Gateau Breton
Well, we found this recipe somewhere in our cook books or magazines when we made our list, but darned if we couldn’t find it when we went to make this recipe!! Aubrey’s Bake From Scratch Volume 1 cook book has a gateau Basque on the cover and they are apparently very similar. (The Basque version has at least a pastry cream and sometimes a pastry cream and fruit layer.) I WILL make a gateau Basque some day…pastry cream is one of my favorite things!! The Breton version sometimes has a fruit layer and sometimes doesn’t. I asked Aubrey which she preferred and she said “no fruit”…done! IF you want to have a fruit layer there is a Gateau Breton recipe on the Cook’s Illustrated website that has apricot filling that sounds amazing to me!
The word gateau, to most Americans, means cake and Breton means it comes from the Brittany region of France. But, when researching what, exactly, it was, I found that this dessert is a cross between shortbread and pound cake (so not actually a cake in the American sense). My favorite cookie is shortbread and Aubrey’s favorite cake is pound cake so a cross between the two? Yes, please!! No wonder we decided to add it to our list.
We never found the recipe we were looking for so we found one from The Baking Wizard online that had 3 different ways of mixing it up. We wanted to try our new food processor to make a dough (never done that before). This recipe had instructions for making it with a mixer, a food processor, or by hand. Works for us.
We substituted a mixture of sugar substitutes for the sugar and 1/2 cup of white whole wheat with 1 1/2 cups all-purpose for the flour. In doing our research, we discovered that we should be using a European butter, not an American brand. The blog listed above stated it this way: “How can a cake with only four ingredients be so good? It’s the quality of the butter you use. Common supermarket brands are 80% butterfat, the lowest allowed by the USDA. But if you seek out brands such as Kerrygold, Plugra, Strauss, or Horizon, their butterfats range from 82% to 85%. Remember, fat carries flavor!” We chose the Kerrygold.
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned into a 1-cup dry measure to overflowing and leveled with a straight edge; 9 ounces by weight)
- 8 ounces (2 sticks) salted or unsalted butter, refrigerator temp or slightly softened, depending on method
- 1 cup sugar
- 6 large egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste
Instructions
- Adjust an oven rack to the center position and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter the cake pan and line the bottom with a round of cooking parchment or waxed paper. No need to butter the paper.
- To make the dough in a food processor, put the flour and sugar into the work bowl. Process 5 seconds to combine. Cut the cold butter into 1/2-inch cubes and add to the work bowl. Pulse about 5 times for 1 second each to cut the butter into small pieces no larger than 1/4-inch or so. Add 5 egg yolks and the vanilla and pulse rapidly 10 to 15 times (more or less) until a stiff dough comes together. Remove the dough from the machine and work it briefly between your hands to form a thick disk. If the dough sticks at all, flour your hands very lightly. Put the dough into the prepared pan and set a piece of plastic wrap over it. Press on the plastic to spread the dough into the pan. It should be evenly thick and reach right to the pan edge. Refrigerate about 20 minutes.
- If using an electric mixer, cut the slightly softened butter into tablespoon-size pieces and put them into a medium bowl with the sugar. Beat for 2 to 3 minutes on medium speed until well mixed but not fluffy. Add 5 egg yolks and the vanilla and beat on medium speed about 1 minute, until completely incorporated. With a wooden spoon, gradually stir in the flour to make a stiff dough. Scrape the dough into the prepared pan and set a piece of plastic wrap over it. Press on the plastic to spread the dough into the pan. It should be evenly thick and reach right to the pan edge. Refrigerate about 20 minutes.
- To make Gâteau Breton by hand, put the flour and sugar into a large mixing bowl and stir to mix. Cut the cold butter into 1/2-inch cubes and add to the bowl. Chop the butter into the flour and sugar with a pastry blender or two knives until the texture is like coarse crumbs. Add 5 egg yolks and the vanilla and mix in with a wooden spoon to form a thick dough. Put the dough into the prepared pan and set a piece of plastic wrap over it. Press on the plastic to spread the dough into the pan. It should be evenly thick and reach right to the pan edge. Refrigerate about 20 minutes.
- To bake the Gâteau Breton, mix the last yolk and 1 teaspoon water in a small cup well with a fork. Remove the plastic wrap from the chilled cake and use a pastry brush to coat the top of the cake with the egg yolk. You may not have to use all the yolk. Try not to let any yolk run between the cake and the side of the pan. With a table fork, score the top of the Gâteau Breton in criss-crossing parallel lines.
- Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until the cake is a rich golden brown color. Cool the cake on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Run a small knife around the sides of the Gâteau to release, and unmold it onto the rack. Peel off the paper, cover with another rack, and invert to cool right side up. Wait a few hours before serving for the cake’s texture to compose itself.
- Makes one 8-inch round cake, about 10 servings.
Our Experience
Last week Aubrey had to make most of our cake by herself. Since we had a wedding to attend on Saturday and Aubrey works on Sundays, I got to make the most of this “cake” by myself. By the way, did I mention that we are getting into the cake part of our baking? We wanted to make the pies, tarts, and other fruit desserts when fruit was in season. That meant all of the cakes got put off until fall. Now, this is technically not a cake in the American sense of the word so I’m looking forward to eating this one!
This is supposed to be baked in an 8″ round pan. I don’t have an 8″ round pan. My options were either a 9″ round cake pan or a 7″ round spring form pan. Considering the issues my oven has with thicker baked items, I opted for the 9″ round cake pan. I knew it would probably cook faster and that it wouldn’t be as thick as it would have been in an 8″ round pan but sometimes you have to roll with what you have. I traced the pan on parchment paper so I could cut out a round for the bottom of the cake pan.
When you trace the pan, make sure you cut it about 1/8″ inside the line because the paper is going in the bottom of the pan on the inside which is smaller than the outside…obviously.
Once the pan was ready, I started measuring the ingredients and getting them ready. The two flours were measured and put directly in the food processor and pulsed a couple of times.
After measuring the flours, the sugar substitutes were next. I used Allulose, Xylitol, and Splenda today. I started with a monkfruit sweetener but realized it was a powdered version so I had to switch to Splenda. We are out of Sola and Hyvee either doesn’t carry it anymore or they have moved it to a new location and I can’t find it. I am going to purchase a sugar substitute blend from King Arthur Flour and am looking forward to using it once it arrives.
Next, I separated the eggs. I almost put all 6 eggs together and then read the recipe again noting that I was to save one for the top of the cake. Whew, dodged a bullet there. I try to keep the yolks in tact when I separate them but had a couple break today. If I don’t break them, they slide right out of the bowl and I don’t need a spatula to get every last bit of egg out of the bowl, which is nice.
The last item to get ready was the butter. The Kerrygold came in an 8 oz block. I cut it up into cubes that were about 1/2″ in size.
Kerrygold butter in a block.
The sugar was added to the flours and pulsed a couple of times to mix and then the butter was added. Whenever I am going to cut butter into a dry mixture, I always coat the cubes as I put them in the bowl. I takes more time than just dumping them all in at once but it keeps them from sticking together…hopefully reducing the amount of time that it takes to cut the butter into smaller pieces.
The recipe called for pulsing it about 5 times for a second to cut in the butter. That was not nearly enough to get the butter cut into 1/4″ pieces. So, I just pulsed until it got there.
The egg yolks were the last item to add (plus the vanilla which is an extra that this chef adds to his gateau Breton).
After it was pulsed together it resembled a cookie dough. I smelled like the shortbread cookies we made earlier this year. I LOVED those things!!
Once the dough was smoothed into a disc on the counter, I moved it to the pan and pressed it into the pan as directed using plastic wrap to do so.
After pressing it into the pan, the pan was placed in the refrigerator to chill for 20 minutes. When it was taken out, the plastic was removed and it was brushed with the last egg yolk and water mixture. Finally, it was decorated with a fork. After looking at multiple recipes and photos, the diagonal hash mark seemed to be the traditional way of decorating it.
I baked it for 45 minutes and it probably could have cooked less, but I wasn’t sure how to check it for doneness. The dough wouldn’t have left any kind of mark on a toothpick and with the whole wheat flour and the sugar substitutes, it was going to brown differently than it normally would have. It looks pretty brown but if you look at photos online they are supposed to be a rich brown color due to the egg wash and mine looks like many others online.
Did I mention the smell as it was baking? Well, I’ll say it again, I love shortbread. This smelled just like shortbread…thus, I was super excited to try it. I had to wait a few hours before I would get to eat any.
What we liked.
It was delicious for this shortbread lover. It really did taste a lot like a cross between a shortbread cookie and a pound cake. Garrett said it reminded him of our cornbread recipe as far as the taste. Kip liked it and said it had great flavor.
It is softer than a shortbread cookie but more dense than a pound cake. The sweet, buttery flavor is the best part of this recipe. With only 4 main ingredients, those ingredients need to be good ones. I didn’t notice the sugar substitute so that means it worked. If it had an aftertaste or cooling effect, it wouldn’t have worked. The crust is crispy and the center is soft and a little chewy. It’s really very good!
What we would change.
I think the only change might be to reduce the time to about 40 minutes or to buy an 8″ pan to cook it in. If we had had an 8″ pan, our cake would have been thicker. Of course, it’s not really a change of this recipe, but I would like to make a version with a filling in it. I like the idea of an apricot filling but I’m not opposed to a traditional prune one either.
What we learned.
As I mentioned last week, I think it is more fun baking with someone than not. Maybe this coming weekend we will get back on track with that! I learned about the fat differences of American butter versus European butter. I think it would be fun to try some other brands of European butter in the future to see if there are noticeable differences in taste.
Until next week, Happy Baking!