Browned Butter and Coconut Madeleines

My hump... my hump, my hump, my hump... my lovely lady lumps...

If Madeleines ever got its own theme song, this would be it. But that might also mean that I'd never make these little French morsels again because I would no sooner take a drill to my cranium to avoid getting this repugnant 'song' stuck in my head.

Which would be a shame because Madeleine is one heck of a pretty lady with her scalloped curves, delicate taste and unique texture. I've always wanted to try making it and as such, I didn't know where to start. A quick google ogle and they all say the same thing - it's all about the hump.

I also learnt a few more things:

* the use of rising agents such as self-raising flour or baking powder is considered le travesty. The only rise this gal should get is from beating (i.e. aerating) the living daylights out of the eggs.

* the batter should really rest overnight to relax the gluten from the flour. Too much gluten from over beating the mixture will result in a tough and dense madeleine. And nobody likes a dense lady. Chilling it will apparently give us gorgeous humps.

* the batter should never be spread out in the tin. Rather it should be piped and spooned.

Check out her humps... I feel so sleazy!

After an exhaustive, intensive 5 minutes of research, I thought the recipe by David Lebovitz was the best looking plus with gram measurements to boot! I'm sorry but I always weigh my ingredients for baking and my silly Aussie/British head will never fully understand US-cup measurements. Ever.

But I digress. I was craving something nutty and toasty and these browned butter and toasted coconut madeleines fitted the bill perfectly. Next time I'll add more coconut and a little more sugar for a touch more flavour. I know these are suppose to be delicate tasting but I always prefer things on the sweeter side.

So all in all, how do you like my humps?

Browned Butter and Coconut Madeleines

Recipe adapted from David Lebovitz (The Sweet Life in Paris) with many thanks. Check out his post for more invaluable advice.

3 large eggs, at room temperature
130g caster sugar
rounded 1/8 teaspoon salt
175g plain flour
125g unsalted butter
10g fine dessicated coconut - toasted over a low heat until lightly golden

Additional melted butter and flour to line the madeleine moulds. Not necessary if you're using a non-stick pan like I am (mine's from Bakers Secret - available from department stores and homeware stores in Oz). Apparently they'll darken your madeleines more than the traditional metal tins but I didn't have any problem.

Method

To make brown butter / beurre noisette (this is the method that works for me)

Place butter in a stainless steel pot over medium to low heat to melt and cook (too hot and the butter will burn). It'll sizzle and make a lot of noise but that's fine. That's just the water evaporating out of the butter. Go ahead and continue with measuring other ingredients while the butter is cooking if you like.

As soon as the sizzling noise dies down, check on your butter. You'll see it all foamy but pale. Immediately turn the heat down to low and simmer while gently stirring or swirling the pot until you see a bit of golden come through the foam (if the heat is too high, the foam might boil over). Immediately remove pot from heat and set aside.

The foam will subside and the butter will be a pale brown but the residue heat will be enough to brown it further without the risk of burning it. Your butter should be a darkish golden colour (with brown sediment on the bottom) and smelling caramelly and nutty. Strain it through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl and set it aside to cool to room temperature.

Brush your madeleine molds with melted butter. Dust with flour, tap off any excess and refrigerate or freeze. Not only will this make it non-stick but the frozen butter lining will help crisp up the outside of your madeleines.

In a large bowl, whisk with your electric mixer, the eggs and sugar for at least 6-8 minutes. No danger of overbeating anything so whip the crap out of them eggs. We need volume people!

Sift the flour over the egg mix and add in the toasted coconut. Fold with metal spoon or rubber spatula as lightly as possible. The less air you knock out, the better.

Add the cooled browned butter to the mixture, and again, fold as lightly and gently as you can. It'll probably look like the butter doesn't want to cooperate but take your time, be patient because it will incorporate eventually. Slow and steady, we need to preserve the precious volume. Fold until it's just mixed.

Cover the bowl with clingwrap and refrigerate for at least an hour. Batter can be chilled for up to 12 hours.

To bake the madeleines, preheat the oven to 220°C / 425°F degrees.

Plop enough batter in the center of each indentation tol fill it to 3/4 of the mold (in the words of David - you’ll have to eyeball it, but don’t worry if you’re not exact.) Do not spread it. You can also pipe it in with a med-large tip in 2.5cm balls. But obviously it depends on the size of your madeleine tin. I needed around a tablespoon of mixture for the perfect size.

Bake for 8-12 minutes or until it's lightly golden and the centre (or hump) springs back when lightly pressed.

Remove from the oven and if you're using a non-stick pan, you should be alright to removet the madeleines out onto a cooling rack straight after. if not, you should wait 5 minutes before removing.

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Fig, Prosciutto and Thyme Galettes

Smell that Sydneysiders? Go on, step outside and take a few deep breaths. Doesn't the fresh air smell luscious? That, my dear Aussie peeps, is the smell of spring! Heck yes! Now who wants to go frolic in the sunshine? And to my lovely northern friends, the smell of autumn is equally sublime isn't it? Bliss!

Personally, I'm ecstatic for the seasonal change because that only means one thing... summer is coming! And Sydney is sure celebrating it in style with a gloriously warm and balmy week. Nothing personal to winter but dammit, I haven't seen my legs in a long time outside of leggings and stockings and they're starting to look terrifying and pasty white.

Tarts and galettes to me, are quinessential spring food. I love the free-form (i.e. lazy) approach to making these. No lining of tins needed = awesome. And the fillings are endless. Any flan, shortcrust or sweet pastry can be used for a galette. Here, I used my usual flan pastry that I simply adore. It can be whipped up in seconds in the food processor, requires little chilling time, is so beautiful to work with and thankfully, doesn't shrink unlike my laundry delicates. It's the perfect light biscuitty, melt-in-your-mouth texture that makes it perfect for tarts.

I've been in the mood for figs lately and even though they're costing me a bundle, it's worth it. Oddly, I prefer figs in savoury dishes because I have a huge soft spot for sweet and salty and figs are the perfect example of how fruit just works with savoury ingredients. It's also brilliant with cheese. For this galette, I spreaded a layer of seasoned cream cheese, tossed some figs on top and finished off with prosciutto. I then lightly drizzled it with a good olive oil and baked with my favourite herb, thyme. Achingly simple but oh so good.

The cream cheese and fig also works brilliantly with a sweet galette. Drizzle the figs with honey or vanilla sugar and away you go. Ricotta is also the perfect alternative and you could also pair the figs up with pears or berries. So many salivating possiblities!

Oh yes, Spring is finally here, and I'm a happy happy girl.

Flan Pastry

This will make about 2 galettes of approx 18cm wide.

250g plain flour
125g cold butter, diced
1 tsp caster sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
40ml cold water

Method

Add flour, butter, sugar and salt to a food processor and blitz until coarse crumbs form. Add egg and water and process until it just comes together into a ball of dough. Tip it out over a lightly floured surface and give it a few gentle kneads to bring the dough together. Use immediately or wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use. Pastry can also be stored in the freezer for a later date.


Fig, Prosciutto and Thyme Galettes

Note: This isn't so much a recipe but more of a guide so feel free to adjust the amounts here or to make the galettes however way you wish.

For this galette:

Approx 1/2 cup of cream cheese - seasoned to taste with salt, black pepper and fresh thyme leaves
Figs - depending on size, cut into eighths or quartered
Prosciutto - shredded
Olive oil
a few sprigs of fresh lemon thyme

Method

Preheat oven to 190°C.

Divide your flan pastry into two portions. Between two sheets of plastic wrap / baking paper or a lightly floured surface, roll each portion into a circle of approx 23-24cm wide and about 3-4mm thick. I usually roll it out slightly larger and use a 24cm round cutter to cut out a perfect circle. This makes for a neater galette with flush edges but is absolutely not necessary.

Slide the pastry onto the baking tray and peel off the top layer. Chill for 20 minutes or freeze for 10.

Spread out the cream cheese on the galette leaving a 2.5-3cm border. Top the cream cheese with figs and prosciutto.

Fold the edges over the topping, crimping or pleating as you go. Drizzle lightly with olive oil and top with sprigs of fresh lemon thyme. Brush the top of the pastry with an eggwash (an egg with a dash of milk, lightly beaten). Bake for approx 20-30 minutes or until the pastry is golden.

After it's done, remove the thyme sprigs, grab the dried leaves off the stems and crumble over your galette. If you wish, you could also crumble some feta over the galette and serve with salad greens.

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Baked Alaska - French Earl Grey Ice Cream and Passionfruit (Daring Bakers August 2010)

I confess that I've been a little slack with Daring Bakers this year. A challenge there, a challenge here... and one that was half half done...all pretty much last minute rush jobs.

I also admit that it wasn't just poor time management that was my downfall but rather because I've struggled to find inspiration with challenges this year. Nobody's problem but mine. It was just hard for me to get in the mood for ice cream with two frozen dessert challenges in a row (these past few nights have been soooo cold! Wah wah wah). And now I was to face my nemesis, meringue, for the second time in three months.

So on to the Baked Alaska. Classic dessert, but I've always preferred not to ruin my cake and ice cream with meringue, so it's one that I've never thought to make. I'm such a meringue hater, oops. But this presented an opportunity to wield a mother-of-a-blowtorch that I, coincidently, recently purchased with a high level of glee from my local hardware store. Glee for my new weapon and glee for the tradie perve fest at Mitre 10. Yee ha! (I'm so tragic)

Meet my new weapon!

I knew I wanted to do a French Earl Grey ice cream ever since I bought these awesome tea leaves from T2. If you had smell-o-vision, you would understand why I'm so in love with it. It's the aroma with its ambrosial bergamot and big punches of fruity and floral notes. It smells peachy and zesty but the fragrance from rose and hibiscus is just as alluring. It's fabulous stuff and in an ice cream, it's superb. For the base, I did a passionfruit brown butter pound cake, which as a fruit flavour, I love with tea. The cake was originally quite dry, which would've been made worse in the freezer, but thankfully the extra moisture from the passionfruit pulp helped soften it.

Burn baby, burn!

My piping skills are atrocious so I just grabbed a palette knife and starting icing the thing. Now the fun part. You really need a giant-assed blowtorch for maximum toasting fun and to watch how quickly the Baked Alaska burned was a sight to behold. As for the dessert itself. No matter how hard I try, I really don't like meringue especially when it is in a soft, marshmallowy form. I'll just take the cake and ice cream separately thanks.

But what's an Alaska... without fire? Lets flambé! There's something so camp about the word flambé but in any case, lets bombe this baby! All you need is alcohol that would put hairs on your chest. At least 40-50% alcohol content is fine, although the stronger it is, the longer it'll take to burn out and your meringue would probably char to a crisp before sliding off from the melting ice cream. Anything 60% or 120 proof? Uh, stay away because you would literally be making an Alaskan (fire)bomb.

Flame and alcohol. Lets party!

Can you tell I like fire in the kitchen? But remember, fire is not to be trifled with so please proceed with responsibility and caution. That is my community announcement for the week. Cheerio!

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

The requisite dissection shot - about 0.2 seconds before it all slid off and fell apart!

Note - Jump over to the Daring Kitchen website for the original and full recipe of the Baked Alaska. I'll leave you with the recipes for the ice cream, cake and meringue.

* French Earl Grey Ice Cream

500ml pouring cream (35% fat content)
250ml milk
2 Tbl French Earl Grey tea leaves
4 egg yolks
100g caster sugar

Method

In a pot over medium flame, heat the cream, milk and tea leaves together to a low boil, while stirring constantly to prevent the milk from scorching on the bottom. Once bubbles start to form on the edges of the cream mixture, remove from heat and set aside for 10 minutes for it to infuse. Feel free to adjust the amount of tea to the strength that you want.

After infusing, strain the tea leaves out of the cream mixture.

Whisk the egg yolks with the sugars until pale and thickened. While continuously whisking, pour in the cream mixture in a slow, steady stream. Tip the whole mixture back into the pan over low heat and cook, stirring constantly, until it coats the back of the spoon thickly.

Strain into a container and cool completely, preferably overnight in the fridge. Then churn in your ice cream machine to manufacturer's instructions.

Scrape into an ice cream container and freeze. For the Alaskas, place them in your desired moulds lined with clingwrap, level and freeze.


* Brown Butter Pound Cake

275g unsalted (sweet) butter
200g sifted cake flour (or 170g plain flour plus 30g cornflour)
1 tsp (5g) baking powder
1/2 tsp (3g) salt
110g light brown sugar
75g granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Method

Preheat the oven to 325°F/160°C and put a rack in the center. Butter and flour a 9”x9” (23cmx23cm) square pan.

Place the butter in a 10” (25cm) skillet over medium heat. Brown the butter until the milk solids are a dark chocolate brown and the butter smells nutty. (Don’t take your eyes off the butter in case it burns.) Pour into a shallow bowl and chill in the freezer until just congealed, 15-30 minutes.

Whisk together cake flour, baking powder, and salt.

Beat the brown butter, light brown sugar, and granulated sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well, and then the vanilla extract.

Stir in the flour mixture at low speed until just combined.

Scrape the batter into the greased and floured 9”x9” (23cmx23cm) square pan. Smooth the top with a rubber spatula and rap the pan on the counter. Bake until golden brown on top and when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.

Cool in the pan 10 minutes. Run a knife along the edge and invert right-side-up onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

Note - for passionfruit cake, just mix through the passionfruit pulp from as many passionfruits as you want.


* Meringue (For the Baked Alaska)

8 large egg whites
½ tsp (3g) cream of tartar
½ tsp (3g) salt
220g fine caster sugar

Beat the egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt on high speed in an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Beat in the sugar gradually in a slow stream until stiff peaks form.


* To Assemble Baked Alaskas

Cut out round shapes from your cake at the same diameter as your ice cream moulds. Place ice cream disc on top of your cake and ice or pipe all over with meringue making sure not to leave any gaps. The meringue acts as insulation for the ice cream so make sure to plug all the gaps.

With a blowtorch, torch the meringue all over until golden. Alternatively you could bake it in the oven until brown.

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Classic Pea and Ham Soup

Did you know that, I detest peas? I can never eat my fried rice straight away, because I'd always spend around 5 minutes picking every single pea out of my bowl (oh how I use to dream of spoon-flicking these bad boys at unsuspecting diners). On the other hand, cook their legume brothers with pork, pulverise it into a seductively murky algae-esque soup and you'll have me beaming and panting for more. I love how pork makes everything magical. That's the lesson that I learnt from a very young age.

Ok so pea soup! Homely, classic, retro and easy-peasy (heh). Traditionally this soup was made from yellow split peas to represent the infamous yellow fogs of Victorian London from which it was nicknamed after ("London Particular" - food history peeps. Exciting stuff. Google it). In any case, it appears my green peas are doing a fine job of yellowing it up themselves. The base consists of the holy sofritto of onion, carrot and celery (with added garlic), while the flavoursome stock stems from a giant ham hock. Scary looking thing, but delicious in its piggy aroma.

You could also use a gammon hock or leg ham bone if you wish but either way, make sure it's meaty. Add peas, cook till tender then pulverise them suckers. A stick or immersion blender is the right tool for the job but obviously you can use a standard blender instead. But a word of warning - don't fill the blender past a third or halfway with the soup because you know, liquids plus powerful blender equals explody mess. And that liquid is rather hot... so save your hands and a big clean up and stick a tea towel wadge over the top of the lid.

A final friendly tip: if you are going to put a ham hock in your handbag, don't forget it's in there. Especially if you have to fish out your wallet. Once, (ok, maybe twice), a giant bugger of a hock fell out off my bag in front of worried-looking civilians. Decent thud it was too. Please don't ask why I put ham hocks in my handbag.

Love Miss Candy xx

Pea and Ham Soup

Serves 4-6

40g butter
1 onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 stalk of celery, finely chopped
2 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 ham hock (around 900 g each) - the more meatier, the better
2 L of cold water
500g dried split peas, green or yellow - your choice!

Method

In a large pot or casserole pot, sauté the veges and garlic in the butter over medium heat until tender (around 10 minutes). If they are finely chopped, then it won't take as long.

Add the ham hock, cover with the 2L of water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered for around 2 hours or until the meat is tender and falling away from the bone.

Remove the ham hock with a slotted spoon and set aside to cool. Add the dried split peas and simmer for about an hour until it's soft and tender.

Meanwhile, when the ham hock has cooled down, get your hands in there and start separating the meat and shredding it. Discard the skin, fat and bones.

When the split peas have cooked, blend soup with tabletop or hand blender until smooth. Add the shredded ham to the soup and serve with crusty bread.

If you wish, you could just blend half or two-thirds of the soup if you'd prefer it a tad more liquidy and with chunks of peas for more texture.

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Banana Cake with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

The humble banana cake is one of two cakes that really defined my childhood. So much so, that I can virtually taste the nostalgia and the warm Perth summer air with every bite. There is still magic in cakes such as these and to forget them in a sea of 8-texured or 10-layered-mousse what-nots would be a massive shame. We can have our dazzling modern cakes but lets not forget their classic origins. Now bananas. Sexy looking fruit but for me it needs to me jazzed up, baked, pulverised, fried or obliterated into smoothies. Otherwise by itself, it's a little... unexciting. But in this cake, it's divine. Divine I tell you! How many more camp superlatives can I throw in? Oh honey, it's fabulous!

Seriously though, this could be the best banana cake that I've ever tasted. *pause for dramatic effect*

Let me tell you why. First the frosting. Normally I prefer the cake by its pure self but here? I can't imagine life without it. It's ultra smooth and light because there is absolutely no sugar in it. Yup, no overbearing toothaching sweetness or grittiness from icing sugar - zilch. Just the most silky frosting with a beautifully creamy tang from the cream cheese and sour cream and a little body from the butter. Most amazing is the addition of white chocolate in place of icing sugar, which gives it the required sweetness but just a hint to complement rather than overpower. And surprisingly enough, there is barely a taste of white chocolate, which to me, is always too cloying.

And then the cake. Oh! I hate using this word too but I can't think of another one to aptly describe it. This cake is moist beyond belief. Because of the frosting, this cake should be stored in the fridge and eaten chilled. But the cake thankfully retains it soft, pillowy texture thanks to the absence of butter. Even after 3 days.

I'm going to stop talking now, because there's still half a cake left and I'm going bananas for a piece. Folks, I urge you to try this. If you like bananas, then you'll go ape for this cake. Try it, love it and to thank me, send some fruit my way because something tells me that I'm going to be making it again soon.

Cheers!

>

Banana Refrigerator Cake


2 large very ripe bananas, peeled and broken into pieces
116g sour cream
2 eggs
1.5 tsps vanilla extract
1 tsp lemon zest
170g caster sugar
120ml canola oil
200g cake flour (or 30g cornflour plus 170g plain flour)
1/4 tsp salt
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method

Preheat oven to 175°C. Grease and line a 22-23cm springform cake tin (9-inch).

In a food processor, add the bananas and sour cream and blend until smooth. Make sure to scrape down the sides with a silicone spatula to incorporate it all.

Add the eggs, vanilla and zest and process for about 10 seconds until smooth. Scrape out into a large mixing bowl.

Add the sugar to banana mixture and with an electric mixer on medium speed, whisk until combined. Gradually add the oil, beating it until it's completely mixed through.

Sift over combined dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder and bicarb) and mix on low speed until the ingredients have moistened and it has combined.

Scrape into your prepared pan and bake for 40-50 minutes until skewer comes out clean (mine took around 50-55 minutes in the 23cm pan - it'll take longer if you're using a slightly smaller tin). Remove from oven and cool in tin for about 10 minutes, then turn out and cool on wire rack with the top side up.


Cream Cheese White Chocolate Frosting

Note - if you're using a 20-22cm pan, half of this batch could be enough to ice just the top. For me, I used a full batch for a 23cm tin and still had plenty for the top and sides).

Ingredients

170g white chocolate (with cocoa butter), chopped
225g cream cheese, softened but still cool
55g unsalted butter, softened but still cool
15g sour cream

Method

In a double boiler or bowl over gentle simmering water (make sure the bottom of the bowl isn't touching the water), melt the white chocolate. Remove from heat and set aside until it is cool but still fluid.

In a food processor, process the cream cheese, butter and sour cream until mixed and smooth. Make sure to scrape down the sides with a silicone spatula to incorporate it all. Add the cooled white chocolate and mix until it's all smooth and mixed. If it's a little soft, firm it up in the fridge before icing.

Place cake on a serving plate and spread the frosting on the top. Cake has to be stored in the fridge and personally, I prefer to eat this chilled but if you like, you can bring it to room temperature to soften the frosting (which will firm up when cold).

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Recipe adapted from Rose Levy Beranbaum.

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