Halloween= things made from pumpkins.

Since it is October (and pumpkins are all over the place) a friend of mine requested something made from pumpkins. My mind naturally went to pumpkin bread.. and the decision was finalized when one of the chefs at work gave me a dairy-free pumpkin bread recipe (I work with amazing people). Some drama happened during the process of acquiring the necessary ingredients..which resulted in some alterations to the original recipe. All in all, this was not a total failure (it was actually sort of an adventure. Not as much as the puff pastry...but in terms of adventure, if puff pastry is going around the world in a hot air balloon, these muffins were like getting in the hot air balloon and then realizing you're afraid of heights and then politely asking to come down now) So I'll post the original recipe and then explain what I changed..

ingredients:

1 can (15 oz) of pumpkin
4 eggs
2/3 cup of water
2/3 cup of olive oil
1 teaspoon of molasses
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 cup of brown sugar
2 cups of white sugar

31/2 cups of flour
2 teaspoons of baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ginger


Alright. So, when I decided it was time to get to baking these little suckers, I realized that 1. I didn't have half of the ingredients I needed and 2. that it was raining. I decided to go to the nearest store which just happened to be Trader Joes....which did have canned pumpkin but apparently never carries molasses. So I purchased my can o' pumpkin and cinnamon and decided to give the liquor store near my house a try (they've had what I was looking for in the past, so it was worth a shot). The liquor store had anchovy paste (just in case you REALLY wanted to make a Caesar salad...) AND the option of canned or jarred anchovies (do people really eat these?), but no molasses. So I decided I'd make do.


what I did:

I substituted the molasses for about 3 tablespoons of honey
I also realized that I was pretty much out of white sugar, so I ended up using about 1 1/4 cup of brown sugar and 1 cup of white sugar
and used 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder instead of baking soda (i really need to replenish my pantry apparently)
...and my ginger was bad, so I just omitted that all together...

To make this bread, you're going to want to mix the pumpkin, eggs, water, olive oil, molasses (honey), vanilla and sugars together in a bowl first. Mix the spices, salt, and flour together in a separate bowl and then add them slowly to the wet ingredients. Once everything is well blended, put your batter into a bread pan or pour into a muffin pan. I did both. There should be enough to make either 2 loaves or 24 muffins, or 1 loaf and 12 muffins... whatever you want, really. Bake in a pre heated oven at 350 degrees. The muffins take about 15 minutes, but the loaves take near forever to bake ('near forever' translates to about an hour, but maybe longer. When your knife comes out clean, it'll be done..)

and voila!

Palmiers

This recipe took a lot of courage. Until this point, I've heard over and over again what a pain pastry dough can be.. the amount of time it takes, the amount of butter, and love and care..But I bit the bullet, so to speak. Aided by the very rare and illusive three-day weekend, I conquered the pastry dough and found the ability to make these delectable pastries. That isn't to say that I wasn't skeptical every step of the way: worried that I didn't use enough butter, that I folded the dough the wrong way, etc.. but to my amazement (and sheer delight) they turned out were oh so delicious with all their buttery, flaky glory. Seriously, when I took these puppies out of the oven I literally jumped up and down. I was that excited.

As with the brioche, I converted the measurements from ounces so they may be a liiiitle bit off.

ingredients:

about 3 cups of flour
a tablespoon of salt (totally guessing with this one. It was .33 ounces but looked near a tablespoon)
1/3 cup of melted butter
about 1 1/2 cups of water

and 9.5 ounces of butter for folding.. (that's about 2 1/2 sticks of butter)

To make the puff pastry:
1. I'm sure it won't make a difference if you're used to mixing in a bowl, but I just used my work surface. Start by making a mound out of your flour and salt and then hollow out the center to create a well for your liquids.

2. pour the melted butter and water into the center and gradually stir from the inside outward to incorporate the liquids and you will have your dough. (sounds easy right? unless your well breaks and suddenly your table is covered in clarified butter. Don't break the well..)

3. once the dough has formed, knead it BRIEFLY. I've said over and over to knead until your dough is elastic (or have I?) but you don't want to do that with this kind of dough because if it gets to that point of super elasticity you'll want to die once you have to roll it out. Once your dough seems smooth, gather it into a ball and wrap it in plastic and refrigerate it for 30 minutes (or longer, but it'll need at least 30 minutes)

Congratulations! You have dough! Now you get to start folding in the butter! (otherwise known as part two)

1. roll your dough out into a large rectangle.

2. Measure about 1/4 of a cup of softened (not melted) butter and place it between 2 sheets of plastic. Flatten it out by beating it, and roll it out into a rectangle about 2/3 the size of your dough)

3. remove the plastic from your butter (I took off one side, put the butter on the dough, and then peeled off the remaining plastic. It seemed easier, just sayin') and place it on the bottom 2/3 of the dough rectangle (if your dough rectangle is oriented vertically, you should place your butter horizontally). Then fold the top third of the dough over so that it covers half of the butter. Then fold the bottom third over the rest of the butter. It sort of reminded me of changing a diaper (that may or may not be a helpful mental image..) But the point is that your butter should be fully enclosed by dough. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for another 30 minutes.

4. You will need to repeat the fold (its called a "four fold") 3 more times (to give you four- four folds. That's 1028 layers of dough and butter..)

Once you've completed folding, your pastry dough is ready to become a Palmier!!

1. Start by thickly buttering a baking sheet and chilling it. Then preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

2. Scale one pound of pastry dough (should be about half of what you've made). Dust your work surface with granulated sugar and roll your pastry dough out to create a rectangle that is about 13 in by 17 in. Trim the edges with a sharp knife.

3. Fold the long sides into the middle so that they meet without overlapping. Brush them with a little water and then fold the long sides in half again, allowing them to meet but not to overlap. You should now have a rectangle about 3 1/4 in by 17 in.

4. Brush with a little water again and fold together to form a rectangle 1 1/2 in by 17 in.

5. Cut dough into 1/2 inch slices with a sharp knife and lay on the buttered tray in staggered rows (they will get bigger..) Press the slices down gently with the palm of your hand.

6. Bake at 375 until golden brown. Turn them over and bake until well colored. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. The total bake time in my oven was about 15-20 minutes (maybe even less) so keep an eye on them.

7. enjoy your palmier. That was a lot of work, but it was soooo worth it.

(I took this recipe from a book called Professional Baking by Wayne Gisslen...just FYI..)

things you can do with old bananas..

I live near a pretty awesome independently owned and operated grocery store that has a bruised / old produce cart. I'll admit that I am a frequenter of the cart, and I have made it a habit to pick up bruised bananas (who wouldn't you get like 5 bananas for $1) take them home..peel them..and put them in my freezer. Unfortunately I buy more bruised bananas than I have time to bake, so my freezer is now full of bags of bruised bananas (which I'll admit is a little strange, even for me). My point is, there are a lot of things you can do with bruised bananas, one of which is, banana bread...the other is (naturally..) banana nut muffins.

Banana Bread:

ingredients

3 or 4 ripe bananas (if you use old frozen bananas, you will need to thaw them and drain off the water)
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup of sugar
1 beaten egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
a pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups of flour

method:

start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees. Then mix the melted butter into the bananas (I usually mash the bananas and mix in the butter at the same time). Add the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle in the baking soda, salt and mix well. Add the flour last and pour into a buttered bread pan. The mixture should be sticky and moist. Bake for 45 minutes (may need more time depending on your oven. you'll know it's done when a knife comes out clean)

I have also made this banana bread with other seasonal fruits added in. Mid summer, I added fresh apricots and a little but of almond extract for flavor.


Banana muffins: these are pretty similar to the banana bread. Same basic principle, different form.

ingredients

2 cups of flour
1 cup of sugar
2-3 ripe bananas (again, if frozen, thaw)
1/2 cup of butter
2 eggs
6 tablespoons of milk
2 teaspoons baking powder (the original recipe I used called for 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda as well, but I didn't use it because I was out and it didn't make much of a difference)
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
(I also added 1 teaspoon of ground cardamom and a little nutmeg)
1/2 teaspoon of salt
walnuts (optional. but why not. Walnuts are totally brainfood.)

method:

mix your flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon (and other spices if desired) and set aside. Then, in a separate bowl cream the butter (melt it first) and bananas. Add the eggs, sugar and milk and mix until smooth. Fold together the flour mixture with the banana mix (add walnuts if desired) and then pour into greased muffin tins (only fill 3/4ths of the way) and bake in a preheated oven to 350 for about 25 minutes.

(monster) Brioche (of doom)

Faithful blog readers, I have been challenged to a duel. Okay so it isn't really a duel because it's fairly one-sided...as in I have no adversary per se....unless I am my own opponent. At any rate, throughout this whole charade I've realized that I would very much enjoy making croissants. But, to be honest, they sound scary and difficult to make. So i'm working my way up to croissants. In lieu of an actual bakery, One of the very awesome chefs at work has been so kind as to loan me one of her textbooks from when she was in school (friends, if you have things you would like me to make, by all means send me a book or a recipe) so I have a sort of road map of baking. And the first stop was Brioche.

The book I got the recipe from measures ingredients in ounces, not cups or teaspoons so my conversions might be a little goofy (but the bread turned out, so if they aren't perfect, they are at least close).

ingredients:

1/4 cup of milk
2 packets of yeast (I used starter so I'm not sure if this is accurate)
2-3 cups of flour
3 eggs
1 tablespoon of sugar
3/4 teaspoon of salt
nearly 2 sticks of softened butter (7 oz)

method:

Ok, so I can't follow directions. And my starter was hungry. So what I did and what the directions for this bread wanted me to do are two different things. First, lets go through what I should have done...

The first step is mixing the sponge: scald your milk and cool to lukewarm. Dissolve the yeast and add 1/4 cup of flour. Let it rise until it has doubled in size.

gradually mix in the eggs and then the salt, sugar, and flour to make a soft dough. Beat in the softened butter until fully integrated into the dough.

Instead of using packaged yeast, I used two cups of starter which I had proofed overnight. I scalded the milk, let it come to room temperature and then added it to the starter. Since the yeast was already activated, I didn't really think that it needed to proof more, so I added the eggs and dry ingredients. The dough that I made was probably a little stickier than it should have been so I added a little bit more flour and then mixed in the butter.

If you're planning on doing any shaping or handling you should refrigerate your dough overnight, otherwise the dough that I made was pretty impossible to work with. Since I was just going to bake mine, I let it rise for about 20 minutes. The next step is to put the dough in a greased pan, apply an egg wash to the top and then bake for about 40 minutes (until golden) in a preheated oven at 375 degrees. If you're making smaller rolls, you'll want to bake at 400.

Within a few days of making the Brioche two chefs who have never met each other and who work in completely different towns suggested to me that leftover brioche makes excellent bread pudding. And since I'm just one person and I did have an entire loaf of very rich brioche...I had some leftovers. So I made the pudding (come on. When two chefs who have never met each other give you the same suggestion, you had best do as they say).

Bread Pudding:

6 slices of day old bread (or in my case...half a Brioche)
2 tablespoons butter (or 4..depending on who you're trying to fatten up)
1/2 cup of raisins (optional. I didn't use them. and I probably never will)
4 eggs, beaten
2 cups of milk
3/4 cup of white sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
(I also added 1 teaspoon of cardamom)
1 teaspoon of vanilla

Start by preheating your oven to 350.

Then break (or slice) your bread into small pieces (or cubes) and put them in an 8" square baking pan (I just put them into my loaf pan). Drizzle your 2 (or 4) tablespoons of melted butter over the bread.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine your eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon, (cardamom), and vanilla. Beat until well mixed. Pour over bread and be sure that it all gets covered with the mixture (use a fork or your hand to press down the bread if you need to). If you have the time, refrigerate for a few hours (or overnight) so the bread gets a chance to soak everything up.

Bake for 45 minutes or until the top springs back when lightly tapped.

Now, if you really want to go crazy you can make your own caramel sauce while your bread pudding is in the oven (at the risk of turning into Paula Deen...I swear I'm not. She made her bread pudding with with Krispy Kreme doughnuts and a butter rum sauce..here)

making caramel is pretty easy. All you need is butter and sugar (and booze..if you want). Start by putting about half a cup of sugar into a pan. The amount of sugar you put into the pan depends on how much caramel you'd like to make. Keep the heat on low while stirring constantly until the sugar starts to melt and then add a few tablespoons of butter. When it starts to bubble, take the pan off the heat and carefully add cream (or milk). Wait a few seconds (or else the sugar might spit at you and it will be very. very. hot) You don't need very much, just enough to get to a creamy consistency, and then add about half a shot of bourbon (to taste..depending on how much you're making..That's going to be a lot of bourbon for one serving of caramel, but to each their own).

and voila!

the responsible thing to do would be to not make a silly Challah joke...

So, my stint at the bakery only lasted three weeks. Never fear, the baking and blogging will continue with the help of loaned books and shared recipes (thank you faithful bread enablers!) The bakery I was volunteering at just wasn't a good fit. They knew it, I knew it, my lack of upper body strength knew it...

But I did learn a thing or two there at the bakery. My second day of work landed smack in the middle of Rosh Hashanah, so I learned how to twist Challah! The dough had already been made and proofed, so the final step is about all I learned... which left me feeling unsatisfied and curious. So when I got home, I found a recipe and made it myself. (spoiler: I haven't figured out how to use starter for this, so I used packaged yeast)


ingredients:

1/4 cup of sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/4 cup warm water
2 packets of dry yeast
3 eggs
6 cups of flour
1 egg (for the wash)
(poppy seeds are optional..but why not, right?)

method:

place your sugar, salt, and oil in a large bowl. Add the hot water and stir to dissolve the sugar and salt. Stir in the yeast and let it stand until it's foamy. Add the slightly beaten eggs.

Add in 4 1/2 cups of flour until the dough starts to pull together. Turn your dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead in 1-2 more cups of flour. Continue kneading until your dough is smooth and elastic (about 8-10 minutes)

Place your dough in a greased bowl and roll it to coat it in the oil. Cover with a damp cloth and let it rise until doubled in size. Punch it down (don't actually hit the dough, just deflate it) and then let it rise again.

divide the dough into two equal parts and using the palms of your hands, roll them with even pressure from the center out until you have two ropes of the same size and length. Position one of your ropes horizontally and then place the second rope over it so that it creates a cross (lets see if I can explain this properly..). Then pick up the left end with your left hand and the right end with your right hand and effectively do a switcheroo... like in this picture

(which I stole from the internet...thanks internet!). Do the same-ish with sides D and C and then continue incorporating the other two strands. After you have successfully braided your dough, either leave it as is or connect the two ends forming a circle and let it rise for a third time on a baking sheet.

When it appears significantly larger, beat your remaining egg and brush it over the top of your Challah. Coat with poppy seeds if you so desire and bake at 350 for 35 minutes until golden brown (if you're unsure if it's done or not, it will sound hollow if you tap the bottom with a wooden spoon).