Tag: puff pastry

What about la galette des rois???

If there is one traditional food I don’t care much about it’s the Epiphany kings’ galette, the “galette des rois”. Whether the brioche or the frangipane, I don’t care much about them. Not that I dislike them but I don’t like them either. They are not part of my must-eat food. And since I am bad at making puff pastry, that’s even easier to forget about it… but this year IG was covered with galettes and though I was insensitive to them A. wasn’t… and he asked me why we never have galette though he loves it so much!

What???? Why on earth would you wait more than 20 years to tell me???

How could I have not imagined he would love galette. He who doesn’t like almonds but loves calisson and financiers, he who doesn’t love butter but loves croissants and brioches… of course he loves galette… of course I ignored that…

Well then… I took all the courage it takes to make an attempt at puff pastry when I have failed so often.

So here I am folding and rolling and turning every hour my puff pastry by the book, hoping it will become something… probably because of the cold temperature inside it is not as tedious as I remembered, and no butter spill.

For the frangipane I used a standard recipe: almond powder plenty, 1 egg, a bit of sugar and a tiny bit of butter, stirred into a dense pomade.

The rest is just simple. I decided for a square galette, rolled one layer of dough, topped with frangipane, leaving enough room to close it. Rolled another layer of dough to put on top, sealed the borders well. Paint an egg batter. Made a little seasonal drawing: blooming camellia japonica as we have so many in the garden, and 30min at 200deg. Until just golden. A. couldn’t wait any longer!!!

The result was surprisingly delicious. It didn’t have the sticky sugary top it too often has in shops, it was not too sweet, actually very nice, and the puff pastry worked well! Beginner’s luck!!!

Pastizzi tal pizzeli

It is really interesting how much Maltese food has left a strong impression on me. I’ve already shared some of my favorite recipes from Malta, but one is still missing: that of pastizzi tal pizzeli, one of the three types of pastizzi, that with spicy peas. Why did it take me so long? Because I was waiting for the season of green peas to make them with fresh green peas. And now the season has come and I have gotten plenty of green peas so I tried making pastizzi. But for the genuine recipe you’ll have to wait longer, my attempt, though delicious, is a disgrace to the true Maltese pastizzi such that in the picture below.

If you look on the internet you’ll find several different recipes for pastizzi, one of the main difference is those that use spilt peas, and those that use green peas, but they all have in common that they are prepared with puff pastry and the inly spice they use is curry, hence they are often called curried peas pastries, but in my memory the taste was more complex than that, or the Maltese curry is different than that we have here… hum… anyway, the challenge was to start with the puff pastry, not something I am confortable making (I need a serious training for that!), in particular when I remembered how thin and delicious it was in Malta, almost like filo (something I should also try to make!), so I decided to go with a rough puff to save some time, and spare me the disappointment of a poorly done puff pastry. As for the filling, I used half of a new onion, two handfuls of green peas, curry, a bit of clove (after all this is the Maltese spice by excellence), salt and pepper. I boiled the peas, I chopped the onion thinly and cook it in a pan with olive oil at low heat until just golden and soft. In a mortar I puréed the peas, add the spices and the onion. Stir well. Then roll and cut the dough in 8 squares of 12cm and filled them. I used an egg batter and baked at 200deg until golden. Well that was it. It was tasty, delicious but it was not a pastizzi!!!

I’ll try again! 😉

Recurring failure

I’m usually pretty confident in what I do, and in cooking more than anything else. I can try new recipes or invent new ones on the fly with quite some easiness and usually I obtain very very good results (it was one if the motivations for me to start this culinary journal, to keep track of my inventions).

That said (a little bit of self flattering never hurts!!!), I am not super human and there are things that I can never manage to master. Croissants are a great fancy for me and I love the idea of freshly baked croissants, buttery and fluffy, with a perfect puff to start a great Sunday. Despite having tried 4 or 5 times, having checked different recipes, watch videos and read books… I failed poorly in reaching my goal every single time. The taste is always great but the result is never a puff pastry croissants, it is a bread-ish, brioche-ish, milk bread-ish thing but never puffed. I don’t know what’s wrong with what I do or use. I’m incriminating the floor, the yeast, the kneading, the rolling and the folding… tried to improve each but didn’t succeed. If you are a successful croissants maker I’ll be more than happy to receive first hand feedbacks and hints to succeed next time. I’m also considering finding a class, if you know any I’ll be happy to learn about it…

Please help me make puffy croissants for Sunday morning breakfast !!!

Rough puff

Apple tart version
Apple tart version

With the terrible weather on Saturday, I thought it was a good occasion to work and cook. And for cooking, I was thinking of making something that I usually don’t have time to do when the weather is nice and we spend most our time outdoor gardening or playing tennis or swimming. My objective was to make puff pastry.  Since I have never really made puff pastry (only a version for pain au chocolat, with yeast…) I decided first to browse a few recipes, before deciding what to do, and that’s how I found a recipe of “rough puff” on by Clotilde Dusoulier on her blog Chocolate and Zucchini, a quick version of the real puff pastry, that doesn’t require to insert the butter layer by layer and to be rolled every hour or so. This version only require one hour in the fridge. The layering is done before. Since I had to work and I am always looking for sustainable recipes that I can repeat easily, trying rough puff was a must for me! So instead of classic puff pastry, here I am trying this new recipe. Of course I slightly changed the proportions because I like it less buttery, I used only 100g of butter but may be 115g would have been good for a more golden finish. I use soya milk instead of water or milk. Contrarily to what announced it gave me much more pastry that expected so I made an apple tart, two half moon apple pues and with the rest a bowl of sesame crackers. Making the pastry was really easy and it was really quick (quicker is better because the butter need to stay cold and hard). The pastry was indeed puffy, but not as much as a regar puff pastry, as expected. The taste and crispiness was great. For the sweet version I would have definitely add a bit of sugar. May be it’s because I use nothing but apples without sugar nor flavoring. The sesame salty crackers were addictive (top picture)!!! A great recipe that needs a little improvement to fit my taste but so easy to make that I will use it againand again!!!

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