Good stuff in my belly, baby

Although I have been a very bad blogger and haven't posted in months, I've still been wearing out my mixer and fill'n my tummy with some dang good stuff. Here's what I've been up to...

Croissants

My idea of heaven would be a place I where could succumb entirely to gluttony and suffer no negative consequences. I would gorge myself on pastries. I would eat croissants for breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week. And after that, I might as well go ahead and wash it down with a big glass of melted butter. Because, as it turns out, a croissant is pretty much a stick of butter wrapped in a thin layer of dough. This is what I learned when I made them. No wonder they're so tasty.

Yep. That's a loaf-shaped glob of butter right there. 

The dough gets wrapped around the butter...

...then it all gets rolled into fine sheets of buttery-goodness.

After rolling and stuffing and rolling and baking...this is what comes out.  

Nothing tastes as good as fresh-from-the-oven homemade croissants. They were so close to perfection that I think I  wept a little with every bite.

You can find a terrific blog post with step-by-step instructions and the recipe here.

Pumpkin Cranberry Yeast Bread

Another recipe I tackled from Baking with Julia is the pumpkin cranberry (yeast) bread. I gotta say, I was entirely unimpressed with the recipe. It was good, but not great. Apparently, though, it was good enough for me to wolf down before getting a picture of the bread *after* it was baked. Alas, here is the only picture I have - right before going in the oven. 

Sticky Buns

Did I tell you I also made sticky buns? It's true. I so did. I have been a bad, bad girl. This recipe from Baking with Julia uses brioche dough for the buns, which are filled with pecans and lots of sugar. 

Happy eating!

Eat My Muffin

As many Americans, over Thanksgiving I cooked and baked. A lot. I started Thanksgiving dinner Tuesday afternoon and finished Thursday. I made two pies. For two people. Why I saw the need for Beth and I to both have our own pie is a question that remains unanswered. Like, where did Agent Cooper go at the end of Twin Peaks? Why do I need my very own, very large pie? These are things that keep me up at night.

Moving on.

After all that chopping and sifting and rolling and boiling, I wanted to make something simple. Something quick and easy to appease my carb cravings. As I am still working my way through Baking with Julia, I tried out the two muffin recipes in the book.

First I whipped up the Buttermilk Crumb muffins. Who doesn't love a muffin with a crumbly top? It's all butter and sugar and delicious.

By reading the recipe I couldn't really tell what it might taste like, and I was hoping it would be kind of like a sour-ish yellow cake. It was not like that at all. Instead it was like coffee cake. Almost exactly like coffee cake. Except for the shape. I don't care for coffee cake. Beth likes it, though. And did she eat all 12 muffins? Yes. Yes, she did.

Here's the batter. I thought it looked pretty with the buttermilk, eggs, and crumbly flour mixture.



Here's the finished muffin. As you can see they have flat tops. Baking with Julia loves the flat topped muffin, as you will see with the next recipe as well.

The other night when Beth was working late I came home craaaving blueberry muffins and orange juice. When I was in junior high I would stay at my friend Kristen's house almost every weekend. When we got up on Sunday mornings we would whip up a box of Jiffy blueberry muffins and mix up some orange juice from the can. We'd park ourselves in front of the tv and pig out on those delicious little muffins. To this day, when I want something comforting after a long day (or in the morning after a long night), I still long for blueberry muffins and orange juice. So when I came home needing blueberry muffins, my instinct was to turn to my favorite recipe - Browned Butter Blueberry Muffins by Joy the Baker. But I stopped myself. I am still trying to work my way through Baking with Julia, so I begrungly decided to give that recipe a try.

It started out well enough. When I whipped up the butter and sugar as light as air I began to get inspired. I imagined sinking my teeth into delicate, buttery muffins. In fact, up to the point of baking the muffins I felt optimistic.

But when I pulled the dark brown, crinkled things from the oven my heart sank. The recipe said to bake them for 15-18 minutes. And when I took a bite of those bland ugly things, the dissapointment was immense. It was 8:30 at night, I had used all the blueberries, and there was no chance of making another batch. Never again. From now on, I stick to my very favorite blueberry muffin recipe... or the Jiffy mix.

If you would like to try these muffins, here is the Buttermilk Muffin recipe, and here is the Blueberry Muffin recipe.

Happy eating!

Birthday Profiteroles

The thing about being the "baker" in my household is that I don't get anyone to bake for me. I guess because I'm such a foodie, I just don't think a birthday is complete without a cake. My birthday was on Friday. It was a rainy, stressful, emotional day and I had a bad headache. I think we were going to go out to dinner, where I could get a special birthday treat, but I opted for mexican takeout instead. No birthday cake for me. On the upside, I did get the thing my heart has been longing for - a pasta roller attachment for my mixer! I have been dreaming about it for years, and it is finally mine! I am so excited about it, in fact, that I am actually considering forgoing traditional thanksgiving fare for an all Italian meal. I cannot wait to try it out!

But back to birthdays. I thought I would get cake at dinner on Saturday, but it was another rainy day and I ended up not getting out of my PJs. Beth went and picked up dinner from our favorite Italian restaurant, and I decided to take matters into my own hands and make my own birthday treat. I wanted something quick and easy to make, with ingredients we already had, from a recipe in Baking with Julia. One thing fit the bill, and I ended up making Espresso Profiteroles.

It was pretty much a flop. I didn't have a pastry bag, so I tried piping the dough with a plastic baggie. It didn't work. It looked like a pile of...well...something you wouldn't want to eat. I also made them too big, so instead of puffing up like cute little shells, they layed flat like a pancake. "Who cares?" I thought. It's the taste that counts, not the way they look, right? Well, they didn't taste great. Honestly they were bland. Not at all like the rich pastry puffs I was craving.

my flat pastries

In case anyone out there in cyberwebland wants to try it, here is the recipe.

Espresso Profiteroles

1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup brewed coffee
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon ground espresso beans
1 1/2 cups flour
6 large eggs


Directions:

1. Position the oven racks to divide the oven in thirds, and preheat to 400.

2. Put the milk, coffee, butter, sugar, and espresso grinds in a medium or large saucepan over medium heat (a 2-qt. saucepan works well). Stir the liquid to melt the butter and bring to a full boil (so there are bubbles all over the pan).

3. Add all of the flour, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon. Stir until all of the flour has been incorporated and the dough forms into a ball and a light crust forms on the bottom of the pan, about 45 seconds.

4. Transfer the batter to a medium bowl, or the bowl of your stand mixer. With a spoon or the paddle attachment, add eggs one at a time, stirring to combine (use low speed on the mixer; you don't want to incorporate a lot of air).

5. Once all of the eggs have been added, you should have a soft, sticky dough. Transfer the dough to a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch tip. This is where things get interesting (messy). I got too excited and just started trying to shove the warm sticky dough into the bag without rolling down the sides. Bad idea. Roll the sides of the pastry bag down and scoop in the dough, rolling up the sides of the bag as you fill it.

6. Pipe quarter-sized puffs onto parchment lined baking sheets.

7. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes, rotating baking sheets halfway through. After 20 minutes, lower temperature to 350 and bake for 5-7 minutes more. The profiteroles should feel hollow when they're done.

8. Slice the cooled profiteroles in half and serve with ice cream and chocolate sauce.

 Happy eating.

everything looks better smothered in chocolate syrup

Boiled Dough. Chewy, Chewy. Yum.

What is it about boiled dough smothered in salt that is so deeply comforting? One bite into an oven-fresh, soft, chewy bagel and my whole body relaxes into calm. My very cells moan, "mmmmm". That's good stuff.

This week I have been boiling a lot of dough - some twisted and some rolled - and my belly has been happy.

A few days ago I came home to my King Arthur Flour order waiting lovingly on my doorstep. I ordered some items that I can't find at my local store, including the hi-gluten flour needed for bagels. So today I cracked open Baking with Julia and used my whole shiny new bag of flour making bagels.

The Recipe
(my notes in italics)

The measurements below will yield approximately 10 large bagels. However, it takes a lot of focused time to make bagels and they freeze really well, so I doubled the recipe. I kneaded the dough in my mixer in two batches to avoid over-heating the motor. I also made smaller bagels - 3 oz each - which yielded about 27.

 

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 2 1/4 cups tepid water (80 degrees to 90 degrees F)
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 3 tablespoons solid vegetable shortening
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 to 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper (pepper is optional - and I opted out. Black pepper on cinnamon sugar bagels? Yuck. No thanks!)
• 6 cups (approximately) high-gluten flour or bread flour (I have made bagels using high-gluten and bread flour, and using the high-gluten makes a noticeable difference. Even though the flour is more expensive, I think it's worth it.)

Directions:

1. Brush the inside of a large bowl with some of the melted butter; set aside. Reserve the remaining melted butter for coating the top of the dough.
2. Proof the yeast in 1/4 cup of the warm water in the mixer’s bowl.
3. Fit the machine with the dough hook and add the remaining 2 cups water, the sugar, shortening and salt. Mix on low to blend.
4. With the machine still on low, gradually add 5 1/2 to 6 cups of the flour, mixing for 2 to 3 minutes, or until the ingredients are blended. Increase the mixer speed to medium and knead for about 6 minutes, adding additional flour by the tablespoon until the dough is smooth and elastic. At this point, the dough may still be slightly sticky and it may not clean the sides and bottom of the bowl completely –that’s OK.

Rise:

1. Form the dough into a ball and transfer it to the buttered mixing bowl.
2. Brush the top of the dough with a little melted butter, cover the bowl with buttered plastic wrap, and top with a kitchen towel. Let the dough rise at room temperature for about 1 hour, or until it doubles in bulk. (Although I used the butter as directed, I will not do this again. I think that, particularly for bagels, spray oil works better. The butter made the dough too greasy.)

Chilling & Shaping the dough:

1. Deflate the dough, cover as before, and refrigerate for 4 hours, or, if it’s more convenient, overnight. At this point, the dough can be well wrapped and refrigerated for up to 2 days.
   Note: I let the dough refrigerate for a couple hours, then took it out and shaped the bagels. I placed them all on greased cookie sheets, covered with plastic wrap, and put back in the refrigerator until the next morning. When I got up this morning all I had to do was boil and bake and I had fresh from the oven bagels in about an hour.
2. Deflate the dough and transfer it to a lightly floured work surface. Cut the dough (you will want each piece to be about 4.5-5 oz. for large bagels and 3 oz. for smaller bagels).Work with 1 piece at a time and cover the remaining pieces with a towel.
3. To form a bagel and develop the gluten cloak that will give it its structure, draw up the dough from the bottom, stretch it, and pinch it at the top.
4. Keep pulling the dough up and pinching it until you have a perfectly round, tightly packed ball of dough with a little topknot or pleat at the top. Turn the dough over so that the knot is against the work surface and plunge your index finger into the center of the dough. Wiggle your finger around in the hole to stretch it, then lift the bagel, hook it over the thumb of one hand and the index finger of the other, and start rotating the dough, circling your thumb and finger and elongating the hole to a diameter of 2 to 2 1/2 inches.

Boiling the Bagels:

1. When you’re ready to make the bagels, position an oven rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Spray baking sheets with vegetable oil and dust them with cornmeal. For added flavor, use one or all of the suggested topping ingredients in combination with the cornmeal to dust the peel or the sheets.
2. While the oven preheats, fill a stockpot with water and bring the water to a rapid boil. Add about 1/4 cup sugar and 1 teaspoon baking soda to the boiling water.
3. With a large slotted skimming spoon or slotted spatula, lower the bagels, one at a time, into the boiling water. Don’t crowd them – the bagels should swim around in the water without touching one another; it’s better to boil them in batches than to cram them into the pot all at one time. The bagels will sink to the bottom of the pot when you put them in, then rise to the top. Once the bagels have surfaced, boil for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes on each side, flipping then over gently with the skimmer. Remove the bagels, shaking the skimmer over the stock pot to get rid of some of the excess water, and put them on the baking sheet with the unfloured towel, keeping the smoothest side of the bagel up.
4. Keeping the smoothest sides up, transfer the bagels to the peel or prepared baking sheet. (Work quickly because the wet bagels have a tendency to stick to the towel.)
5. Whisk the 2 egg whites and 1 teaspoon cold water together until the whites are broken up, then push the glaze through a sieve and brush each bagel with the glaze. Try not to let the glaze drip onto the baking sheet or peel, or it will glue down the bagels. Don’t worry if the bagels look wrinkled – they’ll smooth out in the oven. Brush with another coat of glaze and, if you’re using a topping, or more than one, sprinkle it, or them, evenly over the bagels now. (See note on toppings at bottom of page).

Baking the Bagels:

The original recipe calls for baking the bagels in a steam bath by adding 1/4 cup icewater onto the oven floor as soon as the bagels go in the oven. I did this for the first batch but didn't notice that it made a difference, so I didn't bother with it after that.

Another adjustment I made was the baking time. The recipe says to bake for 25 minutes, and then for another 5 minutes with the oven off. I did this with the first batch and they were way overdone. The directions below reflect the adjusted baking time.

1. Put the bagels into the oven and bake for 7 minutes. Rotate baking sheet, and bake for another 5-8 minutes until bagels are golden brown on top.
2. While the first batch of bagels is baking, boil and glaze more bagels just as you did the first batch.

Toppings I used:

• Cinnamon sugar (I mixed ~ 1 TBL butter, 1/2 C. sugar and 2 TBL cinnamon, enough for about 6 bagels)
• Sesame seed and salt
• "Everything", from King Arthur Flour's everything bagel mix
• Plain, brushed with the egg glaze

Let cool for at least 10 minutes before devouring!

Because one can never have enough chewy carby goodness, I also made pretzels. They were delicious. You can find the recipe here.

Happy eating!

On Fibro and Brioche

Ah. The rejuvenating powers of the four day weekend. My headache is finally gone!

For the past month my body has been very unhappy. She's been pissed off at her poor treatment and has gone into protest mode. Sometimes my fibro or scoliosis isn't that bad. Living with daily back and neck pain is just baseline - it's my norm - and most of the time the pain is just a dull ache. But sometimes my body revolts. When I get stressed, or don't eat well, or work too much, or don't exercise, my body is like, "yeah, well fuck you too!". The past few weeks have been really hard. I just feel tired all the time. And my whole body hurts. I know that if I were to get some exercise I would feel better. Yoga would be a miracle. But I feel so tired and sore it seems an impossible feat. Hence the cycle. Once again I need to suck it up and pull myself out.

But this weekend? This weekend has been good. Today I woke up and for the first time in days I did not have a headache. Baking is therapeutic in some way that is completely new to me. If I'm making bread, I am not thinking about the pain in my shoulders or the emails I need to return or the guilt for still having not returned my lovely mother's phone calls. Nope. I am just thinking about the bread. I am just there, in the moment, with the dough. I am meditating on the mystery of yeast and praying for the perfect rise. The feel of a perfectly kneaded dough, all soft and supple, fills me with complete calm. And even when it falters and it all falls flat, I accept it without a fight, in a way that I cannot do with any other failure I experience. Such is the nature of baking. I learn from my mistakes and try it again without judgment or criticism. It's a quiet joy, like peace.

The past two days I have been doing a lot of baking. I have literally only eaten carbs for the past couple days. Even the soup I made had a flour thickener and was loaded with dumplings. Ah well, life is too short to worry about one's waist. 

On to Baking with Julia!

Yesterday I made the brioche and it was divine! I know bread it supposed to cool before being eaten, but that was so not going to happen. The smell alone was making me drool like the dogs. As soon it came out of the oven it was in my mouth. The whole thing was gone before it could stop steaming. 

And it was delicious. The crumb was so light and tender it practically melted in my mouth, while the crust was perfectly flaky. I thought the taste was similar to challah - very eggy - and not as buttery as other brioche I've had. With all of that said, I don't know if I'll use this recipe again for a plain loaf of brioche. I actually much prefer Reinharts more decadent version (of course I do!).  However, there are 5 more recipes in Baking with Julia that use this dough, so I will definitely be making it again. My mouth is already watering in anticipation.

The Recipe...

INGREDIENTS

THE SPONGE
1/3 cup warm whole milk ( 100- 110 degrees F)
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 large eggs
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
    
THE DOUGH
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
4 large eggs, lightly beaten, room temp
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour ( approx)
6 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature
 

 

DIRECTIONS

1. Put the milk, yeast, egg and 1 cup of the flour in the bowl of a heavy duty mixer. Mix the ingredients together with a rubber spatula, mixing just until everything is blended.
2. Sprinkle over the remaining cup of flour to cover the sponge. Set the sponge aside to rest uncovered for 30-40 minutes. After this resting time, the flour coating will crack, your indication that everything is moving along properly.
3. Add the sugar, salt, eggs, and 1 cup of the flour to the sponge.
4. Set in the mixer, attach the dough hook, and mix on low speed for a minute or two, just until the ingredients look as if they are about to come together. Still mixing, sprinkle in 1/2 cup more flour.
5. When the flour is incorporated, increase the mixer speed to medium and beat for about 15 minutes, stopping to scrape down the hook and bowl as needed.
6. During this mixing period, the dough should come together, wrap itself around the hook and slap the sides of the bowl.
7. In order to incorporate the butter into the dough, you must work the butter until it is the same consistency as the dough.
8. You can bash the butter into submission with a rolling pin or give it kinder and gentler handling by using a dough scraper to smear it bit by bit across a smooth work surface. When it is ready, the butter will be smooth, soft, and still cool- not warm, oily or greasy.
9. With the mixer on medium-low speed, add the butter a few tablespoons at a time.This is the point at which you'll think you've made a huge mistake, because the dough that you worked so hard to make smooth will fall apart- don't worry, don't panic- carry on.
10. When all of the butter has been added, raise the mixer speed to medium-high for a minute, then reduce the speed to medium and beat the dough for about 5 minutes, or until you once again hear the dough slapping against the sides of the bowl. Clean the sides of the bowl frequently as you work; if it looks as though the dough is not coming together after 2-3 minutes, add up to 1 tablespoon more flour.
11. When you're finished, the dough should feel somewhat cool. It will be soft and sill sticky and may cling slightly to the sides and bottom of the bowl.

FIRST RISE: 

1. Transfer the dough to a very large buttered bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and let it rise at room temperature until doubled in bulk, 2- 2 1/2 hours.

SECOND RISE AND CHILL: 

1. Deflate the dough by placing your fingers under it, lifting a section of dough, and then letting it fall back into the bowl.Work your way around the circumference of the dough, lifting and releasing.
2. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough overnight, or for at least 4-8 hours, during which time it will continue to rise and may double in size again.

TO BAKE IN LOAVES: 

1. Divide the dough into thirds.Divide each section into 6 equal pieces, and shape each piece into a ball on a lightly floured work-surface.
2. Place the balls side-by-side in a greased loaf pan so that you have 3 short rows, each with two balls of dough.
3. Do the same with the other two pieces of brioche dough.
4. Cover the pans with plastic and allow the dough to rise at room temperature for 2 hours, or until doubled in size.
5. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
6. Lightly brush each loaf with egg wash, taking care not to let the glaze dribble into the pan (it will impair the dough's rise in the oven).
7. Use the ends of a pair of very sharp scissors to snip a cross in each ball of dough.
8. Bake the loaves for about 30 minutes, or until an instant read thermometer reads 200°F.
9. Cool to room temperature on a rack.

If you have any left-over brioche (laughable, I know!), here is a blog post that is delicious. 

Happy eating!