The French Chef with Julia Child

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JULIA

This is a dough with yeast in it that I'm slapping around here. It's hard to believe after such rough and brutal treatment, it's going to turn into something like this, but it will and you'll see it. We're doing baba au rhum today on The French Chef. Welcome to The French Chef. I'm Julia Child. We're doing two things today. We're making a basic yeast dough like this and we're turning it into baba au rhum. You know, I think many people are afraid of yeast dough, and in some quarters, it's sort of a lost art, but if they've tried it sometimes, they've had bad luck or they're just afraid of it all together. But I think if you start out on a basic yeast dough like this, it will open the door to all kinds of wonderful things like rolls and fancy breads and croissants and brioche, and it's lots of fun to make and it's just deliciously fattening to eat, so you have to be a little bit careful. We're going to do babas today, and they are little, little cakes like this, and when they're soaked in the syrup, they are decorated and look like this. And I have-- because I want you to see all the steps in making babas-- I have some dough that's already risen and I'm going to bake it in the oven so you'll see them come out. And they take 15 minutes to bake, so I'm going to set my timer for 15 minutes, then I'm going to get my yeast. And there are two kinds of yeast that you can buy. One is fresh, compressed yeast. And the other is a dry, active yeast. And what yeast is, it's a living fungus which feeds on the ingredients in dough and produces gas, and it's gas which makes the dough rise up. And if you buy fresh yeast, you have to keep it in the refrigerator. And it is in a little cake like this and it should be a nice, sort of grayish, chalky white and there shouldn't be any blemishes or spots on it. And you can't really keep it for more than about two weeks, and it has a nice, fresh, yeasty smell. And then the other, which comes in a package, is granular, dry, active yeast. And you can keep that just on the shelf in the kitchen. But you want to be sure that always to note it always has a date on it and you have to use it before that date is up. And they act slightly differently in the mixing, so I want to do both methods so you'll see exactly how you can use either one and we'll start out with the fresh yeast. And for this recipe, we're going to make enough for 12 two-inch babas and I'll give you the ingredients as we go along. Now, you take your yeast, and put it in a bowl and mash it up with a fork. And then, we're going to put in two tablespoons of granulated sugar. And you're going to see that after this yeast has been mixed with the sugar-- and it's going to have one eighth teaspoon of salt-- that the yeast is going to gradually melt, and turn into sort of a liquid paste, so stir it around and then while you're letting it melt, which takes about a minute or two, you then measure out the flour that you're going to use. And we're going to use regular, all-purpose flour. You can use the granular all-purpose flour if you like, either one. And for this recipe, the flour does not have to be sifted, so we're going to do the scoop-and-level method, which is much easier. We're going to have one and a half cups of flour. And so take your one-cup measure-- and you know what they look like, they're a dry measure cup and when the cup is filled up to the brim, you have exactly one cup-- so take your cup, and scoop it into your flour sack or your container until it's full like this and then scrape it off with a knife. And then we're going to have a half cup that's measured exactly the same way. You see, I take the cup, scoop it in, and then without shaking the cup or anything I scrape the top off until it's level with the cup. Now, see, if I bang the cup down, the flour goes down and I could probably get another tablespoon in there, but we want exactly one and a half cups measured this way. This would be exactly the same measurement as if you'd taken the flour sifter and sifted directly into the cup and leveled it off. So, one and a half cups is the same as two cups sifted directly in. And then, now, take a look at our yeast. You see that's beginning to liquefy into sort of a wet paste. And you always want to wait until that happens before you go on and proceed with your recipe, see? And then we're going to have two eggs. And these are large-- graded large eggs. And then they get mixed up with your fork, just like making a yeast omelet. And you just want to mix it up enough so that the yeast and the eggs are mixed together. And then in goes the flour. And I'm not going to put in quite all of that half cup, almost all of it, I'll take a little bit out. And then we're going to have one quarter cup of melted butter. And this should be cool, melted butter. When you're working with yeast, you want to be very careful that you don't give it a shock by having anything too hot because then you might kill these living, active fungus organisms. So there's one quarter cup of butter. And then this just gets stirred up. And then as soon as it's stirred up, we're going to begin to knead it. You see, this makes a rather sticky paste, and when I start kneading it, it's going to be even a little bit more sticky. And then take your hand and just start mashing it up in the bowl. And it's very... see how sticky it is now. One thing you have to be very careful with, with yeast... Yeast can, if you make a dough, it can stay in the refrigerator perfectly well, 'cause that won't kill yeast. It wouldn't be killed, probably, if you put it in the freezer. But you can actually kill the dough if you have your temperature too high. Now, see, that's very sticky, and I can either slap it around in the bowl like this, which you would do if you had an extremely sticky dough, or, as it's not too terribly sticky, I can take it out and slap it on the... slap it on the table. You see, this is quite a different method than if you knead bread, because a bread dough is not sticky like this. You would knead the bread dough, you know, by pushing down with the palm of your hand. Like this, see, pushing it out and folding it over. But with a sticky dough, we have to knead it until it stops being sticky, until it leaves... until it leaves your fingers. You see, it's still so sticky that it sticks onto my fingers, but after kneading it and whacking it a little bit more, it will gradually... become less sticky. And the reason that you do the kneading is so that you can activate the gluten in the flour. Gluten is... is... I don't know exactly what it is, but it's... sort of develops a rubbery quality in the dough, so that when your dough rises up, the gluten has been activated enough so that the dough stays risen. And if you used a soft wheat flour, you wouldn't have enough gluten in it, so that you wouldn't be able to make a bread that would rise well. And see, that's almost leaving the fingers now. And if you found, when you were making this, say that you had used eggs that were a little bit too large, your dough might be too sticky, but after you've begun kneading it for about a minute, it should become about like this, and if you find that it's still much too sticky to knead this way, put in a tablespoon or two of flour. And on the other hand, if you find that you have a dough that's too stiff, you could put in a little bit of beaten egg, maybe a teaspoon or so, and knead it in. Now, that's just about it. And now, another way that you can tell whether it has gone far enough is that you roll it out. I have a little bit that's stuck to my finger. Roll it out about a foot long with your hands, and then if you can twist it around without it breaking, then it is... it has... it's been kneaded enough. And then after it's been kneaded enough, you put it back into your bowl, make it into a ball and put it into your bowl, and then take some scissors and you clip the top of it. And you do that so that when it begins to rise, it sort of rises in a rather flat and open way. And then you take a little bit of flour, and cover the top of it. Now I want you to see what dough looks like when it has risen. Let's see, here's a twin bowl and a twin mix. And it takes about two hours or so for the dough to rise, and it will actually double in bulk like this. And you have to wait until that has happened. But you want to be very careful not to let it over rise, because, say if you let it rise quite a bit more, then the yeast would overwork, lose its strength and also give your dough a very yeasty taste. And the way that you let the dough rise is, if you're in somewhat of a hurry and you'd like to have it rise within about two hours, is to put it in a place where the temperature is about 85 degrees. For instance, you could put it over some warm water, but you'd be very sure that your water wasn't more than 85 degrees, or you could set it on a pillow over a radiator. Or if you have a warming oven, you could put a thermometer in the warming oven and then put the dough in, and keep watching it until it had risen. Otherwise, you can let it rise at room temperature, and maybe it will take three hours, but you just have to wait and see until it has risen and come to that double-in-bulk quality. And we'll look at this risen dough later in a few minutes. And then, so that it will rise properly, you cover it with a damp, several thicknesses of damp toweling, and that keeps it sort of a steamy, moist rising. And then put it in a warm place. And then, we're going to do now one with the granulary... granular yeast, and this is active little granules, and you'll see how it looks. You just tear open the package. Be sure, now, to note the date on the package because if it's gone beyond the date the package says, nothing will happen, the yeast may well have died. See, those are just little tiny, dry granules. And then you always have to dissolve the yeast in a warm liquid, so I'm going to use a quarter of a cup of warm water. And as it says on the package, the water should be not more than about 110 degrees. And you have to let this yeast dissolve, and again, this is going to use exactly the same proportions except for the water. Then we again, we have two tablespoons of granulated sugar. Yeast has to have a little sugar so it will start acting. And then an eighth teaspoon of butter. And just stir that around a little bit so it'll melt quickly, and then we measure out our flour again, and this is, again, exactly the same. One cup, scooped and leveled off, and one half cup, scooped and leveled off. And then, we take a look at our yeast to see if all those little granules have softened. And in some recipes, you will find that it will say to let the yeast sit for four or five minutes until it has begun to become slightly foamy. In this recipe, that isn't necessary. And then we put in our two eggs. Now we started out with one package of yeast, two tablespoons of sugar, one eighth teaspoon of salt, and one quarter cup of warm water. And then we have our two eggs again, and again, they get beaten up, just so that the eggs are thoroughly mixed. And then in goes the flour. And in this case, because we have the water, we may find we'll need a little bit more flour. And we also have the one-quarter cup of melted butter. Which again, be sure that your melted butter is just tepid and not hot. There. And then again, just start mixing with your hands. And you'll find once you begin making these yeast doughs, that the exact proportions don't make too terribly much difference, 'cause you can't-- you see, now that is terribly sticky now. So I think I'll put in a little bit more flour. Just a little, say about a tablespoon, and then see if it's still terribly sticky. If you had one of those wonderful heavy duty mixing machines that has all the various attachments, including a dough hook, you can do all the kneading of the pastry right in the mixing machine. Now that would be just about right, and then you would continue exactly the same way as you did for your other one. Now if you end up with very sticky hands like this, you can get some of this dough off by putting you hands in flour and then rubbing them, and then you've gotten some of the extra off, and you can just wash it off. Now, as you can see, there was no difference in those two methods, except we had water in the dry yeast and we had to add just a little bit more flour. But just be sure that you always allow your yeast to dissolve until-- if it's the compressed yeast-- until it has liquefied. And if it is the dry yeast, until it has, uh... until the grains have softened. And now, while your dough is rising in your bowl, you would prepare and butter your molds. Now these are the little baba molds, and here's a little baba in it, so you can see how it looks. These are little French metal molds. They're two inches high and about two inches across. And you can buy these at any of the French importing stores, and there goes my babas in the oven. I'd better take a look at them. Now these have been in 15 minutes at 375. And that's about as much time as they take, and we'll take one out and see if it's done. Just shake it out. See, that has browned nicely all around, and it comes easily out of the mold. So when it does that, it is done. So I'm going to set them aside for a moment and finish the, uh... and finish with my molds. And now, if you don't have these little baba molds, you can perfectly well use buttered muffin tins, or you can use popover tins, or little oven glass jars. It really doesn't make any difference. If you have a fairly high mold, it makes a more dramatic baba. And then butter them all just with softened butter. And then, after your dough has risen... No, I'm in the wrong sequence. I've got so much dough here, I've sort of forgotten where I am. Now, here is our dough that has risen in the bowl. And it had its wet cloth over it. Then, when it is risen like this and you put your finger in, and your finger's depression stays, that means that your dough is done. And now take your hand and punch the dough down. That, you always hear about, of punching the dough down. That deflates it. And then, you're ready to fill your molds, and these molds just get filled by one-third, because the dough is then gonna rise. And you just break it off with your fingers and just fill it. That's a little bit more than one-third. And you don't have to bother evening it off because it will even off as it rises. The reason these are called babas was because a Polish prince, way back in the 17th century, they had a great big cake called a kougelhof, and he had asked his cook to fill it, to pour rum over it, and he thought it was so lovely that he called it "Ali Baba." And then later on, the French ptissiers took on the same idea, and instead of the original one, which was a great big molded cake that had raisins and things in it as well as rum... And then the French ptissiers finally just made a little rum cake like this without any raisins in it, and just the rum. And now, after you have filled your molds, you let them rise, and when they have risen, they must come a quarter-inch up over the molds just like this, and as soon as they have risen, you must bake them, because otherwise you might wear out your yeast. And now we're ready to... And then when they've risen, you bake them in a 375 degree oven for 15 minutes. And then, at this point, this is just a plain baba, but we're gonna now make the syrup that will turn them into a baba au rhum. And we're gonna have one cup of water. And then one cup of granulated sugar. I seem to have lost count of my measures. There's one cup of granulated sugar, and then you want to heat that until... until the sugar has completely dissolved. And while that's happening, we will unmold the babas. And with these, they just turn upside down, and they're easily unmolded. And they're really only done when they'll easily come out of the molds. And if you buttered them well, they will come out, and they also show a very faint line of shrinkage. Now I want you to see what a freshly cooked baba is like. When it's cooked and warm, it's fairly spongy and nice. You open it up and it's rather like a little sponge cake. And then after it has cooled off, it becomes rather hard and dry, and that's just what you want it to do, because it's going to sink. It's going to soak in some syrup, and if you had too soft and spongy a cake, it would all come apart as it was soaking in the syrup. Now I'm watching my sugar to make sure whether or not it is melting. And now, these are gonna soak in this syrup, and so that they will soak up the syrup, you want to take a two-pronged fork and prick them all around the edges like this, and then two or three places in the top. Now when you make these, after these babas have cooled, you could perfectly well freeze them in a plastic bag, and they freeze perfectly beautifully for a month or two. And just before you use them, you take them right from the freezer and put them in a 350-degree oven until they have just warmed through, and then you're ready to go on with them. There, I think I'll just do four of them. Now we have... the sugar has melted, and you're supposed to use both the sugar syrup and the babas when they are tepid. And so I've got one cup of water and one cup of sugar, and I'm going to put in one cup of cold water, and that will cool down the syrup to tepid. And then we have rum. And if you don't want to use rum, you could perfectly well use half warm orange juice and sugar, that would be very nice, too. I want about half a cup of rum in there. And... and then, our babas simply go in. And then, I think one of these bulb basters is very useful. They float up on top at first, and then as they have imbibed as much syrup as they can, they gradually begin to sink down and swell. And these should soak in the syrup for about half an hour. If you let them soak too long, they might come apart. I'm gonna get these out of the way. And these will soak, say, for half an hour and I have some that are already soaking here. And... Now, where are my... I've got so many babas here. Now these have soaked for half an hour, and then after they've soaked, they have to drain for half an hour, so that you can drain out the excess syrup, and you can then glaze and decorate them, because we want them to turn out looking like this. Now you notice, you see how big these are, how they've swelled? Here's your original baba after it came out of the oven, and that swelled, oh, almost twice as big. I'm just choosing a small amount of these, because, as I said, our recipe will take care of 12. And then, after your babas have drained for half an hour, you then... you then are ready to decorate them. So I have some that have drained for half an hour. Now those have drained, and here's what we're going to decorate them with. I have to make a little room here. And now, these you can serve either in little individual paper cups or in a big dish. And these are going to be decorated with apricot glaze. And this is simply apricot jam which has been forced through a sieve to get rid of all the little bits of peel. And then for each cup of it, you boil it down with two tablespoons of sugar until the glaze has become a little bit sticky to your finger. That would be 228. And then you have to use it while it's warm. I've kept this in a pan of hot water. And then you paint this on your drained babas. As we often say, certainly one wonders there couldn't be any French... French ptisserie at all, if they didn't have apricot glaze. But it gives a lovely extra flavor. Then you put any kind of decoration that you want on the top. I'm using some little slivered almonds. Then, you also have the slight problem of getting this rather sticky thing from... into the cup nicely. And then, put on a cherry. One thing I forgot to do, which is something you might like to do, is to put a little bit of rum on top of the babas, just one or two drops before you decorate them with the glaze. Now, let's see, I'll decorate one more. You don't want to have too much rum on them, because it should just be a nice flavoring, but after they're soaking, they often need a little more... just a little more suggestion of rum because... just to accentuate the rum flavor a little bit. There, and there goes our cherry, just a glaced cherry on top. Then, that again will go... into our little paper cup. So you see? There we are, with our babas au rhum. So you see, raising dough is very much like bringing up a baby. Keep it warm, watch it grow, slap it down, dress it well and you'll have an adorable baba au rhum. That's all for today on The French Chef. This is Julia Child. Bon apptit! Captioned by Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org

ANNOUNCER

Julia Child is coauthor of the book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The French Chef is made possible by a grant from Safeway Stores.