Feel The Burn

It’s a beautiful day here at Fabulous Pastries, one of those accidentally 80 degree-days occurring in April; the wish for warmth has finally been granted and we are free to expose our skin once more.  Out in Washington Square Park the dogwoods and magnolias have started to bloom, bursting forth in pinks and whites, showy but still elegant, the Jazz band has started up with a little Coltrane…fantastic.  Impossibly thin NYU students (desperately in need of a slice of cake or two) are carefully posed out on the lawn, wearing very little, pretending it’s July and trying to jump from the pale skin of winter to a summer burn.  I’m not so different from them, minus the overtly thin part.  You can’t make pastries without having a little extra love on your handles.

The first week of April brings my birthday front and center.  As I get older I’m not so inclined to celebrate with loud vigor.  I’m opting for a more quiet, sedate observation of the passage of time.  36 isn’t old by any means, but for me it marks the crossing over from the 18-35 box on the surveys and has the tiniest amount of sting to it.  My birthday felt different this year, maybe because of the dad factor.  It feels as if I’m grown up in some fundamental way I couldn’t conceive before.  I suppose I was subject to Peter Pan syndrome like so many before me, but having the responsibility of taking care of a small person has shaken me up a bit and woken me from my reverie…and this isn’t such a bad thing.

The best birthday present I could have gotten was Siena.  Beyond that, everything else seems like a really great accessory or a fun distraction from her.  The smiles and laughs she has started giving are music to my ears.  I can be in the worst possible mood and all she has to do is flash that big, toothless grin and everything seems better again.  It’s like she is the perfect drug, and a healthy habit to form at that.  The most special gift she gave, of course, was a full diaper paired with a smile.

On the order of other fabulous gifts, Brian made me cupcakes!!!  It’s rare that anyone ever makes pastries for me, and I understand why.  I’ve become known as the guy that makes the desserts.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t like to have a special plateful of butter and sugar placed in front of my face by others.  In fact, it is something I absolutely adore and made getting cupcakes baked for me so special…not to mention they were darn good.

Brian was smart in his choice, going straight for a Martha Stewart recipe including my ultimate favorite, lemon curd.  Those tart and sweet morsels of curd, slathered on a cake or an old shoe send me straight to my happy place.  When I found out he was making them I was really, very excited.  I know he wanted to surprise me, but since we are alternating care of a three-month old and have one smallish kitchen, I was bound to find out what he was up to.

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes are no small feat.  They seem simple, more simple sounding than cake, but in reality they are complex in a different way if you are trying to make something beautiful.  They are on par with cutting out lots of sugar cookies in my opinion.  The setup is straightforward, but you have to perform several repetitive tasks to complete them.  With a cake, you are only frosting one large piece, but decorating cookies and cupcakes generally requires decorating dozens.  The cupcake batter itself is easy, these cakes were particularly good because of all the lemon zest and buttermilk used, and the curd is to die for.  But what makes these cupcakes really standout is the piped seven-minute frosting that goes on top.

I don’t often pipe frostings.  It’s something I need to get better at.  I’ve seen piping done so many times on television and no one ever seems to have a nervous breakdown.  The key is knowing how to fill the bag without making a mess (fold the top portion of the bag over while filling), guiding with your dominant hand and squeezing out the frosting with your other hand.  Brian made all the components for these cupcakes, but let me pipe and “torch” the meringue frosting as a special treat.  He got me a butane torch as a gift and I couldn’t wait to try it out!

What is man’s fascination with fire?  The act of setting anything on fire, the power it inspires, the smells are all mesmerizing.  I don’t know how many times we’ve sat out in the backyard with the fire-pit blazing, endlessly staring, poking and prodding the fire as the hours whittled away.  Using a butane torch has this magical quality, but also has a similar effect to that of an airbrush.  Essentially you are painting with fire.   Because of the star tip used to pipe the frosting there were raised areas in the snowy mounds.  With a light touch of the flame, the sugary whites became a luscious caramel brown, leaving a white relief contrasting with the darker burn.  The burning sugar produces smoke, and flames up a bit if you’re not careful, leaving the kitchen smelling like fresh made caramels.

I could think of nothing better to get from Brian than a dessert made with love, and the opportunity to photograph said dessert.  Half the fun baking, for me, is taking the photos.  I like nothing more than to step out into the golden afternoon light, armed with a macro lense and set to work trying to capture the end product of a fun baking experience.  Photographing these towering meringues atop lemony goodness were no different for me than if I’d made them myself, and from time to time it’s nice to take a weekend off from being in the kitchen.

I’m lucky because we celebrated my birthday week instead of just the actual day.  When your birthday falls in the middle of the week it’s kind of a drag.  We started off Sunday by going to The Cookery with Izabella, Jonathan and Mia.  The Cookery is one of our favorite restaurants in Westchester, and we’ve never had a bad meal there.  The menu is rustic Italian, but with a gastro pub flair; lots of cured and smoked meats and cheeses, wood fired breads doused in the most delicious olive oil, pastas and meats are the specialty, but the “Slab-o-butter Pie was to die for.  It was the dessert special of the day and I’ve never had anything quite like it.  The “pie” for all intents and purposes seemed like a cross between a moist milk cake and the buttery, crunchy topping often found on a cobbler.  Every bite was sin, through and through and I would commit that sin over and over again if permitted, unashamed.

As we moved toward the actual day of my birth, Brian and Siena came into the city to celebrate with me for lunch and then come to the dessert party we had at my office.  My friend Sara certainly knows how to take care of me and had not only one cake, but four.  She had stopped by Sweet Melissa Patisserie in Brooklyn that morning and procured the most delicious strawberry-rhubarb pie, a bread pudding, a chocolate cake and a lemon meringue pie to gild the lily.  I think everyone is clearly aware of my baking passion and wasn’t surprised to see all the desserts.  My passion for lemon meringue/curd is legendary.

I think I like lemon so much because of my grandmother.  I remember, every other weekend when I would visit my dad as a kid, we would go to my grandparent’s house for lunch on Sunday.  Grandma Pansy (yes, that was her name) would go all out for these meals, generally Midwestern/Southern fare like brown beans and cornbread smothered in onions and mayonnaise, or kielbasa simmered in barbecue sauce with mashed potatoes.  There were always black olives on hand because apparently as a small child I loved to put them on the ends of my fingertips and proudly walk around the kitchen before devouring them.  The best, and point of this tangent was her lemon meringue pie.  It was simply amazing.  Unfortunately I don’t have her particular recipe for it, but it has definitely inspired in me many years (and many pounds added to my backside) of lemon curd happiness.

By the time my birthday was properly done you would think I would have had my fair share of sugar shock, but no, for me there is never enough.  I got some great books as presents, and two of them became the inspiration for this week’s dessert:  Grapefruit Brulee Tart.  I’ve been threatening to get back to basics with my pastry, get back to dealing with fundamentals and working on a solid base so that I’ll eventually be better able to develop recipes.  A book I’ve had on my wish list forever has been the Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts from the French Culinary Institute.  I took the amateur pastry course there in 2007 and have always wanted to go back and take the full pastry course.  Unfortunately this costs as much as a master’s degree and requires a full time, 6 month commitment, neither thing I am in a luxurious position to do at this time.  The next best thing, I’m hoping, is this book.

It starts off with the fundamentals of working in a professional kitchen, from uniform and sanitation habits to different methods for chopping, slicing and dicing.  The book gets into the nitty gritty scientific properties of ingredients describing how they function together to make the perfect French dessert.  These are very interesting things to me because I don’t know the hard facts behind baked goods as much as I know flavor profiles.  It’s these bare bones facts that will allow me to create original desserts instead of following someone else’s recipe. 

The book breaks things down in a similar fashion to the way my school course did, starting out with tarts. Three basic tart doughs are covered including the most common: pate brisee (literally translated as “broken” dough, describing it’s layered appearance).  I find I use this dough more than any other to achieve a buttery, flakey crust.  The other two are pate sucree (sugar dough) and pate sablee (shortbread dough).  A discussion ensues into the different elements comprising the dough, but good tart dough generally has flour, fat, liquid and salt.  Different combinations of butter, oil, water, sugars and flour types will produce different textures and shades of golden deliciousness in the final product.

In general a combination of all-purpose flour and cake flour will give the equivalent flour type to that found in France (this suits our purposes in reproducing the delicate French pastries).  Cake flour has less protein and therefore develops less gluten…the protein strands that hold the dough together, but can make it tough if over developed…this is why you never over-mix dough!!!!  It’s also important to let the dough rest and relax from an hour to twenty-four hours in the refrigerator…also helping to minimize gluten development.  Our goal is always a well-made tart shell both delicate and light.

I started out by creating pate sucree dough, the shell of this week’s tart. 

Pate Sucree

250 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature

125 grams confectioners’ sugar

3 large eggs, at room temperature

500 grams cake flour

1/2-teaspoon baking powder

Prepare your mise en place.  (Get all your ingredients ready)

Place the butter in the bowl of a standing electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Add the sugar and beat of low to just combine.  Raise the speed to medium-high and beat until the mixture is light and creamy.

Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.  (Do not add them too quickly or the mixture will separate.  If separation occurs, continue mixing until the mixture comes back together.  If it does not homogenize after a period of mixing, add just a spoonful of flour to encourage the process.)

When the eggs are well incorporated, turn off the motor and add the cake flour and baking powder all at once.  Return the machine to slow speed and, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, beat until the flour is just incorporated.  Do not over-mix.

Using the spatula, scrape the dough from the bowl.  Gather the dough together and form it into a disk.  Wrap the disk in plastic film and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes or up to 1 week before rolling it into the shape required.  The dough may also be wrapped and frozen for up to 3 months.

Tips:

If all ingredients are at room temperature, the dough will come together quicker and easier.  This dough may be used for both tart shells and cookies.  Any dough scraps may be re-rolled, but the dough will be slightly tougher.

Evaluating your success:

The dough should be light yellow.  The ingredients should be completely homogenized.  The dough should roll out easily with no cracking.  The dough should be tender and crumbly when baked.

I was inspired by one of the other books I received for my birthday:  Martha Stewart’s Pies and Tarts.  The colorful photos are mouth watering and I immediately wanted to make everything I saw.  The problem is most of what I was seeing were tarts with elements not quite in season.  I’m so ready for May to get here so I can move on from my ongoing citrus theme (though truth be told I never get tired of citrus desserts) and into something fresh like strawberries and rhubarb.  But, I digress once more…

I found a Caramelized Lemon Tart that called for our old friend lemon curd, but I had to throw my hands up at that and cry, “enough!”  With my goal being continued recipe experimentation and learning I took a cue from last month’s shortbread exploration and went the route of grapefruit.  I couldn’t recall ever having had a grapefruit tart, let alone one that gets bruleed (burned with my new torch), so off I went to the store to pick up a few ingredients and get my dough made, refrigerated and ready to role out for the next day.

Marty's Grapefruit Tart (based on Martha Stewart’s Caramelized Lemon Tart)

All-purpose flour, for dusting

1/2 recipe Pate Sucree

6 large egg yolks

Finely grated zest of 2 pink grapefruit

1/2-cup fresh grapefruit juice (from one large grapefruit)

1-cup plus 2 to 3 tablespoons sugar

1/2-cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

One drop of red food coloring.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/4 inch thick.  Press into bottom and up sides of a 9-inch fluted tart pan with removable bottom.  Pierce bottom of shell all over with a fork.  Trim excess dough flush with rim.  Refrigerate or freeze until firm, about 30 minutes.

Line shell with parchment, fill with pie weights or dried beans.  Bake shell until edges just turn golden, about 15 minutes.  Remove weights and parchment; bake until golden brown, 10 to 12 minutes more.  Let cool completely on a wire rack.

Whisk together yolks, zest, juice, and 1-cup sugar in a heavy saucepan.  Bring to a simmer, whisking constantly.  Cook until mixture is thickened, and bubbles appear around edges, 8 to 10 minutes.  Strain through a fine sieve into a bowl.  Whisk in butter, once piece at a time, until completely smooth and mix in the food coloring.  Pour filling into crust.  Refrigerate, uncovered, until set, about 2 hours.

Just before serving, sift remaining 3 tablespoons sugar evenly over top of filling.  Carefully caramelize sugar with a handheld kitchen torch (or under a broiler) until deep amber.  Tart is best eaten the day it is made, but can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature up to 1 day.

Garnish with candied grapefruit slices.

I liked using the French Culinary book because everything is measured out in grams.  We learned to do that in school, using a digital scale it’s quite easy.  Everything is precise, no second-guessing about fluffing up the flour before measuring the scoop or going a little over or under on the liquid measurements by accident.  No guessing = no worrying.

The one thing I learned this week of import was the tip about incorporating eggs into your dough.  I’ve always mixed them in one at a time, letting them incorporate (or what I thought was incorporated) and scraping down the sides of the bowl, but sometimes I notice the batter separates a bit in terms of being able to see the liquids and solids (not homogenous) and looking a bit grainy.  I’ve always gone on my merry way with adding the other ingredients allowing everything to come together with the flour in the end.  This is incorrect.  It’s important to keep mixing the eggs until the dough comes back together and to add just a touch of flour to encourage binding if it doesn’t want to do so on it’s own.  This will result in a more smooth and harmonious dough leading to the texture you are after.  It all comes down technique and either the texture of your pastry is right, or it isn’t.  The taste might still be good, but the consistency will be wrong.  The French are sticklers for their rules. 

I have a tendency to like rules.  They bring order out of chaos in everything from work to baked goods and following a few basic steps mingled with understanding the “how’s” and “why’s” of pastry will help me to become a better cook.  Also, my ability to explain what I’m doing in a fashion similar to that of a Food Network host for Siena will help to reiterate my new found knowledge.  This week she helped me to work on the grapefruit portion of the tart learning about grapefruit themselves, the process of zesting and also the things to look for when buying fruit in the market…you know, things like how they should smell and to avoid blemishes.  She also learned how to separate eggs in the most efficient manner and her eyes seemed to light up at the glowing yellow balls of yolky sunshine in my hands…or maybe I’m fantasizing again.

The pate sucree recipe makes enough for two tarts, so I split the dough in two and saved one portion for another time.  I found when I rolled out the remaining half I still had a enough for both a nine inch tart and several small tartlets.  I didn’t have enough filling for the smaller tarts, but I did have a jar of strawberry preserves on hand.  I took the preserves and cooked them over medium heat for about 5 minutes, until thin enough to pour.  I put the liquid through a strainer then filled the baked tart shells with the strawberry preserves.  This will work for pretty much any jam or jar of preserves you might have on hand, and is a quick solution if you happen to have tart dough on hand but not enough time to make a filling.  You can go from dough to complete tart in under an hour.

This was definitely a week for curds and burning, both things I love.  The range of color you can achieve with a little fruit juice, some eggs and a drop of two of food coloring are dazzling, and pair that with a butane torch for caramelization and you are up and running for crunchy, sweet treats with complex flavor.  You can also use the torch to light the candles on your birthday cake or to safely melt them down to nothing, successfully preserving your age from prying friends, family and coworkers.  I’m proud of my age, so I would never do such a thing, but that doesn’t mean I have to act it.  I would prefer to act Siena’s age, 3 months, somehow I feel like I could get away with a lot more.  All I need to do is smile and giggle and bat my big eyelashes to get what I want…wait, I do that anyway.  It’s just who I am.