Simple in theory but loud in practice.

Chef is probably on a plane at this time, flying to the land of gelato (Italy) where he will make fun of Canadians, eat lots and covet high quality olive oil. And little over a week from today he will compete internationally in a gelato competition, Salone Internazionale Gelateria. I am blessed to learn under someone who is so driven and so gifted. He is a chef that teaches work ethics and real intention towards honouring a craft. And he gets back in time to teach us how to make amazing ice cream and gelato, so it's all works out in the end.

Today was solely dedicated to the mere understanding of laminated dough. Laminated is, when you find out what it is, exactly what it sounds like. Think of taking a sheet of paper to the printers and they laminated two sheets of plastic overtop that hold the paper within them. Now imagine that the paper is butter and the plastic is a yeasted dough.We sat from seven in the morning to well after two o'clock talking about lamination, mixing croissant dough, watching (four times over) the enclosing of the butter, or beuragge, in the croissant dough, or the detrempe. We made vanilla pastry cream and almond cream; we watched single folds and double folds, envelope shaping and croissant rolling. It's an anxiety inducing process because in order to make really good croissants you need to consider many different conditions. And croissants are a lot of work so if you mess it up you will be righteously pissed. Really the worst thing that happens with the croissant process going awry is that you end up with a bready dough, instead of flaky. You end up with brioche, essentially. Which is not really a bad thing, is it?

I made one of the batches of dough today. These aren't mine. Mine will come out tomorrow. We all had to hammer out (literally hammer with a French rolling pin) our 'butter block', which is a slab of butter about 1/4" thick that is 'enclosed' within the croissant dough which is then rolled out to create the layers of flaky pastry. I think I have a handle on the detrempe, it'll just be the actual lamination process that will take some getting used to.

And seeing the process repeatedly was really helpful. If gave me a sense of what we're looking for in each of the different stages: the butter crumbling, the seams lining up, rotating the dough for folding, etc. And Chef's turns of phrase never get old.
"You want lots of space. You don't want to be too confinated."
Truth, Chef. You speak the truth.

So nothing of my own to report for today, but I do have weekend yumminess to report. Our small group meets every Sunday night and we chill out, eat good food, drink good wine, laugh lots, pray lots. It's always such a great time. And it provides a great outlet for Moozh and I when we host at our place to try out some of the things that we're learning. As soon as I read Smitten Kitchen's most recent post, I knew I had to try it out. I have what can be considered rather quirky obsessions: Jewish people, Russian people/food/music/history, musicals, knitting/crocheting, octopus, steampunk, etc. And I can get MANIC. So when I started Smitten Kitchen back in high school, it was so endearing to me that she was Jewish. And then, just last week I discovered via her post that she is married to a Russian man (or a man from a Russian heritage rather). Kind of clinched it for me, not gonna lie.
Soooooo.
I also though what better way to break in the set of appropriately red Russian nesting doll measuring cups that I got for Christmas than a Russian recipe for cake?! Or is it cake? All night, I tried to figure out what it could be described as. I landed on an apple pie/meringue cake. It's like pie but it has no crust. It's like clafoutis but it has no milk in it. It's like cake but it has SO MUCH FRUIT in it. So you kind of have to land on whatever makes sense. It was demolished after dinner so I think any ambiguity about it's identity didn't get in the way of much.

That is Kooknaya, which is Russian for 'kitchen'.

The recipe, which is made for a 9" springform pan, calls for six granny smith apples, so you get this beautiful tart, brightness amidst the sweet. It's not too sweet though. There's not a ton of sugar in the meringue and the apples add a nice subtle sweetness and that delicious comforting flavour.

This is a super poor picture but it's the only decent one I got of it in the pan before it went in the oven. You can see that I opted no for a springform pan (namely because I don't have one). I instead used a regular 9" pie plate. I couldn't fit in the last apple but the cake didn't suffer any. It would have looked great with even some powdered sugar but it was WAY too hot and I was already late on my way.

And now what is that. The top came out looking toasty browned, just like a meringue, with that beautiful crunchiness. It's a really simple recipe and it comes together really quickly. The most labor intensive part is the peeling of the apples and, like any good pie, I think it would be just as good with the peels on. Grannies can get a little waxy but their peels lend a slight bitterness for balance. *That sentence reads differently taken out of context.

If you like what you see, head over to Smitten Kitchen and check it out.