Author: joepastry

What exactly IS a croquembouche?

Glad you asked! A modern croquembouche is a cone-shaped tower of cream puffs. Some people like to say “profiteroles”, but that word makes me think of chocolate sauce. Also the brilliantly acted but gruesome 1989 cult film The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. Where are my %@#^$# profiteroles!!! I shiver just thinking about it.

Croquembouche means “crunch in the mouth”, an apt description for what happens when you bite into a piece, as the “glue” that holds the tower together is candy cooked nearly to the caramel stage. Croquembouche is traditionally served as a centerpiece for a wedding or baptism party, and is often decorated with almonds. Glossy

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Next Up: Croquembouche

My personal belief is that a new year should kick off with an audacious project. I’ve been a bit slow off the blocks in 2014 and I think a waker-upper is in order. This should do the trick! I’m thinking about using the “crackling'” choux that’s so in vogue now since I don’t think I’ve seen that done on a croquembouche yet. Any yea or nays on that?

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Mixing, Over-Mixing and Muffins

Reader Mark writes:

Love the discussion of mixing! My question is, why do you get big holes in muffins when you mix the batter a lot? That seems to be contrary to what you wrote earlier this week, that more mixing usually means smaller holes.

Great question, Mark! I did indeed write that, yet also mentioned that the world of mixing is a wide one, and the same rules don’t apply to everything. Mixing a lot does yield a smaller crumb in the case of cake layers and brioche, both of which are quite high in fat. Muffins are quite a bit leaner than either one of those, which means

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Overnight Biscuits?

I’d like to take [your American] biscuits to work, but don’t want to get up at the crack o’ dawn to do them. Have you ever tried making the dough the night before and cutting them, then wrapping & fridging, and baking in the a.m.?

Tracey, I have never done that but here’s no reason that wouldn’t work! Since the dough will be wet all night you’ll lose some of the baking powder’s oomph, though less than you’d think since modern baking powders are formulated such they don’t react as much when they get wet. Most of the pop is reserved for when it gets hot. (For those of you

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Making Kugelhopf

Eating kugelhopf is a little like traveling in time. You’re reminded of what “cake” was like before it became the ultra-rich, ultra-sweet, ultra-moist sort of device that it is now. I’m not complaining about modern cake, mind you. I’m just saying that “cake” as it was defined a few hundred years ago is a beautiful thing. I served this as the closer for Mrs. Pastry’s birthday party the other night, complete with candles, and it was a hit. A sweet white dessert wine positively makes this, as it blends elegantly with the toasty-sweet crust, tender buttery interior and tangy rum-soaked raisins. Talk about a grownup cake, I want one for my birthday!

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Butter Consumption Hits 40-Year High

And people complain that news reports never have anything positive to say. Long time Joe Pastry readers know that I’ve been on the saturated fat bandwagon for years. My feeling is that consumers aren’t “looking the other way” as the article claims, but rather emerging from a long, long dietary expert-induced stupor. What rational person, left to their own devices, could ever conclude that something as delicious and wholesome as butter could ever be unhealthy? Now all we have to is rehabilitate lard and we’ll be living in paradise.

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Mixing and Crumb

Reader E writes:

This mixing discussion is fascinating! I never realized that how I mixed can have such an impact. Can you tell me if the way I mix effects the size of the holes in bread?

It certainly does, E! There’s a whole world in the subject of mixing, so I don’t want to make too many generalizations here, but there’s a correlation between the degree of mixing and the relative openness of a bread’s crumb. As we’ve been discussing, lots of butter and yolks and lots of mixing results in thousands upon thousands of very small, very evenly dispersed droplets of fat. Those fat droplets prevent a lot of gluten formation

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Fat, Flour, Sugar and Timing

Reader Jim writes:

Your fine pastry story — about the struggle between the forces of Up and the forces of Down — illuminates the dark “glutenian” conflict at odds when we bake. It has inspired me to question “when” I add the various ingredients into my bread recipes. Any future post regarding “ingredient timing” would be much appreciated.

That’s a fascinating question, Jim. I may have written down all I know in the below post. What I will say is that it is possible to create a variety of textural effects depending on when — and how much — fat you add to your mixture. Since gluten is going to develop quickly once flour and water are combined, you’ll want to add at least a little fat at the very beginning of the process if you want to cut down on the gluten development and create a more tender crumb: some egg yolk, oil, cream or very soft

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