Braving French Pastry

One of the most elegant treats any baker can make is French pastry. It's a complicated blend of crisp layers , airy creams and  artistic decorations. They're a challenge for the home baker yet  a feather in one's toque if done. The question is can an ordinary baker make an extraordinary sweet?

Many ask themselves that.It's a long leap between cake mix cakes and mille-feulle, better known as Napoleons. The best way to acclimate yourself  to it is start off with the relatively easy recipes (and there are some).One of the easiest is crepes,. It's basically sort of like a pancake batter that has to be chilled overnight.it's flour eggs milk and water mixed together and then set aside for twenty-four hours. You can buy a crepe pan for it. This is nothing more than a wider, thinner frying pan or use a frying pan or skillet. Drizzle creme Anglaise over it or serve it street style with granulated sugar and lemon juice. Another relatively easy treat is clafoutis. A plus is that it can be made with any kind of fruit, from apples to blueberries. It's basically an egg rich batter blended together - usually in a blender and poured over fruit. It's baked for only half an hour  - until it's golden and puffy.Once you've accomplished that, try Kouign Amann , the mouth watering buttery sweet bread from Brittany.It's made with the same dough as the croissant which is another pastry a home baker can master. Both require  a lot of butter because it's sealed in layers of rolled dough. It is  labor intensive , with mostly rolling out dough and butter along with shaping into the classic crescents.

Biscuit roses is another transitional level It was featured in yesterday's Sunday's New York Times Magazine. Famed baker , Dorie, Greenspan, wrote about this after baking them. They're sort of like a cross between a lady finger and biscotti.Like biscotti, it's twice baked.and like lady fingers, the yolks and whites are separated , beaten  and then joined into the dough. It''s a great way for beginners to learn about meringues  along with how to shape batter with a piping bag. After this it's an easy move to eclairs, those classic Gallic pastries. They do require a choux paste which is a delicate two step method. It's first putting water .milk butter and sugar into a two quart saucepan and bringing the mixture to a boil. Flour has to be added  slowly, stirred until everything is blended.It;s then adding five more eggs to give it that rich golden color. Just don;t make ti too hot or you'll have scrambled eggs on your hands. Choux paste can be used to make cream puffs along with the eclairs,One of the hardest pastries to make is the mille feuilles or thousand leaves. Also called Napoleon , after France's famed emperor it;'s taking a dough similar to croissant dough where it's rolled and folded several times.There' are intervals where it's put in the fridge. A simple vanilla  cream is sandwiched in the layers .The whole thing is topped off with a decorative chocolate or vanilla glaze.

Can the average home baker handle French pastry? Oui! Once conquered these complicated recipes will be as easy as a chocolate chip or scratch cake one.

Happiness Is Breyer's Ice Cream

One of the best American ice cream's is Breyer's  Any Yank will tell you why he or she loves it..It's smooth and light , creamy and flavorful. Breyer's either be the perfect dessert or the most satisfying snack. Best of all it can be used in making many treats, ideal for the warm days ahead of us.

Breyer's is one of America's oldest food manufacturers starting right after the Civil War in 1866. William A Breyer started by hand cranking his creamy concoctions. It was made in the Philadelphia style, which had already been popular for a century. The Philly way eschews eggs, producing a lighter product and taste. It's more of a thick kind of ice milk as opposed to the eggy French style of ice cream.Breyer created different flavors right away, adding fruits, nuts and extracts, which are still being used today.He opened the first ice cream shop in 1882 and four more quickly followed. The rich mixture of whole cream and cane sugar. It was cranked in one store and delivered by a horse drawn carriage to the other three. By 1896 Breyer and his family set up the first ice cream factory as more and more people clamored for the icy treat. The Twentieth Century brought more sales to the company that topped millions, and was sold to grocery stores in New York City, Staten Island, Jersey City , Newark and even south to Washington D.C. The family sold it as early as 1926 to National Dairy Products Corporation. It has been bought and sold several times, from Kraft to Good Humor and finally to Unilever who make the ice cream in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. They now produce gluten and even sugar-free ice creams  for those with celiac disease.

Breyer's is one of my favorite ice creams, simply because of the light mouthfeel and taste. It's not a heavy , custardy feeling , like some other brands. It's good on it's own but that lightness helps to make sodas and sundaes airier too. One of my favorites is their coffee flavor. This is perfect in chocolate flavored soda (yes, there is one - and Stop & Shop makes it )along with making an excellent mochaccino sundae. This consists of two  plump scoops , drenched in chocolate syrup and covered in Reddi-Whip. Their fudge ripple is to die for, with the vanilla ice cream marbled with thick fudgy veins. My new favorite is the new Breyer's Blast that has chopped up Samoas,from the Girl scout cookie collection.Samoas on their own are more like candy, with their coating of chocolate, caramel and toasted coconut. This marriage has created a yummy, chewy but light coconut flavored ice cream, that I would love to put into a summery ice cream pie.Another must try are their Gelato Indulgences.My to try list has their lush chocolate caramel, that dripping with the last and decorated with decadent chocolate curls along with Tiramisu Gelato, that's made with marscapone cheese,espresso syrup and lady finger bits.

There's a reason why Breyer's is America's favorite ice cream. It is delicious and light, perfect for dessert or as a cool treat on a hot day. Try this classic , It's sure to be your classic ice cream go to after one spoonful