El reto de septiembre - volovanes

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

Gracias a Steph de "A Whisk and a Spoon" (que en castellano creo que sería algo así como "Un batidor y una cuchara") me he metido hasta las orejas en la fabricación casera de hojaldres, para posteriormente rizar el rizo y hacer volovanes.

La receta está al final de la entrada, la verdad es que lleva tiempo pero no es demasiado laboriosa. Si en vez de haberlo hecho el fin de semana del 12 de septiembre(que todavía hacía calor) lo hubiera hecho el fin de semana siguiente (cuando llegó el frío a Madrid) habría tenido algún quebradero de cabeza menos. Pero lo de la previsión meteorológica no es lo mío, ¿cómo pensar que en menos de una semana la temperatura iba a bajar 10 grados de golpe?

El proceso ha ido por etapas:

- el domingo 13 hice la masa,

- el lunes 14 hice unas palmeritas que salieron de vicio, y corté y monté los volovanes...

- ...que han esperado pacientemente en la nevera hasta hoy (día 28).

He metido la pata en dos cosas:

1.- parte de los cortes los hice con la masa un poco blanda. Tras volver a meterla en la nevera media hora, fue mucho más fácil cortar la masa.

2.- se me olvidó (porque lo hice mientras hacía la cena de la enana y la bañaba) ponerle a los volovanes un "peso" encima para que crecieran más o menos a la vez y no se desviaran de la horizontal. Aun así, a pesar de que un par de ellos quedaron tipo torre de Pisa, quedaron bastante dignos.

Por lo demás, quizá reduciría la cantidad de mantequilla de la masa, es una exageración. Ahora, el sabor es exquisito. Y la textura. Y la manera en que crujen y prácticamente se derriten entre la lengua y el paladar. Para la idea del relleno, tengo que dar las gracias a mi media naranja, y también al charcutero que me recomendó un cambio. Todo un acierto en cuanto a combinación de sabores.

Personas en dietas hipocalóricas, absténganse. :-)

Ha sido divertido y muy satisfactorio, ¡ya estoy impaciente por conocer el reto de octubre!

Para hacer las palmeras:
- enrollar la masa de hojaldre desde ambos extremos hacia el centro(qué importante es que esté bien fría), mojando con agua la "interfaz" entre ambos rollos para que se pegue y las palmeras no se abran.
- cortar con un cuchillo bien afilado (yo utilicé un cuchillo jamonero y, una vez más, no importa si después de enrollar la masa hay que volver a meterla en la nevera 10 o 20 minutos para que esté ¡bien fría!)
- espolvorear la superficie con bastante azúcar o miel
- colocar en una bandeja de horno forrada con papel vegetal, dejando bastante espacio entre las palmeras (crecerán hasta prácticamente el doble de su tamaño a lo ancho)
- meter a horno fuerte (180 a 200º) e ir vigilando cada 5 minutos. Las mías que fueron de tamaño pequeño tardaron unos 20 minutos en estar bien doradas.
- enfriar sobre una rejilla y no comérselas todas de una sentada.


Para hacer los volovanes:
- enfriar bien la masa (¿no lo he dicho antes?)
- cortar las bases con un cortapastas, sin girarlo, puesto que un mal corte puede hacer que la pasta no suba.
- con un tenedor, pinchar las bases teniendo cuidado de no atravesarlas
- cortar las "paredes" utilizando el mismo cortador que para las bases y uno más pequeño para hacer "los huecos". Reservar lo cortado para hacer las tapas.
- unir bases y paredes con huevo batido.
- si se quieren hacer más altos, repetir la operación añadiendo una nueva capa de "pared"
- volver a enfriar la masa siempre que haga falta, y al menos 1 hora antes de hornear.
- hornear cubiertas con una silicona, por ejemplo, para que todos los volovanes suban por igual, durante 15 minutos a 180º. Quitar la silicona y hornear el tiempo necesario para que se doren (puede que otros 15 minutos)

Las bases:


Los volovanes montados y sus "tapaderas"


Los volovanes ya horneados


Para hacer el relleno:
- Morcilla curada de Toledo (parecida a la morcilla asturiana de cebolla pero curada y más suave en especias, además de ligeramente ahumada)
- Piñones
- Huevos
- Aceite de oliva
- Sal

Tostar los piñones con un poco de aceite de oliva. Retirar de la sartén y reservar calientes. Pelar y trocear finamente la morcilla y freir en la sartén. Retirar el exceso de grasa. Batir los huevos y hacer un revuelto con la morcilla y los piñones.
Rellenar los volovanes. Sí, rellenarlos. No vale comerse el revuelto directamente de la sartén (puede hacerse con lo que sobre :) ). Servir acompañado de una ensalada verde aderezada con piñones tostados, sal, aceite y vinagre de módena. Prepararse para oh-es y ah-es de los comensales. Por si acaso, advertir a los vecinos más chismosos, no vayan a confundirlo con una bacanal.



Para hacer masa de hojalde: Pongo la receta en inglés. Si alguien está interesado en que la traduzca, decídmelo y lo hago, hoy no porque hay que irse a dormir de una vez :)
Michel Richard’s Puff Pastry Dough

From: Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan - Altamente recomendable buscar en youtube o donde sea algún episodio de Baking with Julia, una mujer que podría ser la abuela de cualquiera de nosotros y que, quizá por eso, cocina de miedo.
Yield: 2-1/2 pounds dough

Steph’s note: This recipe makes more than you will need for the quantity of vols-au-vent stated above. While I encourage you to make the full recipe of puff pastry, as extra dough freezes well, you can halve it successfully if you’d rather not have much leftover. Yo solo hice la mitad de la receta, hice 6 volovanes pequeños, unas 10 palmeritas, y todavía me queda algo de masa en el congelador - moraleja: hay que hacer caso de los consejos de los que saben :)

There is a wonderful on-line video from the PBS show “Baking with Julia” that accompanies the book. In it, Michel Richard and Julia Child demonstrate making puff pastry dough (although they go on to use it in other applications). They do seem to give slightly different ingredient measurements verbally than the ones in the book…I listed the recipe as it appears printed in the book. http://video.pbs.org/video/1174110297/search/Pastry

Ingredients:
2-1/2 cups (12.2 oz/ 354 g) unbleached all-purpose flour
1-1/4 cups (5.0 oz/ 142 g) cake flour
1 tbsp. salt (you can cut this by half for a less salty dough or for sweet preparations)
1-1/4 cups (10 fl oz/ 300 ml) ice water
1 pound (16 oz/ 454 g) very cold unsalted butter

plus extra flour for dusting work surface

Mixing the Dough:

Check the capacity of your food processor before you start. If it cannot hold the full quantity of ingredients, make the dough into two batches and combine them.

Put the all-purpose flour, cake flour, and salt in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade and pulse a couple of times just to mix. Add the water all at once, pulsing until the dough forms a ball on the blade. The dough will be very moist and pliable and will hold together when squeezed between your fingers. (Actually, it will feel like Play-Doh.)

Remove the dough from the machine, form it into a ball, with a small sharp knife, slash the top in a tic-tac-toe pattern. Wrap the dough in a damp towel and refrigerate for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, place the butter between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and beat it with a rolling pin until it flattens into a square that's about 1" thick. Take care that the butter remains cool and firm: if it has softened or become oily, chill it before continuing.

Incorporating the Butter:

Unwrap the dough and place it on a work surface dusted with all-purpose flour (A cool piece of marble is the ideal surface for puff pastry) with your rolling pin (preferably a French rolling pin without handles), press on the dough to flatten it and then roll it into a 10" square. Keep the top and bottom of the dough well floured to prevent sticking and lift the dough and move it around frequently. Starting from the center of the square, roll out over each corner to create a thick center pad with "ears," or flaps.

Place the cold butter in the middle of the dough and fold the ears over the butter, stretching them as needed so that they overlap slightly and encase the butter completely. (If you have to stretch the dough, stretch it from all over; don't just pull the ends) you should now have a package that is 8" square.

To make great puff pastry, it is important to keep the dough cold at all times. There are specified times for chilling the dough, but if your room is warm, or you work slowly, or you find that for no particular reason the butter starts to ooze out of the pastry, cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate it . You can stop at any point in the process and continue at your convenience or when the dough is properly chilled.

Making the Turns:

Gently but firmly press the rolling pin against the top and bottom edges of the square (this will help keep it square). Then, keeping the work surface and the top of the dough well floured to prevent sticking, roll the dough into a rectangle that is three times as long as the square you started with, about 24" (don't worry about the width of the rectangle: if you get the 24", everything else will work itself out.) With this first roll, it is particularly important that the butter be rolled evenly along the length and width of the rectangle; check when you start rolling that the butter is moving along well, and roll a bit harder or more evenly, if necessary, to get a smooth, even dough-butter sandwich (use your arm-strength!).

With a pastry brush, brush off the excess flour from the top of the dough, and fold the rectangle up from the bottom and down from the top in thirds, like a business letter, brushing off the excess flour. You have completed one turn.

Rotate the dough so that the closed fold is to your left, like the spine of a book. Repeat the rolling and folding process, rolling the dough to a length of 24" and then folding it in thirds. This is the second turn.

Chilling the Dough:

If the dough is still cool and no butter is oozing out, you can give the dough another two turns now. If the condition of the dough is iffy, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes. Each time you refrigerate the dough, mark the number of turns you've completed by indenting the dough with your fingertips. It is best to refrigerate the dough for 30 to 60 minutes between each set of two turns.

The total number of turns needed is six. If you prefer, you can give the dough just four turns now, chill it overnight, and do the last two turns the next day. Puff pastry is extremely flexible in this regard. However, no matter how you arrange your schedule, you should plan to chill the dough for at least an hour before cutting or shaping it.
Steph’s extra tips:

-While this is not included in the original recipe we are using (and I did not do this in my own trials), many puff pastry recipes use a teaspoon or two of white vinegar or lemon juice, added to the ice water, in the détrempe dough. This adds acidity, which relaxes the gluten in the dough by breaking down the proteins, making rolling easier. You are welcome to try this if you wish.

-Keep things cool by using the refrigerator as your friend! If you see any butter starting to leak through the dough during the turning process, rub a little flour on the exposed dough and chill straight away. Although you should certainly chill the dough for 30 to 60 minutes between each set of two turns, if you feel the dough getting to soft or hard to work with at any point, pop in the fridge for a rest.

-Not to sound contradictory, but if you chill your paton longer than the recommended time between turns, the butter can firm up too much. If this seems to be the case, I advise letting it sit at room temperature for 5-10 minutes to give it a chance to soften before proceeding to roll. You don't want the hard butter to separate into chuncks or break through the dough...you want it to roll evenly, in a continuous layer.

-Roll the puff pastry gently but firmly, and don’t roll your pin over the edges, which will prevent them from rising properly. Don't roll your puff thinner than about about 1/8 to 1/4-inch (3-6 mm) thick, or you will not get the rise you are looking for.

-Try to keep “neat” edges and corners during the rolling and turning process, so the layers are properly aligned. Give the edges of the paton a scooch with your rolling pin or a bench scraper to keep straight edges and 90-degree corners.

-Brush off excess flour before turning dough and after rolling.

-Make clean cuts. Don’t drag your knife through the puff or twist your cutters too much, which can inhibit rise.

-When egg washing puff pastry, try not to let extra egg wash drip down the cut edges, which can also inhibit rise.

-Extra puff pastry dough freezes beautifully. It’s best to roll it into a sheet about 1/8 to 1/4-inch thick (similar to store-bought puff) and freeze firm on a lined baking sheet. Then you can easily wrap the sheet in plastic, then foil (and if you have a sealable plastic bag big enough, place the wrapped dough inside) and return to the freezer for up to a few months. Defrost in the refrigerator when ready to use.

-You can also freeze well-wrapped, unbaked cut and shaped puff pastry (i.e., unbaked vols-au-vent shells). Bake from frozen, without thawing first.

-Homemade puff pastry is precious stuff, so save any clean scraps. Stack or overlap them, rather than balling them up, to help keep the integrity of the layers. Then give them a singe “turn” and gently re-roll. Scrap puff can be used for applications where a super-high rise is not necessary (such as palmiers, cheese straws, napoleons, or even the bottom bases for your vols-au-vent).