Introducing, the “cronut” - half croissant, half doughnut.
Man, so jealous! Wish I could be working in the cronut production as of right now!! This looks and feels amazingly beautiful!
WORKING WITH MARZIPAN
This is the first piece in a long while I made at home.
Made this cake for the very nice and happy band Retro Stefson (http://www.retrostefson.tumblr.com/).
It’s a vanilla almond cake with mixed berries inside coated in sugar. The skull and monkey are worked out of marzipan with elements made out of fondant. I really wanna go play minigolf and I thought it’d be an appropriate theme for this cheerful band. Go check’em out!
TRUFFELS
Regularly doing these with best chocolate for work. We’re using Felchlin chocolate. That Swiss business completely works without beans from hybrid cocoa plants. They conche their chocolate for a long time to get the smoothest mouth feel. It’s incredible. Even a chocolate that would be considered milk chocolate with 49% cocoa solids tastes so nicely dark. Not bitter though and just melting away nicely in your mouth.
Conching is the process you might have seen in Lindt TV ads. The continuous milling, moving and grinding of roasted cocoa nibs so to achieve a nice smooth chocolate.
On a side note, what do you have to do on the internets to ever get endorsed? I mean, I don’t share all this for attention or money, but I’d love to share more of this amazingness if I just had more means to work things out. May it be goods or supplies… I am full of ideas!
NEW KITCHEN
I was so embarrassed by the last post and picture quality that I just had to delete it. Now with this fresh start, enjoy this year of brand new kitchen adventures. Stay true to your ideas. In my case, back to better quality and pictures. Those above show a lovely colour scheme.
STOVE
Guys, I know you crave to see new posts of food and cakes and pastry and candy but this post is about eye-candy for me. My new stove got here today. Thanks to my lovely parents and their support! I feel like sending out invitations to my friends one at a time to cook and bake you food. Who’s in? I might as well start a series (of which yet so many exist on the internet already) called ‘dinner with..’
However, the question still is, shall I turn this into a completely overall food-related blog or shall I rather stick with my profession of a pastry chef and keep you posted on that field? Anyone?
Lastly, I’d really like to point out how happy I am with this gas oven! Nothing more valuable than to be at direct heat! Now, all queued up adventures may begin!
WINTER PICNIC
First picnic this year happened way early in February. It was real cold but the first sunny day to ride bikes and sit by the harbour. With freshly made tea by L. (@pastpackingday) and Portugese pastries!
TOAST
I am a rather obsessive periodical person, like early this year when I couldn’t get enough of TOAST! I usually never eat it unless being in one of the described phases! There’s more regular phases that come and go and come back like the one having me drink a green tea a day or only eating honey on bread.
This TOAST phase even had me thus far to wonder why there’s no shops offering only toast like there’s shops only selling cake. Enjoyed my toast with mustard, sliced pickles, lamb’s lettuce, smoked salmon, mushrooms, coarse cream cheese, honey, horseradish and black pepper. Honestly, BLACK PEPPER EVERYTHING.
Other toasts simply worked with avocado and mushroom. Or the classic avocado, boiled egg, black pepper, lime olive oil and butter.
PANCAKE BREAKFAST
..as well as candy breakfast is a regularly used term in my life. Pancake breakfast usually happens for loved ones like in this case a very generous few people hosting me while not having a proper home. So thankful for the friends in my life I get to share food with.
SALAD
There’s this very simple salad I first ate when my grandma made it. It’s just any type of salad with oranges. When she made it, we used iceberg lettuce and tangerines from a can. Such a highlight back then.
This time I used orange filets, mango and lamb’s lettuce. I was given lime olive oil and lychee vinegar by A. for my birthday and added them both. Soon I’ll share a recipe of a salad that recently surprised me.
BREAD TIME
I’m slowly catching up with the posts, here’s another one to loving bread. If it wasn’t for me to know how to cook, this would be my only meals!
PIZZA
It’s always good to have pizza dough in the freezer. Real life advice.
DARK POLENTA ROLLS
Apparently this is still the old version of rolls we came up with and developed at work. It now is a differently shaped roll with baking malt, wheat and rye flour, basil pesto, sunflower seeds, chipped flaxseeds and honey.
YEAST BREAD
Happy Easter everyone! I prepared original yeast breads for the holidays. This Easter is magical, it’s all about indirect compliments like asking if I baked this bread. I said ‘yes’ and she said ‘it looks like from the supermarket’. All hand-made with great ingredients though.
It’s a direct mix which means you add all the ingredients together in a mixer but the salt. Salt inhibits yeast activity which is all you want when working with it. So add salt last. Is it yet to late to share my first recipe?
Direct mix:
500 gr all-purpose flour (405-550 type)
200 gr whole milk
30 gr fresh yeast
120 gr sugar
125 gr butter / margerine
50 gr whole egg (1 medium-sized egg)
vanilla, lemon zest
125 gr dried fruit optional
5 gr salt (add last !)
Mix slowly for 2 minutes then on high-speed for about 7 minutes, add salt (+dried fruit) and mix slowly to combine. Let rest for 15 min., knead the dough into a ball and divide in three equal parts, let rest another 5 min. Form three equally long ropes, braid them into shape, brush with egg-wash and let proof (until dough springs back to the touch slightly). Brush with egg-wash another time and bake with little water vapour until golden brown. Brush with melted butter after baking and sprinkle with roasted almond slices. (180°C, 20-25 min.)
Your baking time may depend on the size of your bread and amount of water vapour. The more water you use the hotter your oven gets and speeds up the maillard reaction. The maillard reaction is the process of protein and sugar browning during the baking process. It’s basically a caramelisation adding to the overall flavor of product.
Speaking of flavor, I’d always use butter in all cases unless you’re on a vegan diet. Enjoy this one and let me know how it worked out for you!
CAKE GALAXY
Stardust in bloodshot eyes.
BEFORE MOVING I SOMETIMES COOK
Before moving out by the end of last year I faced the quest of using most of my fresh ingredients. I didn’t worry about all the dry ingredients since all of it could easily be stored away.
This might look weird but is one of the most simply dishes and thus a classic favourite of mine: spagetti with (onions) and eggs sunny-side up. I added a little rosmary and olives for flavor, salt and pepper to taste. They literally swim in a ocean of melted butter, I just had to use it up. Used it later to toss the spagetti in it!
