pipe the dough into silicone molds.  Me?  I don't have a silicone mold, so I piped them onto a silpad and because of my mad piping skills, they were pretty much the same size.  I popped the pan into the freezer and found something else to do for a couple of hours while they set up.  That something may have involved breaking off pieces of cookie dough and eating it.

So, after everyone was thoroughly frozen, it was finally time to bake these puffers.  I topped each puff with a brush of water and circle of cookie dough, popped them in the oven. and crossed my fingers that puffing actually occurred.

Success!!!  They puffed up beautifully with a nice little cavity inside just screaming for some pastry cream.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for pastry cream...

The cookie kind of melted into the top and left a nice little crunch similar to a struesel topping (which now that I think about it, has exactly the same ingredients in it).

The verdict?  According to CA, while the puff itself was very similar to the puff by which all puffs are judged, but the cookie top is totally different and the filling is too heavy.  It should really just be sweetened whipped cream.  All that said, it didn't stop him from eating them or telling me they were really tasty.  Just not the same.

I have never been to the State Fair or had one of these famous puffs, so I thought these were pretty darn tasty.  Although I do agree that the filling was a little heavy and would probably lighten it by combining the pastry cream with some whipped cream in the future.

Maybe someday I'll make it to the Wisconsin State Fair and get to taste the standard for myself.  Until then I'll eat these and when they're gone I'll find myself a local fair and try not to choke from inhaling the powdered sugar on my funnel cake.

Julie