Bootleg Crouu....nuts # Baking Partners September Challenge

This month Swathi of Zesty South Indian Kitchen challenged the Baking Partners to make the latest sensation in the world of pastry ... the celebrated  'Cronut™'. Earlier this year Chef Dominique Ansel launched this unique pastry in Dominique Ansel Bakery, New York. Since then this pastry has accumulated a big fan following around the world. Though it is often described as a hybrid of croissant and doughnut, it appears that resurrecting a copy-cat recipe of the trademarked 'Cronut™' has  been quite a challenge for many accomplished pastry Chefs around the world. However some of them have cracked the code.. and brought the pastry to the doorsteps of the enthusiastic home bakers. Chef Jessica Yang is one of them and here is her recipe of BootLeg cronuts that we tried for this months baking challenge.

Though Crouu..nuts are deep fried pastries, Swathi chose to challenge the Baking Partners with this recipe as it incorporates the techniques of making puff pastry and yeasted doughnuts...  though i was initially very excited as the prospect of learning both the techniques, standing on the other side of the 3 day process I no longer feel the same way. the whole process is long, tedious, tiring and painful. it completely drained me off all the excitement and enthusiasm. admittedly these pastries taste good but I wouldn't dare making them at home again. I'll rather be crazy for a day ... sacrifice a few hours of sleep and take the early morning train to NYC .. and stand in a long queue outside Dominique Ansel Bakery along with hundreds of other crazies like me for a bite of awesomeness ....than toil myself to death hoping to create a magic that i know I'll never be able to create in my kitchen in LI... just 60 miles away from DABakery.....

anyway since i completed the challenge I thought i might as well share my experience with you... just to tell you what i have been up to lately..

BootLeg Crouu... nuts  Recipe Source : KitchenSurfing Blog

ingredients    for the dough 2 cups all purpose flour plus more for dusting the work table 3/4 tsp salt 1/3 cup sugar 1/3 cup + 4 tsp milk (I used fatfree milk ) 1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast 2 large eggs 2 1/3 tbsp unsalted butter for butter layer 14 tbsps (1 cup minus 2 tbsp) unsalted butter for frying 2-4 cups canola oil  water for brushing on top cinnamon and sugar (4 tbsp sugar + 1 tbsp ground cinnamon) for chocolate pastry cream (I followed this recipe) for the chocolate glaze 4 oz semisweet chocolate chips 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter -  the method  Phase 1 30 minutes before dough preparation take the butter and the eggs out of the refrigerator and allow them to reach room temperature. when ready to prepare the dough, combine all the dry ingredients, flour, salt, sugar and yeast in a bowl of your standing mixer. heat the milk until warm, about 20-30 seconds in the microwave and add it to the bowl of dry ingredients. now add the eggs and butter and mix on low speed until everything is well incorporated. then mix on high speed for another 8 minutes. (note that the dough gets tougher as you mix. though the recipe instructs to mix on low speed for 3 minutes and then on high speed for 8 minutes, I was not able to knead on high speed for 8 minutes as one of the paddles of my hand mixer broke in the process. so unless your mixer paddles are sturdy enough, take a break in between or towards the end, knead the dough with your hands.) remove the dough from the bowl, shape it into a ball and transfer the dough into a well greased bowl. to allow the dough to relax, cut a cross on its surface with a knife. then covering the dough with a plastic wrap, place the dough in a warm area and let it double itself. this takes about 30-60 minutes (in my case around 60 minutes.) after the dough has "poofed" transfer it to the refrigerator for at least 2 hours (or overnight).  Preparing the butter for lamination While the dough is chilling, prepare the butter for lamination. for this take 14 tbsps (2 sticks minus 2 tablespoons) of cold butter and cut the sticks lengthwise into half. now arrange the cut out pieces on a parchment paper in the form of a rectangle, cover the laid out butter rectangle with a second parchment paper and using a rolling pin even out the rectangle till it is approximately 4x6 inches. then wrapping the butter with a cling wrap, transfer it to the refrigerator and allow it to chill for at least 2 hours. Phase 2 : Note this phase consists of 4 major steps wherein the fourth step is a repetition of the first three. Including the minimum intermediate chilling time, this phase should ideally take 6-7 hours. but for non-experts like me it might require an extra couple of hours. so be prepared for this ! I had allowed the dough to chill for 8 hours before starting phase 2. I hadn't read the recipe completely so i took a long break after the second turn that is the second step of phase 2 and continued the lamination process next day. though it apparently did not effect the outcome, I think it is better to follow the recipe and complete the lamination process at a single go... remove the dough from the refrigerator and roll it out on a well floured surface so that a cross is formed with equal arms on all four sides. make sure that the center of the rolled out dough is big enough to envelop the slab of butter. place the butter in the center of the cross and cover the four flaps so that the butter cannot be seen. the opposite flaps should not overlap when folded but should seal the butter inside meeting at the edges.  1st turn.  flour the surface and the dough so that it does not stick to the rolling pin. before beginning to roll out, press the dough down in order to expand it. turn the dough so that the shorter end faces you. roll to expand the length of the dough. to ensure that the dough does not stick to the work table, add more flour whenever required. when you have a rectangle that is 16 x 7 inches, fold the top third of the rectangle down, then fold the bottom third to cover it. turn the dough 90 degrees so that the opening resembles a book. 2nd turn. (though you can do this step right away, I highly recommend that you wrap the dough in film and chill it for 30-60 minutes before doing the 2nd turn. ) like in 1st turn, roll to expand the length of the dough and repeat the subsequent steps, then turn the dough 90 degrees and gently press two fingers in the lower right corner to mark the number of turns. (marking the dough helps you to keep track of your progress and also ensures that the orientation of the dough is correct when you remove it from the refrigerator.) now wrap the dough and let it chill for atleast 1 hour. (this is the point where i took a break and decided to resume the lamination work the following day.) 3rd turn. at this point the dough is hard. so gently pound it to warm the butter. if it is too cold the butter will separate and not spread as well as it should. repeat the previous steps. then turning the dough as in 2nd turn, mark the corner with 3 fingerprints. once again wrap the dough and return it to the refrigerator for 1 hour. 4th turn. make the final turn, repeating the steps from 1-3 turns. then wrap the dough and chill it for at least 2 hours.   In the meantime prepare the chocolate pastry cream  for the chocolate pastry cream, I followed the recipe from Around the French Table. It is the same one that i used as a filling for my chocolate eclairs. you can find the recipe here. Phase 3 . from dough to crouu..nut lightly dust the work table with flour and roll out the dough to approximately 2/3 the size of a sheet pan and 1/2 inch thick. make sure the dough stays cold. in case the dough starts to stick, return it to the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes and roll again when it is cool. transfer to a sheet pan with parchment paper, cover it with a film and chill before using. line a sheet pan with parchment paper and grease it. once the dough is very cold, remove it from the refrigerator and using 2 ring molds, punch out the doughnuts and doughnut holes from the rolled out dough. (the recipe mentions that crouu..nuts do not fry straight unless the dough is very cold.)  transfer half of the punched crouu..nuts to the sheet pan, leaving enough room for them to "poof." brush the tops with water and stick the remaining halves on top. press lightly so that they stick together. place the crouu..nut holes on the same sheet tray leaving enough space for them to poof without sticking to each other. leave in a warm place until they have poofed, about 30-45 minutes. now place the "poofed" crouu..nuts and the holes in the refrigerator for 1 hour or in the freezer for 15 minutes. Phase 4 . frying the crouu.. nuts and adding the flavors.. when ready to fry, heat canola oil in pot around 3 inches high. test oil with a pinch of flour, if the flour foams it is ready for deep frying. Turn heat to low and place crouu..nuts in oil 1-2 at a time.avoid overcrowding the pot. turn and flip the crouu...nuts till they have evenly browned. once it turns golden brown and looks well cooked, remove the crouu..nuts from the oil and place it on a paper towel and proceed to prepare the chocolate glaze. for the chocolate glaze, melt 4 oz semisweet chocochips in the microwave and stir 1/2 tbsp of butter into it. when the  crouu..nuts are no longer shiny, that is the extra oil has been absorbed in the paper towel, transfer them to a container with sugar and cinnamon and toss. then dip the crouu..nuts in the chocolate glaze while it is still warm. once the crouu..nuts have cooled a little, poke several holes and fill with the chocolate pastry cream... serve and enjoy !!

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.

Eggless Crispy Cheesy Donuts

This month I joined Gayathri's Eggless Baking Group. Well its no secret that I love baking. I bake a lot and every now and then I like my cakes and bakes to be eggless . While I had been hesitating on whether or not to join another baking group, their last months challenge convinced me that to join the group. They had baked eggless Tiramisu. Now that is something I would like to try but I wonder if I would try to bake it unless I was challenged to do so. so yes. I left a message at Gayathri's Cook Spot and soon enough she added me to the group and mailed me the challenge for May... Eggless Crispy Creamy Donuts. The original recipe that Jayanthi of Sizzling Veggies suggested from All Recipes   included eggs and we were challenged to bake rather fry an eggless version of it.

Though every once in a while we love to pick up donuts from our neighbourhood Dunkin Donuts, to be honest I wasn't very excited about trying these at home. The reason. I hate to deep fry. not just because it isn't the healthiest option but because I cannot fry. getting the correct oil temperature always seems like a tricky business and you know everything goes wrong if the temperature is not correct. the fried stuff is either undone or soaking with too much oil. and no one is happy. anyway since it was the challenge for the month I gave it a try. the first batch of donuts and their little star shaped kins came out fine. but i wasn't very happy with the second and third batch. so though 1 made 13 normal sized donuts and several little star shaped ones, it is only the mini star donuts and 6 of the 13 donuts that I am proud of... its however a different question if I'll ever make them again. probably not. but i do intend to try out the baked version .