Getting back into the blog saddle (Madeleines)

So I have been really busy with cub scouts, work, and life around the house.  I have lots to say and will be posting on a more regular basis again.  So I decided to give you a cookie I love that you have to have a special pan to get them just right.  It is a French creation called a Madeleine.  My coworkers like treats so I made a batch to give them.

The flavoring for these are really simple, I decided to go with lemon.

Lemon Madelines:
Makes 24:

1 stick butter melted and cooled to room temperature
3 eggs
1 cup of sugar
1 1/2 cup flour
1tsp baking powder
1 cap full of lemon juice
1 1/2 cup powder sugar
3-4 tbsp lemon juice

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F
So first thing to do is melt the butter and set aside.

In a separate bowl mix eggs and sugar together till it turns pale color.  Combine the flour and baking powder in a different bowl.

Fold together flour into sugar-egg mixture.  Add lemon juice and butter  and fold together.  Let this batter sit in the fridge for one hour.

Brush pan with some melted butter and scoop in 3/4 of the cavity filled.  Bake for 10-12 minutes.

While baking mix the lemon juice and powder sugar together to make glaze.

 Dip cooled Madeleines in glaze.

Sorry for the long delay in posting a while

So I have been extra busy lately with working on a cross stitch piece for one of my cousins weddings.  It took me a month and is the reason I have been busy and unable to publish some posts that I have pictures for.  I will give a short one today with more to come.  Here is another top ten list and a picture of my piece I finished for my cousin Jason's wedding.

Oh for those of you who don't know I have got a job as a Corporate QA technician for a food company in Green Bay.  I fit in this department very well, and enjoy the job that I am doing.

My top ten for this week are the top ten TV shows that I enjoy on Netflx:

10. Breaking Bad- I know that it has been over for some years, but if you want to binge watch a show it has a great story line and can hold ones attention.

9. Kimmie Schmidt- I know people have seen it on there netflix main page, but the show is hilarious.  The concept for the show is funny due to the back story that kimmie was held in a bunker by a cult leader since the mid 80's.  That's funny because she talks like a teenager throughout the show.

8. Attack on Titan- great anime with a spectacular artwork.  the storyline was wonderful. if you have not heard of this show and you love anime watch the first episode it will reel you in.

7. Fullmetal Alchemist-  again another great anime about two brothers and the struggle of growing up and learning about there family and there gifts.

6. Dexter- again a great show that finished that I never got to watch on TV.

5. The 100-  If you ever wondered what life would be like if on earth after nuclear annihilation.  This show has a great storyline and some great special effects.

4.  Psycho pass-  If you have ever watched the minority report this show is right up your ally.  this anime has a jun that actually calculates a persons badness level then designs the response to either kill the subject or stun it.

3. Sirens- If you haven't seen this show it is a show about paramedics and it is a great comedy.  It is full of very adult themes so don't watch with small kids.

2. Pokemon-Black and White-  I grew up watching the original version of pokemon and I have been watching this show with Simeon.  This show has just as much appeal and truths about life.  It is a great.

1.Fairy Tail-  Ok this is a geek one for me. I enjoy anime a lot and this one is very adult.  The story follows a young wizard who was raised by a dragon who is searching for her.  He meets some friends along the way and has some frenemies that he fights against and with.  The show is funny, one of the frenemy of the main character as he fights seems to randomly loose his clothes and gets yelled at for it.

 So here is the piece I made for those who haven't seen it.

And now for something completly different

So I have been thinking about adding a new post every week where I kinda let you guys know about some of my other favorites.  No I am not trying to be Oprah and I will not be giving everyone a new car.  However, I just want to share a top ten kind of list every week.  I also wanted to show you guys some of my other crafty skills that I am working on or have finished.  So with out further ado I give you my Top Ten Book Series I have read:

#1 A Song of Ice and Fire: George RR Martin.  This is the book series that Game of Thrones is based on and it is spectacular reading. By the way R+L=JS, that is who his parents are.  My geeky friends will understand that last sentence, the rest of you will just have to read the books or watch the show.

#2 The Lord of the Rings series: JRR Tolkien.  When I say this I also mean the Hobbit.  To think he created a whole language for this series.

#3 The Harry Potter series: JK Rowling.  This story has a lot of ups and downs but no real mystery, by that I mean you can guess the villain almost from the onset of the second chapter.

#4 The Mortal Instruments series: Cassandra Clare .  I feel so bad for what the studios did to her book.  The books are great and have tons of details, but the movie didn't even try to follow the story of the first book.

#5 The Eragon series: Christopher Paolini. Again another great book series on par with A song of Ice and Fire for rich detail.  However, the movie studios destroyed the movie it could have been.

#6 The Hunger Games: Suzanne Collins.  Great book series that had one of the best twist endings that I never saw coming. She made you feel like you wanted to be in the arena fighting with them.

#7 The Divergent Series:Veronica Roth.  You have to include the book FOUR when you talk about this series.  It has an interesting take on utopian ideals and what one society will do to live in peace.

#8 The Smiley Versus Karla Series: John Le Carré.  If you haven't heard of this its because it is a set of three books with separate titles.  The most famous title in the series is Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.  If you love James Bonds adventures or cold war type spy movies you should read this series.

#9 The Robert Langdon Collection: Dan Brown.  This collection includes Angel and demons, The Da Vinci Code, Inferno, and The Lost symbol.  I took several classes in college in art history and found that art has hidden meaning in them.  Dan Brown's ability to recreate what you see in a location is amazing.

#10 The Percy Jackson series: Rick Riordan.  This is just a fun read for younger adults.  I enjoyed it again because I took a lot of history classes in college and there is crossover with the Greek gods.

 To go along with my top ten here are a couple book marks I made.  So a lot of you may or may not know that in my free time I love to cross stitch.  I find this a great way to relax and ease my mind of the daily frustrations (Simeon jumping on furniture, throwing marker caps, leaving dishes everywhere).  I tend to do projects that are going to be presents for close friends or relatives.  It just so happens though that lately I have been in a kick of making bookmarks.  Now I love all things nerdy and these two bookmarks are no exception.  The first bookmark I made was of the Dark Mark From the Harry potter book series It was super simple and only took me two days to do.  I had some great beige material that I found at a local thrift store.  By the way if you stick your nose up to thrift stores I will tell you that I have found some of the greatest deals going to them.  The stitching is all in black DMC floss.  The second bookmark I did is of Mister DNA from the Jurassic park movie.  This one comes from the ride scene in the beginning of the movie where Mister DNA is explaining how they found the dino DNA in amber.  If you don't remember this little guy go back and watch Jurassic Park again or wait for Jurassic World to come out.  It would be awesome to see a scene of him in the new movie. These are unfinished I have to clean up the edges and put felt on them (by the way if you have any projects or bookmarks you want let me know and we will talk about specifics).

Harry Potter Dark Mark

 

Jurassic Park Themed

A Feast For Canelé

So I know I have been slacking lately but it has been for good reason.  My beautiful wife and I are eating a more plant based diet due to her having a weight loss challenge at work.  So I am a trying to be a very supportive husband and trying to help her eat better.  I will also be posting some of the better juice recipes we have been enjoying.  We decided to change one of our meals with juice and it just works out that dinner is the best meal for us to change out for juice.  So on to this weeks recipe challenge for myself.  I am a fan of trying out my recipes on friends and family.  I had a great opportunity this week to do this.  I decided I wanted to make a dessert or should I say desserts.  I made two different french style desserts.  I don't know how many people I have told this to but if I had money now I would try starting my own bakery that offers desserts that I have not seen around the area.  A great example of what I would like to offer to the people of the Brillion, Chilton, and Appleton area are these little flavor packed cakes.

Canelé are a french pastry with a soft custard like interior and a exterior that reminds me of charred sugar on the out side of egg custards. I know the pictures look like the cakes are burnt however they are made to look this way.  These little cakes are flavor packed. I made my version of Canelé with really good Mexican Vanilla and Captain Morgans 1671.  The captain Morgan being a specialty bottle may affect my future representation of these cakes.   Several people at the party seem to pull a different flavor profile out of the same cake.  One person who enjoyed them said that she tasted banana when eating them. Another thought that it was more like vanilla custard.  I attribute this to the Captain Morgans imparting a flavor into the cake.  All of these were gone when we left the party.

By the way I am rereading some Song of Ice and Fire books and that is where my title came from.

Here is the recipe I used for canelé

2 cups of milk 

50 grams of butter 

3 tsps of vanilla extract ( I personally like the Posa brand out of mexico called pure vanilla because it is clear and doesn't change the color of my cookies and cakes)

100 grams of plain flour

250 grams of icing sugar(confectioners sugar)

1 tsp of salt

2 whole eggs

2 egg yolks

1/4 cup of rum.

So first thing is to add milk and butter to melt the butter and heat the milk.  I also added the vanilla at this point to concentrate its flavor.

In a separate bowl mix together the icing sugar salt and flour till it looks like this.

After mixing flour and sugar add the eggs at this point and mix then add the hot milk mixture and whisk but try not to mix vigorously otherwise you will make souffles.  When you finish mixing I put this through a fine mesh strainer to get rid of all the lumps out of my batter.  When cool add rum and refrigerate for 24-48 hours.  when you bake these you want to use a small silicone pan almost like a cupcake pan or a canelé pan if you can get one.  Preheat oven to 460 degrees F heat the silicone pan on a baking pan for 4 minutes then fill the molds (don't grease the pan or you won't get the rise you want). Bake for 15 minutes, then turn down the oven to 375 degrees then continue to bake for 1hour.  You are looking for a cake that almost looks to dark.  DON'T worry they may look to dark but they are delicious and crunchy outside creamy inside.

Once they come out of the oven remove from the pan. this is due to the high amount of sugar in the batter will cause the cakes to become stuck after they cool.  Trust me clean up is easier if you remove them right away.

Custard Tarts and Fish Fingers

Lately I have been watching a new TV show from the BBC called the Great British Bake Off.  One of the segments on the show requires the contestants to take on a recipe from one of the two main judges and making them to the judges standards.  Right before the challenge begins the judges are shown at a table with a perfect representation of the challenge recipe.  During Amy and my trip to France we enjoyed several sugar crusted custards called creme bruelees.  So when I saw the contestants making these custard tarts I thought of those great creme brulees.  I decided to take on the same challenge as the contestants and I found the recipe by Paul Hollywood.  If you want to see some great bakery and pastries look up the great British Bake Off on Youtube.

So the biggest issues that I found while making these tarts the recipe didn't give any real thickness for the tart pastry.  So this was my problem I made them about a quarter inch thick and what I found was that some would turn out fine.  So if I do this again I would make them a little thicker.  The second major issue I found was when I prepared the custard.  The recipe is written using weights and British terms for ingredients.  So it says to warm the milk and in a separate bowl it says to whip the egg yolks and caster sugar. Caster sugar is what the British call cane sugar.  So the real problem is when you add the warm milk to the whipped egg yolk and sugar.  So if you whip to quickly you will create small foam bubbles and it makes the pouring in the shells impossible.  You have to transfer the custard to a pourable container because its easier to pour the custard in the shells on the shelf in the oven instead of trying to carry the filled pan full of filled shells.  I hope that my pushing myself to be a better baker, makes you guys step out of your comfort zone and try new food recipes.

Recipe
For the sweet pastry

 165g/5¾oz plain flour, plus extra for dusting

 25g/1oz ground almonds 

 120g/4¼oz chilled unsalted butter, cubed

 55g/2oz caster sugar 

 1 free-range egg 

For the custard filling

  700ml/1¼ pint full-fat milk 

  7 free-range egg yolks 

  90g/3¼oz caster sugar 

  freshly ground nutmeg

First mix all the dry ingredients for the crust together then cube your butter and then mix with your fingers.

This is what you dough should look like after you add the butter. So to this mix in the egg and knead until it becomes a nice dough and pulls away from the bowl.  At which point allow this to chill for 30 minutes.  Roll out to larger then a 1/4 inch thick and cut out circles about 4 1/2 inches in diameter. I used a cupcake tin to bake the tarts.  Preheat to 400F. The next parts were really hard and I didn't get to many pictures.  So heat milk mix those into the yolks and sugar mix (don't over mix when you add the milk or you will have to much foam and its hard to pour). Bake for 25 minutes.

The top should have a little color and still have a little giggle to them let these cool in the pan for 30 minutes then comes the fun of removing from the pan.  The black bubbles on the tin were from the foam that was created for over mixing.  Next time I would allow the custard to sit allowing the foam to subside a small amount.

At this point its enjoy.  These are little on the go egg custards the hold up pretty well.  My personal addition to this is my favorite part and my dad's wife Marie loves as well. Take more cane sugar and put it on the top of these and hit it with the blowtorch for that creme brulee crunchy sugar top.

Phantom of the Opera Cake

Continuing my Simeon week of recipes.  My wife, Amy and I always concerned our self with his education.  So when he was very young we spent lots of times figuring out where to send him for daycare and then later to school.  The school we decided on is a catholic school which we felt was important to both of us.  We started our relationship with my self becoming catholic before we got married and Amy finds enjoyment in going to church on Sundays.  This emphasis in religion in our lives helped us decide to send him to a catholic daycare and school.  Last month I made a pie for his teacher and made three different kinds of cookies for his Christmas party. So last Monday my sons 4K teacher who also is his principal asked me to make a cake for a local event the school puts on called All for Love.  I decided to make a special cake that is very a decedent cake and is full of coffee flavor.  This recipe is called an Opera Cake which was created in Paris around the time the the national opera was open.  I added my photo of the Paris opera house from my wife and my trip to Paris.  

Opera Cake is layers of almond sponge cake soaked in with coffee and brandy separated by a layer of espresso buttercream and a bitter sweet chocolate glaze.  The recipe for my Opera Cake Came from epicurious.com.  The skill you need to understand the best is folding so as not to lose the air that has been whipped into the eggs and the egg whites.

For almond sponge cake 

 3 tablespoons cake flour (not self-rising), sifted after measuring, plus additional for dusting pan 

2 whole large eggs at room temperature for 30 minutes

1 cup almond flour (3 1/2 oz) or 2/3 cup blanched whole almonds (see cooks' note, below)
1/2 cup confectioners sugar, sifted after measuring
2 large egg whites at room temperature for 30 minutes
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, foam discarded, and butter cooled
For coffee syrup
1/2 cup espresso coffee
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup Cognac or other brandy
For coffee buttercream
1/2 of the coffee syrup
2 large egg yolks
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes and softened
For chocolate glaze
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter
7 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened; preferably 70 to 71% cacao), coarsely chopped

I mix up the whole eggs till they are almost triple in amount, then this is what it looks like when you add the almond flour and cake flour and icing sugar (or confectioners sugar) is combined.  I found that this is very thick and hard to fold the whites in so add the butter to this before you fold in the whites. 

Whip egg whites and cream of tarter till it becomes fluffy then add the sugar slowly to make a nice stiff peaks. Fold this into the almond flour mix in three separate additions.

I used parchment paper in the pan to save on clean up of my pans.  When you pour this into your prepared pan, don't worry you want to spread out the cake into a very thin cake it will raise a little but not much.  Bake at 425 for about 7minutes 30 minutes to 10 minutes. 

It will look pale but the edges will show some color.  While this cools you can make the butter cream which is easy I put the egg yolks in my mixer and mix till pale yellow.  At the same time I make the coffee syrup just combine the ingredients and bring to a boil.  Take and pour half of the syrup in the egg yolks, and let it mix to cool slightly.  At this point I add the butter I cube up and let it mix till incorporated fully then add a few more cubes of butter.

This is what you glaze should look like when almost fully incorporated.  your looking for smooth and shinny. 

So this is how you assemble the final cake. You take a piece of cake at the bottom then brush with the coffee syrup.  I like to let the syrup soak in and then do it again.  I then put a layer of buttercream down(in this one I piped in the cream it was easier and made assembly faster, larger cakes I recommend using a spatula to even out the layer.  Then another piece of cake and more coffee syrup.  Then pour the glaze over the cake.  Repeat the sequence till you get the desired number of layers you want. This is a version of the final cake I made for a small packer NFC championship game that I made using cake pop holders I have.

The Flying Braided Spaghetti bread monster (My French Bread recipe)

   
  So I have been trying to get my son involved in making food and helping around the house.  He is only four so I don't expect the world of him but I would like him to have some enjoyment in manual labor.  This week is dedicated to him.  I remember my mom and Grandma taking me under their wings and teaching me to bake.  I always wanted to be apart of the action in the kitchen during holidays.  Some of my favorite pictures in my photo album I made for myself a year back are of my grandmother, my mom, and I baking cookies or decorating them.

I have a picture like this of my mom and I doing this when I was a kid.  These are the memories that I want to give to him.

    These types of memories are what I am trying to help people remember with this blog.  I also wanted to help my son create memorable moments that he can pass down through picture or stories.  My hidden plan in showing him this is to help teach him how to cook.  I feel that some of the younger generation don't have the cooking skills that the generation before us have.  Creating family bonding moments tend to occur from situations like this.  Point in case is the photo of Simeon and myself kneading the dough.  What you see is me bonding with my son and smiling, what you don't see is us having fun listening to music and my wife taking photos of us and smiling the whole time.

Simeon is the light of my life and my toughest critic.  I let him test everything before I give it to anyone.  He does give it to me straight, whether he enjoys it or hates it completely.


The Basic recipe is french bread
1 1/2 tablespoons yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar
2 cups of water
1 1/2 tablespoons of oil (I had some nice hot chili evoo I used)
2 1/4 teaspoons of salt
6 cups of flour

Mix the first three ingredients and let sit for ten minutes.  While that goes mix together the wet ingredients and the dry ingredients in two separate bowls.

After combining the the wet and dry ingredients together and you get to this stage.

Its time to knead this every ten minutes for the next hour. After the rest shape each individual loaf and egg wash like below.

This is my son learning how to get that beautiful shiny professional look to each loaf of bread. Bake your finished and proofed loaves of bread at 375 for 20-25 minutes till GBD (golden brown and Delicious).

 

To make it into braided spaghetti bread take per-cooked spaghetti and sauce and cut mozzarella cheese and load into a flattened out 1/4 of the total amount of dough and cut the outside of into one inch strips.  you will also leave a small triangle at either end of the bread.  Fold up the two triangle then alternate the side you fold over.  Egg was the bread and allow to proof for one hour to allow the bread to rise.

    

 I recommend that if you make the spaghetti bread, make two because it is good and addicting.  Also it reheats well in the microwave