End of the month round-up, part one…pastries, bread, and cookies
The canolli came from Fraboni’s and it was a mid-afternoon snack that follwed a Fraboni’s crazy-tasty sandwich called The Otto…I swear that sandwich is so good it defies logic…of course it’s filled with porky products. The canolli, consumed with a double espresso was heavenly…sweet, creamy, crunchy…mmmm!
Snickerdoodles have to be my all-time favorite cookie in the category of cookie that contains no chocolate. They somehow manage to have a tangy flavor that accents their sweet, cinnamon goodness, and their texture is so toothsome…I get addicted to the texture when I eat them and I can barely stop myself.
Madison Sourdough Company makes a reliable and flavorful baquette…if they would just make one with seeds like a Semifreddi’s seed baquette (fennel, sesame, and poppyseeds) I’d be blissed out.
I’m a sucker for lemon curd and poppyseeds. Scott’s Pastry Shoppe here in Middleton had the audacity to combine the two and cradle it in a buttery, almost brioche like pastry…I confess this pastry left me speechless. The frosting on top was more than gilding the lily…it was slitting the wrists. Woohoo good.
A cherry scone is good…not as good as a strawberry scone but it’ll do. I made these using jarred morello cherries from TJ’s and they were pretty good. Just take any one of the many strawberry scone recipes I’ve posted and substitute cherries.
We’ll move on to savory food next.
Rollin’ and tumblin’
I’m a planner, I admit it. I like to write lists, think about the future and concoct ways to be more organized, live a lusher life, or just have more time to do what I want. I think its hard to admit that I don’t control absolutely everything in my realm. But of course I don’t and all it takes is a minor illness like the flu to demonstrate that truth. I’m not one to make resolutions…those grand gestures 
lend themselves to disappointment and failure…at least that’s been my experience. I do like to give each year a theme; 2007 was my “I am what I am” year (aka The Popeye year) where I worked to discover the authentic me. Does that sound crazy? What it really means is I worked hard to find my voice as a writer and my path as a person…I spent some time thinking about who I want to be and what I need to do to get there. I made some progress and I think it was a satisfying year.
2008 will be the year I make myself uncomfortable. I’m going to attempt to learn some French over the next three months. French makes me incredibly uncomfortable…so many words, spoken so quickly, and they all mean something! Maybe I can learn enough to make our travel more enjoyable. No we’re not going to Canada, we’re heading to Paris for 8 days in March.
I want to leave my comfort zone in the kitchen too. To that end I’ll be cooking one new recipe each week. You might think that isn’t so difficult, but wait, there’s more: I have to follow the recipe exactly…no off-the-cuff adaptations, no substitutions of ingredients, no bastardization of technique…no, no, no!!! I do that all the time, I need to practice following instructions.
Besides, if I can adapt, substitute, or bastardize a recipe it just isn’t challenging enough, and I want challenge. This thought was brought home by these cinnamon rolls. I didn’t even need a recipe because bread is no longer challenging…at least not this bread. These cinnamon rolls are just a richer, sweeter version of my sunday dinner rolls. But trust me on this, if you are not a proficient baker you’ll enjoy this recipe for it’s simplicity. If you are a proficient baker you can enjoy it for it’s mindless ease. Either way the results are consistently good.
Cinnamon Rolls
–printer-friendly version–
3 teaspoons yeast
½ cup butter, unsalted, melted
1 ½ cups milk
1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cups flour
2 to 4 additional cups of flour
4 tablespoons melted butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 cup powdered sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons milk
Put the yeast, ½ cup of melted butter, the 1 ½ cups milk, eggs, ¼ cup sugar, and 2 cups flour in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix it on medium high for 3 minutes.
Add flour, 1 cup at a time while the mixer works on speed 3 or 4. Once the dough begins to come together switch out the paddle attachment for the bread hook. Continue to add flour about ¼ cup a time with the mixer on speed 2.
Once the dough totally clears the sides of the bowl stop adding flour and let the machine work the dough on speed 2 for 3 or 4 minutes. Stop the mixer and feel the dough. It shouldn’t stick to your fingers, if it does add more flour. If it’s too dry add more milk or water. Continue to let the mixer work the dough until it is smooth and elastic in texture.
Put the dough in a buttered bowl and let it rise in the refrigerator until doubled in bulk. Punch it down gently and let it rest a few minutes. Divide it into two equally sized pieces. Roll each out until they are about 15 inches square in area.
Brush each sheet of dough with melted butter. Mix the sugar and cinnamon together and sprinkle evenly across the dough square. Roll the dough into a tube and pinch the edges to seal them to the tube. Cut the tube into even rounds, about 1 “ to 1 1/4” in width will give you about 12 to 15 rolls per dough sheet. Butter a round cake pan and line the bottom with a circle of parchment. Arrange the rolls in each pan, let them rise for 30 to 60 minutes depending on the ambient temperature. Bake at 375 ° F for 25 to 30 minutes or 350° F convection bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Cool for a bit, remove from pan and top with a simple icing made from sifted powder sugar, vanilla, and 2 tablespoons milk.
Grilled chocolate sandwiches
I love chocolate combined with bread. Pain au chocolat, chocolate chip bagels, toast with nutella…all have the soulful bread texture combined with the dark splendor of chocolate. A good pain au chocolat will have a chocolate center that is still warm and pliable…but how often do you find one of those? Usually the whole thing is stone cold and the chocolate is hard as a rock. If I had the time and the will power I could bring it home and gently warm it in the toaster oven. But let’s face it…that has never, ever, happened. For my money a good chocolate chip bagel is a delight. I love the crunchy chocolate chips offset by the chewiness of the bagel, plus the bagel’s robust breadiness really does play quite nicely with the chocolate chips.
When I made my first brioche for World Bread Day I knew it wouldn’t be my last. Over the past few weeks I’ve thought about how best to combine brioche with chocolate…and then I was making grilled cheese sandwiches and it came to me. I told the guys I was making grilled brioche and chocolate sandwiches and Alex said, “A chocolate sandwich?!!? You can’t do that…it’s crazy!!”. Oh yes I can you silly boy…just watch me! After the brioche came out of the oven and cooled I sliced the loaf in two and gave half of it up to the guys…it was gone in minutes. The other half I hid for another day…I wanted it to be slightly stale when I grilled it up.
These little babies couldn’t be simpler and really pack a huge “WOW” factor. Slice the brioche, butter it, put your favorite chocolate in the center, top it with another buttered slice of brioche and grill it to a golden brown. My only tip is to grate the chocolate in the food processor to ensure it will melt all the way through. The finished product was a magnificent combination of chocolate and tender, stretchy brioche. Everyone loved it. I’m content for now but I bet there are other chocolate and bread combinations I need to try. Do you know of any?
