Modern Baker Challenge: Bittersweet chocolate tart

Oh no. I didn't think it was possible, but this one is even better than the previous ones.

Here I am at my fifth sweet tart in the Modern Baker Challenge: bittersweet chocolate tart. This one calls for the press-in cookie dough crust; I remembered really struggling with that one when I made the Parisian fruit tart, so I subbed in the sweet tart dough. I rolled this out and put it into my mini tart pans, which I baked for about 15 minutes.

The filling is a ganache made by combining cream and light corn syrup, bringing them to a boil, combining them with unsalted butter, and then combining the whole mixture with melted bittersweet chocolate (I used 70%). The filling is poured into the crust and then refrigerated until it sets. I made 1/3 of a recipe...knowing the crust was a little thick, I really piled it on, although I still had a tiny bit leftover (this was delicious plain, incidentally!).

I made this one while I was working on the bourbon pecan tart, which worked out well because there's a lot of waiting in this one: waiting for things to boil or melt or cool. It's an easy recipe...just need to make sure you have time for the waiting.

NM says that it's best unadorned, but oh man, it was amazing with a little leftover sweetened whipped cream!!

Modern Baker Challenge: Bourbon-scented pecan-walnut tart

Danger! Danger! We are entering the next chapter in the Modern Baker Challenge: sweet tarts and pies. I have already made three recipes from this section, all of which were amazingly good: chocolate orange hazelnut tart, Parisian fruit tart, and Maida's Big Apple Pie.

Knowing this will be a dangerous section for us, I am following Kayte's lead; she recently purchased a 6" tart pan and has been baking mini tarts, which has allowed her to make many more recipes. For my birthday, I received a set of 4" mini tart pans, so I'm planning to make two mini tarts for each recipe, hoping that this will allow us to sample more recipes without gaining 5,000,000 pounds. =)

Yesterday afternoon, I whipped up a batch of the sweet tart dough: flour, sugar, baking powder, unsalted butter, eggs, and salt. It came together perfectly, and I set it to rest in the fridge. I figured that one recipe of tart dough (409 g) would break down into 6 mini tarts (136 g for each recipe; 68 g for each mini tart).

Last night, I was all ready to make us tarts for dessert, but hubby and I simply could not agree which one we should start with. And then it got too late, and we had to settle for ice cream. I did use the rest of my evening wisely, though, and divided all of the filling recipes into thirds so that I could make two mini-tarts of any of them at a moment's notice.

Tonight, I made two: bourbon-scented pecan and bittersweet chocolate, the first for tonight and the second for tomorrow. Failing to make a mis en place (as usual), I didn't realize that I was short pecans until I was measuring them to stir them into the syrup, so I added walnut pieces, too. This tart started with a syrup of dark corn syrup, sugar, and unsalted butter, which was whipped into a mix of egg, salt, and bourbon. The nuts are mixed in, the mixture is poured into the crusts, and then they are set to bake; my minis took about 22 minutes, until the tops were puffed, set, and had popped bubbles on the top.

Unsurprisingly, this tart was amazing. Even hubby, who claims to not like nuts in desserts, couldn't stop raving. Of course these are going on the make-again list.

Truly perfect pita bread with curried chicken salad

I have a favorite curry chicken salad that I make pretty frequently in the summer. Hubby and I both love it. But it requires pita bread, and I often find that the stuff from the supermarket is dry and tough. I tried making my own, and it didn't go very well. The dough was sticky, the process was challenging, the flavor was so-so, and the texture was similar to the store-bought bread.

I asked on Twitter for great pita recipes, and Joanna immediately responded that I should check out Dan Lepard's recipe.

Happy day, this recipe truly made perfect pita bread. I mixed the dough one evening, subbing in white whole wheat flour for the plain flour that was called for. The mixing and kneading process was easy; the dough was a dream. I let it rise in the fridge overnight. The next afternoon when I was ready to prepare supper, I divided and rolled the dough. Again, it was so easy. These pitas were gorgeous and delicious, the perfect vehicle for my favorite chicken salad. In the past, we've always had to slather mayo on the pita (in addition to the mayo in the chicken salad) to make the bread palatable...completely unnecessary with this soft pillowy pita. The kiddos didn't like the chicken salad, but the little girl ate two pitas with butter and the little guy ate his with salami and mayo.

Easy and delicious...this will be my go-to pita recipe from now on!

Perfect pita bread
adapted from Dan Lepard

300 g bread flour
200 g white whole wheat flour
3 g instant yeast
12 g superfine sugar
5 g table salt
17 g safflower oil
325 g warm water (about 85 F)

1. Mix the flours, yeast, and sugar in a bowl. Add the oil and the water to make a soft, sticky dough.
2. Cover the bowl and let rest for 10 minutes.
3. Knead the dough on an oiled counter for 10 seconds, until smooth.
4. Cover and let rest for 10 minutes; knead for 10 seconds; rest for 10 minutes; knead for 10 seconds.
5. Cover the bowl and let rest for at least 30 minutes, or put it in the fridge overnight.
6. Heat the oven to between 480 F and 500 F (I heated mine to 490 F). Once preheated, place a baking sheet in the oven to heat up.
7. Divide the dough into 100 g pieces (I ended up with 9 pitas), shape them into balls, and let them rest for 15 minutes.
8. Roll the dough balls into circles about 6 inches in diameter (about 1/2 cm thick). If they resist and bounce back, let them rest for a couple of minutes and then try again.
9. Bake the pitas 2 or 3 at a time for 4 or 5 minutes until they've colored slightly and puffed up. (DL says to remove the tray from the oven, but I found this unnecessary. I just opened the oven, pulled the tray out slightly and tossed a few pitas onto it...easy!)
10. Remove the pitas from the oven with tongs and keep them under a cloth until ready to eat.

Curried chicken salad
adapted from Cooking Light

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 tsp grated orange rind
1 tbsp fresh orange juice
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp minced ginger
2 - 2 1/2 cups skinless roasted chicken, diced (I used half of a supermarket roast chicken)
1 cup seedless green grapes, cut in half
1/4 c dried apricots, diced
4 green onions, thinly sliced (a little more than 1/4 cup)
1/4 cup cashews, chopped
1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
several large lettuce leaves (I used romaine)
4 - 6 pita breads

1. Combine mayo, orange rind, orange juice, curry powder, and ginger in a small bowl; whisk until smooth.
2. Combine chicken, grapes, apricots, green onions, cashews, and parsley in a large bowl.
3. Pour sauce over the top and stir to combine.
4. Serve in pita bread with large lettuce leaves.

Rainbow ice cream

Homemade ice cream and I have had a tumultuous relationship.

Several years ago, I got curious about the process of making homemade ice cream. I seemed to remember that my dad and stepmom had an ice cream maker that they'd received for a wedding gift years ago, so I inquired...sure enough, they did! They'd never used it and were happy to give it to us. Hubby and I made ice cream once. I was pregnant and craving the kind of fresh strawberry ice cream that tastes just like fresh, perfect strawberries drowned in rich whipped cream. I made the egg custard and for whatever reason, the look and smell of the egg/milk mixture just turned my stomach. Apparently the ice cream tasted pretty good; I wouldn't know. I made my husband leave the room if he was going to eat any, and even seeing the metal canister was enough to send my stomach into a tailspin. The ice cream maker went to the basement for a few years.

Last summer, we tried it again, thinking it would be a fun activity to do with the kids. We made ice cream maybe twice...it was fun, it was fine, it was kind of a hectic pain in the butt. We were running between smashing up ice cubes, adding more layers of ice and salt to the outside of the bucket, trying to keep the kids' fingers out of the moving parts. Fun, but not something you'd want to do very often.

Fast forward to this year. Some of my Twitter buddies routinely tweet about whipping up a batch of ice cream just because they feel like it. I just couldn't understand how. Finally, I asked, "What am I missing? How can you make ice cream that frequently and that easily?" And they directed me to this style of ice cream maker...one where you don't have to worry about the ice or the salt or the mess; you just have to stick a canister into the freezer for 24 hours prior to churning.

Now, I am not one to make frivolous purchases, but when I saw that I could get this ice cream maker for the cost of a dinner out, I just had to have it. We love ice cream; hubby and I (shhh, don't tell the kids!) have a little bowl almost every night after the little ones go to sleep.

I let the kids browse about 25 recipes....they picked rainbow vanilla ice cream, which we saw on Di's blog. I followed Di's recipe as written, except that we added the m&ms in the last five minutes of mixing instead of layering them in after churning. This created a pink ice cream, which delighted my little girl to no end.

So easy. So fun. No mess. And the ice cream was rich, creamy, vanilla-y deliciousness. The little guy (the one who doesn't like any of my homemade sandwich bread) didn't eat his...go figure...I truly do not understand. But the hubby, the little girl, and I loved this more than any ice cream ever, going back for seconds and "just one more spoonful" and licking the bowl clean.

What happens when you don't take your time with sourdough

It's my student teacher's last week of full-time teaching, and I thought I'd use this non-stressful time to get a little ahead with my April Mellow Bakers breads. For my first one, I picked the pain au levain: a nice, simple sourdough loaf. Our fearless leader Paul suggested making all three variations (pain au levain, pain au levain with whole wheat, and pain au levain with two different pre-ferments). I fully intended to just pick one, knowing that this time of the year is not conducive to comparison posts for me...have to save that for the summer when school's out.

But when I looked at the pain au levain and the one with whole wheat, they were so similar, I figured it would be easy enough to make them side by side. I decided to make a whole batch of the starter (which was exactly the same for both versions) and then half batches of the rest of the recipe so I'd get one loaf of each. Easy!

I mixed up the various flours and the water in two different bowls and then let them sit for their autolyse. And when I went to add the starter to the first bowl (the basic pain au levain), I realized that I'd somehow only made a half-batch of stiff starter. Argh! So I decided to go back to my initial plan and just make one loaf.

Now, I could end the post there with the nice picture above of my perfect little boule..........but April Fools! That wouldn't be nearly as honest or as funny, and you wouldn't learn nearly as much from my mistakes. So instead, I present you with the truth: this is what happens when you don't take your time with sourdough:

Where did it all go wrong? Let me count the ways. First of all, I didn't let Austin (my starter) get bubbly enough before I mixed it into the stiff starter. But I think that ended up being okay, because I just let the stiff starter sit out for a few extra hours.

But those extra hours threw the rest of my bread-baking plans off. I ended up having to mix up the dough while making dinner. And then the two strech-and-folds were off a little due to bath and bedtime. And by the time I finally shaped the bread and but it into the banneton, it was getting late. So I didn't spend time preshaping and shaping. I just formed a rough boule and dumped it into the banneton. The book said to let it do its final rise for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, and I knew it would probably need even more time than that in my cool house. But I was soooo tired and it was late and I needed to wake up early for work. So after a measley 1 1/2 hours, when clearly it wasn't even close to ready yet, I threw the bread into the oven.

So, no surprise, but lesson learned and reaffirmed: see above for what happens when you don't give a sourdough the time it wants and needs. (Happily, it did still taste yummy...soft crumb and delicate sour flavor. Worked beautifully as a vehicle, albeit a holey one, for my lunch sandwich today.)

Twitter chef avatar fun: Jacques Pepin's ricotta dumplings

Our next Twitter chef was chosen by Di; I was really excited to see that she picked Jacques Pepin. Hubby and I have spent many hours watching his Fast Food My Way show on PBS, although I've never actually made a Pepin recipe.

Tonight we needed a quick meal, so I whipped up his ricotta dumplings with red pepper sauce. I got the recipe here, although you can also find it here or (a slightly adapted version) here.

The sauce was made by simmering a cut up red pepper with a cut up tomato in water. These are then run through a food mill to get rid of the seeds and skins. Salt, freshly ground pepper, and corn starch are stirred in, and finally butter and olive oil are added. I think the sauce should've been much thicker, and if we weren't in a rush to eat and get the kids to bed, I might have spent more time getting it to thicken.

The dumplings were also easy: ricotta, Parmesan, salt, pepper, an egg, and some flour were whirred in the food processor for ten seconds. Then I stirred in some chives. I dropped the dumplings into a big pot of simmering water for ten minutes. When the dumplings were finished, I drizzled some sauce over the top, and served them with left-over chicken, salad, and some berries.

Hubby thought this dish was quite yummy; he said they were like a fancy hors d'oeuvres you might get at a wedding. I didn't love them; I just didn't think they had a very strong flavor. I'm hoping I can get to some other Jacques Pepin recipes this month!

Bake! empanadas

As I mentioned in my last post, Marthe chose empanadas for this week's Bake! Twitterbake.

We opted to try the chicken variation. The filling (picadillo) was made from potatoes, onion, red pepper, garlic, chicken thighs, cumin, tomato puree, salt, water, white vinegar, green olives, and chipotle chili powder. (I skipped the capers.) It was time consuming, but not difficult to make.

The puff pastry was easy to use. I rolled it out, chilled it, and cut it into eight circles. Dropped the filling in the center (I used about a 1/4 cup), crimped it together, and baked them for about 30 minutes.

My hubby loved them and the baby girl ate all the filling. I thought they were pretty good, although I think I prefer our normal pasty recipe (from Cook's Country, made with leftover pot roast). Mostly, I was just impressed by how perfectly flaky, layered, and buttery my puff pastry was! I think I'll use it to make pasties next time.

Oh, and with the leftover scraps, I rolled them out in sugar and then tried the corkscrew shaping method that Nick Malgieri demonstrated on Martha Stewart. We liked them as much (more?) than the elephant ears yesterday, and I'm a little worried...they are so delicious and so quick to make, I'm afraid they might appear here frequently!