Tuesdays with Dorie: Golden Brioche Loaves
August 23, 2011 at 12:01 am | Posted in groups, sweet things, sweet yeast breads, tuesdays with dorie | 10 CommentsTags: baking, bread
When I first saw that we’d be making Golden Brioche Loaves this week, I thought, “Haven’t we made this one already?” Well, yes and no. We’ve made brioche on a few occasions, but always for an end result other than a simple loaf. Jules pointed out that last week, King Arthur wrote a post on brioche made in a 9″x4″ pullman pan. Go figure, I have that same pan at home! Doing a little back-of-the-envelope math, I geusstimated that 2/3 of Dorie’s full recipe would make enough dough to fill one 9″x4″ pullman to the lid. I had to add about 10-15 minutes to Dorie’s baking time, but I had a gorgeous (and golden) square-cornered loaf.
I bet some people find brioche to be intimidating, but to me it’s one of the easier yeast breads to make. The dough is soft and supple, and comes together easily by machine. Also, great brioche bakes up nicely in a home oven, unlike, say, a great baguette, whose perfectly shattering crust seems to elude me at home. And the dough freezes well, so you can have fresh brioche buns in a snap.
This recipe really does produce a delightful loaf. I can’t lie, though…the fact that I made a single loaf of bread that contains two entire sticks of butter is somewhat horrifying to me! Nevertheless, I enjoyed a fat slice with homemade apricot jam (made identically to this plum jam), and, you guessed it, more butter (I have a weakness for fancy French salted butters on my toast and bread).
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Tea and Scones, as it was Margie’s pick this week. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
P.S.: I got a new camera…what do you think?
Apricot and Cinnamon Cake
August 19, 2011 at 4:13 pm | Posted in cakes & tortes, simple cakes, sweet things | 3 CommentsTags: baking, cake, dessert, fruit
No big story here…some apricots that needed using up led me to rifle through my cookbook collection for inspiration. I found this Apricot and Cinnamon Cake in Bill Granger’s Every Day. When we lived in Sydney, visiting one of the bill’s restaurants was always a special treat, and I think he is a master of simple cakes and baked goods (and he makes the best pancakes!).
This is a cinnamon-spiced cake with halves of juicy apricots baked in. A crumb topping with more cinnamon gives it a perfect morning coffee cake vibe, but if you add a scoop of ice cream, it suddenly seems more like dessert. I used small apricots, but I think peaches or nectarines would be equally delicious (if they are large, they may need to be cut into thick slices, rather than simply halved, though). This cake smells wonderful in the oven.
Apricot and Cinnamon Cake— makes one 8″ cake
adapted from Every Day by Bill Granger
Steph’s Notes: The cinnamon is front and center in this cake. If you’d rather have it little more subtly spiced, I’d suggest leaving the cinnamon amount as-is in the cake portion and reducing it by half in the topping. If you don’t have self-raising flour to make the cake, you can use 140 grams of all-purpose flour combined with 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/8 teaspoon of salt.
for the cake:
140 g (5 oz) self-raising flour
1/2 t ground cinnamon
50 g (1 3/4 oz) sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
4 T milk (or 3 T Australian)
1 t vanilla extract
85 g (3 oz) unsalted butter, melted
350 g (12 oz) apricot halvesfor the topping:
40 g (1 1/2 oz) all-purpose flour
1 t ground cinnamon
35 g (1 1/4 oz) sugar
pinch of salt
35 g (1 1/4 oz) unsalted butter, chilled and diced
-Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C).
-To the topping, put the flour, cinnamon, sugar and pinch of salt in a bowl. Rub the butter with your fingertips until crumbs form. Chill while you assemble the rest of the cake.
-Grease and line the base of an 8″ (20 cm) round springform pan. (You can use a regular 8″ cake pan, greased and lined with parchment, instead, but you will need to flip the cake out and reinvert it if you want to serve it out of the pan.)
-Sift flour and cinnamon into a large bowl and stir in the sugar.
-Make a well in the center and pour in the egg, milk, vanilla and melted butter. Mix with a wooden spoon until the batter is smooth, then spoon into the cake pan.
-Arrange the apricots, cut-side up, evenly over the batter and then press gently down. Scatter the topping evenly over the apricots.
-Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the cake is light golden and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Leave on a rack to cool before removing from the pan.
Tuesdays with Dorie: Stonefruit Crumble
August 16, 2011 at 12:01 am | Posted in cobbler/crisp/shorties, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 11 CommentsTags: baking, dessert, fruit
This was supposed to be a Tropical Crumble with mangoes and bananas, but like I mentioned when I made jam, I have apricots and plums up the wazoo right now. So this became a Stonefruit Crumble instead, with apricots and yellow plums (look, I kept the colors similar!), and a little red plum ice cream for good measure. I tried to keep my version along the same lines as the original, flavoring the fruit with ginger and citrus, but since my fruits were small and soft, I didn’t pre-cook my filling before baking the crumble and I added a sprinkling of flour to the fruit mix to help thicken the juices.
Does anyone know if theree’s technically a difference between a crisp and a crumble?? Maybe there is, because my topping wasn’t as crunchy as I thought it would be. It had pecans, brown sugar and butter (cut back from the original recipe by a couple of tablespoons), so it wasn’t bad, but it did just kind of meld into the smooshiness of the baked fruit.
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Laws of the Kitchen, as it was Gaye’s turn to pick again. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Plum Jam
August 14, 2011 at 12:29 pm | Posted in jams & preserves, sweet things | 8 CommentsTags: jam, preserves
My CSA has very been generous with the stone fruits over the last few weeks. I have those little green cardboard quart containers of apricots and plums cluttering my countertop. I’m not complaining at all, but I did panick a little when two quarts of plums went from hard to squish over the course of one night. Time to make jam, I guess!
I know that I showed you how to make an Easy Plum Jam a couple of summers ago, but, yeah, that was a couple of summers ago and I like to tinker around with new recipes. Turns out this one’s easy, too. It requires a bit more cooking time than the other recipe, but uses a bit less sugar proportionally…a give-and-take that I can easily accept. It’s also what I’d call “small-batch preserving” and makes a few jars worth of jam that are stored in the refrigerator. I find, especially in a smaller city kitchen, that this method is far more approachable than hot water processing for long-term storage.
This makes a brilliant jewel-toned jam with a soft set. I happened to have a vanilla pod that I’d scraped out for another recipe, so I threw it in during cooking. The fruit skins turn into little sticky, candied bits that are my favorite part of a good plum jam. I’m going out now to get some English muffins.
Plum Jam— makes about three 1/2-pint jars
adapted from Food & Wine (September 2009)
Steph’s Notes: You can also infuse your jam with background flavors during cooking time. I added a scraped out vanilla pod to mine, but a whole cinnamon stick would also be great, as would a couple of smashed cardamom pods or a few black peppercorns (which I’d tie up in a cheescloth bundle for easier removal at the end). Just be sure to fish out whatever whole spices you’ve added before jarring your jam!
If you have trouble telling if your jam is done, you can pop a small plate into the freezer to chill. Spoon 1/2 teaspoon fruit mixture onto the cold plate and allow to set for 30 seconds. Tip the plate 45 degrees to one side; jam should be a soft gel that moves slightly. If mixture is liquid and runs quickly down the plate, return the jam to the heat and cook, stirring constantly, 2-5 minutes longer; then repeat the test.
2 pounds small plums, washed, pitted and cut into 1/2-inch wedges
1 1/2 cups sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 lemon, seeded
-In a large, nonreactive saucepan, toss the plums with the sugar and pinch of salt and let stand, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is mostly dissolved (you can let this stand at room temperature from 1-3 hours).
-Squeeze the lemon over the plums, add it to the saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Cook over moderate heat, stirring, until the liquid runs off the side of a spoon in thick, heavy drops, 20 to 25 minutes. Skim off any scum that rises to the surface of the jam during the cooking process.
-Discard the lemon and spoon the plum jam into three clean 1/2-pint jars (you can sterilize the jars and lids first with boiling water, if you are so inclined), leaving about 1/4 inch of space at the top. Close the jars and let the jam cool to room temperature. Store the jam in the refrigerator for up to 3 months.
Tuesdays with Dorie: Carrot Spice Muffins (aka Morning Glories)
August 9, 2011 at 12:01 am | Posted in breakfast things, groups, muffins/quick breads, tuesdays with dorie | 9 CommentsTags: baking, breakfast, muffins
“Muffin” is a weird word. And I just realized that I totally spelled it wrong in the titles of my last two muffin posts. How dumb, and obvious now that I look at those posts again. (OK, I’ve just gone back and corrected that, so it’s as if it never happened).
These Carrot Spice Muffins are something of a substitute for when your tummy really wants a piece of Bill’s Big Carrot Cake (wow, that cake was awesome…I think about it all the time) for breakfast, but your head just won’t let you. Like a good carrot cake, they have lots of add-ins beyond carrots…walnuts, coconut, raisins and, of course, a gentle amount of warm spices. Unlike carrot cake, though, they are sans that decadent cream cheese frosting (but now that I think about it, a thinned out cream cheese glaze would have been fabulous!), and they are a bit dialed down in the oil department. These seemed like they could be a vehicle for a little fiber boost as well, so I swapped about 25% of the flour with whole wheat. I also used unsweetened desiccated coconut instead of the sweet stuff. Then I ate two.
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read The Dogs Eat the Crumbs, as it was Nancy’s pick this week. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Cocoa Almond Meringues
August 2, 2011 at 12:01 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 9 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
We are having hot, sticky weather here. I’ve baked enough to know that sticky weather equals sticky meringues, so I thought about hitting the snooze bar on TWD this week and skipping these Cocoa Almond Meringue Cookies. But I had some weekend time on my hands, and I figured I could do a scaled down batch…just enough to be eaten the same day, with nothing left to wilt in a container overnight.
I like meringues, and I’m a fan of these. Beneath their crisp, light cocoa shells, they are chewy and very dark with chocolate (studded with crushed hazelnuts, too, in this case). If you like your meringues drier and crisped-through, I’m guessing you could bake them longer, or at the end of the book’s suggested time, turn off the oven and let the cookies continue to hang out for a few more hours inside. I actually did bake these about 15 minutes longer than the recommended hour and ten because I made a few quite large meringues as opposed to a zillion little guys, and I wanted to make sure they weren’t soup inside. I made a special exception to my “no coffee after 3:00” rule and served these with a little glass of milky iced joe. It was the perfect thing to cut the sweetness of the meringues.
Next time I find myself with extra egg whites, I’ll be sure to keep these in mind! For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Ugly Food For an Ugly Dude. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Creamy Dark Chocolate Sorbet
July 26, 2011 at 12:01 am | Posted in groups, ice creams & frozen, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 32 CommentsTags: dessert, sorbet
Yes–my week to pick again for TWD!! I am crazy-excited! My first turn came way back in March of ’08, when I chose Caramel-Topped Flan. I think a lot of folks skipped that week. Turns out flan is a love-it-or-hate-it thing (I’m a lover, btw). We’ve made sooo many good things in the three+ years since then, and I’ve only missed out on a handful of them. There are still a lot of good things left, which made my choice this month a hard one, but I hoped Dorie’s Creamy Dark Chocolate Sorbet would be a hit with most everyone (sorry, Kayte!!).
This sorbet really is creamy and intensely chocolaty. It’s also super-melty. Like, don’t blink or you’ll have a chocolate puddle where your sorbet once stood. Of course, that can more than possibly be chalked up to triple-digit temps in NYC and no A/C in my house! No matter…eaten with a spoon or just slurped up out of a bowl, it’s delicious. And so freakin’ easy. I have a plan to work around the meltiness with the rest of my batch, and it looks something like this…
As always, hugs and kisses to Dorie, Laurie, Jules and the TWD gang for making every Tuesday fun and tasty. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll this week!
Creamy Dark Chocolate Sorbet– makes about 1 1/2 pints
recipe from Baking: From My Home to Yours
Steph’s Note: I added a pinch of salt to the mix. Milk with any fat content will work.
1 cup milk
1 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
7 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
-Stir all the ingredients together in a 3- to 4-quart heavy-bottomed saucepan. Put the pan over medium heat and bring the ingredients to a boil, stirring frequently.
-Lower the temperature and boil for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally and keeping a close eye on the pan- as the ingredients bubble and roll, the potential for boil over is high.
-Pour mixture into a heatproof bowl and refrigerate until chilled before churning the sorbet.
-Scrape the chilled sorbet mixture into the bowl of an ice cream maker and churn according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Pack the sorbet into a container and freeze for at least 2 hours, until it is firm enough to scoop.
Serving: Unlike ice cream, with could be served as soft custard straight from the churn, this sorbet needs time in the freezer to firm.
Storing: Packed tightly in a covered container, the sorbet will keep in the freezer for up to two weeks.
Playing Around: 1 teaspoon of peppermint extract added to the cooled base will give you chocolate-peppermint sorbet. You can even add crushed candy canes a couple of minutes before churning is complete.
Quick Bread and Butter Pickles
July 22, 2011 at 1:42 pm | Posted in pickles, savory things | 4 CommentsTags: cooking, pickles
After a bit of cutthroat competition involving a waitlist and a rush to a sign-up event to snag one of fifteen spots off said waitlist (oh New York, why must everything be so difficult?), I managed to secure a spot in a local CSA for the season. One of my favorite things about being in a CSA is also its big challenge…having to think quickly so that the surprise assortment of perishables you are presented with doesn’t do just that. I am determined not to toss anything into the bin, so I have to get a little creative sometimes. There have been some interesting slaws (a kohlrabi one, in particular, was a stand-out) and a lot of grain and veggie salads. Pickling is another great way to use vegetables, especially because the ten minutes you spend to prep your pickles gives you snacks that last for weeks. They are the gift that keeps on giving, so to speak.
When I came home from my CSA pick-up a couple of weeks ago with a sack of Kirby cucumbers, I knew immediately that I wanted to make bread and butter pickles. For just a couple of bucks, I knew I could make sandwich pickles just as tasty as those $10 jars of Brooklyn hipster-made ones that all the gourmet shops around here sell. Quick, refrigerator-style pickles are my thing. I’m just making a jar at a time anyway, so there’s no need for me to get into canning for really-long-term storage. These are extremely easy to make. Not only do you get zingy, crunchy pickled cukes, but also onions(!), which are equally tasty on sandwiches. The recipe says you can keep them for two weeks, but I’m betting that in their vinegary brine, they’ll keep for up to a month in the fridge.
*Have beets? Try these Raw Pickled Beets.*
Quick Bread and Butter Pickles– makes one large jar
modified from Cooks Illustrated (July 2007)
Steph’s Note: The original recipe calls for 3/4 cup sugar, but I reduced it to 1/2 cup (after my experience making some too-sweet pickles out of another veggie a few weeks ago). Use the amount you think would suit your tastes.
1 pound pickling (Kirby) cucumbers , sliced crosswise into 1/8-inch disks
1 medium onion, halved and sliced thin
1 tablespoon kosher or pickling salt
1 cup cider vinegar
1/2 – 3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds
1/4 teaspoon celery seeds
1/4 teaspoon coriander seeds
1/8 teaspoon ground tumeric
-Toss cucumbers, onion, and salt in colander set over bowl. Let stand 1 hour. Discard any liquid collected in the bowl.
-Bring vinegar, sugar, mustard seeds, celery seeds, corriander seeds and turmeric to boil in large saucepan. Reduce heat to low, add cucumbers and onion, and press to submerge in liquid. Cover and cook until cucumbers turn dullish olive-brown, about 5 minutes.
-Transfer entire pan contents to glass bowl. Refrigerate, uncovered, at least 2 hours before serving. Pickles can be refrigerated in a clean jar or covered container for 2 weeks.
Tuesdays with Dorie: Cream Scones
July 12, 2011 at 12:01 am | Posted in biscuits/scones, breakfast things, groups, tuesdays with dorie | 9 CommentsTags: baking, breakfast, scones
It’s steamy hot out…hot and gross…but these Cream Scones were sooo worth turning the oven on for. Butter and cream…they are a combo to be reckoned with. I don’t know how two things that are so rich can make something that is so light, crumbly and almost melt-in-your-mouth, but there you have it. I’ll be making these again when it’s cooler out and I can stand a proper cuppa to go along with them.
After many attempts at scones and biscuits that wound up looking annoyingly like pancakes (sad!), I think that with my last few batches, I’ve finally gotten it down. I already told you all this stuff with the last one, but….now I grate my cold butter, and then pop it into the freezer while I assemble my dry ingredients. Then I just give a quick, fingertippy toss of the butter and dry stuff. I find that this way, I don’t have to do as much rubbing and working to get the two incorporated. Also, I pat the scones out a little fatter than Dorie says to ensure a tall rise (which I don’t think the angle on this photo shows, but I assure you, they were nice and high). Of course I get one or two fewer scones per batch, but that’s fine by me.
I skipped the currants here (I didn’t have any), but they aren’t really necessary anyway…especially when there’s jam. Also not strictly necessary (but crazy delicious!), one of my favorite things about British-style tea service is the thick cream you spread on along with jam. I found some of that Luxury Clotted Cream in a local shop, and shelled out for it in anticipation of these guys.
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Cafe Lynnylu, as it was Patricia’s pick this week. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate-Chocolate Chunk Muffins
July 5, 2011 at 12:01 am | Posted in breakfast things, groups, muffins/quick breads, tuesdays with dorie | 12 CommentsTags: baking, breakfast, muffins
Will you think less of me if I admit to you that I don’t really “do” chocolate for breakfast? I eat sweet stuff for brekkie all the time–usually pancakes or waffles drowned in syrup– but chocolate for some reason feels a bit too indulgent. I made a little exception this past weekend (since it was a holiday and all) for these Chocolate-Chocolate Chunk Muffins. OK, these really are great with coffee. They’re not too sweet at all, and I did follow suggestions to add more chocolate chunks by doubling the amount of chips I folded into the batter at the end. Hey– if your gonna have chocolate for breakfast, you may as well really have chocolate for breakfast.
And, if chocolate in the a.m. isn’t really your thing either, I can assure you that they are also fab for dessert with a scoop of ice cream (may I suggest something like Strawberry- Sour Cream Ice Cream?).
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here on Epicurious) or read The Way the Cookie Crumbles, as Bridget got to pick again this week. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Baked Fresh Weekly
Blog at WordPress.com.
Entries and comments feeds.
a whisk and a spoon 