Antwerp: Moroccan Breads

I picked up the Man at Paris Airport and we drove straight to Belgium to visit with his parents. On Sunday morning we went for a stroll to the Vogelmarkt (a big outdoor market in the center of Antwerp) where numerous Moroccan vendors were hawking their goods, including luscious preserved lemons...

...shopping baskets...

...and breads.

I bought the above whole-wheat loaf and chatted with the young vendor for a while. But I soon discovered that while he knew quite a lot about spices, he was pretty short on information regarding his bread. When I asked what ingredients had gone into the loaf, he hesitated, scratched his head for a minute and said tentatively: "Hmm, ... flour?"

Europain 2010

Europain 2010 - which can be described as an international bread fair or bread festival - took place the week I was in Paris. Since I was very busy with my Mom, I couldn't attend any of the events but I did sneak in one afternoon with a friend. We tasted a lot of different breads (including some from mixes which were amazingly good) and I couldn't resist taking a few pictures:

Made by the French candidate to the Masters of boulangerie


Cheese made out of bread to illustrate a particular region of France




Corn bread


Rye bread (on the right)

A Parisian Bakery: Le Quartier du pain

Here I am back in Paris visiting with my Mom. The wind is icy under a limpid sky and as I wrap her in soft woolens before stepping out (shawl, blanket, scarf, hat, gloves and mittens), I remember snowy winters long ago when she helped me bundle up my toddlers, neither of us suspecting that one day I'd be doing the same for her.
Growing older makes it much easier to distinguish patterns and cycles and I like to think this increased awareness imparts greater wisdom but I find it bittersweet too: my Mom no longer remembers helping me with the kids...

She likes to go check on the Eiffel Tower - which was built in 1889, the year her father was born. So that's what we do: we start our tour by paying our respect to the Iron Lady (the Awful Tower as one of my grandsons, then 5, thought it was called) and then we patrol the streets. I hunt for bakeries. She doesn't mind: as often as not she likes what she sees in the window display and we decide to go in and buy a tart or an éclair for her afternoon snack. Even though she is less and less interested in the actual act of eating, she enjoys holding on to the delicate paper dome that houses her pastry and actually looks forward to having a bite later.

Today our walk takes us to Le Quartier du pain, 74, rue Saint-Charles in the 15th arrondissement. The bakery is owned by Frédéric Lalos, a master baker who won the title of Meilleur ouvrier de France, aka MOF (Best Artisan in France) in the bakery category at age 26. I own his book, Le Pain, l'envers du décor (a French-English edition) (although I haven't baked from it yet).

I had been curious to taste Lalos' bread ever since I heard a friend of mine, who is passionate about baking (she is in her second year of baking school in Paris), rave about it. So we went in. I bought a pavé au levain and a longuet as well as two small tarts: pistacchio-cherry and chocolate.

The longuet (currently the bread of the month) is fermented with a wheat- and dried buckwheat (sarrasin séché)- levain. It is crisp, airy, fragrant and rustic, utterly delicious, a true "signature bread".

By contrast, the pavé au levain is a bit bland for my taste. Delicate and unassuming with no hint of acidity, probably the perfect foil to a subtle dish, it wouldn't be my first choice but then, you know me, I don't really look for shy in a bread...

Many more breads are on display and I would love to take a picture of them all but only one photograph is allowed inside. We will have to come back...

It will be a pleasure. Le Quartier du pain is one of these blessed bakeries where the customer peeking beyond the shelves can actually see the mixing, the shaping and the baking. Also it features something which is a first for me, i.e. a machine with a big slot into which the customer inserts coins for payment. Change is automatically dispensed. Since most people use coins to pay for their baguettes, I suspect that, hygiene-wise, this is a big step-up and I like the fact that it matters so much to Lalos that he went to the trouble.

Ever wondered how come bread dries out...

...after being reheated in the microwave? Well, wonder no more. Andrew Ross, Associate Professor in both the Crop & Soil Science and the Food Science Departments at Oregon State University, has an explanation: it's a chemistry thing!
Check out his article and you'll see that the main culprits may be tiny starch granules that actually boil over in the microwave, only to crystallize superfast when cooling.

Jim Lahey's No-Knead Peanut Bread

I am not a huge fan of commercial yeast. First of all, I don't particularly care for the flavor, then I often find the crust way too thin for my taste (although I love deliciously crisp and tasty poolish-based baguettes such as the one I once tasted in North Carolina at Lionel Vatinet's La Farm Bakery) and finally I am convinced that levain breads are nutritionally more wholesome (see Professor Robert Low's article on the health benefits of levain).
So, coming to the Bay Area for a 3-week stay (which somehow morphed into 4-week one), I brought with me a dry nugget of my levain à la Gérard, which I diluted it in lukewarm water upon arrival and mixed the day after with some wheat, spelt and rye flours. After playing dead for 24 hours, it came back to life with a vengeance and I was able to bake with it only 24 hours after its resurrection.
However, since I didn't have access to a mill, I had to used store-bought whole grain flours and the taste was just not the same. Let's put it that way: knowing and loving what this levain can do, it was hard to settle for less. So after a while, I told myself "Oh, well! Forget about it, at least I tried. There are so many good bakeries in the Bay Area that I'll just go and buy bread every day. Let me dump the levain (gasp!) and save myself the chore of feeding it twice a day." And so I did...
But I failed to take into account the fact that the urge to bake has an irresistible grip on me. I just love making bread, I have it in my blood, I can't stop doing it. So, suddenly bereft of levain (a novel kind of experience for me since, back home, I am always swimming in a surplus of the wild beasties), I cast around for alternatives and stumbled upon Jim Lahey's My Bread - The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method. I decided to give it a try.
The book is esthetically very pleasing. The photography, by Squire Fox, is gorgeous and the recipes are very clearly presented. So far I have only tried two of them, the Olive Bread and the Peanut Bread. Both were completely hassle-free. I would say these are the easiest breads I ever made, much simpler actually than the ones to be found in Kneadlessly Simple.
The proportions given for water and flour work beautifully. The dough comes together like a charm and after one single fold, it looks strong enough to shape.

No-Knead Olive Bread

I didn't particularly care for the above Olive Bread. The recipe calls for 3 g of instant yeast for 400 g of flour and somehow the flavor and smell of yeast came out too strongly for my taste. I forgot to shoot the crumb and the bread disappeared so fast (I guess my kids liked it better than I did) that by the time I remembered to take a picture, it was too late. There was nothing special about it anyway.

No-Knead Peanut Bread

Now the No-Knead Peanut Bread is good (it uses 1 g of yeast for 300 g of flour). Its greatest advantage (and I suspect that it is the case with most of the recipes in the book) is that it is truly no-hassle, provided one is willing to wait 24-hours between the mixing and the eating.
If one doesn't have an overwhelming preference for levain breads or other breads made with a preferment (aroma-wise, I don't think the 18-hour slow fermentation of the whole dough offers a valid substitute, at least in this case) or if there is no good bakery in the vicinity (as often happens in vacation areas), then it is a quite handy recipe to have in one's repertoire. It tastes specially good when toasted. Lahey also offers a slightly different peanut butter and jelly version which must be specially popular with the younger set. I'll have to try it on my grandchildren back home.

Ingredients (for 1 loaf):

280 g unbleached all-purpose flour (Lahey specifies "bread flour" but in my experience what bakers often mean by "bread flour" is actually regular all-purpose and, unless there are indications to the contrary, AP flour is always what I use)
20 g whole-wheat flour
4 g table salt
1g instant yeast
260 g water (@ 55 to 65 degrees F/13 to 18 degrees C)
50 g unsalted smooth peanut butter
35 g unsalted dry-roasted peanuts, whole
35 g unsalted dry-roasted peanuts, roughly chopped

Method:
Please note that his bread is made over a 2-day period.

1. In a medium bowl, stir together the flours, salt, and yeast. In a blender, blend the water and peanut butter (some settling will occur if this is left to stand, so blend just before using).
2. Add to the flour mixture and, using a wooden spoon or your hand (I actually used a dough hook, a tool which I find most useful for mixing no-knead doughs)...
   
   
   
   
   
   ...mix until you have a wet, sticky dough without any lumps, about 30 seconds
3. Stir in the whole peanuts until evenly distributed
4. Cover the bowl and let sit at room temperature until the surface is dotted with bubbles and the dough is more than doubled in size, 12 to 18 hours
5. When the first rise is complete (in my case the dough fermented for 24 hours because of a scheduling conflict but it still looked perfectly fine when I took it out of the bowl), generously dust a work surface with flour. Use a bowl scraper or rubber spatula to scrape the dough out of the bowl in one piece
6. Using lightly floured (or wet) hands or a bowl scraper, lift the edges of the dough in towards the center. Nudge and tuck in the edges to make it round
7. Place a tea towel on your work surface. Generously dust with wheat bran or flour. Gently place the dough on the towel, seamside down. Sprinkle the surface of the dough with a light dusting of flour.
   
8. Fold the ends of the teatowel loosely over the dough to cover it and place it in a warm, draft-free spot to rise for 1 to 2 hours. The dough is ready when it is almost doubled. If you gently poke it with your finger, it should hold the impression. If it springs back, let it rise for another 15 minutes
9. Half an hour before the end of the second rise, preheat the oven to 475 degrees F/246 C, with a rack in the lower third, and place a covered 4 1/2 to 5 1/2-quart heavy pot in the center of the rack
10. Using pot holders, carefully remove the preheated pot from the oven and uncover it. Sprinkle half the chopped peanuts into the pot. Unfold the tea towel and quickly but gently invert the dough into the pot, seam side up. (Use caution - the pot will be very hot). Sprinkle the remaining chopped peanuts on top of the dough. Cover the pot and bake for 45 minutes
11. Remove the lid and continue baking until the bread is medium chestnut color, about 10 minutes. Use a heatproof spatula or pot holders to carefully lift the bread out of the pot and place it on a rack to cool thoroughly.

Lahey offers several other appealing recipes, some of which - such as the stirato, a kind of Italian baguette - are not baked in a pot but rather on a baking stone. New Yorkers might want to try the Jones Beach Bread (made with seawater as in prehistoric times). The Carrot Bread -made with freshly squeezed carrot juice, currants and walnuts - looks really good. So does the Apple Bread which uses fresh apples, dried apple slices and freshly squeezed apple juice.
I wouldn't mind trying the Fennel-Raisin Bread which requires caramelized fennel bulbs and Pernod or other anise-flavored liqueur. I probably would like these breads better if they were leavened differently but in a pinch, I would certainly give any of these a shot, especially when they contain flavorful ingredients which might somehow distract from the less complex taste.
It can be (and has been) argued that such books as Lahey's dumb down the bread-baking process so that anyone can believe himself or herself a baker and that there is more to making good bread than mixing flour, water, salt and a pinch of yeast and letting the resulting dough sit 18 hours at room temperature before sticking it in the oven.
Maybe so. I still like the idea that many more people might get hooked into baking by such a book or others like it. Not every home baker needs to be a "serious home baker". More bakers mean more debate and more ideas. It may also mean more people caring about what goes into their bread and, consequently, a wider selection of flours and grains.
More bakers might mean that one day, my local East Coast Costco will finally carry organic all-purpose flour instead of the awful bleached flour it now stocks. And on that day, I will give thanks to whom thanks are due, namely the bakers -well-known or anonymous - who work tirelessly to promote the cause of bread. Like it or not, Jim Lahey is one of them...

Jim Lahey's No-Knead Peanut Bread goes to Susan, from Wild Yeast, for Yeastpotting.

No-Knead Bread

Be sure to check out Better Bread with Less Kneading, a very interesting article by Harold McGee in today's New York Times.

Brioche Tatin

Not everybody is a chocoholic (I know I am not, even though I do enjoy a piece of dark chocolate once in a while) but I don't know anybody who doesn't love caramel and now that I have learned to make it the dry way (check out this post for a description of the method), I plan to make it much more often.
I had two-day-old brioches on hand (that's actually what gave me the idea to make this dessert) but challah would work just as well or even slices of whole-grain pan bread which might have dried out a bit. Pan d'oro would be divine of course, but I can't imagine ever having stale pan d'oro lying around...

Add one or two apples and some sugar and you are all set for a very delicious and very romantic dessert. All things considered, why not say it with apples, this Valentine's Day? I know I will. But then I'll say it with chocolate too. Better be safe than sorry... ;-)

I didn't weigh anything but here is what I used:
2 individual brioches, slightly dried out
1 and a half Golden Delicious apple
1 tbsp of butter (for the pan)
1.5 tbsp of dark brown sugar
6 tsp of granulated sugar

After preheating the oven to 450 F, I peeled and sliced the apples thinly, buttered a 9" tart pan and dusted it with brown sugar before arranging the apple slices in a pinwheel on the bottom, then I set the tart pan in the oven for 10 minutes.
While the apples were starting to bake, I sliced the brioches (not too thick not too thin, about 1 cm is fine) and set a small saucepan with a heavy bottom to heat on the stove. When it started smoking, I threw in one teaspoon of granulated sugar. It melted very fast, so I added a second teaspoonful and swirled the saucepan some. I progressively added the rest of the sugar, swirling constantly, sometimes taking the saucepan off the heat to slow down the coloring.
When I figured I had enough caramel, I stopped, took the pan out of the oven, drizzled the caramel over the apples and arranged the brioche slices over the whole thing. I turned the oven down to 350 F.

The pan went back in the oven for 20 more minutes. When it came out, the brioche was golden and the smell was heavenly.

All that was left to do was to flip the tart over on a plate. It was actually easier to do that I thought it would be because most of the apples remained stuck to the bottom, which made it child's play to take them out with a spatula and arrange them prettily on the waiting brioche slices. Et voilà, a brioche Tatin!

If you like, you can serve it warm with vanilla ice-cream. But you don't have to as it is delicious on its own and at room temperature.
The Brioche Tatin goes to Susan, from Wild Yeast, for Yeastpotting.

Only in Berkeley!

Chocolate Tarts with Salted Caramel

I attended the Focus on Tarts workshop this weekend at the San Francisco Baking Institute and I loved it. I don't normally eat or even like sweets, so the tastings didn't transport me into taste-bud heaven as they occasionally do when the subject is bread, but we made some fantastic looking tarts and I am eager to try my hand at them again for family and friends, maybe starting with this lovely dessert for Valentine's Day.
The tart is made with a "pâte sucrée" (sweet dough) shell in which 20% of the flour has been replaced by cocoa powder (according to Juliette Lelchuk, our most knowledgeable instructor, it is best to use Dutch-processed). Once baked, the shell is filled first with salted caramel, then with chocolate cream ("crémeux") and finally with a glaze.
Juliette demonstrated the dry method of making caramel, which is faster than the wet one and somewhat less involved as you don't have to paint the side of the pan with water to keep the sugar from crystallizing. You do however have to be on standby and swirl the pot vigorously to help the melted and unmelted sugars combine more readily.
The pot is pretty sticky when you get done but it cleans easily if you put it back on the stove and boil some water in it.
The proportions are for 8 to 10 individual tarts and I leave it up to you to adjust them up or down for the number of tarts you actually want to make. Since many of the components will keep for a while refrigerated or frozen, my instinct would be to go for broke and plan for all 10 of them!

Pâte sucrée (Sweet dough)

Ingredients:
140 g all-purpose flour
75 g powdered sugar
35 g cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-processed)
35 g almond meal (optional, makes the dough more tender, can be toasted for a different flavor)
80 g butter, cold
1 g salt
60 g egg yolks, cold from the refrigerator

Method:

1. Sift the dry ingredients and place them in a food processor
2. Cut the butter in small cubes and add to the dry ingredients, using brief pulses to mix until sandy
3. Add the yolks and pulse again briefly just until the dough comes together
4. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap after forming it into a ½-inch thick square and reserve in the refrigerator for a minimum of 4 hours but preferably overnight
5. Roll and divide the dough (it needs to be cold) without going too thin, especially as it is going to blind baked (i.e. baked without a filling), keeping in mind that for each 6" tart, you will need a 8" disk of dough
   
6. Line each mold or circle by first centering the dough over it, then lifting up the sides of the dough and dropping it in. Don't create tension or the dough will shrink. Go in and down all the way around, making sure that the edges and the bottom are at a sharp angle, never stretching. If you see a thin spot, patch it up with a bit of extra dough
   
7. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes to minimize shrinkage during baking
8. Trim the edges, keeping in mind that the dough always shrink a little bit, which means you must work at an angle. Use a small spatula and make a series of small swiping motions (not sawing) with its very edge, working from the inside of the tart towards the outside. If the dough is too soft to be trimmed easily, put it in the freezer for a few minutes before proceeding
   
9. Dock and bake at 350 F/177 C for 15-30 minutes (depending on size and thickness)
   
   



10. Once the shells are baked and cooled down, put them in the fridge or freezer till you are ready to use them.

Chocolate Crémeux

Ingredients:
255 g heavy cream
25 g sugar
115 g 60-65% dark chocolate, chopped (do not use a chocolate with less than 60% cocoa content or a milk chocolate or the crémeux will have too soft of a set and don't go higher either or it will be too bitter)
60 g egg yolks

Method:

1. Bring cream to a boil (or at least a simmer) over medium heat
2. Meanwhile whisk together the sugar and egg yolks without incorporating air
3. Once the cream comes to a boil, pour 1/3 of it into the yolk mixture, whisking constantly. Whisk this mixture back into the pot.
4. Reduce the heat to medium low and continue to cook, stirring constantly with a rubber spatula, to 180 F/82 C (don't go over that or you'll get scrambled eggs)
   
5. Remove from the heat and immediately pour through a fine mesh strainer over the chocolate in a shallow bowl (just in case there are tiny bits of egg). Allow to stand for 1-2 minutes so the chocolate can fully soften (the bowl must rest on a trivet or a dry towel, especially if the counter is cold)
   
6. Beginning in the center of the bowl, stir gently in one direction to create a stable, shiny emulsion
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. Gradually stir in broader circles, to incorporate the cream at the edges of the bowl
8. If using immediately, first cool (to 100-105 F/38 - 41 C) until slightly thickened . The crémeux can also be refrigerated (for up to 3 days) or frozen (for up to 2 months) and then gently rewarmed in the microwave or in a double boiler (you can also mix the whole thing with an immersion blender working from the center to the outer edges)
9. Cover with saran wrap (directly on the cream) to avoid skin formation
   

Salted Caramel

Ingredients:
90 g sugar
45 g cream
30 g butter
3 g salt (I will use 2 g only on my next try as I found the caramel a bit too salty. If you try the recipe, let me know what you think)
2 g vanilla extract

Method: (use a medium-size heavy skillet or saucepan with a broad surface area so that the sugar can spread and cook evenly. The pan needs to be large enough because the cream can splatter when added to the sugar. Don't use a dark pan or you won't be able to judge the color of the caramel)

1. Heat the saucepan empty until pretty warm
2. Meanwhile heat cream, butter and salt in the microwave (or in a small saucepan)
3. When the pot is hot (with stove on medium), add a tiny amount of sugar. It will melt very fast. Add another tiny amount and shake the pan (but do not stir or the sugar might clump).It is okay to get a small amount of color at this point but if the sugar burns, it means the pot was too hot and you'll need to start over. Conversely if it doesn't melt, let it rest a while longer before adding more
4. Continue adding sugar in small quantities and swirling the pan around






5. When all the sugar has melted and there are no lumps, reduce heat to low and stir (even pull the pan off the heat for a few seconds but continue stirring), using a heat-resistant spatula
   
   
   
   


6. When the caramel is a dark reddish brown and starts to smoke (be careful because it will quickly become bitter if you wait longer), add a very small amount of the cream mixture (about 20%), stirring pretty vigorously and taking care to avoid steam burn.
   
   
   


7. Gradually add the rest of the cream, stirring constantly (the ideal is for the cream to be quite hot when you start adding it, however you must take care not to heat it up so much that it starts steaming and evaporating)
   
   
   
   


8. Once the caramel-cream mixture off the heat, add the vanilla
9. Let cool on a trivet. It is going to thicken up a bit (it keeps a few weeks at room temperature. To avoid its becoming a bit grainy, you can add some corn syrup).

Chocolate glaze

Ingredients
225 g dark chocolate (60-65% cocoa), chopped
78 g butter
78 g corn syrup (to make the glaze shiny and softer)

1. Gently melt the chocolate with the butter in the microwave or over a double boiler
2. Stir in the corn syrup without incorporating air
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Use immediately or refrigerate and gently rewarm in the microwave or over a double boiler until fluid enough to pour (leftover glaze can be refrigerated for up to a month)
   

Assembling the tarts

1. Use a microplane to smooth the upper edge of the tart shell, holding it parallel to the edge (never towards the center as the shell might break) (this step is optional and mostly intended to make a more professional looking dessert)
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Once the shells are ready, spray oil on an ice-cream scoop and put one tablespoon of caramel in each shell (a tip from the pro: if you want the shell to stay crisp longer, paint the inside with melted chocolate before pouring the caramel in)
   
   
   
   
   
3. Tilt the shell to cover the bottom (if it doesn't spread easily, use a small spatula)
   
   
   
   


4. Put the shells in the freezer for 5 minutes so that the caramel gets firm
   
5. When the caramel is firm, pour the 100-105 F crémeux over the caramel, leaving approximately 1/4 to 1/8" of space at the top for the glaze, leveling it out quickly as it will set fast
   
   
   
   
   
6. Chill or freeze until firmly set, at least 1 hour (the tart may be stored frozen at this point for up to 3 days)
7. Once set, pour over enough warm chocolate glaze to cover the surface and quickly tilt the tart(s) for even coverage
8. Chill or freeze until glaze is set, at least 1 hour
9. Garnish the tart(s) as desired: edible gold leaf, fleur de sel, chocolate shavings, puffed rice covered with chocolate or other garnishes. The tarts can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, well wrapped.