Pullman Sandwich Loaf

Pullman Sandwich Loaf

We have all bought sandwich bread in the stores. And you might ask why spend so much time baking this simple loaf. But this loaf is not your average sandwich bread. This is a feather light sweet soft loaf. And compared to most store bought loafs, this bread is filled with ingredients you actually can pronounce. We used the bread to make simple sandwiches in a panini press. And compared with store bought, the slices of the bread didn't flatten under pressure. Well worth the effort.

Ingredients:

• 450 g all-purpose flour
• 100 g Ølandshvedemel (you can use all-purpose flour or bread flour)
• 6 g dry yeast
• 32 g sugar
• 11 g fine salt
• 285 ml water
• 1 egg
• 25 g butter, salted and room temereature
• 80 g cream cheese
• egg wash 

Directions:

Spray a large bowl and the pullman loaf pan with non-stick spray, set aside.

Combine all the ingredients except the egg wash in the bowl for a stand mixer. Knead 4-5 minutes on low speed to form the dough. Keep kneading on medium low for another 15 minutes. 

Turn the dough out on a lightly floured surface. Stretch the dough by making 2-3 letter folds* turning the dough a quarter each timer, building up the surface tension on the dough. Place the dough seam side down in the sprayed bowl. Let the dough rise covered for 15-20 minutes.

Gently turn you dough out onto a lightly floured surface, seam side up. Weigh the dough, so you only shape 1 kg (a little over 2 pounds). Gently pat it to remove any large air bubbles, and form a rectangle. Make another letter fold, but only in one direction. You want to build up the surface tension, that will help you get a better ovenspring. Elongate the loaf, so it fits the length of the pan.  Make 1-3 folds, until you have a tight loaf with a good surface tension, ending up with a loaf shaped as a cylinder. Place the loaf in the pan, seam side down. Brush the top with egg wash. Slide the lid onto the pan, leaving ad slid open, so you can peek inside. Let the loaf proof for 2-2½ hours until the loaf barely reaches the top. 

Preheat the oven to 375℉ (190℃). 

Close the lid of the pan. Bake the loaf for 25 minutes. Carefully remove the lid of the pan, and bake the bread for another 10 minutes until the top is deep golden brown, and the loaf is baked through. 

Turn the bread out onto a wirerack to cool completely.

Slice the bread thinly.

Enjoy!

* Letter fold: Dough folded in thirds, like you would do a letter going into an envelope.

Fastelavnsboller with Berries

Fastelavnsboller with Berries

This is yet another take on the traditional fastelavnsbolle, a sweet cake like roll. Here with cream cheese and mixed berries. Fastelavnsbolle takes different shapes and forms. Some fastelavnsboller are plain like fastelavnsboller, some are filled with cream and custard like Marieboller - Fastelavnsboller or Fastelavnsboller - Choux Pastry. 

Fastelavn is a similar tradition as the American Halloween if you use a piñata in the form of  barrel.  Children get dressed up, and go a kinda trick and treating in the early afternoon. Well, they ask for money instead of candy, but it's only the young kid doing this. You can read more about the Danish fastelavns traditions here

Makes about 10.

Ingredients:

Dough:

• 250 ml lukewarm milk
• 2 teaspoons dry yeast
• 85 g sugar
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1½ cardamom 
• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
• 450 g all-purpose flour 
• 75 g butter, salted and room temperature
• 50 g cream cheese

Cream cheese filling:

• 75 g cream cheese
• 50 g sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch 

Berries:

• 225 g mixed berries (only the smaller berries)
• 50 g sugar
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch 

• egg wash

Directions:

Dissolve the yeast in the milk. Add the rest of the ingredients, and knead the dough for about 5 minutes. Let the dough rise covered for about an hour, until doubled in size.

Mix the filling and the berries in each their own bowl.

Preheat the oven to boil 435℉ (225℃).

Turn the dough on to a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into 9-10 balls, I use a scale to get them to be the same size. (Just a tiny bit OCD😉). Let the balls rise for 15-20 minutes.

Make a silver dollar sized dent in each ball, making sure not to poke holes all the way through. brush the edges with egg wash. Spoon a small tablespoon fill-in in the holes, topping with the mixed berries.

Bake the fastelavnsboller for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. Let the fastelavnsboller cool on a wire rack before serving.

Enjoy!

Croissants

Croissants are made from a yeasted dough laminated with butter. It is so so good.

The trick is to keep the dough and the butter at the same temperature and texture, to prevent soft butter bleeding out of the dough. A too cold dough will crack a bit, so you are looking for a firm but yet soft dough.

There are different kinds of folding/turning when it comes to pastry and croissant dough. 

Letter fold or Single turn: Dough folded in thirds, like you would do a letter going into an envelope. (I did that for this recipe.)

1. Turn: makes 3 layers of butter

2. Turn: makes 9 layers of butter

3. Turn: makes 27 layers of butter.

Book fold or double turn: Dough folded to the middle and folded again on the middle like a book. This makes 4 layers per fold or turn as they are called.

1. Turn: makes 4 layers of butter

2. Turn: makes 16 layers of butter

3. Turn: makes 64 layers of butter

You can mix the folding methods to get the amount of layer you want. Theoretically you can make how many layers you want, but making too many layers makes you end up with a brioche dough, made the hardest way possible 😉.   

At the croissant class I attended I learned that Manresa Bread use 2 double turns (16 layers) for regular croissants, and 3 single turns (27 layers) for chocolate croissants. For traditional Danish pastry you normally use 3 single turns, giving the desired 27 layers of butter. If you are looking for a traditional puff pastry, you need 144 layers

Makes this 20-24 croissants. 

Ingredients:

Dough/Détrempe:

• 750 g bread flour

• 200 g water, lukewarm

• 187.5 g milk

• 90 g sugar

• 22.5 g salt

• 65 g live yeast (15 g dry yeast)

• 7.5 g malt powder

• 37.5 g butter, room temperature

Beurrage (butter):

• 450 g cold butter

• all-purpose flour for dusting

Directions:

Dough/Détrempe:

Mix the milk with the water, dissolve the yeast in this mixture. Add the sugar. If using dry yeast, let the yeast wake up for about 5-10 minutes, until creating a foam on top. 

Mix in half of the flour and malt powder, forming a sticky dough. Mix in the softened butter. Finally mix in the rest of the flour and knead the dough until you have a shiny, slightly sticky and elastic dough, for about 3-5 minutes. The dough will be a bit on the dry/tough side.
Shape dough into a ball and place it in a dough rising bucket, or another large covered container. Let the dough fermented overnight, this will give you a good flavor.

Beurrage (butter):

Place the cold butter on a well floured surface. With your palms press the butter a little flat. Using a rolling pin pound on the butter to flatten it. Fold the butter into it self, and keep pounding and folding until the butter has the same consistency as the dough. You want to end up with a 30x32 cm (11x12.5 inch) sheet of soft but still cold butter. If the butter is too warm or too hard, it will be hard to roll it out in the dough, and it might make holes in the dough, instead of the lamination.
If you don't want to add any flour to your butter, you can pound and roll out the butter between sheets of parchment paper. Chill the butter while you roll out the dough. 

Laminating:

Place dough on a lightly floured surface, roll it out to 62x32 cm (24.5x12.5 inch), so the dough is the width of the butter, but a little over double in length. Clearly I rolled my dough longer than necessary, but it worked fine anyway. Place the butter on the dough, and wrap it with the dough, pinching the edges, meeting in the middle of the dough, together. Chill the dough package covered in the refrigerator for about 15-20 minutes, before starting the folding/turning.

Roll the dough to a rectangle, 3-4 times as long as the height. Keep it lightly floured so the dough do not stick to the surface. Make sure to roll the dough with straightedges. This will ease the folding.

Fold the far edges into the middle and fold again on the middle like a book. Now you have 4 layers of butter. Place the covered dough in the freezer for about 20 minutes to cool the butter again, and to relax the gluten.

Repeat this one more time, making 2 double (book) turns and ending up with 16 layers of butter. If you want to use this dough for Danish pastry or chocolate croissants, I would make 3 single turns, so you end up with 27 layers.

Before shaping the croissants you want the dough to rest covered in the refrigerator for at least 45-60 minutes. And letting it sit covered for 5 minutes on the kitchen counter, letting the butter to soften up a bit.

Shaping the croissants:

Roll half the dough out to a 20x40 cm (8x16 inch) rectangle. Using a knife or pizza slicer to cut the dough. Cut the croissant triangles as shown in the picture. (you get 7, not 5 croissants from the dough, I missed the last 2 in the picture, sorry). Let the dough rest covered 5 minutes to relax the gluten a bit. 
Stretch the triangle, so you elongate it, be careful not to rip the dough. Roll the dough towards the tip of the triangle, making sure that the tip is on the underside of the croissant.Place the croissant on a parchment paper lined baking sheet, spaced at least 5 cm (2 inch) apart.

Proof the croissant covered at maximum 85℉ (29.5℃) for 45-60 minutes until doubled in size. I have a proof setting on my oven, so I can use that, with a cup of boiling water sitting next to the baking sheet. But you can also proof the croissant on the kitchen counter, in a large air filled plastic bag.

Presheat oven to 350℉  (177℃) convection or 375℉ (190℃) foer non-convection.

Gently brush the croissants with egg wash, covering the exposed surfaces not allowing the egg wash to drip or pool.

Bake the croissants for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown. Let the croissants on the baking sheet on the kitchen counter. 

Serve the croissants within a day. 

Enjoy!

Tip:

The unbaked pastry can be frozen just, after shaping, individually, and can be baked straight out of the freezer, just add about 5 more minutes to the baking time.

Tip:

Leftover croissants can be used for almond croissants. Make some frangipan (125 g almond flour, 125 g butter, 125 g powdered sugar, 12 g all-purpose flour and 1 large egg, all mixed together) and smear it inside the croissant, and on top, before baking it for xx minutes.

Lobster Benedict- Sous Vide

Lobster Benedict- Sous Vide

Lobsters are a creature with a delicate taste and texture. So by poaching it in butter, you get the purest and cleanest lobster taste ever. Making it Sous Vide you are getting the perfect texture to your liking. The temperature is controlling the texture. Well time is too, but by poaching the lobster for 45-60 minutes, temperature is the controlling factor. 

Different cooks choose different poaching temperature. Thomas Keller calls for 139℉ (59℃) and Modernist Cuisine calls for 115℉ (46℃).

Serious Eats tested different temperature, and this were their finings:

Temperature - texture

120℉ (49℃) - Soft and translucent

130℉ (54℃) - Tender and succulent

140℉ (69℃) - Firm

I decided to go with 135℉ (57℃) and the result was fantastic, I got a tender and somewhat firm juicy lobster. This one is a winner.

Serves 2.

Ingredients:

Butter poached lobster tail:

• 4 lobster tails, shells removed and deveined

• 113 g salted butter (1 stick butter)

• sprinkle of salt

Benedict:

• hollandaise sauce*

• arugula

• 4 poached eggs

• 4 half slices toasted bread

Hollandaise in blender:

• 250 g salted butter, clarified

• 4 egg yolks

• ¼ teaspoon salt

• ¼ teaspoon ground white pepper

• ½ lemon, the juice from

• 1 pinch cayenne

Directions:

Butter poached lobster tail:

Set you sous vide to 135℉ (57℃).
Place the lobster tails and butter in a vacuum sealer bag, sealing with the moist setting. Place the bag in the water bath, making sure that the lobster is fully submerged. Set timer for 50 minutes.
Remove lobster tails from the bag, discarding the liquid, when it is time to serve your benedict.

Hollandaise:

Melt the butter in a sauce pan over very low heat.  Let simmer gently until the foam rises to the top of the melted butter. Once the butter stops spluttering, and no more foam seems to be rising to the surface, remove from heat and skim off the foam with a spoon. The foam is the milk solids from the butter. Ladle the butterfat into another saucepan leaving the water and residue behind. You can also pour the butterfat through some cheesecloth. Keep the butterfat warm.
The clarified butter should be about 172℉ (77℃).

Add the rest of the ingredients, except cayenne, in a blender. Blend until foaming. With the blender running add ⅓ of the butter in a slow steady stream, yes it will splatter. Once it emulsifies, turn the blender speed up to high and add the remaining butter. Season with salt and pepper and blend for another second. Sprinkle the cayenne on top when serving.

* Instead of regular hollandaise sauce, you can use the more healthier avocado hollandaise 

Benedict:

Toast the bread, place a handfull arugula on it, placing a lobster tail and a poached egg on top. Ladle a spoonful warm hollandaise over, sprinkling with some cayenne.

Serve immediately. 

Enjoy!

Sifted Rye Bread - Sigtebrød

Sifted Rye Bread - Sigtebrød.

This is a very old type of Danish bread. When I worked at a Bakery in Denmark, we only sold a few, if non, sifted rye breads a day. And the customer would most likely be an old person. I think younger people wanted the fancy seeded breads. But quite frankly the sifted rye bread is very tasty. The crumb is a little more compact, without being dense. The recipe calls for "sigtemel" which is a sifted flour made from 30% rye and 70% wheat.

Makes 2 breads.

Ingredients:

• 50 g live yeast (4 teaspoons dry yeast)
• 400 ml tempered water
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 300 ml (1¼ cup) buttermilk
• 300 g all-purpose flour
• 700 g sigtemel (210 g dark rye flour + 490 g all-purpose flour)
• ½ teaspoon ground caraway seeds
• 5 teaspoons salt

Directions:

Dissolve the yeast in the water. If you use dry yeast add a few pinches of sugar. 

Add buttermilk, flours, ground caraway seeds, salt and honey, and knead the dough for 5-8 minutes to build up the gluten. Let the dough rise for about 60 minutes in a warm spot.

Knead the dough for a few minutes, and divide the dough in two.

Use the heels of your hands to gently flatten the dough into a rough rectangle. Fold the bottom third up, like a letter fold. Fold the bottom third of the dough over on itself. Press the folds with the heels of your hands, to seal. Fold the dough once more, building up the surface tension. This will help the loaf rise evenly and keep its shape. 

Place the loaf in a greased pan with the seam facing down. Repeat with the second loaf. I have a large pan that will hold both loafs, letting them “grow” together.

Preheat oven to 400℉ (200℃).

Let the loaf rise for another 40 minutes. Poke the top with a fork, and brush it with some milk. Bake loaf for 30-40 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy!