Little breads

Recently I haven’t posted much about bread making. I made a trial for a panettone which was a delicious “something”, but not a panettone the recipe I used from “journal des femmes” website was just a big scam, after more searching in some cookbooks, I think I have a nice recipe to try. I also baked less because the past weeks have been quite cold and I know I have troubles making the dough prove and raise properly in this cold everything ends much more compact than it should. But taking this as an opportunity I wanted to make an energetic breakfast so I decided to bake to make oat wheat breads and flaxseed little breads with whole wheat and spelt flours. The result was really nice. Because of the cold the breads were very dense and compact with a beautiful golden color. The taste and texture were exactly what I wanted, so even when your house is coldd you can bake! Don’t expect to make fluffy brioche or bread loaf, but for compact and nourishing breads it is perfect!!!

February 2, 2017

Matcha meringues- 抹茶メレンゲ

Because the recipe for the panettone (which was a total failure) was using only egg yolks I decided to make meringues with the whites. In the country house I opted for non electrical appliances in the kitchen, except for the blender, I knead manually and I beat my egg whites manually too. So I added a pinch of salt to 3 egg whites a beat them until firm. Then I added 70g of icing sugar, and 2 large tea spoons of matcha powder. It gives this shiny green mix. Then I preheat the oven to 110deg and on s cooking paper sheet I made small mounts of the mix. The shape and size won’t change much, so you can decide easily for the size and shape you want. And I cooked until dry and a little hard, because I like my meringues soft inside, if you like them hard and dry keep them longer. It took about 15min for 4cm meringues. If you notice the edge getting brown is that the oven is too hot, lower the temperature to 100deg.

Have a nice week!

January 16, 2017

Lemon and ricotta tart

A. cooks once a year and it is for making my birthday cake. I like to have it with tea, because then it all about the cake rather than having it for dessert. Every year I choose the cake I would like to eat and he makes it the way I like it. He usually searches for recipes on the internet, and from this base adjusts it to the gears and ingredients we have, and to my taste. Since he has little experience he usually gets a bit of help or some advises from who is available around. This year, since we were in Sicily, country of citrus fruits, I chose a lemon tart with meringue. But I like my cakes not too sweet, not too buttery, not too creamy, so my mum and I helped him a bit. The result was amazing. So here is what he did for a 25cm tart: first pre-heat to 180deg ghe oven.

for the dough: a classic sablé dough with 200g of flour, 1 egg, 75g of butter. Mix all the ingredients and roll the dough to the size of your pie dish. Bake for 10min, the dough must not change color too much.

for the lemon filling: instead of preparing lemon curd we opted for something easier. The zest and the juice of 2 lemons is mixed with 2 egg yolk and 1 egg, 120g of brown sugar, and 4tbs of fresh ricotta. Mix all the ingredients to obtain a smooth creamy texture. Set in the dough. And cook in the oven at 180deg for 30min.

for the meringue: 2 egg white, 70g of icing sugar, a pinch of salt. Beat the egg whites and the salt until firm, continue beating and add the icing sugar slowly until all is smooth, shiny white and firm. Put the mix in an icing bag and decorate the tart as you like. Bake at 180deg for 10min. Check to be sire the meringue doesn’t burn.

We finished the decoration with some very thin slices of Sicilian sweet lemon grilles on the oven for a few minutes.

Best wishes!!!

December 31, 2016

Last week…

Yes! This is the last week before we take a few holidays for the end of the year. So much to do at work before then that days will be really too short and I already expect getting back home late and having little time to cook properly. So my shopping basket at the farmers market was full of easy to prepare and versatile seasonal products. A lot if simple Japanese food ahead with the lotus roots, the carrots, the sweet potatoes and the sato imo. But before that, I prepared a spinach and tofu quiche with a whole wheat flour and wheat bran dough. I used olive oil for the dough rather than butter, and soya milk, drained moendofu and fresh spinach for the filling. With eggs it gets firmer, but they are not necessary. I didn’t steam the the spinach before using them, but steaming them would make them softer. I personally like when they’re a bit crispy. Have a very good week!

December 19, 2016

Hazelnut and spices cake

It is not often that I make vegan cakes but sometimes there is no choice. I really wanted to make a cake, start mixing flour, baking powder, sugar, and when it cake to the eggs, I realized I didn’t had any. And I didn’t feel like buying cheap eggs from the kombini (not because they are cheap, but because they come from I don’t know where, and how). But since the cake was on its way I just added a reasonable amount of hazelnut powder, and a bit of vegetal oil and soya milk to moisten the dough until I obtained a normal consistency for the dough. Then I added some anise seeds, cinnamon, cardamom in a large amount. And baked at 150 degrees for 30min. The result was a delicious fluffy cake, perfectly balanced in taste between the hazelnut and the spices. Something to try again for sure!!!!

Have a nice weekend!

December 17, 2016

Carrot soup and almond cake

Carrots and tomatoes could both be on top of my favorite food and favorite infredients. I love how it is easy to prepare them in many different ways, raw, grilled, simmered, in puree, sauce, with herb, just with salt… I could continue endlessly the list of options they offer. Yet, I don’t think it is easy to find delicious fresh products after tomatoes pick season in summer, and carrots, which season for the big sweet ones is now on, are often too hard and a little bitter. So when I find some big, soft, juicy and sweet carrots, I prepare them in the most simplest way: a soup which is just made of carrots and a bit of water, eventually a bit of sea salt and black pepper for the final decoration. Nothing more because the taste is just perfect like this. For two, I used two large carrots, peel them, boil them, blend them, add a bit of water if needed to obtain the preferred consistency. Serve hot or cold.

And because after a long day a soup is just not enough for dinner for us, we need carbs, I prepared a very strange thing that actually was perfect with the carrot soup (I must say that I am a bit in an inventive period now, so I try new recipes I invent on the spot and things have been working pretty well so far!). I made a kind of vegan almond bread, or almond cake: it’s basically the base recipe of the scones, where I replaced half of the flour by rough almond powder, butter by vegetal oil, sugar by salt (much less though) and milk with soya milk, and set in a cake pie to bake for 30min at 160deg. It gave a very crumbly bread texture a bit between scones and brioche and the almond taste was perfect with the carrot soup.

December 6, 2016

Rosemary and bacon scones

My passion for scones is endless and I love to test new variations. Largely inspired by the cooking magazine I brought back from Chicago this summer, and waiting for chillier days, I finally made some salted scones. I didn’t follow the recipe from the magazine, rather took the opportunity to have plenty of fresh rosemary in the garden to prepare these scones. And to give them a little bit more twist and consistency I added wheat bran in the dough. And everyone loved them so much, they disappeared in a flash!

I use regular flour, about 150g, wheat bran, 2 large tbs, 40g of butter, 12cl of milk, a large branch of fresh rosemary, a piece of bacon or a few slices, 1egg, salt and baking powder. I mix the flour, the salt, the baking powder, the wheat bran, the egg together, add the milk. If the dough is too sticky add a bit of flour, if too dry a bit of water or milk. Knead rapidly. Cut the bacon and the rosemary and add to thd dough. Knead 2min. Pre heat the oven to 200deg. Roll the dough to obtain a large dough of 2cm high max and cut the scones (knife, shape… everything can do!). Bake until golden (12 to 15min usually). Serve as bread, or eat alone!

November 23, 2016

Yuzu scones

As you know, I bake scones quite often. I love them for breakfast and for tea-time, I love the sweet or salty, and they are so easy to prepare and so quickly baked that I can improvise easily. Now it’s a good season for yuzu, they are easy to find locally, so It’s the good season for using them in many places: yuzu tea, yuzu spinach, yuzu in miso soup and of course yuzu scones! In the classix scones recipe their is a bit of lemon juice, which I usually skip because I find it hard to get my hands on organic local lemons. But because finding yuzu is so much easier for the yuzu scones I used both the zest and the juice. In my basic recipe I added the zest of half a yuzu (I actually like it roughly gratted rather than thinly) and the juice of a full fruit. Then I used yuzu perl for the finish (I don’t use egg batter for a golden finish, I prefer to use no egg). That’s it! Enjoy with butter, honey or nothing!

November 17, 2016

Bread making

The temperature is getting low at night these days; and mornings, though sunny are quite chilly. I love then more than ever to have hot bread, freshly baked, for breakfast. But because temperature in the house is much lower controlling the bread making is also much difficult. Yet, with more experience each year, I start to really manage to make bread with a more consistent result. A. loves white breads for breakfast so I prepared a big gâche bread this time. just 250gof white flour, 175g of water, 7g of salt and 5g of dry yeast. Kneaded until soft and smooth, then proven for a few hours (the house is barely 15deg inside) and shaped as a flat ball. I bake it the following morning for 30min (or until golden) at 230deg.

November 7, 2016