Puff pastry - Pâte feuilletée

I have always loved making desserts and baking but was shying away from making real puff pastry with a pre-conceived idea that it would be too hard to make and would take too much time. Nonetheless I kept researching about it and finaly decided to go for it. Here is a fairly straightforward method that will give you really amazing results. Slightly different than a previous version already posted.

Puff pastry - Pâte feuilletée

For 2 10 ½" circles

Ingredients

1 ¾ cup + 1 Tbsp / 250 gr All purpose flour       
3 ¾ fl oz / 125 gr (115 ml) Water (cold)           
1 tsp / 6 gr Pinch of salt           
2 Tbsp / 25 gr Butter (room temp.)       

1.5 stick /162 gr Butter unsalted (cold)   

Method
In the bowl of food processor with dough blade mix all ingredients except cold butter, give a few pulse until the dough gathers together, take out on a clean dry work surface and form a ball without working the dough too much, make a cross on the dough (to help it relax).
Place the dough ball in a plastic wrap in the fridge for 20mn.
Take the cold butter and work it into a flat square 6”x6”.
Take the dough out of the fridge and spread the cross and roll out the dough into a square 9”x 9” approx.
Place the butter square on top of the dough square. Sideways and close the dough over the butter in the shape of an envelope, seal well so the butter won’t escape (very important).
Roll out the dough into a rectangle about 12” long (9" wide) and make a double turn.
Repeat and chill dough for 30mn.
Roll out the dough into a rectangle about 12” long and make 2 double turns.
Chill for 30mn.At this point you can either use the dough or freeze it.

Pâte sablée - Short dough

Short dough – Pâte sablée
For 2 x 10 ½ inch tart pan

Ingredients
1 ¾ cup / 250 gr All Purpose Flour
1 stick + 1 Tbsp / 125 gr Butter
1 Egg
½ cup + 1 Tbsp / 125 gr Sugar
½ tsp Vanilla extract

Method
Combine flour and butter in a mixing bowl and pulse until you obtain a crumble.
Add egg, sugar and vanilla and pulse until well mixed, but do not overwork the dough, otherwise it will be very difficult to handle.
Form into a ball in a plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour.

For reference
Baking time is 25 to 30mn at 375 F / 190 C depending on your oven. The baked colour is golden brown.

Short crust Flaky dough/Pâte brisée

Here is a very versatile pastry dough a friend of mine gave me, it is perfect and works every time, the secret is to not overwork the dough.

Short crust Flaky dough
For 1 x 11 to 12" (28 to 30 cm) diameter tart dish
Ingredients
200 gr / 1.5 cup All purpose flour
113 gr / 1 stick unsalted butter, cold and diced
1/2 Tsp salt
75 gr / 4 TBSP ice cold water (place a couple of ice cubes in a glass of water)

Method
In a food processor place flour, butter and salt and pulse a few times untill you obtain a kind of crumble then add the water and pulse a couple more times, DO NOT overwork.
Take the mixture out on a cling film/plastic food wrap and by hand form a ball by gently pressing it together, then place a second sheet of cling film on top of the ball of dough and roll the dough out between the 2 sheets of film into the desired thickness.
This will make it easy to roll and lay into the dish you choose by simply peeling of the top layer of film and inverting the dough on the dish and peeling of the second sheet of film.

The GF Pizza Crust challenge

Last August we stayed at the "B&M Zoo" family cabin on Flathead lake in Montana and they challenged me to create a gluten free pizza crust as a major part of the family is gluten intolerant and it is always a challenge for them to find tasty GF pizza. Fast forward to last week and I received a mail enquiring of my progress, so I finally got to work and came up with the below recipe, my home committee of gluten lovers approved thumbs up of this new gluten free pizza crust, so I guess it's time to share it.

Gluten free pizza crust

Ingredients

1 cup / 180 gr Rice flour

1 cup / 145 gr Sorghum flour

1/2 / 80 gr cup Tapioca flour (if not available you can make it by grinding the tapioca pearls in a clean coffee grinder or use corn starch)

1/4 cup / 40 gr potato starch

2 tsp Xanthan gum (very important element in all gluten free baking, it is the "binding" agent that acts similarly to gluten)

1 tsp salt

1 egg

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 cup tepid water (can be increased by 1/4 cup depending on the dryness of your various flours, also rice flour absorbs liquid a lot)

2 tsp active dry yeast

1/2 tsp sugar

Method

Turn on your oven to 150 F.

Before you start measuring all the dry ingredients, mix the yeast with the tepid water and sugar and and set aside (it will start bubbling up a bit).

Then measure your dry ingredients in the mixing bowl of a stand up mixer (rice, sorghum, tapioca, potato, xanthan gum, salt). Pour the water/yeast mixture, the egg and mix with the paddle of the mixer for 4 or 5 mn till all well incorporated, then add the olive oil.

The dough will be a bit sticky but it shouldn't be too wet so after the first cup of water/yeast mixture you can add up to 1/4 cup of water but do it progressively.

Once all incorporated cut a third of the dough and roll it out on a Silpat or if you don't have one on a sheet of parchment paper cut to the size of a jelly roll pan, to the thickness you desire (I rolled mine very thinly and it was perfect), spray or baste a little olive oil on top so it won't dry out, turn of the oven and place the jelly roll pan and let the dough rise in the pre-heated oven for 30 mn.

Roll the rest of the dough on another pan and let it rise in the turned off oven as well. (If you have removable bottom tart pans these will also work just fine).

Then turn on the oven to 375 F and pre-bake the dough for 15mn, take it out and increase the oven temperature to 425 F and place the toppings of your choice on your pizza crust (I kept mine simple with tomato sauce, anchovies, black olives and mozzarella cheese) and put it back in the oven to finish the baking process for a further 15/20 mn.

The result will be a thin crispy crust gluten free pizza.

Puff pastry it is

Puff pastry seems to be one of the hardest pastry to make, at least it was the case for me until I started making it. In fact it is quite simple, it's a matter of having cold ingredients and following the various steps to the letter.

Puff pastry/Pâte feuilletée

Ingredients

250 gr all purpose flour

8 gr salt

125 ccm cold water

190 gr unsalted butter (beurre de tourage) (it is possible to put the same weight of butter than that of flour, but I like this recipe as it is somewhat lighter)

Method

Sift flour into a bowl, with salt, add water and mix quickly (with paddle if using mixer) (approx. 1mn)

Shape into a ball and make a cross on the top with a sharp knife, place the dough in a plastic wrap in the fridge for 30 mn.

Take the butter out of the fridge and place it between 2 sheets of palstic wrap or parchment paper and beat it with a rolling pin in order to flaten it.

Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it into a square bigger than the butter, place the flattened butter on the dough and enclose it completely into the dough, and seal the dough (so the butter won't escape, very very important).

Roll out the dough into a rectangle 3 times longer than its width, fold top part to the middle and bottom part over top part, make a quarter turn to the right and repeat this rolling and folding process once, then chill for 30mn. You just made 2 turns.

After 30mn take dough out of the fridge and repeat another 2 turns. And chill for another 30mn.

Then repeat one last time the 2 turns and you are ready to use your puff pastry.

It is important to always turn the pasrty in the same way, quarter turn to the right leaving the opening fold to your right.

(I will post pictures soon to illustrate this recipe...)

Happy baking.

D Day

Here I am D day (or should I say B day - Blog day), for the past 6 months or so I have been toying with the idea of writing a Weblog to talk about food, my cooking & baking experiments using family, friends and my own recipes and to share some of my photos, and also as a way to keep track of what I cook and do, I did open the blog but then nothing, as if I was holding back (for some reason or another, all good at the time of course!).
And yesterday I went to a book signing by Kristin Espinasse http://www.french-word-a-day.typepad.com/ and she challenged me to start today with a recipe of "Tarte Tatin" and I said "Tarte Tatin à la Tomate" (tomato Tatin), so here I am taking up the challenge and thanking Kristin for her good words of encouragement and inspiration.

This first recipe of "Tarte Tatin à la Tomate" is a more summery dish when tomatoes are nicely ripe and juicy; I tasted this dish a few years ago for the first time in Paris at one of the Marais area restaurant and loved it so much that I decided to recreate it.

My "Tarte Tatin à la Tomate" recipe:

Ingredients.

Pastry (or should I say "Pâte à tarte")
Tomatoes (preferably organic, of course) the number will depend on the size of the final tarte; I would say a dozen of medium size tomatoes for the pastry quantity (they will loose a lot of juice and shrink a lot).

1 medium size shallot (or more if you really like them like I do)
A couple of cloves of garlic, thyme, rosemary, salt, pepper, a teaspoon of sugar (brown).

Pastry (this is my Mom's recipe, who has it from her own mother, a basic easy to make pastry, yet very tasty, go figure with the butter that goes into it!)

250 gr all purpose flour (it should be flour with less gluten as you don't want it to be too elastic, or it will shrink when cooking)

125 gr butter at room temperature
90 gr cold water
1 pinch of salt

Mix all ingredients (by hand or mixer, do not knead), roll out pastry and fold it in 3, give it a half turn to the left and repeat once ( you can repeat this process a couple more times after cooling, it will make the pastry a little bit puffy).
Then wrap with cling film and place in the fridge to cool down while you prepare your tomatoes.

Tomatoes step 1

Peal and finely chop the shallots and garlic, place in a non stick frying pan with a little olive oil on medium to low heat, you want to soften them without browning them, 5/10 mn.
While this is cooking,
Clean and half the tomatoes, removing the top green hard part, then place them face down in the frying pan on top of the shallots and garlic, let them cook half way through on low to medium heat (you can put the lid on it will keep the juices) then turn them upside down, add salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme and sugar for caramelising and continue cooking them, toward the end increase the temperature a little to obtain caramel texture on bottom of pan.
Make sure you don't break them when you turn them or check them.

Tomatoes step 2

When cooked through, if the skin is too hard by now it should come apart and you can just remove it from the tomatoes, then place each tomato side by side tightly in an oven proof dish (Pyrex or porcelain or plain tôle à tarte).
Keep the juices aside in the pan covered.
While the tomatoes are cooking you can roll out the pastry into the shape of the dish you have selected plus enough for the sides.

Final step
Place the rolled out pastry on top of your tomatoes and on the sides in the dish and bake in preheated oven for 25 mn at 180/190 C (356/374 F) time will depend on your oven so check it out after 20mn, pastry should be golden and cooked through.
When cooked, here is the hard part, take a serving dish, place it on top of your inverted pie and rotate in a quick movement to have the pastry underneath and the tomatoes on top, this can be tricky as it's hot and some liquid will be in the baking dish, then pour the juices from your frying pan on top of the tomatoes and serve immediately with a green salad, it makes a perfect summer evening light meal (or winter starter to bring on the summer feel!).

Bon appétit