Cooking tips, tricks, and advice from professional kitchens
Posts tagged apricot glaze
Glazing pastries if you don’t have apricot glaze
Sep 21st
As I mentioned in a previous post, glazing pastries can make all the difference to how they look and how well they keep, but what do you do if you don’t have glaze?
I suggested one idea which is cheap apricot jam, but this isn’t the only possibility.
Pectin glazes (which are totally vegan/vegetarian despite what you may read on the internet) are made by boiling pectin with sugar and water until it’s a sweet paste. For that you need pectin, which is available most of the year with the gelatin in stores, but it’s not too common an ingredient to have on hand.
Another alternative is to use a different another kind of jam/jelly. For example, if you’re making a strawberry tart, why not use a strawberry jam glaze? Again, as with the apricot glaze be sure to boil it and strain it before use. If you want a really nice thin coat to not alter the sweetness of your product, simply dilute it with some water, and then use. You can also use marmalades for this purpose but keep in mind that they are generally quite sour and bitter.
Use apricot glaze to make attractive pastries
Jul 7th
Do your homemade pastries not look as yummy and glossy as the ones you see at the stores and in pictures? A common error of omission is the absence of glaze. In a professional kitchen, the most common product is some variant of apricot glaze. The exact product isn’t commonly available, but a really decent home substitute is easy to make. A cheap apricot jam, (with the smallest amount of fruit chunks possible) thinned down with roughly 25% water, and brought to the boil is perfect to apply to pastries. Be sure to bring it to the boil each time you use it or it will set up and still be very sticky. Apricot jam is used because of its neutral flavour and colour. Be sure to strain any small chunks out once it’s brought to the boil or your finish may be lumpy.
Coulis
Nov 21st
If you’re making a coulis using puree, and you don’t have simple syrup on hand, you can substitute an equal amount of apricot glaze (or jam). This will not thicken anymore than the syrup does, and will sweeten without being grainy. You should add the glaze to the puree at any stage as long as it is well melted to prevent lumps.