Savarin, Rum babas and Parmesan Grissini

Well after the success of my last post and being retweeted by Richard Bertinet I thought I probably couldn't leave so much of a gap in between posts as I did last time. I'm cheating slightly as I'm skipping ahead a week with the recipes from my course because I seem to have miss placed week 2. Once I've retrieved them on Wednesday I can get back in order and everything will be right with the world again. 

So if I recall correctly (this was in october 2012 so bear with me) week 3 was continuing on with all things yeasty. Savarins and Babas are both made with the same enriched dough containing yeast, eggs and lots of lovely butter. They are then proved, piped, baked and soaked with a syrup. You can decorate with whipped cream or fruit though I'm not sure I got that far looking at my photos. The only tricky thing about the savarin is that you'll need to get a special savarin ring but you can pick them up easily in most homeware shops. For the babas you can use a normal individual pudding basin or anything mini as long as you can turn it out easily. The grissini recipe is from a chef called Giorgio Locatelli and it makes the most amazing breadsticks. If you fancy making some bread but want to do something a bit different then make these. Seriously, they are so good and actually pretty quick and easy for a bread recipe. If you have friends coming for drinks then this is the recipe to impress them with. Also with all that salt they will be drinking a lot more which will make any party a hell of a lot more fun. Not that I think you might need help in making your parties fun..... oh jeez. 

Savarin/Baba Dough

300g strong flour
20g yeast
6g salt
100g milk at roughly 37 degrees (body temp)
3-4 eggs
the zest of 1 lemon
5g barley malt extract
30g sugar

125g melted butter

• Preheat the oven to 220C/fan 200C/gas 7
• Disperse the yeast in the milk but be careful not to have the milk too hot or it will kill the yeast. Place the flour, sugar, salt and malt in to a bowl and mix. 
• Slowly mix in the yeasty milk and then incorporate the eggs.
• Pour the melted butter over the top and just allow it to sit like that while the batter proves. 
• Leave in a warm place for about 20 minutes or until the mixture starts to bubble. 
• Add in the lemon zest and stir in with the butter that's been sitting on top. 
• Fill a piping bag with the mixture and pipe in to the savarin ring and baba molds so they are about half full.
• Leave to prove for another 20 minutes or until the mixture is three quarters up the side.
• Bake for 15 minutes or until well risen and golden. Whilst they bake make a syrup up of 3 parts water to 2 parts sugar and add lemon peel, orange peel, coriander seeds, cinnamon stick and a bay leaf. Heat up and then leave to cool a bit. 
• Once the savarin/baba have baked then turn them out and while still warm soak with the syrup. The most effective way to do this is pour some syrup in the mould and place the savarin/baba back in to soak it up. They will need a lot more soaking than you would think so don't be afraid of over soaking. Brush of the tops of the babas with rum to give them their name.
• Once cooled you can pipe whipped cream on top and place any fruit of your choosing. 

Giorgio Locatelli's Parmesan Grissini

(makes about 25)

50g unsalted butter
200g whole milk
10g fresh yeast
375g strong white bread flour, or Italian “00” flour
3 generous tbsp grated parmesan
10g fine salt

• Preheat the oven to 230
• Melt the butter in a pan, add the milk and heat gently till it is warm to the touch, then whisk in the yeast.
• Put the flour, Parmesan, and salt in a bowl, then add a little of the milk mixture at a time, mixing it well and kneading it.
• Turn the dough on to a clean work surface, and dimple it with a method called “colomba”
• Spread the dough out into a rough rectangle by pressing down with the tips of your fingers (like you would for a foccia), stretching and dimpling the dough at the same time, to create pockets of air that can be trapped. Fold the top third down to the center and dimple it lightly again, then fold up the bottom third over the top and dimple again, then turn the dough 45 degrees and repeat the process.
• Cover with a damp tea towel and leave for 30 min.
• Repeat the dimpling process, cover again, and leave for another 30 min
• Cut the dough in half lengthways, flour your work surface and roll each piece out into a big rectangle. At this point you can sprinkle with a little rock salt and cracked black pepper. 
• Cut the dough across it’s width into strips about 1 cm wide.
• Roll each strip with your fingertips, starting at the center and moving outwards, stretching the dough slightly as you go. Press each end lightly with your thumb to make an “ear” shape, lay on a non-stick baking sheet, and leave to rest for 10 min.
• Turn the oven down to 180c, and bake for 10-15 min until crisp and lightly golden. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack. 

The great food blog revival

So where do I begin? This food blog was once my little passion on the side where I could write about the foods that excited me or share a new recipe with my rather small but much appreciated group of readers. It has shamefully been neglected and left to gather virtual dust with no posts in over a year. I have however somehow managed to reach over 1200 views which seems slightly bizarre to me when considering my blog writing absence. Well this all changes here. Since I last wrote on here many things have changed and I have a lot more exciting food related topics to talk about. I have left Starbucks, I'm working as a chef and I'm on a patisserie course which I finish in June. Thanks to Facebook I have a nice little collection of photos and posts in chronological order of the tasty bakes I have been producing on my course. So I thought it would be fun (when I say fun I obviously mean incredibly boring for any normal person) if I start my blog again from the beginning of my new course, a fresh start and all that jazz. Hopefully you will get a little insight into the joys of being a patisserie chef and learn a few things along the way.

It all began in September after a very last minute and quick admission on to the course. I mean literally, I was signed up the week before term started so with a mad panic I ordered chef whites, a neck scarf and skull cap (really) and my dough scraper. When it came to my first day I was a bag of nerves but off I went on the train with my backpack full of uniform and knives. Really it wasn't so bad in the end, the people were lovely if a little intimidating and the actual lessons were really fun (once again fun has its second meaning.) My course, which is every Wednesday, soon became the highlight of my week and continues to be.

In the first week we started with a basic bread recipe. We were taught the method used by Richard Bertinet, a French baker who has a lot of skill in his field. He goes back to basics and argues that you simply need four ingredients to make fantastic bread; Flour, yeast, water, salt. That's it. He also has a rather interesting way of working the dough which you can see along with the whole bread making process here. Even if you're not really interested in the kneading its worth a watch just purely for his sexy french accent.

With the basic white dough recipe we made some poppy seed rolls and some olive, herb and parmesan sticks. We also made some rock salt and rosemary focaccia with a basic olive oil dough. Lets just say I'm not the best baker, I'm more of a pastry kind of girl but I was quite happy with the results. The rolls were a little chewy but I think I just needed a bit more practice, the focaccia however was delicious and went down a storm. Here are the recipes so you can give them a go!

Basic White Dough

Ingredients

500g (1lb 2oz) strong bread flour
350ml (12 fl oz) water
10g (1 heaped tsp) yeast (fresh if possible) 
or 5g (½ level tsp) dry
10g (1 level tsp) sea salt

• Preheat oven to its highest level.
• Rub the yeast into the flour (or mix in if using dried yeast). Add the remaining ingredients and the water. Mix for a couple of minutes until the dough starts to form.
• Transfer the dough onto your working surface. Continue to mix the ingredients by stretching out the dough and folding it over onto itself.
• Keep working the dough until it comes cleanly away from the work surface and is not sticky.
• Lightly flour the work surface, place the dough on the flour and form the dough into a ball.
• Place the dough into a mixing bowl and cover with a tea towel.
• Rest the dough for a minimum of an hour. Turn out gently onto a well-floured surface. Be careful not to deflate it but expect it to spread out to cover a square of your work surface. Generously flour the top of the dough, cover with a clean tea towel and rest for five minutes.
• Once rested you can cut with your dough scraper and shape in to rolls. Place on a baking tray and leave to prove before you place them in the oven. Then bake for 10-15 mins until golden brown. 

I'm a cheater but I'm using a link to the recipe for the olive, herb and parmesan sticks

And lastly,

Rock salt and Rosemary Focaccia

Ingredients

500g strong bread flour
20g coarse semolina
15g yeast (fresh if possible) – same amount if dry
10g salt
50g olive oil
320g (320ml) water
4tbsp olive oil plus a little extra
A few springs of fresh rosemary – dried works well too though
Rock salt

Preheat the oven to 250C. Mix the bread flour and semolina together and rub in the yeast, using your fingertips as if making a crumble. Add the salt, olive oil and water, then mix the ingredients using your hands or a scraper to bring the dry up into the wet.
Lift out the dough onto your work surface. Do NOT flour or oil the surface – it may look sticky, but it will all come together. Knead the dough for 10-15 minutes, as per the demonstration in the video. Put the dough into a floured bowl and leave to prove for an hour in a warm place, until it has roughly doubled in size.
Turn the dough onto an oiled tray. Drizzle the oil over the dough, then, using your fingers, push and prod the dough so it spreads from the centre towards the edge of the tray. Cover with a tea towel and leave to rest somewhere warm for 45 minutes.
Prod again, dimpling it with your fingertips, and rest for a further 30 minutes.
Take the leaves off the sprigs of rosemary and push them evenly into the dough. Sprinkle on the rock salt and immediately put into the preheated oven. Turn down the heat to 220C and bake for 25-30 minutes, until it is light golden brown.
Cool on a wire rack. Brush with a little more olive oil while still hot.