Alpha Bakers -- (Rum) Raisin Pepita Craisin Chestnut [Bread]

It isn't French Toast. It isn't cinnamon raisin bread. Listen, not everything in life turns out the way we planned. When life brings you soft, sweet, bread laden with pepitas, sunflower seeds, chestnuts, and dried cranberries, count your blessings and don't ask for Rum Raisin Royal French Toast, mmmkay?

 

This versatile loaf would be good for many uses, but it was torn to pieces by my part-time shelvers before it had half a chance of staling enough to be dipped in egg and fried. I'll call that a win.

Alpha Bakers -- (Chocolate) Almond Babka

There's nothing more satisfying than bread in a bundt. Unless it's a babka. And I dispute whether this is a babka. It's a great filled brioche, but Rose's babka recipe is not exactly my idea of the real thing. I'm loyal to the richer and sweeter charms of the Zabars-style stuff, a stickier, more tightly rolled and almost underbaked masterpiece that might not charm Paul Hollywood but tastes like the Jewish best to me.

Name disputes aside, this is a simple enriched dough rolled around a filling (I made it at Thanksgiving with a chocolate almond, and last week with an almond-only (sorry George Costanza)), and baked in a bundt pan.

The dough is an easy process of starter ferment, rise, chill, and fill. In a warm kitchen on a March sick day, it came together with no trouble, and the almond filling, which contains almond paste, was delicious. My co-workers did not question the name, they just ate it. Fast.

My party guests the weekend after Thanksgiving didn't eat quite as voraciously, partly because there was a lot of other food, and so I tried making bread pudding out of the leftovers. I don't recommend that plan, as the soft bread was too weak to stand up to the custard mixture and didn't provide a satisfying finish. Now I want to make a babka.

Alpha Bakers - Raisin Walnut Christmas Bread

Tucked in between the corners of this weekend, which included a joyful and tearful run-in with Tevye and Co. in the searing and sweet Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof, teatime with kids and LEGOs, and a few hours of Sunday overtime, were a few little Christmas activities. Most notably, the baking of Rose's Cranberry Walnut Christmas Bread. This bread sounded so festive that I was imagining something of a quick bread with sharp pops of fresh cranberry and chunks of ginger, maybe even white chocolate. When I realized that I was looking at a simple yeast bread, I had to reboot and revise a bit, using all AP flour instead of the WW flour called for, and adding raisins instead of the dried cranberries I had not bought.

Everything else went smoothly, though. I appreciate the step of incorporating the fruit soaking liquid (to which I added a shot of Campari to acidify those sweet raisins) into the dough--bread dough is always my catchall for whatever bits of liquid (sour milk, ginger beer, beer, mushroom broth) are lying around waiting for a purpose, and this recipe has that tendency built in.

Rose recommends a 3-day preferment to enhance the flavor. I didn't have time for that, nor did I throw in a little sourdough, which would in retrospect have been a good idea, but I did give the dough a second rise in the refrigerator overnight, which helped some with development. The final loaf had a nice crust and crumb, and good spring. It wasn't my favorite bread ever (breads with lots of nuts in always taste a little peanut-buttery to me), but it made for a sturdy lunch with some good butter on.

Alpha Bakers -- Sugar Rose Brioche

The Sugar Rose Brioche, much like a Krantz Cake, is one of those fun baking jobs that delivers overtime in return for a small twist. Just by cutting a roll in half, an already impressive brioche becomes an impressive presentation.  To make this little masterpiece, all you need is some regular brioche dough. I used butter that was too cold in mine, so there were some bigger pieces left as it proved, but because it's folded a few times they smoothed out in the end with no trouble.

The only instruction I flubbed was the one to make a double recipe of the dough. Just as well, as I already had to dip into my stock of fancy expensive spreading butter to make one recipe. Too much pie dough happening. Curse you, Great British Baking Show (and WHY can I only access a season and a half when I KNOW there have been six????). All turned out well, though, I just scaled down, and baked it in a 7"x3" cake pan with a removable bottom and cut the baking time by about 10 minutes. Due to my recent bulk order of Baker's Joy, nothing stuck in the least. I went through the whole bake slowly, over 36 hours, and the loaf's small size allowed me to prove and bake thoroughly, while pitying some of those poor British bakers who had doughy centers.

The final result was lovely, with a light and mostly even crumb. Now I'm feeling a bit smug, so I'm sure I'm due a downfall.

Alpha Bakers - Club Med White Chocolate Bread

I've never been to Club Med, and in the aftermath of the paleo and low-carb crazes, I'm startled to learn that they still are known for handing out loaves of...bread to guests. Still, since I'm never going to go to Club Med nor demonize carbohydrates, I was happy to bake Rose's version of the Club Med, a slightly lighter and more bread-like version, a variant on her cinnamon toast bread. Since it's one of those recipe variants that is actually just the same recipe with a different filling, I was tempted by the original and some golden raisins found their way in to my white chocolate bread.

The recipe is fairly simple--overnight sponge rise, butter incorporation (it's a light brioche), rest, rise, shape, rise, bake. Rose suggests wrapping the rolled and shaped loaf in a little skin of dough so that it looks like non-white-chocolate bread on the outside and then all the little pockets of goo are a surprise. As you can see from that twisted and misshapen shot above, mine did some escaping from its respectability blanket, resulting in delicious caramelized bits of white chocolate. 

As you can see from the slice shots, though, the general shape and character and crumb were flawless. I stuffed these hastily cut slices into my bag, slammed the rest into the freezer, and took off on an 8 hour train and van journey to Lake Placid, NY. I had packed many snacks for the train, but none of them savory, so after 8 hours of white chocolate bread, yogurt raisins, and apples, I was losing my mind. Definitely buying sandwiches or just straight jerky for the ride home. 

The bread was delicious--light crumb, gooey bits, raisins... It will, as advertised, make a great toast bread and possibly a good bread pudding.

Alpha Bakers -- Whole Wheat Walnut Loaf

Bread is so wonderful. My birthday breakfast this year was a large loaf of Zaro's raisin challah, eaten with coffee one day and dipped in milk the next (yes, it was a birthday weekend, nobody celebrates just one day). This week with the Alpha Bakers was 100% Whole Wheat Walnut bread, a cheese-friendly loaf that wasn't very pretty on the outside, but was lovely and simple inside. 

The bread begins with a small preferment, which rises under a blanket of the rest of the flour. The flour I used was Farmer Ground, from an organic cooperative from upstate NY that is sold for a very reasonable price at farmer's markets and my food coop. They have a whole wheat line, but all I could pick up yesterday was their all purpose, an 11% protein flour milled from 'Warthog' winter wheat. Warthog. This made my loaf a little lighter, and I'd like to try with the whole wheat, but the all-purpose is still much sturdier than your average store brand. Whole wheat flour is sometimes a little harder to bake bread with, so Rose's recipe includes a dash of vital wheat gluten, which increases gluten development and elasticity, contributing to a higher rise. 

My kitchen was very, very hot last night (I was making this in the middle of a heat wave) and I accidentally threw in a little too much yeast (must measure, weighing is too inaccurate at those small amounts), so my bread rose wildly and was a little more loose than I would have preferred. I did the first turn in the bowl instead of stretching it out on a counter, but I am pretty good at bowl turns after years of using the Tartine method, so I am confident in my choices. The looseness of the dough meant that the final loaf was a little sloppier looking and not as domed as I could have wished, but the interior was perfect. I'll be serving it for breakfast with jam and Comte, and then taking it to work. 

As for the pie I said it was too hot to make, I didn't make it. Blueberry pie is great but I have extreme difficulty holding on to blueberries long enough to get to that place. I've been skipping around a lot with the Alpha Baking lately but expect to be back on track for the rest of the summer (until I move, more on that later, cross your fingers...). The week before last I made some cookies but haven't blogged them yet because I went to the beach instead. In fact I took them to the beach. Behold the Kourambiethes in their fancy packaging. Buttery and nutty and buttery, we ate them on the beach and threw the crumbs everywhere. Everyone approved, and my friend's two and a half year old, who claimed to be too shy to interact with us, pronounced them 'nummy.' So.

 

Alpha Bakers -- Classic Brioche

Dear world. This here is a classic brioche. It has no bells and no whistles. It has quite a bit of butter. I made it over a day or two, and it involved some heavy lifting (of the mixer), some folding of dough into letter folds, one, two three, and then a quick overnight proof in the refrigerator. 

I have eaten nearly all of it, and plan to eat the rest for breakfast. Enough said.

Alpha Bakers: Swedish Mango Mixed Nut Bread

My to-do list is reaching frightening heights. Small tasks such as 'tidy the desk' and 'put away the laundry' are piling up under larger ones ('write book review', 'find new roommate,' 'do taxes') and even larger ones ('buy apartment,' 'improve job performance,' and 'evaluate books for major award'). I might be starting to panic a bit. In fact, the only time I make to-do lists is when I'm on the verge of panic. They do help, although I rarely remember to actually check things off. Not really a to-do list kind of person.

One thing I am quite good at, though, is making bread. Somehow, I had gotten it into my head that the Swedish Apricot Walnut Bread from The Baking Bible was a rye bread, and I held off making it for a week so I could get my hands on some good rye flour. And so I could traipse around frozen Chicago with a lot of librarians in brightly colored cardigans and cool tights. 

The Chicago thing went very well--I met some lovely people, ate and drank with some special people I've already met, got heavily snowed on, got a dose of Midwest nice (THANK YOU, Metra conductors who held the Sunday 6:12am train for me when I was on the wrong platform with my giant suitcase and there were 8 inches of snow and counting and the next train was not for two hours), and got to hear LeVar Burton and one of my library inspirations Scott Bonner speak. The Youth Media Awards were announced, including the Newbery and Caldecott Medals. There were some surprises, and as usual, some excitement. Here is a good roundup of what the children's librarians in your life were talking about last week. Here is a good round-up of what we'll be talking about for the rest of our lives if we do our jobs properly.

Speaking of jobs, here's the bread. As it turns out, the bread uses a miniscule proportion of rye flour to regular bread flour (or in my case Hecker's unbleached, which has a reasonably high gluten content). The dough begins with a biga starter, to which I added about 1.5T of leftover sourdough starter, for flavor. The biga then spent about 9 hours out on a table, followed by a few hours in the refrigerator. Then it was mixed into a dough with additional yeast, given a two hour rise, stretched and folded, and left overnight in the refrigerator for a second rise. 

I stretched it out, laid in a pattern of soaked dried mango (standing in for the apricots, golden raisins and mixed nuts had already been added to the dough), and folded and rolled the dough into a reasonable batard, which I then left to proof in the refrigerator while I was at work. Finally, I gave it a short time on the counter while I pre-heated the oven and the baking stone, slashed and baked, and there it was. I like this bread, but I would never make so small an amount again. If you're going to all the trouble of making a bread dough, make more than one wimpy batard. Also, if we're advertising this as a nutty bread that's good with cheese, I'd like a slightly more dense, rye-heavy bread. A friend has requested that we try out this Scandi Rye from Food & Wine next. Any ideas on good wheat-free replacements for the bread flour? She can have gluten, just not wheat.

Alpha Bakers -- Golden Orange Panettone

Shortly after Christmas, someone brought a commercial panettone to my office. It was one of those breads in a box that line the top shelves and promotional racks of supermarkets everywhere, and that I rarely consider buying because they have candied peel in them and are stale. This one was not stale. This one was soft and delicious and I ate it by the fistful, ignoring whatever lunch I had brought. I put it down next to the Chocolate Cuddle Cake and laughed inwardly at the success of my decoy as I ate all the panettone. 

Then I checked the Alpha Bakers baking schedule. The next decoy was on me. Rose's version of panettone uses a biga (a stiff pre-ferment) to intensify the flavor of the dough. While this means starting the bake a few days earlier, it's anything but difficult to make. I'm pretty used to refrigerated rises and long baking runs from my various sourdough adventures (and in fact I baked my first sourdough in a while in tandem with the panettone), so as far as I'm concerned all went well. Then the mixing. These soft doughs really are so different when you have a strong mixer. Just throw it all in and whip, and no hour-long slow sighing over a knead. I had some candied orange peel left over from last year's fruitcake (that wasn't supposed to have candied orange peel in it), so in that went along with some dried prunes and dried cranberries. In retrospect, I wish I'd added some candied ginger as well. 

The only thing that was a little rushed for me was the bake itself--I was leaving for Boston the next day and had to get it done, well after midnight. Because of that, the final proofing was a little less thorough than I would have liked, and thus my cross on top wasn't pretty and the oven spring came close to a blowout. Inside, though, the crumb was consistent and light. There has been a lot of discussion about proper flours to use for some of the newer formulae in The Baking Bible. I take the flour suggestions as recommended and use my judgement, which is pretty well honed after years of bread baking. I don't always expect the exact same results that Rose predicts, but I appreciate knowing why she's made her choices and what the rationale behind each one is. Baking, like cooking, is a dialogue, and a participatory one. And panettone is delicious, although I don't really like candied orange peel and next time would probably leave it out. Then it's just basically brioche, I guess. I'm down for that. I think I've mentioned on this blog before that one of my favorite things ever is to sit down with a large loaf of squashy bakery challah and dip it into a bowl of milk. Brioche works too.

Tuesdays with Dorie: White Loaves

Got no blogging in me today, but here's the photo. Baking with Julia begins.

Son of Pain au Levain

I've been so busy at SCRATCHbread that I don't think I've made old-fashioned, kneaded, bake-on-a-stone bread in months, at least at home. This week, two samples of Hamelman's Pain au Levain recipe, baked at 440 on my baking stone. The one on the right is exactly the same, except that it was rolled in flaxseeds. The inspiration for this bake was an illicit gift that I passed on over Passover to my cousin Alexander. As we all ate our unleavened bread, I slipped him a jar of contraband sourdough starter under the table. While advising him how to bake with it, it occurred to me how long it had been since my starter made anything but Tartine-style bread.

Alexander, incidentally, has christened his starter "Mattya."

French Fridays with Dorie: November Round-Up

Remember French Fridays with Dorie? I'm still cooking from Around My French Table, but I decided that instead of a weekly post it would make more sense for me to do a monthly round-up. The rules of the group are very low-key, and this past month the recipes could be made in any order. I made three of the four selections (and will probably still make the fourth, eventually).

The first recipe of the month, Roast Chicken for Les Paresseux (the lazy folks), was a chicken roasted breast down in a dutch oven, surrounded by root vegetables and garlic. The chicken, which was never turned, rested on a large piece of sourdough, which was meant to absorb all the chicken juices and become crispy and delicious. It was delicious, but because I thoughtlessly put the tough slice crust down, I missed out on the golden bottom, and nearly cracked a tooth trying to chew it all. Still, delicious. Next best was the garlic, and it was all gone pretty quickly.

One of the forum posters mentioned that she had made stock with the chicken carcass right in the roasting pan, a genius idea that yielded a rich, browned stock, which we ate last night with some frozen Udon noodles and pork dumpling filling meatballs.

It seems like we're working our way through the classics first, and nothing is more classic than Pomme Dauphinois. My version used slightly lower-fat dairy products and so was a little juicier than it could have been, more like potatoes floating in the sauce. It was garlicky and good.

The last recipe I made for the month was one of those that looks really good, has great things in it, and never really gets eaten. It just didn't tempt me, somehow, although I was looking forward to it, and I didn't sell it well to the rest of the household.
Maybe another time, Pumpkin Flans with Gorgonzola (it was Chevre) and Walnuts.  Looking forward to next month's recipes, as I continue to dip into the book at my own pleasure.

SCRATCH

This blog is mostly a home baking chronicle, but over the years, it has also documented my slow entry into what I would call the semi-pro baking world. Thanks to Lily & Fig's generosity and encouragement, I've done a lot of growing as a baker this year, and a few months ago I took another plunge.


I began an apprenticeship at a badass Bed-Stuy bakery, called SCRATCHbread. I had been deeply impressed with Matthew Tilden's product and aesthetic over the last year of watching his business grow, and when he moved in just a few blocks north of me and started assembling a crew, I was lucky enough to be able to participate. A few days a week, I've been slinging scones, cutting croutons, and hauling around giant batches of dough, soft as the proverbial baby's bottom. I've learned a lot, about timing, about use of space, about bold tastes and unusual combinations, about putting chiles in everything, and there's much more to learn. As I slowly re-animated my pathetic biceps, I felt a little shy about discussing the experience in so public a forum, especially as the business isn't mine. However, two things have happened that have induced me to go public. First, Matthew has asked me to join the regular crew line-up. I'll still be part-time, as I'm still very committed to library work, but his recognition of my growth and usefulness was very gratifying.

Second, I wanted to make sure that the rest of my world knew about the great work that Matthew and the SCRATCHbread team were turning out--the bold, tasty food and the growth of a great community business. Yes, SCRATCHbread is growing, and in order to get bread to everyone who wants it and to open a retail window so the hungry passersby don't have to miss out, they're working very hard to expand the workshop's capacity. With a new oven and some more refrigeration, big things can happen. SCRATCHbread is raising money on Kickstarter to make all their ambitious dreams come true. Check out the campaign, and the great video by Liza de Guia of Food Curated. Check out the delicious bread and pastry menus on the website, and if you feel like it, help out by donating a little or coming down to the Brooklyn Flea at One Hanson Place on Saturdays for some baked goods.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Raisin-Cinnamon Swirl Bread

This week's TWD recipe was bread, so I decided to make it at Lily & Fig instead of at home. All went well, recipe was mixed and baked, two billowy loaves went out into the world and sold, and I was set...

Or so I thought until I looked at the camera and realized that I had completely forgotten to take any pictures. Since the loaf was easy and I knew Matt and I would like it, I decided to make an impromptu second batch last night at home.

The dough as written contains four tablespoons of butter. For the home version, I cut this down to just one, for health and convenience reasons. It had the side bonus of making a bread Dorie calls 'too soft to knead by hand' more manageable.

The only unusual aspect of the recipe is the cocoa that mixes with the cinnamon and sugar in the swirl. So far, I haven't gotten deep enough into the loaf to tell if it makes much of a difference, but I know that it does add to the visibility of the swirl. Toast for breakfast. The recipe is here.

Baking with Julia

I just can't get enough of Julia Child. Gutsy and nuts, big and wild and precise, swooping voice and all, she has provided serious inspiration for me (and the rest of the universe) since I awoke to her unique charms a few years ago. I don't cook from her work all that much, but I like watch her, read her writing, and stand in awe of her remarkable career, marriage, and life. I knew that things had gotten serious when I caught myself waxing eloquent about the inspiration I drew from Julia during a family river 'retreat' on Yom Kippur two years ago. I want to live as she lived, with joy and with gusto. And yet I rarely make her recipes.

About a year ago, Matt's mother gave me a wonderful gift of hand-me-down cookbooks, including Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1, and From Julia Child's Kitchen. Something about having these well-loved copies around has inspired me to give them a little more use. Pencil notations show up at odd moments, and the whole affair just feels more friendly. And yes, I watch French Chef DVDs while I do it.  This weekend, under the pretense of 'recipe testing for the bakery,' I made Julia's croissants, and while I was at it threw in a repeat of her French Bread recipe (had to have something to make the TWD bread pudding).

The croissants were hands down the best I've ever made. All other recipes, however much they might have refined my technique and added to the success of this one, are now off the table. These are the croissants. No fooling. Hopefully I'll be introducing them at the bakery soon, and giving some competition to the Balthazar version being sold down the street.

Getting myself into Julia mindset makes me feel strong, domineering, capable, quirky, and joyful. Makes me feel like I could find more and more to my life's calling the older I get. That I can make friends all over this world. That there is honor in pastry and truth at the table. That I'm much better at making bread than the last time I attempted Julia's French Bread recipe, and it makes a difference.

It's actually been a while since I made a plain, white flour, yeasted loaf. Julia's was simple, and the crumb was soft and sweet. Maybe I'll even bring it over to the bakery this weekend, to make amends for last weekend's flour disaster. It wasn't too exciting for avocado toast, which demands a sturdy, nutty, whole-grain affair, but for dipping and sandwiches and that bread pudding, it was perfect. The trick was definitely in the two long fermentations (about 3.5 hours total) and in the initial folding before the dough was strong enough to be hand-kneaded. Love the dough scraper, that and the scale are the best tools to enter my kitchen in ages.

Thanks again, Julia, for everything. It was a great weekend with you, and I hope we'll have many more wonderful years. Thanks, Gwyn, for the cookbooks, and Matt for the photos, and Miriam, for eating the last croissant and saving us from ourselves.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Apple-Apple Bread Pudding

I may have mentioned that I love bread pudding. I'll mention it again, I love bread pudding. So during an impromptu mental health day taken yesterday, I made some bread pudding. With 'caramelized' (burnt) apples, apple butter, leftover egg whites, and barely staled French Bread a la Julia Child (more on this later). This is what it looked like after a night soaking in the refrigerator.

This is what it looked like when it came out.

This is what it is now. Almost gone. Bread pudding for breakfast.

Heavenly Cake Bakers: Baby Lemon Cheesecakes

According to Lily, this last week has been Cheesecake Week at the bakery, everyone who comes in is fiending for cool creamy richness. Both of us are constantly bemused by these fleeting market trends--one week everyone wants whole wheat bread, the next they need cheesecake--but it's fun to watch them come and go. And luckily, this week's Heavenly Cake Bakers recipe was right in line with the trend--mini cheesecakes topped with lemon curd. Just the kind of creamy, impressive, twee creation that everyone wants. Too bad I ignored Rose's exhortation in the intro note and made only half the recipe. These flew off the shelf so fast that we might be making more of them very soon.

The cakes are easy, although there are a bunch of steps. Luckily, they're steps I like, such as making sponge cake and lemon curd.  The recipe starts with a small note indicating that one should begin by making the sponge. Several bakers missed the step, and then backtracked in surprise. I was lucky enough to catch it this time (although I've been forgetting everything right and left, so it was just luck, believe me), and whipped my egg whites, yolks, sugar, et al in style. I love sponge cake, and everything that didn't get cut out went straight into my mouth.

Once the sponge was made, I cut it into small circles (Lily came in while I was doing this with a jar lid and pointed out that she has a small box of round cutters in EVERY size. Jealous). Then the very simple cheesecake mix was mixed. It consists largely of sour cream, so it was whiter and creamier than any cheesecake I've ever made, causing one fellow baker to describe it as similar to the Jell-o mix variety. The cake mixture was poured over the biscuit rounds (in paper muffin cups in a regular muffin pan), and baked in a water bath for about 20 minutes.

I cooled the cakes for a day, and the next morning made lemon curd and poured it hot onto the cold cakes. I was a little low on curd (should've made the full recipe), but managed to make it come out even, and by dint of a small offset spatula, was able to peel off the wrappers and smooth the sides pretty successfully. And the last one was gone by 1:00 pm.

The success of the cheesecakes was a balm to my wounded baker's soul, as, owing to some poor flour purchasing on my part, the bread was an unmitigated disaster, with some of it refusing to rise at all and the rest lacking strength in the extreme. Most of it had to be written off. Walking by the store, I saw my most loyal customer, a bread loving Swiss fellow, looking awfully disappointed, and I hid. Next week it will all be better. And I already made the Palet D'or Gateau, so maybe I'll try my hand at some croissants.

Bid for Freedom

As I struggle under the schedule load, pushing at the walls of the house and the city, I see that I'm not the only one longing to break free.