I read an article on procrastination today. I then realized that it's been over a year since my first and only post. Over a years worth of food and photos have been sitting in my album while I sat watching the next movie in my Netflix queue. It's not spring, but I'm feeling the need to purge nonetheless. So here goes my comeback, and hopes of a sweeter start.
If I were religious, I'd say frozen puff pastry is a god send. It can make Buzza and his Frenchman think you slaved 18 hours in the kitchen, folding and proofing, when it only took 2 hours to defrost. It will turn your vanilla cupcake making kitchen to a butter basking boulangerie in a matter of minutes.
This is a recipe I adapted from Wee Love Baking.
Ingredients:
- 1 package of Dufour frozen puff pastry dough (It will cost you $10.99 at Wholefoods. I hear there are cheaper alternatives at Trader Joe's, but my local TJ doesn't carry any. This particular brand also takes 2 hrs to defrost in the fridge, I have seen others that defrost in 10 minutes flat, although Dufour does give a better rise.)
- a bit of milk of heavy cream for brushing the dough
- 3 large egg yolks and 1 whole eggs
- 1 1/4 cup extra fine sugar
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1 1/2 ts vanilla extract
Let me start out by saying that I much prefer Martha's recipe (hers has a lightness and creaminess without the cream that can't be beat) and if you have a vanilla bean on hand, use that. If you don't, don't sweat it. It didn't stop me from licking the pan clean from this recipe. Oink! Oink!
Pastry Cream
- Bring the heavy cream and vanilla to a light simmer in a small sauce pan.
- Place eggs and sugar in a larger pan and whisk until smooth.
- Pour 1/4 of the cream into the egg mixture and mix well to temper.
- In a steady stream, whisk the rest of the cream into your mixture.
- Return mixture to the stove and continue to whisk vigorously until it thickens like a custard.
- After it sputters for 2 minutes, remove from the stove and cool. You can either create an ice bath, which I think is too fussy. Or, you can dip the pan in a bowl of cool water to bring down the temperature, then stick it in the fridge while you make the puff pastry. Make sure you press plastic wrap directly on the pastry cream to prevent skin from forming.
Puff Pastry Flowers
You can start this while your pastry cream is cooling.
- After defrosting the package for 2 hrs in the fridge, roll it out on a lightly floured cutting board.
- Preheat oven to 375F.
- Take any cutting shape of your choice, just make sure you have two sizes that are about an inch apart. I chose flowers because that's all I had. I'm still working on building out my repetoire.
- Cut out as many large flowers as you can.
- Take half of the flowers and cut the smaller flower from them.
- Brush the full flowers with a bit of cream and layer on the cut flowers. This will create a hole for the pastry cream.
- Save the small flowers and bake those as well.
- Roll the rest of the scraps into a ball, wrap and freeze to use another time. I plan to make cheese sticks with my scraps.
- Bake for 15 minutes, until they are golden and puffed. Make sure that they don't deflate as you cool them. This means they have been undercooked and you'll need to return them to the oven for a few more minutes.
Assemble
- Fill the centers of the large flowers with pastry cream and top with the fruit of your choice. Whatever is in season usually works best. You don't even have to bother with glazing these babies, because they won't last more than 10 minutes.
- Take the smaller flowers, split them in half, top off with pastry cream and fruit for a bite sized treat.
I assemble four each day, two for breakfast and two for an after dinner treat. Buzza poured a bit of Jamaican rum on his and swore it tasted 1^438432982 times better. I'm a dessert purist, so I poured the rum into my mouth.
Bon appetit! Or, as Buzza would say, 'buon appetito!'
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