I promised myself to post at least once a month, but you know ... time is running out! So, summer has flown by without even realizing it and here we are with the autumn’s resolutions :)

So, I made marshmallows. Oddly, it never occurred to me to make them at home. I have always placed marshmallows in that category of things that you buy at the supermarket, such as candies, jellies and so on, only to discover that (surprise, surprise!) you can also make them yourself.

Impressions

I know it sounds like a cliche’, but homemade marshmallows are soooo much better than the ones you buy. They are definitely lighter and softer and, in the end, not too complicated to prepare.

Recipes

There are many on the net, some involve the use of whipped egg white, others not. I chose one without egg white, which I found on The Flavor Blender website. The recipe is explained so well that I didn't have to make any changes, so I refer you directly to The Flavor Blender for the procedure.

The chemistry corner and other considerations

• Marshmallows fall into the category of colloids, more specifically foams. At the end, preparing in marshmallows is a bit like preparing meringues: the sugar (here in the form of syrup) is whipped with water and proteins (egg white for meringues, hydrated gelatin in the case of marshmallows), to create a soft foam to leave dry at room temperature (or in the low temperature oven for meringues).

• You will need a candy thermometer to check the temperature of the syrup. The temperature of the syrup is important in confectionery or you will not get the marshmallows you expect.

• Is egg white necessary? No. Unless you want easy-to-shape marshmallows. This is the case of the marshmallows used for pastry decorations. Otherwise, you can omit the whipped egg whites. Marshmallows prepared without egg white also have the advantage of having longer storage times.

• The hydration of the gelatin powder is essential for the success of your marshmallows.

• Can gelatin be replaced with agar-agar? From what I read, yes, but I've never tried. Agar-agar has a different gelling power from gelatin and gels already at room temperature, so these differences must be taken into account to avoid a colossal flop.

• Note that the recipe calls for the use of powdered gelatin, which has a higher gelling power than that in sheets. Honestly, I find the gelatin powder way more practical, especially for this type of recipe.

• Once a stable foam has formed (it must "write"), you will have to place it in a baking tray lined with parchment paper and let it rest for at least 6 hours. This allows the mass to dry out. It is essential to respect the resting times to prevent your marshmallows from remaining too soft and impossible to cut.

So, do you want to give it a try? :) 

So, I finally made Victoria's cake. Be patient for the recipe, I'll post it as soon as possible! :)

For those who do not know, Victoria's cake is a typical Anglo-Saxon dessert. It is a sponge cake filled with strawberries and cream and sprinkled with icing sugar or, less frequently, covered with icing.

But Victoria's cake is only a pretext to introduce a topic that I have wanted to discuss for a while: the preparation of sponge cake with the warm method. I had already talked about it while making the white Sacher: the sponge cake batter can be worked warm. The procedure consists in bringing eggs and sugar to 45-50 C, and then proceeding with the whipping in the planetary mixer. The ingredients must be heated in a water bath (bain-marie). In general, direct contact with heat is not recommended.

This procedure allows to incorporate more air and to stabilize the mass more quickly, compared to the cold whipping. Can we then conclude that preparing sponge cakes with the warm method is far better? It depends. With the warm processing, more air is incorporated, which means a drier final product. In short, it depends on what you have to prepare, whether the sponge cake will be soaked with syrups or not, and so on.

What I was wondering was why the heat favoured the stabilization of the mass and here, I tell you, my speculation / interpretation of the phenomenon starts. Yes, because looking everywhere, no one gives precise explanations. Di Carlo, too, doesn't go into too much detail in his book. The only explanation I have given myself is that the heat denatures the proteins of the eggs. The different configuration could allow proteins to bind air more easily and stabilize the mass. After all, it is very similar to the procedure for obtaining Swiss meringue.

Does anyone have any ideas or precise references? Let me know in the comments! :)

Aaaah, spring is back and with it the desire for fresh and light desserts :)

When I talked a while ago about food pairing, I stressed that some are made by criteria of affinity. A great classic that falls into this category are strawberries seasoned with red wine vinegar, in particular with balsamic vinegar. Mind you, vinegar must be used sparingly, so that it is not the dominant flavor of your strawberry salad.

In this case, the acidity of strawberries is associated with that of balsamic vinegar. Furthermore, the pairing involves the polyphenols present in both red fruits and vinegar. For this reason, vinegar could be replaced by red wine.

Therefore, I added a balsamic reduction to my usual strawberry ice cream ...

Strawberry ice cream with balsamic reduction

(Serves 4 persons)

For the strawberry ice cream

Follow this recipe.

For the balsamic reduction

• 100 g of balsamic vinegar

• 60 g of sugar

Put the vinegar and the sugar in a saucepan, stir the ingredients and bring them to a boil. Boil the vinegar for 2-3 minutes, turn off the heat and set the reduction aside to cool. Once cold, your reduction should have the consistency of a syrup.

Serve the strawberry ice cream, garnished with a couple of teaspoons of balsamic reduction.

Sounds good, huh? Instead, this honeycomb was a complete failure.

Let's go back to a couple of months ago, when, after several attempts, I managed to get a proper honeycomb. Excited by the success, I decided to make another honeycomb with maple syrup instead of corn syrup (they are always syrups, right?). What a disaster. As usual, I put the mixture of syrup and sugar in the saucepan and wait for it to boil, but, after a while, instead of a nice transparent solution, I got some crystallized stuff. The temperature was still well below 150 C. I let the mixture cook till the sugar caramelized. Finally, I added the baking soda, stirred the mixture and poured it on a baking sheet to cool.

At a first glance, the honeycomb seemed to have turned out well, but, after a first bite, I realized that the taste of burnt sugar was too pronounced...

Now, after having looked here and there on the web, it seems possible to make a honeycomb with maple syrup. Even the procedure looks like the one used for the classic honeycomb.

These are the doses I used:

• 125 g of sugar

• 85 g of maple syrup

• 1/2 tablespoon of baking soda

There are two possibilities: either I am doing something wrong, or the honeycomb with maple syrup must caramelize and inevitably have that burnt sugar aroma (in this case, however, I think I will use my beloved maple syrup for other recipes :)).

Ideas, suggestions? Let me know in the comments :)

Happy New Year! :)

This recipe has given me a lot of troubles.

But let's go in order ... honeycomb, also known as toffee or hokey pokey, is a popular confectionery specialty in Anglo-Saxon countries. The preparation and the doses are similar to those of common candies (and here we should open a whole explanation on the science of candies ... but this is another story and it will have to be told another time-cit. :)), the only difference is the addition of sodium bicarbonate. I saw the recipe a few years ago in the Nigella Express show and I got very intrigued. Above all, I was fascinated by the use of bicarbonate which, added to the very hot mixture, decomposes, releasing carbon dioxide (CO2):

2 NaHCO3 = Na2CO3 + CO2 + H2O

The CO2 bubbles remain trapped in the mixture, which is spread on a baking sheet and allowed to cool. Once it reaches room temperature, the mass is roughly cut and can be eaten as it is or covered with chocolate (long live opulence! :)). Now, this property of bicarbonate is exploited for leavening, so much so that bicarbonate is one of the many raising agents, but it would never have occurred to me to use it to make sweets!

Recently, my husband bought honeycomb at Leonidas chocolate shop and, tasting a piece, he wondered how such a delight could be prepared. "But it's easy!", I exclaimed, thinking back to Nigella's recipe. And, without hesitation, I threw myself into the kitchen convinced that I would have got the perfect honeycomb. Well, out of ten attempts, I succeeded once. I tried different variations: honey instead of syrup, recipes where water was added, but my honeycomb was still too sticky.

After a bit of research, I landed on the delightful Exploratorium website and discovered that the problem is the cooking temperature of the sugar mixture. To obtain honeycomb, the temperature must be 150-155 C. At this temperature, most of the water evaporates and the mass contains about 99% sugar. Under this temperature range, candies are sticky, due to the residual water. On the other hand, above 155 C, the sugar begins to caramelize.

Having understood this essential detail, I equipped myself with a cooking thermometer and, finally, I managed to obtain a proper honeycomb.

Honeycomb or toffee covered with chocolate

(Doses for 4-6 people)

• 100 g of sugar

• 60 mL of corn syrup

• 1 and a half teaspoons of baking soda

• 200 g of dark chocolate (optional)

Measure the baking soda and set aside. Cover a small baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside. Pour the sugar and the syrup into a saucepan with high sides and cook over medium / low heat. Bring the mixture to a boil. By now, the sugar crystals should have dissolved completely. Monitor the temperature with a candy thermometer, making sure that the probe does not touch the bottom of the pan. As soon as the mixture reaches 153-154 C, remove it from the heat and add the baking soda (attention! Handle the mixture carefully, you could get burned). Stir a little to melt all the baking soda, but don't shake too much or you will break the air bubbles.

Pour the mixture onto the baking sheet lined with parchment paper and let it cool completely to room temperature. Once cold, crush the honeycomb into coarse pieces. You can enjoy honeycomb as it is or cover it with chocolate.

For the covering, melt the chocolate in a bain-marie. Dip one piece at a time and, with the help of a fork, cover it with chocolate on all sides. Place each piece on a cooling rack and transfer them to the fridge, until the chocolate is firm.

…new post in 2021 :)

I am not sure how much I experimented during the last few days! I had to work a little to find the right consistency of royal icing to decorate my Christmas cookies :)

But let's go in order. I was a bit frustrated with my decorations with royal icing. I could not distribute it evenly on the pastry and get a nice smooth surface. So, browsing the web, I discovered Wimiblog that explains how a royal icing of various textures can be made. I invite you to read his article which is very explanatory, but, in essence, these are the options for decorating the cookies:

1.If you just want to cover the cookies

This is the case when you simply want to glaze the surface or, perhaps, have a base on which to decorate further. You will need a fluid icing that does not retain the shape of the spout of the pastry bag. A glaze of this type is obtained with the following doses:

• 330 g of powdered sugar

• 2 egg whites

• 2 teaspoons of lemon juice

• 3 teaspoons of water

2.If you want drawings in relief

Typical are the drawings on gingerbread men or gingerbread houses :) In this case, remove the three teaspoons of water from the icing dose. The icing of this consistency is suitable for drawing, but not for covering the surface of cookies (trust me! :)).

3.If you want even more "firmness"!

There is also an even thicker royal icing, used to create decorations such as flowers, leaves ... The percentage of icing sugar is even higher and allows for a firm icing, suitable for 3D edible ornaments. I haven't tried it yet, but ... who knows!

Last note on icing processing

Contrary to what I thought at the beginning, royal icing does not follow the principles of meringues. Of course, the ingredients and processing are in common, but, if the meringue is made stable by the incorporation of the right amount of air (it is a colloidal system :)), the firmness of the royal icing is mainly linked to the percentage of powdered sugar. Indeed, incorporating too much air into the royal icing can compromise its success. In short, the icing should not be whipped too much.

… Of the year! (quoting a famous Christmas song :)).

So, I got fixated with icings and, last weekend, I tried the royal icing. And since we're close to Christmas, what could be better than frosted cookies?

Notes on royal icing:

- there are various recipes around, but the base is always powdered sugar + egg white + lemon juice. What can change is the proportion of powdered sugar that makes the icing firm. The lower percentage of water then facilitates drying. I modified the recipe of L’arte del recupero which also gives excellent advices on the preparation of the glaze.

-thanks to its compactness, the royal icing is ideal to decorate cookies. I would avoid it to cover cakes, for which I would opt for a simple water glaze.

- the decoration requires the use of a pastry bag. You will need a small one with a fine spout.

- you can add food colouring to the icing, depending on how you want to decorate your cookies.

- the royal icing dries fairly quickly, especially if you choose one with a higher percentage of powdered sugar. Once prepared, the icing should be covered with plastic wrap to prevent it from hardening.

But let's get to the most important thing, the recipe :)

Cookies with royal icing

For the shortcrust pastry (the usual Ducasse recipe)

• 500 g of all purpose flour

• 300 g of butter

• 200 g of sugar

• 2 eggs

• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

For the royal icing

• 115 g of icing sugar

• 1 fresh egg white

• 1 teaspoon of lemon juice

Note: if you want to completely cover the biscuits, double the amount of icing above. The doses I used are only sufficient for decorating.

Preparation of the shortcrust pastry

Put all the ingredients in a standing mixer and mix with the leaf hook at low speed. As soon as the pastry is smooth, stop the planetary mixer and transfer the pastry to a floured pastry board. Wrap half of the dough in plastic wrap and freeze it, you can use it to prepare other biscuits or a tart. * Roll out the other half and cut out biscuits of the shape you like best. Arrange the biscuits on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and bake them in a preheated oven at 180 C, until they turn golden brown. Remove the cookies from the oven and set aside to cool.

* For those who ask me if it is not easier to halve the shortcrust pastry, unfortunately not! It doesn't come the same. So, I prefer to use the whole dose and freeze half for future use.

Preparation of the royal icing

Put the egg white and lemon in a large bowl. Start to whip the whites and add a couple of tablespoons of powdered sugar. Once the sugar is incorporated, add more and continue like this until the icing “writes” (take a bit of icing and let it fall on the mass in the bowl. If the icing stays on the surface for a few seconds, it means it is ready).

Decoration

Transfer the icing into a pastry bag with a fine spout and decorate the cookies as you like! Let the icing dry (it will take a couple of hours) and enjoy your cookies :)

Glazes are one of those preparations which every amateur pastry chef will , sooner or later, face. Why glazing?

It seems like a trivial question, but it is not. Glazes have multiple purposes:

• Decorative: think of water icing or royal icing on cookies

• Palatability (maybe I could have chosen a simpler word, but this is really the most appropriate :)): that is to improve the taste and texture of a very simple base (think of the white Sacher sponge cake).

• Preserving humidity: the topping glazes slow down the loss of water from the underlying dough, for example in a sponge cake.

Some glazes are very easy to make, others require some practice. In addition to the preparation phase, there is the of process of glazing, whose level of difficulty varies from glaze to glaze.

Let's see the most used glazes:

Water glaze

It is one of the simplest. It is made with water and icing sugar and is suitable for decorating biscuits and shortbread, but also brioches and plum cakes. This glaze remains fairly shiny. Part of the water can be replaced with lemon or orange juice, for a more acidic taste.

Royal icing

Similar to water glaze, it includes the addition of egg white. It remains more crunchy and can be coloured with the addition of food colouring, as well as the water glaze. It is mainly indicated for covering shortcrust pastry and sablee.

Fondant

It is a particular glaze that is prepared with granulated sugar, glucose and water. It can be flavoured and is used to decorate eclairs and beignets. Fondant is very complex to prepare. However, it is available ready-made in specialized stores or online, of course :)

Chocolate coating

It is "simply" melted and tempered chocolate. As trivial as it may seem, it is instead one of the most difficult glazes to manage, because it requires a correct tempering of the chocolate. It remains crunchy and is used to cover biscuits, meringues, honeycombs.

Chocolate, fruit and caramel glaze

Better known as ganache, this glaze is made from fresh cream and chocolate (white, milk chocolate, dark). Often gelatin is added to make it thicken more quickly. Thanks to the presence of the cream, these glazes remain soft and are suitable for covering sponge cake bases. By replacing the chocolate with fruit puree or caramel, you get variants that are always valid for covering soft bases.

Tips and tricks

• The addition of thickening agents (gelatin or pectin) to the ganache is not essential, but it helps a lot to obtain a good final result: in other words, the icing will stop dripping after a while in the fridge.

• Some glazes, such as chocolate, fruit or caramel glazes, require several covering steps to obtain the right thickness.

• It is necessary to put the product to be glazed on a cooling grid, for an optimal aesthetic result.

What icing to try now? With the Christmas period looming, I would be tempted by a nice royal icing with which to decorate some cookies :)

After the classic version, I couldn't not try the white Sacher to celebrate my birthday (birthday girl! :))

There would be a lot to tell about icings and glazes, but let's postpone to next week ...

On the web there are various recipes for white Sacher. I used the one from Giallo Zafferano, making some minor changes here and there (what a surpise!). For example, for the filling jam you can use a slightly sour one, such as apricot, plum, berries ... I used one with apricots and passion fruit ... excellent! :)

White Sacher

(Doses for a Sacher)

For the sponge cake

• 160 g of sugar

• 100 g of medium strength flour

• 100 g of almond flour

• 60 g of corn (or potato) starch

• 7 eggs

• 40 g of butter

• 15 g of honey

• 1 teaspoon of almond extract

For the filling and garnishing

• 600 g of white chocolate

• 400 g apricot and passion fruit jam (replaceable with other types, see above)

• 350 g of fresh cream

• 40 g of honey

• 2 g of powdered gelatin

Preparation of the sponge cake

The sponge cake is prepared with the hot method (this is the first time I've tried it, maybe I'll write us a separate post). Break the eggs into a heat resistant bowl (I used the one from my stainless steel standing mixer) and add the sugar and honey. Beat the ingredients with a whisk or a fork and heat the bowl in a bain-marie. As soon as the mixture reaches a temperature of 45 C, remove the bowl from the water bath and put it back on the mixer. Beat the egg mixture with the whisk for 20 min. The mixture must be nice and fluffy.

Stop the planetary mixer, remove the bowl and add the sifted flour and starch, little by little, and stirring gently from bottom to top, so as not to disassemble the mixture. Then add the almond flour, using the same technique.

Preheat the oven to 165 C (Giallo Zafferano recommends 170 C, but I know my oven is quite powerful!).

Melt the butter and add a couple of tablespoons of the batter. Add everything to the rest of the dough.

Pour the dough into a springform pan lined with baking paper and cook at 165 C, in static mode, for 35 minutes (cooking times may vary from oven to oven). Once cooked, remove the sponge cake from the oven and let it cool aside before removing it from the mold.

Preparation of the ganache

Rehydrate the gelatin with a couple of tablespoons of water. Chop the chocolate into a large bowl. Bring the cream to boil, add the gelatin and let it melt. Pour the cream over the chocolate, stirring vigorously. Leave the ganache aside to cool and then transfer it into the fridge for 30 min.

Stuffing and garnishing

Cut the sponge cake in half, lengthwise. Transfer it on a cooling rack if you have one. Fill it with the jam, close it again and brush it with the jam on the outer surface as well. Put the cake in the fridge to dry for 30 min. After this time, remove the cake from the fridge and pour a first layer of ganache over it. Put the cake in the fridge for another 30 minutes, along with the leftover ganache.

Repeat this operation at least a second time (I did a total of 3 coverings), to obtain a thick and uniform cover. Put the Sacher back in the fridge for another 30 minutes and serve fresh.

The original idea was to make cupcakes with last year's icing and motif (scary faces, ghosts ...). But, while I was depositing the icing, I realized that it was too liquid to cover the cakes (it was beautifully dripping over the cakes...on the contrary, it was perfectly fine for the cookies!). So, I waited an hour to allow that little coverage to thicken and I dusted everything with icing sugar.

Not giving up, I decided to prepare the chocolate ganache with 80% cocoa chocolate...at least, I'll be able to draw the faces, nooo? But instead...I don't know why, but the chocolate had difficulty melting in the cream (will it be because it was 80%?). In the end, I got some sort of chocolate sticky clay, which I let cool down. Without losing hope, I thought I could always shape the cocoa paste to make eyes and mouths to decorate the cakes. Ahem…the cocoa paste was super sticky. I was trying to place it on the cupcakes, but it didn't want to stick to the icing sugar (of corse!) and preferred to stay glued to my hands :(

In the end, I managed to decorate the treats, but I promised myself to study some more suitable icing for the next round ...

Halloween cupcakes

(Makes about 12 cakes)

For the cakes

• 200 g of flour

• 230 g of sugar

• 100 g of Greek yogurt

• 80 g of butter

• 4 eggs

• 3 egg yolks

• 1 teaspoon of baking powder

To decorate

• icing sugar

• 50 g of dark chocolate (50% cocoa)

• 50 g of fresh cream

Whip the eggs with the sugar until a frothy mixture is obtained. Add the flour and mix until you get a smooth batter. Finally, stir in the melted butter and yogurt. Add the baking powder and whip the batter for a few minutes, so that it incorporates air.

Pour the mixture into muffin molds lined with muffin cups and bake in a preheated oven at 180 C. To check the cooking, use a cake tester. Once ready, remove the cakes from the oven and let them cool.

Bring the cream to a boil, turn off the heat and add the chocolate. Stir vigorously to obtain a ganache. Sprinkle the cakes with powdered sugar and draw eyes and mouths with ganache.

Let the ganache cool down and serve.

As I promised the recipe for perfect baked potatoes :)

The recipe is coming from Dario Bressanini, well, at least as it was described in his interview with Radio DJ. That said, it is nothing tricky. The secret is pre-cooking the potatoes in water and baking soda (=sodium bicarbonate). And that would be the Columbus's egg, right? ;)

Baked potatoes

Doses for a pan of baked potatoes

• 1 kg of white potatoes

• 1 teaspoon of baking soda

• salt to taste

• extra virgin olive oil to taste

Peel the potatoes and cut them into the desired shape (wedges, cubes…). Put them in a pot, cover them with water and add a teaspoon of baking soda. Bring the water to a boil and cook the potatoes until they are quite tender. At this point, drain them, preferably using a skimmer, because the potatoes are very fragile (the basic pH of sodium bicarbonate has caused the cell walls to open). Season the potatoes with oil and salt and arrange them on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Bake the potatoes at 200 C until they are golden brown.

And then it happed: the revelation came on the radio, on a rainy Saturday afternoon. I was listening to a recording of an interview of Dario Bressanini on Radio Deejay, where he explained the secret for the pefect baked potatoes. The light bulb went on my head and I suddenly realized I had the answer in my hands for years: it was well described in one of Herve’ This’ books!

The scientific explanation of the week

Did you miss it? :) Well, you should know that there is a trick to make vegetables more tender. That is to add sodium bicarbonate (or baking soda) to the cooking water. The walls of plant cells are made up of pectins (deja-vu? :)), among other things. Pectins have carboxylic groups, -COOH, which have an acidic character and deprotonate at basic pH at -COO-. Negative charges repel each other, causing the cell walls to open.

I had already talked about these properties of pectins when I explained their use in the preparation of jams. However, I would not have thought of using it for the preparation of vegetables. How to get tender vegetables? Just add some baking soda to the cooking water! The alkaline pH provokes the deprotonation of the carboxylic groups, the opening of the cell walls and the entry of water. On the other hand, if the cooking water is acidified (for example with vinegar or lemon juice), the -COOH groups remain protonated and the walls get closer.

The hardness of the water

So, just adding baking soda? That's all? Well, there would be one point not to be overlooked...the hardness of the water. Very hard waters are rich in calcium ions, which have two positive charges (Ca2 +). These ions are therefore able to bind two -COO- groups, acting as a bridge and bringing the walls together. In short, adding sodium bicarbonate may not be enough if the cooking water is very hard.

My 2 cents

This cooking method can be applied a little to all vegetables. However, I think it is particularly suitable for those that require long cooking, such as potatoes, carrots and legumes. You also need to pay attention to the timing, because the vegetables cook quickly with baking soda and can pulp.

And the recipe for baked potatoes? Next week, stay tuned :)

I talked about the whipped batters quite a while ago, when I just started of EM. In those posts, I was referring above all to sponge cake, one of the basics of pastry. In general, when we talk about whipped masses, we refer to doughs in which a significant amount of air has been incorporated, which makes them soft and airy.

This summer, while browsing on IG, I came across a photo of a lemon moelleux. Given my passion for moelleux (of which I only knew the chocolate version) and my need to get rid of some lemons, I did some research...lemon moelleux is a well-known dessert…I am late as usual! :) Briefly, there are several recipes on the net. One of those that convinced me the most is that of Rossella in Padella. Now, Rossella's recipe involves the use of mascarpone that I didn't have (and I didn't even want to travel 20 km to buy it from Nicastro ...).

So I replaced the mascarpone with whipped cream and, while I was there, I made other changes (as usual!). The whipped cream gives volume and a wonderful lightness to this dessert that is already on my favorite list :)

Lemon moelleux

• 310 of whipping cream

• 120 g of sugar

• 100 g of vanilla yogurt

• 3 eggs

• 50 g of almond flour

• 40 g of flour

• the juice of one lemon

• icing sugar as needed

Whip the cream and set aside. Whip the eggs with the sugar and add the flours, continuing to whip. Then add the yogurt and the lemon juice. Finally, incorporate the cream, stirring gently from the bottom up.

Pour the mixture into a oven pan covered with parchment paper and bake in a preheated oven at 150 C. Take the moelleux out when the batter is golden-brown and firm.

Let the moelleux cool down and sprinkle it with icing sugar before serving.

The cold and rainy September this year pushed me to put the ice cream maker aside and turn on the oven earlier than expected. Not that I mind it, because baked recipes are absolutely my favorite.

If you have followed me for a while, you will know that I have a thing for brioches and that I had to work a lot to come up with a recipe that suited my tastes. So, wanting something different for breakfast, I made brioches with lemon icing. The lemon juice in the glaze can be replaced with orange or mandarin juice.

Lemon brioches

(Doses for 10 brioches)

For the dough

• 500 g of strong flour

• 150 g of sugar

• 100 g of milk

• 50 g of lukewarm water

• 70 g of soft butter

• 3 eggs

• 7 g of dehydrated yeast

For the lemon glaze

• 100 g of powdered sugar

• 30 g of lemon juice (about half a lemon)*

Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water. Add 50 g of flour and knead. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it rest for an hour.

After this time, put 350 g of flour, sugar and milk in the standing mixer. Add the risen dough and knead with the hook at low speed. Add an egg, continuing to knead. As soon as the dough begins to make threads, add a couple of tablespoons of flour. Let the dough torque. Add another egg and flour, as described above. Then incorporate the third egg and add the remaining flour. Let the dough torque. At this point, add the butter. Continue to knead and let the torquing resume. Stop the mixer, remove the hook and cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Put the dough to rise for an hour.

After this time, fold the dough as showed here (pictures 3, 4, 5 and 6).

Transfer the dough to an sealed container and let it rest in the fridge overnight.

The next morning, remove the dough from the fridge and leave it at room temperature for an hour. After this time, form a 10 balls with the dough, arrange them on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and let them rise for 1 hour.

Bake the brioches at 180 C, in a ventilated and preheated oven. They are ready when the surface turns golden-brown.

Meanwhile, prepare the lemon glaze by mixing the icing sugar with the lemon juice. Remove the brioches from the oven, let them cool and brush them with the lemon glaze. Wait for the glaze to dry before serving.

* for a more delicate taste, you can use 15 g of water and 15 g of lemon juice.

Doubts about the preparation of the brioches? 3 tips here! :)

…goes on vacation!

I will resume posting in September :)

p.s. if you are wondering why the mandarins, it is because they were the only decent photo in the archive :P

Raise your hand if you have never messed up a recipe! Sooner or later all cooks, regardless of their degree of experience or skill, have to face the frustrating experience of failing a recipe. Reproducing recipes is not trivial, even if you pedantically follow the procedure and have years of experience in the kitchen. But why does it happen and how to prevent it from happening?

When the problem is the recipe

When I was a university student I bought a book of chocolate recipes, at the modest price of 5 euros (maybe the price should have told me something ...). Gloating at the thought of the many delicacies that I would have prepared, I began to try one recipe after another…no one turned out well. Some preparations were too dry, others too liquid…each and every time, I had to review the recipes and adjust the ingredients…yet I followed the recipe to the letter!

Well, this is the classic example of unvalidated or insufficiently tested recipes. But how do you know if a recipe has been validated? You simply can't. Recipes do not come with a certificate, so no one can guarantee the result. From my experience, I have found that recipes posted by bloggers are quite reliable, because bloggers tend to eat what they cook and generally post something that they have tested a few times. The recipes of professional chefs are also very reliable, because they are widely validated.

When the problem stems from the ingredients

Maybe you can't find all the ingredients needed for recipe and decide to replace them with others. An example? A while ago, I wanted to prepare a highly hydrated pizza dough, whose recipe required a particular highly absorbent flour. Not being available here in Canada, I used an all purpose flour and I added it with gluten flour. What a disaster. The result was a sticky dough, which did not torque in the standing mixer and was very difficult to knead. If you are dealing with a very special recipe, use exactly the prescribed ingredients (the most experienced cooks often indicate the brands of the products, if they are of crucial importance. It is not advertising, it is being consistent!).

When the problem is the difficulty of the preparation

Maybe you have never prepared a leavened dough, but during the Christmas holidays you decide to make a panettone or a pandoro sfogliato. Well, I'm not telling you to give up with it, it's not my thing, but let's say that the risk of failure increases. Some preparations require a lot of practice, manual skills and the right tools (I would never have been able to make panettone without my beloved standing mixer :)). The same goes for puff pastry and croissant pastry. I still have some difficulty with the croissant dough and I still can't pull it without breaking it on the last round :(

When the problem is insisting in changing the doses

I had a friend who regularly changed the doses of the recipes. She tasted a dessert I had made, she liked it and wanted to make it again by herself. "Can I have the recipe?", she asked. Of course! Then, a couple of days later, it tuned out that the dessert hadn't come as good as mine. "Did you make everything as I told you?" And from there, it turned out that she had halved the doses of sugar and butter, because they seemed excessive to her :P

Maybe, you also have a friend like that. Maybe, you are like my friend ;) The point is: did you like that dish? Do you want to make the same? Well, then stick to the instructions. If you change the recipe, you won't get the same result. Now, obviously recipes can be modified, but there is a big difference between modifying them and turn them upside down. E.g. replacing white chocolate chips with dark ones is modifying a recipe. Halving the doses of sugar and butter is turning a recipe upside down. Remember that some ingredients are not only there for reasons of taste, but also have a structural role. Therefore, if you vary the doses significantly, not only will the organoleptic result will be less pleasant, but you will also have a different texture, very different from the original.

I hope this post was useful to you. If you liked it, let me know in the comments :)

Another “gem” made with evaporated milk :)

This gelato was actually an excuse to get rid of about 30 tasteless mandarins (who buys mandarins in July???…me, indeed :)).

I found the recipe on Cavoletto’s blog and thought of replacing the cream with evaporated milk. A fresh new dessert for summer evenings.

Mandarin gelato

(Doses for 4 persons)

• the juice of 10 mandarins

• 150 g of sugar

• 150 g of evaporated milk

Pour all the ingredients in the gelato machine and let it stir for 20-25 min or until the mass gets solidified.

Stock in the freezer for at least per 2-3 hours, before serving.

The lockdown has been an occasion to dedicate some time to baking. Even myself has attempted to grow LI.CO.LI, the liquid sourdough (with a poor outcome, though, but that’s a topic for another post!), not to mention baking brioches, pizza, focaccia and so on. Not bad, eh?

So, it ended up that, after weeks of baking, a warm Tuesday afternoon I lifted my head from the pc and had a glance to the clock: “6 pm! And the bread? We are going to have dinner soon and we have no bread (a drama for most of the Italians)”. Thus, I googled something that I wouldn’t ever conceived even conceptually: “quick focaccia”. The oxymoron of all oxymorons. With a bit of skepticism, I opened the recipe from the first link (from the Italian blog allacciate il grembiule) and got convinced: this evening I’ll make a speedy focaccia!

How did it go? Well, the recipe is really way faster than mine and in about hour it produces a focaccia that is not bad at all. I discovered then that the recipe is a version of the popular focaccia Locatelli. Briefly, the recipe doesn’t call for kneading, just a quick stirring of the ingredients. The dough is very sticky and the rising time kept to minimal (30-40 min).

Below the recipe from the blog allacciate il grembiule, with my changes, followed by my considerations.

Speedy focaccia

(Doses for a small oven pan of focaccia)

• 500 g of flour (all purpose in my case, better to use a stronger one though)

• 400 g of water

• 2 table spoons of olive oil

• 5 g of salt

• 5 g of dehydrated yeast

Rehydrate the yeast in 200 g of lukewarm water. Put the flour, the remaining 200 g of water, 2 table spoons of oil and the salt in a standing mixer bowl. Add eventually the yeast dissolved into water. Stir all the ingredient by using the leaf-shaped hook, at low speed (do not mix for too long). Let the dough rest for 10 min.

After this time, pour the dough on an oven pan covered with parchment paper. Pour and a bit of oil on the top and spread the dough with your hands, making sure to well distribute the oil on the surface. Let it rise for 30 min.

In the meanwhile, preheat the oven at 210 C. Bake the focaccia for 30-35 min.

Pro

• The procedure is really fast and allows obtaining a decent focaccia. A good idea if, like me, you realize you do not have any bread at 6-7 pm! :P (or if you end up having the famous last-minute guests! :D)

• The taste is good, even if the yeast flavour is a bit too pronounced.

Cons

• Due to the reduced rising time and no-kneading (=low production of gluten mass), the final product doesn’t develop properly and is less airy.

• The dough is not hard too digest, but with a longer rest time, the product can definitely improve.

• The focaccia doesn’t last long (they day after it is already gummy), because of the short procedure. If you do not eat all the focaccia on the same day, I recommend freezing it.

• Aromatic bouquet…you wish! :)

More about bread baking? I wrote a few post about that…here, here and here :)

Ah! Here it is, the origin of so much frustration: the so much desired clafoutis!

If you are looking for a clafoutis recipe, mark this down, it is simply a blast :)

Note: you can replace apples and blueberries with other fruit if you prefer. Traditionally, clafoutis is prepared with black cherries, but you can use also apricots, peaches, berries and strawberries. I would not recommend too acidic fruit as oranges and kiwi.

Note 2: I have used evaporated milk. What a great invention! You can replace it with regular milk, but your clafoutis will be less rich.

Clafoutis with apples, blueberries and evaporated milk

(Doses for 8 persons)

• 250 g of evaporated milk

• 140 g of sugar

• 2 eggs

• 2 egg whites

• 60 g of melted butter

• 50 g of cream (35% in fats)

• 50 g of almond flour

• 40 g of flour

• 2 apples

• 2 handfuls of neat blueberries

• 3-4 tablespoons of sugar to caramelize

• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Peel the apples and dice them. Put the apples into a frying pan with the 3-4 tablespoons of sugar and let them caramelize under low flame. Transfer the caramelized apples into an oven pan with high edges and covered with parchment paper, and add the blueberries.

Pour the eggs, the egg whites and the sugar into a bowl and beat them with the aid of a whisker. Add the vanilla extract, the flour and the almond flour, and keep beating.

Incorporate the melted butter, then the cream and finally the evaporated milk.

Pour the batter into the oven pan with the fruit and bake the clafoutis at 150 C for 1h and 40 min. 

Baking times might vary from oven to oven. The clafoutis is ready when the surface turn golden-brown and is relatively firm.

Note: my oven pan wasn’t too large, thus my clafoutis was rather thick (2-3 fingers, I would say). A thinner clafoutis will take a shorter time to bake.