Pastry affair pages

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Pastry Affair

Pastry Affair | December 2017 INR 150


DARK CHOCOLATE BLUEBERRY MUFFINS Topped with whipped cream & frozen blueberries illed with maple syrup

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Pastrilicious Baking cookies in my mother’s kitchen (Danielle Tempesta) A brief guide to belgian waffles (Nana Van De Poel) Pastry Chef (Fabian Von Hauske) Fads aside, the perfect macaron is timeless (Sandra Denneler) Red Velvet Cake : A classic not a gimmick (Kim Severson) Emily Luchetti (Chef ’s Corner) The Secret of Great Bread (Mark Bittman) Mowie kay (Click cake) Cake Journal Patisserie Trivia

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Pastrilicious

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astry is flour mixed with shortening and flavoring ingredients to produce a coherent mass, used for pies and other dishes in North American, European, and Middle Eastern cuisines. Basic additions are fat, a little salt, and water. Pastry-making, pâtisserie in French, has developed as a special branch of cookery. Speciaized products of the pastry cook or pâtissier include delicate flour and sugar confections (cakes,cookies, waffles, meringues, frostings, glazes, and fillings) combined in small pastries for snacks, taken with tea or coffee orafter meals. By extension, the word pastry is sometimes used collectively to indicate sweet, flour-based items for dessert. The two main types of classification are: Non Laminated pastry, where solid fat is cut into the flour, or added as melted or liquid oil; or Laminated Pastry, where solid fat is repeated folded into the dough using a technique called lamination

SCRUMPTIOUS SWEET APPLE GALETTE

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BROWNIE STUFFED CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

Baking cookies in my mother’s kitchen by DANIELLA TEMPESTA

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keep a photo on my nightstand of my mom and me making handmade biscotti when I was little. I’m wearing an oversize apron, my cheeks as voluminous as her ’80s-style hot-rollered hair. The photo is a reminder of a joyful time when I still liked making cookies and I still had my mom. In my family, cookies were much more than just a treat. In 1983, when I was 3, my mother, Bonnie, and her mother founded the wholesale biscotti bakery La Tempesta, helping to introduce the Italian cookies to the US.

A single mom, she started baking a family recipe at home and selling it to local cafes, eventually producing over 300,000 biscotti a day for customers all over the country. I took my role as the daughter of the “Queen of Biscotti” very seriously. After-school playtime was spent pretending to answer phones and filling out purchase orders with crayons. But by the time I was filling out college applications, Mom was gearing up to pass on her crown and sell La Tempesta. I went off to college and biscotti and I went our separate Pastry Affair | Page 4

ways. Eventually Mom missed being in the kitchen and decided to reclaim her “throne,” launching Boncora Biscotti — a play on “Bonnie” and “ancora,” which means encore in Italian. At my wedding reception in 2014, Mom lined the tables with hand-decorated packages of her biscotti. She sparkled that day as we all danced, drank wine and sang at the top of our lungs.


BLUEBERRY LEMON BELGIAN WAFFLES

A brief guide to the belgian waffles by NANA VAN DE POEL

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here might not be many things the general world population knows about tiny Belgium, but its famed waffles have made it across oceans and continents. First off, it’s good to know that you’re never simply eating a ‘Belgian waffle.’ You’re either munching on a square Brussels waffle – this is usually the one being served abroad with all kinds of sweet toppings for a sturdy breakfast – or a Liège waffle, its oval-shaped cousin. While the Brussels waffle is completely rectangular with

perfectly shaped square holes and an airy batter, its Liège counterpart would be the more rebellious, alluring one of the two. Made with brioche dough and with caramelized sugar chunks inside, its gooey richness makes it so any other toppings such as powdered sugar or whipped cream become completely redundant. Belgium truly became the place of a blooming waffle industry in the early 19th century, with many Brussels families adding on a booth to their house or opening up a salon at the coast The most Pastry Affair | Page 5

renowned baker families added yeast to their batter – we’re in beer country after all – and slowly, Belgium’s reputation as a home to waffle craft masters spread throughout the neighboring countries of France, Germany, and the Netherlands. The booth ‘Bel-gem,’ run by Belgian Maurice Vermeersch, served as many as 2,500 waffles a day topped with strawberries and whipped cream.


DARK CHOCOLATE LEIGE WAFFLES

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MULTI-COLOURED CREAM FILLED MACARONS

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It takes a calculating mind to be a Pastry Chef by FABIAN VON HAUSKE

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, myself, don’t like eating desserts. I hate tasting sweet things. But as a pastry chef, I like thinking about how to make a dessert. Most of my inspiration comes from colors and shapes, and then things evolve from there. Before I wanted to be a cook, I wanted to be a graphic designer. I needed money to go to college and tried to go to school for graphic design, but that didn’t really happen. What did take place, though, is the lens in which I look at things creatively. If I see blueberries, I start to lean towards colors that go with them. Purple throws my mind to brown or white tones; we recently created a blueberry and potato dessert at our restaurant, Contra, that stemmed from this very thought. When I told my father that I wanted to be a graphic designer, it didn’t sit well, far less than when I told him I wanted to cook for a living. I got a job at a French restaurant while I figured out if college was the right avenue for me, and I thought cooking was easy. When I began working with pastry chef Johnny Iuzzini at Jean-Georges, I quickly realized that this could be more than just an easy job. In my opinion, there is sometimes the misconception that pastry is specifically designated to female chefs. Most pastry chefs tend to posses an incredibly organized and precise temperament. We’re much less about being spontaneous in our cooking, because pastry has to be exact. It’s science.

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PINK CHAMPAGNE RASPBERRY MACAROONS

Fads aside, the perfect macaron is timeless by SANDRA DENNELER

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ancy, France — In the back of a pastry shop in this city in eastern France is a small kitchen that holds a secret. It is here that Nicolas Génot comes early every morning, shuts the sliding door tight behind him and transforms ground almonds, egg whites and sugar into cookies called macarons. He works alone. Not even his wife is allowed in. This macaron — round, unadorned, with rough fissures in its crisp golden crust — is made from a centuries-old recipe. In 1792, two Benedictine nuns, driven

from their convent after France’s postrevolutionary government banned religious orders, took refuge with a local doctor and made a living making macarons. Their recipe has been passed down in secret ever since. These are the rustic original macarons that begot the smoothtopped, puffed up, ganache-filled, pastel food-colored sandwich confections we know. But while the Nancy macarons are timeless, their trendy present-day cousins are going through strange times. What was once the most exquisite Pastry Affair | Page 9

of small pleasures, the most elegant hostess gift you could buy, is everywhere today, as ordinary as Oreos. Some are good, some not so good. Some have ketchup in the middle. Some are from McDonald’s. Never mind that sandwich macarons didn’t exist in prerevolutionary France. By 2007, McDonald’s had introduced six flavors of macarons in their McCafés.


SPONGY BLOODY RED VELVET CAKE

Red Velvet Cake : A classic, not a gimmick

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n the pantheon of food-related shark jumps, red velvet cake body mist may well be the greatest leap of all. Red velvet cake, once a reasonably tender, softly flavored culinary gimmick, has become a national commercial obsession, its cocoa undertones and cream-cheese tang recreated in chemical flavor laboratories and infused into all manner of places cake should not exist. One can buy a red velvet scented candle, red velvet protein powder, red velvet air fresheners and red velvet vodka.Even in the world of

by KIM SEVERSON actual food, red velvet has taken over like so much kudzu. How red velvet cake got its sleeve caught in the American food merchandising machine and ended up as a scent for bath salts is a cautionary tale for any food that starts out with the best of intentions. The red velvet cake, with its artificial coloring and benign cocoa sweetness has always been about commercialization. But it has honest roots.Velvet cakes, without the coloring, are older than Fannie Farmer. Cooks in the 1800s used almond flour, cocoa or cornstarch Pastry Affair | Page 10

to soften the protein in flour and make finer-textured cakes that were then, with a Victorian flair, named velvet. All of this led to the mahogany cake, with its mix of buttermilk, vinegar, cocoa powder and coffee, and its cousin, the devil’s food cake. Chemists, bakers and historians still debate whether the dance between cocoa and acid gave devil’s food cakes.


EmillyLuchetti

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mily Luchetti has helped to define what great pastry in America means. After attending culinary school and working within New York restaurants and Jeremiah Tower’s legendary Stars in San Francisco, Emily switched to the sweet side of the kitchen and didn’t look back. She was the pastry chef at Stars for eight years and also co-owned the retail bakery StarBake. Emily’s pastry style is focused – she creates simple, elegant desserts that are full of flavor. “My goal in

creating desserts is to make them fun, straightforward and flavorful – desserts designed to please, delight and just make life rosier,” she said. Emily is passionate about teaching and mentoring chefs and restaurateurs, serving as a Dean at The International Culinary Center in New York and California. She is the founder of dessertworthy a movement to empower people to be more mindful of their sugar and fat indulgences. Pastry chef Emily Luchetti created the Dessertworthy movement Pastry Affair | Page 11

in 2014 to empower individuals to make healthier choices about dessert. It’s not about eliminating sugar and fat – it’s about prioritizing when we indulge in delicious desserts. By working with chefs, food companies, schools, youth organizations, and nutrition advocacy groups, Emily hopes to inspire families and individuals to make indulgent dessert choices from an informed and empowered perspective and Return dessert to its original purpose, which is to be consumed as an occasional treat and not an everyday indulgence.


HARVEST SUNDAE

Chef's Corner

Emily’s Special Thanksgiving Dessert Spread A perfect blend of apples, cherries & honey, a healthy treat for the family.

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The Secret of Great Bread: Let Time Do the Work

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by MARK BITTMAN

nnovations in bread baking are rare. In fact, the 6,000-year-old process hasn’t changed much since Pasteur made the commercial production of standardized yeast possible in 1859. The introduction of the gas stove, the electric mixer and the food processor made the process easier, faster and more reliable. This story began in late September when Mr. Lahey sent an e-mail message inviting me to attend a session of a class he was giving at Sullivan Street Bakery. Mr. Lahey’s method is striking on several levels. It requires no kneading. It uses no special ingredients, equipment or techniques. It takes very little effort. What makes Mr. Lahey’s process revolutionary is the resulting combination of great crumb, lightness, incredible flavor — long fermentation gives you that — and an enviable, crackling crust, the feature of bread that most frequently separates the amateurs from the pros. My bread has often had thick, hard crusts, not at all bad, but not the kind that shatter when you bite into them. Producing those has been a bane of the amateur for years, because it requires getting moisture onto the bread as the crust develops. It turns out there’s no need for any of this. Mr. Lahey solves the problem by putting the dough in a preheated covered pot — a common one, a heavy one, but nothing fancy. The entire process is incredibly simple, and, in the three weeks I’ve been using it, absolutely reliable.

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Freshly baked layered tart cake clicked by Mowie Kay

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Mowie Kay “I love and play around with height, colour & depth of field.” How did you get into Food Photography?

How (and where) does your inspiration come from?

I’ve always been into photography and always adored the gorgeous photos in cookbooks, like Bill Granger or Donna Hay. I bought a camera about a year ago and started taking pictures of my meals and something just clicked into place, it all just felt right. So I kept taking pictures, and as my obsession is dessert.

I get inspired by a lot of things – great cookbooks, lovely blogs, good music. I usually get visions of the end product and I see exactly what I want to create in my mind, and that’s how it all starts.

What type of training do you have and how did you get it? I actually don’t have any professional training in anything I do on my blog: writing, photography or food styling. I’ve learned everything from scratch, either online, or from friends & family. My blog is driven by instinct. Instinct, focus & vision.

Congratulations on winning Good Looking Blog, tell us your secret on how to make a Food Blog Good Looking? Thank you so much – I can’t believe I won it! I can’t really say what makes a blog good looking, I can only share what I do on my blog: I keep things simple, I experiment with light (I really love backlit images), I love and play around with height, colour & depth of field. I love pink and tend to use that a lot. I also use a lot of flowers in my Pastry Affair | Page 15

posts and try to incorporate them with the food in one way or another. What would you advice to aspiring food photographers who are trying to learn this art? Don’t give up if you don’t like the first few pictures you take. Keep taking pictures. Experiment with lighting, backgrounds and height. Portrait works so much better than landscape when it comes to close ups. Keep turning the food, the plate, add things to it, take things away. Experiment with colour schemes, make sure colours go together. But most importantly- have fun, enjoy what you do, stay true to yourself, rely on your instincts and it will shine through in your photos.


NEW YORK CHEESECAKE

Cake Jounal Easy to make recipe for the busy yet creative bakers.

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Ingredients 1 stick of butter, melted 2 sleeves of graham cracker 1/3 cup sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt 3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened 1 pint sour cream, at room temperature 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 3 large eggs, 2 egg yolks, at room temperature 1/2 cup heavy cream 2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice 1 teaspoon of grated lemon

New York Cheesecake RECIPE Preheat your oven to 325° Grease your circular pan. Crust : pulverize your graham crackers, making them crumbs. Mix together the graham cracker crumbs, sugar, salt, and butter. Press the mixture into the bottom of the pan. Filling, beat your cream cheese and sour cream using a hand mixer. Add the rest of your ingredients. Scrape the sides of the bowl periodically. Spread the filling on to the crust. Bake for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Once cooked, put the pan into the freezer for 2-4 hours. Cut to serve.

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Patisserie Trivia The word pastry comes from a middle english word that means made of paste. Pastries were first brought to Europe during the Muslim invasion. December 9th is celebrated worldwide as National Pastry Day. The most important tool of any pastry chef are his or her hands. Bakers and pastry chefs often work long schedules and early mornings, late nights, and holidays. The largest pastry in the world was measured 16.25 feet long and 7.87 feet wide and weighed 660 pounds. The largest serving of pastries’ record was achieved during an event in Budapest, Hungary, where, over 10,000 pastries were served.

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Pastry is different from cooking because you have to understand the chemistry.. Pastry Affairs | December 2017


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