Gastroanthropology

Maple Syrup Madeleines

With just two weeks to go for my 9-month baking project, I'm making everything baby. With not much else to do but rest my feet which have started to swell a bit, I've taught myself how to crochet baby booties. I'm on my fourth pair and have even started crocheting baby boots (think Uggs - which btw I have never owned or care to, but when so tiny and homemade they are pretty darn cute and irresistible, just like these tiny madeleines).

I'm not sure why everyone feels it necessary to tell me their pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding horror stories. While I'm not so naive to think everything will go perfectly for me I do believe anxious parents make anxious kids. And, I've learned that offering treats to people to keep their mouths full prohibits them from spewing a lot of unwanted pregnancy and parenting advice. These baby maple syrup madeleines are perfect for keeping unasked for advice at bay - they are small, tasty and have just a touch of maple sweetness. Nobody can resist from popping them in their mouths one by one.  

MAPLE SYRUP MADELEINES

• 100 grams butter, melted
• extra butter (soft) to brush madeleine pans
• 2 eggs
• 100 grams maple syrup
• 15 grams dark brown sugar
• 3 grams baking powder
• 100 grams cake flour (NOT self-rising)
• pinch salt
• powdered or a mixture of powdered and ground maple sugar for garnish

METHOD

This recipe makes 48 baby madeleines. 

Preheat oven to 325ºF/160ºC. Use a pastry brush and brush soft butter onto your madeleine pan.

Melt measured butter. Set aside.

Put maple syrup and brown sugar in a small pot over medium-low heat and reduce by half, so the maple syrup becomes thicker, to a more honey-like consistency. Meanwhile in a blender whizz eggs for a minute till frothy. Pour the reduced, warm maple syrup into the eggs while the blender is going (you need to do this to temper the eggs and not curdle them). Blend for 30 seconds.

Add baking powder, cake flour, and salt to the blender and blend till combined, another 30 seconds.

Add melted butter to the blender and blend till combined, a final 30 seconds. Strain the mixture. Chill the mixture for at least 30 minutes or up to a day. This will ensure a puffed rounded madeleine belly.

Scoop into the buttered madeleine pans. I prefer to use the baby madeleine pans (always metal, never the silicone pans!). Using a small ice cream scoop makes it easy. Bake the baby madeleines for about 7-9 minutes. Larger madeleines will take a few minutes more, 10-13 minutes. Their bellies should be puffed and the edges slightly golden in color. Enjoy warm or let cool completely before sprinkling with powdered sugar and enjoy later.

After all the sampling I've done I just hope I can bounce back into shape like my Mom did...

From the family vault...

Brown Bread Ice Cream

We've been a bit disappointed with the food scene in London. It's true you can get just about anything you want, but the quality and price of food in the grocery stores and restaurants often falls far from our least expectations. That being said we have found a few gems in the Big Old Smoke. One such gem, just a few blocks away from our apartment flat is Andrew Edmunds*. It's a tiny candle-lit place with tables squashed together and squeezed in corners. The food, however, is pretty darn good and on one recent visit I tried the Brown Bread Ice Cream. I had never had it and the server told me it was from Victorian times where old toasted bread was stirred into vanilla ice cream. I had to give it a go - it was delicious! I've never seen it on any other menu and haven't seen it in any ice cream shops in England so I wanted to try making it at home.

First step, make some brown bread. I wanted something moist and easy to crumble so I made my Irish Soda Bread. This is the simplest bread to make (taking mere minutes to stir together) and absolutely heaven to eat warm from the oven. Would be a perfect too for a certain holiday that falls tomorrow. If you don't have the time, energy, tools to make ice cream for the Brown Bread Ice cream you must still do the following: (1) make this bread and eat the better part of it minutes out of the oven, standing at the kitchen counter with a huge slab of softened butter; (2) save a few bits of bread to make the brown bread crumbs (recipe below); (3) stir into your favorite store-bought vanilla ice cream (softened); (4) freeze it for a bit and enjoy your Brown Bread Ice Cream.

If you do have the time, energy, and tools to make ice cream at home use this ice cream base recipe - it's basically a vanilla ice cream base, but some of the regular sugar is replaced with dark brown sugar.

BROWN BREAD ICE CREAM BASE

• 2 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1/2 vanilla bean
• pinch salt
• 6 egg yolks
• 1x Brown Bread Crumbs (recipe follows)

METHOD

Heat cream, milk, sugars, vanilla bean (scraped and leave pod in pot) and salt. Heat the mixture to a scald. Meanwhile whisk egg yolks. Temper the eggs with the hot mixture. Put everything back on a low heat to thicken the mixture so it coats the back of a spoon. Strain. Chill mixture. Spin the ice cream following your ice cream machine's instructions. Just as it is done spinning, add most of the brown bread crumbs, reserving some for garnish. Keep in freezer till ready to serve.

BROWN BREAD CRUMBS

• 3 oz (2-3 slices) brown bread
• 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1 1/2 oz unsalted butter

METHOD

Preheat oven to 350ºF/175ºC. Crumble brown bread between your fingers - some should be like sand, other like small pebbles. Because my bread is so moist using your hands will be possible if you use my Irish Soda Bread recipe. If you use another brown or whole wheat bread you may need to use a food processor. Melt butter and brown sugar on low heat till sugar is melted and the mixture barely comes to a bubble. Put brown bread crumbs in a heat safe bowl and pour the brown sugar+butter mixture over top. Stir in till well mixed. Place on a sheet pan lined with parchment (grease with a small bit flavorless oil) or use a silpat. Bake for about 15-20 minutes till edges crisp up. It will bake into one piece, but let it cool for a few minutes after it comes out of the oven and then crumble, leaving some bits larger than others. Do not use in the ice cream base until it is completely cooled. Reserve some crumbs for garnish.

These brown bread crumbs are pretty delicious and I can see them making an appearance as a crumble topping for lots of sweets, especially as the streusel for a coffee cake or jam tart.

To celebrate St. Patrick's Day I'm joining Daily Spud's St. Paddy's Day Food Parade with this post!

*Andrew Edmunds does not have a website. The restaurant is located at 46 Lexington Street in Soho, Central London. Reservations taken only a week in advance at +44 (0) 207 437 5708.

Dutch Baby + Blood Orange Curd

In honor of Pancake Day (aka Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras...) I decided to treat myself to a Dutch Baby with silky smooth blood orange curd. A Dutch Baby is a German Pancake, but Dutch Baby sounds so much more fun, and I've got babies on the brain (less than a month till the due date!). The name is a bit confusing because the Dutch tend to make thin, crepe-like pancakes so enormous they engulf a plate and peak over the edges and a Dutch Baby is a puffed, cakey pancake. However the name came to be, the Dutch Baby is delicious. Dutch Babies bake in the oven so if you are the one who tends to man the pancake griddle while others enjoy hot pancakes, try this because the entire pancake is cooked whole and then slice into portions (you could of course bake little individual Dutch Babies in baby cast iron skillets too). 

DUTCH BABY PANCAKE

• 4 eggs
• 1 Tbs vanilla sugar, or sugar with 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
• pinch salt
• 4 Tbs butter, room temp

METHOD

Preheat oven to 400°F. Place your cast iron skillet into the oven to heat up. I use two 8-inch skillets for this amount of batter and this recipe serves 4 people. You could also use cake pans if you don't have a cast iron skillet.

Make sure your eggs and milk are cold. In a blender whizz eggs and sugar for a minute and then stream in cold milk. Continue to blend till frothy, add sifted flour and pinch of salt and blend for 1 minute. Make sure everything is well incorporated - the flour can stick to the sides.

If using two pans, divide butter in half. Take hot skillets out of the oven and put a portion of butter in each. It should melt quickly - swirl around the pan. Pour the batter into the skillet(s). Put in oven and bake for 20 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 350°F and continue to bake for an additional 10 minutes. The edges should be puffed and golden brown. When it first comes out of the oven it will be puffed all over and by the time you get it to the table to serve the middle will deflate.

Serve with Blood Orange Curd, recipe follows. The heat of the pancake gently melts the curd and the end result is divine.

You can also have the Dutch Baby with any sort of pancake topping - warm maple syrup, macerated berries, and fresh lemon juice with sugar are some of my favorites. If you want to go a bit savory try warm maple syrup with bits of crispy smoked bacon.

I had lots of juicy blood oranges from Italy and decided to tweak my lemon curd recipe for blood orange curd. This method for making curd is a bit different than most citrus curd recipes - read through before making. It also should be made the day before you want to serve it so it has a chance to set up to the perfect thickness. The end result is a super rich and silky curd.

 The curd looks quite pale in the picture above...in reality it is a lovely pastel pink color. 

BLOOD ORANGE CURD

• zest of 4 blood oranges
• 3/4 cup freshly squeezed blood orange juice
• 3/4 cup sugar
• pinch salt
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 1 sheet of gelatin**
• 10 oz unsalted butter, soft 

METHOD

Zest blood oranges, then juice them. Put zest and juice in a pot with sugar and salt. Heat mixture on medium low. Meanwhile crack eggs into a bowl and gently whisk to mix together yolk and white. Also, bloom your sheet of gelatin in cold water.

When the blood orange juice comes to a simmer, take off the heat and pour into the eggs, while whisking. Do this to temper the eggs. Pour the entire mixture back into the pot and keep on low heat while moving the mixture with a spatula to thicken. Take care it does not curdle. Thicken until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. Remove from heat. Add gelatin and stir in - it should dissolve quickly.

Immediately strain into a food processor (use your finest mesh strainer and press through with a spatula). Turn the food processor on and drop knobs of butter until it is all incorporated. While not totally necessary I strain the mixture a second time (once the butter is added) into a clean bowl. Cover directly with plastic and chill in refrigerator overnight. 

**I much prefer using gelatin sheets (Gelita brand from Germany) to powdered gelatin. If they are unavailable to you at your local store, they are available through many online speciality food shops. If you don't want to buy a whole box, you can buy 20 sheets from King Arthur Flour. 

Walnut + Prune Oat Cookies

So I've been eating oatmeal for breakfast nearly every morning for weeks, so much so that I've been buying oats by bulk. Nuts, cinnamon, dried or fresh fruit usually accompany. Since I'm eating multiple meals a day (hey, I'm eating for two!) I even had oatmeal for a pre-dinner dinner today. The oats have even made their way into my sweet indulgence. To recreate one of my favorite breakfast oatmeals in a cookie I've added walnuts, chopped prunes, and lots of cinnamon to my oat cookie. These have just enough sweetness to stop a more indulgent craving. If your not a fan of prunes, dried cherries or blueberries would work just as well.

WALNUT + PRUNE OAT COOKIE

• 4 1/2 oz unsalted butter, room temp
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg, room temp
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup old-fashioned oats
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped prunes
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

METHOD

Preheat oven to 350°F. Cream together butter and sugars for about 1 minute. Add egg and vanilla extract, beat in till combined. Add dry ingredients until just combined. Fold in oats, prunes, and walnuts. Form into balls (makes about 2 dozen 1-inch balls) and bake for about 10 minutes. The edges should be golden brown, but don't overbake unless you prefer a crisper cookie. 

Chocolate Hazelnut Spread

There's a long list of things that I know I can easily make at home, but these ease of getting it at the store often trumps certain homemade treats. Pasta and peanut butter come to mind. With baby due to arrive in a few weeks I've been trying to declutter - donating books and clothes, and cleaning out the kitchen cupboards. I've had hazelnuts that I've been trying to use for a few weeks and a can of condensed milk from a forgotten Christmas project so I decided to make some chocolate-hazelnut spread. Yes, it's easy to pick up a jar of Nutella, but it's also pretty simple to make at home. My version has more texture and is a bit more hazelnutty.

CHOCOLATE HAZELNUT SPREAD

• 105 grams whole hazelnuts toasted
• 85 grams dark chocolate (I use Valrhona Guanaja 70%)
• 230 grams sweetened condensed milk 
• pinch salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

METHOD

Toast hazelnuts for about 8-10 minutes in a 350F oven. If your hazelnuts are skin-on once they are out of the oven rub between a clean kitchen towel to remove the skin. Put in food processor till finely ground. If you want your spread smoother, let it go longer. You will need to scrape down the sides occasionally so everything is uniform.

In a double boiler melt the chocolate. Once it has started to melt add the sweetened condensed milk and warm until all the chocolate is melted. Add pinch salt and vanilla extract. Pour the mixture into the food processor and mix till everything is combined. 

You can spread this immediately on bread, crepes, fruit...whatever you want. Once it cools put in a jar for up to a week in a cool spot in the kitchen. I love to dip pretzels or strawberries in the spread. Put in the microwave for a few seconds if you want to spread it easily. This recipe makes a about a heaping cup of spread.