Oh yes. This is happening.

Now that your Ginger Crème Pâtissière and your Brioche dough are both chilling in the fridge, it’s time to make some magic…

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Step One

Take the Ginger Crème Pâtissière out of the fridge so it comes to room temperature.

Make the Rhubarb compote with these ingredients:

• 3 cups chopped fresh rhubarb
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 ½ Tablespoons sugar
• ½ teaspoon orange zest
• 1 Tablespoon cornstarch (not pictured)
• pinch of salt (not pictured)

Throw all of the ingredients into a medium sauce pan and cook on medium heat for 10 minutes until the mixture is thick, but the rhubarb does not break down.

Set it aside and let it cool.

 

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Step Two

Work the dough. If you made the full batch of brioche, you’ll need to divide and store what you’re not going to use today. Your dough should look something like this when you pull it out of the fridge:

Toss flour on the surface and dip a pair of kitchen shears in flour, and cut the dough into four sections.

Then wrap the three sections you’ll not be using in cling wrap. I like to weigh and label them accordingly so I know what I’ve got to work with when inspiration strikes.

Freeze these for up to two weeks (though if I’m honest, I’ve had them frozen for about a month and still had good results.)

Then, set up a beignet making station that has all your equipment and ingredients ready to go:

• cutting board
• rolling pin
• flour, for dusting
• small dish of water
• dough
• rhubarb compote
• ginger creme
• scoops or spoons for “dolloping”
• cookie sheet or tray lined with was paper

 

Smooth the brioche dough by pulling down on the sides and around to the bottom of the dough ball. You don’t want to knead the bread or you’ll loose the air pockets that have been growing in the fridge.

Lay it on a floured surface, flour the top and roll it out to a 1/4” to 3/16” thickness. You want this as thin as possible but that will still hold your filling.

Divide it with a pizza cutter or knife

and fill it by placing a dollop of Ginger Crème Pâtissière in the center, with a dollop of rhubarb compote,

and folding it onto itself.

To make the seal secure, I dip my finger in the water dish and gently trace around the edge of the square. It helps the bond as clay in pottery. Give it a pinch, set it on the wax paper and let it rest for 15 minutes.

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Step Three

While you’re resting your beignet, heat your oil in a Fry Daddy or deep pot with oil. I use an organic canola that runs clear:

…this is after two rounds of beignet frying. You can use any high heat oil of your choice. Some (not all) coconut oils are nice, too.

You’ll want the temp to stay around 360°, and you’ll know if it’s too hot or cold by the color you start getting out of the beignet. If it turns too dark too soon, lower your heat, but if it doesn’t sizzle when it drops in, give it some more.

Drop your little dough balls in there for about two minutes,

and then flip them when the color is nice and golden. Give it another minute or two. The eye is the judge more than the timer on this one.

Use a slotted spoon or spider to lift them onto a drying rack.

Don’t let them cool too much! After the oil has dried, sprinkle with powder sugar, plate it, and let some vanilla ice cream melt next to the heat…

…it’s a good way to go.

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Technically, Marie Antoinette said, “Let them eat brioche.” Which is NOT cake. It’s bread. But it’s really rich, delicious bread…

Now that you have your Ginger Crème Pâtissière chilling in the fridge, let’s make some brioche dough to put it in.

 

This is my version of brioche, inspired by a combination Rose Levy Beranbaum recipes, and Jeff Hertzberg and Xoë François’ techniques. I streamlined some of the time intensive aspects of traditional recipes, but kept the buttery and cake like taste. This is absolutely the EASIEST brioche you will make.

This makes four loaves of brioche, which can be frozen for later use, but you can easily halve or quarter the recipe for less. You’ll need one large plastic tupperware (about 8 quarts if you make the full recipe) with a lid.

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups water (room temperature)
• 1 Tablespoon active yeast
• 8 large eggs
• 1/3 cup honey
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• 1 ½ cups melted butter
• 1 pound, 2 oz. pastry flour (3 ¼ cups)
• 1 pound, 3 oz. all-purpose, unbleached flour (3 ¼ cups), not pictured
• 1 Tablespoon salt

 

Combine the water, yeast, eggs, honey, sugar, and butter in the tupperware and let it sit for 15 minutes to activate the yeast.

Then add the flour and salt

and mix with a wooden spoon until you get a wet dough that looks like this:

Seal the tupperware and let it sit on your counter at room temperature for two hours, until it doubles in size.

Throw it in the fridge until tomorrow…

…you are gonna like what’s coming.

 

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*this dough must be chilled before using and is even better after a day or two of resting. The flavors develop quite nicely in the cold and the dough is much easier to work with.

When thought gets too heavy and lessons come too hard, I’m pretty sure French pastry is called for. Eee Gads, I’m sick of hearing myself think; it’s time to make busy the hands…

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Crème Pâtissière is about the best custard I’ve ever had with fruit and as I have a ton of rhubarb in the freezer begging for invention, we’re going outside the customary creme box and adding GINGER. Lots and lots of spicy ginger.

 

Ingredients:

• 2 cups milk
• 1 Tablespoon freshly grated ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 Tablespoons Kirsch (cherry liquor)
• ½ Tablespoon vanilla
• 1 cup sugar
• 5 egg yolks
• ½ cup pastry flour
• 1 Tablespoon butter

 

Begin by bringing your milk to a boil in a small sauce pan. As soon as you see the steam rising, throw the fresh and ground ginger into it and let it simmer gently, not allowing it to scorch.

Beat the egg yolks with the sugar on high until it turns soft yellow and thick, about 2-3 minutes.

Beat the flour into the egg yolk, sugar mix.

In a SUPER slow drizzle, gradually add the boiling milk to the egg/sugar/flour mix – tempering the eggs so they don’t cook – like so…

Then transfer it into a medium sauce pan and whisk the Dickens out of it over a med-high heat. Once it comes to a boil, put the heat to low and continue whisking for 2-3 minutes. This is the forearm workout of the month, but don’t give up or your crème will curdle and burn.

Once it’s thick and shiny, remove it from the heat and add the butter and Kirsch.

Put it in a container and cover the top of the crème with cling wrap so it doesn’t form a skin.

Throw it into the fridge for at least 4 hours, but preferably over night. It’ll keep for a week in the fridge, but can also be frozen after it chills.

Stay tuned, we’re gonna do something yummy….

 

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I used to teach a fine art program for kids wherein the main instructor was adamant that a child NEVER throw their half-finished project or drawing away because it “wasn’t right.” He argued that until you see it through to the end, you won’t know what it could have been or how you could have improved upon it.

I exercised this principle when getting off to a very rocky start in a recent sourdough-venture.

First, I over proved the bejeezus out of a stiff starter. The thing smelled like ripe nail polish and felt like wet leather. I’m pretty sure there was no hope. I would have thrown it out.

BUT, I fed it, reconstituted it to sour (rather than rank) and let it chill.

I knew bread would elicit too strong a sour taste with how long the starter had developed, but pancakes! Now pancakes could do… syrup DOES cover a multitude of sins.

Having no clue how to make sourdough pancakes, I did what every good and stubborn baker does:
I googled,
I scoffed,
and I made it up as I went.

so…

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Sourdough Pancakes

Ingredients:

• ¾ cup (150g) stiff sourdough starter, at room temperature
• 1 egg
• 1 ½ Tablespoon sugar
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 Tablespoons canola oil
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ cup all-purpose unbleached flour (or whole wheat flour for a nuttier taste)
• ¾ teaspoon salt

Throw the starter, egg, sugar, buttermilk, oil and soda in a bowl and let it soak at least 15-20 minutes to loosen up the starter.

It will look gross.

It will feel even grosser. Mmmmm, eyeball stew….

 

After soaking, mix this on med-high for 3 minutes with a whisk attachment. This should break up the starter. Here is the SECOND place I would have thrown the thing out. No matter the whip, the batter looked like this:

well, that’s nothing I’ve seen before….

 

BUT WAIT, stay the course. It gets good!

Add the ½ cup of flour and ¾ teaspoon salt, still whisking, but only until the flour is incorporated, then let it sit for 10 minutes.

While that’s resting, we start setting the table but decide that maple syrup is not going to be the best pairing with sourdough, so we invent this:

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Honey & Agave Banana Syrup

Ingredients:

• 4 Tablespoons butter
• ¼ cup honey
• 1/3 cup agave syrup
• ½ sliced or mashed banana
• 1 Tablespoon brown sugar
• ¼ cup dried tart cherries (not pictured)
• 1/3 cup chopped pecans (not pictured)
• dried rosemary. yes. rosemary. for sprinkling on top. trust me. (not pictured)

 

Throw the butter, honey, agave, banana, and brown sugar in a small sauce pan.

Bring it to a steaming low boil over medium heat and whisk it until the bananas have broken and blended into the magma.

Pour all but a Tablespoon or so of the syrup into a serving vessel. In the remaining Tablespoon (still in the saucepan) add the dried cherries and chopped pecans.

Stir until they’re coated, soft and warm.

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Now, back to the cakes…

(I like an electric griddle for cakes. It keeps a steady temperature and you don’t need to mess with butters and oils to bake on.)

Pour ¼ cup of the batter out and cook them at 350° for about 4 minutes until they bubble on the surface, like this:

flip them and cook for an additional 2 minutes or so, and flop them on a serving tray.

Now, remember when I said I almost threw this away TWICE during the conjuring process???

 

 

I give you the best tasting mistake I’ve ever digested:

stack the cakes
drizzle with syrup
dollop with cherries and nuts
sprinkle with ROSEMARY, it makes the whole thing come alive

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How many masterpieces have we scrapped mid-stroke?

How much of us is hidden for what we’ve done or fear we will do, wrong?

How might any mislaid plan be redirected and deliver us to new and better places?

How will we know till we see it through?

In honor of summer days, hot grills, cold beer, and the lady who forgot to buy the buns, I give you:

No Knead Cheddar Buns

(what did you just call me?)

 

Ingredients:

• 13 oz all-purpose unbleached flour (2 ¾ c)
• ½ cup shredded white cheddar cheese
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 2 ½ teaspoons yeast
• 4 Tablespoons bacon fat (if you don’t have this on hand, butter will do…but if you’re having bacon burgers, just cook your bacon first and save the grease!)
• 1 egg
• butter for brushing the buns

 

 

Combine all the ingredients and beat it on high for about two to three minutes until it looks like this:

And there’s a little bit of gluten stretch

Cover it and let it rise for 90 minutes. It’ll rise and puff up.

Divide your dough into the bun size you like and place them on a greased cookie sheet. I make little buns for my little ones and big buns for my big ones.

This should make 6-8 buns, depending on your preference.

Cover and let them rise another 90 minutes

 

Heat your oven to 350°

Brush your buns with melted butter.

Bake for 18-20 minutes, until they’re golden brown.

Remove from the oven, give them another butter brush and let them cool…

 

Slice, fill, eat.

Enjoy.

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So, I’ve been doing quite a lot of experimenting with that sourdough starter from Day 32.

…this would be six loaves rising.

 

Now my creative, bakery-cart wheels are turning and I’ve got a hankering to make something I’ve never had before, but it sure sounds good:

Candied Pecan
& Sweet Cherry
Sourdough

I’ve never candied pecans,
and I may change the cherry to raisin,
but this would be day one
of my little culinary adventure.

Here we go…

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Ingredients:

• ¼ cup sugar
• 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
• ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 egg white
• ½ pound (2-1/3 cups) whole pecans

 

Throw the sugars, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl

and mix it till it looks like beach sand.

 

Then, whip the egg white until it’s nice and frothy

and coat the pecans with it.

 

Toss the coated pecans in the sugar/salt/cinnamon mix
and throw the whole lot into a slow cooker.

 

Cook (covered) on high for an hour,
gently stir and turn them in the pot,
and cook for another 1/2 hour to hour,
watching so they don’t burn.

 

Lastly, dry them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment:

 

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Verdict:

Holy hazelnuts, these are tasty.

The hardest part of this endeavor is saving enough to put in the bread…I may have to make another batch.

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Remember the Green Ice post? I wasn’t kidding when I said I’ve had a protein shake nearly every day for 5 years. It’s reliable, healthy, consistent, and I can get moving in my day without thinking about what to eat. No-brainer.

Today, as I began to wake up, before I’d even opened my eyes, I felt fatigue like an ocean around the raft of my bed. Exhaustion was waiting for me on the other side of sleep, and I didn’t want to rise into it, no matter how loudly my alarm implored.

“Oh, do not attack me with your watch!”
-Jane Austen

It totally ticked me off.

 

The only thing that made me pull those covers back (which I still did in one of those ninja, roundhouse-kick, slam-the-comforter-down-onto-the-pillow-with-your-leg, and swing-yourself-sideways-to-a-sitting-position sort of ways) was a resolution to start the day off with something DIFFERENT.

 

Routine is comfortable AND confining.
Habit can be rewarding AND enslaving.

 

And today, I wanted to break my norm, and declare victory over the weariness that laces my days like smoke from an extinguished candle, reminding me of a lightness that was there, and is no more.

No.

Today, I set the protein shake aside.
I did’t want to walk into this day the same as all other days.

Today I want to taste.

I want color. The whole palette.

 

So this:

became the medium boiled egg that inspired this:

and today I ate color for breakfast.

 

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Welcome back.

Did you let your crust rise for 1 to 3 days? It’s a fun little science experiment as the yeast activates slowly under a cold rise and you get little gremlin air pockets all over the skin of the dough…

We’re ready for baking day.

An hour before baking, take your dough out of the fridge and cut it into thirds. If you’re not planning to make all three pizzas, you can freeze a third or two-thirds for another night.*

With each of the three sections, gently form them into a ball with cupped hands. DON’T KNEAD the dough. You want as much air to remain in the crust as you can.
Cover them with oiled plastic wrap and let them rest.

Preheat your oven to 500°. If you have a pizza stone, put it in the oven prior to preheating.**

 

While you’re waiting, make whatever pizza ingredients need pre-cooking (i.e. sausage, ground beef, bacon, chicken, etc.); chop and prep the rest (veggies, etc).

After one hour, your oven should be good and hot, and your dough will have relaxed and come to room temperature. Lay a large square of parchment paper on the counter. Flour your hands, the parchment, and one ball of dough. Start expanding it into a circle.

You can do this in all sorts of ways:

1. For the less adventurous, place the mound on floured parchment paper and gently pull out the sides, using your fingertips to flatten and spread the dough, until you’ve reached your desired pizza circumference.
2. For the conservative risk-takers, you can pick the mound up, and constantly turn it like a steering wheel, gently pulling out as you spin.
3. Once it gets big enough, the dare-devils amongst you can do this:

Okaaaaay….

back to business.

 

Once your crust has met your desired circumference and thickness, it’s time to assemble.

For traditional flavored pizzas, these are my favorite store-bought sauces:

 

I also love a good pesto on a Margherita pizza, and have even been known to use mayo and ketchup as a base for a bacon cheeseburger pizza.

(yes,  those ARE pickles on that pizza…)

 

Really, you can do ANYTHING here.

 

Assembly is generally in order: sauce, then cheese, then fixin’s.

 

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Once assembled, slide the pizza (parchment and all) onto the hot stone or oven rack. Bake until it’s well browned and bubbly, around 8-10 minutes. Slice and enjoy!

This is a fig, prosciutto, and blue cheese pizza with raisin-shallot chutney and olive oil base.

 

SO GOOD!

 

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*Once frozen, thaw in the fridge for a day before baking.

**I’ve heard of people grilling the pizza as well. If you try this, send details on what worked. I’ve never done it!

In advance, I’m sorry.

If you make this and come to realize how easy it is to make the best crust for any given pizza in your own kitchen, and also come to understand that because you make your own killer crust you can now make ANY flavor of pizza and create your most favorite, signature ‘za in all the world, I’m sorry.

You will have become addicted (as I am)
and will gain at least five pounds of gluten weight (as I have.)

Before getting started, don’t plan pizza night on the day you make the crust. It will rest in the fridge (at least a day) for a cold rise. 

Shall we begin?

Ingredients:

(this will make 3 – 12″ pizza crusts…)

• 1 lb, 10 oz. bread flour (4 ½ cups)
• 3 teaspoons sugar
• ¾ teaspoons active yeast
• 1½ Tablespoon garlic infused olive oil (you can use plain EVOO, as well)
• 2 teaspoons, plus and a pinch of salt

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Combine the flour, sugar, and yeast in a mixing bowl and slowly stir in 2 cups of ICE COLD water.

Stir it until no dry flour remains,

and then give it a quick knead to make it a solid lump.

Let it sit for 10 minutes.

Then add the olive oil and salt,

and knead it until it makes a satiny, silky, sticky ball of goodness.

 

Tips:

1. You can use a bread hook, but it usually just slides around the middle of the dough clump and annoys you by not incorporating the entire dough.
2. Throw a little olive oil on the counter while you knead or just rub a drop in your hands like lotion and it will prevent sticking.

 

Throw the kneaded dough into a large bowl with a lid or tightly covered with plastic wrap.

Refrigerate for at least 1 day, or up to 3 days.

It’s gonna be SO good. (More to follow…)

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I got a new pet.
I do have to feed it.
It does require attention.
I’m a little scared I’m gonna kill it.
It tastes delicious.

It’s sourdough starter.

 

It was handed down from a friend of a friend and I’m hoping it’s lineage is strong and will summon the greater baker within.

BUT! When I began researching how to train, treat, and care for my new pet, I became completely overwhelmed by the voluminous pages of high science, measurement, and timing. I was on the verge of making my pet into crackers and calling it a day.

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Eventually, reason (and laziness) won out and I decided to try a loaf without science. What’s the worst that could happen AND if generations of humans could keep this particular pet alive and thriving, couldn’t I just figure it out???

…Oh, that I had smell-o-blog.

Perfect? No.
A Start? Yes.

It walks like a duck, talks like a duck, so it must be sourdough.

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Now comes science: with a pseudo-success under my belt, I’m getting out the gram weight measure, the timer, all the pages, and am audibly making utterances like:

“Bwah hah hah haaaa”

and

“Rise!!!!
Rraaaaaiiiiisssze!!!”

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More to follow….

I’ll be sure to pass on what I discover and in the meantime, if you have extensive sourdough expertise, please…. comment, instruct, bequeath!

all the
acid,
lactobacilli,
wild yeast,
and I
thank you.