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There is a light that never goes out

hansjoakim's picture
hansjoakim

There is a light that never goes out

Hi all,

It's been a while since I posted something here, so I thought I should put up some photos I've taken of stuff I've hauled from the oven over the last month or so. I've been occupied with the bread and pastry books by Friberg and Suas, so all of these recipes are taken from those sources.

Breads

I've baked most of the sourdough breads from ABAP, and I've found the sourdough rye and sourdough multigrain to be excellent breads. I've made a variation on the rye twice - first as a boule:

Sourdough rye

... then as a batard:

Sourdough rye

 

Here's the crumb of the batard version:

Sourdough rye

This is a very nice, well balanced base recipe for a filling everyday rye. The versions above are approx. 55% ryes, mostly whole rye. Curiously, this rye is made with a stiff white starter, so the flavour is very mildly sour. In the above loaves, there is about 0.3% fresh yeast, so the loaves are bulk fermented a good 2 hours, and given a final proof of just under 90 minutes. There is a delicious rye flavour to these loaves! As I said, I find the recipe to be a great "base" recipe for adding in other things as well - I added caraway and anise seeds to the batard above, and I'll be making this again with other seeds and some whole grain soakers in the future.

Below is a photo of the sourdough multigrain from ABAP - also a terrific formula. Here enjoyed with herring, a fresh salad and sour cream.

Sourdough multigrain

 

Croissants

My freezer's been out of croissants for months on end, so a couple of weeks ago I decided to get my act together and haul out that butter block from the fridge! I used the simplest croissant recipe from ABAP (i.e. no preferments or sourdough), but gave the dough an overnight retardation in the fridge during bulk fermentation. The dough came out relaxed and easy to work with.

I'm using three single turns during lamination of croissant doughs, and this time I formed ordinary croissants (since I'm making these so rarely, I wanted to practice shaping a bit). After a few minutes in the oven, and the melted butter scent is filling the apartment, it's time to crank out that victory beer I've been saving:

Croissants in the oven

 

I was very happy with how these turned out - as full and rich in taste as any croissants I've made before with a preferment in the dough, but this time with a much lighter interior. I couldn't get a decent photo of the interior cross section, but it was incredibly light and fragile, almost like a spiderweb by the look of it!

Croissants

Layer upon layer upon layer upon... yum...

Croissants

 

Pastry

Easter time is the season for oranges where I come from, so I candied some peel from oranges I had and put them in cream scones together with dark raisins. A real treat!

Scones

I like my scones very cake-like (I hate those hard, chewy bricks I sometime get at the store... never again!), so I just blend everything together in a bowl (by hand or using a rubber spatula), before gently pressing the sticky mess into a springform. Slice, wash and bake! I cream washed these before putting them into the oven, so they came out a bit paler than cream scones with a proper egg wash.

Scones

Still good for breakfast, though.

 

After pulling those croissants off, I wanted to take things two turns further, and opted for a go at the puff pastry dough from Friberg's book. I've only done croissants three times before and never any puff, so this was definitely an eye opening experience. A massive chunk of butter where gently incorporated into a shaggy dough, and given five single turns. After the final turn, I rolled the dough gently into a rectangle 2-3 cm thick. In the photo underneath is about 2/3 of the dough (the other third was in the prepping stages of some puff pastry diamonds - more on those below) wrapped in cling film. (By the way, if anyone has made the puff dough from Friberg's book, and you don't mind, would you send me a message? There are some things in preparing the butterblock that I'd like to clear up!)

Puff pastry dough

 

As I said, this was my first experiment with puff dough, so I had no idea about the powerful punch this stuff packs when it gets into a steaming hot oven. Check out the oven spring:

Puff pastry diamonds

If there only could be a way to put 243 layers of butter into that rye dough... I used 1/3 of the puff dough to make some puff pastry diamonds with chunky apple filling and some with pastry cream (not shown here).

Puff pastry diamonds

 

Finally, for something a bit different - I'm not much of a cake baker, but I'd really love to learn how to do it properly. I've only made one layered cake before (a simple lemon curd cake), so I picked one of the simplest layered cakes in ABAP, an Opera cake. The Opera is typically made from a biscuit viennoise or a joconde sponge base, which is cut and stacked alternately with coffee buttercream and a chocolate ganache. A strong coffee soaker adds to the caffeine rush of this cake. Do not eat it on empty stomach. Or if you are pregnant. Or if you have a heart condition.

I used the recipe for the joconde sponge from Friberg's book (finished sponge, messy bowls and working notes below), and took the rest from ABAP.

Joconde sponge

I can mix a decent buttercream and form an edible chocolate ganache, but for me, the challenge is always in putting the many components together in something that you'd like to serve other people...!

Although my cake is a far cry from this sexy slab of Opera, I was still quite happy with how it turned out:

Opera cake

The layer breakdown:

Opera cake

Comments

dmsnyder's picture
dmsnyder

David

LindyD's picture
LindyD

Am glad to read that you were just busy, Hans.  I missed your blog and worried that you had picked up another hobby.

You have an awesome talent for baking.  Your breads and pastries are stunning.

ehanner's picture
ehanner

A very nice assortment of difficult projects. I'm impressed.

Eric

SylviaH's picture
SylviaH

Hans, Oh my, these are gorgeous looking breads and pastries.  You have done an absolutely beautiful bake...the photos are amazing.  I love the shape you have done with the apple Danish and The Opera appears to be floating on the plate and was well worth the effort put into it.  The scones and croissants are a favorite of mine!  The sandwich display is mouthwatering on the perfect looking bread!    I would like a closer look at your cooling rack the sponge cake is on and also if you can ... please post the recipe for your Joconde sponge! You've been away to long!!

Sylvia

SylviaH's picture
SylviaH

I can see the cooling rack now under your apple danish!  Nice cooling or baking rack?

Sylvia

Floydm's picture
Floydm

Beautiful stuff.

hansjoakim's picture
hansjoakim

Thanks for your comments, all :)

Sylvia: It's good to be back! The joconde sponge is resting on an inverted perforated baking sheet - a very thin, light sheet full of holes in it. I can post the joconde sponge recipe tomorrow - I don't have my Friberg here right now. I'm not sure if there are any copyright issues to worry about? The recipe is very similar to the one posted on this blog, so you can also have a look there. I didn't have any almond meal, so I ground blanched almonds with granulated sugar in a food processor until a very, very fine consistency. Unfortunately, I was distracted by a phone call just as I was preparing a meringue for the joconde, so the egg whites were whipped medium/stiff rather than soft/medium. It was quite hard to fold the meringue entirely into the egg mixture, so my joconde suffered a bit from that. The consistency and taste of it was really nice however. Very spongy and springy :)

SylviaH's picture
SylviaH

Hans, thanks for refering me to the recipe on the blog...it sounds wonderful...at first I didn't realize the egg whites and almond was in the sponge cake 'joconde' that makes it even much more appealing and healthy...using egg white and the almond meal...lovely...I will make this using my KA cake flour.  I have a lot of almond flour on hand in the freezer.  It's hard to find a good sponge cake...Im so looking forward to this recipe because I especially like the use of the almond flour/meal!  Sponge cake can be used to make so many nice cakes...they are very nice to top and roll...makes a lovely Christmas Yule Log or jelly roll cake..the recipe will certainly come in handy...thank you!

Sylvia

xaipete's picture
xaipete

Hans, you have incredible talent and patience. Everything is just beautiful.

--Pamela

Judon's picture
Judon

with the range you are baking - when are you opening your shop?!

Beautiful work thanks for sharing the photos.

Judy

chahira daoud's picture
chahira daoud

You are really very talented, I loved all the harvest.

opera cake is awesome and very well done.

Croissanta & danish are my favorites too.

Your bread looks awesome, Very good job Hans, I am waiting too for your own bakery !!

Thanks dear for sharing us these lovely pics !!

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

Everything!  My heart jumps at the rye.  My eyes pop out at croissants.  The scones I can almost smell.   And Opera leaves my toungue tingling.  You're hitting my senses here...

I'm working to recreate that beautiful dough cut with the apple danish that you've shared with us.  It is so simple... please correct me if I'm wrong.  Cut a square, cut another just inside the other (frame) leaving two opposite corners uncut.  Pick up the cut corners one at a time and fold over matching corners.  ...Is anything brushed onto the dough to make them stick or do they just rest there? 

Mini

 

 

hansjoakim's picture
hansjoakim

Thanks again all, for all your kind, warm comments! I very much appreciate all your feedback :)

Yes, you've got the squares down, MiniO. For these, I took the 10cm squares (about 3mm thick), and folded in half, so I had a triangle. Then, make two cuts along the two sides with exposed butter layers, being careful to leave a little dough uncut at the very top. This makes it easier to get an even width on the cut corners. Unfold the triangle again, dock the center, egg wash, and gently fold the cut corners to form the frame before egg washing the top of the frame! I think the initial egg wash glue the corners to the bottom square.

pattycakes's picture
pattycakes

Gorgeous baking! You are so good at shaping and neat looking cakes and croissants.

xaipete's picture
xaipete

Hans, I am so inspired by your Clichy that I've pulled my copy out of Mastering the Art of French Pastry by Bruce Healy and Paul Bugat, and am studying their recipe for Clichy and seriously considering giving it a try.

--Pamela