Alpha Bakers -- Monkey Dunkey Bread

Hiya. I got distracted by some new cookbooks but I'm back in brioche and rolling out the balls. Pretty excited about Louisa Weiss' Classic German Baking book, though, I'll tell you. I made a potato cake right on top of a rye bread crust.  Why? Who knows. Those starchy Germans, right? 

In Roseland, though, it was Monkey Bread week, and Monkey Bread is all about brioche dough. Side note: I am unable to make brioche without hearing Julia Child yodeling about BRI-oche in my head. Since I just read Alex Prud'homme's new French Chef book and showed Jeremy a bunch of French Chef episodes (one of which he found so inspiring that he immediately made Coq au Vin), this seems appropriate. For this over the top Monkey Bread, I was supposed to make brioche, roll little balls of it around pieces of chocolate, drench it in caramel, bake, and cover with more caramel. I skipped the chocolate and the final caramel drench, because I genuinely prefer a simpler sweet bread. Not everyone agrees, however. I took this in to an office meeting and mentioned what it had been intended to look like, and saw colleagues' eyes glaze over with desire. So next time, I'll make it like that. In the meantime, it's pretty easy to make spectacular BRI-oche as long as you have a stand mixer.

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 -- 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 - Very Slow Caramel Buns

Cake is all right, and pie is delicious, but my real passion is for breakfast pastry, from waffles to scones, biscuits to brioche. Sticky buns are akin to the waffle sundae, a good thing taken to heights of unbelievable overkill, then garnished with nuts. I love them, although sometimes I love them better without the caramel. The sticky buns in The Baking Bible are called Caramel Buns, and they are a brioche base rolled with nuts, sugar, and rum raisins, baked, glazed with raisin sugar syrup, and covered in a thick drippy caramel and more nuts. I know. Seriously.
 
Rose's brioche is a simple but slow dough, one that makes me glad I have a mixer, as it would be a gigantic pain without. It starts with a little sponge, which is then covered with a flour mix and refrigerated for a while.

I ran out of flour so I supplemented with a touch of my gluten free mix, accidentally contaminating the GF mix in the process. I'll need to make a new mix (enriching Bob's Red Mill as usual), but the old one will still be useful for gluten light baked goods and experimental models.
 
After some overnight rising and then stretching and folding and more rising, the dough is rolled out, brushed with egg, sugar, raisins, and, in my case, walnut bits, and then rolled up and cut. Rose recommends cutting the rolls with a piece of dental floss, which works perfectly and is weirdly satisfying besides. I have a twitchy response to public flossing, as my family knows to their sorrow (seriously, why is this a public event?), but public cinnamon roll cutting is full acceptable.
 
When I rolled it up, I completely forgot the rum-soaked sultanas, so I poked a few in on top. Most of them were forced up and got a touch toasted, but I really wanted them in there. Not sure what to do with the remainder, but especially with the rum, they'll last a little while in the refrigerator.

The buns are proofed for a while (it was a snow day so I let it run a little longer), and then baked with a Ball jar in the middle. The jar is filled with water--boiling water. I almost missed that the water was supposed to be boiling but caught it at the last minute.

While the buns were baking, I made the glaze (mostly raisin, rum, water, and sugar) and the caramel. The caramel was a pretty basic sugar/cream/butter shake-up, but I got a little creative and threw some cloves, Meyer lemon slices, and half a vanilla bean in with the boiling sugar, straining them out afterward. This gave the caramel a sort of 'Christmassy' flavor, as one taster said. Candied Meyer lemon slices were a good cook's treat.
 I overbaked the buns a bit, or they would have benefitted from the leftover raisins, as they were a little dry. Now that I think about it, that might have been the non-wheat flours, too. Next time I might make them larger.  Perfect baking for a snow day.

Heavenly Cake Bakers: Caramelized Pineapple Bread Pudding Cakes

I don't wear a watch. I am, however, pathologically obsessed with the time of day. These facts combined mean that, in practice, I use my phone as a watch, and am constantly clicking it to light up the display and tell me the date. This recently became a problem when I got a new phone that refuses to estimate the time when it is out of range or on the subway. Instead, it just says **searching**. As the subway displays also refuse to tell me the time when the train is in a station, this can get a little frustrating. Some subway stations are long and clockless, and I am usually hurrying out of them on my way to be late somewhere, so although I am aware of my phone's little quirk, I frequently pull it out reflexively and check anyway. It is usually **searching**.

Lately, this morning included, I've caught myself talking wearily to it under my breath. "Searching? I just bet you are." Or, in more philosophical mood; "Searching? Well, aren't we all."

This week, I channeled my searching into the making of a heavily caramelized, remarkably complicated Pineapple Bread Pudding. It began with the making of a brioche. Actually, I made two brioches, using Rose's recipe; one large one to sell at the bakery, one small one to use in the pudding. I trimmed the little loaf into cubes (it came just shy of the ingredient list's required weight, but I went with it), and then ravenously ate all of the trimmings.

Next, while the brioche cubes dried in a 200 degree oven, I made a very lightly cooked creme anglaise base (cream, milk, sugar, eggs...) and poured it into a shallow pan. When the cubes were dry, I slipped them into the creme anglaise to soak, covered and refrigerated.

Then came the caramel. This recipe has not one, but two caramels. The first, a quick water/sugar mix, with a little butter added, went to line the pudding molds--a shallow corningware dish and a larger oval IKEA number. The second was a kind of poaching liquid for the pineapple, with pineapple juice (or in my case quince poaching liquid) and corn syrup added in. I poach-roasted the pineapple, then cut it up, which was nice, because it had a clean yellow interior and a caramel crust, sort of like the smoke ring on good barbeque. As all this went on, I ravenously consumed the other half of the pineapple. Sensing a pattern?

At last, the assembly: Cooked pineapple laid in over pan-lining caramel, covered in milky bread cubes, which had soaked up all of the liquid. The dishes were placed into a water bath, and into a 300 degree oven. When they were lightly browned and bubbly, I pulled them out and unmolded the small square one.

Oh. The unmolding didn't go so well--as many other bakers have pointed out, the caramel stayed in a hard, thick layer in the pan, as all the rest flipped semi-neatly out. I went after it with a spoon and it cascaded down onto the pudding in taffy-like waves. Very pretty, actually, just not exactly right for such an otherwise soft dessert.

I found this one overly sweet, and would have liked a larger proportion of bread to topping, or perhaps only one caramel, but we ate it all, and Matt, newly returned from Rotterdam and sporting his usual sweet-affinity palate, was a fan.

Next week, the Heavenly Cake Bakers continue the search with Molten Chocolate Souffle and Lava Cakes.

Bread Baker's Apprentice: Poor Man's Brioche

BBA challenge marches on. There's been some discussion about pacing on this challenge, whether to stick to the schedule, slow up, or just bake at a rapid pace. Some bakers in the group seem to have strong competitive streaks. I have one, but it doesn't really apply to things like this. As a member of several other groups with rigid deadlines, I like baking my BBA whenever I feel like it, or whenever we have no vehicles for peanut butter.
This brioche was one of three variations in the book--from richest to poorest. I went with the poorest, which still has plenty of butter and milk and egg, added some whole wheat flour, and got a soft, billowy, rich bread perfect for toast or eating with milk. Looking forward to some more robust breads, but not anytime too soon. Next up, challah.