a whisk and a spoon

Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Brioche

We’ve used Nancy Silverton’s brioche recipe left and right by now, but we’ve never just made plain brioche with it.  Brioche is one of my favorite breads to make…all eggy and buttery and stuff.  It’s easy to mix and to work with, when the temperature is right.  I’ve made a different Dorie brioche loaf recipe before, so this time, I tried to make brioche à tête.  For some reason I own three of the small fluted molds used for this…why, I don’t remember.  My tête shaping skills need a little work.  These looked more like brioche à goose egg.  No matter, it tasted the same– delicious!  Salty butter and plum jam were my toppings of choice here.

For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Danish Slices

I don’t have much more to say about Beatrice Ojakangas’s Danish recipe, since I’ve covered most of it once or twice before.  It’s damn good, no matter what form it takes, even the simplest Danish Slice.

I had half a batch of dough left in the freezer from the spandauer pockets I made a couple of weeks ago, and rolled it into a long rectangular that I folded up and around a duo of almond frangipane and pureed prune paste.  I brushed the top of my formed Danish with egg wash and sprinkled on some granulated almond bits before baking it.  After it had cooled a bit, I made a quick coffee glaze and spooned it over.  This is just.so.good.  And a piece left over for dessert the next day is nice heated slightly with a little scoop of vanilla ice cream.  I think the Danish would be proud.

For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan.  There’s even a video of Beatrice and Julia making Danish together. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Danish Pastry Pockets

I’ve made Beatrice Ojakangas’s Danish recipe here once before, when we formed it into an impressive braid.  Her dough uses a “quick” method, employing the food processor to break down the butter into chunks in the flour, rather than folding a butter block into a dough.  The rough dough does need to rest in the fridge overnight, but after that, all of the lamination work is done quickly and at once, without any waiting in between the turns and folds.  Pretty easy, all things considered, and crisp and flaky, too.

There are a variety of little shapes you can form Danish dough into, but I only did the “spandauer,” mostly because it has the coolest name.  It’s just a square folded up around a filling like a baby in a papoose.  I didn’t feel like trying to hard on those fillings.  I thought for all of two seconds about making a pastry cream, before remembering I had some ricotta cheese in the fridge.  I drained it for a couple of hours before stirring in a bit of sugar, lemon zest and egg yolk.  I topped that off with some rhubarb jam.  After the Danishes were out of the oven they got a good squiggling of glaze.  These were quite delicious, and would have no doubt been amazing with coffee for breakfast, but we actually had them for dessert.  Good anytime of day– that’s what I’m sayin’!

Back when we did that braid, I also tried out my shaping skills on the pinwheel.  That one was filled with cream cheese and blueberry jam and sprinkled with pearl sugar.  And glazed, too, of course.

For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan.  There’s even a video of Beatrice and Julia making Danish together. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Twice-Baked Brioche

After making the dough for Nancy Silverton’s Brioche Tart with White Secret Sauce, I had enough of it leftover for a brioche loaf to tuck into the freezer.  Twice-Baked Brioche, or bostock, is just the thing to make with extra brioche, especially if it’s a little stale.  It’s the brioche equivalent of an almond croissant.  Take slices of brioche, douse them in a orange flavored syrup, smear them with almond fangipane and sprinkle them with sliced almonds.  Then pop them in the oven until toasty brown.

With a cup of strong coffee in the morning or warm, with a little scoop of ice cream for dessert, this is really good…yup, really good.  Going on the repeat list.  I may even keep a little pot of frangipane in the freezer to have on hand whenever I crave bostock.

For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here). Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

TWD BWJ Rewind: Sweet Berry Fougasse

I went from no fougasse ever to two fougasses (or is the plural Fugazi?) in one month.  The group made Craig Kominiak’s Sweet Berry Fougasse back in September of last year, but we were given a choice of two things and I skipped it to make muffins instead.  When we did Leaf-Shaped Fougasse a couple of weeks ago, it dawned on me that I could also make enough focaccia dough to turn the extra into the Sweet Berry Fougasse for this week’s make-up.  Know what that’s called?  That’s called strategery.

With the dough ready-made (I had it frozen and took it out the night before baking to thaw in the fridge) and blueberries and raspberries from the greenmarket, all I had to do to put this together was mix up a little sweet streusel topping and turn on the oven.  This was good…it made a fine breakfast treat without the little twinge of shame that I have when I start the day with half a pound of butter.  I pretty much want every coffee cake or muffin I eat to have streusel on it, so it was nice on bread, too, and helped sweeten up the juicy berries.  I probably wouldn’t bother to make this from scratch start-to-finish, but more likely if I have some extra focaccia dough on my hands again.

For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan (a version is also here and there’s a video here that includes Kominiak making all things focaccia and fougasse).  Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll to see the other recipes folks revisited this week (and the Blogroll from September)!