Baba a l'orange - Or an easy, fancy-seeming French dessert

Last week I was watching a French competition show, "Who will be the next great pastry chef." I *love* it, it's a Top Chef kind of set up, with 15 or so people competing to be a master chef. I forget what the prize is, they don't repeat it ten trillion times. I happen to like the French version better because each episode is 2.5 hours, giving them time to really describe what's going on. They are also much less bitchy and dramatic, which is a nice change. With YouTube's 'watch later' function, I can easily pause when I have to do Real Things and then come back when I have time again.

The classic of this is Baba au rhum, which is a cake that is allowed to sponge up a rum and simple syrup mixture. And I didn't have any rum. I like it well enough, but apparently I am more likely to buy tequila and vodka. Luckily, I also had orange liqueur, purchased to go with that tequila in a delicious margarita. Ah, summer!

This is a good dessert to make because it's simple, yet impressive-sounding. Plus the alcohol is added to a syrup that the cake is soaked in once everything is a bit cool, leaving it very noticeable! You could also use maple syrup if you prefer, I just wouldn't use so much. Oooooh, or coffee! Or coffee with kahlua and Bailey's.... I may need to make this again next week.

It was very simple to make, but at stages it was very surprising, too. The 'dough' at one point looked like Gak - that stretchy putty/clay stuff they sold on Nickelodeon when I was a kid. But it turned out delicious, so do not worry! Check out the original in the book for how to make it in a stand mixer, I used a hand mixer and detail that below.

Baba à l'orange (based on Dorie Greenspan's "Paris Sweets" recipe)

Makes 12 mini cakes     Bake time: 30 minutes      Prep time: 30 minutes    Wait time:  30 minutes
Total time: 90 minutes or less

Dough:
1/3 cup water, room temperature
1 packet (2 1/4 teaspoons) yeast
3 tablespoons white sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs, room temperature
6 tablespoons unsalted butter

- Butter a 12-muffin muffin tin and set it aside. Melt butter and allow to cool while you do the next few steps.
- Stir water, yeast and sugar together in a deep bowl, that is unlikely to let things be 'thrown' by your mixer. (I ended up with dough all over!) Once the yeast is dissolved, add the flour and salt. Use the dough attachments to beat on medium low for two minutes, until the ingredients look like they are holding together more than falling apart. Mine varied in size from peas to tablespoons.
- Switch to the regular beater attachments. Add two eggs and beat on low for 3 minutes. Add the other two eggs and beat on low until they are incorporated, and turn up to medium for as long as you can. The dough was really climbing my beaters at this point, so even with pushing it down it only lasted about 1 1/2 minutes.
- Add the cooled butter and beat for as long as you can stand, up to five minutes. I probably lasted 1 minute here because the dough climbed the beaters almost into the motor!

This is when the dough was gak-like. The picture below is not an action shot, it really held together like that! It was hard to even separate some to put into the tin.

- Divide the gak 'batter' among the muffin tins, which will be 1/3-1/2 full. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 25-30 minutes.
- When almost risen, place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350ºF.
- Uncover the tin, and place in the oven. Prop the oven door open with a then wooden spatula or other heat-proof utensil. Bake for 23-28 minutes, or until golden brown. (Make the booze syrup while they bake!)
- When done, place tin on cooling rack. Let cool in tin for 5 minutes, then turn out to cool completely.

Syrup:
1 1/4 cup water
3/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup orange liqueur (Make sure you like the way it tastes! I used good stuff) (Of course, you could replace this with a lower amount of any flavoring you like.)

- Bring the water and sugar to a low boil in a saucepan. Pour the syrup into a deep bowl and allow to cool until just before you want to soak the cakes. The deep bowl is important to make soaking the cakes easier.
- Right before soaking, add the liqueur to the syrup and stir well.

To soak:
- Poke each cake 5-10 times with a toothpick, to help it absorb the syrup.
- Put each cake into the syrup and flip a few times, letting soak for about a minute each.
- Repeat with all of the cakes. If there is any syrup left, spoon it over the top of them!

Extra syrup spooned over the top, in a pan to help it all stay in

That's it! You can fill them with whipped cream if you like, but we enjoyed them as-is. Mr. More Calories was surprised at how different they are from things he's had before. I admit that they were time consuming, but very easy!

Ile Flottante - So delicious and potentially so light

One of the first "fancy" desserts that I was introduced to in France was the Ile Flottante or Floating Island. I had had many pastries before that, but it was when I went out to a restaurant somewhere and someone else was paying so I got a dessert (I was 18, that's how it was.) They are so fun looking, with the mountain of egg white on top of the sea of creme anglaise. How can you resist??

Ten years later and I still enjoy it. The egg whites let me pretend it has some redeeming nutritional value, and the caramel and cream are delicious and rich. I even got one on Friday when I had a lunch so big, all I wanted was salad and a thin soup for dinner. Would you like to see it? Let's go through the whole thing, shall we?

First, Foie Gras with Ris de Veau en Croute. (Foie Gras [goose liver paté] surrounded by veal sweet breads, all in a pastry crust.) On the side is some fig spread that made it awesome and a sneeze of salad.

Then Cod with a super tasty sauce and what I think is a beet chip. It was tasty. So was the fried onion. Like an onion ring without the breading. Oh, and the fish was quite nice, too.

I thought our wine glass line-up was pretty. Red, water, water, rosé.

And the sides, to be shared for the table. Fried slices of potato and a macaroni gratin (i.e. fancy french fries in a different shape and extra super fancy mac n cheese.)

And finally, our desserts. We shared 2 between four people. The star of the post is in the front.

Nice, eh? So, if you want to make your own, here is a fancy recipe in French: http://www.teva.fr/emission-le_gateau_de_mes_reves/news-le_gateau_de_mes_reves/487724-christophe_michalak_vous_revele_sa_recette_de_son_l_ile_flottante_revisitee.html

You could also try Barefoot Contessa's version, I trust her with desserts: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/ile-flottante-recipe/index.html

However, if you want to go the easy route (as I fully intend when I get home) then I would buy some tasty caramel topping and some good vanilla ice cream. I'll probably pick a lite one or a coconut-based one. The you'd make just the island, and melt the ice cream to be your "sea." If you are cautious about the egg whites, just buy the pasteurized stuff.

Time for dinner here, bon appetit!!

Tartelette au Crumble: The best of two cuisines

If you couldn't tell, I am now in France, enjoying all the progress that French gastronomy has made in however many thousand years. I am also in a city that claims to be the capital of gastronomy - not too bad! So I will share some things with you, even if I haven't tried them yet. I have discovered a brilliant little pastry shop and bakery just 2 blocks away from my house. French people eat dinner relatively late (7:30 is when my family eats, and they consider that quite early!) so I need a snack somewhere between my lunch at 12:30 and dinner time.

Today when I stopped in, there was a beautiful tartelette (small tart) au crumble. Yes, crumble is a totally English word. American even, I think. This one was made of "fruits rouges" or fruits of the forest. Here that means blueberries, red currant, blackberries, sometimes raspberries and black currant. A nice mix of flavors to make you want to savor every bite. The tart has a typical tart crust, then the fruit, with an American style crumble on top - you know, sugar, butter and flour. I was going to eat just half, so as to not spoil my dinner, but suddenly realized I was 2/3 of the way through it. Haha, just less for tomorrow!

Fruits of the forest Crumble Tart

I took this picture and then went searching for a good looking recipe and stumbled on one right away. And even more amazing? She posted it IN ENGLISH, too!! Check it out at her blog directly, since I haven't tried it myself yet: http://lespetitsplatsderoseinenglish.blogspot.fr/2012/08/red-fruits-crumble-tart.html?showComment=1370276817944#c1475283672595921731

You'll still need to convert measurements unless you are using a scale. Remember that the equivalent for dry ingredients is ingredient-specfic! Put a cup of powdered sugar in one bowl and a cup of butter in the other and you can feel the weight for yourself. I often use this site, but some ingredients need a bit more searching: http://www.traditionaloven.com/conversions_of_measures/flour_volume_weight.html

Saturday Splurge: Brown Sugar Meringue Tart

The book called this one "Caramel Meringue Tart" but it really doesn't taste that much like caramel to me. Absolutely amazingly delicious, yes, but not caramel. It reminded me a little of the brown sugar pie my mom used to make. You know, one of those things that is so rich that you can only eat a 16th of the pie at most (but I could eat a whole regular piece anyway.) This is a French recipe, and supposed to be in a tart pan, which means that it's much more shallow than an American pie. Which means that it's a more reasonable amount of delicious richness than a brown sugar pie. The fluffy cloud of meringue that sits on top also helps balance the filling.

I made this in my building, which is very much tart pan and pie pan-less. Instead, I took two large pieces of the industrial aluminum foil, measured 8.5 inches across the bottom (it asked for a 22cm tart pan) and turned up the edges. Worked pretty well! Of course everyone loved it and it was amazing and delicious. I had to whip the egg whites by hand, so the meringue isn't as shiny as it would have been with a mixer. It was good enough for me, though! You can start making the filling after the shell goes into the oven, and then the meringue shortly before the crust comes out (you don't want the meringue to sit or it will be harder to spread.) And so, without further ado, I present you...

Brown Sugar Meringue Tart
Serves: 10 Prep time: 2 hours ish (that includes chilling time)

For the crust:
2 cups flour
9 Tbs unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes
2 Tbs white sugar
1 egg yolk (reserve the white for meringue)
1 Tbs ice water

For the filling:
1 cup plus 1 Tbs brown sugar
1/3 cup flour
8.5 oz milk (1 cup plus 1 Tbs)
3 Tbs unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg yolk (reserve the white for meringue)

For the meringue:
2 egg whites
2 Tbs white sugar

To make the crust:
- Sift flour and then work in butter with fingers
- Add the egg yolk and water, knead in until a soft dough forms
- Roll into a ball, cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate 20 minutes
- When chilled, roll out between two pieces of plastic wrap into a circle about 12 inches in diameter
- Place in pie pan (or tart pan, if you have one!) and cut off any excess
- Prick in several places with a fork, cover in plastic wrap, and chill 20 minutes again. At this point, you should also start preheating the oven to 375.
- Line pie crust with tinfoil or parchment paper and fill with pie weights, rice, or dry beans.
- Bake 35 minutes, then remove from oven, remove weights and liner
- Leave on counter until filling is ready

For the filling:
- Put flour and brown sugar in a small sauce pan, making a well in the middle
- Add the milk a little at a time, stirring with a whisk until the mixture is smooth.
- Over medium low heat, add butter, stirring constantly for 8-10 minutes, or just until the mixture comes to a boil and thickens some
- Put egg yolk in a small bowl. Add about a cup of the hot mixture to the egg yolk, stirring constantly, then pour egg mixture into saucepan, stirring constantly.
- Remove from heat, add vanilla extract and mix until smooth (may not take long at all)
- Pour into baked shell and smooth out the surface.

For the meringue:
- Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form, adding the sugar a little at a time. The yolks should be shiny when finished
- Spread the meringue over the filling
- Bake 5-10 minutes or just until the meringue is golden brown on top
- Serve warm or cold