Pumpkin Pavé

This pumpkin soufflé has a really tasty hazelnut streusel for a bottom. This makes a really nice holiday treat, or seasonal dish.

This formula is from the Michel Suas Book Advanced Bread and Pastry, A Professional Approach, Pg. 436

Hazelnut Streusel Formula: yields one sheet pan

100% Pastry flour, 739 g

62% Brown Sugar, 458 g

50% Hazelnut Meal, 370 g

76% Butter, 562 g

Total: 288%

MOP: 

• Mix all ingredients in mixer with paddle attachment, mix until streusel is formed.
• Press about 85% of the streusel down on a sheet pan, with an pan extender. Reserve the extra streusel for assembly.
• Bake at 350° F in a convection oven for about 12 minutes, or until the crust starts to brown.
• Let cool before filling.

This formula is from the Michel Suas Book Advanced Bread and Pastry, A Professional Approach, Pg. 437

Pumpkin FIlling Formula: yields one sheet pan

100% Cream cheese, 1.463 kg

2 Vanilla bean, each

0.96% All spice, 14 g

1.92% Cinnamon, 28 g

74.65% Sugar, 1.092 kg

6.85% Maple syrup, 100 g

54.79% Pumpkin puree, 801 g

54.79% Eggs, 801 g

Total: 293.96%

MOP: scale and bring all ingredients to room temperature

• Cream the cream cheese, vanilla bean, and spices together in mixer using the paddle attachment. Scrape down bowl as needed.
• Once this mixture is smooth add sugar slowly, mix until incorporated. Scrape down bowl as needed.
• Add maple syrup. Incorporate.
• Add pumpkin puree and mix until smooth. Scrape down the bowl as needed.
• Add eggs in stages. Mix to just incorporate. Scrape down bowl as needed.

• Pour this mixture into a cooled prebaked hazelnut crust.
• Sprinkle the remaining streusel over the filling.
• Bake at 300° F in a convection oven for about 35 minutes or until the filling is set. Check this for doneness like a cheesecake or a souffle. The center should jiggle slightly. You can also touch the center and if it does not stick to your fingers then its done.
• Cool completely or over night. Portion when completely cool.

Assembly:

• Cut cooled pavé cleanly into 2" x 2" squares. You will need to keep a damp cloth to clean your chefs knife as your cut.
• Place in the center of a clean white plate.
• Use a squirt bottle with a sauce of your choice (raspberry sauce was used in this picture). At a 90° angle squirt a dollar coin sized circle. If you do not squeeze at a 90° angle you will not get a perfect circle.
• Use a spoon to drag a leaf shape around the brownies. You can use the spoon to make dots after the line has stopped extending. 

Cream Cheese Icing

This is a very rich and decadent icing. It goes especially well with carrot cake or carrot cake cupcakes.

Formula: frosts approximately 100 cupcakes
11% Unsalted butter, 145 g
16% White chocolate, 212 g
100% Cream cheese, 1.323 kg
51% Powdered sugar, 675 g
11% Sour cream, 145 g
Total: 189%


MOP:

• Melt butter and chocolate over a double broiler.
• While this is melting start to soften the cream cheese in a mixer.
• When the cream cheese is soft and creamy, start adding the powdered sugar slowly. You will probably need to do this in several batches so that the sugar does not fly out everywhere.
• Add the butter and chocolate mixture.
• Add in sour cream.
• Mix to fully incorporate.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

This is a really decadent and well balanced carrot cake formula. If you want to bake it like a cake then you will need to bake it at a lower temperature for a longer amount of time, 325° F for 25-30 minutes is what is recommended in the book. As a general rule larger items get baked for lower temperatures for longer periods of time.


This formula is from the Michel Suas Book Advanced Bread and Pastry, A Professional Approach, Pg. 701
Formula: yields about 60-80 cupcakes
50.6 % Canola oil, 477 g
57% Buttermilk, 537 g
145.6% Sugar, 1.372 kg
5.1% Vanilla, 48 g
50.6% Eggs, 477 g
75.9% Bread flour, 715 g
24.1% Pastry flour, 227 g
3.8% Baking soda, 36 g
1.5% Cinnamon, 14 g
1% Salt, 9 g
75.9% Pineapple, crushed, 715 g
83.5% Carrots, grated, 787 g
24.1% Coconuts, shredded, 227 g
38% Walnuts, toasted, 358 g
Total: 636.70%




MOP: Well method
This formula can easily be done by hand, or with a mixer.

• Prep muffin pans. Spray and dust fully with flour.
• Sift dry ingredients: bread flour, pastry flour, baking soda, salt.  Set aside.
• Combine tenderizers and spices: pineapple, carrots, coconuts, walnuts, and cinnamon. Set aside.
• Combine oil, buttermilk, vanilla, sugar, and eggs in a large bowl.
• Add sifted dry ingredients in stages. Fully incorporate.
• Fold in tenderizers and spices until combined.
• Use a portion scoop and fill prepped muffin pans 2/3 of the way up (aprox. 6 - 7 oz.)
• Bake at 370° for 10-15 minutes in a convection oven.
• De-pan by knocking the muffins out of the pan. Turn the muffins over and let cool, completely on a wire rack (the wire rack helps avoid soggy-ness).

Assembly:

• Frost the cupcakes with a cream cheese icing. Use a large star tip: 826 or 828 tip. Pipe a large, flat, rosette on top of each cupcake.
• Top with carrot design if you desire.

Sauces

These are a few different sauces that you can make for plating. The chocolate sauce is what was used with the brownies, the raspberry sauce with the pumpkin pavé.

Raspberry Sauce
500 g Puree*
200 g Sugar
75 g Water
*This can be adapted to any other fruit flavour based from a puree


MOP: Cook sugar and water to 300° F. Remove from heat and stir in puree to dissolve. The mixture will thicken slightly as it cools.


Orange Caramel Sauce
500 g Orange juice*
150 g Sugar
50 g Water
*If you use orange juice then make sure its a natural juice or it will have a metallic taste when cooked. Also make sure that it does not have too high percentage of water, if it does decrease the amount of water down to 30 g. 


MOP: Cook sugar and water to 320° F. Stir or whisk in orange juice to dissolve. The cold juice will seize up the sugar but keep on stirring or whisking and it will liquify again.

Caramelizing Sugar, about half way

Caramel Sauce

13 oz. Sugar

10 oz. Glucose

3 oz. Water

24 oz. Heavy cream, warm*

2 1/4 oz. Butter, soft

*If you do not use warm cream the mixture will seize up, like in the orange caramel sauce.

MOP: Cook sugar and water to caramel stage, 320° F. Off heat, whisk in warmed cream and softened butter. 

Chocolate Sauce

1# Bittersweet chocolate, chopped and melted

10 oz. Sugar

16 oz.  Water

4 1/2 oz. Corn syrup

4 oz. Cocoa, sifted

MOP: Heat sugar, water, and corn syrup to a boil. Whisk mixture into sifted cocoa. Add melted chocolate to this mixture. Strain if necessary. Should be liquid enough to pour through squirt bottle.

Italian Meringue Buttercream with Chocolate

This is the frosting that we used to frost and fill the Devils Food Cake. This is similar to the formula in Basic Cake Decorating, just in a much larger batch.


This formula is from the Michel Suas Book Advanced Bread and Pastry, A Professional Approach, Pg. 639
50% Egg whites, 926 g
90% Sugar, 1.667 kg
30% Water, 556 g
100% Butter, 1.852 kg
Total: 270%






MOP:

• Cook sugar and water to 250° F, soft ball stage.
• When sugar gets close, start whipping the egg whites. When the egg whites are white and foamy start adding the cooked sugar carefully. Try to avoid crystallization.
• Let the mixture mix until it is at room temperature.
• Add the butter in slowly, until the mixture is fully incorporated and light and fluffy. If the mixture starts to cottage cheese then stop adding butter and let the mixture repair itself.

• If you are flavouring the buttercream, like with chocolate. Add flavouring after the buttercream is fully incorporated and set. This way if you want to make a large batch of buttercream and flavour the large batch with more then one flavour you can easily do this.

Chocolate Fudge Icing (Boiled Icing)

This is the icing that we used for the brownies. You can also use gnache for this icing, see the Sacher Torte entry for that MOP.


Formula: this will cover one sheet pan worth of brownie
1# Sugar
5 oz. Corn syrup
4 oz. Water
4 oz. Butter
8 oz. 10x, sifted (I'm not quite sure what this is, I will check and un-highlight it when I get to class this week)
3 oz. Cocoa, sifted
0.25 oz. Vanilla
0.12 oz. Salt

This formula is pretty forgiving, have extra water on hand incase the icing comes out too thick.


MOP:

• Cook sugars and water to a softball stage.
• Cream fat (butter), 10x, and cocoa in a mixer.
• Stream in soft ball sugar into the mixer. This will not spit out at you as much as when making a meringue.
• Add salt and vanilla. Thin out with warm water if and as needed.
• Continue mixing until the icing is cooled, cool to touch.

Devils Food Cake

From now on, and for the previous brownie entry, these formulas are all from a class that is about bulk production and plating. So if the formulas seem very large and anyone wants to try to make them at home and needs help rewriting the formula for personal use just let me know.



Formula: yields two sheet pans
2# 5 oz. Cake flour
3# 13 oz. Sugar
1 1/4 oz. Baking soda
2 1/2 t Baking powder
1# 8 oz. Eggs
20 oz. Vegetable oil*
25 fl. oz. Buttermilk
1 oz. Vanilla extract
25 fl. oz. Water, warm**
15 oz. Cocoa Powder***


*can, and we did substitute 1# 9 oz. melted butter. Butter gives a richer taste.
**if the water is not warm it will not combine with the cocoa properly. It'll either not emulsify or will be too thick. You want a liquid ganache consistency to form.
***you could substitute unsweetened chocolate (at least 60%) for the cocoa powder and warm water


MOP: Well method
This can easily be mixed by hand. Same steps occur if you are using a electric mixer or mixing by hand.

• Combine warm water and cocoa powder in large mixing bowl. Whisk until combined and smooth.
• Add wet ingredients to cocoa mixture. 
• Sift dry ingredients together.
• Add dry ingredients into wet ingredients, in three stages.
• Pour batter in greased and lined cake pans. Pour from center and use an offset spatula to move the batter into the corners. Make sure the batter is level. You want to make sure to handle the batter as little as possible.
• Tap the pan on the counter before baking.
• Bake at 325° F for 25-30 minutes.
• Check for done-ness, the cake should be solid and the cake should bounce slightly at your touch.
• Let cool completely.

Assembly:

• Sandwich both layers between a thin layer of buttercream. Press down to make sure the buttercream is even to the edges.
• Spread a thin layer of buttercream on the top of the cake. You do not need to frost the sides because the sides will be trimmed like in a brownie.
• You can texture the top, like a brownie if you choose.