Madeleines

Madeleines

For the literary fans amongst you, madeleines may evoke thoughts of Proust. For me, they are an integral part of  the most fabulous petit fours I have ever had in Paris over ten years ago, where these babies were like little clouds on my tongue.

Until about a month ago, I had never made madeleines. In the back of my mind, these beautifully delicate shell-like cakes have been linked to the category of very tricky baking and patisserie and something that needs hours to prepare. They are also made with a genoise sponge, which I rarely make as it does not keep for very long .

An important breakfast meeting prompted the need to make something a little more delicate than bacon sandwiches and so I was inspired to try them. Since then, hundreds have seen their way through my kitchen. I would like to attribute this to the fact that I have been so diligent in preparing this recipe that I have made multiple batches, just for testing, but it is more the fault of Michel Roux Jr, who states in his recipe that they should be eaten within an hour of cooking.

Based on a genoise sponge, these little shell cakes are made with little fat, lots of eggs and even more elbow grease. This is unless you have an electric mixer, in which case it is the work of moments. The result is a mouthful full of rich, buttery flavour and featherlight texture. Michel Roux Jr is correct in his assertion that they should be eaten soon after baking. Not only are they even better eaten warm, but as time goes on, the delicate internal fluffiness starts to collapse, making them denser and slightly chewy. Therefore, although they are very easy and quick to make, you need to time them so they are consumed in their optimal state.

The only specialist equipment you will need is a madeleine tray. Purists may prefer a metal one, but after trying both, I find a silicone one makes it easier to remove the cakes while they are warm. I like a hint of lemon in mine, but you could add orange zest and a little juice, or honey. Another great addition is to full the shell section of the tray halfway, add a little raspberry jam and cover with more batter on top. This is the basic recipe, but the only limit is your imagination.

Madeleines

Makes about 15

Ingredients

2 free-range eggs

100g caster sugar

100g plain flour, plus extra for dusting

1 lemon, juice and zest

¾ tsp baking powder

100g butter, melted and cooled slightly, plus extra for greasing

Method

1.Preheat the oven to 200°C. Brush the madeleine tray with melted butter then shake in a little flour to coat, tapping out the excess.

Buttered and floured Madeleine tray

2. Whisk together the eggs and the sugar in a bowl until they become much lighter in colour and very frothy.

Frothy eggs and sugar

3. Lightly whisk in the remaining ingredients. Leave to stand for 20 minutes before carefully pouring into the prepared madeleine tray.

4. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until the mixture has risen a little in the middle and is fully cooked through.

Madeleines in the oven

5. Transfer the madeleines to a wire rack and leave for a few minutes to cool slightly. Depending on how many sections your tray has, you may need to do more than one batch. These are best eaten within an hour of cooking.

Perfect with a cup of tea!

Focaccia

My word I love bread. It really is my weakness- I’m not really fussy about origin: Arabic flatbread rich with za’atar for breakfast, soft Indian roti to scoop up indulgent curries for lunch, Greek pitta puffed up and warm with humous as an afternoon snack and crisp French baguette with dinner. If it vaguely resembles bread- I’m there!

Most cultures regard a dinner table without bread as incomplete. This is especially true in Italy where the addition of bread on the table normally means the dreaded ‘cover charge’. I have touched on Italian bread before with my post about ciabatta, but now I move onto focaccia.

Focaccia actually takes a few different forms in Italy itself; areas in the north actually call incredibly thin layers of dough stuffed with cheese and baked, focaccia, but here I will focus on the one we are familiar with; a thick, olive oil enriched bread often studded with rosemary and rock salt. It has taken some time to get this recipe right, mainly because it took some time to convince myself that a bread could (or should) contain quite so much olive oil. I am now persuaded. The essence of this bread is the olive oil. It is a paradox, as it is full of oil but is not oily with a soft and airy texture.

Olive oil is a controversial subject these days; the book Extra Virginity by Tom Mueller is an eye-opening reflection and investigation into the olive oil trade. It is an unfortunate fact that amongst the honest and hard-working artisan producers in Italy, Spain and Greece, there are many unscrupulous fraudsters making a profit from people’s trust in a label which boasts of ‘extra virgin’, ‘100% Italian’ or scenes of rural Tuscan hills. Olive oil is often cut with lower grade oil, which is sometimes not even from olives at all.

Bertolli olive oil is a perfect case in point; the Bertolli family were actually bankers who never owned an olive tree. They made a fortune due to an incomprehensible  European law that, until 2001, allowed any olive oil bottled in Italy to be sold as “Italian olive oil”. In fact, even now 80% of the oil Bertolli uses comes from Spain, North Africa and the Middle East. It is still sold in bottles “Passione Italiana” on the label. Today, Italy still sells three times as much oil as it produces; you do the maths. The word ‘pure’ does not mean anything about the contents; just because the oil says it is produced and/or packaged in Greece or Italy, does not mean all the oil comes from that country. Low grade oil is shipped in from all over the Mediterranean to meet demand.

In the UK, we consume over 30m litres of olive oil every year, so it is worth knowing how to choose something good for your kitchen. One of the most important things is to buy bottles which are not clear; olive oil needs to be stored in dark bottles to slow down degradation. You should also check the bottle for the harvest date; olive oil degrades with age, it does not improve and it needs to be used within 18 months of the harvest date. Try to buy from somewhere that will let you taste it first; most delis and smaller shops will be happy to let you try before you buy, although this is obviously not the case in your local supermarket! If you are buying Italian oil, look for a label which says that the oil is produced in Italy using olives produced in Italy. Extra Virgin is the most important label and, although not an absolute guarantee, the symbols for DOP or PGI give a little more confidence. In this case, you really do get what you pay for; there is just no way you will get a quality olive oil if you only spend a few pounds. Try to think of it as an investment for your kitchen; a good oil will transform your cooking, although it is a massive waste to cook with it; save it for salad dressing, drizzling on pasta and, of course, for dipping bread into.

The problem is that olive oil is as diverse as wine in flavour and very few people know how it really should taste. Blind taste tests have embarrassed many a knowledgeable foodie. Brands such as Bertolli have marketed their wares as smooth, light and gentle, but real olive oil is usually deeply peppery. It will probably make you cough if you sip a spoonful of it. It can smell grassy, fruity and fresh. What sort you like is deeply personal, that is why it is important to taste it. Whatever you end up buying, it should make you happy when you sip it. There is a reason why Homer referred to as liquid gold.

Foccacia

makes one large slab to serve 6-8

Ingredients

For the bread

500g strong white flour
20g coarse semolina
15g fresh yeast
320ml water
50ml extra virgin olive oil
12g salt

For the topping

30 ml extra virgin olive oil
sprinkling of rock salt
2 tbs picked rosemary leaves

Method

Preheat your oven on at 250°C. Oil a 20cm swiss roll tin. If you do not have one of these, a baking sheet with high sides will do.

Mix the flour and semolina together and rub in the yeast, using your fingertips as if making a crumble. Add the salt, olive oil and water and knead the dough for 10-15 minutes. It will be very wet, but keep going and it will firm into soft dough. Place the dough into an oiled bowl, cover with a shower cap or cling film and rest for an hour in a warm, dry place until it has doubled in size.

With the help of the rounded end of your scraper, turn the dough out onto an oiled tray. Drizzle the oil for the topping over the dough, then, using your fingers, push and prod the dough so that it spreads from the center towards the edges of the tray. Do not pull it hard, just let it ease out. Cover with a tea towel and leave to rest somewhere warm and draught-free for about 45 minutes.

Dimple the dough with your fingertips, and rest for a further 30 minutes.

Take the rosemary leaves and push them gently into the dough. Sprinkle on the rock salt and put into oven, along with a spritz of water from a spray gun to create some steam. If you don’t have one of these, throw a couple of ice cubes into the bottom of the oven. Turn down the heat to 220°C and bake it for 25-30 minutes, until the bread is light golden brown. Remove from the oven and slide onto a wire rack to cool. Brush with a little more olive oil while it is still warm.

Serve with more olive oil, antipasti, soup or just on its own.

Kitchen Tip #9 How to Avoid Rust

I have lost count of the number of baking trays, cake tins and tart cases I have had to throw away because parts of them have gone rusty.
It’s always the underside of the lip or a corner- this is usually because these areas are so hard to dry after washing them up. Even if you put them in a dishwasher and leave them to steam dry afterwards, they will stay wet in those places as they are tight and collect the water.

A simple solution, and one I wish I had thought of years ago, is to wash your trays etc as usual and then put them back into the oven while the oven is still cooling down. The residual heat will dry every part of your tins and you will never have rust again!

Kitchen Tip #3 Blind Baking

When blind baking pastry, you are often advised to use baking beans, rice or pulses. Nothing wrong with that but I have found that using coins is a great alternative. The coins weigh the pastry down and conduct the heat brilliantly and so cook the pastry through from the top down with no bubbling up, meaning less chance of a soggy bottom, to quote Mary Berry! You will still need to take the coins out (careful, as they will be boiling) and pop the pastry back in for five minutes or so as usual to finish the cooking, but this is a foolproof way of blind baking without tears! Or is that just me?

Perfect Pizza

Pizza is one of my favourite foods, but takeaways and ready made versions are so often a disappointment; soggy crusts, synthetic flavouring, stodgy dough. It is possible to make really good pizza at home-even if you don’t have a Jamie Oliver wood-fired oven in the garden. I have spent a good few months working on this method-it is not a short-cut method. This recipe is not as quick as cooking a pizza from the freezer, but is worth every minute. What it will get you is a bubbly, crispy crust, slightly charred with a perfect doughy texture. I subscribe to the traditional Neapolitan tradition of a very thin pizza base, which works better with this cooking method. Don’t worry if you like a thicker base-it will just need a bit of extra cooking time in the oven.

I believe the base of a pizza to be more important than the topping. Without a wonderful base, a good topping is wasted. Therefore, after much experimentation, I have discovered that fresh yeast is the preferred option with this recipe; please don’t moan that you can’t get hold of it- most supermarkets sell it on their bakery counters and it’s as cheap as chips! 50 grams costs about 16p and will keep for a week or so if you wrap it up well and keep it in the fridge. If you want to get ahead, you can make the base a day before and let it rise in the fridge-this actually gives a greater depth of flavour to the dough, but only works if you are organised, which I am not often!

I am a real purist and always prefer a simple mozzarella and tomato topping, but a pizza should be a versatile as vessel as possible, so feel free to use anything you like, but not pineapple-I draw the line at pineapple!

Makes 4 pizzas

For the base

500g Strong Bread Flour

15g Fresh Yeast

10g Salt

320ml Water-room temperature

Fine semolina

For the topping

350g Passata

1 tbs Balsamic Vinegar

½ tsp Brown Sugar

1 tsp Tomato Puree

2 balls Buffalo Mozzarella

Fresh basil leaves, olive oil and seasoning to taste

Optional-olives, salami, artichokes, cooked ham, spinach etc.

Special Equipment

A large and very sturdy (ie thick) baking tray that you don’t mind using just for pizzas or a large cast iron frying pan.

First prepare your base. Shift the flour into a large bowl and add the yeast. Rub the yeast into the flour until you cannot feel any more lumps. Now add your salt and mix in. Add the water and use a plastic spatular to combine. Once the mixture is very roughly combined, get your hands in and start to bring all the bits of dough together. The mixture will seem very wet at this point, but don’t worry, it will come together, just keep at it. You will need a plastic scraper to keep it moving at first.

Tip the dough out onto a very lightly floured surface. Knead the dough well, at points folding the dough over itself to trap air. Do not add any more flour, however tempted you are; more flour will make a heavy and stodgy base. Keep working the dough and it after about 10 minutes, you should have a smooth and bouncy ball of dough.

Lightly oil a bowl, place the dough in the bowl and cover with a clean tea towel or cling film or a shower hat( see Kitchen Tip #2). Put the bowl in a warm and draft free place for about an hour, or until it has approximately doubled in size.

While the dough is rising, make the tomato sauce. Put the passata, balsamic vinegar, tomato puree and sugar in a saucepan and heat gently. Season with salt and pepper and leave to simmer gently for at least 20 minutes to cook out the tomatoes in the passata. Taste and add a tablespoon of olive oil and salt and pepper if needed.

After the dough has risen, use your spatular to move it out of the bowl and onto a lightly floured surface. Do this very carefully to keep as much air in as possible. Divide the dough into four sections and leave to rest for another 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, put your grill on its highest setting and turn your baking tray or frying pan upside down and place it underneath the grill. Close the door if you have one. Leave it for at least 15 minutes. This is essential so that when the pizza is placed on the tray and put under the grill, the base of the pizza cooks at the same time as the top. You will need very good oven gloves for this.

Sprinkle a little semolina onto your work top and using the tips of your fingers, carefully push out each ball of dough to form the pizza bases. If the dough feels like it might tear or is unyielding and tight, leave it to sit for five minutes and it should be more pliable. Do not worry about forming perfect circles, the dough will take its own rustic shape as you push it out. Try and use the backs of your hands more than your fingertips, as these are more likely to pierce the dough. If you do get holes, don’t worry-you can patch them.

When you are ready to cook, you will need to work quickly, so make sure you have everything close to hand. Take the baking tray out from under the grill, lift one of the bases onto it (you should see it immediately bubble in places and hear it sizzle slightly), spread with the tomato sauce and top with torn buffalo mozzarella and any other toppings. Put the tray straight back under the grill and close the door if you have one. Cooking should take no more than a few minutes, but this will vary according to size, shape and topping, so keep your eyes on it and do not leave it for a second.

When the cheese has melted and the crust is bubbled and brown, remove from under the grill; the pizza should slide off easily. If you have a thicker base, put the tray into the oven for 5-10 minutes to finish cooking.

Put the tray back under the grill for a few minutes, then remove and repeat the process with the other pizzas.

Garnish with torn basil and a drizzle of very good Extra Virgin olive oil if you wish. You will have burnt a finger and have a very red face from the heat of the grill, but this will be the best pizza you have ever eaten at home!

Garlic Bread

Follow the method above up to shaping the dough and then cook the base without any topping.

When cooked, brush liberally with a mixture of 100g of melted butter, 1/2 crushed garlic clove and 1 tsp of finely chopped parsley-heavenly!