Pete Fred

Continuing to browse Classic Home Desserts by Richard Sax, the St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake sounded like it might be on to something. Gooey. Butter. Cake. What more do you need to hear? After a little digging around it turned out to be one of those bakes that stirs up strong emotions in its devoted followers. As far as I could make out there are two broad types: bready base, buttery top; or (yellow) cake base, buttery cream cheese top. I figured the bready kind was more my kinda thing... Having no frame of reference for this particular regional delicacy I have absolutely no idea how it measures up. I followed almost identical recipes at the NYT and King Arthur, and both indicated pulling it while the centre was still liquid. I'm guessing the idea is you can choose your desired level of gooeyness: corner, edge, or middle... I can't say I was particularly enamoured. It was a bit one-note: mainly sweet, and not especially buttery. I preferred the breadier bits, so I guess that makes me a corner person. I'll have another nibble tomorrow and see if that makes a difference.

Pick a card, any card... These are almond, pistachio and sour cherry wafers from Ottolenghi Sweet*. The dough is chilled then sliced thinly (2-3 mm or ⅛-inch) and baked. I expected it would be difficult to slice, given the nuts, but it was pretty straightforward with a sharp knife. However, despite having what seemed to be the indicated thickness, they baked-up a little tough. Only where an edge or a side was a lot thinner were they crisp and wafer-like. He says that at the bakery they use a meat slicer, so maybe that's where my issue lies. To avoid the toughness I underbaked them a touch, yielding a more gingerbread-like texture. They're handsome cookies, no doubt, but I'll wait until I get a Benriner before tackling them again. Flicking through Richard Sax's Classic Home Desserts, I alighted upon the Whipped Cream Pound Cake... I liked it a lot. The crumb was light and delicate, and you could definitely taste the cream. I made a whipped cream cake a few months ago from the King Arthur website, but that used a different method. This Sax version is better. The only issue I had was folding the cream into the eggs/flour. Looking at the slices you can see the top is a little paler than the bottom... ...and you can make out a swirl here and there, so the cream could've done with a few more folds to incorporate better. (The top of the cake is where the last of the batter was gathered together in the bowl, getting that extra blending). Having said that, I wouldn't want to risk knocking out any more volume and impacting the texture. It's really just a visual thing. *It's an excellent book. The Kindle version is currently discounted on Amazon - five bucks on the US site, but they're practically giving it away for 99p on the UK site.

Yeah, looks the same, apart from I used Golden Syrup rather than light corn syrup (which may account for mine looking a touch darker).

I made some more powder puffs. Chocolate and chestnut... And because I forgot to add cocoa powder to the dries first time, another batch of raspberry and rose... The chestnut ones were decidedly 'meh'. But I'm getting quite a taste for the raspberry rose combo. Imagine an oversized, ultra-soft macaron and you get the idea. Also this week, more Fat Rascals... I candied some orange peel for this batch, but I'm embarrassed to say that the main reason for making them was to figure out the best placement of the cherries and almonds so that the face wasn't too wide-eyed and gap-toothed. 🙄 Banana Pudding isn't really a thing in the UK. I guess the closest thing is trifle or banoffee pie. And here in France I think I've only ever seen one patisserie with a banana desert (tarte banoffi) when I lived in Lyon. Anyway, this Banana Custard Pudding had been on the to-do list for a while... It might look a bit crunchy but the main body was actually very soft where the cream had moistened the biscuits/wafers. Overall, I wasn't especially taken with it: the condensed milk pastry cream was bland, the bananas didn't punch, and it was all too soft and samey. But seeing as it was a pastry chef's 'take' on Banana Pudding I was curious to dig around. After reading Felicity Cloake's article on the matter I made her version... My only additions were chopped walnuts to the layers, and brûléed bananas for decoration. This was an improvement; the knock-off Nilla wafers held up better and maintained some texture rather than turning to mush, and the pastry cream was spot-on - I even liberated a precious vanilla pod from my stash. (Oh! the luxury.) But I was still left wondering "where's the banana?" If something's called Banana Pudding then call me crazy for wanting a banana slap in the face. Having not grown up with this in my life, maybe I'm missing the point. It also might be a mistake to follow two English cooks' recipes. (I've seen enough horrific international versions of 'English Trifle' to know a lot can be lost in translation.) Next time I'll infuse the pastry cream with banana (à la Stella Parks), ditch the brûléed bananas (the caramel quickly dissolves and stains), sprinkle some crunch on top, and maybe add a little salted caramel here and there for variety.

It's a laminated bread (or pastry) from the north of France. Kouign amann (pronounced 'queen a-man' or 'a-mon') translates from the Breton language as butter cake. It's basically croissant dough with (lots) of added sugar. Traditionally they're made as a large cake, but since becoming fashionable in the last ten or fifteen years you're more likely to see them in shops as individual kouignettes. Check out YouTube if you're curious. But, be warned, they are ridiculously tasty: a magical alchemy of bread, butter, and sugar.

It's been quite a few years since I made Raspberry and Rose Powder Puffs, so, seeing as they're pretty much store cupboard ingredients, I made a quick batch... There's nothing much to them, really. The shells are similar to ladyfinger/savoiardi biscuits and bake-up crispy and brittle. But after sandwiching with cream and jam, and a few hours in the fridge, they transform into soft sponges. The resulting 'powder puffs' are incredibly light and delicate. I overfilled mine a little and accidentally discovered the fantastic new technique of working my way around the perimeter sucking out some of the filling before chomping down on the cookie itself. Classy. My recollection is that they soften even more after an overnight rest, so I'm looking forward to tomorrow's suckfest. I couldn't find the Ottolenghi/Goh version online, but it's very similar this one.

That's me. 😉

With a surplus of oranges to use up, most went into a big-ass portokalopita... And another couple into this citrusy version of Dorie Greenspan's Everything Cake... Aware the fruit might sink, I added ground almonds to the batter to bulk it up a bit, and also because I like the texture they bring. It wasn't anything special as an orange cake - the portokalopita is always the clear winner in that particular race - but I liked the cake itself: it had a lovely, buttery crumb. Dorie says she likes it with a simple icing, and that chimed with a cake that a local bakery sells... The lady in the shop told me it's a kind of almondy madeleine cake, flavoured with rum, lemon and vanilla. It was good, so I think I'll do those flavours next time I make Dorie's cake.

I left the cookies with them. When I came back it looks like they were a hit...

Made a couple of batches of Swedish caramel cookies (kolakakor/kolasnittar) with slightly different ratios and methods. These are from Kantine in San Francisco (recipe)... And these from the St John Bakery in London (recipe)... I preferred the Kantine ones. Despite appearances, they were the chewier of the two. The St John ones were just too hard. I took some round to the cows and was greeted with a mixture of indifference and curiosity...

Yeah, they appear to be pretty much the same. For the dough, the only significant difference, bakers' percentage-wise, is the amount of sugar: the rascal has double the sugar. But the fishermen make up for it with half as much again of the dried fruit. It seems Yorkshire miners and Genoese fishermen know a thing or two about tasty treats!

There's a small chain of tea rooms back in the UK called Bettys (that missing apostrophe bugs me every time), and one of their most popular creations is the Fat Rascal®️. I was curious to try reverse-engineering it from the information on their website, and as far I can make out it's pretty much your standard rock cake recipe: 8oz SR flour; 4oz each butter, sugar, dried fruit; an egg; and a splash of milk. All they seem to have done is add candied peel and a face... Admittedly, quite a creepy face in my copycat version. I didn't have glacé cherries so subbed in darker sour cherries, so maybe that contributed to the sinister look. And perhaps smaller almonds would've made for a less aggressive grill. Bettys use candied orange peel in theirs; I used candied lemon plus the zest of an orange. Theirs has currants, I could only get hold of raisins and sultanas. It's been about 10 years since I had a Bettys Fat Rascal®️ so I can't say how close this was, but it was very good. They sell around half a million a year, and it's easy to see why. I also made a batch of the Thin and Crispy Oatmeal Cookies that @weinoo posted a few weeks back... The top two rows were the thin and crispy... The bottom row was shaped and cooked a little more like a regular oatmeal cookie... Thinner was better. As well as the crispiness, they seemed to taste more oaty. This was also helped by having no added spice (apart from vanilla) which meant the oats shone. Good cookie.

Browsing a Michelin-starred restaurant's social media, I was amused to see that for the staff meal one day they had Yorkshire pudding with golden syrup and crème anglaise (I guess an American equivalent might be popovers or Dutch Baby with maple syrup). With today being Pancake Day* in the UK I thought I'd give it a go... I flavoured the Yorkie with a bit of tonka and grated over some lemon zest. I enjoyed it. Might make another. *Apparently this is a source of amusement to many Americans.

A couple of ageing lemons on the countertop whispered Nigella Lawson's lemon polenta/cornmeal cake to me... Describing it as damp and a little gritty doesn't sound too flattering but it's really good. Sometimes, like here, I leave out the baking powder for a more compact texture... Warm cake, cold cream, love it!

This was my first kouign amann in several years... I was a little bit rusty: the lamination could've been better, and I need to outsmart my current oven for a more even bake. Tasted great, though, especially still warm from the oven when the butter is just teetering on melted, before it firms up a touch.

I made another chocolate cake today, mainly to experiment with the serving size and to try some whole cherries in the cake element... I'm not sure it brought anything to the party. It's probably better as a purely chocolate cake. And the food stylist in me cheated by manually inserting the right-hand cherry due to the cut looking a little skimpy. I tried to cover up the deception with a smear of cream, but it's fooling nobody. 🙄 #cherrygate

Hmmm, can't think of much, other than to recommend reserving a third of the batter rather than a quarter. I like the extra moussiness. Here I scaled it down to a couple of small (10cm/4-inch) cakes. Perfect for one serving*. I think M. Pignolet paired it with raspberry sauce in his restaurant. *Yes, I did eat the other one. Sorry (not sorry).

I haven't made this chocolate cake via Damien Pignolet in a bunch of years... I'd forgotten how good it is. Easy, too. It's basically just a baked chocolate mousse with some of the raw mixture as a topping. I paired it with some reduced cherry syrup and a crème fraîche chantilly. Recipe here.

Bramleys are the most popular cooking apple in the UK. They break down quickly into a fluffy mush with quite a sharp, intense flavour. I’ve never really understood what differentiates a cooking apple from an eating/desert apple, though. Alternatives to the Cox’s would include Gala, Pink Lady or Braeburn, but any decent tasting (good luck with that!) apple you have in your part of the world I’d imagine would be fine.

Yep, that's the one.

After recent adventures with custards and creams I had a surplus of egg whites. Time to dig out a couple of old reliables. François Payard's chocolate and walnut cookies always deliver... And Maxime Frédéric's l’annécien is a good way to use up a dozen or so whites... Admittedly quite plain looking, but it has a nice crunchy crust and a pleasing crumb, flavoured with tonka. It was made last week, so the last couple of slices today needed new life breathing into them. I sautéed a couple of small pears in butter then fried the slices briefly in the pan juices...

Regarding the filling, maybe try making an apple stock with the cores and peelings (as described in this post and pdf). Haven't tried it myself; it's on my to-do list.

You missed that I made a roly-poly, not a sticky toffee pudding. 🤦‍♂️😉 (From the book Sweet Dreams at the Internet Archive.)

I used to: Heat the moulds in the oven so they're fairly hot. Microwave the beeswax in a jug until fluid and hot. Fill a mould with wax. Then, using an oven glove, pick up the mould and pour the wax into an empty mould, twisting to ensure the mould you're holding is fully coated. Repeat. If you go back through Kriss Harvey's timeline on Instagram there are several cannele videos, and you can see a couple of methods he uses. Like this... I think this is and a blowtorch is a neat way to do it. Beeswax is an absolute bugger to clean up; doing this over baking paper you can just scrunch it up and get on with your life.

Roly-poly is an old-fashioned nursery pudding ( NYT article on English puddings, paywalled )... roll out a square of suet pastry, spread with jam, roll into a log, steam, slice, eat. I recently came across a cheffy version by Gary Rhodes... pastry, jam, scatter with fruit, roll, slice, layer in dish, pour over a syrup, bake... I used what was to hand: strawberry jam, tinned peaches, pears, and sour cherries. The suet pastry was pleasingly soft and doughy underneath where it had absorbed the syrup, and nice and crispy up top. It was good. I rounded it off with a generous hand from a jug of Bird's custard, as usual...