TWD- Kuglehopf

For this weeks Tuesday’s With Dorie, Yolanda of The All-Purpose Girl has selected, Kugelhopf on pages 61-63 of Baking From My Home to Yours By Dorie Greenspan.

The brioche family of breads just feel so silky and sexy once all the butter has been slowly added in.

We won’t linger too long on the before shot…

Golly, I love my mixer.  I also love seeing ingredients become more than the sum of their parts.

I was sent to Freedom Furniture to find some fresh cushions for the display house I work in.  Low and behold- they had silicone Kuglehopf pans.  It was kismet.  If I walked away and didn’t buy them I would be thumbing my nose at the kitchen gods who were smiling down upon me.  I am not the kind of girl to show disrespect to the kitchen gods so I bought one.

My dough had a days rest in the fridge.  While it was fridge cold I stretched it out as a long snake to coil inside the mold.

I got too hungry to let this proof any further.  Not sure it had too much more to give.  I didn’t get too much oven spring.

This is seriously good, but like all brioche breads depends very much on the quality of your eggs and butter.

I didn’t have an opportunity to see how well this kept.  I almost lost fingers with the rate my boys ate it up for breakfast.  I got a great crumb structure with little gossamer like stands that made me happy.

Now go check out the TWD blogroll and check out the 300 or so other dedicated bakers.

Daring Bakers- Lavash Crackers

This months Daring Bakers challenge choosen by Natalie from Gluten A Go Go and co host Shellie from Musings From The Fishbowl was Lavash Bread from Peter Reinharts The Bread Bakers Apprentice.  It is a recipe that can be adapted to be gluten free and is vegan.

I love baking bread.  I am a fan of the no-knead techniques and tend to bring some of the ideas from no knead into any bread recipe.  An easy way to do this is to include an auto-lyse step.  (My version writen here is a rough and ready version of an ancient technique). In a nut shell you mix the flour, water and usually everything but the salt together (with a spoon) until it is a rough shaggy mess.  Walk away (for this I hung the laundry on the clothes line).  Come back in about 20 minutes (add the salt now).  Mix or knead away.  This gives the flour a chance to absorb the liquid the gluten starts to unravel itself.  The resting period usually shaves a couple of minutes off the total kneading time required.

Aside from reducing kneading time (handy if you don’t have a mixer) it also means you preserve the caritonoids in the flour.  Caritonoids give flour it’s creamy yellow tinge.  Most mixers introduce lots of air into the dough.  The oxygen bleaches the flour, so does the salt which is why lots of bread recipes have you hold the salt back until well into the mixing process.  If time allows, I include 2 minute breaks when using the mixer as it lets the dough do some of the work for you.

I gave this a ferment in the fridge overnight to develop more flavour.  I used my pasta maker to get this dough nice and thin.

When it came time to add flavours to the crackers I used a technique usually reserved for adding herbs to pasta.

I rolled out the dough to the correct thickness and then sprinkled on my herbs and seeds.  I then folded it over (like closing a book) and put it through the pasta maker again.  This meant the seasoning wasn’t as pretty as in Reinhart’s book but became integrated into the cracker.

These took 15 minutes to bake.  I precut most of them, and they baked the most evenly.  You really do need to let these get golden brown if you are after the crispy thing.

I served these with baba ganoush and a baby spinich, cashew and chili dip.  I wish I could say I made them but time got away (I am typing this up on the 27th-the posting date and I only baked this evening) and I went to some very good bought dips.  I will make these Lavash again and will make my own dips…

TWD- Pecan Honey Sticky Buns

Sticky Buns of this gooey caliber are not commonly found in Australia. There are scrolls and buns but they tend to get their sweetness from dried fruit and a dab of fondant icing on top.

I had a childhood of cinnamon buns that were rich and decadent. The Australian versions seemed a bit austere for my tastes. So these are a lovely addition to the repertoire. Thank you to Madame Chow for choosing this weeks recipe.

I really struggled with what bread I would use in this recipe. In the end I thought about the flexiblity that is built into the TWD challenges. The recipes are a starting point, not dogma.

I used the challah dough from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day instead of Dories Brioche. I will try her recipe one day but 1 minutes mixing and a great result was too tempting to pass up. This post details the recipe and process.

Something that is important to know about me is I am not a perky morning person. I feel that the first 20 minutes of the day should be spent very quietly sipping a coffee and coming to terms with the impending day. Having children completely stuffed that management strategy.

What I can do is be kind to myself and not try to do too much in the morning. Which brings me to my standard operating procedure for sticky buns. I make them up the night before leave them on the bench for 40 minutes and then pop them in the fridge. Whoever gets up first preheats the oven and takes the prepped buns out of the fridge.

All the glory with minimum effort (first thing in the morning anyway). You don’t even have to face the washing up (unless you got slack the night before)!

The twist of these is the use of honey in the glaze. The honey adds an interesting flavor and I think helps prevent the glaze from becoming a hard caramel topping. This is an advantage in terms of gooey topping not needing to be molten to stay sticky (which is the fatal flaw in many other recipes).

I like the honey flavor but I don’t LOVE the honey flavor. This recipe has made me think about how to adapt other recipes to achieve the texture of the glaze. I will experiment with adding a bit of glucose syrup for pure sweet flavor to see if I can keep the sticky factor up.

Now because I used a different bun recipe, I thought the least I could do is follow the rest of the recipe to the letter. My suspicions about the glaze being even better with a touch of salt were correct. I sprinkled on a bit of Maldon and Oh My it was good

I made a half batch. There are four of us so that would mean two each. Patrick (almost 2) liked his so much he moved over to my lap to polish off mine as well. That will teach me to eat slowly (and take my time taking photos) in a house full of boys!

Pecan Honey Sticky Buns
Makes 15 buns
For the Glaze:
1 cup (packed) (220g) light brown sugar
1 stick (8 tablespoons) (115g) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
1/4 cup (60g) honey
1-1/2 cups pecans (180g) (whole or pieces)
For the Filling:
1/4 cup (50g) sugar
3 tablespoons (packed) light brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons (42g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
For the Buns:
1/2 recipe dough for Golden Brioche loaves (see below), chilled and ready to shape (make the full recipe and cut the dough in half after refrigerating it overnight) (I used 1/4 full batch of the challah dough -400g)
Generously butter a 9-x-13-inch baking pan (a Pyrex pan is perfect for this). (I used a 9 inch round pan for a half batch. I used a baking paper round)
To make the glaze: In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, bring the brown sugar, butter, and honey to a boil over medium-low heat, stirring frequently to dissolve the sugar. Pour the glaze into the buttered pan, evening it out as best you can by tilting the pan or spreading the glaze with a heatproof spatula.

Sprinkle over the pecans.
To make the filling: Mix the sugars and cinnamon together in a bowl. If necessary, in another bowl, work the butter with a spatula until it is soft, smooth and spreadable. (I misread the instructions and mixed all of these things together).

To shape the buns:On a flour-dusted work surface (be generous here with the flour), roll the chilled dough into a 16-inch square. (or 8 x 16 inches for a half batch) Using your fingers or a pastry brush, spread the softened butter over the dough.

Sprinkle the dough with the cinnamon sugar, leaving a 1-inch strip bare on the side farthest from you. Starting with the side nearest you, roll the dough into a cylinder, keeping the roll as tight as you can. (I use a pastry mat getting underneath with my hand to get a good roll)

(At this point, you can wrap the dough airtight and freeze it for up to 2 months . . . . Or, if you want to make just part of the recipe now, you can use as much of the dough as you’d like and freeze the remainder. Reduce the glaze recipe accordingly).

With a chef’s knife, (or my personal favorite, a bencher- which will just slice through) using a gentle sawing motion, trim just a tiny bit from the ends of the roll if they’re very ragged or not well filled, then cut the log into 1-inch thick buns. (Because you trim the ragged ends of the dough, and you may have lost a little length in the rolling, you will get 15 buns, not 16.) Fit the buns into the pan cut side down, leaving some space between them.

Lightly cover the pan with a piece of wax paper (or plastic wrap that has been oiled) and set the pan in a warm place until the buns have doubled in volume, about 1 hour and 45 minutes. (You can prep this far and put the buns to bed in the fridge if that suits your schedule, do make sure the buns have properly proofed before baking though) The buns are properly risen when they are puffy, soft, doubled and, in all likelihood, touching one another.
Getting ready to bake: When the buns have almost fully risen , center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Remove the sheet of wax paper and put the pan on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat. Bake the sticky buns for about 30 minutes, or until they are puffed and gorgeously golden; the glaze will be bubbling away merrily. Pull the pan from the oven.
The sticky buns must be unmolded minutes after they come out of the oven. If you do not have a rimmed platter large enough to hold them, use a baking sheet lined with a silicone mate or buttered foil. Be careful – the glaze is super-hot and super-sticky.
What You’ll Need for the Golden Brioche Dough (this recipe makes enough for two brioche loaves. If you divide the dough in half, you would use half for the sticky buns, and you can freeze the other half for a later date, or make a brioche loaf out of it!):
2 packets active dry yeast (each packet of yeast contains approx. 2 1/4 teaspoons)
1/3 cup just-warm-to-the-touch water
1/3 cup just-warm-to-the-touch whole milk
3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature but still slightly firm
What You’ll Need for the Glaze (you would brush this on brioche loaves, but not on the sticky buns):
1 large egg
1 tablespoon water
To Make The Brioche: Put the yeast, water and milk in the bowl of a stand mixer and, using a wooden spoon, stir until the yeast is dissolved. Add the flour and salt, and fit into the mixer with the dough hook, if you have one. Toss a kitchen towel over the mixer, covering the bowl as completely as you can– this will help keep you, the counter and your kitchen floor from being showered in flour. Turn the mixer on and off a few short pulses, just to dampen the flour (yes, you can peek to see how you’re doing), then remove the towel, increase the mixer speed to medium-low and mix for a minute or two, just until the flour is moistened. At this point, you’ll have a fairly dry, shaggy mess.
Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula, set the mixer to low and add the eggs, followed by the sugar. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat for about 3 minutes, until the dough forms a ball. Reduce the speed to low and add the butter in 2-tablespoon-size chunks, beating until each piece is almost incorporated before adding the next. You’ll have a dough that is very soft, almost like batter. Increase the speed to medium-high and continue to beat until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl, about 10 minutes.
Transfer the dough to a clean bowl (or wash out the mixer bowl and use it), cover with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature until nearly doubled in size, 40 to 60 minutes, depending upon the warmth of your room.
Deflate the dough by lifting it up around the edges and letting it fall with a slap to the bowl. Cover the bowl with the plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator. Slap the dough down in the bowl every 30 minutes until it stops rising, about 2 hours, then leave the uncovered dough in the refrigerator to chill overnight. (After this, you can proceed with the recipe to make the brioche loaves, or make the sticky buns instead, or freeze all or part of the dough for later use.)
The next day, butter and flour two 8 1/2-x-4 1/2-inch pans.
Pull the dough from the fridge and divide it into 2 equal pieces. Cut each piece of the dough into 4 equal pieces and roll each piece into a log about 3 1/2 inches long. Arrange 4 logs crosswise in the bottom of each pan. Put the pans on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat, cover the pans lightly with wax paper and leave the loaves at room temperature until the dough almost fills the pans, 1 to 2 hours. (Again, rising time with depend on how warm the room is.)
Getting Ready To Bake: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
To Make the Glaze: Beat the egg with the water. Using a pastry brush, gently brush the tops of the loaves with the glaze.
Bake the loaves until they are well risen and deeply golden, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer the pans to racks to cool for 15 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the pans and turn the loaves out onto the racks. Invert again and cool for at least 1 hour.

Pita Bread

Of all the recipes in Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a Day the one application I was doubtful with, was the ability to make pita bread out of the Master Recipe. In the bakery courses I had done making pita bread was quite a bit of hard work. There was no way to make it without a stand mixer and as I was working from a commercial recipe the smallest I could scale it down to was 15 units of pita bread.

All of this was ok because once you have had homemade fresh pita bread you think all the effort is completely warranted.

Anyway, I had some of the master recipe in the fridge and I had a hankering for Lamb Kofkas.

I scaled the first pita at 100g but that was too big. This dough is quite wet and sticky. And it became mis-shapen in the transfer to the frypan. 60g is just about perfect (the size of a ping pong ball). You need to roll it out to 1/8 of an inch thick.

You will need to use heaps (and heaps) of flour. I love this dough but golly it is sticky! Just dust it off to prevent excess smoking before you bake/cook it off.

The oven was in use at 300F (and the recipe calls for baking off at 500F on a pizza stone) so I made the pitas on the stove top. This was the technique that worked best from the baking course. Essentially it is a really easy 2 step process. Preheat a fry pan, dry fry for approximately 1-2 minutes a side. As long as you rolled it thinly enough it should puff. For extra flavor (and it seems to puff up better this way) place the pita directly over the gas flame. You get really yummy slightly charred bits. I used a roasting rack for better support under the pita (that was my epiphany of the day).

I was so pleased with this. The taste and texture is perfect. I was concerned that with the same master recipe everything would well, taste the same. Really surprisingly for me, not so. My last 3 posts have been about this book and I have a feeling there will be more to come.

No Knead Challah

I have made brioche a few times now. Thankfully, each time successfully. I came across the recipe in Artisan Bread In Five Minutes A Day by Jeff Hetzberg and Zoe Francois and wondered how good it could be. You weren’t slowly and painstakingly adding butter. It is almost embarrassingly easy. In fact total mixing time is 1 minute.

The answer is it is stunning. I have made the brioche and the challah from this recipe book a few times now. My personal preference is to save the seriously butter and egg rich brioche for enjoying on it’s own as a loaf or as Brioche a Tete, and use the challah in sweet rolls where there is a whole lot of other butter rich madness going on. That said I think this challah is really nice as a stand alone enriched bread.

Another real advantage of this recipe is it is not temperamental if you make a half batch (which I give the quantities for here). This amount is perfect for a batch of sweet rolls of choice. In fact, I will follow up this post with the challah in action. To be continued.

So here is the recipe for the No Knead Challah (half batch).

220ml lukewarm water

2 1/4 tsp yeast

1 1/2 tsp table salt

2 eggs lightly beaten

60g (1/4 cup) unsalted butter or oil if making dairy free

60g (1/4 cup) honey

420g (3 1/2 cups) plain flour

Method

Mix the yeast, salt, eggs, honey, and melted butter with the water in a large bowl. Make sure the yeast dissolves.

Then mix in the flour without kneading using a spoon.

You can use your food processor or mixer but this dough is very much like a batter and only takes 1 minute.

Prepare a plastic container (minimum of 2.5l size for a half batch 5l for a full batch. I always grease the inside of the container to ensure I don’t deflate the dough when I am trying to turn it out. Cover (not airtight) and allow to rest at room temp until dough rises and starts to collapse (approx 1-2 hours).

Look at the textural changes after just 1 hour on the bench.

Refrigerate in a lidded container overnight and use in the next 5 days. If you need to store it longer than that freeze the dough in an airtight container for up to a month. The flavour develops over time which for me is more important in brioche that stands alone than challah which is working to contain all the gooey goodness.

This dough is easy to work with when still cold. With the amount of butter in it, I wouldn’t let it get warm before shaping it.

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day- Master Recipe

 

I have been playing around with some of the bread recipes in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day for a few weeks.  

I have mentioned in a previous post, the sticky buns are amazing and so simple.  But one (really shouldn’t) live on sticky buns alone.  At some stage you want something to go with some nice cheese or to send your child to school with (they tend to frown at pastry dripping with butter and sugar in lunch boxes unless you send enough for the staff room).

The Master Recipe is a great place to start.  There are heaps of variations in the book and I recommend it highly.

I have played around with the recipe quite a bit.  I prefer to add some sourdough starter.  The dough (for me) when fuelled purely by yeast loses a bit of oomph after a week in the fridge.   This is helped slightly by adding some starter.  I also hate to throw things away so it makes sense to put excess starter to use.

This makes a really nice freeform loaf.  It makes a good easy bagette (although time and organisation permitting I prefer the Acme Bakery recipe in Maggie Gleezers book, Artisan Baking).  The breads from this book come into their own in freeform shapes.  In a loaf tin you need to fill it at least 3/4 full.  It is still good but probably not my favourite format for this recipe.

You can find the recipe here.  I have given my notes and metric conversions.

 

The Master Recipe: Artisan Free Form Loaf.

From Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery that Revolutionizes Home Baking by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois (Thomas Dunne Books, 2007). Copyright 2007 by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.
Makes four 1 pound loaves.

Note: This recipe must be prepared in advance.

• 3 cups (720g) lukewarm water
• 1-1/2 tablespoons (4 1/2 teaspoon) granulated yeast (about 1-1/2 packets)
• 1-1/2 teaspoons kosher salt (or 3 teaspoons table salt)
• 6-1/2 cups (940g) unbleached flour, plus extra for dusting dough
• optional 200g of well fed sourdough starter
• Cornmeal for the peel (or leave on baking paper)

In a large plastic resealable container, mix yeast and salt into 3 cups lukewarm (about 100 degrees) water.(make sure you follow this step. When I  skipped it I found a ribbon of undisolved yeast). Using a large spoon, stir in flour, mixing until mixture is uniformly moist with no dry patches. Do not knead. Dough will be wet and loose enough to conform to shape of plastic container. Cover, but not with an airtight lid. (I mix mine in a bowl and then put in a lightly oiled 4.75l decor brand container).

Let dough rise at room temperature, until dough begins to flatten on top or collapse, at least 2 hours (takes an hour in Darwin) and up to 5 hours. (At this point, dough can be refrigerated up to 2 weeks; refrigerated dough is easier to work with than room-temperature dough, so the authors recommend that first-time bakers refrigerate dough overnight or at least 3 hours.)

When ready to bake, sprinkle cornmeal on a pizza peel. Place a broiler pan on bottom rack of oven. Place baking stone on middle rack and repeat oven to 450 degrees, preheating baking stone for at least 20 minutes.

Sprinkle a little flour on dough and on your hands. Pull dough up and, using a serrated knife, cut off a grapefruit-size piece (about 1 pound). Working for 30 to 60 seconds (and adding flour as needed to prevent dough from sticking to hands; most dusting flour will fall off, it’s not intended to be incorporated into dough), turn dough in hands, gently stretching surface of dough, rotating ball a quarter-turn as you go, creating a rounded top and a bunched bottom.

Place shaped dough on prepared pizza peel and let rest, uncovered, for 40 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough or refrigerate it in lidded container. (Even one day’s storage improves flavor and texture of bread. Dough can also be frozen in 1-pound portions in airtight containers and defrosted overnight in refrigerator prior to baking day.) Dust dough with flour.

Using a serrated knife, slash top of dough in three parallel, ¼-inch deep cuts (or in a tic-tac-toe pattern). Slide dough onto preheated baking stone. Pour 1 cup hot tap water into broiler pan and quickly close oven door to trap steam. Bake until crust is well-browned and firm to the touch, about 30 minutes. Remove from oven to a wire rack and cool completely.

You can also pull off just enough for a bread roll or two (150g makes a nice hamburger bun) as in the pictures above. 

 

Back to Sourdough

 

I have finally paid enough attention to my sourdough starter to use it again.  I keep my starter in the fridge.  That means I can feed it once a week when I am not in a sourdough baking frenzy.  But it takes a bit of love and feeding to get it back up to standard when I am back in the zone.  

I add about 60g of that fridge stored starter into just about all the loaves I bake.  It adds a depth of flavour and also seems to keep the bread fresh for an extra day on the bench.  It also means I don’t end up with wasted starter.  More about sourdough maintenance in another post.

So with a happy starter I made Peter Reinharts sourdough from the Bread Bakers Apprentice.  It makes enough for 2 loaves so I divided the dough and tried his favourite variation, blue cheese and walnut.  

I used my bannetons to help shape the loaf whilst in its final proof. After much trial and error (read dough stuck to banneton and then deflated and I got really really cross) I have settled on light spray oil on the banneton followed by a dusting of rice flour.  It releases really well.  After some comments on another Rose Levy Beranbaums website I thought I would see if the spray oil was really needed.  

The answer for me is yes.  The classic loaf is the one I ommitted the spray oil on.  It stuck, only in one place but you can see just on the top right hand side of the loaf where it has deflated.

I have read about care of bannetons where they don’t get washed between uses. (just knock out the excess flour and use again next time) That doesn’t work here in Darwin when it is 32C year round and with 80%+ humidity for half the year.  Mine started having mildew blooms and it was a magnet to the roaches.  All in all not a good situation.  So I wash them in the sink.  Then often give them a burl in the dishwasher.  And then I dry them really well before storing them (that means sometimes in the wet leaving them in a very very low oven for a while).

I had a friend around for lunch and we tried the breads.  The classic sourdough was really nice.  It had a lovely crumb structure and the crust was still shatteringly crisp.  The blue cheese and walnut loaf was also very good.  You can really see the effects of the add-ins on the crumb structure of the walnut bread. Interestingly, the camembert really intensified the blue cheese flavour in the bread.  (I suppose the fat content of the cheese allowed the flavours to carry further).  I just love the colour the walnuts turned the bread.  I think I will make walnut bread again but perhaps without the blue cheese next time.