Recipe tips: Lady fingers

Hello fork musketeers!

Today I'll be covering some older content: lady fingers.

Homemade lady fingers are those fancy little biscuits that always gets a delighted, "Ooohhh!!" smile from your friend. Little do they know, they're pretty easy to make and you can make a pretty big batch under an hour. Crazy, I know. They don't have a very extensive list of ingredients and you will most likely have all the things at home. Crazy, I know!

What's in a lady finger?

Lady fingers, or biscuit à la cuillère, are essentially (separated) eggs; flour and sugar. Most people are probably more familiar with Italian-style lady fingers; the ones that you buy at the grocery store to make tiramisu. Fun fact: there are french-style ones!

The difference between the two is the overall texture. Italian lady fingers were designed for young toddlers in the middle of teething. The harder and drier texture relieves the pain and won't cause the toddlers to choke. French lady fingers, however, were not meant for toddlers. According to Chef, they were given to high class ladies who had an "afternoon tea" meal of champagne, strawberries and... lady fingers. Don't even try pretending you drink champagne because you have lady fingers. You're not fooling anybody.

That being said, you can totally make tiramisu with both. While Italian lady fingers are, conceptually, better since they'll absorb more spiked coffee, you can still use French lady fingers as well.

Lady finger tips

So I have some good news for you. The only electronic assistance you need is your mixer and your oven (gas assistant if you have a gas oven). Hurray! First separate your eggs. It's really important that there is NO egg yolks in your egg whites. Protein is meringue's death certificate. It'll be easier to avoid piercing the egg yolk if you tap the side of the egg on a flat surface, like your table, rather than the edge of a bowl.

Protip: It's way easier to separate eggs when the eggs are cold. You can either pass the egg yolk between the two shells or you can get messy and use your hand as a strainer. Alternatively, though maybe not the most sanitary option, you can use an empty water bottle and "suck" the egg yolk into the bottle and transfer into your bowl. 

First, beat your yolks and sugar together until it drips down your beater like this. This is called "thick ribbons". 

Set this aside in another mixing bowl and wash your mixing bowl very well. Don't worry if there's still a bit of water left in it; just make sure there's no more egg yolk/oil in it.

Protip: You may be thinking, "why can't I beat the egg whites first then the egg yolks? It'll save me some washing!" Raw meringue, however, doesn't do very well at room temperature. If you leave it out for too long it starts to separate and gets watery. It'll be ok if you can keep the meringue moving but you're looking at extending its life 20 minutes max. So, while more cumbersome, this way will prevent you from screwing up your meringue and leaving you with extra egg yolks. Which is annoying as hell, I know.

Gently beat your egg whites until it becomes foamy then you can add your sugar and continue beating. You're looking for stiff peaks; what this means is when you take your whisk out of the meringue it should hold a point or look like a bird's beak.

Chef said think of Big Bird
from Sesame street. Big bird's beak
isn't like this at all. Jussayin.

Now here comes a somewhat tricky part. What you need to do is incorporate the whipped egg yolks and the meringue together in the least amount of folds to preserve the air in your meringue.

How to fold meringue into your other ingredient(s)
Step 1: Use your spatula to take a third of your meringue and plop it into your wet ingredient. If you're incorporating flour, put some of your dry ingredients into the meringue.
Step 2: Gently scrape the side of your bowl with your spatula.

Step 3: ... and fold some batter over the top.

Step 4: Then gently smoosh your batter 2-4 times.

Finished scooping the batter over
the top...

... followed by a gentle smoosh.

Step 5: Rotate your bowl and repeat from Step 1 until the batter is well combined.

You want to make sure you don't have large pockets of meringue in your batter. This will give you some uneven rising in your finished product. When you're done, put the batter into a piping bag or screw modern convention and do the name justice by using a spoon. It depends on how rebellious you feel. I'm quite conventional so I used a piping bag.

Protip: If you have a tray that can fit your wire rack, you can put the wire rack into your tray. Top it off with parchment paper and you have a grid-guideline for your lady fingers. Just make sure to put something in the corners to prevent your paper from flying.

Lady finger guidelines

Once it's all piped out, you must, must, MUST put some icing sugar on top. Do one coat, wait 30-60s, then do a second coat. This is imperative to a crispy, texture top. Don't be shy now.

Notice how I was not shy with the sugar.
DO NOT BE SHY. Shyness won't get you
a nice crust.

Protip: If you don't have icing sugar readily available, you can use your food processor or your coffee grinder to grind regular sugar. Plus this way saves you some cash.

Now bake until it looks crispy, crusty and lovely. It's a really short bake time so don't go away. Mine took about 7 minutes on the dot.

My non-shyness paid off.

There you go. Lady fingers! They're spongey, chewy and have a really light flavour. Can you believe it's only eggs, sugar and flour?! Plus they take less than an hour to make. Now you're morally obligated to make these instead of buying them. No excuses now.

So far we've only been practicing the recipes we've done (we did pain au lait which is exactly like brioche. This isn't new content). Tomorrow we're supposed to be making apple sourdough. I'm pretty excited since I've never made sourdough before and I want to do some experiments with it. Ironically I don't really like sourdough, haha!

I hope you guys enjoyed this. Don't be shy and leave a comment down below!

Recipe tips: Bagels (the quest for the bagels of my childhood)

Hello fork musketeers!

Bagels! Omurgurdd!!

Bagels with Chef's instructions

Bagels with my knowledge of Montreal bagels.

Along with smoked meat, bagels are one of Montreal’s specialties. Montreal bagels are slightly sweet, dense and chewy and oh, so so tasty. When I was growing up, my father started his restaurant adventure in a building called Faubourg, located on St. Catherine and Guy. Just two stores down there was a small Mom and Pop Jewish bagel placed called The Bagel Shop. Every time my family wanted bagels, we would go to The Bagel Shop to satisfy our bagel craving. Unfortunately, they closed their doors about a year ago and I’ve miss those bagels ever since.

While I'm not claiming to be the bagel expert and I'm still a grasshopper in the art of breads, hopefully I can give you some tips on how to make your own bagels.

What's in a bagel?

There's something very special about bagels. Not only are they chewy and dense but they are a bit of an oddity in the bread world. Most breads tend to be fairly hydrated doughs - meaning the water to flour ratio is something like 700g:1000g, water and flour respectively, or 70% hydration. This is the ratio we used to make baguette and pain de campagne.

Bagels, however, tend to be around 50% hydration; some recipes are as low as 48% and as high as 55%. This is the only dough that's exceptionally dry and, if you're not careful, it can easily bust your electronic mixer due to its stiffness. As much as I like my modern-day conveniences, this is probably best done by hand unless you have a really powerful mixer on hand.

In addition to its low hydration level, it's also dipped or boiled in hot water - either sugar or lye I think - drained, garnished, then baked in a super hot oven. If you've seen the bagel places in Montreal, this is done in a wood oven. It gives a faint charcoal taste to the bagel. The dipping/boiling process helps make the bagel more dense.

That being said, bagels are dirt cheap to make. Their main ingredients are bread flour; sugar; maybe a dash of salt and yeast. From the recipes I've looked at, there's usually some malt powder/syrup which can be substituted with molasses and honey. Although, now that I think about it, I'd be curious if I could use gula melaka...

Supposedly the "unique" ingredients in Montreal bagels is the use of boiling syrup and eggs in the dough. I'll have to experiment.

Bagel tips

Mix in all your ingredients in the bowl. Your dough is going to look really shaggy and not pretty at all. Don't freak out though; just keep mixing until you have most of the flour incorporated. Then you can take it out the bowl and start kneading.

There are different ways of kneading; the way I do it is fold the front edge back onto the dough and press it in with the heel of my palm. Then turn the dough and repeat. You can totally look up some different methods for hand kneading to find the way you like the most.

This dough is really stiff. Since it's such a low hydration dough, it never really gets shiny like other doughs. Also, your folds will have a harder time getting incorporated into each other. I got so nervous when this first happened to me, I thought I had overkneaded the dough. After a few attempts, I think this is normal for this kind of dough. So don't fret and don't be afraid to be a little rough with your kneading. This particular dough is stiff and, in general, dough is tough.

That being said, as you knead, the surface of your dough should gradually get more and more smooth. You know you're done when the surface is smooth and the dough springs back when you give it a harsh poke. Remember, dough is tougher and springs back quicker than Chuck Norris or the most annoying character on any given TV show.

At this point you can decide on a few things. You can let it rise for a few hours, overnight or even 45 minutes. The longer and slower the rise, the more complex flavour you'll have at the end. The dough we made with Chef was left overnight in the fridge. On the other hand, the recipe I tried said to let it rest for 45 minutes. I ended up letting it rest for 2 hours and a half since I want some flavour. I wanted to let it rest for 3 hours but I got impatient.

After resting, your dough should be much more soft since the flour has had a chance to absorb the water. At this point, knock the gas out and you can take a kitchen scale to evenly divide the entire dough. If you don't have a scale, you can roughly guess the size of each bagel. I prefer a scale since I suck at estimating. If you like numbers like I do, Chef advised 120g/125g per bagel.

Roll them into balls and let them rest for about 5-10 minutes. After that, shape your bagels by rolling it out into a long snake. Wrap it around your hand and seal the bagel by rolling the two ends together. Make sure you have a relatively large hole; you don't want your bagels to close up!

Join the two ends together

Roll roll roll

Depending on how tacky your dough is, you may have an easier or harder time doing this. The 2nd batch wasn't very tacky so I definitively had some difficulty there. You'll get it though!

The ends didn't quite join as well as
I wanted them to. Taking note of this.

Protip: If your bagel is looking a little uneven or you're having some difficulty rolling an even log, you can do the pull-and-tug method. After you join the ends, hold your bagel like a steering wheel and gently tug the dough to even your bagel out.

For Montreal bagels, I've read that it's done in a syrup or a sugary solution. I'm not entirely sure of the ratio, though with Chef we did a 15% sugar solution and added a bit of molasses. For boiling you'll want a wide pot so you don't have to do these one at a time.

For my very first attempt at bagels I used my kitchen wok.

When your water is nice and hot (perhaps boiling depending on what recipe you're following), toss in however many bagels you can fit into your pot. If you're keeping your water at a certain temperature - but not boiling - be careful about your water temperature. If your heat isn't strong enough and you add too many bagels your water will get too cold for sufficient bagel cooking.

Before you put your bagels in, you should have some things ready:

1. A stopwatch at hand
2. Your garnishes in bowls/plates.
3. Either a wire rack to place your bagels...
4. ... or a pan so you can pop them into the oven. Make sure to use a silicon mat or parchment paper so your bagels aren't glued to the pan.

When you put your bagels in the water, they may or may not sink. Whatever happens, your bagels should definitively float within 15 seconds. If they don't, it means they didn't proof long enough. When you toss your bagels in the water, start your timer so you know how long they've been boiling for. Generally speaking they should boil between 1-2 minutes. If they're really big, like 140g/150g, you may consider 2/3 minutes instead. Flip them at the halfway mark and leave them alone until it's time to pull them out.

Protip: If you're afraid your bagels are underproofed, take a smaller pot of cold water and test a bagel by tossing it in. If it floats, they're ready to boil; if it doesn't, dry it off and leave them alone for another 30 minutes.

Protip: To take them out you can either use a slotted spoon or the handle of a wood spoon. I took mine out with a spatula and an icing spatula since I had them out anyway.

As soon as you take your bagel out of the water, give it a quick shake and toss them in your garnishes. In Montreal the most popular garnishes are poppy seeds (my favourite) and sesame. Then put them on your wire rack/tray. Rinse and repeat until your rack/tray is full. While they may expand a bit in the oven, whatever shape they have after the boiling process is their final shape.

Depending on whether you did a dip method or a boiling method will determine the oven temperature. The dip method doesn't cook the bagels so you'll have to set your oven at a lower temperature (try 375˚F). If you boiled them, they're cooked so the oven is going to give them colour. That means you can set your oven at a higher temperature; I set the oven to 450˚F for my 2nd batch. When the tray is full, pop them in the oven and watch them brown.

Protip: Your bagels might expand a little if you boiled them or a lot if you dipped them. Give them some breathing room and don't crowd them!

The 1st set took about 15-20 minutes to cook through. The second took 5-10 minutes to brown. When they look delicious, take them out and let them cool on a wire rack.

Final thoughts

Let's take a look at my bagel attempts.

First attempt ever

My very first attempt was on my own before I decided to go to pastry school. Long story short, it was a major dud. While they came out fantastic looking, they were more like dinner rolls than bagels. I was pretty disappointed.

Bagels with chef

My second attempt was with Chef. I liked how the dough was more tacky and it was easier to join the ends together. The texture was nice and it was a good bagel, however it didn't taste anything like my childhood bagels. I was left pretty unsatisfied and more determined than ever to replicate them.

Today's attempt

Today's attempt was the most successful thus far. I remembered how my family said that the baker used honey in his recipe, so I brought my bread flour and a jar of honey to school to experiment. I found a recipe online that was based on the St. Viateur bagels and I tweaked the recipe in a few ways. I put a bit of honey in the bagels; let them rise for 2.5 hours, boiled them in a honey solution and baked it at 450˚F.

While it's impossible to replicate the hint of charcoal without a barbecue or a wood oven, this is probably the closest I'll get. I got my family to try and they all agreed this was very close, if not spot on, to the bagels we bought. My mom even joked that I could make a big batch to freeze and my parents could bring it with them on holiday so they could get their bagel fix.

This poor bagel got detached... which
meant it was the first to die be eaten.

Did I replicate my childhood bagels? Not quite, but I think it's 95% there and I know what's the missing component. Am I pleased with the overall result? You bet I am.

All I can say is you won't see me buying bagels again.

Recipe tips: Brioche

Hello fork musketeers!

You may remember that I made croissants and brioche a couple of days ago.

I didn't want the post to be too long, so I decided to split it. Without further ado, here are some tips on how to make your brioche delicious.

Brioche tips

Brioche is an enriched bread (i.e. viennoiserie) that uses whole eggs, milk and butter. It has an unbelievably soft texture and a really great bread to have for breakfast. I personally find this bread a little too rich for my taste, someone who likes very rich breads might like brioche.

So mix your dough until all your ingredients, except the butter, is incorporated.

All initial ingredients have just been incorporated.

The last ingredient!
Don't mind the weird shadow.

If you're doing this by hand, I'm going to warn you: this dough requires a lot of kneading. Like a lot. We used the mixer and, set to a modest 3 or 4, this took about 10-20 minutes of straight kneading to finish. This dough is also incredibly sticky, so if you hate handling wet doughs this may make you really frustrated and hate this bread.

Protip: I've heard of a technique to handle wet doughs. It's called the "stretch and fold" method. Here's a handy link to see it in action. I haven't tried it myself, but I've heard very good results with this. However, I'm not sure if it'll work for brioche specifically since S&F is a hands-off method to develop gluten. Try it out on your next frustratingly wet and sticky dough and see what happens.

Whether you're doing this by hand or with a mixer, you have to keep kneading the dough until the dough has a more tacky texture to it. If you're using a mixer, make sure to scrape down the sides to ensure a consistent texture throughout the bread. You know when it's done when it doesn't stick to the sides anymore. Now scoop your dough out and pop it in the fridge to rest.

When you take it out of the fridge, it's going to feel hard. Don't be alarmed; this is because of the butter in it. Just scoop it out and gently knead until it's more pliable. Don't get it too warm since you want to keep the butter cold.

So now it depends on how you like to present your brioche. In class we did it in three different formats: mini brioche à tête; a tall cylinder and a loaf.

Format #1: Brioche à tête

So these are supposed to look like this.

Photo not mine. Thank you google.

Mine obviously does not look like that.

Yes, I totally nibbled on the bottom one.

So what's the deal man? It involves a bit of dexterity and I could write a bunch of steps...

Buuuuuttt instead here's a video I took of Chef doing it.

So my mistake here was the head wasn't large enough. Mine were small so as the bread expanded it, more or less, absorbed my pathetically very small brioche head. Hence why they look more like mounds than small heads.

I found the trickiest part is pushing the dough against the sides to give the brioche head some room. However, if you're never rolled dough into balls, you might find that step a bit tricky.

There are a few components to this motion.

1. You need to keep the base of your palm on the table at all times. I know it's more common to place your palm on top of the malleable thing and roll. However, in this case you get a rounder shape; you take advantage of the dough's properties to help you and you don't use both hands. So if you get super pro at this you can roll two balls of dough at the same time. Sweet!
2. Keep your hand curled as if you were holding a cup. Depending on the size of your hand and your dough ball, your palm should be the part that's really dragging the dough. There's no finger action here.
3. You need a lightly floured surface. If you have too much flour, the dough will just glide everywhere. If you have too little flour, your dough sticks to everything.
4. Now move your dough in a small, circular motion. It should roll up into a ball nicely. Don't worry if it has a teeny tiny tail. Just place the tail on the bottom and nobody will be the wiser. I promise.

This is a basic technique to roll small pieces of dough so it'll be useful to learn for your bread adventures. The other thing I need to do is to not dig my finger into the brioche head. I think this contributed to its pathetic small size. You need to gently tilt the head out of the way and scoop the dough from the bottom and press it to the sides. This creates more room for the brioche head to sit in.

For the cylinders you just need to coat it with a bit of oil or fat. Roll a ball and then plop it in. Boom, you're done. So hard and challenging; I know.


Format #3: Brioche loaf
Given the various forms of bread, my personal favourite is a loaf. I like having the choice of how thick I want my slice of bread to be. Thinner slices for sandwiches; thicker slices for fried eggs. Yum!

Anyway, if you google brioche loaves they tend to have some kind of poofy pattern on top. You can totally just roll it up, place it into a pan and call it a day. If you want some interesting patterns, keep reading.

For the loaf we made, we cut our dough into eight six somewhat equal pieces. Roll these out into a log that fits your pan. You want to be a bit strategic with them; put the smaller pieces on the outside and the bigger ones on the inside. It'll help give your loaf a nicer shape. Depending on the side of your pan, you can also just roll them into balls and put them next to each other. Really, it's up to you.

Protip: Make sure to keep the seam of your log/ball on the bottom of the pan. If you put your dough seam side-up your bread is going to expand and explode in all sorts of ways. You'll end up with a really cool textured look but it's probably not what you're going for.

Whatever format you choose to do, do an egg wash and let them proof until doubled in size. Or you can use my HolyShit Plush Gauge™; it's totally scientifically proven. Then, just before you put it in the oven, another coat of egg wash.

Protip: So remember how egg wash acts like glue? If you're making a loaf, make sure you don't get egg wash down the sides. It'll prevent your bread from rising. Then you and I will be super sad.

If you're having a hard time to tell its doneness, I used a knife down the middle of the product. Don't poke it too much, otherwise your goods will look a little weird with all those holes. Anyway, the knife should could out clean; just remember to wipe it if it has wet dough on it.

Then tadaaaa you're done. Enjoy your brioche in whatever form you made them!

If you have any feedback and/or comments, don't be shy and leave a comment down below. :)