I had initially planned to make croissants for Christmas Day breakfast, but having read the recipe beforehand and seeing how stupidly long they take to make (overnight resting, several hours rising, plus shaping, cutting, folding etc) I decided on bagels instead. With a comparatively paltry single rise and prove making for about a couple of hours total, this at least meant I wouldn't have to get up at about 4am (and risk walking in on Santa coming down the chimney). Plus bagels are better than croissants anyway. Both potential croissant recipe and pervading bagel recipe came from Mr Daniel Stevens' River Cottage Bread Handbook.
Bagels
500g strong white bread flour
5g powdered dried yeast
10g fine salt
250ml warm water
20g caster sugar
50ml vegetable oil, plus extra for coating
To finish
1 medium free-range egg, beaten
Poppy or sesame seeds (optional)
In a large bowl, mix together all the ingredients to make a dough. Knead on a clean surface until smooth and elastic. Shape into a round, coat with a little extra oil and place in a clean bowl. Leave to rise, covered with a plastic bag.
When the dough has doubled in size, deflate it and divide into 12 pieces. One at a time, roll into a sausage shape, about 15cm long. Wet the ends and press them together to make a ring. Leave to prove, covered, on a lightly oiled plastic board or metal baking sheet (not floured cloths or boards).
Preheat the over to 200°C/Gas Mark 6. Lightly oil a couple of baking sheets and in a wide pan bring around a 10cm depth of water to the boil.
When the bagels have roughly doubled in size, they are ready for poaching. You will need to do this in batches. Turn the pan of water down to a simmer, then slip as many bagels as will fit comfortably into the water (allow room for them to puff up). Cook for a minute on each side, then remove and drain on a clean tea towel (not kitchen paper as it will stick).
When they are all poached, lay the bagels on the baking sheets, gently sticking any that uncurled in the water back together again. Brush all over with beaten egg, then sprinkle with seeds if you like. Bake for 15 minutes, until the bagels are a uniform, glossy golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.
So I got up early to make the dough and left it to rise whilst I then got up properly. There are no pictures of me making dough in my boxer shorts, as after all, I let the food do the talking. The dough didn't seem to be rising a huge amount, either in the initial rise or the proving stage, and I must admit to thinking 'sod it' after an hour's rising and 20 minutes proving, not least as I, and others were getting hungry, including my brother and cousin who for some mental reason had decided to run 5km on Christmas Day morning. Subsequently I was expecting rather small little bagels, until the poaching stage. I was a bit unsure as to whether 10cm of water would be sufficient, and remembered that Nigella has a recipe for bagels in How to Be A Domestic Goddess. A quick cross reference showed that Nigella suggests using a large pan, so I sided with her on that one. Sorry, Dan Stevens and all present Dan Stevens-ites. (Nigella also uses malt in the poaching water to obtain the shiny crust rather than beaten egg - time for some comparison next time I think.)
Anyway, they puffed up pretty well, almost doubling in size and then looked amazing once they came out of the oven. Flipping bagels in water is pretty satisfying, really. I'd had to make an extra trip out on Christmas Eve in search of poppy seeds for these, and a few other bits for other things (expected to take ages, hardly took any time at all as there was virtually no one out at 9am), and whilst they don't make a huge difference taste wise, I think they make them look that much more impressive. If I can make myself get up early more often at weekends then I think I will find myself making these with increasing regularity.
Next, ice cream. As I mentioned in my last post there's something about making ice cream at Christmas which meant I had to make some. I'm actually writing about these chronologically in the order I made them, I'm not sure whether that was intentional or accidental, but anyway.
On my second visit to Bocca di Lupo I'd told myself I wouldn't have anything I'd had the first time. This was all fine until the pudding stage where I was sorely tempted to go against my intentions and have the Sanguinaccio again. Eventually I held firm and instead had a brioche gelato sandwich with pistachio, hazelnut and chestnut gelati. This is almost certainly the best gelato flavour combination I've ever tasted, and despite the near deific regard in which Gelupo's pistachio ice cream is held in these parts I came away most impressed by, and most fervently remembering the chestnut. So, wanting to make some kind of festive, or at least appropriately seasonal ice cream, and recalling this I stumped for chestnut. There's no exact recipe in the Bocca book, but there are ones which can be easily adapted. I took the one for pistachio and simply replaced the pistachio paste with chestnut purée.
Chestnut Ice Cream
500ml whole milk
140ml whipping cream
40g glucose syrup or light runny honey
130g caster sugar
40g skimmed milk powder
3g leaf gelatine (1 large or 2 small leaves), or 4 teaspoons agar-agar
85g chestnut purée
45g icing sugar
For the base bianca, put the milk, cream and glucose or honey in a pan. heat over a low flame and, in a separate container, mix together the sugar and milk powder. When the pan is steaming, add the sugar mixture in a steady stream as you stir. When the mixture approaches a simmer, remove it from the heat and add either the gelatine (already bloomed for a few minutes in cold water, then stirred into the mix) or the agar-agar (sprinkled on top of the hot mixture and left for 5 minutes, then stirred in). Leave to cool, covered, to room or fridge temperature.
Blend the nut paste and icing sugar into the base bianca and freeze in an ice-cream machine as usual. For the creamiest texture let the gelato freeze as hard as it will go in the machine before taking it out.
I actually find it hard to go into much detail with this. Apart from the flavouring, this is pretty much the same ice cream recipe and procedure as my last ice cream post, only even simpler. And having the amazing ice cream machine meant I could set it going just before we sat down for Christmas Dinner and it made itself and was ready pretty much bang on time. Additionally, the tin of chestnut purée we'd harassed the Waitrose staff into finding for us had plenty more than was needed for one batch, so I made some more a couple of days later to go with a Nigel Slater cheesecake recipe I'd pulled from the Observer Food Monthly. This is without doubt the best ice cream I've ever made.
A few weeks prior to Christmas I'd seen a repeat of the previous year's River Cottage Christmas Fayre, where Gill and some others enter a gingerbread house making competition. For seemingly no other reason than 'that sounds cool', I there and then decided that I too would make a gingerbread house. So...
On Boxing Day we usually have tea followed by numerous sweet things of the cake and biscuity variety in the evening, so that seemed the ideal time to make it. As it was, with Christmas cake and what not, the house was left until the day after, only a small amount in part to not wanting to demolish it straight away. I'd hunted down that episode on 4od and watched that section a couple of times - the recipe is incredibly straight forward, so really the only thing to really think much about is one, how big to make it, and two, what to decorate it with. As a beginner in Gingerbread Masonry, I decided not to get too carried away and stuck to a four-walled, box-shaped house. Looking around, some people make some quite frankly ridiculous things out of gingerbread, and after all, you never want the aesthetical aspect of the thing to get in the way of the 'mmmmm, gingerbread' aspect.
For your bricks you will need;
1kg flour
300g muscavado sugar
10 tbsp golden syrup
1 tsp treacle
400g butter
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
And for your mortar you will need;
2 free range egg whites
400g icing sugar
Plus various sugary things to decorate
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Melt the butter, sugar, syrup and treacle together. Once combined, pour into the flour, ginger and bicarbonate of soda and mix until a dough is formed. Roll out the dough on a piece of baking parchment until about 5mm thick. Draw out templates for the walls and roof and use them to cut out the dough. Bake for 15 minutes, then leave to cool and harden.
For the royal icing/cement, whisk the egg whites until frothy, then add 300g icing sugar and whisk until thick and glossy. Add the remaining icing sugar and beat until soft peaks are formed. Add more icing sugar if required.
Watching that part of the program over again before making it the house they made looked much bigger than what I needed, so in the end I made three quarters of the amount and it came out pretty much the perfect size. Any smaller and the decorations would have been a bit oversized.
So, having made my dough, rolled it out, drawn and cut out templates and baked the gingerbread came the fun part; decorating. I'd decided that I didn't want my chimney just to be a couple of off cuts of gingerbread tacked on at the end (even before the request from a certain Esteemed Blogging Partner to be saved the chimney) so incorporated a chimney breast into one of the end walls. Subsequently, although due as much to trying to squeeze both end walls onto one baking tray, they stuck together in the oven. After separating them one became a bit lop-sided, although nothing that couldn't be disguised with large amounts of royal icing. I hadn't cut windows or a door in my wall templates, neither had I taken into account the space in the roof parts needed to slot around the chimney breast. I could, with hindsight, have claimed that this was so as to provide ample bits of baked gingerbread so I could test it was good gingerbread. But I'd be lying. But that did kick start the sugar rush which I guess must be inevitable when decorating a gingerbread house.
And yes, I made bears with the leftover bits of dough. With the help of my mum (Chief Cement Layer) and my cousin (Suggester of Other Good Ideas for Decorating) this not quite grand, but certainly endearing little edible abode took shape. Hugh's suggestion of After Eights as roof tiles had been hastily discounted (bear in mind you're going to eat the damn thing, and gingerbread and peppermint fondant sounds a weird combination) and replaced with a bag (or two, just to be safe) of Giant Chocolate Buttons, and the roof was safely covered with a whole bag to spare. I'd previously instructed my dad (retired architect) that any criticisms to do with architectural related things would result in him not being allowed any. As it was, apparently we put the tiles on the wrong way and started from the top down, rather than the bottom up. Apparently this would mean rain would get in through the tiles. Obviously if it had rained actual rain, it would have got soggy and collapsed, but then the rain that rains on gingerbread houses is probably coloured sprinkles anyway, so it doesn't matter. Chocolate Fingers made a perfectly good drainpipe, as well as guttering, doorframe, and whatever runs along the top of the roof. Other than chocolate Fingers. Mini Smarties were strung up across the front wall as fairy lights, and generous dollops of icing were dolloped on places where snow would settle.
I was a bit heavy-handed with the tablespoon measuring the syrup, and as a result the flavour was a bit too syrupy. It could also have done with a bit more ginger, but they shall be things borne in mind this year. Because there will be another one made, which, dare I say it, shall be even awesomer.
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