Julia's Kitchen Wisdom

by Julia Child

  All-Purpose Pie Dough—Pâte Brisée Fine Dough for two 9-inch round shells or a 14-by-18-inch free-form shell

  You will note the mixture of flours and fats here. Without them, our general American all-purpose flour, which is relatively high in gluten, can give you a brittle rather than a tender crust. But if you have “pastry flour,” you can use that alone, along with all butter rather than a mixture of butter and vegetable shortening.

  1½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour (measured by the scoop-and-level system)

  ½ cup plain bleached cake flour

  1 tsp salt

  1½ sticks (6 ounces) chilled unsalted butter, diced

  4 Tbs chilled vegetable shortening

  ½ cup ice water, plus droplets more if needed

  Drop the flours, salt, and butter in to the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Pulse 5 or 6 times in ½-second bursts to break up the butter. Then add the shortening, turn on the machine, and immediately pour in the ice water, pulsing 2 or 3 times. Remove cover and observe the dough, which will look like a mass of smallish lumps and should just hold in a mass when a handful is pressed together. If too dry, pulse in droplets more water.

  Turn dough out onto your work surface, and with the heel of your hand rapidly and roughly push egg-size blobs out in front of you in 6-inch smears. Gather the dough into a relatively smooth cake; wrap in plastic, and refrigerate at least 2 hours (or up to 2 days), or you may freeze it for several months.

  WHAT TO BAKE IT IN OR ON. Bake your tart shell in a bottomless buttered flan ring set on a buttered pastry sheet, or in a false-bottomed cake pan or fluted pan, or on a buttered upside-down pie plate or cake pan. Or you can fashion a free-form shell on a buttered pastry sheet.

  VARIATION

  SWEET DOUGH FOR DESSERT TARTS. Use the same formula, but cut the salt down to ¼ teaspoon and include 2 tablespoons sugar.

  Forming a Tart Shell

  To Form a 9-Inch Round Shell in a Flan Ring. Have the ring and pastry sheet buttered and at your side. Cut the chilled dough in half and keep one half wrapped and chilled. Rapidly, on a lightly floured surface, roll the other half into a circular shape ⅛ inch thick and 1½ inches larger all around than your ring.

  Roll the dough up on your pin and unroll it over the ring, then lightly press the dough in place. To make sturdy sides, push about ½ inch down them all around. Roll your pin over the top to trim off excess dough, then push it up ⅓ inch all around the sides to make a rim.

  Using the tines of a table fork, laid flat, press a design on the rim. Prick the bottom of the dough all over with a fork. Cover with plastic wrap and chill at least 30 minutes before baking.

  A PROPER ROLLING PIN. Get yourself a straight rolling pin about 18 inches long and 1¾ inches in diameter, or use an Italian pasta pin.

  To Form a Shell on an Upside-Down Pan. Butter the outside of the pan and set it upside down on a baking sheet. Roll out the dough, drape loosely over the pan, and press gently onto pan all around. To make the wall thicker, push dough up on the sides with your thumbs. Press a decorative edging around the sides with the tines of a fork held flat.

  To Form a Large Free-Form Rectangular Tart Shell. Roll the chilled dough into a 16-by-20-inch rectangle ⅛ inch thick. Roll it up on your pin and unroll onto a lightly buttered rimless baking sheet. Trim the sides perfectly straight, then slice a strip of dough 1 inch wide from each edge of the rectangle. Moisten the outside border of the rectangle with cold water and lay the strips on top to form a raised rim. Press the strips with the tines of a fork to seal and decorate, and prick the bottom all over with the tines of the fork. Wrap and chill.

  Prebaking a Shell—“Blind Baking”

  You will always have a crisper crust for tarts baked with a filling when you prebake the shell first.

  Slide rack into the lower-middle level, and preheat the oven to 450°F. For a quiche ring, false-bottomed pan, or free-form shell, butter the shiny side of a piece of foil several inches larger than your shell. Press it lightly, buttered side down, against the chilled tart shell on the bottom and sides. To prevent bottom from rising and sides from collapsing, pour in dry beans, rice, or aluminum “pie weights,” being sure you also bank them against the sides.

  Bake 10 to 15 minutes, until the bottom pastry is set but still soft. Remove foil and beans, prick the bottom again with a fork, and return to oven. For a partial cooking, bake 2 minutes or so more, until pastry just begins to color and to separate from the sides if in a ring. For a fully cooked shell, bake 4 or more minutes, until lightly browned.

  MASTER RECIPE FOR SAVORY TART

  Quiche Lorraine For a 9-inch quiche, serving 6

  6 strips of crisply cooked bacon

  A partially baked 9-inch tart shell (see above)

  3 “large” eggs

  About 1 cup cream

  Salt, freshly ground pepper, and nutmeg

  Preheat oven to 375°F. Break bacon into pieces and strew in shell. Blend the eggs with enough cream to make 1½ cups of custard, and blend in seasonings to taste. Pour into shell to within ⅛ inch of rim. Bake 30 to 35 minutes, or until puffed and browned. Unmold onto a round platter and serve warm or at room temperature.

  QUICHE PROPORTIONS. Any quiche can be made with either heavy or light cream or with milk. The proportions always are 1 egg in a measuring cup plus milk or cream to the ½-cup level; 2 eggs and milk or cream to the 1-cup level; 3 eggs and milk or cream to the 1½-cup level; and so forth.

  VARIATIONS

  CHEESE AND BACON QUICHE. Follow the master recipe, but sprinkle ½ cup grated Swiss cheese into shell before adding the custard, plus another spoonful on top before baking.

  SPINACH QUICHE. Blend 1 cup cooked chopped, well-flavored spinach into the custard. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons grated Swiss cheese into the bottom of the shell, pour in the custard, sprinkle more cheese on top, and bake as directed.

  SHELLFISH QUICHE. Prepare the shellfish as described, but omit the cream. Spread into the pastry shell, pour in the custard, sprinkle on 3 tablespoons grated Swiss cheese, and bake as directed.

  ONION AND SAUSAGE QUICHE. Spread 2 cups tenderly sautéed minced onions in the shell. Pour the custard over, arrange on top thinly sliced cooked Italian sausage and ¼ cup grated Swiss cheese. Bake as directed.

  OTHER ADDITIONS. Use about a cup for a 9-inch shell. Just about anything edible can be quiche material, from cooked or canned salmon to tunafish, the broccoli florets, the pipérade, sliced sautéed white of leek, sautéed mushrooms or chicken livers, and so forth.

  MASTER RECIPE

  Apple Tart For a 9-inch tart, serving 4 to 6

  A prebaked 9-inch tart shell

  Warm apricot glaze

  2 or 3 firm apples (such as Granny Smith or Golden Delicious), halved, cored, peeled, and neatly sliced

  2 Tbs sugar

  Paint the bottom of the shell with apricot glaze. Arrange the apples in a decorative pattern, filling the shell; sprinkle over the sugar. Bake in the upper-middle level of a preheated 375°F oven for 30 to 35 minutes, until the apples are lightly colored and perfectly tender. Unmold onto a platter and paint top of apples with more apricot glaze. Serve warm or cold.

  VARIATIONS

  FREE-FORM APPLE TART. Form a 14-by-18-inch free-form tart shell as detailed. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons sugar in the shell. Peel, core, and slice 3 or 4 Golden Delicious apples, and arrange in neat rows of overlapping slices. Sprinkle over more sugar. Bake and glaze as in the master recipe.

  PEAR TART. Use firm ripe pears, such as Bartletts, in either of the preceding apple tarts.

  FRESH STRAWBERRY TART. Paint a fully baked 8- or 9-inch tart shell with warm red-currant glaze. Arrange 1 quart of fresh hulled strawberries attractively, heads up, in the shell, and paint lightly with more glaze. Serve with whipped cream on the side.

  PASTRY CREAM AND STRAWBERRIES. After glazing the bottom of the tart shell, spread on a layer no more than ¼ inch thick of pastry cream, then arrange the strawberries on top and complet
e the recipe.

  OTHER IDEAS. Rather than strawberries, use raspberries, blueberries, or a mixture; include halved seedless grapes and/or a sprinkling of chopped nuts; or sliced fresh or canned peaches, apricots, or pears; or halved ripe figs. This is a great opportunity for you to use your creative skills.

  The Famous Upside-Down Apple Tarte Tatin

  For 6 servings. Provide yourself with a heavy ovenproof 9-inch skillet and a third to a half of the recipe for chilled pie dough. Slide rack onto lower-middle level and preheat oven to 425°F.

  Slice the halves of 6 cored and peeled Golden Delicious apples into 4 lengthwise wedges each, and toss with the grated zest and juice of 1 lemon and ½ cup sugar. Drain after macerating 20 minutes.

  Heat 6 tablespoons unsalted butter in the frying pan over high heat; stir in 1 cup sugar, and cook until syrup bubbles and turns caramel-brown.

  Off heat, arrange a layer of apple slices in a neat pattern on the caramel coating, then arrange the rest of the apples fairly neatly on top.

  Return over moderately high heat and cook for about 25 minutes, covering the pan after 10 minutes, and pressing down on apples every several minutes as you baste them with exuded juices. When the juices are thick and syrupy, remove from heat.

  Roll the chilled dough into a circle, 3/16 inch thick and 1 inch larger than top of pan. Drape over apples, pressing edge of dough between apples and inside of pan; cut 4 small steam holes on top. Bake about 20 minutes, until the pastry has browned and crisped.

  Unmold onto a serving dish so the pastry is on the bottom, and serve hot, warm, or cold, with whipped cream, sour cream, or vanilla ice cream.

  TO CLEAN A BURN-BLACKENED PAN. Fill the pan with water, adding 2 Tbs baking soda per quart. Simmer 10 minutes, cover, and let soak off heat for several hours or overnight. The black residue should scrub off easily with a stiff brush.

  TIMING—REGULAR VERSUS CONVECTION OVENS. All the timings in this book are for regular ovens. Convection ovens cook about one-third faster. In other words, a leg of lamb that takes 2 hours at 325°F in a regular oven will probably take less than 1½ hours in a convection oven.

  Cakes and Cookies

  “When you have mastered a number of frostings and fillings, cake making becomes just an assembly job.”

  You will find all the standard cake and cookie recipes detailed in numerous cookbooks, including some of mine. Here I am only touching on a few of my favorites, and spending more time on the fundamental “how-to”s, such as the beating of egg whites, the preparation of the cake pan, the measuring of flour, the melting of chocolate. Rather than giving two general cake recipes, I am concentrating on the génoise, that all-purpose work horse for layer cakes, petits fours, jelly rolls, cup cakes, and so forth. Before the electric mixer it was a real chore to make, since its basis is whole eggs and sugar beaten at length to produce a thick cream—arduous by hand, easier with a portable beater, easy indeed when you have one of the modern mixers on a stand. I have included a classic almond cake, a walnut cake, my favorite chocolate cake, and the always popular dacquoise with its crunchy meringue-nut layers. When you have a few cake formulas and filling ideas in your repertoire, you will find that it’s pretty much an assembly job—you can mix and match a different way every time. Please note that there’s only one cookie recipe—no more room!

  CAKES

  MASTER RECIPE

  Génoise Cake For about 6 cups of batter, to make 1 round 9-by-1½-inch cake, or 1 round 8-by-2-inch cake (or enough for 16 cup cakes, or a 12-by-16-inch sponge sheet)

  ½ cup plus ⅓ cup plain bleached cake flour (sifted and measured as per the box)

  1 Tbs plus ½ cup sugar

  ¼ tsp salt

  ¼ cup warm clarified butter

  4 “large” eggs

  1 tsp pure vanilla extract

  Preheat oven to 350°F, slide rack onto the lower-middle level, and prepare your pan. Sift the flour with the 1 Tbs sugar and salt and reserve the clarified butter in a 2-quart bowl. Beat the eggs in your mixer bowl with the remaining sugar and the vanilla until you have “formed the ribbon.” At once, rapidly sift on and fold in a quarter of the flour, then half the rest of the flour, and finally the last of it. Fold a large plop of this cake batter into the clarified butter, then fold the butter-batter back into the remaining batter. Turn batter into prepared pan, filling it to no more than ¼ inch of the rim. Bang lightly on work surface to deflate bubbles, and bake 30 to 35 minutes, until puffed, lightly browned, and showing a faint line of shrinkage from sides of pan. Let cool 20 minutes before unmolding onto a rack. Let cool completely before filling and icing.

  VARIATIONS

  SERVING SUGGESTION: WHITE MOUNTAIN CHOCOLATE-FILLED GÉNOISE. Prepare a double amount of the Italian meringue, and flavor half of it with chocolate, as directed. Using a long, serrated knife, cut the cake in half horizontally. Place bottom half on a rack set over a tray, and turn the top half cut side up. Sprinkle both surfaces with rum-flavored imbibing syrup, and spread the chocolate meringue over the bottom half. Turn the top half cut side down over the filling, and frost the cake with the remaining white Italian meringue. Before serving, dust with a sprinkling of grated chocolate.

  TO PREPARE THE CAKE PAN. Smear inside bottom and sides lightly with softened butter. Cut a sheet of wax paper to fit bottom exactly, press it in place, and butter it. Pour ¼ cup cake flour into pan, shake and turn in all directions to cover surface completely, turn pan upside down, and bang out excess flour.

  TO MEASURE FLOUR: “THE SCOOP AND LEVEL SYSTEM.” To avoid trouble, especially when making pastries, measure your flour accurately. For every recipe in this book, place the dry-measure cup on a large piece of wax paper. Scoop the flour directly into the sifter, and sift it directly into the cup until overflowing, then, using the flat edge of a big knife, sweep off excess flour level with the rim.

  TO STORE A PLAIN CAKE. When thoroughly cool, refrigerate in an airtight plastic bag for several days, or freeze for several weeks.

  CUP CAKES. Use the preceding génoise batter for cup cakes, following directions for almond cup cakes, which are some of my favorites with fruit desserts and tea.

  JELLY ROLL—ROULADE. Preheat oven to 375°F and set rack in lower middle. Grease the inside of an 11-by-17-inch jelly-roll pan with soft butter and line with a sheet of wax paper, leaving an extra 2 inches of it at each end; butter the paper where it lines the pan. Roll flour in the pan to cover inside and knock out excess. Spread in the génoise batter and bake about 10 minutes, until cake is lightly colored and top feels springy. Remove from oven. The following maneuvers are to prevent cake from cracking. Slice off ¼ inch from each end of cake. Sprinkle top with confectioners’ sugar. Cover with a sheet of wax paper and a slightly dampened towel. Set a tray over the top and reverse the two. Holding an end of the wax paper, lift off the jelly-roll pan. Then, very carefully, peel off the wax-paper backing. Sift a ⅛-inch layer of confectioners’ sugar over the cake and roll it up in the damp towel; you may refrigerate it for a day or two. If frozen, be sure it has thoroughly defrosted before unrolling.

  Serving Suggestion: Apricot Roulade. Unroll the cake, sprinkle with imbibing syrup, spread on the apricot filling, and frost with meringue butter cream.

  The Genoa Almond Cake—Pain de Gênes

  A special almond cake. For a 9-by-1½-inch 6-cup round cake pan. Preheat oven to 350°F, and prepare the cake pan. Measure out ⅓ cup all-purpose flour and return to sifter. Prepare ¾ cup pulverized blanched almonds, and cream 1 stick unsalted butter in a mixing bowl until soft and fluffy. Meanwhile, beat 3 “large” eggs “to the ribbon” with ¾ cup sugar, 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract, and ¼ teaspoon almond extract. Fold 3 spoonfuls of the egg-sugar mixture into the creamed butter. Then fold sprinklings of flour alternating with spoonfuls of pulverized almonds into the mixture and, when almost absorbed, fold in the butter by scoopfuls. Turn into the prepared pan, bang lightly on work surface, and bake in the middle level of the oven about 30 minutes. Let cool 20 minutes b
efore unmolding on a rack. When cold, either serve as is, sprinkled with confectioners’ sugar, or split in two horizontally and fill with something like the brandy-butter, and top with glace royale.

  FOLDING. Folding egg whites or flour or whipped cream or anything else into anything like a cake batter is an essential part of soufflé and cake making. You have to incorporate the one into the other without deflating the puff of the one or the other. To do so, plunge a large rubber spatula like a knife down into the center of the mixture, and draw it to the side of the bowl and up to the surface in a rapid scoop, bringing some of the bottom up over the top. Rotate the bowl slightly, and continue rapidly and gently for several scoops, until the elements are blended—but do not overdo it and deflate the puff.

  VARIATION

  ALMOND CUP CAKES. For 10 cup cakes baked in muffin tins of ⅓-cup capacity. For easy unmolding, grease the tins with a paste of 2 tablespoons flour and 2 tablespoons clarified melted butter. Divide the cake batter among the tins and bake about 15 minutes at 350°F, or until puffed and lightly browned. Let cool 15 minutes before unmolding. When cool, top with confectioners’ sugar or white icing.

  Le Brantôme—a Walnut Layer Cake