BaBa's Cheese Bread

Shortly before Christmas I was contacted about a wonderful project called A Blending of Bittersweet Memories. This is a cookbook project “dedicated and designed to share stories of people that have lost loved ones, the lessons they’ve learned, and the food and recipes of those that have passed on.” Food is so closely tied to the memories of loved ones in my life, and I was immediately taken with what I think is a wonderful project. I would encourage anyone who is interested to visit the Bittersweet Memories website and submit your own memory and recipe.

One of my earliest kitchen memories is helping my great grandmother, BaBa, make cheese bread and cinnamon rolls. BaBa lived in the tiny town she was born in, Miami, Arizona, but she would come to Houston every year for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I have so many wonderful memories of BaBa, but oddly enough my favorite memory doesn’t belong to me but to my mom’s two youngest sisters, Jennifer and Suzy. You see, BaBa and Grandpa Jimmy would drive from Miami to Houston, and Jennifer and Suzy would wait for hours (at least in their version of the story!) in the front yard waiting to see their car heading towards my grandparents’ house. I love that story because it sums up the excitement that I think everyone felt when we knew that BaBa was coming to visit.

It wasn’t long after BaBa would arrive in Houston that she was in the kitchen cooking and baking, and I think one of the first things that she made was always a big batch of cinnamon rolls and several loaves of cheese bread. She would make one huge batch of dough that would eventually become both cinnamon rolls and cheese bread. I remember standing in the kitchen with her and helping her kneed the dough for what seemed like forever, and I vividly remember the transformation of the dough from a sloppy mess of yeast, liquid, and flour to a silky smooth dough. We’d set the dough aside to rise with a clean cotton towel covering it, and like magic, when we came back it would fill the bowl to the top. BaBa always let me punch down the dough, and then the real fun could begin. The dough was split in two. Half was rolled out and sprinkled with lots of cinnamon and sugar, and the other half was rolled out and spread with a cheese and egg mixture. After another rise, the bread went in the oven, and soon the house was filled with the smell of fresh bread.

Making bread with BaBa taught me how soothing bread making can be. When I think back on it, I’m amazed at her patience. Having a small child in the kitchen was bound to slow her down, and I remember spilling my fair share of flour, but she was infinitely patient with me. As we made and baked the bread she would tell me stories, and our time in the kitchen created a bond stronger than our blood ties. In making bread with BaBa, I shared a part of who she was. To this day I don’t stick my hands in a bowl of dough without thinking about her, and the smell of fresh baked bread brings her face to my mind. BaBa died when I was a sophomore in high school, but she is always with me in my kitchen.

On days when warmth is the most important need of the human heart, the kitchen is the place you can find it; it dries the wet sock, it cools the hot little brain.
--  E.B. White

BaBa’s Cheese Bread
Note:  I don’t have the recipe for BaBa’s cheese bread. To the best of my knowledge, she kept the recipe in her head. The following is a recipe that I’ve worked on and tweaked, and while it’s not an exact replica, I think it’s fairly close. I have no idea why there’s an egg beaten into the cheese, but that’s the way BaBa did it, and I’m loathe to change the one thing that I remember so vividly.

1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup buttermilk (you can substitute regular milk if you like)
5 cups bread flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons butter melted and cooled
Two 1/4-ounce packages instant yeast (I use SAF instant yeast. If your yeast is in bulk like mine is, then 2 ¼ tsp = 1 package)
1 tablespoon salt
3 cups coarsely grated cheese (BaBa used cheddar. I use cheddar or sometimes Pepper Jack. I've also been known to get a little over zealous with the cheese.)
1 egg
optional:  pinch cayenne pepper, fresh black pepper, or chopped fresh herbs

1. In a 2 quart saucepan, heat the water and the buttermilk over medium low heat to 105°F - 115°F.
2. In a large combine the buttermilk mixture, flour, sugar, butter, yeast, and salt. Using a wooden spoon or your hands (BaBa always made bread exclusively with her hands) combine the ingredients into a shaggy, but cohesive ball of dough. Remove dough from the bowl the a clean countertop dusted with flour and knead until silky smooth, about 10 minutes. (Note:  this step can be done from start to finish in a stand mixer with a dough hook if you like. Knead the dough with the dough hook for 5-7 minutes.)
3. Form the smooth dough into a ball and place in an oiled or buttered bowl. Make sure the dough is covered with oil or softened butter on all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a clean cotton towel and set aside to rise until doubled in bulk (about 1 hour depending on how warm your kitchen is).
4. When the dough has doubled in size, punch it down to degas and remove it from the bowl to the counter. Divide the dough into two equal portions. Roll each portion of the dough into a rectangle (I generally shoot for 8” x 10” or so). If the dough is difficult to roll, you can let it rest for 5 minutes and then roll it out.
5. In a bowl, beat one egg. With a rubber spatula, fold the grated cheese into the beaten egg. If you like, you can flavor the cheese egg mixture with herbs or pepper.NB: If you want your bread to be even cheesier, you can add extra shredded cheese, as I have been known to do on occasion.
6. Spread the 1/2 of cheese mixture over each rectangle of dough, leaving a 1” border on all sides. Roll the dough into a spiral from the short (8”) side of the rectangle. When the dough is rolled into a spiral loaf, carefully pinch all of the seams of the dough together to prevent any cheese from seeping out.
5. Lightly grease 2 - 81/2 inch by 4 1/2 inch loaf pans Transfer the dough to the prepared pans Put the pans in a warm place, cover with a towel, and let rise about one hour, or until doubled in size. (I like to grate a little extra shredded cheese over the top of my loaves. If you want to do this, add the grated cheese to the top just before you put the loaves in the oven.)
6. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until golden brown. If you feel that the bread is getting too brown on the top, you can tent it with aluminum foil after about 15 minutes. It’s VERY important to let the bread cook, otherwise the cheese spiral in the bread will collapse (this has happened to me many times). Turn the loaves out of the pans onto a rack to cool. The bread needs to cool completely before slicing, otherwise the cheese will ooze out (this has also happened to me many times. It’s still very tasty, though).

Ombre Cupcakes for Ceci's Birthday

Today is Ceci's birthday. And this is significant because why? I write about my family a lot on this blog because I associate so much of what I make in the kitchen with them, and because this blog was really started to communicate with my family. I don't write about my friends all that often because most of them don't know that the blog exists . . . and I like it that way! (I'm still kind of in the blogging closet.) Ceci, however, is different, because she has a blog of her own all about her art and life; this means that she's one of my only friends, and my only best friend, that's a bloggy friend and a real life friend. Ceci is also my hip and fashion-forward friend; she always has on a fabulous outfit that's perfectly accessorized. If you know me, then you know that I am neither hip, nor fashion-forward. I can count the number of stores where I purchase clothing on one hand, and while I'd like to be cute and put together, most of the time I'm pretty boring in the clothing department. I'll often text message Ceci to ask her what I should wear or if two things go together. I really wish that we still lived in the same city so I could raid her closet and rely on her fashion advice from close at hand. That wish has grown all the more fervent since I moved to DC and I just don't think I should have to wear anything other than Uggs and sweat pants in the winter. The first time I flipped through Martha Stewart Cupcakes I saw the White Cupcakes with Pastel Buttercream Peaks (page 154) and I immediately thought of Ceci. Why? Because they're ombré cupcakes, or if you're Ceci, you'll say degradé.

 

Ombré is one of those things that gets me in trouble with my sister for being narrow minded, hypercritical, and a fashion dunce. It totally perplexes me. It means that the color is shaded or graduated in tone, and when Ceci and I went shopping last summer, we saw lots of degradé in/on clothes. Of course, Ceci rocks the degradé and although the cupcakes are supposed to resemble flowers, their color fades from the outside to the center, and I see degradé (or ombré, I use the two terms interchangably, though perhaps I shouldn't). I might not wear it on my dress, but I can pipe it on my cupcakes, and what better way to say happy birthday than some cupcakes?! 

 

For my first try with the ombré cupcakes I made pastel yellow and and an orangish-peachy color with the Swiss Meringue Buttercream. Then for the second try I made pink and white in an attempt to be more like Martha. Honestly, though, I like the yellow and orange combo more. I think that might be because I left too much white space on the pink and white cupcakes for my personal taste. I also made the mistake of starting from the outside and moving in, rather than the opposite direction that the recipe directs. These are some very fun cupcakes to make, though, and I will definitely make them again sometime. I live in DC and Ceci is all the way down south in Miami (I am SO jealous right now!), so these are rather virtual birthday cupcakes. Not to worry, I enjoyed one and so did the people at school who got to reap the benefits of Ceci's birthday. If you'd like the recipe for the cupcakes and the Swiss meringue buttercream, head on over to Martha Stewart's website. These really are some pretty simple cupcakes that yield a very fun result. If you have a little bit of food coloring and a star tip (Martha recommends #20) then you're good to go. I can't wait to play around with the colors and the tips a little bit more when I get a chance. In the meantime, Happy Birthday, Ceci! Thanks for being one of my best friends for the past 14 years!

 Ceci & I at the Coral Gables Farmers' Market

Here we are in our famous "foxy" pose at Ceci's 80's birthday party!

BBA S&S: Kaiser Rolls

It is my (very personal and by no means proven or established) belief that kaiser rolls are some seriously disingenuous little things. When I think of kaiser rolls, I think of dry, chewy (and not chewy in a good way, chewy in an onmygosh, I've been chewing for awhile now and nothing is happening way) rolls that are sold in bags in the bakery department of the grocery store. But, in those bags, they're shiny, the perfect shade of golden brown, with those cute little seeds on top, and they practically scream, "I'm going to be a fabulous base for whatever you decide to put on me!" So, if you're like I was, and you're impressionable and subject to adjectives like "cute" and "shiny" you put them in the grocery cart and bring them back home for what will eventually be a pretty silent meal because everyone is so busy chewing, and then drinking, to try to get some moisture back in their mouths. I bought the shiny and cute kaiser rolls a few times (hey, I was young and impressionable!), and each time they were dry and chewy, and I stopped buying them. Kaiser rolls were dead to me -- I could no longer be swayed by their cuteness or their ability to make my burgers look like "designer" burgers.

Until now, right? Once again, the Bread Baker's Apprentice has converted me from a non-believer to a believer. It's amazing what Peter Rheinhart can do for bread.  I was, um, not excited about making these rolls. I was prepared for a big chew-fest, a dry mouth, and a sore jaw. I knew that the rolls would probably be better than the grocery store version, I knew they'd be edible, but I was convinced that all of the things that I disliked about kaiser rolls were endemic to this bread. I was so wrong.

The dough for the rolls is actually really, really similar to Italian bread. In fact, my brother might say that "if French bread dough got busy with Italian bread dough you'd have Kaiser roll dough." I would add that you'd need to add an egg to the union of French and Italian breads to really get Kaiser rolls, but you sort of get my drift, right? On the one hand, you have half of a recipe for the pate fermentee that the French bread starts with in the kaiser rolls (if you'll recall, Italian bread starts with a biga). On the other hand, you have the malt powder (syrup, in my case) and the oil of the Italian bread. And you have an egg this time, too. It's another hearth bread, which surprised me (I wasn't expecting a hearth bread at all, the egg threw me off). I suppose that the hardest part is making the knots, but I really like making knots out of dough -- I think it's a good time. This dough is really supple, thus making the knots is even more fun. I don't know if the knots are supposed to have that little doo-dad that mine always end up having? I guess I could stretch it a little further and fold it under, but to me it looks like the center of a flower, and I think it's cute. As for the finished product? It's nothing, NOTHING, like the kaiser rolls I formerly knew. It's just like a hearth bread should be:  crisp on the outside, soft and lovely on the inside.

Kaiser rolls just aren't capable of the extreme "party animal" potential of Italian bread, but they are a close second. Really, they're begging to be made into sandwiches of all sorts, so if a Kaiser roll isn't a party animal, it's definitely a "good time guy" (or gal!). I saw this recipe for Slow Roasted Pulled Pork in the December 2009 issue of Cooking Light and I immediately wrote it on my "must make soon" list. The kaiser rolls were the perfect opportunity to make the pulled pork and indulge in a little faux barbecue. I served it with my freezer pickles that I (finally!) took out of my freezer after making them in September and my favorite cole slaw. The verdict:  this was not a chewy dinner. It was a seriously delicious dinner! I now *heart* kaiser rolls. They don't get to make my Top 3 BBA list, but they're definitely Top 10, maybe even Top 5.

TWD: Cocoa-Nana Bread

I truly don't ever remember a time when I liked bananas. There are many foods that I liked when I was very little (read:  under 5 years old) only to turn against as I grew up. I didn't eat tomatoes or duck or anything green except the occasional green bean or iceberg lettuce (does that even count as green???) for much longer than I care to admit. Those days are over, though, and while I still have my idiosyncracies when it comes to food, I hope I'm not a "picky eater." *shudder* I do, however, loathe the flavor and texture of bananas, and I don't expect I'll ever like this yellow fruit. It's an interesting fruit, though. There's an interesting book, Banana:  The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, that you might give a looksee if you happen to be interested in the history of this popular fruit. (Of course, there are scores of books on the history of this fruit, this just happens to be the one that I'm familiar with.)

I don't like bananas, but I do sort of like to bake things with bananas, if only because it's a little out of my comfort zone and a change from the norm. I mixed and baked this bread precisely as the recipe states, except that it took my bread about 80-85 minutes to cook through to the middle. I took pictures of the slices rather than the whole loaf, because my loaf was seriously unattractive. It looked like a giant brown (smallish) cinder block, and it felt that way, too.

So, I can't give a definitive verdict on the cocoa-nana bread because I didn't taste it, but Dudley enjoyed it. It felt so heavy and dense -- I think it may have been a useful weapon to hurl in a time of distress -- that I couldn't imagine it was very good. Now that I think about it, though, most quick breads are heavy and dense. Dudley said it was tasty warmed up, and I'm going to take his word for it. I do think, because my baking time was sooo long, that this might be better in muffin form. Thank you Steph, of Obsessed with Baking, for hosting this week. I thought this bread was fun to mix up and bake, and it seems like a very comforting thing to nibble on at any time of day.

Tasty Goodness in a Roll: Pork Meatball Banh Mi

When I wrote about that party animal of breads, the Italian bread, I mentioned that I had a tasty sandwich in mind when I decided to make both rolls and a loaf of Italian bread. An Italian roll is perhaps the be-all-end-all of sandwich rolls, and it's used to make the sandwich great, the hoagie. Incidentally, I don't know if I've ever actually had a hoagie, per se. I'm sure I've had an approximation of a hoagie many times, but I've never ordered a "hoagie." Hoagies are really beside the point because I made banh mi with my Italian rolls. The January issue of Bon Appétit had an excellent spread on the humble meatball, and I found myself drooling on the pages. I want to make every single recipe in that spread eventually, but I started with the Pork Meatball Banh Mi. The recipe calls for crusty individual baguettes, and French bread would work really well here, too, and I thought that the Italian bread rolls would be a perfect excuse to make the Pork Meatball Banh Mi.

Banh mi, like any good sandwich, comes in all different flavor variations, but I love the idea of using little pork meatballs to fill up this sandwich (if you're interested in Banh Mi and what it is, check out Battle of the Banh Mi). Meatballs, by their very nature, are flavorful additions to any dish, and these are no exception. The meatballs for this banh mi are full of basil, garlic, green onions, sriracha, fish sauce, and a bit of sugar, just for good measure. The sandwich is rounded out with a sort of carrot and radish pickle salad (the veggies are marinated in a rice vinegar and sugar mixture -- I subbed sliced snap peas (again!) for the daikon radish because I forgot to purchase it (again!)), sriracha mayonnaise, sliced jalapenos, and cilantro. There are many different elements of this sandwich, but they combine to create some serious harmony in your mouth.

I thought that the sandwich would be really labor intensive, but I was wrong, it's not that time consuming. There are many different steps to the recipe, but each step is fairly simple. In theory, the mayonnaise and carrot salad can be made ahead of time, the meatballs can be mixed and formed the morning of, and then all that's left is to cook the meatballs and build the sandwiches. I thought that this banh mi was so incredibly good. There's a huge play of textures and flavors going on all at once and it all combines to create a rather perfect sandwich. The meatballs are hot and the salad is cold, there's the spicy heat of the sriracha and the jalapenos but that's cooled by the carrot slaw and the cilantro, and the sweetness of the carrot salad plays witht the savory bites of meatball and mayonnaise. All in all, this is a darned tasty sandwich! I served the banh mi with baked sweet potato fries, and I thought it was a really fun, tasty dinner.

Pork Meatball Banh Mi

Bon Appétit, January 2010

INGREDIENTS

Hot Chili Mayo:

• 2/3 cup mayonnaise
• 2 green onions, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon hot chili sauce (such as sriracha)*

Meatballs:

• 1 pound ground pork
• 1/4 cup finely chopped fresh basil
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 green onions, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce (such as nam pla or nuoc nam)*
• 1 tablespoon hot chili sauce (such as sriracha)
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt

Sandwiches:

• 2 cups coarsely grated carrots
• 2 cups coarsely grated peeled daikon (Japanese white radish)**
• 1/4 cup unseasoned rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon Asian sesame oil
• 4 10-inch-long individual baguettes or four 10-inch-long pieces French-bread baguette (cut from 2 baguettes)
• Thinly sliced jalapeño chiles
• 16 large fresh cilantro sprigs

PREPARATION


Hot Chili Mayo:
Stir all ingredients in small bowl. Season with salt. do ahead Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill.
Meatballs:
Line rimmed baking sheet with plastic wrap. Gently mix all ingredients in large bowl. Using moistened hands and scant tablespoonful for each, roll meat mixture into 1-inch meatballs. Arrange on baking sheet. DO AHEAD Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill.
Sandwiches:
Toss first 5 ingredients in medium bowl. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour, tossing occasionally.
Preheat oven to 300°F. Heat sesame oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add half of meatballs. Sauté until brown and cooked through, turning meatballs often and lowering heat if browning too quickly, about 15 minutes. Transfer meatballs to another rimmed baking sheet. Place in oven. Repeat with remaining meatballs.
Cut each baguette or baguette piece horizontally in half. Pull out enough bread from each bread half to leave 1/2-inch-thick shell. Spread hot chili mayo over each bread shell. Arrange jalapeños, then cilantro, in bottom halves. Fill each with 1/4 of meatballs. Drain pickled vegetables; place atop meatballs. Press on baguette tops.
*Available in the Asian foods section of many supermarkets and at Asian markets.
**Available at some supermarkets and at Asian markets.

More Globetrotting Breads! BBA French Bread & Italian Bread

The more that I bake from the Bread Baker's Apprentice, the more completely I fall in love with making my own bread, and the happier I am about this bread baking challenge.  I always knew that you could make a really nice loaf of bread at home. I even knew that this loaf of bread would be better than the bread that you get at the store. But, there were certain breads that should never be attempted at home, these breads you had to get from a baker. In my family, French bread has always been the holy grail of bread. We nearly always had (have) a loaf of French bread with dinner because my dad loves his "pain," as he likes to say. This idea that you buy French bread at the bakery is so firmly planted in my mind that I was a bit nervous to try the French bread out.

Is French bread supposed to have holes inside? I don't think it is, but mine did. I suspect that this is because I didn't degas the dough enough? Or maybe it over proofed? I know there's an answer in the book, but I can't bring myself to get too worked up about it. You see, these were some great loaves of French bread! I couldn't believe they came out of my own kitchen. They were splintery hard on the outside, and tender on the inside; in short, this was fabulous bread. I figure if the bread that I made in my ancient oven that does.not.like to come up to 500 degrees even for a minute was this good, that this is a recipe for great French bread. The base of the dough is a pate fermente that is comprised of AP flour and bread flour mixed with water, salt, and yeast. This rises like a regular dough, is punched down, and rests in the fridge at least over night. Apparently this little ball of dough is responsible for the fabulous flavor and texture of this bread (well, that and the whole psuedo hearth baking thing). At any rate, this is a fabulous bread and I will definitely make it again. Note:  the recipe makes three loaves of bread . . . but Dudley & I devoured one loaf fresh from the oven.

Next up is Italian bread, the softer, more versatile friend of French bread. It's still a hearth bread, but this time with feeling. Italian bread gets its wonderful personality from a biga starter and the addition of some barley malt. If you're interested in barley malt or non-diastatic malt powder. If you're interested in what this does to bread, do a Google search because I won't be discussing it here. I'll tell you what I know, barley malt imparts flavor to breads and is called for in recipes for bagels and Italian bread. Also, barley malt syrup is ridiculously sticky; like, oh my gosh this is stickier and thicker than molasses sticky. So there. The Italian bread was another bread that I thought would be difficult but ended up being simple to make. As you might see in the picture, I need to work on my slashing technique, and I will, because I take slashing very seriously. I'd like to be an expert slasher someday.

If you know anything about Italian bread, you know it likes to party. Italian bread is great on its own, but it's also a great base for things like garlic bread and sandwiches. I made one loaf and 5 rolls, more party for me. I knew I wanted to make the rolls for some yummy sandwiches (to be posted soon). I loved the Italian bread, but I think French bread beats it. For anyone who cares to know, here are my top 3 BBA breads at this point:  1) ciabatta 2) French bread 3) Italian bread. Hmmm, methinks I like hearth breads!

Oh, and Italian bread likes to party, yes, but it has a serious side, too. That's why it can hang with the likes of Shakespeare and Dickens, as seen in the photo. I didn't pose the books with the bread, they were there, I was lazy, and, thus, the bread and the books get to party together in these pictures. 

TWD: Chocolate Oatmeal Almost Candy Bars

When I was little, my mom kept things pretty healthy around our house. We weren't allowed to eat things that we got to have at our friend's houses. I was obsessed with Tang and Sunny Delight until I tasted them, and I vividly remember asking for Apple Jacks for breakfast at my friend's house one morning, taking one bite, and realizing that this was not the stuff of my dreams. My friend's very nice and patient mother quickly realized this and gave me a bowl of Raisin Bran instead. We were only allowed to have candy in our Easter baskets and Halloween pumpkin buckets, other than those occasions you didn't find candy in our house. Of course, when I was little I thought I was an extremely deprived child. I could never, ever understand why I didn't get Hostess cupcakes in my lunch like other kids did. Now, however, I realize just what sort of a good job my mom did. We had dessert, it's just that our desserts weren't featured on Saturday morning commercials in between cartoons. These chocolate oatmeal "almost" candy bars seem like a dessert that my mom would have made and we would have devoured. And, yes, I would still have thought myself a deprived child because it wasn't a real candy bar . . . my poor mother. It's a wonder she still likes me. 

I thought these bars were really quite simple to put together; yes, there are a few dirty dishes but nothing major. In my head, I have decided that 9x13" pans are most definitely not for singletons, at least they're not for this Singleton, so I made half of the recipe in an 8x8" pan. I kept the peanuts in all layers and left the raisins out of the chocolate layer. And, let me just tell you, these are some seriously tasty bars. I wasn't excited at all about making them. I thought they were going to be crisp and really, really sweet. I was so wrong. The oatmeal layer and the peanuts really balance out the sweetness of the chocolate, and these bars are such a good, chewy treat. I loved them, and I ate way too many of these little squares! I'd have a little square, and then another little square . . . these "almost" candy bars are probably one of my favorite TWD's to date. I will definitely make them again, but only when I know that I'm going to get rid of these treats before I can devour them right away. Thank you, Lillian, for choosing such a wonderful recipe this week. You can head over to her blog, Confectiona's Realm, if you'd like the recipe.

Sweet Melissa Sundays: Lemon Pecan Sour Cream Poundcake

I love lemons. They're yellow, they're cheerful, they're lovely. Just looking at lemons makes me smile. I love the way that they smell, I love lemonade, perhaps a bit too much, I love lemon on my chicken. But oh my goodness, lemon desserts are perhaps some of the only sweet things that just really make me feel a little bit queasy. I don't have an explanation for this oddity (and it's odd -- I have a serious sweet tooth), and I certainly go back to the well each and every time I lemon dessert is served to me. Usually after dinner I'm clamoring for dessert, and I'm often desperate enough to think that lemon sweetness is better than none at all. Just one bite, though, is enough to make me set my fork down and push my plate away.

Any time one of my baking groups picks a lemon dessert my brain immediately starts pondering who's going to eat this. Not Dudley, that's 100% certain. That kiddo doesn't even like a lemon on the edge of his water glass. Luckily, I happen to know many people who love lemon desserts -- the tarter the better. Poundcakes are sturdy enough to make it through the mail unscathed, and let's just say that these little cakes are headed south for the winter.

For this cake, I used Meyer lemons because I had quite a few in my kitchen. Walnuts are . . . not my favorite nut; I generally don't buy them, so I subbed pecans for the walnuts in this recipe. I made 2 mini cakes to spread the poundcake love just a bit more. Other than that, I made this recipe exactly as written. I always think it's a litte difficult to time minis, so I checked on these frequently after 35 minutes in the oven. They ended up baking for about 50 minutes, and I was a little bummed that the edges got so dark while the inside was trying to finish baking. I wonder if tenting the cakes would help slow that darkening process? I tried to make sure that I put quite a bit of glaze on the edges in an effort to make sure that the cake was moist the whole way through. I haven't tasted this cake, so I don't have any pictures of the inside or flavor feedback here. Right now these cakes are wrapped up and resting up in my freezer for their upcoming trip through the mail.

The Baked Lemon Lemon Loaf is my go-to lemon poundcake recipe for the lovers of lemon in my life -- and they all rave about that cake. I'm excited to hear how this cake compares to the Baked loaf as the recipes have similar ingredients. Raeann of Basically, Baby Boots chose this recipe. I thought it was a fun cake to make and bake, you can head over to her blog for the recipe.

CEiMB: Caramelized Onion & Goat Cheese "Pizza"

I really think pizza needs to be in quotation marks for this recipe. It is a pizza? That's up for debate, but it's delicious, so who cares? I don't really care what it's called because this is a splendid lunch. I've been complaining a lot about lunch lately. I get really bored with lunch options, I don't like leftovers, and I generally end up eating cereal and an apple and feeling rather discontent. My solution to this has been to make some bean and rice burritos with whole wheat tortillas, but this pizza is an awesome addition to my lunch rotation.

This "pizza" is supposed to be composed of caramelized onions, arugula, and goat cheese. As you can see, my "pizza" is minus the leafy greens. This wasn't intentional, it's just that I've forgotten to pick up spinach and/or arugula on each of my trips to the grocery store. I really wanted to make this recipe, and I would have personally loved just the onions and the goat cheese, but the whole point of pizza is being able to change up the toppings, right? I have a fridge full of veggies right now so I added some sliced sweet bell peppers and some sliced sugar snap peas. I know the sugar snaps are sort of odd, but I was feeling the need for green on the pizza, and my choices were sugar snaps or romaine lettuce. I do know some people who like their romaine lettuce hot, but I'm not one of them (makes me gag a little thinking about it). Sugar snap peas, though, had some potential, so I thinly sliced a few and sprinkled them on top of the tortilla. Verdict:  seriously good. I love the extra crunch that the peppers and snap peas added to this pizza. I love goat cheese (any cheese, really) so I probably could've put the romaine on this tortilla and as long as the goat cheese was there, I'd have happily eaten it. I also sprinkled some fresh basil on top as I have some lounging in my fridge right now.

 This pizza is SO good. I loved eating it for lunch, and I think it will definitely become part of my lunch rotation. If I ever remember to pick up the proper leafy greens at the store, I may even try it as it was intended, without the willy nilly veggie substitutions. Thanks to Maria of Half Meatball Half Matzoh Ball Children for such a great pick this week! If you'd like to check out the recipe, you can visit her blog.

Dan Lepard's Hot Crust Sausage Roll

When I started this blog, I created it solely for the purposes of communicating with my family. I kept it private, and I had it set to function as sort of a group email that would send out to family members when I posted. The idea of communicating with strangers -- strange bloggy internet-type people -- was really unsettling and odd to me. Someone I didn't know reading a blog about me? Not ok, in fact, downright scary. Don't get me wrong, I generally like people and I'm not some sort of misanthrope; however, I'm not the person who's going to sit next to you on the airplane and tell you my life story. I'm the person who's going to sit down and bury her head in a book and hope like crazy that you don't try to talk to me for the whole entire flight. I was pretty sure that nothing good could come from communicating with total strangers on the internet, but I was wrong. In fact, this these "strangers" on the internet are a wealth of information on all things food related. It's actually really cool to have a subset of friends who share your interest. When I think about it, most of my friends are friends because we share common experiences:  we grew up together, we went to college together, or we go to school together. I love my friends, but I think it is so cool through this thing called the internet, people with like minds can communicate. Now I know bloggers of all ages in different places who happen to be the best resource ever for all things food related. Case in point:  a year ago I had no idea who Dan Lepard was. Dan Lepard? Isn't that an 80's heavy metal band? Now, thanks to bloggers like Nancy, I know that Dan Lepard is an amazing British baker, and he writes a "How to Bake" column for The Guardian.

 

The Bread Baker's Apprentice generally keeps me in bread, and Tuesdays With Dorie keeps me in desserts, so I haven't had many chances to use Dan Lepard's recipes. I have quite a few bookmarked, and eventually I'll get to make them (I think I may be the very last person who has yet to bake the famous Milk Loaf). When I saw this recipe for Hot Crust Sausage Roll I was so excited. This was something I could make for dinner, and I'd finally have a chance to see what all of the Dan Lepard fuss was about. I think I bookmarked this recipe in October, but I finally got a chance to make the sausage rolls this week. Withour further ado, here is the recipe (read on for my changes and notes):

Hot Sausage Rolls

by Dan Lepard

250g plain flour, plus more for rolling
1 tsp chilli flakes
3 tsp paprika, not the hot one
1 tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder
225g ice-cold unsalted butter cut into 1cm cubes
175ml cold milk
500g sausages, any sort
1 medium onion, very finely chopped
1 handful chopped parsley
1 beaten egg
Mix the flour, chilli, paprika, salt, baking powder and butter in a bowl, then stir in the milk to make a lumpy dough. Using lots of flour, roll this to 30cm across, then fold it in by thirds, roll again, fold again and chill for 30 minutes. Repeat twice more at half-hourly intervals.
Strip the sausages of their casings, and mix the meat with the onion and parsley. Roll the dough to about 30cm by 45cm and cut into three 30cm by 15cm strips. Divide the meat into three, roll each piece into a stick about 30cm long, and lay one in the centre of each dough strip. Fold the dough around the meat, to enclose the filling, and seal with water.
Press each roll flattish, cut it into pieces and place seam-side down on an oven tray lined with baking paper. Brush with egg, slash the top and bake at 200C (180C fan-assisted) /400F/gas mark 6 for 40 minutes if they're large, less if they're small.

When a recipe calls for this much butter, I generally don't see much sense in trying to make it healthier but I still tried a bit.

• I used 50 g of white whole wheat flour. I was slightly concerned about making this substitution because the dough is very obviously a pastry-type dough, but the nice thing about cooking for one is that you don't have to worry as much about experimenting. I thought it might add some extra flavor to the dough. The substitution worked really well, it wasn't noticeable at all, and next time I think I'll push my luck again and try 100 g white whole wheat. 
• The dough is flavored with red pepper flakes and paprika. This is the first time I've ever thought about flavoring a pastry type of dough, but I love it! I'd love to try it with other herbs and spices -- maybe black pepper or thyme? It seems that the options are endless. 
• I used 1% milk because that's what I had and it worked out just fine. 
• You really will need a lot of flour as you're rolling this dough out. It starts out a sticky sort of globbish mess, but it ends up a lovely, lovely pastry dough. If you know how much I love rolling out dough, then you can probably guess that I had a blast with this recipe. There's quite a bit of rolling and chilling, but I loved watching the dough transform. 
  
• I had a hard time trying to understand just how to cut and form the dough. The three pieces of dough seemed really big, so I ended up making 6 squares with my pastry instead of the three rectangles that the recipe describes. 
• Because I was using the precooked chicken sausage, I sliced and precooked my onions as well. I really don't like the flavor of onion in anything unless it's a caramelized onion, so I preferred the extra step here. 
• The original recipe calls for uncooked sausage and uncooked, finely diced onion. Even with my precooked ingredients, I still had some "leakage" from my pockets. This was fine and it didn't hurt the final result, but it made me wonder about how much leakage would occur with the uncooked ingredients.
  
• That said, this moisture is essential to the finished product. I had to really, really restrain myself when I was putting these together because it was my instinct to add some cheese to these little pockets. I had to keep reminding myself how much butter is in the dough and that these would probably be unbearably rich with cheese added. When I looked at them precooked, they looked so dry and unappealing. When they cook, though, they steam and the result is a very moist, tender, flaky, savory little pocket of goodness. The moisture from the ingredients is essential, so I'd caution against overcooking the onions if you are inclined to precook them. 

So, the verdict on these little pockets? They're absolutely delicious. The crust is tender and flaky and soooo good! I think that this is such a versatile recipe, and I can't wait to try out different variations of flavors in this recipe. For anyone thinking ahead to the Super Bowl, I think that this has some potential for a Super Bowl snack. I also think that you can make the dough a couple of days ahead of time, wrap it in plastic, and use it when you're ready. Now that I've finally gotten to try a Dan Lepard recipe, I'm ready to try some more!

TWD: Mrs. Vogel's Scherben

I was really excited when I saw that Teanna, of Spork or Foon, chose Mrs. Vogel's Scherben this week. You know how some books seem to tend to open to certain pages? Well, my copy of BFMHTY opens to the picture of these scherben all of the time. They're so homey looking, and the picture reminds me of the Swedish rosettes that my great-grandmother used to make when I was little. I have (had) an open ban on deep frying in my kitchen (not that I won't eat fried foods, but for the mess and the smell, I'd prefer not to eat them in my house), so I was always a little apprehensive about this treat, too.

I really liked making these treats. The whole wooden spoon creaming of a tiny amount of butter and sugar threw me off at the beginning, but the result is a supple dough that's really fun to work with. Have I mentioned before how much I love rolling out dough? I love it. I would roll out dough all day long and be very happy -- it soothes me. I'd especially love to roll out this dough all day long because it's a really nice dough to work with. Really, for all of the fuss about deep frying (and I had quite a conversation with myself about whether or not to deep fry), these are a pretty simple treat to make. The only trouble I had was regulating the temperature of my oil. It climbed to 350 and then kept going, so I immediately freaked out and turned down the heat as I was adding my first batch of dough. Well, it's one thing to read or hear that the oil temperature will drop when you add the ingredients to be fried, but it's another thing to remember it in practice. The combination of lowering the heat on the oil plus the scherben sent my oil temperature plummeting, and then I had to get it back up again. By the end of frying the scherben, though, I had it fairly figured out, and frying the dough was pretty quick and painless.

In the end, these treats remind me a lot of other fried dough sweets:  sopapillas, beignets, and funnel cakes. I ate some and enjoyed them, but a few scherben are quite enough for me. Dudley, on the other hand, LOVED these -- he couldn't get enough of them. He paid these little fried treats one of the highest compliments I've ever heard him use. In Dudley's words, scherben are "a delicious gift to the world that I get to eat." He devoured a plate of these, and he was very sad to hear that there weren't any more. He said he could eat 1.2 million of these little fried treats. So, thank you, Teanna, for picking the scherben. I had a blast making them and they were most appreciated at my house! If you'd like the recipe for these little goodies, you can check out Spork or Foon. Teanna's blog is a favorite of mine. She's super adventurous in the kitchen, takes lovely pictures of delicious looking food, and the blog is so much fun to read.

TWD: 2nd Anniversary Cocoa Buttermilk Birthday Cake

Wow -- the Tuesdays with Dorie group is 2 years old (if you want to read about how it started, you can click here). I've only been participating for the past 14-15 months, but it's amazing how much fun I have baking through Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home to Yours on a weekly (errr . . . sometimes not so much lately, sorry!) basis. The book is the most amazing compendium of recipes for baked goods that I've ever come across. It's gorgeous and the recipes are perfect; I really can't say enough wonderful things about this cookbook. Really, though, the best part is baking through the book in this group. I seem to measure my weeks by the TWD recipes that are due, and before I know it another month's recipes are out. Many of the highlights of my first winter away from balmy Houston (one year ago today it was 83 degrees there) have to do with TWD recipes. If you'd asked me 2 years ago if I'd be a member of an online baking club, I'd have given you a horrified look and said most certainly, absolutely, definitely not. Jamais.

We were given the option of baking the cocoa buttermilk birthday cake or the tarte tatin this week. I was asked to bring dessert on New Year's Eve (HOORAY for baking for large groups of people!!! No minis necessary) and I knew that I'd bring the chocolate cake. I wanted to bring the tarte tatin, too, but the 1 hour window of serving time tripped me up. So, this week it's just the cocoa buttermilk birthday cake; never fear, my dad loves tarte tatin, and I'm definitely making it for him someday soon. 

I made the cake exactly as written -- I didn't stray from the recipe one teensy little bit. I also made the suggested chocolate malt frosting to go with the cake, and it's delicious. The cake is super simple to make, and the frosting isn't complicated either. I knew that I wanted some sort of fancy decorations (as fancy as I could manage) because it was going to be our New Year's Eve dessert. I settled on stars because I knew that I'd be able to print them and make chocolate stars pretty easily. I was most worried about tempering the chocolate, and I managed to do it. What a relief. The cake made it over to the party and was properly flourished; it survived rain and jumping dogs. To keep it safe we put it in a high place in the kitchen, and wouldn't you know it, heat rises and the kitchen was very warm -- those stars melted. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the melted stars because it was devoured just the same!

 

 

And, the verdict on this cake? It's everything Dorie promises it should, and will, be:  a homey, chocolate birthday cake. This cake is comforting to make and to eat. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and commented on how good it was. Dudley really, really loved this cake and he was sad when it was all gone. I liked it, but the Devils Food White Out Cake (aka the "cover cake") is my pick for best chocolate cake. The nice thing about the cake is that it isn't overwhelmingly chocolaty. I think in a world of death by chocolate desserts, it's nice to have some subtlty every once in awhile. 

Sweet Melissa Sundays

I haven't participated in Sweet Melissa Sundays in a month of Sundays! It feels like forever since I've baked along with this group, and I think that's a combination of my very hectic month of December and the fact that the group took a break for the last part of the month. To kick off the new year, Jeanette, of the Whimsical Cupcake, chose chocolate creme caramels. Now, the last Sweet Melissa Sundays I participated in was the butter toffee crunch and it didn't work out very well. I tried to make it again over the holidays and it was a little bit better . . . but not much. I had convinced myself that I just don't have a knack for candy making, and I was, to put it mildly, pretty nervous about making these caramels. In an effort to avoid a great loss of ingredients, I made 1/4 of a recipe, and lo and behold -- it worked!

These actually couldn't be simpler, and the only tricky business is waiting, waiting, waiting, and stirring, stirring, stirring while you wait for the sugar, corn syrup, cream, and honey mixture to come up to temperature. When the mixture comes up to 248 degrees you quickly add the chocolate, and then my mixture dropped back down to 235 degrees again. I was prepared to wait for a bit to have the temperature come up, but when I looked down again it was already at 258 degrees -- that's 8 degrees past the prescribed temperature. I was mildly stressed that I'd ruined another batch of candy, but it didn't smell scorched and I poured it into a mini loaf tin and set it outside to chill (yes, it's easier to chill things outside right now! It reminds me of my brother when he was at the University of Chicago:  he used to hang his leftovers from the window of his dorm room when he didn't have enough room in his little fridge!).

I couldn't believe how tasty these were. I had a blast cutting them up and wrapping them, though I suspect that's because I didn't have too many to wrap up. My caramels are much softer than a kraft caramel, and I'm not sure if they're supposed to be harder? I do love them, though, and I have every intention of making both this version and the plain honey version again soon. I also think I might be able to make these gingerbread caramels, which I've been dying to make, but I was worried I'd have a "fail" on my hands. Thanks, Jeanette, for such a great pick! I would never, ever have made these on my own, but I'm so glad I did! If you'd like the recipe, please visit Jeanette's blog, the Whimsical Cupcake. And if you're trying to figure out what to do with leftover caramels, these Rocky Ledge Bars are great.