Posts Tagged ‘Sugar’
Thursday, June 30th, 2011
A couple of weeks ago it was East 17, and now blam! I’m hitting you with an Ultravox reference. High brow shizzle I think you’ll agree. And why did up this 80s relic? Because last week we started the Viennoiserie section of our course.
Viennoiserie is the name given to all kinds of yeasted, enriched doughs. From croissants, to Danish pastries, sticky buns to brioche, we’re talking about doughs enriched with sugar, eggs, milk and butter. Lots of butter. I’ve never seen so much of the stuff than in the past week.
We’re going to be getting in to lamination next week, the technique for making croissants amongst other things, but the breads we made last week were mixed in a similar way to what we’ve become familiar with, even if the formulas were in some cases a lot more complicated.
We started off the week slowly, making a range of products based around brioche and sweet roll doughs. With most of these we had to adjust our mixing to incorporate the sugar and butter after the dough had developed in strength in the mixer. The reason for this is that both inhibit the development of gluten, and if added at the beginning you end up mixing for bloody ages and your dough comes off the mixer too warm, which in turn effects fermentation. Best avoided in other words.
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Tags: Bakewell tart, Bostock, Brioche, Buns, Butter, Columba Di Pasqua, Croissants, Danish, Dough, Enriched, Gibassier, Hot Cross Buns, Kugelhopf, Pain au lait, Pan D'oro, Pannetone, Roll, Sticky, Sticky Buns, Stollen, Sugar, Sweet, Viennoiserie
Posted in Reviews, Sweet Stuff, Travel, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, January 26th, 2011
I’d never made marmalade before, but inspired by an article and recipe written by one of my baking heroes Dan Lepard I read last week, I decided to have a stab. It is a little time consuming, but it’s very satisfying, and it also makes your kitchen smell awesome. It starts with a fresh, zingy citrus whiff, and then at some point during the process it suddenly changes, and BANG! Your kitchen smells like marmalade.
I was pretty pleased with the results. The only things I’d say were that I wish it had set a bit firmer, but as I understand it this can be a bit hit and miss, and I also prefer a bit more peel in my marmalade, so I’ve adjusted the recipe accordingly.This should make around 4 big-ish jars, or a couple of bigger Kilner style preserve jars.
Ingredients
400g Seville oranges (about four)
Zest of 1 additional orange
1 lemon
1 litre water
775g white sugar
25g dark muscovado sugar
Method
One thing you’re going to need to make the sweet stuff is some muslin, and a jam / sugar thermometer. Neither are particularly expensive, and are worth having anyway, so put your hand in your pocket.
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Tags: Dan Lepard, Guardian, Jam, Kilner, Lemon, Marmalade, Muslin, Orange, Pectin, Peel, Seville, Sugar, Zest
Posted in Breakfast, Recipes, Sweet Stuff | No Comments »
Sunday, January 23rd, 2011
Apologies for the radio silence, but yet again the day job has been getting in the way of me putting finger to key. It’s been what can only be described as an unpleasantly busy start to the year, but at least I got to head out to Stockholm earlier in the week, if only for 24 hours.
Rewinding again to Christmas, if you can remember that far back, here’s a recipe for a classic lemon tart. It’s basically a piece of cake (or rather tart), particularly if you use shop bought pastry, which I’d recommend unless you’ve got the time to make your own.
I’ve not managed to work out how patisseries manage to get that glossy finish on their tarts, so I cheated and added a festive twist by glazing mine with a bit of raspberry jelly.
This recipe was made in a 30cm / 12″ tart case to serve around 8-10 people, if you’re making desert for less use a 20cm / 8″ case and half the quantities. Lets begin.
Ingredients
500g all butter shortcrust pastry
10 free range eggs
8 lemons, juiced
380g caster sugar
500 ml double cream
Zest of 4 lemons
4 tablespoons of raspberry jelly for the glaze, optional
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Tags: Bake, Clotted Cream, Cream, Eggs, Glaze, Jelly, Lemon, Pastry, Raspberry, Shortcrust, Sugar, Tart, Zest
Posted in Dinner, Lunch, Recipes, Snack, Sweet Stuff | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 17th, 2010
So, as mentioned in the previous post, we hit Morocco for our honeymoon. If I’m honest, I don’t think I was that excited about the food as I’d heard mixed reports, and was led to believe there wasn’t much variation. I was kind of expecting expecting tagines, tagines and more tagines, but whilst there were certainly a lot of them about, there’s definitely more to Moroccan cuisine.
There were certain things that really struck us, the first being the amount of sugar the Moroccans use. It seems to be in pretty much everything, from bread to the ubiquitous mint tea, each glass of which must have more sugar than a can of coke. Check out the picture if you don’t believe me.
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Tags: Essaouira, Food Stalls, French, Jamaa El Fnaa, Marrakesh, Mint Tea, Morocco, Offal, Pastry, Patisseries, Pigeon, Sugar, Tagine, Vegetables
Posted in Opinion, Reviews, Travel | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I’ve learned quite a lot from my mother in cooking terms over the years. For the most part its been a case of me picking up stuff by watching her at work, but every now and then I’ll steal a recipe or two off her too.
This cake is one of those firm family favourites, and it even gets the royal seal of approval from my very sweet, but ever so fussy niece, Ksenia. It’s a bit tangier than most lemon drizzle cakes because of there’s more lemon juice in the glaze, and that’s how we like it.
Ingredients
For the cake
125g unsalted butter
175g self-raising flour
175g caster sugar
2 large eggs
Zest of 2 lemons
4 tablespoons of milk
A pinch of salt
Butter for greasing your loaf tin
For the ‘drizzle’
The juice of 2 lemons (about 6 tablespoons)
Zest of 1 lemon
100g icing sugar
Method
You’re going to bake this cake in a loaf tin, so first up, prepare and line it. Use a half kilo tin, smear it with butter, and then line with greaseproof paper. Now set your oven to 180 c to get it up to cooking temp.
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Tags: Cake, Drizzle, Eggs, Flour, Icing, Lemon, Mum, Sugar, Syrup
Posted in Recipes, Sweet Stuff | 3 Comments »
Monday, February 22nd, 2010
The final course of our valentines meal was a lemon posset with heart shaped shortbread biscuits (forgive the cheese).
The Posset is pretty much as old school as it gets with roots in 12th century England where it was drunk for it’s medicinal properties. I’m not sure this recipe could ever be described as good for you, cream and sugar tend to be frowned upon these days, but it is delicious, and very easy to make.
Ingredients
For the Posset
300ml double cream
75g caster sugar
1 lemon zested and juiced
For the shortbread
45g icing sugar
90g plain flour
30g cornflour
15g ground almonds
125g butter
Lemon zest
Golden caster sugar
Method
First up, put the cream and sugar in a pan and bring to the boil. Simmer for 3 minutes, making sure it doesn’t boil over, and then take off the heat. Allow to cool to room temperature, add the lemon juice and then whisk. Divide the mixture by pouring into two glasses and then put in the fridge to set.
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Tags: Almond, Biscuits, Buter, Cream, Desert, Flour, Lemon, Posset, Shortbread, Sugar, Zest
Posted in Reading, Sweet Stuff | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
Photo by Cafe Darclee
It’s Shrove Tuesday aka Pancake day. Traditionally a time to get rid of sugar, fat and eggs before fasting for Lent, it’s now a bit of a treat in the culinary calendar.
Pancakes are ridiculously easy and quick to prepare, and once you’ve got them made, you can stick pretty much anything you fancy in them.
This recipe employs the five 1s formula.
Ingredients
1 egg, preferably free-range or organic
1 cup of self-raising flour
1 cup of milk
1 pinch of salt
1 nob of butter (melted, around 20g)
Method
Whisk together the egg, flour and milk in a bowl, melt the butter in a pan and then beat into the mix removing any lumps.
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Tags: Banana, Day, Emmenthal, Ham, Lemon, maple syrup, Pancake, Peanut Butter, Shrove, Sugar, Tuesday
Posted in Dinner, Recipes, Sweet Stuff | No Comments »
