Clafoutis

This recipe I wanted to try because it’s something I have seen people make on TV all the time, and it sounded pretty delicious. I would say don’t make this as a dessert though. Make it for brunch. It’s so much more brunch to me. It’s like a custardy, slightly tangy dessert with fruit in it. The texture to me is kind of like if flan and a cake had a delicious brunch baby. This recipe is hella fast and easy though, so give it a try. 

I used this recipe: https://smittenkitchen.com/2007/07/cherry-clafoutis/

First of all, I love Smitten Kitchen; she’s one of my favs- just wanted to get that out there.

Secondly, I didn’t use cherries because it wasn’t cherry season when I made them, and ain’t nobody got time to pit cherries. Who makes all these cherry desserts? I don’t understand, but bless you for doing it because they are delicious.

Ingredients:

3 large eggs

½ c granulated sugar

6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly, plus more for greasing the pan

1 c flour

A couple pinches of salt

1 c milk

½ tsp almond extract *have I told you how much I hate almond extract yet? Well I do, so I didn’t use this because… vomit. I just used vanilla extract.

2 tsp brandy or rum (optional) *is it optional? Is it? I used rum.

2 generous cups of sweet cherries *Like I said, I didn’t use cherries- I did blueberries and raspberries.

This recipe is literally this fast:

1. Preheat oven to 400F.
2. Beat the eggs and sugar together until light in color.
3. Gradually add in butter, beating to incorporate.
4. Add the flour and salt, mixing until incorporated.
5. Slowly pour in the milk, a little at a time.
6. Add the extract and brandy or rum if you’re using it. The batter will be smooth and shiny.
7. Place the cherries (or whatever fruit) in a buttered glass dish, cake pan, or skillet that can go in the oven. *I did a 9 in cake pan.
8. Pour the batter over the fruit and bake for 25 – 30 minutes until golden brown at the edges.
9. Let sit at least 15 minutes and dust with powdered sugar before serving. *I think some whipped cream would be legit on top of this. Oh, or ice cream. Ice cream would be delicious too. 

Rating (Scale 1 - 5):


Difficulty: 1
Amount of Time: 1
Awesomeness: 3

Choux Dough - Eclairs

I chose to do choux pastry as one of my challenges because like a million things are made with it, and it always seemed pretty scary to me. It totally isn’t scary at all. It’s actually super easy. Since I made these, I have made like three other pastry creams for other recipes, and I have used this same choux pastry recipe to fry up into churros for my sister’s baby shower.

I also used this particular challenge as a gender reveal for my sister’s newest nugget, Fiona!

*You do need to prepare the pastry cream a few hours or a night ahead, so keep that in mind when you're planning.  

Here is the recipe I used: https://www.willcookforsmiles.com/homemade-boston-cream-eclair/

For the pastry cream:

1 c whole milk

2/3 c heavy whipping cream

½ c granulated sugar

Pinch of salt

4 large egg yolks

½ c flour

4 tbsp unsalted butter, cold

1 vanilla bean *I didn’t use a vanilla bean, I used extract. I just put in the extract at the end, off of the heat so that it wouldn’t burn.

1. In a medium heat-proof mixing bowl, whisk together egg yolks, salt, and sugar until completely combined and a bit frothy.

2. Add flour and set aside while heating milk.
3. Heat milk, heavy cream, butter, and vanilla bean (or don’t put in vanilla now if it’s extract) on the stove until simmering. Take off the heat when mixture starts to simmer *you don’t want it to boil.
4. Slowly add milk mixture into the egg yolk mixture, stirring constantly. Whisk well. *Be gentle- you don’t want to cook the eggs, so baby steps here, folks.
5. Return the mixture to the pan and bring to a simmer, stirring constantly. The mixture will thicken within a few minutes. Take off heat once it’s thick. *You’ll know when it’s thick. It like all of a sudden is like stirring wet concrete. *Also, I added food coloring to mine because, like I said, I was doing a gender reveal, but this is not necessary.
6. Cool to room temperature and transfer into a bowl with a lid to be refrigerated. It needs to cool at least four hours or overnight.

For the choux pastry:

1 c water

½ c unsalted butter

1 tbsp granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 ¼ c flour

4 large eggs

1. Preheat oven to 400 F and line sheet trays with parchment paper. 

2. In a small sauce pan, over medium heat, add butter, sugar, vanilla extract, and water. Bring to a simmer and stir in flour with a wooden spoon until all combined and coming off the sides of the pot easily. *Again, I didn’t add the vanilla extract until later because I was afraid of it having a burnt taste.

3. Transfer into a stand mixer with paddle attachment and start adding eggs one at a time, making sure that each egg is incorporated before adding the next. *I kept mixing until the outside of my mixing bowl was cool enough to touch. 

4. Transfer batter to piping bag with a big round tip. Pipe onto parchment paper. *You can do whatever you want here with the shape. I did some round and some an éclair shape. You want to make sure that you pipe them big enough because you want to fill them later. 

5. Bake for 25-28 minutes until golden brown. Cool before filling. *Mine did not take this long, so just keep an eye on them- it’ll depend on how big you make them. 

For the ganache:

4 oz semi-sweet chocolate

½ c heavy cream  

1. Chop chocolate and add to a small heat-proof mixing bowl. *Or you can just buy chocolate chips.

2. Bring cream to a simmer in a small saucepan. 

3. Pour hot cream over chocolate and whisk until smooth. *I put a little plastic wrap over the bowl for a few minutes to let the chocolate get steamy before I mixed it. Doesn’t necessarily save time, but saves working time because you aren't sitting there mixing it forever.

Assembly:

1. Fill a piping bag, fitted with a long, narrow tip, with the pastry cream. Gently insert the tip into the bottom of the prepared choux pastry. Try not to overfill, but try not to underfill. No one wants an empty éclair. *The small round ones were easier to fill. For the éclair shaped ones, I tried just doing two holes (one on each side) and filling. I also tried putting two or three holes in the bottom of the dough and filling. Neither was super easy, but all got the job done. If you’re having a hard time puncturing a hole, you can always stick a small knife in first to get it started. 

2. Dunk each filled éclair in the ganache. *You can also drizzle over top, but I dunked because more chocolate, more better. 

Rating (Scale 1 - 5)

Difficulty: 2

Amount of Time: 2

Awesomeness: 4 

Puff Pastry - Cream Puffs

Y’all get ready for this one. Gird your loins. Dress for battle. This bitch takes a while. Like three days. I'm not exaggerating. 

I literally did puff early on because I wanted to say I had done puff. I had other challenges coming up that required puff, and I knew I couldn’t store buy puff until I had made it because it’s part of my challenge. One doesn’t just always make puff. One makes puff once to say they have made it, and then one moves on with ones life.

I took the liberty of underlining each time you have to put this shit back in the fridge to chill, just so you know.

I used Paul Hollywood’s recipe because he is a god: http://paulhollywood.com/recipes/puff-pastry/

Ingredients:

150 g chilled strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting

150 g chilled all-purpose flour

Pinch of salt

2 large eggs

100ml cold water

250 g unsalted butter, preferably a good quality Normandy butter * I used Aldi butter TBH

Day One:

1. Put the flours, salt, and water into a large bowl and gently mix with your fingers until incorporated.

2. Transfer the dough to a floured surface and knead for 5 – 10 minutes until smooth. The dough will feel a little tight at this stage *so will your arms, if we’re honest.

3. Shape the dough into a ball and put in a plastic bag to chill overnight, or at least 7 hours.

Day Two:

1. Flatten the butter into a rectangle, about 40 cm x 19 cm by battering it down with your rolling pin. Return to the fridge for an hour to harden again. *Dude… This was a pain in the ass. What I saw someone do on youtube AFTER I did this was cut the butter into little pats and put them into a rectangle. THEN you can smooth it all together way more easily (or so I assume). *Paul (first name basis) said that you can put it between two sheets of plastic wrap to make it easier. I don’t know if it was easier, but it was cleaner.

2. Roll out the dough into a rectangle, about 60 cm x 20 cm. Put the butter on the dough so it covers the bottom two-thirds of the dough. Make sure it covers almost to the edges. 

3. Lift the top one-third of the dough and fold over half of the butter. Then fold the bottom half of the butter/dough on top. Now you have a sandwich of two layers of butter and three of dough. *It’s like folding a letter to mail put it in an envelope (if people still do this). Put back in the bag and in the fridge and chill for one more hour. 
4. Take the dough out of the bag and put it on a floured surface with the short end facing you. Roll out to a rectangle like before, keeping the edges as even as possible. *That’s the hard part… 

5. Fold the top quarter down and the bottom corner up to meet in the middle. Then fold the dough in half again at that middle line like you’re making a book. Chill in the bag for one hour.*This is what you see in the picture here. 

6. Take out the dough and put it on a floured surface with the short end facing you (you see where this is going). Roll out into a big rectangle again. 

7. This time fold down one-third of the dough and fold the bottom third over the top (like you did the first time). This is called a single turn. Chill in the bag for another hour.

8. Take out the dough and do another fold like you did the last time- a single turn. Chill in the bag overnight.

Day Three:

Okay, so here’s where you can actually use your dough to make whatever deliciousness you want. I did cream puffs because I hate myself.

I used this recipe to guide my process, but let me also tell you what I experimented with and what I found to work the best. https://www.dixiecrystals.com/recipes/puff-pastry-cream-horns

1. The recipe says to take 8 cream horn metal cones and grease them. *DON’T fucking grease them. For the love of God. Don’t do it. 

2. Use a knife (or a pizza cutter) to cut ½ inch wide strips. Wind the pastry around the cone starting at the tip and overlapping slightly until you run out of strip. 

3. Put dough horns in freezer for about 30 minutes. 

4. Preheat oven to 400 F. 

5. Bake on parchment-lined sheet tray for about 20 minutes until golden brown. *I did several trials here: 

-  froze for 30 minutes- baked at 400 F

-  no freezing, still at 400 F

-  no freezing, bumped up to 425 F

-  finally, freezing again, and still bumped up to 425 F ** This one worked the best for me and my oven. Freezing kept the dough together better and higher temperature blasted the dough and not as much butter seeped out onto the parchment paper during baking. 

6. Now while all that chaos is happening, you can make the filling which is literally just whipped cream. Put one c heavy whipping cream, ½ c powdered sugar, and 1 tsp vanilla in a stand mixer with whisk attachment. Whisk until stiff peaks. 

7. Put whipped cream in a piping bag and once the cream horns are cooled, you can fill them with the whipped cream. *You can also dust with powdered sugar over the top. No one will be mad at that. 

Rating (1 - 5):

Difficulty: 3

Time: 5

Awesomeness: 4

*Was it tasty? Yes. Was it tastier than store-bought? Meh. Was it worth the time? Nope. Not at all.

Rosemary Gruyere Popovers

I have always wanted to try these- like I’d never even eaten them, but they didn’t seem too difficult. This recipe is super fast and wasn’t difficult at all. If you're bored and want some cheesy goodness, give it a go. 

I used this recipe: http://www.chefnextdoorblog.com/2015/05/rosemary-gruyere-popovers.html?m=1

Disclaimer: This recipe says it makes 6 popovers. Did I want only 6 popovers? No! So I doubled it…. It doesn’t just make 6 popovers if you’re using a muffin pan and not a popover pan. SOOOOO many popovers. 

Ingredients:        

3 eggs, room temperature *I didn’t wait til mine were room temp, and it was fine.

1 ½ c milk, room temperature *again, I didn’t wait… I'm impatient.

1 ½ c all-purpose flour

1 tsp salt

¼ c fresh chopped rosemary

¾ c freshly grated Gruyere cheese *although this would be good with pretty much any cheese.

1. Preheat oven to 450 F and place a non-stick popover pan on the bottom rack. *or again, like I did, just use a muffin tin.
2. Combine rosemary and Gruyere cheese. Set aside a ¼ c of the mixture for topping the popovers.
3. Whisk eggs and milk in a separate bowl until frothy. Add flour, salt, and the cheese mixture into the eggs and whisk well. Some lumps are fine.
4. Carefully remove the popover pan from the oven and spray with non-stick cooking spray. *If using a muffin tin, go every other so that the popovers have room to pop… over.
5. Fill the wells about 2/3 of the way full. Sprinkle the cheese and rosemary mixture that was set aside on top of each popover. *You want to work quickly because you’re trying to have that reaction with the hot pan when the popover mixture gets poured in. 
6. Bake for about 20 minutes, and then turn the oven down to 350 F and continue baking until golden brown, about 20 more minutes. 

7. Turn the popovers out onto a cooling rack and serve immediately. *They will deflate like a soufflé, so it’s better to eat them hot out of the oven when they’re melty, cheesy goodness.

Rating (Scale of 1 - 5):

Difficulty: 1

Amount of Time: 1

Awesomeness: 4