This almond puff loaf is unique because it is made up of two different doughs, pie dough and pate a choux. The pate a choux is gently scented with either almond or vanilla extract and the whole dessert is topped, while it's still warm with the jam of your choice, a quick vanilla icing and almonds. And speaking of almonds, be sure to toast some almonds to a GBD (golden, brown, delicious). Set them aside to cool; you'll be using them later.
Make the traditional pie dough. Mix 1 cup of flour (I use King Arthur), one stick of butter and 1/4 tsp. salt in the bowl of a stand mixer to combine. Since this is a traditional pie dough its OK to have larger pieces of butter. Add 1/4 cup of cold water. Mix until just combined.
At this point I had to decide if I wanted to make a coffee ring type dessert or make two 'loaves'. I chose to do it like they did on the King Arthur site. I weighed the dough and it came it at 10.5 ounces.
Divide the dough evenly in half and with moistened fingers pat each log on lightly greased parchment paper. The logs should be about 10 x 3 but you don't have to be precise.
At this point I put the pan in the refrigerator because the pie dough got a little soft and I wanted it to firm up while I made the pate a choux. Ah, the making of the pate a choux...I haven't made pate a choux since culinary school. It's not hard to make and it's very versatile, it can be made to be either sweet or savory but it's not something that is commonly requested by my usual customers. Anywho, the pate a choux...
Bring to a boil in a medium pot one stick of butter, 1/4 tsp salt and one cup of water. Add one cup of AP flour all at once. Using a wooden spoon, stir for about 2 minutes to cook the raw flour taste out and make sure all lumps of flour are worked out. Pour flour mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer and and mix on medium (4-6 on a Kitchen Aid mixer) until the mixture has cooled down and the bowl is just warm to the touch.
At this point you'll add 3 eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Once all the eggs are added the mixture should look like this:
At this point add either a tsp. of almond extract or, if you aren't as partial to almond, add 1 tsp. of vanilla extract. I added 1 tsp. of each.
This is the point where I differ from the King Arthur recipe a bit more. Using a box grater, I grated some almond paste on the now chilled pie dough. I pressed the almond paste pieces lightly into the dough like this:
Before I continue, let me say a bit about almond paste. I absolutely LOVE almond paste! I love anything almond as a matter of fact. I think almond paste takes desserts to another level, elevating them to perfection. So, it was not a hard decision to add the almond paste to this dessert and I must say, I was not disappointed.
After adding the grated almond paste, I divided the pate a choux between the two chilled and almond paste filled pie dough log, covering them completely.
Bake in an oven preheated to 400 degrees for 10 minutes then reduce the temperature to 350 and bake for about 35-50 minutes more or until the top layer is golden brown.
Now, the fun and creativity begins! The usual fruit topping on these almonds puffs is apricot, or at least that's what is used on the King Arthur site but they encourage you to use what ever jam or fruit topping you'd like. When I first tired this recipe I used apricot jam per the original recipe just so I could get a feel of what I could change to make it work better for me. Apricot was OK, not my absolute favorite. Since my favorite jam is strawberry, this is what I used on one and the other I didn't add any fruit topping, only the quick vanilla icing and toasted sliced almonds.
The end result looked like this:
Don't these look lovely? Well, they also tasted HEAVENLY! I love the addition of the almond paste, it really did elevate this pastry to another level.
No comments:
Post a Comment