Rolling pins

four types of rolling pins

The tools in our kitchens are not just utilitarian.  They are also sometimes really enjoyable to work with.  I just got a new rolling pin although it wasn't a new purchase.  It was a gift from a piano student who had graduated high school a few months ago and recently had a final lesson with me before heading off to college.   This student of course knew from years of coming to my home studio for lessons that cooking is one of my passions and decided to get me something I didn't have.  Well, I had rolling pins, but I didn't have the particular type this student had in mind to get for my kitchen.  It arrived yesterday and as it was sitting out in view when a different student arrived for a lesson it prompted a discussion about kitchen tools in general and different types of rolling pins specifically.  From that we segued into a discussion of piano technician's tools.  But let's stay with rolling pins for now.

In the picture above are the four pins that I keep in my kitchen.        

The one on the bottom is the standard rolling pin that most people seem to have in their kitchen.  The barrel rolls independently of the handles, of course.  I have had this one for years and it's the same type as the one I used as a kid.  But as time went on and I became more experienced, I found myself using it less and less.  

The second one up from the bottom, with the colored ends, is the one I just received as a gift.  The ends can be removed and any of the colored pieces can be taken off.  Each of those pieces is a different diameter and that means that you can set the height of your pin so that if you want a 1/4 inch thick rolled dough, you can achieve that uniformly without relying only on your eye and your touch since the pin can't roll any thinner than 1/4 inch with the proper end piece.  The barrel is a solid piece of ash with no bore-hole drilled through.  So even if you push on it in the center you can't make it bend.  I haven't tried using it yet, but I will very soon.

The third one up is a French style rolling pin with tapered ends.   This is a great pin to use for things like tart or pie dough which you want to roll out in a circle.  The tapered ends, once you get used to them, can be used to manipulate the dough in a variety of ways.  Some people who use this type of pin use it only for things like pie dough, but others use it universally.

The pin on the top of the picture is the one I use more than any other.  It's very heavy, quite long, solid ash, and I love the tactile aspect of using it.  I find this one easy to use for just about everything whether it's rolling sugar cookie dough or pounding blocks of cold butter into flattened planks to be placed in croissant dough.

Today I'm using it to roll out small circles of dough for pain au lait, or "milk bread".   But more on that later.  

A big thank you to my former student for adding to my collection of pins.  I will try it out very soon.

Madeleine cake

ingredients for madeleine cake

It's a beautiful rainy morning here today with a temperature in the low 50s, a very autumnal day.  This morning I have made brioche, and I have snickerdoodles going into the oven soon, and I just pulled out madeleine cake.  Now, this cake is not exactly like traditional madeleines, the small little cakes with a bump on them that are spongy and light.  This is a spongy cake but it has more density and so is not really the same.  It is a wonderful cake to eat plain or with fruit or cream or ..... well, it's simply very good served a variety of ways.

madeleine cake - glucose and butter and milk

Butter and glucose (or corn syrup) are heated and left to cool after a little milk is added.  It must be only warm to the touch.

madeleine cake - eggs and sugar beaten for several minutes

Eggs and sugar are whisked for several minutes until the volume has increased significantly.  Lots of eggs here means a rich dense cake.  (Its rather a hypnotic thing to watch eggs increase in volume as they are whisked for so long.  It's magical, sometimes, what different ingredients are capable of.)

Some of the egg and sugar mixture is whisked into the now-only-warm butter and glucose, and lemon juice is added as well.  This is going to give a wonderful delicate flavor to the finished cake.

madeleine cake - folding in dry ingredients

Dry ingredients (simply flour and baking powder) are folded into the remaining egg and sugar mixture.  And finally everything else that was already combined with the butter and glucose is folded in after that.

madeleine cake ready for the oven

It's all baked in a quarter-sheet pan.  It's very liquidy at this point, but thick enough that it must be spread with an offset spatula just to help level out the surface and give you a nice cake that has the same thickness across.  I actually neglected that leveling bit today as I happened to get a text from one of my piano students asking for some advice on some Mozart and so I was distracted and simply placed it into the oven as I was responding.  Oh, well.  It will still taste just as good.  Don't let imperfections get in the way.

madeleine cake fresh from the oven

When it comes out it is a nice golden color on top and a skewer inserted will show that it is done evenly throughout.  The picture above shows that it is just a bit thinner on the far end - that's from my not taking the time to level it out.  But that's a very minor thing.  Nothing to worry about.  It still has a nice even bake throughout.

madeleine cake slices plain and with wild blueberries

Let it cool completely before running a plastic blade around the edge of the cake, and then flip it over on a tray, re-flip it back on another tray and now you have it upright and ready to slice.  I usually slice off the edges (to be used for just about anything where bits of cake crumble might be nice like ice cream or a parfait) and then cut rectangular pieces.  You can cut a variety of shapes with this, and it's especially easy if it's chilled first.  Top with a little fruit or cream or soft ice cream, and you have something very nice to enjoy.  This is spongy and dense (especially when chilled) and has a wonderful light lemony scent and flavor.  I like plain or topped.  Either way it's excellent.  And a perfect thing to enjoy on a nice rainy morning.

Peelers

peelers

The other day I had visitors drop in while I was prepping some fruits and vegetables for a few dishes I was making.  They commented on the kiwi which were sitting in a bowl, completed free of skin and yet looking undamaged and whole.  They had no idea how it was done since they had tried various ways of using a peeler or a knife to cleanly and neatly peel a kiwi, but had never met the same result.

In the picture above, the top item, in black, is a normal peeler.  Use this for potatoes, apples, etc., basically firm or hard fruits and vegetables.  However, if you have a soft-skinned fruit such as a kiwi, then choose the red one in the center.  Looking closely, ones sees that the blade is serrated with very very small teeth, and when used on a soft-skinned fruit allows you to penetrate the skin, and remove it cleanly and quickly.  All this is done without taking any significant flesh from the fruit.

The blue peeler on the bottom is also advertised as working especially well to peel kiwi.  However, I (and most people I have heard talk of this tool) have found that what this is really good for is shredding vegetables and fruits, especially things like papaya, or cucumbers, etc.  Actually this tool allows for a few different decorate things as you become more comfortable with it.  The metal edge is actually in waves rather than teeth.  And you want to draw it along the surface of your fruit or vegetable rather than pulling into the flesh by pressing overly hard.

Years ago I experimented with a rotating device for potatoes and kiwi and apples, etc.  It worked best on harder items like potatoes and apples, but took a lot of fruit off the kiwi.  (Actually it took a surprising amount off an apple as well.)  When I found these other tools to complement the normal peeler that most people already have, I tossed the rotating device and did everything by hand from then on.

So there you go.  If you like kiwi, but always demolish it when trying a normal peeler or lose too much fruit with a paring knife, now you know what to do.

European-style butter

European-style butter

I was asked recently about European-style butter and why I use it.  In the United States, the USDA mandates that churned butter has to have a minimum of 80% butterfat to be sold as "butter".  But European-style butter has a minimum butterfat level of 82%.   In fact, many quality producers in Europe churn out butter (no pun planned, but happily realized) that is 84% or higher.  This percentage difference sounds small but it can have a significant impact on taste and texture in many baked goods where butter is an important lead ingredient.  The difference between that 80% and 82% is water.  So by using a European-style butter you are getting more butterfat and less water into what you are making than if you use a typical American butter.  I find that European-style butters are creamier and smoother (which they should be with a higher butterfat level) and I appreciate the flavor differences as well, so I like to use them on just about everything.

Some time ago, after hearing that a specific American butter (which I won't name) was of such high quality that it was possibly being produced with an 82% butterfat level, I emailed the company to ask.  Initially they responded with an email about quality and effectiveness in cooking and so forth, but did it without answering my specific question: is your butter 80% or 82+% butterfat?  So I responded to their response and asked the question again.  This time I got back a very short email that simply stated, "Our butter is produced with 80% butterfat."

There are a handful of different European-style butters that can be found here in the US.  I prefer Plugra which I find is quite reasonably priced and is of excellent quality.  Not every store makes the choice to carry Plugra or other similar butters, so I go out of my way to visit one specific store that keeps it in stock. The early-morning cashiers know when they see me walk in the door shortly after they have opened that I will be back to the checkout lane with several blocks of my beloved European-style butter.  They have all asked about it in the past and so they knowingly smile when I set them down on the conveyor. Sometimes a fellow shopper will ask about my pile of butter blocks, and I happily tell them all about it.  I think I've converted at least a couple of them.  I hope so.

Cook what you love to eat

blueberry cinnamon snack cake

For the past couple weeks I have been experimenting with adding a streusel or crumb topping to a blueberry cinnamon snack cake that I make with some frequency.  The first day I added one, it sank too far into the cake.  I expected that, to be honest, because the cake batter is not so thick that it could easily hold up a topping which thoroughly covered the surface if it were added to the cake before it went into the oven.  Even though I expected that result, I wanted to try anyway.  I tend to be stubborn that way sometimes, insistent that I try something so that I can see for certain whether or not it can work. 

Then I experimented with letting the cake bake for several minutes and adding the topping after it had firmed up, but with enough time left that the topping and the cake would both get a good bake.  After several days of experimenting with the timing, I got it down just right.  Excellent!  Now, to find the right topping.  I tried numerous different versions of a few different toppings.  I went through a lot of wild blueberries, washed a lot of cake pans, and tossed out a lot of toothpicks from testing the bake.  In the end, I finally settled on what I thought was the best topping.  There was a problem, however.  No matter what topping I tried, they all (including the final best topping) seemed to diminish some of the best qualities of the cake.  I don't mean to say that the cake didn't taste good with the topping, or that the combination was somehow off.  But this snack cake is particularly pleasing to me, having a moist soft crumb while being highly flavorful, and with just the right balance between light and heavy in texture.  It is one of my favorite cakes to eat plain, completely unadorned (although sometimes I top it with a blueberry sweet cream).  In the end it turns out that by trying to enhance it, trying to add something to it, trying to make it better than it was, the cake simply wasn't what it was before.  So I won't do anything more to it.  I will keep it as the plain scrumptious cake that it is, the one that I love to eat. 

I only cook what I love to eat.  Don't ask me to cook Brussels sprouts, liver, or sauerkraut, because I don't find them tasty.  How can I determine if something is cooked well if I don't even find that particular food delicious to eat?  So cook what you love, eat what you love, and serve what you love to all your family and friends.  You'll never go wrong.

Salt

samples of various salts

Someone was recently asking about the various salts I keep on hand so here's a photo of samples of those salts.  This photo is by no means inclusive of all the different types of salts that are available.  Salt is a tremendously large industry.  There's a great book titled Salt: A World History, published in 2002.  It is a fascinating read, so if you're interested in the subject I highly recommend it.

Let's look at the salts in this photo. If you click on the photo, it should enlarge, and you can see the salts more closely.  If your device has zoom capabilities (which virtually every device has), you can use that to take a fascinating look at the differences in the salt crystals and flakes.  We'll start with the top row on the left and move to the right.

Top row, first position, left: kosher salt

Kosher salt is named as it is because the size of the salt crystals makes it perfect for pulling moisture from meat as is required in the koshering process. It does not have any additives such as iodine and so it has a very pure salt flavor, quite different from normal table salt.  The crystals are large and course.  And when cooking with kosher salt, one has to adjust the amount of salt if the recipe calls for normal table salt because of significant differences in weight for equal volumes.  A teaspoon of kosher salt does not weight the same as a teaspoon of table salt.  I use kosher salt more than any other in my baked goods.  

Top row, second position, center left: Maldon sea salt flakes

Soft and crunchy, certified organic and kosher, these sea salt flakes are a wonderful addition to the kitchen.  Maldon is a saltworks company that has been in business since the 1800s.  I love to use this on vegetables and seafood, and sometimes on the tops of chocolate chip cookies.  The salt flakes contain minerals from the sea water, and they are harvested manually using long-handled rakes that are used to pull the salt from the surface of purified sea water during the final stage of production.

Top row, third position center right: fleur de sel

This is one of my favorite salts.  It is harvested from the thin layers of salt that float to the surface of seawater as it begins to evaporate while common sea salt settles to the bottom.  It has to be harvested by hand as it is very delicate.  And it is usually harvested under specific prescribed weather conditions.  It has a complex flavor, and the crystals are a variety of sizes.  Most people use it as a finishing salt on a variety of foods.  I like to use it on many different things ranging from vegetables to fish to fried eggs.  I even have a favorite cookie in which I use fleur de sel instead of other types of sea salt or kosher salt as it seems to add just the right distinctive touch with the trio of chocolates that are also used.  I am told some chefs keep a small tin of this salt on their person at all times so that when they are out to eat someplace they can pull it out and use it.

Top row, fourth position, right: Trapani sea salt

Harvested from low Mediterranean waters along the western coast of Sicily, and using traditional methods of evaporation and hand-raking, this course sea salt is a popular salt around the world.  It is rich in multiple minerals with large crunchy crystals.  Some people think this is the perfect salt for making margaritas.  It works well on a variety of foods with a wonderful flavor and a pronounced crunch.

Second row, first position, left : Morton's fine Mediterranean sea salt

Very fine grains of salt makes this an easy-to-use replacement for common table salt as there aren't the significant weight differences when measuring by volume as occurs between common table salt and other larger course sea salts.

Second row, second position, center left:  Morton's course Mediterranean sea salt

A pleasant tasting inexpensive course sea salt that has larger courser crystals than Morton's fine sea salt.  Tossed on salads, roasted vegetables, roasted meats, and many other things it is good substitute for other more expensive sea salts.  

Second row, third position, center right:  Hawaiian pink sea salt

This wonderfully crunchy salt is rich in minerals and is colored by volcanic Hawaiian clay called alaea which contains iron oxide.  It has a subtle flavor, and with its beautiful color is a wonderful addition to many dishes.  It is a traditional part of native Hawaiian cooking.

Second row, fourth position, right:  Icelandic Lava salt

Produced by the company Saltverk in Iceland using only geothermal energy which they are proud to say minimizes their production carbon footprint, this is a wonderful sea salt that is colored by the activated charcoal from volcanic lava stones. It is crunchy and mineral-rich, and its shiny black crystals are a stunning addition to many foods.

Bottom row, only one salt here:  common table salt
Well, this is the salt that is most often found in the typical home.  All I can say is try some others and you probably will no longer use this salt exclusively.

There you go.  Try some different salts, experimenting on different foods, and see what you think.  The differences in flavors and textures are enjoyable to experience.  Throw some over your shoulder for luck, if you must, but I prefer to keep it all on my food and not waste a single tasty crystal. 

Ciabatta pizzas

I woke up this morning all excited to to make a bunch of food today, especially ciabatta loaves for some casual pizzas.  Not every living thing in the house felt the same as the morning began.  Our resident cat, Tom was feeling completely the opposite.   All he felt like doing was lazily watching me from time to time.   He chose a place to lounge where he could see from the living room into the kitchen and so he would lift his head once in a while to check on my progress.  Apparently the making of ciabatta didn't interest him at all.  If only I had opened a can of tuna ...

ciabatta dough in a rectangular container, pre-rise

Ciabatta is so good: a wonderful white Italian bread, usually made elongated and broad and flat, and with many holes once you get past the crust.  There are many variations of this bread.  The ciabatta recipe I am using results in a dough that literally flows out of a container.  To begin with, after mixing, the dough is poured into a rectangular container that is slightly oiled for an initial rise of about 90 minutes.   This container shape is a great help since after the rise to triple its volume the dough is carefully tilted out and slowly flows onto the work surface still keeping the basic shape of the container.  The shape makes cutting segments for each loaf with a bench knife a bit easier.

ciabatta loaves cut after rising 

As can be seen above, even with that shaping assistance they will not come out perfectly symmetrical as the dough is much too soft.  Since these are being cooked on flat baking sheets, they will not be constrained into a firm precise shape as would occur from breads made in a loaf pan.  But they can be shaped somewhat before they sit for a second rise after which they will go into the oven.

ciabatta loaves fresh from the oven

When they come out, they look beautiful, and are just a bit crusty, and lightly browned.  Once they are sliced into top and bottom halves, they are ready for making ciabatta pizzas.

preparing mushrooms for pizzas

Before assembling the pizzas, though, I sautéed the mushrooms in butter, being careful not to put too many in the pan at once.  This makes it easier to move them around and cook them all evenly, and also limits the amount of water sitting in the pan which is inevitably released from the mushrooms as they cook.  I also chose a slope-sided pan which aids in letting steam escape.  Once they were done, I set out all the rest of the ingredients:  mushrooms, two grated cheeses, sliced black olives, pepperoni, and a garlic and herb sauce.

ciabatta pizzas fresh from the oven

After a quick stint in the hot oven, they come out toasty, crispy, and very very satisfying. They work equally well as a meal or a small snack. And the ciabatta doesn't take that long to make.

Swedish visiting cake

ingredients prep for Swedish visiting cake

The morning is barely half over and it has already been a busy day.  I have been out to three stores,  hitting the first one at 6:00 AM where I get my butter (the incomparable Plugra European-style butter), and then two others picking up general food stocks for the week but more importantly certain ingredients for several things that will be made.  I have already baked cookies, and I just pulled Swedish visiting cakes from the oven.  These cakes are really nice.  I know, that's such a simple and generic term, "nice", but it fits.  These aren't items that take any incredibly complex techniques, or that are visually stunning in an extraordinary way; they are simply nice tasty enjoyable little cakes.  In Sweden they are traditionally served when guests visit, hence the name.

The ingredient list is comprised of ordinary items:  sugar, lemon zest, almond and vanilla extracts, flour, eggs, kosher salt, sliced almonds, and butter.  That's it.  Nothing unusual, just normal things that are often found in a typical pantry and kitchen.  But these unassuming ingredients combine to make something that is truly wonderful.

Swedish vising cakes ready for the oven, still pale, and not quite to the top of the molds

Butter is melted almost all the way.  A bit is left unmelted but softened, and then you gently stir until you have a very slightly creamy liquid that is just a bit warm, but certainly not hot.  This butter is set aside until later.  Lemon zest is rubbed into the sugar until very fragrant, and then eggs are whisked in.  I always do this by hand rather than by machine because there's so little time and effort involved that there's really no point to loading it all into a mixer.  Besides.... it's fun to do it!  Hand-whisking the lemon sugar and eggs is easy and satisfying as you watch it come together.  Then the salt and extracts are whisked in.  But when you add the flour, toss the whisk into the sink.  Get a silicone spatula, and gently stir in the flour so as not to work it too much.  This it to keep the cakes soft and tender. Finally, pour in the butter and gently fold it in.  

Where are the almonds, you ask?  Well, pour the batter into a 9-inch cake pan, or if you want smaller cakes, as I sometimes do, use three 4 inch cake molds.  Then scatter sliced almonds over the top.  They shouldn't be piled on, but I like to ensure that very little batter is showing through them.  Then sprinkle on some sugar.

Swedish visiting cakes fresh from the oven, browned and at the top of the molds

After cooking for almost 30 minutes, they come out lightly brown on top, but moist and soft inside.  They are an absolutely wonderful snack or breakfast or whatever you else you want to do with them.  I'm going to have one as soon as I finish these last few words.  The other two are being picked up today to be enjoyed by someone else.  Happy eating, everyone!

Planning day

salts

Today is planning day. Not every Friday is planning day.  It all depends on what I've cooked, what I've run out of, what I plan to cook, and what my cravings are.  The weather is cooling off markedly from the final dregs of summer heat and that certainly affects my planning.  Today is grey and cool, almost chilly, at least it seems so.  With this change in weather, my thoughts are turning to pizzas, pot pies, stews, chocolate eclairs, coffee cakes, cornbreads and yule logs.  Already I am thinking of holiday cooking and that means I have to review my spice inventory, prepare a new order of chocolate for baking (Valrhona, Michel Cluizel, Cacao Barry and others), and see what salts I am running low on.  I keep several types of salt on hand:  fleur de sel, kosher, Hawaiian pink, Maldon and others, and a very beautiful black Icelandic lava salt (courtesy of my daughter and her husband after a trip abroad).  I use each of them in different ways.  Some will go on fish, some are better for baking, some will be added in flakes on chocolate chip cookies and brownies, and so on.  Anyway, planning today means starting to review inventories of things like salts and spices, looking at recipes I've been wanting to try, and thinking ahead to the next week's new and old foods that will come out of my kitchen.  That means a big trip to the grocery store.  Some people hate grocery shopping, but I love it.  I usually go in with a clear idea of what I want and need, but inevitably, as with everyone I'm sure, extra items find their way into my cart.  Most important for me is to get everything I need to ensure I don't have to go out again to find ingredients for my next cooking adventures during the week ahead.  Sometimes I succeed in that, and sometimes I don't.  But I don't begrudge hitting the grocery a second time during the week (although I dislike being inefficient, to be honest) because it's so nice to walk through and get ideas for new things to make, or sample something new from the deli (especially aged cheddars and other cheeses), or chat with the bakery clerk or butcher about new items.  I prefer to do all this when the grocery store is not packed with people, and fortunately my schedule usually allows me to do that.  (And since I'm usually there very early that means I get the freshest donuts at the bakery counter if I am so inclined.)  Time to plan.  That's all for now.  Enjoy some good food today, everyone.  I know I will.  

Broyé

Good morning!  Today it appears we might have our last real day of summer.  Yes, the calendar already says it's fall, but summer has been a little tardy in leaving.  We are expecting a warm day, but tomorrow and for several days after we are looking at much more temperate fall weather with maybe a few chilly mornings even.  There's never a bad day for hot chocolate but looking ahead into the fall and winter months to come I imagine many days that are tailor-made for hot chocolate and almond cream, or maybe peppermint cream, or .... you get the idea.

Yesterday I made a broyé.  This is an interesting traditional French sort-of-cookie, very buttery, very large, only lightly sweet, and shared at the table.  The whole thing is meant to be put in the center of the table and people just reach out and break off a chunk.  Some people call it a table cookie, some call it sharing shortbread, one well known figure in the world of food calls it salted butter break-ups.  I like to call it a table-shared cookie.

broyé fresh from the oven in a 17x12 inch pan

You can see by the photo above that it is quite large as this is a 17x12 inch pan.  You can also see that it's a bit lighter on one side.  I probably should have rotated the pan midway through baking.   (It takes about 30+ minutes to bake.)  But ... I got distracted.  First of all, I was cooking yesterday while I was watching an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and it was one of my favorite episodes from Season 6.  (Anyone who knows me knows that I am a long-time Star Trek viewer.) Second of all, I was visited by a hawk which seems to come by once in a while.  

Cooper's hawk

Between Star Trek and the hawk, it was easy to get distracted.

broyé whole

As you can see by the picture above where I placed the broyé on a flour sack towel (I love those towels and I have a large stack of them in a drawer in my kitchen,), it came out looking OK after all.  The color seemed to even out a bit as it cooled.

broyé broken

And now it is already broken and ready to be shared. This is a fun thing to have.  I like to make a couple of these at a time, and once I made one that filled the entire 17x12 inch pan!  I'm thinking about cooking it directly on my pizza stones sometime just to see what happens.  If I do, I will be sure to write about it here.  This is an easy thing to make and I heartily recommend that anyone reading this gives it a try.