Caprese gougères

Tomatoes and basil here we come!! It's sum-sum-sum-sum-sum-sum-summertime, and we're deep into it. I've been dreaming of a caprese salad and now's the time.

Another visit to The Cheese Lady was in order to score some fresh mozzarella and a tasty grating cheese for some delicious gougères, essentially a cheesy version of profiteroles.

Gruyère is the cheese that's often used in savory gougères but one can certainly waver and choose something equally as tasty. Since I was filling them with mozzarella, tomato and basil, I thought some mozzarella or similar cheese would be a decent addition to the pâte à choux, but I didn't really want a run-of-the-mill grated mozz from the supermarket.

The Cheese Lady to the rescue! A pecorino Toscano was suggested as a good stand in for mozzarella, so that's what I chose for my choux paste. Wanting a little something to grate on the choux tops, I went with a Comté.

You might notice on the package above that the label reads gruyère de Comté, prompting one to ask "What's the diff between that and gruyère, eh? From my very brief research, I learned that a classic gruyère is produced in Switzerland, while a gruyère de Comté comes from the Franche-Comté region (newly re-formed as Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in early 2016) of France on the Swiss border. And, just to add to the confusion, I'll throw one more name in there - the similar Emmental which is also produced in Switzerland but has holes, unlike gruyère. They're all good if you ask me.

So let's make some gougères already.

Basic pâte à choux is made with milk, water, butter, a bit of salt and sugar, flour and egg. For a savory version like this I delete the sugar, add in some black pepper and mustard powder, as well as grated cheese. You could also add herbs if desired, like some dried thyme or basil. Just click here for the full recipe.

Once you've completed the process, just pipe or scoop 'em out onto parchment lined sheet pans. 

In this case I topped them with some grated Comté before popping them in the 400ºF oven.

It's generally recommended that you leave the oven door closed for the first 10 minutes of baking, otherwise the puffs can fall. I usually turn the temp down to 375ºF at that point and give them another 15-20 minutes to finish. Remember to pay attention to what's going on in there!

Ooooh - nice and browned and just begging to be filled and tasted.

On of the beauties of making choux puffs is you can freeze them for later, either unbaked or baked. Cool! Just add 5 minutes or so to the baking time if baking right out of the freezer or, if using already baked puffs that have been frozen, re-crisp them in a 350º oven for 10 minutes or so before filling. The perfect do-ahead treat.

Time to make the caprese salad.

Fresh mozzarella balls from The Cheese Lady plus fresh basil and campari tomatoes from the Fulton Farmer's Market are ready to be chopped and combined with a little olive oil, salt and pepper.

For around 40 puffs I used 8 ounces mozz, a generous cup of seeded and chopped tomatoes, about 1/2 cup chopped, packed fresh basil and 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil. Salt and pepper to taste.

Et voilà!

The puffs were crispy outside and creamy-cheesy inside with just the right amount of moisture for my liking.

Since I was making these for an afternoon event, I waited as long as possible before filling the puffs so as to avoid sogginess. I lit upon an idea and lightly toasted up some panko bread crumbs, stashing a few in the bottom of each puff. What genius!

Once they were all filled, I boxed them up and hit the road! Of course, I had made extras so I could sample a couple. Not bad at all, folks, although I did hanker for a more upfront cheesiness to the gougère and decided the pecorino Toscano was too mild. So next time - gruyère or Comté here we come!

Crunchy topped choux

As a brief respite from traveling, moving and trying to figure out where we're going to live, I wanted to prepare something for dessert for my Aunt Marian's birthday lunch.  Part of the reason Steve and I are transitioning back to Michigan is so we can be on the ground, as it were, to lend a hand to my Mom and her sibs and sibs-in-law, all of whom are aging as we speak.  But then, aren't we all??

At first I was going to turn to one of my standards - financier, a tart of some sort, shortbread - all the usual suspects.  And then my thoughts turned to choux!

Some years ago while visiting my pastry friend Misato in Mulhouse (Alsace) I was perusing one of her pastry books by Jean-Michel Perruchon.  I was intrigued by the recipes for crunchy topping for pâte à choux, as well as the different fruity variations of pastry cream - a whole new world opened up to me!

Since then I had tried the crunchy topping thing as well as a pear pastry cream version for a tart I created and found them very satisfying.  For some reason I put those ideas aside as other things in the pastry world seemed to grab my attention.

But now, as I reviewed Dorie Greenspan's "Baking Chez Moi", I found her recipes for "Crackle-Top Cream Puffs" and "Bubble Eclairs".  The wheels started spinning.

Inspired by raspberries on sale at Meijer for $1! per 6 oz, I decided to make a raspberry pastry cream to fill my version of "bubble-crackle-top eclairs".

OK - so let's get to it.

First - the crackle-top dough.  This is basically akin to a crumble - mix 64 gm cool, diced butter, 100 gm sugar (in this case brown sugar), 85 gm all-purpose flour, a pinch of salt and 3/4 tsp vanilla extract . . . .

les ingredients

and form a rough dough that just holds together.

crumbly but holds together when squeezed

Form a disc . . . .

and roll it to 1/16" thick between two sheets of parchment paper.

Freeze it for a couple of hours (or until ready to bake your choux puffs), then cut into rounds that will later top the puffs.  You can hold this dough frozen and wrapped for many days!

I wrapped the scraps and froze them for another time.

Second - the pastry cream.  The beauty of this is its make-ahead-by-a-day-or-two feature.

Initially I found the whole idea of a fruit version of pastry cream (hmmm, fruit puree and milk?) kind of odd.  But, as I thought about it, we use fruit purees and dairy in many ways -ice cream,  smoothies, cheesecake, mascarpone cream to name a few.  Instead of using only milk as the liquid base as is typical for standard pastry cream, one can create variations by using a combination of fruit puree and milk, proceeding with the very same process used to make pastry cream with egg yolks, sugar and cornstarch.  I like to think of it as a cross between pastry cream and curd.

I wasn't sure how much puree my 12 oz of fresh raspberries would yield, so I smooshed and strained them with a yield of 215 gm.  Now I could figure out the quantities for the remaining ingredients.

In Perruchon's recipes a greater proportion of fruit puree is used compared to the milk e.g. 500 gm puree + 100 gm milk.  I tweaked the proportions based on my 215 gm of raspberry puree, using equal weights of puree and milk.

To sum up, my recipe used 215 gm raspberry puree, 215 gm whole milk, 95 gm egg yolk, 77 gm sugar and 40 gm cornstarch; 20 gm butter is added at the end of the cooking process.  If you don't know the standard process for making pastry cream, you can find many sources on line to help you.

Once the raspberry pastry cream was made I covered and chilled it until I was ready to use it the next day.

Next up - pâte à choux.  For this I went with my standard recipe from Michel Roux - in a medium pan bring 125 gm milk, 125 gm water, 1 1/2 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, 100 gm diced butter to a boil; remove from the heat and stir in 150 gm flour all at once; place back on the heat and stir for a minute or so to dry it (you'll see a thin film on the bottom of the pan); stir in 4 eggs, one at a time, until you have a smooth, silky paste.

Here is the panada (the paste before the eggs are added) . . . .

check out the thin coating on the bottom of the pan

and after the egg addition . . .

silky smooth

I piped out the puffs in series of three, each ball snuggling up to the next . . .

and topped them with the chilled crackle dough rounds.

ready for the oven

 Pretty cool!

Bake them at 375º for about 35 minutes until the tops are browned and the puffs are golden and firm to the touch.

Oh yeah - lookin' good!

Once the puffs are cooled it's time to garnish.

I typically lighten my pastry cream with a small percentage of whipped cream.  In this case I blended 100 gm whipped cream into my raspberry pastry cream.

whipped cream and pastry cream ready to be blended together

One can garnish puffs or eclairs in two different ways - slice the choux, pipe the cream decoratively on the bottom half and sandwich- OR fill the choux from the bottom.

the non crackle-top in the foreground was my practice version!

I opted for the fill-from-the-bottom technique, finding it much more user friendly than slicing each one in half.  Plus, I've filled a LARGE share of puffs and eclairs over the years, and it's like riding a bicycle.

Poke holes in the bottoms and, using a pastry bag with a 6 mm tip, fill each section until the cream starts to ooze out of the adjacent holes.  That way you know you've filled adequately.  Once you've done this multiple times you begin to understand what the "heft" of a well filled puff is all about.

I'm told that Parisians get mighty peeved if their eclairs and profiteroles aren't filled properly!

I scrape the excess off with a small offset spatula, place them crunch side up and dust them with powdered sugar.  And we're off to the races!

These were well received by the family, who had gathered at Uncle John's Clear Bottom Lake cottage to celebrate Aunt Marian's 86th birthday.  The crunchy top is such a wonderful contrast to the cool, creamy filling and the light as air choux.  I enjoyed the raspberry cream, although Steve still holds out for classic pastry cream (praline and chocolate are some of his faves too).

Happy Birthday Aunt Marian!

Chausson Napolitain

The third recipe in Philippe Conticini’s La Pâtisserie des Reves is an interesting mix of several classic pastry bases.

While I had been aware of this particular pastry, I had never researched it and had certainly never made it. In a nutshell it’s a pâte feuilletée (puff pastry) turnover filled with a combo of crème pâtissière and pâte à choux. Interesting, eh?

The recipe also calls for rum soaked raisins (a favorite of the French), but I opted for an hazelnut/cherry version instead. I developed my plan and struck out on a new adventure.

Most of the components can be prepared the day before, each one requiring minimal time, leaving you with the pâte à choux prep, final assembly and baking for the day of. It's all about timing and planning. Three cheers for mise en place!

I should point out that there are a couple of serious errors in this recipe, requiring you to pay close attention and adjust accordingly. The 200 gm of puff pastry called for is woefully inadequate, and should be about 600 gm. It was clear that 200 gm was not enough to create a 30x60 cm piece with a 1.5-2 mm thickness.

And when slicing the rouleau, the slices should be 1.0 -1.5 cm thick NOT 1/2 cm as the printed recipe states.  Philippe, where are your recipe testers and copy editors??

As I alluded to above, I admit that I’m not a big fan of rum or raisins. During the pastry program at Le Cordon Bleu, as well as my during my stage at Pâtisserie Pascal Pinaud on rue Monge in the 5th, I was amazed at how often rum (and a lot of it) was used by the Parisians.

When a recipe calls for alcohol, I tend to replace rum with either an almond or hazelnut liqueur, or I leave it out altogether and stick with good old vanilla extract.  It's so much easier on the budget, and I don't find the liqueur to be that much of a flavor enhancer.

For this particular project I replaced any rum in the recipe with Fratello, a delicious hazelnut liqueur that Steve discovered recently, used tart dried cherries instead of raisins and replaced macadamias with hazelnuts.

So let's get going!

I soaked 50 gm of cherries in Fratello/brown sugar and my softened butter/brown sugar mixture is ready to go. I weighed out 50 gm of blanched hazelnuts and coarsely chopped them before final assembly.

I have a batch of crème pâtissière chilled in the fridge.

I roll my puff out to about a 2 mm thickness and a length of 60 cm. (Note: I typically have puff pastry in my freezer so I let it thaw overnight in the fridge before rolling it out.)

I spread on the softened butter/brown sugar mixture and rolled it up snugly (the rouleau). Note: images below

The rouleau can be wrapped and refrigerated until you are ready to assemble the chausson.  Alternatively you can form the rouleau the same day, freeze it for 40 minutes or so, and it will be ready to slice.

Wrap and chill the rouleau and on the day you plan to assemble and bake your chausson make your pâte à choux. 

Once the choux is ready, blend in the crème pâtissière, add the zests of one lemon and one orange, a splash of vanilla extract, the marinated cherries and the chopped hazelnuts.  Your filling is ready to go! 

Remove your puff roll from the fridge (or freezer) and cut cleanly into 1.0-1.5 cm thick slices.

Cool layers, don't ya think?

Now comes a bit of fussiness.

The slices are rolled out into a flat, ~2 mm thick oval, and it is very helpful if you keep the slices cool. Work with 3 or 4 at a time while keeping the others handy in the fridge.  Work quickly on a nicely floured surface to minimize the potential sticking of the butter layer. I keep a bench scraper close by to lift up the dough and re-flour the surface as I go.

Scoop a grosse noix of filling just low of center on your oval and fold it over.  Don't worry about sealing the edges - just gently place them together, since you want the chausson to be open.

Yessirree!

Now give them a coat of egg wash and chill. Philippe recommends a one hour refrigeration before baking.  I put mine in the freezer for about 30 minutes.  My practice with all things puff pastry is to freeze before baking, whether it's chausson aux pomme, palmier or simply blind baking a puff crust for a quiche or flan.  The freezing firms up the dough and re-stabilizes the butter layers before it goes into the hot oven.

Bake at ~350ºF convection for about 30-40 minutes.

Remember: every oven is different, and it is sooooo key to pay attention to what's going on in there!  Even convection ovens don't always bake uniformly, so rotate and change shelf positions of your sheet pans half way through. It works!

Et voila - c'est fini! These babies were tasty indeed. Who would’a thunk it to put puff pastry, pastry cream, choux paste all together in one pastry. Oh boy, oh boy!