Winter Skies, Kitchen Aglow

On a cool autumn's morning, there are few more comforts than hearing rain outside as you are bundled up in the warmth of your home. What amplifies this warmth and joy-making is baking bread. You will all know the delights of freshly-baked bread, so I hardly need be too detailed to convince you to bake a loaf or two (even those who are gluten-intolerant may have gorgeous associations with bread baking, and I know of some clever ones that have found ways of adapting bread receipes so that they do not have to miss out).

Personally, I prefer breads with a developed taste. To get this more nuanced flavour, you need to make a starter, whether it be a sponge, poolish, biga or old dough. Not only do starters give great depth to the taste of your bread, they add to the texture of it - adding both airiness and heft. In some Italian breads, a biga is used - this is a quickly kneaded starter that ferments for the better part of a day. It is then added to the rest of the bread ingredients. As the word "starter" indicates, the biga needs at least 12 hours before it can be used.

For today's recipe, a bread that is commonly made in Puglia, Italy, the biga needs to be made at least 15 hours before baking.

Pan Pugliese
(from Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's Home Baking: The Artful Mix of Flour and Traditions from Around the World)

For the biga:

1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 cup all-purpose flour

1) Dissolve the yeast in the water.
2) Add flour and stir to combine.
3) Knead briefly in a bowl until a soft dough has been formed.
4) Cover the bowl with cling-film, and let stand at room temperature for 12-24 hours (or for up to three days in the fridge).

For the bread:
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
3 cups lukewarm water
biga, as above
5-6 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
1 cup wholewheat flour (or wholewheat pastry flour)

1) In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in water.
2) Cut biga into 5 pieces and stir into the water, breaking it up with a spoon, loosening it (practically to the extent of dissolving it, but this is not fully achievable).
3) Stir in one cup of all-purpose flour and the salt.
4) Add wholewheat flour, stirring to combine, then add three more cups of all-purpose, one cup at a time, and stirring all the while.
5) Keep one hand dry and one hand wet with warm water for stps 6-. Stir the dough with your wet hand, manoeuvre it like a paddle and turn the dough around on itself, like figure 8s.
6) Add another cup of all-purpose flour with your dry hand. Stir and mix with wet hand for 3-5 minutes, keeping an eye on the consistency, which should be wet but clinging together. If the dough is too liquid, add another 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour and continue stirring.
7) Cover the bowl with cling-film and let the dough stand for at least 3 hours (even overnight). It will rise a bit but will not double in volume.
8) Preheat oven to 250 C/500 F and do not open oven door until 20 minutes after oven has reached this temperature. Place a baking sheet on the lower rack.
9) Open oven door. With wet hands, break dough in half, shape into a mound (tucking edges underneath to smooth out and tighten the surface), then drop onto baking sheet.
10) Decrease temperature to 225 C/450 F after ten minutes.
11) All to bake for a further 20-25 minutes, until bread is well browned (it will also sound hollow when you tap the base).
12) Raise temperature to 250 C/500 F before baking other half of the dough.
13) Let cool for thirty minutes before slicing.

Some breads freeze really well, so you can always pull a pre-baked loaf out the freezer the night before and defrost it on the counter overnight. Some wet breads, though, do not freeze well, for their crusts can become quite tough and tear away as they are sliced, which is the case of today's Pan Pugliese.

This is a bread best eaten the day it has come out of the oven (or even the next day). And who can resist freshly baked bread?

Labels: Bread, Italian, Puglia

The breaking of bread marks the beginning of many traditional meals. Though one is oft laden with back-breaking stress at this time of year, we sometimes lose sight of the simple fact that traditional meals mark occasions. The one that we - as in, the human race - commonly share is that of the New Year (though it occurs at different times depending on the calendar one follows), but within cultural divisions, there are celebrations of puberty rites, Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Eid, engagements...What about theses? Though I do not intend to make a tradition out of writing academic documents, I do intend to mark this singular occasion with the breaking of bread: challah (or challot in this case, for I made three loaves).

Challah is a bread that I truly love but have not had for a while as it does not seem to be sold in New Zealand bakeries, presumably on account of the small Jewish representation in the Kiwi population. Technically, challah refers to a "portion" of bread that is to be kept aside to represent the manna that aided the Israelites during 40 years after the Exodus from Egypt. It is a payment of tithe (tax levy) to the kohen (Jewish priesthood). Actually, there are debates within Judaism about the contemporary legitimacy of tithe, so I am going to quit while I'm ahead, for the purpose of mentioning it in the first place was only to refer to the origins of naming the bread.

Challah is probably as recognisable as baguette, for its most common formation is in a three-strand braid. It looks lovely when it has been executed well. As you can see from my "effort," I need to make a few more loaves in order to perfect the technique of braiding. Let's blame it on post-thesis trauma that I could not remember how to braid. In case you have forgotten, line up your three strands and pinch them together at the top. Pull the left strand over the centre strand, then the right one over the centre strand (which is now the left strand that was pulled over) and repeat.

There seems to be a proliferation of food bloggers' attempts at recipes from Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's Home Baking: The Artful Mix of Flour and Traditions from Around the World. I also have this interesting book and have decided to take my first directions for making challah from it. The recipe yields three loaves. Do not be concerned if you do not use all of the flour, for you might not need all 2 1/2 cups suggested for the kneading process (a lot is called for as it is quite sticky), but absorption depends on the age of your flour and on the weather conditions prevailing on the day you make challah.

Challah
(from Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's Home Baking: The Artful Mix of Flour and Traditions from Around the World)

2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 1/2 cups lukewarm water
5 1/2 to 7 cups all-purpose flour
3 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1/3 to 1/2 cup mild vegetable oil
egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water)

1) In a large bowl, stir yeast into the warm water until dissolved.
2) Stir in two cups of the flour until a smooth batter has been formed.
3) Cover with cling-film and let rest at room temperature for 2 hours, by which time the batter should be frothy.
4) Stir eggs, sugar, salt and oil into the batter.
5) Stir in 2 1/2 cups of flour in 1/2 cup increments. Ensure smoothness after each addition.
6) Add an additional 1/2 cup of flour, which is to be folded in. There is no explanation as to why it is folded instead of stirred in until smooth, but I suspect this is to aid in making it a little less sticky when it is first tumbled out for kneading.
7) Sprinkle flour on a cold surface and knead the bread, which is to say that you fold the dough over on itself, flatten it, then repeat. This creates a firm yet elastic texture that aids the dough in rising. You will need to add sprinklings of flour to your hands, the dough and the surface during this process, until you have a very smooth dough.
8) Place dough in a well-oiled bowl and cover with cling-film. Leave for 6 hours or overnight. The authors don't tell you what to expect when you come back after leaving the dough overnight. You can imagine my fright when I saw what is pictured on your left. I guess enough carbon dioxide was given off by the yeast over night. This was a very active dough indeed. I decided not to throw it out in despair and was surprised at how well the dough pulled together when I gathered it into a ball before putting it on a lightly floured surface.
9) Divide the ball into three equal portions.
10) Take one portion of dough and divide it into three parts. Roll each of these three parts out to form strands, approximately 46cm/20" long, tapering at both ends.
11) Pinch together at top end and braid per instructions above. Tuck ends underneath.
12) Place bread on a baking sheet and cover with cling-film.
13) Repeat with the other two portions of dough.
14) Let the loaves of bread rise for 45 minutes to one hour.
15) Preheat oven to 190 C/375 F.
16) Just before baking, brush egg wash on the loaves.
17) Place bread on lower third rack in the oven and bake for 15 minutes.
18) Brush egg wash on the loaves again, and turn oven down to 177 C/350 F.
19) Bake for a further 20-25 mintues. The loaves should sound hollow when rapped.
20) Place loaves on a rack and let cool for approximately 20 minutes before slicing.

This is a slightly sweet bread, especially the crust. I found that the inner layers still had a bit of a tang, but I suspect my yeast was overactive, which you can see in the little bumps that formed on the crust in the photo that introduces this post. I love seeing the tension in the crust; it makes the bread look like strands of rope. The texture of the interior is incredibly light and fluffy. It reminds me of French pastry in the way the layers separate like leaves of paper.

I enjoyed breaking from the thesis with challah. I froze two loaves once they had completely cooled...the other one was gone in no time.

Labels: Bread, Challah, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

One year has passed since I first started this blog. What originally began as an exercise in both relaxtion and avoidance became a serious hobby and a marker of my evolution in the kitchen. Although this year started off well, the move back to New Zealand saw fewer forays into the kitchen. My interest, however, never dulled. Always amongst the works of theoretical investigation I am doing for my Master's thesis are a mix of single-subject (usually dense, often referred to as "scholarly") and favourite cookery books (the two are not mutually exclusive, of course). If I don't have the time to cook, I am often thinking of cooking during any future moment of "free" time.

Cooking has become an integral part of my life, an outlet through which I assert and explore my identity. It is a way of expressing facets of my personality as it is a way to share, enquire, and comfort. While my exploration is still nascent, I have come to understand how my palate works, what excites me (for now, as I understand that the palate lives and is constantly changing), and some of the principles of cookery. I am emboldened by the realisation that this is a life-long discovery.

Because writing is a component of this blog, it, too, is an exploration, principally of style, tone and focus. Perhaps it is the social scientist in me that values empiricism expressed through contextualisation, but I am as much inspired by the written words of cookery book authors as I am by singular recipes. My own writing is neither erudite nor fully-formed, but it is enhanced and driven to be more precise by those writers who best marry fact, history and other observations of social phenomena through the expression of carefully chosen recipes. I hope to one day match their enthusiasm and knowledge, a desire I didn't know existed in me before I started this blog. If you're interested to know, my favourite posts of the year, limited to only three, are: Egyptian Feast, my first Weekend Cookbook Challenge for which I made Cornish Hens stuffed with Bulgur, Raisins and Pine Nuts, Okra with Garlic and Ginger, and Almond Fingers; Thanksgiving, for which I made Roasted Root Vegetables with Honey, Balsamic Vinegar and Goat Cheese and Pumpkin Pie and Candied Pepitas served with Dried Fig and Coffee Ice Cream; and Feijoa Curd.

On this anniversary of my first year as a food blogger, I am happy to share a recipe that was passed on to me by my darling friend and mentor in politics, the intellectually-ferocious and generous Anita, who, in turn, was taught this recipe at the side of her German grandfather. Not only is this perfect for afternoon tea on any day in Summer or Autumn, but it is a wink to my first post for which I used a plum hybrid: Dapple-Dandy Pluot Tart.

Pflaumenkuchen is translated to "plum cake" in English, yet the base for this particular recipe, a doughnut-like sponge, requires yeast and the result is more reminiscent of bread. Tart plums are best for this, to offset and add interest to the sweet base, but which is further enhanced at the end with a dusting of sugar and cinnamon. I decided not to use damsons because, if childhood memory serves me right, the pits require a lot of time to extricate. Also, I didn't see any at the market, perhaps because they come out in the late Fall. I decided on red-skinned, orange-fleshed Pipestone plums. Also, if your baking tray (sheet pan) is not of the same dimensions, a bigger one will only yield a thinner base, which is what you may prefer - just make sure you have enough plums.

Pflaumenkuchen

4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted, plus more for kneading
1 oz/30g fresh yeast or 1/3oz/10g active dried yeast
8 tablespoons sugar, divided use
1 cup milk
1/3 cup/75g unsalted butter, melted
1 egg
1 pinch salt
3 pounds/1.3kg medium-sized plums
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1) Put the flour into a large bowl and create a well in the centre.
2) Crumble fresh yeast or active dried yeast that has been stirred into 1/2 cup of tepid water into the well and stir into the flour, pulling from the sides of the well, with 1 tablepoon of sugar and the milk. Though the ingredients should come together, the resultant mixture should look quite wet.
3) Cover and let rise in a warm place for 20 minutes.
4) Mix in 3 tablespoons sugar, melted butter, egg and salt.
5) Knead with floured hands until the dough is pulling away from the side of the bowl. I almost used an extra cup of flour until I got a dough that was smooth. The kneading process took about 10 minutes.
6) Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, approximately 25 minutes.
7) Prepare the plums by cutting them lengthwise and pitting. With a paring knife you can smooth out the groove in which the pit sat, but I like to see the indentations it leaves behind. Cut each plum half so that they open up like a book, that is to say, make a hinge.
8) Grease a baking tray, about 11 3/4" by 15" (30cm by 38cm).
9) Preheat oven to 425F/ 220C.
10) Remove yeast dough from bowl, knead once or twice, and roll out on a baking tray with a floured rolling pin.
11) Place plums on dough in close rows, pressing slightly into the dough.
12) Let rise for 15 minutes.
13) Bake for 20-25 minutes until slightly golden on top and juices are running from the plums.
14) Mix 4 tablespoons of sugar and cinnamon and use as much of this mixture as you prefer to sprinle over the still-hot pflaumenkuchen.

I love the pink stain left behind by the red skin of the plums, and I love the rich and round flavour of baked plums. As mentioned above, the dough is doughnut-like, spongey and sweet, but not cloyingly so. Cinnamon and baked plums are a match made in heaven. This is perfection on its own but enhanced with the bitter caramel edges of an espresso.

Post script See Pille's plum cake, Lihtne Ploomikook, using Emma Leppermann plums.

Labels: Afternoon Tea, Bread, Cake, German, Plums

Some time last weekend, in between long stints in front of the computer formulating sentences as I was making sense of my readings for the theory chapter of my Master's thesis, I tried to make flatbread. My longtime friend, uproarious glamour queen Julie, invited me over for a night of relaxation: raspberry daiquiris, "nibbles", and good, old-fashioned bantering and chattering. I didn't want to turn up empty-handed and decided that finger food was going to come in the form of mezze. Well, the flatbread didn't work out then (I had an amount of flour by weight when I didn't have a scale, and more yeast was needed), so I tossed the idea of making all the mezze dishes on my own out the window. I didn't have time to look at what I did wrong and just decided to cut my losses.

But I have one of those inquiring minds, even when it is overloaded. I cannot say that I did exhaustive research, but what I can say is that with more information about flatbreads, I felt comfortable enough to embark on my own path. Of course, this is quite a basic bread to make. I know that baking bread is a combination of chemistry, weather, and feel, to name a few contributing factors to a successful product. In addition to the niggling query I had, I was fuelled by the Daring Bakers' bagel exercise (feel free to read my friends' posts: Jasmine at Confessions of a Cardamom Addict, Freya at Writing At the Kitchen Table, Ivonne at Cream Puffs in Venice, Kelly-Jane at Cooking the Books, Pille at Nami-Nami, and Sara at i like to cook) and Bruno's baguettes at brunosdream.

I knew that I was successful as soon as the bread wasn't becoming stickier but smoother (the opposite of what happened last weekend). Reconfirmation came when I punched the dough down after it had proved for an hour. It gave way like a marshmellow. The indentations of my knuckles left the appearance of slept-on memory foam. I knew from here on out that the bread would turn out well.

I am not going to offer any substitutes because my recipe is based on seven different recipes, which allow for too many variants should you want to diverge from my path. I understand that choice is a good thing, but I fear sending you down a misguided path on account of my inexperience. Keep extra warm water and flour at the ready in case you need them to: 1) create a firm and soft dough; 2) to stop the dough from being too sticky. This recipe makes 6 flatbreads.

Cumin Flatbread

For the bread:
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (you may end up needing more)
2 tablespoons active dry yeast
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons heavy/double cream
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/3 cups warm water (you may end up needing more)

For the glaze:
1 egg
1 teaspoon warm water
1 teaspoon heavy/double cream
1 tablespoon cumin seeds

1) Combine the flour, yeast, salt and ground cumin in a large bowl, then make a well.
2) Combine the cream, olive oil and water in a measuring cup.
3) Stir the dry ingredients into the centre with a wooden spoon as you slowly pour in the liquid. If, for some reason, a firm but soft dough is not being produced, add more warm water - only 1/8 cup at a time.
4) When you have a firm and soft dough, turn it out onto a foured surface.
5) Flour your hands.
6) Knead the dough, lightly adding more flour until you have a smooth and elastic dough. It took me about 7 minutes to get to this stage, but I understand it can take as long as 10 minutes.
7) Lightly oil a bowl.
8) Put the ball of dough into the oiled bowl, and roll it around so it, too, is oiled.
9) Cover the bowl with a tea towel and leave in a warm, though not draughty, place to rise to the desired lightness ("to prove") for one hour.
10) Punch the dough down then leave for 10 minutes.
11) Preheat the oven to 210 C/425 F.
12) To make six flatbreads, tear the dough into thirds, then each third in half.
13) To get the appearance of Jasmine's slipper, form each piece into an oval then roll flat with a lightly floured rolling pin on a lightly floured surface.
14) Place on baking sheets approximately 3cm/1.1" apart. Leave covered to proof again for 20 minutes. You may need more than one baking sheet, in which case you will have to bake in batches.
15) Using the back of a knife, cut a decorative design into the bread. I did a wave-like pattern so that I could break the bread more easily (by following the lines, I mean).
16) In a small bowl, beat together the ingredients for the glaze, except for the cumin seeds.
17) Brush the glaze onto the flatbreads just before baking and sprinkle with cumin seeds.
18) Bake for 8-10 minutes until the loaves are golden and slightly puffy, though cooked through.
19) Cover for a few minutes when they first come out so they don't get too crusty. (Thank you for tip Ms. Lawson, per How To Be A Domestic Goddess.)

The flatbread is chewy and easy to tear apart. The cumin is a comfort when the warmth of the bread is lukewarm, and it can support any mezze or zakusi plate with which you may want to pair this bread, for example: argan oil and dukkah, hummus bi tahini, muhammara, or charkhlis pkhali (a Georgian beetroot, coriander and walnut puree).

Labels: Bread, Cumin, Mezze

I cannot tell you how much I look forward to Easter every year only so I can eat these sweet buns. Even as a child I would choose to eat these over chocolate. Although there are many good commercial versions around, they are "seasonal", and I have eaten all the bags of buns I froze (!).



I cannot wait until Easter next year to have them again, so I decided to make my own, tradition be damned.

I am purposefully dipping into the Nigella pool this month, having long had all of her books but not made enough use of them. My source for hot cross buns is La Lawson's Feast: Food That Celebrates Life, a fabulous and densely-packed cookery book that covers appropriate dishes for festive celebrations, traditional, sentimental, and in-between. I only veered from her list of ingredients three times: I couldn't locate cardamom pods before making the buns, so I decided to forego them as an ingredient altogether (I have since found them!); in place of bread flour, which Ms. Lawson insists upon, I used all-purpose flour, adding an extra tablespoon per cup for the extra gluten; and I substituted icing sugar for superfine sugar.

Hot Cross Buns
(from Nigella Lawson's Feast: Food That Celebrates Life

For the dough:
2/3 cup milk
57g/2oz butter
zest of an orange
1 clove
3 cups and 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour (or 3 cups bread flour)
7.5g/1/4oz active dry yeast
3/4 cup mixed dried fruit (I used apple, pineapple, sultanas, apricot, and peach)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 egg

For the crosses:
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 tablespoon icing sugar
2 tablespoons water

For the glaze:
1 tablespoon icing sugar
1 tablespoon boiling water

The procedure seems long but no step is very difficult, unless you're a wuss when it comes to kneading (in which case I hope you have an electric mixer with a dough hook):

1) Heat the milk, butter, orange zest, and clove (and three split cardamom pods, if using) until scalding point. Take off the heat, cover, and leave to infuse. 2) Dump into a bowl and mix together the flour, yeast, dried fruit and spices, and stir together.
3) When the aromatic milk has cooled down to 37 C/98.6 F, take out the clove (and cardamom pods), beat in the egg, then mix into the dry ingredients.
4) On a floured surface knead the dough by hand, or in an electric mixer, knead with a dough hook. Stop when the dough is silky and like elastic, though it will not be entirely smooth because of the dried fruit (Ms. Lawson's logical input).
5) Form dough into a ball, then place it in a buttered bowl. You can cover it with cling-film and pop it in the fridge over night, or you can cover it with a kitchen towel and leave in a warm place for 1 - 1 1/2 hours.
6) Bring dough to room temperature if removing it from fridge.
7) Punch down the dough and knead on a floured surface until smooth and elastic, as before.
8) Make around sixteen buns. I did this by dividing the dough first into halves, each half into half again (quarters), then each quarter into half once more (eighths), and finally each eighth in half (sixteenths). Sorry for the lame math, but it is easier than figuring it out one-by-one and the resulting size of each ball is more or less equivalent.
9) Snugly fit the buns on a baking tray covered with parchment paper.
10) Preheat oven to 200 C/425 F.
11) With the back of knife, imprint a cross on each bun, cover with a kitchen towel, and leave to prove for 45 minutes.
12) Make an egg wash and brush the buns with it.

To make the crosses:
1) Make a smooth and thick paste by mixing together the flour, sugar, and water in a small bowl.
2) Use a spoon to dribble the paste into the cross-shaped indentations on the buns.

Bake the buns for 15-20 minutes. To ensure buns are baked, pierce a skewer or toothpick into the centre of a chosen bun, and if it comes out clean, the baking is done. The buns should be fragrant by then (the nose knows...).

To make the glaze:
1) Mix icing sugar and boiling water together, ensuring a smooth consistency.
2) Brush onto the hot buns, rendering them glossy and sweeter.

You cannot beat the aroma that comes out of the oven. The fluffy interior is alive with spicy, sweet goodness (the hint of ginger is always dizzying to me). They are incredible once cooled and reheated in the microwave, for they are more easily halved to be spread with the jam or preserves of your choice, but they are just amazing slathered with butter or eaten plain (as I often have them). After a few more attempts, my hot cross buns will look perfect for Easter 2008!

Labels: Bread, Buns, Easter, Holidays, Hot Cross Buns, Nigella Lawson