Eggy-Custardy-Cornbread

The Three layered cornbread in all it's glory

     

     After a very busy weekend full of un-baking related activities, I decided to have a baking/cooking marathon- extravaganza on Sunday evening.  Even though it had been a fairly sunny warm day, I was in the mood for chili and cornbread.    Native Americans used ground corn for food for thousands of years before Europeans "discovered" the New World.   Europeans learned the cornmeal techniques from the Native Americans, and quickly developed bread using the cornmeal in a similar fashion to the grains they were familiar with at home.  Chili, or Chili con carne, is taken from Spanish and means "peppers with meat".  According to Wikipedia, chili was first invented in San Antonio Texas by the Spanish Canary Islanders.  They would pound dried peppers and meat, suet (raw fat), and salt into bricks that could then be reconstituted by boiling water on the trail.  I don't know who first decided to pair sweet, mild cornbread with hearty, spicy chili, but they were on to something good.

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    Cornbread and chili was one of the meals that I would really look forward to growing up.  I pretty much always made my self sickeningly full from the chili and all of the glorious toppings that came along (cheese, sour cream, cilantro, avocado, tortilla chips, and of course cornbread).  In the past, as an adult, I have made cornbread and chili several times, but used to rely on the Marie Callender's prepackaged version.  This three layer cornbread from the Tassajara bread book is actually just as easy as using the packaged version and the taste is 100 times better.  The recipe creates three different layers, the cornmeal settles to the bottom, the wheat bran or germ rises to the top, and in between is an eggy-custard filling.  This is hand's down the best cornbread I have ever had.

Me looking very official

     The baking/cooking extravaganza included the chili and cornbread (as mentioned before) and a cheese bread that will be my next blog.  As you can see in the photo above, my mom and dad got me this very professional looking chef's jacket that is embroidered with my name and the name of this project.  I actually cried a little when I opened this jacket up on Christmas morning and I was surprised at how right it felt when I put it on.  Sometimes wearing the uniform can make such a difference.

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#53 Three Layer Cornbread

From The Tassajara Bread Book

1 cup cornmeal (coarse ground works best)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup unbleached white flour
1/4 cup wheat bran or wheat germ
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/4-1/2 cup honey or molasses
1/4 cup oil or melted butter
3 cups milk or buttermilk

Preheat oven to 325.

Combine the dry ingredients.  In a separate bowl, combine the wet ingredients.  Mix together.  The resulting batter will be quite liquidy.  Pour batter into a greased 9-by-9-inch pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes or until the top is springy when gently touched.

As a variation (which I didn't do) you can add a cup of grated cheese like Jack, provolone, or Parmesan.

Nothing beats homemade bread

The finished oatmeal loaves

     

      It was after I had just consumed an egg-in-a-basket prepared by Caroline using my homemade oatmeal bread, that it dawned on me that nothing beats homemade bread.  The morning before, I had made toast at work using my favorite store-bought bread, and it was clear to me that there was no comparison.  Even the best store-bought bread can't compare to a homemade loaf.  While I completely encourage people to make their own bread, I know that we all lead very busy lives and that it can sometimes be difficult to carve out the time to slow down and make something by hand.  Perhaps buying our loaves directly from a local bakery is a happy medium in between making our own, and buying it from a grocery store.  

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     I am lucky in Santa Cruz, because there are a dozen or more amazing local bakeries to choose from; Sumano’s in Watsonville, Kelly's on the Westside, The Buttery, Gayle's in Capitola, Beckman's, Emily's...the list goes on. I am living, quite literally, smack in the middle of some fine baked goods.  I want to explore these bakeries, find out how they retain the flavor and integrity in each loaf.  I am also interested in taking tours of commercial bakeries that operate on a large scale.  I imagine them to be full of people (or maybe even machines) that pour large containers of flour and vats of yeast and water into enormous standing mixers, but to be honest, I can't even fathom how that many loaves are made in one day.  It is a difficult feat to double a recipe, so centupling a recipe must require some interesting techniques or tricks.  In the same way that gardening and researching about food has made me a better cook, I hope that learning more about bakeries (small and large scale) and perhaps the ingredients of bread can give me a deeper understanding of the art of baking.

Measuring the flour

Oatmeal dough after the first rise

Kneading the dough

My favorite sight to see: dishes done and two loaves waiting to be consumed

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     Here's the recipe that inspired it all.  This oatmeal bread makes a delicious sandwich or toast and an exception egg-in-a-basket.  The oatmeal provides a confetti like appearance in each slice and also a satisfying chewy texture.

#8 Oatmeal Bread

Tassajara Bread Book  

3 cups lukewarm water 

2 packages dry yeast

1/4 cup honey or molasses

1 cup dry milk

2 cups unbleached white flour and 2 cups whole wheat flour

4 teaspoons salt

1/4 cup oil

1-3 cups rolled oats

2-3 cups whole wheat flour for forming the dough and kneading

Proceed with the directions for recipe #1. 

Easiest. Apple. Crisp. Ever.

Easiest apple crisp ever.

     

     I have always admired those people that actually make a desert every night after dinner.  It’s almost a given that Jake and I will both want something sweet about a half hour after we finish eating dinner and we are usually scouring the cabinets for something, anything that would quiet our screaming sweet tooths.  We have been known to eat dry cereal with Nutella or make a fudge/caramel of sorts with leftover Mexican chocolate or sugar.  Every time we make these kinds of deserts, they are spontaneously delicious, but it also reminds me that if I had some fresh ingredients on hand I could use my baking skills to make something yummy.  

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I had originally planned on making the apple crisp after making a rather elaborate meal with a guest over and so it wasn’t a surprise to me when I had a kitchen full of dirty dishes, that I didn’t end up making the crisp.  Instead, I made it after a relatively simple meal consisting of pasta and little else.  I was shocked at how easy this crisp was, and realized, that if I did the dishes while I cooked, and wasn’t overwhelmed with no space to bake after dinner, this was something that I could easily make during the week for no special occasion at all. 

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The recipe didn’t even call for peeling the different varieties of apples (which I would do next time), and I used one of those round apple slicers that cuts the apple into even wedges and sections off the core, which made it so easy and quick.  Then you soak the apples in lemon juice and arrange them in a somewhat eye-pleasing manner in a baking dish.  Then you cut butter into flour and sugar and sprinkle that mixture on top of the apples and bake.  Really.  That’s it.  I served the crisp with vanilla ice cream and a dollop of Nutella, and we had desert on a weeknight, for no special reason at all besides the fact that we always crave something a little sweet about a half hour after dinner.

#98 Apple Crisp  
Tassajara Bread Book

4-6 pippin apples (or a variety)

juice of 1 lemon

1 teaspoon or more cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon or more freshly grated nutmeg

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup butter or margarine

whipped cream or vanilla ice cream

Nutella, if you wish

Serves 6, preheat oven to 350 degrees

Wash, quarter, core and slice the apples, thickly or thinly.  Toss with the lemon juice and then arrange in a buttered 9-by 13-inch pan.  Sprinkle on the cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg.  Mix the sugar and flour together and cut in the butter or margarine with a pastry cutter until it is in pea-size lumps.  Sprinkle this topping onto the apples.

Bake for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees or until the apples are fork soft.

Serve plain or topped with whipped cream and a grating of nutmeg or ice cream.

Summer Swedish Rye Bread

The finished product complete with orange halves and a winter ale

    

     This is the first of the more interesting breads that I have made in this project.  I know that there are more to come; with ingredients I would never think of putting in a loaf of bread.  The pungent and spicy ingredients in this Swedish Summer Rye bread are orange peel, caraway seed, and anise seed.  Other than the orange peel, it seems a little odd that this would be called a summer bread.  To me, it is warm and zesty, like the cinnamon and nutmeg flavors of fall and winter.  This is also the first bread that I have baked that I didn’t like.  

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     My not liking this bread didn’t have to do with the way the bread turned out, but the ingredients themselves.  I figured out that I am not a big fan of caraway seed and it’s heady aroma and flavor, sort of similar to fennel or licorice.  The same goes for the anise seed as it has a very similar taste and function.  After researching the caraway plant a little further, I found out that the caraway seed is often used as a spice in breads, especially in rye breads, I assume because the spice of the caraway cuts through the robust taste of the rye flour.  I also found out that rye bread containing caraway seeds produces a denser bread because one of the essential oils found in caraway seed (limonene) has yeast killing properties (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caraway_seed).  

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     The orange peel zest that I included after the folding of the oil and salt adds a beautiful speckling of color and the aroma of the freshly peeled oranges is divine.  The orange that I picked out of the selection for no particular reason, turned out to be one of the best oranges I have ever seen.  The flesh was a deep, yet vibrant hue and I ended up squeezing the juice into a cup and consuming it immediately.  It was delicious.  

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     This loaf wasn’t exactly a sandwich bread, although I could see it going well with peanut butter and jelly or maybe an orange marmalade with butter, but I thought I would use the trick that I am sure a lot of bakers do, which is have French Toast for dinner.  French Toast as a meal is very interesting. There are a lot of different versions of French Toast, but the French version is called pain perdu which means “lost bread” as it was typically made using stale, leftover bread.  Makes sense.  Caroline and Jake said that the bread made a great French Toast, and although I didn’t like it, they seemed to.

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The bread batter which includes orange peel, caraway seed, and anise seed

     So I ended up appreciating the bread and it’s unique ingredients, but not actually enjoying it.  I still learned a bit about the ingredients, their use, and the history of the way I used the bread.  I’m sure there will be more bread that I don’t actually like, but I am almost certain that they will still teach me something valuable about baking and hopefully, Jake and Caroline will continue to help me eat them.

Swedish Summer Rye #6

Tassajara Bread Book

3 cups lukewarm water

2 packages dry yeast

1/3 cup honey

1 cup dry milk

grated peel of two oranges

2 teaspoons anise seeds

2 teaspoons caraway seeds

4 cups unbleached white flour

4 teaspoons salt

1/4 cup oil

4 cups rye flour

whole wheat flour for kneading

Proceed with directions for Tassajara Yeasted bread#1, stirring in the orange peel, anise seeds, and caraway seeds after the dry milk.

The Perfect Sandwich Bread...a blogette

Potatoes!

    

     I am a little behind in my blogging (a baking backlog if you will) so this is going to be a shorter blog.  Jake came up with the name “blogette” for a substantially shorter baking blog (like baguette, get it?), so that’s what this will be.  After the excess, extravagance, and expense of the holidays, it seems rather fitting to have blogette about simple sandwich bread.

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After making the sweet, chocolatey, eggy Challah bread, I was excited to make a basic sandwich bread.  Recipe# 5 in the Tassajara Bread book, is a Potato bread, which is to me one of the best sandwich breads around. It is moist enough to create a soft sandwich, but not too soft to get completely soggy.  This bread is made by boiling potatoes until fork-soft and then mashing them and folding them into the dough after the first rise, and the oil and salt have been added.  These loaves were quick to go in our fridge, and I found myself craving a sandwich almost daily.  This bread also makes excellent French toast (almost rivaling Challah French toast), as it is very absorbent and sops up the egg/milk/cinnamon mixture with ease.

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Potato Bread 

Tassajara Recipe #5

2 cups warm water
2 packages dry yeast
¼ cup honey
1 cup dry milk
3 cups unbleached white flour


4 teaspoons salt
¼ cup oil
1 ½ to 2 cups cooked mashed potatoes
3 cups unbleached white flour
1 cup or more white flour for kneading


Dissolve the yeast in the water.


Stir in the sweetening and dry milk (it’s ok if it’s a little lumpy)


Stir in the 4 cups of whole wheat flour to form a thick batter.


Beat well with a spoon (100 strokes).  Duck the spoon down along the side and carry it over, keeping the dough in one piece.


Let rise 45 minutes.


Fold in the salt and oil and the mashed potatoes.


Fold in an additional 3 cups flour until the dough comes away from the side of the bowl. 


Knead on a floured board, using more flour (about 1 cup) as needed to keep the dough from sticking to the board (about 10 minutes), until the dough is smooth.


Let rise 50-60 minutes until doubled in size.


Punch down.


Let rise 45-50 minutes until doubled in size.


Cut the dough in half and knead each half about 6 more times.  Roll the dough into a log, pinching the seam along the bottom half.  Place the loaf seam side up in a greased pan and then flip over so the seam is on the bottom.


Brush top of the loaves with egg wash (1 egg beaten with 2 tablespoons water).

Bake in the oven at 325 degrees for about an hour, until golden brown.


Remove from pans and let cool—or eat right away.

 

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Mexican Chocolate Pumpkin Cookies (PS they are Vegan)

Festive-looking Vegan Cookies

     A couple of months ago, Jake sent me a link to a cookie contest for the LA Times.  The winner would be published in the newspaper and it seemed like a good way to begin trying to publish recipes.  Last year, Jake and I experimented with making Vegan cookies and came up with several good ones.  Applesauce Oatmeal, Tofu Mint Chocolate, Banana Peanut Butter and my favorite, Mexican Chocolate Pumpkin.  I brought in the cookies to my coworkers, who are not Vegetarian, let alone Vegan, and to my surprise, they loved the cookies.  They raved about them, and still ask me to make them whenever the topic of cookies comes up.  It turns out, this was one of those contests where you could vote 10 times per day; every day until the contest ended.  My friends and family spread the word and everyone voted quite a bit, but alas, I did not win the contest.  There were people with thousands of votes, which doesn't really seem like the most honest or truthful way to hold a contest.  (I recently went back to the link and saw that someone had commented on my recipe with kind words about Vegan cookies http://latimes.upickem.net/engine/Details.aspx?p=V&c=21592&s=5686339&i=1&m=X#SD.)

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     Vegan baking, is actually very easy.  The items to replace are the eggs and butter and milk chocolate.  The butter is easily replaced by Earth Balance buttery sticks (which taste almost identical to butter)or margarine, and the eggs can be replaced by a number of things, pureed pumpkin, applesauce, tofu, banana, or a store-bought egg replacer.  It's also very easy to find chocolate that is not made with milk or other animal products.  The best part about Vegan baking, is that you can eat the dough or batter along the way without worrying about salmonella from the raw eggs.  That way, you can adjust flavors along the way, ensuring that you will have a cookie to your liking in the end.  Salmonella has never stopped me before with dough, but with Vegan baking, I can eat the dough without getting a stomach ache.  

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     I made 4 batches of these cookies and gave them to my coworkers wrapped in plastic and tied with ribbon for a holiday present.  Most of them ate all the cookies within minutes of receiving them, and my Vegan coworker Crystal was very pleased as well.  These cookies aren't overly sweet, and can be made on the chewy under-baked side because there is no fear of raw eggs. 

Vegan Mexican Chocolate Cookies with Pumpkin

By Jake J. Thomas and Kaitlin Fasse

1 Earth Balance vegan buttery stick
1 cup evaporated palm sugar
¼ cup organic pumpkin puree
¼ tsp each of vanilla extract, baking soda, nutmeg and salt
2 cups of flour
1 ½ packages of Ibarra Mexican Chocolate, chopped into small pieces

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Bring the buttery stick to room temperature and cut into tablespoon sized pieces. Cream the butter in a mixer (on speed 2 or 4) with the paddle attachment for a few seconds. Add the palm sugar and continue whipping on speed four until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes.

3. Add the pumpkin, vanilla and nutmeg and continue to mix until combined.

4. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add the dry ingredients ½ cup at a time to the wet ingredients and continue to mix until combined. Once combined, check the consistency of the dough by pinching it to see if it holds its form (you can taste it at this point too!). Add more flour if needed.

5. Add the Ibarra chocolate and mix until the chocolate is dispersed throughout the dough.

6. Using an ice cream scoop (or two spoons), scoop out balls of dough and place on a baking sheet (no need to grease it). Flatten the balls a little with the back of a fork.

7. Bake the cookies for 12-16 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway through to ensure even baking. Take the sheet out and let cool for about 3 minutes, then place on a wire rack to cool entirely. 

 

Challah!

Video by Jake J. Thomas

Featuring Julia Fogelson, Caroline Carpenter, Jake J. Thomas,

and of course, Luck.

    

     While flipping through all the various baking books I have, I came across Challah several times.  I have always admired this bread, the way it is beautifully browned with pale seams and the gorgeous braided pattern it is baked in, but have never attempted to make it.  I think I have been intimidated by it in the past but after making it, I know that it looks more difficult than it actually is.  While I was thinking about making Challah, my friend Julia messaged me and shared a Challah recipe with me from her friend, and asked if I would make it with her.  I was very excited to do it, especially when she mentioned that she liked to add dark chocolate nibs.  After confirming plans with Julia, I came into the kitchen to discover that Caroline was also in a baking state of mind and was getting ready to make an apple pie.  It was the first apple pie she had made by herself but had been watching her mom bake them since as long as she could remember.  I helped her with which pie crust to make and started to get excited about making the Challah and having two wonderfully sweet baked goods to eat later that cold, rainy night.

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     I should probably mention that Julia and Luck are seriously in love with each other.  Luck was so excited to see Julia, and was jumping around in circles, smacking her tail into the cabinets, doors, and legs of everything in her radius (even though Jake had walked her about 15 miles earlier that day).  After they said hello and got reacquainted, Julia and I set out to make the Challah.  The recipe we used was from one of Julia’s friends and was a very relaxed recipe, so different from the one I had seen in Martha Stewart’s cookbook.  The recipe said things like “after the yeast is partying,” ”let cool until doesn’t burn your finger,” and “mix in the salty eggs” and I was excited to try it out.  The bread is prepared in a similar fashion to other breads I have made, but the dough was incredibly sticky.  I hoped that no one was noticing the difficulty I was having kneading the dough but I started to panic a little bit.  Luckily, Julia was busy with Luck and Caroline was playing the guitar and by the time they came into the kitchen to check on the dough, I had incorporated enough flour to get it under control.  We set the dough to rise, and Caroline showed me how to play dominos.

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     After letting the dough rise again, and adding the chocolate nibs, I kneaded the dough until it was smooth; not too dry, not too sticky.  We divided the dough in half and got ready to braid.  Julia divided her half into four pieces, rolling each into a log shape.  Then she attached them all at the top and began to braid, taking the far right strand, placing it over two, and under one, and repeating until the end where they are all pinched together.  We brushed them with egg wash and put them in the oven.  When the Challah was done, we immediately sliced into it and burned our fingers eating the delicious eggy, doughy, soft, sweet bread.  It was wonderful, and still good the next day (although there was hardly any left).

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Challah Recipe
Adapted from Julia's Recipe

2 cups milk
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
2/3 cup granulated sugar per
2 packages active dry yeast
4 eggs, at room temperature
2 tsp. salt
6 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 egg beaten with 2 Tbsp. cold water
Poppy seeds if desired
Dark chocolate bits

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Melt butter, milk, and sugar in a saucepan over low heat until homogeneous.

2.  Transfer the milk mixture to a large bowl.  Dissolve the yeast and let it sit for about 5-10 minutes until it is activated.

3.  While the yeast cultures, whip up the eggs and salt in a separate bowl.  Once the yeast is cultured, add the egg/salt mixture and mix to combine.

4.  Add the flour, one cup at a time and mix until mostly combined.  Empty the bowl onto a well floured board and sprinkle a layer of flour on top of the dough. Be prepared to use up to 2 cups of flour to knead the dough.

5. Knead until fresh to the touch, not too sticky or too dry.  Add the chocolate bits and knead until fully incorporated and evenly distributed. Place in an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

6.  Punch the dough down, and transfer back to the cutting board to cut in half.  Separate each ball of dough into 4 logs.  Braid by attaching the four logs at the top and pulling the far right strand over two and under the last.  Continue doing this until you have reached the end, pinch the ends to seal.

7.  Place the braided dough on a lightly greased cookie sheet and let rise another 30 minutes.  Mix the egg wash and apply to the bread, making sure to get in the cracks of the braid.

8.  Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through, and checking to make sure it is baking evenly and not burning.  Remove from the oven and slice immediately, or let cool and store in plastic wrap.