Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Fulfilling the Promise of the Gifts

I got a few fun things for the holidays-- among them a hand-forged Japanese bread knife and some copper canelé molds. Just preparing to use those beautiful tools as they were meant to be has given shape to the last few days.

First, feeding the sourdough levain for the bread, coaxing it back to life after a week in the refrigerator, then weighing, mixing, turning, resting, raising, forming, fermenting, and baking the loaves with the anticipation of finally using my knife to slice through them without crushing or tearing has been very gratifying.

Likewise, scraping vanilla beans and steeping them in milk, whisking eggs and sugar and butter and flour together, tempering the mixture with the hot vanilla milk and stirring in dark rum all so the batter can sit in the fridge for 48 hours until it will be time to coat my molds with a combination of beeswax and butter before filling them to bake into that classic French confection of crackly caramelized crust and tender custard within has also been a fine way to spend my time.

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