What is your "go-to" baked good when visiting a local bake shop? Well, I always go for something chocolate and my husband prefers something fruity like tarts and danishes. So, for this request, he wanted to try Paul Hollywood's Pain Aux Raisins, basically a danish.
My personal challenge: baking my way through "How to Bake". This post is my experience baking and learning new skills from tackling each recipe in Paul Hollywood's, "How to Bake". I will also document any recipe changes that I made - mainly as a result of not having the ingredients on hand (i.e., we never have regular sugar in the house) - and how the recipe fared. I will not be providing the recipes that are in his book.
For the second recipe that I made, my husband had a sweet pastry request. Not truly realizing the time commitment involved, I began the recipe an early Saturday morning and finished on Sunday afternoon. It was, actually, timed perfectly for an Easter Sunday brunch (I wish I could say that I planned such an epic reveal). Honestly, these Pain Aux Raisin danishes were the perfect celebratory food for Easter.
After my first recipe that I tried in Paul Hollywood's "How to Bake", I learned of the common ingredients that I do not usually keep on hand in the house - butter, sugar, milk. Because, I did not have butter and oodles of time on the first recipe choice, I decided that my next few trips to the grocery store would be spent gathering ingredients for future bakes. I bought a huge 1-pound Amish roll of butter, pastry flour, and bread flour. While I'd love to turn some of these recipes vegan, I am a bit hesitant when it comes to butter, so for now, I still use butter while following these recipes.
Aside from butter, as you may guess, I did not quite stick to the recipe, again. The note above the directions says: "If you're new to making pastries, this classic recipe is an ideal one to start with". I took that hook line and sinker. I did not realize that the pastries required several recipes to complete such a delicious looking end result. The Pain Aux Raisins required: Danish pastry dough, creme patisserie, and an icing.
All in all, it turned out delicious. I actually made a sweet and savory variation, and my husband enjoyed both. I might change my filling for the sweet one the next time around, but it was still quite tasty. Although, my danish was less crispy than the photo in "How to Bake", the dough tasted perfectly buttery, flavorful, and flaky - I guess that's all you can ask for, right?
Here are some of the lessons that I learned:
Folding Pastry Dough. I have never rolled out dough and placed a large sheet of butter on top and completed a book fold. I have made my fair share of biscuits, so I usually take cubes of butter and mix into the flour, and then, flatten out the dough. I create the fluffy layers in the biscuits by cutting the rolled dough in half, stacking the two halves on top of one another, and rolling out. I continue until I have layers upon layers before cutting the biscuits into circles with a mason jar. Needless to say, I am not sure that I fully executed the book fold like a pro. I did, however, take much pride in the book fold. I set my kitchen timer for one hour and continued the quarter turns and folds four more times, finding other fun activities to do while I husband was in the wood shop and I waited for the dough to chill between turns. I will say that hitting the butter with a rolling pin to flatten is quite therapeutic, so if you do not nail the book fold with precision, you have that piece to look forward to!
Don't Have Caster Sugar? While I tried to stock up on common "How to Bake" ingredients at the grocery store, I do not keep white sugar in our pantry. I will say that I have tried coconut sugar and monk fruit as a substitute for caster sugar in both the pastry (monk fruit) and creme patisserie (coconut sugar). I am sure that this is an epic no-no when it comes to professional party baking, but I could not taste a difference.
Don't Have Milk? I make homemade nut milk weekly, so we always have around nine cups in our fridge ready for smoothies, baking, or just sipping. I used our homemade nut milk in place of the full-fat milk that was required in both the pastry dough and the creme patisserie - everything turned out great.
Flavors. Trust your gut...literally! I will use this lesson-learned, a second time. Make flavor changes that you think will be tasty; after all, you are the one eating it. For this particular recipe, I did not have apricot jam, nor the ingredients to make a jam. For the sweet variation, I decided to do a raisin, walnut and chocolate chip filling. Because I used chocolate chips as a filling, I omitted the glaze and the icing drizzle on top. For the savory variation, I did a bacon, raw cheddar, rosemary and thyme filling.
Creme Patisserie . If nothing else, go make yourself creme patisserie, and try this: We had extra creme patisserie after halving the recipe for a savory variation, so we dipped strawberries into the creme. It was insanely delicious. It might have been the best decision that I made in 2020, yet (aside from our nuptials). I also shared dipping a strawberry in sour cream and coconut sugar with my husband, and he was shocked by the similar taste to cheesecake.
On that note, I hope that you find a recipe book you enjoy, or this one, that I am currently baking my way through. Either way, enjoy baking and nourishing yourself and your family.
All my light and all my love. Namaste.
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