Italian buttercreamThis is a classic. It provides silky buttery icing. It has nothing to do with the butter and icing sugar some people call butter cream. But it is a lot more work. This recipe provides a large amount, sufficient for three dozen cupcakes or three cakes, depending on their size. It takes food colouring well.MeringueThis is a staple for many recipes, such as the dacquoise, the pavlova as well as my traditional meringue mushrooms.My chocolate sauceThis has been my go-to recipe for decades. It is very easy to memorize as everything is 1/3 of a cup except for the cocoa that is 1/2 cup. It is perfect with ice cream, pears belle Hélène and everything else that requires chocolate sauce.Pie doughThis is my go-to, fool proof, recipe. You may want to omit the sugar if you are making a savoury pie.Sourdough breadThis recipe comes from E&E. They make amazing breads.
I now need to add the recipe for a starter...
Best baking results are with a Römertopf dish, which you need to fill with water 30m before shaping the dough. The top half of the dish can soak until you are ready to bake.
We have had good results varying the types of flour (paysanne/T110, bise/T80, épautre) along with a base of 50% white flour/T55. Adjust water quantity based on dough consistency.
Sourdough starter creation and maintenance is not a complex process but it can be time consuming and fail when you start from scratch. But in essence, we maintain ours with white flour and feeding of a 1:1:1 ratio by weight of starter, flour and water, discarding the extra starter (or making pancakes with it).
For a new starter, starter with two feedings a day in a large mason jar (it should at some point double in size after each feeding), and after a while you can transition to keeping the starter in the fridge for a weekly feeding, taking the starter out and feeding it the day before you want to make bread.
Try to time the start of the recipe with the highest volume for the starter.