I am not very good at falling asleep. Once I manage to drift off I sleep soundly till morning — which is a blessing, no doubt — but it can take a while before I achieve that state of blissful nothingness. However much I try to relax before bedtime, my mind is reluctant to let go of the day’s activities, and seems to take the head-hits-pillow event as a signal to start whirring up again, and brainstorm on whichever problem needs solving, whichever writing needs editing, or whichever recipe needs tweaking.

I do wish I could doze off faster than that, but I have actually found that some of my best ideas spark up as I lie there in the dark, trying to concentrate on green meadows (sans brook, or I need to get up again) or relaxing my toes one by one. For this reason I always have a notebook and a pen on my nightstand to jot down any inspired thought — the fear to have it vanish come morning might keep me awake. Of course, I can’t very well switch on the light to write (that wouldn’t be very civil to the other inhabitant of the bed), so that notebook is covered with particularly squiggly blind writing.

A few nights ago, the matter at hand in this pre-sleep session was, “What should I do with the scraps of pâte brisée I have left?” I’d only made four tartlets, so I had about a third of one ball leftover (the other ball of dough being tightly wrapped and biding its time in the freezer), and there was no way I was tossing it. I usually make little palmiers (elephant’s ears) in such situations, but I was wondering if the dough could be combined with the leftover ganache that was resting one floor up in the refrigerator (yes, my fridge is a shelter for all kinds of stray edibles). After a few minutes or a few hours I have no idea — it’s difficult to keep a sense of time in pitch dark — these mini sandwich cookies took shape. I fell asleep before writing them down, but they were still under my pillow when I woke up.

And so the next day, in need of procrastination a break from my work schedule, I walked into the kitchen and brought them to life. I think they would have benefited from an eggwash and a sprinkle of sugar, but they were very good nonetheless — 100% recycled, and very cute too, dancing cheek to cheek on my plate.

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[The KitchenAid]

I have given in to the demon of temptation, and I can tell you this: it is poppy red, it weighs twenty-two pounds, and it comes with a dough hook, a flat beater, a wire whisk, and a stainless steel bowl (which conveniently doubles up as a kitchen mirror).

After so many years of lusting and wishing and yearning, resisting the urge because a stand mixer is not exactly cheap and counter space is a scarce commodity, I finally caved in and ordered one from a French online store. Just three days later, my shiny new friend showed up on my doorstep in its styrofoam jewel box, and I’ve been admiring it with the eyes of love ever since.

As one might guess, my recent brush with brioches is not entirely unrelated to this lavish purchase, and was certainly instrumental in getting Maxence’s blessing — he owns half of said counter space after all, so we make that kind of life-altering decision together. I chose red because everybody knows red cars drive faster, and my kitchen looks beside herself (yes, my kitchen is a she) with pleasure from this new accessory.

So, what have I used it for so far? Well, after carefully considering what recipe would be the most suitable for its inauguration, I decided on a simple pâte brisée to make the tartlets I was testing for a magazine article. The simplest ceremonies are often the most elegant, no?

Now I wish I could take it on the train with me to my parents’ mountain house for Easter so we could make hot cross buns with it, but that sounds like a stupid and back-breaking thing to do, so perhaps I won’t.

~~~

If you would like to know how and where such stand mixers are grown and harvested, you can read all about it in David and the KitchenAid Factory — perhaps Tim B. would like to buy the motion picture rights for that?

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[Beet Soup with Anchovy-Walnut Paste]

I went to the market on Saturday morning, walking at a brisk pace up the boulevard in the shy sunlight, stopping by the bank to deposit a check (aren’t you glad to know), and reaching the stands about a minute after the greasy smells of potato pancakes had reached me — how anyone can be tempted by these is beyond me, but the guy who sells them seems to do quite well, so perhaps I’m just not his target audience.

Considering the mild and sunny weather we have been blessed with recently (with the occasional shower, admittedly), I was fully expecting the market to have shed its woolen cardigan for a nice short-sleeved shirt, perhaps linen or cotton or a blend of the two, but I’m here to tell you that we ain’t quite there yet. The territory was still mostly occupied by root vegetables and citruses.

Strawberries? Asparagus? Both spring scouts were present, but the asparagus was outrageously priced, and the strawberries I tried were but a sketch of their future self. It is always a delicate situation when you’re kindly offered a taste, and all your palate has to bring to the conversation is “bof” (a French interjection that expresses indifference, lack of enthusiasm, or lack of conviction), so you smile an apologetic smile and say, “Um, maybe next week?”

Never one to lament for too long over a half-empty glass — or at least I try — I got myself some blood oranges and pears, a bunch of watercress, a couple of kohlrabis, and a lush bouquet of beets, complete with stalks and leaves. After a brief stop at the cheese stall (fresh butter, half a Reblochon, and an outstanding Salers), I walked back home, already planning the soup I would cook for lunch.

And this is what I made, a simple tip-to-toe beet soup, with a quickly whipped-up condiment of walnuts and anchovies — both being among beets’ best friends — to be stirred into our bowls at the time of serving, much like the pistou in the Provencal soupe au pistou. The soup took on a very attractive shade of deep purple — so did my fingers and the kitchen cabinets beneath which I pureed the soup — and offered a pleasant mix of lightly sweet and earthy flavors, spiked up by the pungency of the walnut-anchovy paste.

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Petites brioches

Amongst the many good things a food blog will do to you, is this one: even when you feel you are completely ruining a recipe, your mind is already working on how to turn this potential disaster into what you hope will be an entertaining, tale-of-a-near-fiasco post for your readers — a much more constructive way to look at the situation than curling up on the kitchen tilefloor and weeping helpless tears of rage.

And this is what I was thinking yesterday, as the brioche dough I was working on chose to be exceptionally stubborn, sticking doggedly to my hands, and refusing to turn out even remotely like it should. I was on the brink of throwing the whole thing out several times — so close to the brink in fact that small rocks were already tumbling down. But thankfully Maxence was close by, and he encouraged me to persevere. Apparently, the prospect of freshly baked brioche will turn any boyfriend into a very persuasive baking coach.

So what happened, you ask? Why was this so difficult? The story of theses little brioches started when one of my cooking class buddies, Nicolas, offered to bring me a bit of fresh yeast from the bread-baking class he’s also taking. He showed up last Tuesday with a few tablespoons of the beige and faintly smelly gravel in a tiny ziploc bag, and said he would email me the brioche recipe that they used in class. He also instructed me to use the yeast within three to four days.

But life and work got in the way, and I didn’t get around to doing so until Sunday — five days after he had given me the yeast. Already I was feeling uncomfortable and apprehensive, not to mention a tad guilty for failing to use the gift in a timely fashion, but I brushed these doubts aside and got to work. The recipe Nicolas had given me was in fact a general set of guidelines, with just the list of ingredients and the rising times. Since I was a brioche virgin I needed a bit more detail. Not wanting to bug my friend, I searched for recipes on the web, dug up a slew of widely different versions, and settled on a helpful, step-by-step tutorial.

It instructed you to make a starter first, by combining the yeast with a bit of milk and flour. After a short rest, the starter would make little bubbles to tell you it was ready to take over the world. Alas, mine never did. Even though I set the bowl on top of our server where it’s nice and warm, the mixture remained despairingly quiet and inert. My heart sunk. Had I killed the yeast, or perhaps worse yet, let it die a small, dishonorable death in the refrigerator? (I later found out that I should have removed it from the fridge a few hours before, to bring it to room temperature — it would have worked better then.)

At that point, I found myself at a crossroads: I could either a) move forward with the fresh yeast, at the risk of having the dough never rise and bake into a hockey-puck brioche, or b) chicken out, and use the dried yeast I’d had on my baking supplies shelf for months and never used. And well, I, um, chickened out.

My next problem was that the different recipes I had found were very different from one another, both in terms of proportions and resting time. Not knowing which one was best, I decided to stick to the ingredients’ list Nicolas had provided. I don’t know what I did wrong, perhaps it was because I was doing this by hand and not in a stand-mixer, but once I added the eggs in, the dough was far, far too sticky to work with. And when I say sticky, I really mean superglued-to-your-hand sticky. In fact, I’m sure you could spread some of that dough on the soles of your shoes and glue yourself upside down to the ceiling, but don’t try this at home.

So I added more flour, until the dough was a bit more workable — the amount in the recipe below reflects what I ended up using. The addition of the butter turned out to be another hurdle: it was super messy, there was butter everywhere on the counter, and the dough seemed adamant not to let it in. But by that time I was in warrior mode, ready to overcome any obstacle: I persisted, and after a while I obtained the deliciously smooth and shiny ball of dough I was hoping for. It rose obediently, even though I couldn’t resist peeking underneath the kitchen towel every twenty minutes, and baked beautifully, turning into these puffy and golden little guys that somewhat reminded me of the flame that the Statue of Liberty holds so proudly.

So yes, the whole thing was a bit of a roller coaster ride, and it is definitely a project that will keep you busy for the better part of a day — especially when you get up late and it’s Daylight Saving Sunday. But nothing could be more worthy of your time than the thrill of having things turn out okay despite your foreboding, or more rewarding than a delicately sweet brioche, warm and lightly crusty from the oven, that you slice in two to smear the moist and fluffy insides with butter and/or jam. Especially if it’s Bordier‘s salted butter, and Christine Ferber‘s passionfruit jam, freshly opened for the occasion.

And now I feel ready to try it with fresh yeast — perhaps next Sunday?

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