Strawberry and black pepper meringues

It was a good long weekend this one. I've baked some amazeballs eclairs for one of my friend's birthdays and celebrated her with rose wine as well! What's not to like?

It was a sunny Sunday as well, which meant going to the park and also ordering our Christmas tree. I can honestly say this is one of the best trees I've ever had! Can't wait for Sunday to dress it all up with our friends.

I say it was sunny, but boy was it cold, so we rushed home from the park to bake these beauties. They are beauties: meringues flavoured with strawberries and black pepper. 

Ingredients (made around 60 one bite kisses):

175gr egg whites

350gr sugar

2 tbsp freeze dried strawberry

1/4tsp freshly ground pepper

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 200C. 

Place sugar in an oven proof dish that you have previously lined with parchment paper and put the sugar in the oven for around 10 minutes. This is a tip I got from the Meringue Girls book, as well as the flavour idea :). Heating up the sugar apparently makes the mixture more stable ;). It does work!

While the sugar is in the oven start mixing your egg whites at a medium speed until you get soft peaks.

Remove the sugar from the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 100C.

Start adding your hot sugar one tablespoon at the time and increase the speed of your mixer to medium high. Unfortunatelt it will be quite difficult to do this without a mixer, but hey if you feel adventurous go for it! It is definitely a good workout!

When the mixture is glossy and starts to form hard peaks add your dried flavouring ingredients: the freeze dried strawberry powder and the pepper.

Continue beating until all the sugar is added and then beat some more, for about 5-8 minutes on a high speed until you all the sugar is dissolved (you shouldn't feel a lot of sugar if you rub a bit of the mixture between your fingers).

While the mixer is doing its job, line two baking trays with parchment paper and prepare your piping bag.

Transfer the mixture to your piping bag and pipe the meringues on the tray. Play with it, I honestly still can't pipe them all completely uniform, but hey that's the charm of home made meringues isn't it?

Bake the meringues at 100C for about 3 hours and then turn the oven off and leave them inside even over night to dry them up further. I have removed mine as I still like a bit of a gooey centre.

That's it! Now you are ready to stuff your face and trust me you soooooo will!

xoxo bread addicts!

Obsessing over baguettes

I really don't have much time today, guys! It's crazy crazy town here. You won't believe it, but it's been so crazy that I didn't even have time to bake some proper bread lately.

I have baked some raisin cookies though and will surely tell you all about them soon, as they are scrumptiously good and remind me so much of my childhood and grandpa and great grandma.

Today it's just a photo day, photos of my first try at baking Tartine style baguettes. 

As you can see the scoring is not there yet and the crumb needs to open up more, but I am working on it!

I will share the recipe for these beauties with you soon! I promise!

xoxo bread addicts!

Friday morning finds: ceramics, cards and a lovely watch

It's a gloomy, grey day in London today, so I though I'll share some finds that I am completely in love with.

    1. Oh My Home       2. The Horse Watch     3. RowensCo

I am off, have lots to plan for an incoming project. Will fill you in soon! Wish me luck!

xoxo bread addicts!

Happy Monday meringues

Today it's a big day for me. Today Romania's new President was announced and I am really pleased that it is the guy I voted for. I am not going to go into the politics discussion, I am just happy that after all the trouble lots of people have gone through, waiting for hours in front of embassies and consulates all over the world, we managed to make a difference.

Here is to all of us Romanians! Let's hope he will be all the things we expect him to be. To celebrate this joyful day, I thought I'll make some meringues and share the beautiful pictures with you! Smile it's sugary Monday!

I promise I will give you guys the recipe soon, but today I just wanted to make it about celebratory colours!

xoxo bread addicts!

Eclairs, éclairs, éclairs

I haven't got much time today, but just wanted to share with you my latest éclair adventure.

I've baked these for a BBQ this weekend and they were a massive success! So pleased!

Here they are:

1. Valrhona chocolate and coffee ganache with a coffee and chocolate glaze

2. Passionfruit caramel with cinnamon mascarpone cream and pieces of apple.

Aren't they lovely? Will give it a go at sharing the glaze and ganache recipes with you soon, I promise!

xoxo bread addicts!

Old school steam fun fair

It's a regular grey autumn day in London today, even though it has started with a lovely coloured sky covered in traitorous moving clouds, so I thought I'll share some happy images with you guys, from a day out we have spent earlier this summer at an old school steam fun fair. Yes, it was summer, just ignore the grey clouds. It was summer and all the rides were shiny, the cotton candy was pink and extra sweet and we loved it.

I don't know about you, but I simply love that all school mechanical music that follows you from ride to ride, even though it doesn't really remind me of my childhood. I suppose it's not the fact that I have spent my childhood in a communist country that didn't think much about entertaining the young generation, but the fact that I am too young to have been to a steam fun fair anyway.

I was a bit disappointed when Fi point blank refused to go on the carousel and I soooo wanted a ride on the horses... Next time I'll just brave all the looks and just do the ride alone ;).

I am out now guys, tomorrow we have a big bbq with friends and then fireworks, so really need to prepare!

xoxo bread addicts!

A new passion/obsession is taking shape: éclairs!

I've already mentioned my love and obsession for bread baking, right? Yes, sure I have! What I haven't said, yet, is that it is not my only love.

A few months back I went to visit a friend of mine in Paris! It was all about food and rose wine and pastry. I've been to Paris many times, but it was this time that I have re-discovered éclairs! The proper ones, the modern ones, not the cream filled, chocolate topped ones that, frankly, bore me to death. I've discovered Christophe Adam's Eclair de Genie and now I am absolutely hooked!

Needless to say, I am not hooked on simply eating them, I went on a quest to learn how to bake them. And I am really not one to be happy with half measures! Oh, NO!

My éclairs need to be perfectly shaped, with a crunchy crust, puffed up and hollow on the inside, so that I can fill them with lots and lots of tasty stuff. Yes, stuff! I am not yet at the filling stage, will get there and I'll let you know.

For now this is the story of my éclair shells and choux pastry.

I need to tell you from the beginning that it took around 7 tries to get to the results you can see in the images and I haven't baked them again after that (this was a week ago), so not really sure I will manage to get the same results again. Fingers crossed though! I will weep for weeks if not and trust me that is not a good sight.

Let's talk choux pastry now:

Ingredients:

80gr milk

80gr water

2gr salt

4gr sugar

80gr unsalted butter

80gr sifted French type 55 flour

140gr eggs

10gr eggs for the egg wash

Method:

I thought choux pastry is easy, peasy! Well I was wrong! It is not, but it's not impossible either!

Here is how I've done it:

1. Heat the milk, water, salt, sugar and butter in a pan until the butter is melted, then turn the heat up and let the mixture come to the boil.

2. Remove the mixture from the heat and add the flour all in one go! Mix until you get an even mixture.

3. Return the dough to the heat and cook until it is quite dry! This is really important for the end result! I have read lots of recipes, methods, watched lots of videos and everyone says: dry your dough, otherwise your éclairs will not puff up as expected. I try cooking the dough until a film develops on the bottom of my pan.

4. Remove the dough from heat and leave it to cool for about 5 minutes. In the mean time beat and measure your eggs.

5. Beat in the eggs in three turns, making sure each turn you incorporate all the egg. After all the egg mixture has been added, beat for another 3 minutes, until the pastry is shiny and smooth.

Pre-heat your oven to 200C for about 20 minutes so that it is evenly heated.

Line a baking tray/sheet with parchment paper and  pipe your eclairs on it. Just to make it clear I am no piping master... I use a star shaped nozzle around 1.5cm in diametre and a piping bag. The only thing I have noticed and think works is not to force the pastry out of the bag onto the paper, but kind of let it flow it out by gently squeezing the bag, if that makes any sense! 

I pipe eclairs a bit shorter than norm probably around 9 cm in length.
Egg wash your éclairs, trying not to drop too much egg in the tray as this might result in the egg actually cooking and preventing your shells to rise, by sticking them to the tray.

Now for the bake: transfer the éclairs to the oven and turn down the heat to 190C. I can only bake one tray at the time - as I have noticed that my oven simply can't bake both sets the same.

Bake for 6-8 minutes at 190C (6 does it for me, otherwise they crack), then turn the heat down to 160C and bake for another 40 minutes. This will ensure your éclairs will have a great colour and shine and they will be dry and hollow.

You are ready for the filling! Unfortunately I haven't got a recipe for a great filling and glaze just yet, but working on it and promise I will be back to tell you all about it.

The ones in the images were filled with cream and a dash of lemon curd and glazed with dark chocolate sprinkled with lime zest shavings.

Make sure to serve and eat your éclairs the same day you have prepared them, that way you will get the full WOW!

I must admit I scoff them anyway, even the next day after spending the night in the fridge, when the crunch is gone and the glaze has lost its shine. But that's just me!

xoxo bread addicts!