Chocolate you fresh devil

Sweet, it's time to talk about chocolate.

Here's the book I want for Valentine's Day: The Art of the Chocolatier.

Here's why. The day came to teach a class on how to make truffles. The concept is not hard. Make a filling of ganache (chocolate and cream, flavorings), pipe it into spheres and allow to set. Temper some couverture chocolate, dunk said spheres. Decorate.

Not difficult. And yet. If your ganache is out of ratio, with too much or too little cream, you'll get off on the wrong foot and leave trails of despair, nay, chocolate streaks, all around you and on the floor, perhaps even the walls.

If the ganache won't set, not even in the freezer, you've got to grab the calculator and do the math. Are you using dark chocolate? Ratio is 2 to 1 - two parts chocolate to 1 part cream, and if you're adding liqueur and butter, make allowances. If it's white chocolate, better use 2 and 1/2 parts chocolate to 1 part cream. White doesn't have the cocoa solids and the same amount of cocoa butter that dark has. Trust me about this.

Why should you? I've got the kitchen floor with the evidence to back up my claims that you must do your math. The Art of the Chocolatier is clear on the subject.

Chocolatier does a marvelous job of presenting the right steps for chocolate work. It's loaded with recipes and even more thrilling, guidance on how to do chocolate sculptures. If you go down this chocolate path, that could be where you end up, amazing and amusing your friends with impressive chocolate designs that defy gravity.

I heard about the chocolate book because one of the gifted and talented kitchen assistants where I teach loaned me her copy. She knew me to be the kind of pastry chef who studies the problem from multiple angels. Yes I said "angels," not angles, but that applies, too. Angels step in when you are most perplexed and hand you something good.

Thanks to her and the book, we made it through class with only one broken emulsion (the white chocolate, wouldn't you know?) and 2 batches of leftover ganache, hidden in the fridge.

A class attendee asked me which is harder, making truffles or macarons. The better question is, which is messier!

The answer? Chocolate, that fresh devil.

French Pain Noir

Three little slices are all that's left of my journey to discover what Pain Noir - black bread - looks like. In one evening by the fire, we mopped up with this richly flavorful beauty of French origin. Yes, we nearly devoured an entire loaf in one sitting - what you see are remains of the day.

Notice, the bread is not black but it's certainly dark, and why not, since there's molasses and bittersweet chocolate in the dough. Mashed potatoes, too. Bernard Clayton, the master baker (now deceased) who shared the recipe in his "The New Complete Book of Breads" volume, suggests that it goes well with cheeses. Might I add that it also goes well with grilled chicken and roasted tomato basil soup paired with a good set of crackling logs? Trust me, it does. (If you make the soup, consider removing the pepper flakes, or plan to add cream and a pat of butter to lighten the fire.)

Now to divulge the truth: Either I messed up this bread by shoving it onto a hot baking stone, or we need to tweak the ingredients, because the dough is extremely hydrated at 88% and quite wet, loose and sticky. It cracked in the oven like Humpty Dumpty's head. During rising, I never saw this bread double in size as the recipe suggests. Who cares, when it comes out so scrumptious? Listen, cracks don't bother me because once you've sliced the bread, nobody knows.

Clayton suggests sprinkling kosher salt on the top before baking to give this bread a savory sensation against the sweetness. For this, I used the Murry River Pink Flake finishing salt, a product of Australia and available at Sur La Table. I went with pink flakes for their color and size, but a smoked Salish or Fleur de Sel would also be "yum toy," as my dear mentor in words Gay Smith used to say.

Next bread to tackle is the Pain de Campagne Poilane, which takes three days from starter and sponge to dough. I've mentioned before that Poilane is the famous bakery in Paris where taste as art is revealed. When I visited one of its outposts on Rue Grenelle last year, they had an Eiffel Tower in the window, entirely made of bread. This recipe is also in Clayton's book, but others also have attempted to capture versions of the legendary country loaf, including Peter Reinhart in "The Bread Baker's Apprentice." For more on the Poilane legacy, check out "The Village Baker" by Joe Ortiz.

All three of these books have now joined me by the fireside, and what good companions they are. Oh, the places we'll dough!

Bread for the Soul

I had 3 choices for a book to haul down to the courthouse for jury duty, mon dieu, not that! Two of the choices were bread books, the other was "Little Bee," a best-seller but one that I had been warned would make me question my character. That little step I was not ready for on a Monday morning headed to a large and chilly room filled with hundreds of people bearing up under the same dread as I was. Too early for character scrutiny.

Why take a bread book to court? It represented escape from everything around me - the prospect of catching the flu from those who were coughing loudly and often, of being seated on a jury and hearing awful details involving sawed-off shotguns, houses set on fire, or worse.

I considered taking "The Art and Soul of Baking," a book from Sur La Table, which would carry me off to thoughts of pastry as well as bread, but it had a big drawback, weighing in at 5 pounds. The other was Bernard Clayton's "New Complete Book of Breads," a better weight at 2 and a half pounds. Clayton understands the weaving of back stories and bread histories - how to transport you to a different time and place, how to see that bread come to life. He can take you below decks of the SS France to read about boulangers toiling in their skullcaps to produce thousands of fresh rolls for the passengers. He'll set you down beside Antonin Careme in the early 1800s with his daily bread recipe, surviving all these years. He knows a good detail when he sees it, like biscuits nicknamed "touch of grace," or a Viennese bread shaped like a Zeppelin. He knows all about taste, how to get it, shape it and bake it. He offers the breads the world adores; you can't help but drift away.

While sitting on various chairs and benches, I turned down the page ears on several fronts - for Pain Noir, a French black bread; for the Pain de Campagne Honfleur, from the Normandy coast. Also Pain de Campagne Poilane - well come on, how could I not want to throw that together, since I have visited Poilane in Paris in both of its city locations and once plunked down 49 Euros for one of their canvas-lined wicker banneton baskets. When you have eaten Poilane bread, you understand all things. It sticks to your soul like no other. Of course I can't re-create it in Dallas, not really. I have the same chance as making sourdough that tastes like a San Francisco boule. No, it can't be done, but it can be imagined. That is bread's power.

Thinking about it soothed me to the core. Believe me, I needed a core workout. I later made an absolute fool of myself in a room full of potential jurors hearing a robbery case. Robbery? Doesn't the story line of "Les Miserables" involve a theft of bread? No, I couldn't handle it. I owned up to my quirky biases and was out of there, cheeks flaming, bread book wedged under my coat.

Switching tracks, why is there a cupcake on this page? It's from one of the classes I taught at Sur. I like how the student didn't pipe one long curl of buttercream but broke it up into dollops hither and yon. It's not bread, but it has promise.

I think it might be good for the soul. If I can't eat it, at least I can think about it while choosing which bread to go bake. A bread that is braided into a beehive. Or something in black, I think. Pain Noir

Sweetacular Star Mints

My fabulous friends do 2 incredible things for me: Send ideas that grab attention, and loan equipment to try them out. Hats off to Jeanne Ambrose at Taste of Home Magazine for finding the star mint idea - and to Trish Ballard for loaning me an oven - she is always willing to watch what happens.

Jeanne knows I like to melt things down, like Jolly Rancher candies to make "stained glass" images. She sent this link to the star mint trick of melting ye old holiday beauties and cutting them into shapes. http://abc.tv/VEGlzY

In a nutshell, get yourself a sheet pan, parchment paper and a bag of star mints. I found them at Walgreens - there seemed to be a shortage of mints in the grocery stores.

Whack the oven up to 350 degrees. Remove candy papers from mints, and line them up on the pan, about 1/4 inch apart, leaving room at the edges of the pan since these will spread. Bake up to about 7 minutes (keep an eye on them)and see that hot sugar move out.

Remove pan from oven, set on counter and place cookie cutters into the sugar. Leave cutters in place as the sugar cools. Careful, they are hot to the touch.

As the mixture cools, it will become hard enough to "break out" the sugar pieces, if you're careful. No need to rush this; they will separate.
 
The idea's original intent was to make serving trays, but I like cutting them into shapes even better. 

Next, I'll try cutting them in truly small shapes to make cupcake toppers.

It's been a busy season at my home base, Singing Wheat Kitchen, with many classes to teach at Sur La Table. Kitchen and Sur join me in wishing you passionate baking and delicious moments with family and friends this holiday season. 

What does that look like? At Singing Wheat we always pause to attend the Stimson Family Christmas Party on Dec. 23. Charlie, Meredith and their children preserve for me the essence of my Christmases in Connecticut in olden days. Yes, in their house you'll find wonderful food and friendship - but it's the mandatory singing around the piano that grabs my heart. Charlie brings out the kid in all of us as he plays the piano - and sometimes the sax or ukulele. He has the good songs, too, you best be armed with a hanky. 

There's a reason the word "Singing" is a part of my bakery name, and I'm told there's an old Jewish saying that music and singing touch the deepest part of our soul. This I do believe.

Good food, good friends and a songbook are the recipe for a joyful heart. Lift a friend, a cookie or a song this holiday season. Get a lift, is what I'm saying.

Holiday Cookie Tips

If you were in my holiday cookies class at Sur La Table, you heard me say "Vodka!"

Let me explain. We were flourishing the royal icing onto gingerbread, and I was giving caution that these white icing surfaces need time to dry before painting designs on top. If you missed how alcohol entered the conversation, here it is:

To paint any design on the royal icing of your cookie, first let it dry completely. To apply the paint, mix a little gel food coloring with a splash of vodka. You can stir it up with a toothpick until you get the color you want. The vodka helps hold the gel paste in suspension for brushing.

Simply mix - I use an old muffin tin and mix in the different muffin holes - then apply with a brush. If you want to check your color before committing yourself on the cookie, use a broken cookie or one you don't like and make it your test version. Practice on that.

Friends, it can be hard to get everything said in a 2-hour class, so let me offer a pledge that if clarification is needed, I'll use this space to add background. Helping you get a handle on breads, French pastry, macarons, cupcakes, chocolate, all things involving butter, sugar, flour and eggs is a pleasure and a joy.

Please let me know what I forgot to blurt in class, and let's get it solved.

Head to your rolling pins and take off!

(Photo: Hand-painted Highland Park Scots and tuile-batter peppermint sticks)

The Breads of France

My head is reeling with thoughts of the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie in early March. Have decided to wear a copy of  "The Breads of France" by the late Bernard Clayton Jr. With that under my arm, I can't help but start a conversation with people I don't know. They'll see it and want to know where I got it since the paperback is hard to find and truth be told, I won mine for helping a chef at Le Cordon Bleu. She has great taste in books.

The big awkward about going all the way to Paris for a bread competition is this: I don't know a soul. Most of the world's best bakers have thrown flour together for years. I picture them glad-handing, back-slapping and standing each other to a glass of bubbles as they call out "Tchin-tchin!" in perfect French.

There I'll be, wearing a book, standing apart and looking pasty. I am prepared to discuss, if asked, my favorite recipes in the book. See those little twists above? They are Gateaux au Poivre - pepper cakes. Clayton called them tiny twisted golden wreaths of yeast-raised dough, speckled with pepper and formed around your index finger. They have the 3 attributes that are good to have in bread: great taste, quick turn and ease of execution.

These cakes can translate into an appetizer (I imagine weaving in strips of proscuitto), and they freeze well, too. I battered them with Grains of Paradise, a spice my Denver sister introduced at Thanksgiving. She claims Alton Brown uses it in his apple pie as his secret ingredient. Some day I'll tell you about Karen Berner's "Real Deal" apple pie and why I think it stands above all others. Karen is Food Editor at Taste of Home magazine, but don't let me digress on how good the Real Deal really is.

Shoving thoughts back to Grains of Paradise, it's also known as alligator pepper, atar, baking pepper, Guinea pepper, melegueta pepper and Roman pepper and is native to the coast of West Africa, according to its label. Find it at savoryspiceshop.com. And since I'm giving out pointers, dash over to Crate and Barrel for their mini pepper grinder, to fill with the Grains of Paradise. Perfect size, perfect price ($5.95) and good at reducing paradise to manageable heaven.

Racing onward toward more thoughts of flavor, consider the Pain d'Epice from Clayton's book, with similar attributes and made fragrant by the use of anise seed. Learn more about anise in the December issue of Taste of Home magazine. I wrote the headline, "Almighty Anise," while I was externing there and so if anybody asks about anise, I'm prepared to remark on how the Romans broke anise cakes over the heads of their brides for good luck. The result of this aromatic bread infused with anise, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, rum and orange rind  reminds me of Swedish Limpa Bread.

One last tout to a jaunty bread that's ready the same day and easy to make. Judith Jones in "The Book of Bread" describes Earl Grey Tea Rolls. The use of tea and lime zest will surprise you; I prefer the smokier Lapsang Souchong tea and an extra squeeze of lime juice along with the zest, but taste as you go and see what you think.

Bread flavored with pepper, anise and tea are good ideas on how to increase flavor without proofing and retarding dough for days and hours on end to fully develop the essence locked inside the various flours you use. Only think of what the Coupe bakers will know, if I can just get them to open their bouche.

Bread Stenciling: Do That Not This

Did you ever think you could do something and tried it, looked at it and thought "what was I thinking?" That's how it is with stenciling bread. I thought if I took a template from a Hawaiian quilt pattern, cut it out and laid it over the bread, I would have a marvelous design the world would embrace as pure genius. (I still believe in the concept.)

Lucky for you I made all the mistakes up front with my ukulele pattern, so you don't have to.

Here's how I will scale the pinnacle of success next time:

1. Cover the proofing basket with cloth to diminish effect of flour rings. Rings just distract from the template design.
2. Learn from YouTube video on how to stencil bread. You don't add water, butter or egg wash to the bread surface, apparently, to make the flour stick. For the reverse view on this, shift over to The Fresh Loaf for a discussion on why some people do mist the bread.
3. Don't use your hands to glom the flour over the stencil, creating rustic volcanic fissures. Use a small sieve and gently tap the flour onto the stencil.
4. Score the bread. At least that way you control the splits in the crust.

Or how about this: Rise up and go watch the artisan masters and learn from the best in the world. That's my next scheme. I'm jumping across the pond to the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie March 3-7 in Paris. This is the Olympics of bread, and you can follow Team USA: Harry Peemoeller on artistic design (keeping my eyes on his hands r.e. stenciling), Mike Zakowski for baguette and specialty breads and Jeremy Gadouas for viennoiserie. Shout out to the Bread Bakers Guild of America for telling me all about it. Read more about the Europain trade show going on during the Coupe for a look at how Europe rolls. My plan is to attend said Coupe and Europain, tour bakeries and make the devoted pilgrimage to the palace of wisdom, Poilane Bakery, in five days.

All right oui, so Paris is a long way to go to embrace a loaf of bread when we have Empire Baking in Dallas, Central Market, Whole Foods and Eatzi's, to name a few fine loafers, but where will I find the best breadmakers from the USA gathered in one spot in a fabulous location? This is a "gotta go," dump everything else from the bucket list and get thee to hallowed ground strategic planning. They'll talk to me, won't they?

Why not? I'm an amateur with a heart full of flour.