In honor of St. Patrick's day, the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group baked Irish Soda Bread as the second March recipe. The group chooses one easy recipe each month from the book Baking With Julia, and one that's a bit more involved. The soda bread is the easy one, and, folks, it doesn't get any easier than this: 4 ingredients and a minute of kneading and it's ready for the oven!
n.o.e.'s notes:
- Julia's contributing baker for the soda bread is Marion Cunningham; you can find her recipe on either of the host blogs this week:
- Although the most traditional form of soda bread is plain, the recipe suggest adding currants so that's what I did.
- I baked a half recipe, yielding one smallish loaf.
- For one quarter of the flour I used Irish Style Wholemeal Flour from King Arthur Flour. How could I not? I had it on hand and it even has Irish in its name! I love the slightly rough texture and full flavor of this flour.
- I've learned from my yeast bread baking (thanks to British bread baker extraordinaire Dan Lepard) to knead the dough on an oiled rather than a floured counter. For the soda bread, I used walnut oil, figuring it wouldn't hurt to add a bit of nutty flavor while I was conditioning the dough.
- Soda bread is usually baked as a hearth loaf, but around my house bread made in loaf pans is the preferred type when it's destined for toasting, as this was. So I used a medium-sized loaf pan. The bread baked for 35 minutes at 375 degrees.
the verdict:
Eaten fresh and barely cooled from the oven, this bread was delicious: tender, nutty from the wholemeal, with little pops of sweet fruitiness from the currants. I ate it spread with salted butter and my husband toasted it then buttered it. Although the recipe indicates otherwise, we found the bread to be a decent "keeper." We both liked the bread, and you absolutely cannot beat the ease of preparation.
In the breakfast section of her book, Baking: From My Home to Yours, Dorie Greenspan has a recipe for basic brioche dough which makes Golden Brioche Loaves and also forms the base for her Brioche Raisin Snails, which were originally baked by the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group four years ago today. Thus the raisin snail recipe is this week's recipe in my TWD catch-up project. (The brioche dough is also the base for Pecan Sticky Buns, which will be coming up in a few weeks' time)
As it worked out, although the raisin snails and the pecan sticky buns were chosen in the first 6 months of TWD, we baked the plain(er) Golden Brioche Loaves towards the end of TWD, just a few months ago, and I saved enough dough in my freezer to make the snails that I had not yet baked (and the upcoming sticky buns too!)
n.o.e.'s notes:
- [edited to add:
The recipe for these pastries is on Laurie's post here.]
- I made 1/2 recipe, yielding 6 rolls, using 1/4 of Dorie's brioche recipe that I had kept in the freezer.
- There are four elements to the raisin snails recipe: brioche dough topped with pastry cream and flambeed rum raisins then sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. These are all rolled together, sliced into individual coils (resembling snail shells), left to rise at room temperature, then baked until golden brown.
- When I paged to the back of the book to find the pastry cream recipe, I saw Dorie's recipe for almond cream and began to formulate a plan to go rogue and use almond cream rather than pastry cream in my snails. Then I saw in the almond cream recipe that Dorie actually suggests that would be a good filling for her brioche snails. So I even had Dorie's permission to make the switch and I feel so much less guilty!
- I added almond extract instead of vanilla or rum to the almond cream to intensify the almond quotient.
- I soaked the raisins in hot water, then heated them, doused them with rum and lit a match. and another match. and another, well, four matches actually and there really wasn't much flambe, even though I had doubled the rum. There wasn't much rum flavor to the raisins either. Next time I'll soak them in hot rum instead of hot water.
- According to the recipe, right before rolling up the dough, it's time to sprinkle with cinnamon + white sugar. My plan was to sprinkle with brown sugar and leave out the cinnamon so it wouldn't fight with the almond direction I was taking. At the appropriate time I was so busy rolling the dough that I forgot about the sugar step entirely.
- My rolls didn't rise much before baking and they didn't rise much in the oven either. They spread horizontally but not so much in height. As it baked the almond cream puffed but it also oozed onto the silicone baking sheet liner and browned. When I removed the rolls from the pan, it was an easy matter to break off the browned almond cream.
the verdict:
Things these snails were: buttery, yeasty, almond-y, raisiny. Things the snails were not: rummy, sugary. We enjoyed them for breakfast, a mid-afternoon snack, and for dessert with vanilla ice cream. They were a little involved to make, so it's not likely that they will go into any regular rotation in my kitchen, but they were definitely delicious.
My baking buddy Leslie baked the snails this week; she's also playing TWD catch-up!
It's been a while since I posted a sandwich bread on this blog, as usually all the yeasted goodies are posted on my bread blog. But White Bread is the first choice in the all newTuesdays With Dorie baking group, wherein we begin our journey through Dorie Greenspan's book Baking With Julia.
That's right, there will be more Dorie on Tuesdays! I thought long and hard about whether to join the new group. I hemmed and hawed. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. I waffled. And then, I decided to give it a try; we'll see how it goes.
The recipes in the new book tend to be more complex than Dorie's recipes in the previous TWD book, Baking From My Home to Yours, were so the group is only going to bake 2 recipes per month. I am aiming to bake at least one of the selections each month, posting on the appropriate Tuesday. For the next several months I'll also be catching up on all of the recipes that I missed from the early days of the first TWD, posting on close to the date when they were originally assigned for the TWD group four years ago.
The book for this round of TWD, Baking With Julia is based on the Master Chefs television series that aired back in the 1990s. Julia Child was the host of the series, and 26 bakers were guests on the show, baking with Julia Child in her kitchen. Dorie Greenspan made it all into this book. Of course the book's recipes are not Dorie's, or even Julia's, and it's going to be fun to try recipes from many different bakers in the course of this new version of TWD.
n.o.e.'s notes:
- The bread recipe is a contribution by baker Craig
Kominiak. If you want to bake this bread, you can find the recipe onJules'
blog, here, as she is one of our hosts this week, along with Laurie of Slush. Or you could buy the book and bake along with the group; the last I heard there are 300+ blogs from almost every state and from countries around the globe.
- I like a sturdy crumb on my bread, so I used bread flour.
- I never use with active dry yeast when baking, but instead use instant yeast, which doesn't need to be 'proofed' or activated. To convert, use about 3/4 the amount that you would use of active dry yeast. The instant yeast is added along with the flour.
- My stand mixer has been ailing for a couple of years (I'm hoping that 2012 will be the year of Operation Repair Kitchen Aid.) I've learned to avoid kneading dough with a mixer but to knead by hand, which I enjoy, or use my food processor instead. I learned the food processor method from Rose Levy Beranbaum and I like it so much that even when my stand mixer is fixed I won't go back to making bread dough with it. When using a food processor, the ingredients are mixed in a slightly different order but the dough turns out much more quickly and I think just as beautifully. So, using this method, I first put dry ingredients together in my food processor, including the instant yeast and pulsed several times to mix the ingredients together. Than I added the water and finally the salt, pulsing until the dough pulled together and the gluten began to develop. Then I turned the dough onto the counter and kneaded it by hand, adding softened butter as I kneaded, although I could have done this step in the food processor also.
- My dough was very slow on both rises: it took 2 hours for first rise and 1.5 hours for the loaves to rise after they were formed. I just told myself that the dough was developing more flavor!
- I made half recipe of the bread dough, which I split and baked in two medium-ish metal pans of slightly different sizes. Did you know that if you save the papers from sticks of butter they are great for greasing baking pans? This time I also used the papers to line the bottoms of the pans to make sure the loaves would release.
the verdict:
We enjoyed the bread toasted with butter - it has a sturdy crumb and the browned crust was a bit chewy in a good artisan-white-bread way. While this bread doesn't unseat our very favorite white bread, it is one that we savored down to the very last crumb.
If you want to see a passel of other white bread posts, head over here and start clicking on links to the other bakers in the all-new Tuesdays With Dorie!
I ordered this cool cutting board here after hearing about it from Jaden of Steamy Kitchen
This week's recipe for the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group - the Golden Brioche Loaves - comes as a little bit of deja vu for those bakers who were part of the group's early history. Dorie Greenspan uses the same dough for this week's loaves as she uses as the base recipe for her Brioche Raisin Snails and her Pecan Honey Sticky Buns. Both of those treats were chosen in the first few months of TWD, so any bakers who were with the group from close to the beginning will have seen this dough previously.
I joined TWD after the sticky buns and raisin snails so I had not previously made Dorie's brioche formula, but I am not a total brioche newcomer. In bread bakers' terms, brioche is an "enriched dough" because it is, well, enriched - by a combination of eggs and butter. Brioche can be extremely rich, or it can be "lean" (which is still pretty rich) and used for en croute and other applications. I've baked a medium-rich brioche for the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge (you can read about that bread in this post on my bread blog) and I made a lean brioche dough of Dorie's when I made the brioche berry tart.
I decided to kill three birds with one stone this week. I froze two thirds of the dough so that I can use it for those Dorie Greenspan recipes that I missed, the Brioche Raisin Snails, and Honey Sticky Buns. Stay tuned for eventual posts on those breakfast goodies.
With the remaining third of dough, I decided to make another breakfast classic: raisin bread. Seriously, how delicious does brioche raisin toast sound?
n.o.e.'s notes:
- Margaret of Tea and Scones is the hostess for this week's brioche, and you can find the recipe on her post.
- Instead of active dry yeast, I used instant yeast, which doesn't need to be activated. Rather, it is added with the dry ingredients.
- I cut the quantity of sugar in half.
- I don't use a mixer for making bread, but I often use my food processor. One huge advantage to using the food processor for breadmaking is that you can start with cold ingredients; there is no need to warm them. The motor on the food processor can get hot, and it definitely warms up the bread ingredients as it mixes them. In many people's eyes, one huge disadvantage to using the food processor for bread dough is cleaning out the food processor once the dough is mixed!
Here's how I mixed the dough in my food processor: put the flour, salt, instant yeast and sugar in the bowl of the food processor and process enough to mix the dry ingredients. Slowly add the water, milk, eggs and process until the dough comes together. Add the butter and process until the dough passes the windowpane test. Then it is ready to transfer to the rising bucket.
- The brioche dough is very very soft, almost batter-like. Mine took a very long time to double.
- Once the dough has doubled, it rests in the fridge. After time in the fridge, the dough becomes quite stiff. that's when you form it into logs and lay them in the loaf pan to warm up, rise and then bake.
- To make the plain brioche into raisin brioche, I kneaded in some raisins, then divided the dough into four pieces. I flattened each piece, sprinkled it with cinnamon, and rolled it into a little log that lay crosswise in the loaf pan.
- I was way too lazy to break an egg to make egg wash for this little loaf, so I brushed the surface with some milk before popping it into the oven.
- My bread was baking swimmingly until I went to check it for doneness. One edge had stuck to the pan and when I loosened it with a spatula, I ended up deflating one side of the loaf. Which is why it looks so lopsided in the picture. Luckily, it was still fluffy and light inside.
the verdict:
Luckily the lopsided shape didn't matter once the bread was sliced up. The golden brioche made for a beautifully refined raisin toast. As if there wasn't enough butter in the dough (there was), the toast was fabulous warm with butter melting into the cinnamony raisiny tender crumb.
This week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe is called Oatmeal Breakfast Bread. Just from reading the recipe I knew it would be a favorite: it is a quick bread loaf, packed full of oats and nuts and dried fruit. I actually baked this one a few months ago, because it sounded so good and I got tired of waiting for it to be chosen! So thanks, Natalie of the blog Oven Love, for picking this one and letting me post from my "drafts" folder.
n.o.e.'s notes:
- You can find the recipe for this bread this week on Natalie's blog.
- I made a few changes to the recipe, mostly trading the sweeteners. I used maple sugar instead of brown sugar in the topping, and used palm sugar in the dough because of its lower glycemic load.
- For liquids, I chose the buttermilk option
- I used walnut oil which I enjoy in quick breads.
- Along with the all purpose flour, I threw in some white whole wheat flour and oat flour.
- For the dried fruit I used currants.
- I had some very sad apples in my produce drawer, which were perfect for making homemade applesauce - I got to use it for this bread and some muffins.
- The bread ended up with a very loose crumb, a bit prone to falling to pieces, but it was beautifully moist.
I took 5 photos of the slices of this bread, and all of them turned out blurry. By the time I realized, the bread was long gone! I included the least blurry picture to give some idea of the crumb.
the verdict:
We loved the apple taste, highlighted by bursts of curranty sweetness and the soft moist texture. It was wonderful toasted, even if it did fall apart a bit in the toaster.
What a difference the baking group Tuesdays With Dorie has made in my kitchen! Nearly two years of steady baking, week in and week out, has made me comfortable with a variety of techniques and ingredients. The biggest transformation , however, has been in yeast baking. My first ever yeast experience was a Dorie recipe (Kugelhopf, posted here) and I have no doubt that were it not for my participation in TWD I would never have attempted to bake with yeast.
Boy, am I glad that I did; I was bitten by the yeast bug and now I even have a separate blog devoted solely to my yeast baking. So I was pleased to see that the assigned recipe for this week is Raisin Swirl Bread. Raisin bread is a longtime favorite in our house, and the best version I've baked is a Peter Reinhard recipe from his book The Bread Baker's Apprentice (which I posted here). How would Dorie's compare?
n.o.e.'s notes:
- The recipe was chosen by Susan of the blog Food.Baby. You can find the recipe on her post.
- I made half recipe in a smallish loaf pan.
- Rather than active dry yeast, I used instant yeast. The conversion is to use 3/4 of the active dry measurement when measuring the instant yeast. The instant yeast doesn't need to be proofed, but rather is added with the dry ingredients.
- My favorite way to mix bread is by hand, but if I use a machine, I invariably use my food processor. I love the speed and precision of this method. It requires the ingredients to be mixed in a different order, but before long it really becomes second nature. First all of the dry ingredients (including the instant yeast) are combined in the food processor bowl. Then the liquid ingredients are added in a slow stream while the machine is pulsing. Continue to process the dough until it gathers into a ball, generally a minute of less. When the dough has been mixed/kneaded enough, it will register 77-81 degrees on an instant thermometer, and the dough will pass the "windowpane" test, meaning that it will be translucent when stretched between the fingers of both hands.
- Dorie's recipe calls for all-purpose flour, but I wanted bread with a sturdy crumb and some whole grain complexity, so I used a mixture of high gluten flour, oat flour, and white whole wheat flour. I added the optional nutmeg and orange zest to the dough.
- For the swirl, I used brown sugar with cinnamon and a very dark cocoa powder. After my buddy Di mentioned that she was leaving out the butter so that the bread wouldn't fall apart where the swirl was I decided to follow suit.
- I put the dough into the freezer for the specified 30 minute rest and set a timer. At the time I had a lot of other cooking and baking projects going in the kitchen - you know where this is going, right? - so when the timer rang I got distracted and promptly forgot about my dough. About 3 hours later I remembered the bread dough! At that point I moved it from freezer to the fridge for an overnight stint and the next day I formed and baked the bread.
the verdict:
When I sliced this bread, I gave a little gasp - it was so gorgeous! The swirl, with its plump raisins, looked like a string of beads. The bread had nice flavor and texture, but I have to say that it didn't unseat my favorite Peter Reinhart raisin bread. It was pretty good toasted, and I'm sure that Dorie's suggestion of French toast would be quite delicious. Also our host Susan made cinnamon toast with her bread and I'm going to try that out. Thanks, Susan!
While I don't remember eating biscuits in my childhood (Massachusetts and New York), I began my drift southward when I was 18 and have encountered my share of good (and not-as-wonderful) biscuits in the ensuing 30+ years. Many local establishments serve them as an accompaniment for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But I can count on one hand the number of times I have actually baked them myself. I've used my old set of fluted round cutters far more frequently for cookies than for biscuits.
- The secret to baking light and fluffy biscuits, apparently, is to use a very light hand - lightly! I don't bake biscuits very often, so I this is the kind of information that makes me think my biscuits are doomed to hockey puck-dom. But I followed a few tips I'd read recently, and my biscuits rose pretty well and were fluffy and light.
2" cutter mysteriously missing from this set.
- When we baked Sweet Potato Biscuits for Tuesdays With Dorie back in October, I realized I had lost the ideal-sized 2" cutter from my set of what-used-to-be four scalloped cutters. To remedy the problem, at Christmas Santa brought me a wonderful set of nesting cutters, and I assumed I'd be prepared for any circular cutting exigency. Except a 2" one, apparently. The new set has 11 round cutters, but none of them happens to be the magic 2". I picked the closest (smaller) cutter for these biscuits.
Wouldn't you think, with 11 cutters from 3/4" to 3 5/8", there would be one that is 2"? Yeah, me too.
- I cut this recipe back to 1/3, which yielded 4 smallish biscuits.
- White Lily flour is sort of iconic biscuit-making flour here in the South, because it is so fine and fluffy. A couple of years back, White Lily was bought by Smuckers and the Tennessee mill was closed in favor of northern mills. As you can imagine, that triggered a good deal of weeping and gnashing of teeth (eg, here and here), as Southern bakers were pretty sure their baking would never be the same. When I heard the news, I ran out and bought some of the original flour, which I've guarded ever since, and that's what I used for this recipe. In her book Dorie gives a formula for adding extra flour in the event White Lily is used. If you weigh your flour, just use Dorie's usual standard of 4¾ oz for each cup of flour, no matter which brand you use.
- Instead of cane sugar, I decided to use maple sugar.
- I blended all of the dry ingredients in mini food processor before stirring in the cream w fork. I found this much easier than other biscuit recipes with butter that has to be cut or rubbed into the flour (while staying cold all the while) I didn't handle this dough with my hands at all, really, just touched the dough to confirm that it was a "soft dough", then I quickly patted - not rolled - the dough on a barely floured surface.
- From biscuit experts I've heard that when cutting biscuits it's important to push the cutter straight down and then pick it straight up - no twisting (the way I tend to do with sugar cookies). I found that I had to concentrate pretty hard on this task (really, it was challenging!) or a little twist would try to creep in.
- The biscuits rose nicely during baking, and gave off that "hot bread, time for butter" smell.
the verdict:
These biscuits were very tender and soft. My husband and I enjoyed them hot with butter and marmalade, for a wonderful Sunday afternoon snack. Thanks, Melissa, for choosing this fun recipe. It will definitely become my "go to" biscuit.
As much as I love to bake with yeast (and I love it enough to have started a bread blog!), I forgot how much fun it is to bake a quick bread. This Whole Wheat Currant Bread is about as quick as a quick bread can get; it's oil-based, so no messing around with softening or melting butter. The currants don't have to be washed, peeled, cooked, or chopped, just measure and stir 'em in. An added bonus to this recipe: it's a deliciously easy way to work whole grains into your diet.
n.o.e.'s notes:
- This bread is from Nick Malgieri's The Modern Baker. I received this book for my birthday last year - in June - and only managed to bake one recipe from it. When Phyl of Of Cabbages and Kings (@gaaarp on twitter) formed a group to bake through the book, I jumped at the chance. Well, to clarify: my jump was quick but not deep! As much as I'd love to bake every single recipe in The Modern Baker, I can't swing that kind of commitment. Luckily this group is quite relaxed and flexible - there is no participation or posting requirement. Being a member of the group will give me the incentive to dip into the book from time to time, joining the others when I can and using the resources of this excellent group as an aid to my baking. Phyl has structured the baking so that the group will spend 3 months on each of the book's four sections. Different bakers will take turns "hosting" the recipes, and this bread is the one that I chose.
- Because this is "my" recipe, I've included some process pictures, for the second time in a week! And like the Swedish Visiting Cake, this recipe is so simple that the pictures are a little superfluous.
- The group doesn't publish the recipes from The Modern Baker, but here are the steps that I followed:
Whisk eggs with sugar and brown sugar;
then whisk in milk (I used whole milk, but you could also use buttermilk)
and oil.
With a rubber (silicone in my case) spatula, fold in a mixture of whole wheat flour, baking powder and salt,
then add currants
and fold them in.
Scrape the batter into a loaf pan and bake in a 350 degree oven.
the verdict:
The bread is sweeter than I thought it'd be, which comes mostly from the currants. The flour I used gave the bread a nice rustic platform, and I could taste the brown sugar's molasses flavor. But the currants, it's really their show, and they perform admirably. My favorite way to eat this bread was toasted, hot with butter.
Radishes and butter are a classic French combination, but I didn't know this until last summer when I saw a post for Radish Herb Butter on the blog Apple Pie, Patis, and Pate. The pairing of radishes with butter struck me as unlikely and yet quite appealing. We have a steady radish supply nearly year round, thanks to our farm box, so although I was eager to make the butter, I bided my time until it was my turn to host book group (we usually have cheese, bread/crackers, fruit, and of course, dessert). I ended up preparing this in November, and now that the holidays are over I finally get to share it.
n.o.e.'s notes:
- You can find the recipe at the end of this post.
- Making this "dish" is as easy as softening some butter, beating it with lemon juice, then stirring in some chopped herbs and julienned radishes. Season to taste, and voila! There you have it.
- It was a little tricky to work the lemon juice into the butter, but persistence paid off (as it often does!)
- I used radishes from the farm box that are kind of reverse of regular radishes: red on inside, white outside
- I served the butter with Dan Lepard's Buttermilk Baps (rolls) - read my baps post here.
the verdict:
The radish herb butter proved to be quite popular with those who tried it at book group. I expected it to be crunchy, with a fresh and sharp radish taste, with the butter serving mainly as a binder. Instead the tastes of the radish, the butter and the herbs mingled and combined to produce a flavor that was mellow and warm, savory and rich. The spread was complemented nicely by the soft buttermilk rolls, but would be equally good with thin crackers. Or, of course, French bread rounds!
1 stick (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature juice of 1/2 lemon salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste 2 tablespoons fresh chives, chopped 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped 5 radishes, approximately, about 1 inch in diameter, washed and trimmed
Cut the radishes into thin strips.
In a bowl, beat the butter with a wooden spoon until smooth.
Beat in the lemon juice and season with salt and pepper to taste. Mix in the chopped herbs .
Once I received my copy of Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home, I couldn't resist dipping in and trying a recipe. And then a couple more. I was dying to taste the Leek Bread Pudding so much that I actually prepared it for Thanksgiving dinner in place of dressing! Luckily nobody left the table in protest. In fact, it was so popular, I wanted to make sure to post it in time for you to plan to make it yourself over the holidays.
n.o.e.'s notes:
- You can find the recipe for the Leek Bread Pudding at several online souces, including here.
- The recipe calls for brioche or pullman loaf bread. I baked up some Dan Lepard Milk Loaf in the original - all white flour - version for just the second time in all the many many times I've baked the bread.
- Keller gives instructions for emulsifying the butter while sauteeing the leeks. My butter "broke" repeatedly and I had to re-emulsify it about 6 times
- One of Keller's favorite techniques is to make a parchment cover for saute pan - basically a circle with a hole cut in the middle. It allows a simmering dish to vent but not dry out.
- The chives and thyme were from my herb garden.
- When it came time to bake the bread pudding, I used a "convect" setting on my oven, and the custard was set in half the time specified.
- This recipe can be served hot, room temperature, or anywhere in between.
- I was very tempted to add some sauteed wild mushrooms, and think that they would be a great addition.
the verdict:
This dish was a big hit with just about everyone at Thanksgiving dinner. I think people mostly forgave the lack of dressing/stuffing. The pudding is tender and delectable and has a lovely flavor from the leeks and herbs. It's quite rich, as would be expected with so much butter, cream, and cheese. I might reduce the cream and increase the milk next time around; I don't think it would be missed.
My husband was not the biggest fan of the bread pudding, though, because it reminded him too much of quiche (not his favorite). And being that it is a custard with cheese, he has a point. Oh well, that meant that I had to finish it by myself! Although the edges of the bread cubes weren't as crisp, the pudding was very good re-warmed.
The leek bread pudding would be a great dish at Christmas dinner, to accompany any type of roast meat or fowl. With the significant quantities of eggs and cheese, however, it's also substantial enough to stand on its own.
I'm submitting this post to Yeastspotting, a superb weekly compendium of yeasted baked goods and dishes made with bread.
Autumn is my favorite baking season. The crisp air and changing leaves just call out for warm fragrant spiced baked goods. The denser and spicier the better, and nothing is more wonderful than a spicy pumpkin bread!
I have a pumpkin bread recipe that I've been baking for the better part of two decades. The loaves come out dense and spicy but a little fluffy too, and the bread's always been a big hit whenever I serve it. It's called Victoria's Pumpkin Bread, and is a recipe from Crescent Dragonwagon. (I've mentioned this recipe last year, at the end of the TWD Pumpkin Muffins post.)
This year when the calendar turned to October, pumpkin recipes were suddenly everywhere; sweet and savory, pastas, cheesecakes, cupcakes, and soups. I resolutely ignored all recipes for pumpkin muffins and pumpkin bread until I saw Olive Oil Pumpkin Bread on the Serious Eats site. I just had to try it to see if it was as good as my old standby pumpkin bread. Only one way to find out: bake them both, side by side.
- The recipe for the Olive Oil Pumpkin Bread was posted on Serious Eats, which is an immensely entertaining food site, and a valuable Twitter contact (because it sends out tweets to things like pumpkin bread recipes!)
- Scroll down to the end of this post for the recipe for Victoria's Pumpkin Bread
- I roasted a couple of "sugar pumpkins," also called "pie pumpkins" according to the method given in the Serious Eats post that accompanies the Olive Oil Pumpkin Bread recipe. Last year I prepared cooked pumpkin two other ways: in the microwave and by roasting cut up pieces in the oven, and I have to say that I prefer this year's puree from the roasted whole pumpkins. It's much easier to cut the pumpkins once they are cooked, and the puree is neither dried out nor watery.
- I've found that homemade puree is much lighter in color than canned pumpkin puree. I like my pumpkin bread to be a bit dark and spicy, so I mixed some canned puree in with my homemade puree, and used the same mixture for both pumpkin bread recipes. The difference in color in the final bread comes from the proportion of pumpkin to flour, and the other ingredients in the recipes.
- In both recipes I used a mixture of 2/3 All Purpose flour and 1/3 White Whole Wheat flour. Otherwise I stuck to the recipes as written.
- The Olive Oil recipe calls for "light" flavored olive oil. I had "extra-light" flavored olive oil, so I mixed hit half and half with regular olive oil.
- I baked the bread on a chilly gray day with a mug of steaming tea at hand. Nothing could be more perfect!
the verdict:
My husband and I both agreed that the Olive Oil Pumpkin Bread was head and shoulders above the Victoria's Pumpkin Bread. The Olive Oil bread was dense, moist, dark and spicy, compared to the lighter spiced Victoria's bread. While I still like the Victoria recipe, I'm going to have to make the Olive Oil recipe my go-to pumpkin bread.
the recipe:
Victoria's Pumpkin Bread from ‘The Dairy Hollow House Cookbook’
2 tsp ground cinnamon 2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp nutmeg 1 tsp baking soda 1 tsp salt ½ tsp ground cloves ¼ tsp ground ginger dash allspice 6 cups unbleached white flour (can use half whole wheat pastry flour or white whole wheat) 1 c mild vegetable oil ½ cup yogurt (I often use ¾ c oil and ¾ c yogurt) 4 eggs or equivalent egg substitute 3 c sugar (can use part brown sugar) 2 ½ c. unsweetened pumpkin puree 1 c. chopped black walnuts (I never use nuts)
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In large bowl, sift together the cinnamon, baking powder, nutmeg, baking soda, salt, ground cloves, ground ginger, allspice and flour. Set aside
3. In a separate bowl, mix together the vegetable oil, yogurt, eggs, sugar and pumpkin. Mix until smooth.
4. Combine the two mixtures and beat until smooth. Fold in the walnuts.
5. Pour the batter into 3 8x4 or 9x5 inch loaf pans (no more than 2/3 up the pan)
6. Bake for around 1 hour, or until the loaves shrink away from the sides of the pan and have a hollow sound when tapped. Test for doneness after 45 minutes.
Absolutely no offense to Erin of Prudence Pennywise who chose this week's recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie baking group, but I wasn't particularly fired up about baking the Sweet Potato Biscuits, which is odd, since I love sweet potatoes (in fact, when my husband is out of town, one of my fall-back dinners is a baked sweet potato).
My reluctance may be because I've been baking a lot of yeast breads, muffins, and quick breads (most of which I haven't had a chance to turn into blog posts yet). Or it may be because we don't eat a whole lot of biscuits here at home (leaving that exercise for those times when we eat breakfast out - there are lots of great biscuits to be had at restaurants here in Georgia!) So whatever the reason, I had low enthusiam and low expectations for this recipe. However, I've been in TWD long enough to know that usually that means that I will be pleasantly surprised by the outcome of the baking session.
Somewhere along the way, my "set of 4" lost the crucial biscuit size cutter
n.o.e.'s notes:
- I made 1/4 recipe. Since I didn't want to use a partial can of sweet potatoes, I chopped and braised a small fresh sweet potato in cider and butter - it got a little caramelized - then mashed it for the 1/4 cup I'd need for the biscuits. The puree looked a dry, so I thinned it with some milk.
- Last week I borrowed a copy of Alton Brown's baking book, I'm Just Here for More Food from the library. One entire chapter covers the "Biscuit Method" of mixing ingredients for baking, so I brushed up on Brown's methods before starting in on making the biscuits. Brown talks at great length about the "landmines" that are present at every step of biscuit-making. Yipes! I incorporated several of Brown's tips as I prepared these biscuits - hoping that I'd end up with nice fluffy biscuits:
- I froze my butter, and kept putting it in the freezer at most every opportunity.
- The dry ingredients got combined in my mini-prep food processor, then I rubbed the butter into the flour mixture with my fingers at the same time I was trying to not over-handle the dough. Back into the freezer it went.
- I turned the dough out onto lightly floured parchment paper and used the paper to handle the dough. I gave it several letter folds, trying to build up layers in the dough.
- Although Brown recommends using a 2 inch biscuit cutter for maximum rise during baking time. The set of biscuit cutters that I'd bought when I was first married has been missing that size for years, so I used a smaller cutter - closer to 1.5 inch - instead. I ended up with 6 tiny biscuits.
- I set my oven to 450 rather than Dorie's specified 425.
- Despite all those precautions, they didn't rise very much in the oven. I'm guessing it was because the dough might have needed to be wetter to get the proper rise. The sweet potato was the only wet ingredient in the entire recipe! Next time I think I'd add even more milk to the puree.
the verdict:
You may have guessed it by now, but I was thrilled by the taste of these biscuits! No matter that they weren't grand and tall biscuits, they were so moist and tender inside, and the flavor was subtle and savory. The teensy pinch of fresh nutmeg didn't stand out, but lent a little complexity.
The biscuits were good with sharp cheddar, but my favorite way to eat them was warm with butter. Luckily they rewarmed decently in the microwave and I was able to enjoy them for several days!
The Tuesdays With Dorie assignment this week was Allspice Crumb Muffins, chosen by Kayte of Grandma's Kitchen Table. I "met" Kayte pretty early in my TWD days, and I liked her immediately. How could I not? She's fun, kind, and truly interested in everything and everyone around her. What's more, we have a lot in common - we're nearly the same age and share interests, including cooking and baking for our families.
When the October TWD recipes were announced, Kayte explained her choice to me: "I figured you could use them for Muffin of the Month for 'Mom!' Tell her I picked them out just for her!" That's the kind of friend that Kayte is. She remembered that I had a project of baking muffins this year for my mother, and she picked this recipe partly so that my baking would serve double duty: TWD participation and m.o.m. all rolled into one!
What's even more amazing is that my mom has a million food sensitivities and allergies, and Kayte managed to choose a muffin recipe that fits within my mother's narrow range of acceptable ingredients! For a long time I'd had my eye on the allspice muffin page in Dorie's book and I was hoping that somebody would choose the recipe soon so that I could bake it for my mom. Leave it to Kayte to read my mind!
n.o.e.'s notes:
- I made 1 1/2 recipe: 1 dozen for my mother and half dozen for us.
- It's always fun to use my spice grinder (coffee bean grinder in disguise) - I ground whole allspice berries. It turned out with some rather large bits, so I put some sugar in with allspice and it ground finer.
- In a bid to reduce the saturated fat in the muffins, I reduced the quantity of butter in half. for the other half butter, I used part oil and part plain yogurt.
- For the crumb mixture, I used King Arthur White Whole Wheat flour but I later wished that I'd remembered to use oat flour. The crumbs tasted great - the allspice took the buttery sugary goodness to a whole new level. I would have been just as happy to stop after the crumbs and serve them in a bowl with a spoon. By the way, for my fellow crumb-topping lovers, Sarah of Blue Ridge Baker just posted some sbrisolona cookies that are in effect entirely made of crumb topping.
- I substituted white whole wheat flour for half of the all-purpose flour in the muffins.
- The muffins rose nicely in the oven (well, they should, with 1 T baking powder!) and made lovely "muffin tops". They would have been very hard to get out of the pan - without ruining the crumb top - had I not used silicone muffin molds. As it was, even with pushing from below and loosening the best I could, large segments of the crumb tops spalled off while I was trying to release the muffins from the pan.
the verdict:
My husband sampled a muffin that was fairly fresh from the oven. His reaction: "Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm. That's good, good, good!" And he added, "those are unconscious." (That's high praise in case you were wondering)
I loved the allspice in these, especially in the crumb topping. The muffins are simple, straightforward, delicious, and seasonal. I can see myself making them often in the cool-weather months, when warm spiced baked goods really hit the spot.
I know that today is actually the first day of August, and I'm just now posting the July muffins-of-the-month. My mom has been on vacation in Maine for the last part of the month, so I made muffins to have bring with me when I pick her up at the airport later today. Lemon-Poppy Seed might be her very favorite muffin flavor, so when I saw a recipe in my new King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking book, I knew I had to make it. Nothing says "Welcome Home" better than your favorite muffins, right?
n.o.e.'s notes:
- I've heard great things about the book, so my hopes were high for my inaugural KAFWGB recipe.
- The recipe is for a Lemon-Poppy Seed bread, but gives directions for making a muffin variation. Scroll down to find the recipe as I made it.
- I followed the recipe exactly as written, with one exception: I didn't have lemon yogurt, so I used nonfat plain yogurt and added about 1/4 tsp of lemon extract.
- Actually there was an unintentional change from the recipe that I didn't realize until I typed it up - I only used 1/4 cup of lemon juice rather than the 1/2 cup that the recipe specifies.
- I order oat flour through my farm box, and it's fairly coarse. I love the texture that it gives my breads and other baked goods.
- There was enough batter to fill 15 silicone cupcake cups, which are a little bit smaller than the wells on regular muffin tins. I only made 14, so a few overflowed.
the verdict:
I loved these muffins, and I hope my mom loves them also. Some lemon poppy seed muffins are fluffy and cake-like, but these are moist, compact, and chewy from the oat flour. They are quite lemony and a little crunchy from the poppyseeds and the browned edges.
Lemon-Poppy Seed Bread (or Muffins)
1 1/2 cup (6 oz) white whole wheat flour 1/2 cup (1 5/8 oz oat flour 3/4 cup (3 1/8 oz) 2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 cup (1 stick, 4 oz) unsalted butter 1 cup (7 oz) sugar 2 large eggs 2 T grated lemon zest (was 2 lemons for me) 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (oops, I used 1/4 cup) 3/4 cup lemon yogurt, non-fat to full fat (I used plain non-fat yogurt) 1/4 tsp lemon extract (my addition) 1/4 c (1 3/8 oz) poppy seeds
[There is an optional lemon glaze, which I omitted.]
1. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
2. Cream butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl until fluffy.
3. Add the eggs, one at a time.
4. Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients
5. Add the lemon juice.
6. Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients
7. Add the yogurt and poppy seeds.
8. Add the remaining 1/3 of the dry ingredients.
9. Scoop the batter into muffin liners or prepared pans (makes about 15 smallish regular muffins)
10. I baked at 360 convect/bake setting for 15 minutes, cooled a few minutes then popped them out of the muffin cups and cooled on a rack.
... for technical difficulties! My internet service at home has gotten very squirrely for the past week, and I am mostly without an internet connection. So that's why I haven't been posting or commenting very much. Well that, and a spate of construction at my house has kept me hopping.
Blog posts should resume as soon as I resolve the computer issue! In the meanwhile, the photo up top is of a 1 pound block of fresh yeast that I bought at a local specialty market. I had an intensive baking session for the two weeks right before my construction, baking bread nearly every day. You can see my Italian Knot Rolls, made with fresh yeast, on this post on my bread blog, Corner Loaf.
This week's TWD baking assignment is Fresh Mango Bread., chosen by Kelly of Baking with the Boys (the recipe will be on her post). This was a new one on me, even though Dorie says it's a Southern specialty and I've lived here in the South for more than 30 years (born a Yankee, though).
To be ready for this bread, I'd ordered a mango from thefarm box (organic "from farther afield", as they say). I eat very few fresh mangoes so I had to turn to my good buddy, Google, when it was time to ripen and store my mango. And the internet research turned up this interesting fact: mangoes are the #1 consumed fruit in the world, beating bananas 3 to 1 and apples 10 to 1. Did you know that? I sure didn't, and it makes me think I'd better get on the mango-eating band wagon (besides those fabulous chile spiced dried mangoes from Trader Joes).
n.o.e.'s notes:
-My mango must be the type that Dorie used, because it yielded exactly 2 cups of chopped fruit!
- I made a few typical-for-me substitutions in this recipe:
--- 5 oz light flavor olive oil + 1 oz nonfat yogurt
--- 1 c white whole wheat + 1.5 cups ap flour
- I could not get my head around the combination of fresh fruit and raisins. It just sounded odd to me. Dorie said that she'd tweaked nuts out of the recipe, and I tweaked them back in! They just seemed to go with the raisins. I added 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans to keep the golden raisins (and the mango) company.
- Rather than 3 eggs, I used 2 very very large duck eggs (@75 grams each!) + a few drops of egg substitute.
- Rather than a big loaf, I filled 1 smallish and 1 mini loaf pan. The batter pretty much filled the pans. I should have used another mini pan, but I was too lazy to grease and flour it. My reward? The pans overflowed in the oven.
- The biggest issues with other TWD bakers seemed to be whether to include the raisins (always controversial; people have strong opinions about raisins in their baked goods!) and the hairyness of the cooked mangoes in the bread. I have to say the little strings did take me a bit by surprise, but they weren't a deal breaker for me.
the verdict:
I liked the spiciness of this bread, but not sure I liked the mango in it, which is too bad since that's pretty much the point of the bread. That being said, my husband loved this bread and ate it with his breakfast for a week. I still have the mini loaf in the freezer.
Think of a wonderful picnic in a meadow in early Spring (the day after Easter, for example). What would be in your picnic basket? That is the question posed by Italian blogger Cindystar, the host of April's Bread Baking Day (#21), as she chose the theme "Spring Country Breads":
"I would like to share with you a virtual pic-nic on Easter Monday. In Italy it's a popular tradition to have an outdoor trip in the countryside, on that special festive day all families and friends gather together, lay a blanket or a tablecloth on the grass and have a sort of epicurean brunch (never missing hard boiled eggs, part of tradition!)with children enjoy playing outdoor and adults lazily enjoying the first warm spring sun."
I've recently made and posted two different types of typical sweet Easter breads (Hot Cross Buns, traditional in England, and a yeasted version of Dove Bread, an Italian favorite) and thought I'd try something different for this event. I paged through my bread books, and in Rose Levy Berenbaum's book The Bread Bible I found a lovely-sounding savory bread with an unlikely-sounding name: "Stud Muffin" (so called because it is studded with cubes of cheese before baking) She describes it as an Italian bread for Easter, a variation of a recipe from Perugia, Italy, called "torta di Pasqua" ("Easter cake" - although it is not a sweet one like the Colomba Pasquale/ Easter Dove.) How perfect! It's a bread intended for just the type of event Cindy evokes for us. And it's Italian!!
Stop by Cindystar in early May and see the roundup of Spring Country Breads. You are bound to be amazed at the wonderful creations of bakers literally all over the globe. This bread is also going to Susan at Yeastspotting, a fabulous weekly roundup of all things bready and yeasty. I'm always inspired by the handiwork of the bread baking bloggers!
Oh, and leave a comment on my 200th Post for a chance to win a $20 King Arthur gift certificate.
See those bits of browned gruyere?
n.o.e.'s notes:
- The baking pan is one of the keys to getting this bread to turn into a "muffin." My closest baking dishes were both 1.5 quart rather than 2 quart, so I prepared 3/4 recipe.
- I followed Beranbaum's directions for the "ultimate full flavor variation" which involved leaving the sponge at room temp for 1 hour, then in fridge for 8+ hrs, before incorporating it into the bread dough.
- Beranbaum gives detailed food processor instructions for preparing this bread. These are great because you use cold ingredients, rather than warm. The food processor tends to (over)heat the dough; generally you want to use your ingredients right from the fridge.
- I had a little bit of fun measuring my egg with the digital scale to get the appropriate 3/4 amount, but I'll spare you the gory details.
- My Parmesan cheese was Australian (shhh, don't tell Cindy!)
- The dough weighed 790 grams (Rose gives you the approximate weight of your finished dough, which is kind of cool)
- After hand kneading, the dough was incredibly soft and supple dough with flecks of black pepper. It was a total pleasure to work with the dough.
- The dough didn't rise much in the fridge, but as instructed I deflated it regularly just the same.
- The next day the dough rose very well - it's supposed to "nearly triple" and mine definitely did that. It deflated just a bit when I brushed the surface with egg. Luckily it puffed nicely in the oven. And smelled divine at the same time.
- After taking the bread out of the oven, the bread cools on its side on a soft pillow, to protect it as it's cooling. Apparently this bread is too fragile to stand on its base without collapsing. So it rests on a pillow for an hour, with lots of hovering by the proud mama/baker, who turns the bread every few minutes.
- I've wondered a lot of things in my admittedly short yeast-baking career. (Did I knead the dough enough? Did I add too much flour? Did I kill the yeast? Did I remember the yeast? Does my bread hate me?) But I've never thought I'd be asking myself: Is my bread resting comfortably? Is the pillow soft enough? Do I need to turn my bread to the other side for a few minutes? Perhaps a soothing lullaby?
the verdict:
After all of the sweets that have come out of my oven in the past couple of weeks, this bread was a breath of fresh air on a Spring day. Actually if you make this bread it might have you seriously wondering if you've died and ended up in heaven. Cue the harps; it's that perfect.
See those melty bits of Gruyere? Swoon!
"Details," you say?
Little bits of Parmesan and Romano cheese are dotted regularly throughout each slice of bread, and every now and then you hit the jackpot - a bread hole completely coated in Gruyere! And if that isn't enough, the black pepper is what puts this bread over the top. Well, and the fantastic moist crumb. Yum!!
I wanted to experience this bread the traditional way, so I took Beranbaum's suggestion and piled some prosciutto on a slice. It was the most perfect ham 'n cheese I've ever eaten!! Or imagined, for that matter. But as wonderful as that was, I most enjoyed this bread all by itself, just barely warm. It was also pretty great at room temperature. In fact this bread was so fabulously seductive that I had to put in the freezer after a day or two - just to avoid hearing it call my name. The cries are much more muffled through the freezer door.
the recipe:
I was unable to locate a link for this recipe, so I've gone ahead and typed it up the way I baked it - 3/4 recipe. I've slightly condensed/reworded too.
Stud Muffin
Rose Levy Beranbaum The Bread Bible
Here is the way that I prepared this bread.Beranbaum gives lots more specific information in her book, especially for various methods of mixing the dough.I used my food processor, which I think is her preferred manner for this formula.
1.5 quart soufflé or other deep round baking dish, well greased
baking stone (or baking sheet)
Sponge
117g (4.1 oz, or 2/3 cup + 1 T) unbleached all-purpose flour (Beranbaum specifies King Arthur, Gold Medal, or Pillsbury only – I used King Arthur)
1.8 g (½ tsp) instant yeast
133 g (4 oz, or ½ cup) water
In a medium bowl, whisk flour, yeast, and water until very smooth, to incorporate air, about 2 minutes.Will be the consistency of thick batter.Scrape sides of bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and allow to stand for 1-4 hours at room temperature.
“Ultimate Full Flavor Variation”:
For best flavor development, allow to ferment for 1 hour at room temperature and then refrigerate for 8-24 hours.
Dough
42 g (1.5 oz) Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, cut into chunks
42 g (1.5 oz) Romano cheese, cut into chunks
257 g (9 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour (same brands as above)
3 g (1 tsp) instant yeast
5 g (¾ tsp) salt
2 g (1 1/8 tsp) black pepper
42 g (1.5 oz, or 3 T) softened butter
88 g (3 oz, or 3/8 cup) cold water
¾ large egg (about 33 grams not counting shell)
53 g (1 ¾ oz) Gruyere cheese, cut into ¼ inch dice
In food processor with regular blade, process Parmesan and Romano cheeses until finely grated (powdery).Transfer to a bowl and switch to dough blade.
In medium bowl, whisk together all but about 21 grams of the flour, the yeast, salt, and the black pepper.Empty it into the food processor, and scrape the sponge on top.Add the butter.
In measuring cup with a spout, whisk together the cold water and egg.With the machine running, slowly pour the mixture into the feed tube.Stop the machine, add the grated cheese mixture, and process for about 15 seconds, until the dough forms a soft, shaggy ball.If the dough does not form a ball, add some of all of the remaining flour by the T, processing in 4-second bursts.The dough should feel slightly sticky.
Empty the dough onto a lightly floured counter and flatten it into a rectangle.Press 3/8 cup of the Gruyere cubes into the dough, roll it up, and knead to incorporate evenly.The cough will weigh about 780-788 grams.
Put dough in a lightly greased bowl, mark where doubled will be, then cover the bowl and refrigerate the dough 8-24 hours. Pat down several times in the first hour or two until the dough stops rising.
When you are ready to shape the dough, turn it out onto a counter and knead it lightly (It will be supple and smooth).Round it into a ball. Push down into prepared pan; it should fill the pan about half way.Cover lightly with a piece of wax paper and let rise in a warm area (80 – 85 degrees!) until almost tripled, about 3-4 hours.The center should be ½ - 1 inch above the rim of the dish.
45 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.Have a shelf at the lowest position and place a baking stone or foil-lined baking sheet on it before preheating.
Brush the surface of the bread with a bit of lightly beaten egg.Insert remaining cubes of cheese into the dough using a chopstick; first gently twist chopstick into dough then use chopstick to push in a cheese cube, leaving it visible. This was tons of fun!
Place the dish on the hot stone.Bake for 40-45 minutes, until bread is golden and instant read thermometer registers 190 degrees.
Remove bread from the oven and set on a wire rack for 30 minutes.
With the tip of a sharp knife, loosen the sides of the bread and unmold the bread onto its side onto a soft pillow (covered with plastic wrap to keep it clean) on the counter to finish cooling.This will prevent the soft fragile sides from collapsing; turn it a few times to speed cooling, but always leave it on its side.It will take about an hour to cool completely.
