Fun with brioche

I've mentioned before that we're very fond of breakfast in this house. In fact, I just realized that "breakfast" is one of the biggest categories of posts on my blog (surpassed only by chocolate). You hear all the time about how many people skip breakfast. I have no idea how or why they would do that. =) Growing up, breakfast during the week was simple. Cold cereal, a lot of the time. One of my earliest cooking memories was my mom teaching me how to make oatmeal (real oatmeal, cooked on the stovetop) for my sisters. I wasn't making it for myself, mind you, since I hate oatmeal. She would measure out the ingredients the night before (ooh, mise en place, long before I had any idea what that meant) so all I had to do was put them in the pot at the right time. I was probably about 10 0r 11 at the time.

More involved cooked "breakfasts" were reserved for dinner time, or Sunday mornings, especially at Gramma & Grampa's house. On those weekends when we went to visit my grandparents, we knew that we had good stuff to look forward to after church. Eggs, bacon, leftover potatoes cut up and fried in the bacon fat, bagels or English muffins... And coffeecake. We all loved the coffeecake part of breakfast. =) Sometimes homemade, but often Entenmann's. My favorite store-bought ones were the classic crumb cake, and the raspberry danish/coffeecake. I've got some really good recipes now for homemade crumb cake, like this one. And thanks to the Daring Bakers, I've even made my own danish. And let me tell you, that danish was fabulous. But it's rather time consuming to make danish dough, so it's not something I can do all the time.

Which brings us to the next bread I made for the BBA Challenge--brioche. I wasn't too concerned about this one. Thanks to Tuesdays with Dorie, I've made brioche dough a couple times before, for raisin snails and sticky buns. Both times I used the other half of the dough to make rolls or bread. Plain brioche just doesn't appeal to me that much--too rich for something that will be eaten on the side. But I liked the pastry-ish applications, a lot. So I was pretty sure that I wanted to use my BBA brioche for making a yummy breakfast pastry.

The Bread Baker's Apprentice has three different versions of brioche--rich man's, middle-class, and poor man's. They vary in the amount of butter and eggs that are worked into the dough. For what I was looking to do, I figured the middle-class version would be a safe bet. The full recipe uses a cup of butter. And it seemed like a good opportunity to use some of my eggs from the farmer's market. I've only made brioche dough in my standing mixer, and that works just fine for me. I made sure the butter and eggs were at room temperature before I started, and I didn't have any trouble at all mixing up the dough. It just takes a while to come together. Once the dough was made, I stuck it in my 4-quart bucket and tucked it into the fridge to rise overnight. Plus, such a rich dough is much easier to work with when it's very cold.

I had looked through various books in my cookbook collection trying to figure out what to do with the brioche dough. I ended up taking ideas from a couple different ones. The main idea came from Sherry Yard's The Secrets of Baking. In the brioche section, there's a recipe for a Brioche Coffeecake, in the style of what my mom used to call a "tea ring." You roll out the dough, spread filling over it, and roll it up, kind of like you're making cinnamon rolls. Then you form the log of dough into a ring, joining the ends together. You cut the dough at 1 1/2" intervals, and twist the sections so the cut edges are facing up. The whole thing ends up looking kind of like a flower. For the filling, I went with a simple Cream Cheese Filling from The Art and Soul of Baking. I spread it over the rolled out dough, and then spread a layer of raspberry fruit butter on top of it. Once the coffeecake was formed, I let it rise at room temperature until puffy. I baked it for 10 minutes at 400 degrees F, then turned the temperature down to 350 and baked it 20 minutes more. While it was still warm, I drizzled the pastry with a glaze of powdered sugar mixed with a bit of milk.

The verdict? I'm really happy with the way the coffeecake turned out. The flavors were just what I was looking for. While not quite the same as Danish dough, the result was a buttery crumb with a flaky exterior. Gillian was a big fan (as usual), and Brianna ate some as well, though she wasn't quite as enthusiastic. I probably ate the majority of it, though I did take some to work. I'm sure my memories of the Entenmann's raspberry danish are much better than the reality (I haven't had it in years). But I won't soon forget how good this coffeecake is, and I'll be making it again, sooner rather than later.

With the other half of my batch of brioche dough, I tried to make something like a cross between the raisin snails and cinnamon rolls. But it didn't work out quite right; I'll tell more about it if I can get it to turn out better next time. Meanwhile, be sure to check out what the other BBA Challenge bakers have been up to by checking out the blogroll. Many of the bakers are quite a bit farther along than I am. Next up, Casatiello, a brioche-relative with some interesting add-ins. I've got a couple variations to share. Also, I'm submitting my pretty coffeecake to YeastSpotting.

A little help from my friends

In my almost year and a half of blogging, I've joined several groups (TWD, DB, BBA) expecting to expand my baking horizons.  I figured I'd learn new techniques as well as try recipes that I might otherwise skip.  I definitely have.  And this baking blog has evolved a bit to where I don't just write about my baking experiments.  I've realized that I enjoy writing about what's going on in my life (especially with my kids) as well.  What I didn't expect was that in the process I would make so many great friends.  A while back, someone said something to me about how I was writing here for strangers to read.  But many of the people who read my blog aren't strangers anymore.  

We may not have met each other in person, but we've gotten to know each other quite well.  First someone invited me to join Facebook, and that's been fun.  It's allowed me interact more with a lot of people (college friends, family), not just other food bloggers.  Then more recently, I joined Twitter.  And I have to say, so far it's been a blast.  It's like baking along with a whole bunch of friends.  All you have to do is throw out a question ("What size pan would be best if I double this recipe?" or "So where exactly did you find that fresh yeast?"), and before you know it, someone is there with an answer.  It's so neat to hear the experiences that others have as they're baking through the same recipes.  

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is a good example.  Jessica of My Baking Heart picked Parisian Apple Tartlets for us to make.  In reading through the recipe, this looked like one of the easiest TWD recipes yet.  You cut half an apple into quarters, place it on a circle of puff pastry, and sprinkle it with brown sugar and a bit of butter.  Then you bake it at 400 degrees F for about 25 minutes, and voila!--apple tartlet.  But of course I couldn't do it the easy way...

In reading this week's P&Q, a number of people said they were making their own puff pastry.  And that got me thinking.  At the beginning of the year, I was thinking about some of the things I wanted to make this year.  Puff pastry was on the list.  So I figured this was as good a time as any to try it, since the rest of the recipe was simple.  I remembered recently seeing it on Wendy's blog.  When I mentioned it on Twitter, Wendy was quick to say that it wasn't that bad to make.  Plus it gave me the chance to try a recipe from my new cookbook, The Art and Soul of Baking.  

I made the puff pastry on Sunday, at the same time that I was making coffeecake from brioche dough (post coming soon).  Wow, I went through a lot of butter this weekend!  I figured that if I was going to spend the time making puff pastry, I might as well make the full recipe.  It made over two pounds of dough.  I actually did four turns instead of three, and the dough really started to look good on the last one, so I'm glad I did it.  I chilled the dough for about 24 hours, since I didn't have a chance to bake my tartlets until Monday afternoon.  I divided the dough into four pieces (about 9 oz each) and immediately stashed two in the freezer for later. (Still debating what to do with the extra piece in the fridge--may also go to the freezer for now.)

To make the tartlets, I rolled out one of the pieces of dough to about 1/8 inch thick--it may have been a bit thicker, but it was close.  Then I hunted around in my cabinet for something that was about 4 inches in diameter to use for a template.  I ended up with the lid to a sour cream container. =)  I traced around it with my fluted pastry wheel to cut out four circles.  Next was the choice of fruit--apple or peach?  I put out another query on Twitter.  Turns out that Nancy tried these with a variety of fruit, but like the apple the best.  So I decided to go with apple.  I peeled and cut up my apples and placed them on the dough circles (on a parchment-lined pan).  They looked funny--there was a big hole in the middle from where I'd removed the apple cores.  Oh, well.  I continued on, adding some brown sugar and butter and popped them in the oven.

Twenty minutes later I checked on the tartlets.  Okay, that's a lie.  I probably turned on the oven light and peeked at them through the oven window half a dozen times in the first ten minutes, watching like a little kid to see if the pastry was puffing. =)  Fortunately it was.  Not a lot, but I expected that, since I used the fluted cutter rather than a straight knife (which compresses the layers a bit at the edge, making it harder for them to separate and puff).  But when I took them out for a closer look at twenty minutes, they definitely weren't done.  More tweeting ensued, since Tania was baking her tartlets at the same time I was.  I decided that the holes in the middle of the apples were bothering me too much, so I filled them with raisins and put the tartlets back in.  After a total of 45 minutes of baking, I finally pulled them out because I had to go pick the girls up from daycare.

When I got back, I looked at the little tarts again.  They definitely looked kind of sad, nothing like the pretty picture in the book.  Tania suggested they needed caramel sauce or something, which sounded good to me.  That's a sure sign of how far I've come in the past year and a half.  I thought nothing of whipping up a quick batch of salted caramel sauce (starting from white sugar and water) while making dinner.  And it definitely made my tarts much nicer looking. =)

The verdict?  The apples definitely weren't cooked all the way through.  I seem to have this problem a lot with Dorie's recipes (often when I substitute apples for another fruit).  I think I need to try a different kind of apple or something.  But they still tasted good, especially with the caramel.  The pastry was fantastic.  I split one of the tartlets for the girls to try.  Gillian ate everything but the apples.  Brianna just ate the raisins out of the middle of hers.  Jamie and I split another one, eating the whole thing. =)  I still have lots of pastry dough left, so I think I may have to try these again with different fruit.  

Be sure to head over to Jessica's blog to see some really lovely tartlets.  And of course check out the blogroll at Tuesdays with Dorie to see what everyone else did this week.