Wordless Wednesday - Warm apple cider for breakfast

I fought the caramel, and the caramel won

No, that's not this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, is it?  Jennifer of Cooking for Comfort picked Basic Biscuits for us to make this week.  I'm working on them, but it's slow going. My hand hurts.  I burned it attempting some Easiest Caramel Sauce--apparently my microwave is more powerful than I realized.  The sugar got way too dark, but I tried to salvage it and splashed caramel on my hand in the process.  I shouldn't have bothered--I tasted it and it was definitely burnt. =(

So the biscuits will be delayed a bit.  In the meantime, be sure to check out how everyone else did with them this week over on the Links page.  

'Tis the season

RAIN!!  It rained today, a lot!  I think we've had more rain in the past 24 hours that we've had in the past several months combined.  This is the first day that it's really felt like fall--I think we barely hit 70º today.  So awesome. =)  Not that the lack of cooler weather has kept me from baking--once the calendar says October, I don't care what the temperature is, I'm baking with fall ingredients.  Heck, I was so sick of summer, I started in September, when it was still getting over 100º on occasion.  My favorite fall ingredient is definitely apples.  While I do like to use local ingredients when I can, I think that the best apples are from New York.  We are starting to get some of them down here, but it takes a little while to get the full variety.  So I'm also baking with my second favorite fall ingredient, pumpkin.

For my blogging friend Phyl, pumpkin is definitely a favorite ingredient.  So much so that he invited a bunch of us to join him in making and posting pumpkin recipes today.  We're aiming to have a full dinner's worth--with a whole lot of courses, I think.  I usually go for dessert, but I figured there would be several others more than willing to cover that course.  So I decided to make a recipe that I've been wanting to for a long time--the Pumpkin Brioche from Sherry Yard's The Secrets of Baking.

The Secrets of Baking is one of the cookbooks that started off my very large (and still growing) collection of baking books.  My husband got it for me for a birthday or another occasion--I can't remember exactly anymore.  It was published in 2003 and he got it not long after publication, so I've had it a long time.  It's a really nice book for someone who likes to bake but is looking to expand their repertoire of pastry skills.  Each chapter starts with a basic recipe that shows a technique, like caramel or pound cake, and then uses that as a jumping off point for more complex recipes.  I have quite a few technique books now, but this is still one of my favorites.  

I've made brioche before, so this recipe wasn't as scary as I thought it would be when I first got the book.  It's a medium-rich dough, so it's buttery without being a huge pain to work with.  I used canned pumpkin puree, but you could certainly use fresh if you have it.  I made a few small adjustments to the recipe.  Since this is a rich dough, I used my SAF Gold yeast.  I had extra large eggs in my fridge, so I only used 5 instead of 6.  This is a pretty forgiving dough, since I totally didn't follow the mixing instructions.  I forgot that you're supposed to develop the gluten with about 5 minutes of kneading before  you add the butter.  I added it not long after I added the eggs.  So I just kneaded longer after the butter went in--about 8 minutes, I think.  Everything still worked out okay.

The recipe says that it makes 3 pounds of dough, but by my measurements, it's actually about 4 pounds (about 1.8 kilos).  I used about a kilo of the dough to make sandwich rolls--a dozen rolls of 85 grams (3 ounces) each.  I'm still deciding what to do with the remaining dough--maybe cinnamon rolls.  After shaping the rolls, I let them proof at room temperature for about 2 hours, then baked them at 350ºF for 25 minutes.  As usual, I skipped the egg wash, though you could certainly use it if you prefer shiny brioche. 

The verdict?  Fantastic!  The rolls don't really taste like pumpkin, but as Brianna said, there's something different about them.  The color is gorgeous.  And I think this is my favorite style of brioche--you can taste the butter, but it's not out of control.  I used one roll to make a ham sandwich for lunch, and it was delicious.  I think they would also be tasty with jam.  Brianna was enthusiastic about having them in her lunch, so I'm sure we'll be making these again.  

Phyl should have the full round-up of pumpkin dishes on his blog sometime this week, so head over to check it out.  Updated: You can find the round-up here. And for more delicious breads and rolls, be sure to check out Yeastspotting.  

Pumpkin Brioche

(adapted from Sherry Yard's The Secret of Baking)

170 grams (3/4 cup) whole milk, at room temperature

5 grams SAF gold instant yeast (or regular instant yeast)

225 grams (1 cup) pumpkin puree

65 grams (1/3 cup) granulated sugar

140 grams (1 cup) bread flour

700 grams (5 cups) bread flour

14 grams (2 teaspoons) table salt

5 extra large eggs (267 grams out of the shells) or 6 large eggs, room temperature

225 grams (1 cup, or 2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

This brioche starts with a sponge.  Put the milk and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer and whisk to combine.  Let stand for about 5 minutes, until the yeast is dissolved and starts to bubble a bit.  (This step isn't absolutely necessary with instant yeast, but I figure in a rich dough like this, the head start for the yeast is still a good idea.)  Mix in the pumpkin, sugar and the cup of flour.  I like to use my dough whisk for this, but you could also use your mixer with the paddle attachment.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the sponge stand at room temperature until bubbly, 30 to 45 minutes.

For the dough, first add the flour and the salt to the sponge.  Next mix in the eggs until they are absorbed.  Then add the butter, 2 tablespoons at a time.  Once all the butter is in, switch to the dough hook.  (You can do so sooner if you need to, but I found it easier to mix the butter in with the paddle.)  Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then knead with the dough hook for about 8 minutes, until the dough is smooth and shiny.  Transfer the dough to a well-oiled 4-quart container and turn the dough so it is coated with oil on all sides.  Cover the container (mine has its own lid) and let the dough rise until it is doubled in volume, about 2 hours.

Deflate the dough by folding the dough over on itself. Refrigerate the dough for at least 4 hours or overnight.  It will rise to fill the container again.  Once chilled, the dough can be made into loaves or rolls or used for other recipes.  For the rolls I made, remove about half the dough from the container.  Divide the dough into 12 pieces of about 85 grams (3 ounces) each.  You could also do 60 gram (2 ounce) pieces for dinner rolls.  Roll the dough pieces into smooth, tight rounds and place on a parchment lined baking sheet.  Spray lightly with oil (I use Pam) and cover with plastic wrap.  Let rise at room temperature for about 2 hours, or until doubled in size.  During the last 30 minutes of the rise time, preheat the oven to 350ºF.  Bake the rolls for 20 to 25 minutes, depending on the size.  The rolls will be nicely browned and register about 195ºF internal temperature when done.  Transfer the rolls to a rack and let them cool before serving. 

LiveSTRONG with lots of cookies

I've been having a really hard time deciding what to write in this post.  For the past several years, I've participated in LiveSTRONG Day by posting a yellow dessert and telling you all about how cancer has touched my life.  I don't really want to go back over the same ground, but I still appreciate the chance to share something with you.  First is these cookies.  I generally associate yellow with lemon, so it's really not a surprise that I've got another lemon recipe for you this year.  These simple cookies are flavored with lemon zest.  Since the cookies themselves aren't that yellow, I also made some lemon curd to go with them.  The other thing that I want to share is something that I posted on Facebook earlier this year, in remembrance of my first husband Nate, who lost his battle with cancer in 1996:

"People speak of you less often now. The things you did are being done by others. I no longer notice your lingering presence in every room. Then an old friend calls and we tell forgotten tales, or I find a place not yet emptied by my grieving. And I am touched by the reality of you once more, and quietly I celebrate your continuance." 

The verdict on the cookies?  I was pleasantly surprised to see how much the girls loved these cookies.  I'm partial to pretty much anything lemon, but they often think things are too tart.  That's the nice thing about these lemon wafers--they have more of a hint of lemon, rather than hitting you over the head with it.  If you want a big lemon punch, add the lemon curd.  This recipe of Alice Medrich's is one of the tartest I've made, I think.  You can find the recipe for the lemon curd in her book Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies.  The Lemon Goldies are in there, too, but you can also find that recipe online here.  (A bit of advice--just put the lemon curd on top of a cookie & eat it, don't try to make sandwiches.  The lemon curd all comes out the sides when you try to bite the sandwich...)

There isn't an official LiveSTRONG with a Taste of Yellow event this year, but Barbara has a post up with links to the events from past years.  You can read more about LiveSTRONG Day 2011 here.  And the quotation is from Safe Passage: Words to Help the Grieving by Molly Fumia, a book of meditations on grief.

All in knots

Every once in a while we end up doing our Central Market shopping on Sunday morning.  Usually we shop Friday and Saturday nights (one CM, one HEB, depending on my work schedule), but we didn't want to go Saturday night last weekend for fear of not being back in time for the start of Doctor Who.  The girls like to watch too, and the 11pm replay is way too late for them.  Heck, most of the time it's way too late for me, too.  

Anyway, the great thing about shopping on Sunday morning is that everything is fully stocked, including the bakery!  Sure, I love baking my own bread.  But I worked Saturday and was still tired on Sunday (from what seemed like a very long week), so there was no way I was going to pass up the still-warm loaves of Durum Sourdough and Ciabatta.  We actually saw some of the bakers still at work, so Gillian and I stopped to watch for a minute.  Her comments?  "Mommy, he has a different kind of weigher than you do."  (He had a balance.)  "But he's making those rolls like you make!"  He was, in fact, making knotted rolls, though they were a bit simpler than these ones that I made last week.  He wasn't joining the ends together to make rounds.  It was neat that she recognized that we make the same sorts of things at home that they make at the bakery.  How many kids can say that?

I discovered these rolls as I was reading my new issue of Fine Cooking (Oct/Nov 2011).  They caught my eye both because they looked delicious and also because the recipe is from one of my favorite authors, Peter Reinhart.  They looked like they'd be pretty easy to make--it's a straight dough, no preferments necessary.  The nice thing is that you can mix up the dough, then either leave it at room temperature to rise if you're baking the same day, or stick it in the fridge to rise overnight.  You can keep it in there for a few days if you don't get back to it right away.  The full recipe of dough makes 18 rolls, so I decided to bake half the first day after refrigerating my dough, then do the other half a couple days later. 

I mostly followed the recipe, though I did decide to substitute some white whole wheat flour for part of the bread flour.  I used about one-third www flour.  I didn't really add any extra liquid, so the dough was probably a bit stiffer than it was supposed to be.  Next time I'll probably add a little extra milk.  The only other big change I made was to omit the egg wash on the rolls--most of the time I can't be bothered to fuss with it.  It probably won't surprise you that I'm one of those people who prefers matte finish over glossy on my pictures... =)

The verdict?  These were a big hit, especially with the girls.  Baking them in batches on different days worked really well, too.  That way we were able to get through them before they got stale.  I'm sure we'll be making this recipe again.  I doubt that the girls had any idea that there was whole wheat flour in them, either. =)

If you'd like to try the original recipe, you can find it in the Oct/Nov 2011 issue of Fine Cooking, or here on the Fine Cooking website.   My friend Kayte baked along with me on this one, so if you'd like to see the rolls finished the way they were supposed to be (with egg wash & seeds on top), check out her blog post.  I'm also submitting these rolls to Yeastspotting, where you can see lots of other yummy yeasted treats.  

Wordless Wednesday - Stone fruit lattice pie

(recipe here)

We flip for plums

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is courtesy of Becky of Project Domestication.  She picked a fun recipe--Flip Over Plum Cake.  The first thing you might think is that this is a recipe for an upside-down cake.  But it's much easier than that--the cake and fruit do the flipping all on their own.  You melt butter in a baking dish in the oven, then pull it out, pour in cake batter, top it with fruit, and stick the dish back in the oven.  After baking, the fruit and cake have magically traded places so that you have something more like a fruit cobbler.

I only had a pound of plums, so I made half the recipe.  I thought about using one of my 8" square baking pans, but then remembered my oval casserole dish, which seemed much more photogenic. =)  I pretty much followed the recipe as written, except that I left out the almond extract and used all vanilla. I baked my cake for 40 minutes.  That might have been just a bit too long, but not enough to be a problem.  

The verdict?  I really enjoyed this one!  I especially liked the crispy/chewy browned edges.  It was lovely with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream and made a great breakfast.  Jamie and Brianna liked the cake too, but Gillian was not thrilled.  I definitely want to make this recipe again--and I'm already trying to figure out what other fruit would work well.  

If you'd like to try this one for yourself, you can find the recipe on Becky's blog.  And to see what other variations people came up with, check out this week's Links.