For those of you who don't "know me, know me," I feel guilty pretty easily. Guilty that I didn't walk to dogs, guilty that I forgot my reusable grocery bags at home, guilty I left work when the parking lot was still full, guilty that I drank two Diet Cokes in one day instead of the compromised one. And I'm not even Catholic! Anyway, lately I've been feeling increasingly guilty about ignoring all of my beautiful cookbooks, showering all of my attention on Pinterest instead. So in order to right my culinary wrongs, I've decided to try to use a recipe a week from an actual book. This week: Thomas Keller's Blueberry Muffins from the Bouchon Bakery cookbook by Sebastien Rouxel.
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| [Don't worry, I went grocery shopping and now have more than just wine and OJ to drink, although I'm not sure one needs anything more...] |
I'm not going to copy the recipe (because I'll feel guilty), but it was one of the most basic ones in the book that didn't require special ingredients or equipment (I really wanted to make croissants, but I couldn't find a store that carried diastatic malt powder). For those of you don't know, Thomas Keller is the incredibly talented chef behind many restaurants including the famous (and crazy-expensive) French Laundry in Napa. He's not really a "throw A and B and C in a bowl, stir, and pop in the oven" kind of guy. I definitely learned a few things:
- Legit/European chefs measure in terms of grams; most of the conversions to standard US cooking measurements were there, but they were sometimes awkward (ex: 1/2 cup + 2 1/8 TBS flour).
- Almond flour is really effing expensive- thirteen bucks for a small bag at the "cheap" grocery store (for the streusel topping).
- Molasses, honey, and minimal granulated sugar make great sweeteners for muffins.
- Frozen blueberries added to the batter immediately before cooking reduces the typical blueberry "bleed" factor.
- Letting your batter "rest" overnight is really annoying, but worth it. Keller says that this allows the flour to soak up the wet ingredients better, making for a moister muffin. He was so very, very correct.
- I desperately want to go eat at the actual restaurant, Bouchon, at the Venetian in Vegas. I find nothing wrong with making the three and a half hour trip for the sole purpose of fine dining, but that's just me...
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| [The streusel topping, made from butter, two types of flour, and sugar, was perfect] |
In the interest of full-disclosure, I'm going to start off my saying that I work for the website I'm about to suggest to you. On the other hand, I was a very happy member of the site long before they started paying me. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that Eat Your Books is kind of the best of both worlds between internet recipes and cookbooks. You can create a personalized, virtual bookshelf of your cookbooks, and all of the ones that are already indexed are then instantly searchable. So basically it's a search engine for your actual cookbooks. I'm obviously a little biased, but I think that's pretty awesome.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of other cool features, but I think I've gone on long enough! This probably sounds a bit like an infomercial, but I promise I wouldn't have mentioned it if I didn't think it was relevant!