Gateau à la crème and brioche bread

It's still March, just, so here is my result of the March baking mission given to us by Bread Baking Babe Lien (Notitie van Lien). Lien chose a sweet recipe based on Raymond Blanc's "Gateau a la Creme". Since Raymond Blanc is one of my favorite TV chefs too -well behind Michel Roux Jr though!- I was even more tempted to try this recipe.
I had never made brioche, thinking it would be far too complicated and not for the ones-without-KitchenAid or Kenwood-on-the-counter. But hey, out came the good old hand mixer with dough hooks and the result was overwhelming!

The recipe was fairly easy to follow too! The amount of butter and eggs seem a bit scary at first, but since my friend keeps free range hens, good eggs are always available in abundance.






I choose to make one gateau and one small brioche bread as suggested by Lien. I did make the gateau in a spring form to keep it in shape. And yes it rose! The sides almost folded over the lemon custardy filling. For decoration I used some bashed up sugar cubes, because no nibbed sugar available around here.

Tadaaaaaa

And it tasted even better than it looked! 

This recipe is a keeper! You'll find it at Lien's blog.

The leftover egg whites were easily turned into almond merengues, what more could you wish for?

Well, one more thing .... THE badge!!!

Dutch baking

As a birthday gift I got a fabulous Dutch baking book by Gaitri Pagrach-Chandra: "Het Nederlands Bakboek", only available in Dutch at the moment I believe, but loosely based on her previous "Windmills in My Oven".


"Het Nederlands Bakboek" is filled with culinary history on Dutch baking and loads of traditional recipes, making this Dutch-lady-living-abroad feeling very proud of our Dutch baking tradition.
Since moving away from Holland I have been trying to replicate the various breads we used to love and also some typical sweet baking that is so different from what bakeries (let alone supermarkets) here in Scotland produce.

Not so much because we miss things -there are wonderful alternatives out here-, but just for sentimental reasons, you know .....

It's obvious, I cherish this Dutch baking book, love the look and feel of it, and of course started baking! My first attempts were on various cookies; "krakelingen" (yeasted sweet, crisp, pretzel shape cookies) and "eierkoeken" (large soft, eggy, sweet, slightly lemony cookies).

Both were a huge success!

So, to be continued ...

World Bread Day 16-10-2012

World Bread Day 2012 - 7th edition! Bake loaf of bread on October 16 and blog about it!

World Bread Day, so ....... BAKING DAY!

Keen to join the Bread Baking Buddies bake-along, a "Russian Braid" is on the baking menu. A very impressive looking braided bread with either a sweet or a savory filling.
Bread Baking Babe Tanna from "My Kitchen in half cups" provided us with this fantastic recipe.
I choose a filling of pesto, toasted pine nuts and parmesan. For the dough I used a mixture of white (80%) and whole wheat (20%) bread flour and replaced the canola oil by walnut oil. I also added the one tablespoon vinegar (scary!); I used sherry vinegar (and thought I kept smelling it ...).

Work in progress

So far so good

THE RESULT

Following the recipe was easy and the result is unbelievably impressive! I cannot wait to make a sweet version with a dark brown sugar and cinnamon filling.

Kaiser rolls

After a series of (sourdough) projects with various results we could do with some straightforward, easy, soft white rolls. So I picked a recipe from the trusted Weekend Bakery website. Check them out!
The result was exactly what we asked for, white rolls, looking like you got them from the supermarket, but tasting, smelling en feeling so much better! The shape looks impressive, but is dead simple: roll a piece of dough into a sausage, make a knot and tuck in the ends 'one over, one under'.
You'll find the recipe here.

Julia's Pain Français

"It will turn into bread in the oven whatever happens ..."

This is my very first entry as a Bread Baking Buddy, baking this month's "French Bread", in honor of the 100th anniversary of Julia Child's birthday, today, August 15th.

I must admit, I had never heard of Julia Child before watching "Julie & Julia", but my attention was caught.
Julia Child (1912-2004) was an American culinary legend and television personality. She introduced French cuisine to the American public. And, she and I, we share our height!
So when Bread Baking Babe Susan of Wild Yeast announced Julia's "Pain Français" as Augusts special baking project I could no longer resist but to join in.

After converting the US cups, cakes, teaspoons and pounds to metric measurements.
I ended up with the following: 
454 gr flour
380 gr tepid water
6 gr instant yeast
13 gr salt
A very wet (84%), almost batter-like dough. No electric mixing involved here, just getting the hands dirty and hoping for the best ....

After 8 hours the "batards" were ready for the oven. 
Oh they stuck, at my hands, at the work top, at the scraper, particularly at the cloche and at the pizza peel. 

Julia, I trust on you: "It will turn into bread in the oven whatever happens ..."

Well, it did, more or less. It definitely tastes like bread (although very salty). It smells like bread. It just doesn't quite look like French bread.

A rather rustic result.

I'm sure the BBB badge also stands for effort  ....