Tag Archives: baking

March 26, 2013 · 9:59 PM

Bouchon Bakery Challenge: Croissants

Freshly Baked Croissants

Croissants!  They seem like the kind of thing that can only be made with good results in a bakery.  But, if you have some time and follow the instructions in Bouchon Bakery, you can make them at home.

Making croissants is quite a process.  First you make a poolish, with flour, water, and a pinch of yeast.  This sits overnight until the yeast has exhausted it’s food supply.

These kind of look like snails to me...

These kind of look like snails to me…

Next, the fun part begins!  First, you get to pound a block of butter with a rolling pin until it is flattened into a rectangle.  Then you mix the dough and let it knead in the mixer for 20 minutes.  The dough then rests for an hour (the dough rests a lot in this process!).

Then the rolling and folding process begins, to encase the butter in the dough in lots of layers.  Let’s just say there is a lot of rolling, folding, resting in the freezer, and more rolling.  There is a nice description of the process (with pictures) on King Arthur Flour’s blog:  Making Croissants.

Finally, after several hours, the dough can be shaped into croissants.  The book gives instructions for both traditional croissants and pains au chocolat (aka chocolate croissants).  I made both!

Pain au Chocolat

Pain au Chocolat

After shaping, you’re still not done!  The croissants have to proof (rise) for a couple of hours before they are ready to go into the oven.  I got so anxious to get these in the oven I forgot to do the final egg wash, so they are not as shiny and browned as they should be.

My house smelled like a bakery while these were baking.  It smelled so good!  I could hardly wait to try my first one.  It was worth all the effort!  I was very impressed by how well these turned out.  The outside was crisp and flaky, and the inside soft and moist and buttery.  They tasted like croissants should taste.  And the pains au chocolat  were amazing!!

Buttery interior

Buttery interior

Recipe Notes

  • Definitely use the European-style butter called for in the recipe.  I could really taste the difference!
  • The recipe makes it sounds as though the dough needs to be shaped and proofed immediately after it is ready.  Because of time constraints, I shaped some of the croissants right away (but proofed it the next day), and left half the dough in the refrigerator overnight before rolling it out and shaping it.  I didn’t discern any problems doing this.
  • The recipe also makes it sound as though the unproofed and unbaked croissants should not be frozen.  To me, it seemed easier to freeze the unbaked croissants rather than the baked ones.  So I froze most of the pains au chocolate and a few of the traditional croissants.  As an experiment, I tried one of the frozen ones today and it turned out great.
  • To prepare the frozen croissants:  Thaw the croissants in the refrigerator overnight.  The next morning, place them in a warm place and let them proof for about 2 hours.  Bake as instructed.  Because I only baked one croissant, I used some canola oil spray instead of the egg wash.  I know, blasphemous!  But I thought it turned out fine – nicely browned and flaky.
We had chicken salad sandwiches on our croissants!

We had chicken salad sandwiches on our croissants!

Altitude Adjustments

None, but I did have to use all of the extra water the authors have you reserve in case the dough seems dry.

Next Month

April is going to be a busy month, so I have chosen a recipe that can be made in less than a day:  Caramel Popcorn (page 338).  I will share my results with you on April 30th!

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March 16, 2013 · 7:34 AM

Irish Soda Bread

Irish Soda Bread

When I was in grade school I was a Girl Scout. My mom was one of the co-leaders of my troop. We occasionally did special cooking nights, often centered around a cultural theme. For example, we had a Mexican theme where we made tacos.

What does this have to do about Irish Soda Bread? Well, one year our theme was Irish cooking, and we made Corned Beef & Cabbage and Irish Soda Bread.

Corned Beef & Cabbage

I was in the group that made the soda bread. I had been looking forward to it because we were using my mom’s recipe and it was a favorite of mine. I’m sure I even exclaimed to the group how good it was! We carefully measured our ingredients, mixed them together, and waited for the bread to bake.

When we finally sat down to eat our Irish feast, I eagerly tried the soda bread. It was awful! We concluded someone accidentally put in a TABLESPOON of salt instead of a TEASPOON. Yuck! Needless to day, it was inedible.

Fresh From the Oven

I still make my mom’s Irish Soda Bread for St. Patrick’s Day most years, and every time I measure the salt I think about the awful bread we had that year. This year I tweaked the recipe slightly and I am happy with the results. I hope you like it too!

Irish Soda Bread

Printable Recipe

  • 3/4 cup currants
  • 2 cups sifted flour
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3 tablespoons shortening
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 400°F. Lightly grease an 8-inch cake pan.  Rinse and drain the currants.

Sift together the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Cut in the shortening and butter.  Stir in the currants.

Beat the egg lightly and combine with the buttermilk.  Add to the dry mixture and stir quickly, blending only until the flour is moistened.

Turn the dough into the cake pan.  Bake until a tester comes out clean, 20 – 25 minutes.

Cut into wedges and serve warm with plenty of butter.

Serves 8

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April 9, 2012 · 8:31 AM

Bread Challenge: “No-Knead” For Success

When I announced my Bread Challenge, I mentioned that I have had success with no-knead artisan breads using the method and recipes in Jim Lahey’s book My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method.

My mom and sister have been doing the bread challenge with me, and when they wanted to give one of Lahey’s breads a try I was game.  We made the Stecca, which is a thin baguette Lahey developed to use for sandwiches.

The secret to no-knead breads is the very long, slow rise.  The dough is mixed quickly and thoroughly, and then allowed to sit for 12 – 18 hours.  The long fermentation allows the gluten and complex flavors to develop.  These are truly the best breads I have ever made!

Mmmm

For the Stecca, after the dough has it’s overnight rest, and then another rise, it is cut into quarters and stretched out on a lightly oiled pan.  I still need practice getting the dough to stretch evenly, but I guess it adds to the rustic look.  Lahey suggests either simply brushing the loaves with olive oil and a sprinkling of coarse salt, or embellishing them with tomatoes, garlic, or olives.  I left two plain to use for sandwiches and added garlic and olives to the other two loaves.

Ready to bake!

The night I made these I assembled sandwiches for dinner.  I used a sandwich recipe from the same book, though I must admit I did not use all home-made ingredients as the recipe recommends.  I did try making the home-made aioli but it was a major FAIL.  Still, even with “store-bought” mayonnaise, sun-dried tomatoes, and roast beef, the sandwiches were fabulous.

Roast beef sandwiches with sun-dried tomatoes and arugula

We ate the embellished loaves for dinner the next night with some soup.

If you haven’t tried a no-knead bread recipe yet, I highly recommend it!  I am not going to include a recipe here because they are readily found elsewhere.  Here are a couple of places to start:

Mark Bittman started the no-knead craze by writing about Jim Lahey and his method in the NY Times.  A link to the basic recipe and a video showing the technique is there too.

Steamy Kitchen has a great post about the Stecca, with detailed pictures and the recipe.

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March 23, 2012 · 11:44 AM

Cocoa Sablés

My sister and 3 year old niece came for a visit last week while my husband was out of town for work.  Over the holidays my little niece discovered her love of chocolate, so what better treat to make for their visit than Cocoa Sablés!

Cocoa Sablés are a simple cookie made from flour, cocoa, butter, and sugar, and flavored with salt and vanilla.  I was surprised to see there was no egg in these cookies.  I left out the optional chopped chocolate since I was serving these to young children.

I was a little concerned when I dumped out my cookie dough to roll it.  It was all crumbly and dry.

I had to press it down with my hands, but it came together OK.  I probably could have added a touch of water.

I love recipes like this, where the rolls of cookie dough are refrigerated or frozen, to be cut off and baked as needed.  I made half the cookies last week and half this week.

Most of my cookies were rolled in in sparkly sugar for decoration, but I left a few plain and sprinkled them with a touch of grey sea salt (thanks to my sister for giving me that idea!).  Both were good.

These are delicious cookies with a lovely texture.   The girls (and their moms!) liked them a lot.  My husband was surprised that they weren’t very sweet, but he liked them because they are chocolate.  I accidentally left them unattended for a few minutes, and my daughter stole a few.

Cocoa Sablés are this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe.

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March 12, 2012 · 9:30 PM

Bread Challenge: Maple-Walnut Oat Bread

I am really enjoying my bread challenge.  Each loaf of bread I make is better than the one before and I am learning a lot!

This week’s bread was called “Maple-Walnut Oat Bread” and it came from King Arthur Flour’s book Whole Grain Baking.

Delicious!

I focused on two things while making this bread:  kneading it enough and letting it rise enough once it got in the pan.

Kneading

One of the most difficult things for me in learning how to bake bread has been knowing when I have kneaded the dough enough.  Recipes say things like “knead until smooth and elastic”, but what does that really mean?  My sister told me about the “window test”, in which you stretch a little piece of the dough between your fingers and if it makes a thin sheet without breaking then you can stop kneading.  I tried this and it seems to have helped.  I found this link which talks about kneading and shows a nice picture of the window test.

I really think I got the dough kneaded enough this time (or at least very close!).  Not only could I stretch the dough thin fairly well (a little tricky with the walnuts), but I could see the strands of gluten starting to form.

Rising

Another problem I have had making bread is I don’t feel the bread is quite tall enough.  I suspect I haven’t been letting it rise quite high enough for the final rise.  I have also been getting “lumpy” tops, rather than smooth.

This is the first loaf I baked. You can see that the top is a little lumpy.

This time I made two changes during the final rise.  Normally I let my dough rise in the laundry room on top of the dryer.  It’s a nice, warm little spot.  I was starting to suspect that the act of carrying the pan of risen dough back to the kitchen was causing it to fall a bit, resulting in my lumpy loaves.  So this time I did the initial rise in the laundry room, but did the final rise in the kitchen.

The other change I made was to let it rise a little higher in the pan.  The recipe said to let it rise so it crowned an inch and a half above the pan.  I actually took out a ruler and waited until it got high enough.

Nicely risen and ready to bake!

Other Adjustments

I also made my now-usual altitude adjustments:  I added an extra tablespoon of water, and let the dough rise a second time before shaping it for the final rise.  I remembered to use my bread improver this time too!

Results

This is definitely my best loaf so far!  I know I say that each time, but really it just means I’m learning and improving.  The flavor is wonderful!  And it has a nice soft texture that is perfect for sandwiches and toasting.  I finally got a nice smooth top, rather than a lumpy one.

I am looking forward to continuing my bread challenge and continued bread improvement!  If you are interested in making Maple-Walnut Oat Bread for yourself, you can find the recipe here on King Arthur Flour’s site.

Nice smooth top.

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March 9, 2012 · 2:03 PM

Onion Biscuits

It’s Friday again…this week sure flew by!  I have a backlog of recipes to share with you, but just haven’t found the time to do it.  Hopefully soon!

This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe is a tasty little treat called “Saint-Germain-Des-Pres Onion Biscuits”.  It is essentially a basic biscuit recipe with the inspired addition of finely chopped onion sauteed in a little butter.

These little biscuits are wonderful!  The inside is soft and flaky and the outside has the perfect amount of crispness.  Just like a biscuit should be.  The onion adds a wonderful flavor that elevates the biscuits from basic to elegant.

I used a 1½ inch biscuit cutter as recommended in the recipe.  The resulting little biscuits are perfect for appetizers or a party, but next time I make these (and there will be a next time!) I will cut a larger size.  I generally serve biscuits with dinner and prefer the larger size.

You can't have biscuits without butter!

I appreciate that Dorie gives instructions for freezing the biscuit dough.  Very handy information since biscuits really are best right from the oven.  I cooked a few for dinner and froze the rest to enjoy later!

If you are interested in trying “Saint-Germain-Des-Pres Onion Biscuits” and don’t have a copy of Around My French Table yet (why not?), I found the recipe on Amazon:  check it out.

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February 23, 2012 · 9:43 PM

Bread Challenge: Altitude Matters

I’ve talked before about my challenges baking cakes at my apparently high altitude (~4400 feet).  But somehow I thought I was immune to altitude problems when it came to making yeast breads.  My dough rose nicely after all.

After making my last loaf of bread, I started thinking about what I could do differently to improve the texture.  It suddenly occurred to me that perhaps my altitude was affecting my breads.  I did some research and learned a lot!

Second Try at the 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

According to my book High Altitude Baking, yeast bread dough rises more rapidly above 3500 feet.  And since the development in flavor depends in part on rising time, bread at made at higher altitudes may not be as flavorful.  Most sources I looked at suggest punching down the dough and letting it rise a second time before shaping and doing a third rise.  This extra rising time allows the flavors to develop and allows for “the changes in the gluten that make bread tender, light and of good flavor”.  This might also explain why I have had success with the no-knead artisan breads:  they take advantage of a long, slow rise.

I also found out that my dry climate as well as my higher altitude causes flour to be drier and thus absorb more liquid.  Recommendations to remedy this include using less flour or adding more liquid.

100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

With this new information I made another loaf of 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread. I made the following changes:

  1. I used the orange juice recommended by the book to improve flavor, which I left out last time.
  2. I added an extra 2 tablespoons of water.  This was a little too much: the dough was pretty sticky and I had to add a touch more flour to make up for it.  Next time I will try only 1 tablespoon.
  3. I let the dough rise a second time before shaping.  Unfortunately I had to leave the house before the first rise was finished so I had to punch it down early.  I didn’t want to risk it rising too much and collapsing.
  4. I accidentally left out the dough improver.  Oops!

Results:  Much better than the first loaf, but still needs improvement.  The texture was much improved and it toasted better.  I didn’t discern any change in flavor by using the orange juice.  The bread was a little soft and wanted to break apart easily, especially when toasted.

Next time I use this recipe I will make the following changes: Use only 1 tablespoon of extra water.  Let the dough finish the first rise before punching it down.  Remember to use the bread improver.

Toasted

Next Challenge

My mom and sister are participating in the bread challenge with me.  Next bread-related post I will share some of their results as well as my results baking the “White Bread Loaves” from Baking with Julia.

We would love to have you participate too!  If you wish to join in the fun, make a loaf or more of bread, then leave a link to your blog post or photos (if you don’t have a blog) in the comments or send to me though the Contact Me page.  Next week I will to a round-up and will do so at the end of every month.

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February 10, 2012 · 9:22 PM

Bread Challenge 2012

I have decided that this year I am going to challenge myself to improve my bread-making skills. I have always liked the idea of baking bread on a regular basis. My results have been mixed: some winners, some losers, and a whole lot of mediocre.

Quick breads have always worked well for me, and in the last couple of years I have had success with artisan breads using the no-knead method described in Jim Lahey’s My Bread. Where I struggle is with everyday breads used for toast and sandwiches. This is where I will focus my efforts, at least initially. I also intend to focus on whole grain breads since bread is the primary way I get whole grains into our diets.

To help ensure success, I purchased a couple of products designed to improve breads: King Arthur Flour’s Whole Grain Bread Improver and their Baker’s Special Dry Milk (why yes, I have drunk the KAF Kool Aid).

The top is a little lumpy.

One of my biggest “issues” with homemade bread is the texture.  It just isn’t the same as store-bought bread.  It is hard for me to explain what is different, it just isn’t as smooth and soft, and it doesn’t toast the same.  I don’t know if the texture I get is just the way it is with homemade bread, or if it is something I can strive to improve.

For my first challenge bread, I turned to King Arthur Flour’s book Whole Grain Baking. I made the “100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread”, which they describe as “the Holy Grail of 100 percent whole wheat breads”. This book is great because they give a lot of tips for successful baking, such as letting the dough rest before kneading to allow the whole wheat flour to absorb more of the liquid.

It slices nicely.

So how did it turn out? At first blush, this bread has the best texture of any sandwich bread I have ever made, but it still toasts a bit differently than store-bought bread.  It has a nice amount of moistness and has stayed fairly fresh for several days now.  It tastes good toasted and spread with my orange fig jam.  One minor complaint is that it has a bit too much of a “whole wheat” flavor, for lack of a better way to describe it. A blurb in the book discusses the use of orange juice in their recipes to help temper the “tannic flavor” of the whole wheat. I didn’t have any orange juice, so I left it out.

What’s next? I want to try the “100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread” again with orange juice to see how it changes the flavor. After seeing all the wonderful loaves of white bread made recently by the Tuesdays with Dorie folks, I would like to try that recipe as well. Lola’s Kitchen successfully substituted half of the bread flour with white whole wheat flour, something I definitely want to try!

I will keep you all updated with my bread-making efforts! Anyone want to join me in this challenge?

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February 7, 2012 · 2:41 PM

Whole Wheat Banana-Walnut Muffins

Tucked away in the back of King Arthur Flour’s Whole Grain Baking is a real gem of a recipe: Easy Banana-Walnut Bread.  It has become my go-to banana bread recipe.  It is so easy to make I wonder how I manage to let any bananas go to waste!

I was looking for a little change of pace, so I decided to try using the recipe to make muffins.  It worked great!  I love muffins because they are easy to freeze for quick breakfasts or snacks.  This recipe yielded 6 regular-sized muffins and 16 mini muffins.  It would probably make at least a dozen regular muffins.

Banana-Walnut Muffins

Print Recipe

  • ½ cup unsalted butter
  • ½ cup packed light or dark brown sugar
  • ¾ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1½ cups (12 oz.) mashed ripe banana (approx. 3 medium-large bananas)
  • ¼ cup honey
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 cups whole wheat flour (traditional or white whole wheat)
  • ½ cup chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Lightly grease a muffin pan, or line with muffin cups.

Beat together the butter, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla until smooth.  Add the banana, honey, and eggs, beating until smooth.  Add the flour and nuts.  Stir until smooth.  Spoon batter into the prepared muffin pan.

Bake the muffins until a tester inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean, 23 – 28 minutes (less if making mini muffins).  Remove from the oven and let rest on a rack for a few minutes.  Remove the muffins from the pan and cool.

To make banana bread:  Spoon the batter into a lightly greased loaf pan.  Let rest for 10 minutes.  Bake for 50 minutes.  Gently lay a piece of foil across the top and bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

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January 20, 2012 · 11:58 AM

Quatre-Quarts

Is it really Friday already?  This week has flown by!  Being Friday, you know what that means:  French Fridays with Dorie.

This week’s recipe is a simple cake called Quatre-Quarts, which translates directly to “four-fourths”.  Similar in concept to an American pound cake, the cake uses equal amounts of eggs, flour, sugar, and butter.

Cakes have been my nemesis since I moved to Reno over 11 years ago.  Growing up in sea-level Seattle I never had to be concerned with my altitude while baking.  Reno is apparently at a high enough altitude (~4400 feet) to affect the baking of cakes.  I suddenly had cakes that were not rising properly, sinking in the middle, spilling over the pan, and the texture was off.  The richer the cake, the more trouble I had.

I received the book High Altitude Baking, which explains a lot of the science behind baking and altitude and also gives suggestions for adjusting recipes.  For years I attempted small adjustments to my recipes with mixed results.  Whenever I did any Internet searches for help with high altitude baking, most people said they simply added an extra egg to their recipe.  I resisted trying this because it seemed too easy, but a year or so ago I started adding an extra egg to cake recipes and it worked!  The extra egg changes the texture a little bit, but cakes rise beautifully and the texture is way better than what I was getting without the extra egg.

If you live at a higher altitude, do you adjust your cake recipes?  If so, what method do you use?

Now, back to this week’s cake…  I debated whether or not to follow the recipe as written or to add the extra egg.  In the end, I decided to add the egg.  The result was a lovely, simple cake very similar to a pound cake, but lighter in texture.

I really liked this cake.  Dorie mentions that it is a common after-school snack cake, so my daughter enjoyed a piece when she got home from school.  We ate it plain, but the cake would also be lovely dressed up a bit.  Strawberries and whipped cream would be good!

My daughter is notorious for helping herself to cakes and other baked goods left unattended.  This cake became a victim.  Luckily it happened after my pictures were taken!

Who ate this cake - a little mouse or a little girl?

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