Les Gâteaux du Pâtissier

Hi everyone!

I'm still on a high from World Ballet Day this week! Definitely one of my favourite 'World' days. Every chance I had on Tuesday was spent watching live streamed classes and rehearsals from ballet companies around the world. All that furious dancing certainly does give you an apetite for something tasty (even if I wasn't technically the one dancing!!).

With that in mind I want to introduce to you this lovely book, 'Les Gâteaux du Pâtissier' by 750g: No 1 de la recette. I was given this book as a Christmas present last year by my almost Mother-in-Law and I'm ashamed to say that this is the first time I've actually used it! Not through lack of interest but more because it's such a lovely book that I wanted to give it the attention it deserved! Well, what better way to do it than by dedicating a series of blog posts to it!?

The really great thing about this book is that it's not just a recipe book, it teaches you the techniques for making each recipe!! As it says on the cover, there are 10 lessons for 100 successful recipes!

The lessons are:

1. Les Bûches et les Roules

2. Les Choux

3. La Pâte Feuilletée

4. Les Macarons

5. La Pâte Sablée

6. La Nappage au Chocolat

7. La Meringue

8. Les Babas

9. Les Flans

10. La Génoise et La Crème au Beurre

While some of the lessons - Macarons and Meringue - I'm well used to at this stage, there are some that I've never tried like la Pâte Feuilletée, les Babas, les Flans et la Génoise et la Crème au Beurre. All in all I'd say I have plenty to learn and sure you're more than welcome to come along on the journey with me!

I know technically I should probably be going through them in chronological order but I'm a Maverick so I'm going to shake things up a bit by starting with 'Leçon 8: Les Babas'.

A favourite of my fiancé, it's light and airy and very boozy and can be topped with all sorts of creams and custards and yummy things. I had my first Rum Baba on holidays in Provence, France, this summer and although I was nearly drunk after one bite I absolutely loved it and have promised (in my Baba drunken state!) to make them for Christmas desert this year! Lots of practice needed I think! There are some high expectations with this one!!!!!

The recipe I decided to try this time was 'Babas au Rhum et au Chocolat'.

One thing I really liked about making these Baba's was it's similarity to making bread. It includes yeast, which can vary between bakers yeast, brewer's yeast or baking powder and has to be left to rise several times throughout the preparation. The majority of the recipes in the book use brewer's yeast but the Babas au Rhum et au Chocolat require bakers yeast...handy because I have no idea where I would find brewer's yeast!! If anyone out there knows, please let me know, I'm dying to try it out and see what the difference is...apparently it has a lot of health benefits! (probably not when combined with eggs, flour, butter and rum!! Still, I'm sure I can still feel a bit smug about it!)

Ok, down to the nitty gritty! The Baba comprises of; La Pâte à Savarin (the dough), La Crème au Chocolat (a cream with the consistency of custard) et Le Sirop De Trempage (Syrup for soaking the Baba's in - the rummy part!!)

La Pâte à Savarin

To make the dough, first create a levain by mixing 100ml warm milk with your yeast and 100g plain flour, cover and let it rise for about 30 mins. The recipe asked for 12g yeast, which I assumed was fresh yeast. I find it really hard to get fresh yeast unless you go to a proper bakery, which I didn't have time to do for these so I used a sachet of dried yeast. They usually come in 7g packets which was perfect as dried yeast is much stronger than fresh yeast so you are usually supposed to half the amount in the recipe if using it.

After 30 mins your levain should have risen noticeably. Separately mix together the remaining flour, sugar and salt in a stand mixer with the flat beater attachment. When it's well mixed, add the levain and beat together on a medium speed. Without stopping the beater, add three eggs, one at a time and then add 60g cubed butter (I used unsalted as the recipe includes a pinch of salt separately). It then says to knead for about 3 mins. It's a really soft dough so I assumed it meant in the machine, so I just let the machine run for a further 3 minutes until it looked silky smooth. After 3 mins kneading, take the bowl off the machine, cover with a towel and again, let it rise for 30 mins at room temperature.

After the 30 mins, the dough should have again risen noticeably (I wouldn't say doubled but it looked fairly risen, light and airy). Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees celsius and prepare your baking tin with butter. I found a great baking tray in TKMaxx. It had 12 muffin moulds in it with a sticky-up bit in the middle of each to create the hole in the middle. The recipe says that the mixture should make 6 Baba's but mine made exactly 12.

Put your dough into a piping bag and pipe into each mould. Cover with a towel and leave it for its final 30 minute rise. This is what mine looked like after 30 minutes.

I was possibly a bit eager with the amount of dough I put in each mould. As you can see most of them have closed up a fair bit and after they baked in the oven for 25 mins, they were completely closed over.

To be honest, although that may not have been supposed to happen, I'm not sure that was such a bad thing as they ended up like little bowls to hold the Crème au Chocolat in! When baked, remove the Baba's from their tins straight away and let cool on a wire rack for at least an hour. Plenty of time for making the chocolate filling and soaking syrup!

La Crème au Chocolat

To make the chocolate cream you will need 400ml milk, 60g sugar, 20g cornflour and 40g cacao/cocoa powder. Mix the Cornflour, cacao powder and the sugar in a saucepan. Add the milk and whisk until fully combined.

Bring to a medium boil and whisk constantly. Once it has thickened, remove from the heat and pour through a sieve into a bowl. place some clingfilm directly on top of the chocolate cream and set aside to cool completely.

Le Sirop de Trempage

Finally, for the syrup grate the zest of 1/2 an orange and 1/2 a lemon and juice 2 oranges. Pour the juice in a saucepan, add 500ml water, 300g sugar and the orange and lemon zest. Place over a medium heat and heat through.

Take off the heat and add 3 soup spoons of Rum. Leave it to cool for 30 minutes and then pour over the cooled Baba's. Let them soak in the syrup for about an hour, turning them over half way through to make sure they are evenly soaked.

Putting it all together

When you're ready to serve, place the Baba's into individual bowls or plates and pour over the remaining syrup. Put the chocolate cream in a piping bag - should have a thick custard like consistency - and pipe into the holes in the middle of the Baba's. You could also sprinkle over a little more orange/lemon zest to serve.

I was so happy with the results of these Baba's!!! They were really light and soft with a nice hint of the rum coming through and the chocolate cream was lovely with it. They got the thumbs up from both French and Irish at the table... although the French side would have liked a bit more rum!

I'll know for next time!! Feeling pretty good about my Christmas desert now and looking forward to trying out the other flavours and hopefully getting my hands on some brewer's yeast!!

See you next time, hopefully not too long, for another lesson from Les Gâteaux du Pâtissier.

BON APPETIT !!!