Palmiers

Forget all the times I've said a recipe is the "easiest ever!" because this one is by far the easiest of all! haha. Why is it this easiest? Well, it only uses TWO ingredients (Not counting a pinch of salt)!! Say Whaaaa?! TWO ingredients is all you need for this "dessert". What is it you ask? Palmiers aka Elephant Ears!! While we're on the subject of Elephant Ears, when I was younger my brother used to call me Dumbo after the elephant named Dumbo in the Disney movie. The reason behind this? Well, I had huge ears and I was able to wiggle (more like flap) them just like Dumbo. To this day, I still can wiggle/flap them! They are not as huge as before though. hehe. Can you even believe I was able to win a mini laptop at UW with this hidden talent? It's TRUE!! Enough of my random tangents. haha. Like I said, this is the easiest recipe ever. Take sugar and puff pastry, roll out the puff pastry with sugar, fold , slice and bake. Believe me now? You can change up the flavor by adding different spices such as cinnamon. A perfect cookie to whip up in no time. Here's my results, tips and the recipe!

Results

Taste: Simply sweet and buttery

Texture: Crisp and crunchy with an outer layer of sugar

Tips
-No time to bake Palmiers after rolling and folding the dough? Freeze it for later use! I actually slice them prior to freezing to make it even easier

-I found that baking the sliced Palmiers pretty close together prevents excessive unraveling.

-Don't try to work in all the sugar. If there's too much sugar when baking, it creates a caramel which I had.

Palmiers

Recipe from Ina Garten

Ingredients
2 cups granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
2 sheets puff pastry, defrosted (recommended: Pepperidge Farm)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Combine the sugar and kosher salt. Pour 1 cup of the sugar/salt mixture on a flat surface such as wooden board or marble. Unfold each sheet of puff pastry onto the sugar and pour 1/2 cup of the sugar mixture on top, spreading it evenly on the puff pastry. This is not about sprinkling, it's about an even covering of sugar. With a rolling pin, roll the dough until it's 13 by 13-inches square and the sugar is pressed into the puff pastry on top and bottom. Fold the sides of the square towards the center so they go halfway to the middle. Fold them again so the two folds meet exactly at the middle of the dough. Then fold 1 half over the other half as though closing a book. You will have 6 layers. Slice the dough into 3/8-inch slices and place the slices, cut side up, on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Place the second sheet of pastry on the sugared board, sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar mixture, and continue as above. (There will be quite a bit of sugar left over on the board.) Slice and arrange on baking sheets lined with parchment.

Bake the cookies for 6 minutes until caramelized and brown on the bottom, then turn with a spatula and bake another 3 to 5 minutes, until caramelized on the other side. Transfer to a baking rack to cool.


-Aaron John
My Food Outings: AJ's Food Adventure
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Strawberry Cheese Danish

So I haven't had a post in more than a week! 0.0 This week, I've been so busy hanging out with friends, watching Inception (Really great movie btw. It's mind boggling! haha), playing some mini golf, eating out, and playing pool and video games at Gameworks, that I didn't have time to really make anything and have a post. But here I am, back with another post just for you guys! :) As I type this, I am pretty much exhausted so I'm going to keep it short and simple. Hope that's alright! This week's creation was Strawberry Cheese Danish. Ina Garten has another appearance this week. This recipe is extremely simple to follow! The filling is the only thing that you have to work to put together but I was able to whip that up in no time. I made a few changes to the recipe though because the original recipe is for a Cheese Danish not a Strawberry Cheese Danish. I put all the measurements I used below. Overall, the flavor was great. It almost tasted like strawberry cheesecake! However, I did not like the texture of the filling at all. Maybe I'm wrong but shouldn't the filling be creamy? Instead of being creamy, the filling had more of a "curdled" texture which I believe came from the egg yolk. I searched other recipes and they also said to add an egg yolk. But!! I did find a recipe that used flour instead of the egg yolk! That might create a smoother filling than what I had. Here's the recipe and changes to it!!

Strawberry Cheese Danish (Makes 8 Danishes)
Ingredients
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
2 extra-large egg yolks, at room temperature (Another recipe called for 2 tbsp of flour)
2 tablespoons ricotta cheese (I completely omitted this)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (2 lemons)
1/2 cup Strawberry Preserves or Jam
2 sheets (1 box) frozen puff pastry, defrosted
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water, for egg wash

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.

Place the cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and cream them together on low speed until smooth. With the mixer still on low, add the egg yolks, ricotta, vanilla, salt, and lemon zest and mix until just combined. Don't whip!

Unfold 1 sheet of puff pastry onto a lightly floured board and roll it slightly with a floured rolling pin until it's a 10 by 10-inch square. Cut the sheet into quarters with a sharp knife. Place a heaping tablespoon of cheese filling into the middle of each of the 4 squares. Then place a tablespoon of the strawberry preserves or jam onto the cheese filling. Brush the border of each pastry with egg wash and fold 2 opposite corners to the center, brushing and overlapping the corners of each pastry so they firmly stick together. Brush the top of the pastries with egg wash. Place the pastries on the prepared sheet pan. Repeat with the second sheet of puff pastry and refrigerate the filled Danish for 15 minutes.

Bake the pastries for about 20 minutes, rotating the pan once during baking, until puffed and brown. Serve warm.


-Aaron John
My Food Outings: AJ's Food Adventure
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Apple Turnovers

Let's have an update to my life shall we? This past week, I've been on a diet. By diet, I mean that this week I've simply been watching what I am eating. I've only been eating about 1200-1500 calories a day. Is that bad?! D: I'm just trying to lose weight!! After my freshman year of college, I definitely had the freshmen fifteen!! The sad part is....I didn't even dorm!! I ate the normal home cooked meals I ate during high school so how is that even possible for me to gain the freshmen fifteen?! The one thing that changed during college was that I began to eat breakfast before school. In high school, I didn't eat breakfast. I would just get ready for school and leave without eating. I'm beginning to point the "weight gaining" on breakfast!! They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day but I don't know what has happened to me. haha. I mean, I'm not huge but I definitely feel overweight.

I have to say, diets and working out are the hardest thing for me to do. I just want to sit and eat my ice cream. haha. But, I gotta do what I gotta do. In addition to my diet, I started working out. I don't know how long it will last but I hope I can keep it up throughout the summer. Every time I begin to workout, I would go, maybe 3 days, then stop. The longest amount of working out has been 2 weeks. Let's see if I can beat my record!!

Enough about diets and working out. Who wants to read about that? haha. Let's talk about something "fattening" and that is Apple Turnovers!! I mean, they have fruit in them so they have to be healthy.... Right?... Ok, maybe not, but they do have fruits in them so I think the fattening and healthy aspects cancel giving you a semi-healthy dessert :D You like my chain of thought, huh? This recipe comes from none other than Ina Garten once again. This is basically the 72389147192834 recipe from her on my blog. haha. These Apple Turnovers kind of ruined my diet. Oh well. We all deserve something delicious every now and then. These Apple Turnovers were simple to make and use puff pastry! No need to make pie dough or anything like that. Overall, these were pretty good. However, I do think that they need extra sugar. They were a little tart for my taste. In addition, I used lemon juice as well. Would I make these again? Yes, but I would need to tweak the recipe a bit. Here's my tips and the recipe!! One more thing. I've started putting a "Tips" section in the last two blog posts and this one. Do you find that helpful? :)

**Tips
-Prepare the puff pastry first and place it in the refrigerator so that it's just waiting for the apple mixture. It makes things go by a lot quicker and keeping the puff pastry cold is key!

-It's possible to cook the apples in a pot for a bit to have the "sauce" thicken but it's not necessary. I've read a lot of recipes for apple turnovers that say to cook the apple mixture but in this case, the sauce thickened when baking.

-The real goal of this recipe is to brown the puff pastry. I baked the Apple Turnovers in different batches, at different temperatures because I was skeptical of the 400 degrees F directions. The first at 350 degrees came out to be a nice golden brown but the apples were definitely overcooked when the puff pastry browned. The second batch I baked at 400 degrees and the apples still had a "bite" to them so definitely stick to baking them at 400 degrees.

Apple Turnovers
Ingredients
1 teaspoon grated orange zest (I used the zest of half a lemon)
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice (I used 2 tbsp orange juice and 1 tbsp lemon juice)
1 1/4 pounds tart apples, such as Empire or Granny Smith (3 apples)
3 tablespoons dried cherries
3 tablespoons sugar, plus extra to sprinkle on top (I used 1/4 cup sugar. It still needed more in my opinion)
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Pinch kosher salt
1 package (17.3 ounces, 2 sheets) frozen puff pastry, defrosted
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water, for egg wash

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Combine the orange zest and orange juice in a bowl. Peel, quarter, and core the apples and then cut them in 3/4-inch dice. Immediately toss the apples with the zest and juice to prevent them from turning brown. Add the cherries, sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.

Flour a board and lightly roll each sheet of puff pastry to a 12 by 12-inch square. Cut each sheet into 4 smaller squares and keep chilled until ready to use.

Brush the edges of each square with the egg wash and neatly place about 1/3 cup of the apple mixture on half of the square. Fold the pastry diagonally over the apple mixture and seal by pressing the edges with a fork. Transfer to a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Brush the top with egg wash, sprinkle with sugar, make 2 small slits, and bake for 20 minutes, until browned and puffed. Serve warm or at room temperature.


-Aaron John
My Food Outings: AJ's Food Adventure
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