Yeasted chocolate cupcakes… little morsels from no-knead chocolate dough

jeff 32 Comments

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OK, I know, these aren’t really cupcakes because they aren’t cake!  They’re yeasted, so they’re actually super-mini chocolate breads based on Zoe’s chocolate bread in our book (page 211).  I wanted you to get a sense of how versatile this method really is— need a quick kid treat?  If you’ve got chocolate dough in the freezer you are set.

I didn’t frost them because they were perfect without it– maybe a little cherry jam if you really want something with them.  Just mix up a full or half-batch of the chocolate dough, and then break off little pieces and load them into muffin tins, or mini-muffin tins (the picture above has both).  Be careful not to overbake these little guys; the regular size are done in no more than 20 minutes at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C), and the minis are done in 15 minutes. 

This is all a welcome distraction from writing (I ate about four of these this AM!)… our new book’s manuscript is due 1/3/09, with likely release 12/09.  Wish us luck, and follow our new book’s progress on Twitter!

Pletzel (a mission to bring this fabulous bread back from near extinction!)

jeff 86 Comments

pletzel

This is a flat bread made with an enriched dough, topped with sautéed onions, sprinkled with poppy seeds and drizzled in olive oil. Okay, so many many years ago when the pletztel was in the height of fashion, it was done with dough slightly less decadent than brioche and the oil used was less exotic than extra virgin olive oil, but it was still superb. It was a bread brought to the states from Eastern Europe and was easily found in Jewish bakeries all across the country, until about 25+ years ago. I blame the rise and global domination of the bagel for the demise of this fabulous bread, along with its cousin the bialy. Once again people are craving great bread, demanding it in fact and they need to know about making the pletzel: Read More

Pumpernickel Bread– how to make your own caramel coloring

jeff 59 Comments

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I’ve been getting a lot of questions about the caramel color, a brown and slightly bitter powder made by over-caramelizing sugar) that we call for in the pumpernickel bread recipe on page 67 of the book.  It’s hard to find in local stores, and it’s not an absolute requirement for the bread, but most U.S. consumers will miss it if it’s left out.

Yes, caramel color can be made at home, but not as a powder– what you make will be a liquid that is added to recipes; you should decrease the liquid a bit to account for the extra. Here’s what I’ve done at home (it won’t be quite as dark a result as powdered caramel color): Put 3 tablespoons sugar and 1 tablespoon water into a saucepan. Melt the sugar over a low flame, then increase heat to medium-high, cover, and bring to a boil for 2 minutes. Add a pinch of cream of tartar and continue to boil uncovered until the mixture becomes very dark. Remove from heat and allow to cool partially. Very carefully, add a quarter cup of boiling water to the pan (it may sputter and water may jump out of the pan so wear gloves and keep your face away from it). Dissolve the caramelized sugar and cool to room temp. Use about a quarter-cup of this mixture in place of commercial caramel color powder in our Pumpernickel recipe on page 67.

If you use liquid caramel coloring like this, you need to add extra flour to make up for it– about twice the volume of flour as liquid.  Otherwise the dough will be too loose.

Craziest Pizza Combo Yet: Limpa Dough, Tomato, Anchovies, and Black Olives

jeff 18 Comments

OK, so I rolled some ground anise, orange zest, and ground cardamom into some light rye dough (see page 65) and it was going to be a limpa loaf, the traditional Scandivian spiced rye, and I was going to use that dough for a class I taught Tuesday night.  Never got to it.  What to do?

Tonight it’s pizza topped with tomato, anchovies, fresh mozzarella, and cured black olives.  I’m starting to think you can get away with anything if you keep an open mind.  We all devoured it. 

Challah done two ways from the same dough (Jewish New Year’s loaf AND a braided challah)

jeff 164 Comments

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It’s Jewish New Year (tonight) and the traditional loaf, a round, turban-shaped one (round=continuity of life) took a back seat in this photo– so I decided to do a challah extravaganza and go through both shapes, which are easy once you see how they’re done.  Here’s the turban from a little closer:

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They’re both made from the same dough but the New Year’s  turban always has raisins or other sweet fruit (to symbolize a sweet new year)– we’ll roll them into the dough so you don’t have to mix up a special one.  Read More

Brioche Dough Recipe

BreadIn5 550 Comments

Brioche Dough Recipe | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Here is a classic fall recipe with a twist. It is a lovely and quick dessert, especially if you have a bucket of brioche on hand. For those of you who do not already own The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, here is the recipe and it can be used for all of these wonderful treats: caramel sticky buns, grilled fruit tart, fresh fruit muffins, Brioche à tête, apricot pastries and fabulous doughnuts! Actually the possibilities are endless, just use your imagination and let us know what treats you’ve come up with. Read More

Cherry Tomato Baguette

BreadIn5 34 Comments

Cherry Tomato Baguette

Great minds think alike! 😉  Jeff and I both felt compelled to blog about tomatoes this month. Probably our last ditch effort to use them before we head into the tomato-free season of winter. I swore I’d learn to can this year, but alas the summer and all of its gorgeous fruit has come and gone and I have nothing to show for it. So in these last days of summer we cling desperately to what will soon be just a lovely memory, the tomato. Read More

Marco’s Heirloom Tomato Bruschetta (and, how to hear about new recipes on Twitter)

jeff 4 Comments

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Years ago, my friend Marco (from Livorno in Italy) made my family a beautiful and simple dinner of buttered pasta with Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and this gorgeous bruschetta with fresh tomato.  The cheese was brought from his mother’s kitchen in Livorno, but the fruit were perfect locally grown heirloom tomatoes.  Someone recently gave my wife and me some heirloom Brandywine tomatoes, vine-ripened, and we thought of Marco.  This dish is really just tomatoes on toast, but it manages to approach the sublime — that’s why it went into our book.  To hear about new recipes when they’re posted here, follow me on Twitter if you’re already signed up, or join Twitter today.  For more about our bruschetta recipe, from page 49, read on… Read More

The world’s freshest watercress for savory watercress flatbread

jeff 9 Comments

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I picked the world’s freshest watercress from a chilly Minnesota river last week, and baked it into fantastic savory flatbread, all out in the wild (everything tastes better outdoors).  This camping-trip method blends two favorite techniques from our book:  rolling in something that wasn’t originally mixed in the dough, like our raisin challah on page 183, and baking in a skillet on the stovetop (like our naan on page 173).  Read More