Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Gadgets that work! Is it a clock? Is it a frisbee?

Nooooo, but what is it? I know, do you?

You both are right and what David said in the comments is what had me grinning all the way from the back of the store to the register... Ah great minds...

This plate will help you divide a round whatever into odd parts. Or rather even parts. Odd numbers. Hmm. Picture a pizza on the plate and in this example 5 hungry family members. Your first cut will be starting at the "0" on the bottom of the picture and then slice starting at every "5" you see on the plate. Ofcourse we tried it immediately and it really works.

Not sure what the crèpe recipe is doing there in the center, can't imagine dividing a crèpe into so many parts but since we bought in Britttany I figured a crèpe recipe and this plate was the ideal souvenir.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Bread Baking Babes: Bake Brioche Mousseline

~~start classical music~~ Mellow Voice over:
As you all know we are foodies. We're all about quality, fine dining, perfect patisserie. We're torturing each other about methods, ingredients, fresh herbs, the best butter, heirloom everything and free roaming all. The Bread Baking Babes are no different.
~~end classical music~~

Let me pull you back to reality. That's not how things go all the time always. This month our hostess Monique in her Kitchen of the Month had us scrambling for the cheapest canned food! We shared our finds: apple sauce! tomato puree! White beans, brown beans! Coffee isn't sold in cans not in Europe anyway but dog food is....
All this to bake really great brioche, using the cans as our baking tins. Can we bake brioche?
Yes we can!

For the recipe I refer you to Monique, I need to say that I accidentally forgot to add two eggs and only used four in total. That never compromised the end product, we all loved it. We loved it fresh out of the oven but we adored it as much the next day toasted.
Think about it for a while: lovely soft yellow-crumbed slices of brioche, dipped in poached egg, or smeared with some more butter or home made preserves. (I won't tell on my son who had two thick slices toasted and made a burger out of it. I had a bite and it was great!).

The brioche dough is made -buttery! eggy! yellow! soft! pliable! perfect handcream!- and then after the first proofing it's carefully balled up and slid into the waiting cans prepared with a lining of parchment paper with a high collar. Definitely make the collars high because these babies grow to enormous lengths. *cough*
I filled my tins up until 2/3 of the way. You can use any size cans but make sure they're not lined with the poisonous-when-heated white plastic stuff. Hence the search for cans.... Difficult to find unlined ones.


Can we be a Buddy and bake this in regular size tins? Yes, but why would you miss out on the fun of these eh...peculiar shaped breads? Well? Let Monique know that you've baked, check her blog for the details and the recipe!

Don't forget to check with my Bread Baking Babes right there in the right hand column! Lovely challenge Monique, great fun and gorgeous breads.