November 29, 2011
Chocolate Almond Bettelman
If you've ever bought or baked fresh brioche, surely you've noted the subtle shift, occurring sometime during day two or three, when said brioche turns from something you can't keep your hands off of, to something you feel you should be eating because it's there.
When that initial magic is gone, the toaster can help revive it to a certain extent, especially if you top it with thin slivers of salted butter and generous amounts of grated chocola...
"Chocolate Almond Bettelman" continues »
June 21, 2011
Gontran Cherrier's Rye and Red Miso Bread
My biggest heartache as a temporarily nomadic cook, traveling from kitchen to kitchen while my own is being renovated, is that I've had to put my bread baking aspirations on hiatus.
I'd been baking a weekly loaf of pain au levain since I first got my sourdough starter two years ago, so not being able to do so leaves a gaping hole in my routine.
And while my starter Philémon marks the days on the wall inside the fridge (poor thing), I've had t...
"Gontran Cherrier's Rye and Red Miso Bread" continues »
June 7, 2011
Olive Oil and Black Pepper Tartine
"La découverte d'un mets nouveau fait plus pour le bonheur du genre humain que la découverte d'une étoile."
The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a star*: this aphorism is the ninth of twenty that Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin lists as a prologue** to his book, The Physiology of Taste.
It is not quite as famous as aphorism number four ("Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es," usually tran...
"Olive Oil and Black Pepper Tartine" continues »
February 2, 2011
Dehydrating Your Sourdough Starter
When people get curious about baking with a sourdough starter and I explain how it works, I can tell they are a little freaked out by this idea of keeping the culture alive, day in, day out, for ever and ever.
"This is too much responsibility," they say, followed by variations on "This is why I don't have kids!" or "Houseplants all die under my care!" and "What about my trip to Marrakech?"
I understand the sentiment, so I'm always quick to po...
"Dehydrating Your Sourdough Starter" continues »
November 9, 2010
Multigrain Starter Bread
There's nothing like an edible host(ess) gift, and I have found that bringing a loaf of freshly home-baked bread makes you a very popular guest indeed.
What I like to do then is schedule my weekly bread baking on the day that we're expected at a friend's house, and make bâtards, those plump, elongated loaves: I'll bake three at a time, save two for our own consumption, and bring the third one -- the one with the best looks, I am shallow that w...
"Multigrain Starter Bread" continues »
September 14, 2010
Tomato Burger Buns
Good cheeseburgers aren't easy to come by in Paris, and in truth, the ones I enjoy the most are those we make ourselves for lunch on weekends, with homemade buns, organic ground beef from the Batignolles greenmarket, and slivers of comté cheese lounging on top.
Having gleefully discovered that I could buy portobello mushrooms at said greenmarket -- although we have plenty of the brown mushrooms we call champignons de Paris, the overgrown versi...
"Tomato Burger Buns" continues »
August 24, 2010
Pain au levain
Last spring, we had a few friends over for dinner who were visiting from the US. One of them works for the excellent magazine The Art of Eating, and kindly thought to bring us the latest issue*.
It would have been a lovely hostess gift under any circumstances, but as I sat down to read it the next day, I was jump-on-the-couch ecstatic to discover that it contained no fewer than fourteen pages (fourteen! pages!) on the subject of pain au levain...
August 3, 2010
Olive Oil and Seed Crackers
If you've been on the fence about getting a pasta roller -- either an attachment for your stand mixer or a hand-cranked one for your biceps -- I may be able to offer the justification you were hoping for: a pasta roller proves handy for homemade crackers, too.
You see, to make good crackers, you need to roll the dough out thinly, for optimal snap, and evenly, so that they'll bake in a uniform fashion, without doughy or burnt spots.
And as I l...
"Olive Oil and Seed Crackers" continues »
July 6, 2010
Chocolate Starter Bread
Rue des Martyrs, which shoots up from the 9th into the 18th arrondissement, is one of those typical Paris market streets that seems to defy business logic by offering no fewer than seven bread bakeries, some of them but a block from one another.
Because I live in the neighborhood, I've had the opportunity to sample the goods from (almost*) all of them, and I've been particularly impressed with the breads I've purchased from Maison Landemaine, ...
"Chocolate Starter Bread" continues »
June 10, 2010
Two Treats for Bread Bakers
Bread baking is one of those activities that can quickly become obsessive, like knitting or playing red dead redemption. It's not really something you can remain casual about, not if you want to improve your skills, so you find yourself combing through forum discussions, bookmarking blogs and websites, buying books -- anything to satisfy your thirst for knowledge and inspiration.
I say it's fine to embrace such a harmless obsession -- unless y...
"Two Treats for Bread Bakers" continues »
April 6, 2010
Hot Cross Buns with White Chocolate, Dates and Pistachios
To celebrate Easter this weekend, I made hot cross buns, the brioche-like spiced loaves the British bake and serve on Good Friday*. I have made them on previous occasions, but instead of following the recipe I used last time, I decided to take a leaf from Dan Lepard's book.
I loosely followed the process he describes -- the overnight fermentation in the fridge, in particular -- but converted the recipe to use my sourdough starter, though the r...
"Hot Cross Buns with White Chocolate, Dates and Pistachios" continues »
March 9, 2010
Converting Yeast-Based Recipes To Use A Sourdough Starter
Once you have a natural starter alive and kicking on your counter, stealing the occasional banana from the fruit bowl, it's hard to go back to baking bread with commercial yeast.
Not only would that feel like a bit of a betrayal (though you can always blindfold the jar of starter or work under the cover of night) but every loaf is an opportunity to strengthen your starter as well as your skills. And frankly, you've gotten used to the vivid fla...
"Converting Yeast-Based Recipes To Use A Sourdough Starter" continues »
February 10, 2010
Sourdough Baguettes
[Baguettes au levain]
When I started to bake bread on a weekly basis, I thought of baguettes as out-of-reach territory: I would bake the kind of loaves I love -- a hearty crust (but not too dark at the bottom), an open crumb (but one that's still tight enough to withstand a good spread of dairy or almond butter), great flavor from a slow fermentation, and a nutritious blend of organic flours -- but I would always go and get my Piccola baguette...
"Sourdough Baguettes" continues »
January 26, 2010
Sourdough Crumpets
I have been wanting to make my own crumpets for about eight years. I can tell you this because that's when I remember placing, in my bulging clipping file, a mauve scrap of paper on which I'd copied a crumpet recipe from one of the ladies' magazines my grandmother used to subscribe to.
But the recipe involved yeast, and back then I hadn't yet conquered my fear of it, so the recipe hibernated in the "miscellaneous" section for years, until it e...
"Sourdough Crumpets" continues »
November 4, 2009
Sourdough Bagels
When Maxence and I were in San Francisco late last summer, we had bagels for breakfast every single day. There were a couple of bagel shops not far from where we were staying, so we alternated between the two, and on those mornings that we went for a run through the Golden Gate Park, bagels awaited at a busy coffee shop by the ocean.
I like mine dotted with poppy seeds or sesame seeds, and spread with cream cheese and a juicy slice of tomato. ...
"Sourdough Bagels" continues »
September 29, 2009
Sourdough English Muffins
Due to my ever-widening enthusiasm for breadmaking, I have become a close follower of the Bread Baker's Apprentice challenge, wherein a group of bakers bakes its way through Peter Reinhart's revered opus and blogs about the results, with numerous details and step-by-step photos. This makes for fascinating posts if you're into that sort of thing, and reading about others' well-documented hurdles and triumphs is most helpful if you want to bake f...
"Sourdough English Muffins" continues »
July 7, 2009
Natural Starter Bread
[Pain au levain naturel]
If you keep an eye on my Twitter feed or subscribe to the C&Z newsletter, you already know that I've been trying my hand at natural starter bread for the past two months.
A natural starter, also called a sourdough starter, is a culture of wild yeasts and friendly bacteria that the baker keeps alive and thriving by feeding it water and flour on a regular basis. When mixed with a larger quantity of water, flour, and sal...
"Natural Starter Bread" continues »
March 31, 2009
Kouglof
Do you remember Muriel, from Muriel's Chicken? She's a good friend of Maxence's mother's who lives with her family in Le Perche, and whom we've been visiting every year or so with immense pleasure, and frequent sighs of contentment.
Last time we went was in the fall, and Muriel's two lovely daughters had just started their school year; because they attend university in Paris, it means they live by themselves during the week, and come home on w...
November 30, 2006
Le Pain qu'on ne pétrit pas
[No-Knead Bread]
Complete fiascoes are few and far between in my kitchen. I'm not sure whom to thank for this -- my lucky star, my karma, my mom? -- but the fact is that the things I cook or bake very rarely end up in the trash. I have disappointments of course, dishes that turn out a bit meh despite my high hopes, but nothing quite as débâcle-like as when I tried my hand at the recipe everyone has been raving about lately, stressing how laugh...
"Le Pain qu'on ne pétrit pas" continues »
November 22, 2006
Cours de Boulangerie
[Bread Baking Class]
Hi, my name is Clotilde, and I have conquered my fear of yeast.
For years and years, everytime a recipe called for yeast -- dry, instant, fresh, whatever -- I would write it off with a resigned sigh, like the plain teenaged girl writes off the popular unkempt boy, thinking, "He's not for me."
I didn't know the moves, I didn't know where to begin, I didn't know how things worked, I didn't know what the dough should look a...
"Cours de Boulangerie" continues »
April 17, 2006
Hot Cross Buns, Take II
If you have a book to write, I recommend hiding out for a few days in the comfort of a mountain house, preferably in a region where spring is a bit tardy, so the weather will make it easy for you to stay in and type. For fresh air, throw in a few healthy walks to spot the first daffodils (the mist will also make your hair nice and wavy) and a few morning visits to the market. For distraction, a daytrip to Munster and Colmar, and lots of reading...
"Hot Cross Buns, Take II" continues »
March 30, 2006
La Meilleure Baguette de Paris
[The Best Baguette in Paris]
...and it's not even me saying it, but the good members of the jury in the 2006 edition of the yearly Grand Prix de la Baguette Parisienne. The winner is Jean-Pierre Cohier, whose bakery is just off the Place des Ternes: this was his fourth time competing, and he received the distinction for his baguette called Tradition. He's been making that baguette for twenty years, with flour from the French Beauce region, and...
"La Meilleure Baguette de Paris" continues »
March 27, 2006
Petites Brioches
Amongst the many good things a food blog will do to you, is this one: even when you feel you are completely ruining a recipe, your mind is already working on how to turn this potential disaster into what you hope will be an entertaining, tale-of-a-near-fiasco post for your readers -- a much more constructive way to look at the situation than curling up on the kitchen tilefloor and weeping helpless tears of rage.
And this is what I was thinking...
"Petites Brioches" continues »
January 20, 2006
Petit Pain Ananas Violette
[Violet Pineapple Bread Roll]
"Dear Ms. Clotilde,
In our continued effort to keep you bread-happy and entertained, we have just added a new variety to our collection of little bread rolls.
This one is flavored with violet essence, which may remind you of those candies you and your father like to eat in the car, and it has tiny chunks of pineapple inside, like edible gold nuggets.
We try to bake it into a flower shape, and although the suc...
"Petit Pain Ananas Violette" continues »
October 14, 2005
Pain Spécial
I can hear you thinking: "Hm, could this be a pain au chocolat? Is that a bit of ganache coming out from the side? ...then again it looks a bit like black olives, no?"
You have a point. They are indeed black olives, and the little guy on the picture is an olive and tomato pain spécial, purchased at Pain de Sucre, a previously mentioned pastry store in the 3rd.
It is made from a rectangular strip of bread dough spread with fresh tomatoes and o...
September 16, 2005
H&H Bagels in Paris
I love a good bagel: what's not to like? Big, chewy, yeasty, and so generously sprinkled with interesting stuff for textural contrast. I like the top as much as the bottom, but the hole in the middle has to be the best part.
I first discovered bagels when we moved to the US, in the form of pre-sliced blueberry bagels from the grocery store -- I know, I know. We were addicted to them for a while, until one day we couldn't stand the artificial...
"H&H Bagels in Paris" continues »
September 14, 2005
La Paume
I first heard about this bread last spring, when I had lunch at Alain Passard's temporary Végétable restaurant and a leaflet at the register piqued my curiosity.
La Paume (which means palm, as in "the palm of your hand") is a naturally leavened bread created by Alain Passard, the chef from L'Arpège, and a family-owned flour mill just outside of Paris called Les Moulins Bourgeois. Passard shared the sourdough starter he's been refining for year...
August 16, 2005
Dans la famille Coquelicot, je voudrais le pain!
[In the Poppy family, I would like the bread!*]
Coquelicot is the name of a bakery on Place des Abbesses, a couple of blocks away from our apartment. Their baguettes are fabulous and hold a special place in our hearts and our bread rotation. In addition to baguettes, Coquelicot makes a variety of specialty breads over the course of the week. And because they're thoughtful and know how vital bread is, they give out a little time table for you t...
"Dans la famille Coquelicot, je voudrais le pain!" continues »
June 15, 2005
Petit pain au pavot pour les tricheuses
[Cheater's Poppyseed Roll]
In September of last year, when Maxence and I were spending some time in Alsace, we went shopping once in a supermarket in Munster. Yes, we did, can you imagine that? I mean -- what fun! Actually, I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that on vacation, I'm always happy to browse the aisles of local grocery stores, studying the selection of regional products or just stuff that my neighborhood stores don't carry.
On that ...
"Petit pain au pavot pour les tricheuses" continues »
May 3, 2005
La Baguette et les Tartines
Consider the baguette.
Or rather, consider the tartine de baguette, a popular breakfast item in which a piece of baguette -- preferably fresh and bought moments before, still warm, from the corner boulangerie, but if nobody really feels up to going out before breakfast day-old baguette will do fine, "freshened up" on top of the toaster -- is sliced in two, each half spread with your choice of butter and/or jam and/or honey (the combination of...
"La Baguette et les Tartines" continues »
January 20, 2005
Norlander Bread
When I step into a boulangerie, or admittedly when I simply walk by one, I always give the bread shelves a quick once-over, to see if anything looks particularly good and/or unusual. It is sometimes a bit of a challenge to glance behind the boulangère, her counter, and the other customers (some of whom seem to think I'm trying to skip the line and keep a hawklike eye on me), but I have years of training behind me, so I've had time to refine the...
June 29, 2004
La Baguette, par Jean-Paul Gaultier
[The Baguette, by Jean-Paul Gaultier]
What you see here is a baguette created by Jean-Paul Gaultier, as indicated by the signature navy blue stripes. Well, see, I can't just eat any old baguette, it has to have some style, you know?
I bought it at an art show that just opened at the Fondation Cartier in Paris, a beautiful exhibition hall on the Boulevard Raspail. The show is called "Pain Couture", and it features bread creations by Jean-Paul...
"La Baguette, par Jean-Paul Gaultier" continues »
May 25, 2004
Pain Chocolat Orange
[Chocolate Orange Bread]
I bought this loaf of bread at the BoulangEpicier the other day. I've mentioned that store before, and it continues to be a favorite of mine : whenever I'm in the area I make sure to stop there, to buy some bread or grab one of their pricy but mind-blowing sandwiches.
I have also adroitly albeit heavily hinted at my neighbor Patricia, who works close by, that it was really perfectly okay to surprise me with a little ...
"Pain Chocolat Orange" continues »
April 13, 2004
Hot Cross Buns
My family has always been very fond of British baked goods. Marks & Spencer's has sadly closed off all their French stores, but when it was still around [deep sigh of nostalgia], we were their most faithful customers for English muffins, crumpets, mince-meat pies and hot cross buns, to be enjoyed with tea in the afternoon.
Only recently did I find out that hot cross buns were a traditional Easter pastry. Since I was spending the week-end with ...
February 11, 2004
Pain Complet aux Olives
Le Pétrin Médiéval is a little bakery close to our place. The name means "the medieval kneading-trough", which doesn't sound half as nice, I'm afraid. They happen to be the bread suppliers for Rose Bakery, where you can enjoy their excellent "pain intégral" with your salad.
Le Pétrin Médiéval sells an array of rustic breads and no-frills pastries, which all look very promising, and I bought a small loaf of their olive whole wheat bread the oth...
"Pain Complet aux Olives" continues »