The flavor of Fernet reminded me of licorice, and that made me think of a Chocolate Fernet gelato I made. So why not Licorice ice cream? I'd never seen it, but the interwebs say it exists and there are recipes like this one from Epicurious.
I used licorice by Wiley Wallaby, as it seemed less like synthetic candy than Twizzlers. I also got some Pontefract Cakes from the UK which are more intense and less sweet, so I'll try that next. I've got some Brewers Licorice which I'd also like to try but need to understand how much to dilute it, as it's definitely not a candy: "will burn your mouth... wear gloves"!
Here's our first take on licorice ice cream; sorry, no pictures this time.
140 g 5 oz Licorice
360 ml 1 1/2 C Milk
360 ml 1 1/2 C Heavy Cream
175 g 3/4 C Sugar
pinch Salt
4 4 Egg Yolks
2.5 ml 1/2 tsp Vanilla
Melt the Licorice in the Milk, slowly, stirring frequently; I got impatient and blitzed it with an immersion blender.
The licorice contains flour so it thickened the Milk quite a bit.
The licorice dye turns the Milk a ghastly gray-green color somewhere between camo and radically overcooked peas; if you have it, a few drops of Black Food Coloring would help.
Add Cream, Sugar, Salt, Vanilla and heat to dissolve.
Adjust heat to under 82C/180F -- higher than 85C/185F will curdle the Eggs.
Whisk the Egg Yolks.
Temper the Yolks by adding some of the hot liquid to them while whisking, then add this back to the hot Cream mixture.
Heat to 82-85C, 180-185F so the Yolks will thicken the Cream.
Pour into a container; it has a disturbingly gelatinous texture, like wallpaper paste, but should be fine once churned. The taste is good, like very sweet licorice; serving cold should balance out the sugar.
Cool overnight.
Process in an ice cream churn, put in a container and freeze overnight.
The thickness caused our churn to really struggle, but the finished texture came out fine.
Taste was good, not as intense as I'd like, but definitely a decent and slightly unusual dessert with an uncommon flavor profile.
2020-05-29
Pizza Dough for a Crowd
We built a clay pizza oven in the back yard; it gets hot enough for Neapolitan pizza which by law needs to be 430-480C (800-900F), and results in beautiful pillowy crusts. Since it needs a lot of wood and a couple hours heating time, we need a large crowd to justify firing it up.
This recipe makes enough for 12 140g pizzas, which is about enough for 6 sedentary adults, or 4 hungry younger folks. The volume pretty much maxes out my Kitchenaid stand mixer. The international regulations specify a hydration percent between 55.5 and 62.5%, but I tend to go a bit higher, 66-70% hydration; here, I'll go with 66%, as wetter dough more difficult for inexperienced pizza makers to handle.
It's worth finding the proper pizza flour from Italy: the 00 grind is very fine and makes for a better result. We have found it at a very good price at a restaurant supply store, and at Literi's Italian market, and also bought it from a Neapolitan-certified pizza restaurant. It comes in 55-pound bags. Caputo is a fairly common brand, and it has 12.5% protein.
1000 g Italian 00 Pizza Flour (2.2 pounds)
660 g Water (2 3/4 C)
30 g Kosher Salt (2 1/2 Tbs)
5 g Yeast (2 tsp)
Knead 10 minutes.
Place in covered 2L container.
Let rise in the fridge 1-3 days.
The day of the pizza fest, pull the dough out about two hours before eating time and let warm up.
Divide into 12 pieces and roll into tight balls.
Let rise a while, covered; we do this in an inverted under-bed box.
Shape, put on cornmeal-dusted peel, sauce and top, then fire: they should be done in couple minutes if the oven is hot enough.
This recipe makes enough for 12 140g pizzas, which is about enough for 6 sedentary adults, or 4 hungry younger folks. The volume pretty much maxes out my Kitchenaid stand mixer. The international regulations specify a hydration percent between 55.5 and 62.5%, but I tend to go a bit higher, 66-70% hydration; here, I'll go with 66%, as wetter dough more difficult for inexperienced pizza makers to handle.
 |
| Before: 6 buckets each wit about 1.7Kg dough |
 |
| After: 6 buckets risen to about 3L each |
It's worth finding the proper pizza flour from Italy: the 00 grind is very fine and makes for a better result. We have found it at a very good price at a restaurant supply store, and at Literi's Italian market, and also bought it from a Neapolitan-certified pizza restaurant. It comes in 55-pound bags. Caputo is a fairly common brand, and it has 12.5% protein.
 |
| About 55 pounds of 00 pizza flour |
1000 g Italian 00 Pizza Flour (2.2 pounds)
660 g Water (2 3/4 C)
30 g Kosher Salt (2 1/2 Tbs)
5 g Yeast (2 tsp)
Knead 10 minutes.
Place in covered 2L container.
Let rise in the fridge 1-3 days.
The day of the pizza fest, pull the dough out about two hours before eating time and let warm up.
Divide into 12 pieces and roll into tight balls.
Let rise a while, covered; we do this in an inverted under-bed box.
Shape, put on cornmeal-dusted peel, sauce and top, then fire: they should be done in couple minutes if the oven is hot enough.
 |
| Pizza just put in the oven |
2020-05-18
Mallmann's Mustard Lamb
Lusty flavors and a a deep char give this a great taste on the BBQ; quick and easy. Adapted from Francis Mallmann's "Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way". Serves 2.
16 oz 450 g Lamb Leg
Salt
Pepper
1/4 cup 60 ml Dijon Mustard
1/4 cup handful Fresh Oregano, fresh (omit if you only have dried)
1 1 Lemon
Oil
Cut one or two inch-thick slices from the Lamb, across the grain; if you end up cutting more small pieces, that's fine.
Remove any obvious gristle and excess fat.
Cover with cling film and pound flat to an even 1/2 inch thickness.
Season both sides generously with Salt and Pepper.
Brush both sides evenly with Mustard.
Press chopped Oregano onto one side only, and press a thin Lemon slice on each piece.
On the BBQ, get a cast iron griddle or pan ripping hot.
Drizzle with oil and when smoking, slap on the Lamb, Lemon/Oregano-side down.
It will smoke a lot.
Let cook undisturbed until the Lemon and Oregano are charred (you'll have to peek carefully).
Flip and finish cooking to your desired internal temperature, about 135F is good: it should retain a bit of pink.
Serve with a rich Malbec, and vegetables grilled on the griddle.
16 oz 450 g Lamb Leg
Salt
Pepper
1/4 cup 60 ml Dijon Mustard
1/4 cup handful Fresh Oregano, fresh (omit if you only have dried)
1 1 Lemon
Oil
Cut one or two inch-thick slices from the Lamb, across the grain; if you end up cutting more small pieces, that's fine.
Remove any obvious gristle and excess fat.
Cover with cling film and pound flat to an even 1/2 inch thickness.
Season both sides generously with Salt and Pepper.
Brush both sides evenly with Mustard.
Press chopped Oregano onto one side only, and press a thin Lemon slice on each piece.
On the BBQ, get a cast iron griddle or pan ripping hot.
Drizzle with oil and when smoking, slap on the Lamb, Lemon/Oregano-side down.
It will smoke a lot.
Let cook undisturbed until the Lemon and Oregano are charred (you'll have to peek carefully).
Flip and finish cooking to your desired internal temperature, about 135F is good: it should retain a bit of pink.
Serve with a rich Malbec, and vegetables grilled on the griddle.
2020-05-16
Banana Bread
This is tasty, easy, and adaptable -- you can use a mixer, food processor or do everything by hand. From The Kitchn. This makes two loaf pans, with 4 to 6 very ripe bananas.
1 C 100 g Walnuts (optional)
16 Tbs 230 g Butter, softened
2 C 450 g Sugar
4 4 Eggs
2 t 10 ml Vanilla
2 tsp 8 g Baking Soda (Baking Powder works too)
1/2 C 120 ml Milk
4-6 550 g Banana, chopped or mashed
4 C 625 g Flour
Preheat oven to 325F/165C convection or 350F/175C regular.
Line 2 loaf pans with parchment to make a sling and mist with cooking oil spray.
Chop the walnuts (you can do this with a pulse or two if you're using a food processor); toast until fragrant.
Cream the Butter with Sugar in the food processor, or just melt Butter and combine with Sugar.
Whiz or mix in Eggs, Vanilla, Baking Soda.
Chop or mash the banana: a pastry cutter or potato masher work well; don't use a food processor as it makes them too wet.
In a large bowl, combine the sugar-butter-egg mix with Milk, Banana, Flour, and stir to combine; don't over-work, it's OK if a little flour isn't incorporated thoroughly.
Pour into lined bread pans, shiggle to even out the thick batter a bit.
Bake for about 60 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.
Pull out with paper slings and let cool on rack.
1 C 100 g Walnuts (optional)
16 Tbs 230 g Butter, softened
2 C 450 g Sugar
4 4 Eggs
2 t 10 ml Vanilla
2 tsp 8 g Baking Soda (Baking Powder works too)
1/2 C 120 ml Milk
4-6 550 g Banana, chopped or mashed
4 C 625 g Flour
Preheat oven to 325F/165C convection or 350F/175C regular.
Line 2 loaf pans with parchment to make a sling and mist with cooking oil spray.
Chop the walnuts (you can do this with a pulse or two if you're using a food processor); toast until fragrant.
Cream the Butter with Sugar in the food processor, or just melt Butter and combine with Sugar.
Whiz or mix in Eggs, Vanilla, Baking Soda.
Chop or mash the banana: a pastry cutter or potato masher work well; don't use a food processor as it makes them too wet.
In a large bowl, combine the sugar-butter-egg mix with Milk, Banana, Flour, and stir to combine; don't over-work, it's OK if a little flour isn't incorporated thoroughly.
Pour into lined bread pans, shiggle to even out the thick batter a bit.
Bake for about 60 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.
Pull out with paper slings and let cool on rack.
2020-05-10
Gâteau Basque #1
This was a terrible recipe, but a tasty result. The technique was fussy and involved a piping bag to place the pastry bottom and top -- that's actually what attracted me. In the middle is an orange aromatic pastry cream, it's really quite luxurious. It's funny to me there is an entire festival about this dish, so it seemed important to try it.
I'm re-writing the recipe to use metric consistently, and order the ingredients the way you need to use them. For my 8-inch tart pan, I needed a little more Cake mix to cover, but it baked up adequately. There appear to be two variations, one with pastry cream, the other with Black Cherries, but here I used the cream and sour cherries which worked nicely. But really, next time, I'll use a more traditional and proper-bakers' recipe: the pastry is rolled normally and the cream is piped in, not the other way around!
Pastry Cream
300 ml Milk, whole
1 Orange, Zest
1 whole Egg
1 Egg Yolk
240 g Flour, all purpose
15 g Corn Starch
60 g Sugar
5 ml Vanilla extract
I'm re-writing the recipe to use metric consistently, and order the ingredients the way you need to use them. For my 8-inch tart pan, I needed a little more Cake mix to cover, but it baked up adequately. There appear to be two variations, one with pastry cream, the other with Black Cherries, but here I used the cream and sour cherries which worked nicely. But really, next time, I'll use a more traditional and proper-bakers' recipe: the pastry is rolled normally and the cream is piped in, not the other way around!
Pastry Cream
300 ml Milk, whole
1 Orange, Zest
1 whole Egg
1 Egg Yolk
240 g Flour, all purpose
15 g Corn Starch
60 g Sugar
5 ml Vanilla extract
? ?? Sour Cherries
Cake
240 g Flour, all purpose
1 tsp Baking Powder
160 g Butter
160 g Sugar
2 whole Eggs
Glaze
1 Egg Yolk
60 ml Milk
Simmer Milk and Orange Zest to flavor the Milk.
In separate bowl, mix Egg, Egg Yolk, Flour, Corn Starch, Sugar and Vanilla to form a paste.
Add hot Milk mixture to mixing bowl, quickly stir to combine but not cook the eggs.
Return to saucepan, whisk over medium heat until it thickens to a pastry cream or custard texture, with out curdling the eggs.
Strain through fine sieve, cover, and chill in fridge.
Butter and dust with flour an 18 cm / 7 inch cake tin; I used an 8-inch tart pan which was just a bit too large diameter, but it worked.
Mix Flour and Baking Powder in a bowl.
In a large bowl or stand mixer, beat Butter with Sugar until smooth and creamy.
Beat in Eggs, one at a time.
Gradually add the Flour and Baking Powder and continue mixing; this is too dense for a cheap hand mixer.
Transfer into a piping bag, and pipe a spiral onto the bottom off the pie tin.
Pipe a line up the side to create an edge.
Fill the center with the cooled Pastry Cream and smooth.
Cake
240 g Flour, all purpose
1 tsp Baking Powder
160 g Butter
160 g Sugar
2 whole Eggs
Glaze
1 Egg Yolk
60 ml Milk
Simmer Milk and Orange Zest to flavor the Milk.
In separate bowl, mix Egg, Egg Yolk, Flour, Corn Starch, Sugar and Vanilla to form a paste.
Add hot Milk mixture to mixing bowl, quickly stir to combine but not cook the eggs.
Return to saucepan, whisk over medium heat until it thickens to a pastry cream or custard texture, with out curdling the eggs.
Strain through fine sieve, cover, and chill in fridge.
Butter and dust with flour an 18 cm / 7 inch cake tin; I used an 8-inch tart pan which was just a bit too large diameter, but it worked.
Mix Flour and Baking Powder in a bowl.
In a large bowl or stand mixer, beat Butter with Sugar until smooth and creamy.
Beat in Eggs, one at a time.
Gradually add the Flour and Baking Powder and continue mixing; this is too dense for a cheap hand mixer.
Transfer into a piping bag, and pipe a spiral onto the bottom off the pie tin.
Pipe a line up the side to create an edge.
Fill the center with the cooled Pastry Cream and smooth.
Add the Sour Cherries.
Pipe the top using the same spiral technique; I didn't have quite enough to cover.
Chill while you preheat the oven to 180C / 350F.
Whisk the Egg Yolk and Milk and paint the Glaze on the top of the pie;
use the tines of a fork to carve a slight diagonal stripe pattern in the top.
Bake 45 minutes until dark golden; it will rise quite a bit.
Cool.
Pipe the top using the same spiral technique; I didn't have quite enough to cover.
Chill while you preheat the oven to 180C / 350F.
Whisk the Egg Yolk and Milk and paint the Glaze on the top of the pie;
use the tines of a fork to carve a slight diagonal stripe pattern in the top.
Bake 45 minutes until dark golden; it will rise quite a bit.
Cool.
Julia Child's Pastry Dough: Pate Brisée
Irene's adaptation from Julia Child´s "The Way to Cook", using the food processor, converted to metric. Makes 2 9-inch crusts (our Pyrex pie dish says 23 cm). Julia uses 1 tsp Salt and 2 Tbs Sugar for sweet pies but Irene uses salt only so extra dough can be frozen and used for savory pies later.
210 g 1 1/2 C All Purpose Flour
70 g 1/2 C Cake Flour
6 g 1 tsp Kosher Salt
170 g 6 oz Butter, chilled, cut into chunks
56 g 2 oz Lard or more Butter
120 ml 1/2 C Ice Water
Whiz Flours, Salt, Fats in food processor.
While running, drizzle in Water.
Form into ball on counter, dusting with flour if needed.
Wrap in cling film and chill for 2 hours.
210 g 1 1/2 C All Purpose Flour
70 g 1/2 C Cake Flour
6 g 1 tsp Kosher Salt
170 g 6 oz Butter, chilled, cut into chunks
56 g 2 oz Lard or more Butter
120 ml 1/2 C Ice Water
Whiz Flours, Salt, Fats in food processor.
While running, drizzle in Water.
Form into ball on counter, dusting with flour if needed.
Wrap in cling film and chill for 2 hours.
2020-05-09
Hot Dog Tamales for Cinco de Mayo
The world did not need this, but it seemed fun, worked well and they tasted pretty good! We had to scale up the recipe from Serious Eats due to my misreading of masa dough for masa flour, but the amount of dough was just right for a package of hot dogs from Costco (in a taste test, we preferred the snap and flavor of Costco's to the name brand). They're typically made with lard, but we also had some flavorful veal fat so we used a mixture.
Steam about an hour.
450 g 3 3/4 C Masa Harina flour
600 ml 2 1/2 C Veal Stock or other stock for hydration
280 g 10 oz wt Lard and Veal Fat
12 g 2 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
15 g 1 Tbs Kosher Salt
300 ml 1 1/4 C Stock
Mix the Masa Harina flour in the large quantity of Stock; let rest 15 minuts to hydrate.
Whip Lard, Salt and Baking powder for a minute until fluffy; if your fat is soft, as our Veal fat was, it won't fluff as much as harder Pork Lard.
Beat in 1/4 of the hydrated Masa at a time, until it's all used.
Add the final Stock and whip: it should be the texture of hummus, cover and rest 1 hour.
Hydrate at least twice as many corn husks as you have hot dogs.
Spread a portion of dough on each husk, put a halved dog on and wrap; fold up the bottom and tie to seal.
Serve with condiments like avocado, cortido, and salsa.
Pan De Mic(he): bread for a pandemic
The pandemic lock-down has us cooking more than normal, but we've been making our own bread for years, some sandwich bread and some rustic round loaves or "miche" style. Many folks are picking up baking, and it's gotten hard to find flour and yeast now, so I figured I'd try propagating the yeast from a previous batch for this one; this is a pâte fermentée (old dough). The use of a pre-ferment is commonly done, with firmer or wetter starters, factory or wild yeast, salt or unsalted: biga, poolish, barm, etc. I'm going to start simply with old dough: maybe later I'll try it with a purpose-made pre-ferment or a wild yeast sourdough starter.
I reserved 100 g from my last pizza dough, an Italian 00 flour base with 70% hydration and about 2% salt (bakers percent). I froze it for a couple weeks, and it revived happily when brought to room temperature. I'll use this as my starter, instead of adding yeast, and save some of this batch to start the next. This keeps the math and procedure easy, since I don't have to worry about different hydrations in the pre-ferment versus the final dough: both are 70% and contain salt.
This time, I'll try something else new for me: give the flour and water a mix and overnight rest to allow the enzymes to break down some starches, which should improve flavor; keep the salt out of this rest so it doesn't inhibit the enzymatic reaction.
We've got some Whole Wheat flour that needs attention, so I'll add some of that into the mix for flavor. I use my usual high-hydration, low-knead, long rise technique. Here goes!
100 g Pre-fermented Dough, 70% hydration, salted, frozen
800 g All Purpose Flour (King Arthur, 11.7% protein)
200 g White Whole Wheat Flour (King Arthur, 13% protein)
700 g Water
20 g Salt, Kosher
Bring the fermented dough saved from a previous batch out of the freezer and put in the fridge to thaw.
Mix the Flours and Water, cover and let sit at room temperature overnight to let the enzymes break down starches to sugars; you can just leave this sitting in your mixer's bowl for convenience.
The next day, add the Salt to the rested Flour and Water.
Cut the saved, fermented dough into bits and mix into the bowl with Flour, Water and Salt.
Mix to combine well: I use a Kitchen Aid with dough hook, but use a minimal knead.
Put into a plastic bucket with lid and leave at room temperature to let the pre-fermented dough activate.
Once it's risen a bit, put in the fridge to rise (ferment) until doubled for one to three days. The longer and slower the rise, the more flavor will be extracted from the flour.
Take the dough out of the fridge a few hours before you plan to bake, to allow it to warm to room temperature.
Reserve 100 g of this actively fermenting dough in a tub for the next batch! Put in in the fridge if you'll bake again soon, or the freezer if more than a few days.
Divide remaining dough into two balls and shape -- as a miche, boule, baguette, whatever you like; cover and let rise.
I'm going to make a miche in a "cloche", because the intense heat and trapped moisture give a good rise and crust with little effort.
I find it convenient to rise the shaped rounds on parchment in a mixing bowl, so I can use the paper as a sling to transfer them into the hot pots.
Pre-heat the oven to 500F with a pair of heavy lidded pots; I use a Le Creuset Dutch Oven and a clay Rummertopf.
When the bread's risen, carefully remove the pots from the oven, remove the lids, and transfer the dough on their parchment slings into the pots; replace the lid and put back in the oven.
Bake for about 30 minutes; the hot environment and trapped moisture will give a good oven spring.
Remove the lids, and bake another 30 minutes at 400F so the center bakes through.
Remove pots, transfer bread to cooling racks.
Enjoy the sound of the crust cracking as it cools.
I reserved 100 g from my last pizza dough, an Italian 00 flour base with 70% hydration and about 2% salt (bakers percent). I froze it for a couple weeks, and it revived happily when brought to room temperature. I'll use this as my starter, instead of adding yeast, and save some of this batch to start the next. This keeps the math and procedure easy, since I don't have to worry about different hydrations in the pre-ferment versus the final dough: both are 70% and contain salt.
This time, I'll try something else new for me: give the flour and water a mix and overnight rest to allow the enzymes to break down some starches, which should improve flavor; keep the salt out of this rest so it doesn't inhibit the enzymatic reaction.
We've got some Whole Wheat flour that needs attention, so I'll add some of that into the mix for flavor. I use my usual high-hydration, low-knead, long rise technique. Here goes!
100 g Pre-fermented Dough, 70% hydration, salted, frozen
800 g All Purpose Flour (King Arthur, 11.7% protein)
200 g White Whole Wheat Flour (King Arthur, 13% protein)
700 g Water
20 g Salt, Kosher
Bring the fermented dough saved from a previous batch out of the freezer and put in the fridge to thaw.
Mix the Flours and Water, cover and let sit at room temperature overnight to let the enzymes break down starches to sugars; you can just leave this sitting in your mixer's bowl for convenience.
The next day, add the Salt to the rested Flour and Water.
Cut the saved, fermented dough into bits and mix into the bowl with Flour, Water and Salt.
Mix to combine well: I use a Kitchen Aid with dough hook, but use a minimal knead.
Put into a plastic bucket with lid and leave at room temperature to let the pre-fermented dough activate.
Once it's risen a bit, put in the fridge to rise (ferment) until doubled for one to three days. The longer and slower the rise, the more flavor will be extracted from the flour.
Take the dough out of the fridge a few hours before you plan to bake, to allow it to warm to room temperature.
Reserve 100 g of this actively fermenting dough in a tub for the next batch! Put in in the fridge if you'll bake again soon, or the freezer if more than a few days.
Divide remaining dough into two balls and shape -- as a miche, boule, baguette, whatever you like; cover and let rise.
I'm going to make a miche in a "cloche", because the intense heat and trapped moisture give a good rise and crust with little effort.
I find it convenient to rise the shaped rounds on parchment in a mixing bowl, so I can use the paper as a sling to transfer them into the hot pots.
Pre-heat the oven to 500F with a pair of heavy lidded pots; I use a Le Creuset Dutch Oven and a clay Rummertopf.
When the bread's risen, carefully remove the pots from the oven, remove the lids, and transfer the dough on their parchment slings into the pots; replace the lid and put back in the oven.
Bake for about 30 minutes; the hot environment and trapped moisture will give a good oven spring.
Remove the lids, and bake another 30 minutes at 400F so the center bakes through.
Remove pots, transfer bread to cooling racks.
Enjoy the sound of the crust cracking as it cools.
Results: disappointing, yeast exhausted?
The pre-ferment revived nicely, rising in its tub, and the bread rose well, initially, but after a punch-down and redistribute, it failed to rise much in the final rise. The only reason I can imagine this happened is that the dough had over-risen, and when punched-down, there wasn't enough food left for the yeast to eat and rise again.
This resulted in rather flat loaves. The short stature was also abetted by splitting the dough into two cloches so they spread rather than rose; I should have put the entire batch into one cloche for more loft.
I'll try this again, but will try to watch my timing so that the pre-ferment is very active, and I don't over-rise the dough; maybe don't bother with a punch-down, just shape and rise for the cloche.
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