I so wish I had remembered to take a photo of these before I baked them. It was a sorry sight, and I was sure they were going to bake up into runny hockey pucks.
I thought I had worked with puff pastry before, but nothing about it seemed familiar. The (purchased) dough was very soft and unforgiving, and one of the first things I noticed was that the sheet was much smaller than expected, about 12x12". I knew 1.5 cups of filling was going to be too much, so I reduced it to half. (I think that was still too much.)
It rolled up fine, but as soon as I started to cut the slices it squished into a sticky, messy glob. I suddenly found myself wondering what were the cautions I'd read about with puff pastry -- something about the edges that would cause them not to rise. I couldn't remember, but whatever it was I was sure I was violating every rule.
So I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. As the recipe warns, these are not very sweet, but sweet enough, especially since they are very rich. In fact, while I love the flavor combination (a sort of Middle Eastern take on peanut butter and jelly), I would like to pair it with a less rich dough, since tahini is already very high in oil. (But the crispness of the puff pastry is so nice!)
I did not bake on parchment paper -- with all the released oil, these slid around loosely on the pan. I baked them 4 minutes longer; at 15 minutes they were just golden, but I was concerned the centers might be squishy. The sugar was just starting to burn on the bottoms at 19 minutes, but the centers were still too soft for my taste. I think reduced filling would help with that. (I would spread it very thinly next time, and consequently add sugar.) Also perhaps using an air-bake pan.
Conclusion: Delicious, a different flavor from the usual, and easy to make. But I'll be making some adjustments next time.
Recipe: Grape Molasses and Tahini Rolls via Taste of Beirut
No comments:
Post a Comment