There was a time in my life when laminating meant sandwiching a very important piece of paper between two sheets of plastic and heat sealing them together. This often took place in a library and would result in every unsuspecting piece of paper receiving a glossy plastic shell. I blame the weird melting plastic fumes. Thankfully my life has brought me to a place where lamination means butter, flour and in very lucky cases sugar. Kouign amann has all the elements of delicious lamination and I think it would taste even better if eaten in a library, just enjoy it away from the laminator fumes.
Tag: dessert
Pear Pie
You may find yourself asking what happens when you wrap a shoelace around a pear and put it in the oven. Or, if you’re a true baker, what happens when that shoelace is made out of flour and butter and the pear is covered in festive goo? Well, don’t despair I too was plagued with that age-old question and one Sunday afternoon I took it upon myself to find out.
Hazelnut Dacquoise
Phew, I am exhausted! Seriously so tired. I know everyone with real reasons to be tired like: work, children or doing something useful with their time may want to punch me in the face but this bake was intense. I still don’t think I’ve recovered. This probably doesn’t bode well for me as a parent but this sugar baby kicked my butt. I’m too tired to keep complaining and there is so much to discuss. Like how blanched hazelnuts are always worth the investment.
Religieuse
The internet is a magical and enlightening place. In preparation for the post I, as usual, had to remember how to spell things, mainly the name of this bake so I googled “religious choux pastry”. Thankfully google knew exactly what I was getting at and populated the page with several recipes for Religieuse along with the ubiquitous Wikipedia entry. I take everything Wikipedia says as gospel (which I know is highly recommended) so I clicked on the entry to find out what I was about to bake. Along with a description of the components, I learned that the shape of the pastry is meant to represent a papal mitre (some hat thing…sorry Catholic people I don’t know what I’m talking about) NOT a fat snowman shaped Nun! This was very welcome news since I had decided that the pastry was borderline body shaming Nuns. So there you have it! The truth behind Religieuse. I should point out that the rest of the world hasn’t been reading Wikipedia as most other recipes start out by saying things like “representing a well-padded Nun” but that is neither here nor there.
A Good Bake 