Pete Fred

Choux au craquelin... The filling is a Grand Marnier crème légère.

I think I checked out the same video as you. So, I will see your meat chopper... ...and raise you the citrus press... But the question is, will anyone go all-in with the takoyaki pan?!?

I was just being silly. Oeufs de Lompe is lumpfish roe. For the avoidance of any doubt, I do not have a monthly supply of Sevruga sturgeon caviar, whereas I can often be seen shopping in Lidl. 😉

I guess you'll either love it or hate it, Jason Atherton's Marmite tart... It was Insta-famous for ten minutes before everyone moved on to the next thing. Given the ingredients, they really should stick it on the lunch menu at the Museum of Iconic British Brands... I liked it. It's essentially just a savoury crème brulée, not too strong, with a nice tangy note. In his restaurant, Atherton adds a scoop of caviar, so that was all the excuse I needed to break the seal on this month's tin of Sevruga* ($400/100g)... If anyone's curious and wants to take a stab, the recipe is here. *It's a bit cheaper at Lidl ($3/100g ) if you're lucky enough to have one nearby...

I was particularly taken with the Grand Marnier, but I've liked them all so far. For me, chocolate is probably more suited to a smaller soufflé, as it's quite rich. I'll try to make more with fruit purée as the base; I have a fig tree so thanks for the nod. The copper moulds are by Mauviel.

The first time I saw something similar was by Tom Kerridge, a multi-starred UK chef. He roasts rather than grills the minced beef, and for longer. His seems to have better colour than in the chilli video. Kerridge also uses star anise (a Heston Blumenthal thing, which I recall is supposed to boost the beefiness by, err, magic.) The only place I could find a clip was on facebook.

When I first started on my soufflé tests it was to make a Ritz recipe that called for 10x5 cm (4x2") ramekins. I don't have any so improvised with the only thing to hand: 10x5.5 cm stainless steel entremet rings. Obviously they're useless if I ever wanted to serve guests - plonking a red-hot baking tray down in front of someone and saying "dig in" would certainly be an usual end to a meal - but these were just tests to satisfy my own curiosity. I do like the large serving, but can't see myself ever buying an appropriate dish, unless I stumbled across something at a car boot/garage sale. Although if I ever won the lottery I'd treat myself to the copper moulds in the Comice video.

Experiments in soufflé, day 432... This was raspberry, simply using purée as the base. I liked this; clean, bright flavour, and easily adaptable depending what's in season or in the frozen aisle. And the best cheesecake in New York, circa 1971... I made the adapted version which called for whipping the mix somewhat, whereas the original version seems to me to be attempting to limit aeration. Anyhoo, it was very good, quite mousse-like with a nice tang. I had some leftover purée from the soufflé so made a raspberry version as well...

Here's the butter rack in my local supermarket for @rotuts... It's not a huge selection, sadly, and there's a few lines missing. (Just to the right is the same amount of margarine.) In the larger supermarkets, the Wall of Butter is really quite impressive. Páturages and Merci are own-brand. Doux (sweet) is unsalted; demi-sel is salted (2%). I mainly buy the red blocks, bottom left. Lots and lots of red blocks. President and Elle & Vire are for those who would never be caught dead buying own-brand or 'basics'. Isigny Sainte Mère and Grand Fermage have salt crystals (3%). My favourite is raw-cream Isigny sea salt butter, but I've only seen that in big cities. If I'm after unsalted butter for a specific use (brioche, lamination) then I look for the AOP protected status stuff (Charentes-Poitou, Isigny, Bresse).

Saffron and Lemon Syrup Cake by Honey & Co... A handsome, tasty cake. I gave a few slices to a plumber working on site to take back to his family, but only after jokingly 'warning' him that these dense, syrupy Middle Eastern cakes are meant to be this way. But it's a very good cake, so I expect it'll be a hit. Recipe here.

@rotuts The regular supermarket butter is around €4.80 for 500g ($5 for ~1 lb) and can sometimes be made with EU milk, but for an extra 30c or so there's 'extra-fin' which is guaranteed 'origine France'. Then there's brands like Isigny or Charentes-Poitou from regions which are known for their butter, and they might be another buck or two extra. These are readily available in all supermarkets. And in the larger cities you might find premium stuff like Échiré at €12 for 500g. I will take a snap of the butter fridge on my next visit. I've got two medium-sized supermarkets in my small town (pop. ~3000), Intermarché and SuperU, as well as a Lidl and, until recently, an Aldi (Trader Joe's) which unfortunately relocated to the next town. There's a market on Saturdays which is pretty vibrant and has plenty of local traders, and there's a small organic market (half a dozen stalls) on a Monday.

I don’t have a blender, but will test a batch if I ever get one. 👍

My soufflé adventures continue with a David Lebovitz recipe, using chocolate pastry cream as the base and serving it family-style in a shallow dish (I only had a deep dish to hand). He also suggests waiting ten minutes for a more mousse-like texture rather than digging in immediately. So out of the oven it's at maximun height... After the requisite ten minute wait... The pause seemed unnecessary to me. It was still plenty light and airy, but now missing the visual impact of a well risen soufflé. It was fine, but I'll stick with the ganache-based method which is more streamlined and avoids the need to make pastry cream. Once fully cooled, it had sunken chocolate cake vibes...

@RobertM This is a Fergus Henderson recipe. I always scratch my head when it's mentioned that it's traditional to eat these with cheese (even Delia chimes in); but then again I'm not from Eccles.

Eccles cake, so called because they originate from the town of Eccles in the northwest of England... It's a (rough) puff pastry traditionally encasing spiced (Zante) currants, which aren't readily available here, so I used regular raisins instead.

Apple turnover redux, using an inverted puff with even more butter, because.... France. And the scraps got rolled in sugar to make arlettes for a quick treat while waiting for the turnovers to cool...

Cinnamon and Sesame Cookies by Ottolenghi... I was hoping that they'd be worth the 13 km (8 mile) walk into town and back for the sesame seeds. Sadly not. I found them a bit bland (probably due to my usual refrain of NEEDS MORE SALT!!). And you'd think with orange, cinnamon, olive oil and tahini in there, they'd be quite punchy, but it was not to be.

A (very) brief mention of Heston Blumenthal being an eGullet user back in the day. Here from 40m58s.

He's off to the Financial Times, along with Marina O'Loughlin (formerly The Sunday Times food critic) and Tim Hayward doing more long-form articles. It'll be behind a paywall.

I stashed some of the puff pastry from last weekend in the freezer, not having anything in particular in mind for it. And then I thought, chaussons aux pommes (apple turnovers)! Still warm from the oven they were irresistable, which goes a long way towards explaining the utterly shameful fifteen minutes during which I gorged all four.

Just tried this method. It had nice browning and temped at exactly 71C/160F. Sorcery indeed.

I've been making soufflés this last week. Lots of soufflés. My interest was spurred by a video David Lebovitz posted about the soufflés at Comice in Paris, and also a podcast that mentioned the Grand Marnier one at The Ritz London. I've never made a soufflé before, and only eaten one once, so didn't have much experience to draw on. I ended up making a fair few in an effort to dial-in the times, temperatures, techniques, ingredients, etc.. I'll post the photos but I'm not sure they add a great deal. You had to be there, tasting, I guess. There's plenty of conflicting advice in books and on the internet, plus endless superstitions about how to achieve perfect results. In the end, I found the section in McGee about meringues and soufflés cut through all the bull and demystified the process. I didn't have soufflé dishes or suitable ramekins so ended up making them in tart rings: large 10x5.5cm (4x2") and shallower 9x3.5cm (3½x1½"). First, the Comice chocolate soufflé... I was intrigued in the video by the technique of 'mounting' the hot cream and partially melted chocolate with a portion of the egg whites. Lebovitz was so discombobulated by this that he changed the method slightly in his home version by first fully emulsifying the ganache, then loosening with a bit of meringue, and finally folding in. When I tried it that way, the initial chocolate/cream emulsion broke. I rescued it with a splash of hot water and managed to continue as directed, but I wouldn't try that way again. When I did it like Chef Gedalof, everything worked like a dream; I presume the egg whites provide the necessary water for a stable emulsion. Anyway, it's a very good soufflé. Recommended. On to the Grand Marnier soufflés... The base is puréed rice pudding* which gets mixed with the liqueur then the egg whites. (The whiter ones are actually vanilla. There's a LOT of Grand Marnier in the others, and I was reluctant to splash with abandon just for these tests.) Let me tell you, Grand Marnier soufflé is the bomb. Go on, treat yourself. There's a couple of other bases I want to try at some point, more traditionally using pastry cream or a roux or fruit purée, but that's enough to be going on with. A man cannot live on soufflés alone. At least I now know the touch and visual cues to look for, and my preferred level of 'doneness'. *chilled rice pudding purée, by the way, has a fantastic texture, hitting a sweet spot somewhere between pastry cream and a firm, elastic ice cream. Too good.

I prefer it; the texture is more delicate, and it seems to 'dissolve' on the tongue. I know laminating with the butter on the outside sounds a bit crazy, but I find it easier to work than classic.

@Jim D. Yeah, I'll just have to make a tweak or two next time. My inverted puff rose well, and when I placed the tray on top I could tell my cobbled-together spacers could've done with a few more millimeters; that, together with too much weight, meant I could feel the pastry pressing onto the filling. This video gives you an idea how it works (and some bakers put the tray there from the start; not sure what the difference is).

I'm a few weeks late with this year's Galette des Rois. They're traditionally eaten here for Epiphany, but you'll find them in shops from before New Year right through to the end of January. I wanted to try a technique I've seen pastry chefs employ whereby part way through baking a tray is placed on top to limit the expansion of the puff, resulting in a flatter disc with less of a gap above the filling.. Unfortunately, I slightly misjudged the height of the spacers for the tray, which compressed the layers too much. The texture of the pastry was delicate and melting, but it would've been nice to see all the hard work I'd done during lamination. Here's some of the ropey off cuts that constituted a cook's treat...