March 25, 2008

TWD- Brioche Snails Redo

We had Easter at our house this weekend and the kitchen smelled so delish with all the good food cooking. I decided to make Brioche again because it turned out great last time and I figured doing it again right away would help me get the recipe down. I'm also not a flan fan so I opted to repeat last weeks challenge instead. :)

This week I made one whole batch of brioche and batches of pudding to make two flavors- Chocolate and Orange. For the chocolate rolls, I made the traditional pastry cream with vanilla and sprinkled mini chocolate chips over the pudding before rolling it up. I topped them with regular powdered sugar glaze. For the orange rolls, I made the citrus cream by steeping the milk with lemon and orange zest strips and adding some lemon extract. I also sprinkled orange zest on the dough before rolling it up. Then I made the glaze with orange juice instead of water and added orange zest to that. This time I used nearly a full recipe of the pastry cream per set of rolls so they were nice and creamy. They were so good, and so pretty!

Here is the pastry cream recipe again if you are looking for a tasty pudding or filling. I bet it would taste amazing in cream puffs and will post a recipe for those soon.

Pastry Cream
(From Baking by Dorie Greenspan)
2 cups whole milk
6 large egg yolks
1/2 cups sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch, sifted
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into bits at room temperature

Bring the milk to a boil in a small saucepan.

Meanwhile, in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisk the egg yolks together with the sugar and cornstarch until thick and well blended. Still whisking, drizzle in about 1/4 cup of the hot milk-- this will temper, or warm, the yolks so they won't curdle. Whisking all the while, slowly pour in the remainder of the milk. Put the pan over medium heat and, whisking vigorously, constantly and thoroughly (making sure to get the edges of the pot), bring the mixture to a boil. Keep at a boil, still whisking, for 1 to 2 minutes, then remove the pan from the heat.

Whisk in the vanilla extract. Let sit for 5 minutes, then whisk in the bits of butter, stirring until they are full incorporated and the pastry cream is smooth and silky. Scrape the cream into a bowl. You can press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface of the cream to create an airtight seal and refrigerate the pastry cream until cold or, if you want to cool it quickly--as I always do--put the bowl into a larger bowl filled with ice cubes and cold water, and stir the pastry cream occasionally until it is thoroughly chilled, about 20 minutes.

8 comments:

  1. Your re-do looks delicious! Great idea to use orange with the chocolate!

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  2. OOps! I thought you had used the two together. Me Bad! I bet they would be tasty together though...just think of a Terry's Chocolate Orange! Yumm!

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  3. Both flavors sound delicious! But I agree with Marie, they would have been tasty together too! Great practice doing these again!

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  4. Those look awesome! I think I'll try them this weekend.

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  5. Oooooooooo, yum yum! These look so good!

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  6. your snails look great! excellent idea of using OJ in place of water in the glaze. :)

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  7. Those really do look delicious! I wouldn't mind having one right now!

    Welcome to The Foodie Blogroll! :)

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  8. I think next time I will try mixing the orange and the chocolate... great suggestion!

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