i am not afraid of pastry dough: croissant

I remember the first croissant I ever had. I was 7 I think and they were out on a buffet at an event for my Dad's company. Even at that age, I was an emphatic connoisseur of bread & its accoutrements. I was known to eat whole cans of Grands biscuits & distinctly remember eating margarine with a spoon. The croissant I ate that day blew my mind & I was sure it the best bread I had ever eaten. At the same time, I was also sure that things that delicious could only be made by a robot in a factory. I'm serious. People couldn't do that shit.

It wasn't until my early twenties that I even began to cook & was probably 2 years ago that I started getting into baking. Hands down, I prefer baking. There are too many fast and loose variables involved in cooking for someone like me. A lot of options for a Virgo means a lot of stress. I need structure! Rules! Right and wrong! I've made a whole array of weird breads over the past few years but feel like I'm finally starting to understand it. I'm sure someone in a culinary class could have saved me a lot of time...but I'm also weary of people who say they have all the answers. I need to see a deflated loaf of bread many times before believing that you really do have to wait 4 hours to bake it. If there's one thing you should know about my recipes, it's that I've already cut every corner possible. I would never recommend some method or ingredient just for its alleged value. I recommend what works & what's good.

OKAY, CROISSANTS. I recently met a wonderful girl named Meredith Rubin who loves bread and baking as much as I do (unbelievable). In a discussion about our loftiest baking dreams, we agreed that anyone claiming to be a baker must be able to make croissants. It's a rite of passage. So, 6 instructional videos / 2 books / 2 attempts / a lot of beers later, I'm ready to show you how I made croissants!

(makes about 14 big croissants)

(Don't freak out. Have fun. It's just dough.)

3 C whole milk

1/2 C packed light brown sugar

2 T plus 1/2 t active dry yeast

7 1/2 C unbleached flour

1 T salt

6 sticks salted butter

2 egg yolks

2 T heavy cream

Good amount of plastic wrap!

MAKE THE DOUGH:

(Set butter out on the counter.)

(If you don't have a stand mixer, do it by hand. No biggie.)

Warm the milk to about 110 degrees. Pour it into the bowl of a stand mixer and mix in brown sugar and yeast. Let it sit for about 5 minutes or until the top gets foamy. If it doesn't foam, the yeast is not activating & you should start over.

Start your mixer on low with a dough hook attachment & add flour. Mix on low for 7 minutes. Dough should be sticky and very soft. Generously flour a large flat surface and also flour your hands. Scrape the dough onto the surface and knead by hand for another 2 minutes. You'll need to add bits of flour as you go to create a dough that's smooth, slightly sticky & soft. Loosely form the dough into a rectangle about 2 inches thick. Wrap well with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour. This is to firm up the dough.

MAKE THE BUTTER BLOCK:

(There are several good ways to do this! You should watch a few videos to see which way suits the resources you have in your kitchen.)

Place sticks of butter equidistantly (word?) into a 9x13 baking dish lined with plastic wrap. When the dough has been chilling for 1 hour, you're ready to start forming the butter. It's VERY important for the butter and dough to be about the same firmness. If your butter is too hard, it won't stretch with the dough, it will just separate in clumps which will result in a croissant with uneven layers (still delicious, just not as pretty!). Place another layer of plastic wrap over the top of the butter sticks and start smashing them into the dish. You want your block to be as even as possible. I used a juice glass to help me roll it flat.

LAMINATING (incorporating butter):

 Pull your dough put of the fridge and unwrap it on a floured surface. Roll it out to be 15x 27 inches. Pull the butter block out of the baking dish and put it right in the center of the dough. It should go horizontally do that there is 1 inch of dough on either side of the butter. Fold each flap of dough over the butter like you're folding a letter. Try not to trap any air.

NOW. You're ready to do your first fold!! With a rolling pin, start to gently roll out the dough encased with butter. You'll be rolling it out to 13 x 27 inches. Once you've made it to this size you'll fold it like a letter again. Your dough now has 3 layers & should be in a rectangle that is 13 x 9 inches. Wrap it with plastic & refrigerate for 45 minutes.

You'll repeat this rolling and folding step 3 more times for a total of four folds.

After you've completed the folding, you can wrap and refrigerate the dough until you're ready to bake the croissants (18 hours max, though).

FORMING & BAKING: 

This is the most fun!! 

Pull the dough out of the fridge and unwrap in on a well floured surface. Maintaining the rectangular shape, roll out dough until it is consistently about a 1/2 inch thick. Use a pizza cutter to trim all 4 edges to reveal layers (!!). Use a straight edge and your pizza cutter to cut out triangles. Cut into the flat end of each triangle about an inch. Pull two flaps apart slightly and roll evenly to the top point. Place croissant on your prepared baking pan and roll up the rest. Now, THIS IS CRUCIAL. You have to let the croissants set out in the kitchen or a warm room for 2 solid hours. This allows for the final rise which aerates the dough thus keeping your croissants from being super dense. Be patient! I learned this the saddest, hardest way.

Pre-rise

Post-rise

(Heat the oven to 400 degrees)

Make an egg wash with 2 egg yolks and a tablespoon of cream. Liberally coat croissants. Go crazy if you want & put on 2 coats! Pop the whole pan on your fridge for 5 minutes before baking. This helped me control the yeast and keep it from flipping out in the oven. The chilled croissants were much prettier! Bake for 20-25 minutes or until beautifully golden. Try not to peek...but good luck with that. When you pull them out of the oven, be gentle. If you jostle them around too much they could deflate a little. 

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!? YOU MADE CROISSANTS!! YOU'RE PRACTICALLY A GENIUS!

If you have extra dough after trimming, you can cut it out with biscuit cutters  / braid it / twist it. There's no wrong way to eat this dough. I ate some raw. Couldn't wait. 

 

three meals in Glasgow, Scotland

The last time we were in Scotland, Jim and I got caught in a hurricane that was coming onto land. Hilariously / unfortunately, we assumed that it was normal weather for Glasgow. The whole island is known for cold wind and rain, right?! We went out to seize the day! Hours spent struggling to walk & being whipped by all of my clothing against the wind made the three meals we ate that day exceptionally memorable and delicious.

breakfast:
Butter, Croissant, Latte

lunch:
Cheese and Onion Calzone 
{made to order in a pizzeria near the University of Glasgow}

dinner:
Baked Macaroni & Cheese with Garlic Bread 
{not pictured, double Jameson on the rocks. Made the walk home a real breeze!}

sweet potato blondies.

This recipe draws from a cookbook called "Deep South Parties" that my sister, Erin gave me (I stole it from her). If I had to guess, I've made them 10 times in the past year...which for someone who loves to mix things up and experiment, is unheard of. There is something about their flavor that is truly unparalleled in the world of baking. Maybe it's the 2 cups of savory sweet potato, 2 whole teaspoons of vanilla or 2 sticks of butter, who knows. What I do know is that if you're going to eat these, you have to warm them up in a bowl and pour cold milk in the bottom. Don't mess around.

2 sticks of room temp, salted butter
1 C raw sugar
1 C white sugar
1.5 C flour
4 eggs
1 t salt
2 t vanilla 
2 C shredded sweet potato (don't use pureed sweet potato like I did the first time. You'll end up with something that's the consistency of floury jello and it'll freak everyone out who eats it)

Cream together the sugars and butter. Add in the rest of the ingredients gradually & in order.  Bake at 350 degrees in a prepared 9x13 baking dish for about 20-30 minutes or until a knife comes out of the center clean. 

{I've also made these as mini-cupcakes with homemade (and toasted) marshmallow cream as frosting. Too unbelievably cute for a fall party. People will lose it.}

brownies.

I always want to make brownies. I'm also always prepared to be a little disappointed because they're never quite what I was hoping they would be. That is, super crunchy on the outside, appropriately gooey on the inside & not too sweet. I thought finding a good recipe online would be easy but searching for "perfect brownies" is like searching for "the color white". They all claim the same thing and they're all right, according to someone. We all have different tastes. It seems though that Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen and I are brownie soul mates. I made her "my favorite brownies" and will never make another brownie recipe again. It made it in to my recipe box, which is to say, they're perfect, to me. Over the past week, Jim and I have eaten 3 pans. LIVIN' LARGE. 
    Since I am physically incapable of following a recipe, I did do a couple things my way so the recipe below is my version. I used an extra ounce of chocolate, chose bittersweet over un-sweet, used bread flour for density & substituted some of the white sugar for raw sugar (which takes longer to dissolve so it sinks to create a thin, chewy layer on the bottom. In. Sane.)

1 stick salted butter
1 4oz bar of bittersweet chocolate
1 C white sugar
1/3 C raw sugar
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
1/4 t salt
2/3 C bread flour

Slowly melt butter and chocolate together until the only solids remaining are a few tiny bits of chocolate. You can use a double boiler or microwave it for 20 seconds at a time stirring thoroughly in between.  Whisk in sugars then eggs, one at a time. Whisk in salt and vanilla. With a wooden spoon, add flour and mix until it's totally incorporated. The mixture will be super thick, don't be alarmed! Smooth it into a prepared (buttered and floured) 9inch, glass pie dish.  Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick stuck into the center comes out clean.

These kept perfectly out on my counter for 2 days but good luck keeping them around that long!

summer bread spreads.

It's 70 degrees in Kentucky today! Unreal!

My new thing is toast. (Clearly I'm easy to please.) I never tire of baking, but the luxury of simply putting bread in a toaster is just too good. In lieu of today's freak heat wave, I think some summer bread spreads are in order! Here's a toast to Spring!

BERRY COMPOTE CREAM CHEESE
1 8oz package of cream cheese
1/4 C berry compote
{You pick the berries, dice them, coat them in sugar, simmer them in a saucepan over medium heat for about 10 minutes, no water needed. I used strawberries and whole blueberries.}

Whip both ingredients *vigorously* with an electric mixer until combined and smooth.

BERRY BUTTER
{See recipe a couple entries down!}

ORANGE BUTTER
Combine...
1 stick of salted, softened butter
1 T grated orange zest
{Clementine zest would also be great...or lime zest. Can you imagine spicy, grilled corn on the cob with lime butter?! Remember that GG!}

it's a mighty rocky road.

This recipe belongs to my Grandma, Alice Patricia Goss. It's HANDS DOWN the greatest candy recipe I own. She makes it for every occasion but especially for Christmas. Trouble is, I can't make it at home because Jim (my guy) is allergic to nuts! So please, make this and think of me! If you think hard enough, I may be able to taste it!

berry butter.

((measurements totally unnecessary, just do what feels right!))

Toss quartered strawberries & whole blueberries in a saucepan. Coat with sugar and let simmer for about 10 minutes. The fruit juices will come right out! No need for water! Mixture will become syrupy and thick. Let it cool and thoroughly mix it with softened, salted butter. This will keep in your fridge for essentially ever. I wake up thinking about it.

Here's to sharing. I hope you like it!

Chocolate Crinkles, Halloween 2011.