They think winter's all over....it is now

For those who are unaware of the actual dates of the actual seasons in Northern Europe, Spring begins on the 21st March which means today. No more sights like this one: till November at least. On second thoughts, what point is there in uploading another picture of snow on trees, enough trees have died so that we can see 1,309,897 snow related images this winter, usually accompanied by exclamations of amazement that one might see snow in winter in Northern Europe. Anyway, the reason it didn't feel like Spring is because it wasn't. It is now. And so to chocolate.

Yesterday I went out into the Amsterdam neighbourhood where I still pass off an occassional underemployed existence and I witnessed indeed crocus lawns and budding bushes, felt the warm feathery caress of nearly April breezes on my cheek instead of the cold steely knife slash of February wind whipped off the North Sea along the canals and into any crack in the outer layers, removed one of the outer layers (for a while anyway) and started to feel guilty about the allotment. The outer layer in question was NOT my new neck warming garment, currently named as the halfaclava (I think there is a proper name, anyone who knows it please see me after class). That will stay on my neck for the time being, what a genius garment is this, how quick to knit and how warming to wear. I am the envy of my fellow Amsterdammers on bikes, e'en now in the Spring caressing breezes.

The allotment guilt lasted as long as it took me to mind meld with my internet connection and order seed potatoes, organic fertiliser and some not wholly unattractive sacks (yes really) with which to crank up the productivity of my Bristol back yard. Said yard is also known as the garden by charitable souls or people wanting to smoke in the Bakery (I do provide chairs and the remains of a gazebo languish near the mountainous compost heap, the most productive area of my estate).

The guilt had faded fully by the time I recommenced my quarterly season-changing round of weeping, wailing and ganshing of teeth on the subject of how I shall ever make a living for the next year, will I ever work again, should I take up a new career and if so what? Past choices have included nutritionist, boutique shop proprietor and call centre worker. Yesterday found me checking out the introductory courses for chocolatiers on a delicious looking website. Day one, tempering (sounds like fun); day two ganache making (there is a relevance to this page) and day three, How to Make the Perfect Chocolate Mousse. What a culinary fantasy that conjours up. I can imagine it in my mouth right now, fluffy yet substantial, creamy yet not too sickly, chocolatey but not too sweet, served in a pretty dish but with another two stashed away in the fridge for when the guests have done and gone....

Surely Perfect Chocolate Mousse can't need a course, I thought, and went back to the organic seed potato order (if you are interested click here), worrying that I hadn't ordered enough, given that I am sure to be totally out of work by July and therefore living solely out of the back yard grow bags, if I can fight off the Apples of my Eyes with or close by to whom I live, particularly the visiting one whose love of potatoes is beyond the devotional. It will be hard, they are strong and young and I quite like them a lot but they've got the whole of their lives in front of them and I am unlikely to use that phrase in the first person ever again so it will be step aside or the potatoes get it.

Yet the thought of the Perfect Chocolate Mousse haunts me still, even the choice of potato brands (early, middle, late, very late, unacceptably tardy, I need them all if I am to avoid the workhouse by Autumn) cannot take my mind away from that phenomenom. Suddenly the day has a focus - I will make the Perfect Chocolate Mousse and the way to that is the Perfect Chocolate Mousse Ingredients.

Could there be a better place to locate this mission? Amsterdam's chocolate shops are the stuff of legend, well, the stuff of sighs and drools, and almost every visitor I have had has been seduced by the wafting scents from the legendary Puccini chocolate maker'n'shop. And they sell the hard stuff, the solid, chunky slabs of Valronha. When you ask for one, the shop assistant always asks if you know what you are doing with it - visitors must have once returned complaining bitterly that it didn't taste like Dairy Milk (there is no sugar) and I like to smile knowingly and say something in Dutch like "I have lived here for 5 years but my command of your language is still close to none, however, I have impressed my friends and relatives with my ability, please laugh and nod and reply to me in your native tongue so that they will continue to be impressed". Pausing to visit the market nearby, eat the pancakes for which this city is oddly famed (never ate one yet which justified this), admire the views all around.

On returning home, via some very picturesquely situated swans and a very large amount of rain (not photographed) I find journey toward the decidedly unholy grail of PCM gives my shallow existence meaning for several hours more, though, fear not, Bakery readers, the actual making of it doesn't take long and your date/dinner party guests/tummy will thank you later. You don't need to shop in Amsterdam or Paris or London or my favourite place in London for both coffee and chocolate or Edinburgh (although for chocolate snobs - hands up, yes that's you, alternatives will have to be chosen wisely) just get the best chocolate you can find, the best cream you can find (straight from the dairy would be best), the best eggs and if you are using my suggested flavouring of cardomom, the juiciest greenest seed pods with the stickiest shiny blackest seeds you can get and a melty textured flavoursome mango for the accompaniment and you will be the toast of your friends and lovers. I just hope your presentation skills are sharper than mine - Masterchef this aint.

Here, with the requested photos of the preparation process, complete with gratuituous shots of more of my curves than I want to admit I own, is the recipe.

Perfect Chocolate Mousse with Mango Coulis and cardomom (egg free version available) (serves 4)

250g very good dark (or very good milk if you have to0 chocolate (I used 150g 70% plain chocolate and 100g of 100% Valrhona chocolate - hence the added sugar below. If you use only plain or milk chocolate, these already have sugar and this is not necessary. Don't over-sweeten the mousse, that's not classy).

300 ml very good double cream. Not Clotted Cream, however. I made the mistake of topping up my only 175 ml double with some clotted. The results were stiffer than the truly Perfect Chocolate Mousse requires, though my pain was bearable as you will see.

3 very good organic free range eggs. Egg allergy people don't despair, you can have the egg free version also known as chocolate ganache pots, with some extra cream or creme fraiche to cut through the sweetness. Separate these eggs, whites into one bowl large enough for you to be able to whip them up into pillows of stiffness with your chosen whisk (or into the mechanical device for this if you have one), the yolks into a medium sized bowl, larger than the one I am using in the following pictures, it was a mistake. Separating eggs: gently crack in middle of egg, carefully ease two shell halves apart with whole egg in one, pour it slowly into the other and as the yolk passes into the other shell subtly but firmly catch the white or most it in the first half shell. You can use the shell edges to help but don't get them near the yolk. Repeat a couple of times to make sure maximum white all in one half, white-free yolk in other.

All the good seeds from three good pods of green cardomom. If you are buying them in N. Europe you will have to get what you can, split them open one at a time and if they are dusty brown looking rather than shiny slightly sticky looking near black seeds, chuck em. You only want the dark fresh looking ones. Crush them into a powder in a mortar with a pestle.

All the seeds from half a sticky fresh vanilla pod. I have gone on enough about vanilla quality. No, actually I haven't, there is no limit to how much I could go on about it, but you can take my word for it, it's the way forward, particularly if you are British and are subconsciously searching for the artificial vanilla flavour in every chocolate mouthful.

Liquid - 2 tablespoon brandy or rum. Or not. I didn't bother last night and I was more than happy. You could use cointreau or just go straight for orange juice but frankly you can do as I did and stick to adding slightly more cream.


Method

Whip the eggs yolks, vanilla seeds (scrape well) and if you are using some 100% no sugar Valrhona or other equivalent chocolate, a tablespoon per 100g of the 100% chocolate you use. (So if you use 150g plain 70% chocolate and 100g Valrhona, add a tablespoon of sugar).

In an appropriately sized bowl whisk up the eggs until soft mounds form and remain when you remove the whisking implement. We aren't looking for stiff peaks here but it needs to keep its shape.

Meanwhile, break the chocolate (with Valrhona this will require a good knife and adult supervision) and if you are using it, the liquid, into a heatproof glass bowl, and place this bowl into a saucepan of just boiled and taken off the heat water - only a third full will do, don't want this to splash over into the chocolate. Add also the crushed cardomom. Return the saucepan to the heat occassionally but try to employ only patience and a teaspoon to melt the chocolate to liquid. NEVER let the water boil whilst the chocolate is in there, that way lies gritty bits of chocolate in a puddle of melted cocoa butter and this means chucking it away, which is a tragedy. When it can do this, it is ready. Now remove it from the saucepan and heat and allow to cool very slightly but only for about a minute or two, you don't want it to re-solidify, you just don't want it so hot it will cook the eggs.

Adding gradually but stirring rapidly as you do so, combine the egg yolks (and sugar) with the melted chocolate by pouring the former slowly into the latter and beating the latter as hard as you can after each addition of egg. It will suddenly get stiff and you may panic. Keep calm, so long as it doesn't start to look like chocolate scrambled eggs you are fine.

Add the cream in the same manner, and quickly you will be breathing more steadily as the mixture becomes smooth, liquid-ish and glossy. The trick is to keep beating. You may need to grow more hands or get an adult to help you. Check that the egg whites are still soft mounds and that there isn't a slight puddling effect at the bottom of their bowl - if there is - and there may well be - give it a 30 second blast from the electric whisk again, or if you are using a hand whisk, get that other adult to do this as quickly as they can whilst you keep beating the chocolate and cream and egg yolk mixture. Now stir in one dessert spoon full of egg white at a time, cutting it into the mixture with a metal spoon and then folding the spoonful over and doing the same again, not beating it, you don't want to bash the air out of the egg white but you do want it combined. When it is all combined, spoon it into decorative bowls, cover with cling film (the bowls not you) and put them into the fridge for at least an hour to set and chill.

Mango - peel and slither or scrape as much of the juicy flesh as you can out of their skins, off their seed and into something in or from which you can blitz, liquidise or push it through a seive. I wouldn't add anything to this juice, just make it smooth.

When you are ready to serve, cut or slice some good chocolate to make your own flakes and decorate the top of the mousse with these. If you have any sense, you will have put the mousse into the small dishes you want to serve them in, add the chocolate and serve the mango coulis on the side in a pretty jug. Or if you have been watching Masterchef, try and make it look better than I did.

NEXT TIME AT THE BAKERY: I did promise tuna recently but I think it will be a vegetarian risotto which is also accidentally vegan. But what to rant about? Suggestions on a comment below here please.

Short, flaky, sweet or savoury, it will get you extra points

The ranting will be short this week. I have given my all, ranting wise, it has been a good week for it, with enough to go on. I can give no more.

For those who wish to have a summary of the subjects of this week's ranting, here is a list: mobile phone companies, mobile phone company call plans, Sam Cam's use as a clothes horse rather than an intelligent woman, media coverage of so-called "political wives", the phrase "political wives", third rate hotels, Denise Fergus being treated as an expert on criminal rehabilitation, train ticket pricing plans, podcasts which don't work, private companies stripping pension funds and remaining in business whilst their pensioners have to go on benefits, capitalism generally, capitalism specifically as it relates to banking and property, capitalism as it relates to the giving up of protest against it, child criminals being called demons and monsters when fathers who kill their children are given sympathy for being broken hearted, all the major political parties for not reading Keynes properly, all the major political parties for lurching together to a deficit = cuts in public spending position (show me a time when this worked, go on, just try), dunking, bad coffee and Big Lottery. And breathe. And relax. And back to the recipe. It will soon look like this>>>>>>>>>

So here is this week's blog, how to make your own pastry. Masterchef this week gave lots of extra points to the person who made their own leek quiche using their own pastry. What we post in the Bakery Window one month they applaud on the best programme on TV the next.

Good tart recipes abound in Tamasin Day-Lewis' "The Art of the Tart", of savoury and sweet varieties. I heartily recommend it.


(Shortcrust) Pastry method:

1. Go to shop. Buy packet of frozen pastry. Get home. Discover it is sweet and you wanted savoury. Curse and rail against the modern world. Turn on the Cooking Channel and eat toast instead.
2. Go to shop, carefully examine range of pastry products available. Don’t buy sweet pastry. Get home and discover that you bought puff pastry and you wanted shortcrust for the leek tart in Thangam Bakery part 3. Curse and rail against the modern world. Turn on the cooking channel, worry about possibility of right wing government and eat extra toast with cinnamon sugar on it instead.
3. Go to shop, remember to choose savoury short crust pastry. Get home and heave sigh of relief. Put pastry in the freezer because you aren’t going to cook now. Worry like mad about the prospect of right wing government. Curse and rail against the modern world. Pour glass of wine. Start chopping leeks or preparing tart innards according to recipe. Pour another glass of wine. Spend 7.9 hours and 1.4 bottles of wine preparing tart filling. Feel rather smug then realise the pastry is still a frozen block. Realise further more that you have no idea how to work the microwave for pastry defrosting purposes or any purposes other than as a semi supportive base for the bread maker and the collection of empty jam jars waiting to find new meaning. Curse and rail against the modern world. Decide it is time to make own pastry…..

Ingredients
200g Plain flour, 1oog butter (for 12in/30cm tin) or 150g plain flour and 75g butter (for 9in/22cm tin) good pinch salt, enough cold water to bind it (optional: egg yolk and cold water mix, if you aren’t allergic to eggs and want a bit of richness in your crust).

Rub
Rub fat into flour. Roughly translated, this means, sieve flour into a good sized bowl, then chop the butter (or vegan equivalent) into it roughly, then using only finger tips, rub the butter against the flour so that it gradually becomes the texture of breadcrumbs. Shake the bowl every now and then to see how well it is mixed – big lumps will collect at the top (don’t ask me why, ask someone who can explain gravity without the aid of a satsuma). Keep your hands cold, you don’t want the butter to melt. And yes, you could have used a blender. I just don't have one.

Bind
Add a good grind of salt, then slowly add cold water, or (if using egg yolk) first the egg yolk followed by enough water to keep the mixture together. Use a knife blade, not your finders, to bring it all to a firm not sticky ball. Over-fingering leads to unwanted melting or softening. If you accidentally add too much water, you can add some flour and roll the ball around in it until stiff again, but try not to add too much water in the first place. And no, I don't know how to do this bit with a blender because I don't have one. Maybe with a blade? It needs to be done adding a tiny bit of liquid at a time so that the pastry doesn't get too sticky, no stickiness is required at all. If you do go too far, roll it in flour to try to reverse the damage.

Wrap, chill and firm
Wrap this firm ball in greaseproof paper (or a fresh butter wrapper if you don’t have a roll of greaseproof paper) and put it in the fridge for as long as you can to chill and firm. Oh how I wish that being wrapped in greaseproof paper and put in the fridge would help me to chill and firm.

Unwrap and roll
After at least one hour of chilling and firming, remove the pastry from the fridge and wrapping. Push it together into roughly the relevant shape for your baking tray – if you are using a rectangular shallow one, make it roughly rectangular. If a traditional circular pie or quiche tin, make it properly spherical then squash it to make a thick circular disk. Dust the kitchen surface with a light layer of flour and do the same to your rolling implement – I find a wine cooler works very well but it's a shame to risk the wine warming up. Old fashioned milk bottles used to do the job. Unopened wine bottles still do. Or you could always use a rolling pin. Roll the pastry: press down and roll your chosen implement back and forth over the pastry twice, then turn it through 90 degrees and do the same, pushing it back into the rectangle/circle as needed, before continuing with the turning and rolling, turning and rolling, pushing back a bit etc. This should lead you to a roughly perfect rolled out pastry layer – you want it to be no more than a couple of millimetres thick – no matter how much you love pastry, too thick and you are on the damp and slippery road to pastry heartache. Just right and crisp buttery moist but yielding tart case will reward you.

Line and partially bake
Line the baking tray/tin with pastry – it doesn’t really need greasing, there is enough in the pastry – tucking it firmly into all corners without stretching. Then cut away all the excess pastry flaps and frills – run a knife round the top edge, cut off any corner pleats, make sure it is all neat and there are no cracks or holes. Now cover with greaseproof paper or butter papers and sprinkle these with pastry beads (see below) or dried beans to weight down the paper. Put it in the oven at 180c and cook for about 10-15 minutes or so until it is just turning firm but hasn’t yet started to change colour. Take it out of the oven and place on a heatproof surface. Remove beads and paper and put the beads/beans away for next time.

Prick and return
Having removed paper and beads, prick the base with a sharp pricky thing or fork, don't jab it hard enough to cause actual bodily damage to the lovely non stick surface of your fine flan tin, four or five pricks with the kitchen fork to hand will do. Then return the pastry, no paper or bead/ns this time and bake for a further 5-10 minutes to dry out the base.

What on earth is a pastry bead?
Beads are for cooking, not just jewelry or sewing or that other thing that I have heard some of the more adventurous amongst you may have used them for but aren’t likely to admit to your parents. They are little blobs, size of large-ish jewelry beads but without the little hole through the middle. They are ceramic, or made from some other substance which won’t blow up or melt when put in the oven. They are to weigh down the pastry during the partial baking process (I can’t call it baking blind, for goodness sake, pastry doesn’t have eyes) so that the pastry doesn’t balloon up. Don’t put them straight onto the pastry, cut or roughly tear a piece of greaseproof paper to the shape of your tart tine, put this on top of the uncooked pastry and weigh the paper and pastry down with the beads.

You can use dried beans instead and then re-use them afterwards by storing in one of the empty jars lurking around the back of the under the sink cupboard or behind the microwave, at which point you will feel a warm glow of thriftiness and connection with your grandmother or with Mrs Beeton. You may find you can never again find where you put them, but maybe that’s just me.

You can buy the ceramic ones from a nice kitchen department in a nice old fashioned department store or just from the nice kitchen shop, which, where I live, is handily called KITCHENS. In the postmodern ironic world you may find your local equivalent is unhandily called BATHROOMS but if that is the case, don’t go there, don’t give them your money, it will only encourage them.

Puff pastry? No thanks
Well, not really, in fact of course puff pastry yes please but unless you are comforting yourself from some deep emotional trauma, or avoiding a deadline (the people who get their morning beverage in the Real Live Thangam Bakery know I mean what I say there) I think that pretty much comes under the heading of life really being too short. I love cooking, and don’t ever think life is too short to stuff a mushroom (actually I prefer it if the stuffing receptacle is a cabbage leaf, mushrooms are best fried in butter, featuring in a risotto or left picturesquely nuzzling tree stumps in the woods) but making puff pastry is a thankless unrewarding task involving rolling, laying out bits of butter, re-rolling, wrapping and chilling, unwrapping, more rolling, more laying out bits of butter, more re-rolling, more wrapping and chilling and on and on and on….Kids, just say no.

NEXT TIME IN THE BAKERY WINDOW: something sweet and pretty. And the return of the rant.