Happy Challah Days!

First things first, let me get the required verbiage in before I forget - again:

May’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge was pretty twisted – Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to make challah! Using recipes from all over, and tips from “A Taste of Challah,” by Tamar Ansh, she encouraged us to bake beautifully braided breads.

Okay, that taken care of, this was my first attempt at challah.  We were supposed to make it in school, but somehow didn’t get to it.  Making the dough itself isn’t much different than making any other enriched bread dough.  However, because it’s a traditional Jewish bread, there are certain dietary rules to be kept in mind if you’re keeping your challah true to tradition.  This usually means no dairy in the bread.  Ruth provided some great information about the history of challah and what the different braids and shapes symbolize.  (She also included videos of braiding techniques which I tried to watch, but since my laptop doesn’t seem to like video I finally gave up in frustration.)  Of the recipes provided, I went with the Easy Challah mostly because it was a smaller quantity.  I do want to try the recipe for Honey White Challah at some point though.  It sounds really good and my braiding skills can use a lot more practice.

Daring Bakers: Dutch Crunch Bread

Until this month, I had never heard of Dutch Crunch Bread.  Living in small-town Southern Illinois, that’s not particularly surprising.  If not for the Daring Bakers’ Challenge, I’m doubt I ever would have heard of it.  Dutch Crunch is also known as tiger bread or giraffe bread because of the pattern of the crust after baking.  The “crunch” is actually a topping applied to the bread (any bread) and not the bread itself. 

Most of the bread I make is sourdough.  I considered other types of bread for this challenge as I wasn’t sure if sourdough would be a good match for the topping, but compromised by making a less tangy sourdough with a softer crust. 

Making sourdough bread has nearly become second nature to me.  Since the Tea & Cookies sourdough challenge in February, I’ve made sourdough bread at least once a week, sometimes twice if I’m giving bread to friends.  The recipe I use makes two loaves of bread.  Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to put this crunch topping on all of the bread.  What if I didn’t like it?  Why waste perfectly good bread if I didn’t like the "crunch"?

the Dutch Crunch topping

Although I’d only intended to make half of the topping recipe, I mistakenly measured the rice flour out for the full amount.  I chose to adjust all of the other ingredients to the full amount since it would be quicker than starting over.  Then I started to wonder if my active dry yeast was still good as I've forgotten how long I've had it.  (My sourdough bread doesn't use yeast, and I ordinarily use instant when I need it.) 

I'd say the yeast is still good.

Mixing up the topping didn’t do anything to reassure me that I would like it.  It smelled rather badly in my opinion – sweaty gym socks came to mind.  All I could think was, “please, please, please don’t let it taste like it smells!” and “maybe baking gets rid of the smell.”  But at least the yeast was still active. 

one topped, one waiting

The next step was to spread the smelly topping over the two small sourdough boules I was "sacrificing" for the cause.  The instructions indicated to err on the side of too much topping versus too little.  I spooned and spread the topping until I just couldn't stand to add any more. 

Once the bread was out of the oven and slightly cooled, the first thing I did was smell the crust.  While not as strong, it still smelled a little bit like sweaty gym socks to me.  I wasn’t looking forward to the second half of the challenge:  creating a sandwich using the bread. 

it is rather attractive bread

Tug had grilled chicken breasts for dinner the night before.  They were so large that neither of us finished them, so grilled chicken was part of my sandwich.  We also had a significant quantity of lettuce from our hydroponic garden that needed to be used.  Then I remembered some goat cheese I had bought and not opened yet.  And since I’m a big fan of goat cheese with citrus, my sandwich also included some of the preserved lemons I made earlier this month.  Tug had no desire to try my sandwich and made his own chicken sandwich.  I’ll admit, my sandwich isn’t for everyone.

It looks like a Dagwood, but I smashed it down to size.

And in all honesty, Dutch Crunch Bread really isn’t for me.  Eating it as part of my sandwich was fine, but at one point I pulled off a small piece of the “crunch” and ate it on its own.  It does taste like I think it smells!

Chocolate Banana Bread

Since sourdough bread was the primary topic of yesterday, I thought I'd wait until today to share the recipe for the chocolate banana bread I made while waiting for the sourdough to rise.  It was an experiment to test a recipe for my dad.  

Doesn't look like banana bread, does it? 
The flecks on top are pieces of the ground nuts.

Dad loves nuts, but he can't chew them.  I wanted to see what the results would be of adding finely ground nuts to my favorite (chocolate)  banana bread recipe.  I'm looking to include the flavor of the nuts without the large pieces I would normally use for myself.  It needs a little more work.  I think maybe swapping out some of the butter with some corresponding nut oil may help boost the flavor.  I'll have to neglect some more bananas to test this again.

Decadent breakfast:  a thick slice of bread with mascarpone and blood orange marmalade.

Chocolate Banana Bread

Adapted from Cindy Mushet’s Chocolate-Banana Marble Bread in The Art and Soul of Baking

3 medium-sized, super ripe bananas

1/4 cup buttermilk, room temperature

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups cake flour

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

Pinch salt

1/4 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder

3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup finely chopped or ground pecans, walnuts or almonds - optional  (I used pecans and almonds)

Preheat the oven to 350°F.  Spray a large (9” x 5” x 3”) loaf pan with cooking spray and coat with butter.  Line with parchment to go up one inch over the long sides – these will be “handles” to remove the bread from the pan. 

Peel the bananas and process them in a food processor until smooth.  (You can also just mash them if you don’t want to wash the food processor.)  Measure out one cup of the puree.  Discard the rest or freeze it and save it for another use.  Combine the banana puree with the buttermilk and vanilla.  Set aside.

Sift together the cake flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cocoa.  Set aside.  (If you're not into the chocolate/banana combination, swap the cocoa powder for an equal amount of cake flour.)

Cream the butter and sugar on medium-high speed in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until very light and fluffy, three to five minutes.  Stop and scrape down the bowl and paddle periodically.  Reduce the speed to medium and slowly begin adding the beaten egg, drizzling in no more than one tablespoon at a time.  If the mixture starts to look curdled, stop adding the egg and beaten until smooth before adding any more.  Stop and scrape about half way through.  When all of the egg has been incorporated, add the ground nuts and mix until thoroughly combined.  Scrape the bowl and paddle.  

Reduce the mixer speed to low and add one third of the dry ingredients, followed by half of the banana/buttermilk mixture.  Repeat and end with the last third of flour.  Mix just until the dry ingredients are incorporated, finishing by hand with a spatula if necessary. 

Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan.  Rap the pan on the counter a couple of times to even out the batter and release air bubbles.  Bake for 55 to 65 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.  Remove to a rack to cool completely in the pan.  When the bread has cooled, remove from the pan and peel off the parchment paper. 

This bread is really moist, so refrigeration is recommended.  It also freezes beautifully if well wrapped.  Thaw in the refrigerator and then bring to room temperature before serving.

To make muffins, scoop batter into paper or foil lined cupcake tins and bake 20 minutes.  The recipe will make 18 – 20 muffins. 

Sour Hit and Miss

The second day of my “sour projects” has been finished.  Sunday I baked my sourdough bread and finished some marmalade from the sour oranges picked from my tree.  The bread is a hit – total bulls eye – despite the fact that I made a mistake in the mixing method.  The marmalade is a miss – I’m not even sure it made it to the target.

not very attractive, but very tasty

The bread:  Using this recipe from King Arthur Flour, I made two slightly unattractive loaves of sourdough bread.  (One thing I like about most of the recipes from KAF is that you can view them by volume or weight in both ounces and grams.)  The instructions say to mix the starter with some water and part of the flour.  Oops.  I dumped ALL of the flour in.  Instead of tossing it and starting over, I figured I’d just go with it and see what happened. 



grilled cheese fixin's



Beyond that point, I followed the directions for letting it rest at room temperature for four hours and then refrigerating it overnight.  The next day, I had to knead in the sugar, salt and citric acid (I used 1/4 teaspoon), making sure that it was incorporated throughout my dough.  At first the dough was really gritty, but it did smooth out.  I baked the loaves on preheated baking stones for 25 minutes.  The next time I will go the full 30 as the crust could have been a bit darker. 



lunch for one, please



Overall though, given such a large mistake in the beginning, Tug and I were both happy with how the bread turned out.  We’ve been eating sourdough toast for the last couple of days and today for lunch I made myself a grilled cheese sandwich with the homemade sourdough, some extra-sharp white cheddar and slices of Pink Lady apple.  Very tasty.

Now the marmalade:  By the time I finished slicing all of the oranges, I had such a quantity that there was way to much for the pan I had.  I made eight cups into marmalade and have six cups waiting.  After I got started, I realized I didn’t have enough sugar.  I had about 6-1/4 cups when I needed about 8 cups.  This didn’t necessarily bother me as I ordinarily don’t use the full amount of sugar when making marmalade.  However, these tart little buggers needed every bit and possibly then some. 

Beyond the fact that it doesn’t have enough sugar, it’s slightly burnt.  In the middle of getting to the gelling point, Tug called me and said our neighbors needed my assistance.  (A bird had gotten into their chimney and was in their wood burning stove.  They don’t do birds and know that I am a friend of pretty much anything with feathers.  This is not the first time they’ve called me for such a rescue mission.)  While I did shut the burner off, I didn’t think to remove the pot from the burner.  And since our glass top stove holds heat so well, I came back to scorched marmalade.  It doesn’t taste scorched, but it’s quite dark.  Now I have to figure out what I’m going to do with six jars of very dark, extremely tart orange marmalade.

And now I’ve discovered that maybe they’re not the calamondin oranges I thought they were, but perhaps, in fact, Rangpur limes.  What ever they are, I'm beginning to think they’re more ornamental than useful!