Braided Pesto Bread

I never thought this blog would get as big as it has gotten. Okay, it's not like a massive huge blog, but still - I have companies that sent me things for free so I can feature them in my posts or instagram, people say I inspire them with my photos, I have over 28,000 instagram followers (?!?!) and it's all so crazy. This is just my hobby, just a fun thing I do on the weekends. How can 28,000 people want to see photos of the random shit I make at home? It's still so surreal to me.

And what's even crazier is that somebody thinks it's worth it to fly me from Vancouver, BC to New York City and put me up in a hotel for a couple nights just so I can give a little talk about food styling, photography, and baking… WHAT. SERIOUSLY, WHAT?!

This is one of the craziest things that I have ever heard. Like…I'm just some random pastry cook that makes stuff sometimes. And yet I'm being flown across the continent to talk to people about what I do????? I'm totally awe-struck and so grateful/excited/nervous/mind-blown/terrified/euphoric about this whole thing. 

So I should probably give you guys some details about when/where/what is going on. First off, it's at 7pm on May 25th (Wednesday) at 837 Washington Street in NYC, in the Meatpacking District. This event is sponsored by Samsung and hosted by Feedfeed, with myself and four other bloggers/food photographers taking part (Nik, Jessica, Amanda, and Tieghan). The event is totally FREE and you can click here to RVSP for the event.

There's a Q&A after the event, so if you've ever wanted to ask me why I'm such a dork, now is the time to do it!! Seriously though, someone should come in with some awesome and ridiculous questions, just to mess with us. For shits and giggles. Like, "If you were invisible for one hour, what is the first thing you'd do?" because I already have an answer for that one. And I hope no one is offended by swearing because I don't know if I can censor myself when I get excited/nervous.

Can you believe people are paying for me to talk to people in public? This will probably be the first and last time, judging by my level of maturity and what I think "appropriate questions" are. 

Anyways, if my barely coherent rambling hasn't convinced you to come to this amazing event, then I don't know what to tell you. You can come just to laugh at me rambling in person, I guess. 

Braided Pesto Bread

Pain-au-Lait
Recipe adapted from Bouchon Bakery Cookbook

364 g all-purpose flour
4 g instant dried yeast
21 g granulated sugar
7 g salt
190 g water
23 g eggs
16 g unsalted butter
52 g whole milk

Pesto
Recipe from Dahlia Bakery Cookbook

About 28 g (3 cups) loosely packed fresh basil leaves, washed and dried
2 tablespoon pine nuts, toasted OR 1 tablespoon almond meal, toasted
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
5 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Finishing

Egg wash
Coarse salt

For the pain-au-lait, spray a large loaf pan and a large bowl with nonstick spray. 

Place the flour and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook and give it a quick mix on the lowest setting to distribute the yeast evenly. Add all of the remaining ingredients and mix on low speed for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the pesto. Combine the basil, pine nuts/almond meal, garlic, and lemon juice in the bowl of a food processor and blend until smooth. Slowly add the oil as it's going until combined. Add the Parmesan and pulse a few times to mix, then season with salt to taste. Transfer the pesto to a small container and keep tightly covered and refrigerated until needed.

Set a timer for 15 minutes. Using a bowl scraper, release the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured board. Pat the dough down, then stretch the top portion of the dough up and over to the bottom portion. Stretch the right portion to the left portion, then the bottom to the top, and the left to the right to create a neat "package" of dough. Place it seam-side down in the prepared bowl. Cover and set aside.

Use the bowl scraper to release the dough ands turn it out onto a lightly floured board. Gently pat the dough into a rectangular shape, removing any large air bubbles and adding flour only as needed to keep the dough from sticking to the board. 

Roll out the dough to roughly 10 by 15 inches. Smear about half the pesto onto the dough, making sure to leave a strip at the bottom long edge of the dough bare. Brush this bare strip with a small amount of water. Starting from the long side away from you, roll up the dough tightly. Using a large sharp knife, cut the log of dough in half lengthwise, leaving about an inch of dough uncut at the top. "Braid" the two halves of dough together by simply putting one half over the other, then again and again. Pinch the ends together and gently transfer the loaf to the loaf pan.

Loosely cover the loaf with plastic wrap and leave in a warm, humid place to proof (but not over 24 C). Let it proof for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, until the loaf has almost doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

Gently brush the loaf with egg wash, being careful to not drag the pesto onto the rest of the bread. Sprinkle with coarse salt. Place the loaf pan on a baking tray and bake for 30 minutes, then rotate and bake for another 10 minutes, until the loaf is a dark golden brown on the top. Remove from the oven and let cool completely.

Strawberry and Rhubarb Doughnuts

Local rhubarb has come into season here in Vancouver and I just can't help myself. I love rhubarb. I love the tanginess, the colour, the variety of flavours that it pairs with, everything! My last post was for this roasted rhubarb financier, which paired tart rhubarb with toasty, nutty brown butter and it was amazing. This week, we're pairing rhubarb with strawberries (a classic), but also with buttery fried brioche dough, vanilla beans, and vanilla sugar. This blog is called "Hint of Vanilla" after all. 

I'm sure a lot of you guys know that I work as a pastry cook (if you don't, now you do), so precision and consistency is super important to me. I can't just switch that off when I'm cooking at home, it's just a part of me. Even though I'm not a savoury cook, proper knives and knife skills are really important to me. I think basic knife skills are an essential part of knowing how to cook - everyone should know the basics! Like how everyone should know how to do laundry or buy stamps. So I've paired up with Sabatier to bring you guys a couple posts on basic knife skills! Sabatier started in 1812 in France and continues to produce quality cutlery for both professionals and home cooks to this day. Even though I already have 10 different knives of varying styles and sizes, I was lucky enough to receive a knife that I didn't have - their 7 inch Santoku knife, a flat-edged knife that is ideal for dicing and mincing. 

Dicing is a pretty important skill in the pastry kitchen. You want all of your ingredients to cook at the same time, so they should all be the same size. But nature doesn't make it easy and make all fruits and veggies perfectly the same. That's where good knife skills come in handy. Dicing the rhubarb into 1/2 inch cubes means that they will cook evenly and I won't have chunks of raw rhubarb mixed in with overcooked rhubarb mush. This same concept goes for everything you cook - onions, carrots, meat, whatever it is, it's gotta be the same size. 

So! Step one for knife skills - how to hold a knife. For a large knife, you want to hold it in a firm grip with your thumb and index finger actually holding the base of the blade, as in the photos above (excuse my roughed up kitchen hands...). This gives you much more control and stability versus holding it simply by the handle.

For a smaller knife, such as a paring knife, you can use the same grip as with a large knife, but I find that placing my index finger on the top of the blade gives me better handling (as in the second photo below). It depends on the size of your knife as well as what you're cutting. But the key is to always be in control of your knife!

Step two - hold to the product you are chopping. A firm "claw" grip is best - if you look in the photo right above, you'll see that my fingertips are behind my third knuckle on my fingers, so that knuckle is acting as a guard to prevent the blade from being able to cut my fingertips. The claw grip also means you have a firm hold on your product and it won't go sliding around on you as you cut.

Next, if you're working with something like rhubarb (or carrots, cucumber, basically anything that is longer than it is wide), you want to make "batons" first, which basically means sticks. After chopping of the ends of the rhubarb, I sliced it down the length of the stalk to create two even batons. Then, you start to dice. Keeping the tip of the blade on the cutting board, you slice with a rocking motion. Imagine the point where the handle and the blade meet making a circle. You push the blade down and forward to cut, then bring it up and back, all as smoothly as you can. And repeat! What you don't want is a straight up-and-down smashing of the knife on the cutting board, like a butcher with a cleaver.

Always pick the right tool for the right job. I wouldn't use my large Santoku knife to cut a small strawberry - there's more of a chance of cutting myself, plus it's more cumbersome and difficult. If you're working with a smaller item, choose a smaller knife. Simple as that!

A little bit on knife care - DON'T PUT YOUR DAMN KNIVES IN THE DAMN DISHWASHER. Seriously. Hand wash. Always hand wash immediately after using and then dry immediately! Dry your damn knives with a cloth or towel and put them back in a knife holder, a knife block, on a magnet strip, somewhere that the blade won't get knocked around with other stuff. But don't soak your knives!

Knives are probably the most important tool in your kitchen and a good quality knife should last a long time, but only if you take care of it. Sharpen your knives often, don't use them to open cans or pick your teeth (Dad, I'm looking at you), and always cut on a cutting board. This way, you can get the most out of your knives.

I am just trying to share a little on the bare bones of knife skills and I am by no means a knife skills expert! I tried to cut the meat off a pork shoulder bone yesterday and made a huge mess of the meat, which makes me sad. I really should take some butchery classes or something… But basic knife skills are an essential skill in your kitchen and a little knowledge goes a long way! Stay tuned later this month for more knife skills from myself and Sabatier! :)

This post is sponsored, but, as always, my opinions and thoughts are my own. Thanks for supporting sponsors that support me!

Strawberry Rhubarb Doughnuts
Makes 8 doughnuts

Brioche
Recipe from Bouchon Bakery Cookbook

518 g all-purpose flour
10 g instant dried yeast
74 g sugar
9 g salt
212 g whole milk, at 23 C
111 g eggs
3 g vanilla paste
55 g unsalted butter, at room temperature

Strawberry Rhubarb Compote

500 g rhubarb, cut into 1/2 inch dice
250 g strawberries, cut into 1/2 inch dice
75 g granulated sugar
2 vanilla beans, scraped
 

2 to 4 L of canola oil

200 g vanilla sugar

Spray a large bowl with nonstick spray.

For the brioche, place the flour and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook and mix for about 15 seconds to distribute the yeast evenly. Add all of the remaining dough ingredients except for the butter and mix on low speed for 4 minutes. Add the butter a few pieces at a time, incorporating after each addition before adding the next. Stop and scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl and push the dough off the hook. Mix for a total of 30 minutes on low speed.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Fold the left side over to the right, the right over to the left, then the top to the bottom and the bottom to the top so you have a "package" with the seam at the top. Place the dough seam-side down in the prepared bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let it ferment for 1 hour. 

Repeat the folding process, place it back in the bowl, cover, and refrigerate overnight.

For the compote, combine the rhubarb, strawberries, and sugar into a medium saucepan. Add the seeds from the vanilla bean as well as the empty pod. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring often, until the fruit starts to break down and bubble. Reduce it slightly to form a thick compote. Remove from the heat and let cool completely.

Lightly flour your work surface and roll out the dough to an 11 inch wide circle. Using a 3.5 inch circle cutter, cut out 8 rounds of dough and carefully transfer them to a silpat or parchment lined baking sheet. Use a 1 inch wide circle cutter to get as many min doughnuts as you can out of the scraps. Of those scraps, gently knead together and roll out to get additional mini doughnuts.

Place a piece of plastic wrap loosely over the doughnuts and place in a warm, humid place to proof for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. (Note: I turn the shower on in my bathroom, let it run for 5 minutes, then turn it off. This makes the bathroom a little warm and a little steamy, but not too hot. I place the brioche on the counter, then close the door. This provides the most ideal proofing conditions that I can find in my apartment. If you do this, check up on the dough every 10 minutes to make sure it's not too hot!).

Meanwhile,  pour the canola oil into a heavy bottomed saucepan or pot, making sure there is at least 3 inches of oil in the pot. Heat the oil to 175 C. 

Once the doughnuts are proofed, remove the plastic wrap and place them near your pot of oil. Have a cooling rack on a sheet pan next to your oil and the bowl of vanilla sugar. 

Gently pick up one doughnut and carefully place it in the oil, making sure not to splash oil on yourself. Fry the dough for 2 minutes, then flip it and fry on the other side for 1 minute, until the doughnut is a golden brown colour. Remove from the oil and place on the cooling rack. Let it cool for 5 minutes or so, then transfer it to the bowl of vanilla sugar. Coat the doughnut in sugar, then place back on the cooling rack. Repeat with the remaining doughnuts and mini doughnuts.

Transfer the compote to a piping bag fitted with a small circular piping tip. Using a paring knife, make a small incision in the side of each doughnut. Insert the piping tip and pipe as much compote as the doughnut will allow. When you pull the piping tip out, the compote should ooze out a little bit.

The doughnut are best eaten immediately. Enjoy!

How to make Homemade Bread

I absolutely love to make my own bread. I also love having fresh, delicious, fragrant bread straight from my oven, but I actually love the process of making bread itself. The end product is just like a bonus. However, bread is something that tends to intimidate people. They think it's super hard and scary and temperamental and you have to knead this thing for half an hour and have a baking stone and a bread maker and all this crap. But by now, I'm sure a lot of you have at least heard of the no-knead breads. It's not some fad or some lame "hack" or whatever, it's just a different way of making bread, one that is ideal for the home baker because it's dead easy. 

In case some of you are still kinda of on the fence about making homemade bread, I re-made this recipe (originally posted about 2 years ago) from one of the best no-knead bread books around,  Flour Water Salt Yeast, which I highly recommend to anyone and everyone. I include some gif's to help you guys understand some of the motions and get an idea of what the bread should look like at different stages. 

Just a note - this bread is not sourdough. I personally don't love the flavour of a strong sourdough and I don't always make bread every weekend, so keeping a starter going is kind of a pain for me. With that said, I think I will start up a starter again soon just to play around with making a less-sour sourdough. 

This stage of mixing just the flour and water is called the "autolyse". This is like a kick-starter for the enzymes in the flour to get to work before the yeast and salt are added. It's not 100% necessary, but it helps! There's also the "pincer method", which is a way to incorporate ingredients without kneading the dough. I tend to use all fingers when doing it, while the recipe says to use your thumb and forefinger. It depends on your hand strength, I guess.

After the autolyse, the salt and the yeast are added. The dough is folded over itself, then more pincer method to distribute and incorporate the salt and yeast. The photo above is what the dough looks like right after the incorporation of the ingredients - pretty rough and ropey, not much gluten development. But after a few more folds over the next hour and a half, the dough totally transforms. 

And that is the dough after the third and final fold! It's crazy that a simple action of folding the dough over itself, plus a bit of time, can change the dough so much. As you can see, it's much smoother and stretchier and there's much more gluten development - no kneading needed (ha)!

Folding and shaping the dough is a little trickier, but it's easy once you get it. You fold the dough, just like in the fermentation stage, then use the work surface (preferably wood but almost any surface will work) to create a tight ball of dough. Scoring is the most fun for me, especially now that I have a lamé (literally a razor blade on a stick). It's so cool to see how the cuts open in the oven and how it shapes the finished bread. Make your cuts quickly and confidently - it's usually a one-shot deal. A basic X with a few little extra cuts is fine and once you get used to the bread and scoring, you can try different cuts. Here's a few examples!

Square cut with an X

Regular square cut

X cut

Crosshatch

Wreath

"Epi"

Freeform

Spiral

Play around with your scoring and have fun with it! It's always fun to try new designs and see what they turn out like.

Dealing with the hot dutch oven can be a bit scary, but just be careful and it'll be fine. Make sure you bake the bread until fairly dark - this isn't some pale crappy Wonderbread loaf! You want a very dark brown colour, which will give a wonderfully delicious and crispy crust. If you underbake it, you'll be losing out on all the flavour and crusty goodness. It's best to let the bread cool on a wire rack completely before you cut it, but I know for a fact that it is near impossible to resist a slice of warm bread...

I hope this has helped anyone who feels intimidated or scared by making bread! Once you make your first loaf of homemade bread, you won't go back to buying bread anymore, I promise. Think of this bread as your gateway recipe into the wonderful world of breads - you might get into using starters, or different grains, or porridge, or baguettes, or maybe you'll even buy a couche! 

Good luck and have fun!!

Overnight White Bread
Recipe from Flour Water Salt Yeast

950 g all-purpose flour
50 g whole wheat flour
780 g water, 90 to 95 F/ 32 to 35 C
22 g fine sea salt
0.8 g instant dried yeast

Combine the 1,000 g of flour with 780 g of water in a 12 quart (or equivalent) tub. Mix by hand until just incorporated. Cover and let rest for 20 to 30 minutes. Use the pincer method to fully integrate the ingredients. Using a pincerlike grip with your thumb and forefinger, squeeze big chunks of dough and then tighten your grip to cut through the dough. Do this repeatedly, working through the entire mass of dough. With your other hand, turn the tub while you’re mixing to give your hand a good angle of attack. Cut through the dough five or six times wit the pincer method, then fold it over itself a few times, then once again cut through it five or six times and fold it over itself a few more times. Repeat this process, alternating between cutting and folding, until you feel and see that all the ingredients are fully integrated and the dough has some tension in it.

Sprinkle the 22 g of salt and the 0.8 g of yeast evenly over the top of the dough. Mix by hand, wetting your working hand before mixing so the dough doesn't stick to you. Reach underneath the dough and grab about one-quarter of it. Gently stretch this section of dough and fold it over the top to the other side of the dough. Repeat three more time with the remaining dough, until the salt and yeast are fully enclosed.

Use the pincer method to fully integrate the ingredients again. Repeat this process, alternating between cutting and folding, until you feel and see that all the ingredients are fully integrated and the dough has some tension in it. Let the dough rest for a few minutes, then fold for another 30 seconds or until the dough tightens up. The target dough temperature at the end of the mix is 77 to 78 F/ 25 to 26 C. Cover the tub and let the dough rise for 12 to 14 hours.

The dough needs two or three folds, preferably within the first hour and a half after mixing. This is best for maximum gas retention and volume in the finished loaf. To fold the dough, use the same process as you did when folding in the ingredients. 

In the morning, moderately flour a work surface about 2 feet wide. Flour your hands and sprinkle a bit of flour around the edges of the tub. Tip the tub slightly and gently work your floured hand beneath the dough to loosen it form the bottom of the tub. Gently ease the dough out onto the work surface without pulling or tearing it.

With floured hands, pick up the dough and ease it back down onto the work surface in a somewhat even shape. Dust the area in the middle where you'll cut the dough with a bit of flour. Cut the dough into 2 equal size pieces.

Dust two proofing baskets (or equivalent) with flour. 

Using the same technique as in the folding step, stretch and fold one-quarter of the dough at a time up and over the top to form a round, gently pulling each segment until you get to its maximum stretch, then folding it over the top to the opposite side. Repeat, working your way around the dough and forming it into a ball, until the interior is fully enclosed and you have a round with a little tension to it. Then flip it over so the seam is on the work surface in an area cleared of flour - at this point you want the friction, or grip, of a clean surface. 

Cup your hands around the back of the dough ball as you face it. Pull the entire dough ball 6 or 8 inches toward you on the dry, unfloured surface, leading with your pinky fingers and applying enough pressure so the dough ball grips your work surface and doesn’t just slide across it. As you pull, this will tighten up the ball and add tension to it. Give the loaf a quarter turn and repeat this tightening step. Proceed in this way until you’ve gone all the way around the dough ball two or three times. Place each seam side down in its proofing basket. Lightly flour the tops of the loaves, set them side by side, and cover them with a kitchen towel. 

Let them proof for about 1 1/4 hours, assuming your kitchen temperature is around 70 F/21 C. If your kitchen is warmer, the loaves will proof faster. Preheat the oven at this time, 475 F. Place your Dutch Oven on the middle rack with the lid on while the oven is preheating.

If you only have one Dutch oven, put the second loaf in the fridge 20 minutes before you bake the first one.

Be very careful with the extremely hot dutch oven in this next step. Invert the proofed loaf onto a lightly floured countertop, keeping in mind that the top of the loaf will be the side that was facing down while it was rising - the seam side. Remove the preheated Dutch oven from the oven, remove the lid, and carefully place the loaf in the Dutch oven seam side up. Cover and bake for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and continue to bake for a further 20 to 30 minutes, until at least medium dark brown around all the loaf. Check after 15 minutes of baking uncovered in case your oven runs hot.

Remove the Dutch oven and carefully tilt it to turn the loaf out. Place on a wire rack to let it cool, about 20 minutes. Put the Dutch oven back in the oven for 5 minutes to preheat it, then bake the second loaf in the same way.

Coffee Doughnuts

So, how are those New Year resolutions going? Getting your detoxing teas on, drinking charcoal juice, buying new gym leggings, starting a workout regime? Blendin' up aaaaall that kale and spinach for your morning breakfast? Going for runs, too? Good job!

Sounds like you deserve a doughnut. Or eight.

I've never been one for resolutions. I'm all for goals and self-improvement, but I don't see the point in starting it at New Years because it almost always fails about a month in. You lose momentum and stop being motivated, I get it. I also don't really feel like I have a need to make resolutions when it comes to what I eat and how I work out. 

Now, with this blog and my job as a pastry cook, you might think I eat pastries every single day or that I eat everything I make on this blog. Wrong! I find that because I'm around sweets all the time, I've lost most of my desire for them. Plus, my job as a pastry cook is super physical - lifting 20 kg bags of flour and going up a flight of stairs (6 times…), carrying heavy trays, on my feet for 10 hours a day. I've actually lost weight and gained muscle from working as a pastry cook. Take that!

Also, I'm more than a little skeptical of "detox" anything. I mean, your kidneys and liver do that every day. That's what they're there for. A few glasses of tea or a handful of herbs, even if ingested every day, will not "detoxify" your body. They might help keep you liver healthy, which is great, but if a healthy liver is what you're after, there are more effective ways to go about it (i.e. stop drinking alcohol). But where's the fun in that?

The way I see it is that if you eat veggies often and stay away from fast food, you can treat yourself once in a while. One doughnut isn't going to kill you. One doughnut every day will probably do some lasting damage so don't do that. It's all about moderation, you know? 

For example, you might think that I ate all these doughnuts. Nope! I ate only one and that was mostly so I could get a photo of the inside (but it didn't work out). I took the rest to my dad's office and gave them out to people there. And you know what? A lot of people said, "Oh, no, I'm good, thanks" at first. I mean, good on them, will power and all that, but are you seriously refusing a homemade doughnut? After I told them I made them myself, most of them took one and they freakin' loved it. And I bet that they would say that those extra calories were totally worth it for the few minutes of doughnut-bliss. 

I'm not trying to bring anyone off the healthy bandwagon here, I'm just trying to get people to think a little harder about these "quick fixes" that always seem to pop up around New Years. 

Also, I want you to think about doughnuts. Because you're worth it and doughnuts are worth it.

Coffee Doughnuts
Makes 8 doughnuts

Brioche
Recipe from Bouchon Bakery Cookbook

518 g all-purpose flour
10 g instant dried yeast
74 g sugar
9 g salt
212 g whole milk, at 23 C
111 g eggs
3 g vanilla paste
55 g unsalted butter, at room temperature

Coffee Pastry Cream
Recipe adapted from Bouchon Bakery Cookbook

132 g yolks
110 g sugar
30 g cornstarch
550 g whole milk
20 g coffee beans
27 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 g vanilla paste or 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 L of canola oil

200 g vanilla sugar

Spray a large bowl with nonstick spray.

For the brioche, place the flour and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook and mix for about 15 seconds to distribute the yeast evenly. Add all of the remaining dough ingredients except for the butter and mix on low speed for 4 minutes. Add the butter a few pieces at a time, incorporating after each addition before adding the next. Stop and scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl and push the dough off the hook. Mix for a total of 30 minutes on low speed.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Fold the left side over to the right, the right over to the left, then the top to the bottom and the bottom to the top so you have a "package" with the seam at the top. Place the dough seam-side down in the prepared bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let it ferment for 1 hour. 

Repeat the folding process, place it back in the bowl, cover, and refrigerate overnight.

Make the pastry cream at this point. Place the coffee beans on a baking sheet and use the bottom of a clean pot to crush the beans. Set them aside for now. Set up a fine-mesh sieve and a bowl set over an ice-bath.

Combine the milk and half of the sugar in a saucepan and place over medium-low heat. When the milk comes just to a boil, remove from the heat, add the crushed coffee beans, and place a lid on the pot. Let the milk infuse for 15 minutes. Strain the milk through a fine-mesh sieve and discard the coffee beans. Weigh the milk again and make sure you have enough - you will most likely be short now (the coffee beans have absorbed some of the milk), so top it up with the required amount.

Combine the remaining half of the sugar, egg yolks, and cornstarch in a small bowl and whisk until slightly paler in colour.

Place the milk back on the stove and heat to just a boil. Temper the yolks by pouring a small amount of the hot milk into the yolks, whisking constantly, then pour 1/3 of the milk into the yolks, still whisking constantly. Pour the milk-yolk mixture back into the pot and cook over medium-low heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture is thick and reads at least 82 C on a digital thermometer. Remove from heat and add the butter and vanilla paste/extract and whisk for a minute or two. Strain through the fine-mesh sieve into the bowl set over the ice-bath. Cool the pastry cream to room temperature, then place a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface to prevent a skin from forming and refrigerate until completely cool.

Lightly flour your work surface and roll out the dough to an 11 inch wide circle. Using a 3.5 inch circle cutter, cut out 8 rounds of dough and carefully transfer them to a silpat or parchment lined baking sheet. Use a 1 inch wide circle cutter to get as many min doughnuts as you can out of the scraps. Of those scraps, gently knead together and roll out to get additional mini doughnuts.

Place a piece of plastic wrap loosely over the doughnuts and place in a warm, humid place to proof for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. (Note: I turn the shower on in my bathroom, let it run for 5 minutes, then turn it off. This makes the bathroom a little warm and a little steamy, but not too hot. I place the brioche on the counter, then close the door. This provides the most ideal proofing conditions that I can find in my apartment. If you do this, check up on the dough every 10 minutes to make sure it's not too hot!).

Meanwhile,  pour the canola oil into a heavy bottomed saucepan or pot, making sure there is at least 3 inches of oil in the pot. Heat the oil to 175 C. 

Once the doughnuts are proofed, remove the plastic wrap and place them near your pot of oil. Have a cooling rack on a sheet pan next to your oil and the bowl of vanilla sugar. 

Gently pick up one doughnut and carefully place it in the oil, making sure not to splash oil on yourself. Fry the dough for 2 minutes, then flip it and fry on the other side for 1 minute, until the doughnut is a golden brown colour. Remove from the oil and place on the cooling rack. Let it cool for 5 minutes or so, then transfer it to the bowl of vanilla sugar. Coat the doughnut in sugar, then place back on the cooling rack. Repeat with the remaining doughnuts and mini doughnuts.

Transfer the pastry cream to a piping bag fitted with a small circular piping tip. Using a paring knife, make a small incision in the side of each doughnut. Insert the piping tip and pipe as much pastry cream as the doughnut will allow. When you pull the piping tip out, the pastry cream should ooze out a little bit.

The doughnut are best eaten immediately. Enjoy!

Cardamom Pull Apart Loaf

I had every intention of posting this before Christmas. Really, I did. I worked extra hard on my days off to make three desserts in one day so I could post them when I didn't have time to make things (i.e. the week before Christmas).

But then work happened and I really had no time at all except to eat and sleep. Not even eat, really, mostly just squeeze in as much sleep as possible.

Photo by Mat Lo

Photo by Mat Lo

My Christmas break was filled with lots of sleep-ins, naps, hanging out with family, and eating, which is how it should be for everyone. I went back to work for three very busy days and now I have a few more days off, which I will spend working on the blog! I took a break from the blog over the Christmas break, which was both good and bad. Ultimately, it felt great to just step back and not worry about it for a few days. But I also felt bad because there were comments and emails that went unanswered for several days! I hope no one died from my lack of an immediate response. 

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Of course, just like everyone else, I'm going to say that I can't believe it's 2016! The last year was great, although not very eventful. The majority of my year was spent working at my job, with a few fun little things thrown in there - like going to the Philippines on a scuba diving trip and getting a motorcycle! But mostly work. While it was great, I really hope to get my butt in gear this year and get out and do more.

I've never been one for new year's resolutions, but the start of this year is already full of changes. I feel like I need something new and exciting, so I will be leaving my current job as a pastry cook at a patisserie next month! I'm still going to be a pastry cook, but I want to try something different and be more creative, so possibly a restaurant! Things are still up in the air and nothing is set in stone just yet, so we'll see what happens in the next few weeks! Nevertheless, it's an exciting start to 2016! Hopefully this year will be filled with all kinds of new experiences, both professionally and personally! 

Happy New Year!!

Cardamom Pull Apart Loaf

Croissant Dough

Recipe from The Modern Café

426 g all-purpose flour

11 g salt

51 g granulated sugar

8 g yeast

204 g water at 21 C

85 g unsalted butter, soft

212 g unsalted butter

Cardamom sugar

3 tablespoons ground green cardamom

200 g granulated sugar

For the croissant dough, combine the flour, salt, sugar, and yeast 

in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook and give it a quick mix on the lowest setting to distribute all of the ingredients evenly. Add the water and mix until a shaggy dough is formed, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add the softened butter. Mix on low speed for 10 minutes, until full gluten development is achieved and the dough is smooth.

Remove the dough from the mixer and place on a silpat lined half sheet pan. Spread the dough into a rough rectangle the size of half of the pan, trying to make it even and flat. Cover the dough loosely with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature to ferment for 45 minutes.

Remove the plastic wrap. Using your palms, flatten the dough to release the large gas bubbles, but do not push all the air out of the dough. Make sure the dough is rectangular and even. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap and freeze for 45 minutes.

For the butter block, the ideal temperature for the butter is around 21 C. If the butter is too cold, place a piece of parchment underneath and on top of it and use a rolling pin to pound it down and make it malleable. Shape the butter into a rectangle the size of a quarter of a half sheet pan, making sure the edges and corners are sharp and the butter is even and flat. Depending on the temperature of your butter, you may need to keep it at room temperature or in the fridge, or a combination of the two, to keep it at 21 C.

Remove the dough from the freezer. Remove the plastic wrap and place the dough on a lightly floured work surface. Let the dough soften for 5 to 10 minutes until it is no longer rock hard, but not soft. Place the butter block on the right hand side of the dough, leaving about 1.5 cm of dough around the edges of the butter block. Fold the left hand side over, like closing a book, and pinch the seams together. 

With the "spine" of the dough (think the spine of a book) on your left, roll the dough out vertically to around 15 cm. Turn the dough so the spine is now facing your stomach and roll it out to 30 cm. Make sure to keep the rectangular shape throughout the entire process. If the dough feels too soft at any point, place it in the fridge for 5 minutes. Do not leave it in the fridge for too long or the butter will become hard and will shatter when you roll it out. 

For the first turn, f

old the bottom third of the dough up as if you were folding a letter. Fold the top third down to cover the bottom third. 

Turn the block 90 degrees so the dough resembles a book, with the opening on the right and the spine on the left. You will continue this pattern with each roll, and keeping the opening on the right will help you remember how to position the dough. You have completed your first turn: gently press a finger into the corner to mark it.

 Let the dough relax for at least 15 minutes, either at room temperature or partially in the fridge, depending on the temperature of the dough. Be mindful of the butter temperature.

For the second turn, roll the dough out in the same way as you did before, fold it, mark it, and let it rest. Repeat for the third and fourth turn.

For the cardamom sugar, combine the ground cardamom and sugar in a small bowl.

Roll out the dough to 50 cm by 30 cm. Cut the dough into two strips measuring 50 cm by 15 cm. Lay them on top of each other and, using a sharp knife, cut them into squares about half the size of your loaf pan. Place the squares of dough in a large bowl and sprinkle the cardamom sugar over. Gently toss the squares to coat them with sugar, then carefully place them into your loaf pan, pressing them together very gently. Sprinkle any excess sugar over top. 

Loosely cover the loaf pan with plastic wrap and place it in a warm, humid environment to proof.

Note: I set mine on the bathroom counter and put the shower on the hottest temperature for 2 minutes, then turn it off and close the door.

The temperature should be around 24 C, but not too much hotter or the butter will melt out of your dough. 

Proof the dough for about 1 hour, until the dough has doubled in size. 

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Once the dough is proofed, place it on a baking sheet and bake it for 35 to 40 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through, until the whole loaf is a dark golden brown all over. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack.