Malted Sourdough Bread

I bought some malt extract from a health food store and it has been sitting in the fridge and I don't really use a lot of it, so I decided to look for a bread recipe that uses it.

Everyday Malted Brown Bread Recipe (from here)

700g brown or wholemeal bread flour
200g white bread flour
80g malt extract
80ml sunflower or vegetable oil
4 tsp dried active yeast
30g demerara or light brown sugar
3tsp maldon sea salt, crushed (if you use regular table salt you will need to add more - try 4tsp)
540ml water

I did a few changes to the original recipe. The above recipe uses yeast but I am more keen to use my rye sourdough starter. I also halved the recipe to make a smaller loaf. As I don't have brown or wholemeal bread flour, I used normal bread flour and whole wheat flour instead.

Malted Sourdough Bread Recipe

340g bread flour
100g whole wheat flour (to be used in the levain)
260ml water (divided 100ml + 160ml)
20g sourdough starter (100% hydration = 10g rye + 10ml water)
40g malt extract
40ml vegetable oil
15g light brown sugar
9g salt (Baker's percent: 2%)

Total flour = 450g (including the flour in the starter)
Total water = 270ml (including the water in the starter)
Hydration = 60% (270/450*100)

Levain
Add 100g whole wheat flour and 100ml water to 20g rye sourdough starter. Mix well and ferment for 12 to 16 hours.

My sourdough starter is normally in the fridge hibernating if I am not baking. A few days before using it, I will take it out of the fridge and feed it daily to wake it up and strengthen it. Sourdough starters are different from commercial yeast. Because it is natural, it tends to take a longer time for the bread to ferment and proof unlike using those hyperactive commercial yeast. There are some advantages of eating sourdough bread which you can spend some time reading if you are interested.

Levain created with sourdough starter

I left mine for 21 hours due to work commitments. As seen below, the levain is now very bubbly and has raised in height. If you give the sourdough a sniff, you can detect traces of fruity smell with some sourish tang as well.

Doubled in height and bubbly

Lots of bubbles

Main Dough
Using a mixing bowl, mix the levain with the rest of the water (160ml) to dissolve it. Add in all the other ingredients except the salt and mix well. Leave it covered to autolyse for 30 to 60 mins.

After that, add in the salt and mix well and knead the dough.

Shaggy mass after adding all the ingredients

You can knead the dough using a stand mixer or by hand until gluten is developed. Let it rest in a covered bowl for 2 hours to bulk ferment at room temperature.

Dough that has been knead and left to rest

After 2 hours, shape the dough into a boule and placed it in a oiled and floured bowl. I floured the bowl with semolina which is why it looked so grainy. You can use corn meal or rice flour as well to prevent sticking. Cover it with cling film and put it in the fridge overnight. That will allow slower fermentation and proofing which will result in nicer flavours in the bread.

Dough is shaped and placed seam-side up in a oiled and floured bowl

The next day, take it out and leave it at room temperature until the dough has proofed enough for baking. If your bread proofed overnight in the fridge and is ready to bake, you can bake it straight from the oven, there is no need to wait for the dough to come to room temperature. You can score the dough to help get a better/more even rise in the oven.

Preheat the oven to 210C, transfer the dough to a baking sheet/stone and bake for 30 mins. You can use steam for the initial 15 minutes.

The end result - Malted Sourdough Bread

I could have baked the bread at 230C instead of 210C, that might result in a better rise. Also, maybe increase the hydration of the dough to 65% instead of just 60%.

If I were to use this recipe again, I would replace the water with Guinness and make a Malted Sourdough Guinness Bread. :)

Whole Spelt Bread with Herbs-infused Olive Oil using Tang Zhong starter

This loaf of bread is made with whole spelt flour, using tang zhong starter. Tang zhong is a method from Asia which involves heating up a portion of the flour with water until 65C and turning that into a glue-like paste consistency. By doing so, the final product ends up softer and fluffier.

Ingredients
Tang zhong starter
20g whole spelt flour (around 5% of total spelt flour used)
100ml water

Main dough
360g whole spelt flour, divided (180g + 180g)
140ml water
40ml herbs-infused olive oil
40ml honey
120g tang zhong starter (see above)

Method
Start by making a tang zhong starter. The ratio of water to flour is 5:1. For my case, I used 100ml water with 20g spelt flour and mixed them in a pot while heating the mixture up to 65C, stirring continuously. Once the temperature is reached, turned off the heat and let the mixture cool down. You can cover it with clingfilm and put it in the fridge for a few days before using.

Tang zhong starter

Heat up 40ml of olive oil with some of your favourite herbs. Let it cool down and strain it before using.

Olive oil infused with herbs

In a stand mixer, combine 180g of the spelt flour with 1 tsp of yeast and 6g of salt. Add to the mixer, 140ml water, 40ml honey and the 40ml of herbs-infused olive oil. Mix it for one minute.

Cover the bowl with a towel and let it rest for one hour. It will be bubbly like below.

Bubbly bubbly bubbly

Add in the tang zhong starter. If you had placed it in the fridge, take it out for at least a few hours before using.

Start adding in the rest of the flour in small proportions while mixing. You will know you have added enough flour when the dough pulls away from the bowl and forms one big ball. The dough may be slightly sticky. Do not over-add the flour or the dough will be too dry. It is alright to have some flour left. For this bake, I have 20g of flour leftover. Do not over-mix this dough in a stand mixer because the gluten in the spelt flour is very fragile and over-mixing will destroy the gluten strands.

Placed the dough in the loaf tin and let it proof for 1 to 2 hours. When it doubles in size, it is ready for baking.

Proofing

Proofed and ready to be baked

Preheat the oven to 175C. Bake the bread for 25 to 30 minutes. Take the tin out of the oven and let it cool for about 10 minutes, then carefully remove the loaf and finish cooling on a rack.

Freshly out of the oven

Loaf is cooling down

Cross-section of the bread

Do try making this on your own and see how soft the bread can be. You can use normal bread flour instead of spelt flour. If you are using normal bread flour, you might want to knead the dough to develop the gluten.

Kek Lapis/Kueh Lapis Legit

This is a cake with a thousand names with a thousand layers. Ok, I'm just kidding. It does have a few names and close to 20 layers. The layers are added one by one. After the top layer is grilled, another layer of batter is added. It is very time-consuming and tedious because you can't leave the cake to bake by itself. The moment you leave it in the oven for too long, the top layer will be burnt. Each layer takes between 3 to 5 mins to be done. How fast it takes depends on individual oven. You need the grill function or top heat only.

Recipe
400g butter
6 tbsp condensed milk
1 tbsp rempah kueh powder
6 to 7 tbsp brandy/rum (optional)
30 egg yolks
4 egg whites
300g sugar
100g plain flour
7" by 10" tin

Ingredients for Kek Lapis

Cream butter in a mixer and add in condensed milk and mix. Add in rempah kueh powder and mix. Add in brandy or rum, depending on your preference.

Creamed butter with condensed milk and rempah kueh powder

Preparing the egg yolks.

Egg yolks!

In another mixer, beat egg yolks and whites with sugar until light and fluffy or double in volume.

Beating egg yolks/whites with sugar

Fold flour into the egg mixture.

Fold flour into egg mixture

Fold the egg mixture into the butter mixture.

Batter ready

Oil the bottom of the tin and place a piece of parchment paper at the bottom.
Weigh out 100g of batter for the first layer, place it into the tin and level it.

1st layer

Grill the layer until brown. Rotate the tin if your oven heat is not even.

Top layer grilled to brown

Take out the tin, press down the layer and poke with a toothpick if there are any bubbles.

Press down every layer

Place another 100g of batter into the top layer. Grill until brown.

For subsequent layers, use 80g of batter.

Repeat the above steps until you finish the batter or you go crazy, whichever comes first. Hehe. This cake is expensive because it is very labour intensive.

For the last two, use 100g of batter instead of 80g.

Once the lapis is done, separate the sides from the tin and invert it over a rack so that it has the characteristic criss-cross pattern on the top and let it cool down. You can removed the tin while it is cooling.

Separate the kek lapis from the edge of the tin

Cut the lapis up only when it has totally cooled down. The kek lapis will taste better after 2 to 3 days.

Macarons - Part 2 (The Ingredients and Perils of the Journey)

In the previous post, I blogged about what equipment is needed to make macarons, what is considered a "perfect" macaron. Here is where I tell you what are the things to look out for and the common problems that can cause a failed batch after a hard day's work.

I have to tell you in advance that this post is quite dry because it's all technical stuff.

Honestly, I am no expert on this. I have only started baking macarons in October this year. If you do a search on the Internet, you will find tons of information and recipes dated as early as 2008. So, whatever I know, I learnt it from those websites.

Now, even if you have the perfect recipe (like Pierre Hermé's), you might not be able to get the same taste and quality as what his shop is selling. Simply because there are just too many variables and factors to consider. Even the ambient temperature and humidity play important roles in making this finicky pastry.

There are only 3 ingredients needed to make a macaron shell. Ground almonds, sugar, egg white. Powdered sugar and granulated sugar are used in most recipes.

Some other ingredients are used to stabilise the meringue such as cream of tartar/pinch of salt/lemon juice and to colour the shells using gel/powdered food colourings. They are not absolutely necessary. The braver bakers would try to flavour the shells with cocoa, dried fruit powders etc. The reason why I say they are brave is because there is always a risk that the macarons can come out as a failure when things are added causing the fine-balance to be toppled. So, if it is your first try, do not add anything extra to the shells, not even colourings.

That's it. Sounds easy peasy. End of story...

Ya, right!

Lets proceed to the more technical/demanding/boring part.

The ground almonds and powdered sugar form what is called the tant pour tant. They are in equal amounts by weight. Please don't use cup measurements. Some recipes do not have equal weight of ground almonds and powdered sugar and they still worked. The almonds must be grounded fine enough, and must not be too wet because moisture creates havoc in the shells. Some recipes insist on pure icing sugar, like I mentioned in the previous post, I don't think that is necessary, in fact, I find the cornstarch useful in a humid country like mine.

Regarding the egg white, some recipes suggest to "age" it first before using. The range can be from one to two days up to one week of aging! Some say leave it outside the fridge and just cover the bowl with paper towel to let evaporation take place. Some say to put the egg white in the fridge for a few days. Pierre Hermé suggested in his book to leave the egg white in the fridge for 5 days and cover the bowl with cling film, but cut a slit on the film with a knife to allow evaporation. I tried aging the egg white occasionally for 1 to 2 days, but I do not see any difference in the result. Maybe because I am using an italian meringue and fresh egg white does not cause any problems. If you are using the french meringue method, try aging your egg white. The main thing is, before using the egg white, bring it to room temperature before whisking.

The egg white and the granulated sugar are used to make a meringue which is later mixed with the dry ingredients. The meringue can be made using the french method or the italian method. French meringue is easier to make but less stable, italian meringue is more troublesome to make, but more stable. Less stable means that you can over-mixed the batter easily when you mix in the dry ingredients resulting in a very fluid batter that you cannot even pipe.

A lot of variations can happen even for the french meringue, some recipes state to whisk the egg white to stiff peaks, some say to medium stiff peaks. Some say to add in sugar the moment you start whisking, some say to add in the sugar slowly after the egg white has turned frothy, some say you dump the whole load of sugar in at one go. Some include the usage of cream of tartar/pinch of salt/lemon juice at the frothy stage to stabilise the meringue.

For the italian meringue, it is even more complicated. Possible variations I have seen include the stage of the egg white (soft peak, firm peak, stiff peak) before adding the boiling sugar, the temperature of the boiling sugar before it is added into the egg white, to what stage is the meringue whisked until (firm peak, medium stiff peak, stiff peak) and what temperature the meringue is (until cooled, body temperature, 40C to 50C) before adding to the dry ingredients. For italian meringue, it is advisable that you use a candy thermometer to measure the temperature of the boiling sugar.

As for mixing the meringue with the dry ingredients, there are also many methods. Dump all the dry ingredients in at one go, add them in 3 separate portions, add the meringue to the dry ingredients all at once or add a portion of meringue to the dry ingredients and mix, then add the balance in.

When you are mixing the meringue and the dry ingredients, remember not to over-mix. It is always better to slightly under-mix than to over-mix the batter. Macaronage is the term used for the mixing. You don't have to be extra gentle when mixing because you are not making an angel food cake. In fact, you need to deflate the batter so that there is not too much air within the shells which might cause a volcanic eruption when they are baked. I am not joking here, the shells can split open and spew out their contents. When you see that happening, it means your hard work has gone down the drain.

At what stage should you stop mixing and get ready to pipe the shells? Some say macaronage should be done until the batter "flows like lava"... What is "flows like lava"?... I have never seen lava flowing in my life. In fact, I have not seen real-life lava before! So I went to Google for help and these are the pictures of flowing lava. Really! I don't think it helps at all.

Some bakers offer better guides. They suggest lifting some of the batter up with the spatula and watch how the batter drops back into the mixing bowl. If it drops down like a thick ribbon, it is most likely to be ready. The batter will also become smooth and shiny. Another confirmation is when the batter drops back into the bowl, look for an area where the "ribbon" has fallen, start counting to 30 seconds. If the "ribbon" fuses back with the main batter, the batter is ready. If the batter flows like water or fuses with the main body within seconds, you have most likely over-mixed. If the batter flows down in clumps and retains its shape after dropping into the bowl, you can continue to mix more.

Batter is too stiff, shells still retaining the peaks. Compare with the batch below.

You can pipe the shells on silicone baking sheets (silpats) or parchment paper. The feet that develop using silpats and parchment paper look different. After piping the shells, you have to rest the shells so that the exterior of the shells form a skin which is no longer sticky when you touch it. This will prevent the shells from bursting when they are in the oven and also helps lift up the shells during baking to form the "feet". (Imagine a hot-air balloon.) Some bakers claimed that there is no need to rest the shells, I believe that is because they are in a very dry environment and the skins form pretty fast while they are piping.

Shells waiting to dry. They will lose the shiny surface once they are dried.

Because of all these variations and permutations, even if you follow one recipe every time, the batch that comes out of the oven might be different from the previous batches or the next batch. So, the best advice I can offer you is to measure your ingredients precisely, grind your almonds as finely as you can possibly do, follow the steps accurately, watch your meringue closely as you whisk it, don't rush through the steps just so that you can throw the piped batter into the oven. The macarons will show you who is boss!

Talking about ovens, the baking temperature suggested in different recipes differs too. The range can be from 125C to 180C. Different ovens perform differently. Some say to use convection ovens to distribute the heat evenly, some say to turn off the fan. The baking temperature is based on your own oven and you may need to do many test batches to see what is the optimal temperature for your oven. 

When I first started, I piped a few shells and tested one temperature, then another batch of shells on a different temperature just to find the right temperature for my oven. If the shells turn brown before they are ready, turn down the heat. If the shells do not form the "feet", it might be because the temperature is too low. If the shells split open on the top, it might be because the temperature is too high or you did not wait for the skins to form.

Also, most ovens allow you to choose which level you want to bake, you have to try and see whether the lower third, the middle or the highest rack is most suitable. Some ovens allow you to bake two trays at the same time. It also depends on whether your oven has top heat, bottom heat or back heat. For those with only top heat, you might need a baking stone at the bottom. If your macarons brown too fast, put the tray in the lower rack. If the shells burst, put it in higher rack if there is strong bottom heat from your oven. You might even have to shield your macarons with foil to prevent them from browning because macarons should not turn brown after baking.

As you can see, it is not that simple.

In summary, the followings are areas that might cause you to have a failed batch of macarons.

1. Almond - not finely grounded, too wet
2. Meringue - not whisked enough or over whisked
3. Batter - over-mixed or under-mixed
4. Shells - not rested enough to form a skin over the exterior
5. Oven temperature - too high or too low

So, watch out for the above and your macarons should be fine. *fingers crossed*

My next post on macarons will be about how I do mine and what recipe I use.

Tiramisu in a cup

My husband loves tiramisu and every time he goes to a restaurant, he never fails to order the tiramisu for dessert. So one day, we decided to try making our own at home. Little did we know that it is such a simple dessert to make!

We adapted the recipe from here. This version of tiramisu has the eggs cooked which is safer for consumption. The original recipe calls for a loaf pan to assemble the tiramisu. We used that initially but find that using small cups is easier and more convenient (one cup for myself, two cups for my husband, heehee). You just have to break up the ladyfingers into smaller pieces to fit into the cups.

We altered some of the amount of the liquids, mascarpone cheese and sugar because we want the tiramisu to be creamier and also less sweet. You can do your own modification.

Cream Filling:
150 ml milk, divided 100ml, 50ml
100 grams granulated white sugar, divided 50g, 50g
35 grams all purpose flour
6 large egg yolks
60 ml Kahlua
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
57 grams unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
500 grams mascarpone cheese

Ladyfingers

Coffee Soaking Syrup:
100 ml very strong brewed coffee or espresso (4 tbsp)
60 ml Kahlua

Topping:
cocoa powder for garnishing
bittersweet chocolate, grated or chopped


Method:
2 day before you need the dessert, put 100 ml milk and 50 grams sugar in a saucepan. Place over medium heat, and bring this mixture just to boiling, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, in a heatproof bowl, whisk together the remaining milk, sugar, flour, and egg yolks.

When the milk comes to a boil, gradually whisk it into the egg yolk mixture. You must continue to whisk as you pour to prevent the egg yolks from curdling.

Transfer this mixture back into the saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it comes to a boil. When it boils, continue to stir until it thickens.

Remove from heat and strain into a large bowl. This will remove any lumps that may have formed.

Whisk in the Kahlua, vanilla extract, and butter.

Cover the surface of the custard with plastic wrap to prevent a crust from forming. Leave it in the fridge overnight to cool.

The next day or once the custard has cooled sufficiently, remove from the refrigerator.

In a mixer with paddle attachment, beat the mascarpone cheese at low speed until it is soft and smooth. Gently beat the cold custard into the mascarpone until smooth.

Custard done, ready to incorporate with the mascarpone cheese

In a large bowl combine the coffee (espresso) and Kahlua.

Place a layer of cream filling at the bottom of the cup. We use a large ice-cream scoop to make sure that the amount in each cup is about the same.

Break the ladyfingers into 3 or 4 parts. Soak each part individually for a few seconds and place it gently onto the layer of cream filling. Do not soak in the coffee syrup for too long or the ladyfinger will disintegrate in your hands.

Ensure that the ladyfingers are in a flat layer. If after soaking the ladyfingers for all the cups and you still have some coffee syrup left, you can brush the leftover syrup on the ladyfingers directly. Again, do not overload the ladyfingers with the coffee syrup or you will get a soggy mess.

One layer of cream filling with a layer of ladyfingers

To have the cup look nicer when you see it from the side, sift a layer of cocoa powder onto the ladyfingers. This is form a dark line in the middle of the cream fillings.

A layer of cocoa powder after the ladyfingers

Put another scoop of cream filling onto the ladyfingers. If you have a taller cup, you can put another layer of ladyfingers and topped it with another layer of cream filling. This is the final scoop for my case. After that, gently shake the cups to even out the top layer.

Final layer of cream filling

You can keep this in the fridge until you need it. We leave it in the fridge for one more night to let the coffee syrup in the ladyfingers and the cream fillings mixed together for better flavour.

Before serving, sift another layer of cocoa powder and grate some bittersweet chocolate on the surface. Do not do it too early or the cocoa powder will absorb the moisture from the cream filling and it will look dark and clumpy.

Roast Turkey with Gravy, Cranberries & Passion Fruit sauce, Bacon Jam

Having a turkey for Christmas dinner is not something we do normally. Usually, we will be celebrating Christmas overseas. However, this year, we decided to celebrate Christmas at home. We prepared a turkey for a small house gathering at my sister's place.

Bacon jam, cranberries & passion fruit sauce, parma ham wrapped stuffing, turkey gravy with the main dish

For the recipe, I searched on the Internet for some ideas and decided to use various ideas and methods to form my own recipe.

First step is to find a suitable turkey and one that is small enough to fit my oven. I settled for one that is around 5kg.

The chosen one

I defrosted the turkey in the fridge for 3 days before taking it out of the package to clean it. For every 2.2kg, 24 hours is needed to thaw the bird.

Turkey that has been cleaned

After cleaning out the bird, I soak the turkey in 600ml of butter milk and seasoning (coarse salt, pepper, garlic, paprika, fresh thyme, sage and rosemary) for one day in the fridge.

Preparing a butter milk bath/spa with seasoning for the turkey

Turkey in butter milk bath. I also want such a good life!

The following day, the turkey is washed again to remove all the butter milk and pat dry. The bird is then dried by hanging it up or left in the fridge uncovered.

Hanging the bird up to dry after the butter milk bath!

After that, I followed part of what Gordon Ramsay did in his YouTube video.

Season the cavity of the bird with some salt and pepper, stuff in one onion (cut into half), one lemon and bay leaves.

In a mixing bowl, put in some butter (room temperature), salt, pepper, olive oil, zest of 2 lemons and their juice, 3 cloves of garlic (pureed) and chopped parsley. Stir to mix.

Use your fingers to loosen the skin from the meat on the thighs and breast. Insert some butter mixture into the areas where you have separated the skin from the meat. Massage the rest of the butter mixture onto the breast, legs and wings of the bird. Sprinkle some olive oil on to those areas.

Coated with seasoning

Put the seasoned turkey into the preheated oven at 220C for 10 mins. After 10 mins, take the turkey out of the oven and baste. Then cover the breast with streaky bacon. Then baste the bacon before putting it back in the oven at 180C. The wings are wrapped in foil to prevent charring before the turkey is cooked.

Bacon wraps to prevent the breast from charring

We take out the turkey to baste and rotate for even browning every 30 to 45 minutes. Cooking time is estimated to be 30 minutes for every kg of turkey. So for my turkey, it took 2 1/2 hours to complete. To see if the turkey is done, check the temperature at 3 places - the breast, the outer thigh, and the inner thigh. They must be at least 74C in these 3 places. If any of them is under 74C, put the bird back in the oven for another 15 to 20 minutes. To prevent the breast from overcooking, shield it with foil. We removed the bacon earlier because they were going to be charred. Use the bacon for making the gravy.

After the turkey is done, rest it for the same amount of time you take to roast it. For my case, I rested it for 2 1/2 hours. Keep the juice from the roasting tray for making the gravy later.

Nice and golden brown

For the gravy, chopped up the streaky bacon, onion and lemon (from the cavity of the turkey) and put them into a pan. Heat up the pan with some of the oil from the roasting tray first. Add in a few sprig of rosemary, 3 chopped tomatoes as well. To have more turkey flavour in the gravy, cut off the wings and backside of the turkey and put them in the pan too. Pour in the juices collected.

In Gordon's recipe, he used apple cider which we don't have, so we added 50ml of red wine instead. When the fluid is reduced by half, mashed up the solids in the pan to extract more flavours. Pour in some chicken stock and reduce again. Once reduced, sift the gravy. Your turkey gravy is now ready.

We also modified our bacon jam by adding in 50ml of red wine, one bay leave and a few sprigs of thyme. Simmer the bacon jam until it is the consistency you want.

Modifying the bacon jam for special occasion

For the cranberries & passion fruit sauce, we bring 340g of cranberries (fresh), 224g of sugar, 120g passion fruit pulp and 180ml of water to a boil over medium high heat.

Once boiling, reduce the heat to low and simmer until the cranberries have broken down and the sauce is thick. Cool it before serving.

We had the turkey at the gathering and the meat is tender even for the breast. Definitely a recipe to keep.

Enjoy!

Beef Wellington

Beef Wellington

This is a brief post on the Beef Wellington we prepared during Christmas Eve. You can always make one during special occasions or when there's a craving for it.

I modified Gordon Ramsay's YouTube video recipe.

The first step is to season the tenderloin (we bought about 700g) with some salt and black pepper before searing it in a hot frying pain. I used a tablespoon of ghee instead of butter because ghee has a higher smoking point. Be sure to sear all around the beef but don't over-cook it.

Pan-seared tenderloin

Let the beef cool down and pat dry with paper towels before brushing a layer of Dijon mustard on it.

Tenderloin brushed with Dijon mustard

While resting the beef, prepare the duxelles. Mince the mushrooms (400g) with a clove of garlic, season with salt and pepper. Add in chestnuts (handful) to blend as well. I used the frying pan I seared the beef with, since there's still the ghee in it, to stir-fry the duxelles. I added a chopped onion to the hot ghee first and once the onion is softened, I added in the blended mixture.

Stir-fry the mixture with a sprig of thyme. After a while, you will notice that the mixture releases a lot of fluids (mainly from the mushrooms), continue stirring until the mixture is dry. Then add 50ml of red wine and 2 teaspoon of dark soya sauce and continue cooking until the mixture is dry again. Remove from the pan and let it cool down. Remove the thyme from the mixture.

Making duxelles - mixture of minced mushrooms, chestnuts and seasoning

Once the beef and the duxelles are cooled, place a few layers of cling film on the table, then put 1 to 2 pieces of filo dough on the cling film. It is useful to absorb the juices that are released from the beef and prevents the puff pastry from being soggy. Next, layer a few pieces of parma ham (we used 8 pieces). The width of the parma ham layer is slightly wider than the width of the tenderloin by 2 to 3 cm on both sides.

Preparing to wrap the cooled ingredients. Layer of filo dough and parma ham arranged on a cling film for easy rolling

Spread the duxelles onto the parma ham. There's no need to put too much, around 1 cm thickness is more than enough.

Layer of duxelles spread onto the parma ham

Place the beef on the lower third of the layers and roll it up with the help of the cling film.

Tenderloin placed on top of the duxelles

Twist and tighten the sides of the cling film to compact the roll. Leave it in the fridge to firm up before wrapping it with the puff pastry.

Rolled into a sausage-like structure, tightened by the cling film

I use ready-made puff pastry that is made with butter and not margarine.

Using ready-made butter puff pastry

Once the roll is firm, remove the cling film and wrap the puff pastry over the filo dough using the same method as above (with the help of a cling film and tighten the structure). You can then put it back in the fridge again until you are ready to cook it. Before baking, egg wash the puff pastry and use the back of a knife to draw some patterns on the pastry, be careful not to cut through it.

Puff pastry is wrapped over the filo dough, remember to remove the cling film first

In your free time, you can do up some decorations using the leftover puff pastry. :)

Extra puff pastry used for decoration

I roast the Beef Wellington in a convection over at 220C for 10mins, then rotate it and lower the temperature to 200C for another 30 mins. Your mileage may vary.

Beef Wellington done, and decoration in place

Sliced open to reveal medium rare tenderloin

Note:
Beef registers 48.8C to 54.4C on an instant-read thermometer for rare, 54.4C to 57.2C for medium rare.
Cover pastry with foil if it gets too brown while cooking.
You can spread a layer of foie gras or liver pate on the duxelles.