tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78813436515945663922024-02-08T04:59:42.528-05:00Bread&Cake&MoreA spot for blogging about cooking and baking.NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.comBlogger251125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-6781957592527614682017-01-21T13:40:00.001-05:002017-01-21T13:59:43.295-05:00ABC: Smitten Kitchen - sheet pan spinach quiche<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/32292127922" title="View 'Smitten Kitchen's spinach sheet pan quiche' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Smitten Kitchen's spinach sheet pan quiche" width="180" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/279/32292127922_2164233517_m.jpg" height="240"/></a>I've joined another baking group, the <a href="http://avidbakerschallenge.blogspot.com/">Avid Baker's Challenge</a>, enticed by the fact that this year they are baking from the Smitten Kitchen blog. First up is the <a href="https://smittenkitchen.com/2016/11/spinach-sheet-pan-quiche/">Sheet Pan Spinach Quiche</a>, a recipe I'd seen and immediately saved to Paprika (the recipe app I use). I was attracted by the form factor--it's baked in a quarter sheet pan, so the ratio of quiche to crust is lower. The quiche filling is different, too--instead of milk or maybe half and half in the custard, this one uses cream cheese thinned with half and half.<br clear="all">
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/32292126562" title="View 'Smitten Kitchen's spinach sheet pan quiche' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Smitten Kitchen's spinach sheet pan quiche" valign="top" style="float:left;" width="75" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/607/32292126562_9134768df8_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>For the crust I went with food processor mixing, though I used a technique from Serious Eats where I blended half the flour with the butter thoroughly, then added the rest of the flour and pulsed a bit. Then it was on to the cold water, and a dry-ish dough formed. I chilled that overnight before trying to make the actual crust. Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen warned that the crust is hard to handle for the quarter sheet pan, and recommended pressing it in. I was headed for the "press it in" approach, but having a chilled block of dough it didn't seem like I could get it into the pan only by pressing. (In retrospect, maybe I should have chilled the crumbly mixture from the food processor and then been able to spread that around the pan more easily.) I decided I would start by rolling my dough block to about the size of the pan between sheets of plastic wrap. That sort of worked, but it was very hard to get the dough well distributed until it was so warm it was turning greasy. Ultimately I chilled it again, pried it out of the pan (along with the parchment paper lining the bottom), rolled it out to get it sort of even and sort of the right size, then put it back in the pan and kept pressing. Result: pastry covering the pan, but not pretty.
<p><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/32292127112" title="View 'Smitten Kitchen's spinach sheet pan quiche' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Smitten Kitchen's spinach sheet pan quiche" style="float:right;" valign="top" width="100" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/270/32292127112_269df154fa_t.jpg" height="75"/></a>The completed crust was chilled and blind baked, where I let it get too brown due to a little inattentiveness in the last few minutes as I was working on the filling. I made a shield for the crust before baking the filling and thought the results were just fine.
<p>For the quiche itself I intended to use gruyere for the cheese, but ran out and filled in with cheddar. Everything else was as the recipe was as written. I was glad to have the weights for the cheese (actually for everything as I now bake mostly by weight), because my Microplane-grated parmesan was more than double the volume the recipe mentions. I had bought a nut milk bag recently to use for recipes that need to squeeze extra moisture from veggies, and discovered that too much twisting of the nut milk bag will pop a hole in it, alas. Deb said there might be too much filling for the crust, but mine fit nicely and was not even that full.
<p>Results: The crust was nice, though not particularly flakey after its rough time getting into the pan. I like the filling including the cream cheese, and may try this style quiche with some other flavors--I like spinach OK, but this is pretty intensely spinach. Any future attempts will probably use a different crust, though!NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-12704843576248072472016-06-19T19:01:00.001-04:002016-06-19T19:02:27.837-04:00The Bread Bible: Lime-Blueberry Flaky Scones<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/27502380940" title="View 'Lime-Blueberry Flaky Scones' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Lime-Blueberry Flaky Scones" width="240" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7647/27502380940_86b9fd301a_m.jpg" height="240" hspace="2"/></a>The June recipe for the Bread Bible bake-through is Flaky Scones. These are a rich biscuit dough which is folded several times before cutting to get flaky layers, as in a rough puff pastry dough. The recipe calls for currants, which I didn't have on hand and which probably wouldn't go over well with the raisin-averse folks next door. What I did have was some rather aged dried blueberries, which seemed like a good substitution in terms of size. I plumped those in a bit of hot water to compensate for their long time in the back of the fridge. I had looked at Rose's suggested variation of a lemon poppyseed scone, and decided that adding lime zest with my blueberries would be a nice cross-fertilization of the base recipe and the variation. I made a half recipe--sister-in-law's school term is over, so no need to bake for her classes for teachers.
<p>
As is my usual approach these days, I grated frozen butter with a box grater instead of cutting the butter into lumps then rubbing or pressing it into flakes. As someone with warm hands and a generally warmish kitchen, anything I can do to minimize handling pastry dough is to the good. I then put the grated butter back into the freezer to firm back up before incorporating it into the dry ingredients. After tossing the butter and flour mixture together, it looked like the butter pieces were already at a good size for this recipe, so I proceeded to add the heavy cream and mixed to get a dough.
<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/27706179951" title="View 'Lime-Blueberry Flaky Scones' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="Lime-Blueberry Flaky Scones" width="100" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7381/27706179951_a200ac6822_t.jpg" height="100" hspace="2"/></a>After a bit of hand kneading to get the dry bits incorporated, the dough got turned out onto a lightly floured mat and shaped and rolled into a rectangle. That got folded into thirds, then rolled again, folded, and repeat until the dough had been folded 4 times. At this point it was definitely softening, so I wrapped it up and popped it into the fridge.
<p>
After a good chill, I finished getting the dough to about a 12 by 4 inch rectangle, then trimmed the sides (saving the scraps for a misshapen biscuit-like thing), and cut 8 triangles. After calculating the Weight Watchers SmartPoints on those, I now wish I'd gone with smaller ones--these babies come out at 17 or so points each, when my daily allotment is 30. I've already passed most of the batch, frozen and wrapped and with baking instructions, to the niblings next door.
<p>
Several days after making and freezing the unbaked scones, I baked one in my toaster oven where it took just about the time recommended for a regular oven without being frozen. (My poor scone had a bit of an accident between oven and cooling rack, developing the fracture you can see in the top picture.) I had a tough time only eating half of it--it's rich and crispy, and the dried blueberries worked well. My nephew and I both agree that the lime zest could be increased--I think I used less than the recommended amount due to measuring difficulties. There's a hint of lime, but we'd like a little more punch from it.
<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/27746529826" title="View 'Lime-Blueberry Flaky Scones' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Lime-Blueberry Flaky Scones" width="100" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7137/27746529826_2dec4eb154_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/27680176542" title="View 'Lime-Blueberry Flaky Scones' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Lime-Blueberry Flaky Scones" width="75" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7055/27680176542_3ca3f77bab_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/27746531156" title="View 'Lime-Blueberry Flaky Scones' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Lime-Blueberry Flaky Scones" width="75" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7366/27746531156_57f27428f7_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/27706351731" title="View 'Lime-Blueberry Flaky Scones' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Lime-Blueberry Flaky Scones" width="75" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7647/27706351731_099732012c_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/27169739153" title="View 'Lime-Blueberry Flaky Scones' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Lime-Blueberry Flaky Scones" width="75" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7307/27169739153_537aab2cf1_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/27780576395" title="View 'Lime-Blueberry Flaky Scones' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Lime-Blueberry Flaky Scones" width="75" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7408/27780576395_b2c3fb05f1_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-86520338741079578572016-06-19T14:08:00.001-04:002016-06-19T14:10:18.914-04:00BB: Mango Bango Cheesecake<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/19370110425" title="View 'Mango Bango Cheesecake' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="Mango Bango Cheesecake" width="240" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3930/19370110425_34be83c930_m.jpg" height="180" hspace="10" /></a>Last summer, faced with life getting busier and looking at an upcoming Baking Bible assignment of the multistage Fourth of July cheesecake (<a href="http://rosesalphabakers.blogspot.com/2015/07/fourth-of-july-cheesecake.html">take a look at Marie's</a>), I made the decision to drop out of the fully committed group of Alpha Bakers, although continuing to bake along when time permitted and when the recipe was right for me. However, maybe that upcoming cheesecake that got me looking at another one in the book, the Mango Bango Cheesecake. I baked a half recipe for my birthday cake last summer and left myself (I hope) enough notes to blog it now as the Alpha Bakers are tackling it.
<p>
The Mango Bango Cheesecake uses a mix of cream cheese and full-fat Greek yogurt, leading to a softer and lighter result than an all-cream cheese variety. It also uses a sponge cake or ladyfinger base--I saw lady fingers at the supermarket and went with that option instead of baking a genoise.
<p>
For the mango, Rose calls for canned mango pulp. That's a semi-regular purchase for me, so I knew the places to look. The large Indian grocery store near me, Patel Brothers, had the brand Rose suggested, sweetened with sugar and not corn syrup. I always have to hunt a bit before remembering that the canned mango at Patel is over in the produce section, not in the canned goods where other canned fruits are. (They always seem to have three or more varieties of canned mango available.) The store is a madhouse on a weekend evening, with its cramped checkout area full of families with carts piled high. I was an outlier with my 3 cans of mango puree.
<p>
The cheesecake started with pressing the canned mango pulp through a sieve for extra smoothness, then concentrating most of the puree by a third by cooking it down in the microwave. I prepped the 6" springform pan (for my half-size cheesecake) by lining the bottom with trimmed ladyfingers.
<p>
Then came the easy batter. I ground some cardamom seeds with part of the sugar, then then sugar and cream cheese were beaten together, then egg yolks, lime juice, vanilla, and salt. Last to go in was the Greek yogurt and the remaining un-concentrated mango puree.
<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/19363985912" title="View 'Mango Bango Cheesecake' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Mango Bango Cheesecake" width="75" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/398/19363985912_e847b03df6_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>Half of the batter went into the pan atop the ladyfinger base, then half of the concentrated mango was dolloped on and swirled a bit, then the batter, dolloping of mango, and swirling repeated. The cheesecake baked in a water bath. It was hard to tell the baking time for the half-recipe as the only guidance on when it's done is that the center should jiggle slightly after it has sat in the oven for an hour after baking. (Don't know what you would do at that point if it was undercooked.) Mine was very liquid at 10 minutes under the full-size cooking time, so I ended up baking it the recommended time for the full recipe. The top browned a bit, but in the end the texture was fine and it was very moist.
<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/19374162011" title="View 'Mango Bango Cheesecake' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="Mango Bango Cheesecake" width="100" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3745/19374162011_e1e18c54f4_t.jpg" height="75" hspace="10" /></a>The last touch is another round of mango puree, pushed through sieve, then combined with cornstarch and heated to get a topping. Result: very pretty cheesecake.
<p>
Taste test: excellent flavor in the cheesecake, with the mango blobs and topping giving a nice flavor burst. It was very nice with raspberries on the side, probably also would have been wonderful with some of Rose's raspberry sauce. The ladyfinger crust added absolutely nothing but (I guess) some ability to shift the finished cake onto a serving plate--it doesn't disintegrate, but the effect is basically soggy cake. That neutral base is probably the intent, but I'd like to try this cheesecake with a cookie crust for a more interesting texture and taste contrast. I will have to do some research to see if the yogurt in the cheesecake will add so much moisture that even a cookie crust would get soggy.
<p>
Bottom line: this is a little more trouble than a one-bowl cheesecake, but worth it. I might skip the pressing through a sieve especially for the mango that goes into the cheesecake body, as I don't think a bit of texture would bother me (and there was very little residue in the sieve anyway). I would like a more interesting crust--I've had this sponge-cake base on several different cheesecakes and found it added nothing every time. Graham cracker would be too jarring in the flavor department, so I would consider other cookie-crumb options.
<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/19374164451" title="View 'Mango Bango Cheesecake' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Mango Bango Cheesecake" width="75" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/506/19374164451_2475d0e90d_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/19374163941" title="View 'Mango Bango Cheesecake' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Mango Bango Cheesecake" width="75" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3895/19374163941_c88d3d7248_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/19183929039" title="View 'Mango Bango Cheesecake' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Mango Bango Cheesecake" width="75" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/462/19183929039_fd4fdcfb5d_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/19363985912" title="View 'Mango Bango Cheesecake' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Mango Bango Cheesecake" width="75" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/398/19363985912_e847b03df6_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/19374162391" title="View 'Mango Bango Cheesecake' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Mango Bango Cheesecake" width="100" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3814/19374162391_c200b942db_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/19374162011" title="View 'Mango Bango Cheesecake' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Mango Bango Cheesecake" width="100" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3745/19374162011_e1e18c54f4_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/18747562674" title="View 'Mango Bango Cheesecake' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Mango Bango Cheesecake" width="100" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/507/18747562674_bc327ba058_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-42091258674182842452016-05-15T20:57:00.001-04:002016-05-15T20:58:06.480-04:00The Bread Bible: Blueberry muffins<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26431902354" title="View 'Blueberry muffins' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Blueberry muffins" width="180" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7322/26431902354_951794ef4c_m.jpg" height="240"/></a>I needed baked goods in a hurry one night for sister-in-law's Tickling Tech session, so started these at 9. I was hoping to have my own blueberries for this assignment from The Bread Bible bake-through, but the berries on the earliest of the bushes I planted between my house and the folks next door remain a bit underripe.<p>
I doubled the recipe as younger niece was passing through town with 3 friends on their way to Florida for a brief end-of-the-college-semester vacation. The late start brought a few hurry-up steps. Forget bringing the butter to room temperature--I sliced it into thin pieces, threw on the sugar, and started beating in the stand mixer. Once that had something of a start on blending, I stopped the mixer and moved over to measure the rest of my ingredients. First was zesting a large lemon, and tossing the zest into the bowl with the butter and sugar. Dry ingredients: White Lily flour is my bleached AP flour of choice, instead of the Gold Medal or Pillsbury the recipe calls for, and baking powder and salt. (I opted for buttermilk over sour cream, and so used baking powder instead of soda.) <p>
With the dry ingredients blended and the buttermilk ready to go, I went back to the butter-sugar mixture to beat it until fluffy. The egg and vanilla was beaten in, then the mixing moved to a manual process. Half the dry ingredients and half the buttermilk went on top of the butter and were folded in, then the remaining flour and buttermilk, then the "wild" frozen blueberries, straight from the bag as there's no rinsing and drying of frozen berries. As the berries start defrosting on contact with the room-temperature batter I got some streaking in the batter, but I'm not bothered by the cosmetics. (I've used one blueberry muffin recipe that mashes half the berries into the batter for moistness, then folds in the rest.)<p>
I made 6 regular-sized muffins, then managed 23 mini muffins with the remaining batter. I sprinkled on large sugar crystals and grated a bit of fresh nutmeg over each. The sugar crystals seem to have dissolved for the most part, leaving a rather mottled top to the muffins--maybe I was too slow with getting them into the oven and gave the sugar time to melt.<p>
The muffins baked a bit longer than called for due to the frozen berries, but emerged nicely brown and at temperature. The report was that the lemon-blueberry taste was lovely.<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26968855701" title="View 'Blueberry muffins' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Blueberry muffins" width="75" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7201/26968855701_a01c545ccd_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26433877683" title="View 'Blueberry muffins' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Blueberry muffins" width="75" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7656/26433877683_774ccd7f90_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26433877953" title="View 'Blueberry muffins' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Blueberry muffins" width="75" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7548/26433877953_6e2bb319c7_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26943201332" title="View 'Blueberry muffins' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Blueberry muffins" width="75" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7182/26943201332_1c7cdf46ff_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-35242076696850749932016-05-15T17:19:00.001-04:002016-05-15T17:19:57.288-04:00Rose's Melting Pot: Chicken Cacciatore<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26651370970" title="View 'Chicken cacciatore' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Chicken cacciatore" width="180" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7070/26651370970_2ee640b898_m.jpg" height="240"/></a>I'm not sure I've ever eaten chicken cacciatore before--I don't recall it being in my mother's repertoire growing up, nor do I recall ordering it in a restaurant. Maybe it was on some school cafeteria line many years ago? Well, if I've ever had it before, I've forgotten. This is another recipe tried under the influence of the group cooking through <em>Rose's Melting Pot</em>, published in 1994. <p>
Chicken cacciatore: it's a stovetop dish of chicken pieces cooked in a tomato-based sauce. No, that gives the wrong feel for the sauce--it's a mixture of chopped veggies bound together with tomato. The first impression is the tomato, but the carrots and celery add their own character. <br clear="all">
The recipe called for a whole chicken, but I went with a pack of 4 bone-in thighs for the convenience, number of servings, and the way you really have to work at it to overcook them. <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26651369160" title="View 'Chicken cacciatore' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="Chicken cacciatore" width="75" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7202/26651369160_e8e5e9a2d1_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> The recipe begins by by browning the chicken well, and I used just a drizzle of olive oil instead of a mix of butter and oil, knowing that my skin-on thighs would give up lots of fat quickly. After the chicken was browned it came out of the pan, any excess fat was to be removed (I had less than a tablespoon so kept it all), then in went chopped onion, carrot, and celery. That got sautéed until brown, then a minced clove of garlic was added with another minute of stirring. Then the recipe calls for a can of plum tomatoes, a small can of tomato sauce, and a bay leaf. <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26651370090" title="View 'Chicken cacciatore' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Chicken cacciatore" width="75" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7030/26651370090_d4edeb5a0f_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>I used diced fire-roasted tomatoes instead of the whole plum tomatoes--that might have given me less liquid than whole tomatoes, but never having made this before I can't be sure. The sauce simmered uncovered for 20 minutes before the chicken went back in along with some wine, wine vinegar, and a bit of sugar, then another 20 minute simmer, covered. My smaller thighs were done at that point, but the larger ones needed another 5-10 minutes.<br clear="all">
A bit of chopped parsley and a basil leaf (plucked off the poor plant I transplanted yesterday) chiffonade for garnish, and I had a lovely supper. The sauce is thick and well-flavored, and went really well with the chicken and the roasted broccoli I had on the side.NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-19792336100031513112016-05-15T17:14:00.001-04:002016-05-15T17:16:24.659-04:00Rose's Melting Pot: Non-Yorkshire Non-Popovers<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26893702051" title="View 'Popover flops' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Popover flops" width="240" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7699/26893702051_d41a28c1c3_m.jpg" height="180"/></a>I stumbled across another Internet group baking through one of Rose Levy Beranbaum's cookbooks the other day, and while I haven't decided to ask if I could join them, it did get me to pull the cookbook <em>Rose's Melting Pot</em> off the shelf and look at their recent assignments. The popovers caught my eye--I've made popovers several times with good success, and this one riffs off the basic recipe to use beef fat instead of butter for a Yorkshire pudding taste. I didn't see the need to buy and render beef fat when, like a good Southern cook, I keep some bacon fat around.<br clear="all">
I tried a few other changes too, and apparently went too far as my popovers didn't "pop". I wanted a cheese and bacon flavor so added 2 tablespoons of cheese powder, and a small amount (under a half an ounce) of finely grated Parmesan to the batter. I suspect the problem was the cheese powder messing up the hydration ratio, as popovers need that blast of steam to expand dramatically. <br clear="all">
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26928698646" title="View 'Popover flops' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="Popover flops" width="75" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7324/26928698646_82045b76ac_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>Anyway, I have some lovely browned items that look sort of like tall muffins, with slightly doughy centers. The bacon-y flavor is great, but the cheese flavor was lost. I should have skipped both the cheese powder and the grated Parm given that. Not to waste my effort, I split one popover, pulled out the doughy bits, and filled the cavities with scrambled eggs. The casing is not a good popover crust, but it still serves pretty well as a pastry case.<br clear="all">
This same recipe will show up in The Bread Bible bake-through eventually, so I'll give it another shot then.<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26356809274" title="View 'Popover flops' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Popover flops" width="75" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7229/26356809274_cd65855632_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-77592413690716437602016-05-09T22:35:00.001-04:002016-05-09T22:36:39.465-04:00BB: Blueberry Buckle<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26319577043" title="View 'Blueberry Buckle' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="Blueberry Buckle" width="193" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7149/26319577043_09bf4291a0_m.jpg" height="240" hspace="2"/></a>Alas, the Blueberry Buckle assignment came along a week or so too early for my blueberry bushes...the berries are not yet blue. I did find some Georgia-grown blueberries at the store, though, for this easy recipe. Seemed to me that the hardest part was picking blueberry stems off the berries.<br clear="all">
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26890008296" title="View 'IMG_4354' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="IMG_4354" width="75" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7688/26890008296_4ffebb63bc_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>I used an 8" square Pyrex dish for my buckle, with 2 small ramekins on the side for tasters as the large dish was headed off to sister-in-law's Friday morning Tickling Tech session for teachers. A mixture of sugar, cornstarch, lemon zest, a bit of salt, and lemon juice goes in the pan and mixed, then in go the blueberries to get coated with it. I spooned out a bit for each ramekin at this point. Then came a quick cake batter, mixed in the fats-into-flour method, then beating in an egg mixture. The dough got dolloped onto the ramekins and the square pan, leaving a border around the edges and a center hole in the big pan. I didn't make my center hole the suggested 2 inches (with some vague thought that my square pan might not need that large a hole, or maybe it was thinking that batter was piled up pretty good around the sides, and it closed up in the baking. I suspect that just slowed the baking down a bit, as that center part was the last to get done.
<p>
The little ramekins were done in 20 minutes. The big dish took the full 40 minutes, covered with foil to slow down the browning for the last 10.
I ate my little ramekin of buckle while waiting for the larger one to finish, warm, and it was lovely with the cake topping on sweet fruit. I generally will make a crumble when I want a baked fruit dessert because I like the crunchy character of that topping, but this was a nice change.<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26923368535" title="View 'Blueberry Buckle' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Blueberry Buckle" width="75" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7733/26923368535_81f99db07b_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26319574693" title="View 'Blueberry Buckle' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Blueberry Buckle" width="75" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7119/26319574693_007317c873_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26856058201" title="View 'Blueberry Buckle' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Blueberry Buckle" width="75" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7110/26856058201_38b02e4915_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26890009996" title="View 'Blueberry Buckle' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Blueberry Buckle" width="75" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7524/26890009996_7fd8c47b7c_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26923370175" title="View 'Blueberry Buckle' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Blueberry Buckle" width="75" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7648/26923370175_4194168af0_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26890010946" title="View 'Blueberry Buckle' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Blueberry Buckle" width="77" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7533/26890010946_f36480474a_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26890012226" title="View 'Blueberry Buckle' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Blueberry Buckle" width="75" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7338/26890012226_07e3153ff8_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-7211624708663910112016-05-01T23:52:00.001-04:002016-05-01T23:54:48.140-04:00BB: Crumpets<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26763512625" title="View 'Crumpets' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="Crumpets" width="180" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1507/26763512625_b35c561eb0_m.jpg" hspace="2" height="240"/></a> I'd been thinking about making crumpets, even before noticing they are the recipe for the Alpha Bakers this week. It started as I was weeding my cookbooks a bit, deciding that the old Time-Life <em>Good Cook</em> volume on <em>Bread</em> is headed out the door. AS I was flipping through it, I spotted the photo layout that led me to make my first crumpets--I think to that point crumpets were something from British stories I'd read, but never seen in my part of the world. The <em>Good Cook</em> version is Jane Grigson's, from <em>English Food</em>.
<p>So, I made them, found them good, and eventually crumpets appeared in the refrigerated section of the grocery stores here and looked much like my homemade version. I don't think I've made them at home since the grocery store version appeared, though homemade area certainly superior.
<p>Now, <em>The Baking Bible</em> version: this is a fast recipe for one involving yeast, and as it's a small batch (1 cup of flour) it doesn't even need to dirty more than a bowl and some measuring spoons. I mixed my flour, yeast, touch of sugar, and salt with a whisk, added the warm water, beat the mixture for a bit with the whisk, then (in nostalgia for the <em>Good Cook</em> technique) slapped the batter around with my hand for a bit. My first rise was done after an hour, in went baking soda in a bit of almond milk, then the batter got a further 30 minutes to bubble away some more.<br clear="all">
<p><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26159997293" title="View 'Crumpets' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Crumpets" width="180" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1605/26159997293_ed087290be_m.jpg" height="240"/></a>I used my electric griddle for the baking, and found the recommended temperature was too high--my crumpets got a bit too brown before they cooked through, even though they were thinner than I really like them. Next time, I'll add more batter to my shallow crumpet rings and try to hit that balance between full and running over.
<p>Details aside, I now have 5 holey crumpets for future toasting-- the 6th having been eating off the griddle with a bit of butter.<br clear="all">
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26738347466" title="View 'Crumpets' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Crumpets" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1562/26738347466_c7fdc598cd_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26490768540" title="View 'Crumpets' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Crumpets" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1653/26490768540_59cfe36e12_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/26738347836" title="View 'Crumpets' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Crumpets" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1563/26738347836_e86e379454_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-8005432549326678862016-04-03T15:34:00.000-04:002016-04-07T23:46:17.058-04:00The Bread Bible: Sacaduros<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25763334045" title="View 'Sacaduros' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Sacaduros" width="180" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1566/25763334045_b9a3eaa59c_m.jpg" height="240"/></a>A sacaduro is a roll of Portugal, or maybe Brazil, or maybe this version is an American incarnation from those roots. No matter the origin, this recipe from Beranbaum's <i>The Bread Bible</i> is a small roll formed around a little cube of butter and fleur de sel, and baked to a crusty bun. The crisp hard crust is the defining characteristic of sacaduros. This one also has an interesting shaping method aimed at producing 'petals' in the finished bun.<p>
This version starts with Beranbaum's Basic Hearth bread, which is made with bread flour (for a good chew) and a bit of whole wheat flout. The sacaduros recipe calls for a 3/4 recipe of this--too much math for me that day, nor did I want to have to bake the remaining 1/4 of the dough into something else if I made a full recipe. I went with a half recipe, got something over the weight of dough I expected, and made 12 rolls slightly larger than the weight given. (The 3/4 recipe was supposed to yield 14.) <p>
The recipe wasn't clear on how far one was to take the Basic Hearth Bread before moving to the Sacaduros recipe, but as sacaduros appear to be all in the shaping, I took the Hearth Bread though the 2 rises and up to its shaping. To make the sacaduoros, you grab a ball of dough, flatten it, put a small cube of butter and a bit of salt on it, then pull out the sides and fold them over the center, gently pressing down. If you press too hard, the dough may seal and then not open into petals. Too gently, and it will unfold before you can bake it. After 3 rounds of pulling out opposite sides and folding them over, the roll is upended into a bed of flour to get a contrast of flour-dusted and not areas. Then the rolls go into the oven without any rising time using the usual technique to add steam, and they are done.<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25737272026" title="View 'Sacaduros' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="Sacaduros" width="180" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1585/25737272026_8145d9699d_m.jpg" height="240"/></a>Instead of filling a large flat pan with flour (and putting the leftover back in the bin), I used a cereal bowl to hold my flour, dipped each roll as it was shaped, then put it on the baking sheet. The recipe has you leave the rolls upside down in the flour bed as you finish shaping the others. I'm not sure what difference that would have made, but mine came out pretty well in the shaping department, with only 1 that really didn't unfold and another unfolded partially. And I had a lot less loose flour to deal with! <p>
I worried about the points burning and covered the pan loosely with foil after 10 minutes, and that might have kept me from getting really golden brown on the body of the rolls. I also didn't get a great contrast between flour-coated parts and bare dough, which might either be the flour not adhering well or again the limited browning.<p>
Appearance aside, this is a good-tasting roll, with rave reviews from everyone who got one. The butter leaked out a bit to have each roll sitting in a bit of melted butter, and the interior still has a nice buttery taste. The buns have a good crust as well, and a fairly light interior. I can see trying different compound butters in this recipe, starting with garlic butter.<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25642371962" title="View 'Sacaduros - Sponge and flour blanket' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sacaduros - Sponge and flour blanket" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1448/25642371962_597e3fe0c8_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25737266516" title="View 'Sacaduros - rough dough' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sacaduros - rough dough" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1532/25737266516_d5255c3412_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25136741453" title="View 'Sacaduros - kneaded dough' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sacaduros - kneaded dough" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1521/25136741453_df939503be_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25737267816" title="View 'Sacaduros - begin first rise' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sacaduros - begin first rise" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1551/25737267816_1b88a11599_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25763329845" title="View 'Sacaduros - end first rise' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sacaduros - end first rise" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1454/25763329845_f3f6655a68_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25763330855" title="View 'Sacaduros - shaping, butter and salt' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sacaduros - shaping, butter and salt" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1448/25763330855_fde186b690_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25668260421" title="View 'Sacaduros - folded bun' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sacaduros - folded bun" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1703/25668260421_fb6db1cb34_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25136745543" title="View 'Sacaduros - flour-dipped bun' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sacaduros - flour-dipped bun" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1485/25136745543_84d218aa26_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25737272026" title="View 'Sacaduros' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sacaduros" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1585/25737272026_8145d9699d_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-78985818167227702452016-03-20T15:51:00.001-04:002016-03-20T15:52:06.823-04:00BB: Babka with Chocolate-Almond Schmear<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25913263216" title="View 'Babka with Chocolate Almond Schmear' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="Babka with Chocolate Almond Schmear" width="240" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1714/25913263216_397dbbb857_m.jpg" height="180"/></a>My babka, the weekly Rose's Alpha Bakers recipe, shows both how distracted I am and that you can get away with a good bit of sloppiness and still have a wonderful bread at the end. I set out to bake a half recipe of the babka using the chocolate almond schmear filling. While both the almond and the apricot and cream cheese fillings sounded good, I went with the chocolate because, well, chocolate. Also no cream cheese in the house and not wanting to make a grocery store run. <p>
The bread began, as usual, with a spong. I keep King Arthur bread flour instead of Rose's preferred Gold Medal, but I didn't want to haul down the second flour container and work out the weights for a half-recipe to get just the right protein level blending KA all-purpose and bread flours, and so used all KA bread flour. From Rose's note, I'll have a denser crumb and more browning as a result. The sponge got a bout 2 hours of rising time at room temperature (because I got absorbed on the computer and forgot it), then went into the fridge overnight to build flavor. Mixing the actual dough was a snap in the stand mixer...except I discovered as I set it to rise that I'd omitted the vanilla. I spread the dough out on a pastry mat and kneaded the vanilla in, mostly. The somewhat uneven areas after this activity seemed to disappear in the first rise.<p>
Then the recipe calls for deflating the dough and chilling it so it can be rolled out and shaped. I distractedly assumed there was a second rise before the shaping and gave it one, stretching out the process as the chilling step can't be skipped: the dough is too soft and sticky otherwise.<p>
While the mistaken second rise was on, I made the filling. The chocolate-almond schmear calls for cake crumbs as a primary component. I normally wouldn't have cake or cake crumbs around, though this time I did (or I could have reclaimed the leftovers from next door). However, that cake is a sort-of spice cake flavored with nutmeg and cinnamon. I didn't want nutmeg in my chocolate schmear (though the dark chocolate might have hidden it) so dragged an end of challah from the freezer and made crumbs with that. I figured generic "cake" would have been higher fat and certainly higher sugar than the challah, and of course wouldn't have yeast, but that the real purpose of these crumbs is a carrier for the chocolate and almond paste. I'm sure less sweet would be fine for all of us, and with the butter in the schmear I didn't think the lower fat level will matter either. <p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25310450483" title="View 'Babka' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Babka" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1534/25310450483_e08333a302_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>Schmear waiting, it was time to roll out the dough. I skipped flouring the surface and rolled directly on a silicon mat, letting the residual Pam from the rising container give a bit of non-stick help. I couldn't really interpret the proportions instructions in order to work out which direction to halve, so I winged it and made a rough rectangle, spread on the chocolate (couldn't work out which end to leave a wider margin, either), and rolled it up, pressing as I went to try to keep the bread from opening gaps around the filling. I recently bought a 6-cup Bundt pan precisely for doing half recipes, and the roll of babka dough fit in it nicely though without much overlap...guess my rough rectangle should have been a bit wider.<p>
It baked just in 40 minutes, rotated in the oven after 25, got nicely brown on top (I covered it loosely with foil after the first 25 minutes) though maybe a bit light on the bottom. The warm bread got brushed with melted butter (which Rose calls a "butter glaze") to soften the crust.<p>
Result: nice light crumb, good chocolate flavor on the filling, for a winner of a bread. I did have gaps around the filling, so I guess my rolling-and-pressing technique needs some work. The filling also has a tendency to fall out in moist crumbs as you slice the bread and my limited babka experience doesn't tell me if this is typical. The crumbs become an treat for the one doing the slicing.... <p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25310446573" title="View 'Babka' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Babka" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1720/25310446573_9247730ec2_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25306473034" title="View 'Babka' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Babka" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1703/25306473034_98de3dc867_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25310447843" title="View 'Babka' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Babka" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1450/25310447843_1f5457183a_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25844213861" title="View 'Babka' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Babka" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1679/25844213861_24eae304d1_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25939171905" title="View 'Babka' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Babka" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1637/25939171905_6793bf5826_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25310450483" title="View 'Babka' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Babka" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1534/25310450483_e08333a302_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25306477294" title="View 'Babka' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Babka" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1633/25306477294_82ecdfcbb4_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25913260536" title="View 'Babka' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Babka" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1710/25913260536_565fe481af_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25306478954" title="View 'Babka' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Babka" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1630/25306478954_14a0f0b0ca_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25306479694" title="View 'Babka' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Babka" width="98" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1657/25306479694_35099c9235_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-8258536447544391102016-03-07T08:51:00.001-05:002016-03-07T08:54:52.196-05:00BB: Coconut Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Ganache<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25542906945" title="View 'Coconut Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Ganache' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="Coconut Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Ganache" width="180" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1606/25542906945_061a47ae79_m.jpg" height="240"/></a>A blast-from-the-past recipe this week for Rose's Alpha Bakers, at least those who were also in the Heavenly Bakers group: this week's Coconut Cupcakes are a re-configured cupcake version of the "Southern (Manhattan) Coconut Cake" from <em>Rose's Heavenly Cakes</em>. As it happens, <a href="http://nlbarber.blogspot.com/2011/04/rhc-southern-manhattan-coconut-cake.html">I had baked the RHC version as cupcakes</a>. I seem to be shrinking things even further, as I did this week's recipe as mini cupcakes.<p>
This coconut cake is a white cake made with coconut milk and flavored with coconut extract (I had an oil-based "coconut flavor"). I halved the recipe and got 23 mini cupcakes from the batch. With the small amounts of various ingredients to work with, I dug out a hand-held mixer for the job and the cake batter came together very quickly. <p>
For the frosting, I went with the "Custom Rose Blend Milk Chocolate Ganache" instead of the multi-stage buttercream (been there, done that, not really my thing...). The custom blend ganache takes white chocolate, dark chocolate, and cream to make a ganache, instead of just a chocolate of the desired level plus cream. I chopped my chocolate by hand and poured the hot cream over it instead of using a food processor, again feeling that the smaller amount of ingredients didn't warrant the full sized appliance. Needing to rush the cooling by sticking it in the fridge (more week night baking), I overshot a bit and lost the nice shiny finish to the ganache, but the texture was still smooth enough in the end.<p>
A couple of the cupcakes got eaten plain (ahem) and I enjoyed the delicate coconut flavor. With the ganache applied plus some (labor saving) Trader Joe's toasted coconut chips for decor, the dominant flavor is the chocolate--which is nice, but a balance with the coconut would have been better. I think full-sized cupcakes, not overly plied with ganache, might have balanced the components better.<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25450172331" title="View 'Coconut Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Ganache' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Coconut Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Ganache" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1526/25450172331_e7c7d16d74_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24912375554" title="View 'Coconut Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Ganache' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Coconut Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Ganache" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1480/24912375554_943eac9e83_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25450170921" title="View 'Coconut Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Ganache' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Coconut Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Ganache" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1525/25450170921_8234b04b1a_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-69889692109316894992016-03-06T14:39:00.001-05:002016-03-06T14:41:13.029-05:00BB: Cranberry Walnut Christmas Bread, but Pecan<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24360726352" title="View 'Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread" width="240" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1561/24360726352_9a55702bcb_m.jpg" height="240"/></a>Here's a very belated writeup of baking the Cranberry Walnut Christmas Bread from Beranbaum's The Baking Bible, which was on the group's baking list for (surprise) the week of Christmas. I subbed toasted pecans from a local not-really-a-farmer's-market place, saving both the toasting step and the rubbing of walnut skins...and I like pecans better. I grabbed an opaque bag of store brand cranberries which turned out to be chopped cranberries and not the whole ones called for.<p>
This bread starts out with a biga, with a recommendation that it get 3 days to develop the best flavor. Mine rested overnight--better than the 6-hour minimum, anyway. Meanwhile the cranberries got a soak to soften them, then were drained and the soaking liquid became the liquid for the bread dough.<p>
I used my KitchenAid mixer for the dough, as I do with almost all breads these days. The biga was cut into pieces into the cranberry water, then in goes the flour and other dry ingredients, including some diastatic malt powder that I'd cooked into non-diastatic state per Internet instructions. It got an autolyse pause then machine kneading, then in went the oil and the chopped nuts...gosh, that's a lot of nuts. It took a long time to get most of the nuts incorporated, and there were periodic escapees from the dough. Next was to add the soaked cranberry fragments--in the mixer for me, hoping it wouldn't stain the dough too much...but then with the fruit already cut, that was pretty much of a lost cause. I let the mixer go a bit longer to get the cranberries fairly distributed. If I'd thought this dough had a lot of mix-ins before, I was wrong.<p>
Once I had the dough completed, brimming with all its nuts and fruit, I dumped it into greased bowl, pulled it back out to shape a bit, and let it rise twice. On shaping after the second rise, I moved all the pecans that were very close to the top and tucked them into better covered locations, trying to avoid burned pecans. The recipe called for a torpedo shape, but I opted for using my big loaf pan...which might be a touch too big, as I'd have preferred a slightly taller loaf. The dough rose well, was slashed with lame, spritzed with water, and baked using the ice cubes in a hot pan to add steam. Despite being pretty careful to not overproof, I still didn't get much oven spring. <p>
Results: Excellent bread. This was a hit with everyone, even those not all that fond of cranberries. (Maybe the smaller cranberry pieces helped there.) It's got a nice chewy texture, and as noted above, a high ratio of "good stuff" to bread. I'm planning on baking this one again.<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23840805854" title="View 'Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1591/23840805854_7cdeeef77d_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24101230429" title="View 'Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1629/24101230429_81d3a5160f_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24469027115" title="View 'Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1714/24469027115_934110d2a7_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24173433560" title="View 'Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1493/24173433560_ecd7d1cf80_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24173434040" title="View 'Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1543/24173434040_a5c6b95987_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23840809084" title="View 'Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1442/23840809084_b2fb4ce266_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24386604081" title="View 'Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1563/24386604081_6867271891_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24101233829" title="View 'Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1481/24101233829_29462cac95_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23842210573" title="View 'Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1494/23842210573_325ed3bfff_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23842211033" title="View 'Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1559/23842211033_6c3617ecb4_t.jpg" height="72"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24469031335" title="View 'Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1633/24469031335_a270e10bdb_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23840812174" title="View 'Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1459/23840812174_099442e9a3_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24360725742" title="View 'Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Cranberry Pecan Christmas Bread" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1658/24360725742_06fabce19c_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-2685268265563961192016-03-06T13:08:00.001-05:002016-03-22T21:03:51.991-04:00The Bread Bible: Pretzel Bread<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25030463316" title="View 'Pretzel Bread' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Pretzel Bread" width="240" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1657/25030463316_8490a3074c_m.jpg" height="240"/></a>Pretzel Rolls, really. Cute, little pretzel rolls, about 4 inches long, a good size for nibbling. The goal of this Bread Bible recipe is the authentic soft-pretzel taste and appearance, though not the shape.<p>
This is a fairly small dough recipe, maybe because the edible half-life of an uneaten soft pretzel is quite short. The recipe uses bread flour with a few tablespoons of whole wheat thrown in as many of The Bread Bible recipes do. I did add the optional malt powder--diastolic, as it turns out, as the recipe didn't specify and that's what was open. (I now have found Rose's note in the back saying that she uses non-diastolic because her flour is malted...oh well. At this amount, I don't think it matters much.)
<p>The dough mixture was quite dry, so I added a teaspoon or so of water early in the kneading to get everything moist. Then after a generous 7 minutes of kneading, I had several pieces of very stiff dough--it had been one ball for a while, but then separated and wasn't moist enough to come back together. At that point I added another half-teaspoon of water and gave it another 3 or 4 minutes of kneading. I wouldn't call the result a smooth ball of dough, but at least it was one piece. Also still very stiff, as the recipe indicated it would be.<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24761205840" title="View 'Pretzel Bread' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="Pretzel Bread" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1519/24761205840_a55bf25bd0_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> I divided my ball of dough into 12 pieces of 33 grams each, which was much smaller than the size the recipe indicated of 3.5 inches by 2.5 inches high. These were to be shaped into flattened balls for the first rest and rise. Mine ended up as flattened dough circles of about 2.5 inches diameter, and maybe 1/3 inch high. I see from notes in the bake-along Facebook group that the size guidelines seem to have been dropped from a later edition of the book, perhaps to correct this. I'm beginning to think I should sell my copy and buy a new one (probably an ebook, at this point, as I think I've got plenty of general bread books around now)--the revisions between the editions clearly go beyond the errata that I've already marked in my copy.<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24429946993" title="View 'Pretzel Bread' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="Pretzel Bread" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1687/24429946993_d990cd1a6a_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>After the first rise, the dough pieces of whatever shape get formed into vaguely football (American, that is) shapes and get a second brief rise, then are refrigerated to firm them up for the dipping-in-lye process that produces the classic pretzel crust. I did procure food-grade lye and very cautiously used it for my dipping solution, and indeed got the pretzel-brown finish I wanted. In one change from the recipe, I dipped my rolls first, then slashed them, so I would get the color contrast on the finished rolls.<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24963504181" title="View 'IMG_4099' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="IMG_4099" width="240" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1449/24963504181_74eb275b05_m.jpg" height="240"/></a>Results: the appearance was great--very pretzel-ly. I'm not a huge soft pretzel fan so my personal tasting comment is "it's a soft pretzel", and all other tasters got these the next day when the salt had melted with storage and the rolls were beginning to stale. Didn't stop them from getting eaten, though!
NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-28441604321774182592016-03-05T22:52:00.001-05:002016-03-07T12:18:47.354-05:00The Bread Bible: New Zealand Almond and Fig Bread<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25511901196" title="View 'NZ Almond and Fig Bread' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="NZ Almond and Fig Bread" width="240" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1500/25511901196_a27947fa02_m.jpg" height="154"/></a>I first baked this bread in 2007, according to a note I left in my copy of The Bread Bible, attracted by the photo--The Bread Bible is of the era where there are fewer (costly) photos, bound in groups between the signatures of non-glossy recipe pages. The bread didn't make a strong impression besides the caution (also in that note) that the apricot jam glaze softened the covering of sliced almonds into slightly soggy flakes.
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However, it's this month's choice for the Bread Bible Alpha Bakers and I had almonds and figs on hand, so I gave it another try. The base technique is familiar: make a sponge of bread flour, water and yeast, mix all the remaining ingredients (more bread flour, more yeast, whole-wheat flour), and sprinkle on the sponge. Let that sit at room temperature for an hour, then move it to the fridge for up to 24 hours. A bit of oil goes in, then I used the KitchenAid to bash it into a dough. The resulting mass was quite dry, perhaps as the temperature has gotten chilly again so the heat is on to dehydrate the house. The rough dough gets to rest and relax for 20 minutes (and hydrate), then the salt goes in before the real kneading. While waiting, I lightly toasted some slivered almonds (blanched, and from my freezer stash which accounts for the pre-toasting) and roughly chopped them, then sliced and diced the Mission figs into fairly small bits. I also added my chopped almonds with the salt, to let the mixer help get those integrated. Not the figs, though, as I think they would have been bashed into a paste to make a fig-dough. The dough was still quite dry even after the hydration rest, so I also began spritzing on water as it kneaded. In the end I had a somewhat tacky (as called for), very stiff dough. This I rolled out on a floured silicon mat to a rough rectangle, sprinkled on my fig bits, rolled it up, coiled it, and sort of smoothed that into a ball without kneading it.
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25445281121" title="View 'NZ Almond and Fig Bread' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="NZ Almond and Fig Bread" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1506/25445281121_68e1d791b1_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>This recipe was not a good choice for the weeknight when I baked it, as now it needed 3 rises. I sped these up a bit by using my warming drawer with the heat a bit above the usual proof setting, but still...three rises. After the first the dough got 2 letter-folds, then after the second it was shaped into a ball (the stiff dough still fighting this), spritzed with water, and rolled in sliced almonds. The round loaf then went onto a SilPain mat for its last rise before baking. After the last rise I spritzed a bit more water on the barest spots where the initial almond coating had been spread by the rising dough, and stuck on more sliced almonds. Then, remembering that I didn't like the jam glaze on my previous attempt at this bread, I made an egg wash and carefully brushed that on the bread and almonds before sliding it into the oven. That egg wash was probably was the major factor in needing to cover it with foil only 10 minutes into the bake, but in the end the almonds were well browned but not burned.
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The result is a beautiful load with the almond coating and a whole fig stuck in the middle. It's a nice chewy white loaf (I don't detect much from the whole-wheat flour), with a bit of crunch from the interior and exterior almonds and a bit of sweetness from the fig bits. I've had it plain and toasted, and may try making a grilled cheese sandwich with it too. Not a stellar bread in terms of taste for me, but a very pretty effect.
<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25247295190" title="View 'New Zealand Fig and Almond Bread, 2007' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="New Zealand Fig and Almond Bread, 2007" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1489/25247295190_6f007194be_t.jpg" height="75"/></a>The 2007 version, shinier <br \>with its apricot glaze.
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25445275401" title="View 'NZ Almond and Fig Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="NZ Almond and Fig Bread" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1670/25445275401_1ab29ac436_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24907497254" title="View 'NZ Almond and Fig Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="NZ Almond and Fig Bread" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1674/24907497254_8926d1c5b9_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25538023225" title="View 'NZ Almond and Fig Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="NZ Almond and Fig Bread" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1486/25538023225_e65b846e8e_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25445277601" title="View 'NZ Almond and Fig Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="NZ Almond and Fig Bread" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1546/25445277601_069989d315_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25445278081" title="View 'NZ Almond and Fig Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="NZ Almond and Fig Bread" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1552/25445278081_5613a986e4_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25538025475" title="View 'NZ Almond and Fig Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="NZ Almond and Fig Bread" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1532/25538025475_8b180bd806_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/25170487489" title="View 'NZ Almond and Fig Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="NZ Almond and Fig Bread" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1489/25170487489_e87a568846_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-54487141172842512752016-01-18T18:46:00.001-05:002016-01-18T18:47:34.120-05:00The Bread Bible: Sweet Potato Biscuits<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24468945335" title="View 'Sweet Potato Biscuits' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="Sweet Potato Biscuits" width="180" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1462/24468945335_cb8d35771d_m.jpg" height="240"/></a>With a little more baked sweet potato around after baking the Sweet Potato Bread, I moved over in Beranbaum's <em>The Bread Bible</em> to the quick breads section to try these Sweet Potato Biscuits. The recipe is actually an angel biscuit variation--angel biscuits add yeast to the usual baking powder leavening of biscuits, for more rise and a texture that's usually in between a dinner roll and a typical American biscuit. (More towards the dinner roll end, to me.) We have a family favorite whole-wheat angel biscuit recipe that appears on many of our holiday menus, so it's a style I'm pretty familiar with.<p>
The baked sweet potato had already been pushed through the fine screen of a ricer, so was ready to go. I used White Lily all-purpose flour, not wanting to go buy the self-rising, and added the necessary salt and baking powder (had to borrow a little from my sister-in-law, who had (gasp) the kind with aluminum in it...though I suspect I'll never taste it). I grated the butter in frozen, then crumbled and squished the bits by hand to get a more uniform mixture. Next time, I think a food processor would do this better, as the goal does not seem to be to retain any butter flakes like many biscuit recipes do. <p>
Next to go in are yolks from hardboiled eggs, and I bought the prepackaged "small" eggs from the deli department and found that 3 of these gave just a bit over the specified 37 grams that 2 large eggs are supposed to produce. The yolks are pressed through a strainer into the flour-butter mixture, and whisked to blend.<p>
The wet ingredients of sweet potato and either heavy cream or buttermilk (I had whole-milk buttermilk) are beaten together, then added to the dry and stirred around to get a sticky dough. The dough is covered and let rise until puffy, about 1-1/2 hours. That's a difference from my whole-wheat angel biscuit recipe, which don't get any rising time for the yeast to work, and I may have to try this technique on the whole-wheat version--or alternatively, try baking the sweet potato biscuits with no rising time. Once puffy, the dough is patted down in its container and moved to the refrigerator for at least 4 hours, or up to 3 days. I made the dough on Sunday night before a work trip on Monday, so mine got to wait 4 days, until Thursday night. But I forgot about them, so it was actually Friday afternoon, and the dough had a nice tangy smell.<p>
As I've been doing with several quick breads recently, I rolled the dough out to the right thickness (after a quick kneading), then just cut it into squares being careful to use a straight cut and not seal the edges. I like this because it avoid any re-rolling and scraps...but it didn't work well here as the biscuit edges that weren't cut kept those sides from rising well. Next time I'll use a biscuit cutter, or maybe trim the edges before cutting out my squares if I think I can have fewer scraps that way.<p>
The biscuits rise after being cut out, then finally get that baking. The results are very nice and fluffy rolls with a strong orange color, but I didn't get much if any flavor from the sweet potato. These would make a nice dinner roll when you want to add color to the table, perhaps for Thanksgiving when sweet potatoes are a traditional part of the meal.<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23842118533" title="View 'Sweet Potato Biscuits' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sweet Potato Biscuits" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1447/23842118533_84256ae0c6_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24386514231" title="View 'Sweet Potato Biscuits' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sweet Potato Biscuits" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1680/24386514231_dd4ae99399_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24386514521" title="View 'Sweet Potato Biscuits' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sweet Potato Biscuits" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1675/24386514521_4200385eed_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24468943145" title="View 'Sweet Potato Biscuits' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sweet Potato Biscuits" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1526/24468943145_008c812c99_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24442731796" title="View 'Sweet Potato Biscuits' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sweet Potato Biscuits" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1562/24442731796_b9ea010272_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24386516611" title="View 'Sweet Potato Biscuits' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sweet Potato Biscuits" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1466/24386516611_20af3a04f1_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24468944665" title="View 'Sweet Potato Biscuits' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sweet Potato Biscuits" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1700/24468944665_f2838c2a9a_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23842123543" title="View 'Sweet Potato Biscuits' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sweet Potato Biscuits" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1462/23842123543_55c674f951_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-54553131673050592432016-01-10T23:18:00.001-05:002016-01-10T23:23:30.161-05:00BB: White Christmas Peppermint Cake<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23815852989" title="View 'White Christmas Peppermint Cake' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="White Christmas Peppermint Cake" width="240" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1663/23815852989_c0597b8a3f_m.jpg" height="240"/></a>As I probably mentioned in some of the other food posts this holiday season, we postponed the Christmas stockings-open presents-holiday dinner stuff until January 3 this year. Although I knew the cake wouldn't be a style likely to appeal to either me or the folks next door, I decided to go ahead and bake the White Christmas Peppermint Cake for that meal--I at least like peppermint in pies and cakes, though white cakes generally aren't my thing. We still had a considerable collection of other holiday sweets around, so I figured we'd get along OK regardless.
I did stick to my usual half recipe, using 6" cake pans and the jury-rigged arrangement to use Rose's silicon cake strips (which fit 9" pans well) on the smaller pan size. <p>
The cake is a white butter cake, with peppermint extract added to the batter for the holiday flavor (but the cake can be made with vanilla if desired). I had egg whites in the freezer from some previous bake-along recipe, in just the right amount for my half recipe. The cakes baked up very tall and somewhat domed.<p>
The frosting is a "white white chocolate" buttercream--you make a custard by melting white chocolate with butter and adding eggs, then cooking to 160 degrees. That is cooled down, then more butter is beaten until creamy and the custard is beaten in, then vanilla. Perhaps because of my white chocolate bars, mine resulting frosting was a bit off-white. OK, more a pale yellow. <p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23888042900" title="View 'White Christmas Peppermint Cake' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="White Christmas Peppermint Cake" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1680/23888042900_6e9af0e015_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>The cake is assembled by splitting the layers, applying a layer of frosting then a sprinkle of crushed peppermint candies. More crushed peppermint candy goes on top for a festive look, though in the humidity of Atlanta the peppermint bits stuck together and formed a sort of lace topper that obstructed the slicing of the cake.<p>
We all did have a piece after our holiday dinner, though several people didn't finish theirs. I heard the usual comment that cake is dry--many of Rose's cakes are not as rich as the pound cake style we seem to eat more often, and so if you try the cake alone (without some of the frosting), it does indeed seem a bit dry. Peppermint in general is not a favorite with the folks next door and I probably should have skipped it, but then it would be a plain vanilla white cake with white chocolate (the horror!) buttercream. In this family of chocoholics, white chocolate is evil incarnate. Or something.<p>
We ate less than half of the 6" cake, and the rest went to the office and again apparently wasn't attractive, though by the end of the day I only had to scrape about a half a piece into the trash. Maybe it the January diet thing....<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23555472914" title="View 'White Christmas Peppermint Cake' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="White Christmas Peppermint Cake" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1448/23555472914_ff96d1e199_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23888038820" title="View 'White Christmas Peppermint Cake' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="White Christmas Peppermint Cake" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1658/23888038820_e8ee13dd89_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23888039300" title="View 'White Christmas Peppermint Cake' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="White Christmas Peppermint Cake" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1465/23888039300_a160afa14c_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24101062771" title="View 'White Christmas Peppermint Cake' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="White Christmas Peppermint Cake" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1686/24101062771_655c5d9cbf_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23815851629" title="View 'White Christmas Peppermint Cake' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="White Christmas Peppermint Cake" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1589/23815851629_df481f122a_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23555474724" title="View 'White Christmas Peppermint Cake' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="White Christmas Peppermint Cake" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1710/23555474724_9ec6444858_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24101060411" title="View 'White Christmas Peppermint Cake' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="White Christmas Peppermint Cake" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1596/24101060411_7ebb26215c_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24157567026" title="View 'White Christmas Peppermint Cake' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="White Christmas Peppermint Cake" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1711/24157567026_a6a5776813_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23815852569" title="View 'White Christmas Peppermint Cake' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="White Christmas Peppermint Cake" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1507/23815852569_dca4446bd9_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-7616255000029263082016-01-10T22:51:00.001-05:002016-01-10T22:52:41.575-05:00BB: My (Rose's, that is) Chocolate Chip Cookies<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24307216475" title="View 'Rose's Chocolate Chip Cookies' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Rose's Chocolate Chip Cookies" width="240" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1602/24307216475_8563cbd969_m.jpg" height="180"/></a>I'm not much of a chocolate-chip cookie baker, though I've no objections at all to eating one, crispy-chewy with melty chocolate. There are a few bakery-type places where I know I'll get the style cookie I like, but I've never tried to find the recipe and technique that produces it. My attempt at this week's bake-along recipe for Beranbaum's <i>The Baking Bible</i>, alas, isn't it. It might be my execution, or the recipe style, but the results were a fairly tall cookie that was certainly crisp-chewy, but without that buttery mouthfeel I really like. My niece liked the flavor and that these were more crisp than many, so there's one more positive opinion on them. Maybe it's just me!<p>
The main feature of the recipe is using browned butter to add flavor, your choice of whether to include the browned milk-solid bits (I did). As per my usual, I substituted pecans for the specified walnuts and thus could skip the step of trying to remove the skins. For my chocolate, I used the readily available Ghirardelli 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate chips, which are larger than the classic variety.
<p>
Once the butter is browned and cooled, this becomes a really quick-and-easy recipe: mix wet ingredients, add dry ingredients, stir in nuts and chocolate. The dough then got an overnight rest, wrapped up in plastic wrap. At baking time, I portioned out blobs of about 28-29 grams each, a bit smaller than called for, and got 24 cookies instead of the 20 Rose aims for. The blobs are rolled into a ball then flattened a bit into a 2" circle, then baked. The large chips I used made this flattening step a bit difficult, but mine did end up about 2" in diameter when headed into the oven.
<p>
As I said up top, these didn't turn out to be the chocolate-chip cookies I was looking for, but if it's the style you prefer, this is a recipe with one extra step (the browned butter) that added flavor to a very quick recipe.<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23678995324" title="View 'Rose's Chocolate Chip Cookies' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Rose's Chocolate Chip Cookies" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1489/23678995324_abc0df2fe9_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24281065896" title="View 'Rose's Chocolate Chip Cookies' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Rose's Chocolate Chip Cookies" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1530/24281065896_fc10330325_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24224708381" title="View 'Rose's Chocolate Chip Cookies' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Rose's Chocolate Chip Cookies" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1542/24224708381_2e239daec9_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24011623980" title="View 'Rose's Chocolate Chip Cookies' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Rose's Chocolate Chip Cookies" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1599/24011623980_39a02053d8_t.jpg" height="75"/></a>NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-49444274227630150292016-01-05T22:36:00.001-05:002016-01-05T22:40:06.645-05:00The Bread Bible: Sweet Potato Loaf<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24102224681" title="View 'Sweet Potato Loaf' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Sweet Potato Loaf" width="240" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1512/24102224681_37e506b2c5_m.jpg" height="180"/></a>Next up from the bake-along of Rose Levy Beranbaum's <em>The Bread Bible</em> is the Sweet Potato Loaf, a yeast bread with mashed sweet potato added to the dough. I baked a small sweet potato a few days ago and popped it into the fridge for later use. Later turned out to be today's bread. I was tripped up again by the design of The Bread Bible instructions, where the first sentence in each section is a sort of summary subhead, not really the step-by-step instructions. Step 1, the making the sponge, also covered baking and mashing one's sweet potato. I conflated the step 1 items and put my mashed and measured potato into the sponge...then looked further along and had to figure out what had happened to the potato that was to be added when actually mixing the dough. I decided to move ahead with my sweet-potato sponge, and indeed don't see any reason why this couldn't have been the intended method.<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23817014339" title="View 'Sweet Potato Loaf' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="Sweet Potato Loaf" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1682/23817014339_c8c86cbcfb_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>Sponge made and covered with the blanket of the remaining flour and yeast, I let it sit for an hour at room temperature then refrigerated it overnight. I brought it out the next day and let it sit at room temp again while the butter softened, then mixed the dough, let it rest to hydrolyze, then kneaded it with the KitchenAid until I had a lovely, slightly sticky, pale orange dough.<p>
It rose quite enthusiastically, with the first rise taking under an hour and the second more than doubled in 45 minutes. Then I shaped a loaf, going back to Rose's instructional pictures because my last few loafs have all had large air pockets toward the top of the loaf. Again the rising was very quick, and I put the loaf in, as instructed, with the pan on a pre-heated stone and with steam added via ice cubes in a heated skillet. This bread was in a hurry all the way through, as it browned early, then was done (with the internal temp a bit high) in the minimum baking time.<p>
My finished loaf looks a bit crumpled as I brushed it well with melted butter, softening the crust. And again I had an air pocket or two, though smaller--I'm not sure why my bread baking has recently developed this issue, as I can't think of anything I've changed in my supplies or habits. (I've been googling, and my current theory is that my breads are getting over-proofed. <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24158742486" title="View 'Sweet Potato Loaf' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Sweet Potato Loaf" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1570/24158742486_15f6cf3716_t.jpg" height="75"/></a>Will try to correct this on the next loaf bread.) Oh, well, the bread tastes fine regardless.<p>
I had my first piece as an accompaniment to a bowl of black-eyed pea stew with andouille and collards, hitting as many of the Southern New Year's Day good luck foods as I could. It was wonderful as toast and just plain, and kept well too.<br>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23817014639" title="View 'Sweet Potato Loaf' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sweet Potato Loaf" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1624/23817014639_3aa3b879ae_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24184815455" title="View 'Sweet Potato Loaf' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sweet Potato Loaf" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1504/24184815455_907a905303_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23817015219" title="View 'Sweet Potato Loaf' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sweet Potato Loaf" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1695/23817015219_02b77d9c71_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23556642804" title="View 'Sweet Potato Loaf' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sweet Potato Loaf" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1654/23556642804_8869cbff76_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24076782192" title="View 'Sweet Potato Loaf' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Sweet Potato Loaf" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1480/24076782192_33e65e979c_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-52159495133852150762016-01-04T23:59:00.001-05:002016-01-05T00:01:31.745-05:00BB: Lemon and Cranberry Tart Tart<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23815631059" title="View 'Lemon and Cranberry Tart Tart' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="Lemon and Cranberry Tart Tart" width="240" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1527/23815631059_bf27997f74_m.jpg" height="240"/></a>I'm posting along with the Baking Bible Alpha Bakers this week, at least if I get this post done tonight. The week's recipe is a "tart tart"--two mouth-puckering ingredients (lemon and cranberries) together in a tart, baked in a cookie crust made with almonds. I baked this for the actual Christmas Day supper, though we postponed the stockings-and-presents bit until my sister-in-law could be with us. (That turned out to be yesterday, January 3.)<br>
With lots of other holiday sweets around and a small crowd, I made a half recipe, using a 6" tart pan. The dough for the tart shell was pretty well behaved although it softens fast...aided by the unseasonable Christmas temps of mid-to-high 70's (F). The half-shaped shell made several trips into the fridge to firm back up, as it seemed likely to slump into the bottom of the tart pan after only a bit of handling to shape the crust. I overbaked it a bit in the stage with the pie weights in, as I was simultaneously making cranberry-pecan Christmas bread and white bean, pancetta, and kale pot pies. By the time I checked on the par-baking crust, the bottom had browned even with the weights in and I declared it done without further baking. <br>
Then I turned to the filling, which is lemon curd with dollops of a cranberry sauce. With my half recipe, I needed to end up with about 3 tablespoons of cranberry sauce, and I didn't want to start from scratch for that small an amount. In my freezer, though, was the leftovers of the family favorite cranberry relish from Thanksgiving, an uncooked mixture of fresh cranberries, whole orange, whole lemon (both peel and all), apple, ground together and mixed with sugar and raspberry jam. I took about 1/3 cup, microwaved for a minute or two stirring every 30 seconds, and let it cool. Later I added a bit of hot water since the mixture got a bit thick.<br>
On to the lemon curd, and again I'm afraid I ducked some of the effort. Instead of 4-6 egg yolks for a very rich curd, I used 1 whole egg, 1 yolk, and filled the rest of the weight with a bit more white. The curd set up nicely, aided by the optional gelatin added to make the tart a bit firmer. To assemble the tart, half of that hot lemon curd went into the baked tart shell, then dollops of the cranberry sauce, a swipe of an offset spatula to spread it a bit, then the rest of the curd. The whole thing baked about 15 minutes to reach the target temperature of 160 F.<br>
As I mentioned, this was our Christmas Day dessert, but for an informal meal of roasted butternut squash soup, some fancy French onion puffs, challah, and the tart. Consensus was that the tart was fine, but not outstanding--no one found it really great, and no one asked for more than the small pieces I'd cut, maybe half of a normal serving. Maybe my less-rich lemon curd was the culprit.<br>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24100840261" title="View 'Lemon and Cranberry Tart Tart' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Lemon and Cranberry Tart Tart" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1668/24100840261_36c8142aab_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24157345716" title="View 'Lemon and Cranberry Tart Tart' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Lemon and Cranberry Tart Tart" width="75" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1574/24157345716_7ccaf2d799_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/24075404902" title="View 'Lemon and Cranberry Tart Tart' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Lemon and Cranberry Tart Tart" width="100" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1596/24075404902_7b5364710a_t.jpg" height="75"/></a>NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-53026651203277008812015-12-05T21:44:00.001-05:002015-12-05T22:04:18.680-05:00The Bread Bible: Classic Challah, or A Tale of Four ChallahsI've been baking challah every week for a number of years, since the frozen-dough challahs that my sister-in-law was baking every Friday for Shabbat (she and the kids are Jewish, I'm not) declined in quality and I started experimenting with recipes. One of the first I tried was Rose's Traditional Challah from <em>The Bread Bible</em>, back in 2007. <a href="http://nlbarber.livejournal.com/144388.html">My blog about it</a> (on LiveJournal at the time) notes that I belatedly found the <a href="http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/2006/02/corrections_the_bread_bible.html">errata on Rose's blog</a>, and also that this is a very large challah using 5 eggs. Perhaps because of the size, perhaps because we didn't find the results particularly great, I tried other recipes and eventually evolved my own <a href="http://nlbarber.blogspot.com/2012/05/whole-wheat-challah-with-dried-cherries.html">Whole-Wheat Challah with Dried Cherries</a> primarily from the base of this <a href="http://web.williams.edu/Astronomy/people/kkwitter/challah.html">Grandma Rosie's Fabulous Challah</a> recipe that I found by a general Internet search. Note that's Rosie, not Rose.... :)
<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23176773669" title="View 'Classic Challah' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Classic Challah" width="240" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5655/23176773669_616c9129e7_m.jpg" height="125"/></a>Along came the assignment of Traditional Challah for the Bread Bible Bake-along, which I'm participating in as an ad-hoc member when time allows. The posting was due December 2 (amended to the 4th), and I jumped on things and baked it November 21 ...before I saw Rose's suggestion on our internal Facebook page suggesting we do the improved version on her blog instead. Due to the number of folks currently eating that weekly challah (the nieces are in college, my brother generally works late and isn't around for dinner...and frequently avoids carbs, so it's 3 of us: me, the nephew, and sister-in-law), a 1-egg challah is the preferred size, so I did the math and cut down the Traditional Challah to a 1-egg version. <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/22917643803" title="View 'Classic Challah' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left; "border="0" alt="Classic Challah" width="75" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/734/22917643803_01ff8a1a7f_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>I did a 6-strand braid per my usual habits, and the loaf looked very pretty. <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23544736955" title="View 'Classic Challah' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right; "border="0" alt="Classic Challah" width="100" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/597/23544736955_ac52922638_t.jpg" height="85"/></a><br clear="all"> Alas, just as in 2007, it was not a big hit--just didn't have any special character either judged on its own or compared to the whole-wheat and dried cherry version. This recipe uses an overnight or half-day starter for a flavor boost, but we still found it rather meh.
<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/22917645643" title="View 'Fig, olive oil, and sea salt challah' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="Fig, olive oil, and sea salt challah" width="214" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5726/22917645643_18a28f99bd_m.jpg" height="240"/></a>Challah over Thanksgiving weekend, with the nieces home, was Smitten Kitchen's <a href="http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2012/09/fig-olive-oil-and-sea-salt-challah-book-tour/">Fig, Olive Oil, and Sea Salt Challah</a>, because we didn't manage anything special for Rosh Hashanah. (I was at Walt Disney World, and didn't leave a frozen challah for the occasion.) Because older niece had had one of these delivered to her at college a couple of years ago, when younger niece jokingly suggested I could bake another one for her to take back to college, I did it. Therefore it's a tradition: nephew has been informed that he's entitled to one Fig, Olive Oil, and Sea Salt Challah during his college years. (He's a high school junior.)<br clear="all">
<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23248989310" title="View 'Rose's Favorite Challah' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Rose's Favorite Challah" width="240" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5795/23248989310_58a182381f_m.jpg" height="180"/></a>Finally we're at the week when the bake-along challah post is due, and I decided to give <a href="http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/2014/09/challah_soft_moist_and_flavorf.html">Rose's improved recipe</a> a chance. This version uses a bigs, aged for 3 days in the fridge, for extra flavor and to make it keep better. Well, a biga or a chunk of firm sourdough starter, which I don't keep. Biga it was, so I made the biga on Sunday, and refrigerated it until Thursday night. I made the dough using butter instead of oil for a little more taste enhancement, let it rise, then split it in half and kneaded in plumped dried cherries. Half went into the fridge for the family Friday challah, and the other half had its second rise, got its 6-strand braid, then was baked for sister-in-law's Tickling Tech train-the-teachers session Friday morning. The braiding was a bit difficult--the dried cherries are a little large in the half recipe and with 6 ropes and want to pop out of the dough, but if you cut the cherries in half the cherry juices will stain the dough. I'm blaming the rather erratic look of the baked loaf on the cherries.<br clear="all">
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I baked the half-sized challah 15 minutes then turned it around, then another 20 min or so covered with foil for the last 10 to keep it from browning excessively. It smelled heavenly, one plumped cherry had artistically trickled some juice down the side....and I delivered it warm next door so s-i-l could take it to school the next day, where at least one teacher gave it thumbs up by asking for seconds. (No other comments were relayed.) My house was left with this heavenly smell of fresh-baked challah at 10:30 at night. Friday night I was finally able to taste it after baking the second half, and it's indeed a better tasting version than the Bread Bible recipe. The bread was moister, and a bit of tang from the bigs comes through. I'll keep baking my whole-wheat version weekly, but if I need a white challah this is a recipe I would turn to.
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23248986770" title="View 'Rose's Favorite Challah' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Rose's Favorite Challah" width="100" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5786/23248986770_69880cdbb6_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/22917646493" title="View 'Rose's Favorite Challah' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Rose's Favorite Challah" width="100" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5690/22917646493_02f75168ae_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23544739085" title="View 'Rose's Favorite Challah' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Rose's Favorite Challah" width="100" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5626/23544739085_b4b874b926_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/22917647253" title="View 'Rose's Favorite Challah' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Rose's Favorite Challah" width="100" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5680/22917647253_e572d93dc1_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/22917647663" title="View 'Rose's Favorite Challah' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Rose's Favorite Challah" width="100" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/658/22917647663_c5e9c5944d_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23248988720" title="View 'Rose's Favorite Challah' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Rose's Favorite Challah" width="100" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/590/23248988720_8bf65d14f7_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/23176778559" title="View 'Rose's Favorite Challah' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Rose's Favorite Challah" width="75" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/578/23176778559_0b92490374_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-12032889578971340662015-10-13T22:07:00.001-04:002015-10-13T22:08:15.265-04:00BB: Fudgy-Pudgy Brownie Tart<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/22089103766" title="View 'BB: Fudgy Pudgy Brownie Tart' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="BB: Fudgy Pudgy Brownie Tart" width="240" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5743/22089103766_2d432899c4_m.jpg" height="180"/></a>I managed to bake along with <a href="http://rosesalphabakers.blogspot.com/">Rose's Alpha Bakers</a> this week as they tackled the Fudgy-Pudgy Brownie Tart. This is a shallow (1" deep) tart using a chocolate cookie crust and filled with a brownie. The recipe calls for good-quality chocolate in addition to good cocoa powder and some white chocolate. I had 'good' white chocolate and cocoa, but my stash of unsweetened baking chocolate was depleted, and I had to fall back on supermarket Bakers unsweetened chocolate.
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/21927398838" title="View 'BB: Fudgy Pudgy Brownie Tart' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="BB: Fudgy Pudgy Brownie Tart" width="100" hspace="2" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/725/21927398838_af410501ae_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> The chocolate cookie crust was pretty easy to work with, though that perfect temperature for it to be pliable for the rolling and shaping tin a tart shell eluded me. I used the full procedure used throughout the book of cutting a 12" circle, placing the crust over a smaller cake pan and trying to smooth it into a bowl shape--but here the crust cracked a good bit, requiring patching lest it fall apart before I could invert it. Then the tart pan goes on the assembly, and it is inverted to get that bowl-ish shape into the pan for the finishing work of pushing it into the sides, patching other cracks then folding, trimming, and decorating the edge. And yay! the tart crust doesn't need to be blind-baked before the brownie batter is added.
I baked my tart for the maximum time as it didn't get to the stated temperature until then. Repeated checking also accounts for that largish hole in the center of my crust, where I angled in my instant-read thermometer multiple times. I think perhaps I would have done better to pull it out a bit earlier and kept the tart more towards the fudge side than it ended up.
The results went next door to sister-in-law so she could take it to school for Tickling Tech, her regular Friday morning teach-the-teachers-technology session...but she'd forgotten to tell me that it was a teacher work day, and thus no regular Tickling Tech. Instead she gave a short talk to the full assembly of teachers (on copyright law), then gave a promo for TT using the brownie tart as an example treat. She then sliced it thin and put it in the library for teachers to come by for as they wanted around lunchtime. She said people seemed to like it, with a few comments on the crust as a different element. Didn't sound like there were any exceptional reviews, though.
That's my personal feeling too--the crust is an interesting difference, but my piece, eaten cold from the fridge, didn't seem unusually fudgy. It was nicely chocolatey, but perhaps because of the thin layer of real brownie, I would opt for a classic brownie in the fudge, not cake, category. Maybe a higher-quality baking chocolate would have helped.
I do have a bit of chocolate crust left over to experiment with. Some sort of tartlet, definitely...<br clear="all">
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/21927114220" title="View 'BB: Fudgy Pudgy Brownie Tart' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="BB: Fudgy Pudgy Brownie Tart" width="100" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5796/21927114220_8897d5bdc5_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/22102744772" title="View 'BB: Fudgy Pudgy Brownie Tart' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="BB: Fudgy Pudgy Brownie Tart" width="100" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5810/22102744772_c893937fa9_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/22125365351" title="View 'BB: Fudgy Pudgy Brownie Tart' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="BB: Fudgy Pudgy Brownie Tart" width="100" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/675/22125365351_00e58410cf_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/21492454554" title="View 'BB: Fudgy Pudgy Brownie Tart' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="BB: Fudgy Pudgy Brownie Tart" width="100" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/621/21492454554_2e691e7099_t.jpg" height="75"/></a>NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-7264975188910674202015-09-30T23:48:00.001-04:002015-09-30T23:49:44.120-04:00The Bread Bible: Basic Hearth Bread<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/21231091743" title="View 'Basic Hearth Bread' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Basic Hearth Bread" width="240" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/774/21231091743_7cf58dd5fe_m.jpg" height="180"/></a>Another bread for the group baking through Beranbaum's The Bread Bible. This post is more timely--I had the last slices of the loaf for breakfast this morning.
<p>
The Basic Hearth Bread can be done either as a round loaf baked on a stone, or in a loaf pan. I went with the loaf pan for the versatility of the shape. The bread is fundamentally a rustic white bread, with 1/4 cup of whole-wheat flour in the starter. That bit of whole-wheat flour gives a good bit of character for the small amount used. I wish I had scheduled in enough time for an overnight ferment for the sponge, but I had to work it straight through the initial ferment, mixing, 2 rises, shaping the loaf, another rise, then baking.
<p>
Some comments and notes:
<p>
--I got suckered in by the paragraph heading for step 2 (not the first time these have caught me) and mixed in the salt with my flour and yeast. (It says "Combine the ingredients for the flour mixture and add to the sponge." Just above that is the list of ingredients labelled "Flour Mixture", which is flour, yeast, and salt. Down in step 3 you discover that the salt should be added after the first ferment and the mixing of the dough. ) As I stirred the yeast in first to prevent salt-yeast contact, I don't think I inhibited the rise by much, if at all.
<p>
--My dough was a bit dry, cleaning the bowl with no sticking early on, so I sprayed it with water frequently as the mixer kneaded away. I still wouldn't have called the results sticky, but did git a bit of 'cling' to my fingers. That's unusual--I'm in humid Georgia, it was a rainy weekend, and I measured the water by weight and got something over the volume measure of 1-1/3 c. Not really a problem as I'm comfortable adjusting a basic bread dough to the level of moisture called for, but it's not my usual results with Rose's recipes.
<p>
--The last note is to remind myself to not use that larger bread pan--it measures 9-1/4 x 4-1/4" on the bottom but slants a bit, and basically most 'regular' bread recipes are too small for it. I need to work out how much flour makes the right-sized loaf for that pan...this recipe gave a squatter loaf that I would have liked. <br clear="all">
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/21840256122" title="View 'Basic Hearth Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Basic Hearth Bread" width="75" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/767/21840256122_04ab9e490b_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/21852167685" title="View 'Basic Hearth Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Basic Hearth Bread" width="100" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/644/21852167685_31fba0117b_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/21861761641" title="View 'Basic Hearth Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Basic Hearth Bread" width="100" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5646/21861761641_547432de79_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/21664105860" title="View 'Basic Hearth Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Basic Hearth Bread" width="100" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/704/21664105860_8dedfea9e7_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/21861762621" title="View 'Basic Hearth Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Basic Hearth Bread" width="100" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5706/21861762621_a69068c65a_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/21826015356" title="View 'Basic Hearth Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Basic Hearth Bread" width="100" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/580/21826015356_1a688254b5_t.jpg" height="75"/></a>NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-10415735535048581422015-09-30T22:51:00.001-04:002015-09-30T22:58:48.704-04:00The Bread Bible: Beer Bread<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/21229136394" title="View 'Beer Bread' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="Beer Bread" width="240" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5800/21229136394_58983708c4_m.jpg" height="240"/></a>I baked this in early August, and blogging it at the end of September. Memory is a little vague on the details of the baking and the eating, I'm afraid. The pictures remind me that I used the bottle of Guinness that had been tucked away in the back of the fridge for a while, and that it rose enthusiastically. I used the mixer method in my KitchenAid (almost always my choice for bread these days), and seem to recall that it was a pretty well-behaved dough in the mixing and shaping. It's a good-tasting bread, too--a bit extra yeasty from the beer, I think, and a nice amount of 'chew'.<br clear="all">
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/21664043938" title="View 'Beer Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Beer Bread" width="100" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5679/21664043938_cf8ee74d9b_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/21861499401" title="View 'Beer Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Beer Bread" width="100" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5833/21861499401_756cd377da_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/21664043628" title="View 'Beer Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Beer Bread" width="100" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/744/21664043628_82b2014039_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/21825751676" title="View 'Beer Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Beer Bread" width="100" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5706/21825751676_13810a19ec_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/21851905985" title="View 'Beer Bread' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Beer Bread" width="100" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5758/21851905985_369d728360_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-17847396503262190462015-08-31T22:34:00.001-04:002015-08-31T22:57:38.245-04:00BB: Flaky Cream Cheese Scones<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/20860350488" title="View 'Flaky Cream Cheese Scones' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="Flaky Cream Cheese Scones" width="240" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5792/20860350488_5bffd7d7a2_m.jpg" height="207"/></a>The name is deceptive...or incomplete. Yes, these are flaky scones made with cream cheese, but they are also "lemon blueberry scones", having a good tablespoon of lemon zest and lots of dried blueberries, and that's how I think of them. I guess "flaky cream-cheese lemon-blueberry scones" would be a bit long.
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/21038292152" title="View 'Flaky Cream Cheese Scones' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Flaky Cream Cheese Scones" width="100" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5673/21038292152_22ce023430_t.jpg" height="75"/></a>I've been using the technique of grating frozen butter as the first step in recipes that cut in butter with the goal of a flaky pastry--pie crusts (Peach Galette writeup will get done sometime) and the like, and these scones. The cream cheese got cut in with a pastry blender, then I grated in the frozen butter and popped the entire bowl into the freezer for a few minutes to let the butter chill again. (Warm hands!) Then I tossed the mixture together and pressed the butter shreds into flaky pieces. In went whipped cream and a bit of honey, and the mixture was done.
Instead of wedges cut from a circle, I made a rectangle of the dough and cut square-shaped scones from that. (I do the same with biscuits most of the time--saves on re-rolling scraps from a biscuit cutter.) The entire batch went into the freezer, one wrapped separately for me, and the rest for the folks next door. I baked mine about a week later for a weekend breakfast, and thought it was wonderful. My dried blueberries had been pretty plump to start, and had nicely re-hydrated to give a nice flavor and texture to the scone. My sister-in-law baked the rest the week she had all the kids home, before younger niece left for college, and took the rest to her school for a Friday morning <a href="https://ticklingtech.wordpress.com/">Tickling Tech</a> session. She cut the ones destined for school in half when they came out of the oven, and said it worked very well. (I'd have cut the frozen ones before baking, but then I have a very large chef's knife to handle that sort of task.) I don't recall specifics, but I think the audience at Tickling Tech was appreciative. I'm filing away this recipe as one to make ahead and freeze so sister-in-law can have them available for weeks when neither of us can bake.<br />
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/20425608854" title="View 'Flaky Cream Cheese Scones' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Flaky Cream Cheese Scones" width="100" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5647/20425608854_84dd53c5a4_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/21038293072" title="View 'Flaky Cream Cheese Scones' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Flaky Cream Cheese Scones" width="100" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/661/21038293072_3cff7554cb_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/20861450759" title="View 'Flaky Cream Cheese Scones' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Flaky Cream Cheese Scones" width="100" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/642/20861450759_5d6b5d049e_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/21038294642" title="View 'Flaky Cream Cheese Scones' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Flaky Cream Cheese Scones" width="100" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5788/21038294642_088d3db432_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/21048249815" title="View 'Flaky Cream Cheese Scones' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Flaky Cream Cheese Scones" width="100" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/752/21048249815_ed09c1a4fa_t.jpg" height="75"/></a>NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881343651594566392.post-32052456477442195152015-07-03T13:58:00.001-04:002015-07-03T13:59:33.329-04:00The Bread Bible: Prosciutto Ring<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/19182446328" title="View 'Prosciutto Ring' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Prosciutto Ring" width="180" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/411/19182446328_e95fd0dd54_m.jpg" height="240"/></a>I have dropped out of the official <a href="http://rosesalphabakers.blogspot.com/">Alpha Bakers</a> group due to a lack of time and energy for the more complex recipes, but will be baking along with them on some weeks. I do intend to keep up with the offshoot baking through The Bread Bible, though I may jump ahead of their once-a-month schedule sometimes if the bread baking urge is upon me. I'm a couple of days late getting my bread post up, but I'm glad I didn't skip this one, as it was easy and tastes wonderful.
The basic concept is a rustic white bread with prosciutto and cracked black pepper mixed into the dough, and is Rose's recreation of a bread from a NYC bakery called "lard bread". My copy of the Bread Bible is an earlier printing, and though the anecdote about lard bread is in the headnote, the recipe contained no lard. This got even more confusing as the internal Facebook for the bread bakers discovered that some people's recipes had lard, and more meat, and different kinds of meats. The confusion finally settled after finding a blog post from Rose that explained she had revised the recipe for the 4th edition based on more information about what that NYC bakery bread really contained. Her revised recipe adds 2 tablespoons of lard to the bread as a fat, then uses 6 ounces of mixed prosciutto, spicy soppressata, and pepperoni. As I'm a carnivore, 6 ounces of mixed cured meats sounded better than 3 of prosciutto alone, so I went with the revision.
My limited grocery run failed to find spicy soppressata, so I decided that a mix of prosciutto and Spanish-style chorizo would maintain the moniker of "prosciutto ring" and still have the spicy taste of a pepperoni/soppressata blend. The recipe wants the prosciutto sliced not too thinly, but the line at the deli counter was long so I bought the regular packaged stuff. I considered buying a package of lard, but I use it rarely (for pie crusts, and not always) so decided bacon grease would be an acceptable form of pork fat here--no issues with the flavor difference, and any texture difference could be compensated for in the kneading.
I went with the food processor version as the speediest, and it's indeed very easy. The dry ingredients all go in with only an intermediate mix to keep the salt and yeast from direct contact, then the fat and cold water. Let it come together then run the machine for 45 seconds to knead. Dump it out onto a floured surface and knead in all the chopped up meats, let it rest a bit, then form into a ring. <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/18749377783" title="View 'Prosciutto Ring' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:left;" border="0" alt="Prosciutto Ring" width="75" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/347/18749377783_bf1601e20c_t.jpg" height="100"/></a>Let rise for an hour, then bake in a very hot oven on a stone and with steam. This was the first time I can recall using a silicon bread mat directly on a stone, but it worked fine, as did the transfer from the mat to direct baking on the stone half-way through. The bottom got a bit too brown, though, so I think I'll bake on the mat throughout next time.
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/18749375623" title="View 'Prosciutto Ring' on Flickr.com"><img style="float:right;" border="0" alt="Prosciutto Ring" width="180" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/527/18749375623_8ffdf5d930_m.jpg" height="240"/></a>It being suppertime when the bread came out, it didn't get a proper cool-down before I tore into it for sharing with sister-in-law and for my own dinner. The taste was great, and I think the bit of gummy texture was a factor of warm-from-the-oven bread, not under-baking. I'll be repeating this one--it will be good with a salad for a lighter meal, and will be very good with soups, too. I may try the mixer version next time to see if that makes incorporating the meat easier, but it really wasn't too difficult to do by hand with the food processor version.<br clear="all" />
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/19182379850" title="View 'Prosciutto Ring' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Prosciutto Ring" width="75" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/537/19182379850_c7fd633823_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/19182380490" title="View 'Prosciutto Ring' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Prosciutto Ring" width="75" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/439/19182380490_b7920015b8_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/19182381710" title="View 'Prosciutto Ring' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Prosciutto Ring" width="75" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/553/19182381710_066dd1bb14_t.jpg" height="100"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/18749378963" title="View 'Prosciutto Ring' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Prosciutto Ring" width="100" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/425/18749378963_6abf7a9792_t.jpg" height="75"/></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76353144@N00/19182442448" title="View 'Prosciutto Ring' on Flickr.com"><img border="0" alt="Prosciutto Ring" width="100" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/404/19182442448_9b9b6ee6c9_t.jpg" height="75"/></a>NancyBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02932498557111486912noreply@blogger.com5