To celebrate Easter this weekend, I made hot cross buns, the brioche-like spiced loaves the British bake and serve on Good Friday*. I have made them on previous occasions, but instead of following the recipe I used last time, I decided to take a leaf from Dan Lepard‘s book.

I loosely followed the process he describes — the overnight fermentation in the fridge, in particular — but converted the recipe to use my sourdough starter, though the recipe below gives instructions both with and without a starter.

The classic hot cross bun is studded with raisins or currants, and sometimes candied citrus peel, but I had an entirely different picture in my mind: this year, I wanted to make them with white chocolate, pistachios, and dates.

And because I’m trying to clear out my fridge before Maxence and I leave for Japan later this week, I also modified the recipe to incorporate a half-tub of crème fraîche that needed using: various French brioche recipes call for it, and here it came to replace all of the butter and part of the milk, a substitution that brings a bit more tang and fluff to the crumb. I also lowered the amount of sweetener used in the dough itself, to account for the nontraditional filling I’d plotted.

You see, the classic hot cross bun is studded with raisins or currants, and sometimes candied citrus peel, but I had an entirely different picture in my mind: this year, I wanted to make hot cross buns garnished with white chocolate, pistachios, and dates.

The white chocolate and pistachio combo is inspired by little brioches I’ve seen sold at Eric Kayser’s bakery, and I added some diced date paste because I had some on hand, and I knew it would make for a harmonious trio.

I’m ordinarily not a fan of white chocolate: I find it terribly two-dimensional from a gustatory standpoint so I would never just eat it on its own, but I’m open to using it as an ingredient to make other things, especially if it makes a certain someone happy.

My remarkable selflessness was rewarded; it worked fantastically well. I’d expected the white chocolate to remain detectable as chunks in the finished buns, like bittersweet chocolate would, but what happened was a lot better: the white chocolate dissolved into the dough as it baked and candied at the edges, providing little jolts of lightly caramelized sweetness throughout the buns.

If you remember my previous post on the subject, I’d had trouble creating the cross that give these buns their name: though some bakers opt for a cross made of frosting or marzipan, I remain convinced that a hot cross bun needs to be toaster-proof, so a flour/water paste is the only way to go. But I wasn’t sure then what the consistency should be, and I ended up with strips of dough too firm to be pleasant.

I had better success this time: I made a thinner mixture of flour and water that I piped using a paper cornet — a simple piping bag that is folded from a triangle of parchment paper, and a handy tool to decorate cakes, breads, and plates. Those crosses melded nicely with the top of the buns so as to remain decorative without getting in the way of the buns’ softness.

Once the buns were baked, I brushed them with the easy sugar glaze Dan suggested, and this makes all the difference in terms of looks (shiny bun!), texture (sticky bun!) and flavor (sweet bun!).

We enjoyed our first taste fresh from the oven, and loved them immediately. After that, hot cross buns are traditionally split in two horizontally, toasted, and spread with butter or jam. I think this version is sweet enough that adding jam is gilding the lily, and I actually skip the butter as well, but I’ll let you decide what you do with your buns.

And of course, while these are typically an Easter-time treat, the 1592 decree that forbid their sale outside of Good Friday, Christmas, and burial days has long been repealed, so you’re free to use the recipe at other times of year, perhaps changing the cross symbol into another decoration to suit the occasion.

* To learn more about the origins of this culinary tradition, see this collection of excerpts from the invaluable Food Timeline website.

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This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Browse the list of idioms featured so far.

This week’s expression is, “Plein comme un œuf.”

Literally translated as, “full as an egg,” it is a colloquial simile applied to a thing or a place that’s completely full; close English equivalents would be “filled to the brim” or “packed to the gills.” Note that it can’t be applied to a person*: “full” here is not to be understood as having a full stomach, because the French adjective plein is not used in that sense.

Example: “Je peux mettre mes baskets dans ta valise ? La mienne est pleine comme un œuf.” “Can I put my sneakers in your suitcase? Mine is full as an egg.”

(In writing, the proper verbal construction would be “Puis-je mettre mes baskets dans ta valise ?” In common speach, however, it is the upward intonation that indicates the interrogation, and we skip the verb inversion.)

Listen to the idiom and example read aloud:

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Last week I had the good fortune of visiting Tain-l’Hermitage, a town in the southeastern quarter of France, near Valence. It is right in the middle of the Hermitage and Crozes-Hermitage wine country, in a gorgeous area that’s full of peach, cherry and apricot orchards. But me, I was there for the chocolate: Tain is also home to the Valrhona chocolate factory, and I’d been invited to take a tour.

We spent the day in paper hats, paper coats, and paper shoes (v. becoming), going in and out of large halls housing huge machinery, fat bags of cacao beans and ripples of chocolate, breathing in the intoxicating scents cacao emits as it is submitted to the many torments (cleaned, roasted, husked, crushed, ground, conched, molded, cooled, wrapped) that will turn it from bitter bean to the voluptuous antidepressant we know and love.

And the only thing I love more than chocolate is understanding how stuff works, so this was very much my idea of a happy Tuesday — despite the fact I’d had to get up at 4:45am to take the train, but I am nothing if not committed.

Most of the flavor components of chocolate are “trapped” in the cacao butter, and it’s only when the chocolate melts that they are released. Conveniently, the magic happens right around mouth temperature.

At the end of this full and instructive day, we were treated to a session with Vanessa Lemoine, the in-house expert in sensory analysis, a discipline in which the five human senses are used to describe and analyze products.

Among her responsibilities at Valrhona, she is in charge of training the chocolate tasters who assess the ten-kilo samples that are sent ahead of any cacao shipment. The beans from each origin are expected to conform to a particular flavor profile, according to the particularities of the cacao variety, the region’s terroir, and the production method that Valrhona and the growers have agreed upon. Any crop that differs significantly from that profile won’t be accepted for purchase. This is to ensure that the quality and personality of the single-origin chocolates as well as the blends remain steady, so that the chocolatiers and pastry chefs who have built their own recipes on a particular chocolate can in turn offer consistency to their customers.

The thing is, you can’t judge a crop by its bean: at this stage, the aromatic components are dormant, and its full potential will only be revealed after the beans are processed and turned into actual chocolate. So the sample beans go through a mini production line, and emerges as chocolate the tasters will grade along thirty different descriptors. A tough job, I’m sure — and I’m not being ironic.

It takes many training sessions to reach the finesse of palate that’s required of these tasters, but Vanessa Lemoine gave us a short primer on how to taste chocolate, and I thought it so interesting I wanted to share it here. The process is in some ways similar to wine tasting, so if you’re a honed wine taster, you’re that far ahead.

Taza Stone-Ground Chocolate

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Bouchées croustillantes au chocolat, amandes et gingembre

These chocolate clusters are the result of my recent and irrepressible urge to declutter. I would chalk it up to the advent of spring if it hadn’t been so stubbornly cold, and if I didn’t find myself in that state of I-can’t-bear-to-live-with-this-stuff-for-a-minute-longer several times a year.

Actually, one of my resolutions for the new year is to take on at least one decluttering project every weekend. It can be something quick, like sorting through the restaurant business cards we’ve accumulated over the years and removing the ones we’ll likely never visit again (done), or something ambitious, like reorganizing our overstuffed basement, recycling/tossing/giving old things away (check).

My rule of thumb is to use 1 cup of dried fruits and nuts plus 1 cup of puffed grain for each 250 grams (9 ounces) of chocolate; this creates an ideal crisp/crunchy/chewy texture.

It’s not that we buy that much stuff to begin with, but clutter seems to build up out of nowhere; perhaps a good theoretical physicist will one day study the phenomenon. In any case, I find it relaxing to know I have a counter-strategy in place, and it’s easy to tailor the size of the endeavor to the time and energy I have, yet still get a nice feeling of accomplishment. I even write down what I’ve done each weekend, to keep track; I don’t go so far as to award myself little congratulatory stickers, but I’m this close*.

The approach applies to the kitchen, too, and I try to go through my cabinets and drawers with as unsentimental an eye as I can summon, and prune, prune, prune. What I no longer need I sell or give away. There is a special shelf in the lobby of my apartment building, and the unspoken rule is that one can leave objects, books, and magazines there for others to take. They’re unfailingly snatched up in a matter of hours, and it’s fun to think that some of my unneeded utensils simply live on another floor now.

And of course, my pantry also needs to undergo that treatment on a regular basis, to refresh my memory as to what it contains (the cabinet is so ill-conceived I have to take everything out to get a good look), group ingredients together with a semblance of logic, and identify those that need to be used up soon.

Chocolate clusters to the rescue!

Unfailingly, I turn up small leftover amounts of dried fruit and nuts I want to use before they have a chance to shrivel up entirely or go rancid**, and these chocolate clusters are a delicious way to do so: they’re simply made by combining your choice of nuts, dried fruit and puffed grain with melted chocolate, and letting the clusters set.

(And by a happy coincidence, they’re also a perfect use for the box of 1,000 mini paper cups I’ve been working my way through for the past, um, six years.)

The chocolate cluster is a classic confection, but I only started making them after buying some at a chocolate shop in Barcelona a few years ago. Their version was called Trencadent and I couldn’t stop eating them; I tried making them after coming home to Paris, and it turned out to be the easiest thing ever.

A flexible formula for chocolate clusters

My rule of thumb is to use 1 cup of dried fruits and nuts plus 1 cup of puffed grain for each 250 grams (9 ounces) of chocolate; this creates an ideal crisp/crunchy/chewy texture and chocolate-to-filling ratio.

Make up your own combos depending on what you have on hand!

The puffed grain is there mostly for texture; the flavor is brought on by the nuts and the dried fruits. The following pairings I’ve tried and liked:
– almonds + candied ginger (as below),
– pistachios + dried apricots,
– peanuts + dried cherries,
– Brazil nuts + dried figs,
– almonds + candied orange rind,
– hazelnuts + raisins.

But really, you can make up your own combos depending on what you have on hand, or visit Sara or Dorie for more suggestions.

You could certainly add some spice or a touch of ground chili, but neither is necessary. Just remember to toast the nuts, so their flavor will be at its maximum.

And let me remind you that Easter comes early this year — Easter Sunday is on April 4 — so if you’re in the market for an easy giftable chocolate idea, this may be it!

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* Need help decluttering? Take a look at the Apartment Therapy Home Cures, which offer helpful weekly assignments, advice, and support. The spring home cure has just started, and the kitchen cure is under way.

** My freezer is too small and too humid to keep nuts safely, but if you have room in yours, it is said to be a good way to ward off rancidity.

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