Sunday brunch – brioche, part 2

It was SD's birthday this Sunday, so I decided to do something a bit special. Buoyed by the success of the brioche I made a few months ago, I decided to try the Brie and apple varieties.

The initial dough is really easy to make – dump the ingredients in the bowl (in order), pop in your dough hook and then wait.

Luckily, each of these recipes from Paul Hollywood’s How to Bake uses half quantities (or can use half quantities), so you can easily make savoury and sweet versions for breakfast.

Apple brioche

I made the dough on Friday night (10-15 mins), prepared it (about 30 mins, including making the crème patissiere) it on Saturday night and baked it on Sunday morning, but you could do it all starting the afternoon before. I promise that it is worth the small effort.

Once you’ve got your dough ready to start preparing (so, you’ve let it prove for 7 hours), divide it in two.

For the Brie version, knock the dough back a bit. Divide it into 7 equal-sized pieces. Take 100g of Brie and cut it into 7 pieces – I used Camembert in the end. Push a piece of cheese into the centre of each piece of dough. Grease a 20cm round tin, and arrange the dough balls in it, with one in the centre and the remaining 6 pieces around it. Cover the lot with some cellophane and leave it to rest for at least two hours.

The uncut Camembert brioche

When you’re ready to bake, heat the oven to 190° and bake your bread for 20-25 minutes (mine was slightly over-baked and therefore a little dry). Serve it while it’s still slightly warm. While you’re tucking into it, you can bake the apple version.

Camembert brioche

For the apple version, grease a baking sheet. Knock your dough back a bit and divide it into two. Either roll or push each one into a round shape on the baking sheet.

You’ll need to make a crème patissiere to go on top of the dough. In a bowl, combine 100g sugar, 4 medium egg yolks and 40g of cornflour until they are smooth. Heat 500ml of whole milk and a teaspoon of vanilla bean paste in a pot until boiling. Pour about a quarter of this into the egg yolk mixture and whisk. Then add this mixture back into the milk in the pot and heat the whole lot until it starts thickening. Pass this through a sieve and mix through a 40g knob of butter. Cover this with a circle of greaseproof paper to prevent a skin from forming. Leave this to cool.

When it’s cool, spread the crème on the dough – I only needed about half of it, which was fine, as this was the best custard I’ve ever eaten. And I’ve eaten a lot of custard.

The 'creme pat' on the brioche

Peel, core and slice about 3 apples and arrange these on top of the crème patissiere. If you have some, sprinkle a few slivered almonds on top. Bake this at 200° for 20-25 minutes until it is golden brown. You could brush the top with apricot jam to glaze it. I don’t like apricots, so I didn’t.

And spread with the apples

I didn’t try this, but I think some fried lardons would work well in the cheesy ones (and I’d add a bit more cheese, so maybe 150g cheese instead of 100g), and an apple and Brie version would be delicious. Hmmm, I might have to make this a third time…

Pork and Triple Karmeliet stew

Inspired by the beef and Guinness stew I made a couple of weeks ago, I decided to try a Belgian variation of this using pork fillet and Triple Karmeliet. The results were spectacular, myself saying so, and like any stew, it’s low maintenance to make.

Pork and triple Karmeliet stew

Tripel Karmeliet is one of my favourite beers. It’s a light golden colour, with a large head, smells yeasty yet fresh, and slightly apple-y (I think). It’s got quite a dry taste. It packs quite a punch, at 8.4%.

I find that the cuts often recommended for slow cooking always end up being tough, even after three or four hours on the stove, regardless of the cut or where I bought the meat from, so I used pork fillet. At the end of the day, it's cheaper then making an inedible dish...

We got five servings from this.

A little olive oil

400g pork fillet, chopped into bite-sized chunks

An onion, chopped finely

4 cloves of garlic, crushed

A tablespoon of flour

A bottle of Triple Karmeliet

One stock cube

Salt and pepper

A teaspoon each of savory, fennel seeds and sage

A parsnip
A leek
A carrot or two if you have them (I didn't)

Two or three potatoes per person

Two eating apples ( I used pink ladies)

You could also add a packet of lardons towards the end, but we had none of these.

Heat a little olive oil in a heavy casserole dish such as the Le Creuset one you have in your cupboard that you never find a use for. Once it’s hot, brown off the pork chunks. This will take about 5 minutes.

Remove the meat but leave as much of the oil as you can. If you haven’t got a lot of oil left, add a little more. Reduce the heat and cook your onion and garlic for about 5 minutes, until they get soft.

Put the meat back in and add the flour. Mix it all through the onions and meat until they are coated. Then, slowly add the beer and all the seasonings and herbs. Add the peeled and chopped parsnip, the diced leek and the carrots if you have them. 

Cover with a lid and leave this for about 40 minutes over a low heat, so that the liquid is simmering gently but not bubbling.

After your 40 minutes, and the scrubbed potatoes, nestling them all into the liquid so that they cook. Peel and chop the apples into small chunks and scatter them over the top of the stew. Cover the whole lot with the lid again, and leave for another 30 minutes or so, until the potatoes are cooked. The sauce should have thickened slightly in the cooking process.

Taste your dish and adjust your seasonings if needed. Serve hot, to your appreciative crowd.

Update 14.09.13: I made this again for tonights dinner, using Duvel instead of the Karmelite. It was also good, with a slight bitterness that the Karmelite doesn't have. 

Mammy’s steamed apple pudding

I managed to get my hands on some cooking apples, thanks to the Internet Grocer. Yay! Now to use them.

Every time I go home, I ask mammy to make her steamed apple pudding for me. Ah, bless. it's one of my favourite desserts.  

I also managed to get my hands on a pudding steamer (from Amazon), seeing as I couldn’t find any suitable bowl (plastic, with either a well fitting lid or a good lip that you can use to catch a string around).

So, for comfort, you will need:

100g butter

100g sugar

100g flour

1 teaspoon of baking powder

2 eggs

vanilla essence

4 cooking apples

Beat the sugar and butter until white. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Fold in the flour and baking powder until it’s all combined. It should drop easily off the spoon, so if needed, add a little milk.

Steamed apple pudding mixture

Pop the kettle on.

Peel the apples and slice into the bottom of your steaming dish. Top with the cake mixture.

Sliced apples for steamed apple pudding

Now for the science! You have to make sure that your steaming dish is totally sealed. If you have a steamer, this is easy enough. If you are using a bowl, cover the pudding with greaseproof paper and tinfoil and tie with string (this is where the lip on the bowl comes in handy). For both, make sure that no moisture can get in or out.

In a large pot, place a saucer upside down on the bottom, put your pudding bowl on top and fill half way with boiling water from the kettle you boiled a few moments ago. Cook for an hour and a half, keeping an eye on the water level to make sure it doesn’t go dry – if so, just add more boiling water.

When done, lift out carefully – the steam can burn you. Serve with loads of custard (the stuff from the packet).