Italian Buttercream: yes, you can!

Pastry school has been so busy this winter that I haven’t had much time to write. We’ve made pies, tarts, custards, breads, croissants, and now cakes. Whew! And if you’re making and decorating cakes, of course there’s buttercream. All my life, I’ve been making what I thought was regular buttercream (frosting): butter, powdered sugar, milk and vanilla. It’s what’s called American Buttercream. It’s heavy on the sugar, natch.  

I learned in school that there are actually five kinds of buttercream: Italian, Swiss, French, German, American. Technically, American buttercream has egg whites added at the end of the mixing to add fluffiness. The buttercream I’ve been making is actually called Decorative Buttercream and it’s not intended to be eaten. Just to be used as decoration. Ouch. 

I can’t believe I never ventured to make Italian Buttercream before! It’s so good and so much better than what we Americans typically eat. I think I was intimidated by the hot sugar syrup and not having ever tasted it. I stuck to the tried and true. But, having made Italian Buttercream 8 or 10 times in school, I’m a convert. It’s very buttery, somewhat but not overly sweet, and it tastes SO much better than buttercream heavy on the powdered sugar. And, yes, you can make it at home–successfully. It’s so worth it. 

ITALIAN BUTTERCREAM (enough for one cake and some decoration) 

You’ll need a candy thermometer and a stand mixer for this recipe. 

• 11 oz. Water 
• 24 oz. Sugar 
• 8 oz. Egg Whites 
• Pinch of Cream of tartar or lemon juice 
• 28 oz. Butter 
• Vanilla to taste 

Cut butter into cubes and let it come to room temperature (it should be soft to the touch). Bring 3-4 inches of water in a medium-sized pan to a simmer–this will be the bottom of your double boiler. Put egg whites into the clean (no soap or fat residue) bowl of the stand mixer with a pinch or cream of tartar or a couple of drops of lemon juice, set the bowl on top of–but not touching–the simmering water and warm the egg whites to about 90°F, whisking constantly so they don’t cook. You just want them warmed up a bit.  

Pour the 11 oz of water into another pan (heavy-bottomed works best) and pour the sugar into the water. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally until it boils. Once the sugar-water mixture boils,do not stir anymore! Continue boiling until the mixture reaches 240°F. While it boils, do not stir it! From time to time, gently brush a pastry brush dipped in water along the inside sides of the pan to brush down the sugar crystals. If the sugar reaches up the sides of the pan, it could seize (turn solid). If that happens, you’ll need to start over, which is no fun. But if you let the mixture boil on its own and brush along the inside of the pan with the wet pastry brush from time to time, you’ll be ok. Once the mixture reaches 240°F, remove it from the heat.

While the sugar mixture is cooking, turn the stand mixer on medium low (with warmed egg whites in the bowl) and mix until they’re foamy. Keeping the mixer on medium low, pour the sugar syrup slowly into bowl, dripping it slowly into the mixer, as close to the center as you can so the syrup doesn’t harden on the inside of the bowl. Keep mixing until all the sugar syrup is incorporated into the egg whites. Then turn the mixer to high and whip until the mixture turns to the stiff peak stage. This can take quite awhile–10-15 minutes. Once it’s reached stiff peaks, turn mixer down to medium and start adding the softened cubes of butter one at a time. The butter needs to get incorporated bit by bit, so don’t dump it in all at once. Once the butter is all mixed into the egg whites, add vanilla, turn back to high and whip until buttercream is light and fluffy and white in. Ta da! 

Now, things can go wrong with this process, but most of them are repairable. It all has to do with temperature. The sugar syrup needs to be boiled to 240°F, so that’s not negotiable. Egg whites whip better if they’re a little warm (about 90°F- 100°F), so at least be sure they’re room temperature before you start making your buttercream. Whipping the egg white-sugar syrup will cool it down a bit, as it needs to be less hot so the butter doesn’t melt when you start dropping the cubes in. Once the buttercream is whipped, it may be too cold or too warm. The ideal temperature of the finished buttercream is around 70-75°F. If it’s too cold, the buttercream will be lumpy or grainy. In that case, put the mixer bowl with buttercream in it over the pan of simmering water and let some of the buttercream melt around the bottom. Don’t worry; it’s ok if some of the buttercream becomes liquid. Put it back on the mixer and whip on high again. If it’s too warm, the buttercream may be too liquidy and it will look yellow. If that’s the case, put it in the fridge for a bit and whip it again once it cools. This back and forth process can be futzy and time-consuming but do know that once the buttercream is finished, you can adjust it to the perfect Goldilocks temperature. It’ll be fluffy and white. And you can put it in the fridge for a few days or in the freezer for several weeks and use it later. Enjoy! 

p.S. Here is a YouTube video showing the process of making Italian Buttercream, in case you want to watch someone do it. (His process with the egg whites is slightly different from mine. Either way works fine.)

Baker’s Percentage and the hunt for a reliable fudgy Brownie

Brownie recipes are everywhere, and most people have their favorite. I used to make Betty Crocker’s recipe and liked it well enough. I’ve tried others, found them inconsistent or disappointing. I wasn’t sure I could find a reliably fudgy brownie that would wow every time. My goal in baking is to taste something and immediately say: Wow, that’s good! And the brownie recipe from our school’s CIA cookbook (not THAT CIA; the Culinary Institute of America) fit the bill! They are dense, chocolatey, and very fudgy. A real keeper recipe.

But then I got it into my head there must be a reason why this particular recipe is so good compared to others. We’ve been learning about baker’s percentage which is a method of recipe writing which notes the proportion of ingredients relative to the weight of the main ingredient, usually the flour. It’s often used in bread baking but also for other baked goods. For example, in a recipe the amount of the main ingredient (for brownies, the flour is always 100%–no matter the weight, and the other ingredients (sugar, eggs, butter or oil, cocoa) are noted as a percentage of the weight of the flour. If you take my brownie recipe below, the flour = 225 grams which is the 100%. The amount of butter is 310 grams, or 138%. Translating recipes into baker’s percentage gives you, at a glance, what the proportion of ingredients is to each other so you can compare recipes and tell why the recipes work or perhaps why they don’t.

Here’s my new favorite recipe, with percentages included, in case you want to compare your own brownie recipes. They are called cake brownies in the CIA cookbook but they’re dense and fudgy, not cakey.

Cake Brownies (adapted from the CIA Baking and Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft cookbook)

Semi-sweet chocolate	310 grams	138%
Butter	310 g	138%
Eggs, room temperature	310 g (approx 5-6 eggs)	138%
Sugar	495 g	220%
Vanilla extract	7.5 g (1 tbls)	3.3%
Cake flour	225 g	100%
Cocoa powder	80g	36%
Walnuts, coarsely chopped (optional)	225 g	100%

1. Butter a half-sheet pan (approx 11″ x 17″). To use a 9″ x 13″ cake pan, it’s best to cut the recipe in half. This recipe make a BIG batch of brownies.
2. Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler over barely simmering water, blending gently after the chocolate and butter have melted. Remove from the heat.
3. Combine the eggs, sugar, and vanilla in a stand mixer and whip with the whip attachment on high speed until light and thick in color, about 5-8 minutes.
4. Blend one-third of the egg mixture into the melted chocolate to temper it, then return the chocolate mixture to the rest of the egg mixture in the mixer and blend on medium speed, scraping down the bowl as needed.
5. On low speed, add in the flour, cocoa powder, and nuts until just blended. The batter will still be very wet. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly.
6. Bake at 350° until a crust forms but the center is still moist, 30-35 minutes. Cool completely in the pan.
   

Week 4: Matignon

A quick update on our last cooking lessons before we, finally, move on to baking. We had a practical test on knife skills last week. I can attest that I’ve learned to properly mince parsley (hacher, in French) but I can’t cut a straight line to save my life. We were asked to cut carrots into 3/4″ dice–a large dice used for some mirepoix. The 3/4″ size is called matignon. After spending a good 45 minutes and dicing three carrots, I had succeeded in dicing what seemed a miniscule 1/4 cup of matignon-sized carrots. I was pretty proud of myself. The cubes fit into the 3/4″ square hole in my ruler (see photo of the ruler below), and they all looked like nearly perfect cubes to me. Alas, when my chef looked at them closely, it turned out not one of them had a straight side. It was a humbling moment. If you don’t look too closely at the photo below, you’ll think my cubes look pretty good. But, pretty good isn’t good enough in the French knife skills world. Give it a try some day. And the next time you eat at a restaurant, you’ll have a new-found respect for the cooks who cut all those uniformly-sized vegetables.

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Week 3: Mise-en-place

We spend a good amount of time preparing ourselves and our workspace for the day’s recipes. In a home kitchen, preparation and getting your tools and ingredients ready in avance isn’t so important as you’re usually in a small space and making one dish at a time. But in a professional setting, the kitchen is big, things move fast, and you’re making multiple dishes at the same time. Preparing things in advance can save you a lot of time and a LOT of walking back and forth.

I thought you’d like to see a few photos of the beginning, middle and end of my day. The beginning starts with getting out the tools I’ll need for the day’s recipes, filling my buckets with soapy water and sanitizer, putting on my apron, and sharpening my knives. It’s a satisfying way to start. The middle photo is my mise-en-place–a key French term in the kitchen–literally meaning “put in place” or more commonly translated as “setting up”–for Peas à  la française–a simple and tasty dish made with frozen peas. We made pasta one day last week (the last photo)–fun but messy. And, yes, we do all our own dishes.

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Peas à la française

Ingredients
for 4 people
20 oz. frozen peas
2 oz. butter
4 oz. pearl onions
4 oz. fresh spinach (or lettuce, which is traditional) cut in chiffonade
1/2 oz. sugar
1 teaspoon finely chopped parsley
6 oz. vegetable broth (or water)
1 tablespoon beurre manié (equal parts softened butter and flour)
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Sweat onions in a saucepan until translucent. Add spinach (or lettuce) chiffonade, chopped parsley, sugar, and peas. Pour stock over ingredients and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce to a simmer, cover with a cartouche, and cook until tender. Finish broth with beurre manié. Adjust seasoning.

Week 2: White Food

White food gets a bad rap these days. It’s white (obvs), too Midwestern (also mostly white), and not spicy enough. But it is also French. Or at least there is quite a bit of white food that is French. But since the foundation of pastry school is French, we’re getting an education in delicious white food. And the pastry part hasn’t even started yet!

We’ve made Béchamel (white sauce), Crème duBarry (cream of cauliflower soup), Vichyssoise (cold potato & leek soup), mayonnaise, and Joël Robuchon’s mashed potatoes. The mashed potatoes are quite special, not just because of the heart-stopping amount of butter but of the whole technique which results in a very smooth and fine bowl of mashed potatoes, or purée, as the French call it. It’s white food worth trying at least once, as it will transport you to–well, to a world beyond darkness.

Joël Robuchon’s Potato Purée (adapted from Saveur magazine)

Ingredients

• 2 lb. yellow-fleshed potatoes, such as yukon gold, unpeeled
• Kosher salt, to taste
•  ¹⁄₄ cup milk
•  1 lb. unsalted butter, cubed and chilled

Instructions

STEP 1

Boil potatoes in an 8-qt. pot of salted water until tender, about 25 minutes. (Water should be cold to start and should just cover the potatoes.) Drain potatoes and set aside to let cool slightly. Meanwhile, bring milk to a boil in a 1-qt. saucepan; remove from heat, cover, and set aside.

STEP 2

Peel potatoes (while they are still warm) and pass them through a food mill (not a mixer!) into a 4-qt. saucepan set over medium-low heat. Using a rubber spatula, turn potatoes frequently until they take on a drier, fluffier consistency, 2–3 minutes. Reduce heat to low. Vigorously stir in the butter until mixture is creamy. Whisk in warmed milk, season potatoes with salt, and transfer them to a warm serving bowl. (Chef Robuchon passes his purée through a sieve as the last step before serving, which will give you a very fine purée. I can’t imagine a better white food.)

Week 1: Pastry School

It’s been a whirlwind start to school this week. Long days and time spent in lines getting my registration sorted out. It sure has been a long time since I was a student, but I feel right at home again. Since I’m taking my program for “senior credits”, and I’m taking a cohort program, registration was fairly complicated (I’ll spare you the details!), so I ended up talking to around 6 or 7 advisors and one of my chefs walked me to the advising office to give his permission for me to take one of his classes. But everyone I talked to was patient, kind, helpful, and so encouraging. I felt like they wanted me to be there and wanted me to succeed. What a great feeling that gave me. It was such a contrast to my days in grad school when I had a baby and a toddler and couldn’t do all the regular things a PhD student should have been doing. Yet I don’t remember many of my professors caring all that much about whether I succeeded or not. Mostly, I remember indifference (except for my beloved advisor and one other caring professor). I’m sure I’ve changed, and I hope educators have changed since then. At any rate, St. Paul College is a top-rate school for caring about their students. And I’m glad to have found it.

My classmates are mostly young women, quiet and eager to learn. It’s a small cohort, and we’ll be together 26 hours a week, so I’m sure we’ll get to know each other well over the next nine months.

But on to the fun stuff. We started out learning knife skills. And all kinds of French terms for vegetable cuts. Batonnet = cutting vegetables into sticks; Ciseler = to finely mince; Hacher = to chop; Julienne = cutting vegetables into very thin strips, usually 3-5 cm long and 1-2 mm thick; Mirepoix = a blend of aromatics made up of carrots, onions, and/or leeks and celery. We received an eight-page list of French cooking terms with their English definitions. Cooking must be the last remaining profession where French is a foundational language! And we made soup. In case all this seems a digression from pastry, we learned that knife skills form an important foundation to any baking or cooking. And our chef tells us that some cooking basics will be helpful when looking for a job. In addition to all that, we washed a LOT of dishes. That–I am already good at.

Drawing of a knife (I’m not in art school!)–and there will be a test.

Ottolenghi’s Chocolate “O” Cookies

Culinary school starts tomorrow! Eek! had all kinds of good intentions to publish one last healthy recipe before I turn my attention fully to sugar and butter. But, the days were just too hot to turn on the oven. However, this week, I had to make a dessert for a friends’ get-together and I wanted to try one of Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipes from his cookbook Sweet. These chocolate sandwich cookies are billed as being similar to Oreos, only with a chocolate filling.

But after making them, I didn’t taste the similarity–and I was glad as they were much more delicious and more chocolate-y. Actually, they’re in a whole different universe. The ganache is heavenly and wouldn’t be found in the same room as the uber-processed Oreo filling.

I tried to follow the recipe carefully, but I had to make one change: using regular cocoa power instead of the Dutch-processed cocoa powder called for. You’re not really supposed to interchange the two types of cocoa, but, like many of us, I had a deadline and didn’t have time to run out to the store. Using Dutch-processed cocoa would have resulted in a darker cookie and a milder chocolate flavor. Next time…..

Chocolate “O” Cookies (from Sweet by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh)
I’ve added some of my own notes in parentheses within the instructions.

For the cookies

• 3/4 cup plus 1 1/2 tbsp/190g unsalted butter, at room temperature, cubed
• 2/3 cup/130g granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp flaky sea salt
• 1 3/4 cup/220g all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup/75g Dutch-processed cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda

For the water ganache

• 1/2 cinnamon stick
• shaved peel of 1/2 orange
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• 6 tbsp/90 ml boiling water
• 4 1/2 oz/125g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), roughly chopped into 1/2-inch/1/cm pieces
• scraped seeds of 1/2 vanilla pod
• 1/2 tsp flaky sea salt
• 1/4 cup/50g granulated sugar
• 2 1/2 tbsp/50g light corn syrup
• 3 1/2 tbsp/50g unsalted butter, cut into 3/4-inch/2-cm cubes

Instructions

To make the cookies, place the butter, sugar and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer with the paddle attachment in place. Beat on a medium-high speed for about 3 minutes, until light and fluffy. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking soda into a bowl, reduce the speed of the mixer to low, then add the dry ingredients in two batches until a dough forms. Tip on a clean work surface and knead gently until smooth and uniform. Wrap the dough loosely in plastic wrap, press to form a disc, and keep in the fridge for at least 1 hour to firm up.

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C. Line two baking trays with parchment paper and set aside.

Remove the dough from the fridge about 5 minutes before rolling, so that it has some malleability. (If you leave the dough longer than one hour in the fridge, it will need time to warm up enough to roll out.) On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough so that it is about 1/8-inch/3-5mm thick. Using a 2 1/2 inch/6cm round cutter, cut out circles and place them on the baking trays.

Bake from 13-15 minutes, rotating the trays halfway through, until firm. Remove from the oven and set aside until completely cool. (My cookies were between 1/8-inch and 1/4-inch thick, so they needed about 14 minutes to bake.)

To make the ganache, place the cinnamon, orange peel and pepper flakes in a small bowl and cover with the boiling water. Set aside to infuse for 30 minutes. After the water has been infusing for approx. 20 minutes, place the chocolate, vanilla seeds, and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.

Place the sugar and corn syrup in a small pan and warm over medium heat, stirring from time to time until the sugar has melted. Increase the heat to medium-high and boil until the sugar caramelizes and turns a light amber color, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the infused water and aromatics. Don’t worry if the sugar seizes in the pan. Just return it to the heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Return the caramel to a boil, then strain the liquid over the chocolate and vanilla. The aromatics can be discarded. Leave for 2-3 minutes until the chocolate has melted, then mix together. Add the butter, one piece at a time, stirring continuously until all the butter is incorporated and the chocolate is smooth. Place in the fridge for 30 minutes until the ganache is firm. (Don’t leave in the fridge for longer than 30 minutes, or it will be too hard to spread. For a simpler ganache, you could try the King Arthur recipe. You won’t have the spicy flavors, but it will be easier to make.)

To assemble, spoon a heaped teaspoon of the ganache onto the underside of a cookie. Spread it evenly all over the cookie. Place another cookie, underside down, on top of the ganache and sandwich together. Repeat with the remaining cookies and ganache.

Yum!

What’s Old is New Again

In the course of my Culinary Nutrition studies, I learned about a nutrition book my grandmother used to guide her diet and to cure all manner of ills. Called You Are What You Eat and published in 1940, it lays out a relatively new (for the time) argument for eating a balanced diet of mostly fruits and vegetables. The author Victor Lindlahr and his father (who apparently had gotten ridiculed for his medical work treating patients through his understanding of nutrition and the need for a balanced diet) were early pioneers of the health food movement, advocating healthy eating and emphasis on knowing how vitamins and minerals function in your body. We wouldn’t consider it ground-breaking now, but back then people were eating lots of meats and heavy starches and carbohydrates and scorning vegetables as “rabbit food.” Sometimes I think we’ve come a long way from that type of eating. Except if you step into a McDonalds, you realize we really haven’t.

I find it funny that he’s accused of promoting fad diets and of being a quack for telling people to cut back on carbs and protein and to have 60% of their diet consist of fruits and vegetables. Interestingly, his charts (below) on the nutrients in various foods are very similar to our current nutrition facts labels. (Lindlahr gives vitamin amounts in “Sherman units,’ which are units of vitamin C. In fact, a Sherman unit is the amount of vitamin C that, fed daily, will protect a 300-gram guinea pig from scurvy for 90 days. No wonder that unit of measurement is now obsolete!)

Broccoli is my new favorite superfood. You’ll see below it’s high in vitamins C, K, A, and B₂; iron; calcium; beta-carotene; potassium; phosphorous, and magnesium, plus protein and fiber. And it contains practically no calories. If you cut up a head of broccoli, mix the pieces with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and roast them on a sheet pan in a 400-degree oven for about 15 minutes, you’ll have a crunchy, tasty snack or side dish.

Broccoli 1940

Broccoli 2023

Nutritional Psychiatry and Overnight Oatmeal

I’m learning a lot about nutrition and the Standard American Diet (abbreviated as SAD–how fitting). But I had never heard of the emerging field of nutritional psychiatry until recently. It’s a branch of medicine that studies the connection between food and mental health and your diet and brain health. Practitioners and researchers in this field work on the connection between what you eat and how you feel; the quality of your diet and the health of your brain. As I understand, there is much yet to be studied. But it makes sense to me that the health of your brain would affect your mood and your behavior. The quality of the food you eat affects the rest of your body–your heart, your bone density, your energy level. Why wouldn’t if affect your brain too?

On that note, as I pay more attention to nutrition and my diet, I have become a fan of overnight oatmeal for breakfast. It’s well-known by now that eating a healthy breakfast gives you morning energy–both in your body and your brain. Oatmeal is cholesterol-free (heart healthy), a good source of fiber (helps prevent diabetes and colon cancer), and naturally low-fat (good for your arteries and heart). Adding milk or a milk alternative (I like almond milk), some protein (peanut butter or tahini), and fruit makes for a healthy and yummy breakfast. My favorite additions are a tablespoon of cocoa and a pinch of cinnamon that add flavor without added sugar. Here’s an easy recipe to try.

Overnight Oatmeal

• 1/2 cup of rolled oats
• 1/2 cup milk or non-dairy milk (almond, oat, soy, etc)
• 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa power
• 1 or 2 tbsp peanut butter or tahini (optional)
• 1 tsp maple sugar
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tbsp raisins or craisins or blueberries or 1/2 sliced banana (all optional)

Add all ingredients except optional fruit to a container with a tight-fitting lid (such as a Mason jar). Stir everything together. Screw on the lid and refrigerate overnight. The next morning, add some fruit and enjoy away!

In addition to a good balance of vitamins ( Vitamin A, B1, E, Biotin, Iron, antioxidants), these overnight oats contain around 300 calories (if made with 1 TB peanut butter and 2 TB blueberries). Compare that to a Starbucks blueberry muffin with 320 calories and half your daily RDI of sugar. With this oatmeal breakfast, you will do your brain and your body a favor and feel full longer, more energetic and sharp as a tack.

A Healthy Diet = Adequate, Balanced, Moderate, Varied

Wisdom from my Culinary Nutrition professor. Echoes the approach to cooking and eating I learned from my mother and maternal grandmother. Seems like common sense but who knows what common sense eating is anymore in the face of decades of relentless marketing by the sugar and fast food industrial complex. Plus how is your average person supposed to wade through all the data about what’s healthy or not?. Should you eat only protein and vegetables? Should you give up all carbs? Is wheat bad for you? Are we really meant to eat a caveman diet? So many diets and advice get handed out and then debunked in short order. I, for one, am going to eat more vegetables, put more color on my plate, cut back on sugar yet find enjoyment in things like a warm slice of homemade bread with butter and jam. And try not to get wigged out about all the conflicting diet and food chatter. Adequate, Balanced, Moderate, Varied–my new watchwords in the kitchen.