Cookies!

OK! I got it right now! The recipe of the sweet and soft cookies a la mode Laura Todd. My second trial was the right one! The official recipe is here, but shush! don’t tell A. I slightly changed it! I actually had to because the original recipe is for 375g of flour and 1 egg and I used half, but still put one egg…

Soft cookies (makes about 15 large cookies or 25-30 small ones)

– 180g of flour

– 120g of brown sugar

– 110g of butter

– 1 small egg

– 1tsp of baking powder

– a pinch of salt

– 1 vanilla bean

– 175g of white/milk/dark chocolate chips (large on is better)

– a handful of walnuts/shredded coconut/hazelnut or nothing…

I melt the butter, and mix it with the sugar and the vanilla, add the egg (actually you can change the order, or add the egg at the very end of the overall recipe, it doesn’t matter!!).

In another bowl, I mix the flour, the baking powder and the salt. If you plan to make only one kind of cookies add here the chocolate chips and the nuts. If you are planning on making different combinations then wait before adding the chocolate chips and the nuts.

Mix the flour mix in the sugar-butter-egg mix and stir well. If you haven’t added the chocolate chips and the nuts you can now split the dough and add them.

Preheat your oven at 140deg. On a greased sheet or cooking paper make small balls of dough (slightly smaller than a ping pong balls). Plan enough space between two as they will become 7-8cm cookies once in the oven. That would be the large cookies. If you want to make smaller ones just reduce the size of the balls by a third or a half.

Bake in the middle of the oven, to obtain an even top-down baking for 15min for the small ones, 18min for the larger ones. (That was one of my failures the first time I tried, they were too low, the bottom dried). Take them out of the oven before the edges start to golden. Let them cool down a bit before moving them.

They were just perfect!

February 18, 2019

Crepes or cookies

I wanted to talk about one or the other in my post today but I decided to do otherwise because my cookies recipe is great but the baking time wasn’t good (I slightly over baked them) so it needs another trial before being shared. And crepes… well… it was Chandeleur on Saturday and I thought about making crepes, but I didn’t have buckwheat flour anymore to make savory crepes so I made a few sweet crepes for tea time, but that’s not something special as I probably make crepes once a month or more. So today I wanted to talk cheese and pizza! Indeed, after all the beautiful sunny days I found some tomatoes at the farmers market. I assume they grew in a green house heated by the winter sun only. They were a beautiful red full of ripeness. I couldn’t resist… after all the winter vegetables, that would be different! They also had a little of rucola too, so instantly the idea of eating an homemade pizza came to my mind. And for that I needed some nice cheese, so we drove up to Takahide farm to buy some mozzarella.

We stayed to see the cows and the heifers, and we came back not only with mozzarella but with a new version of one of my favorite cheese there, in an aged version… simply delicious!!

Oh! For the pizza dough I use always the same recipe as here. It always works perfectly.

February 3, 2019

White miso for the winter

There exists miso for each season and if red miso is for the summer, white miso is the one for the winter. I learned that at my cha-kaiseki cuisine classes a few years ago. And in an attempt to make some vegan pie crust I was tempted to replace butter by the creamy white miso, with a little addition of vegetal oil. The color is unchanged since the miso has almost the color of butter. The kneading is very easy, the rolling too, though it is more like olive oil base pie crust, it breaks easily, but it is easy to repair too!! I was worried it would be salty but it wasn’t (opening to not only savory quiches, but sweet pies and tart too) and it bakes in a very crispy manner. So the vegan pie crust with miso was perfect. Something I will use again for sure as it is sometimes easier to find miso than butter in Japan and the taste of miso was very mild rather that of olive oil.

As for the filling I used leek, spinach and broccoli with tofu and eggs. I haven’t found something to replace the eggs in the quiche yet… If you have ideas, I’ll be happy to try…

Miso pie crust (for a 20cm, thin crust)

– 150g of flour

– 5tbs of white miso

– 1tbs of vegetal oil

– 1tbs of water

Mix all the ingredients together. Roll and bake or fill and bake… that’s it!!!

January 15, 2019

Bread for every mornings

Earlier in December as I mentioned in my first post this year, I discovered a book thanks to Giulia @ Julskitchen that makes the promise to prepare fancy breads in 5min. I was skeptical at first but also curious so the only option was to try by myself a few recipes and see how it was actually feasible on regular working days. So during the holidays I started to get familiar with the processes and this week I have used the recipes and method non stop for breakfast mainly, sometimes dinners. So here are my thoughts and findings after almost 2 weeks of using the book bread in 5 on a daily basis.

First of all yes! it is undeniably making bread baking really easy and despite the rises that take time, but that is inherent to bread making and I didn’t expect to have this time reduced, it really takes 5min for most of the recipes to mix the ingredients and shape the bread(s). I tried both with fresh yeast and dry yeast and it is equally working well. I didn’t try with sourdough yet…

I have tried recipes for the classic breads, milk bread, brioche, panettone… I must admit that of all the brioche was really bluffing and when I remember how much time and effort it took me to knead my first brioche and that the result was so so… I can only recommend to use this recipe for people new to kneading and baking. I will definitely use the recipe again and again to make brioche for breakfast when we have friends over.

As I mentioned in my earlier post the breads are simples and can be easily upgraded: this morning I added vanilla, I made walnuts rolls, or salt rolls for dinner… but they are not French breads with a thick and hard crust, I never managed to obtain anything close and I don’t think it is possible. It is totally fine, you just need to know that. Rather the breads are fluffy but very nourishing and soft. A. told me they looked like breads his mom made with a bread machine once… I never really had bread from bread machine, so I couldn’t say… I finally enjoyed them more as individual rolls than bread to slice.

The one thing that was a great learning for me was the conservation of the dough after the first rise. Knowing that you can keep it refrigerated for up to a week was quite a finding. Though I found it worked well with breads with plain ingredients, I liked it much less for breads with butter, milk or eggs… in particular I found that after 3 days the milk bread I made had a stronger fermented taste that I didn’t like much… personal preference I guess… I also wonder if keeping the dough that way works with kneaded doughs… something I need to try to find out. Because for me the kneading part, in particular for French breads is actually something I like to do on Saturday evening. It is relaxing and a time for reflection that I need in my busy schedule. Some meditate and run… I knead and garden… yet having freshly baked bread on the breakfast table every morning is just fantastic… and it’s even easier than pancakes, once in the oven there nothing to do… oh! And there are many recipes of braided bread, something I find quite beautiful when well done…

So bread in 5 was a revelation for me but I need to adjust it to my habits and liking!!

January 9, 2019

Welcome 2019!

How are you starting this new year? I am welcoming the new year as a normal day in our country house, with a garden harvest of lemons, natsu-mikan, daffodils, camellia flowers and maple leaves… and a lot of cooking and baking. I also started learning cutting and sewing with my old neighbor. Regarding baking, this week I am trying some recipes from my new baking book: bread in 5, that my parents offered me for my birthday, and the new flours I bought at Cuoca in Mitsukoshi Nihonbashi.

I was indeed interested by the book when I first read about it from Giulia @ Julskitchen IG. I thought how wonderful it could be sometimes to have fancier breads than regular French breads, and to be able to prepare them faster. I also got fresh yeast which makes bread so much better, fluffier and they have less the taste of yeast. So far both the book and the ingredients have delivered amazing results. I’ll talk about that in detail in a later post, after I have tried a little more recipes. But simply the introduction and the tips page were full of teachings!

For this first morning of the year, I wanted something rich, sweet and fancy, as A. loves them. In winter I really love cinnamon rolls so I was first going to make some when I found the recipe of this Swedish tea ring in the Christmas bread sections. Indeed, Christmas was just last week!! The recipe uses a brioche dough as base and I was really intrigued by how to shorten the extremely long hand kneading time of the brioche and what it would give. To shorten kneading the recipe uses melted butter, smart indeed. And it worked perfectly for the ring (I need to work on my shaping!!). I modified slightly the recipe of the rolls, and didn’t use neither the egg wash or the icing as I thought it was rich enough that way for breakfast. This for sure was a hit! A. was very pleased with the result and so did I!

I wish you a beautiful year 2019 from my kitchen!

January 1, 2019

Lemon cake

For my birthday for the past 6 or 7 years, when possible, A. bakes me a birthday cake of my choice. The season is such that it involves often lemon or apple. This year the tradition went on and he prepared on my request a lemon cake. With the lemon just harvested in the garden. These lemons I have seen slowly growing and are totally free of pesticides, wax and other things that make you think twice before using the zest. The cake he made was super delicious, on of the best I have had! I wonder why he doesn’t bake more often!! And because he used the recipe he found online and didn’t want to halve the quantities, we obtained 2 cakes of perfect size for tea and breakfast for two. I slightly ask him to modify the recipe to be less buttery, so here is the actual recipe he used:

Lemon cake

– 200g of flour

– 120g of brown sugar

– 80g of butter

– 4eggs

– 1tbs of baking powder

– 1 lemon (free of chemical)

Melt the butter. Wash the lemon and extract both the zests and the juice.

In a bowl, mix the flour, the baking powder, the sugar, add the eggs, the butter and end with the lemon juice and the zest. Pour in a cake dish (one 30cm or two 20 or less).

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180deg for 35min to 45min

When ready eat right away or once is has cooled down.

Have a beautiful end of 2018!!

December 31, 2018

A week in the clouds – yogurt cake

December is going in a flash this year… busy days leave room to busier days and the gloomy and cold weather adds to the impression of being overwhelmed. The weather reminded more of Parisian winter than that of Tokyo, giving an awkward feeling, and missing the fireplace very much. My head has been in the clouds lately, a lot to think about at work, the plan for constructing something on our new plot of land, the cat that we haven’t seen in 3 weeks and who haunts my dreams… but finally today the bright sun, the Mount Fuji fully covered with snow now, and the crispy morning air seem to remind me that we are in Japan and that things ought to be taken as they come. Nonetheless, a healthy, warming and nourishing breakfast is always a great way to start the day, and with all the big apples I had seating on my kitchen counter I wanted to use them. After debating about an apple pie, an apple tart or an apple cake, I finally opted for a lighter and healthier option: an apple compote and a yogurt cake. The compote with me is easy, I peel and chop the apples, put them in a pan with a very little bit of water and cook at low heat until they have soften. I don’t add sugar, sometimes a bit of vanilla or spice, but I was in the mood for simplicity, so added nothing. The yogurt cake is like the pound cake, of of this recipe that I have learned at primary school and I have kept making ever since. It is so simple and so easy to eat and it keeps well, I love it for breakfast when in a rush. Here is my recipe as I remember it… the units are the yogurt packaging.

Yogurt cake

– 1 yogurt (100-125g)

– 3 units of flour

– 1 unit of sugar

– 2/3 unit of vegetal oil

– 3 eggs

– 1tps of baking powder

– vanilla

In a bowl stir all the ingredients until creamy. In a greased pue dish pour the mix. Preheat the oven to 140, bake at 140 for 15 minutes, than raise to 160 and bake another 15min or until a knife comes out clean. That’s it!!!

December 14, 2018

Walnut bread

After a few weeks without kneading and baking bread it was time to get my hands in the dough again. First wanted to make a rich brioche for breakfast since it has been chilly the past few days… but then I realized I had no eggs… so I opted for bread… but I wanted something a little different than the usual breads I have made last month. I chose a walnut bread, slightly sweet and soft, from my Kayser bread making book, one of the few that I hadn’t tested yet. So I started preparing for it, measured the flour in a bowl, add water, salt, sugar and yeast… but before I could start kneading or carpenter arrived to talk about the plan of our next project, so I had to leave the dough. After about an hour later when I started kneading I felt things were doing really good. The dough was easy to knead, it became very soft and smooth. And since the house was rather cold I decided to use a trick I used once or twice in the past and that seems to be the best way to guaranty a temperature that will allow the dough to raise in a proper time: I put hot water in the sink and leave the dough in a metal bowl just floating around. After 2h the dough had perfectly risen and was ready to be prepared for the shaping. The dough had risen so well that shaping it was perfect and the second rise went very well. I finally baked the breads, but not until golden because I like to eat my bread hot in the morning just out the oven, so I keep the baking to perfection for the second baking round. And the result was exactly what I wanted: a very soft bread, with a thin crunchy crust. Overall, the waiting before the kneading and the rise in the warm water just made the though great! Two tricks that I will try again for sure!

Here my recipe for the bread:

Walnut bread (for two breads)

– 250g of flour, I used 2/3 of white flour and 1/3 of whole wheat

– 115g of water at 20deg

– 20g of sugar

– 8g of salt

– 6g of dry yeast

– 80g of loose walnuts kernels

In a bowl mix the flours, the yeast the sugar, the salt and half of the water. Mix well, add the rest of the water and knead until soft and smooth. Add the walnuts. I didn’t crush them, I prefer having them as whole. I kneading in a metal bowl for better heat conductivity. Then I leave for 2h in the warm water. After that shaped two balls with the dough, waited another 30min before shaping the two breads and waiting 90min at room temperature (about 16deg in our house). I finally baked 18min at 230deg. Took out of the oven when ready and let cool down. I put in the cold oven and baked at 180deg for 10min in the morning just before eating.

Breakfast ready with hot bread, homemade persimmon jam and enjoying the fall colors in the garden

December 9, 2018

Angst

Today I was reading some articles and stumbled upon the word “angst”. If I understood the general meaning so that my reading wasn’t impeded, I still wanted a clear definition. It’s not hard to search and find the answer and I started immediately to like this word very much, it described so well what I often feel and the awkward position I feel I am in. Enough to make it the title of this post. I feel angst in particular about the so many questions to which I cannot find answers… of course growth has been a long time one, urbanism too, more recently it was about legacy, heredity and filial pity…

All these questions of course don’t prevent from cooking and from experimenting new recipes. When I was a child Laura Todd cookies opened a shop in Aix en Provence. I loved these cookies very much but the shop didn’t last long and soon replaced by a pizza shop… I was surprised in 1999 to discover a decade after that there was a shop in Paris nearby our house (shop that since then as closed too). A. and I would go there once in a while to buy a cookie. A. loved them even more than I did. Laura Todd cookies are very soft but not oily with always melting chocolate chips of a very generous size. A while ago he asked me to make some cookies that would ressemble that. I didn’t try right away, but finally did and made white chocolate chips cookies and raisin cookies. And it worked out very fine. I prepared a recipe in between cookies and scones. Now I just found that Laura Todd cookies recipe is online on their website… (in French) so now I need to try it!!!

I’ll let you know soon how it is and if it is better than my recipe!

Have a great week… mine is busy and lonely…

December 2, 2018