What's Baking? February: Bread

This month's What's Baking? theme is bread! Heather of Hezzi D's Books and Cooks will have the round up, check out what everyone made!

I always try to choose a new, challenging recipe for What's Baking?. I like to learn new things! But this month, finding time to bake a loaf of bread was challenge enough. I decided on a recipe that I love and haven't made in a while, and one that I wanted to share with others. So hopefully I can inspire someone to challenge themselves with this recipe! (don't worry, it's pretty straightforward!) I also chose this recipe because my grandma loves it, so I made it to send to her (fortunately, it makes 2 loaves so one for her, one for me!).

Cardamom Braid
makes 2 loaves
recipe from the King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook

4.5-5 cups all purpose flour
1 cup milk, warm
1T active dry yeast
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1t ground cardamom
1t salt
6T softened butter

In your mixing bowl, combine the warm milk, yeast and 1 cup of flour. Whisk together and let the yeast wake up for about 20 minutes. Add the sugar, eggs, cardamom, salt and butter, Stir til mostly combined. Add in the remaining flour, 1 cup at a time, until the dough holds together but is still a little sticky. Knead for 10-15 minutes, then place in a loosely covered bowl and let rise for about 2 hours, til doubled.

After the dough has risen, punch it down and divide in half. Divide each half in thirds, and roll out the dough into long snakes. Braid 3 together: smoosh the ends of the snakes together and then braid them, smooshing the ends together when you finish. Repeat for the 2nd set of 3 to make 2 braided loaves. Cover the two loaves with a clean dish towel and let rise for 30-45 minutes. Set the oven to 350F and let the bread continue to rise as the oven heats. Brush with an egg or milk wash, sprinkle with sanding or pearl sugar (optional) and bake for 30 minutes.

That's it! This bread is delicious, it has a nice light texture and is just sweet enough. It's my favorite for toast in the morning!

What's Baking?: Summer Produce

What's baking in my kitchen? Muffins that I baked in August and immediately froze (instead of making and freezing meals before baby arrived, I made baked goods. It was too confusing to decide on meals to make!

In the 6 months since I became a mother, I have actually baked a bit. I've made several batches of lactation cookies, many batches of the best brownies ever (which I'll share here, I promise), sugar cut-out cookies (a multi-night endeavor), chocolate chip cookies, and even gingerbread blondies (twice!), another recipe I need to share. But that's it. Forget baking on a schedule! I went to a pot-luck last week and I had to go to Big Y to buy two pounds of edamame salad. ME! I bought something for a pot-luck. It's so out of character.

But I've been sorry to miss out on the What's Baking? themes. Twice I did bake something within the theme, but I just didn't manage to blog about it before the deadline. So now that dear FC is 6 months old and eating his own food (steamed, not baked), it's a bit easier to share the baby duties with my husband.

The June theme is summer produce, chosen by Yudith at Blissfully Delicious. Normally I'd bake with freshly picked strawberries- not this year! I fortunately froze several pounds of freshly picked strawberries last year, so I had some all ready in the freezer.

And serendipitously, Joy the Baker has partnered with King Arthur Flour and together they've introduced a baking bootcamp on instagram. Everyone makes the same recipe and posts photos on instagram with #bakingbootcamp and will be entered to win a year's supply of King Arthur flour! (that's like 120lbs, right?) The baking bootcamp recipe is triple berry braided bread. Which includes strawberries.

Hooray, 2 birds, one stone! Perfect for this new mom.

I haven't baked anything with yeast since.... October, maybe? Whereas I used to bake bread nearly every week. This was pretty exciting. As yeast breads go, this recipe is rather straightforward, but the assembly is interesting. Mine was not perfect, but it was delicious and I plan to try again. Also, another participant instagrammed her 2nd attempt, which was a parmesan rosemary version- I definitely need to try that version!

Triple Berry Cinnamon Swirl Bread
by Joy the Baker

For the bread:
2.25t active dry yeast
1T sugar
3/4 warm milk (around 100-105oC)
1 egg yolk
2T unsalted butter, melted
2.25 cups King Arthur Flour AP flour
1/2t salt

Whisk together the milk, sugar and yeast, and set aside for 5-10 minutes, til it gets frothy. Stir in the egg yolk and melted butter, then place the flour and salt in the bowl of your mixer and add the yeast mixture. Stir/knead. [Joy suggests kneading by hand for 10 minutes, but I had a crying baby so I just let the mixer take care of it] Place in a greased bowl, covered, and let rise for 1-1.5hrs, til it's doubled in size.

Meanwhile, make the filling.

For the filling:
1/4 cup (half stick) of butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
3T cinnamon
2cups of berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries would be nice)

NOTE: don't use frozen strawberries, use fresh. They are very wet and your bread will be in a puddle and very difficult to shape. Or, if you must use frozen strawberries, have a full roll of paper towel on hand. I blame the frozen strawberries for my less-than-perfect bread!

To make the filling, mix together the butter, sugar and cinnamon. Set aside. Prep the berries (wash, hull, whatever they need), set aside.

Preheat the oven to 375F.

To assemble the bread: this is the tricky part!

Knead the dough on a floured board a couple times. Roll out to a 12x18in rectangle,

then spread the butter/cinnamon/sugar filling in an even layer over the top, leaving an inch-thick bare spot along one long edge. Sprinkle/evenly place the berries over the filling.

 Then start to roll up the dough, ending at the filling-less edge.

 Now you have a snake of dough. Cut this snake in half, leaving one end with a couple inches uncut so the two halves are still connected at that end.

 Flip the halves so the cut sides are up. This is where wet, defrosted strawberries cause a problem: my dough would not stick together and kept flopping open.

 Now, cross the halves over each other in a helix- again, this can be tricky and the dough may threaten to fall apart and all the berries will spill out. Just shove them back in at random.

 Then roll the helix into a circle and place into either a greased iron skillet or a greased springform pan. Brush with an egg wash made of one beaten egg, and sprinkle with powdered sugar (which I neglected to do).

Pop in the oven for 40-45 minutes and go clean up the defrosted strawberry puddle.

Ta-da!

 I love springform pans.

 Voila!

The bread isn't very sweet, so it takes well to the cinnamon sugar filling. I ended up sprinkling powdered sugar over slices as I ate them. The dough is a good bread dough, the filling is classic cinnamon sugar, and it's a nice way to use up berries if you need something to do with them. This recipe would work well for a variety of fillings (like the IGer with her parm-rosemary version). It was fun to attempt a fancier bread shape than I've ever done before, and while it didn't work great and was a little stressful (don't use frozen strawberries!!), I want to make another and try again. Also, it didn't take all that long to make!

If you have kids, I don't recommend making this when your husband's at work. Wait til Saturday when you have someone else in the house!

Authentic, Americanized

I love Indian food. It's like spicy comfort food- creamy sauces, chewy, buttery bread, and all these delicious flavors I can't even identify. Unfortunately, I can't really make good Indian food. Oh, I've tried! Tried and tried. It's good, it's just not quite right. The curries I make are kind of thin and missing something. I follow the recipes, I have all the ingredients, so I don't know what's missing.

So I decided to turn to someone I thought would give me a good recipe- an authentic recipe, but one that fits an American kitchen with ingredients from American grocery stores- Aarti Paarty! I love her. She's so fun and cheerful and cooks these amazing things- not just Indian food, but all sorts of lovely and interesting things (like celery root with vanilla and black pepper... I'm very eager to cook that one, if I could ever remember to look for celery root at Big Y!)

Last night I made an Aarti dinner: chicken tikka masala, basmati rice, and naan. None of it tasted like what you'd get in an Indian restaurant, but it was much closer than any other recipe I'd used! The kitchen was a little frantic with 3 unfamiliar recipes, but I fit it all on the stove and everything was hot when we ate it. I call that a success!

Chicken Tikka Masala
Aarti Sequeira's recipe

Marinade:
1 cup yogurt (I used nonfat Greek)
1T freshly grated ginger
3 cloves garlic, pressed in a garlic press
salt and pepper
1lb of boneless, skinless chicken thighs (I used 2lbs of bone-in thighs)

In a medium bowl, mix the yogurt, ginger, garlic, salt and pepper, and then add the chicken. Move the chicken around to coat it well on both sides with the yogurt mixture, and leave for at least 30 minutes or up to overnight in the fridge. I marinaded about 2 hours at room temp.

Sauce:
3T butter
2t olive oil
6 garlic cloves, minced
2-inch piece of ginger, grated
2 serrano pepper, minced (I used 3 sanaam chilis, which is all we had on hand)
2T tomato paste
2t paprika
1t garam masala
8 Roma tomatoes, diced (I used one can of tomatoes- I forgot how Clint devours tomatoes!)
1 1/2t salt
2 cups water
1T dried fenugreek leaves, optional (I used dried cilantro)
1/2 cup heavy cream (I used my favorite fat free 1/2&1/2!)

In a large skillet, melt the butter and oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, ginger and peppers and cook, stirring, until the mixture just begins to brown (about 5 minutes). Add the tomato paste and cook until it turns darker, about 3 minutes, then add in the paprika and garam masala and cook until fragrant- about 1 minute. Now add the tomatoes, salt and water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer, and simmer 20 minutes. Then remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes. Place in a blender and puree, then return to the skillet.

Meanwhile, heat up the broiler. Line a cookie sheet with foil for easy clean-up, and place the chicken on the foil. Broil for about 10 minutes, flip the thighs and broil for another 10.

Place the broiled chicken in the pureed sauce in the pan, and place over medium heat. Cook for about 15 minutes and then stir in the cream (or 1/2&1/2). Serve with naan and/or rice.

Naan
Aarti's recipe

1t active dry yeast
3/4 cup warm water (not too hot, around 100F is good)
2t sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
1t fine sea salt
1/8t baking powder
3T plain yogurt (I used nonfat Greek again)
2T extra-virgin olive oil
melted butter, about 1-2T
sea salt
dried basil or cilantro, or other tasty herbs

In a cup or small bowl, combine the water, yeast and sugar. Let sit til the yeast wakes up, about 10 minutes. Stir in the yogurt and olive oil. In a larger bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir in the yeast/water mixture to the flour mixture. It's very, very sticky, but once all the dry ingredients are incorporated, start kneading with your hands- it'll get a little more elastic and will come together, although it'll still stay pretty sticky. Place the dough in the bowl and cover with a dishtowel or plastic wrap and leave in a warm place for 2-4 hours.

After the dough has risen, divide it into 6-8 equal-sized balls of dough. Get a small bowl of cool water to have on hand. Roll out on a floured surface into oval/teardrop shapes (teardrop is traditional, although I was doing too much at this point so honestly, just roll it out, it could be a parallelogram for all it really matters). Heat a large pan or griddle over high heat. Take one rolled-out piece of dough. Wet your hands in the bowl of water, flip-flop the dough between your hands to dampen, and then slap in the hot pan. Cook for one minute, then flip and then cover the pan and cook for an additional 30sec-1min. The naan will get a little charred but that's just how it is. Remove from the pan and brush with melted butter and sprinkle with salt and dried herbs (I used cilantro this time but I've also done basil in the past, both are good). Serve warm. These reheat fairly well.

And finally, I used Aarti's basmati rice recipe, which honestly wasn't all the great, but I attribute it more to my inability to make good rice and the fact that I used brown basmati instead of regular, than the recipe itself. It calls for rinsing the rice, something I don't think I've ever done before. It lenghtens the time it takes to make rice, which, if you ask me, is too long anyway. I want to get some regular basmati rice and try it again sometime.

And the results? Well I already told you about the rice. The naan was good. I didn't roll it out evenly, so some of the pieces had a very doughy edge, but that's ok. Brushing with butter and sprinkling with salt was quite tasty, as it is butter and salt. I'd never seen a naan recipe with baking powder, and I do think this was a better recipe than any of the others I'd used before. The chicken tikka masala wasn't quite authentic, but it was loads better than any of the other chicken tikka masala recipes I've tried before. And the kitchen smelled delicious.

One thing, though- I don't recommend a meal with 3 brand-new recipes, it's too hard to stay on top of things. I'd also intended to make some maple-roasted brussels sprouts, since Clint will eat them if they're roasted and we have a ton (thanks, BJ's! lol sometimes I love buying in crazy bulk sizes) but I actually forgot completely about that intention until the last naan was in the pan. oops!

So in the end, I highly approve of the chicken tikka masala and the naan. I'll give the rice another try next time. And there are no pictures because we were too eager to eat it all!

Today I meant to do a lot with yeast, but it didn't really happen- I'm making a bread with a sponge (I've never done this before!) and forgot I was going to bake it today- postponed til tomorrow! And I tried to make pizza crust.... but didn't realize I forgot to add the yeast until it'd been "rising" entirely unsuccessfully for almost 3 hours. d'oh! I sprinkled in yeast and kneaded some more, and we'll see what happens with that. It's such a shame though, I'd added all these fabulous herbs and spices to make the dough even more delicious! That'll teach me to email people while I'm cooking!

I made Aarti's tikka masala a second time and added brussels sprouts! I know, it was a weird idea, but it kind of worked. It's a relatively easy way to get some extra veggies.

What's Baking? October: Fall Flavors

I missed last month's What's Baking (family favorites), which was sad. So I was determined to do this month's, but I unfortunately haven't had time
to blog about it until the very last minute!

I went apple picking a few weeks ago, as I try to do every year. I picked a 1/2 bushel of apples, and I really think I need to get over there again before they close for the season and get another half bushel! One more apple pie or crisp and they'll all be gone. For this reason, I made something that would use fewer apples for What's Baking?.

Joy The Baker made a lovely apple coffee cake ring earlier this month. It has a yeasty dough and is filled with apples- kind of like cinnamon rolls with apples in a ring form. It looked lovely. And it tastes lovely! I used half whole wheat flour to be a little more whole-grainy, and instead of her streusel topping, I made a cream cheese icing. It's a great breakfast bread, it's appley and cinnamony but not overly sweet (unless you smother it in the icing, of course). One recipe makes two, and we've thoroughly enjoyed having this one around for twice as long ;)

The dough is a very different dough than I've worked with before- it's kind of like a cross between a yeast bread and a cake. It tastes like a bread, though!

Apple Coffee Cake Ring
recipe from Joy the Baker

For the dough:
1T active dry yeast
1/4cup warm water
6T sugar
1 and 1/2 stick butter, softened to room temperature
1t cardamom
1/2t salt
3 eggs
4.5 to 5 cups flour (I used half WW and half AP)
1 cup warm milk

In a small bowl, stir the yeast into the warm water and add a pinch of sugar. Let sit for 10-15 min for the yeast to wake up.
In a larger bowl (of your stand mixer, preferably), beat the butter, sugar, cardamom and salt together til creamy, about 3 min. Beat in the 3 eggs and 1 cup of flour. Stir til well combined, about 1-2 min. Add 2 more cups of flour, the warm milk and the yeast mixture, beat for another minute. Then add the rest of the flour and mix until you had a sticky dough. Knead for about 10 minutes (I kneaded with the mixer). Cover with plastic wrap or a dish towel and let rise in a warm place til doubled, about 1.5-2 hours.

Filling
2 apples, peeled, cored and diced into small pieces
2t lemon juice (optional, good for flavor and prevents apples from turning brown)
2T brown sugar
1t cinnamon
1/2t nutmeg
pinch of salt
1t cornstarch

To make the filling, mix all ingredients together. Set aside.

Back to the dough: it's risen now, so punch it down and divide in half. Spread out one half on your floured board and roll/stretch to a 10x14in (approx) rectangle. Sprinkle half of the filling mixture over the dough, and begin to roll the long side. Form into a horseshoe, and then using a sharp knife (or even scissors), cut the dough about 2/3 of the way through the roll. Do this every 2-3inches or so, and then spread the slices out to make the horseshoe into a circle. Place this on a parchment-lined cookie sheet, cover with a dishtowel and let rise for about 45min. Repeat with the other half of the dough. You can either bake the 2nd half or wrap the long roll in plastic wrap and freeze. If you freeze, let the cylinder thaw, then cut as for the first half, let rise, and bake.

Bake at 375F for about 40 min.

When cool, drizzle with cream cheese icing: 1T softened cream cheese, 1T milk and 1 cup powdered sugar.

Yum! Take this to the next brunch or tea party you're invited to.

Best Sandwich Bread EVER

Last night I made some sloppy joes. Now, I don't really like sloppy joes (Clint does), but these were sloppy joes with a Vietnamese twist. And you can pretty much give any dish and Asian twist and I'll try it. But when we ate the sandwiches, what blew us away was not the sloppy joes (they were totally fine) but the sandwich bread. The sloppy joes recipe wanted to be put on French bread, and of course I didn't feel like going to the store, so you know me, I'll just make some. I googled "french bread recipe" and made the first recipe I found... which was ridiculously amazing. This is my new favorite sandwich bread. Forget your wonder bread, your healthy multi-grain bird seed bread, even your fancy artisan bakery bread. This is an easy-peasy bread recipe and only took me about 2.5 hours start to finish. I cannot wait to make a nice cuban using this bread, or maybe I'll get brave and make a french dip.

Best Sandwich Bread EVER
recipe from food.com
makes 3 grinder roll-sized loaves, each loaf good for 2 sandwiches

2 cups warm water
1T yeast
pinch of sugar
1t salt
1T oil (I used olive)
5-5.5 cups bread flour*

*I used King Arthur's First Clear flour, which is a high gluten flour used in Jewish rye. I'm not sure if it's as high gluten as bread flour, but it has a nice earthy taste to it, kind of like whole wheat flour. I used 4 cups of first clear and 1 cup of whole wheat, and the bread wasn't heavy like whole wheat, but had that kind of hint of flavor to it. I highly recommend the First Clear.

In a bowl, sprinkle the yeast and sugar over the warm water. Let sit for 10-15 minutes for the yeast to wake up. Stir in the salt, oil and 3 cups of the flour. Stir for about 2 minutes. Add 2 more cups of flour and knead for 10 minutes. Let sit in an oiled bowl until doubled, about 1-1.5hrs. Shape into long baguette-shaped loaves (I shaped into 2 loaves, next time I'll make 3 loaves), cover with a towel and let rise for another 30 minutes. Sprinkle with water (liberally) and bake in a 375F preheated oven for 30-40 minutes, until they start to turn golden brown.


This bread is crusty without being rock-hard-crunchy, and super soft in the middle. It's still kind of chewy like french bread, not cottony like most grocery store sliced breads, and is my ideal sandwich roll texture. It's not so flavorful it takes away from a sandwich, but it tastes good on its own. You have to try this!!


Vietnamese Sloppy Joes, or Sloppy Baos
recipe modified from Martha Stewart

I halved the recipe, which would serve 4-5, and wanted to use onion instead of shallots

1-1.25lb ground beef (or sub in another ground meat if you like)
1 small onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1T chopped lemongrass (I used dried)
2T red curry paste
1 cup ketchup
1T fish sauce
10 basil leaves, minced
1t brown sugar
2T mustard
julienned green mango or green apple
sliced jalapenos
french bread

In a large skillet, brown the meat with the onion, garlic, lemongrass and curry paste. Cook for about 5 minutes, then add the ketchup, fish sauce, half the basil, brown sugar and mustard. Turn the heat down and simmer for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, slice the loaf of french bread lengthwise (like for a grinder/sub) and toast in the oven for about 5-8 minutes.

To assemble the sandwich, spread the sloppy joe mixture on the bottom half of the bread, arrange julienned mango/apple and sliced jalapenos on top, and top with the top half of the bread. Slice the grinder into individual-sized portions and enjoy!


I really only made this dish because we wanted to use up some ground beef in the freezer. Clint loves sloppy joes and used to eat them often before we got married. I kind of can't stand them. But like I said, I'll try almost anything with an asian twist. And.... these were ok. Clint had seconds, so you *know* he liked them. If you're a sloppy joe kind of person, you'll probably like these. And like I said before, the bread is amazing.

What's Baking? July: Bake Local

This month's What's Baking? theme was chosen by Lindsey, and is Bake Local- bake anything from your local area! I decided to use cherries. Tougas Farm has recently started producing cherries, so I jumped at the chance to go cherry picking! I've never done this before, so I was really surprised by how many cherries grow on each branch of a cherry tree! It was a perfect day for fruit picking of any sort (warm but not too hot, partly cloud, plus I was under a mesh canopy that provided a little more shade), so I went slowly and enjoyed myself.

I only got 7.8lbs of cherries- I'd have liked to pick more, but they were not cheap, so I did not want to take any chances of not using up all the cherries in time- plus the cherry field is cash-only, and the girl only has so much cash on her at a given time (birthday money, haha!)

I made many things with these cherries, including a classic cherry pie and cherry hand pies for a picnic,

but for the bake along I like to go with something different: cherry foccacia.

Cherry Foccacia
from Martha Stewart Living, July 2011

Martha had a big spread on sour cherries in the July issue, and she made some really different things, things you'd never think to put cherries in/on. I was using Bing cherries, not sour, but I like all cherries so I didn't care. This was my first attempt at foccacia, and while it didn't turn out exactly like bakery foccacia, it's still delicious and worth the time and effort. It's not hard, you just have several risings to deal with.

2 and 3/4 cup warm water
1t active dry yeast
1.5lbs (4.5-5cups) bread flour
1-2t salt
1/4 cup olive oil
2T fresh rosemary (I used dried)
1.5-2 cups cherries, pitted and halved

In a large bowl (say, of your stand mixer), combine the water, yeast and flour. Mix just until combined (dough will be very sticky) and let rest for about 20 min. Add the salt and mix, then knead for about 5 min. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1.5-2hrs.

On a floured board (just enough flour so it doesn't stick, and the dough might be really, really sticky), knead the dough just a bit, then flatten out into a square/rectangle-ish shape. Fold the top third down towards you, then the bottom third up away from you. Pat to get the air bubbles out, and the 2 flaps should overlap. Then do the right side third, then the left side third, and pat. Place in a floured bowl, cover and let rest for an hour. Then repeat the folding process again, and let rest for another hour.

In a rimmed 13x17 baking sheet, pour the oil and spread around. Stretch out the dough a bit and place it in the pan, working it to reach all the edges (this is tedious and can take awhile- it won't stick to the pan because the pan is oiled, of course, so you just have to coax it to stretch out).

Heat the oven to 450F, and let the dough rest for 15-20 min.

Finally, place the cherries on the top of the dough (I did some skin-side down, and some skin-side up, whatever you like), and press them in gently. Sprinkle with some coarse (kosher or sea) salt and the rosemary. Bake at 450F for 30-40 min, turning around halfway through.

Once the bread is done, let it cool in the pan for just a few minutes, then remove from pan and let cool on a wire rack. Drizzle the top of the bread with the olive oil from the pan.

Go on a picnic and bring the foccacia to share with all your friends. :)

More ham!

These biscuits used to be one of my cocktail party staples. They're quick and easy, and delicious. But alas, after a while every one of my friends had had them, and while they were still popular, I wanted to branch out.

This past weekend my choir held a wine tasting and silent auction party thing as their annual fundraiser, and as usual, I volunteered to make food. Once the time came to actually make the food, I had way more on my plate than I expected (my final project for my teaching class was due the same day). And since I had all that ham, I pulled out this old favorite- there's nothing like a familiar easy recipe when you're already stretched too thin.

Ham and Cheese biscuits
adapted from Giada

2 cups flour
1T baking powder
1t baking soda
1/2 t salt
6T butter, cold and cut into cubes
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup diced ham
1/2 cup grated cheese (I used swiss, gruyere would be great)

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add in the butter and beat until the mixture resembles a coarse meal (using the food processor for these 2 steps is probably the easiest- but again, I really hate washing my food processor, so I just use my stand mixer). In a bowl (same bowl if you're using your mixer, or switch to a bowl if you've been using your food processor), add in the buttermilk, ham and cheese and mix until just combined-don't overmix!

Roll out dough to 1/2in thick and cut with a round cookie cutter (mine was about 1.5in in diameter). Bake at 425F for 10-12 min, until just golden brown. Best served warm.


So at the choir wine tasting these weren't the most popular thing.... but they were accidentally placed on the dessert table, which may have been part of the problem. I think Clint could have happily eaten the whole plate.

What's Baking? April: Spring Baking

Our What's Baking? theme for April was Spring baking, hosted by Leanne of The Martin Family.

When I think of spring foods, I immediately think of Easter. Yes, it's a religious holiday, but to me it's more of the official start of spring than March 21st- especially when Easter is later in the year, and it's actually warm out and flowers are blooming. Easter is the first day I break out a brightly-colored sundress and sandals- even if it's freezing that day. Luckily, it was close to 70F this year, and I was actually warm!

Our Easter plans this year were affected by the flu and travel plans. Fortunately, we were innocent bystanders of all that, but it meant we spent Easter on our own. For me, this was a first time thing, so I scrambled around over a period of two days to try to make our Easter Sunday special. This mostly meant gathering some supplies for Easter baskets and making a nice breakfast.

Because we began Lent with Swedish Semlor on Shrove Tuesday, I decided to end the season with a Swedish Easter bread. This bread was pretty straightforward, but delicious, and I added my own little twist to make it even more delicious. It's not the fanciest Easter treat you'll ever see, but it's just as tasty.

Swedish Easter Bread
recipe found on cooks.com
Makes 2 braided loaves

1 cup milk (I used skim)
4T (1/2 stick) butter
1/2 cup sugar
1t cardamom
1/4 cup warm water
1T active dry yeast
1/2t salt
3.5-4 cups flour
1 egg for an egg wash
Optional: 4-6T marzipan (make your own, or buy a can. I used a can)

Scald the milk. Remove from heat and stir in butter, and then sugar and cardamom. Let cool to lukewarm. Meanwhile, wake up the yeast in the 1/4cup of warm water (I added a sprinkle of sugar as well).

In a large bowl (or your stand mixer bowl), combine the milk mixture, yeast, salt and 3 cups of flour. Stir until combined, and add more flour as needed to produce a sticky dough. Knead for about 5min, in your mixer or by hand.

Let rise in a warm place, in a bowl covered with plastic wrap or a clean dish towel, for about 2 hours.

Punch down the dough and divide in half. Divide each half into 3, and roll each piece into a long snake to braid the dough. Here is where you'll add the marzipan. I tried two methods.

Method 1: start to braid the dough, and after you fold each piece over, stick a small bit of marzipan on the dough that will be covered by the next strand of dough. Keep doing that until it's all braided.

Method 2: Roll each of the dough pieces into a very fat, short snake, and make a long trough down the middle of each snake. Roll bits of marzipan into very skinny snakes, and place in the trough in the dough snake. Pinch the dough over the marzipan and roll out into a longer, skinnier dough snake. Braid that as normal.

Place the braids on a baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap or a dishtowel, and let rise another hour or so. Make an egg wash by beating the egg with 1-2T water, and brush over the braids. Bake for 30-40 min at 350F, until the bread starts to brown.

This bread is delicious fresh from the oven, or if eaten the next day I like to lightly toast it. It's delicious without the marizpan, but the marzipan definitely adds a sweet little surprise.

Overall I think I prefer method 2, it gets small bits of marzipan distributed more evenly through the bread.

Take-out at home

I see a lot of posts here and there, sharing recipes for Chinese take out and how it's just as good and just as fast. I have to say, I really can't stand American Chinese food. Korean food, on the other hand... yeah, I could definitely do well with my own recipe for bibimbob (still looking!). So when I came across this recipe for scallion pancakes on tastespotting (which are called "Chinese pancakes", but they look just like the Korean pancakes I've had from the Korean restaurant or homemade by Korean friends, and I've never seen scallion pancakes on the menu at a Chinese restaurant- perhaps because I haven't been to one in several years), I started to understand everyone's excitement over homemade Chinese takeout.

These pancakes are nice and easy, and while they're not exactly what I'm used to, they're still very good. They reheat pretty well wrapped in foil in the oven.

Scallion Pancakes
from globetrotter diaries

2 -2.5 cups flour
1 cup hot water
1 bunch scallions, thinly sliced
salt
vegetable oil

Place 2 cups flour in a bowl and make a well. Pour the hot water into the well and incorporate more and more flour as you stir in circles. Transfer to a floured board and knead, adding more flour if necessary for kneading. Knead for a few minutes, then cover with a damp towel and let rest at least 30 min.

Roll dough into a log and divide into 6 even pieces. Roll out each into a flat circle. Brush with oil and sprinkle with salt and scallions. Now roll the pancake back up into a snake (like rolling up a poster) and wind the snake into a coil. Roll that out again with a rolling pin, and that's what you'll cook. (if you need pictures, globetrotter diaries has good ones of this process)

Repeat this process with each of the dough balls.

Heat a large frying pan or griddle over medium high heat and cook the pancakes for a few minutes on each side, until golden brown. Serve with dipping sauce.

Dipping Sauce for pancakes
a wamozart12 interpretation

1/4 cup soy sauce
1T rice vinegar (or white)
1T finely chopped scallion
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
Dash of sugar
sriracha (as much or little as you like, I used about 1t)
1t sesame oil

Mix all ingredients together, and use for dipping pancakes in.

Funny-looking Bread

I had the urge bake bread last week- and we happened to be running low on bread, anyway, so the timing was right. I didn't search for a recipe, I just made it up as I went. And as luck would have it (maybe karma owes me after being indisposed for 3 weeks- first my fall, then a horrible cold-turned-sinus infection), this bread turned out perfect. It was light and a little chewy, not dry at all, and had a great flavor. However, when I pulled it out of the oven, it looked like a manatee. It was pretty bizarre. I'm just sorry I was unable to get a picture before we'd already eaten half the loaf.

Cinnamon Swirl Bread
a wamozart12 original

2 cups of warm water (about 95-100F)
1 heaping T active dry yeast
1/4 cup olive oil
8T brown sugar, divided
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2-1t salt
3-3.5 cups all purpose flour

2T butter, melted
1/4 cup brown sugar
3t cinnamon

In your large bread bowl (stand mixer bowl for me), dissolve 2T brown sugar in the water and sprinkle the yeast over. Let that sit for 10-15 min for the yeast to wake up.

Whisk in the remaining 6T brown sugar and the oil. Add the whole wheat flour, one cup at a time, then the salt. Stir in 2 cups of the all purpose flour, then switch to your dough hook and add one more cup of flour. Start kneading and add more flour if you need it. The dough should be a little sticky, not dry at all. Knead for about 10 minutes in your stand mixer or slightly less time by hand. Cover the bowl with a clean towel or plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place, until doubled (about 2hrs).

Punch down the dough and knead for a few seconds on a floured board. Roll it out to a large rectangle. Brush the melted butter over the dough. Whisk the brown sugar and cinnamon together and spread evenly over the butter. (I basically did what Alton does for his cinnamon rolls for this part, only my rectangle was wider and not as long). Roll up the dough, rolling along the long side. Place on a baking sheet and cover with a clean towel/plastic wrap and let rise for another hour.

Preheat oven to 400F. Bake bread (you can do an egg wash if you like, I didn't) for 30 min at 400F, then reduce heat to 350F and bake another 20 minutes. Cool at least 15 minutes before eating, if you can wait that long!

This is delicious fresh from the oven, toasted with a little butter, and as french toast. The loaf is huge but it hasn't lasted us very long!

Nutella Banana Bread

Ah, nutella day. It’s such an exciting time of the year!

[Note: pictures coming soon!]

Today’s nutella installment is more of a good idea than a new recipe. It’s a nice way to jazz up your favorite banana bread recipe.

My mom makes banana bread pretty often, because it’s a great way to use up old bananas. I used to have bananas on hand much more often (now I only have bananas in winter, to try to avoid a fruit fly infestation in the warmer months) and I, too, made banana bread practically every other week. But when you make something so often like that, you tend to get sick of it. Maybe that’s just me. But these days I usually give away all my banana bread. I’ll eat it fresh from the oven, but then I can’t wait to get rid of it!

Adding a swirl of nutella will help with that, I think. I already know that bananas and nutella are a wonderful combination. Here, the banana bread isn’t all that sweet, so once you get to the bite of nutella swirl, its super-sweetness is more satisfying than cloying.

Note: this isn’t my standard banana bread recipe, but I liked that it used 1/3 cup of yogurt- I have a giant container of nonfat plain greek yogurt that I’ve been struggling to use up, so I was very glad to have another use for it. You don’t have to use this recipe, you can use your own favorite. This one’s good, too.

Banana Bread with Nutella Swirl

adapted from The Family Kitchen

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened

1/2-3/4 cup sugar (I used 1/2, if you want it sweeter, use 3/4)

3 brown/spotty bananas, mashed

2 eggs

1t vanilla

1/3 cup plain yogurt (or sour cream or buttermilk)

1 cup AP flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1t baking soda

1/2t salt

1/3-1/2 cup nutella, slightly softened

Cream the butter and sugar until it’s sandy (it won't get too fluffy). Beat in the bananas, eggs, vanilla and yogurt.

Sift together the flours, soda and salt, and stir into the wet mixture.

Grease a loaf pan and fill with about half the batter. Spread the nutella over the batter, then add the remaining batter.

Bake at 350F for 1hr 10min.

It smells delicious, starting about 20 minutes into baking :)

Next time I make this, instead of spreading the nutella in a single layer just before baking, I’d rather fold it into the bowl of the batter to get more of a distribution. I wouldn’t mix so that it’s fully incorporated, but just so that it’s found more throughout the dough than in the single layer. Or perhaps there should be 3 layers of batter and 2 layers of nutella.

Souper Bowl: Soup for Charity

A couple weeks ago, I heard about a blogger making soup to benefit animals. Branny Boils Over pledged to donate $1 to the ASPCA for every soup recipe submitted to her. I love this idea! I'm dedicating this soup to Pansy, who, as usual, hung out with us in the kitchen while we cooked, and sat with us while she ate.

(here she is with the catnip heart I just made her)

Want do make a charity soup? Just make a soup recipe, blog about it by January 30th, dedicate it to your favorite animal, and email it to Branny. Details and her email are on her blog. Don't like soup? Donate directly to the ASPCA.

This soup had the bonus of making a "going back for seconds" meal- this only happens about every other month. I rate how "good" a meal is by whether my husband goes for seconds. And with this meal, he had seconds... and then thirds.

I made stew and bread. It's been chilly, and I'm kind of in a soup mood. We had some pork in the freezer, and who really makes soup/stew with pork? Well, I found a recipe for pork stew and because it was so unexpected, I had to bookmark it. Good move. It was surprisingly good (i.e., I thought it'd be pretty good, but it was more like "wow... this is good!"). It was also easy- about 20 minutes to assemble everything, then I had a 30 minute work out while it simmered, and then we ate. It would have been a great weeknight meal.

To go with our stew, I made Dorie Greenspan's fougasse. Have you ever had fougasse? She describes it in "Around My French Table" as the provencal cousin of focaccia- honestly, I think it's better than focaccia (although it's possible I've never had real focaccia). The first time I ever saw fougasse was when I was in grad school and made it a point to visit the bakery at King Arthur Flour on a weekly basis. My friend Molly and I would go every Friday and buy a loaf of either rosemary (her) or olive (me) fougasse. Molly was a serious runner, so she'd eat the entire thing in one sitting, but I'd make mine last through Sunday (it's definitely best eaten the day it's baked). KAF didn't keep fougasse on the weekly rotation for very long, which was sad for my mouth, happy for my hips. It's a really simple bread, but something about it has a beautifully pure flavor, it's hard to describe. It's composed of olive oil, flour, yeast, water, salt, rosemary and olives (I omitted the lemon zest, more or less accidentally), and I think some combination of the salty, acidic olives with the blank palate of the rest of the ingredients does something magical. As Clint forcefully stated, "this bread is stupid-good".

Oh, and perhaps the pork stew and olive fougasse aren't the best pairings (sweet potatoes and olives? kinda weird), but it worked pretty darn well at for us. Next time I may make sage fougasse and have it with this soup, or maybe the olive fougasse with minestrone.

Pork, Sweet Potato and Apple Stew
adapted from Our Life in the Kitchen

1-1.5lbs pork (original recipe said pork stew meat, I used a pork tenderoin), cut into chunks
2 large or 3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
2-3 apples, peeled or not peeled (we peeled) and cut into large chunks
2 leeks, cut into 1 inch chunks (or 1-2 onions, roughly chopped)

2-3T olive oil or butter
1t cumin
1t dried sage or rosemary
black pepper, to taste
1/3 cup flour
6-8 cups chicken stock (or a mix of chicken stock and water)

In a large pot/dutch oven over medium heat, heat the oil. Add the pork and brown for a few minutes. Add the leeks and cook for 2 minutes, then add the cumin, sage and black pepper and cook a few minutes until fragrant. Sprinkle in the flour and stir until it soaks up the fat in the pan, and add the stock, sweet potatoes and apples. Simmer over medium-low or low heat for about 30 minutes.

Note that there's no salt in this: surprisingly, we didn't need any. I used 1.5 cups of homemade salt-free chicken stock, 1.5 cups of canned low sodium chicken broth, and 4 cups of water, and we didn't need to add salt at all. Of course, salt your own to taste before serving.


Olive Fougasse
from Dorie Greenspan's "Around My French Table" (if look it up on amazon.com, you can read the recipe page 48) on "look inside this book")

Note: Dorie recommends letting the dough sit in the fridge overnight before baking. I'm sure it'll be delicious if you just let it sit a few hours, though, but I haven't tried that yet (I will this week, I'll report back).

2/3 cup warm water (in my opinion, 95-100F)
2t yeast
1t sugar

4T (1/4 cup) olive oil (I used extra light, but EVOO would be the normal one)
1 cup warm water

4 cups AP flour
1.5t salt

1T fresh, chopped rosemary
1 cup pitted, chopped dates (I used kalamata)
zest of 1 lemon or orange

1T olive oil
2t water
salt

Combine the 2/3 cup water with yeast and sugar, stir and let sit for about 10 minutes, until the yeast wakes up and is frothy.

Stir in the 1/4 cup olive oil and 1 cup of water. Meanwhile, in the bowl of your stand mixer, whisk together the flour and salt. Pour in the liquids, and stir to combine with your dough hook for a few minutes on low. Knead in medium for 10 minutes. This dough is very soft and sticky, so my KA could handle 10 minutes on medium.

Now add in the olives, rosemary and zest and stir to combine (I kneaded with my hands for this part). Let the dough sit in a cool spot/refrigerator (I left it in the mudroom area, which we've recently discovered is uninsulated and averages about 50-55F) at least 6 hours, preferably overnight, or up to 3 days. I left it overnight.

On the day of baking, divide the dough in half (I left one half in the bowl to bake the next day). Roll out the dough to a flat-ish oval, and with a sharp knife, cut slashes in the dough, kind of in a leaf shape (traditional) or another shape you like. Let rest about 15 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 450F.

A few minutes before baking, whisk together the 1T oil and 2t water and brush over the top of the dough. Sprinkle with salt. Bake on the medium or lower rack in your oven for 10 minutes, then rotate and bake another 8-10, until lightly golden. (If you bake 2 loaves at once, put one on the medium rack and one on the low, and swap them after the first 10 min of baking).

Best eaten fresh from the oven, and accompaniments are totally unnecessary, this is a bread worth eating completely plain.


I only ever post recipes I think are worth sharing (unless there's some hilarious story or lesson to be learned from a fail), but I think these two recipes are more worth trying than other things I've shared. I'm telling you: go make these. And then make them again. I'm baking the second loaf of fougasse today, and then making more to bake later this week, and I think I'll be bringing this stew to our ski weekend in VT in March.

November What's Baking?

I hosted our What's Baking bake-along this month, and since I knew everyone would be busy baking goodies for Thanksgiving, I chose Thanksgiving as our theme. I love the variety in what everyone chose!

Amanda from Our Italian Kitchen made an Edible Cornucopia. What a cute idea, it's both a centerpiece and simple snack for later!
Dunne' from With a Cherry on Top made apple pecan cheesecake, a nice change from the traditional apple pie!

Cara from The Boys Made Me Do it made a rustic apple crostata, an easy twist on apple pie.

Jen, the Beantown Baker, made pumpkin cranberry pecan upside down cake- I can't wait to try this one!Ange from the Tiny Tyrant's Kitchen made The Pie That Won't Die (aka pumpkin cream pie). Who can resist trying a recipe with a name like that?

Heather Lynne from Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks made cranberry apple mini pies. So cute!

Carrie from Carrie's Sweet Life takes a break from pies and cakes with a sweet potato trifle.

Jey of The Jey of Cooking really mixed things up with a bacon and cheddar apple pie.
Lindsey from Our Share of the Harvest made a beautiful pumpkin roll with cream cheese filling.

And I made Pilgrim Bread.
I love the variety we got this month, and I can't wait to try all of these delicious looking recipes!


Stephanie will host next, and she has chosen that December's What's Baking? theme will be Holiday Colors! (such as red and green for Christmas, etc). Happy baking!