French Crullers with Blackberry Glaze # GYCO Blackberry Challenge

Well it is that time of the year when fruits are available in abundance and you feel like trying out all the recipes that you've pinned over the year. so here is another fruity dessert that i whipped up today for the 

GYCO Blackberry Challenge organized by 

Julie of White Lights on Wednesday and Jen of Four Mars..One Venus.....

 French Crullers with Blackberry Glaze... 

and i am pretty happy with the way it turned out...

The thing is, every once in a while we enjoy snacking on a doughnut or two. but then making a big batch or even frying donuts isn't my thing. i prefer baking. and it so happened that the other day a spotted a recipe for baked Crullers in use real butter. i wanted to try it sooner but then all the challenges came in the way and it wasn't until today that i finally baked my first batch.

As opposed to the popular doughnuts, crullers aren't yeasted.  one shapes them out of Pâte à choux, a light pastry dough very similar to the dough for gougères and eclairs,  then bakes or fries them and glazes them as i have done. 

the idea of  using blackberry glaze was from  The Café Sucré Farine. I thought her doughnuts looked rad in purple. but since my concoction was slightly different, i ended up with a reddish tinge. not that i mind it... but purple would have been pretty too..

now the recipe....

French Crullers with Blackberry Glaze Adapted from use real butter

ingredients for the cruller dough 1 cup water 6 tbsps butter, cut into pieces 1/4 tsp salt 2 tsps superfine sugar (i used ground sugar) 1 cup all purpose flour 3 large eggs 1 egg white 1 tsp lemon zest for the blackberry glaze (enough to glaze crullers with  2 1/2 inch diameter) a handful of black berries 1/4 cup confectioner's sugar 1/2 tsp lemon juice 1/2 tbsp honey pinch of salt pinch of ginger powder -   what i did to begin with, i added the water, butter, sugar and salt to a heavy bottomed saucepan and holding over medium-high heat brought the ingredients to a brisk boil.  i then added the flour to the boiling solution and still holding the saucepan over medium heat, stirred the ingredients in the pan constantly till a thin film of the dough began to coat the bottom of the saucepan. switching off the heat i then transferred the readied dough into the bowl on the standing mixer and using the paddle attachment stirred the dough for a minute or so in order to cool it down. still stirring with the mixer attachment, i then added the 3 eggs and the egg white to the dough, one at a time, taking care so that each addition is completely incorporated into the dough before the next one is added.  after all the eggs and egg whites had been added to the dough, i beat it at medium-high speed for a couple of minutes, to make sure that the eggs were well incorporated. i then preheated the oven to 450 degrees F, lined two baking sheets with parchment paper and using a piping bag fitted with a star-shaped nozzle, piped out circles of the prepared dough into the prepared baking tray. since my piping skills aren't excellent, i ended up piping 25 mini crullers.  while i refrigerated most of the piped dough for later, i transferred a tray of 6 crullers to the preheated oven. 5 minutes down the line, i reduced the oven temperature to 350 degrees F and baked for another 15 minutes. at the end of 15 minutes, when the timer beeped, i switched off the heat, opened the oven door a little and let the crullers stay in the oven for another 5 minutes. after that i removed the crullers from the oven and set them aside for a while till they cooled down.  in the meantime i prepared the blackberry glaze by mixing all the ingredients in a saucepan and holing it over medium-low heat for a minute or so until the glaze changed color and somewhat thickened. i then dipped the crullers into the prepared glaze, waited for 5 minutes and then dipped them again just to make sure that each cruller is generously coated with the glaze.

and thats it... the crullers were ready to be served ! husband liked them and so did baby boy. but he wasn't overly excited about them. he had one and then wanted just the berries dipped in the glaze...

Sharing these with Made with love Mondays, Full Plate Thurdays, Foodie Friday and a few other Weekly parties.

Get Your Chef On ~ Chocolate : Marbled Chocolate Brioche Loaf

Well it is time for yet another GYCO Challenge Reveal ! This month 

Jen of Four Mars and One Venus and

Julie of White Lights on Wednesday

challenged us to create a chocolaty delight. 

though there were numerous chocolate recipes to choose from, it took me a while to decide what i wanted to make for this round of the challenge... and it was Irvin Lin's brilliant photographs that made me finally decide on the 

Marbled Chocolate Brioche Loaf.

it was a good decision because this loaf baked me happy.  it looked gorgeous and tasted divine. 

in fact we were so delighted by how the loaf turned out that following the same recipe i baked a second loaf the next day, this time a chocolate swirl brioche, and took it for my brother's family. needless to say they loved the took of the fancy loaf and were more than happy to dive into it right away. so a big thanks to Jen and Julie for this months challenge. I can now bake marbled and swirled Chocolate Brioche loaves at home ! 

now the recipe of the loaves 

as adapted from Eat the Love and The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook

Marbled Chocolate Brioche Loaf  (Recipe for a 2 pound loaf )

ingredients

for the brioche dough

• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 large eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp orange juice
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 21/4 tsp bread machine yeast
• 10 tablespoons of unsalted butter

for the chocolate layer

• 1/3 cup semisweet chocochips
• 1 tbsp orange juice
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 3 tbsp all purpose flour
• 11 cloves (spice) + 1 inch cinnamon stick, ground

• 1 egg for egg wash
• sugar for sprinkling on top

what i did

1. i made the brioche dough in the bread machine. for that I all the ingredients expect the butter in the machine pan and  programmed it for the dough cycle. 
2. when the machine started on the second knead I added 2 tablespoons of the butter and restarted the dough cycle. as the butter started getting incorporated in the dough I handed another 2 tablespoons of butter and continued this way till all the butter was incorporated into dough. i then let the dough cycle complete. 
3. when the machine beeped at the end of the cycle i inverted the dough into a plastic container and divided the dough into 3 equal parts. next i put 1/3 of the dough back into the bread machine pan along with the ingredients for the chocolate layer. again i programmed the machine for the dough cycle and let it run till all the ingredients were well combined and a smooth chocolaty dough rode on the blade of the pan, about 10 minutes. 
4. i then stopped the machine and stretched the chocolate dough to a 11x6 inch rectangle over a plastic sheet. i then put half of the brioche dough on top of the spread out chocolate layer and stretched it to the  same size. next inverting the two layers on another plastic sheet I put the remaining brioche dough on top of the chocolate layer and stretched it to the  same size.
   
   then placing the sandwiched dough in a plastic container i covered it with a plastic cling wrap and transferred the container to the refrigerator. 
5. 7 hours later, i took out the sandwiched dough from the refrigerator, cut out 1 1/2 x 1/2 inch rectangles from it. then piling the rectangles together in a loaf pan, i covered the pan with a kitchen towel and let the dough double in size. this took about 2 1/2 hours. 
6. once the dough doubled i preheated the oven to 400 degrees F, then egg washed the loaf, sprinkled some sugar on top and in the preheated oven, baked the loaf for 20 minutes. then turning down the oven temperature to 350 degrees F I baked the loaf for another 10 minutes until surface looked golden brown.

i waited for 30 minutes before taking the loaf out of the pan and cut out the first slice after the loaf had cooled down completely. 

Swirled Chocolate Brioche Loaf (Recipe for a 11/2 pound loaf)

for the brioche dough

• 1/3 cup milk
• 2 large eggs
• 1 egg yolks
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp orange juice
• 3/4 tsp sea salt
• 1 3/4 tsp bread machine yeast
• 7 tablespoons of unsalted butter

for the chocolate layer

• 5 tbsp semisweet chocochips
• 2 tsp orange juice
• 2 tsp cocoa powder
• 3 tbsp all purpose flour 
• 8 cloves (spice) + 1 inch cinnamon stick, ground

• 1 egg for egg wash
• sugar for sprinkling on top

what i did

for the swirled brioche loaf i proceeded in the same way as for the marbled loaf except that in step 5, after taking out the dough from the refrigerator, i rolled it out with the rolling pin then folded it as shown in "1st fold"...

then rolled it out again and folded the dough as shown in "2nd fold."i then cut out 1 1/2 x 1/2 inch rectangles from the folded dough and proceeded as above.

the dough before and after the rise...

so those were my gorgeous Chocolate Brioche Loaves. Hope you had as much fun reading about it as i had baking and eating them. Wish me luck for the Challenge and do visit the other delicious entries for this GYCO Chocolate challenge at .....

Four Marrs and One Venus &  White Lights on Wednesday

Until next time...  take care..

These loaves are being Yeastspotted. 
Also sharing these at a couple of weekly food events.