Baking by Hand (25 page)

3 large eggs

8 oz/240 ml whole milk

8 oz/240 ml half-and-half

¼ cup/50 g sugar

1 tbsp/15 ml pure vanilla extract

1 tsp/5 ml almond extract

1 lb/450 g stale croissant, brioche, challah or other bread, cut into 1”/2.5-cm dice

4 oz/110 g dried cherries, rehydrated in hot water for at least 15 minutes and then drained

7 oz/200 g white chocolate chunks

2 oz/50 g sliced almonds

Whisk the eggs, milk, half-and-half, sugar, vanilla extract and almond extract in a large bowl until combined and smooth.

Add the bread and drained cherries to the bowl, and toss with your hands or a spoon until all the bread is coated with the custard. Let it sit for at least 30 minutes (but no longer than 1 hour), stirring occasionally.

Preheat the oven to 375°F/190°C. Put half of the bread and custard mixture in your greased pan or mold, gently pressing down to create a mostly flat surface. Sprinkle with 5 ounces/140 g of the white chocolate chunks in an even layer. Add the rest of the bread and custard mixture, and press down again.

Bake until golden brown and firm when pressed, about 45 minutes. While the bread pudding is baking, spread the almonds on a sheet pan and toast them for 5 to 10 minutes, just until they take on a touch of color. While the bread pudding is cooling, melt the remaining 2 ounces/50 g white chocolate chunks in a double boiler or in the microwave and drizzle over the top of the pudding. Sprinkle with the toasted almonds.

3 large eggs

7 oz/200 ml whole milk

7 oz/200 ml half-and-half

⅔ cup/130 g granulated sugar

6 oz/175 g roasted pureed pumpkin (see Note)

1 ¼ tsp/3 g ground cinnamon

¾ tsp/1.5 g ground allspice

¼ tsp/0.5 g ground nutmeg

1 lb/450 g stale croissant, brioche, challah or other bread, cut into 1”/2.5-cm dice

MAPLE GLAZE

6.5 oz/180 g confectioners’ sugar

2 oz/50 g maple sugar

2 oz/60 ml half-and-half

Whisk the eggs, milk, half-and-half, sugar, pumpkin puree and spices in a large bowl until combined and smooth.

Add the bread, and toss with your hands or spoon until all the bread is coated with the custard. Let it sit for at least 30 minutes or up to 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Preheat the oven to 375°F/190°C. Put all of the bread and custard mixture into the greased pan or paper mold. Bake until golden brown and firm when pressed, about 45 minutes.

To make the glaze, whisk all of the ingredients together until smooth and lump-free.

When cooled, drizzle the pudding with the glaze.

NOTE:
For the roasted pumpkin, cut a small sugar pumpkin in half. Remove the strings and seeds. Bake in a 400°F/200°C oven until the flesh is tender and a knife inserted moves through easily, about 1 hour. Cool the pumpkin and peel the skin off. Purée the pumpkin and refrigerate until you are ready to use it.

CRUSTS, SEASONAL SWEETS AND SAVORY TARTS

Later in the day, after the rush of the morning bake has passed, we have many other bakers who come in to perform various tasks. One of those tasks is to do all the makeup for the seasonal tarts that we have available each day. While the arm burns are a little less frequent during this shift, there are still plenty of other important things to do. Each tart is treated differently depending on the components. This is what keeps us on our toes when testing day rolls around; we are not only putting flavor combinations together, but what we create also has to work in terms of texture and function. If two of the components can’t be placed harmoniously in the crust, it’s not going to work.

We love seeing how we can take what the season brings us and turn it into an expression of our taste and aesthetic here at the bakery. It’s what helps to keep us excited and flexible within the somewhat rigid system of formulae and detail that comes with working in a bakery.

While Jackie had promised that I would be able to get them at the farm, I couldn’t find one single sugar pumpkin. The big wooden crate that usually housed the pile of orange globes still had the sign up, but all that it contained were broken stems and dried field dirt. I waved to get the attention of two fellows leaning behind the retail counter, and I asked if there were any pumpkins left, because showing up at the bakery empty-handed was not an option. I got a surprisingly descriptive sharp nod to the back door, which opened up onto a field of beautiful, ripe pumpkins, wet with the cold fall rain and ready for the picking. I thought of the classic French chef perusing the local farmers markets, looking for the perfect vegetables for the night’s tasting menus, something I always thought was a bit of a show for the television crews. But there I was, slogging through the mud and vines, searching for the perfect pumpkins to take back to the bakery, and I was practically giddy. It’s rare that you get something so fresh that you’ve released it from the earth minutes before it goes into the oven, but that’s the crux of what makes us so passionate about seasonal pastry.

Not all trips to the farm are that soggy, mind you. Sunburns can be had in strawberry fields, and cider doughnuts generally accompany us on the way home from any of Massachusetts’ plentiful fruit orchards. But there’s one constant: When your day of pastry baking starts with a trip to the local farm, and then you trek farther out into the fields to scrabble around for the best-looking fruit you can find, you’re going to have a good day in the kitchen.

11 oz/300 g all-purpose flour

1 scant tsp/3 g baking powder

¾ tsp/5 g fine sea salt

13 oz/370 g cold unsalted butter

6.5 oz/180 g cold sour cream

Place the flour, baking powder and salt into a container that will easily fit in your freezer. Chill the mixture for 30 minutes or overnight. You can’t chill it for too long.

In the meantime, cube your butter into about ½-inch/1-cm cubes. Keep chilled in the refrigerator.

Once the flour has chilled sufficiently, put it in a bowl and add the chilled butter. Rub the butter through the flour to break it up and incorporate it. Keep at it until the butter is broken down but you still see chunks of butter. The chunks should be a little larger than large peas. You want the butter to stay in large chunks in order to create a flaky crust.

Add the sour cream to the dry ingredients and mix by hand. Form a shaggy mass of dough just until all of the moisture is absorbed and there are no dry spots. You do not want to overwork it so much that you break down the butter completely.

Turn the dough out onto a floured counter and form into a rough rectangle. Roll the dough out until it becomes a larger 6-inch × 16-inch/15 × 40-cm rectangle. Sprinkle the surface of the dough with flour, grab the left hand side of the rectangle and place one-third of the surface into the middle. Then, do the same with the right side, completely overlapping the left side with this “envelope fold.” Rotate the dough 90 degrees. Roll out to another 6-inch × 16-inch/15 × 40-cm rectangle, then lightly flour and fold the dough again as before.

Take this packet of dough, place it on a sheet pan and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill the dough for 1 hour to relax before using, or wrap tightly with plastic wrap and freeze.

NOTE:
After cutting out your rounds for the various recipes, you can chill, rest and roll out the scraps after about 2 hours in the fridge; there will be enough left for two 7-inch/18-cm circles. If you don’t want to take the time to make the extra circles, just turn scraps into cookies (see
here
).

Rolling Lazy Bakers Puff Pastry into flan rings. This method is used often in the related recipes.

12 oz/340 g chilled all-purpose flour

1 tsp/7 g fine sea salt

8 oz/250 g cold unsalted butter, cut into medium dice

4 oz/110 ml ice water

Combine the cold flour, salt and cold butter in a large bowl. Using your fingers, begin to pinch and combine the butter and flour, making sure not to hold the butter in your hands too long. Keep working the flour and butter between your fingers until the largest pieces of butter are no smaller than peas. The key is to keep this mixture as cold as possible, and if you feel that it is warming up too much, you can refrigerate it.

Add the ice water to the flour-butter mixture, and toss together with your fingers, eventually pressing it together with your hands. You want a dough to form with no dry patches or crumbly parts, but you do not want to overwork it so much that you break down the butter completely. Otherwise, you will lose flakiness and your dough will become tougher. You want to see streaks of butter running through the dough.

Divide the dough into two equal pieces and wrap them in plastic wrap. Chill for at least 1 hour before proceeding or overnight. You could also freeze it at this point for future use.

1 recipe Lazy Baker’s Puff Pastry Dough (see
here
)

FILLING

1 lb 2 oz/500 g rhubarb

5.75 oz/160 g granulated sugar

2.25 oz/60 g finely diced crystallized ginger

1 ½ tbsp/14 g cornstarch

OAT TOPPING

3.5 oz/100 g rolled oats

3.5 oz/100 g all-purpose flour

1.7 oz/48 g granulated sugar

¼ tsp/2 g fine sea salt

½ tsp/1 g ground cinnamon

3.5 oz/100 g unsalted butter, melted

Egg wash, consisting of 1 beaten egg and a splash of water

To make the crust, spray six 5-inch/12-cm flan rings with cooking spray. Roll out your dough to about 14 inches × 27 inches/35 × 70 cm, cut out six 7-inch/18-cm circles and place them in the flan rings. Lifting up around the entire perimeter of the disk, “settle” the dough into the corners of the rings. Then, working from the outside in, roll the overlapping dough until you can press the roll into the side of the flan rings, creating a thicker outer crust with a thin bottom. Chill in the refrigerator until ready to use.

For the filling, clean and trim the ends of the rhubarb. If the pieces are especially fat, slice them lengthwise in half. Then, chop it into medium dice. Place in a large bowl and add the sugar, crystallized ginger and cornstarch. Allow to macerate for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, make the oat topping.

To make the oat topping, combine all of the dry ingredients in a bowl. Pour the melted butter over the dry ingredients and mix everything together with your fingers until the mixture is completely moist. Set aside at room temperature until ready to use. (This can be made ahead and refrigerated for at least 1 week in an airtight container.)