After last week's successful bread-making, I was all set to do more. I wasn't sure what "more" was going to look like, but I started casting around for ideas. And I found some great recipes to try this weekend.
And I even found somewhere that I could buy a large amount of yeast - which has been such a hot commodity lately. (In case you're wondering, I found it at The Golden Fig in St. Paul, MN - an amazing specialty food shop that we love visiting in the best of times, and where the world seemed to be alright for the half hour that we shopped last week. Not to foreshadow too much, but it was "comforting" to be there.)
But, well, the weekend came and I really just wanted to not deal with hours' worth of working on yeasted doughs that might or might not turn out. I bake to relieve stress (which, when we're both going to our offices has a tendency to make our coworkers very happy), and I realized that I wanted to make something tried and true.
I did *not* drink out of the jug. I promise. (I honestly just don't have that much dexterity.)
So (as you might have guessed from the photo above) I dove back into a recipe that first appeared on this blog in September of 2017: Betty Crocker's 1950 Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Basically, I wanted some "comfort" in my baking this week. Let me explain.
I really look half asleep in that screengrab, don't I?
If you didn't watch the video (I know not everyone does), you will have missed my quick and easy tip for refreshing cookies which have dried out. I got it from a friend of mine a number of years ago. I don't know why the chemistry works, but it does. (No - I'm not telling you the tip. You're going to have to sit through the video if you want to find out.) If you *did* watch the video, I feel I should mention that I only put that slice in for about a day prior to the video.
As for my foray into yeasty baking... I do plan to try to tackle more yeasted bread products next week. I'm sorting recipes and figuring out which one(s) to attempt first. I just need to get myself into the right headspace before trying something that might be a spectacular flop.
In the meantime, since we're talking about comfort, and since I only have the one new photo of cookies to share, I offer you this photo of a sleeping Cocker Spaniel. May we all feel that level of peace and calm sometime in the coming week.
----- Donuts and croissants and pain au chocolat - oh my! I wish I could give you a teaser of what I'm going to make next week, but I really have no idea. What's happening in your kitchen?
I realize that a lot of people are now at home and realizing for the first time that they have kitchens. These seem to be the people who have caused the stores to be out of flour, sugar, and eggs.
As someone who bakes and cooks regularly, I'm mostly happy for these folks - because I think a lot of them will enjoy the kitchen.
At the same time, I have to admit that I'm a little worried for a few of them (I know some people who are just discovering their kitchens - and maybe would have been better without that discovery). And - honestly - I'm also a tad frustrated with how hard it's been to find those basics in the stores.
But I am happy that people are trying new things - and so I thought I should, too.
And, since we do happen to have some bread flour and yeast in the house and - since I wasn't going anywhere this weekend - I decided to try making a kneaded yeast bread for the first time.
(Spoiler alert... it went pretty well...)
It's been a while since I've posted (as some of you have been kind enough to mention), and so I don't remember exactly how this all goes, but I guess I should add a video intro about here...
Just a basic heads-up: The first video in this post comes in at just about 6 minutes long (the others are MUCH shorter). I cover a lot of ground in this one, though: what was going on when I last posted (January), what I've been doing since, who gave me the book I'm holding, and - oh, yeah - some stuff about why I'm baking the recipe I'm baking. I think it's worth it, but obviously it's up to you.
So... "Strange world" is probably a bit of an understatement these days, right? But spending some time in the kitchen can definitely be a great way to work on some relaxation. (Unfortunately, it's gotten a tad difficult for me to spend much time in my other favorite place - the grocery store.)
I looked through some cookbooks for a basic bread recipe, and kept finding things that had all sorts of exciting, exotic ingredients - which we don't have on hand. But I found a 4-ingredient bread recipe in Appetite by Nigel Slater:
I admit that I did something with this recipe that I pretty much never do: I only did a half-size recipe. I figured it didn't make sense to do a full batch if we were going to end up with 2 loaves of bread we didn't want.
So... four ingredients:
By the way - 1 packet of yeast is equal to 2 1/4 tsp of yeast.
And a big bowl to put them in:
The next steps deal with mixing. And since I was about to get my hands dirty with the kneading, I figured I'd just go in hands-first:
Dry ingredients...
The recipe talks about only putting in "most of" the water, so I started out with 1 1/4 cups out of the 1 1/2 cups.
Mixing that in, though, didn't give me the "sticky dough" that the recipe talked about:
I added a bit more water, little by little, ending up with about and extra half cup on top of the initial 1 1/2 cups - which gave me this sticky mass:
Flour on the board:
Dough on the board:
Kneading the dough:
I really like that Slater says that you don't need to beat up on it, and that if you end up exhausted you were doing it wrong. Honestly, I stared out the window and kneaded it for 10 minutes. It was kind of awesome.
About halfway through, it was already starting to look more like bread dough:
Since the recipe talks about the dough doubling in size, I did a quick measure before I put it into the bowl.
This went into a bowl with a towel over it and onto the top of the fridge - the warmest place in our kitchen.
Unfortunately, it was a rainy, chilly March day, and the house was only about 67 degrees. So even after leaving it for an extra half hour (so a total of about 1h20m), it still hadn't fully doubled in size.
I figured I didn't want to leave it in the first proofing stage for much longer, so I went ahead and flipped it out onto my floured board, kneaded it for about another 2 minutes, then plopped it onto my baking sheet.
For this proofing, though, I moved it to the top of the stove - which had already started preheating.
That move was definitely worth it. The dough easily doubled while it was there.
I decided to try cutting a basic design in the top, once I got it kind of "grouped into a high ball" as the recipe suggested, and then figured it was on its own as I put it into the oven.
I know... I know... I know... I'm not supposed to open the oven door and take photos. But I was so happy to see that it had risen!
After the 10 minutes at 500 degrees, and 25 minutes at 425 degrees, I pulled it out of the oven to flip it over and see whether or not it was done.
The bottom wasn't much to look at, but... well... you gotta hear this:
So... We've listened and waited, and now - finally - we get to cut into it.
So, how was it?
And it was really pretty when I put it out, too:
Overall, it was pretty good. I'm not sure about the really thick crust - and whether that was on purpose, or something that I did.
I will say that Christopher and I both enjoyed it with our dinner, and I'm sure we'll enjoy the rest of the loaf over the next few days.
Here's the book that the recipe came out of. SUCH a great read!
And I'll also say that it was great to take the time to try something new - I hope you're all taking the time to try new things these days, too. (Or not - I mean... whatever makes you feel better in the long run.)
***** So, what are you up to in the kitchen these days? Is there something you'd like me to attempt so you have some idea how it goes? Or just a question about what to do with the ingredients in your kitchen? Let me know and I'll see what I can help out with!
But we needed something to take to an event this week, and since we took cookies the last time we thought it would be good to change things up with something savory. And - for some reason - I thought "maybe focaccia would be good."
For those of you who prefer video, allow me to explain what's going on:
Wait. I skipped a few steps. Here are the ingredients:
4 cups (520 grams) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon instant yeast
2 cups lukewarm water, made by mixing 1/2 cup boiling water with 1 1/2 cups cold water
4 tablespoons olive oil
Flaky sea salt
For the record, the olive oil I'm using is a garlic oil from a local olive oil purveyor.
Prior to showing off the bowl in the video, above, the ingredients looked like this:
A quick stir turned it into:
And then, just before filming, I covered it with a homemade beeswax-coated cloth:
And then I went to bed.
In the morning, I moved to the next step:
Post-stirring, it's a rather sad looking blend.
So, once again, the cover went on...
And this time I set it on top of the fridge to do its thing for the day while I went to work and did my thing for the day.
And it did its thing quite well over the course of the day, so that it looked like this at the end of the day:
A little garlic olive oil on the pan...
A little Play-doh time with the dough...
And after the "normal" stretching, I went a little off the rails and went at the dough with a bench scraper to make this batch into breadsticks.
Prior to baking, as I was sprinkling salt on them, they looked like this:
Post-bake, they looked like this:
How were they? Pretty much as good as you'd think. Not a single one of them came back home with us. And I really want to make more so I can eat the full pan...
Wouldn't you?
----- Lots of people checked out last week's Vinegar Pie, and one of them was actually someone who grew up with Vinegar Pie. As I had guessed, his recollection of the reason behind it was to replace lemon when it wasn't readily available. As such, it pretty much did its job. Also - weird thing - it didn't do well over time. A couple days later when I went in for a final slice, the flavor had "turned" a bit. It was still edible, it just wasn't enjoyable - the flavor had gotten less bright, and more sour. But I'm still very glad I made it and tried it. I recommend you trying sometime, too.
Wow. It's been a while since I've put up a blog post. So why not start back with some food that seems fairly improbable - but also totally doable with what most people have in their pantries on a cold, snowy winter weekend?
And, come on. Who doesn't like a nice slice of pie?
But... okay... the title of this post says that I made a "vinegar pie" - what the hell is that? And where did I get the idea? I'm so glad you asked...
(By the way... YouTube has seriously updated the way you upload videos in the past few months. We'll see if I take advantage of any of them to class up my videos in the coming months...)
So... Yeah... Vinegar pie was inspired by Farmer Boy - book three of the "Little House" books by Laura Ingalls Wilder - which I read for my Book Club. There's a scene in the book where Almanzo Wilder (at the time, about 9 years old, I believe) is eating all sorts of food, and "vinegar pie" is one of his favorites.
This sent me on a quest to find out whether such a thing existed in the 21st century - and whether I could find a workable recipe. (In other words, nothing that talked about brining pork in barrels or making my own vinegar...)
Happily, the recipe I found only needed 5 ingredients (plus an unbaked 9-inch pie shell):
As you can probably see in those screenshots, the recipe came from TasteofHome.com
Quick and easy recipe. Good Book Club tie-in. Seemed like the perfect pairing to me!
So I gathered my ingredients (and... well... made a pie crust - but you can totally just use a store-bought one if you'd prefer):
Somehow, knowing that these were the only ingredients didn't make me less nervous about the pie. It did, however, make me re-check the recipe for how much vinegar was going in.
I started by melting the butter (so that I could cool it a bit and not end up with scrambled eggs).
After that, this is pretty much a dump - mix - bake recipe.
Eggs and sugar first.
Which gave me this consistency:
Then melted butter,
for this consistency:
Then vanilla (the brown spot)...
I won't lie. Part of me wanted to stop here with just a nice vanilla custard kind of thing going on.
...and vinegar,
This made me more nervous than I thought it would.
and I was happy to see that it didn't really cause this all to fall apart.
"Happy" and also very relieved.
Into the pie shell:
At this point, yes, I'm realizing that this was a really easy recipe and the photos are probably really boring. Thank you for staying with me to see how it turns out.
I started out checking it on my finger to see what the consistency was like. It held together pretty well - not too loose, but not glue-y, either.
There's only one problem with getting it on my finger: That meant I really had to taste it. But I couldn't do that without sharing the results, right? (Even though the pie had just gone into the oven.)
(REMINDER: Eating raw eggs and uncooked flour is potentially hazardous to your health. Don't do it.) (And, if you do, at least remember that I warned you.)
Somewhere around mid-bake, I looked in the toaster oven and saw it looking like this:
Yes, I opened the oven door to take this photo. I know... I know... You keep telling me not to do that...
I was a little freaked out by how dark the top was, but I realize that that was probably due to baking it too high (too close to the top heating elements, etc.) in the toaster oven - not a fault of the pie. At this point, it was actually still obviously liquid under the dark top, so I slid it back in and walked away and trusted in the recipe.
When I took it out at the end of 50 minutes, it had a slightly domed top as I set it on the rack to cool.
Hmm... you can probably see the dome better in the toaster oven photo above.
And it almost immediately started to deflate.
I tried to get a photo of the steam escaping from a crack in the dome, but it didn't turn out.
By the time it had cooled, it was looking a bit sad, I have to admit.
Though not as sad as the pup, who apparently felt that the pie smelled like something she should have been sharing.
I left the pie to cool and wait for Book Club. Which got postponed due to... well... due to it being January in Minnesota. But I still wanted to try the pie, obviously.
It had a really good consistency - and the custardy filling didn't break or weep at all when I took out the first piece (considering how liquid-y the center had looked halfway through the bake time, I was a little worried about that).
The crust issues were all on me - not the fault of the recipe, obviously.
The flavor wasn't quite as "lemon bar" as it had seemed to me when I tasted the batter before it baked. It was definitely more sweet-vanilla-forward, with the tang of the vinegar just kind of cutting through some of that sweetness.
I ate the whole piece, though, and went back for another one.
Christopher agreed to try a bite of the second one (I guess it seemed safe since I'd already eaten a piece), and he deemed it to be "not bad" - but something he would probably not be asking for more of.
Will I make it again? Probably for whenever my Book Club actually reconvenes to talk about the Little House books.
Would I make it outside of that arena? I'm not sure. I suspect - as you'll see if you read through the TasteofHome.com recipe comments - this is something that you love if you grew up with it, but might take some work to become an acquired taste if you didn't.
Even so, it does take a relatively attractive photo.
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I know that at the end of most blog posts, I ask for your comments, suggestions, and discussion topics. But as I mentioned in the opening video, the amount of weird in the world has been on my mind a lot lately.
