Mini Rose Pâte Choux

Spring is my favorite of all seasons because I love how colorful everything becomes, the weather is just warm enough and to me watching the flowers growing back on for another year help me remind of how incredible the cycle of life is. 

To celebrate spring and inspired by many Middle Eastern's recipes with roses this pâte choux is filled with rose and raspberry crème légère (pastry cream enriched with whipping cream) and raspberry glaze, all natural color. Basically I would say that flowers are to fruits what 80F is to spring season - the perfect match!

There is something about the size of these choux that really catches my attention and makes me relate that to spring too, it's probably its capability to be so cheerful and colorful even in a little tray just like colorful flowers hanging from a small tree. 

You may not know but there are many common flowers  that are eatable such as pansy, violet and roses but in order to become safe to eat they must be free of pesticides so always stay away from florists when you plan to use flowers in your recipes, going organic is really the right way to do this but picking your own flowers from your own garden is probably the best way even though I haven't experienced that yet ;(

Pansy, rose, lavender, violet and fennel mini choux

If using flowers of any kind, even fennel and lavender, they should be added with caution in a recipe because their piquant taste easily overwhelms the dish, in fact, flowers should be seen as a condiment, a little bit is enough and from my end this raspberry and rose crème légère was spot on. Strawberries and raspberries are all from the same family so it wasn't hard to match them in a recipe, they are already relatives ! 

This technique to flavor the pastry cream with fruits and flowers can be used in a widely way with infinite compositions, any fruit juice you want and any eatable flower you want but raspberry and roses are one of my favorite flavors, sweet and tangy, my love affair.

This pâte choux recipe creates a perfectly dry and hollow choux which becomes room for this amazing raspberry and rose filling and that's exacly how a pâte choux should be. If not dried enough it leaves an egg taste and a mushy texture in your mouth and that's not the proper way to appreciate this great confection invented in the 15th century. 

The glaze I made here was an easy way to make my choux  aesthetically more appealing but the classic way to make a choux glaze is by making a fondant were sugar is first cooked and then kneaded and then melted again. I find all sugar glazes kind of gross but sometimes it's really hard to avoid them, just like here for example.

yields about 60 mini choux

Ingredients

pâte choux:

250g water - 1 1/4 cup

110g unsalted butter - 1/2 cup

pinch of salt

pinch of granulated sugar

140g all purpose flour

4 to 5 large eggs

raspberry and rose crème légère

240g heavy cream -1 cup 

200g raspberries - 2  cups

120g granulated sugar divided in two - 1/2 cup total

4 large egg yolks

40g cornstarch - 4 tbsp

120g whole milk - 1/2 cup

200g heavy cream - 3/4 cup

2 tbsp rose water or rose jelly 

glaze

125g confectionary sugar - 1 cup

20g raspberry puree - 2 tbsp

Directions:

Preheat oven at 400F.

In a pan add water, cubed cold butter, pinch of salt and sugar. Bring this to a medium heat and as soon as the butter melts, turn off the heat and add the flour stirring it constantly until it forms a mass. Bring this dough back to heat and dry it out (dessécher) for one more minute or until the dough starts to form a very thin layer around the pan.

In a mixer with the paddle attachment on or using a whisk, whisk the dough until it cools, add one egg at a time and when the dough reaches a ribbon stage it's ready (ribbon stage is when the paddle attachment is lifted and the dough is heavy enough to fall down creating a ribbon connecting the attachment to the bowl).

Pipe the 1in round choux in a baking pan with a silpat or parchment paper on, press down the peak created and bake the dough until in gains a brown color (around 30 minutes). When it looks brown turn your oven down to 300F and leave your oven door ajar (put a wooden spoon on the door to leave it partially open). Let this choux dry until there is no more humidity inside (around 10 more minutes).

Prepare your pastry cream first by combining heavy cream, sugar, raspberry puree (raspberries blended or processed and sifted) and milk. Bring this to a low simmer, meanwhile whisk the egg yolks and sugar (blanchir) until pale yellow, add the cornstarch and whisk to combine. Temper the egg yolk mixture with the simmering raspberry cream whisking constantly to avoid egg coagulation, bring this back to medium heat and whisking constantly waits for it to come to a full boil, then let it boil for 3 extra minutes always whisking (when using a thickening agent such as cornstarch always let it boil for 3 minutes to achieve its full thickening power).

Let this raspberry pastry cream cool and then add the rose water or jelly and the whipped cream (heavy cream whipped to medium peak) to turn this pastry cream into a crème légère. Put this filling in a pastry bag and pipe it inside the hollow choux (use the empty pastry tip to open a perfect hole in the base of the choux). 

Prepare the glaze by combining the confectionary sugar and raspberry puree, dip the surface of the mini choux in the pink glaze and let it sit to dry. If not serving in the same day just storage the choux and the filing in two different airtight container, pipe the filling in few hours before serving. The glaze can't be made ahead.

Le techniquê: How to set a table

Learn how to properly set a casual table for your dinner parties according to the etiquette. Setting a table nicely ensures that your guests will feel comfortable because they will have everything they need  in hands during a meal and to me, a casual table is the best because it's easy and not so fancy that could instead make your guests threatened but the number of silverware they see.

I'm a big fan of setting a big, colorful and wonderful table, it creates a happy environment for my guests and it goes along with an unforgettable meal. Theme tables are pretty fun too, trying to find a solutions to turn everything into a  certain theme challenges my creativity and to me that is always a fun thing to do.

I've been collecting kitchenware for years and I usually get it from everywhere, second hand store, trips, family and trash (yes, I've found some amazing stuff at my building's recycle area). 

To me a meal can only be considered a meal when the food requires fork and knife to be eaten because if you can eat it with your hands, then it's just a snack (this opinion only reflects occidental culture).

I hope this video inspires you to create special moments at home for your family and friends and that these moments become just as unforgettable as you are !

Heart patterned cake roll

This chocolate patterned cake roll filled with whipped white chocolate ganache and strawberries is one of my favorite recipes because not every cute pastry can be this delicious and this fair and by fair  I mean a pastry that is not mediocre loaded with tons of sugar and food coloring. For my pinkish heart pattern I used raspberry syrup to dye the batter and cocoa powder to make the cake chocolaty, the filling itself is extra simple and only requires 3 ingredients, in fact, this entire cake roll only requires 7 ingredients and if you want to make a plain cake it only requires 6, can you believe that?

This LOVE special edition is my tribute for lovers, for people with passion, for real relationships that don't need to prove anything at Valentine's day, in fact, this special is more like an anti-Valentine's day special. I don't agree with people transforming feelings into merchandise and for that matter on Valentine's day I don't buy anything and I don't want to get anything, I just want to love and to be loved and sometimes making a rolled cake with hearts can help me prove my point.

To make the pattern is very simple and the technique may make you question yourself why isn't everybody making this lovely cake these days. This patterned built in technique is Japanese and not everybody knows about it - YET. In Japan these cakes are called Deco Rolls, yeah, Asians are the masters of cute stuff and trust me, this is one of those things that once it starts to spread around the web it's going to become an epidemy.

This rolled cake (aka Swiss roll cake or Deco roll) can be made in chocolate or regular plain and for the plain sponge cake recipe click here. The filling chosen for this was whipped ganache which is a ganache cooled and then whipped, it achieves frosting consistency and it's perfect to top any cake. This is what I use as frosting instead of buttercream because to me,  buttercream tastes like sweet fat .

(wow, I just realized that I was against 3 things in only three paragraphs- food coloring, Valentine's day and buttercream- one for each paragraph, fair ;)

Ingredients:
for pattern:
1 egg white
30g granulated sugar
40g flour - if making chocolate pattern substitute 20g for cocoa powder
20g butter- room temperature
Natural food coloring, fruit syrup or any food coloring of your preference.
for cake
4 eggs- whites separated
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 cup + 1 tbsp sugar
60g butter - melted (aproximately 1/2 stick + 1 tbsp)
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder (if making plain rolled cake substitute this for flour)
for filling
1 1/2 cup white chocolate -or any other chocolate
1 cup heavy cream - or whipping cream
1 cup strawberries - quartered
Utensils: baking pan 11x17 in, parchment paper (it won't work if you use wax paper), pastry bag or ziploc bag.
Yields one 11x17 cake roll

ps: if you don't have a scale check this measurement chart. 

Listen to the songs of this episode:



Templates:
 

MORE PATTERNED CAKE ROLL IDEAS:

Dotted cake roll and Easter bunny cake roll

Dotted cake roll

Easter bunny cake roll and my niece with her typographic cake roll

Le techniquê: How to suprême

Learn how to segment citrus (suprême) in a nice and not messy way. The technique to suprême can be used for limes, lemons, grapefruits, oranges and any other citrus fruit that comes to your mind. The result is elegant in taste and appearance and by removing all the pith from the segments you end up with a very delicate tart flavor, this way you can use both the flesh and the juice from your citrus fruit.

I love to add my limes' suprêmes to my brown butter sauce specially when I'm serving it with a fish and I often blend a big batch of caipirinha for a party and use only the lime supremes to avoid the strong bitter flavor in my drink.

Dulce Delight is on Vacation

It's a new year and I'm glad I don't have to fill too many checks cause it takes me quite some time to start accepting the last new digit of the year. I think New Year's Eve is taken very seriously by people who needs a second chance, a new beginning, people who need to forget about the bad times and change perspective but to me a new year is just the continuity of yesterday, the time to harvest what I planted last week or last month and another year to continue growing and learning about the mysteries of life. 

This year I spent Christmas and New Year's Eve in Brazil and here you can watch a tiny piece of the time I spent with my family and friends, it's always so special to be in Rio that is hard to describe but I hope it shows in this video.

If you want to live a worth living life, live in the present and don't wait another year to make the changes you want in your life, the time is now and a calendar is just a calendar, numbers over paper  (all right, or screen) and your life if greater and bigger than that ;)

Happy New Year everybody! 

Macadamia Lace Cookie

This cookie is called lace cookie because as it bakes, it bubbles and creates little holes that ends up looking like a lace pattern - very adorable!

I decided to make this recipe for Christmas because it works as a really good gift since it doesn't spoil fast and it maintains most of its quality and crunchiness for up to 3 weeks. With creativity you could even mold the warm cookie into the shape of your preference, even like a cute little basket for fruits- wow how cheesy would that be? ;)

The characteristics of the lace cookies are crunchiness and nuttiness, super delicate and thin with nuts that enriches the flavor, it reminds a baked praline like the one I made to garnish the chocolate soufflé but much more consistent as it contains a little bit of flour. The chocolate is totally optional but since the cookie itself is not very sweet I think that the chocolate is almost essential to the recipe plus it looks quite nice with one side all zig-zaged in chococolate (or maybe in the middle if you made sandwiches)

I'm in Brazil right now to spend the holidays with my family and even though I couldn't make a super special Christmas show before I left NY I hope this recipe comes in a good time for all of you.

This Christmas give love, not gift - maybe some lace cookies as well!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup light brown sugar (you can use dark but i find it very hard to identify when it's ready in the oven when using dark brown sugar)
2 tbsp unsalted butter- room temperature
2 tbsp heavy cream
1/4 cup honey
1/3 cup flour
1/2 cup macadamia nut
1 tsp vanilla extract
200g chocolate- 60% cacao (or the chocolate of your preference)

Le techniquê: How to Julienne

This week on the Le techniquê you are going to learn how to julienne vegetables like a pro.

Julienne is one of the most popular cuts used in french cuisine and practicing it will not only make your dishes look superb but will improve your knife skills and ensure that your vegetables cook evenly and get ready at the same time. 

When you study french cooking you have to memorize all types of cuts, each one of them has a name and its own measurements; julienne for example is supposed to be thin sticks of 1 to 2 millimeters square and 5 to 7 centimeters long. These techniques exist to make the communication in the kitchen more efficient and to ensure that doesn't matter where you come from or where you trained, when you hear the name of the cut you will do it exactly like everybody else in that kitchen is doing because there is only one way to do it right; this creates standards and consistency and it's one of the many reasons why french cooking is so precise and special.