Barley Baking

Although the banana cake I'm about to share with you is quite delicious, it worries me. Or rather, the amount of kitchen cabinet space that I have been dedicating to alternative flours is worrying me. At this point, what was once the appropriately-sized home of a tub of all-purpose flour and a sack of whole wheat has become the dangerously small hideaway for white whole wheat, whole wheat pastry, barley, cornmeal, vital wheat gluten, garbanzo...you get the idea.

Every time I open the cabinet, I invite the risk of being overwhelmed by an avalanche of tenuously-positioned flours. I don't even want to think about what the clean-up for that disaster would be like. Unfortunately, though, as long as I continue to find new and exciting ways to use them, the flours are here to stay. Maybe we'll have to figure out a better storage solution.

The flour du jour today is whole barley flour, which is slightly less caloric than whole wheat, contains a decent amount of soluble fiber, and has a slightly sweet, oatmeal-like flavor. It is similar to rye (ooh, another denizen of the flour cabinet!) in that it contains gluten, but not quite as much as wheat. This makes it an appropriate choice for quick breads and other baked goods with a crumbly or cake-like texture, but won't work so well for yeasted breads.


So back to that cake. I've made this quite a few times now, mostly because it is easy and tasty, but also because it provides the perfect opportunity to use up past-their-prime bananas. We had two such specimens on the counter this morning, and the rest is history.

This cake is inspired by a traditional coffee cake, and is made with an oat-y, chocolate-y, walnut-y streusel layer that lends a lovely texture and medley of flavors. Unlike most coffee cakes, though, the cake itself is very light, low in fat, and sweetened primarily by the bananas. That's why I call it a "snack" cake - not exactly a decadent dessert (although it does make a nice dessert), but perfect for breakfast, brunch, or general all-purpose snacking. I challenge you to bake it and make it last for more than a day.

I've made the cake with 100% barley flour, although I like the texture that a bit of wheat imparts. I suppose you could also make the cake with 100% wheat, but barley is so fun, and goes quite well with banana (and not just because of the alliteration). The streusel is also flexible; you can leave out the chocolate or walnuts if you are so inclined (note that I am in no way endorsing this inclination). So go crazy - buy some barley flour, let some bananas languish on your counter, and treat yourself to this tasty snack.

Banana Barley Snack Cake

For Cake:
1 c. barley flour
1/2 c. whole wheat pastry flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. cardamom
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 c. buttermilk
2 mashed ripe bananas
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tbs. melted butter

For Topping:
1/4 c. rolled oats
1/4 c. chopped walnuts
1-2 tbs. brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tbs. melted butter
handful chocolate chips

Directions:
Mix flours, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices in a medium bowl and whisk to combine. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas, and then add the melted butter, buttermilk, vanilla, and egg. Mix well. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients, and stir until combined. Batter will be thick. Prepare topping: melt butter, and then add remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Pour about 3/4 of the cake batter into a greased 8x8 square pan. Sprinkle topping evenly over the batter. Drop remaining batter by spoonfuls over the oat topping. Bake cake at 375 F for 20-25 minutes, until tester comes out fairly clean (a few bits of topping may stick).

Hot Chick Pizza

I know, I know...it's been a slow blog month for me. Just when i thought I'd have all the free time in the world, little things started popping up - apartment searching, catch-up schoolwork, weekend trips - that have been keeping my posting at bay.

Luckily I've still had ample time to cook, and in addition to some new sweet baking experiments (recipes coming soon, I hope!), I've been playing around with bread doughs, too. And I'm not just talking about whole wheat pitas, either. I do love my whole wheat pitas, and I especially love the versatility of the dough, but my last creation took flatbread to a new level.

For one, I used a special secret ingredient in the dough. More importantly, though, I created my first original yeasted dough recipe. Most of the chemically-leavened recipes on this site are my original recipes, and I've gotten pretty comfortable baking on the fly, without a recipe, recording measurements as I go. Yeast, though, has always been a tricky thing, and I've mostly stuck with other people's guidelines when it comes to making pizza, pita, or bread.

Ever since the last pita episode, though, I've been looking for a good day to make more flatbread. The idea of a Mediterranean pizza seemed to be stuck in my head, and I wondered if I could incorporate some of that inspiration into the dough itself, and not just the toppings on the bread. Thus my garbanzo dough was created. I was hoping to get a real chick pea flavor in my dough with the addition of garbanzo flour.

Honestly, I can't say that I'd be able to pinpoint garbanzo as the distinctive flavor of this dough, but it really was much more flavorful than ordinary dough. It turned out to be the perfect backdrop for a host of different toppings, including spinach, red onion, roasted peppers, herbs, and feta.

I made the dough with a sponge in the hopes of it imparting a certain richness in flavor that straight doughs often lack. Although it sounds complicated, a sponge is like a pre-dough made with all of the liquid, part of the flour, and the yeast of the recipe, which allows the yeast to develop a bit before the addition of more flour and other flavoring agents (salt, oil, etc.). The sponge entails an extra rising period, but this recipe is pretty flexible - I made it on a day when I was in and out of the kitchen, and all of the rising times are approximate. I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's pretty hard to mess up a flatbread dough.


The dough mixed and rose beautifully, and was particularly easy to roll out for thin, almost cracker-like pizza crusts. A combination of garbanzo, white whole wheat, and whole wheat flours resulted in a lower gluten content and thus a slightly less elastic dough than a traditional wheat dough. After a few minutes on the pizza stone, the crusts were golden, crunchy, and slightly bubbly around the edges, but the interior was thin and a bit chewy.

Given that legumes in general are about the healthiest thing one can consume, and that they lend a distinctly savory and pleasant flavor to this dough, its appeal is two-fold. I made a bunch of dough, used half for dinner on Friday, and then saved the rest in the refrigerator for lunch on Sunday. Yes, the secret is out, I'm so not doing the whole matzah thing. The name "hot chick pizza," though, was created during the car ride back from a Passover seder...

We took the dough in a whole bunch of directions, so it wasn't just plain old pizza, either. We made several smallish thin-crust breads, some with spinach and ricotta, and some with peppers, onions, and pine nuts. We also did a "deep-dish" risen-crust pie with sausage and mozzarella (guess who ate that one?). We tried out a wee calzone with ricotta, tomatoes, and spinach, and even made a little garbanzo griddle cake that Jonathan ate with scrambled eggs for breakfast.

Next time, I think I'll make a huge batch of this dough, and stash some in the freezer so that when I'm struck by a garbanzo griddle cake craving (they happen to the best of us), I'll be totally prepared. Seriously, though, this dough is awesome. Try it!

Whole Wheat Garbanzo Dough (for Chick Pizza)

Sponge:
1 c. garbanzo flour
1 c. white whole wheat flour
1 tbs. instant yeast
1 tsp. sugar
1 3/4 c. warm water

Dough:
All of sponge
2 1/2 - 3 1/2 c. whole wheat bread flour
2 tsp. salt
2 tbs. olive oil

Directions:
Prepare sponge: mix dry ingredients in a large bowl, and add warm water. Stir for a few minutes, until thoroughly combined. Sponge with be very wet. Let sponge sit, covered, for about 45 minutes, until bubbly. Add salt and oil, and then start adding additional flour. Stir in about 2 c. of flour, adding more until dough is too stiff to stir with a wooden spoon. Turn out the dough and begin kneading, continuing to add flour until it is just tacky and smooth. Return dough to bowl and cover with oiled plastic wrap and a dish towel. Let rise until about doubled in bulk, 1 1/2-2 hours. Punch down dough and either roll out for pizzas or place in a sealed plastic bag and store in the refrigerator until ready to use. Makes enough dough for about 6 smallish, thin-crusted pizzas.

Nibby-licious

I promised nibs, so here they are:


Making their rounds through the culinary blogosphere, cacao nibs seem to be everywhere these days. They are folded into buttery and chocolatey cookie doughs, sprinkled atop chic pasta dishes, and here at Red Ramekin, tucked into my favorite treat: biscotti.

I was so excited about using cacao nibs that I made two batches of biscotti with them. One was adapted from David Lebovitz's very dark and chocolatey biscotti, (featured in the pictures below) and the other was an adaptation of my regular almond biscotti recipe, enhanced with a touch of cocoa, spices, and of course, the nibs themselves. I'll admit it, though, we gobbled up the second batch so quickly that we kind of, um, forgot about the whole taking pictures thing....so use your imagination. They looked like a cross between the almond and the chocolate varieties, with visible chunks of nib speckling the dough.


Before getting to the biscotti, though, let's talk nibs. The cacao nib is a wholly worthwhile culinary experience, even at $9 for a smallish-sized box from Scharffen Berger. The nibs are simply roasted and crushed cacao beans, which are usually used to make the smooth and sweet chocolate that we are used to eating. The nibs, though, are unadorned, and on their own taste intensely chocolatey and bitter, like unsweetened baking chocolate. You might say that they are an "acquired taste," or if you aren't a total and unabashed food snob, you might just toss them into some cookie dough and enjoy the chocolate crunchiness that they impart when paired with something sweet.


In cookies the nibs seem to lose their harsh bitterness, and taste almost like very dark chocolate bits. The texture is quite different though, and the visual effect is much more interesting. In our first batch of biscotti, I timidly chopped the nibs to soften their harshness, but this proved unnecessary; in the second batch, I tossed the pieces in as they were, and they struck just the right balance of subtlety and bite.

Until it is definitively shown through dubious medical evidence and sensationalized New York Times articles that cacao is the most anti-oxidant rich substance in the world, though, I'm not sure I'll go out of my way to acquire more nibs. A little bit goes a long way, so we still have a few handfuls of these little treasures left. I'm trying to dream up a new use, but then again, I never tire of cookies. Once we've worked our way through this box, though, I doubt we'll be seeing another one until our next lazy afternoon spent meandering through the Ferry Building.

Our first batch of biscotti (pictured in this post) were quite yummy, but a bit too chocolatey for me. If you are looking for a relatively healthy chocolate cookie, though, these would work just fine. I prefer my biscotti to be a bit lighter, thus facilitating my habit of eating 10-20 of them per sitting. Keeping this in mind, I made the second batch with just a couple tablespoons of cocoa to complement the nibs, and some spices to heighten the flavor without going overboard. I enjoyed these cookies much more, and found that the nibs were really the star ingredient. In batch #1, the nibs were all but lost in the hefty dose of cocoa powder and smattering of dark chocolate chunks that I added to the dough.


If you are looking for a biscotti-making tutorial, check out my earlier post on almond biscotti. And if you get your hands on some nibs and are looking for a recipe, try this one. (To put things in perspective, we devoured the entire batch in two days.) I happen to love the combination of cocoa and warm spices, but you can tweak the recipe according to your tastes. I also added some liqueur to this recipe, which makes the dough supple and easy to form into logs. I think the nutty-fruity scent of frangelico works really well here, but amaretto, brandy, or perhaps even Grand Marnier would work. These biscotti have just a small amount of sugar, perfect for a snacking/dunking cookie. If you like sweeter cookies, increase the sugar to 2/3 c. For recipe directions, see the post mentioned above.

Nibby Spiced Biscotti

2 1/4 c. whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 tbs. unsweetened natural cocoa powder
1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
pinch of cloves
1/4 tsp. salt
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1/4 c. frangelico
2/3 c. whole toasted almonds
1/4 c. (or more, if desired) unsweetened cacao nibs

Daring Bakers Challenge: Dorie's Perfect Party Cake, San Francisco Style

Remember the epic French bread post? And all of those amazing Daring Bakers? Well this month's challenge has now come and gone, and I managed to pull it off at the last minute, during our trip to California.

The recipe this time was decidedly less involved, and allowed for plenty of adaptations and creativity: Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake. The host of this month's challenge was Morven, whose blog can be found here.

I won't include the entire recipe here, but you should invest in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours if you are curious. The original recipe is for a lemon-flavored white layer cake, complete with raspberry filling and a thick, luscious buttercream meringue frosting. We're talking 3-sticks-of-butter-luscious. While this may sound tempting, though, buttercream isn't really my thing....and neither is lemon-flavored cake, for that matter. I knew after reading the recipe a few weeks ago that I wanted to get the creative juices flowing, and make something a bit more in tune with my tastes.

Given that we were in the Bay Area for the past week, we made multiple trips to the Ferry Building Farmers' Market, in San Francisco. Trust me, this is really a farmer's farmers' market, and features heaps upon heaps of fresh vegetables, juicy citrus, and handmade breads, cheeses, and jams. We got up early yesterday morning after a 2-day romp in Big Sur to head on over, hoping to find some baking inspiration from the dizzying array of delicious foodstuffs.

We stumbled upon success at the second stand that we passed, which featured handmade quark. Quark is a mascarpone-like soft cheese, and this particular vendor sold it in a variety of flavors, including the utterly delicious vanilla bean. We tried a sample and promptly bought it, with visions of it oozing from between layers of soft, white cake.

A while later we happened upon a sample-happy vendor selling almond brittle which, crunchy with butter and sugar, made an obvious choice for our cake. And so, with quark and brittle in hand, and a jar of raspberry Bonne Maman in the fridge at home, I was ready to go on a baking binge.

I stayed true to the cake recipe, although I replaced the lemon extract with vanilla, and baked it in a sheet pan instead of in layers. I opted for a mini cake sandwich instead of a big layer cake; I wasn't sure if I could stretch the quark far enough to frost a whole cake. Besides, I can't resist making miniatures.

Once baked, I cut a small circle of cake, and sliced this circle in half to form two layers. I then spread each layer with thinned raspberry jam. Next came a hefty dollop of quark whipped cream, which I made by (surprise!) whipping the vanilla bean quark with some heavy cream to get a smooth, spreadable consistency.

To really push it over the edge, I crumbled up the almond brittle and tossed in a few Scharffen Berger cacao nibs (obtained during a prior Ferry Building visit), and then sprinkled this mixture over the cream.

Then a bit more cream, the final cake layer....

A touch more jam, and voila! A nutty, nibby, berry-y, creamy cake sandwich.

Take a look at this cross-section and tell me this doesn't look good:

Jonathan certainly enjoyed it, as did I. And in case you were wondering: no, I did not have the patience nor the time to make a whole bunch of these little creations. I cut the rest of the cake into cubes, whipped the rest of the cream and quark, and made a trifle which we gobbled up for dessert later that evening. It was heavenly.

So, another challenge down, and I'm anxious to see what next month's challenge is. Thanks to Morven for giving us a little wiggle room in this challenge; I had so much fun picking out flavors and ingredients to make this cake.

And now that I'm back from spring break, stay tuned for more adventures with cacao nibs...

A Bit of Baking Philosophy

Now that I've come down from my Daring Bakers high, I thought I might give you a little window into how I like to bake when I don't have a 15-page recipe staring me in the face. As you might imagine, most of my baking occurs sans 15-page recipe (like my French?).

For me, baking is one of those things that I can get really, really into. As in, if I make any more scones/cookies/bread/muffins/granola, I'm going to barf. But then I do it anyway. Like most people, I started baking before I started cooking, mostly because when you're 10 years old, making a chocolate cake is much more enticing than dicing up onions or browning chicken breasts. Baking is a comfort, an indulgence, and something I like to do when I feel the creative juices flowing but can only afford a brief diversion from some more serious endeavor or another.

Now that I'm responsible for crafting my own meals - not just my own desserts and treats - I have come to love cooking as much I love baking. But still, there is an element of surprise in baking that doesn't quite surface in the faster-paced, more evolutionary art of cooking. When I cook, I test, adjust, season, taste, and repeat until I'm done. Baking doesn't allow you the luxury of adjustment, though. Once it's out of the oven, that's it.

Of course, that doesn't mean that baking doesn't allow for experimentation. It just makes the experimentation that much more exciting. People always say that baking is a "science," which, in the chemical sense, it is. There seems to be a misplaced loyalty to following a recipe in baking, though, which I don't quite understand. I agree that when replicating a dish - from a restaurant, cookbook, etc. - it's essential to follow the recipe to the letter. An extra dash of salt or a misplaced 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda can make or break a fickle batch of popovers or a fussy little cake.

But baking doesn't always have to be about replicating, and for me, it's often about creating. In the past year or so I've started creating my own baking recipes, often drawing from other sources and applying my own modifications, but sometimes also starting from scratch. An idea pops into mind and I take it to the kitchen, where, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, it gets whipped, beaten, crumbled, folded, and kneaded into shape.

Even more recently I've started baking without a recipe at all. I start with an ingredient and keep adding until I think I've got something tasty. That's how my ricotta-veggie muffins were born, and they turned out pretty well.

But, in an effort not to bore you to pieces with my baking philosophy, I'll leave you with a quick recipe for some scone/biscuit hybrid specimens that I made this morning. I've spent a lot of time working recently in an adorable little cafe, and although I don't usually indulge in their baked goods, the sight of them (and my lonely coffee mug, with nothing dunked into it), has been making me crave something sweet and scone-like.

These little scones are a cross between rolls, scones, and biscuits - and they are full of whole grains. I had some leftover chai-poached prunes which I chopped up and mixed into the dough, but any dried fruit, frozen fruit, or nuts would also taste lovely. Enjoy these, or better yet, use them to inspire your own original recipe!

Improvisation Breakfast Scones

1/2 c. Bob's Red Mill 8-Grain Cereal (or substitute other cereal)
1/4 c. wheat bran
1/2 c. buttermilk
1/2 c. skim milk
1/2 c. barley flour (or use regular flour)
1/2 c. whole wheat pastry flour
1-2 tbs. brown sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
pinch of cardamom
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. caraway seeds (optional, but so delicious!)
handful of prunes or dried fruit, chopped if large

Directions:
Combine cereal and bran and add buttermilk and milk. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit until softened, about half an hour. Add vanilla and dry ingredients, and stir to combine. Add dried fruit and stir until evenly distributed. Drop heaping spoonfuls of dough onto parchment-lined baking sheet (you'll get about 9 scones), and bake at 375 degrees for 15-18 min., until lightly browned on top and bottom. These will be softer than traditional scones, and are perfect dunked in coffee or tea.

1st Daring Bakers Challenge: Baking (and kneading, waiting, deflating, shaping, proofing, and slashing) with Julia

The moment you have all been waiting for: Red Ramekin's first foray into the exciting and borderline cultish world of the Daring Bakers. "The Daring Bakers?" you ask. "Wow, you must know basically nothing about the culino-blogosphere," I chortle, possessed and covered in flour. It's OK, though, I'll explain anyway. The Daring Bakers is a baking group composed of lots and lots of food bloggers from all over the world. Each month, an illustrious blogger or two "hosts" the event, which means that they pick a challenging baking recipe, disseminate it to the eager and less-illustrious members of the group, and then try and moderate the endless discussions that go on throughout the month surrounding the specifics of the recipe. This often includes topics such as the percentage of gluten in bread flour, the appropriate proofing time for bakers living in Malaysian huts with no air-conditioning, and whether it is acceptable to use a linen towel for covering your dough, even though the recipe explicitly says canvas. It's awesome. No, seriously, the Daring Bakers, and the Daring Bakers blog, are really awesome.

The recipe is released to the group members on the 1st of each month, and must be kept a secret until the last day of the month, when all of the bloggers get to post about their successes and/or failures in making the chosen recipe. The event is not a competition, but rather a way for the blog-obsessed to branch out and try recipes that they might not choose to try otherwise. There's more information, and a complete list of members, at the Daring Bakers blogroll.

So, this month's challenge was.....Julia Child's French Bread. Compared to some of the previous challenges (strawberry mirror cake, lemon meringue pic, sticky buns, buche de noel) this one seemed a bit ordinary. However, most ordinary recipes don't require 12 hours to complete. Ordinary recipes don't require that you set your resting dough on a heating pad to achieve the desired rising temperature. Ordinary recipes aren't 8 pages long. You get the idea. It may be bread, but let's face it: bread-baking is anything but easy. Besides, it's a Julia Child recipe, which makes it extra-special. I (like everyone else who has ever cooked) grew up on Julia Child. OK, I'm exaggerating a bit, but Baking with Julia, on PBS's How-To Saturdays, was the best show. Ever. At that age (maybe 12 or so) when watching TV for an entire Saturday was still a reasonable undertaking, I watched Julia religiously.

I have been pretty busy with work this month, but I didn't want to delay membership in the Daring Bakers another month. So, last Sunday was dedicated to Julia's French bread. We prayed for success on the first try, because there probably wasn't going to be a second try. And nobody likes blogging about failed French bread. Luckily, all went according to plan. We ended up with 3 lovely, uber-French batards with golden, crispy crusts and feather-light interiors.

I will spare you the entire recipe, because it is basically the longest recipe I've ever read and I don't even want to think about typing it up. If you are curious, though, check it out here. I'll lay out the basics, though.

First was the mixing, and then the kneading. Lots of kneading:


Then the dough rose until tripled in size, at which point we deflated the dough and set it to rise again. After the second rise came the shaping:


And then another rise:


And then the baking, which involved, among other things, a silicone pastry brush, two baking sheets, a pizza peel, a baking stone, a cast-iron skillet, lots of floury towels, and 10 ice cubes. Look!


Since this was a rather momentous event in my life as a food blogger, I have taken some time to seriously (and not so seriously) reflect on the whole experience.

Overall, it was wonderful. I've been really into bread-baking lately, and this was a kind of baking that I haven't done so much of. It's a totally classic recipe, and it's one of the staples of any decent baker's bread repertoire. I am pretty obsessed with creating my own recipes and using lots of whole grains and alternative ingredients, but it was fun to have an excuse to go completely balls-to-the-wall refined flour for a change.

We have also been doing a lot of that new-fangled no-knead stuff lately. I must admit that I love the no-knead method. It takes literally 5 minutes to mix the dough, and then you just let it hang out for a while in your fridge until you get your lazy ass around to baking it. That's what I'm talking about.

Still, though, there is something about doing bread the real way - I'm talking about kneading now - that is utterly satisfying. This dough was so great to work with, and it was very nice to actually make a successful kneaded loaf. I've tried doing kneaded loaves in the past - just a few times - and have never really been successful. I discovered that it's because I never really knew how to actually knead dough. This recipe explained it very thoroughly. Turns out when a recipe says "10 minutes" it actually, literally means 10 minutes. My arms were tired. When I was kneading the French bread dough, I could see and feel the dough transform from a mish-mash of gluten and liquid into a smooth, soft, cohesive bread-to-be.


The dough was also amazing in the strictly tactile sense. I'd really been missing out by not kneading dough. After a few minutes, this lovely, white, little lump was so soft and smooth that it almost melted (not really, but it felt like that) into my hands. It wasn't sticky, but just barely tacky; it cleared the surface and became delightfully springy and elastic. By the time I was done pounding that sucker, it was like a refined little bubble of yeasty velvet. If my fingers could talk, they would have said something like: "aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhoooooooooeeeeeeahhhhhooohh." Oh yeah, it was that good.

The evidence for that was in the rising: our precocious little dough-ball puffed up to triple its volume in less than 2 hours. You don't see that with whole-wheat dough. Trust me. The risings went smoothly, so that was good, if not overly exciting. I went to yoga class during the second rise, though, which was a little bit exciting.

And then there was the shaping. This part scared me the most, since I've never had to shape my free-form loaves into "batards" before. The directions were thorough, although not altogether clear; it was hard to visualize them without actually having the dough in front of me. When the time came, though, the directions pulled through. I won't claim that the loaves were perfectly shaped, but they were at worst a rough approximation of a traditional French bread shape. Long, thin, and not horribly disfigured.

Baking was also a breeze, although it required brushing the loaves with water every 3 minutes for the first 9 or so minutes of baking. Hey, I told you this wasn't easy. Miraculously, though, everything seemed to work more or less as written. After letting the loaves cool for a ridiculously long time, we sliced into one and were pleased with both taste and texture. The crust was crispy with a slight chew, and the crumb was close and fine but light as a feather and subtly yeasty.


So, the real test: is it something I'd make again? Well, to be honest, probably not. For one, this loaf requires 100% white flour. Substituting whole grains here would not be pretty. Nor would it be tasty. While I make some exceptions to my whole-grain regime, when I bake for myself I try to stay away from white flour.

And then, of course, there is the time commitment issue. I do like making bread, and I'm excited to try some more kneaded loaves, but this recipe is a bit over-the-top, time-wise. Three rises, really attentive baking, fairly involved shaping....it all adds up to an entire day dedicated to bread. Not that I don't like the occasional day-dedicated-to-bread. But still. This recipe isn't messing around.

The final kicker? Yeah, our French bread was good. But it wasn't any better than a loaf you could get in any bakery or (gasp!) supermarket. Yep, I said it. Store-bought loaves won't make your kitchen smell wonderful, but seriously, they will save you 11 hours of your precious time. Even if your time isn't that precious, that's still a freaking lot of time. I refuse to use this argument when talking about a) breads that don't take huge amounts of time or b) breads that are in some way unique and can't be replaced with store-bought loaves (there are many). But French bread? It's pretty much everywhere, and baking it is definitely not my comparative advantage (just ask Jonathan, the resident economist, what that means). Oh, I almost forgot: sourdough is better than French bread. If I try to do a traditional white loaf again, you can bet that some serious sourdough starter will be involved. Snap.

So, that's the wrap-up of my first-ever Daring Bakers challenge. Totally worth it, totally enjoyable, and totally educational. I can't wait for the next one (I find out tomorrow, but you have to wait until the end of the month!).

Also, if you actually read this entire post, you can officially consider yourself a food blog geek. You're basically a step away from joining the Daring Bakers yourself. But look at what lies ahead:

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine Scones (makes about 5 scones)

1/2 c. whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 c. all-purpose flour
3 tbs. sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 egg, beaten
1/4 c. buttermilk
2 1/2 tbs. cold butter
milk, for brushing tops
sugar, for sprinkling

In a large bowl, mix together flours, sugar, salt, cinnamon, baking soda, and baking powder. Cut cold butter into small pieces and add to flour mixture, mixing with fingertips until combined and resembling a coarse meal. Add beaten egg and buttermilk, and stir with a fork to combine. If sticky, add a bit of flour and knead a few times to combine. Pat dough into a large circle and form scones using a cookie cutter, biscuit cutter, or a glass dipped in flour. Place scones on parchment-lined baking sheet and brush tops with milk and sprinkle with a bit of sugar. Bake at 400 degrees until lightly browned, about 18-20 minutes. Enjoy with your valentine!

Friday Night, with Muffin to Do...

I know it's been a while, and I do apologize to all you faithful readers. I'm entering a rather busy time of the semester right now, and sadly will not be able to post as much as I have been over the past few months. But don't worry, come March 24th, I will be dedicating most of my time to you. Well, to cooking at least.

I will, of course, try to get the occasional post in when I have some free time to cook and dream up recipes. This Friday evening was one of those times. After a week of getting serious about some academic projects, I was ready for a little baking break, and I happened to have dreamed up a lovely idea for savory muffins.

We had some fat-free ricotta in the fridge for some pasta I made a few nights ago, and I thought that instead of the already-done cottage cheese muffins, ricotta might just make a tasty, baked little treat.

I mentioned my carrot-sage cornbread mini muffins in my Thanksgiving redux post, and these were roughly based on that idea. I skipped the cornmeal, though, and added some more veggies: zucchini and green onions.

These have quite a bit of ricotta in them, so they don't bake up quite like regular muffins. They are much moister and creamier than most muffins, which tend to be on the cake-y side. I was a bit worried when they first came out of the oven - they were yummy, but I was afraid that after a day or so they would deflate and get gummy. Luckily, that wasn't the case. They were delicious the next day, and even the day after that.

As we stuffed our faces with tasty, savory muffins, Jonathan and I tried to think of some good accompaniments to these little treats. They'd be perfect for brunch, with scrambled eggs, or for lunch, or for dinner alongside some roast chicken...the list continues, although naturally we finished all of the muffins before we got to pair them with any other foodstuffs.

Perhaps the best part of this recipe was that it allowed us to test out the grating/shredding blade on the new food processor for the first time. We had to break out the manual and everything! And you thought your Friday night was exciting. If you are unfortunate enough to live sans food processor, this recipe will take a bit of extra time, but it is definitely worth it. I went out this morning to buy the ingredients for our next batch...

Savory Ricotta-Veggie Muffins

1 1/2 c. whole wheat pastry flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. all-purpose spice mix (I used Whole Pantry brand) or dried herbs of your choice
1 c. fat-free ricotta
1 egg
1/2 c. buttermilk
2 tbs. olive oil
2 carrots, shredded
1 zucchini, shredded
1-2 green onions, diced

In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda and powder, salt, pepper, and spices. In a separate bowl, mix egg, oil, ricotta, and buttermilk. Using a food processor or a grater, grate the carrots and zucchini until finely shredded. Using cheesecloth or a sturdy colander, press as much of the water as you can out of the carrots and zucchini. Dice the onion by hand. Pour wet ingredients into dry, stirring a few times. Add the drained vegetables and diced onion, and stir to combine completely. Don't overmix. Fill 12 muffin cups (greased or lined) about 3/4 full, and bake at 375 degrees until firm on top, about 20-25 minutes. Muffins will be slightly custardy, but dry when fully baked. Allow to cool and enjoy!

Itty-Bitty Biscotti: Why I'm the Biscotti-Eating Champion of the World

I really can't believe that I haven't posted about our incredibly delicious, itty-bitty, whole-wheat biscotti. We've made them several times now, and for various occasions: Thanksgiving, Christmas (they make fantastic gifts), dinner parties, and that time I felt like eating 20 biscotti in one sitting. Ok, that happens every time we make them, but I'd still call it an occasion.

Jonathan posted about pumpkin biscotti a while back, but these little dunkers are a whole different animal. And by "whole" I mean "whole-wheat." Yes, that's right, these are biscuits of pure health. And I like making them really small, so they're pretty darn cute, to boot.

Our latest excuse to make biscotti was an assignment from one of my favorite food bloggers, Jaden, of Steamy Kitchen. Eminently famous and highly esteemed, Jaden was recently asked to test a new food product: single-serve spices. The spices come in little packets (1 teaspoon each) and include everything from green cardamom to ancho chili powder to anise seed. Which is where we come in.

Jaden asked her readers with some help with the testing, and we jumped at the chance to a) get some free anise seed and make delicious biscotti, and b) hopefully make an appearance on her blog, thus making this blog famous and increasing its readership 10-fold. So far, a) has worked out really well.

We got the wee packet of anise seed in the mail last week, and whipped up a batch of anise-almond biscotti last night. We even got to test out our new mortar and pestle:


They are half gone already, but it's ok because we've already taken the requisite pictures. Hopefully you'll be able to check us out on Jaden's blog sometime soon, but until then, you can contemplate the marvels of itty-bitty biscotti:

1. They are SO cute
2. They have no butter or oil
3. They are a blank canvas - add any flavors, fruits, nuts, or chocolates you want
4. They are perfect with tea
5. You slice them up after baking them, and then you bake them again!
6. They are tasty

I'll post the exact recipe at the end, but here is a biscotti-making primer for any first-timers out there: Measure and then mix the dry ingredients together (look at our anise seed!).


Add the eggs, extracts, and tidbits (nuts, raisins, chocolate chips), kneading if necessary to incorporate all of the dry ingredients. The dough will be pretty sticky, so flour your hands if necessary before forming the dough into two long, thin logs. Place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet, flattening them a bit so they get that nice biscotti-shape when they bake.


Bake until cooked through and no longer soft, then let cool for a few minutes. Once you can handle them, slice them into biscotti. You can slice on the bias if you'd like, but I go straight and slice them thinly, so that they are quite small.


Tip them all on their sides and return to the oven for 10 or 15 minutes, until lightly golden and crisp. Flip if necessary (I usually don't flip them).

Itty-Bitty, Anise-Almond, Whole-Wheat Biscotti

2 1/4 c. whole-wheat pastry flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
1 tsp. anise seed, crushed
2/3 c. sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp. almond extract
2/3 c. whole almonds, lightly toasted

Instead of going through the instructions again, I'll just give you the basics: Form the logs so that they are about 12-14 in. long. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes, then remove and slice. Return to 375 degree oven for 10-15 min. more, until crisp. Eat continuously for the next day and a half.

Grrrrr(anola)

I've been toying with the idea of making my own granola for a while now. It just seems so....me. What could possibly be more exhilarating than taking an ubiquitous grocery item and health-ifying it (i.e. cutting fat and sugar and experimenting with some wacky tastes)?

I had a little time on my hand this past week, so I decided to give it a go. I'll start off by saying that granola, while incredibly delicious, usually doesn't make it into my breakfast rotation. I'm an oatmeal kind of gal, and although some people get a little grossed out by the whole hot and runny porridge thing, I lap it up. Literally. The runnier and porridgier the better. But back to granola. The truth about it is that granola, though loaded with healthy stuff (oats, flax, nuts, fruit) is usually also loaded with sugar and fat (that's why it's so delicious!). I'm not on a fat-free sugar-free granola crusade, but when I eat it, I would like to know what - and in what proportions - goes into it. Hence homemade granola.

I've found over the past few days that granola can be a bit frustrating. Let me give you a quick rundown of the granola making process: Mix dry ingredients (grains, nuts, seeds), mix wet ingredients (sugar, syrup, fat, fruit puree), and pour wet over dry, moistening everything. Spread mixture on a baking sheet and toast in the oven until dried and crisp. Add dried fruit. Most recipes are pretty standard, and while many leave out the oil and butter or substitute something for it (egg whites, for example), almost all of them still have a lot of sugar. That means I've had to do some experimenting...some rounds of which have been more successful than others.


So far I've learned a few things. The first is that it's fun to add a lot of stuff to the dry part of the granola. Instead of doing straight rolled oats, I've been doing a combination of oat, barley, rye, and wheat flakes (sold as a dry mix for hot cereal). I've also been tossing in some Kashi 7 Grain puffed cereal, in addition to wheat bran, wheat germ, almonds, flax seeds, pepitas, and even sesame seeds. I know what you're thinking - I'm crazy.

The second is that it takes more than you might think to actually make granola with flavor. In other words, granola is loaded with sugar for a reason: crunchy-toasted rolled oat flakes are a bit, well, bland on their own. This is where my main challenge lies: coming up with a good recipe that yields flavorful, if not too sweet, granola.

The first batch I made was based on this recipe, which calls for applesauce as a fat substitute and flavor-enhancer. I added pepitas, almonds, and sesame, which worked quite well. I also sprinkled a lot of cinnamon and ground ginger on this batch - I've discovered that spices and extracts (vanilla, almond) are essential for a flavorful granola. This batch was tasty, but the flavors were pretty standard, and I wanted to expand my granola horizons.

The next batch was blueberry-ish: I used some blueberry-pomegranate juice as the base for the syrup, and tossed in a few frozen blueberries, as well. This batch, sadly, was mostly flavorless - not nearly enough sugar, although a hefty sprinkling of cinnamon and cardamom salvaged it mid-way through baking.


Ok, so the experimentation continues...I haven't hit the granola jackpot yet, but I sure am trying. I did make a rather tasty creation today: peanut butter-banana granola, which gets its sweet-salty flavor from the peanut butter. I still have a few more ideas in mind, so bear with me as I search for the perfect recipe to share...wish me luck, and try to keep in mind the quantity of mediocre granola I've been consuming in an effort get to the bottom of this culinary challenge.

Homemade Bread: A Primer

Having decided to pursue home-baked bread in earnest, we picked up a copy of Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois' Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. The title is alarmingly infomercial-like, but the content is decidedly unso. It is also a little vague -- it should be "Artisan Bread in an Average of Five Minutes a Day," since the dough-mixing day involves half an hour of measuring out cups of flour and then the other involve sliding the dough into the oven -- but our schedules conform to this regimen easily enough.

In an attempt to placate Mia, I picked the 100% whole wheat sandwich bread for the first experiment. In retrospect, the simple master recipe boule would have been the right choice, since in general the best way to develop any skill seems to be to start with its most basic application. But we like our germs and brans, so I reached for the bag of whole wheat flour and added it to the yeast, honey, olive oil, and milk waiting in the food processor. The authors suggest making a large amount of dough and then storing the residual in the refrigerator so that fresh bread can be available throughout the week without mixing more dough. Expecting to learn quickly by doing, I made half a recipe, enough for two small breads; luckily, this also happened to be the maximum amount of dough that fit in the food processor, so I didn't have to mix the dough by hand.

After mixing the few ingredients together and letting the dough rise for 3 hours in a covered bowl, we transferred the sticky blob to two cleaned-out quart-size yogurt containers and put them in the fridge. The dough expanded to fill the container, but there were no explosions or eruptions.


The next day, we removed the dough, shaped it, and put it on the pizza peel to rise again before going in the oven. After rising, we covered the top in flour and cut slashes in the bread:


Then we slid it off the peel and onto the warm baking stone. 55 minutes later, we had our first finished product.

Though I may have declared it an "unqualified success," our first bread's success wasn't without its qualifications. It tasted good and looked and felt like real bread. But the texture and moisture of the interior, and the crust, while not problematic, could stand improvement. We will continue to update you as our experiments unfold.

A Morning Quickie

Happy New Year! It certainly has been a while since our last post, which is ironic given that our holiday time is usually exploited for the sole purpose of food, cooking, baking, and dining. Indeed Jonathan and I did lots of the aforementioned activities over the past few weeks. I went on a Christmas cookie-baking bender, we tested out a new pizza peel and stone on a turbo-powered gas grill, dined like sustainable royalty at Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, CA, and even poked around at the Ferry Building Farmer's Market, in San Francisco (at which I had my first-ever taste of persimmon).

Sadly, a camera never seems to be accessible when I'm at my most photo-worthy (wrestling a soon-to-be-brined turkey, dusted in flour at 1am after having baked 10 batches of cookies), so the subject of this post is not some decadent holiday treat (the Greek walnut cookies were my favorite!), but a quick breakfast or brunch-time treat that works at any time of the year: banana walnut muffins.


Naturally, these are no ordinary muffins - they are laced with 70% bittersweet chocolate and fortified with whole grains. Really, though, they are quite simple to make and just the right amount of sweet for a morning muffin (let's face it - most bakery muffins are just cake in disguise).

The batch we made today was missing the walnuts, but they are good both with and without them. The chocolate, though, is a must. I am a strong advocate of finely chopping a chocolate bar as opposed to just adding chocolate chips - having fine shavings of chocolate incorporated into the muffin provides a nice, even, subtle chocolatey hit.

A note about bananas - this recipe, like all banana bread/muffin recipes, calls for very ripe, smashed bananas. Instead of keeping old bananas on the counter, try freezing them as soon as they get nicely mottled and ripe. That way, you can make muffins when the craving hits - just take the frozen bananas out of the freezer an hour or so before you want to bake with them. I will warn you that frozen ripe bananas turn completely black when thawed, but don't worry - they will taste fine in whatever recipe you're making.

"Healthy" Banana Nut Muffins

1 egg + 1 egg white
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 c. smashed ripe bananas (about 3)
1/2 c. buttermilk, or milk-thinned plain yogurt
2 tbs. vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 c. whole-wheat pastry flour
1/2 c. rolled oats
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 c. chopped toasted walnuts
4 tbs. shaved or finely chopped bittersweet chocolate

Mix oats with buttermilk in a small bowl, and stir to moisten. Let soften for a few minutes. Meanwhile, grease and flour 12 standard muffins cups, or line with paper liners. Beat eggs with brown sugar until thick and smooth. Mix in banana, buttermilk/oat mixture, oil, and vanilla. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Mix into wet ingredients and stir just until combined. Add nuts and chocolate and stir a few times to incorporate. Pour batter into prepared tin and bake at 350F for 16-18 minutes, or until tops are firm and dry to the touch.

Pesto Pinwheel Perfection

We always try to keep a frozen spheroid of Whole Foods' whole wheat pizza dough in the freezer. When we're feeling hungry and creative, we've been known to break out the pizza stone and try a new topping or two. And recently, we've come to the realization that this pizza dough, which, unlike our attempts at homemade dough rises on command, can be used to make other kinds of bread. In particular, we thought we might make cinnamon rolls.

Cinnamon rolls are a wonderful, delicious treat, but not half as inspired as our next idea. Why not make cinnamon rolls, but stuffed with something else, say...pesto? They'd still be soft, moist, and delicious, but savory instead of sweet. And the fresh pesto's bright green color would add a nice touch to the presentation. Luckily, we had already prepared pesto in the new food processor the day before, so all we needed to do was to unfreeze the dough and find a piece of unwaxed floss (more on this below).

I've always been hesitant to try to make any of the family of rolled-up dough products after the unfortunate incident of the yule-log cake in Christmas '98 (it looked like the yule log had been the victim of Hurricane Andy). But I was confident that, as long as I didn't get in Mia's way too much, this would work.

We began by taking the dough out of the freezer and putting in the fridge for a day. What was once a small lump of dough ballooned to many times its original size, threatening to burst through its plastic bag. With a rolling pin, we pressed the dough into a flat, wide rectangle and coated it with a thick layer of pesto. Next, we carefully rolled up the dough into a long, narrow cylinder:

The fun part is using the floss to squeeze off inch-wide slices of the cylinder, each of which will eventually grow to be its own pesto pinwheel. You loop the floss around the cylinder, and then squeeze it tight until separation is achieved:

We arranged the pinwheels in a cake pan, let them rest in the warm oven for 45 minutes, and then baked them for about 30 minutes at 375 degrees F.

The result was better than we had ever dared hope. The pinwheels are just sticky enough to holds themselves together, while not be too sticky to separate from each other. Once you have one in your hand, you can unroll it or take bites from it as you please. The olive oil contributes a delightful moisture, and the combination of fresh pesto and bread smells is almost overwhelmingly pleasing. Next up - a Christmas combination of pesto and roasted red pepper pinwheels!

Moroccan-Spiced Carrot Bread

I love drinking tea. Jonathan and I have tea at least twice a day, in the morning and at night, and usually a few times in between. For me, though, having tea is often more about the delicious goodies that go along with it. Yes, I love tea just as it is, but I'm not going to complain if it happens to come with a crunchy biscotti or a thick slice of moist tea cake.

We posted a few times about pumpkin bread, which is the ultimate in tea cake-like creations. Even so, you can't have pumpkin bread all the time (can you?), so I've been forced to branch out with my sweet quick-breads. Sure, I enjoy the standards: banana, banana-walnut, zucchini, gingerbread...but it's always fun to try something new.

Hence my Moroccan-spiced carrot bread, a recipe inspired by a classic Moroccan carrot salad. I love the combination of sweet and spicy in Moroccan food, and carrots with raisins and spices seemed like it would be as good in loaf-form as in salad-form. The first time I tried this recipe, I was so bold as to add cumin to the batter. I've omitted it from this version because I thought it was just a tad too much, but if you are feeling adventurous, you might want to give it a try (just a pinch or two, though). The bread is still decidedly sweet, but the combination of lemon, almond, carrots, and raisins provides a very interesting (and addictive) flavor.

This loaf is incredibly moist, reasonably healthy, and perfect both for dessert and for breakfast the next day. The only time-consuming part is shredding and draining the carrots. I drained them with cheesecloth, but a good hard press in the colander should be fine. Fluff the carrots with a fork after draining, to make mixing easier. A couple of quick notes: I used whole wheat pastry flour, which is finer and lighter than regular whole wheat flour. I also used baby food, which is smoother and provides more flavor options (like apricot or prune) than applesauce. Don't get too freaked out; it's just pureed fruit, I promise. Here is the complete recipe:

Moroccan-Spiced Carrot Bread

1 1/2 c. whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. honey
2 eggs
1 4-oz. jar apple-apricot baby food
1/4 c. olive oil
2 c. shredded, drained, and fluffed carrots (about 4 carrots)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
3 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cloves
1/4 tsp. paprika or cayenne
1 tbs. grated lemon zest
3/4 tsp. almond extract
2/3 c. raisins

Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, and spices into a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix eggs, sugar, honey, baby food, olive oil, and almond extract thoroughly (Tip: Use the same measuring cup for the oil and the honey. Measure oil first, then honey. When you pour the honey, it won't stick to the cup). Add the carrots and raisins. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just until combined, being careful not to overmix. Pour batter into a greased loaf pan and bake at 375 F for 45 min.-1 hr., until tester inserted into center comes out clean. Pumpkin bread is good when slightly undercooked, but you want to cook this bad boy all the way through.

Pumpkin Bread

By request, I am posting our famous (stolen from a website lost in the sands of time) pumpkin bread recipe. Mia also has a "healthy" version of this recipe, which she may or may not post in the future. This version is not really that bad for you, and it is extremely delicious.

Pumpkin Bread

1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 1/3 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 c. + 3 tbs. solid-pack pumpkin puree
1/2 c. vegetable oil

Sift the dry ingredients (not sugar) and mix the rest of the ingredients in a separate bowl. Mix wet into dry ingredients, being careful not to overmix. Pour batter into greased loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 45min., or until tester inserted comes out clean.

Pumpkin Biscotti

The other night, I, alone, and by myself, with no help whatsoever, made pumpkin biscotti, using a slightly modified recipe from Simply Recipes.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups of white whole wheat flour
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
• Pinch of ginger
• Pinch of cloves
• Pinch of salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup of pumpkin purée
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
-some raisins, chocolate chips, and/or walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Sift together the flour, salt, sugar, baking powder, and spices into a large bowl.

2. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, pumpkin purée, and vanilla extract. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture. Give it a rough stir to generally incorporate the ingredients, the dough will be crumbly.

3. Flour your hands and a clean kitchen surface and lightly knead the dough. Add the raisins, walnuts, and chips. Lightly grease a baking sheet or line it with parchment paper. Form the dough into a large log, roughly about 15-20 inches by 6-7 inches. The loaves should be relatively flat, only about 1/2 inch high. Bake for 22-30 minutes at 350 F, until the center is firm to the touch.

4. Let biscotti cool for 15 minutes and then using a serrated knife cut into 1 inch wide pieces. Turn the oven to 300 F and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes. Cool completely.
Biscotti may be still a tad moist and chewy, so if you prefer it crisp let it sit uncovered overnight in a dry space. Serve and enjoy.
Makes approximately 15 cookies.