Clover Honey Challah

Baking Spree! 

Day Four

Looking for a homemade bread that can be the star of a springtime brunch?  Honey-sweetened, egg-rich, feather-light challah steals the show.

No-knead challah dough just stirs together in a bowl. You let it rise on the kitchen counter until it reaches the top of the bowl.  Then you divide this floppy dough into three parts, roll each part into a long strand, and braid the strands together.  Challah made with no-knead dough is more rustic in appearance. You don’t get the tight braiding.  But the flavor—and the ease of preparation—makes this a keeper.

With a bowl of this made-ahead, versatile dough on hand, you’ll be ready halfway there to yeasty breads, rolls, and coffee cakes.
 

A Danish dough whisk features a mitten-shaped metal mixing end on a wooden handle and makes short work of mixing any dough. Measuring is an important step to assure that your bread turns out, so follow the directions exactly.


No-Knead Clover Honey Dough

Adapted from Heartland: The Cookbook.

Makes 2 large braided loaves

2 tablespoon instant or bread machine yeast

1 ½ tablespoons fine kosher salt

6 1/2 cups bread flour, plus more for dusting

1 cup clover or other amber honey     

¼ cup vegetable oil, such as canola    

2 large eggs

Warm water (around 100°F)      

1. Spoon the flour into a measuring cup, level with a knife or your finger, then dump the flour into a 16-cup mixing bowl.

2. Add the yeast and salt to the flour. Stir together with a wooden spoon or Danish dough whisk. Mix the honey, vegetable oil, and the eggs together in the 4-cup measuring cup. Add enough hot water to reach the 4-cup mark and stir together. Pour the honey mixture into the flour mixture, stir to combine, then beat 40 strokes, scraping the bottom and the sides of the bowl, until the dough forms a lumpy, sticky mass.

3. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature (72°F)  for 2 hours or until the dough has risen about 2 inches under the rim of the bowl and has a sponge-like appearance.

4. Use that day or place the dough, covered with plastic wrap, in the refrigerator for up to 3 days before baking. If you like, write the date on the plastic wrap so you know the “bake-by” date for your dough.

Clover Honey Challah Loaf

Light, tender challah, a bread served on the Jewish Shabbat and Rosh Hashanah, is made without dairy products, so it can be served with a meal containing meat to follow kosher dietary rules. In major metropolitan areas, many bakeries make challah a weekend staple. No matter your religious preference, this airy, tender bread is as easy to eat as it is to make. Challah can also be wrapped well and frozen for up to 3 months.

Makes 2 braided loaves to serve 24

1 recipe prepared No-Knead Clover Honey Dough (above)

Unbleached, all-purpose flour for dusting

1 large egg mixed with 1 tbsp water for egg wash

Sesame or poppy seeds for sprinkling, optional

1. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. To form the loaf, transfer half the dough to a floured surface. Working the dough as little as possible and adding flour as necessary, use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a large rectangle, dusting with flour as necessary. Fold the dough in half, turn a quarter turn and roll out again. Repeat three more times. With your hands, form the dough into a cylinder. With a dough scraper, divide the dough into 3 equal portions. Transfer the dough portions to a floured surface and dust very lightly with flour. Flour your hands. Working the dough as little as possible and adding flour as necessary, roll each portion into a 16-inch long rope. Lay the ropes out vertically, parallel to each other and close, but not touching, on a floured surface. Braid the three ropes together snugly, starting from the top. Lift each rope and pass it over or under one of the others in sequence. Tuck the ends under to form an oblong loaf about 14 inches long. Carefully transfer the loaf to the prepared baking sheet. Repeat the process with the remaining dough.


3. Cover with a tea towel and let rest at room temperature for 40 minutes. The dough will not rise very much.  It will do that in the oven.

4. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Carefully brush the loaf with egg wash. Sprinkle with optional sesame or poppy seeds. 

5. Bake for 40 to 42 minutes or until the crust is a shiny, medium brown and an instant read thermometer inserted in the center of the loaf registers at least 190°F. Transfer to a rack to cool. 

Tip:  Leftover challah (as if!) makes excellent French toast or bread pudding.

The Happiest Rainbow Cakes—Ever

Baking Spree! 

Day Three

There’s something about a rainbow cake that just makes you smile.

For me, every beautiful layer could tell its own unique story (minus the pain of overlooked toothpicks!).

The first rainbow cake I ever tasted was the signature dessert at Beth Barden’s Succotash in Kansas City, MO.

Then I saw one that two British women made for a special birthday.  The cake had so many differently colored layers (and candles) that they had to serve the cake on its side.

Just recently, Better Homes & Gardens featured a rainbow cake as a way to show off a cake stand.

There’s even a video to guide you through the basic process.

http://nedhardy.com/2011/08/03/how-to-bake-the-6-layer-rainbow-cake-that-has-been-sweeping-the-internet-lately/

When I started experimenting with rainbow cake, I found that making individual, multi-layered rainbow cakes appealed to me.

Also, thinner rainbow cake layers taste best with a cream cheese frosting that is just a little tangy. Both the frosting and the cake come together better.

I found a large nonstick 6-cup muffin pan from R & M International Corp.

http://randm.us/products.asp?ccid=14

at a cake decorating shop.  The muffin cups measure 3-1/2 inches in diameter.

After the little cakes were baked, I cut each cake in half horizontally, then frosted three little layers together in varying combinations.

I call this photo "Sunlight on Rainbow Cakes." Hope they make you smile.

Rainbow Cakes

Cake flour and sour cream in the batter insure that your cake will be moist and tender, yet firm and sturdy—just what you want for a rainbow cake.  If you like, you could stir about ½ teaspoon flavoring in each tinted batter—lemon zest for yellow, orange zest for orange, lime zest for green, and so on.  

Makes 4 (3-1/2-inch) cakes to serve 8

1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

2 cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs, beaten

2 cups sifted cake flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 (8-ounce) container dairy sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Food coloring

4 cups frosting of your choice tinted robin’s egg blue

1. Preheat the oven to 350 °F. Butter a 13-1/2 by 10-1/2-inch pan that makes 6 (3-1/2-inch diameter cakes and set aside. In a large bowl, with a hand-held electric mixer on low speed, cream the butter and granulated sugar. 

Beat in the eggs, sour cream, and vanilla. 

Then beat in the flour, baking powder, and salt for 1 minute, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Use a spatula to completely fold the dry ingredients into the batter until smooth and thick.  

2. Set out 5 small bowls.  In each small bowl, place ¾ to 1 cup of the batter and tint with food coloring to your desired color. (I used a toothpick inserted in a bottle of Americolor gel coloring, then dipped the toothpick into the batter.) Keep in mind that the color will somewhat darken during baking.

3. Fill each small cake cup with a tinted batter and smooth with a spatula or knife.

4. Bake for 25 to 28 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Let cool in the pan. 

5.  Invert the cakes onto a wire rack. 

Using a serrated knife, cut each cake in half horizontally. 

6. Using your prepared frosting, frost and stack three layers, securing the take with toothpicks if necessary. Frost the top and sides of each little rainbow cake. Repeat the process until you have four little three-layer cakes.

The Yum-miest Hot Cross Buns—Ever

Baking Spree! 

Day Two

‘Tis the season once again for this traditional springtime treat.

Hot cross buns—yeasty rolls flavored with spice and dried fruit and marked with a cross on top—have been so popular that we still sing about them in a nursery rhyme hundreds of years old.

“One ha-penny, two ha-penny, hot cross buns.”

Today, they’re mainly baked and eaten at Easter.

What’s new about this traditional bread is that it can now be made with a no-knead dough that lets extra liquid take the place of kneading. You can simply mix the dough together, let it rise, then roll out, cut, and form the dough into balls. When the buns have baked, you can paint on the distinctive cross with white icing, using a clean watercolor brush or a squeeze bottle.

No Knead?  No Worries!

The new trend in bread baking is the no-knead method, which is not new but has been revived now that instant or bread machine yeast is readily available. 

Instant yeast has a small granule that does not have to be “proofed” by sprinkling it over water first before mixing into a dough.  With instant or bread machine yeast, you simply stir the dry yeast into the flour.  By adding more liquid to a dough, you also eliminate the need to knead.  The extra liquid activates the gluten in the flour to do the kneading for you. If you like, you can use a utensil known as a Danish dough whisk to mix the dough easily, but you can also mix with a spoon.

A no-knead dough will be spongier-looking (as you can see below), looser to work with, and will not make precise shapes after it has risen. But once you've tried this dough, you'll be hooked on how simple it is to make.

Hot Cross Bun dough made with this no-knead method feels soft—like a baby’s skin—and is a pleasure to form. And the taste?  Yum!

Hot Cross Buns

Makes 14 to 16 hot cross buns

For the Dough:

1 tablespoon instant or bread machine yeast      

2 teaspoons fine kosher salt

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ cup dried currants (or use small raisins or dried cranberries or cherries)

1 cup lukewarm milk, about 100°F

½ cup lukewarm water, about 100°F

1/2 cup granulated sugar   

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted     

1 large egg

For the Egg Wash:

1 large egg, beaten

For the Icing Paint:

1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar

½ teaspoon  vanilla extract

1 1/2 teaspoons milk

1. Measure. Spoon the flour into a measuring cup, level with a knife or your finger, then dump the flour into a large mixing bowl.

2. Mix. Add the yeast, salt, cinnamon, and currants to the flour. Stir together with a wooden spoon or Danish dough whisk. Combine the warm milk, water, sugar, and melted butter in a 4-cup measuring cup and stir to combine. Using a fork, beat the egg into the milk mixture. Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture, stir to combine, then beat 40 strokes, scraping the bottom and the sides of the bowl, until the dough forms a lumpy, sticky mass.

3. Rise. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature 72°F  for 2 hours or until the dough has risen about 2 inches under the rim of the bowl and has a sponge-like appearance.

4. Use Right Away or Refrigerate. Use that day or place the bowl, covered with plastic wrap, in the refrigerator for up to 3 days before baking.

 5. Form. To form rolls, transfer the dough to a floured surface and dust very lightly with flour. Flour your hands. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough into a 12 by 8-inch rectangle. If the dough begins to stick to the surface, use the dough scraper to push flour under the dough and scrape it up. Starting with a long end and using your hands, roll the dough into 12 to 14-inch cylinder. Pinch any seams together.  With the dough scraper, slice the cylinder into 1-inch pieces. Roll the pieces into balls.

6. Rest. Line a small cookie sheet with parchment paper. Place the balls, about 1 inch apart, [buns stay moister if they’re touching as they bake] on the prepared sheet.  Cover with a tea towel and let rest at room temperature for 1 hour.

7. Brush with Egg Wash. About 20 minutes before baking, preheat to 350°F. In a small bowl, beat the egg and brush the tops of the rolls with it.

8. Bake. Bake for 30 to 34 minutes or until the rolls have browned. Cool on a wire rack. Paint the rolls when cool.

9. Paint. For the paint, whisk the confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, and milk together in a bowl until smooth. Using a clean watercolor paint brush, paint a cross on each roll.

The Butter-iest Lemon Bars—Ever

Baking Spree! 

Day One

Hibernation can be good. 

It gives you time to step away from all the frazzle-dazzle and come back refreshed.

After working on a few great projects—like playing around with my new iphone—I have time to blog again.

I’ve missed all of you and I hope you’ve missed Alfresco!

And what better way to get our baking spree kicked off than with these easy, yummy, cookies that have a lot of good things going for them. Sweet, tart, buttery, and tender, these bars can be cut as large or as small as you wish.

Buttery Lemon Bars have a little magic, too. They seem to be able to banish any winter blahs or blahs in general. With a cup of tea or a shot of limoncello, you’re back in business.

Buttery Lemon Bars

With a shortbread cookie crust and a sweet/ tart lemon filling, these bars are addictive.  

Makes 3 dozen  

For the crust:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, plus more for dusting

For the filling:

3 large eggs

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 tablespoons freshly grated lemon zest

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1. Preheat the oven to 350 °F. Line a 9 by 13-inch pan with parchment paper and set aside.

2. For the crust, pulse the flour, salt, butter, and confectioner's sugar in a food processor, just until the dough holds together.  Press the dough onto the bottom and halfway up the sides the prepared pan. Bake the crust for 15 minutes until just set and slightly browned. Remove from the oven and set aside.

3. For the filling, combine the filling ingredients in a medium mixing bowl and beat for 3 minutes with an electric mixer. You want the mixture to be a lighter yellow, thicker than when you started, and with a froth of bubbles. Pour the filling over the hot crust.

4. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes more, or until firm in the middle and lightly browned on top. Cool completely, then dust with additional confectioner's sugar and cut into bars.

Unforgettable. And Still Unquenchable.

On Monday evening, my culinary book group met again.  These remarkable women make my heart glad.

We’ve seen each other through heartbreak and triumph, dishes that didn’t turn out, books we did and didn’t like, and new dishes we’ll definitely keep on making.

Each month the hostess chooses a culinary-themed book, usually a cookbook.  But we’ve read memoirs, biographies, novels, and even a food issue of a magazine. We all bring a dish from the book or inspired by the book.

First, we sipped wine and told the stories of our family Thanksgiving celebrations.  One intrepid friend fixed dinner—solo—for 37 people, 8 of which were children under the age of 12. Another “rested” by only having to make the turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, and gravy. 

I recounted the tale of our Thanksgiving, when my sister and I deboned a 20-pound turkey using surgical scalpels—they work great, by the way.  We watched two YouTube videos first and then started on the big bird. We ended with a stuffed turkey roll wrapped in prosciutto (turkey porchetta) that kept growing and growing and growing as our Dad tied it up at intervals.  When it reached 3 feet—how could this be??—we looked at the recipe again. And saw that it only called for a 10-pound turkey.

The monster turkey roll wouldn’t fit in the oven, so we ended up cutting it. We grilled half and deep-fried half (after the other two turkeys came out of the outdoor fryer).

Unforgettable!

Now, back to book club.  For this month, we read Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes by Elizabeth Bard.

She had me at the first sentence: “I slept with my French husband halfway through our first date.” As an American who moved to Paris to be with her love, Bard recounts the little incremental steps by which she moves from being “that American” to being able to read in French and understand the not-so-secret disciplinary code that French women use to stay so thin (don’t eat much and drink a lot of water). 

A code my book club decided not to follow—at least for that night.

All of the recipes we tried were delicious. Right before I left the house, I snapped a quick photo of the dish I made, with a little holiday twist.

French Christmas Tree Salad

Adapted—with artistic license—from Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes by Elizabeth Bard.

This refreshing European vegetable salad uses few ingredients and is best made an hour or so before you serve it.  You can use a combination of fennel and fresh celery, if you like. Use a mandoline slicer or a very sharp chef’s knife to trim the root end of each fennel bulb, then trim off the shoots.  Save the feathery fronds to create a Christmas-tree effect on your serving platter. A very little bit of this salad makes a delicious contrast to heavier holiday foods.

To remove the seeds from a pomegranate, try Nigella Lawson’s method, which works great. Cut the pomegranate in half, fill a bowl with water, then whack the skin side of the pomegranate half with a wooden spoon so the seeds fall out and get trapped in the water (instead of going all over your kitchen). Once the first seeds come out, you can pry the rest with your fingers.

Serves 6

2 fennel bulbs, ends and shoots trimmed, and sliced paper thin

The juice of ½ lemon

Extra virgin olive oil

Kosher or sea salt

Freshly ground pepper

½ cup fresh pomegranate seeds

1.  Combine the sliced fennel and lemon juice in a bowl. Toss to blend, then drizzle with olive oil and toss again. Salt and pepper to taste and toss a third time.

2. Arrange the fennel fronds on a white platter in a Christmas tree shape.  Mound the fennel at the base and scatter all with pomegranate seeds. Cover and chill until ready to serve.

Unquenchable.

I think my book club pick for 2012 is going to be Natalie Maclean’s Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines.

I love the way she writes about wine in a knowledgeable, but adventurous and light-hearted style. “Behind every bottle is a person and a story,” she says.

After all, many wineries are family-run, and families, as I well know, can somehow create monster turkey rolls at Thanksgiving.

And she holds back on the winespeak. Not so much “aromatizing the esters” as “making great wines at reasonable prices.”

Even her Unquenchable book trailer is fun to watch.

www.nataliemaclean.com/book

This book, with a bottle or two of her affordable wine picks, would be a great holiday gift.

P.S. Like Natalie, my sister also has a goat story. . . . but that’s for another blog.

Cheers!