Day 18: Crepe Cake, Pastry Cream, Creme Anglaise and Garlic Soup

Daily Tips:

• If you soak garlic in water, the skins come off way more easily and the garlic doesn’t stick all over your fingers!!!! Try it and thank me later.
• Also, if you cook your garlic super low and slow, it won’t get bitter!

 Okay, now onto what we made. I had high, high hopes for this crepe cake, and seriously low expectations for this garlic soup. Turns out, I got both completely backwards. Crepe cake does not taste nearly as good as it looks, and this garlic soup was way more delicious than you would expect given the ingredients are basically….a lot of garlic. Scroll down for garlic soup recipe!The crepe cake was a couple dozen crepes layered with pastry cream, set atop the Creme Anglaise. I was expecting something soft and light and fluffy. We let the cakes sit overnight, and I had these grand visions of everything softly melting together. That did not happen. Turns out leavening is important here. If you think of tiramisu, or banana pudding, or any other type of layered dessert, those dishes have some type of baked god (cookies or cake) that has air pockets. Those air pockets soak up the liquid, and become all floaty and delicious and cloud like. But because crepes have exactly zero leavening in them, there’s nowhere for the cream to melt into - instead it just sort of glues the crepes together (I know, what a visual).            C’est la vie. At least the crepes were super fun to make! Here are some tips:

• Use a nonstick pan!
• Temperature matters here. You want the pan pretty hot (think medium high, but for long enough that the pan has really heated up). If the pan is too hot, your crepes will burn but if the pan isn’t not hot enough, they’ll never get any color.
• You just want enough batter to coat the pan - any more than that and your crepes will be too thick
• You want your batter the consistency of cream!
• Let batter sit overnight for best results before using:

Sweet Crepes

Ingredients

• 1 cup cold water
• 1 cup milk
• 4 eggs
• 4 tsp sugar
• 3 oz melted butter
• 2 oz rum, brandy or other liqueur
• 2 cups flour

Method:

1. Place ingredients in a blender in the order listed - if you put flour first, the blender will not run smoothly
2. Cover and blend on high speed for one minute. Refrigerate at least 1 hour before using, but the longer the better!

To make savory crepes just eliminate the sugar and liqueur. We’ve also made so many different dairy/ egg dishes it’s hard to keep track of all of them. But, the pastry cream was delicious and could be used in a number of different ways (inside a million different pastries, duh, or to layer in between cookies for an actually soft and fluffy and cloud-like dessert). The nice thing about this pastry cream is that the addition of the cornstarch means that your eggs won’t curdle when you temper them with the hot milk.

Pastry Cream:

Ingredients:

• 6 egg yolks
• ⅔ cup sugar
• Pinch of salt
• ¼ cup corn starch
• 2 cups milk
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Whisk yolks, sugar, salt and cornstarch.
2. Bring milk to just below the boiling part (steaming, but not boiling) in a heavy saucepan. Take off the heat and slowly whisk into egg mixture.
3. Return mixture to saucepan and bring to a boil, whisking constantly. The mixture will feel thin at first, but then will thicken quickly thanks to the cornstarch. Once at a boil, continue to whisk for 2-3 minutes until the pastry cream is smooth.
4. Remove from heat and whisk in the butter and vanilla extract. Cool your mixture by placing on a sheet tray, spreading out to cool evenly, and then placing a piece of plastic wrap on top so pastry cream doesn’t oxidize and form a (a film will form if you leave uncovered)
5. Just before using, whisk pastry cream to eliminate lumps, and then fold in ½ to 1 cup of lightly whipped cream.

To make chocolate pastry cream, melt 4 oz semi-sweet chocolate and stir into the pastry cream after you remove it from the heat, bt while the pastry cream is still warm. 

Creme Anglaise

Creme Anglaise is just a thick delicious creamy sauce, essentially ice cream before its been churned. Add to any dessert that isn’t super sweet, and needs a nice glazey finish/ shot of cream (some ideas: a fruit tart, flourless chocolate cake, etc.)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups milk
• 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
• 4 egg yolks
• ½ cup sugar
• Pinch of salt

Method:

1. Heat milk and vanilla bean in a saucepan to just below the boil. Cover and remove from heat, and let the bean infuse in the milk for 15 minutes. Remove the bean, scrape the seeds into the milk, and set aside.
2. Whisk egg yolks, sugar and salt in a bowl until just blended. Slowly whisk in the hot milk - I mean slowly! You don’t want your eggs to curdle. Once mixed, pour entire mixture back into the saucepan
3. Place saucepan over a low flame and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens slightly to the point that it will coat the back of a spoon (between 165°F and  180°F).
4. Immediately  strain into a bowl over an ice bath. Cool, stirring occasionally to prevent a skin from forming. Store in the refrigerator

Sopa de Ajo (Garlic Soup!)

Kind of burying the lead here, because this soup was bomb. This exemplifies what I LOVE about school. We cook things that I would never make or order of a menu in a million years, and I am nearly always pleasantly surprised  (except in the case of #sadcrepecake). When we made this soup, I was shocked that we didn’t blend the garlic. I was shocked that there was basically nothing in the base of the soup but chicken stock and garlic. And I was shocked that I liked it so much. Now, the soup wouldn’t be that much on its own. But, with the addition of what’s basically a soft boiled egg (we souvide’d ours, but you don’t need to do that) plus a ton of crispy fried bread, it is totally elevated. It became texturally interesting, and had really complex flavors from the combo of the garlic and egg yolk. I was also fully expecting to be kind of grossed out by the fried bread (too much like carnival food), but 1. It tastes really good and 2. It ensures the bread holds up when you dunk it in the soup. Otherwise it would become all mushy.Make this soup! You won’t regret it.

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 4 oz extra virgin olive oil, plus more for frying
• 2 cups finely sliced garlic (yes, this much garlic)
• 48 oz chicken sock (or 6 cups, or 1.5 quarts)
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1-2 dried california chiles, seeded
• Salt, as needed

• 4 slices country bread
• 4 eggs
• 1 tbsp roughly chopped parsley

Method:

1. Add garlic and olive oil to a large pan and cook VERY SLOW AND GENTLY over low heat so it doesn’t get bitter. Cook at least 20 minutes until the garlic is golden.
2. Add the chicken stock, thyme and chili and simmer 15 minutes. Remove the chili and thyme and adjust seasoning.
3. In another pan, add ¼ inch oil to a large saute pan and fry slices of bread until golden on both sides. Work in batches (don’t crowd the bread!) and add more oil as needed.
4. Poach 4 eggs until soft - you want the egg pretty runny as it will firm up in the soup.
5. To serve, break up the bread and place in the bottom of 4 bowls. Place the poached egg into each bowl. Ladle soup over the top and garnish with chopped parsley.