a whisk and a spoon

Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Miso-Maple Loaf

Just when TWD starts winding down one project, Dorie comes along with another challenge to keep us going. We have less than a year’s worth of cookies left to scoop, so why not fold her beautiful new Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple into the mix? Today’s the book release day, and we’re celebrating with cake! We’re going to ease into it, though (I mean, we haven’t done a fancy cake in about a year so we might be a little rusty), with this Miso-Maple Loaf.

This cake is made like a usual loaf cake, but with an unusual ingredient– white miso. Unless you are a super-taster, it’s unlikely you’d pick it out, but it nudges the cake in a slightly savory direction. It doesn’t go too far that way, though…it does have sugar and maple syrup, after all. It’s sturdy and coarse-crumbed cake, as Dorie notes, but it’s also ever so soft. Dorie calls for orange or tangerine zest in the batter (rubbed into the sugar to release max flavor– her patented technique). I used yuzu zest instead, which I had squirreled away in the freezer, and that flavor is definitely the pronounced one in my loaf. We’ve been enjoying slices with a little whipped cream for the last couple of nights.

This is a great preview of what’s to come from this book. We don’t normally post the recipes we make, as you’re encouraged to pick-up a copy and bake with us, but Dorie has given us permission to put this first one up. Thanks so much to everyone, old friends and new, who are joining us for this next adventure, and to Dorie, who has given us at least a hundred more delicious reasons to keep baking on!

Miso-Maple Loaf
from Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan

4 ounces/113 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for the pan
1 ¾ cups/238 grams all-purpose flour, plus more for the pan
1 ¾ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup/150 grams granulated sugar
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
finely grated zest of 1 orange or tangerine
¼ cup/70 grams white or yellow miso
¼ cup/60 milliliters pure maple syrup
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
⅓ cup/80 milliliters buttermilk (well shaken before measuring)
¼ cup/80 grams orange marmalade or apricot jam (for the glaze, optional)

Center a rack in the oven and heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8 1/2-inch loaf pan and dust with flour, or use baker’s spray.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and baking soda in a medium bowl. Put the sugar, salt and zest in the bowl of a stand mixer or a large bowl that you can use with a hand mixer. Reach in and rub the ingredients together until the sugar is moist and fragrant; it may even turn orange. Add the butter, miso and maple syrup to the sugar. If using a stand mixer, attach the bowl and fit it with the paddle attachment.

Beat on medium speed for about 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl and beater(s) as needed, until the mixture is smooth and creamy. One by one, add the eggs, beating for a minute after each goes in. Beat in the vanilla. The mixture might curdle, but this is a temporary condition. Turn off the mixer, add the dry ingredients all at once and pulse to begin the blending, turning the mixer on and off in very short spurts on the lowest speed. Then, beat on low speed until the dry ingredients are almost incorporated. With the mixer still on low, pour in the buttermilk and blend well. Scrape the batter into the pan, working it into the corners and smoothing the top.

Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, checking the loaf after 40 minutes and covering the top loosely with a foil or tented parchmentif it’s browning too fast. The loaf is properly baked when it pulls away from the sides of the pan and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and let the bread rest for 5 minutes, then run a table knife around the edges of the loaf and unmold onto the rack; turn it right side up.

If you’d like to glaze the loaf, stir the marmalade or jam with 1 tablespoon water and heat the mixture in the microwave or over low heat until it comes just to a boil. Using a pastry brush or a spoon, cover the top of the loaf with the glaze. Allow the loaf to cool to room temperature before slicing.

Wrapped well, the cake will keep for about 4 days at room temperature. If it becomes stale — and maybe even if it doesn’t — toast it lightly before serving. If you haven’t glazed the cake, you can wrap it airtight and freeze it for up to 2 months; defrost, still wrapped, at room temperature.

Get the book, Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan, and join us every second and fourth Tuesdays. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!