Tag: brioche

Apple heart brioche – Recipe by – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

First, dissolve the sugar and yeast in the milk.

Place the flours in a bowl, add the oil and the milk mixture, then also incorporate the egg, lemon peel and salt.
Knead for at least 10 minutes, until you obtain a smooth and elastic dough.

Cover the bowl with a clean cloth and let rise for about 2 hours or until doubled in size in a warm place.

Peel the apples, wash them and cut them into small cubes, then cook them for about 15 minutes over a low heat, mixing with butter, lemon juice, sugar and cinnamon.
When they have softened, turn off and let cool.

Leave the raisins to soak in hot water for at least 10 minutes: before using them, drain them and squeeze them lightly.

Divide the dough into pieces of about 40 g each.

Take one piece of dough at a time, flatten it with your hands, place a little filling (apples and raisins) in the center and close the dough over the filling, sealing well.
Place the loaves, with the closure facing downwards, in the lightly greased muffin molds and leave to rise again until doubled in size, it will take about 1 hour.

Break the cinnamon lengthwise.

Insert a piece of cinnamon into the center to act as a stem and cook for about 15 minutes in a preheated static oven at 170°C.

The apple heart brioches are ready, let them cool at least, then decorate them with a fresh mint leaf and serve.

Croissant day: January 30th is celebrated, here’s the news – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

On January 30th the world celebrates the croissant: it is the Croissant Day. A world day entirely dedicated to the sweet symbol of breakfast in the world. In fact it was born in the United States, in 2006. How to celebrate Croissant Day? Eating it in a classic and innovative version: it has come a long way since its birth. Now it also has new shapes and new flavors.

The «cube croissant

The latest sweet novelty is the «cube croissant: yes, the Croissant cube, so widespread now that it could replace the classic one. No longer in the shape of a croissant, as the Austrians thought of it in 1683 to commemorate the victory against the Ottoman Empire (recalling the crescent shape of the Turkish flag), and as the French did it again on the occasion of the wedding between Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette of Austria, adding more butter and renaming it «croissant (from «crescent, i.e. growing). Now the brioche (to call it Milanese style) has exactly that captivating and stylish shape of a parallelepiped, and this made it the perfect dessert for social media too. If it is so famous it is precisely because it has gone viral: on TikTok there are millions of videos with the hashtag #cubecroissant, including posts by tasters and passionate pastry chefs who try to try their hand at the new catchphrase.

Who invented the cube croissant

It all started on social media, after all. In 2018, with a post by the Swede Bedros Kabranian, world bakery champion. It was his idea, and he called it Le crube (a portmanteau of “croissant” and “cube”). He got there after several trials. Since the dough of a cube croissant grows much less than the traditional shape, Bedros Kabranian had to do a series of calculations to understand how much the mold needed to be filled. After he succeeded, no one stopped him, and he proposed it in many different versions: empty, filled with creams, glazed, sweetened. Because, apart from the shape, the rest of the cube croissant is the same as the original.

Where to taste the cube croissant in Italy

In Italy we know him thanks to the famous Turin Cambio Pharmacy which, in 2019, launched its Crubik, «characterized by a crunchy shell and a very soft heart (so he writes on his website). A brioche filled with custard or chocolate cream which immediately became a craze, and still is: it is not uncommon, four years after the “invention”, to come across local news articles that tell of the line of customers in Piazza Carignano to taste the specialty of Matteo Baronetto and Maicol Vitellozzi . Turin residents and tourists, all there. Maybe even to take a photo and post it.

Brioche bread men – Recipe by – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

First, dissolve the yeast in warm milk.

Place the flours in a well in a bowl and add milk, sugar, egg and orange peel to the centre.
Start kneading, then add salt and oil and work until you obtain an elastic and homogeneous dough.

Cover with cling film and leave to rise in a warm place for at least 2-3 hours or until it has almost tripled in volume.

Take the dough, deflate it with your hands on a lightly floured work surface and roll it out into a fairly thin sheet (0.5-1 cm), then cut out the little men using a 7-8 cm cutter.

Place the little men on the baking tray lined with baking paper, well spaced apart, and let them rise for at least another hour, then brush them with the lightly beaten egg yolk and cook for 15-20 minutes or until golden in a static oven preheated to 180°C .

Remove from the oven and leave to cool, then chop the chocolate and melt it in the microwave or in a bain-marie.

Decorate the little men as desired with melted chocolate and chopped pistachios.

The brioche bread men are ready, let the chocolate dry before serving.