A recipe for Doctor Who fans: Fish croquettes with vanilla bean aioli (a.k.a. fish custard)

April 23 marks the beginning of series 6 of Doctor Who, and I couldn’t be more excited. For those of you who (like me) are anxiously awaiting the Doctor’s new adventures, I’ve created a few dishes inspired by the show which would be perfect for a Doctor Who viewing party.

First up: My twist on the Doctor’s fish fingers and custard from the Eleventh Hour episode.

Matt Smith certainly made an impression in his first episode as the Doctor! From his quirky personality and old-fashioned 1950′s professor costume, right down to his taste in food, I knew that series 5 was going to be a lot of fun. Who can forget that moment when the Doctor, after having tried everything in poor little Amy’s cupboards (I still can’t believe he didn’t like bacon!),  settled on fish fingers and custard?! Most people probably saw that and thought “oh my, that’s disgusting,” but I have to admit that the foodie in me was curious. I know I’m not the only one however, after reading on many Doctor Who fansites and even on Reddit that many other fans with fearless tastebuds and a keen sense of adventure had tried it themselves. For those of you who read my blog but haven’t seen Doctor Who, here’s the scene I’m talking about:

The funny thing is that sweet and salty actually do work together! Although most people usually enjoy the sweet/salty combo in different ways (salted caramel, peanut butter and jelly or chocolate etc.), fish sticks- as we call them here in America- really would pair well with a semi sweet sauce. Though actual custard would (to me) be too sweet for the fish, I immediately thought of vanilla aioli. Vanilla what??? Aioli is like a type of garlicky mayonnaise. Usually served as a condiment with fried foods, aioli is egg yolk-based (like custard) and pairs very well with seafood. I looked around the internet for a vanilla bean aioli recipe and found this one on ZD Wines’ site. This recipe isn’t particularly sweet, and really relies on the other ingredients in the dish it’s served with for flavor, but it was a good start in finding a good custard substitute to serve with the fish.

I made a few changes to make the flavor stand out a little more. The first thing I did was heat the oil a little longer than the ten minutes suggested on the site. I wanted to make sure to really get as much of that vanilla flavor as I could without overheating the oil. I think I did 15 minutes on low heat. Be sure to stay close by and keep an eye on it so it doesn’t get too hot. Another thing I did was increase the amount of lemon juice. I started out with the recommended amount and found that it was a little bland and needed a bit of extra zing. Unfortunately, I don’t have an exact amount to recommend. My advice is to start off with 3/4 teaspoon lemon juice and taste it to see what you think. To make the aioli a little sweeter I added a few pinches of light brown sugar. Again- start out with a pinch or two and taste it to see if you need more. Here’s my adaptation of the recipe:

Vanilla Bean Aioli

1/2 garlic  clove, peeled and crushed (I used the tiniest clove I had. Garlic adds great flavor, but I didn’t want it to be overwhelming)

3 large egg yolks

1 1/4 cup canola oil

1 vanilla bean

salt, to taste

1. Using a sharp knife, slice the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out the seeds with the tip of the knife. Set the seeds aside for later.

2. Put the seed pod in a small saucepan with the canola oil and heat on low for 10-15 minutes until fragrant. Take the pan off the stove and cool the vanilla oil to room temperature.

3. Once the oil is cool, remove the vanilla pod from the oil. Place the egg yolks and garlic in the food processor or blender, and as it’s running, slowly add the vanilla-infused oil. The mixture will turn opaque and thicken. It’s really cool to watch!

4. Once all of the oil is incorporated into the mixture, pour it out into a mixing bowl, using a rubber spatula to scrape it all out of the food processor bowl. Whisk in the lemon juice, sugar, vanilla seeds, and salt. Be sure to taste it.

Keep it covered in the refrigerator until you’re ready to serve it; just give it  quick whisk before serving.

As for the fish fingers, you could use the frozen fish sticks from the grocery store- but why go through all the trouble making a gourmet vanilla aioli if you’re just going to dip mass produced store bought fish and God-knows-what else in stick-form in it? Exactly. That’s why I decided to fancify (wait…is that a word?) fish sticks/fish fingers and make fish croquettes.

Croquettes are little breaded and fried (or baked) rolls or disks of  fish, potatoes, veggies, or meat. They’ve been around for a long time and originated in France, where “croque” means crunch.

For my version, I added mashed potatoes as a binding agent and they were delicious! I also breaded them in panko (Japanese breadcrumbs) instead of regular breadcrumbs for a little extra crunchiness. Though they’re usually fried, I made up for the…ahem….unhealthiness of the aioli by baking the croquettes. They were still good, but I’m thinking the next time I make them I’ll fry them. Here’s my recipe:

1 pound fresh Tilapia

salt and pepper (to taste)

3/4 to 1 cup mashed potatoes (I used potato flakes-don’t judge me!)

flour (for dredging)

1 egg, beaten, with a splash of milk added

panko breadcrumbs

oil for frying (if frying)

If baking, a baking pan sprayed with nonstick spray

1. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F. Season the tilapia with salt and pepper and bake for 8-10 minutes, or until thoroughly cooked. Don’t overcook though, as you will be cooking the fish again once you roll it into croquette form.

2. Remove the fish from the oven and cool enough to be able to handle. As the fish is cooling, make your mashed potatoes. You can either make them from scratch, or use packaged potato flakes. If you use the packaged flakes, make enough for two servings using the instructions on the box. You won’t use it all, but you can save the extra or snack on it while you’re waiting for your croquettes to cook

3. Once the fish has cooled enough for you to handle it, use a fork to flake it- or break it up into bits. Don’t break it up too much, a little texture is a good thing. Yum!

4. Mix the fish with the mashed potatoes, first mixing 1/2 cup in and adding more until the fish and potatoes come together into a dough. Cover the potato/fish mixture and cool in the fridge.

5. Form the dough into “fingers” by rolling, and dredge each one in flour. You don’t want too much flour on the croquette, just a light coating. Then, dip each croquette in the egg/milk mixture and roll in the panko breadcrumbs.

6. If you’re baking the croquettes, lower the temperature on your oven to 400 degrees F and bake until golden brown. If you’re frying, heat a pan with two inches of oil to 375, using a deep fry thermometer to check the temperature. Fry two or three croquettes at a time (not too many or it will cool the oil down too much and they’ll turn out greasy) for two to three minutes until golden brown. Remove them from the oil and place on paper towels to drain excess oil. Season lightly with salt as soon as they come out of the oil.

To serve them, I stacked the croquettes on a plate, spooned some aioli into star-shaped silicone baking cups, and garnished with a twist of lemon.

I hope you enjoyed my version of the Doctor’s “fish custard.” For my next post I’m going to show you how to make a salad inspired by the doctor himself (hint…bowties are awesome!) and his TARDIS. Stay tuned!

Guinness bread pudding with toffee sauce

Today is St. Patrick’s day, so I decided to attempt a new dessert recipe featuring my favorite St. Patty’s day treat: Guinness stout. I thought about making a chocolate stout cake, but I really wanted to step out of my comfort zone and make something I’ve never made before (i.e. no cakes) so I came up with the idea to make Guinness bread pudding.

I didn’t have a recipe for this, so I used a Betty Crocker cookbook as sort of a loose guideline for how many eggs and how much moisture I needed vs. how much bread to use. Most recipes call for white bread, brioche, or French bread, but I thought the denser, richer whole wheat bread would taste better with the beer. The book didn’t really help me much in determining what ingredients to use to complement the beer, so I just kept it simple and let the beer be the main flavoring component and added a hint of vanilla.

This pudding recipe can be made in a 9×9 square pan, or divided into ramekins or even a large muffin pan (just be sure to reduce cooking time for smaller puddings.)

Here’s the recipe:

For the pudding

7-8 slices of whole wheat bread (you may need more depending on how deep your pan is- mine was pretty shallow so it didn’t take much)

1 cup half and half

1 cup Guinness stout

3 tablespoons butter, melted (can be salted or plain)

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

4 eggs, lightly beaten

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 F. Cube the bread slices and set aside. You can cut the crusts off if you want a smoother textured pudding, but I just leave them on.

2. In a medium size bowl, whisk together the eggs, half and half, butter, and Guinness. Add the sugars and vanilla and mix well.

3.  Spray a 9×9 square pan with nonstick spray and put the bread in it, making sure the entire bottom of the pan is covered and that there is enough bread to come nearly to the top of the pan. Pour the wet mixture evenly over the bread cubes and use your hands to make sure the cubes are covered. You may have to pat them down into the custard mixture a little, just don’t squish them. Let stand a minute or two to let the mixture soak into the bread.

4. Put the pan into a water bath by putting the square pan into a larger pan and adding hot tap water until it comes halfway up the outside of the square pan. Cover with foil and place on center rack of the oven- be careful! Bake at 325 for 1 hour (or until a knife inserted an inch or so from the edge of the pan comes out clean.) The pudding will jiggle a tiny bit when it’s done, but not a whole lot. You may need to check the middle to make sure it’s cooked all the way- it shouldn’t be runny at all. Again, be careful when removing the hot pan from the oven.

5. Carefully take the square pan out of the water bath (watch out for the steam!) and set aside on a cooling rack to cool slightly as you make the toffee sauce.

As for the topping, I wanted to make something buttery and sweet to complement the slight bitterness of the pudding. The other day I made a huge batch of toffee and instantly knew I needed to make a toffee sauce. I looked online and found this website with a recipe for an easy toffee sauce. The recipe calls for golden syrup, which is a sweet sugar syrup used in the UK and is usually available in most US supermarkets in the baking isle. Usually it’s called Lyle’s golden syrup and comes in little jars. If you can’t find it, you can substitute 2 parts light corn syrup and 1 part molasses. In this case, 1 1/2 tbsp corn syrup and 1/2 tbsp molasses. The measurements for the toffee sauce are written by weights, so I’ve converted them to make it a little easier in case you don’t have a scale.

1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp brown sugar

1/2 stick of butter (I used salted)

2 tbsp golden syrup

1/2 cup cream

1. Stir the butter, sugar, and syrup until butter is melted and sugar is completely dissolved. Stop stirring. This is important because if you keep stitting after this point, the sugar will recrystallize and the sauce will end up grainy.

2. Bring to a boil and let boil for 3 minutes. (Website says 3-5, but I found 3 minutes was perfect.)

3. Remove from the heat and add the cream slowly, whisking it in with a wire whisk until it’s all combined.

To plate:

Cut a square of the pudding and place it on your plate. Sprinkle some pecan pieces on top, then ladle some of the hot toffee sauce on top, letting it drip down the sides of the pudding.

Happy St. Patrick’s day!

January 2011 Daring Bakers Challenge: Biscuit Joconde Imprime/Entremet

The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert.

closeup of biscuit joconde imprime "wrapper"

I must admit, when I saw pictures of this month’s challenge I could barely contain my excitement. Finally, something huge and fancy, and… really really difficult! Don’t get me wrong, a lot of the other challenges were difficult in their own way (remember my ice cream sponge cake roll bombe disaster of July 2010?) but this particular dessert was in a class all its own. Before I looked to see what this month’s challenge was I had never even heard of entremets, much less biscuit joconde imprime. I knew it was going to be a lot of work, but I also knew it was going to be a lot of fun.

However, I actually ended up experiencing triple the fun after my first cake was ruined by my little cake thief (a.k.a. my one year old who magically discovered how to climb chairs and help himself to whatever was on the kitchen table- namely my cake.) The second cake I made to replace the first one fell apart- which was totally my fault. I was trying to be clever and avoid using up all my eggs making a second joconde sponge and made a vegan version that fell apart the moment I touched it. It was a shame too, because it was SO pretty! Luckily, the third time was the charm and I ended up with a beautiful chocolate and pink pinstripe sponge cake.

When I planned the design of this cake, I envisioned the joconde sponge in pink and brown zebra print. I wanted the pink to be a soft European pink like my old ballet slippers, so I didn’t add much red food dye to my decor paste. When it came time to pipe the design, I used a small round tip and pastry bag to pipe the pink zebra stripes onto my silicone mat. To get the design just right, I used my pink zebra pajama pants (don’t judge me!) as a visual guide and piped the design onto the mat. Since the recipe for the joconde sponge made enough for two cakes, I piped a leopard print design on a sheet of parchment. As the decor paste was freezing, I got everything ready for the sponge cake. It wasn’t until I read the recipe and realized that it didn’t include instructions for a chocolate version that I realized I would either have to wing it and add a random amount of chocolate myself, or make the whole thing exactly like the recipe and have yellow and pink zebra  print. I ended up making a compromise with myself and doing one sheet of yellow and one of chocolate. For the chocolate, I added a few tablespoons of Hershey’s special dark cocoa powder and mixed until it looked right. Both sponges ended up looking really good, though my pink zebra stripes ended up blending in a little too well and not standing out as much.

Piping the zebra print decor paste

After my son tore into my fist cake, I made a vegan version of sponge cake with a recipe I found here. I re-piped the zebra print, froze it, remade the cake, and ended up with a great looking sponge cake that fell apart the moment I cut it into strips. What a shame…

Second attempt. A vegan sponge cake. Beautiful, but crumbly. Tasted great though!

For my final attempt, I made the original recipe but added more chocolate this time. Not wanting to devote another half hour to piping animal print, I spread a thin layer of decor paste to the mat and used an icing sculptor to drag lines in it.

As for the fillings, I wanted to layer them in a Neapolitan ice cream color scheme, so I used raspberry jello and cool whip to make a raspberry Bavarian-style filling (found here),  a vanilla Bavarian made with instant vanilla pudding (find the recipe here), and dark chocolate mousse mix. Instead of pouring them in one after the other I made each layer one at a time, letting each one set before making and pouring the next. Since my springform pan was so big, I ended up having to make an extra layer of the raspberry Bavarian. To top my entremet, I made a raspberry sauce with a recipe found in ‘The Professional Pastry Chef’ by Bo Frieberg.

I decorated the entremet with a decor sauce made with a recipe also found in ‘The Professional Pastry Chef’. It was made with sour cream thinned with heavy cream to make it the same consistency as the raspberry puree.

To make the cream hearts, I added a few drops to the top of the rasperry sauce and dragged a toothpick through the dots to form hearts. I also tempered some chocolate and molded two chocolate skulls and a large chocolate heart, then arranged some raspberries around them for decoration.

When we unmolded and cut the cake I was so happy with the way it turned out. The layers set perfectly, and tasted great. Even though the final sponge didn’t turn out the way I had originally envisioned it, the end result of all the time I spent making this dessert was well worth it and I made a dessert I was proud of. I don’t know if I will ever make this again, but at least now I know I can. I will, however, have to try another zebra sponge at some point. Jelly roll perhaps?

Here’s the recipe for the decor paste and sponge (I found it was better to make the decor paste first, then the sponge while the decor paste is freezing):

Joconde Sponge

YIELD: Two ½ size sheet pans or a 13” x 18”  jelly roll pan

Ingredients:
¾ cup almond flour/meal
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
¼ cup cake flour
3 large eggs
3 large egg whites
2½ teaspoons white granulated sugar or superfine sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Directions:

1. In a clean mixing bowl whip the egg whites and granulated sugar to firm, glossy peaks. Reserve in a separate clean bowl to use later.
2. Sift almond flour, confectioner’s sugar, cake flour together into a bowl.
3. On medium speed, add the eggs a little at a time. Mix well after each addition. Mix until smooth and light.
4. Fold in one third reserved whipped egg whites to almond mixture to lighten the batter. Fold in remaining whipped egg whites. Do not over mix.
5. Fold in melted butter.

Patterned Joconde-Décor Paste

YIELD: Two ½ size sheet pans or a 13” x 18” jelly roll pan

Ingredients
14 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1½ cups plus1½ tablespoons Confectioners’ sugar
7 large egg whites
1¾ cup cake flour
Food coloring gel, paste or liquid ( I used regular red liquid food coloring)

COCOA Décor Paste Variation: Reduce cake flour to 6 oz / 170g. Add 2 oz/ 60 g cocoa powder. Sift the flour and cocoa powder together before adding to creamed mixture.

Directions:

1. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy (use stand mixer with blade, hand held mixer, or by hand)
2. Gradually add egg whites. Beat continuously.
3. Fold in sifted flour.
4. Tint batter with coloring to desired color, if not making cocoa variation.

Preparing the Joconde- How to make the pattern:

1. Spread a thin even layer of décor paste approximately 1/4 inch thick onto silicone baking mat with an offset spatula, or flat knife. Place mat on an upside down baking sheet. The upside down sheet makes spreading easier with no lip from the pan.
2. Pattern the décor paste – Here is where you can be creative. Make horizontal /vertical lines (you can use a knife, spatula, cake/pastry comb). Squiggles with your fingers, zig zags, wood grains. Be creative whatever you have at home to make a design can be used. OR use a piping bag. Pipe letters, or polka dots, or a piped design. If you do not have a piping bag. Fill a ziplock bag and snip off corner for a homemade version of one.
3. Slide the baking sheet with paste into the freezer. Freeze hard. Approx 15 minutes.
4. Remove from freezer. Quickly pour the Joconde batter over the design. Spread evenly to completely cover the pattern of the Décor paste.
5. Bake at 475ºF until the joconde bounces back when slightly pressed, approx. 15 minutes.
6. Cool. Do not leave too long, or you will have difficulty removing it from mat.
7. Flip cooled cake on to a powdered sugared parchment paper. Remove silpat. Cake should be right side up, and pattern showing.

Preparing the MOLD for entremets:

For my entremet I used a springform pan as the mold. The directions provided in the challenge were as follows:

Start with a large piece of parchment paper laid on a very flat baking sheet. Then a large piece of cling wrap over the parchment paper. Place a spring form pan ring, with the base removed, over the cling wrap and pull the cling wrap tightly up on the outside of the mold. Line the inside of the ring with a curled piece of parchment paper overlapping top edge by ½ inch. CUT the parchment paper to the TOP OF THE MOLD. It will be easier to smooth the top of the cake.

I tried doing it this way but had really crappy cling wrap that wouldn’t cling to anything, so it wouldn’t wrap tight enough to hold the filling. I ended up just putting a layer of sponge cake in the bottom of the assembled springform pan and molding my dessert that way. When I unmolded, I just moved the entremet with the springform pan bottom and all onto my cake stand. Since the filling was soft and didn’t take too much effort to cut I didn’t have to worry much about scratching the pan bottom.

Preparing the Jaconde for Molding:

1. Trim the cake of any dark crispy edges. You should have a nice rectangle shape.
2. Decide how thick you want your “Joconde wrapper”. Traditionally, it is ½ the height of your mold. This is done so more layers of the plated dessert can be shown. However, you can make it the full height.
3. Once your height is measured, then you can cut the cake into equal strips, of height and length. You can use a very sharp paring knife and ruler, but I used a pastry scraper that had a ruler printed on it. The long straight edge made it easier for me.
4. Make sure your strips are cut cleanly and ends are cut perfectly straight. Press the cake strips inside of the mold, decorative side facing out. Once wrapped inside the mold, overlap your ends slightly. You want your Joconde to fit very tightly pressed up to the sides of the mold. Then gently push and press the ends to meet together to make a seamless cake. The cake is very flexible so you can push it into place. You can use more than one piece to “wrap “your mold, if one cut piece is not long enough.
5. The mold is done, and ready to fill.