French Chocolate Brownies, regular and gluten-free

Hello readers!  Sorry for neglecting you lately.  I am here, still working my way through the final recipes of Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking From My Home to Yours, even though this post is a little bit behind my self-imposed schedule.  

The upside of posting late is that now I have two versions of these brownies to talk about: regular and gluten-free.  I only have pictures of the gluten free, but if it weren't for needing pictures to put on this post then I'd have never made the gluten-free version.  This is what happened: I baked a full batch of Dorie Greenspan's French Chocolate Brownies for a neighborhood cookout.  It was only when I started this blog post that I realized that I had whisked the brownies to the cookout without taking any photos.  So I decided to bake them again, for photos (and for my book group)  But I didn't want to waste a baking opportunity to try something new: I thought I'd adapt the recipe to make it gluten-free.  There is so little flour in a brownie recipe anyway that I figured it would work. 

n.o.e.'s notes:

French Chocolate Brownies, Dorie's original version

-  The French Chocolate Brownies were the first pick of my baking buddy Di, of Di's Kitchen Notebook (back before I knew Di).  You can find the recipe on her brownie post.

-  I made a full recipe in an 8"x8" metal pan.  The recipe calls for raisins, rum-soaked then flambeed,  to be added to the batter. When TWD baked these brownies back in June 2008 there was a tempest of controversy about the raisins, but I wasn't about to omit the distinguishing ingredient of the recipe.  I've baked with Dorie's rum raisins before, and again this time the flambeeing was a bit anticlimactic.  The flames were half-hearted, but I guess they burned off most of the alcohol.  I chopped the raisins finely, so they'd be disguised, just in case there were any raisin haters in the group I was serving.

-  I omitted the cinnamon.

-  The brownies baked up nicely, with a dense crumb.  They looked just like a fudgy brownie usually looks, with that shiny, crackly, papery top (sorry I forgot the photo session).  The recipe makes a small pan of brownies, and they disappear quickly.  Just a heads up on that!

French Chocolate Brownies, Gluten Free version

-  When faced with making the recipe a second time I knew I wanted to experiment with gluten-free, so I sought a little guidance as to which gluten-free flour, or combination of flours to use.  On Shauna Ahern's Gluten Free Girl and The Chef blog I found this recipe, which is quite similar to Dorie's French Chocolate Brownies.  I figured I could take some clues from Shauna's recipe and combine them with Dorie's recipe and hope for the best.

-  Shauna's recipe uses teff flour, and I actually had a bag (unopened) of teff flour in my baking stash.  I bake gluten-free from time to time, and at one point I stocked up on different flours.  I was glad to actually try the teff flour.  For those of you unfamiliar with teff, it is a grass-type grain and is used in Ethiopian cuisine (I had to look it up).

-  I made 1/3 of Dorie's recipe which matched with 1/2 of Shauna's recipe, in terms of butter and egg.  Shauna has more flour and more sugar for the same amount of egg and butter.  I decided to "split the difference" on both ingredients.  I made sure to use an extra-large egg (67 grams including the shell) to make sure the brownies held together.  Instead of using some melted chocolate and some chocolate chips, as Shauna did, I used all melted chocolate, as Dorie did.  I would have used darker chocolate but 61% was the darkest I had on hand.  This time I skipped the rum + flames steps for the raisins, and plumped them in hot water before chopping them finely.  I also omitted Dorie's cinnamon and added vanilla extract. I omitted the chopped hazelnuts from Shauna's recipe.

-  I baked the brownies in a 7"x3" loaf pan. Here are the quantities and ingredients I used:

2 oz chopped chocolate (I used 61% dark chocolate)
2 oz butter at room temperature
33 g teff flour
pinch of salt
scant 1/8 cup golden raisins, plumped in hot water, drained and chopped
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 extra-large egg (about 67 grams with shell, 60 grams without shell)
scant 1/2 cup sugar
handful of chopped nuts, hazelnuts or any other nut of choice (optional; I didn't include them, but I think they would be great in this recipe)
Follow the mixing and baking directions in Dorie's recipe.

-  I had a hard time judging done-ness of this recipe, even though I used the King Arthur Flour Divot Test.  The divot, which started out modest in size, turned itself into a crater when I wasn't looking.

-  One problem is the thick crust that formed on top of the brownies shattered when I tried to test the brownies, and came completely unattached when I cut them into pieces. 

-  These brownies were denser and fudgier than the original recipe; in fact they looked just like pieces of fudge (but with a crust on top).  They spent an overnight in the fridge to make them even firmer and more fudgy.

the verdict:

The brownies from the original recipe were a huge hit at the neighborhood cookout, especially with the host D's college-aged daughter M.  The next day D emailed me:

You should have heard M just now offer her friend one of the few remaining brownies—she is intrigued by what “fruit” is in them! 

(Little did she suspect they were raisins!)

The gluten-free batch was equally delicious; fudgy and chewy in texture with crispy edges and crusty tops (even if the bits of crust were completely separated from the brownies).  The bits of raisin provide fruity accents to the deep chocolate flavor.  I served this batch of brownies to book group, apologizing for the top crust issue, and my testers looked at me like I was demented. "Who cares about that?" they said, "They taste great!"  Proving once again that taste rules.

All in all, I'm thrilled that my gluten-free adaptation worked.

Pecan Honey Sticky Buns

In a sweet kind of synchronicity, the new Tuesdays With Dorie baking group, which is now baking its way through the book Baking With Julia, chose sticky buns for this month, exactly 4 years after the original Tuesdays With Dorie group baked the Pecan Honey Sticky Buns from Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking From My Home to Yours.  I guess May is a good month for sticky buns!

Because I'm baking all of the recipes that I missed in 2008, my sticky buns were the ones the original TWD group baked from Baking; From My Home to Yours.  If you want to see the ones from Baking With Julia,  which are more complicated and involved "laminating" the already-buttery dough with butter, you can click here to find links to the sticky bun posts of 135 bakers in the current TWD group.

n.o.e.'s notes:

-  You can find the sticky bun recipe on the blog of the original host blog, Madam Chow's Kitchen.

-  I had previously made a full batch of brioche dough, and saved enough in the freezer to make 1/4 recipe of these buns.  I rolled and cut the dough so that I could have more in number, if smaller in size - I ended up with 9 just-right-sized sticky buns.

-  You put the ingredients for the honey-caramel topping in the pan then place the formed and cut buns on top.  The baked buns are inverted after they come out of the oven, and the sticky caramel-y topping ends up covering the buns.

-  The dough really didn't rise as much as it I thought that it should have, and I have no idea why.  And, although I thought I did the math correctly, there seemed to be more topping than bun.  That wasn't totally a bad thing!

the verdict:

I loved the topping and the pecans on these buns.  The buns themselves were a tiny bit dense from their minimal rise, but overall the sticky buns were a delicious treat for a Sunday morning breakfast.

Margaret of the blog Tea and Scones also posted the sticky buns this week, along with the brioche raisin snails, you can read them both here.

Olive Oil-Poached Halibut

I own more than my fair share of cookbooks.  I have the best of intentions to use every book that I keep on my shelves (and conversely, not to keep books that I don't use), but invariably there are cookbooks that I find myself reaching for without even thinking.  One of these is the big yellow Gourmet Cookbook, edited by Ruth Reichl.  I have never been disappointed by any of its recipes, so when I saw a recipe for Oil Poached Fish I had enough confidence to try this new-to-me technique with my very favorite fish, halibut.

n.o.e.'s notes:

-  Although I found the recipe in my copy of the yellow Gourmet cookbook, the good news is that you can find the recipe online, here.  Although really you won't go wrong if you purchase the cookbook.  And guess what? I just checked at Amazon, and the price right now is $7.17.  You can hardly afford not to buy the book!

-  The recipe has just five ingredients: fish, lemon, capers, olive oil and parsley, along with salt and pepper.  I made half a recipe in an oval Pyrex dish.

-  It's a quick matter to throw the fish together, but it is baked low and slow - at 250 degrees for an hour or more.

the verdict:

This fish was velvety, tender, and subtly but clearly flavored with citrus, herb and salty elements.  I'll definitely return to this recipe.  As I wrote in my notes: 
the fish was not oily tasting
the oil was not fishy tasting

Although the recipe says that you can re-use the oil for other purposes, that's not exactly my forte, so I'll admit that I didn't keep the oil.

My friend Di of the blog Di's Kitchen Notebook is once again hosting a seasonal blog event.  The theme this time around is "Cooking The Books" and I'm submitting this recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks.  Click over to her post to see the other fun things that bloggers have cooked and baked from their books.

Traditional Madeleines

 

In the course of my baking with the original Tuesdays With Dorie baking group, I've had several opportunities to use my little 6-well madeleine mold from Pairs.  We've baked various flavors of madeleines from Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking From My Home to Yours: chocolate, tea infused, and honey, brown sugar and lemon.  But the classic plain madeleine recipe in the book was chosen for the group before I joined.  

Now that I'm busy catching up on all of the recipes from Dorie's book that I missed four years ago, this week brought me to the basic madeleine, baked by the TWD bakers 4 years ago this week.  Not only did this give me a chance to try one of the quintessentially French recipes in the book, it also presented the opportunity to use all of my previous experience to try for madeleines with maximum "humps" on their ridged backs.

n.o.e.'s notes:

-   Click  here for the recipe, on the blog of one of the early TWD host, Tara of the blog Smells Like Home.

- From previous experience with Dorie's recipes for madeleines, I have learned that half recipe makes enough batter to just over-fill my particular madeleine pan with its six wells.  I tried to remind myself that it is deceptively easy to put too much batter in the wells and purposefully left a bit in the bowl.  It turned out to be almost the perfect amount of batter in each well.

-  I also remembered (as I had not the last time I baked madeleines) that on her blog Dorie had given a few new tips for baking madeleines so that they would puff even more while baking, producing a profligate hump.   I followed her suggestion to place the madeleine pan on a hot baking stone in the pre-heated oven.  I did this, and voila! My madeleines formed beautiful puffed shapes as they baked.

the verdict:

These madeleines were easy to mix up, fun to bake, and delicious to eat.  I had forgotten the delicate pleasure of eating a madeleine with a cup of hot tea, but this recipe brought it all back.  And I was very glad to finally bake the basic classic.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Mini-Tortes

Along with fruit jelly candy, my biggest weakness is a Reese's Fast Break candy bar.  Soft nougat and peanut butter encased in chocolate: what's not to love?  Dorie Greenspan's recipe for Peanut Butter Torte has always looked like the homemade-dessert version of the Fast Break bar and I've been looking forward to baking it for years.  Well, my chance finally arrived: the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group baked the peanut butter torte four years ago this week, and so my quest to finish the book brought me face to face with this much-anticipated recipe.

n.o.e.'s notes:

-  The recipe is not available from the original TWD host, but I found the recipe posted on the Brown Eyed Baker blog, here.

-  I made 1/2 recipe in six 1-cup silicone molds. Another way to do minis would be to use a dozen smaller silicone cupcake molds.  A cupcake-sized serving is probably an ideal size since this recipe is quite rich.

-  The recipe includes directions for making "crunch," a mixture of chocolate chips and peanuts with spices but I didn't want crunch in my mousse, so I opted to skip those and top my tortes with mini-peanut butter cups, which are nice and soft.  If I were going to go the crunchy route,  I might try toffee bits on top (or stirred in).

-  The whole recipe is very straightforward, if a bit bowl + equipment intensive. I used my stovetop, microwave, sifter, cutting board, sharp knife, several bowls, mixer, food processor, spoons, spatulas, scrapers, etc.

-  The silicone molds released the little tortes beautifully.

the verdict:

This recipe was perhaps the biggest disappointment of the book to me.  I had looked at the picture in the book countless times and anticipated how fabulous the chocolate would taste with luxurious peanut butter mousse, but the reality was far from that.  


The peanut butter flavor was too subtle and was totally overpowered by all of the cream cheese + whipped cream. And the flavor of the crust was ...oreos! I found that distracting, and would use a different chocolate base, such as the gluten-free chocolate crust from Deliciously Organic that I used for the Tuesdays With Dorie/Baking With Julia chocolate tarts.  


The best part of this dessert was the chocolate topping, but that's no surprise - it's ganache, after all.

In the end I decided that the filling resembled cheesecake more than mousse, and I found that I liked it a lot better as long as I didn't expect to taste peanut butter.  But no matter what, the dessert was so rich that I couldn't eat more than a few bites.  Ulitmately I was left wishing I'd had a Reese's Fast Break candy bar instead. 

Fluted Polenta Ricotta Cake

 One thing I've learned from nearly 4 years of baking Dorie Greenspan's recipes weekly, and that is that I can trust her instincts.  Dorie can turn the most unusual combination of ingredients into the most sublime of baked goods.  I've seen it time and again, and this week's recipe, the Fluted Polenta Ricotta Cake, gave me an opportunity experiment in the kitchen again with Dorie.  I've gathered that here were a lot of bakers who were not fans of this cake when it was baked by the Tuesdays With Dorie group four years ago but it sounded good to me so I was interested to see how we would like it.

n.o.e.'s notes:

-  The cake was selected four years ago by Caitlin of the blog Engineer Baker, and you can find the recipe on her cake post. 

-  The recipe calls for dried figs (the seeds add to the crunch provided by the medium grind cornmeal/polenta, but I went a different direction and added chopped prunes.

-  I baked a half recipe in 8" fluted tart pan.

-  This recipe produced a definitely pourable cake batter, but it thickened nicely as it baked, and the butter pats left little light patches all over the surface of the cake.

-  I served the cake with honey-sweetened yogurt.

the verdict:

This is a rustic, homey cake, not a show-off special-occasion fancy-dress cake.  My husband and I loved it; his observation was, "this cake is a perfect balance: not too sweet, nice taste of honey, substantial texture."   Although the prunes were fine in the cake, we both agreed that it would be perfect with dates; I will make it that way next time (which might just be right away!)

Almond Marshmallows

In my quest to finish all of the recipes in Dorie Greenspan's book  Baking: From My Home to Yours, I arrived at a recipe, Marshmallows, that, being egg-white-based, is humidity-sensitive.  It was rainy and damp for a good week around here, and I was foiled in my plan to make the marshmallows in time to post them last Tuesday.  But this week was gloriously dry and crisp Spring weather, just perfect for marshmallows, so I whipped up a (half) batch.

I've always liked marshmallows, although not so much in hot chocolate or in baked goods.  S'mores (marshmallow + graham cracker + chocolate) are good, but mostly I like to eat marshmallows plain.  And stale.  To me the best marshmallows are stiff but still chewy, almost a taffy consistency.  On the other end of the spectrum, the "marshmallows" in breakfast cereals such as Lucky Charms - little hard nuggets - are beyond the pale.  I was interested to see the texture of Dorie's marshmallows.

n.o.e.'s notes:

-  The recipe for marshmallows was chosen for the Tuesdays With Dorie group by Judy and you can find the recipe on her 2008 post. There is an omission in the book; one Tablespoon of sugar that is mentioned in the ingredient list but not in the instructions.  Dorie later cleared up the mystery:

I'm sorry about the mysterious 1 tablespoon sugar -- it was meant to be added to the egg whites once they started to thicken. The little bit of sugar shouldn't make a difference in the marshmallows, it's there to ever-so-slightly stabilize the egg whites and make it easier to beat them without overbeating.

-  I've never made marshmallows before, and there are recipes that don't involve egg whites, and recipes - such as Dorie's - that do.  The basic method for these marshmallows involves 3 elements: beaten egg whites (stiff but still glossy), gelatin (bloomed in cool water then heated until liquid), and sugar syrup (boiled without stirring until precisely 265 degrees).  The three components are prepared separately, and simultaneously(!), and then beaten together, producing a bowl of frothy, shiny, meringue, which is then spread out on a shallow pan to set.  I'm never confident about my sugar syrup into egg white skills, but it worked out well for me this time, although the whisk beater slung sugar syrup all over the bowl and onto the counter as I poured it into the beaten egg whites.

-  I made half a recipe, although I really wanted to make 2/3 recipe because of the amount of egg whites and open gelatin packets I had on hand.  But the math was a little daunting for me (did I really say that?) so I dropped back to the easier calculations for halving the recipe. 

-  Dorie gives several flavoring options for the marshmallows, and a simple internet search will produce tons of creative flavor/color combinations for homemade marshmallows.  I decided to go with an almond flavor combination.  Almond: the little black dress of flavors.

-  To the basic recipe I added the following flavorings, based loosely on the flavor of this recipe from the Washington Post:
1/2 tsp espresso powder
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 tsp almond extract
1.5 tsp amaretto
I stirred all of these into the gelatin mixture before beating into the syrup/egg white combination.

-  My half recipe nearly filled a parchment-lined toaster-oven tray.

-  I used potato starch to coat the marshmallows to keep them from sticking, but, really, mine weren't all that sticky.  I was able to use the same knife to cut the whole bunch, without having to wash down the blade in the middle of cutting.

the verdict:

I found the marshmallows to be quite tender, not-too-sweet, not at all chewy, and quite subtle (but noticeable) in the almond department.  So, while they hardly resembled the stale stiffness of my usual marshmallow ideal, they were lovely nonetheless.  I'm looking forward to sharing them with my book group later this week (and I'm leaving the box uncovered in the hopes that they might get the littlest bit stale!)

Lemon Loaf

 

There's one thing to be said for the Lemon Loaf cake that was assigned for this week's recipe by the Tuesdays With Dorie; Baking With Julia baking group: it's really easy. Really, really easy.  I arrived home very late on this rainy Tuesday afternoon and stood in my kitchen debating with myself whether I had time to bake this cake.  Or more importantly, whether there would be enough daylight after the cake was baked to photograph it so that I could actually post it on time.  When I saw how short the recipe is, I started pulling out ingredients and before I knew it, the cake was in the oven.  And was baked, cooled (mostly) and sliced in time to photograph in natural light on the back deck, thanks in just a small measure to Daylight Savings Time.

n.o.e.'s notes:

-  You can find the recipe for the Lemon Loaf on the blogs of this week's hosts:

Truc of Treats and Michelle of The Beauty of Life

-  The virtue of this recipe is that it is made in a bowl with a whisk; no mixer or creaming of butter required.  Instead, the butter is melted and folded into the cake batter at the end.

-  I baked 1/2 recipe, in a little skinny loaf pan that my daughter JDE brought back from her 2011 trip to Hong Kong.

-  All of the lemon flavor of the recipe is from lemon zest.  I wanted that zest to contribute its lemony limits, so I used a favorite Dorie Greenspan tip: first I rubbed the zest into the sugar with my fingers, until the sugar was a bit damp and very fragrant.  Then I whisked the sugar/zest mixture with the salt and eggs as directed by the recipe.

-  I deviated a tiny bit from the recipe by adding a healthy dose of lemon oil to the batter (about 1/2 teaspoon for my half recipe).

the verdict:

This had a wonderfully dense, moist crumb, but wasn't in the least bit heavy or dull.  The lemon flavor was subtle, but noticeable (in part from the lemon oil I'm guessing).  It made a wonderful dessert with some sliced strawberries.  This is a great recipe to keep bookmarked for those occasions where you need a not-fussy, quick, easily transportable cake.  Although I kept mine plain, the cake could easily be gussied up by adding a lemon glaze or soaking it with a lemon syrup.

Lemon Cream Tart + Grapefruit Cream Tart

Four years ago this week the bakers of Tuesdays With Dorie had a choice of recipes: either Dorie Greenspan's Most Extraordinary Lemon Cream Tart or her Orange Cream Tart.  I'm still working away at making every recipe in the book, so I made both! The lemon tart was pretty much by the book, but in my kitchen the orange cream tart transformed into a grapefruit version with a chocolate crust.  In both cases, I froze most of the cream for future use and assembled mini tarts for tasting purposes.

n.o.e.'s notes:

Lemon tart

- Dorie herself shared the lemon recipe on Serious Eats, under the headline "lemon, lemon, lemon cream," here.  Additionally, in May of 2008 Dorie revisited the recipe for her lemon cream tart and shared tips in this post on her blog.

-  I made a gluten-free crust for my lemon tart, using Alice Medrich's shortbread base found in her cookie book, Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies. (I highly recommend this book, by the way!)

Orange tart

-  The recipe for the orange cream tart can be found on Michelle's original blog, here. (Michelle now blogs at the Brown Eyed Baker)

-  I've been in a serious grapefruit phase, so I decided to adapt the recipe from orange to grapefruit.  I used an especially wonderful, juicy, dark red grapefruit for the recipe.  Here's how I adapted the recipe: I used some lemon juice, but maybe not the full amount, finishing up a lemon that I'd already cut.  I cut the sugar to about 3/4 the amount specified by the recipe.  I used about 4T rather than 5.5 T butter.  I got a bit mixed up in my steps, and added the gelatin just after I started to put in butter.

- The grapefruit cream wasn't as tart/flavorful as I would have liked, so next time I'd use more lemon juice and perhaps reduce the grapefruit juice by boiling it down a bit to concentrate the flavor.

-  The grapefruit cream "set", probably because of the gelatin in it, and it didn't stir up smooth.  Although the filling looked a bit bumpy it wasn't really lumpy at all.  

-  I put the filling into a mini chocolate tart shell, and topped the tart with whipped cream and chopped pistachios.

the verdict:

Lemon tart

The lemon filling was nothing short of amazing: silky, creamy, and very tangy.  I mellowed it a bit by a dab of whipped cream on top of the tart.  Alice Medrich's gluten free crust baked beautifully into a sturdy shortbread cookie, the sweetness a perfect complement to the filling.  This is a great recipe to have in the gluten-free arsenal and can be used as a base for any bar cookie or tart.

Grapefruit tart

The grapefruit cream was subtle and the tiniest bit bitter on its own.  But it was perfect paired with the chocolate tart shell, which smoothed out the rough edges of the cream, while the cream contributed a subtle note of citrus to the chocolate.

Caramel Topped Flan

Flan was on the menu four years ago this week for the Tuesdays With Dorie bakers, and it was on my menu in my quest to bake all the TWD recipes that were baked before I joined the group.  Flan is one of those order-at-a-restaurant treats for my family, and I was interested to see how it would work in my kitchen.

Dorie's recipe for Caramel Topped Flan is one of those mysterious recipes: you put everything in the baking dish and bake the flan and when you unmold it you have a lovely custard which through the magic of baking ends up covered in a delightful caramel sauce formed from the ingredients you put in the bottom of the flan dish.  Of course, as will all upside-down desserts, you never really know how it's going to turn out until it comes out of the pan!

n.o.e.'s notes:

-  Steph, of A Whisk and a Spoon has the recipe here:

-  I made a half-recipe of flan in a 6" round cake pan.

-  The first step in this recipe is to make caramel which is then spread - evenly, Dorie emphasizes - into the bottom of the cake pan.  My caramel kept pulling away from the edges of the pan; you can see from the picture above how that ended up looking.

-  Next, I mixed the custard, poured it into the pan, then baked it in a water bath in the oven until the custard was set.

-  The final step was unmolding the flan, flipping it onto a serving plate, leaving room for the caramel sauce to run down and pool around the edges of the flan. I was a little concerned that the magic wouldn't work, but the flan turned out perfectly. 

 the verdict:

This flan was every bit as tasty, and tastier even, than the versions that we order when we eat out.  We savored every spoonful.  Who knew that making fabulous flan at home could be so easy?

Irish Soda Bread

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:

Carla of Chocolate Moosey put dried cherries in her bread

 Cathy of My Culinary Mission  made a gruyere version

 
-  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.

Brioche Raisin Almond Snails

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!