Pumpkins are associated with the quintessential Thanksgiving dessert, a decadent pie filled with spices and sweetness. The pumpkin adds a smooth and luxurious texture that amounts to pure comfort food. Pumpkin is not only wonderful for its flavors but is also chock full of healthy vitamins. This was the inspiration for making a pumpkin pie brioche to include in Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I wanted to take some of the butter out of this healthy version of brioche, but I didn’t want to lose the rich texture. Pumpkin is the answer! I added the spices and a touch of sweetness to create what I love about pumpkin pie in this fantastic and versatile bread. It can be baked as a loaf, in a brioche pan or even made into our Indian Spiced Doughnuts (page 287) or as the bottom crust for the Pear Tarte Tatin (page 290). It is fabulous as dessert or breakfast.

Thank you Michelle and all who are participating in the HBinFive baking group. I am so excited to see all of the breads you bake. Click here to see the Pumpkin Pie Brioche Creations they have baked already. So many Thanksgiving ideas.

Check out this video that Lenny and Denise from ChezUs made for us at Omnivore Books while we were on book tour in San Francisco. Thank you both for taking the time to make the video, it was so wonderful to see you.

Bob’s Red Mill Vital Wheat Gluten and White Whole Wheat Flour giveaway. More information at the bottom of this post.

Pumpkin Pie Brioche:

3 cups white whole wheat*

4 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast

1 tablespoon kosher salt

2 tablespoons Vital Wheat Gluten**

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1 1/4 cups lukewarm water

4 large eggs

1/2 cup honey

3/4 cup neutral flavored oil or unsalted butter, melted

1 3/4 cups pumpkin puree (freshly roasted or canned)

Egg wash for brushing on top

Raw sugar for sprinkling on top

These directions are abridged from the book, for more detailed instructions go to page 284 in Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

Mixing and storing the dough: whisk together all of the dry ingredients in a 5-quart Food Storage Container, fitted with a non-airtight lid. Combine the liquid ingredients and add them to the dry with a wooden spoon. Mix thoroughly, until there are no more dry bits of flour. The dough will be quite loose when you are done.

Cover the container and allow the dough to rest on the counter for 2 hours. Once it has risen refrigerate for at least 2 hours before baking or it is too difficult to handle. It can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

On baking day: Grease a Non-Stick Brioche Mold. Dust the surface of the refrigerated dough with flour and cut off a 2-pound (cantaloupe size) piece of dough. Dust with more flour and quickly shape into a ball.

Place the ball of dough into the prepared pan with the smooth side up.  Allow the dough to rest, loosely covered with plastic wrap for 1 hour 45 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 with the oven rack in the middle of the oven.

As you can see it didn’t rise that much during the rest. That is normal for our dough. Brush the top of the dough with egg wash using a pastry brush and sprinkle it with the raw sugar.

Bake for about 50 minutes, until the top is golden brown. Allow to cool in the pan for about 5 minutes then turn it out and

form a thick ring with a clean kitchen towel…

and invert the brioche onto the towel so that the dome of the brioche is supported by the towel. This will prevent the top or bottom of the loaf from getting crushed as it cools. Let the dough come to room temperature before cutting and serving.

Enjoy!

There have been many questions about Vital Wheat Gluten (also known as Vital Wheat Gluten Flour) and where it can be found. We are lucky in Minnesota to have many grocery stores and co-ops that carry it. There are several brands, including some in bulk, but the most readily available is Bob’s Red Mill. We are teaming up with the generous folks at Bob’s Red Mill to do a giveaway of 10 bags of **Vital Wheat Gluten…

…and *White Whole Wheat flour to our readers who leave a comment below.

Just tell us what you intend to bake from HBin5 next and we will select the 10 winners at random next week, right before Thanksgiving!

Happy Baking! Zoë and Jeff

The flour on the left (the browner, coarser one) is an organic fresh-ground whole wheat.  On the right, the commercial whole wheat flour is obviously finer-ground and lighter in color (it’s the Dakota Maid brand, a very consistent and tasty product).  So many of you have asked about grinding your own wheat to make whole grain breads, that I decided to try it myself.

OK, I didn’t really grind it myself, I sourced fresh-ground wheat from Sunrise Flour Mill at the Mill City Farmer’s Market, next to the Guthrie Theater in downtown Minneapolis.  After Zoe and I did an event and booksigning there, Marty Glanville of Sunrise Flour came by to say hello.  She gave me a great home made whole grain bread to try, made from her fresh-ground whole wheat, and I was sold.  The flavor is, well, very fresh.

It’s not an absolute requirement for whole wheat bread, but here’s a little on my first experiments with this great flour.  Considering how different the fresh-ground product looked compared with commercial whole wheat, I was surprised at how easily this stuff was able to be used in our Master Recipe– with no changes.  After some whole wheat talk, a little about the West Coast leg of our book tour (Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco).  

I loved the gorgeous whole wheat loaf that the fresh-ground flour made.  It developed a very firm and crisp crust (oftentimes, oils in the wheat germ make it difficult to get a crisp result on a whole wheat loaf).  The flavor was terrific– the difference from commercial flour was subtle, but very nice.  It had a certain brightness and sweetness, which was a neat trick since there were no added sweeteners.  I used our plain Whole Grain Master Recipe from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

The big surprise was that this coarse, fresh-ground flour had almost exactly the same density (ounces per cup) as the commercial whole wheat in the top picture– it weighed in at 4 3/4 ounces per cup, while the Dakota Maid weighed 4 1/2 ounces per cup.  So I was comfortable just swapping it in exactly for commercial whole wheat flour.  The resulting dough was a touch wetter than my usual, but I just ignored it (in the first book we said “… if you worry about the bread, it won’t taste good”).

But be careful:  Your own fresh-ground may be of a different density and you may need to adjust the liquid up or down, to achieve a result like you see in our videos for the whole grain breads.  If you want to use these great flours, be prepared to experiment.

Why the wetter result, even though this flour’s a little denser?  Makes sense to me– all those larger particles present less surface area for water to bind onto and absorb.  Or something like that.  Next book we should write “… if you turn this into chemistry, you may not have any fun.”  And even though this dough was a little wetter, it held its shape nicely through a 90-minute counter-rest under plastic wrap, and slashed well with a bread knife (see our videos for more details on forming and slashing):

The result was great:  a superior whole grain crust and a terrific flavor:

I’m going to post more about the dough that this flour made in the next 10 days, to see how well it stores compared to commercial whole wheat flour.

OK, on to the book tour. After we got back from Chicago and Milwaukee, where we were on WGN-TV, taped a podcast with ABC-TV’s Steve Dolinsky, and did two TV segments in Milwaukee (WITI-TV Fox and TMJ-TV NBC), we had a couple of days home with our families before heading off to Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco.  There were many book signings along the way.  Here’s Zoe in one of the very friendly local bookstores in Portland:

In Seattle, we appeared on Channel 13’s morning show (we’ll hopefully get that video clip), in a great segment with budding home baker and news anchor Mark Wright (on left).  Co-anchor Lily Jang (right) wasn’t in our segment (OK, this picture was staged):

In San Francisco, we were on a live studio-audience broadcast of KGO-TV (ABC-7)’s ”The View From the Bay,” with hosts Spencer Christian and Janelle Wang, who helped us mix the Whole Grain Master Recipe.  They gave us enough time for Zoe to form a 100% whole wheat Holiday Stollen (click to view).

When we weren’t working (which was almost never), we were eating.  A sample platter:

At Tom Douglas’s Serious Pie in Seattle, we tried the beet salad with anchovy, pistachios, and fresh mint:

… and then the guanciale and arugula pizza. Though you can’t see it, there’s an egg cracked onto the top of the pie before baking, and it was sublime.  This may look like salad sitting on top of a pizza crust, but it was perfect:

I met Tom at the Foodportunity event in Seattle and asked him if we could try to recreate this topping  for our next book (on pizza and flatbread, in 2011).  Answer was something along the lines of yes, but we’re not giving you our crust recipe!  Fair enough.  Now where do we find that guanciale (a very fatty and crazily delicious pork product)?

This trip was a joy because we got to sit down and eat with some wonderful people in the food and food-blogging world.  Come visit all these great people and hear what they’ve been cooking:

www.foodista.com

http://inerikaskitchen.blogspot.com

www.wasabimon.com

http://lunaskitchenmagic.blogspot.com

http://danicasdaily.com

… and so many more (Zoe, will you add?).  It was great to have met you all.  Onto Boston and Orlando, and then maybe that’s it for a while?

Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/artisanbreadin5

(picture from color insert of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, taken by Mark Luinenburg)

The brioche dough in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day was the very first recipe I developed after meeting Jeff and deciding to write the book together. It seemed a natural place to start considering my pastry chef roots and absolute love of this quintessential enriched bread. I had plenty of experience making it the traditional way after working in a restaurant with Andrew Zimmern. He put a fabulous sandwich on the lunch menu that was served on fresh brioche. I went to work early, got the butter to just the right temperature, made sure the room was also at the proper temperature and then set about on the long journey which is brioche dough. Too much work, although fabulous. Fast forward a decade and I meet Jeff, he introduces me to his method and I try melting the butter and just dumping it, along with all the other ingredients in a bucket and quickly stirring. Low and behold I have a luxurious brioche dough in a couple minutes of stirring. I was thrilled and only wished I’d figured this out when Andrew set that lunch menu all those years ago.

For Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day we still wanted to offer a variation of sweets and enriched breads, but they had to fit with our goal of healthier ingredients. This meant less white flour, less sweeteners, less fat and yet still delicious, tender and rich. It took some time to develop, but we came to just the right balance and now I use this dough for everything from a Tarte Tatin crust to my kids’ sandwiches.

But, in the final push of producing the book some numbers were switched around and it makes the recipe as written in the book unworkable. We are sad to see any mistakes in the book, and in particular one that will be such a staple to our readers. We apologize and below is the correct recipe.Whole Wheat Brioche (replace recipe on page 275)

Makes enough dough for at least two 2-pound loaves. The recipe is easily doubled or halved.

4 cups white whole wheat flour (we use the white whole wheat for its lighter color and flavor)

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1/4 cup vital wheat gluten

2 1/4 cups lukewarm water

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted or (zero trans fat, zero hydrogenated oil margarine) or (neutral-flavored oil)

3/4 cup honey

5 large eggs

Egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water) for brushing on the top of loaf

The following are the basic instructions, for more details refer to the book.

1. Mixing and storing the dough: Whisk together the flour, yeast, salt, and vital wheat gluten in a 5-quart bowl, or a lidded (not airtight) Food Storage Containers.

2. Combine the liquid ingredients and mix the m with the dry ingredients without kneading , using a spoon, a 14-cup food processor or a heavy duty stand mixer with paddle.

3. The dough will be loose, but will firm up with chilled.

4. Cover (not airtight) and allow the dough to rest at room temperature until it rises and collapses, approximately 2 hours.

5. Refrigerate it for at least 2 hours before using. The dough can be stored and used over the next 5 days.

6. On baking day, grease a Non-Stick Brioche Mold or an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch nonstick loaf pan. Dust the surface of the refrigerated dough with flour and cut off a 2-pound (cantaloupe-size) piece of dough. Dust the piece with more flour and quickly shape it into a ball. Place the ball into the prepared pan and allow to rest, loosely covered with plastic wrap, for about 1 hour 45 minutes. (dough should no longer feel cold and will have a bit of spring to it).

7. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, with a rack in the middle of the oven.

8. Just before baking, use a pastry brush to paint the loaf’s top with egg wash.

9. Bake the loaf near the center of the oven for about 40-45 minutes. For smaller or larger loaves you will need to adjust the resting and baking times.

10. Remove the brioche from the pan (see page 50) and allow it to cool on a rack before slicing.

Enjoy!

In a future post I will recreate the tasty Cinnamon Crescent Rolls that are featured in the above picture. If you can’t wait that long you will find the recipe on page 294 of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

* There is still time to sign up to bake with the HBinFive Group. Visit Michelle at Big Black Dog for more details! Also come check out the guest post I did on her site about the Pumpkin Pie Brioche!

My father took this picture of Jeff and me at our first book signing in Edina, MN. We would love to meet you, so please come visit us if we are coming to a book store near you. Check our book tour schedule here!

Hey, Seattle friends, check us out on KCPQ-TV (Fox) on Monday morning (November 2, 2009).  We’ll be appearing with anchor Mark Wright in a last-minute TV segment.  Gets more and more interesting every day of this tour.

Then on to FoodPortunity and the UW bookstore for events Monday night, hope to see people there.  Portland November 3, and then San Francisco November 4-November 7

(The picture above is another Mark Luinenburg gem; Mark’s done the photography on our new book).  Speaking of our new book…

     … this has been a long and wonderful road; tomorrow (Tuesday October 27) is the publication date for:

Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day:  100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients

We are thrilled with the early reviews, and already have already been on TV to talk about the book.  On Amazon, the order window has changed from “Pre-Order” to “Order on Amazon”, and bookstores should have it (if they don’t please ask them to order it).  It’s a book we wrote because people posted to us in this website and asked us for it (as in, “can you do something similar with more whole grains?”).

The answer:  Yes, you can, but you have to make some changes.  We’ll be talking more about this on our book tour, which starts tomorrow, and teaching classes about the changes you need to make to succeed with stored whole grain doughs (check our Events tab for details on cities, bookstores, and cooking schools).  If you can’t wait, I’m walking through our whole grain Master Recipe here in this post today.  I’ll cut to the chase:  you need more water, and one extra ingredient called Vital Wheat Gluten (sometimes labeled “vital wheat gluten flour”), which is available in most supermarkets, or mail-order/on-line from anywhere…Whole grains can make for a drier results; all that bran soaks up water.  So we increased the water for all the new recipes.  But that was only part of it.  If you want to be able to store whole grain dough, you need to boost the gluten content or the loaves tend to become dense over the life of the batch.  Storing the dough is why our recipes are different (that’s what makes our method different).  Vital wheat gluten makes whole grain dough springy enough to be stored in the refrigerator as a large batch.  We found we weren’t crazy about the result until we started testing our approach with vital wheat gluten.

What is vital wheat gluten?  It’s the protein-rich part of wheat that creates the strands that trap gas bubbles and allow yeasted bread to rise (and stay risen).  It doesn’t take much vital wheat gluten to make a difference in a 4 to 5 pound batch of whole grain dough.  Just 2 to 4 tablespoons are all you need, so while the whole bag or box may seem expensive, it doesn’t add much to the cost of baking (yeast is a more important expense, which is why we recommend that you buy it in bulk from a food co-op or from CostCo). 

So where do you get vital wheat gluten?  Most supermarkets in larger towns and cities carry it.  The two brands in U.S. supermarkets are Bob’s Red Mill and Hodgson Mill, and we tested those extensively.  If your local store doesn’t carry vital wheat gluten, you can mail-order it from Amazon; click for either the Bob’s Red Mill product, or the Hodgson Mill product (you can also order directly from those companys’ websites).  Amazon carries other vital wheat gluten brands but we’ve never tried them. 

The other on-line seller is King Arthur Flour – they have their own vital wheat gluten product as well, and have an enormous selection of bakeware and other accessories for bread-baking. 

We are going to publish the basic whole grain recipe here on our website.  Many, many more details are in the book, and we won’t be able to provide all that here on the web.  The book also has plenty of recipes that are 100% whole grain; today’s recipe is about 73% whole grain:

Ingredients:

5 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast (can decrease)

1 tablespoon Kosher salt (can adjust to taste or health concerns)

1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) vital wheat gluten

4 cups lukewarm water (about 100 degrees F)

1 to 2 tablespoons of whole seed mixture for sprinkling on top crust:  sesame, flaxseed, caraway, raw sunflower, poppy, and or anise

First, measure the dry ingredients into a 5-quart bucket or bowl, and whisk them together (you can also use a fork, or if it’s lidded, just shake them well).  Mixing the dry ingredients first prevents the vital wheat gluten from forming clumps once liquids are added:

Now add the water to form a very wet dough.  Don’t add additional flour to dry this out:

Cover loosely (leave lid open a crack) and allow to rise for two hours at room temperature (if you decreased the yeast, you’ll need more time).  NEVER PUNCH DOWN or intentionally deflate.  The dough will rise and then begin to collapse.  Refrigerate and use over the next 14 days, tearing off one-pound loaves as you need them.

On baking day, cut off a grapefruit-sized piece of dough (about a pound), using a serrated knife or a kitchen shears:

Now, quickly shape a loaf as you’ve seen in our videos on this website, or on our new Amazon site (but note that the Amazon video leaves out the crucial 90 minute resting time that I’ll talk about in a minute).  Should take less than a minute— still pictures don’t do it justice, but basically, you pull the top around to the bottom, rotating quarter-turns as you go.  DON’T KNEAD or otherwise knock all the gas out of the loaf:

Cover the loaf loosely with plastic wrap and let it rest on a pizza peel covered with cornmeal or parchment for 90 minutes (40 minutes if you’re using fresh, unrefrigerated dough.  This is longer than our 1st book because whole grains take a longer rest than white doughs.  Depending on the age of the dough, you may not see much rise; our loaves depend more on “oven spring.” 

Thirty minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C), with a baking stone placed on a middle rack.  Place an empty broiler tray for holding water on any other rack that won’t interfere with rising bread. 

Just before baking, use a pastry brush to paint the top with water (we’ve dropped the cornstarch wash) and sprinkle with seed mixture.  Slash the loaf with 1/4-inch deep parallel cuts across the top (or a singe lengthwise cut as in the first picture).  Use a serrated bread knife held perpendicularly to the loaf:

Slide onto the hot stone…

…and carefully pour 1 cup of hot tap water into the broiler tray (in the book, we give alternatives for creating that steam environment, which is essential for creating a great crust):

After a 30-minute bake, cool on a cooling rack, and serve however you’d like.  You have the basis for a complete, nutritious meal, bursting with healthy vegetable oils (from wheat germ), fiber (from wheat bran), and vitamins.  We look forward to hearing more from you as people have questions about the book.

Zoe and I will be on Fox-9 News in Minneapolis-St. Paul tomorrow morning, at around 8:30am, hope to see you there…

Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ArtisanBreadIn5

Jeff and I are so excited to be heading off on a tour to introduce our new book Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients, which comes out on Oct. 27th. We’ve updated our events calendar and keep adding new dates all the time. We would love to meet you if we are stopping in a town nearby! And…there is a new baking group forming…more details at the end of the post!

As you all by now I take my sweets very seriously and chocolate is one of the essential food groups in my world. So I wanted to share one of the great pleasures of ABin5, the Chocolate Bread on page 211, with all of you who may not have ventured back that far into the book. It has an intense chocolate flavor without being too sweet. This bread is equally as good with a sweet cherry jam as it is with a sharp cheddar, just depends on your mood. There will rarely be leftovers, but just in case there are we’ve got a recipe for Chocolate Cherry Bread Pudding on page 237 is out of this world!

This dough is unlike any other in the book. It has no stretch to it, due to all the chocolate. I’ll show you how to handle it so that you end up with a fabulous loaf!

The chocolate dough is just a list of ingredients that gets dumped in a bucket
, this is no different from any other recipe in the book, just a bit more on the list!

Chocolate Bread from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day (page 211) - please note that for those of you with early printings of the book this will be slightly different.

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate (if you want a slightly sweeter bread use semisweet)

1/2 cup unsalted butter

2 cups lukewarm water

1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast

1 1/2 tablespoons Kosher salt

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

2/3 cup honey

5 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder - (natural or Dutch processed will work)

5 ounces finely chopped bittersweet chocolate (if you want a slightly sweeter bread use semisweet)

butter for greasing the pan

sugar for greasing the pan and sprinkling on top of the loaf

To make the dough:

Melt the 4 ounces of chocolate and butter together over a double boiler or in the microwave until smooth. Remove from heat, give the ganache a gentle stir and set aside.

Dump the water, yeast, salt, eggs and honey in the bucket and give a half hearted stir. Dump in the flour, cocoa powder, chocolate chips and the ganache that has been set aside. Mix the dough together until there are no lumps of dry flour. Cover the bucket with a not airtight lid and allow to rest for about 2 hours on the counter.

You can use the dough immediately after rising and it is quite luxurious, but for this demo I wanted to show you how to deal with the chilled dough. So I stuck the dough in the refrigerator for 12 hours.

grease your Loaf Pan and then sprinkle it with sugar. This extra step of sugaring is not essential, but it helps the loaf pop out of the pan. I prefer it to flour for chocolate breads because you don’t end up with the chalky look on the outside of your loaf.

Once my dough was chilled I remove the bucket and

reach in to grab my dough. You will be met with a very stiff dough that has no stretch. It is due to all the chocolate and butter in the dough, not because your dough is too dry.

A reader left a comment about forming two balls to create a loaf bread, they found it easier to work with. I thought for this dough it would be a great idea, because you are just pressing it into shape instead of stretching it into a smooth ball. Thank you TS for the suggestion, I think it worked beautifully!

Take 2 pounds of the dough from the bucket, divide it into two equal pieces and press them into smooth balls.

Place them in the prepared pan, cover loosely with plastic wrap and allow to rest for 1 hour and 45 minutes (up to 2 hours and 30 minutes if your kitchen is particularly cool).

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees

You can see that the dough rises a bit, but not a tremendous amount, this is true of all our dough.

Sprinkle with sugar and bake in the center of the oven for 45-50 minutes.

Remove from oven and

Take the bread out of the pan to cool completely.

Enjoy with preserves, marmelade or a slice of sharp cheddar!

Last but most certainly not least Michelle at BigBlackDogs is going to be hosting a baking group for HBin5! If you want to join her and a group of other bread enthusiasts read more here! Jeff and I will be doing some guest posts for her as well.

Apples in a savory tart/pizza?  Absolutely!  One typical combo in a savory fruit tart is blue cheese and pear, but this is the Upper Midwest in October, and our friend Keith Kozub runs the world’s finest organic apple orchard:  White Pine Orchard, near River Falls, Wisconsin.  We went apple-picking with friends and ended up with what seemed like bushels of apples.  This will be the first of many new apple recipes, and it was a chance to play with a better way to get a really thin crust for this kind of tart or pizza…Keith’s business card says “… growing free range apples for over 40 years.”  They taste as good as they look; these are the Liberty variety, a firm and tart apple that works great in baked goods, and in this tart:

Here are Keith and some friends in front of the apple-shack at White Pine Orchard (W7901 830th Ave., River Falls, WI 54022, 715-425-2248; call first to be sure they have apples):

Inside the shack, Keith will offer you a sample of his fresh apple cider.  My advice is to take it– you will eventually buy several half-gallons.  The blend changes as the harvest proceeds and when we were there last week, the cider was the best I have ever tasted.  It had complex flavors underneath the apple blend Keith was using, with notes of cherry and hints of other fruit in the apple’s spiciness:

So, to make the tart, bring home your apples, and preheat your oven to as high as it can go– at my house, that means 550 degrees F (288 Celsius).  Let it heat up with a pizza stone in place near the bottom of the oven, for 30 minutes while you prepare the ingredients. 

Now roll out a piece of dough (any lean dough you like; see our other pizza posts) to 1/8-inch thick, right on a pizza peel.  We usually have you start with a 1-pound (grapefruit-sized) piece of dough, and most people have been happy with that.  You end up with something halfway between an eighth and a quarter-inch thick.  But here’s a trick to more easily get to 1/8-inch thick, and the thin crispy crust some of you are looking for:  Start with less dough, it’s just a little easier to get to 1/8-inch thickness.  I had much less trouble getting a half-pound (orange-sized) piece of dough to 1/8-inch thickness than I usually do.  The pizza’s smaller, but since you’re spreading the dough more, it’s not that much smaller.  I ended up with a round that was about 12 inches across:

Dust well with flour, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and set aside.  Meanwhile, crumble about a quarter cup of your favorite blue cheese.  I’d love to be able to tell you that our publisher flies us to Europe to sample authentic blue cheeses at the source, but I got my Danish-style blue cheese at Costco.  It was quite good and its savory flavor worked perfectly with the sweet-tart apples. 

Peel and slice an apple last so it doesn’t get brown sitting around waiting (you’ll only need one apple if you cut it as thin as I’m suggesting below).  Halve them, cut out the core, and peel, then lay them flat side down to make parallel slices (I’ve been using these Epicurean brand cutting boards lately, they seem to be as gentle on the knives as wood but they’re dishwasher-safe).  You want to get your slices really thin, as thin as your knife allows, or they won’t bake through in the super-fast oven time at this temperature.  Don’t cut non-parallel wedges, or they won’t bake uniformly:

          I didn’t use lemon juice to keep the apples from turning brown because I thought that the tartness wouldn’t do well with the savory cheese.  Work quickly and you won’t need it.

Take the plastic off your dough round and be sure that the dough is still moving well on the pizza peel by jiggling it back and forth.  If it’s not moving well, use a dough scraper to get some flour underneath it and test again for good movement. 

Distribute the cheese over the rolled-out dough now.  Use the cheese sparingly as in the picture (you may have crumbled more than you need); this kind of cheese becomes very runny at high temperature and if you use too much it will be a mess (plus it’s a strong flavor that I didn’t want overwhelming the apples):

Now add the apple slices:

Finish with the sweetness of ham:  I used two small slices of uncured smoked ham, which beautifully complemented the sweetness of the apple.  Cut the ham into pieces and distribute over the tart, and drizzle evenly with olive oil (about a tablespoon or so, easiest way to drizzle over pizzas is with a squeeze bottle):

Check once more for good movement on the pizza peel, and if there’s not, repeat the procedure with the dough scraper.  Then quickly slide the tart onto the preheated pizza stone. 

When rolled this thin, the tart was ready in exactly eight minutes at this temperature, so keep an eye on your lunch:

Speaking of which, my wife and I had a leisurely lunch today– this was a perfect match with some decent Sauvignon Blanc that was lying around the house (we left Keith’s apple juice for our kids this afternoon).  Bon appetit, and happy apple season! 

Our new book is going to be released on October 27, hope we see you in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Portland OR, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, or Boston, where we have events scheduled. 

Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ArtisanBreadIn5

In our first book, we covered the classic European baking tradition, and that meant lots and lots of bread from France, a country where I love to eat anything, but especially bread.  Sweet Provencal Flatbread with Anise Seeds is a marvelous example of a bread that is  so versatile that it can be split to make great sandwiches today, and then dunked, stale, into strong cafe au lait tomorrow morning.  You can mix a whole batch with the sugar, orange zest, and anise seeds, or roll a little of those three into a plain dough to make just a pound’s worth (see end of post).

Twenty minutes before baking time, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F, with a baking stone on the middle rack.  Place an empty broiler tray on any other shelf that won’t interfere with rising bread.  

Ingredients for a full batch:

2 1/4 cups lukewarm water

1/2 cup orange juice

1/4 cup olive oil

1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast (2 packets) (can decrease, see http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=85)

1 1/2 tablespoons salt (can decrease, see http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=139)

1 tablespoon whole anise seeds for the dough, plus more for topping

1/3 cup sugar

Zest from half an orange, removed with a microzester

6 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (can swap out 1 to 2 cups whole wheat or rye)

Flour for dusting

Water to paint on top crust

Mix all ingredients together in a bucket or mixing bowl, cover loosely and allow to rest at room temperature for 2 hours.  Refrigerate for up to two weeks, removing portions as needed for daily loaves.  The wet dough can be used at room temperature but is easier to handle when cold.

Cut off a pound of dough (about the size of a grapefruit) with a kitchen scissors or a serrated knife.  Gently form a smooth ball by generously dusting the ball with flour and stretching the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter-turn as you go (see videos).  You can already see how beautiful the orange zest is going to make the finished breads– the flecks can bee seen already:

Using your hands, a rolling pin, and enough dusting flour to prevent sticking, flatten the ball to a thickness of 1/4-inch.  In the book, we specify 1/2-inch, but I wanted to bake these with no resting time so my wife and I could have these flatbreads with lunch today (we ate outside, just like in Provence…).  The thinner the flatbread, the less resting time.  Like pizza (1/8-inch thick dough), these don’t need to rest after you roll them out.

Keeping your work surface well-dusted with flour, use a pizza cutter to make eight triangular flatbreads, like so:

Using a spatula or your fingers, lift the triangles onto a greased cookie sheet, a silicone mat, or a pizza peel well-dusted with flour or covered with parchment paper:

Use a pastry brush to paint the triangles with water and sprinkle with anise seeds:

Slide them onto the pre-heated baking stone (or place the cookie sheet or silicone pad on the stone).  Pour 1 cup of tap water into the broiler tray and quickly close the oven door:

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until richly browned and firm.  The olive oil keeps this bread soft enough to be split for egg salad sandwiches with farmer’s market Roma tomatoes and carmelized onions:

If you want to start with a plain white batch, cut the sugar, anise, and zest by three-quarters and sprinkle it onto a one-pound piece of dough that has been rolled-out to 1/4-inch thickness.  Roll up into a log and re-form into a ball, then roll out again to form triangles.  Bake as usual.

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Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking has a terrific French bread recipe, but it takes about three days to prepare– still, it was one of the first loaves I ever was really, really happy with years ago.  Back then, I wasn’t thinking about brioche, or brioche-wrapped beef tenderloin, but you can bet that I am now.  The brioche recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day is one of the most popular ones in our book.  Recently I remembered that Julia Child’s Beef Wellington recipe actually calls for brioche rather than the more traditional puff pastry (it’s in Volume Two of “Mastering the Art…”).  Voilà!  Easy Beef Wellington?  Well, all I can tell you is that the pastry part becomes easy if you have our brioche dough in the freezer or fridge.  And the result is scrumptious and festive.  But five minutes a day?  Well…

Defrost about 1 1/2 pounds of our brioche dough if it’s in the freezer (leave it in the fridge overnight), or use refrigerated stuff that hasn’t yest reached the five-day mark (beyond that and you run the risk of the eggs going bad).  Now start prepping the beef, its stuffing, and the brown sauce Julia specified (she actually gives some choices (from Volume One!), but I just did a simplified version of her Sauce Brune. 

First, finely dice carrots, onions, and celery to end up with about a third of a cup each:

Heat 6 tablespoons of butter or oil and saute the vegetables for about 10 minutes.  Then add a quarter-cup of flour and continue over low heat until the mixture browns (about another 10 minutes).  That super-flavorful thickening agent is known in French as a roux (pronounced “roo”):

Add 6 cups of boiling beef stock.  Volume One talks about how to make your own, and I actually did an abbreviated version based on meat scraps and soup bones, but even Julia wrote that it’s not absolutely neccesary.    You can use canned, so she says.  I kid you not.

Whisk the mixture vigorously to suspend the flour, and create a thickening sauce.   Julia calls for an herb bouquet, so in theory you’re supposed to tie up 3 parsley sprigs, 1/2 a bay leaf, and 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme in cheesecloth and simmer it with your sauce, discarding it at the end.

Not going to happen around here.  I minced the parsely, still from our garden in a mild Minnesota September:

The minced parsley got thrown into the simmering sauce with the half bay leave and the thyme, and the result is a chunky sauce, not the elegant smooth one that Julia was going for, especially with 3 tablespoons of minced ham (she calls for that, so she couldn’t have wanted the sauce to be that smooth).  Remove the bay leaf piece at the end of cooking, but everything else stays.  My version here is more home cooking than French haute cuisine (I admit it).  Simmer the sauce down to about 4 cups, and add salt and pepper to taste.  Don’t be stingy with the salt.  Set the sauce aside and move onto the mushroom stuffing:

Create another roux with 3 tablespoons of butter (I used more), 1 pound of minced fresh mushrooms and 1/4 cup minced shallots (don’t use onions; this butter-shallot-mushroom mixture is what makes the dish).  As before, saute down the vegetable before adding the flour (about 5 minutes), and then continue for a while longer (this time only a couple of minutes).  Then add 1/3 cup of dry Madeira wine (I used a light-bodied inexpensive red table wine), 1 egg yolk, and 1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon.  Continue cooking another few minutes, until everything has set, and set the mixture aside.

Now, onto the meat.  Prepare about 2 1/2 pounds of filet mignon (aka beef tenderloin) by slicing it into 1/2-inch thick portions.  Salt and pepper each piece on both sides, and re-assemble the roast with about 1 1/2 tablespoons of mushroom stuffing between each slice:

Wrestle the whole thing into a large sheet of oiled cheesecloth, roll it up, and twist the ends together so you have a tight bundle.  It looks very, very wierd, and if the result wasn’t so insanely delicous, I might be somewhat put off by this picture, which, take my word, is greatly helped by gauzy soft focus photography (thank you Nikon SLR technology): 

Glad that’s over with.  Make sure this is basted well with oil or melted butter, and bake in a roasting pan placed in the top third of the oven, pre-heated to 425 degrees F (your oven needs to be accurate here or the roasting time could be way off).  I followed Julia’s directions for a 25 minute roast, but I did not baste or turn this beast.  Remove from oven (it’s not done yet) and let it cool to room temperature (this is actually important in not overcooking the roast). 

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F again.  Roll out a large rectangle of brioche dough to a thickness of 1/4-inch, according to Julia (though I think it might benefit from being a little thinner).  The piece needs to be  large enough to accept your roast, and for us that was about 1 1/2 pounds of dough (small cantaloupe-sized).  I did this like a huge calzone rather than Julia’s more involved but prettier method (see our calzone post), and I sealed it on the top after pulling the dough up around it. 

The tricky part is removing the cheesecloth from the cooled roast, and getting rid of it without wrecking the stuffing.  I ended up slopping some of it on top of the meat, rather than between the slices.  But it all got sealed up in pastry anyway (don’t slit or the juice will go everywhere):

Use a pastry brush to paint egg wash (1 egg lightly beaten with 1 tablespoon water) on the brioche dough.  Do two coats, one just before baking, and one about 10 minutes into it.  Lower temp to 350 when the crust has browned, and continue baking for a total of about 30 to 40 minutes.  Cover with aluminum foil if it’s overbrowning.  When done, you’ll begin to smell the meat and the stuffing and some juices will be escaping into the pan.  Don’t over-do it… this was meant to be served medium rare:

Cut it up and make sure everyone a piece of steak with a good portion of the brioche, some sauce, and a glass of nice red wine.  This dish was a kid crowd-pleaser (minus the wine). 

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The University of Minnesota is a leader in developing new varieties of apples. Among them are the Haralson, Honeycrisp, Prairie Spy and dozens more. The latest to hit the markets is the Sweetango. The new apple is sweet and juicy, like its mother (Honeycrisp), but it has a little more acid to it, from dad (Zestar). The combination is incredibly tasty with a lovely snap.

I moved here from Vermont where the quintessential baking apple was the McIntosh. Now that I live in the land of 10,000 lakes and almost as many apples I like to use a variety of them in my baking. I combine apples that will break down and those that will keep their shape. I also like to use some that are sweet and others that have a bit more acid. To add a bit of perfume and richness to the mix I add a bit of pear.

This coffee cake is a perfect way to show off the autumns best apples. Mixed with brioche and streusel topping the cake is great for brunch or an after school snack. Apple and Pear Coffee Cake

The Streusel Topping:

1 cup oats

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup brown sugar, well packed

1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

1 cup melted butter

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

The Cake:

1 pound (grapefruit-size portion) Brioche dough (page 189) - You will notice that I have decreased the amount of dough, because the technique I’m using in this post is slightly different. Either way will result in the same cake.

2 small apples (1 tart and 1 sweet, thinly sliced)

1 large pear, thinly sliced

3 tablespoons brown sugar

zest of half an orange

1 1/2 cups streusel topping (above)

To make the streusel: Place all the ingredients in a bowl and toss until well combined.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Prepare an 8-inch x 3-inch round cake pan or an 8-Inch Nonstick Springform with grease, a round piece of parchment and a dusting of flour or sugar.

Split the pound of dough in two equal pieces, form them into balls and roll them out to be just slightly wider than the cake pan. place one of the disks of dough in the prepared pan. It should come up the sides just a bit.

Combine the apples, pear, brown sugar and zest in a bowl. Spread half of the apple mixture on the first layer of dough.

cover with about 3/4 cup streusel. Repeat with other layer of dough, rest of apples and another 3/4 cup streusel. Let the cake rest for 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Bake for about 45 minutes, until tester comes out of the center clean. Run a sharp knife around the edge of the cake.

If you used the cake pan, invert the pan onto a plate. Lift the pan off the cake.

Peel the parchment paper off the bottom of the cake and then invert onto a cake plate.

Make coffee or tea and enjoy!

It is now what I consider “sandwich season.” Some may call it “back to school,” “end of summer” or even “fall,” but to me it is the season when I have to come up with a million types of sandwiches and other lunches to keep my boys from growing up on PB&J alone! Although school lunches have come a long way since I was a kid, they still leave much to be desired and are mostly to be avoided.

To start I need the perfect loaf of bread. My boys want a loaf that looks and feels like what all the other kids are eating; square and soft. They love crusty bread, but not on their sandwiches, especially not PB&J. To achieve just the right sandwich loaf I have slightly altered what we do in the book.

I start by weighing the dough on my Scale a 2-pound (a big cantaloupe-size) piece of dough. I used the Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread on page 78, but you can use any of the doughs in the book in a loaf pan. Let the dough rise in a well greased non-stick 8 1/2 x 4 1/2- inch Loaf Pan, covered loosely with plastic wrap for 1 hour and 40 minutes (or just 60 minutes if you are using fresh, unrefrigerated dough).

20 minutes before baking time, preheat the oven to 375 degrees. I don’t use any steam, because I don’t want a crisp crust, but you are welcome to do so. You will also notice that this is slightly cooler than we say in the book. This is so that I get a nice soft crust and because I will be baking it longer.

(I filled it with 2-pounds as opposed to the 1 1/2-pounds that we call for in the book, so that I will get a larger loaf. I like how it comes up out of the pan a bit. The whole wheat doesn’t rise quite as much as the breads made with all-purpose flour. The whole wheat flour does not have as much gluten to allow for the stretch. The brioche dough is also a lovely sandwich loaf. In our new book Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients we’ve developed a Whole Wheat Brioche that is the absolute best of both worlds.)

Bake the loaf for about 60 minutes. Flip the loaf out of the pan and allow to cool before cutting it and making your favorite sandwiches. (If the loaf sticks to the pan, just allow it to sit in the pan for several minutes. It will steam around the sides and release itself from the pan. If the sides feel soggy after this, return it to the oven for just a few minutes.)

Charlie devours his favorite sandwich made with ham, cheese, lettuce and tomato (from our garden), sliced onions and honey mustard. What are your kids’ favorites?

Today is the first day of school for my two boys. It is always bittersweet. They are excited to see their friends, but the prospect of all that structure and homework has them just a touch apprehensive. I’ll miss them running around the house and yet I look forward to the quiet. I also have another year of coming up with lunches that they will be excited about. The first day of school deserves something particularly special, like something on a stick. This week is also the MN State Fair, where all things edible are on a stick. For some reason everything tastes better balanced on the end of a pointy skewer?

Last year Jeff and I did a baking demo at the FAIR and put cinnamon buns on a stick. One might think pizza is the perfect food as it is, but I think I may have found an improvement, at least for those under the age of 20. Pizza on a stick!

Makes about 24

1 pound (grapefruit size) piece of dough (I used the Master recipe (page 25), but Olive Oil dough (page 134), Whole Wheat (page 74-9) or even Brioche (page 189) would be great!)

1/2 cup pizza sauce or crushed tomatoes

1 1/2 cups grated mozzarella cheese

pepperoni or other favorite toppings

preheat the oven to 400 degrees

Set up 2 0r 3 baking sheet pans with parchment or Silpats, set aside.

Roll the dough out to a 1/4-inch thick rectangle, using enough flour so the dough doesn’t stick.

layer on the sauce, cheese and pepperoni. Leave some of the cheese exposed so that it can melt and act as a glue, to hold the pizza rolls together.

Roll the dough into a log, starting at the long end.

Using kitchen shears, cut the dough into 1/2-inch thick buns. (I only baked 16 and then wrapped the rest of the log, refrigerated it and will bake it later this week. You can also cut and freeze the individual pizza rounds to thaw and bake within the next 2 weeks.)

Place them on the prepared sheet, leaving plenty of space for them to expand when they bake.

Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until golden brown and the cheese has melted and caramelized a bit.

Put them on a stick or let them cool and pack them in a lunch box!

They are tasty and fun. Enjoy!

We have finally, finally finished our Final Pass manuscript (final seems to be the recurrent theme).  That means we don’t get to look at Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day again until it’s in print.  The book won’t be on shelves until October 27, and after that, we won’t be posting on good old-fashioned brioche for a while, so I decided to reprise a great post from a year and a half ago, Zoe’s post on Brioche à Tête–I’ll give you the link at the end.  There’s one nice tool to have– the brioche pans, which you can get from Amazon.

It’s also another shameless excuse to savor another great photograph from Mark Luinenburg, who did all the photos in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day (above), as well as the new shots for Healthy Bread.  All you need to do is start with our brioche dough, and then go to Zoe’s post on the Brioche à Tête.  It’s much, much easier than it looks (non-chefs can do it).  For something less rich, try the challah dough if you like, on page 180 of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. 

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This year my family finally signed up for a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share.  Along with neighbors, we’re supporting a local farmer, Mike Jacobs of Easy Bean Farm in Milan, MN.  Every Friday, Mike wakes before dawn and drives to the Twin Cities and other communities to deliver the week’s bounty of organic produce.  We pick up a half-share; above is just a portion of one Friday’s haul (though this year’s drought has definitely decreased the crop). 

Every week, we get whatever’s in the box.  I’d never eaten Kohlrabi before  (the bulbous thing on the right, with greens growing out of it).  When you get lots of something you’ve never eaten, there’s only one thing to do, at least at my house… make it into bread or pizza… Turns out that both the bulb, and the greens of Kohlrabi are nutritious and delicious.  Farmer Mike has been giving lots of Kohlrabi, so we’ve gotten very adept at peeling the bulb, slicing it into spears, and eating it raw with a yogurt dip (really nothing more than a cup of yogurt, half-cup of shredded cucumber, one clove of raw or roasted garlic, and a couple of tablespoons of fresh mint leaves from the garden, all put through the food processor till smooth). 

Then, about those Kohlrabi greens.  You ever notice that nobody gives you bushels of basil?  The cheap and nutritious greens in the grocery (or from a CSA), like chard (Swiss or plain), collards (left side of the picture), kale, or mustard present a challenge– kids don’t tend to love them, and their bitter edge isn’t for everyone (especially kale and mustard).  Kohlrabi falls into this category, though less bitter.  Any of them, it turns out, makes a fantastic pesto, with greens standing in for basil.  Olive oil and ground nuts (in this case walnuts rather than pine nuts) mellow out the bitterness of the greens.  I used the equivalent of a full bunch of collard greens (in kohrabi), chopped them,  sauteed them in about 3 tablespoons of olive oil until tender, then put that into the food processor.

Add about 1/2 cup of walnuts, almonds, or pine nuts (you really can experiment here), and salt to taste.  I used walnuts today.  Set aside.

Meanwhile roll out your favorite lean dough into a 1/8-inch thick round, about 12 to 16 inches across (this takes about a 1-pound piece of dough, the size of a grapefruit).  Do this right on a well-floured pizza peel.  Bake the dough “blind,” (without toppings) about 2 to four minutes on the first side right over direct heat on the grates of your gas grill set to medium. 

As soon as you flip the dough round, top with the greens mixture, and the cheese of your choice.  Here I used dabs of goat cheese, and finished baking right on the grill (grilled chicken chunks are optional).  Keep the grill lid closed– you may need to adjust burner heat to prevent the bottom from burning before the toppings look ready.

A little white wine and it’s a complete dinner:

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We had friends for brunch this past Sunday, and I decided to try something I’ve been meaning to do for a while:  Breakfast Pizza.  It’s basically a pizza dough base, topped with egg, cheese, and whatever meat you like, if you’re a meat eater (we are).  In order to contain the egg, which might otherwise run off the pizza, I baked this pizza in an unfinished, plain black 12-inch cast iron pan.  The result is closely related to the Italian frittata.

Use any non-enriched dough you like; either the basic master, or a rye dough (without caraway or other flavorings), as I did here, or even whole wheat. 

First, preheat your oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C) for 20 minutes, with the cast-iron pan on a middle shelf.  There’s no need for a baking stone in this situation.  Roll out a piece of dough to a thickness of 1/8-inch, into a 12-inch diameter circle (so that it will fit into the bottom of the hot pan).

Open the oven and get the pan into position so you can drop in the dough (it’s  much easier to handle the hot cast iron pan with a handle-covering potholder).  Then, “dock” (puncture) the dough all over with a fork:

Now bake the crust “blind” (without toppings) for a while, about 5 minutes.  Check midway to see if you need to poke any new air bubbles with the fork. 

Season four lightly-beaten eggs with salt and pepper, and pour over the dough.  It will distribute unevenly over the uneven surface, which is fine.  Top with about a quarter pound of grated cheddar, mozzarella, colby, or gruyere, then a tablespoon of grated parmigiano-reggianno cheese (or other Italian-style grating cheese).  That grated hard-cheese topping really helps this dish to brown.  If you like, use some thinly-sliced prosciutto or other Italian-style ham. 

Bake for 5 to 10 minutes– all depends on your oven and how thin you actually rolled your dough.  I finished the pizza under the broiler to get beautiful browning and finish cooking the eggs.  Make sure they’re not too runny, but don’t overbake. 

I promise you, this is one of the simplest brunch dishes you can make, and the result is absolutely delicious.  Vary the toppings however you like– everything seems to work. 

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