Short and Tweet Challenge: March 2012 Schedule
March 2012 schedule for the #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet. (Read about #shortandtweet challenge and its conditions.)
The dates are those by which I’d like to receive links or photographs: please tweet these @foodcraftspace or @evidencematters using the hashtag #shortandtweet or leave links in the comments for the appropriate challenge announcement post. I’ll then collate these into the compendium post for that challenge.
The choices for some of these challenges vary as I realise that some of us have different ingredients available (or want to use up previous special purchases) or may be concerned about exposing ourselves or others to particular temptations. Nonetheless, I hope that it is stretching some of us to experiment with unfamiliar techniques or to tweak our familiar routines or recipes.
4 March Perfect plain pita pg 76 or the Garlic, thyme and lemon version pg 77. These breads are only vaguely related in taste and texture to the ones that are commonly available from supermarkets and are worth trying. Dan says: “Pita needs very little yeast, as the rolling and the very hot oven create the lift. So if your oven doesn’t get hot enough, you’ll have to make them at a friend’s house”. This is true - you will only get the full benefit of this recipe with a suitably hot oven. You will need very good, long tongs or superb oven gloves. You have been warned (but please make them as they are a revelation if you’ve not had fresh pita recently).
Simple bagels pg 61 de-mystified bagels for me and presented a very relaxed way of preparing a recipe that had always seemed fraught with complexity when I’d read about it elsewhere. There are notes to tweak the texture by altering the quantity of water or modifying the length of time for the rise. Again, unless you’re near a very good source for them, it’s remarkably different to make your own and discover that the result is not intrinsically heavy.
For anyone who didn’t bake last month’s North-South cornbread pg 53 or who did bake it and wants to use up some of the polenta or yellow corn meal, then I suggest the Double-corn bacon muffins pg 533. These are an excellent hearty lunch or tea-time item (works well with firm cooked mushrooms for those who don’t want bacon): I’ve heard that they’re good for brunch but I tend to have a punitive attitude to that institution (only within my own household and only if I’m the one responsible for preparing and serving it).
11 March When I was little my parents had a French cookery book that gave full and grisly details of how to cook an eel dish that required fresh eel blood for the sauce (it involved impaling live eels on a hook, a sharp knife and a dish to collect said blood). When it came to pastry, however, it was assumed that one pretty much already knew what was required: “Take a quantity of rough puff pastry” was as detailed as it got. I knew what puff pastry was but the recipe that fired my imagination was Paris Brest. I had no idea what choux pastry was but I instinctively knew that I liked the sound of a praline filling and toasted almonds on top. And I dreamed of the time when I could eat this delight. What made this recipe the more aspirational was the book’s account of how the recipe was developed: allegedly, in honour of the Paris-Brest cycle race (hence the shape).
“[The baker’s] tire-shaped choux pastry was piped full of a huge amount of calorific praline cream, perhaps mimicking the newly invented inner tubes of the day and traditionally baked almonds and icing sugar decorated the cake, imitating the tread of the tyre and dust from the road.” The Hungry Cyclist: Paris Brest – The Breakfast of Champions
Dan Lepard mentions the Paris Brest cycle race as well so this week is choux pastry and variations. For some of us, the stand out recipe is for Mini coffee Paris-Brest pg 418. There is coffee cream custard filling and instructions for drizzling a caramel over the top (this may well be tweaked into a praline that is smashed up and heavily dredged on top: I have a premonition).
For anyone who has their own rhubarb, or is putting up rhubarb this month, there is a delightful choux recipe for Rhubarb and custard buns, pg 422. These are both good and flexible: a friend didn’t make the custard but put together a half yoghurt, half whipped double cream filling which provided a good, slightly acid bite to the buns. The recipe also works well with roasted apples.
The third option is to use the sweet choux paste as a pie crust, as Dan outlines, pg 525. This is a very helpful hint for those of us who have sporadic difficulties in piping that make it difficult to envisage a tidy array of buns or homages to small bicycle wheels.
If you have any sweet choux paste left over, then if you adapt Dan’s recommendation for Soup choux, pg 524, and pipe/bake tiny blobs of it, you might sprinkle them on top of a stewed fruit dish (with or without tossing them in a dipping sugar of, eg, cinnamon and icing sugar). It looks very special and far more complicated than it is: it also offers a good texture contrast.
18 March It’s Mothering Sunday in the UK so I feel obliged to mention that there is a recipe for Saffron peach cake pg 137 which some people baked for an earlier challenge, with good results and some useful tweaks.
Option two “is the ‘Sophia Loren’ of cake: four layers of orange sponge cake filled with a simplified Sicilian cassata mixture and drizzled with a light orange syrup. The sponge alone is a good standby recipe for the lunchbox”. Dan has provided notes for advance preparation on pg 133, specifically for a special occasion. The recipe for Orange cassata cake is pg 132 and the cassata filling is delectable: if you have any Fiori di Sicilia or Panettone essence from other recipes, then that might be another way of flavouring the filling to taste (adjust the vanilla accordingly). It’s a delight even though it reminds me of a post-restaurant romantic clinch and my Best Beloved’s ill-timed burp that gave me the full experience of the apricot cassata that I hadn’t eaten.
Option three is a deep-flavoured Butterscotch banana cake that also makes excellent cupcakes. This is a cake for anyone who has, or whose mother has, fond memories of Banana Split Toffees and would appreciate both a more adult version and less dental jeopardy. There’s also a handy Short & Sweet tip about baking powder, the alkalinity of ripe bananas and its impact on the crumb of a cake.
25 March I propose that we close the month with Light spelt rough puff pastry, pg 497. Dan Lepard notes that, “A smidgeon of baking powder softens the pastry and helps to gently aerate the tender buttery flakes as they bake”. This is a fairly free-form recipe as Dan suggests using it as you would puff pastry (lids for pies, or bases for tarts); as a wrap-around for items such as Pigs in blankets, or simply prepped for nibbles.
However, pp 498-503 have some excellent “ideas for individual savoury tarts”: be sure to read the additional baking notes for First-class tarts pg 498. The tarts can be as small or large as it suits you and the toppings can be simple or sophisticated. They’re flexible and allow a range of toppings to be baked at the same time (useful in families where people rarely agree on a single dish). For smaller households, the pastry freezes well and defrosts without mess for fast pie tops or tarts.
