Baking Joy

This is my youngest granddaughter touching bread dough for the first time.  

"Grandma, I love you!  It is so soft!"

She was absolutely enthralled with the feel of the dough

and I was the lucky recipient of all that enthusiasm. 

Take no notice of the chocolate face

Rolling 

"I get to paint egg on dough?"

Sprinkling cinnamon, sugar and pecans. Raisins nixed.

Roly poly.  

She found cutting the dough with dental floss quite fun.

And then her mom came.  I quickly threw the buns in a pan and sent them to be baked at their house.  I never dreamed she would enjoy making cinnamon rolls so much.   She's baked many things with me but I have never seen this reaction before. 

Caramel Buns

 This week the Alpha Bakers make Caramel Buns.  I've made cinnamon rolls in the past for my kids on
Christmas morning.
.

  Filled with preservatives, artificial flavorings and dye, it was a rare treat.  Being able to make homemade rolls is so much better.

Book in hand, I plotted out the steps like the Panettone.  This recipe, while seeming to be complicated, actually turned out not to be complicated at all, once it was sorted through and the brunch instruction clarified by Nancy on FB.  The rolls start with a Brioche dough.

Brioche sponge blanketed with flour mixture waiting to break through like lava. 

After the first warm rise. .

Rolling and filling after an overnight stay in the frig.

Using plastic wrap to provide even tension while.rolling since I didn't have a plastic ruler.  The dough was covered in a cinnamon, brown sugar and pecan mixture.  Golden raisins.soaked in water and kalua for two days in the frig were sprinkled over the top.  (Still trying to finish off the kalua leftover from Heavenly Cake days.)  They were nice and plump and had such a mild flavor. During the reduction of the raisin syrup I added a half tablespoon of Lyle's Golden Syrup.  It significantly enriched the flavor.

                                                        Proofed and ready for the oven.

                                               Waiting for the delectable raisin butter glaze.

                       Drizzled with the decadent caramel sauce and adorned with toasted pecans,  we sprinkled a bit of sea salt.  It really set off the caramel.

                      Pillsbury  may have lost a  cinnamon roll customer but gained a bread flour one..  So far everyone who has tried them can't believe the caramel.

The Baking Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Rosemary Focaccia

First Bread Bible Bake

The Bread Bible Alpha Bakers launched this week with rosemary focaccia.

The first time I tasted focaccia was in San Francisco at a little pizzeria on Green Street.  Huge pans of pizza in the window stopped us in our tracks.  

The combinations were not the typical with or without mushroom choices.  This was back in 1980, before pesto was a household name.

  

Inside people stood knee deep eating  pizza.  Every stool was taken, all three tables filled. Behind the counter the pizza maker kneaded dough.  He was crammed among pans, sacks of flour and  proofing buckets with barely enough room to turn around. .

One bite and  we were forever ruined.  

Pizza would never be the same.

Edging our way through the crowd we asked the man what kind of pizza we were eating... 

 "Focaccia."  

Never heard of it.  He was a gregarious fountain of information.  Many questions later, we learned just about everything there was to know about focaccia.  For instance, fog in San Francisco directly affects the quality of the dough.  Hot days ruin it.  The foggier the day, the better the focaccia.  

 The guy was hilarious.  Is there anything more infectious than someone who is passionate about their work?

That was what,  thirty five years ago?  We still risk life and limb, navigating the car up the steepest hills in SF.  It's a game of  jockeying for a double parked space, jump out, run in and grab pizza to go.

~  

Sunday was the day to try my hand at making focaccia.  First step,  poaching garlic in warm olive oil.  Honestly, it didn't seem like much was happening until I tasted a clove.  It  was mild and didn't have that sharp bite.

Mixing up the dough taxed a twenty five year old Kitchen Aid.   Soon a giant lump of dough resembling mozzarella wrapped around the paddle. 

So far, so good.

 The stretchy dough was peeled then placed into an oiled bowl, covered with plastic wrap and shut away in the microwave for four hours,  Thankfully it more than doubled in less than the required time.  

Turned onto an oiled half sheet pan, it was left to rise for another hour.   I  decided not to use the garlic cloves, afraid of deflating the bubbles.  In fact, I was leery of stretching the dough at all.

More garlic oil drizzled over the top with chopped rosemary, sea salt and into the oven.

I was stunned to open the oven door and see golden focaccia.

The first slice revealed a light and airy bread.  I learned from reading that focaccia is the highest of the Italian flatbreads.  So different than commercial focaccia .And surprisingly easy to make. 

A quick batch of pesto and we were in business!

Delicious

Nothing short of a yeast miracle.  

Years ago I followed Marie's Breadbasketcase  chronicles and felt quite envious there wasn't a bake along.  My Bread Bible book had been sitting on a shelf for years.  I read it like fiction.    

Making the Baking Bible Swedish Apricot Bread  planted a seed.  When I posed the question to the Alpha Bakers FB group in reply to Michele's question about bread shape during baking, there was instant enthusiasm.  Not a tech person, I knew there was no way I could host such a thing.  Luckily, Glori is. She picked up the torch and ran with it.  Plus it turns out she has hidden talents.  Being a professional photographer,  she set up a beautiful blog for all our Bread Bible adventures. 

 Here we are less than a month later going full steam ahead!  It's going to be a yeasty learning curve for the next few years.  Safe to say we are excited  for the challenge.

Released in 2003,  The Bread Bible is still in print and available to buy  on Amazon, Barnes and Noble  and Alibris .along with Rose Levy Beranbaum's other baking and cooking books.  

Hamantaschens

Hamantaschen  (watch this if you want to hear the correct pronunciation) cookies are delightful little bursts of flavor encased in a sweet buttery cookie crust to celebrate Purim.  Purim is a momentous celebration in the Jewish faith honoring Esther for foiling the nasty Haman's evil plot back in 473 B.C.

The annual Jewish Food festival is filled with scrumptious treats so I was looking forward to making these cookies.

The Baking Bible recipe offers a choice of poppy seed, apricot or prune filling.  I chose all three, halving each recipe.  It was quite soothing mixing up each batch.  The dough is mixed together in a food processor, kneaded a bit and chilled.

It is then rolled, cut in circles, rimmed with an egg wash, stuffed with filling and pinched into three corners, creating the traditional  Hamantaschen shape for a final brush with egg wash.  Luckily my clumsy shapes didn't affect the delicious cookies.

Don't they look like they are ready to party?

                                           

After a final quick chill off they went to the oven.  While still warm,  those with poppy seed filling are given a brush with apricot.preserves, which have been brought to the boil, strained and showered with lemon zest.  Trader Joe's organic apricot jam never tasted so good..

                          Time for tea and Hamantaschens. And maybe watch Nicky's Family again.  Truly an  inspiring story, very much like Esther's.

  

Lemon Posset Shortcakes

                               This week the Alpha Bakers made Lemon Posset Shortcakes, which are genoise cakes with a  creamy Meyer lemon topping.  And since forever, I have had horrible luck with genoise.

So it was not with excitement that I began The Bake this week. Still, how can anyone be cranky when these beauties are in season?

Meyer lemons are a cross between a lemon and common orange or mandarin. Grown in pots as ornamental trees in China, they were brought to the United States in 1908 by Frank Meyer during a trip with the United States Department of Agriculture.  

Thank you Frank!  

But it was Alice Walters and Martha Stewart who popularized the lovely, mild lemons in the late 1990's.  For being such delicate things, they are a hearty tree that yields fruit within four years after planted from seed.  They are capable of producing thousands of lemons.  I know one thing, they have vicious spikes to protect their fruit.  

Years ago we transplanted a Meyer lemon tree from a lady who was determined to chop it down.  Nothing could persuade her otherwise, not even a batch of Rose's lemon curd, which she loved.  The neighbor agreed to let us move it next door to my mother in law's former home.  It lost its leaves and a harsh below freezing cold snap threatened its very existence.  And then it burst into bloom.  It was truly one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.  The scent was glorious. 

  They can even be grown indoors.  

Ramekins for the genoise sponge cakes which worked well.  They turned out easily. 

                Unexpected surprise!  This time they didn't have any flour balls and rose to a good height. Out of Baker's spray, I used coconut spray oil and dusted with the Wondra flour.

Once cooled,  a very sharp knife easily cut out the tops to hold the cream, thanks to Monica's posting on Facebook.  I missed seeing that bit in the book.  This is what is incredibly helpful about the Alpha Bakers FB page; helping to avert disaster..

Brushed with lemon syrup and then sealed with apple jelly, they were ready for the Lemon Posset which had been chilling in the refrigerator, separating into two layers.

The l-o-n-g wait was finally over.  Well, it wasn't really because they were supposed to set in the frig between the first layering of the thicker Posset and the second layer of the thinner Posset, but I missed that part, too.  I also missed the instruction not to use the watery Posset at the very bottom of the dish and happily spooned it over the top and down the sides. The presentation wasn't as professional looking but it didn't matter.  They tasted like an upscale Twinkie with the most amazing exquisite lemon cream.  This is definitely on the Make Again list but next time, no fiddling about with individual ramekins.  Too many requests for seconds!

Chocolate Pavarotti with Wicked Good Ganache

Happy Birthday to me!

Rose's Alpha Bakers are baking the delicious Chocolate Pavarotti cake with Wicked Good Ganache, which is her tribute to the great tenor, Luciano Pavarotti.  I went in search of Pavarotti singing Happy Birthday to hear what a tenor who can reach the E above high C sounds like.  No clue what E or high C is but if Rose is impressed, it must be spectacular

I found many people singing Happy Birthday to Pavarotti but not he himself singing the jingle.  I did find a nice surprise; Pavarotti singing one of my all time favorite songs, Volare .. I was just a little kid when Dean Martin came on the radio with this catchy tune and instantly loved it.  Volare means "to fly" in Italian.  I think that is what all great tenors do, they open the soul to depths that daily life makes us forget. 

Pavarotti would have loved this cake.

A fairly simple chocolate cake covered in ganache with chili for something extra, it did not disappoint.  Out of complete curiosity I tried Lindt dark chocolate with chili for the two part ganache.  First corn syrup is brought to the boil, then mixed with unsweetened chocolate.  After pulverizing the chili chocolate,  simmered cream was added and then the corn syrup/chocolate mixture plus a smidgeon of cayenne pepper.  Not quite certain why it is then strained through a fine wire mesh except to give me something else to lick wash.  Left to cool, it turns into a smooth ganache with just a hint of heat to accentuate the chocolate.

Forget the baking soda, that's not in the recipe.

The cake batter was easy peasy to put together.  The divine Lindt white coconut chocolate sat patiently in the cupboard so that's what I used.  Melted, cooled and stirred into the ingredients a fluffy batter soon appeared.

 The only thing which caused me confusion were the directions on a new Fat Daddio 9x2 inch pan to lower the temperature and shorten the baking time.  Lots of testing with a toothpick and it finally came out of the oven nice and high.  Once again the most difficult thing about a Baking Bible recipe was waiting for it to cool.

And Voila!  One wicked birthday cake.

                Rose's Raspberry sauce unstrained by request           

  Delizioso!       

                                       

Swedish Apricot Walnut Bread

Swedish Apricot Walnut Bread was discovered by Rose at the Riddarbagariet bakery in Sweden.  She bought their  cookbook, had the recipe translated from Swedish to English and adapted it for the home baker in the Baking Bible.  Lucky for us  Rose went to Europe, visited this particular bakery and had the foresight to bring home the recipe ultimately working her artisan magic.

 This recipe was a lesson in rye flour vs pumpernickel flour, the disappearance of flour mills in California what happened to the hippy health food grind your own flour shops and now a field trip to historic Napa Bale Grist mill is top of the list because they stone ground real pumpernickle flour,  biga vs wild yeast starters (who knew they could be patent protected), natural leaveners are so entertaining Disney offers a tour through the Boudin bakery at Disneyland, gold rush miners and wild yeast sourdough bread's history are inextricably linked and opening the oven door after ice has been thrown in is guaranteed to fog glasses with an instant facial.  

After the rye flour is stirred into a biga and given a refrigerated rest,  it turns into dough with the addition of  water, flour, yeast and salt.  Raisins and walnuts are mixed in which kicks this rye based bread up a few notches into party mode. This is not your dad's toaster rye bread with seeds that get stuck in your teeth.

A bit of pummeling, resting, rising rotations,  the very sticky dough is patted into a rectangle, top corners folded  down and apricots lined up.to be rolled into a sort of  roly poly pudding.  

 Baked with a handful of ice cubes for a  steamy oven, the aroma begins to permeate the kitchen. Letting it cool for two hours was the hard part.  The time was well spent with a trip to Whole Foods for Cowgirl Triple Cream Cheese, thanks to Michele for asking Rose which cheese would best compliment this bread.   The outer crust was brushed with butter while warm for a softer crust. 

Dollops of  favorite Trader Joe's apricot jam accent the bread and cheese perfectly.

I couldn't resist throwing one under the broiler for a Swedish crostini.

It is my favorite.   Toasting the bread brings out the flavors.