Basics: Sweet short pastry

This must be the very simplest of all simple baking recipes in the history of ever.

Tools:

Hands
Kitchen scales
Knife
Baking tray or flat bowl
Tinfoil or clingfilm

Ingredients - the so-called "1-2-3 recipe":

3 parts flour (150 g)
2 parts butter (100 g)
1 part sugar (50 g)

1.
Measure the ingredients and cut the cold butter into small pieces.
Put everything into the broad bowl or onto the baking tray.

2.
Wash your hands thoroughly (fingernails) and knead the flour, sugar and butter into a smooth dough. It will seem very dry at first, but I promise you, it's not. Just keep kneading.

3.
When you have a smooth, homogenous dough, wrap it in the foil or clingfilm and put it into the fridge for at least half an hour.

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Tips:

You can use this dough for cookies in all shapes and baked pastry cases for tarts and tartlets.

If you want to make cookies, depending on their thickness they will need 7-12 minutes at 170° Celsius. They should still be a bit soft when you take them out, and still be pale.

If you want to make simple round cookies you can roll the dough into cylinders/sausages right away, roll those into the foil and cool them like that so you can simply cut them into cookies later on.

For baked pastry cases/tartlet cases: Poke a few holes into the flat dough to prevent air bubbles. You may poke into any bubbles that come up anyway.

The longer you leave the dough in the refridgerator, the harder it will be when you take it out again. You can leave it overnight or for several hours, but then you'll have to take it out a few hours before working with it.

Why cool it in the fridge in the first place? Because after you knead it for ten, twenty minutes, it will be soft and handwarm, and that makes it hard to work with and damages the quality slightly, because the warmth affects the butter. It separates the fat from the whey.

With (much) less flour, you can use the same ingredients to make the butter layer and crumbles for streusel cake.

5-course menu pictures

Here's a 5-course menu I made a while ago.

I might add recipes later.

 

Amuse gueule: Tamagonigiri.

Sweet omelette on sticky rice with nori
and soy sauce (not in the picture)

Clear tomato soup with spinach-ricotta raviolo.

Pakoras on garden salad with vinaigrette.

(Vegetables fried in spiced dough on various kinds of salad with a simple vinegar-oil dressing.)

Fried cod filet with sauce hollandaise and green and white asparagus.

Grilled rack of lamb with its own sauce, ratatouille and rosemary potatoes.

Orange soufflé with chocolate shavings and chocolate sauce.

Simple: Spice Cake

"Black Cake"



This cake is a simple, dry cake that tastes very festive and is perfect for
celebrations taking place in autumn and winter.

Tools:

Cake tin
Spoons
Kitchen scale
Nutmeg grater
At least 2 bowls
Measuring cup
Kitchen aid/kitchen machine/handheld mixer with whisk
Rubber or silicone spatula
Brush or paper towel
Toothpicks

Ingredients:

125 g butter
butter for the cake tin
300 g sugar
4 eggs
350 g flour (you can use whole grain of any kind that's suitable for baking)
1 pk (1 big tablespoon) baking powder (or baking soda)
60 g cocoa
1 teaspoon powdered cloves
1 teaspoon powdered cinnamon
1/2 nutmeg
1/4 l milk

Preparation:

0.
Take the butter out of the fridge first and measure it, then let it sit so it
softens a bit.

1.
Heat up the oven to 170-180° Celsius, measure all the other ingredients.
The powder ingredients (flour, cocoa, baking powder and all the spices) can be in
the same bowl.

2.
When it's soft enough, mix the butter with the sugar and eggs with your kitchen aid
or handheld mixer until it is homogeneous.

3.
Keep the mixer or kitchen aid running and add in all the powdery ingredients little
by little. Whenever the dough becomes too tough, add some of the milk as well.
Once in a while, scrape the dry rests settling on the edge of the bowl back into the
dough to be mixed in as well. (Spatula)

4.
When everything is mixed well into a smooth dough, prepare a cake tin with butter
(brush or paper towel) and pour the dough in, put it into the oven.
Eat the rest out of the bowl. (Hands, face, spatula)

5.
With a 26cm ø cake tin it will take over 1 hour until it's done. (60-70 minutes)
During this time, the cake will become very dark. Don't worry about it, it's not
burning. It will also grow and ideally look like a cracked mountain. If it stays
flat or becomes only a shy hill, you've forgotten the baking powder or used too
little of it.
You can use a toothpick to check if it's done.


It's best when it's still warm.


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Tips:

The toothpick check: To use a wooden stick to determine the moisture/dryness of
something. If you stick it into the thickest part of the cake, pull it out and it's
wet and has raw dough sticking to it, the cake is obviously not done yet. If it's
only slightly damp, the cake can be taken out.

Icing and additions: Powdered sugar, plain thick chocolate coating or icing made
out of powdered sugar and water work best with this cake.

It's a good cake for children's birthday parties. It's very chocolatey while being
relatively clean, the birthday child can even help make it or decorate it, and
you know exactly what it contains (no arcane additives, "E"s, colourings, unknown
allergens, animal parts...).

Strawberry Mousse with Chocolate Pastry

This is the dessert from my final chef's exam menu.

This is NOT VEGETARIAN and NOT SUITABLE FOR ANYONE WHO AVOIDS PORK, unless you substitute the gelatine/jelly with agar agar, gelespessa or another suitable gellant.
This is very detailed and contains some general tips and information as well. (So the size of this text looks like more work than it actually is.)
Measurements are German.



For 5 sizable portions.

Ingredients, pastry:

50 g icing sugar/powdered sugar
38 g flour
13 g cocoa
50 g egg (one egg)

Ingredients, sauces and decorations:

A handful of strawberries
Ca. 8 tablespoons of powdered sugar
A handful of mint leaves
A couple of mint leaves for deco
50 g milk chocolate
Gelespessa, Textura or other cold gellant

Ingredients, mousse:

5 gelatine plates/sheets ( http://www.spice-world.de/wp-content/gallery/spice-world/blatt-gelatine-speisegelatine.jpg )
300 g fresh strawberries
2 egg yolks
3 tablespoons of sugar
250 g curd (fat content doesn't matter, I used 20%)
200 ml cream

 

Preparation, mousse:

0.
Measure/Weigh/Count all your ingredients.

1.
Clean and cut the strawberries, puree/blend them.
Separate the eggs (we don't need the whites but you can keep them to make meringues later or something), put the yolks into a bowl.
 

2.
Put the gelatine sheets into some cold water to soak.
Set strawberry puree in a pot on the stove and make it cook. Stir to keep it from getting burned. At the same time, beat the egg yolks and the sugar into a foamy cream (rotary stirrer recommended).
 

3.
When the strawberry puree starts boiling, take it off the stove.
Take the soft gelatine out of the water, press the water out thoroughly and dissolve the jelly in the puree by stirring it into it with a whisk.
 

4.
Set the bowl with the egg foam onto a folded moist towel or other antiskid surface and stir the strawberry puree into the egg with your whisk, slowly and in very small portions at a time (remember, the egg is raw and the strawberry is warm, so if you pour too much of it in at a time the egg might solidify and we don't want that).
Now stir in the curd.
(Stir gently or your egg cream-foam will be all destroyed.)
Put the bowl into the fridge. (Lid recommended - plate or towel)
 

5.
Whip the cream.
Put whipped cream into fridge as well.
 

6.
When the strawberry mass is almost about to gel/coagulate, fold the whipped cream into it. (To fold in means to mix in carefully, so as not to destroy air bubbles. Use a whisk and stir gently.)
Pour/Put this into a flat container or directly into the portion containers (dessert glasses or bowls), put a lid on it and put it back into the fridge for about 3 hours.
 

7.
Serving: If you haven't portioned the mousse already, use two hot wet spoons to draw eggshaped portions ("Nocke" in German) or an ice cream spoon.

 

Preparation, chocolate pastry:

0.
Measure the ingredients. Heat the oven to 180° Celsius. (If there's a fan, make sure it's OFF or on the lowest possible speed.)
 

1.
Mix everything well. (Whisk)
 

2.
Prepare a baking tray with a sheet of baking paper.
 

3.
Fill the dough into an icing bag and use a tip with a tiny hole (best would be a disposable icing bag that you fill first and THEN cut off a tiny part of the tip. REALLY TINY).
Have fun squirting delicate shapes onto the baking paper (I made violin clefs and little curls).
Throw the pretty fuckers into the oven and bake for 4-5 minutes.
When they're done, they will still be a little soft. Use a palette (or a very thin spatula or broad knife) to take the little cookies off the paper carefully and set them aside to cool and harden.

Preparation, sauces and decoration:

First set aside any strawberries and mint you want to use for decorating.
Now for these small portions I recommend a handheld mixer/blender!
Blend the strawberries (remove stems first, of course) with a generous part of the powdered sugar.
Blend the mint leaves with the rest of the sugar, at least a spoonful of water (you'll see how much you need), a little bit (no more than a teaspoon) of gellant. It should not be too solid, so you can still pour it from the tip of a spoon, but not so liquid that it flows in all directions when it's on the plate.
You can use a regular spoon to draw on your dessert and plate with these sauces.

Put a waterpot onto the stove, a metal bowl to float in it and put the chocolate into that. When it's melted, use a soft brush to draw whatever you want on your plates with the chocolate.


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Make the buggers pretty
and ENJOY them!

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Simple: Chicken Leg

This will show you how simple it is to prepare a juicy, spicy leg of poultry
in the oven without any convenience products (which might contain questionable
ingredients).

It can be any kind of poultry but for this recipe I'll use chicken, because it's
the most common, least pricey (although you should take care to know how the
chicken was kept before it was slaughtered) and it gives you an idea of the
size-time relation for its time in the oven.


https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYA3S8XOJO2nMOkk_jQGls1-ja5OpGjGqWuLmKAfVz0rb7gwtxXxmyII8tSRjGKHpgatUh5UJlf-UAPc0h4V9zXrtDE-HSKS4GULic5imFtUeGMVTcxRQUfWzeKg3EjEIdvvafqoIUULQ/s1600/H%25C3%25A4hnchenschenkel+01.JPG

Tools:

Small bowl
Oven dish or baking tray
Brush
Tongs
Clean kitchen towel
Spoon

Ingredients:

Chicken leg (fresh or thawed)
Vegetable oil
Salt
Paprika (powder)
Pinch of sugar

Preparation:

0.
Set the oven to 200° Celsius.

1.
Rinse the chicken leg with cold water and dry it with the clean towel.

2.
Pour some oil into the bowl, add the salt, paprika and sugar and mix them all.
If the mixture is too runny, add more spices, if it's crumbly and dry, add more
oil.

3.
Brush some of the spice mixture all over the chicken leg (all sides and crevices)
and place the leg skinside up on/into your oven dish or baking tray and put it
in the oven.

4.
Let it bake for 20-30 minutes before brushing more spice-oil on it and turning it
around.

5.
After 10-15 minutes, turn it back around and brush more oil on it.
Reduce the heat to about 150° Celsius.
Now it will take only 10-15 more minutes until it's done.

Variations:

"Curry":
Vegetable oil
Salt
Pepper
Cumin (powder)
Ginger (powder)
Garlic (granulated)

Mediterranian:
Vegetable oil
Salt
Pepper
Garlic (granulated or fresh and crushed finely)
Dried rosemary
Dried thyme (Herbs burn easily so soak them in the oil long before you use them
for this, and do not brush/rub them on the chicken until it's halfway done.)


----

Tips:

Legs of smaller birds will need less time, of course.

Brown rice with peas, french fries or potatoes with sage go well with this.
Potatoes with sage: Wash small potatoes with delicate skin, halve them lengthwise,
salt the open sides, set them on the tray or into the dish with the chicken leg,
open side up, dribble oil (olive oil) on them and put some fresh sage on each one.
They should need about the same time to be done as the chicken, but if they're
done earlier, just take them out and put them back in to reheat when the chicken
is almost done.

Take care where you buy your meat, where it's from and how it was kept before
the slaughter. Avoid factory farming; not only is it animal cruelty, it's also
detrimental to the environment and the quality of the meat. So despite its low
prices, try to keep off it. If you can't afford the more sensible meat choices
(local farms, free range products), don't buy the stupid ones either. (Honestly,
it's possible to have awesome meals without meat without becoming a vegetarian.
Don't be a fucking pussy and keep off the meat if you can't afford it.)

Simple: Chickpea-mushroom Patty

"Kichererbsen-Pilzbratling"

This patty is VEGETARIAN, easy to make, but takes some time in pre-preparation.
It's juicy, savoury and delicious.


For 6-10 portions.

Tools:

Strainer or sieve
Large bowl
Mincer/Passing machine/Meat grinder/Flour mill that can grind into grit instead of flour
Small knife
Chopping knife
Cutting board
Paper towels or clean kitchen towel
Kitchen scale
Frying pan and spatula

Ingredients:

200 g chickpeas
300 g button mushrooms (buy more, 300 g is what you need for the recipe)
1 small onion
2 sprigs of smooth/flat parsil
2 eggs
2 garlic cloves
80 g crème fraîche
Salt
Pepper
Possibly breadcrumbs
Oil for frying

Preparation:

0.
Rinse the chickpeas in cold water, then soak them in a generous amount of water overnight (for at least 7 hours).

When it gets to actually making the patties:



1.
Dump the chickpeas into the strainer in the clean sink and gather your ingredients.
Clean the mushrooms by rubbing them with paper towels or a clean, dry kitchen towel and cut off the lowest part of their stems. Then cut them into tiny cubes (and I mean TINY) until you have 300 grams of those.

2.
Peel the onion and the garlic cloves and cut them into rough pieces.
Pass the chickpeas, onion, garlic and parsil through the grinder.

3.
Mix the chickpea paste with the mushroom dice, eggs and crème fraîche (use your hands) and season to taste. If the mass is too wet, add some breadcrumbs.
Shape patties or balls with the mass of whatever size and number you desire, and fry them in a hot pan in oil.


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Tips:

The larger and rounder you make them, the longer it will take for them to be done in the middle. If you're making fat ones you might have to put them into the oven afterwards to get done, otherwise you'll burn them on the outside.
So the frying gets easier and faster the smaller and flatter you make them.

They go well with sweet chili sauce and french fries!

Put the washable parts of the grinder into warm water right away so they will be easy to clean afterwards.

Don't squish and poke at the patties while they're in the pan, don't shove them around and turn them, just let them fry halfway, then turn them ONCE and leave them be again until they're done.

I recommend frying one test-patty before frying them all at once, 1. to test the seasoning, 2. to test the consistency, 3. to test the size and shape, 4. to find out when to turn them and how long they take.

Simple: French Onion Soup with Cheese Crouton

This soup is a classic, simple and elegant at the same time and works as a 

starter as well as a sating evening meal on a stormy night.

http://markgraeflerin.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/zwiebelsuppe.jpg

For 6 people.


Tools:

Grill option in your oven (regular heating coils from above suffice)
Pot with lid
Kitchen knife
Cutting board
Wooden spoon
Ladle
6 ovenware soup bowls or casseroles with saucers
Baking tray
Cheese grater
A radio or newspaper


Ingredients:

4 tablespoons butter
4 very large onions (Spanish onions)
1,5 l beef stock (chicken or vegetable stock are fine too)
1 laurel leaf
6 baguette slices (smaller in diameter than the opening of the soup bowls)
At least 100 g cheese (I recommend Gruyère)
Scotch


Preparation: 

0. 

Prepare the beef stock (if you make it from powder f.e.), cut the bread 

slices, measure all the ingredients. 

1.
Toast the bread in toaster, oven, or frying pan. (No fat)
Grate the cheese and lay it on the toasted bread, as much or as little as 

you want, then set the bread aside. 

2.
Peel the onions, halve them and cut them into thin half rings. This way 

they can sit firmly on the board and not roll around while you cut. 

3.
Melt the butter in the pot, then add the onions. Swish them around in 

the pot (wooden spoon) for up to ten minutes. Do not let them fry. 

4.
Add 0,25 l beef stock, keep stirring and let it boil until the broth has

almost gone. Scrape the caramelised parts off of the bottom once in a 

while. (This can take about 30 minutes.) Pass the time with a radioplay 

or reading the newspaper. I recommend about two fingers of scotch as well. 

5.
Add the rest of the stock and the laurel leaf.
Put the lid on and bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat and let it 

simmer for about 15 minutes. Stir once in a while. 

6.
Fish the laurel leaf out and dispose of it.
Put the soup bowls on the baking tray and ladle the soup into them.
Place a cheese bread on each of the soups and put them into the oven/

under the grill. Keep an eye on the cheese breads. They burn easily.

The cheese has to melt and bubble.
Take the soups out and serve them.



----

Tips:

If the soup is burned in the pot, you don't have to throw it away. Stop 

scraping at the bottom and pour the soup into a new pot, leaving the burnt 

parts behind.

Simmer vs. boil: Boiling is what you need your water to do if you want to 

boil eggs or pasta, a violent bubbly chaos. A simmer is a quieter, slower 

version of this, not as hot, with small and few bubbles. 

Basics: Sponge Cake

There are different methods of making sponge cake. Some are pointlessly more complicated than others bearing the same results, and some make for actual variation such as chocolate sponge cake, sponge cake with or without citrus components, chocolate chips, substitutes for eggs and what have you.

This recipe is just for sponge cake. Not a fancy cake or tartlet, but rather just the sponge cake that you need to make fancy cakes and tartlets.

Example pictures:
http://www.wunderkessel.de/galerie/data/653/Biskuit_und_Karameleis_006.JPG
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUGjeCB27Ad39sGrUArWsC2Q7ITjGa7EIJDDFHHYIgUxmCZUjF2kpfDvMZThDKevdcca86wVDhvP9W_H8BMmHzg30yiyIf0GdIdmFr8P4JyPgE_NP8GKVRq8ypY97XuoZpwJwuK0Mcv8vv/s1600/biskuit+nach+chefkoch+3.jpg

It's simple and quick:


Tools:

Bowls
A kitchen scale
A soft spatula (rubber or silicone)
Spoons
Sieve
A cake tin or baking tray with high edges
Baking paper
A whisk (better two) or a whisk and a handheld stirring device
A grater


Ingredients:

4 eggs (200 g)
100 g sugar
50 g flour
50 g starch
1 organic lemon



Preparation:

0.
Measure all the ingredients.
Prepare your cake tin or baking tray with baking paper.

1.
Heat up the oven to 170° Celsius and separate the eggs. (2 or 3 bowls)
(If you are unsure with separating eggs, there's a tip for you at the end.)
Wash the lemon and grate off a bit of its skin very finely. (Grater)

2.
Stir the egg yolks with the lemon skin and 2/3 of the sugar into a foam. (Whisk)

3.
Beat the egg whites, add the rest of the sugar in small amounts into them and beat it all into a stiff foam. (Second whisk or the handheld stirrer - If you use the whisk you used for the egg yolks, you have to wash it thoroughly before. Otherwise the fat from the egg yolks will prevent the whites from stiffening.)

4.
Mix the white foam with the yolk foam. (Scrape it into the yolk bowl with the rubber spatula, then stir with whisk.)

5.
Sift the flour and starch into the mass and fold them in. (Sieve, whisk)

6.
Pour/Scrape the mass into your baking tin or tray, even out the surface very carefully and put it into the oven right away.
If you use a cake tin with about 26 cm ⌀ it will take about 30 minutes or less.
If you use something larger, like a regular baking tray, it will take roundabout 15 minutes.
Check the sponge's colour, NEVER poke it with a toothpick or a fork! And keep the oven door closed so the temperature remains stable.
As a rule of thumb, a flat, spread out sponge is done when it's golden,
a high, thick sponge is done when it's light brown.

You can always pop it back into the oven if you think it's too mushy.
However, if you WANT it soft (e.g. for a cream roll), then of course take it out before it gets too brown.


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Tips:
Separating eggs: To be safe, you can use 1 bowl for the yolks, 1 for the clean egg whites and a third one to drop the egg whites in while you're still separating the egg. This way it's not so bad if you break one yolk and contaminate the white, because you can just put the one egg away for a scrambled egg and try again. When you're successful, drop the yolk into the yolk bowl and empty your "trying" bowl with the one egg white into the clean egg white bowl.

The agent that makes the sponge cake grow big and fluffy is air. The air bubbles are separated by the egg protein. The lipids in butter, margarine or oil in the mass would destroy a sponge cake. This is why there's no fatty ingredient here. The air bubbles are also the reason why you should never poke holes or cut into the mass. It would destroy the integrity.

In order to make chocolate sponge cake, you can simply substitue part of the flour with cocoa. Bear in mind that cocoa is fatty, so don't use too much.

If you cut the sponge cake into shape you'll have leftovers. You can keep these and make tiramisu with them.

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Enjoy making your own fancy pastry!