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  • Spring

    Man, what a word. Taut with anticipation. Action ready to happen. The first signs of new life. A time to begin again.

  • In Sight vs Insight

    Gain an understanding about what is within view. Work to improve what you have. Look at what is around and really find out how it works. Do more with less. What is a foundation? Load-bearing principle. Can and should foundations change? Don’t let thinking slow you down.

  • Caramelized Cream Croissants

    Cooking with cream is currently my thing. It’s been this way for a number of years. I could probably write a book on the idea. I certainly have a few chapters created by now. But the act of writing a book often finalizes an idea. I am currently enjoying the ongoing flow of thoughts on the simple idea.

    If you look back at our grated croissants, you’ll see we coated the croissants with a slurry of cream and sugar and then roasted them in the oven. I reapplied that idea to slices of our croissant loaves. I brushed the slices with our cream slurry and cooked the croissant slices in a non-stick pan, flipping occasionally to evenly cook the cream and allow the sugar to caramelize on the bread.

    (We used to do something similar with butter and sugar. The use of cream instead slows down the process and adds steam. The steam warms the croissant slices throughout and makes them warm and buttery.)

    When the croissant slices are caramelized, we transfer them to cooling racks to allow the sugar to harden into a thin glassy sheen. The caramelized croissant slices are delightful while still warm and still delicious when cooled down.

  • Cream Seared Filet

    Years ago, we popularized cream caramelized eggs and more while we tinkered with lots of other ideas, including cream cooking steaks. At the time, we did strip steaks. They were delicious. The other evening, we revisited the idea with filet. I seasoned the steaks with salt. I put a thick layer of cream in the bottom of a non-stick pan. I put the heat on high and brought the cream to a light simmer. I added the steaks to the pan and turned the heat down to medium. I flipped the steaks every thirty seconds or so. I swirled the steaks in the cream in the pan, watching the steaks cook and begin to slowly brown. The cream reduced, thickened, and coated the steaks. I continued to flip the meat, feeling it for texture. I brought out the old-school cake tester to check the temperature of the meat. When the cream finally evaporated, broke, and turned into fat and milk solids, I turned the heat down to medium-low. I continued to flip and swirl the steaks in the pan, watching them brown, coating them in the toasting milk solids, and gleefully watching them cook. When the steaks felt rare-ish (I used the cake tester and the finger push protocol to check the doneness), I turned off the heat and moved the steaks to a plate to rest for five minutes. We served the steaks and enjoyed another cream-cooked creation.

  • New-Don Revisited

    “We shall not cease from exploration
    And the end of all our exploring
    Will be to arrive where we started
    And know the place for the first time.”
    —T.S. Eliot

    So I went back to our New-don Noodles, where we were chasing the chew. The success of an idea is measured on whether it can be brought to life. I remade the recipe as it was written. The recipe worked. I had achieved the success I was looking for years ago, but it took trying again to realize the greatness of the work we had already put in.

  • Grated Croissants

    I wanted to be frugal and not waste unsold croissant bread. We started with caramelizing croissant croutons. We cut our croissant loaf into cubes and coated the pieces in a slurry of sugar and heavy cream. We put cream and sugar coated croutons onto a sheet pan and cooked them for about an hour until the croissants and sugar caramelized and formed an almost toffee exterior. We cooled the croutons down and snacked on them. They were delicious. But in their crouton form, they were only a dangerous snack. I looked at the croutons and saw an opportunity to turn them into crumbs for topping our doughnuts. We put them into a food processor and pulverized them into a coarse crumb. We used these on top of our Dough-knots, a new shape of doughnut using our meltaway dough. (Our meltaway dough is laminated in the style of a croissant, so the connection made sense.) The dough-knots with caramelized croissant crumbs were delicious and fun to create, sell, and indulge in.

    After looking at the crumbs in action, I had a further idea. I wanted to grate the croissants onto our croissants. We took the croissant crumbs and pureed them with Blond Orelys Chocolate and brown butter. We set the mixture into pint containers and refrigerated it. We baked off our croissants and when they were cool, we used a microplane to grate the croissant mixture onto the croissant. The end result was a buttery, rich, caramelized nest of delicious topping our crispy, flaky, and buttery croissants.

  • Now What?

    What if you can’t improve on something? What if, despite tinkering, testing, and trying, nothing results in something better than what you have already produced? Is this success or failure? (I am tempted to leave the above questions alone, here to think about. The exploring is where we discover. The practicing and searching to improve is where new ideas can begin to form, connect, or die. So while improvement does not happen, something else does. A new direction is spotted. This first set of ideas is picturesque and hopefully some of it is achievable.

    My other thoughts are we get lost trying to improve when we have already achieved the peak. We don’t see the greatness because we are looking for greater. To be charming, we don’t see the view or even realize we have reached the top of the mountain because our heads are in the clouds.

    But there is a third, and probably more outlooks. What if we could accept we have achieved great? What if getting to great was accepted and it became part of our process? We could free up the mental and physical space needed to try, rethink, and apply the efforts to other ideas and processes. It’s actually great to have foundations, building blocks, and staples to rely upon. They allow us to create and explore. Sure, it’s important to test out the strength of these elements now and again, but it is also okay to let them stay in place if they remain solid and true.)

  • Simplify the Process

    We put a layer of heavy cream in the bottom of a baking pan. We added sliced boiled potatoes. We topped the potatoes with raclette cheese and baked the gratin for 30 or so minutes. The result was the beautiful combination of bubbling, just caramelizing cheese with tender, creamy potatoes. There was no melting or scraping cheese to order. There was only pure indulgence.

  • Tinkering Troubles

    I spent the afternoon revisiting an idea for noodles made with a glutinous rice flour starch paste. The difficulty with ideas that have been kicking around for a while is the amount of hope for success I have. My plan was to create a thick noodle, in the style of udon, that could be kneaded relatively easily and could also cook quickly while producing a thick noodle chew. This was my third-ish attempt at this version of the noodle, and I was anticipating a win. Despite all my hopes, and the visual cues of the dough kneading well and rolling how I wanted, the end result was a gummy mess. I have some ideas on how to improve the noodles. The first is to use a harder wheat in the dough in conjunction with the rice flour.

  • Sugar Brioche

    Alex made me sugar brioche today, and it was one of the best gifts ever. It was unexpected and somehow exactly what I wanted. We aren’t that great about giving each other gifts, so this was a total surprise. An individual brioche is one of my favorite pastries. I don’t get it very often because finding great brioche is like finding a unicorn in the desert. This was an experience. The bread was still warm, the cooling edges slowly setting up, so some bits were crisp and some were chewy. I broke the pastry open to reveal the delicate inner layers and peeled them off. They were soft and tender, substantial yet light, with those crunchy-chewy edges to provide texture and contrast. There were no glazes or fillings to distract from the crust and crumb or from the flavor of butter and sugar that carried it to the next level. I savored one by myself in the kitchen with a cup of coffee. It was one of those perfect moments that comes when we least expect it.