Posts Tagged ‘dough’

This all started innocently enough. I had just seen “Crazy Heart” and after watching Jeff Bridges make “Bad Blake’s Legendary Biscuits,” I had a hankering I couldn’t ignore. So I turned to my usual goddess of southern cooking, Edna Lewis, and followed her recipe. Unfortunately… this happened:

Wah wah wahhhhhh. They don’t look too good do they? They tasted alright, but obviously they’re small, flat, and well, not very biscuit-y. Every recipe can’t be a winner, even from a trusted cook or source, but you can’t let it get you down. So, like with any challenge, I began to research and play with recipes. Butter vs. shortening, salt amounts, homemade baking powder vs. store-bought. And as always, altitude challenges. Finally, four rounds later, I made these gorgeous things today:

Victory! They taste even better than they look, too. I ended up using salted butter (just gave better flavor), homemade baking powder (from Edna), and just the right ratios to make sure they rose nice and proper here in the mountains. Nice crisp top and bottom, airy and moist on the inside, just begging to be slathered in more butter and strawberry jam.

Nice shaggy dough mess.

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Isn’t it funny how you can feel a food trend starting to build? Okay, maybe I’m one of those hyper-aware people and notice it more than most, but I can tell you one thing: monkey bread is so hot right now. I’ve seen it pop up more than a handful of times in the past month or so on the 30+ food blogs I read daily, most notably with a full-on expose from the LA Times, and I couldn’t be more excited!

I love monkey bread. Adore it. For those who haven’t encountered it, monkey bread is a sweet yeast-y pull-apart breakfast bread made in a bundt pan, covered in ooey-gooey cinnamon-sugar butter, and baked. You pull it apart (like a monkey? the name origin is debated) in sticky, awesome pieces and enjoy with coffee in the morning. Or hot chocolate. Or both. I first experienced monkey bread when I stayed with my friend’s grandparents in Tulsa, OK for a couple weeks when I was 12 or so. Meagan & Casey’s grandma would get up at a (no doubt) ungodly hour and almost every other day have hot monkey bread waiting for us when we woke up. It was such a treat I looked forward to every morning, and then would happily nibble on every evening when we would play Mexican train dominoes.

So when I read yet another blog entry about the scrumptious breakfast bread, I got a hankering I couldn’t ignore. And it only made sense to get the recipe for the original I fell in love with, which thankfully Meagan’s grandma was more than happy to share. Even better, the recipe uses pre-packaged dough and is so easy, you literally could whip this together in the morning, especially since she has the trick of putting it in a cold oven and cooking it as it heats up.  Sugary and sticky and warm and spicy, this is the ultimate breakfast pastry and would conquer any cinnamon roll any day of the week!

I firmly believe that everyone can cook. Sure, we all have varying degrees of difficulty we pursue and reach, but I don’t think there is some weird, innate quality which renders people unable to cook. Most of the time when I hear people grouse about failing to produce something in the kitchen, it involves being unable to follow instructions or read things carefully – not some curse which causes culinary failure.

I know personally, baking and desserts is the area I am still working on and attempting to better myself at. Savory cooking can be so much easier – you toss things in, taste for seasoning, add more of this, more of that. Baking and pastry is a science. With careful measuring, following of instructions, etc. Which is why I love this idea to death because it throws all of that out the window and is quite possibly the easiest dessert (and breakfast pastry!) I have ever made.

All you do is take puff pastry, thaw it, slice up an apple, toss it with lemon juice and brown sugar, lay it out, and bake it. That’s it!  Practically no measuring, no leaveners, no stand mixer or double boiler – seriously, anyone can make this dessert. (Trust me, try it – I have faith in you!)

It’s been an amazing week. Working the cookbook photo shoot was so much fun and such an awesome change of pace from my usual schedule, I don’t even care I now have trucker’s tan from the Boulder-Denver commute every day.  Everyone’s been so laid back and we’ve all been collaborating and just creating beautiful food and beautiful shots (including the above which we did for fun!).

As a way to say thanks to everyone at the shoot, I knew I wanted to bring something sweet in on Friday to show my gratitude, but I couldn’t decide between breakfast pastry or dessert. And then I remembered reading a post on CakeSpy recently about how whoopie pies are the ‘big next thing’ on the pastry hot list.  Normally two chocolate spongey cookies with whipped glossy filling sandwiched between them, they’re like a froufrou Little Debbie snack in all the best ways. Although the original is amazing, since I just made chocolate chocolate CHOCOLATE cookies and try to use in-season fruit as much as possible, I wanted to go in a different direction.  And then I found these.

Based on the recipe from now infamous Baked bakery in Brooklyn, these whoopie pies are still ridiculously indulgent, sweet and over-the-top, but since they aren’t rich chocolate and have fruit in them, you don’t feel as guilty as you normally would eating a whoopie pie.

They aren’t the easiest thing in the world to make. The batter/dough has to chill, you have to use a double boiler to make the filling, multiple bowls will get dirty, etc.  But when you really want to say thanks, a fussy dessert that everyone can take home is worth it. Plus, they’re called whoopie pies. How can you not love them?

Everyone has comfort foods.  My list is long – crazy long.   Mac n cheese, Reuben sandwiches, chocolate milkshakes… it goes on and on.  Hovering in the top however, will always be pizza.  Whether it’s fond memories of my mom and I picking up our usual order from the slummy, but amazing Original Pizza at our local mall or making Totinos frozen shamepies (as I affectionately call them) in college, I have nothing but fond memories of pizza.  During my time studying abroad in Russia, one of my strongest memories is the day I broke down and went to Sbarro to nurse my homesickness with two slices of cheese NY-style pizza on Nevsky Prospect.

I still love frozen pizza and happily eat it probably once a week for dinner (my fav being the Kashi roasted veggie pizza nowadays), but nothing, and I mean nothing, compares to homemade pizza.  The best part about it is how few ingredients you really need, it’s just the time and elbow grease that makes it work, and oh boy is it worth the effort.

I use Lidia Bastianich’s recipe from Lidia’s Italian-American cookbook, one of my favorite Italian resources next to The Silver Spoon.  I also use a variation on her sauce recipe from the same book, and both are total winners.  The big “ugh” a lot of people will give this recipe is you have to let the dough raise overnight or up to 24 hours.  I actually like this because I can prepare it the night before, and my dough is ready and waiting for me when I get home from work the next day.

So let’s get started..

Dough mis en place.

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