Whipped Miso Butter: great on almost everything!

We had miso butter on good bread as part of selection of fancy butters at restaurant Tartaria: it was delicious, a little exotic, but still familiar. We whipped some up recently and found it was really tasty on just about anything: beans, steak, toast, potatoes, and as an ingredient in other dishes instead of plain butter. It's dead simple to make.

Recipes we've found tend to use 5:1 or 4:1 butter to miso, but I wanted to make the salty umami of the miso a little more forward, so I'm bumping it to 3:1; adjust according to your taste. Some recipes add garlic, sriracha, olive oil, or other flavors, but keeping it minimal makes it more versatile.  Some recipes melt the butter then whip in the miso over an ice bath, but that's needlessly fussy; this just takes a little planning ahead to soften the butter. You can use whatever style of Miso you prefer; we used a white miso for this because it's what we had from a local Asian market.

The photos show us using a mini food processor but I've switched to using a whisk attachment on a stick blender as it's easier. We have a little mini food processor attachment for our stick blender and it works well for this quantity. If you have a large processor, you'll probably need to scale up the recipe. If you have neither, a single beater on an electric mixer would probably work too.  If you're trapped on a desert island, you could just smear it together with a fork once the Miso and Butter are soft enough.

150 g Butter
 50 g Miso Paste

Cut the butter into cubes directly into the bowl of a mini food processor while measuring.
Likewise, measure the Miso into the same processor bowl.
Let the butter soften for 30 minutes or more at room temperature so it's easy to mix.
Whiz it, whiz it good, scooping down occasionally until it's uniform and smooth.
Store in a covered container, or wrap in parchment into a log shape, then refrigerate.

This amount only lasted a week in our house!

This firms up rather solid in the fridge; we may try adding a bit of Olive Oil so it's more spreadable.

Saffron Ice Cream: no churn

My favorite ice cream is saffron but here in Barcelona, I don't have my old churn. I'm basing this recipe on Leite's Culinaria no-churn vanilla ice cream, converting to metric, then scaling to match the common size of Cream we find here.

Saffron ice cream in cones, with sweet Moscatell dessert wine

This turned out well, though it was not as fluffy as my churned version. It was a little firm, so I'll let it soften a bit in the refrigerator before scooping. It was intensely saffron-y, probably because I can get good quality saffron here at reasonable prices. The Sweetened Condensed Milk gave it a slight caramel flavor which I'd like to reduce, but backing it out it would reduce the sugar which would make it even more firm.

0.2 g    1/8 tsp    Saffron Threads (1/2 of a 0.4 g jar)

 15 ml     1 Tbs    Brandy (or Rum)

200 ml   2/3 C      Heavy Cream, chilled

200 ml   2/3 C      Whole Milk, chilled

340 g     12 oz     Sweetened Condensed Milk

  1 pinch  1 pinch  Salt

Crush and infuse Saffron threads in Brandy for 30 minutes or longer.

Whip the Cream until small to medium peaks form, about 8 minutes.

In a separate bowl, combine Milk, Condensed Milk, Salt.

Mix in the infused Saffron Brandy.

Gently whisk in the Whipped Cream into the Milk Mixture.

Pour into a loaf pan or other container; I used a 500g plastic sorbet tub with tight-fitting lid.

Cover with plastic wrap or lid and freeze until fully set, at least 4 hours.

Serve directly from the freezer, or if it's too firm, let warm up a bit in the fridge until it's scoop-able. 

Butifarra con Garbanzos: Pork Sausage with Chickpeas

Butifarra (pork sausage) is omnipresent here in Barcelona, and we're using the basic mild form rather than negre/morcilla (blood), ous (egg), or other forms. Chickpeas are also super popular, like the many forms of beans and legumes. We've got plenty of both on hand, so wanted a dinner that combines these, not necessarily together in a stew, but as complements. 

I'm taking ideas from José Andrés "Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America": Moorish-style chickpea and spinach stew, and Butifarra amb Mongets del Ganxet "Daniel Patrick Moynihan" (so "inside the Beltway"!); and Penelope Casas "¡Delicioso! The Regional Cooking of Spain" recipe Espinacas con Garbanzos a la Sevillana. Chickpeas combine synergistically with spinach: earthy, rich, and much more tasty than it sounds; it's a classic dish here, and there are many variants, including ones with bacalao around the holidays.

Irene cooked up a mountain of dried chickpeas in the Instant Pot: it makes fast work of the beans, so I'm using her pre-cooked beans and some of the left over cooking liquid here. 

Serves 2

 35 ml     Olive Oil (2 Tbs)
  2        Butifarra (225 g total)

  3 clove  Garlic

250 g      Chickpeas, cooked
 80 ml     Chickpea cooking water

  1 slice  White Bread, 1 cm thick, crust removed
  1 Tbs    Sweet Pimentón
  1 Tbs    Spanish Sherry Vinegar
250 g      Spinach, chopped
  1 g      Cumin, ground (1/2 tsp)

  1 g      Rosemary, fresh, minced (or 0.5 g dried)
to taste   Salt
to taste   White Pepper

Sauté Garlic and Butifarra in Olive Oil; when the Garlic is lightly browned, about 3 minutes, remove and reserve; continue the Butifarra until cooked, 8-10 minutes total; reserve.

Brown the Bread on both sides, a couple minutes each; remove.
Let the pan cool then add the Pimentón, then Sherry Vinegar to prevent Pimentón from burning; remove pan from heat.
Smash the Garlic and toasted Bread in a mortar to make a thick paste.

Add the Chickpeas, Chickpea cooking liquid, and Spinach to the pan and simmer to lightly cook the Spinach, about 5 minutes.
Add the Garlic/Bread paste, it should be a thick stewy sauce.

Season to taste with Salt and Pepper

Add more Chickpea Liquid if it's getting too dry.

Reduce heat to low; place the cooked Sausage next to the stew to warm it through and let the flavors combine, 5-10 more minutes.

Plate the Sausage then ladle the Chickpeas stew next to it.

Salsa Crujiente de Chile: Spanish "chili crisp" sauce

We made a variation of Laoganma’s Chinese Chili Crisp sauce in Arlington, guided by Serious Eats (watch the video): it was excellent -- intense, rich, crunchy, very fiery, and had the "Málà" numbing affect from the Szechuan chilis. Now that we're living in Barcelona, I wanted to make a variation using local flavors: tasty chilis that aren't so hot, garlic (of course!), pimenton, olive oil, etc. I'm taking inspiration from that recipe, plus The Kitchn's (which references Chinese ingredients by proper names), and this Guide to Herbs and Spices in Spain. 

This turned out well: plenty of crunch, rich flavors, and mild enough you can put it on anything; I could just pile it onto plain rice or couscous and eat it for dinner. 

The chilis, olive oil, and almonds here are obvious Spanish substitutions; the ginger and fennel are more in line with the original, and should be amicable flavors. I have no intention to be authentic, only zesty and crunchy! 

Served on fried egg on top of boniato (sweet potato)

After deseeding and grinding the chilis, it's easier to measure the other mostly-dry ingredients directly into the bowl, rather than using a dozen mis-en-place dishes. A mandolin will speed slicing the Shallots, Fennel, and Garlic thinly and consistently. After slicing the Shallots and starting them frying, you can prep the Fennel, then Garlic while the previous one fries.

Makes about 500 ml

 25 g      Chili Choriceros

 25 g      Chili Ñora/Nyora

0.5 g      Chili Cayenne (Pimienta Cayena, 30-50K Scoville)[5 small]

 25 g      Almonds, sliced (use good quality)

 15 g      Ginger, fresh, sliced into thin match sticks

  1 g      Anise seed

  6 g      Dried mushroom powder (grind dried mushrooms into powder)

 10 g      Sugar

 15 g      Coarse Salt

  1 g      Black Pepper

 12 g      Pimenton

  8 g      White Sesame Seeds

  1 g      Rosemary, minced

  1 whole  Orange Zest, chopped fine or coarse grate

1/2 stick  Cinnamon, whole [1 g]

  1 whole  Bay Leaf, whole

300 g      Olive Oil (doesn't need to be extra virgin)

100 g      Shallots, sliced 1mm thick

100 g      Fennel, sliced 1 mm thick

 50 g      Garlic, sliced 1 mm thick [8 clove]

Mise en place isn't necessary

Deseed the Chilis by slitting and shaking out seeds (gloves are a good idea here); discard the seeds.

Grind the chilis in a spice grinder (in batches) until about 2-4 mm chili-flake sized, not a powder.

Place in heatproof bowl large enough to accommodate boiling oil, at least 2 Liter.

Add the other (mostly dry) spices and herbs: Almonds, Ginger, Anise Seeds, Mushroom Powder, Sugar, Salt, Black Pepper, Pimenton, Sesame Seeds, Rosemary, Orange Zest, Cinnamon, and Bay Leaves.

De-seeded chilis, herbs, spices wait for hot oil

Now for the crunchy bits!

Make sure the Shallots, Fennel, and Garlic are fried until fully crisp to remove all water; they should crisp up once they are removed from the oil for a minute.

Set a fine-mesh strainer over a 1 L heatproof bowl.

Add Olive Oil to a 2 L saucepan.

Add Shallots and cook over high heat until they are light golden brown, about 15 minutes; strain and retain; return oil to pot.

Add Fennel and repeat the process; it may take a bit longer to remove the water from the Fennel.

Add Garlic, cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly until barely golden brown; strain, retain, return oil to pot. 

Reserve the crunchy fried Shallots, Fennel, and Garlic.

Heat the flavored Oil to 190C (375F).

Pour into the large heat-proof bowl containing the Chilis, spices, herbs and other seasonings; it will bubble up ferociously!

Stir well so the hot oil cooks everything evenly. 

If you think everything isn't quite browned enough, you can put it back on the fire (a metal bowl can go directly on an induction burner) but be careful not to burn things. 

Let cool about 30 minutes.

Remove the Cinnamon stick and Bay Leaf. 

Mix in fried Shallots, Fennel, and Garlic.

Pour into jars and store in fridge; it should last at least 3 months.

Served on plain white rice, makes for a zesty side dish

2024-08-26 Tweaks

I've tweaked this over time, removing duplicative lemon, etc.

Today I've doubled the Rosemary to 2 grams, bumped the Almonds from 25 to 30 g, and added 75 g of Leek (sliced by hand, they were too soft for the mandolin). I had to bump up the Oil from 300 to 350g.

Fideuà all’Assassina con Albondigas: crunchy culture clash

I first heard about spaghetti all’Assassina in Cooks Illustrated (pay wall, try a "reader view" plugin) and  New York Times and others describe it well. The pasta is cooked in the manner of risotto then is finished in a way that provides an interesting a crusty texture. We loved the intensity (no water to dilute the pasta flavor) and crunch.

I thought it would be fun to make a Catalan-oriented mutation. Fideuá is kinda like a paella but made with short pasta strands: I wanted to use these for my crunchy texture, so I added a step of browning the fideuà noodles in oil.  I used a simple tomato sauce to hydrate, and decided to add meatballs to make it really inauthentic -- in a fun Italian-American way; "albondigas" are Catalan meatballs, typically served as a tapa by themselves, not on pasta. :-)

This was easy to make, and kinda fun. Irene makes our meatballs and albondigas, but the first time we made this we used ones pork+beef ones our grocery store sells pre-madeeef ones, and they were fine. The measures are approximate, use onions and garlic in the sauce as you like. 

Serves 2 for dinner.

  2 cloves Garlic, minced

125 g Meatballs, small
xxx g Onion, diced
125 g Fideuà noodles (mine were quite thin)
500 g Tomatoes, canned, with their sauce
      Spicy Chili peppers
      Olive Oil

Saute the Onions and Garlic in some Olive Oil.

Whiz the canned Tomato and its Juice until smooth; add Chili peppers, Onions and Garlic, and whiz again.
Add to a pot and warm the sauce.

Add Oil to a skillet and brown the Meatballs on all sides, continue until cooked through; add to the sauce to keep them warm.

To crust the pasta, I strongly suggest a non-stick skillet, as the sauce's acidity can damage the patina of carbon steel and possible a well-seasoned cast iron pan.
Add some Olive Oil to a non-stick pan on medium, add the Fideuà, and stir occasionally to brown through a bit.

Add the sauce, a bit at a time -- like risotto -- until it's absorbed; continue until the pasta is mostly cooked through. Leave the meatballs in until serving time.

Now it gets interesting: Turn up the heat, and when you hear a sizzle, use a spatulu to flip over the pasta to the hot skillet to create a crust; don't be timid here, press it down a bit to get good contact. When it's developed the crunch, flip again. Continue until you've got lots of crusty bits -- it's the best part. 

Combine with cooked Meatballs and serve.

Tuna cooked 46 C with Squid Ink Mayonnaise

I had a squid ink mayonnaise at Cercle restaurant and thought it could be a versatile sauce. Our grocery store sometimes has big thick tuna steaks so we got one, but wanted to cook it to barely done since there's no fat to keep it from drying out. I adopted the time, temp, and technique for tuna from Serious Eats, and the squid ink mayo from James Beard. Unlike 1990's seared raw tuna, this has a cooked texture that won't scare your auntie, but it's tender in a way that normal cooking cannot achieve. It was easy to put together and worked well enough we'd do it again.

Squid ink mayo under and over tuna, with endive

Tuna

       Salt

400 g  Tuna steak, 3-4 cm thick

 15 ml Olive Oil

Trim the skin off the tuna steak and dust generously with Salt, then put in a zip-top bag.

Let it hang out to dry cure for 30 minutes, then add the Olive oil.

Lower the bag in a sous vide bath set to 46C/115F and let the water pressure push out the air, then zip it shut; don't use a vacuum sealer as it will crush the fish and ooze out the oil.

Cook sous vide 45 minutes.

Squid Ink Mayo

Meanwhile, make the ink mayo. I get my squid ink form Bon Preu grocery store, it's 0.69€ for four little packets, and one is enough to flavor and color this.

  1   Egg Yolk

  4 g Squid Ink (1 packet)

      Juice of 1/2 Lemon

1/2 C Olive Oil

      Salt

Use an electric whisk to blitz the Egg Yolk, Squid Ink, then half of the Lemon Juice, saving some juice to adjust later.

With the whisk running, very slowly drizzle in the Olive Oil; it should emulsify into a classic mayonnaise consistency.

Taste and add Salt and more Lemon Juice if needed; I liked mine pretty bright so added all the juice.

Assembly

Dry the Tuna and get a plancha very hot, then film with oil; sear the Tuna for about 30 seconds per side -- you don't want to cook it any more.

Slice the tuna, it should be a cooked texture, but still a bit pink in the center.

Paint a plate with the Ink Mayo: I used a pastry brush but a fork might be more dramatic.

Fan the Tuna slices on the ink, dollop more on top as needed.

I served with pan braised endive. 

You can use any excess ink mayo on pasta, spread on bread/toast as a pintxo base, or a scary potato salad.

Next Time...

I'd cook the Tuna just a little lower to preserve more pink, maybe 45C.

My plancha didn't give a good sear, so I'd use carbon steel or cast iron.

A fork or squeeze bottle would probably make a more dramatic visual presentation.

Puerco Tonnato sous vide

We made a Vitello Tonnato, cooking the beef sous vide, and it turned out well but wasn't quite the right cut. While searching for other cuts, we found a pork tenderloin that looked like a great shape. While unconventional, it turned out well and is worth repeating. Nothing in this recipe requires precision except the sous vide temperature: it resulted in a beautiful pink texture while being cooked through.

Garnished with red bell, capers

The Pork came in a cryovac bag (wet cured) had only a little "meat diaper" in the bag, which is food-safe, so we cooked it right in its bag. The Tonnato sauce was basically a home made mayonnaise with intense flavors folded in. We used a mixture of oils from some smoked salmon and anchovies packed in oil, but you can use a mix of olive oil and lighter vegetable oil to prevent it being too heavy.

This amount seemed at first to be too much for a two person dinner, but we polished it off: we were ravenous after our 10 Km (6 mile) walk from Montjuïc Castle back to our apartment.

500 g  Pork Tenderloin, in its cryovac bag
  1    Egg Yolk, room temperature
 15 ml Lemon Juice
  5 ml Dijon Mustard
       Oil (olive and sunflower)
 20 g  Capers
  2    Anchovies, salt-packed
104 g  Tuna packed in olive oil, with its oil (2 small cans)

Cook the Pork in its bag at 58C (136F) for 2 hours; this is low enough to keep it pink, and long enough to heat through the 5cm thickness of the cylindrical meat.

Put the bagged pork in an ice bath in the fridge to drop temperature; once chilled, you can leave it like this until you're ready to prep and serve.

Remove Pork, wipe dry, wrap in film, and freeze for an hour to make it easier to slice cleanly.

Sear in a ripping hot cast iron pan filmed with some oil and salt, and hit the top with a Searzall torch if you've got one.

Remove and slice thinly.

Let return to room temperature.

Kullenschliff knife made for clean slices

Whisk Egg Yolk and Lemon Juice with a stick blender and whisk; whisk in Mustard.

While whisking, drizzle in the oil until you have a thick Mayonnaise -- don't make it too thin.

Combine Capers, Anchovies, and Tuna and its oil, and whiz with a in a mini-food processor to a mush.

Fold the zesty, salty mush into the mayonnaise.

We plated out red endives, topped with the Tonatto sauce, then added the Pork, and garnished with thinly sliced red bell peppers and caper berries. 

White wine worked fine with this

What Worked, Improvements for Next Time...

The Pork could have been more firm for even slices, but it was tender enough that it sliced cleanly with my good kullenschliff knife.

If we didn't have pre-bagged pork, I would salt it before bagging and cooking -- our unseasoned pork really benefitted from the hit of salt. 

The Tonatto sauce pooled on the plate; next time, lay out the endive base and pork, use a squirt bottle to dress the pork with the sauce, so it's more attractive and evenly applied; then garnish as you like.

My garnishes still appear a bit heavy, perhaps a finer dice would be more appealing.

Some grilled bread would go really well with this, and provide a balancing starch.

Seaweed Pasta #2 with dried wakame

I made pasta with fresh seaweed recently, but it wasn't a success: the wet seaweed reduced the structure of the pasta too much. This time I tried dried seaweed, like Maria Finn posted in 2014: it worked quite well, though the flavor wasn't as dramatic as I'd hoped -- something to amp up next time. The sauce we improvised was really tasty and also worth repeating.

Seaweed pasta with anchovy butter sauce, with stuffed squid

This makes enough for two dinners for two people as a substantial side. We froze half of the pasta so we can make a quick dinner later. 

100 g Flour

100 g Semolina Flour

  2   Eggs (103 g without shells)

 20 g Wakame dried Seaweed

I pulverized the Dried Wakame in a coffee/spice grinder and passed it through a sieve because I didn't want large chunks to absorb water and interfere with the structure of the pasta; it gave me about 3 Tbs of powder.

The pasta is made fairly conventionally: whisk Flours, add pulverized Wakame, make a well, then whisk in eggs. 

When it gets too stiff, knead on a counter to bring it all together. 
I had to add a few drops of water to make it workable and collect all the flour. 
Wrap in film and refrigerate a couple hours or overnight to hydrate.

It turned out pretty stiff and I didn't need to add flour to run it through the Atlas pasta roller/cutter; it was a little too dry and threatened to crack, but worked well enough. 

Dust the rolled sheets and cut into fettuccini, let rest on cloth while assembling a sauce.

I wanted to feature the fishiness so I made a simple but rich sauce, but you could use anything you like; this amount was enough for the half-portion of pasta made above.

 25 g Anchovies from a jar, minced

 55 g Butter, softened

  7 g Parsley, minced

1/4   Preserved Lemon (home made), minced

Use a fork to mush the Anchovies with the Butter, Parsley,  and Lemon.

Boil the Pasta until al dente, drain.

Add the Sauce to the hot pot, then the Pasta, and gently toss to coat.

We served this with Squid stuffed with Shrimp that our grocery store made (living in Barcelona has its perks!).

The Pasta texture was great, it never threaten to fall apart like the one with fresh seawead: the Wakame didn't absorb water like I feared.  

I failed to pay attention to its flavor before saucing (sorry!) but the combination with the buttery/fishy sauce was great.

Next time: Amp up the seaweed taste with twice the Wakame; add a bit more of water to make the dough more pliable. Back out the butter just a bit in the sauce, maybe 50 g. Higher quality, more flavorful anchovies would be better, now that we know the sauce works well.

That sauce really is good, it could go on almost anything: baked potatoes, vegetables, fish, even good toast. I hope I can get a pasta with enough seaweed intensity to do it justice! 

Gâteau Basque #2

I made Gâteau Basque once before with an unusual technique that required piping the base and top in a spiral; it was a nuisance but I see Spanish Sabores does it the same way. This time, I want to avoid that fuss and make a more standard pastry top and bottom, like NY Times (paywall) and Serious Eats do; like Serious Eats, I'll fill with both jam and pastry cream; I've got an excess of marmalade so I'll use that instead of traditional black cherry. Here in Barcelona, I don't have my old stand mixer, so I'll make the pastry by hand, as shown in this traditional preparation video which I found on the Fête du Gâteau Basque official site, and also this video with clear quantities and technique. I'm starting from the Serious Eats recipe, including their Pastry Cream.

When I made this, I let the Pastry butter warm up, and was not able to get the sandy texture -- it congealed. But I chilled it and reworked a bit later, and it still turned out well.  My cake pan has a 20 cm (8 inch) interior with 4 cm steep sides, and 24 cm across at the top. The quantities of Pastry and fillings below worked well for this. The Almond "flour" is actually very finely ground almonds, not as fine as wheat flour. 

Pastry

250 g      Flour

 50 g      Almond "Flour"

150 g      Sugar

  4 g      Baking Powder [I had only 3.2g]

pinch      Salt

210 g      Butter, unsalted, cold, cut into 1cm cubes

  1 large  Egg (50g [mine was 59 g]), cool

In a large bowl, whisk Flour, Almond Flour, Baking Powder, Salt, and Sugar.

Mix in half the cubed Butter, and rub the butter into the flour; add the rest of the Butter, and continue rubbing in to get a sandy texture; see the video for clear technique.

Add 1 Egg, and again mix by hand, then knead into a smooth ball; it should be soft and sticky.

Divide in two portions, one slightly larger than the other for the bottom; shape into flat disks, wrap each in plastic wrap, and refrigerate 3 hours or overnight.

Pastry Cream

455 g      Whole Milk

           Orange Zest from one Orange (microplane)

115 g      Sugar

 30 g      Cornstarch

pinch      Salt

  4        Egg Yolks (70g)

 30 g      Butter, unsalted, cold, cut into 1cm cubes

2.5 ml     Vanilla Extract (1/2 tsp)

Infuse Orange Zest in Milk by combining in a pot, bring to bare simmer, then cover and steep for 30 minutes. Because this is hot, you'll need to temper the egg mixture.

Make an ice bath to chill the Pastry Cream and set aside.

In heatproof bowl, whisk the Sugar, Cornstarch, Salt; whisk in Egg Yolks until smooth, pale yellow, and fluffy -- about 1 minute.

My Infused Milk threatened to separate so I blitzed with a stick blender.
Slowly whisk the warm Infused Milk into the Egg mixture to temper it.

Return to sauce pan, cook over medium heat while whisking continuously until it begins to thicken (at 80C), about 5 minutes. 

Continue whisking, pausing every few seconds to check for bubbles; when they appear, set a timer and whisk continuously for 1 minute; this neutralizes starch-dissolving egg proteins.

Off heat, whisk in butter until melted and thoroughly combined.

Strain through fine sieve into heat proof bowl; I skipped this as I want the fine zest in my filling.

Put film directly on surface to prevent skinning, and transfer to an ice bath  to chill 30 minutes, then refrigerate until cold, about 2 hours or overnight.

Whisk in the Almond (Vanilla) Extract.

Whisking eggs into sugar

Assembly, Baking

200 g      Marmalade, room temperate to ease spreading

  1 large  Egg (50g) for wash

 15 ml     Milk for wash

Preheat oven to 180C (350F).

Grease 20 cm (8 inch) cake pan with butter and hold in refrigerator.

Whisk the Pastry Cream with an electric whisk, egg beaters, or regular whisk to fluff it up.

Remove dough disks from fridge; you'll need to let them warm up for 15-30 minutes so you can roll out the dough.

Spread film or parchment on a counter, then place the larger dough disk it, and cover with film or parchment; roll it out to 28 cm -- enough to cover bottom and sides of cake pan. 

Store covered in film/parchment in fridge while you work on the next one.

Repeat rolling out the smaller disk for the top, rolling to 24 cm between film/parchment; store in fridge.

Remove the larger disk and transfer to greased cake pan, gently pressing into corners, and running it up the sides.

Add Marmalade and smooth out.

Add Pastry Cream and spread evenly on top of the jam.

Remove smaller disk from fridge and transfer to cake pan to cover the filling.

My filling did not come up to the top of the pan, so I pressed the edges of the top to the bottom where it ran up the sides, then folded it over to the center to seal.

Whisk 1 Egg with the 15 ml Milk and brush top.

Use tines of fork to create a traditional diagonal crosshatch pattern.

Use a knife to cut a few small air vents along the crosshatch lines.

Bake 45 minutes at 180C (350F) until cake is puffed and deep golden brown

Let cool completely, about 2 hours.

Loosen edges with a knife, invert, then invert again onto serving platter.

Slice and serve.

Marmalade on bottom, left side; lots of pastry cream on top, crumbly cake-y top

Next Time...

I'll use cold butter for the pastry, as I've corrected in the instructions above.

The bottom is a little wet; can I warm up the jam and spread it on top of the pastry cream?