Small raisin & cranberry breads

I love breakfast! It’s my favorite meal of a day :D
So when I learned that Laurence from “Petits repas entre amis” started her food competition “A smoothly waking up”, I really wanted to participate to it! Moreover, I had the idea to try a Viennese pastry that we can’t find here in Sweden, as “Pépitos” actually (boo hoo!): the “pains aux raisins” (which we could be translated to “raisin breads”)!


To me, a meal called ‘breakfast’, especially in weekend when we have time to chill out, must contain a Viennese pastry, otherwise it’s not a real breakfast :p Let’s add to it a good warm drink, at least one fresh fruit, a juice if you want and people to share everything with :)


Anyway, it’s just to tell you that I couldn’t propose anything else but a little ‘gourmandise’. ‘Gourmandise’ which leans a bit on the light side I would say because all the recipes I could have seen until now contain a lot/too many butter…, here, there is not so many of it (45g for the whole brioche) and we also reduce fat by using skimmed milk. So, we won’t deprive ourselves!


‘Pains aux raisins’ are number 2 in my Viennese pastry ranking (well yes, it’s important, it deserves a ranking :D) and I remember the bakery I used to go in Saint-Mandé that sold delicious ‘cranberry breads’. So, let’s do it, I decided this time to mix both!


For about 15 small raisin and cranberry breads:

For the brioche
  • 10g yeast
  • 100ml slightly warm skimmed milk
  • 45g sugar
  • 7-8g vanilla sugar
  • 45g softened butter in pieces
  • 1 egg
  • 200g white flour
  • 100g whole-wheat flour
  • ½ tsp salt

For the fresh custard
  • 250ml skimmed milk
  • 7-8g vanilla sugar
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 2 yolks
  • 25g cornflour
  • 10g butter (optional)

For the filling
  • 130g raisins and dry cranberries (in proportions you want!)

For the finishing touch
  • Sugar mixed with some milk
  • 25ml water
  • 25g sugar

Making the dough:
  1. Mix the yeast with the slightly warm milk
  2. Add the sugar and the vanilla sugar to it and mix again.
  3. In a bowl, mix the flour and the salt together.
  4. Add the milk mixture to it and mix everything together.
  5. Whisk the egg and mix it to the dough.
  6. Put the soften pieces of butter on top of the dough, blend them into the dough and knead with your hands.
  7. Knead the dough for 5 minutes
  8. Then, “hit” the dough for 5-10 minutes. By “hit” I mean: take a part of the dough and energetically throw it back to the board. That will activate the yeast and you will get a smooth Viennese pastry!
  9. Form a ball and let it rise for 45 minutes into the salad bowl, under a dishcloth




Let’s take care of the fresh custard in the meantime:
  1. In a pan, warm up milk and butter (if you use some:p).
  2. In a bowl, dynamically mix yolks with sugar, vanilla sugar and cornflour.
  3. Pour the warm milk on the mixture and mix everything together.
  4. Decant everything into the pan and warm it up again, on a low heat. Stir with a wooden spoon until you get the texture you want. 
  5. Keep it to the cold to have the fresh custard cooled when we will use it!


Now let’s assemble everything:
  1. When the dough has rested and slightly risen, spread it out to form a big rectangle (4-5 mm thickness or about a fifth of an inch) on some parchment paper. Put the rectangle you’ve made in the fridge for 15 minutes, it will be easier to handle then.
  2. After this resting time, spread the fresh custard on the rectangle of dough and sprinkle the dry fruits on it (rehydrated if you want).
  3. Then roll the bottom part of the rectangle (the largest) out to the top – a bit like if you were making a big makizushi :D
  4. Keep it in the fridge again for 10-15 minutes to make the cuts easier.
  5. After this resting time, make some 1cm large slices (or 1,5cm, I’m bad in estimating measures :(). Then, put those slices spaced form each others, on some parchment paper, on a baking tray.
  6. Let rise for at least 1h in a warm place!
 




Time to take care of the finish touch now:
  1. In a pan, boil 25ml water with 25g sugar mix over a medium heat until it gets thicker. This syrup will make shine our baked Viennese pastries!
  2. Into a container, mix a bit of milk with a lot of sugar (still very precise!)
  3. Spread this mixture on top of the risen breads. Just have to bake them now!

COOKING

Bake for about 15 minutes to 180°C.


Milk + sugar should help you brown your small breads. It didn’t really work for me this time… I want an oven that heat from the top too!!!!

When small breads are baked, glaze them with the syrup just made, let cool down on a wire rack and it’s ready!


TIPS AND TRICKS

To stop the cooking of the fresh custard and accelerate the cooling down, you can pour the cream on a bowl placed in frozen water. I do it each time and it works very well!

Rehydrate raisins 30 minutes into warm water to get them smoother, it tastes really better (it pops into the mouth :p).

 

Those raisin and cranberry small breads can be kept one night on the fridge and cook the morning after. You also should be able to freeze them and reheat them at the last moment!

To hold in a hermetic box!

A little nutritional info of the day still!

Dry cranberry is full of antioxidants. The same for raisin which also contains a good quantity of copper (essential to build haemoglobin and collagen – protein that is used to make and repair tissues).


A word about the quantity of butter in this recipe: 55g total (or 45g), it means less than 5g butter by small bread (it also means less lipids because butter usually contains 83% fat). So quite few :)


Concerning sugar which could frighten you, I would advise you to use birch sugar if you want (also known as ‘xylitol’). First, this sugar won’t give you cavities in tooth (it will even help you avoid getting some). Then, it will reduce the global glycemic index of those breads. I also tried to use a bit of whole-wheat flour, perfect result :) So we can obviously increase its quantity to reduce more again the glycemic index!

SERVING SUGGESTIONS

So here we finally are, eating them!!

We had: coffee, a good cold-cacao, grapefruit pieces, orange & pineapple jus, banana if wanted and our small breads! With a good sofa to curl in up and let’s go for a good day (or weekend :)


And for a brunch version, I would advise you to accompany those sweets with a Blueberry & apricot raw buckwheat porridge. It will go very well with it, yummy!


Good waking up everybody :) and thank you Laurence for this delicious theme!


Rose.

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