Pistachio flavoured Pastry cream / Crème Anglaise met pistache

(In het Nederlands? Even scrollen)

My latest DB Challenge had a rebellious streak hidden between the layers...I decided to substitute the buttercream for a Pistachio flavoured Crème Anglaise. It became the hit of the day, a nice mellow flavour and we loved the color. Since so many of you asked how, here is the recipe:

100 gr. shelled unsalted pistachio nuts
6 egg yolks
125 gr sugar
500 ml milk

(I think you can double the amount of pistachio for more intense flavour).

• Rub and pound the pistachio nuts to a paste, using a mortar and pestle. I think it would work in a food processor too, but I would add a part of the sugar (or 1 tbs flour) together with the nuts to avoid the nuts going oily.
• In a separate bowl, whisk together yolks with 1/3 of the sugar until light yellow.
• Put milk and rest of the sugar in a heavy bottomed pot, stir and bring mixture to a soft boil. Slowly pour a little of the hot milk on the yolks and the sugar in the bowl whisking constantly. Gradually add the rest of the milk, continue stirring!
• Once all of the milk is added, return mixture to same saucepan. Sitr over medium-low heat until custard thickens, you keep stirring with a wooden spoon. Aim for 80C on your thermometer, about 2-3 minutes (do not boil!) or looking at your spoon and the bottom of the pan: the spoon should make a track on the bottom that will not fill immediately. (leaves path on back of spoon when finger is drawn across).
• Off the heat, pour a third of the mixture onto the pistachio paste and whisk. Tip this mixture back into the pan again and mix.
• Now, instead of sieving, you can transfer the custard to a blender/food processor and mix for approx. 3 minutes until you have a smooth silky custard.
• Cool quickly using an ice bath, stir every once in a while to prevent a sking forming.
• Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to two days.

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De pistache crème die ik gebruikt heb in de Daring Baker's Challenge van Mei;

100 tot 200 gram gepelde pistachio nootjes, ongezouten
6 eidooiers (m)
125 gr basterdsuiker
1/2 liter melk

• Nootjes in een vijzel wrijven tot een pasta.
  Eidooiers in een kom mengen met 1/3 van de suiker en mixen tot het een luchtige lichtgele massa is.

Melk en de resterende suiker in een steelpan boven matig vuur verhitten tot het bijna kookt. Al roerend heel geleidelijk aan de melk in een straaltje toevoegen aan de eidooiers. Als alle melk toegevoegd is kan het mengsel weer terug in de pan.

Langzaam verhitten tot 80C, regelmatig roeren met een houten lepel tot het mengsel een dikke vla wordt, (2 a 3 minuten) Niet laten koken! Het is klaar wanneer je lepel een spoor achterlaat op de bodem van de pan, of, wanneer je met je vinger op de achterkant van je lepel een streep kunt trekken dat niet dicht loopt.

Schenk een derde van de vla op de pistachepasta en roer goed door met een garde. Voeg dit mengsel toe aan de resterende vla in de pan. Giet de vla in een blender of keukenmachine en draai ong. 3 minuten tot een heel gladde vla.

Koel zo snel mogelijk, evt. in een ijsbad. Blijf zo nu en dan roeren om te voorkomen dat er een vel op de vla komt. Kan goed afgedekt 2 dagen bewaard worden in de koelkast.

A whiter shade of pale, DB Challenge May

Or should I say I starred in the remake of Joshua fighting the battle of Jericho and the cake came tumbling down? Good morning Sister Lis, Good morning Sister Ivonne..... Those two brave ladies were the hosts of this Months Daring Baker's Challenge (chorus: again? sorry girls, just had to do this hehe) co-hosts this month were Fran at Apples Peaches Pumpkin Pie and Shea over at Whiskful and they chose for us to bake an Opera cake. Thank them for having me bake opera not sing it for the walls surely had come down right away!
An Opéra cake is made up (usually) of five components: a joconde (a cake layer), a syrup (to wet the joconde), a buttercream (to fill some of the layers), a ganache or mousse (to top the final cake layer) and a glaze (to cover the final layer of cake or of ganache/mousse.

All theory, now down to the basics and nitty gritty kitchen time. Part of the cake was almond flour, I couldn't find it and used a bag of almonds and ground it in my Magimix together with a couple of tablespoons flour and sugar. That worked, gritty but I had almond flour. Used my 9" square springform to bake two layers and cut them to form nice and even squares. My cakes rose beautifully but as my cakes have a habit of falling...these did too... On to the next part, the buttercream! "Ceci n'est pas une crème de beurre"

This is not buttercream. Of course I should have done it the way I was told to in the recipe but no, I thought better of it and did it my way.... substituted the buttercream (been there, done that, got my hips to prove it!) for a pistachio flavoured pastry cream. Which was, if I may say so, an excellent idea. Granted: poor execution, but the idea on itself was excellent. Flavour as well. Excellent. Added a tiny bit of fresh mint. Excellent. Consistency not so much. Hence skiddy cake.
My syrup was -and still is- great, I squashed a cantaloupe melon with a fork, extracted the juice and made the syrup with the juice, some honey and sugar and a dash of alcohol. Good!

The chocolate mousse went without a hitch and the white chocolate glaze (no, I didn't use a double boiler) was smooth and silky....however...you knew there was a "however" coming. The point of no return in adding a white chocolate glaze is quite eh, hard to distinguish. Too soon and you'll have a runny mess trickling down the sides of your cake, too late and there's a gloppy yellowish mess on top of same cake. Difficult. I invented some card board borders with the help of son nr. 1 to keep the glaze on top, no pictures too messy. Lots of fingerlicking and scooping.

From the scraps of the cut cake layers and the help of a ring I formed my Kodak Opportunity..... I could have posted this pic alone and you would have never known...

Yessss! A whiter shade of pale! Halleluja!

Ping!! Coin of knowledge: did you know La Joconde is another name for the Mona Lisa? I didn't!
Ping!! Thanks to my baking buddies in arms Tanna and Ilva, we had fun, moose and aria's in our kitchens!

Pasta en Pesto, vakantie maaltijd

Lege borden aan tafel! Geen gemekker! 4 vorken die in de schaal aan het prikken waren om toch nog één hapje...

Ik kreeg zelfs het vriendelijke verzoek om dit te onthouden voor de vakantie en dat zal geen enkel probleem zijn want waar je ook bent, de ingrediënten kun je overal krijgen.

Saus:
2 el basilicum pesto
2 el balsamico azijn (gebruik alsjeblieft goede!!)
1 el olijfolie
1 tl vloeibare honing
vers gemalen peper
Mengen in een kommetje en even apart zetten tot later.

Pasta:
125 gr spekreepjes
250 gr champignons in plakjes
2 rode uien, grof gesnipperd
10 kerstomaatjes (onzin natuurlijk, maar zoveel had ik er, kijk maar hoeveel je wilt gebruiken)
2 kipfilets of 2 varkens filet lapjes, in blokjes gesneden en in een beetje olie gebakken
300 gr verse spinazie

400 gr -volkoren- pasta (liefst geribbeld zodat de saus beter vastgehouden wordt)
Versgeraspte Parmezaanse kaas
handje verse basilicum blaadjes

• De spekreepjes uitbakken, uit de pan nemen en apart houden.
• Gebruik 1 of 2 el van het spekvet om de uitjes en de champignons in te bakken.
• Kook de pasta beetgaar.
• Terwijl de pasta kookt, een paar minuten voordat het klaar is, voeg je de spinazie toe aan het uitjes/champignon mengsel, laat op middelhoog vuur slinken terwijl je omschept. Voeg de kerstomaatjes, vlees en spekjes toe en laat doorwarmen.
• Giet de pasta af, meng de pasta door het vleesmengsel in de pan
• De pesto-saus wordt er nu ook voorzichtig doorgeroerd en nog even vlug meegewarmd.
  
• Bestrooi aan tafel met Parmesaan, evt. serveren met een groene salade

Probeer een goede balsamico azijn te gebruiken want het verschil proef je in dit gerecht onmiddellijk. Je kunt variëren met bijv. tomaten tapenade of rode pesto, de spinaze kan vervangen worden door bijv. Pak Soy. Misschien wat geroosterde paprika toevoegen? In ieder geval is het gerecht zoals het is een lekkere en snelle maaltijd. En erg slank!

Bread Baking Babes bake Poilâne for May

(Nederlandse lezers: Lien heeft een geweldige post gedaan met het recept in het Nederlands!)

We're back with a new bread challenge. This time we stayed far from the wet side and instead looked at a master of bread baking for guidance. Our Kitchen of the Month Sher chose to bake a bread in the style of Poilâne; a Miche.

The recipe for this bread can be found at our Kitchen as well as in one of the must-have books; Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. Although the recipe is long, and the terms Uncle Peter uses are quite confusing the bread itself is surprisingly easy to make.

Since we have been building a starter for quite some time now, I chose to use Pumba as my "seed culture" to build into a "barm" with which to make a "firm starter". Yes. That's what I mean by confusing. In simpler words, what you do is use a part of a sourdough starter, make it firmer in two steps over a couple of days by adding flour.
Simplifying: the seed culture is made like any other starter.
Next step is making a "barm" by upping the flour while using less water to refresh.
The firm starter is what it says: a very firm pre-dough made with a part of the barm.

What I particularly loved about this bread is to see how powerful our starter has become. I must say I wasn't too sure of it's qualities to lift 7 cups of flour without any additional help from commercial yeast. It was capable of that! Not only lifting it in the first rise but again when shaped and still had enough oomph left to do a nice ovenspring!

Furthermore, the final bread was delicious! It looked darn good, smelled fine and the flavour had all of the whole wheat nuttyness without being real sour, it was a little dense using all whole wheat but in a good way, surprisingly airy. My family dislikes a very sour bread and they raved about this one! I need to work some magic on the crust though, it was eeh...quite convincing.

I really need to do a little Oscar speech here: I like to take the opportunity to thank Monique who again brought me some special flour! She went to Paris (well that's a minor point; all by herself, didn't even invite me!), visited Poilâne and bought a bread and some flour to bring home! She even thought of buying some flour for me! Now if that isn't sweet I don't know what is!



On to my take on the original recipe using my starter:

I used the toss off from my own starter, (5 oz/140 grams), fed it with

1 cup of bread flour

1/2 cup of water

Let it ferment for 12 hours, throw half of it out and feed again with

1 cup of bread flour

1/2 cup of water

The next day I built the barm, using

1 cup of the starter

3.1/2 cups bread flour

2 cups water

Cover loosely and let ferment for 6 hours on the counter, then store in the fridge overnight. This baby is going to rise, make sure it has got a lot of headspace! With this barm -and as you notice it makes quite the quantity- you have a powerful supply to bake a lot of breads with. The barm can be used for three days without feeding. (Store in the fridge and let come to room temperature before you use it). Feeding it is rather simple: Uncle Peter advises to always double, triple or even quadruple the barm when feeding to prevent a real sour barm.

So, if you'd like to keep some handy, use some to bake with and feed the remaining barm with equal weight flour and water. If you have a lot of barm but haven't fed it for a while, discard all but 1 cup and refresh it with 4 cups of flour and 2-1/2 to 3 cups water, stirring until all the flour is hydrated.

If you're not going to use the barm for a while, store it in the fridge or freezer in a tightly sealed container. Let it come to room temperature and refresh as above.

Make a firm starter:

1 cup (7 ounces) Barm

2 cups (9 ounces) sifted medium grind whole wheat flour

1/2 cup (4 ounces) water, at room temperature

This one is really firm, feeling like a real dough already, it needs to be kneaded for a little while to hydrate all the flour and ferment for 4 hours on the counter, overnight in the fridge.

All of this firm starter is used to make the dough for your bread. Proceed to follow the original recipe.

This recipe yields an enormous quantity of dough and your stand mixer is going to either struggle or die.... I followed Uncle Peters advice and kneaded it by hand which wasn't difficult at all. I decided to divide the doughball and make one larger boule and three small batards. I wanted to use my banneton for the boule and it wouldn't accomodate such large quantity of dough so that's why.

I do have some other information for you... this month again you can be our Bread Baking Buddy and earn a Badge! Due to the nature of this recipe, the use of the starter, barm, and firm starter we have expanded the days to bake to 14.

So here’s how: You have until June 2nd to bake the bread and post about it on your blog with a link to the Kitchen of the Month’s post about the bread. E-mail the Kitchen of the Month with your name and a link to your post OR leave a comment on the Kitchen of the Month’s blog that you have baked the bread and a link back to your post. Kitchen of the Month will do a round-up of our Bread Baking Buddies at the end of the baking period and send you a BBB badge shortly after you notify her of baking the bread.

No blog, No problem - just e-mail the Kitchen of the Month with a photo of the bread you baked and you’ll be included in the round-up. Same recipe, different kitchens, using local flour and sharing what we found. You can read all about our monthly recipe at the Kitchen of the Month, our individual posts to be found at our respective personal blogs, listed at the right hand side! Babes on Hiatus: Living on Bread and Water (Monique) Thyme for Cooking (Katie).

WCB, Waiting for Godot?

My first entry to Weekend Cat Blogging, this weekend being hosted by Chey's Place. I have lots of posts lined up but they all need something to finish, either text or pics and I just can't find the time/spirit to do it. So it's Cat time.

This pic cracks me up. Ever since our cats came to live with us we are debating whether to keep them indoors or let them out to play. Mixed feelings, we don't want our cats to bother the neighbors, evidently we don't want them to stray or loose them to traffic. Kids are terrified they will walk away to never return... Mom is terrified of the stuff they will bring in...

The lay-out of our house is such that it's near to impossible to keep them indoors during summer, I need to open doors for fresh air and the kids and their friends are forever in and out. Impossible!

I think the cats have decided for themselves.

Anti...

Mosquito's... Vampires....Dentists...Guests maybe?

Would it help beat hay fever as well?

We're back from camping, as a matter of fact we came back last Thursday but the loads of laundry and getting the house and myself back on track took somewhat longer than I thought. I think I saw my kids wearing the same clothes for days (that is allowed when camping, as long as they don't smell...) and still that washer kept spinning. The temperature changes during our short vacation made us scramble for the heaviest fleece vests, hot water bottles and only 4 days later the kids asked for their swimgear. Crazy Dutch weather!

We moved 1 kid one flight down from the attic as we finally filed for a building permit for expanding the attic. Getting rid of the old messy chimneys, an extra window and a roof extension (surely not the correct word in English). All this means we need to empty the space and maybe even have to remove the laminate flooring..yikes!

Not sure why we always get busy upstairs when the weather is clammy anyway, but beds have been changed, rooms are in order and now I've set myself to the task of eliminating long overdue sewing jobs. I've gained some *cough* weight and eh... , something needs to be done.

The kids are on their last stretch in school, which means that the twins are preparing for the musical, the traditional fare-well camp, their 12th birthday is coming up at the end of the month. At the same time saying goodbye to their familiar surroundings by preparing their end festivities makes it clear that it is indeed time to think about diaries, schoolbags, books... The scary next school is coming closer! As a matter of fact they will have introduction sessions next month, but Wessel had his first taste yesterday afternoon. He is going to enter in a special English class and had to do a test. He was so nervous, all alone, no one he knew and no twin brother...

I sat in my car for 5 minutes after he went in and finally pulled myself together, it's not going to help him and the option of being a butterfly on his shoulder to encourage him is not open to me (see gaining weight and sewing jobs ;-D)