Your Culinary Fling

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 99, 29 April 1939, Page 4 (Supplement)

Your Culinary Fling

; By- ; A French Chef

La Cuisine

rREE basic recipes given in this article are varied types of French pastry. They are good old standard recipes that should be within your repertoire as a basis for your culinary fling. One is puff paste, another is brioche P®*te, and the third is cream puff paste. So before we get into any involved ideas on filling and frosting and decorations, let's get these three out of the way. Three things are necessary for the •ucceu of the first, the puff paste. Authorities may tiler on exact methods, but they all agree that the paste must be handled lightly, it must be thoroughly chilled, and it must be put into a. hot oven, the temperature of which is gradually diminished after the paste has men to it* fullest height and is beginning to brown. With these ironclad rules in mind, we are ready for the specific directions. Pwo Paste 1 cupful butter. 1 cupful lard. 2 cupful* pastry flour. 1 teaapoonful btklot powder. Rub the butter and lard into the flour and baking powder to a coarse, mealy texture with the tips of the fingers. Then cut in, with a knife, just enough ice water to bind the mixture together. Toss on to the rolling board and gather up with the hands into a soft ball. Roll this lightly away from you into a long, narrow atrip. Fold

: one end over, then bring the other end up over the first fold, making three layer* of paste. This is called giving it • "one turn." Press the outside edges of : the paste together to keep the air shut in between the folds. Now roll the i | folded strip out as before, and repeat 1 until the paste has had three turns, alway& rolling away from yon. Then ' cut the pastries in the desired shapes, ] place them on the baking sheet, and 1 chill in the refrigerator for at least an 1 hour before baking. i Brioche Pastry j 1 yeast calce. 1-3 cupful water. < 3 cupfuls floor. < i capful sugar. a i cupful butter. . 1 teaapoonful salt. 1 6 eggs. Dissolve the yeast cake in the water and make a sponge with a half cupful of the flour. Cover and place in a warm ] place until the sponge has doubled inside. Add to tse remaining flour the a butter, sugar, salt, and two unbeaten t eggs. Work this together, then gradually t incorporate the other three egg*, one at c a time, and. work the mixture with the o hands until it loses its sticky quality, r Then add the sponge to the dough a%i s beat it with the hand until thoroughly s<

mixed. Put this paste into a 'bowl, let it double again in size, then pummel it down and place it in the refrigerator over night. After taking it out it will be rather soft and must be handled quickly. Put it at once into buttered tins, let it rise again, and bake it in an oven of 500 degrees Fahrenheit. oii Cream Puffs To allow a little more room for some of the intriguing ways of using these pastes, let's take it for granted that you have a good cream puff recipe, or can get one without too much trouble, and go on to the more entertaining recipes. A word, first about the cream puffs, though. One trick way of serving them is to make them tiny, dropping them out with a pastry tube or by small spoonfuls, as you like, eo that three of the diminutive puffs will be joined together in the baking. These "cream puff triplets" then, have each compartment filled with a< different coloured cream filling, put in with a pastry tube and allowed to show their hues through a generous split in the puff. Baba Rams We all know how the French like these Baba Hums. Here's a good recipes— Bake brioche in tube-shaped pans about 2in high. While still hot immerse the pastries in a hot syrup made from two cupfuls of granulated sugar and one cupful of water cooked to the thickness of cream, and strongly flavoured with rum or brandy. Let them stand in the syrup an hour, or even longer, before serving.