So blog, that I have so sadly neglected…While I have nothing to say in my defense, I will say that in my absence I have been doing a lot of experimenting. And of the food variety (not the college variety…sadly).
To begin what I hope will be a dedication to more regular postings, I have a whole holiday weekend worth of culinary excitement planned. To start (Saturday) I am making cinnamon swirl while wheat bread, followed by grilled pineapple salsa and bacon wrapped filet minion. Delicious. Tomorrow (Sunday) before I take in the sights and sounds of the Cirque De Sole, I will take the morning (allll of it) to make my sister and mothers birthday cake [sorbet, Angel food ice-cream cake curtsey of Martha]. The last day will be our birthday/4th of July extravaganza.
Whole Wheat Cinnamon Bread
I have been trying out a lot of bread recipes of late. I started with plain white bread, then dinner rolls, both of which turned out quite good if I do say so. Next, I attempted French bread, following a recipe in ReadyMade magazine. It came out OK (oh and took 15 years to complete) and I am resolved to try again and again until I achieve near artisan quality.
This recipe is an attempt to give myself something sweet to snack on that is not detrimental to the rather thick waist I am attempting to whittle. I figured it was sweet, but not overly so, the amount of sugar in minimal, the whole grains are good for me, and the cinnamon apparently helps you to lose weight (time will tell on that one).
Here is the recipe:
4 -4.5 cups whole wheat flour
2 packages active dry yeast
1 ¾ cup milk
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons shortening
2 teaspoons salt
yeast and 2 cups of flour go into my trusty kitchen aid, while the salt, milk, shortening and brown sugar go into a small saucepan and are heated to roughly 115°-120° (or unitl shortening is almost melted). Add this to the flour/yeast in mixture (this is what “activates” your yeast). The mix is combines on low (1/2 a minute) then beaten on high (3 mins). Next you add as much flour as you can stir in before turning it out on a floured surface, kneed in enough flour to make a moderately stiff dough and kneed for about 6-8 mins. Shape into a ball, then place in a greased bowl (I grease my bowls with Pam), flip, then cover and let rise for 1-1.5 hours. Punch down, turn out onto a lightly floured surface and let rest (covered) for 10 mins.
-Here I made the cinnamon swirl. If you don’t want to just skip this part: Mix sugar and cinnamon (about ½ a cup sugar and 2 tablespoons cinnamon according to the recipe, though I used a mix of sugar and truvia with more cinnamon). Roll out dough to a rectangle 15x7. brush with water and sprinkle cinnamon sugar mix. Roll the dough like a jelly roll (a reference in my mid-century cook book that wasn’t as clear as some alternatives I though of: burrito, joint, shamWOW) seal the end with the water, pinch the outer edges and place, seam side down into a loaf pan
cover and let rise until doubled (about 30 mins) then bake at 375° for 35-40 mins. Remove and cool on rake. Attack with knife and butter. Makes 1 loaf (though I followed the same recipe and made two small ones….a good idea if you need to give one away as you, like me, cannot be trusted with too much bread alone)
some notes about bread making:
1. in my adventures with bread I have picked up a few things that I will now share. The first is pre-measure flour. Bread may be the godfather of all “it’s just right when it is” food items. Similar to my aunts stuffed cabbage, which has no recipe because “it’s just right when it is” and therefore there are no quantifiable measurements for anything, bread requires a different amount of flour every time you make it. But what I have found is helpful with any recipe like this is to measure out the flour recommended in the ingredients into a bowl before starting the recipe, place the measuring spoon in it, and take it as you need it.
outside of this being good Mise en place (which FYI is defined by the Culinary Institute of America as "everything in place" or basically “getting your shit together before you cook to avoid messy disaster kitchens and panicked pantry rummages mid-recipe) it is also easier to just take the flour from the bowl then attempt to remember how much you used as your going. I imagine my preference to pre-measure comes from my distain for the tedium of measuring in the first place, so it’s better just to get it out of the way and focus on your recipe. Most importantly, doing this insures that you never use too much flour by accident
2. Kirsten’s mom was a bitch not to be messed with. When I was a kid, of all the American Girls in the book series, Kirsten, the Swedish immigrant who lived in a cabin, was my favorite. And I remember in one of the books she is making bread with her mom. There was even an illustration on the page of the both of them gently punching down bread with their fingers.
Despite the fact that I haven’t read the book in years and years the image must have stuck with me because I somehow imagined bread making like so many other aspects of cooking to involve gingerly hands and delicate punching. Yeah not really. Kneading is hard ass work. In addition, it also seems to stop time, which while great for women who fear wrinkles (forget retinol, the next breakthrough in wrinkle repair is kneading bread….forever) is bad for your dough as it’s hard to tell when 5 mins has elapsed since it will likely feel like 7 years. This leads to my second suggestion: Time your kneading. For instance this recipe says you should kneed for 6-8 mins, so I set a timer for 6 mins to make sure I do not under-kneed. Julia Child also recommends counting your individual kneeds and aiming for about 50. Oh and avoid kindly Swedish immigrants who frequent young adult fiction cause they are probably strong enough to fuck you up
3. I had to use shorting for this recipe which I have not for other bread recipes, and it looks like Elmer’s Paste that I used in kindergarten. I then thought, well Paste was the height of cuisine in kindergarten. Not related to cooking really, just thought I’d share.
Official Chris rating: 8
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