Croissants aux Amandes - Almond Croissants

Sweet almond filling and almond syrup transform stale croissants into delicious, more-ish Croissants aux Amandes or Almond Croissants. They are perfect for breakfast or an afternoon snack. 

When we lived in Paris, we were fortunate to have an excellent bakery just up the block from our house. Many an afternoon found us taking a walk not only for exercise and to get out of the house but to pick up supplies for that afternoon meal the French call le goûter.

Le goûter literally translates to "the taste" but it's what the British would probably call afternoon tea and Americans an afterschool snack. It is an institution in France, meant to fill the hunger gap between lunch and the typically late (by American standards, anyway) family dinner. Le goûter was a tradition we heartily endorsed. 

Our bakery displayed a wide variety of baked goods every day but I was puzzled when I realized that almond croissants made a sporadic appearance. Upon inquiry, I was informed that they only made almond croissants when there were stale croissants leftover from the day before. Adding the almond filling and syrup was a way to salvage dry day-old croissants and turn them into a new delicious treat instead of letting them go to waste. Some days it seemed, I arrived too late if the supply had been small. 

Brilliant, right? With the consumer associations carefully monitoring the prices bakeries charge for bread, and competition from all the other many bakeries, I’m guessing margins are tight. According to NPR, there are more than 30,000 independent bakeries in France. All I know is that almond croissants are wonderful and it's a great idea not to waste. Win-win.

Croissants aux Amandes - Almond Croissants 

I used all-butter croissants bought at my nearby supermarket bakery department for this recipe. Mine were several days old but I kept them in the refrigerator from when they were purchased until I was ready to make them in to almond croissants. 

Ingredients

6 croissants, preferably day-old

6 tablespoons sliced almonds

For the almond paste aka frangipane:

3/4 cup or 75g almond flour (also called almond meal or ground almonds)

1/3 cup or 66g granulated sugar

1 large egg, at room temperature

1/4 cup or 57g unsalted butter, at room temperature

A few drops pure almond extract

Pinch fine sea salt

For the sugar syrup:

1/2 cup or 120ml water

1/4 cup or 50g granulated sugar

2 tablespoons amaretto (or substitute a drop or two of almond extract)

For serving:

Powdered sugar

Method

To make the almond paste or frangipane, beat together the almond flour, sugar, egg, butter, almond extract and salt in a mixing bowl until well combined, scraping the sides of the bowl down occasionally. Keep beating until the paste is light and fluffy, another minute or two. 

Preheat your oven to 375°F or 190°C and prepare a large baking pan by lining it with parchment paper or a silicone liner.

To make the syrup, measure your water into a microwaveable vessel and add in the sugar. Heat for 1 minute. Remove from the microwave and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved. You can also do this step in a small pot on the stovetop. Stir in the amaretto or almond extract. 

Use a serrated knife to cut each croissant open horizontally, like a book, leaving one side uncut. 

Use a pastry brush to liberally and generously soak the insides of the croissants with the syrup. 

Put 2 tablespoons of the almond paste on one side of each croissant and spread it out to the very edges.

 

Close the croissants and press down gently. Divide the remaining almond paste between the croissants and spread it around to cover the tops. 

Sprinkle each croissant with 1 tablespoon of the sliced almonds and press them in slightly so they stick to the almond paste. 

Bake in your preheated oven for about 15 minutes or until the tops are golden brown. Turn the pan around halfway through so the almond croissants will brown evenly. 

Let them cool for a few minutes, then sprinkle each filled almond croissant with powdered sugar.

Enjoy!

This Sunday FunDay we are sharing recipes for making croissants and recipes made with croissants because yesterday was National Croissant Day. Many thanks to our host, Camilla of Culinary Adventures with Camilla. Check out the links below: 

• Bean and Chicken Cassoulet by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Cheesy Sausage and Croissant Casserole by Making Miracles
• Chocolate Croissants (Pain au Chocolate) by Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Croissants aux Amandes (Almond Croissants) by Food Lust People Love
• Homemade Crescent Rolls by Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Mardi Gras Cream Cheese King Cake Croissants by Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice
• Sourdough Croissants by Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Yeasted Croissant by Sneha's Recipe

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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Lazy Cow Rich Tea Biscuits #CreativeCookieExchange

Rich tea biscuits are a British classic, baked up crispy so they are perfect for dunking in a cup of hot tea. Use my "lazy cow" method to avoid rolling out the dough and using cookie cutters.

In the many years I’ve been watching the Great British Bake Off or GBBO as it’s known for short, I’ve learned a lot about British classics as well as traditional baked goods from other countries. Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry are both a wealth of baking knowledge.

There’s just one thing I have to disagree with. Paul maintained throughout the series (and I’ve heard him say it elsewhere also) that the difference between biscuits and cookies is that biscuits are crisp, while cookies are softer.

But if we are talking American English, biscuits are fluffy baked quick bread akin to British scones and cookies can be both crisp and soft. In all my many years of visiting the British Isles and hanging out with British friends, I have never heard them use the term “cookie” for anything traditional that they bake.

I tell you all this as a preamble to today’s bake. They are indeed crispy, so even Paul Hollywood would call these rich tea biscuits. That said, traditional rich tea biscuits are rolled out and cut into circles. Which is my least favorite way of making cookies or biscuits. Blessedly, the circle is the classic shape for these guys, so I rolled the dough into a log, partially froze it, and then sliced it into circles. So these are my “lazy cow” rich tea biscuits. To everyone else who hates to roll dough, but loves rich tea biscuits, you are welcome.

Adapted from this recipe on The Baking Bar, where David does it the old-fashioned way. Because he's not a lazy cow. Apparently.

Ingredients – for about 14-15 large biscuits
2 cups or 250g plain flour
1/3 cup or 75g caster sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch fine salt
3/4 cup or 170g unsalted butter
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method 
Line your baking sheets with baking parchment or silicone liners and set aside.

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl.

Add the butter, cut into cubes.

Use your fingers or a pastry blender to mix in the butter till the mixture looks like crumbs. My kitchen is always too warm and my hands are too hot, so I use the pastry blender.

Add in the milk and the vanilla and use a fork to combine.

Use your hands to bring it all together into a firm dough.

Roll the dough into a thick log about 2 3/4 in or 7cm in circumference, shaping the ends flat.

Wrap it in cling film and pop it in your freezer, standing it on one end so that the log retains a nice cylindrical shape. Set a timer for about 40 minutes.

When the timer is nearly up, preheat the oven to 375°F or 190°C.

Use a sharp knife to cut the log into slices about 1/4 in or 1/2cm thick. I find a sharp serrated knife works best because you can "saw" the slices off without pressing the log out of shape, which gives more circular circles, if you know what I mean.

Put your dough circles on the prepared baking pans, leaving room for some expansion as they bake. I used a toothpick to make little holes all of the circles, just like the store-bought rich tea biscuits but I could have saved myself some time because they weren't really visible after baking. Feel free to skip this step.

Bake for about 8-9 minutes in your preheated oven. Ideally, you want them baked through but not brown. Mine are a little darker around the edges than a classic rich tea biscuit should be.

Leave to cool for a few minutes on the pan and then transfer to a metal rack to cool completely. They will crisp up as they cool.

Enjoy with a cup of tea!

If you like cookies or biscuits with your tea, you are going to love this month's Creative Cookie Exchange link list. Check out all the great teatime treats we have for you today!

• Buttermilk Cookies with Nutmeg and Thyme from The Spiced Life
• Chai-Scotti from What Smells So Good?
• Chocolate Covered Digestive Biscuits from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Honey and Vanilla Madeleines from A Baker's House
• Lazy Cow Rich Tea Biscuits from Food Lust People Love
• Lemon Basil Marmalade Cookies from 2 Cookin Mamas
• Lemon Blueberry Shortbread Cookies from Upstate Ramblings
• Lemon Poppyseed Shortbread Cookies from Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks
• Lilikoi-Lime Shortbread Thumbprint Cookies from All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• London Fog Cookies from A Shaggy Dough Story

Creative Cookie Exchange is hosted by Laura of The Spiced Life. We get together once a month to bake cookies with a common theme or ingredient so Creative Cookie Exchange is a great resource for cookie recipes. Be sure to check out our Pinterest Board and our monthly posts at The Spiced Life. We post the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month!

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Cherry Sweet Bread Twist for #TwelveLoaves

Sweet yeast dough filled with cherry jam and fresh cherries and baked into a golden twist is great for breakfast, brunch or tea time. In fact, anytime at all.

I’ve spoken here before about my love of cherries and summer and Paris so it won’t come as a surprise to a lot of you, but one of the things I most look forward to when I am back in the States for summer holidays, is cherries. I pick up big boxes of them at Costco and eat and eat and eat cherries till I just can’t eat any more. Then I eat some more. In the non-cherry growing places that we have been living lately, they are crazy expensive and I can’t bring myself to pay the price, even as a treat. The point of this whole long story is that I was thrilled when cherries were chosen as the Twelve Loaves theme/ingredient for June. Because I would be in Houston and could buy fresh cherries. HA! I guess I am too early because Costco doesn’t have them. And I made the rounds of my local supermarkets and kept coming up empty handed. Things were starting to get desperate and my Twelve Loaves deadline was looming, not to mention my growing depression over no summer cherries. Finally, on Sunday night we were at my sister’s for my mother’s birthday celebration and I was telling my woeful cherry-bereft tale (My family is very kind to put up with my food blogger problems.) when my sister said that HER nearby grocery store had cherries. Score! (Just don’t ask me what I had to pay for them. Desperate times, people!)

Ingredients
1 packet (1/4oz or 7g) active dry yeast
1/3 cup or 70g sugar
3/4 cup or 180ml very warm water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 – 3 1/2 cups or 375-440g flour plus more for kneading and sprinkling on your work surface
1 egg
1/4 cup or 60g butter, melted then cooled
1 cup or 310g good quality cherry preserves
12 oz or 340g ripe cherries

Method
Put yeast in a large mixing bowl with one teaspoon of the sugar and pour in the warm water. Let stand until foamy, about five minutes. If your yeast doesn't foam, discard and start over with new yeast.

Add in the vanilla, one cup or 125g of the flour and the rest of the sugar.  Beat until thoroughly mixed and you have a thin batter.

See that stuff on the left? Foamy yeast.

Add the cooled melted butter and the egg to the batter. Beat again.

Add in the next two cups of flour, one at a time, mixing with each addition.

When the dough gets too stiff to use beaters, switch to the bread hook or turn it out onto the counter top and knead by hand.

Continue kneading until the dough is elastic and supple.  Roll it into a ball and put it in a greased bowl (use butter or canola oil) and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in bulk, 30 minutes - one hour.

Meanwhile, stem and pit your cherries and chop them roughly.

I looked like someone had been slashing at my hands with a big knife. It was a blood bath!

When the rising time is up, punch down the dough and roll it out on a lightly floured surface, into a rectangle about 12 x 16 inches or 30 x 40cm.

Spread the preserves all over the dough with the back of a spoon.  Sprinkle on the chopped cherries.

Now roll the dough up from the long side.

Using a sharp knife, cut the roll in half lengthwise. Here’s where it gets messy because we are going to twist the two lengths together.

Turn the half rolls so the cut sides face up and twist the dough ends together on one side. Tuck them under. Gently lift one half and place it over its neighbor.

Then lift the other half and place it over its neighbor. Poke cherries back in where they try to escape as you go along. And they will try. I like to think mine would have turned out neater if I didn’t stop and wash my hands and take a photo between each maneuver, which gave it time to slump and open and release cherries.

Continue until you reach the end of the two halves, then pinch the ends together and turn them under.

Carefully transfer the whole thing to a sheet of parchment paper cut to fit your baking pan, then slide it into your pan.

Tidy up by putting escaping cherries back in the folds and using a paper towel or kitchen roll to wipe the parchment clean of jam around the dough. More is going to leak out while it bakes but we can’t worry about that.

Put in a warm place for the second rise of about 45 minutes.

When the time is almost up, preheat your oven to 375°F or 190°C.

Bake your loaf in the preheated oven about 35-40 minutes or until it is golden brown. Check it about halfway through. If it’s browning too fast, cover with foil for the remainder of the baking time. Do as I say, not as I do. As you can see, mine’s a bit too brown. Ironically, I was busy writing these instructions while I let it overbake.

Enjoy! My mother and younger daughter assured me that, looks aside, it was still delicious.

If you love cherries like I love cherries, this month’s Twelve Loaves is for you! Check out all the gorgeous cherry recipes from my fellow bakers:

• Buns with Cherries and Beetroot wrapped in Bacon from Luisa of Rise of the Sourdough Preacher
• Cherry-Almond Focaccia from Lora of Cake Duchess
• Cherry Almond Sweet Rolls from Renee of Magnolia Days
• Cherry Almond Twists from Dionne of Try Anything Once Culinary
• Cherry English Muffins from Karen of Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Cherry Chocolate Hazelnut Muffins from Alice of Hip Foodie Mom
• Cherry Cream Cheese Danish from Heather of girlichef
• Cherry Oatmeal Muffins from Kathya of Basic N Delicious
• Cherry Quick Bread from Holly of A Baker's House
• Cherry Sweet Bread Twist from Stacy of Food Lust People Love
• Cherry Swirl Overnight Sweet Rolls from Donna of Cookistry
• Double Cherry Muffins from Liz of That Skinny Chick Can Bake
• Gluten Free Cherry Almond Muffins with Streusel Topping from Sherron of Simply Gourmet
• Dried Cherry and Mahlab Scones from Felice of All That's Left Are the Crumbs
• Sweet Cherry Rolls with Almond Cream Cheese Glaze from Renee of Kudos Kitchen by Reneé

Would you like to join us this month? Choose a recipe featuring cherries of any kind - fresh, dried, canned, jam, or preserves. Whatever you bake (yeasted, quick bread, crackers, muffins, grissini, braids, flatbreads, etc.) have fun and let's have a delicious month of bread with cherries. Let's get baking!

If you’d like to add your recipe to the collection with the Linky Tool this month, here’s what you need to do!

1. When you post your Twelve Loaves bread on your blog, make sure that you mention the Twelve Loaves challenge in your blog post; this helps us to get more members as well as share everyone's posts. Please make sure that your bread is inspired by the theme!

2. Please link your post to the linky tool at the bottom of my blog. It must be a bread baked to the Twelve Loaves theme.

3. Have your Twelve Loaves bread that you baked this June 2014, posted on your blog by June 30, 2014.

#TwelveLoaves is a monthly bread baking party created by Lora from Cake Duchess.  #TwelveLoaves runs so smoothly thanks to Renee from Magnolia Days and Liz from That Skinny Chick Can Bake.

Scottish Shortbread for #RandomRecipe Tea Time Treats

Once again, I am taking part in the #RandomRecipe challenge! This month Belleau Kitchen has gotten together with two other fellow food bloggers, Karen and Kate to come up with our theme for this month’s challenge: Tea Time Treats.  So rather than choosing a random recipe from ALL of my cookbooks, I was allowed to choose from the ones I thought would best exemplify tea time food, which for me means British food.  (If I read the instructions correctly.)  Top of my list were Elizabeth David, Delia Smith, Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver and their many cookbooks in my collection.  I was delighted when my random choice fell on Jamie’s Great Britain and then, coup of all coups, it opened to Scottish Shortbread.  I was sort of hoping for a savory treat because, as many of you know, I am not a big sweet eater but these biscuits are deliciously simple (only four ingredients!) and not too sweet.  I am, on the other hand, a lover of all things British, including my dear husband, so this challenge was right up my street, as they say on the small island.

Ingredients
1.6 cups or 7 oz (by weight) or 200g flour
Scant 1/4 cup or 50g sugar, plus extra for sprinkling over
Generous 1/2 cup or 125g unsalted butter
1/8 teaspoon salt (This was my addition, because even sweet things need some salt.)

Method
Preheat the oven to 325°F or 170°C.

Mix the flour, sugar and salt together in a mixing bowl.

Cut your butter into pieces and, using a pastry blender, mix it into the dry ingredients.

Once it is almost all mixed in, use your thumb and fingers to make sure that all the lumps of butter are gone.  Jamie says, “Don’t knead it, you just want to pat it down flat,” but I am here to tell you that this was so crumbly that you couldn’t knead it if you wanted to.

Push the crumbs together in the side of the bowl and scrape the resulting lump out onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Press it into a flat circle using two hands, one on the outside and one pressing the dough down and out towards your other hand.  Keep going around the circle until it is compact and flat all over.  I couldn't  take a photo with both hands in place, so just put the next two photos together and you'll get the idea.

Left hand holding the side in.

Right hand pressing it flat and pushing the side out.

If it breaks apart, just press it back together but remember, the less you work the dough the lighter and flakier the shortbread will be.

I also crimped the edges, as you can see, but the decorative edge really doesn't show up once baked so just do it if you feel like it.

Gently score lines on the shortbread with a sharp knife, then make some shallow decorative indentations with the tines of a fork.

 Sprinkle over some sugar, then pop the baking sheet into the oven and cook for 20-30 minutes.

Keep an eye on it - you want a lovely light golden color.  Mine turned out a little darker than I would have liked, but it was still delicious.  Truly, shortbread is one of the great mysteries of baking. Without leavening of any kind, these delectable treats do turn out light and flakey somehow.  It must be magic.

When it comes out of the oven, cool for just a minute or two and then, using a sharp thin knife, cut through where you scored the shortbread.   After scoring and baking, you are supposed to be able to snap these apart but that has never worked for me and I end up with irregular shortbread and a small pile of crumbs.

Leave to cool completely and then separate the pieces.  Store any leftover shortbread in an airtight container.  If you have a lovely thistle teapot given to you by a dear Scottish friend, this would be the appropriate time to bring it out.  Shortbread is best served with a nice hot cuppa.

Enjoy!

Update:  A couple of days after I made the shortbread, I had guests for dinner.  Taking the simple shortbread a step farther, I dressed it up and called it dessert: a wedge of shortbread, two scoops of store-bought vanilla praline ice cream, all drizzled with warm homemade salted caramel sauce.

To see what other tea time treats have been created for this challenge, please follow these links and scroll to the bottom on their websites:

Belleau Kitchen and Lavender and Lovage