My Christmas surprise was a savarin, made in our wood-fired bread oven (baked in a slightly too hot oven, it was done in 10 minutes):
300g flour
4 tablespoons warm water
15g fresh yeast
4 eggs, beaten
5g salt
25g sugar
150g unsalted butter
Some brandy
For the syrup
250g sugar
600ml water
Peel of one lemon
3cm piece of vanilla pod, or a chunk of root ginger
Juice of half a lemon
Make a dough with the flour. Make a well in the centre of the flour and crumble in the yeast and add the water. Leave until the yeast goes gooey. Then add salt, sugar and eggs (NOT the butter) and stir together. Now start a process of lifting and dropping the dough with your hand (it makes a good slapping noise) to get as much air into it as possible. Keep this going for 5 minutes until the dough is really elastic.
Cover the bowl and stand in a warm place. I allowed mine to rise overnight, and then beat it back in the morning.
Warm the oven to 200ºC (or, in my case, start a fire in the bread oven and leave to burn for about 3-4 hours.)
Warm butter so that it is soft, and beat the butter into the dough. It will go quite shiny.
If you have a circular baking tin - the type with a hole in the middle - then use that. Otherwise aim for a relatively shallow tin so that your cake ends up wider than it is tall.
Butter the tin generously.
Spoon dough into tin, and sit in a warm place for 45 minutes to rise again.
Bake for 20-25 mins, or until the savarin is brown and shrinks away from the sides of the tin.
Remove, cool a little, remove from baking tin.
Meanwhile, prepare the syrup by boiling the water with the sugar, the lemon peel and the vanilla pod for about 5 minutes. Cool a little, and add the lemon juice.
Now place the savarin into the syrup (that's what's happening in the picture) and spoon lots of syrup over it. Keep doing this until the savarin has swollen a lot.
Pour a little brandy over the top and serve to ooooohs and ahhhs of your satisfied audience.
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| Syrupy savarin |
4 tablespoons warm water
15g fresh yeast
4 eggs, beaten
5g salt
25g sugar
150g unsalted butter
Some brandy
For the syrup
250g sugar
600ml water
Peel of one lemon
3cm piece of vanilla pod, or a chunk of root ginger
Juice of half a lemon
Make a dough with the flour. Make a well in the centre of the flour and crumble in the yeast and add the water. Leave until the yeast goes gooey. Then add salt, sugar and eggs (NOT the butter) and stir together. Now start a process of lifting and dropping the dough with your hand (it makes a good slapping noise) to get as much air into it as possible. Keep this going for 5 minutes until the dough is really elastic.
Cover the bowl and stand in a warm place. I allowed mine to rise overnight, and then beat it back in the morning.
Warm the oven to 200ºC (or, in my case, start a fire in the bread oven and leave to burn for about 3-4 hours.)
Warm butter so that it is soft, and beat the butter into the dough. It will go quite shiny.
If you have a circular baking tin - the type with a hole in the middle - then use that. Otherwise aim for a relatively shallow tin so that your cake ends up wider than it is tall.
Butter the tin generously.
Spoon dough into tin, and sit in a warm place for 45 minutes to rise again.
Bake for 20-25 mins, or until the savarin is brown and shrinks away from the sides of the tin.
Remove, cool a little, remove from baking tin.
Meanwhile, prepare the syrup by boiling the water with the sugar, the lemon peel and the vanilla pod for about 5 minutes. Cool a little, and add the lemon juice.
Now place the savarin into the syrup (that's what's happening in the picture) and spoon lots of syrup over it. Keep doing this until the savarin has swollen a lot.
Pour a little brandy over the top and serve to ooooohs and ahhhs of your satisfied audience.
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