Anything special for Easter?

[ladybugseattle]

Whats the plan with other egulleteers? Has anyone seen any restaurant specials advertised? A nice big hunk of a little tender lamb home cooked would be nice too. Or, is there a family mandated tradition? Please share.

[MT-Tarragon]

When I was growing up, my mother would make danishes on Christmas morning and Easter morning. For other holidays she would make what we all called cherry-go-round, but of which no one else I know has ever heard. I still don't know what to call it, but for Christmas I received a copy of The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion. That book has the same recipe but called "a filled coffee cake." Among the fillings in the book is not listed our cherry filling, but the rest is the same.

Anyway, I have made danishes before for holidays for my fiancee and her family. Recently for a brunch party I made cherry-go-round for the first time since I've lived here in Seattle. Everyone loved it. Now I've been told that I just have to make it for Easter by my fiancee for her family. It is my fiancee's favorite pasty now. So perhaps it will be a new tradition.

[little ms foodie]

We are having family over for a nice supper. The menu includes appetizer and salads brought by others, shrimp bisque, roast lamb with baby spring veggies, chedder thyme biscuits, and dessert is little 'nests' made of puff pastry with colored 'egg' spoonfuls of ice cream.

[vengroff]

Brunch and an easter egg hunt/cat chase with our 3 year old niece. I plan to attempt croissants, and I'll make some brioche as well. We'll have smoked salmon and eggs, with additional sides to be determined by what looks good at the market tomorrow.

[Susansea2003]

Our brunch includes a ceremonial reading of "Max and the Chocolate Chicken," after which the kids will hunt for eggs and for said chicken. We found some nice chocolate chickens with chocolate eggs inside at Rosehill Chocolate Co. in Mukilteo. They are super nice folks.

[vengroff]

Brunch and an easter egg hunt/cat chase with our 3 year old niece.  I plan to attempt croissants, and I'll make some brioche as well.  We'll have smoked salmon and eggs, with additional sides to be determined by what looks good at the market tomorrow.

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So this ended up turning into a mini Iron Chef challenge with the featured ingredient being PLUGRA BUTTER!

I went through two pounds of the stuff, and made croissants, pain chocolate, brioche, cherry turnovers, and palmiers. It's all out of the oven in advance of the guests arriving, which is a record for me. Pictures to follow later in the day.

[vengroff]

Here's an overview of what I made, pastrywise.

In the center are pain chocolate. Clockwise from the upper left under the glass we have cherry turnovers, brioche a tete, palmiers, and finally croissant at the lower left.

Three doughs were involved, a traditional laminted yeasted dough for the croissants and pain chocolate, a blitz puff pastry for the turnovers and palmiers, and a rich brioche for the brioche a tete. The recipes are adapted from Chef Gabe at Culinary Communion. The main change was that I bumped up the butter in the laminated doughs to account for the lower moisture content of the Plugra I was using.

Here are some photos of the individual presentations. I'll get into some close ups and behind the scenes shots in later posts.

Croissants

Pain Chocolate

Cherry Turnovers

Palmiers

Brioche

Stay tuned, there's more to come...

[vengroff]

I don't have any pre-bake shots of the puff pastry, but I got a few shots of the cherry turnovers that illustrate the decent performance I got out of it. I was worried I would have problems because I let things get a little too warm during the second turn, but it worked out reasonably well in the end.

First, here's the plate top down.

And now, the goods up close. I think the filling leakage has to result in a deduction of technical points, but on the other hand that little hint of what's inside can be quite alluring.

The previous shot and this one both also show the glossy surface I got from a wash of cream and a sprinkling of sugar just before they went in the oven.

More bubbling layers. I was worried about steam generation given the lower moisture butter, but at a 1:1 butter to flour ratio things bubbled up nicely. In fact, when I opened the oven for a quick inspection I found it completely full of steam. Some of the bubbles between layers can be seen along this edge.

Finally, here's a cross section right through one of the fat bing cherries in the filling. They were quite good for canned. I strained them, reduced the juice down with some additional sugar and just a tiny bit of corn starch to thicken it up.

[vengroff]

Next up, the palmiers I made from the rest of the puff pastry. I misspoke in my last post when I said I had no pre-bake shots of the puff pastry. I don't have one of the turnovers, but I do have one of a palmier.

Once you've made the puff pastry, palmiers are dead easy. Just some sugar and another book fold like you've been doing all along and you are good to go.

The amazing thing is how they puff sideways in the oven. A cold boring little slice of dough like this one

becomes one of these crispy carmelized little cookies.

You kind of take it on faith that all those layers are in there somewhere after the repeated turning. It's great to see the payoff when they actually puff out.

[vengroff]

Here's another cross section, this time the pain chocolate. This were hands down my favorite of the bunch. Next time I'll make more of these and less plain croissants. Not that the plain croissants were bad or anything...

[jrt]

Those pastries look beautiful... the photo of that pain chocolate cross-section is mouth watering.

As a non-religious single guy whose family lives outside of Seattle, I'll be celebrating Easter at the Jade Pagoda w/a friend and lots of cocktails.

[vengroff]

I didn't get a whole lot of shots of the prep phase or the folding process, but I have a few of the croissants at the proofing stage.

This is what they look like when they have just been shaped and egg washed and are starting to proof. The egg wash tends to absorb during proofing, and so they get a second egg wash just before they go in the oven.

Here's a batch of eight, just at the beginning of the proofing phase.

That parchment paper is a lifesaver when it comes to cleanup time. For the croissants its not so bad, but for the palmiers, forget it.

Finally, here are the same eight just out of the oven. I don't have a shot of them after proofing, but they are closer to the final size than the original size.

[vengroff]

The second batch included the chocolate ones. Here are some of them, just out of the oven.

Unfortunately, I placed some of the pain chocolate just a tad too close together. I had to pull them apart, which left me with some unbrowned ragged edges, like the one on the top right.

The ones that were properly spaced came out fine, though. Like this guy

The croissants came out similarly.

I may have mached the edges a bit too much when cutting them, because the layers were not externally visible, but they were there in the inside. I'll have to work on that. I may also have let some of the fat melt as things got just a tad warmer than I wanted during one of the folding steps.

[vengroff]

Those pastries look beautiful... the photo of that pain chocolate cross-section is mouth watering.

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Thanks jrt. You're not alone. Those and the palmiers were the biggest hits.

[Eden]

We found some nice chocolate chickens with chocolate eggs inside at Rosehill Chocolate Co.  in Mukilteo.  They are super nice folks.

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so do they keep running around after you bite their heads off? bleeding chocolate sauce everywhere?

and in the spirit of actual inquiry; are these hollow inside like a chocolate bunny & then the eggs just rattle around inside their tummies? or do they perhaps have a nest/basket as part of the mold?

[Ye-Ye Girl]

As a non-religious single guy whose family lives outside of Seattle, I'll be celebrating Easter at the Jade Pagoda w/a friend and lots of cocktails. 

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Slightly off-topic, but related to the quote above, friends at an Easter brunch today said they tried to go to the Jade Pagoda last night (Saturday), and found it closed, very much to their dismay. Was it open when you went today, jrt?

And yowza, those pastries are gorgeous, vengroff!

[Susansea2003]

While bleeding chocolate would've made the chickens more realistic, they are, alas, merely hollow with little foil-wrapped eggs inside. The shape is a hen sitting on a basket. They are small, about the size of a large orange. Small enough not to send all the kids into sugar orbit.

[jrt]

Slightly off-topic, but related to the quote above, friends at an Easter brunch today said they tried to go to the Jade Pagoda last night (Saturday), and found it closed, very much to their dismay. Was it open when you went today, jrt?

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Yeah, it was.