Who am I to not haul myself up onto the St. Paddy’s Day bandwagon with something green or Irish? I can’t do green beer, but I can manage a fresh loaf of bread. Or buns.
It occurred to me as I lay in bed last night far past midnight, trying to convince my brain to quiet and let me sleep, that an Irish soda loaf looks an awful lot like a giant, rustic hot crossed bun. Don’t you think? Big and round, with the X slashed across the top? And although I do love from-scratch hot crossed buns, soda bread is quick (leavened not with yeast, but containing in fact more baking powder than soda) and thus something that can be mixed and baked in the wee hours of the morning while everyone else is still asleep.
I added grated orange zest and currants, which remind me of my Grandma (although I have no memory of her making Irish soda bread nor hot crossed buns), but you could add chopped candied citron and golden raisins or whatever you might be inclined to add to a hot crossed bun. I shaped the sticky dough into rough balls, slashed Xs on them with a serrated knife, brushed them with buttermilk and sprinkled their tops with coarse sugar. They came out much like drop biscuits/scones, but with far less fat (1/4 cup to 4 cups of flour). I liked their texture and way they spread; if you’re inclined to have them hold their shape a little better, add about 1/2 cup more flour.
Irish Soda Hot Crossed Buns
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/4 cup butter
2 cups buttermilk or thin plain yogurt
1 large egg
grated zest of an orange
1 cup currants or other dried fruit
milk, for brushing (optional)
coarse sugar, for sprinkling (optional)
Preheat the oven to 375°F.
In a large bowl, measure and stir together all the dry ingredients – the flours, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Cut in the butter (or pulse it in a food processor) until well blended.
In a medium bowl, stir together the buttermilk, egg and orange zest, and add it to the dry ingredients. Stir with a spatula until it’s about halfway mixed, then add the currants and stir just until combined.
Sprinkle the countertop with flour or oats and gently knead the dough, folding it over itself about 10 times, then either shape it into a ball (for a single Irish soda loaf) or divide it into balls about the size of a plum or small orange. Arrange about an inch apart on a rimmed baking sheet that has been sprayed with nonstick spray.
Brush the top (or tops) with milk and sprinkle with coarse sugar; cut an ‘X’ lightly on the top using a sharp serrated knife. Bake for 45-55 minutes for a large loaf, 30 minutes for small buns, until golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Makes 1 loaf or about a dozen hot crossed buns.
One Year Ago: Third-Month-of-the-Year-Cake
March 16 2010 | bread and breakfast | 9 Comments »
We were supposed to be in Jasper this weekend, Ali and I and the kids – I was set to be a presenter at the Pajama Party, but a severe snowfall warning and poor winter driving conditions prevented us from hitting the highway Friday afternoon. As I deliberated, stressed out and monitoring the AMA road reports, W sat on my lap and I pondered a spot on his face that I thought was a scratch or bug bite. He had a few along his hairline, too. When we decided to abort the mission he took off his clothes, as he tends to do, revealing about a dozen little red freckles around his midriff. Ali looked at him and said “W has chicken pox!” (You may recall that Ben had shingles a few weeks ago – the same virus, reappearing in a new manifestation of itself, but still transferrable as the Pox.)
We stayed home. The boys had a sleepover. To ease the pain of not getting to go to the cool hotel in the mountains with the swimming pool, I made waffles. (This also eased the pain of being roused at 7 on a Saturday morning. Somewhat.)
I forgot to mix up my usual (I say as if this is a weekly occurence) yeast-raised waffle batter the night before, and so this morning pulled a book off the shelf in search of a waffle recipe that required little energy, and no beating and folding in of egg whites. The only one that fit the bill sounded delicious, too – Honey Bran Waffles, which I made with maple syrup. They were nutty, toasty without being heavy or gummy (as some grainy things tend to be), and nicely sweet (although I turned down the syrup a bit), allowing the boys to eat triangle wedges as is in front of their cartoons, with the maple baked right in. No stickiness. Hallelujah.
(I may have buttered mine. And dribbled over a little extra maple sweetness.)
Maple Bran Waffles
adapted from The Joy of Cooking
3/4 cup whole-wheat flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4-1/2 cup wheat bran or oat bran
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup maple syrup or honey
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
In a large bowl, stir together the flours, bran, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the buttermilk, oil, maple syrup, eggs and vanilla and whisk until well blended.
Preheat your waffle iron and spray it with nonstick spray or brush it with oil. Cook the batter according to the manufacturers directions (I cook about a ladleful in a thick Belgian waffle maker) until golden brown. Keep them warm in a 200F oven while you cook the rest. Makes 6-8 large waffles.
The silver lining to missing out on Jasper (besides having the chance to get up early and make waffles): I got to attend Local 201 – Connecting People in the Local Food Movement. There was an amazing, inspiring lineup of speakers talking about everything from urban agriculture to food policy, urban chickens and beekeeping. It was a smorgasbord.
And of course there was lunch.
LOCAL 201 Lunch Menu
Buffalo Horn Ranch Bison Stew
Sylvan Star Gouda Mac and Cheese
Saskatoon Berry Slaw
Green Salad with Buttermilk Dressing
Biscuits with Vital Green Farms Butter
Forage Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
Besides the amazing spread, the event gave me plenty to chew on. While monitoring Pox Boy.
March 13 2010 | bread and breakfast | 15 Comments »
I decided this morning that it was spring enough for lemon ricotta pancakes. Unfortunately this meant it was also spring enough to pull on our rubber boots and head out to the mud pit that is our back yard armed with garbage bags and poop scoops and attempt to make it a little less like a slushy poo Slip-n-Slide. The top layers of the glacier behind our house have melted, leaving a thick, icy, dirty underbelly, complete with pieces of Lou’s blankies, socks, kitchen utensils that have been missing since Thanksgiving, and Star Wars action figures half-embedded in ice. (Mike needed to boil the kettle and pour it over Han Solo in order to retrieve him. It was almost like carbonite.)
It’s a good thing we were so fortified by breakfast. Remember when I told you how enamoured I was with recipes as a kid? That I had my own recipe box, and took notes, and tore recipes out of magazines? At the time, lemon-ricotta pancakes seemed to me the absolute epitome of springtime gourmet ladies-who-brunch. Ricotta was something real chefs used instead of cottage cheese. Lemon was far more refined than chocolate. Not a spring goes by that I don’t at least ponder lemon-ricotta pancakes, whether I actually make them or not. And this (almost) spring, I have all this lovely homemade ricotta to make use of.
Today it occurred to me that while lemon-ricotta pancakes most often come with berries on top, I might add another lemon dimension with a sweet-tart lemon syrup to drizzle over. All I did was squeeze the juice from the lemon I zested into the pancake batter into a small pot, add as much sugar (sugar + water = simple syrup, so it stands to reason that sugar + lemon juice = lemon syrup), bring it to a simmer enough to dissolve the sugar, add about as much maple syrup, and pour the warm mixture over the pancakes. Lemon bliss.
Lemon Ricotta Pancakes
adapted from Patent and the Pantry and a bunch of others…
4 eggs, separated
1 cup ricotta
3 Tbsp. sugar
grated zest of a lemon
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
In a large mixing bowl, stir together the egg yolks, ricotta, sugar and lemon zest. Stir in the flour. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry; fold a third at a time into the ricotta mixture.
Heat a drizzle of oil (and perhaps a bit of butter) in a well-seasoned cast iron skillet (or any pan you want to use) set over medium heat. Scoop about 1/4 cup of the batter into the pan, spread it out a bit and let it cook until golden on the bottom (bubbles won’t rise to the surface as readily with these), then flip and cook on the other side until golden and cooked through. Makes about 6 medium pancakes.
Lemon Maple Syrup
juice of a lemon (about 3 Tbsp.)
3 Tbsp. sugar
1/4-1/2 cup pure maple syrup
Stir together the lemon juice and sugar in a small saucepan set over medium-high heat; bring to a simmer and stir to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat and stir in the maple syrup. Serve warm. (Keeps in the fridge for a few weeks.)
One Week Ago: Peanut Butter & Banana Chocolate Chunk Cookies
March 06 2010 | breakfast | 21 Comments »
Honestly, that title was hilarious last night when we were deep into the shiraz. I didn’t think this post would entice as much if I titled it “Ensaimadas”, which is what I’m going to tell you about. The name doesn’t do justice to these slightly sweet, poufy buns of the very best kind, brushed in their innards with homemade lard made of pork fat. Seriously – don’t gag.
(Sorry to have skipped out on you for the weekend – I pulled out my laptop and camera yesterday to summon a post, but discovered I had brought the wrong camera-to-computer cord. So rather than talk about something I couldn’t show you in pictures, I thought I’d wait another day.)
We spent a chunk of the weekend (minus the driving part) on the top of a snowy mountain. W went skiing for the first time (us in our boots, coaxing him toward each other at the bottom of one of the more secluded hills). Beyond that, and watching the Olympics, and drinking vast quantities of wine, we had intense and excited conversations about lard. You can imagine the boys were relentless in their taunting that their wives’ weekend revolved around a side of pig fat. (“It’s Saturday night – what are you doing? We’re rendering pig fat!”) They nonetheless reaped the benefits of our efforts, and liked it.
But first, while I backtrack to the point where we decided to make lard our weekend activity, I should backtrack further. There’s no point being elusive about the friend I’ve come to visit; you may have noticed here here, subtly popping up now and then in the comments. Sue is just an excellent person. The shyest two at our small Junior High school, we were thrust together by teachers playing matchmaker for the ones who just didn’t seem to have much in the way of social standing. It was a good call. We spent our formative years listening to U2 and the Clash, wearing tights and slingbacks, dating British boys and pouring mickeys of rye into Super Big Gulps. And speaking of boys -we met Mike at her big sister’s apartment, and it was up for debate over the course of that first year which one of us would go around with him (I told her she could have him).
Sue had always wanted to be a barnstormer, eventually got her pilot’s license, and snatched herself up her very own pilot in the process. About a decade ago they produced a baby girl (who when she was brand-new looked like a Maurice Sendak drawing – and I mean that in the cutest possible way) and soon after relocated to the top of a mountain in BC, very close to exceptional skiing, he being an ex-speed skier in New Zealand and still thoroughly obsessed with the sport.
Which is all to say I WISH SHE LIVED CLOSER. (No pressure if you’re reading this, Sue.) But as is so often the case I probably see her as often as my Calgary friends, she having access to cheap flights via her most excellent West Jet pilot husband, and conveniently living halfway between Calgary and Tofino. And when we do see each other, it’s good quality time spent.
Who am I kidding? I still wish she lived closer. I think the old adage absence makes the heart grow fonder only applies to romantic situations in which logistics prevent you from being bothered by the facts of domestic life – socks on the floor, annoying bathroom habits and the like – and the, ahem, benefits never stagnate.
There are two things you should know about Sue: 1) she’s an unbelievable cook, and appreciates food in all the same ways I do (when we see each other we invariably make fruitcakes or jam or something, and if not the conversation is very food-centric, which actually works out just fine because the boys are always busy discussing planes), and 2) she’s a brilliant writer. She reads as much as I always intend to. Even her emails are good reads. She’s also very smart – she was the one getting marks in the high 90s in physics and math while math was the bane of my teenage existence and I Forest Gumped my way through English having not actually read Hamlet (but still managed an 83%!). I keep telling her she should combine the two somehow and I don’t know – write a blog or something – but so far she hasn’t, so I thought I’d swoop in and steal her for myself, and ask if she might like to do an occasional guest post here, just to get her toes wet. (I suppose that wasn’t the very best analogy for a food blog, but you get the gist.)
Anyway. We’re equally enthusiastic about food and its preparation, so there’s almost always a cooking project on the table – something we likely wouldn’t bother with if the other wasn’t there to hold our hand and share in the revelry. A couple weeks ago, when it was confirmed we’d be coming to visit, she sent an email saying oh goody – and let’s make these! Using lard we make from scratch! Which I admit is something I’d considered doing in the past, but only briefly – the stigma of pure white pig fat acts as effective deterrent.
But here’s something I didn’t know: lard made from pure rendered pig fat is lower in saturated fat than butter. For real! Although the thought, I concede, is a little gag-inducing, it was a big selling point to go ahead and make some. And it does fall into the whole food category – unprocessed, no additives – I know exactly what’s in it. I’d rather eat pork fat from a farm in BC than most of what comes in a tub and is labeled as some sort of butterlike spread.
So as soon as I walked in the door on Saturday afternoon and dropped my suitcase, Sue presented a slice of pig – a giant slab of fat and skin, which we promptly set about chopping – or rather sawing – to set in a cast iron pot and melt in the oven. Our blades didn’t slide through it like butter, as we expected it to – it was more like chewing through leather – we took turns and enlisted Mike’s help to get it into little pieces to put in the pot. (Note to self: get the butcher to grind it next time. Or score and throw in with skin intact, to let the fat melt off? Also: try it in the slow cooker.)
It sat on the stove for awhile before we popped it in the oven at its lowest temperature when it came time to go to bed. (The idea is that you melt the fat without browning it – adding a bit of water helps prevent this, and cooks off as the fat is rendered.) Poor Lola sat in waiting, hoping some pork bits would spontaneously jump from the pot. They didn’t.
In the morning we poured the fat off of the clumpy, sticky bits of skin (is this what’s supposed to turn into cracklings? they never did) and chilled it. It came out solid but spreadable, pure white and fairly benign in flavour. It had an appealing texture – creamy and soft, like whipped Vaseline – softer than butter – evidence of its lower saturated fat content.
There was much hoopla and speculation over the potential pastry and biscuits it might produce. From the two of us, anyway – everyone else in the house looked up from speed skating and moguls (yay Bilodeau!) and rolled their eyes. But I bet if we had made biscuits and pie, they’d have eaten them. It’s probably a good thing we left early enough this morning to not have time for more lard-baking. And can you imagine the roasted potatoes?
So this was all lard-making for the sake of lard-making, but also to produce the Ensaimadas Sue had seen on Delicious Days.
We made the dough using fresh yeast (half a pound for a little over a dollar, and it worked swimmingly) – it’s a lovely, soft dough made with eggs and olive oil, rolled it out, brushed it with the lard, rolled and coiled each piece and set them aside to rise as we went to collect the kids from craft night in the village.
We made the mistake of baking them before dinner, and sprinkled them as they emerged from the oven with icing sugar – they were light, soft and ethereal. But oh the possibilities! For this dough (wonderfully light and slightly sweet, with no butter) as well as their shape – I’m dying to make a cinnamon bun in this form; the sugar and cinnamon and nuts enclosed in its spiral and then coiled like a snail shell; in fact, the next time I make a roll of cinnamon buns rather than cut them into rounds I’ll try coiling the lot, baking it and then slicing into wedges. They were just so pretty – and I imagine doing them this way would prevent overly sticky fingers. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, unless you’re short on napkins.
Besides cinnamon, we fantasized various cheese blends with garlic, pesto and prosciutto, mincemeat. The very best kind of recipe is that which begets even more creations.
Ensaimadas
I’m keeping the weight measurements here, because Sue is devoted to her kitchen scale and used that (seriously easy – you plunk the bowl on the scale and add ingredients by weight instead of needing measuring cups and spoons) – but I’ll give you the straight-up measurements too. Adapted from Delicious Days, inspired by Eliza’s recipe.
3 2/3 cups (500 g) all-purpose flour (plus more as needed)
1/3 cup (75 g) sugar
1/2 tsp. fine sea salt
2 Tbsp. dry yeast (or 40 g fresh)
1 scant cup (about 7/8 cup – you may need the whole cup) lukewarm milk
2 medium eggs
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 cup (about 100 g)soft pork lard or butter
icing sugar, for dusting
In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar and salt. Make a hollow in the middle, crumble in the yeast and a pinch of sugar and pour over enough of the milk to cover; stir just the yeast and milk once or twice, then cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and let rest for about 15 minutes or until the surface of the yeast milk looks bubbly.
Add the rest of the ingredients (the remaining milk, eggs and olive oil) stir until a dough forms and then knead on a lightly floured countertop for a few minutes, until smooth. (The dough was a little sticky; don’t worry about it.) Put it back in the bowl, cover and let rest in a warm place for 30 minutes to an hour, or until doubled in size.
Punch it down softly, then flip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and sprinkle with a little flour. Cut the dough into 10 equally sized portions and form into balls, then let them rest on a baking sheet, covered with a towel, for another 30 minutes.
Flatten each ball of dough and roll out into a thin circle and brush with the softened pork lard. Roll each up loosely, then coil so that it resembles a snail’s shell; keeping it a bit loose as the dough will rise further. Place about five ensaimadas on each baking sheet, making sure to leave enough space between them. Lightly brush with lard (if you like – we missed this step) and cover up again. Let them rise for 1-4 hours, until nice and poufy; or if you want them for the next morning, refrigerate overnight, which will slow the rise.
Preheat the oven to 390° F and bake for 14 to 16 minutes, or until golden. Dust with icing sugar and eat while still warm. Makes 10 ensaimadas.
February 15 2010 | bread and breakfast and pork | 26 Comments »
I MADE THESE. I think the only thing I’m prouder of making is W.
I’ve been racking my brain, trying to come up with some small way to thank you. And it occurred to me I do have a little something – something that will change your life. (Most of your lives, anyway.) It comes in the form of a secret. Aren’t secrets just the best? And I have one just for you.
The secret is that you, yes YOU, can make flaky pain au chocolat from scratch. Seriously. And it’s not even that hard, nor does it take that much time. You can be a superhero without even having to wear tights. How to Win Friends and Influence People, with food.
I swear I’m not making this up. I further swear you do not require the monogrammed initials M.S. nor pastry chef certification to make these. From scratch. Meaning no frozen puff pastry dough to start with. No cheating. For real and true.
You’re probably used to working with butter, flour, eggs and chocolate, right? You can knead soft dough and roll it out into a rectangle, right? Yeah, you can totally make these.
Stop rolling your eyes. It’s not just easy for me. It’s easy, period. The only way I can prove it to you is by convincing you to try it. It’s an easy, soft dough that you just roll out, spread with butter, fold like a letter, chill, roll and fold; repeat. The instructions look long, but it’s really pretty simple. And there are probably plenty of things you could do with the dough besides wrap it around chocolate before you bake it. And it makes enough for you to bake a bunch of pain au chocolat and still have some left for something else. Or to wrap and stash in the freezer for next weekend.
Pain au Chocolat
Danish Dough:
3/4 cup milk, warmed
1 Tbsp. active dry yeast
1/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 cup (1/2 lb.) butter, cold
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup(ish) good-quality chocolate (chopped, chips or squares, halved – I used Bernard Callebaut semi-sweet drops)
In a large bowl, stir together the milk and yeast. Stir in the sugar, eggs and vanilla and mix well. Add a cup of the flour and the salt, then add the rest of the flour gradually, stirring until it’s incorporated. Knead the dough on a lightly floured countertop for about 5 minutes, until smooth. Transfer to a lightly floured baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap; chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, beat the butter and flour with an electric mixer for a couple minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl, until smooth. Set aside (don’t refrigerate).
When the dough has chilled, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and roll into a rectangle that is about 13″x18″ and 1/4″ thick. Spread the butter evenly over the right two-thirds of the dough. Fold the left third of the dough over, covering half the butter, then fold the right side over, as if you were folding a letter in thirds. (Unlike a letter, the dough ends should line up, so that it’s folded in three.) Cover the dough in plastic wrap and put it back into the fridge for 30 minutes.
Put the dough back on the floured surface lengthwise, with the open sides to the left and right. Roll it out into another 13″x18″ rectangle, 1/4″ thick. Fold the left third over the middle, then the right third over the middle. (This is referred to as “turns”. To keep track of each fold -or turn- press your finger into the dough at the edge to make two marks – you can do this each time you roll and fold so that you know how many times you’ve done it.) Chill the dough for another 30 minutes.
Roll, fold and refrigerate the dough two more times, so that you’ve done it four times total. Cover and refrigerate for at least 5 hours, or overnight. It can also be frozen at this point for up to 4 months.
To assemble the pain au chocolat, take the dough out of the fridge and roll it on a lightly floured surface to about 1/4″ thick. You can cut the dough into rectangles as large or as small as you like – we made them on the small side, cutting the dough into strips and then crosswise so that each piece was about the size of a business card. Put a little pile of chocolate, or a chunk of it, along the middle of the pastry, roll the sides up and place each one seam-side down on an ungreased baking sheet. If you have time, cover loosely with plastic or a tea towel and let them proof for an hour or two. (This is not absolutely necessary- we did ours in a rush!)
Preheat the oven to 400F. Bake the pain au chocolat for 15 minutes, until golden. (If they are larger, they may need more time.) Try to be a good person and share with your family and friends. Makes about 3 dozen.
UPDATE: Over 800 Blog Aid cookbooks have sold! Thank you!
One Year Ago: Peanut Truffle Fudge
February 06 2010 | bread and breakfast and dessert | 47 Comments »
