Chocolate Roulade

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Monsieur Wag

I am a huge fan of roulades or swiss rolls. They have the perfect balance of a delicious creamy filling with a moist cake.

The fear of cracking the cake open with deep crevasses when rolling it up can intimidate some people to the point that they wont try. I say give it a try. So what if it cracks on your first or second attempt? The point is to give it a try and practice so that you know what works for you. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I know that when something doesn’t work in my kitchen nothing is ever wasted. It all tastes just as delicious.

Views on the correct technique used to roll the cake is polarized and some authors have very strong opinions. Some will gasp at the idea of rolling the cake when it is fresh from the oven and will tell you the cake will most certainly crack. Yet, this method works for me every time.

Roulade
4 eggs
100g plain flour
100g castor sugar
20g cocoa (preferably Dutch)
1 tbs warm water
½ tsp baking powder

Cream Filling
300ml cream
1 vanilla pod
50g castor sugar

Pre heat the oven to 190°C. Line a swiss-roll baking tray with baking paper and keep a small amount of paper overhang to help lift the cake when it is baked.

Whisk the eggs until they have at least tripled in volume and have a very pale colour. With the mixer still whisking, add the castor sugar a tablespoon at a time to ensure that the volume in the eggs is not lost.

Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder together three times to ensure it is light and airy. Gently fold the dry ingredients and the tablespoon of warm water into the egg mixture until it is just combined.

Use a pallet knife to evenly spread the mixture to the edges of the baking tray and to make sure that the surface is even and smooth.

Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes.

Remove the cake from the oven and use the paper overhang to lift the cake onto a clean surface. Roll the cake into the classic roulade shape beginning by folding one edge in then slowly and gently continuing along the cake to the other end. Leave it sit rolled up for a about five minutes then very gently unroll the cake into its original shape. The ends of the cake will remain curled up. Leave the cake to cool completely.

Whip the cream with the castor sugar and the seeds scraped from one vanilla pod. Use a pallet knife to spread the cream evenly along the surface of the cake. Try to leave about 2cm at one end so that when the cake is rolled, the excess cream will fill the gap without spilling over the edge.

Place the roulade seam side down. Dust with cocoa and serve.

Madeleines au citron

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Monsieur Wag

Recently, I was given an antique French madeleine baking tray. I wish I knew its story, where in France it came from and who cooked with it. It’s marked with years of culinary love and attention and has clearly made many batches over the years. This tray doesn’t sit in the cupboard with the other trays and tins, it sits in my bookcase of cookbooks with a rightful reign of authority.

Madeleines are light delicious buttery sponge cakes that are always baked in a madeleine tray to give them their synonymous scalloped edge and shell-like shape. More often than not they are citrus or vanilla flavoured.

My recipe is based on Ginette Mathiot’s ‘the Art of French Baking’. Ginette was the Nigella Lawson of French home cooking. Writing her first cookbook in the 1930s, she went on to publish volumes of cookbooks that are still used today. Her recipes are simple and accessible which sets her aside from many of her counterparts.

In my recipe, I add lemon glaze to the scalloped edge of the madeleines, but you can dust them with icing sugar if you prefer. You can also replace the lemon zest with orange, lime or you can use vanilla seeds.

125g butter
125g caster sugar
150g plain flour
2 eggs
1 lemon zest
pinch sea salt

Melt the butter and set it aside for 10 minutes to cool.

Whisk the eggs for at least 5 minutes until they triple in volume and are a very pale yellow colour. Continue to whisk on a high setting and add the castor sugar in a slow steady stream. Finally add the lemon zest.

Sift the flour over the egg and slowly drizzle the butter down the side of the bowl and add the sea salt. Fold the mixture through until the batter is smooth.

Cover the bowl with cling film and place it in the fridge for 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Half to three quarters fill the madeleine tins with the batter.

Place the trays in the oven and cook for 8-10 minutes. The cakes should be evenly golden. Remove the madeleines from the oven and the tray and place them on a cake rack to cool.

For the glaze, which is optional, combine the juice of a lemon with about 4 tablespoons of icing sugar until it is smooth. Use a pastry brush to lightly brush the glaze over each scalloped edge.

Hot Cross Buns

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Monsieur Wag

I’ve written about Hot Cross Buns before, but since then, I’ve leant much more about bread making. So my recipe has changed dramatically following more practice.

The first major insight for me was to make the dough as wet as possible. I think it is Lorraine Pascales who suggests ‘the wetter the better’ and I for one am utterly convinced this is the best way to go. When you first make the dough, it seems to be a ruined sticky mess, but keep kneading for ten minutes as vigorous as possible. If you are not feeling warm from the exercise, you’re not kneading hard enough. It’s the next lesson that seems to cast a spell on the bread, transforming from something of a lost cause to a soft and smooth dough.

Leave the dough to sit on the bench or ten minutes, uncovered and untouched; as if you were distracted and had to attend to something else. When you go back to it, the flour will have absorbed the excess moisture and the dough will be smooth and elastic. Keep kneading for another ten minutes and you’re done. I picked up on this point from Dan Lepard in his book ‘The Art of the Handmade Loaf’ and have become a complete convert.

Buns
700g strong or ‘OO’ flour
180g dried mix fruit
200ml milk, tepid
100ml tepid water plus 100ml tepid water
80g chilled butter, grated*
80g brown sugar
10g sea salt
1 egg
18g dried yeast
1 tbs ground ginger
1 tbs cinnamon
2 tsp allspice
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tps allspice
zest of half orange (optional)

In a large mixing bowl, add all the dried ingredients, except the dried mix fruit. Be sure to place the salt to one side of the bowl and the yeast to the other. Add the egg, milk and 100ml of tepid water.

Mix together until all the ingredients are roughly combined. Turn the dough on to a clean bench top or work surface. Don’t flour the surface. Start to knead the dough and add a third of the final 100mls of water. Continue kneading and adding water until the dough is sticky and almost too difficult to knead. The dough should be wet

Continue kneading the dough. Don’t add any flour to the mixture. Keep kneading for at least 10 minutes. The dough will start to form a smooth consistency. Use a pastry scraper to bring the dough together if needed. Leave the dough to sit untouched for 10 minutes, after which recommence kneading and add the dried fruit. Continue to knead the dough for another 10 minutes. Take a small ball of dough and stretch it out to form transparent window. You should be able to see the shadow of your finger through the window. The more you can stretch the dough without tearing, the better. If the dough tears with the slightest tug or it does not stretch very far, keep kneading.

Wipe a clean bowl with a small amount of vegetable oil. Place the dough in the bowl, cover with cling film, and place in a warm spot to rise for at least two hours. Try to keep it out of breezy areas. The dough should easily double, if not triple in size.

Punch the air out of the dough and divide it in to twelve equal portions. Gently shape them into the familiar shape of a round bun. Place them on a lined baking tray, evenly spaced but not touching. Place the tray in a large plastic bag and return the tray to the same warm spot to prove for another hour. The buns should have risen into a small smooth bun shape.

Preheat the oven to 210°C and prepare the mixture for the white cross.

White Cross
80g plain flour
40g caster sugar
2 tbs water

Combine the ingredients into a smooth paste. Pour the paste into a zip lock lunch bag and cut the corner of the bag to for a small diameter hole, approximately 0.5 cm.

Using a sharp knife or blade, score the tops of the buns in the form a cross. Pipe the cross mixture across the top of the buns in quick singular moves.

Place the buns in the oven and bake for about 20-25 minutes. While the buns are backing, prepare the sticky glaze.

Sticky Cinnamon Glaze
1 egg beaten
4 tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp water
1 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)

Whisk the ingredients together to form a smooth even mixture. Set it aside, ready to brush on to the buns with they are cooked.

When the buns are ready, they should have the familiar toasty brown colour and should sound hollow when gently taped on the bottom. Remove them from the oven and place them on a cooling rack.

Brush the sticky cinnamon glaze across the tops of the buns and let them cool completely.

*I know grating butter seems the most absurd thing to do, but it works. It’s a great way out when a recipe calls for softened butter only to realise it is as hard as rock on the fridge. As soon as you take it from the fridge, use a cheese grater and grate the butter over the dried ingredients. This way you don’t have to melt it. If you add melted butter to the mixture it can destroy the yeast.

The Healthiest Chocolate Tart

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Monsieur Wag

The very thought of making a chocolate tart with avocados and without using dairy products would never have occurred to me until I was watching Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s TV series ‘River Cottage Veg Every Day. On it he showed Laura Coxeter’s Raw Chocolate Ganache Tart. I was absolutely transfixed by the recipe and had to try it to see what it tasted like.

The base is more chewy than crunchy but you could swap it for a biscuit base if that’s what you’re looking for. But make no mistake, this is a rich desert and a small piece will go a long way. Which is what makes this tart so interesting. Let me reassure you, this is decadence without the guilt. It is smooth, velvety and indulgent. And I for one did not think it was possible. This chocolate tart is most certainly worth a go and I promise it is an excellent talking point.

Making this tart is akin to kitchen wizardry. Watching the seemingly incongruous ingredients come together is so exciting.

This is my version made with Macadamia nuts and I have removed the coconut oil and coconut sugar that appears in the original.

250g macadamia nuts
300g dates, pitted*
2 tsp sea salt
4 ripe/soft avocados
200g pure cocoa powder
1 vanilla bean, seeds only
300g brown sugar
1 tsp sea salt

For the base, place the macadamia nuts, pitted dates and sea salt in to a food processor and blitz for several minutes until it forms a ball.

Press the mixture in to a tart or flan tin of your choice and place it in the freezer until later.

In the food processor, blitz together the avocados, cocoa, brown sugar, vanilla seeds and sea salt Make sure the mixture is even and smooth.

Pour the mixture on top of the macadamia and date base. Smooth the surface and return it to the freezer for a least 6 hours.

You made need a kitchen blow-torch to release it from the tin. Slice in to small wedges and serve.

* Occasionally there is an odd dated that will have it’s pip inside. Rather than let the blade of the food process find it, potentially ruining the mixture, I chopped all the dates in half for my only assurance. Sadly, no matter the brand, there is always one on the batch.

Shortbread

Posted on February 10, 2013 by Monsieur Wag

There really is nothing better than homemade shortbread and it’s astonishingly better than store-bought, no matter the brand. As much as I love a chocolate biscuit, a piece of crumbly buttery shortbread wins hands-down each time. Perhaps it’s my love of butter.

It is surprisingly easy and fast to make. I promise you can have it from pantry to a cooling rack in 30 minutes and there is not a lot to it. Given there are only a few ingredients; it does pay to buy good quality butter.

The sprinkling of caster sugar on top of the shortbread is where you can add flavour. I use a homemade vanilla sugar but you can use any flavoured sugar, such as cinnamon or lavender. It’s remarkably easy to make your own vanilla sugar. I have a large jar of caster sugar with a few vanilla beans spiked through and left to infuse. I top the jar up with more sugar when it starts to deplete and occasionally add another vanilla bean. I don’t remove the previous beans, instead I leave them to continue adding the depth to the sugar.

400g plain flour
275g unsalted or salt reduced butter, chilled and diced into cubes
¼ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. sea salt
2 tbsp. caster sugar, plain or flavour infused

Line a 30cm x 20cm baking tray with grease proof or baking paper. Preheat the over to 180°C

Blitz the plain flour, butter, baking powder and sea salt until you have course breadcrumb consistency. Tip the crumbs into the prepared baking tin and press down into the edges and corners. Use a small rolling pin or an even edged glass jar to roll across the top to ensure a flat, even surface and to ensure the crumb is pressed down firm.

Use a sharp knife to very lightly score the surface into even shaped pieces, such as 2cm by 5cm fingers. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, or until it there is a very light golden colour.

Remove the tray from the oven. While it is still hot, use a sharp knife to cut along the scores made earlier. Sprinkle with the caster sugar and leave the shortbread to cool completely in the tray.

When it has cooled completely, remove the shortbread from the tray. Be gentle when removing it, because it will be brittle and crumbly, just the way good shortbread should be.

Lindor Chocolate Tarts

Posted on January 5, 2013 by Monsieur Wag

Without reservation or question, ‘Lindt’ is my absolute favourite chocolate. And when I was eating with a friend of mine recently, we were served a ‘Lindt’ Chocolate Tart which had me clapping and wanting more. So I began thinking of making my own.

I thought about using a block of ‘Lindt’ and adding yummy ingredients like butter and cream, and of course, pouring it into a short crust pastry shell. But my thoughts kept returning to the taste and texture of the individual ‘Lindt Lindor’ balls. I wanted a small tartlet that reminded me of the small, but meltingly delicious ball. With that thought, it seemed pretty obvious to me, just melt the ball into the pastry shell. And to help reinforce the idea of the chocolate ball, I dusted each one with a little splash of red edible glitter.

250g plain flour
150g butter, chilled
1 egg, chilled
2 tbsn castor sugar
2 tsp milk, chilled
1 tsp sea salt
24 milk chocolate ‘Lindt Lindor Balls’, unwrapped
Red edible glitter (optional)

Blitz the plain flour, butter, egg, castor sugar, milk and sea salt in a food processor until it looks like coarse breadcrumbs. Pour the pastry onto a cold, clean work surface. Bring the pastry together into a solid ball without kneading. Put the pastry in a clean bowl covered with cling wrap and place in in the fridge for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180°C

Roll the pastry out on a clean work surface until it is approximately 0.25-0.5cm thick. Use a round cutter (for example, a 68mm) to cut 24 circles to line a small muffin tin, approximately 3cm deep and 5cm diameter. Line each muffin cup with a circle of pasty.

Bake the pastry shells for 10 minutes. Remove the shells from the oven and add one unwrapped ‘Lindt Lindor’ ball into each shell and return them to the oven for 8 minutes.

Remove the shells from the oven and leave them to cool completely. Remove the tarts from the tray and dust with a small amount of red glitter.

Christmas Cherry Chocolate Crackles

Posted on December 23, 2012 by Monsieur Wag

I know chocolate crackles seem a bit incongruous with Christmas, but when you add a touch of cherry to the mixture, it all seems to work. Adding a sherry-imbued cherry on top gives a little bit of extra cheer.

Ordinarily, I would not opt for chocolate crackles, simply because I do not like copha. In Australia, coconut fat is known as Copha, which has a uniquely obvious flavour and can override the chocolate. In this recipe, I have done away with the copha completely. I have used melted chocolate with a bit of butter and cherry jam. They do need to be stored in the fridge, particularly in the warmer weather.

375g rice bubbles
400g dark chocolate
150g butter
100g cherry jam or conserve
46 pitted cherries*

Place a large bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Break the chocolate into small pieces and add it to the bowl with the butter. When the chocolate and butter have melted, add the cherry jam and stir until smooth and even.

Remove the bowl from the heat.

Add the chocolate rice bubbles and combine the ingredients until the bubbles are well coated.

Spoon the mixture into paper patty pans. Top each crackle with one pitted cherry and place them in the fridge for a few hours until the chocolate sets. Serve.

*You can use any type of cherry you prefer – glace, tinned, jarred or fresh. In this recipe, I used a jar of morello cherries that I soaked in sherry for a few days, just for a little bit of extra love.

Fig and Prune Tart

Posted on December 15, 2012 by Monsieur Wag

Using sherry soaked fruit, this tart is definitely not for children. The cooking times are not long or intense enough to burn off the alcohol, so each mouthful tends to give a little kick.

I’ve previously written about the sherry soaked fruit that has become a backbone in my Christmas fare. This year, I modified the fruit mix by using dried figs and prunes. I added the chopped fruit to the imbued fruit from last year and topped up the jar with enough sherry to cover the fruit. If you do this, leave it to soak for as long as you can, preferably for a year, but a month will do.

If you’ve left soaking the fruit too late, don’t fret. You can place your chopped dried fruit into a saucepan and just cover with enough sherry. Bring the pot to a very gentle simmer and leave it to slowly bubble away until the fruit has swollen and the bulk of the sherry has evaporated. Leave it to cool and you’re done.

To bring a bit more Christmas cheer to the tart, I’ve added freshly ground hazelnut meal and the zest of an orange. The pastry is very short, but I like the crumbly contrast with the rich sweet fruit.

250g plain flour
150g butter, chilled
80g hazelnut meal
1 egg, chilled
1 tbsp castor sugar
zest of one orange
pinch sea salt
4 cups sherry soaked figs and prunes

Blitz all the ingredients except the fruit, in a food processor until it starts to form a small ball. Tip the pastry onto a cold, clean work surface. Bring the pastry together into a solid ball without kneading. Put the smooth ball in a clean bowl covered with cling wrap and place in in the fridge for at least an hour. Don’t over work the pastry – be quick and gentle – it will give a more crumbly and finer texture.

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Wipe the flan tin with a small amount of vegetable oil.

Roll the pastry out on a clean work surface until it is approximately 0.25-0.5cm thick. Line the flan tin (12 x 36cm) with the pastry and press it into the corners and edges with clean fingers or a spoon. Cover the pastry with baking paper and blind bake with baking beads for about 15 minutes. Remove the beads and baking paper and bake for a further 5 to 10 minutes. Remove the tart from the oven, but leave it in the tin.

Place the soaked fruit into a sieve and let the excess juice drain away. (I return the excess liquid back to the remaining jar of fruit for next year’s fruit – it helps to intensify the flavours)

Spoon the fruit in to the tart shell and gently press it down into the corners and edges. Bake the tart for 20 minutes. Allow it to cool before removing from the tin.

Christmas Gingerbread

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Monsieur Wag

For me at Christmas, some foods are essential; like Christmas pudding, mince tarts, and gingerbread and I think this cake is a great addition to Christmas fare. You can cut it into small squares to serve as a treat or you can serve larger squares or slices with vanilla ice cream for a merry dessert.

In this recipe, I have stepped the spices up a notch because I think there is little point including them if you can’t taste them, and they have some steep competition from the dense iron rich treacle and Guinness. By all means, play around with the spices to suit your preferences. I have seen grated fresh ginger in some versions of gingerbread, so feel free to add a teaspoon or two. I have not added fresh ginger in to this recipe because Southern hemisphere Christmas’ are already searingly hot and I see no point in taking it beyond necessary.

The best part of this recipe is that it is melt and mix which means it’s easy to prepare, in and out of the over in the hour and fills the house with a Christmas spiced scent.

160g unsalted butter
350g treacle
150g brown sugar
250ml cream
2 eggs
250ml Guinness
350g plain flour
2tsp baking powder
1 tbls ground ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground allspice
½ tsp ground clove
½ tsp nutmeg

Lightly grease a 20x30cm tin with vegetable oil and pre heat the oven to 170°C.

Gently melt the butter together with the Guinness, treacle, brown sugar and spices in a medium saucepan over a low heat. Whisk the warmed ingredients until they are smooth and well combined.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs into the cream until it is smooth.

In a large mixing bowl, add the sifted plain flour and baking powder together. Whisk the black treacle mixture into the flour ensuring there are no lumps. Then whisk in the creamy egg mixture.

When the mixture is smooth and even, pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 45-60 minutes. Use a skewer to test the cake, it should be clean. Try not to over bake the cake because the texture should be dense and moist.

Cool the cake on a rake and slice into servings of your desire. Dust with icing sugar and serve.

Lemon Meringue Tart

Posted on November 25, 2012 by Monsieur Wag

Lemon meringue must surely be in the top 10 favourite desserts of all time, certainly for the comforting and home baked variety. This version is more like a tart than a pie. The meringue is not piled high into a towering peak; rather it is smoothed out across the top at the level of the pastry shell.

Cooking lemon curd without curdling or splitting can be a bit tricky, so I find cooking it low and slow works best. Letting the curd set in the fridge also helps give a smooth silky texture. I have used recipes that bake the curd at high temperatures, but I have found there is a very thin line between baked well and curdled mess.

I like to use an Italian meringue. Adding the hot sugar syrup cooks the meringue and gives a smooth sweet texture that compliments the sharpness of the lemon curd. You can use other meringues if you desire.

If you don’t have a blowtorch, use the grill. Just be careful and never leave it alone. The sugar in the meringue will caramelise very quickly. If you a looking for a good blowtorch to use in the kitchen, go to the local hardware store, they are significantly cheaper than most home or kitchenware stores.

Pastry
250g plain flour
150g butter, chilled
1 egg, chilled
1 tbs milk, chilled
Salt,  pinch
1 tsp castor sugar
1 egg beaten (for the egg wash after blind baking)

Lemon Curd
8 eggs
400ml cream
300g castor sugar
100ml lemon juice
Zest three lemons

Italian Meringue
3 egg whites
150g castor sugar
4 tbs water

To make the pastry, blitz all the ingredients in a food processor until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Pour the pastry crumbs onto a cold, clean work surface and bring it together into a solid ball without kneading. Place the dough in a clean bowl covered with cling wrap and place it in the fridge for at least an hour.

Lightly grease the inside of 20cm x 5cm pastry ring with some extra butter and place it on a silicon sheet and baking tray. Roll the dough out on a clean work surface until it is approximately 0.25-0.5cm thick. Gently line the ring with the pastry and press it into the edges. Leave any overhanging pastry in place. Place the tart shell in the fridge for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180°C and blind bake the shell with baking beads for 15-20 minutes. Remove the baking beads and continue baking for a further 5 minutes. Remove the shell from the oven and brush the tart with one beaten egg. Trim the overhang from the edge of the shell, leaving a clean sharp edge.

Reduce the oven to 160°C.

To make the lemon curd, beat together the eggs, cream, castor sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest in a large bowl or jug (at least 2.5L volume). Make sure the mixture is smooth and even. Pour the lemon curd in to the tart shell. There should be about 2cm gap between the curd and the pastry edge. Bake for 1 hour.

Remove the tart from the oven. Set it aside to cool. Place the tart in the fridge for at least 4-6 hours, preferably overnight.

To prepare the Italian meringue, place the sugar and water in a small saucepan and bring it to boiling point.

Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Use a kitchen thermometer and when the syrup reaches 120°C, very carefully pour the syrup down one side of the bowl into the egg whites with the beater on low speed. Turn the beater up to medium and continue until the meringue cools to room temperature.

Use a spatula to spread the meringue across the top of the filling the 2cm gap between the curd and the pastry edge. Smooth the surface. Use a blowtorch to quickly toast the meringue surface. Place the tart in the fridge for a few hours and serve.

MONSIEUR WAG

Home food from my kitchen

Tag Archives: Baking