fanny_the_fairy
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Posts posted by fanny_the_fairy
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I usually caramelise mine at 160C for just 8min. and I make a lovely ganache with it.
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Fanny the Fairy's blog is the one that is most likely to make me smile. I love her artistry and the effort she puts into the blog.
thank you so so much Rob. your words make me super*happy. xxx
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Has anyone been wwoofing in France? (Willing workers on organic farms). If so, where, when and how was it?
I happen to know this awesome organic goat farm in the south of france. Bruno, the farmer, is the sweetest guy ever.
I did an internship there as a first year student of an école d'ungénieurs. However, while I was there, I met a couple of woofers.
Bruno is usually booked quite a long time in advance, and many people, seing that I talk about his cheese on my blog, email me to know how it is.
I loved it and everyone that went there did too.
Let me know if you're interested. I know that's nowhere near Paris, but he'll offer you a bed + food for free (well, you'll have to work on the farm).
xxx
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The stress is put on their look. The pastries are elaborately structured conceptions that have to stand up for several hours in the shop without collapsing. Hence the importance of texture-enhancing ingredients like gelatines, etc., and the generally excessive use of fats and sugars of all sorts, emulsifiers, stabilizers, and everything that is crucial to structure but not essential to taste. The taste disappears within the texture and is absorbed by the mass.
This also explains why the tastiest things at Hermé's are the viennoiserie, the butter cookies and the pâtes de fruits.
Stabilisers? Hmm no way.
And to be honest, I don't think pastries at Pierre Hermé are lacking taste. But this is just my two cents.
Michalak? I'll agree on that one.
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Pierre Hermé sucks. I think it is bad, heavy, with too much sugar and artificial crap (I hope Pti will come and second me or I might feel that I am a minority). I also think that his creations are pretentious, vulgar, appealing to the worst in us. Constant is my hero, but his prices too are beyond crazy.
What do you mean when you say full of artificial crap? I worked there and all I saw were out-standingly sourced ingredients.
I do always say openly how fond I am of Pierre's work, and although I understand I can't everyone to have the same point of view, I just don't understand yours.
But then, I also happen to hate some of the famous places like Ladurée, while it seems to be on the top-ten list of many people.
Anyway, I'd love to hear more about why you're being so harsh towards Pierre's pastries.
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rob, i want to see a picture of the finished dessert
it looks and sounds heavenly!
xx
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With the exception of one bread, I use exclusively sourdough starter for my breads and no machine mixing or kneading. And the one I do use commercial yeast with and a mixer for the initial mix doesn't get kneaded either because it's just too wet. My doughs are two-day (generally) fermentations with a build-up of flours and ingredients.
I don't know that I'd call it "minimalist," though. It's a pretty complex, drawn-out process.
For illustrative purposes, if you'd like to see my own results, you can check out my web site (pics head several of the pages there):
It makes me wish I had a brick oven. Might have to hask my dad if he can build one.
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My favourite carrot cake recipe comes from Dan Lepard's book titled 'Baking with Passion'. This always gets really good comments from everyone that has some and the recipe has always worked perfectly.
I'll make sure to check his carrot cake recipe.
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Gosh...I'm too sleepy right now to make a list. But you may recognise his breads amongst the other breads in my gallery. (don't mean to spam...it's one a.m. here and time for shut-eye) I especially love his apple oat bread and his cheesesticks.
Funnily enough I was already checking your pictures when you replied. Thanks (and good night) xxx
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I was late too. Made 4 minis (picture) and 2 bigger ones on Thursday the 10th. 
Ooooh....must tell... I got the bean in the big one!
Oh they look soooo sweet. I should try and make some mini ones next week end.
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Add me to the Fan List. Everything Dan Lepard I've made (quite a long list!) has turned out great. I can attest that he's as approachable in real life as he is online.
Oh please tell me more about the recipes you've tried. Which ones? Pretty pretty please!
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I am a HUGE fan of Dan Lepard and have had great success with his bread recipes. He also seems a very modest and very helpful person from the virtual contact I have had with him. I was lucky enough to get a copy of the booklet that was published in the UK (with a newspaper) last November containing Dan's recipes.
Oh yes, he's just the nicest person and I was also lucky enough to get the booklet (the muffins are actually from it).
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So I know I'm one week late, but since I noticed the evident lack of topics on the epiphany's goodnesses, I thought I would ask you a few questions...
Do you guys make anything special for the epiphany? At my house, we make both galette des rois and couronne briochée.
Do you have a favourite?
The galette des rois consists in a rich almond and pastry cream filling called frangipane enclosed into two sheets of puff pastry.
The couronne briochée, more popular in the south of France is more like a simple brioche, shaped into a couronne [wreath] and decorated with coarse sugar and candied fruits.
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Big news. Dan Lepard is officialy my new favourite person in the world and as I suppose (hope) I'm not the only one to feel that way, I created this topic so we could rave about how wonderful his breads are.
So far I've only made:
- simple white bread (sometimes with twists)
- focaccia (serious thing guys)
However, I can't wait to try ALL his recipes as they just seem to work perfectly for me.
Here is some eye-candy, hoping that will get you to tell me more about the recipes you've already tried.
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Hey guys,
I just made Dan Lepard's English muffins and they turn out well. But before I can go on, let me tell you that I'm aware that one's not supposed to eat muffins plain, by just biting into them (you'll understand what I'm talking about, do not worry).
Ok, so yeah, I made Dan Lepard's English muffins - the recipe, which I found in the Guardian's guide to baking (got it in November along with the saturday edition), totally rocked.
It's got apple cider vinegar and yogurt in it, so the finished muffins have a pleasing sour taste.
The dough was fun to work with. Very soft and smooth.
The night before
50g unsalted butter, melted
100g warm water
50g apple cider vinegar
100g live yogurt
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 tsp salt
Melt the butter then mix in the other ingredients and whisk until smooth.
Add 375g flour (Dan class for strong flour, but since I can't find it in France, I used T55) and 2tsp easy-blend yeast.
Mix well then allow to rest for 10 minutes. Then start kneading Dan's way - three times at 10-minute intervals (use some oil to prevent the dough from sticking to both the work surface and your hands). Refrigerate overnight.
The next morning
Oil your work surface and turn the dough onto it. Do the regular stretching and folding (see here for more info) at 40-minute intervals for 2 hours. Roll the dough 1,5cm thick and cut out discs using a 8cm cutter. Lay the discs onto a floured surface, dust the tops with flour and allow to proof for at least 2 hours.
Place a heavy-bottomed frying pan onto moderate heat then slide the muffins into the pan. Cook for 3 minutes then flip over and cook for a further 4 minutes. Then turn off the heat, flip the muffins and leave them in the pan for 10 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and get on with the remaining discs of dough.
So let me tell you one thing. Those muffins. They're out of this world. The taste is fantastic, so is the texture. Yeah, I bit into one. Just to check you know. But then I kept biting and just when I though it couldn't get any better I found that gorgeous pocket of air.
This is a bit of an exclusivity since I haven't posted about it on foodbeam yet, but well, I needed to tell someone about them.
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I don't have pictures yet and they're still uncut but I finally finished my little marshmallow marathon. I have the following flavors made, dusted, wrapped, sealed in containers and ready to cut, package and give away:
- Chocolate (callebaut cocoa)
- Strawberry (strawberry puree and lemon juice)
- Raspberry (raspberry puree and citric acid)
- Passion Fruit (passion fruit puree)
- Blueberry (pureed local wild blueberries that were in my freezer, lemon juice, replaced corn syrup with homemade wild blueberry syrup)
- Cherry (morello cherry puree, citric acid)
- Honey Lemon (fresh lemon juice, citric acid, replaced corn syrup with honey)
- Apple (pureed granny smith apples, malic acid)
- Caramel (caramelized part of the sugar and added a healthy dose of sea salt)
- Coconut (coconut milk boosted with spray dried coconut milk powder)
- Banana (pureed bananas)
- Pumpkin (pumpkin puree, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, vanilla)
- Vanilla (that one explains itself)
- Chai (strong chai tea)
- London Fog (strong earl grey and vanilla)
- Coffee (espresso)
- Rosewater (another self explanatory flavor)
- Mayan Chocolate (cocoa, cinnamon, new mexico chile powder, vanilla, replaced 1/2 of corn syrup with honey)
This list makes me want to mak marshmallows right now.
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Olive Me:
lemon-olive oil cake w/ candied olives
olive oil ice cream
candied olive nibs
chocolate-olive oil mousse
Tri2Cook, that is such an inspiration. I love olive oil in my desserts and that ice cream looks very tempting.
Fanny, your floretins are just lovely! They are so perfect!! If I could live my life over I would become a pastry chef!! The beauty of all your desserts really does something to me. I could just look and look!! (well if I could I would eat and eat!!)I so wish I were a pastry chef too. Maybe one day... Who knows?
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as a French, I have to buy my baking soda at the pharmacy
baking powder is readily available at supermarkets though
x fanny
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here are some delicious florentins i recently made
just honey, caramel and almonds over a pate sucrée base
no peels or chocolate!
x fanny
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Savoury cannelés and madeleines work well.
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Kerry that would be FANTASTIC!
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Thank you both.
I find its selling prices on the crazy side. Who would pay 800$ for it? I certainly would't. I'm pretty sure the fine for not returning a book from the library is worth less than that!!
xxx
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okay guys, this is some serious stuff
i've lost my copy of claudia fleming's the last course
i loved it
and now i see it's not printed anymore and costs over a hundred bucks
i know i should have posted this on the cookbook section, but i have the feeling that i might get more help here
i am desperate
does anyone know where i can get a copy (online as i live in france)?
or if one of you has two or don't care about that book, i'd love to give you some money for it...
pretty please xxx
- fanny
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And btw, the last syllabe of macaron= ron, is pronunced like r-on (ON as in ONtario not turn ON the music).
To this Canadian, "Ontario" and "on" have the same initial vowel sound...
I always have trouble with millefeuille. I know the "mille" part, but I get stuck on the "feuille" part. French pronunciation was never my strong point, and that's why I quit as soon as I was legally allowed!
Oh well, I asked my British boyfriend, and to him, on is more like onnnnnn (yep, I'm slightly exagerating) while the vowel sounds 'shorter' in ontario.
Pectin NH in the UK
in Pastry & Baking
Posted · Edited by fanny_the_fairy (log)
hi, for anything like this, I would recommend classic fine foods http://www.classicfinefoods.co.uk/, they stock luois francois products which are usually 1kg.
as for the pate de fruit, maybe pectine jaune (yellow pectin) is more suitable due to its non-thixotropic properties.