Alpha Bakers - Cookie Strudel

Thanks to my new obsession, The Great British Baking Show, I've really been wanting to step up my game. Home baking is home baking, and I usually am just fine with letting my work look sloppy and skipping the chocolate shapes, but the level of inventiveness and simple excellence the contestants display is working on me. So of course, when I went to make some simple cookie strudel, it stayed true to my true nature and tasted great but looked a mess. 

True strudel is a paperlike multi-layered dough, preferably eaten at the Hungarian Pastry Shop opposite the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, but this here cookie strudel is something closer in nature to rugelach. The dough is delicate, though, and very buttery, so it does get a convincing flake on. It's a simple mixture -- flour and salt with butter and sour cream (in this case bulgarian full-fat yogurt, with some water drained out). 

The dough is chilled, rolled out, and rolled up with jam (Wild Plum Jelly, in point of fact), nuts (pistachio and flaked almond), and currants. We were then instructed to make some small slits for steam to escape.

Pretty sure I made mine too large. 

All the same, the general premise was very successful and the final cookie strudel was significantly delicious. I definitely had at least three large pieces.

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.

Alpha Bakers - English Dried Fruit Cake

It has been a strange week. For the second week in a row, rain and sleet have alternated with suspiciously warm temperatures, and the emotional temperature of my city (and the whole country) has fluctuated just as much, with people out in the streets protesting the grand jury decisions in both Ferguson and Staten Island. My apartment was robbed (a comparatively minor incident, but one which left me feeling the usual degree of violated and confused), and a new baby was born in my family, seven weeks premature but already breathing on her own and beautiful. We are not fine, we are not safe, we are not cozy, and we are not alone. Upheavals and betrayals, community and joy. Heavy winds. Dear loves.

And fruitcake. This particular fruitcake is less of the classic alcohol-soaked candied fruit extravaganza, and more of a boozy apple cake with dried fruit in. With dark brown sugar, grated apples in the batter, and a rum soak after leaving the oven, it's a dark, sweet, strongly textured cake, sturdy enough to carry around all day.

I made the recipe two times, halving it both times. The first time I made it as an 8-inch cake round, and the second time as a dozen muffins. The first attempt, which was the one I carried around all day in my purse, was excellent, but slightly on the drier side (I skipped soaking the fruit because it was very soft), and would have benefited from additional syrup or rum. I was more careful the second time, soaking the dried fruit (prunes and cranberries) for the recommended time and keeping a tight eye on the baking. The resulting muffins were a perfect texture. Both times, I used cashew pieces in place of the recommended pecans, and added a handful of candied orange and lemon peel (the nice, not-harsh organic kind from the food coop). I know for some people this would negate the whole premise of a new kind of fruitcake, but I had them on hand and figured, why not? The candied fruit (in the muffin version) was actually a hit with several co-workers.

The first round was also a sleeper hit. I gave a wedge to my neighbor Pam the Cheesemonger, whom I'd helped out with a little brunch earlier in the day. Her take: "This fruit cake is so good! I don't normally get excited about this kind of thing, but this is, well, exciting." She should know, she had just showed up on my doorstep with a container of truffled mascarpone, a bottle of Cotes du Rhone, and some dried trompettes that she had foraged earlier in the year in Maine. What on earth do I do with dried trompettes?

All in all, simple and delicious. Probably not adding this one to the regular rotation but it's a handy cake to have in the repertoire.

Patriot Stew

For reasons we won't go into, I spent much of the Fourth of July making slow-cooker stews. When the sweat dried a bit, I wrote a bit of a story about it. If I were normal, I'd tell you I hadn't turned the stove on since, but Sunday's rendered lard would give that the lie. Still, I think I sweated out my meat cravings for quite a while.

Every year around the beginning of July, I get the urge to roast a turkey. 98 degree days and beckoning beaches be damned; I hear the siren gobble of rich gamey gravy, sweet potatoes, and tart cranberry sauce. The source of these cravings remains shrouded in mystery, but I’ve always assumed it had some connection to the start of the summer vegetable explosion at the farmer’s market--an immediate urge to celebrate the harvest.

Since I don’t work for a major food magazine (the best excuse to roast turkeys out of season), and don’t own an air conditioner, an actual early Thanksgiving is not an option. This ‘Patriot Stew’ is the perfect answer, a celebration of New World ingredients in slow-cooker style.

Cheap and delicious, bone-in turkey thighs shine in the slow cooker. They cook down tender and flavorful without any risk of drying out. Tart dried cherries stand in for cranberries, and sweet potatoes, poblano chiles, and corn play themselves in their traditional roles. In keeping with the American-born theme, I used Six Point Righteous Ale for the braising liquid, but any assertive ale will work.

Just brown the onions, chop a few vegetables, pour in the beer and you’re free to spend all day at the beach. Have a beer for yourself while you’re at it. It may not be the traditional hot dog, but a bowl of this all-American stew with a tart green salad is a sparkling accompaniment to fireworks in the cool of the evening.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Far Breton and Honey Nut Scones

Rustic pastry bathed in golden light? Oh yes.

As I may have mentioned, Tuesdays with Dorie is finishing up and doubling up recipes to make it to the end by year's end. This week, both recipes were so appealing that I made them in one night.

Above, we have the Far Breton, a high-level example of what the British call nursery food--custardy batter pocked with sweet dried raisins, craisins, and cherries. The Far was a close cousin of some other good friends of mine, the clafoutis, the popover, and the cup custard, and so completely compelling in its eggy-ness that I ate it all in about 24 hours.

With most of my attention focused on the Far Breton, I didn't have a lot of time for the eating of scones, but these honey-walnut ones won my approval by being very plain and simple. Whole-wheat pastry flour was allowed to shine, and they were a perfect jam vehicle.

Speaking of jam vehicles, nursery custard, and the end of the year, I wanted to take a second to float an idea I've been hatching. (Mixed metaphor alert--unless the idea is perhaps a duck.) Having built a pretty decent reputation in the neighborhood as a provider of delicious things, I'd like to launch a little consignment business for the holiday season, providing pies, cookie plates, and other good things upon request. Perfect for your dinner party or host gift dilemma. More on this shortly, and all suggestions welcome.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Chockablock Cookies

I'll hold my tongue on twee cookie names this time, as this one is borderline. And descriptive.
These are molasses oat cookies with anything you feel like thrown in. I added chocolate chunks, chopped apricots, coconut (which meant that they were all given away rather than eaten in the house), almonds, and some toasted pumpkinseeds. I made these a few weeks ago during a flurry of pre-opening baking for my new play, A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things, but ultimately decided that they were too unusual for a concessions treat after my first taste-testers at the architecture office called them 'a journey.' (People buying show concessions generally prefer the most generic options possible, unless we're going on a theme and serving creamed herring with Russian plays or some such). Other baked goods last weekend included almond-anise biscotti adapted from Chez Panisse Desserts, fish and whale-shaped sugar cookies with cool blue royal icing, and pumpkin empanadas/pasties adapted from the Kitchn.

The ones that I froze for a few days then baked were noticeably better, moister (oddly), and just generally improved in texture.

This show has deranged my mind to the point where I'm forgetting due dates, double-scheduling meetings, trashing the house, and making very little sense. I've also misplaced my camera, so posts for recent baking are on hold momentarily. For some reason, though, even all the madness, I've been making tons of ice cream, in flavors ranging from caramel to lemon buttermilk sherbet to rhubarb to chocolate and maple. Scoop shots soon, and in the meantime, see you on the boat!

Hopelessly Devoted

My gorgeous sister and I resemble our outstanding mother in many ways. From her, we get our poor circulation, our childbearing hips, our singing voices, mild hedonism, and our slightly mocking sense of humor. There are more points of similarity, but why list? (My father, offended by my deprecation (there's that mocking sense of humor) has taken it upon himself to defend our finer attributes, below in the comments, and right he is on every point, of course.) Suffice it to say that where she leads, whe usually follow, and in some (few) things we even surpass. One of those is in our passion for all things fruit, in which we follow not only mother but grandmother (who makes killer compote) and aunts. Taught to pick berries and consume whole pineapples from an early age, washed down with about seven apples a day, we are voracious and unstoppable when there are pomes, achenes, berries, false berries, drupes, or nuts around. To prove this, Liana sent this picture of what she ate one day. And every day.

Bless Us, Every One

Last year, I 'ruined Christmas'. At least, I did get on an airplane and fly off to East Africa. Wearing a Santa hat. This year, I tried to make it up--with a sugary, boozy, Stollen recipe courtesy of Jörg at Kiss  + Cathcart, who made a lovely one a few weeks ago and inspired my first tangle with candied peels of any kind. Christmas Eve, Jill has told me many times, is for cookies, but I think Stollen will do. Especially as I hear it was a favorite with Freud. 


I've left the recipe largely in the form I received it in, because it has nice little bits of German and very direct instructions. I did make a few adaptations, which are noted. Can't vouch for its keeping qualities yet, but it was very nice out of the oven. Maybe I'll wrap one up to give to my landlord, who just sent me a mass Christmas text with more words than I've ever heard him say at one time.

Stollen
Jörg's sister, lightly translated by Jörg Thoene.
(half of this recipe made two of respectable size. all notes except those marked with my initials, are original)


Zutaten (Ingredients):
500g Flour
250g Butter
250g Sugar
250g Quark – or that yogurt cheese we talked about (I used plain yogurt-KS)
3 Eggs
200g ground Almonds
125g Korinths - Raisins
100g Lemon Peel (candied)
100g Orange Peel (candied) (Lemon and orange peel can be replaced by dried, cubed apricots)
vanilla extract ( 1tablespoon?)
baking powder (1.5 tablespoons)
Rum
almond extract (1 tablespoon?)
lemon extract or simply lemon juice from 1/2 lemon
some pinches of mace


Soak dried fruit in enough rum to cover for at least 30 mins (I used a mix of whiskey and Campari -KS), make dough out of all other ingredients and add the fruit+rum (just realized I left out the mace--I think it should go in -KS).


Enough for 2 large Stollen but can also split into 3-4 smaller units.
Preheat oven to 250 C (480 F), put in the Stollen and reduce heat to 180 C (350) and bake for 45 mins - 1h.
Brush the Stollen immediately with lots of melted butter and cover with a thick layer of confectioners sugar.
Tastes good once cooled off, but even better after storing in aluminum foil for about 2 weeks in a cool environment.
"Viel Spaß beim Backen und Essen!"

Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate Rye Cake with Prunes

For those of you still reeling from the vegan beet cake, let me start by pointing out that the rye in the title refers to rye whiskey, and that the prunes were the famous Pruneaux d'Agen, which are apparently to regular prunes as humans are to cro-magnon man. Perhaps the comparison should actually go the other way, as these uber-prunes are supposed to be more earthy, more flavorful, more intense, rather than more subtle and tool using. Still, whatever they are, they're good, and not too ridiculously priced at Fairway.

This is no health cake, although it may have side laxative benefits, but an old-school very French creation adapted from a recipe by the venerable Simone (Simca) Beck, co-author of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Dorie tells a fun story about how tampering with this cake in a restaurant setting got her fired for 'creative insubordination,' which she decided was a good thing. She must have thought it was a really good thing, because her whole book is designed around a principle of 'playing around,' offering substitutes and twists on nearly every recipe. In this case, the cake can be played around all over the place, as long as it includes a dried fruit and a liquor or flavoring. And you get to light boozy prunes on fire. Sticky, dangerous, boozy, this cake has an attitude that I like. The cake itself, I only somewhat liked, I think the texture would have been better if I'd pureed the prunes, or chopped them better. Still, like Simca herself, this cake demanded to be dealt with on its own terms or not at all. (Simca, Matt thought it was great.) I didn't frost it, the better to sniff and revel in all the booze and prunes, and it was a moist, dark, grown-up cake. And now I just want more pruneaux d'agen.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Pumpkin Muffins

I love pumpkins. I would fill the house with them if it didn't mean lugging them home from the farmer's market. Luckily, this recipe was the perfect excuse I needed to buy my very own, a ritual I observed faithfully as a child.

Again, because of the aforementioned lugging, and the fact that I'm only feeding myself this week, I substituted a nice little acorn squash for the pumpkin. It roasted quickly, and reminded me of the time I demanded Halloween in Buenos Aires, to the tune of some poorly carved butternuts.

These muffins are Dorie's take on a recipe from Sarabeth Levine, the namesake of Sarabeth's, the legendary upper West side brunch place. A version of the recipe can be found here.

I used only 5 tablespoons of butter instead of the recommended 8, and made up the difference with applesauce. With some good beating, this didn't hurt the recipe at all. I also was out of buttermilk, so I used some souring milk with a hint of lemon in. I subbed in about 1/3 of a cup of graham flour for white, and used chopped cashews instead of chopped walnuts or pecans, and dried cherries in with the raisins.

I made these in the big muffin pans, and topped them with bits of seeds from the squash, and they are delicious.

Buttermilk Apricot Wheat Bread

A recent favorite from Bread Alone, a yeast bread with an eight-hour poolish and a bunch of dried fruit mixed in at the last minute. The actual recipe calls for currants, but I keep making it with chopped apricots or dried cherries and it's very good. Never remotely the same twice, though, so I'm going to start keeping detailed notes on methodology to try to figure it out. But there may never be resolution, that's the joy of bread baking.

This one had a particularly long poolish rise, because I got distracted by Bill Clinton, and barely snuck it in before Joe Biden, missing his apparently hot son. It also used all commercial flours, and had a (relatively) short proofing time. Delicious hot (like Joe Biden's son) with blackberry jam and butter.