Gateau Chinois avec creme anglaise

Passport & Plate - Gateau Chinois avec creme anglaise

France | Friday, March 6, 2015 | 5 photos

Ingredients
Brioche dough
• - 300g plain flour
• - 1 tsp dry yeast
• - 50g butter
• - 1 egg plus on egg yolk
• - 120 ml milk
• - 35g sugar
• - a pinch of salt
• - 2 tbsp oil
• - a handful of currants

Custard
• 235 ml heavy cream
• 10 ml vanilla extract
• 4 egg yolks
• 65 g white sugar
Topping
• Icing Sugar
• Warm water

 

How to prepare this recipe
Preparation
Make the bread
1. Put the flour into a large bowl then add the eggs, butter (heated to room temperature), sugar and the pinch of salt. Dissolve the yeast in warm milk and let it ferment for a couple of minutes then add it to the rest of the ingredients and mix well until you get a soft dough. After add one tbsp of oil and knead the mixture in a greased bowl leave it to rise in a warm place for an hour. Remember a watched pot never boils and so go away and read a chapter of a good novel.
2. When the dough has risen add the other tbsp of oil and knead again for 1-2 minutes, scatter the currants on the work surface and keep kneading until they are evenly spread throughout the dough. Leave to rest for half an hour.
3. Preheat oven at 170C/325F/gas mark 3
Make the crème anglaise
4. In a small saucepan, heat cream and vanilla until bubbles form at edges.
5. While cream is heating, whisk together egg yolks and sugar until smooth. Slowly pour 1/2 cup of hot milk mixture into egg yolks, whisking constantly. Gradually add egg yolk mixture back to remaining milk mixture, whisking constantly. Continue to cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture coats the back of a spoon.
6. Take the dough and roll out. Cover the dough with the crème anglaise from the back of a spoon
7. Cut the coated dough into long strips and then roll them with the crème anglaise on the inside into small rolls. Arrange these in a greased oven tin in a circular pattern so that it resembles a rocky outcrop.
8. Brush with an egg yolk and a tbsp of milk mixture then place in the preheated oven at 170C/325F/gas mark 3 for 15 minutes then turn it down to 150C/300F/gas mark 2 and leave it for another 10 minutes.
9. Mix icing sugar and water warm until a thick mixture is formed.
10. When baked take out of the tray on a tea towel and let the bread cool. Drizzle the icing sugar atop the loaf and serve to waiting friends with a glass of local wine.

 

The story behind this recipe
The sticky blood of the grape on my hands, the sweet smell of the vine in my nostrils and the sun sinking low behind the hills. I unfurled myself from beneath the vine dropping my last bunch of grapes in the bucket at my feet. My belly growled and my back ached. The merry band of pickers who had pranced down the Burgundian hill that very morning, trudged back up behind the heavy hooves of our host’s plough horse. The warm glow of the domaine windows greeted us and the wicker chairs around a blazing fire were the comfort we needed. The vigneron emerged from the kitchen bringing with him sweet cinnamon and nutmeg spices. He delivered an immense loaf to the table shaped into large snail shells and glistening with pearly-white icing sugar. The loaf was gorged on by my fellow pickers and me. It awoke in me a great sense of gratitude, the juicy currants bringing home to me the value of my hard work in the vines for the vigneron and his family. The sweet baking spices tickling my tongue and the sticky custard centre restoring me. There was great simplicity in that loaf, shared among friends, with laughter moistened by a glass of the vigneron’s labours of yesteryear. It is for these moments that food exists, to thrill, to restore and to bind.