For those that might have noticed the macaron selection growing to take over the chocolate case- the recent, and very welcome, sunny and warm days have once again heralded the end of the chocolate season. We don’t have air conditioning in production (and won’t…we don’t even want to contemplate that kind of energy bill), so once we hit late spring, it just gets too warm to make them and keep them in good condition (melted chocolates just look kind of sad). However, saying goodbye (temporarily!) to one product group means some extra energy can go to another….
As summer is approaching, Chef is starting to look at frozen treats again. Gelato will soon be making its return, in macaron sandwiches and possibly a couple of other formats. In addition to the gelato, Chef is looking at traditional ice cream as well.
We’ll also be sticking with the sandwich format for the ice cream. The first set of flavors Chef is trying out includes chocolate chip cookie with vanilla ice cream, peanut butter cookie with chocolate ice cream, and our new coconut-cashew cookie with coconut ice cream. The gelato isn’t out yet, but you’ll notice some items on a stick….on a lark, Chef made up some cheese cake pops. Our classic cheese cake dipped in white chocolate, and our mocha cheese cake dipped in dark. These are basically just for fun, and we might or might not expand on the concept. If you like portable cheese cake, let us know!
Currently, the ice cream is in really small batch production while Chef tries out flavors, so there may be a little variety over the next couple of weeks. We’re doing everything in house, starting with fresh cream, and developing the bases for the various flavors here.
That’s the brief update for today. Have a great close to your Thursday, everyone!
Surprise Tuesday photo post!
Chef’s been experimenting a bit with some classical pastry. One of which, the Kouign-Amann, we’ve experimented with before. There are some differences in the laminating and baking between these rounds and previous trials, resulting in a pastry that’s a little taller and not quite as dense. It’s still all about the caramel though. The sequence in these photos is pretty close to the method that we’ll be using for now (with more time and lots of repetitions, there might be future changes in method).
So, what is a Kouign-Amann? Buttery, caramelized goodness is the short version. The longer version is that it’s a Breton pastry or dessert, which can be made a bit larger (as a gateau- David Lebovitz has a detailed recipe on his blog) or a smaller pastry (like ours), and in either case is essentially pastry dough layered with butter and sugar which caramelize as it bakes.
We start with a round of dough and a layer of butter. The dough is folded over the butter and then rolled out. This layered dough is given a generous sprinkle of sugar, and the folded and rolled again. The folding and rolling is repeated once more, and then the dough gathered into kind of a pocket or purse fold. From here, it’s placed in baking tin (with a bit more sugar), and goes through a proof and bake, resulting in golden brown, caramelized buttery goodness (I’m probably overusing those adjectives, but seriously, I don’t know what else to call it). It is sweet, but more on the rich end of sweet.
Oh- if you noticed the black flecks in the sugar, that’s ground vanilla bean. We save the pods after scraping them out, and when ground, they provide a really nice, mellow vanilla flavor.
This version of the Kouign Amann has been added to our regular spring menu, so it will be around a little while. Have a great Tuesday evening everyone!
Don’t forget that tomorrow, the 5th, is the last day for placing pre-orders for Easter weekend. We’ll have lots of bread, pastry, hot cross buns and brioche, but if there is something you definitely want to have, I’d recommend ordering. Also, we will be closing early on Easter Sunday, at 5 pm instead of 7 pm.
Photo Friday, the shiny egg edition!
So, as we near Easter our attention continues to turn towards chocolate. Some of this week, we have been preparing egg shells for our Easter Eggs. What you’re seeing in the photos are stages in the process.
To start with, the molds are sprayed with colored cocoa butter. The spray needs to be held at 35 C, with a very tight range up or down. This helps the cocoa butter crystallize properly as it cools on the surface of the mold (this is analogous to tempering, although we don’t actually table or seed the cocoa butter- it’s all done by temperature control only). We then have a few options. We could fill the molds directly, or spray with a secondary color- both of which you can see in our confections case currently.
The other thing we can do is what you see in the photo- brushing in another color of chocolate. In most cases we use white chocolate for this, as it does a couple of things- where we have a very even coat of color, the white backing helps it seem more bright and really shows the color off.
Where we have an uneven coat, or where the first color layer hasn’t quite set yet, using the white can give us a nice marbling effect, showing a little depth in the shell as a darker chocolate fills in the gaps or shows through thinner layers. This is probably my personal favorite in terms of effects.
After the tempered white chocolate is brushed in and allowed to set, we then fill the shells with either milk or dark chocolate, and let the sides set to the thickness we want. We then cool the shells in the mold and give them time to set up and contract away from the sides of the mold so that the shell releases and lifts out easily.
For the red eggs, the detail photo of the satin or matte red shows what the cocoa butter looks like on the reverse side. On the shell or mold side, the crystals set and pattern off of the surface they are against- in this case polished polycarbonate. On the to-be-filled side, the crystals set in the smooth, satin layer. These were brushed with white as well, and when the large shells have set, they will show shine just like the small ones sitting on top of the mold (assuming we controlled our temperature correctly).
Have a great weekend everyone- it’s supposed to be sunny and warm (ish) so get out there and enjoy it!
Just as a little heads-up, we’re closing an hour early tonight, at 6 pm, for a spring staff-meeting.
It looks like there’s a little sun out around West Seattle, so get out there and enjoy it!
Photo Friday, a dessert and chocolate edition!
A few photos to start heading into the weekend. Starting at the top, we have a bit of new decor on the chocolate tart. Chef went with mini-macarons this morning, instead of the chocolate petals we did have. It’s a nice, colorful break in the case, and well, we’re starting to feel spring in the air around here (anyone notice the colorful carrot cake icing?).
Following is a photo of an eclair that was in the case this morning. Normally we hollow the choux out and pipe the pastry cream into it. Sometimes, like this morning, Chef goes for a little more visual presentation, especially for vanilla, since we use a creme Madame for the filling instead of straight pastry cream. It holds shape quite a bit better.
Next in line is the initial version of a dessert that’s tentatively called the Bora Bora. It has cashew sponge cake layered with passion fruit cremeux, coconut mousse and a light top layer of meringue. The glazing on top is a mild apricot glaze with passion fruit juice added. It’s quickly becoming a favorite of a couple of coconut addicted staff members.
Following are some chocolate details. If you have seen some of the ones out in the case, you know that we’ve been playing with different methods of using colored cocoa butter for decoration. Before this fall, our usual method was to use a small paint brush, or gloved finger tips, to brush the colors in. Sometimes we would flick them, which gives a nice, if uneven speckle. Lately, Chef’s been experimenting with a spray nozzle attached to a compressor. You can do a light spray, followed by other light layers, and get a layered-paint look like these shown here. You can also do a heavy spray and get a really shiny and even coat, such as the in the cherry cordial shown next. If you look closely, you can see the white spray just under the continuous, thin layer of red.
The last two shots are of chocolate tablets that were molded in bar molds for the display piece that Sean created back in February. I just think the geometric look of both tablets is pretty darn cool. They are also both good examples of everything being done very correctly in molding, which will be a topic for another day.
So, again, some photos for a little color on this cloudy afternoon. Have a good evening and a great weekend everyone!
The world of baking met this past week in Paris, France, for the 2012 Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie. This is truly a global event, with a dozen teams from North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa, who all went through a rigorous series of regional competitions to both get on a team and to earn the right to compete in the Coupe.
The competition is all about bread and baking of course- starting in the strict traditional form using only flour, water, salt and yeast (such as the traditional baguette), and then branching out to include regional grains, ingredients and cultural specialties (the viennoiserie portion can be really creative with fillings and finishes). There is also an artistic portion, with showpieces created using a combination of live (yeasted) dough and salt dough (non-rising). Showpieces are built on an assigned theme, which typically showcases an aspect of a country’s history and culture.
All the teams are there to do their best, and to win, if they can, but at the end of the week, it’s all about baking, and by all accounts (including Chef Leaman’s personal recollection, and also the blog link to follow), bakers show off the best of what competition means- working hard, doing your absolute best, and leaving your ego at the door as it’s all about the craft. With three years between competitions, there is a lot of time and effort invested by each individual competitor as they have tried out and progressed through the rigorous training and unending practice it takes- you go all in, and respect and support the other competitors for having done the same.
With that said, we want to congratulate this year’s winners! Just announced today- Japan took 1st place, the US took 2nd, and Taiwan placed third. We’re especially proud of the US team, as our former sous Chef, Jeremey Gadouas, was representing America for viennoiserie (croissant, brioche and other pastry items). His teammates were Mike Zakowski for bread, and Harry Peemoeller for artistic design. They represent the strong and growing tradition of preserving and improving the craft of baking, and we’re proud of them! We hope that you are too!
For better discussion about the whole week, check out this 5-part posting by Jeffery Hamelman. Mr. Hamelman was in Paris for the event, and has great insight as he himself is a Coupe competitor and winner (Team USA, 1996), and King Arthur Flour’s bakery director.
Have a happy Wednesday everyone, and go out and have a loaf of good bread or a butter croissant to celebrate!
We got a new, mid-size spiral mixer- this one is a bit bigger than the small one we got last year. It’s efficient, compact, and, well, kind of looks like a stylized football helmet. However, it will handle all of our small/medium batch variety bread pretty easily, and there is a bit of room for growth.
Sometimes spelled ‘muffuletta’, this sandwich originated in New Orleans, probably in 1906 at the Central Grocery, where you can still find the sandwich (Barron’s, 4th Edition). The original version was served on a crusty french-style loaf, with salami, ham and provolone. The distinctive part of this sandwich is the olivetta spread- green olives chopped with a blend of other vegetables. We used to hold pretty close to the traditional- using our ciabatta roll instead of a crusty white bread, but keeping the toppings to ham, salami and provolone. Our version of the olive spread uses giardiniera for the vegetable mix.
We changed it up a little this year- in addition to the olivetta, the sandwich has layers of mortadella, coppa salumi, and sopressata salami, along with provolone and a bit of Swiss Emmenthaler cheese. There are some black olives in the layer too, and it’s served on rolls of our sesame semolina. Like the Paczki and King Cake, we’ll only have them around for a limited time.
Speaking of Paczki, in addition to the chocolate, vanilla and apple fillings, others that came out today and will be around through the weekend are raspberry, and sliced strawberry with vanilla creme Madame.
Have a great rest of your Friday, and a great weekend everyone!
Today’s photo post is brought to you by St. Valentine’s Day. This is a fun, playful holiday for us- showpieces can be a bit more whimsical, short-run desserts can have some extra decoration, and iced cookies can have writing from the sweet to the slightly naughty innuendo, to, well, sarcastic (probably would be fun for an office party). Essentially, we think this is a good holiday to share the love and have fun- it could be romantic, or it could be simply showing appreciation for those you care about.
Oh- we will be open regular hours, and will work to have the bread, pastry and dessert cases well stocked. If there is something you know you want, like any holiday, I’d recommend ordering ahead of time, just to be sure.
On to the photos- We have two display pieces this year. The first, with the hearts, was made by Chef, and is in keeping with the more traditional theme of the holiday. The second is the very first show piece made by one of our two Seans- if you are a weekend regular, our usual stocker, Sean C., has been exploring a side interest in chocolate and production. He had guidance from Chef, but the bulk of the work was his- I’d say he’s taking to it very well.
Following the showpieces is this year’s Macaron-for-Two. A base layer of our macaron, followed by layers of chocolate mousse and vanilla creme Madame. What you can’t see is that there is a thin layer of our vanilla butter cake (brushed with a little kirsch simple syrup).
In terms of having fun with extra decoration, we have added a chocolate flower top to our chocolate tart. This year, it’s a 4” individual tart, still made with our rich baked ganache. Be on the lookout for some chocolate hearts, colored icings (we have slices of carrot cake with pink cream cheese icing), and other decor.
We also have our chocolate boxes out now- 5, 20 and 40 count heart boxes, as well as what we’re calling a ‘Valentine’s Kiss’- milk or dark chocolate smiles with 6 pieces of candy inside.
Finally, I just wanted to show off the raspberry caramel heart again. They have been coming out really nicely this year- Chef changed up how we decorate the molds before shelling, and the shine from the cocoa butter is just spot-on.
So- again, for us this is a fun holiday with lots of playful options. We know that St. Valentine’s is usually considered a romantic holiday, but for us it is about celebrating the people you care about- spouses, friends, family…St. Valentine’s has a much wider connotation.
Have a great weekend everyone, and if we don’t get back to the blog before then, have a happy St. Valentine’s Day!
