Wouldn't you know it......another year of clean living and the Irish Fairies stopped by to leave a St Patrick's Day surprise again this year!  Wish The Leprechauns would take notice and follow the Frairy's lead !  Used Rachel  Allen's lemon curd recipe and froze it for a year .......Fairies love lemon curd with some age on it.    The cake is a lemon sponge with cake flour.  I saw the Fairies tossing their dust on them before disappearing till next year.

Happy St. Paddy's Day

For our Irish native from Belfast -  Sylvia.  I can't remember where I got the  cup cake recipe.

Lemon Curd

2 eggs and 1 yolk

1 stick of butter

¾ C sugar

zest and juice of 3 lemons.

Mix and slowly heat on top of the stove in 2 qt sauce pan until mix thickens into thick curd.  Put in refrigerator for 4 hours to thicken further.

 Irish Lemon Curd Fairy Cakes

• 5 egg yolks
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel - 1 lemon
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice - half a lemon
• 5 egg whites
• 2/3 cup sifted cake flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 16 oz lemon curd
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease and flour 20 muffin cups.

Beat egg yolks till thick with a whisk in a bowl. Gradually add 1/3 cup sugar in several stages beating continually.

Whisk in the lemon peel and juice.

Beat the egg whites utill soft peaks form.   Then gradually add remaining 1/3 cup sugar and beat till stiff peaks form.  I use a hand mixer for this

Gently fold the whites into the yolks.

Sift together cake flour and salt and gently  fold into egg mixture.

Fill muffin cups 2/3rds full.  Bake at 375 F for 10 minutes, rotate the cupcake pans and turn down the oven to 325 F convection this time and bake about 5 minutes more until the tops are nicely browned.

Remove cakes from tins and cool completely on a wire rack.

Use a sharp paring knife to cut into the top center of each cupcake, removing the cone shaped piece and reserve.

I was messing around with Semolina Flour and tried to make a couple loaves. One is plain with Sesame Seeds on top, the other is with Lavender and Oat Bran on top. Next time I think I will make the dough a bit stiffer, it was quite slack.

Cheers,

Wingnut

Sláinte

Hi Everyone,

time for my second post! Unfortunately I don't have any "work-in-progress" photos of this one - the battery on my camera was flat when I made it and I couldn't find the charger. This is a 3 strand braid, filled brioche.

The brioche recipe is from Pierre Hermé's book "PH10". As you can see, it's very rich in butter (like nearly all his recipes). 

The brioche dough (500g) is as follows:

strong flour 176

sugar 26

egg (whole) 132 (approx. 3 eggs)

instant yeast 2.5

salt 4

butter 158

The original recipe calls for fresh yeast, but that's not that easy to find in the UK (at least not for me) and I don't really think it makes that much (if any) difference. I halved his yeast quantity to take into account the fact that I was using instant. I imagine that 5g of fresh yeast would work if that's what you are using. The dough was quite sticky but not overly greasy. I put it in the freezer for about 30 while making the filling. The filling recipe is (heavily) adapted from one found in "non solo zucchero vol. II" by Iginio Massari.

ground almond 150

icing sugar 150 

yolk 40

water 10

vanilla 1/2 a pod

butter 26

zest of 1 unwaxed orange.

Mix this all together to form a paste. The original recipe called for whole egg rather than just yolk, but I wanted a nice orange colour running through my brioche. 

When the brioche dough was firm I took it from the freezer and divided it into 3 balls. While working one, I kept the other 2 in the fridge. I rolled out the dough into a rectangle and then piped a line of filling down one long side before rolling it up to form a tube. I sealed the ends and put it back in the fridge. Same thing for the other 2.

When the dough was nice and cold again I braided it. As this was an experiment, I kept it to a simple 3 braid (1 over 2, 3 over 2 etc). This done, I popped it into a loaf tin and let it prove. This took about 4 hours at c.28 degrees C. Pierre Hermé doesn't give a cooking time or temperature for his dough so I guessed at 200C for 20 minutes. I think the photo shows this wasn't quite right, as the crust is a little too thick and brown for my liking. The brioche itself was also just a tiny little bit drier than would have been ideal. 

To finish I made a sugar glaze (110 icing sugar, 20 water and a few drops of orange blossom water) which I poured over the top while it was still fresh from the oven, and then sprinkled some flaked almonds and pearl sugar on it to finish it off. 

If I were to do it again, I think I'd make more of the filling (you can see in the photo how little there actually is) and experiment a bit more with the cooking temperature or time. The flavour was lovely and orangey, with a strong aftertaste of butter. 

David

We've been in Warszawa since Thursday.

It has been cold, but it is actually quite beautiful right now.

I've not been here in 15 years. The change is incredible. You can still find funky little flea markets, run down train stations, and ugly Communist-era buildings, but those are quickly being replaced by new shopping centres, shiny glass office towers, and brand new new trams and metros. Business and growth, and with them money and English, are everywhere here now.  It is incredible.

 We've mostly been visiting family so far, so I haven't had much of a chance to go "bakery hopping" or do much sightseeing yet.  We've eaten some wonderful breads with pasztet and ozorek and zurek though, many of the breads quite dense and dark, containing grains and fruits and nuts (I'll have time to figure out what all they were later).  And I've finally tried pączki.

These pączki were from A.Blikle, one of the most famous bakeries in Warszawa.  They claim it is where Charles De Gaulle used to get his pastries during his time here.  

The Blikle pączki were amazing, soft, just slightly sweet, and flavoured with rose petal jam.  I always figured pączki were "kinda like jelly doughnuts," and I guess they are but that comparison is like claiming that a French baguette with brie is kinda like American cheese on white bread.  Or saying that what you get at Olive Garden is Italian food.  The same general make up, yes, but really on entirely different level when it comes to craftsmanship.  

I don't know if pączki are usually this good or if it is just this bakery, but I will definitely be trying more while we are here!

-Floyd