Baking with fresh yeast

Yeast is yeast, is yeast, some might argue but this miraculous microbe that brings us delicious bread, refreshing beer and wholesome Vegemite comes in 3 forms: fresh, granular and powdered. Using fresh bakers' yeast yields results unsurpassable to its dried variant in my opinion and to make a generalisation, I find the action of fresh yeast more robust, the flavour of its finished product mildly yeasty and the aroma, "sweeter". Fresh yeast however has its drawbacks mainly that it is not as stable as dry yeast, that is to say, its potency diminishes with age and storage. And of course, it can be quite difficult to obtain unless you are pretty chummy with your local baker.

I usually use dried yeast when I bake bread because it is readily available and easily stored in the cupboard but I chanced upon the compressed fresh stuff in the frozen section while shopping with my parents at Carrefour the other day and needless to say, it took little persuasion for me to purchase the 500g brick of yeast. That's right, an entire 500g brick of yeast.

Fast forward a few hours (about 8) and 15g crumbled off the aforementioned "brick" later, I present you walnut bread* with a chewy dark sourdough-like crumb, suspiciously nutty with nuggets of walnuts and sweet with plump pieces of raisins, a bread very similar to the one I like to get from Lawley's. Perfect with creamy ripe brie and a drizzle of wildflower honey, this bread goes down a treat!

Yum! Now, would someone kindly suggest what I ought to do with the rest of the yeast**?

* adapted from Rose Levy Beranbaum's recipe for cranberry walnut bread. I replaced the dried yeast with 15g of the fresh stuff and raisins for the cranberries.

** I have since made many loaves of honey wholemeal bread which has been well-received by the family, the recipe to be posted soon.

Note I find it is adequate to double or triple the amount of fresh yeast by weight in a recipe that states dried yeast. For example, if a recipe calls for 7g dried yeast (a sachet), I use 15-20g depending on the proofing and rising times, that is to say, if the method calls for a pre-ferment or an extended rising time, I am more inclined to use the lesser amount of 15g. If the recipe is for a "quick" bread with a short rising time, or a rich dough then I am more inclined to use 20g of fresh yeast.

You Are My Sunshine Tart

Mick loved tarts. And yes, I am referring to the sort you eat with a fork as well as the other variety that don skirts resembling thick belts and walk like they know you are watching them with dirty in your eyes. He was rather disappointed when he missed out on the petit lemon meringue tarts I made for his brother Marc's wake last October and I kept saying I would make him some - but never got around to it, just like the chocolate mousse I promised to make for him since 2006! (Mick, I may be hopeless, but you left me too soon.)

Mick was quite adamant I watch the movie "Waitress" starring Keri Russell (with a poorly mimicked southern accent) as an embittered waitress working at a pie diner owned by an equally cynical old geezer. Mick said she reminded him of me because of the way she named and made pies after circumstances in her life which I thought I would list here for a little chuckle:

I Don’t Want Earl’s Baby Pie (then renamed Bad Baby Pie) Quiche of egg and brie cheese with a smoked ham center
I Hate My Husband Pie “You take bittersweet chocolate and don’t sweeten it. You make it into a pudding and drown it in caramel…”

Baby Screaming It’s Head Off In The Middle Of The Night And Ruining My Life Pie New York style cheesecake, brandy brushed, pecans and nutmeg…

Earl Murders Me Because I’m Having An Affair Pie “You smash blackberries and raspberries into a chocolate crust.”

I Can’t Have No Affair Because It’s Wrong And I Don’t Want Earl To Kill Me Pie “Vanilla custard with banana. Hold the banana…”

Pregnant Miserable Self Pitying Loser Pie “Lumpy oatmeal with fruitcake mashed in. Flambé of course…”

I have never been in a situation where I have found myself to be miserably pregnant and therefore have never felt any inclination to name my creations in such fashion. However, touched by sentimentalism, I decided to name my lemon meringue tart, the one I never got to share with Mick: You Are My Sunshine Tart. It is corny, I know, but indulge me in my emotional condition. I have a feeling Mick would have preferred it named Lusty Lemon Tart.

Perhaps You Are Lusty, My Sunshine Tart?

Anyway, to make this tart you will need the following recipe:

Lemon meringue tart

base

200g unsalted butter

40g sugar

80g icing sugar

3g salt

1 large egg

380g flour

lemon curd

4 eggs

250g sugar

160mls lemon juice, strained

zest of 2 lemons

300g unsalted butter, diced

meringue
80g egg whites

150g caster sugar

(makes 2 8-inch tarts)

prepare the base the day before by creaming butter, sugars and salt together until well combined before adding the egg. Add flour and incorporate until all the components just come together in a ball. Divide the dough into 2, flatten each portion into a disc, wrap with plastic film and refrigerate.

roll the prepared dough to 3-5mm thickness and line tart ring. Allow to rest for 30 mins.
pre-heat oven to 180C.

blind-bake tart base for 10 minutes, remove pie weights if using and bake base for a further 7 minutes or until golden brown. Allow the base to cool before filling with lemon curd.

prepare the lemon curd by placing the eggs, sugar and lemon juice and zest in a large stainless steel mixing bowl and whisking til sugar dissolves completely.

cook whisking constantly by placing the mixing bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until the bubbles diminish, eventually disappearing and the consistency that of thick sour cream.

remove bowl from heat and at this point you may strain the custard to rid the zest if you want a smoother and more velvety finish. Allow to cool slightly.

whisk diced butter a little at a time. This process thickens and enriches the custard.

prepare meringue by whisking sugar into the egg whites gradually until a shiny and soft-peaked meringue is obtained.

finish by pouring the lemon curd into the prepared tart bases and tap gently to achieve a smooth flat top. Pipe meringue in a decorative fashion and flame gently with a blowtorch. Alternatively, preheat the grill in the oven and heat til a golden brown colour is obtained.

Mick used to love coffee, then he started drinking Earl Grey tea

J-M aka Mick, a frequent contributing editor, a selfless volunteer to my experimental recipes and my dearest close friend passed away 6 weeks ago. His departure was unexpected making it that little harder to come to terms with, but then again, I don't suppose there are easier means of confronting the loss of someone close to heart be it expected or not.

The following posts will be dedicated to Mick - a medley of foods, some inspired by the flavours he loved, some enjoyed in his company and some I just wish we had a chance to enjoy together.

I begin with shortbread imbued with the subtle citrus notes of Earl Grey tea, the brew of choice after Mick decided to give up his coffee. To finish and to sweeten these biscuits just a touch, I drizzled melted white chocolate after cutting them to size.

Earl Grey tea shortbread

220g unsalted butter

1 tsp fine salt

70g icing sugar, sifted

300g plain flour

4 Twinings Earl Grey tea bags

(makes 1 rectangular tart pan)

Preheat oven to 160C.

Beat butter, salt and icing sugar until light and creamy.

Add flour and ground tea, mix til just combined.

Pat dough into a fluted rectangular tart pan, prick at 1cm intervals with a skewer and sprinkle the entire surface with sugar.

Allow the shortbread to rest for 20 minutes before baking.

Bake the shortbread for 40-50 minutes, slightly coloured around the edges.

Remove from the oven and cut into fingers of desired width while still warm.

Return shortbread to oven, switch OFF the heat and leave the door ajar.

Remove shortbread from pan when completely cooled and garnish with drizzling of white chocolate if desired.

Julia Child's French bread(rolls)

This month's Daring Bakers (fondly abbreviated DB by other fellow members) challenge hosted by Mary and Sara involves making French bread following the recipe by Julia Child. Although I have made bread with success in the past, I felt rather dubious undertaking this particular project. I suppose it is partly because I want my first DB entry to be groundbreaking, to be successful and prehaps even triumphant. Alas, this is not the case.

I made 2 attempts at the recipe, the first being a failure I would prefer to forget. However, in the spirit of selflessness (which is quite unfamiliar to me... 'til now) and by sharing a personal flop so others may learn and never have to suffer the same frustration, I have decided to again live through and immortalise the painful mistakes I have made through picture and prose.

In retrospect, I should have saved my Waitrose: Super Strong Unbleached Flour for my very delicious rye n seed loaves. I suspect being a less processsed flour meant that it had a lower starch content to "soak" up the volume of liquid called for in the recipe. I should have picked up on how soft and sticky the dough felt during kneading - or should I say paddling. The dough was reminiscent of the one for the no-knead bread I made previously. Not soupy, but definately difficult to handle and shape. Still, I perservered until the bread were baked. Despite the disappointing outcome, I took photographs so you (my patient reader) can picture what I have been ranting about for the past paragraph.

A more promising outcome came at my second attempt, though still a far cry from the sticks, boules and loaves you get from a French boulangerie. At the risk of sounding like a defeatist, I did resign myself to the fact that I will never achieve a good quality French crust; one that is thin, crisp and crackles as you tear the bread apart, at home. To be fair, I think all of us who decided to embark on this challenge were doing so on a handicap - we were all lacking the right oven! Or perhaps I just didn't try hard enough(?)

I spent a restless night in bed after my failed first attempt (NB you should know by now if you are losing sleep over the failure to make bread, it is likely your obsession is pathological) trying to figure out where I went wrong. I decided then, at a little past 3 in the morning, to get back into the kitchen and to try the recipe yet again but using an all-purpose flour (the colour of all-purpose flour is closer to brilliant white compared to the super-strong variety, the bleaching process leaches some of the grains' protein) and a teaspoon of sugar to help the yeast along during the prolonged fermentation period. I added water gradually to the dry ingredients while mixing and used considerably less water (a total of 290 ml) to achieve what I thought was an adequate consistency ie. soft, slightly tacky and pulling off the sides of the mixing bowl.

I followed the fermentation times inerrantly and was pleased with the results after each of the prescribed rising times. I performed 2 book-turns after the pointage premier temps to develop the gluten further and after the pointage deuxieme temps, I divided my dough into half and from the one half, shaped six petit pains and the other into a batard.

So far so good... but here comes the point where I fell short. Short of patience that is.

So why is it that the final rise takes so long? It felt like an eternity! I was rubbing my hands with anxiety and I finally gave into placing my dough in the oven eventhough I knew they just weren't quite ready to be baked. A price I paid quite dearly as clearly illustrated in the image below.

Yup, no simulated baker's oven was going to save these babies! The crumb of the baked product was tight and dense. Although not unpleasant to eat, I can't say it made me sing or cry out with joy.

All in all, I truly enjoyed this challenge. Furthermore, it has reinforced my belief that we all learn from mistakes and I have learnt mine: patience is required when baking the perfect bread.

Lemon-raspberry roulade and Coffee cream puffs

Yes, finally a post for the month of February and I do apologise for going all quiet. The thing is, I am on vacation. That's right, 1000s of miles away from work and soaking in the company of the people I love most and for the past fortnight, I have been caught in the usual flurry of activity surrounding Chinese New Year festivities and playing host-n-guide to a mate of mine visiting from Australia.

Anyway, I have been meaning to show off this lemon-raspberry and mascarpone roulade made to christen a very good swiss roll tin by baker's secret I scooped up at a bargain price. Incidentally, it is my first EVER sweet roulade! The dessert was inspired by the 2 classic flavours of summer - refreshing citrus and berry. I chose mascarpone to cream because I love the slight subtle yoghurt-like tang of the cheese. Also, I find it is less cloying.

For the sponge, I followed the recipe card so generously provided by the tray's manufacturer and I apologise for not including it here because well, I simply forgot to write it down before I tossed the card in the bin. Still, it isn't difficult sourcing a basic sponge cake recipe from the web which you can use as your very own blank canvas. Here, I spread lemon curd on the sponge base before smoothing on a layer of sweetened mascarpone marbled with crushed raspberries.

I found it hard to refrain from sneaking a peek or two while it was in the refrigerator - just like a proud mother watching her new born baby rest in the nursery. Ah yes, this is my Baby - even if for one day. Eventually, the mascarpone firmed up enough for me to slice the cake and to say those whom I served it to were rapturous would be just a blatant lie. They were underwhelmed by it, "The flavours are great but the sponge is just too dry".

To me, it is my baby and it is just PERFECT.

I hadn't the faintest idea how much mascarpone was required for the roulade so I played it safe and purchased 2 tubs, an equivalent of 500g. Needless to say, I used less than half the amount I had and was left pondering what to do with the rest. I entertained the thought of a tiramisu for a while but didn't have all the necessary ingredients so I made some coffee cream puffs with orange dark chocolate drizzle instead.

Simple yet elegant.

The coffee cream is made by sweetening mascarpone with some icing sugar (I always use a 1:10 ratio of sugar to cheese/cream), then adding a tablespoon of coffee/hazelnut liquer and a teaspoon of ground coffee (I find it best to use a wooden spoon when working with mascarpone as over-mixing can result in a curdled mess). Pipe into cooled choux puffs and drizzle with melted chocolate.

Take a step back, lick fingers and take delight in these sweet adorable specimens.

Too easy!