Author: Fabi

Last weekend, we were busy having a sourdough bread making class! I organised a cooking class, I had nine students all eager to make their sourdough loaf.  To ensure we were not spending the whole day at it, I  had prepared “ready to bake” loaves and some dough which had reached the shaping stage to be able to teach those later stages of the process which they eventually did at home later or the next day.

It was a successful day.  Everybody got to do each phase of the process and go home with a loaf to bake and sometimes a baked loaf too, plus a sourdough starter in a jar.  Many thanks to my students for making this first class so easy (and for bringing a couple of nice bottles of wine).

Sourdough bread making is easier than it seems and the process is very forgiving.  If you need some advise, send me an email.  I have been doing my bread this way for 15 months now starting by doing my own culture.  I used a couple text book to get started and some You-tube video, especially for shaping, and this was it.  I am not saying that there was no disasters in the beginning (and still from time to times now when I push the boundaries), however generally it is bakery quality bread at home.

It is summer and cooking a big piece of meat does not have to mean having a heavy diner.  Look at what I cooked this week, it was a light lamb roast and the surrounding dishes made it a treat! Excellent!

We had it for dinner, it would also be great for a lunch.  The dish was put together quite at the last minute, I had these beetroot in the fridge I wanted to do something with and an open cucumber given by a friend the same morning (from his garden!).

The piece of lamb is prepared very simply, it is covered in olive oil, salt and pepper and rosemary for a few hours before cooking.   The roasted lamb is served with a beetroot puree, cucumber salad, butter french beans just cooked to tender, yogurt seasoned with chive herb,salt and pepper and couscous semolina.

And a dessert test was a chocolate tart found .  Most of the chocolate tarts in Australia are “uncooked”, by this I mean the filling is a ganache.  I find them better the next day, it still went down , the recipe was from Drizzle and Dips by Sam Linsell.  I would advise a 2-3 mm crust.

Early January (the 6th to be exact) is the celebration of the Epiphany.  In the Christian tradition, the epiphany represent the visit of the three kings to baby Jesus and the presentation of gifts.  In France, this is a very social occasion and celebrated by all with a spacial cake called “la Galette des Rois”.

The galette contains a small piece of ceramics, if you end up with it in your piece, you become the king or queen and get to wear a crown! Then you may choose a queen or king and even a buffoon.  To avoid cheating when distributing cake slices, the younger person (often a child) gets under the table and cites people at random as someone serves the cake.

The cake is made of puff pastry and fragipane custard cream.  In France, you will find many at bakeries and in supermarkets that week, but in Australia, this is much harder to find.  Below is the recipe.

Galette des rois – Kings’ Galette

Ingredients

The filling cream consist of a small custard mixed with a small frangipane cream.

• 2 sheets of puff pastries. Mine came as frozen squares, but the cake is more often of round shape
• 1  ceramic piece (they come in all shapes) or a small coin (washed) or small shell (washed), this piece is called the “fève” in French.
• frangipane cream: 125 g of almond meal, 100 g of softened butter, 80 g of caster sugar, 2 tablespoon of rum (optional)
• Creme patissiere: 1 egg yolk, 1 tablespoon of cornflour, 1 tablespoon of caster sugar, 10 cl of milk, a few drops of good quality vanilla essence
• 1 egg yolk dissolved with 2 tablespoons of water to seal the cake and glaze

Preparation – 20 min

Method

1. Preheat oven at 180 ºC
2. For the creme patissiere, mix the egg yolk, corn flour, vanilla, sugar  and milk together in a small saucepan. Heat up while mixing (with a whisk), as soon as the mix is about to boil remove from the heat and mix until thick and glossy. Add rum is desired. Cool down in a different recipient.
3. For the frangipane cream, work the butter until soft and smooth with a spatulla.  If your butter is hard (was in the fridge), you may use the microwave on very low heat setting (max 30%) for 20 sec bursts until just soft.  Add sugar and almond meal and mix well. Then mix with the creme patissiere and place in the fridge until needed for use.
4. On a baking tray, place a sheet of baking paper, place the first sheet of puff pastry on it. Using a pointy knife, score all around the edge first centimetre and brush with the egg yolk- water mix.
5. Add the frangipane custard that was in the fridge making sure not to cover the scored area.  This is where you must put the ceramic piece.  Now try not to put it where the knife will go through where cutting. For example, if cutting in triangular pieces, not in the middle; if cutting in squares (works only for the square shape cake and if you need to share it among quite a few people), try to place in a middle of a square.
   
6. Cover with the second sheet of puff pastry and seal by pinching the edges together.

1. Using your sharp knife, draw a floral pattern on top or even simpler geometric intersecting lines. Brush with the egg yolk and water mix.  Put in the oven and bake until the top is well golden. Remove and transfer to a cooling rack, then on a serving dish.