Comfort

When asked where, or who, or what I would turn to when in need of comfort, I blurted out:

"I bake" All around the table there were people nodding in agreement. Comfort, food, baking. A no-brainer.

My answer caused a growing feeling of unease within myself though. As the rest of us came up with their ideas (books, photo albums from the attic, secret benches at water fronts) I counted the number of times a week I throw something into my oven, and started to get slightly worried. I must be in need of an awful lot of comfort...

Ever since, every time I bake, I ask myself; why am I baking?

Sometimes the answer has indeed something to do with comfort. A missed job that had my name written all over it will spark a very comforting autumnal frangipani.

Last week I found myself baking Dutch crust rolls after I shattered two (!) plates I really liked. At times, it is about a passion for new things and learning. Croissants, ensaimadas, macarons, complicated sourdough breads that take up to 36 hours to make, bring it on!

Most of the time the answer seems way more trivial. All the bread eaten in this house come from our own oven. I bake because there needs to be bread on the table in the morning. Simple as that, or is it...

Sharing as a disease The best part of baking, especially when baking bread, is eating it together. Sharing bread is right up there with the big boys when it comes to what is ingrained in our very genes from the start of humanity.

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the ground."

No sooner were we kicked out of paradise, or bread came into our existence... It is at the heart of what makes us human and has stayed with us till this very day!

I heard a wonderful story of a guy, here in Amsterdam, who has made it his mission to GIVE in life all that he can, without ever asking anything in return. He helps complete strangers to a new bike, finds lost photo albums and brings it back to the rightful owners, things like that.

One of the people, a radio journalist, who was touched by all this - he himself got a new bicycle after complaining on a radio show that it was stolen from him - dug around a little and found out the guy was operating... from a mental institution.

He was diagnosed mentally ill. His own words; "over here they consider sharing a disease".

The disease that is called sharing... Personally I hope it is airborne and viral, very contagious and practically incurable. This world could do with a bit of sharing.

This recipe for Swedish Kanelbullar (cinnamon rolls) came to me by way of a baking friend. She got it from a new food channel, who got it from somewhere else, etc. Along the way tweaks were made in the recipe, and what you end up with are some really stunning, very tasty cinnamon rolls that are real easy to make. Maybe something for at the coffee table on Thanksgiving? For me, any old day will do to make them; they have become very popular quite fast in this household.

Swedish Kanelbullar

For the filling:

150 g almonds
150 g sugar
100 g unsalted butter
8 TS cinnamon
4 TBS water

For the dough

500 ml milk
150 g butter
12 g instant yeast
120 g sugar
13 gr. salt
1 TS cardamom
850 gr. bread flour
1 egg
(pearl) sugar for decorating

Warm the milk and melt the butter into it. Add the yeast, sugar, salt, cardamom and bread flour. Make sure the milk has cooled enough before adding the yeast. 35° C is okay. Mix on low speed until the dough is nice and stretchy, around 10 minutes.

In the meantime, prepare the filling. Pulse the almonds together with the sugar and the cinnamon in a processor until fine. Add the water and the butter to it and mix until well incorporated.

Rest your dough in an oiled container until almost doubled in size. The warmer it is the quicker it goes. About one hour or so. Next, roll out the dough to a big rectangle on a lightly floured work surface. Make sure it doesn't stick, it makes working this dough much easier.

Put the cinnamon paste on half of the dough and fold it onto itself. Roll out again to even it out and cut the dough into strips. Form the rolls by stretching and winding the strip of dough, loosely, around your hand twice, go over the width of the roll and tuck in the end. No matter how you do it, it will always look lovely, so don't get too over zealous in trying to get them to look all the same!

Let the rolls proof until they are nice and plump, about 45 minutes. In a warm kitchen they might be ready within 30 minutes or so.

Preheat the oven to 200° C. Take out all the racks and prepare to bake on the second lowest rack.

Give the rolls an egg wash with the slightly beaten egg (use only egg yolk for a deeper, richer shine and a more dramatic contrast) and sprinkle with small sugar pearls if you have them. Normal sugar works as well, but won't look as classy. Bake for about 20-25 minutes with convection until they turn a deep golden brown. Let them cool on a rack and.... SHARE!

happy baking!

Freerk

I found myself with a free morning and wanted to bake bread.  Since I didn't plan in advance, sourdough was out.  Loving anything with cinnamon, I decided to try the cinnamon raisin bread from BBA (my kids are allergic to nuts, so I left out the walnuts).  I used golden raisins and followed the formula exactly, with one minor tweak - I borrowed a technique from Cook's Illustrated (or was it Cook's Country?) and sprayed the dough with water before sprinkling on the cinnamon sugar, then sprayed the filling again before rolling.  I don't know whether it made a difference, but the swirl came out nicely with no separation or gaps.

This almost shouldn't be called bread.  It's more like dessert!  I'll definitely be making this one again.

Please check out my up and coming blog where I give daily recipes - tested and tried by me!

Today I have listed an amazing-ly good and low cost Cinnamon roll recipe.

Head on over and at least give it a look. takes only a second! thanks ahead of time

http://domesticconcoction.blogspot.com/

Well, this is actually the Chocolate Cinnamon Babka recipe from Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day. I followed the recipe to a T except I substituted the chocolate for dark brown sugar, as per the request from my girlfriend, who barely ate any after it was done, haha.

I really like how it came out and I love the look. A loaf doesn't get any cooler looking than this and you can't go wrong with a rich, sweet, cinnamony, streusel topped bread. I gave my parents half the loaf and I pretty much ate the rest by myself over two days, my girlfriend only had a taste and acknowledged it was fantastic, she considers herself a expert. She had to look good in a bikini the following week so she said "I should stop making bread!".

This is the first bread I made out of this book, I have made many from PR's other books. I have my eye on taking a whirl at the croissant recipe in this book but I don't know when I will get to that. This was easy, fast, and fun to make and I will definitely be making it again, next time with the chocolate. It is a cool bread to bring to a dinner party for desert, in my opinion.

Enjoy the pictures,

Nick

You all are my baking heros.  I have learned so much from this site.  I am relatively new to bread baking but I have baked a lot of bread and am fearless when it comes to experimenting.  That said, I REALLY want to try PR WGB bagels except I want to make them cinnamon raisin.  I looked through his BBA book and the bagel recipe in there but I want the whole grain.  I also read over his Grace Note on page 122 of BBA thinking I could cross reference and adapt to the whole wheat cinnamon raisin bagels but I still have questions about the yeast and hydration.  Any yeast changes to the biga or soaker?

I know that bark spices can inhibit yeast to some extent (learned that here) and that baking with whole wheat flour usually needs more liquid.  I could be in over my head but I want to try.  With this in mind, can anyone help me with an adaptation to his whole wheat bagels to make them cinnamon raisin whole wheat bagels?

I did look through other posts to see if this has been discussed previously but I couldn't find what I am looking for.  Snowed in here on the east coast and plan on a baking frenzy this weekend.

Thanks so much.

Hello, everybody!  

This begins with a resounding thank-you to user jannrn for asking a question and giving me an excellent idea...  A week ago, I posted about my Greek Fennel, Yogurt, and Honey Bread, and sweetly Jan told me she liked the photographs but hated fennel (I'm really the only person I know who does!).  She asked about alternate flavors, which got me to thinking...  

Here is a picture of the original fennel bread:

But after Jan's comment, I decided to experiment in a couple of ways with its basic formula, which is available on the old post too.  As before, these recipes are for individual loaves, but easily multiplied

My husband, David, adores onions (he could eat them like apples), so here:

For Love's Sake Onion Bread

Ingredients:  

165 grams flour

3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

3/4 teaspoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon powdered onion soup mix (a huge thanks to floydm's onion braid for this idea!)

dough enhancers: 2 teaspoons vital wheat gluten, pinch of ginger, 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

2 oz. warm water

1 cup total yogurt (2 oz. + 2 teaspoons yogurt for dough)

1 onion 

Instructions:

First, prepare the onion-yogurt blend.  Place 1 cup yogurt and 1 onion (but reserve slices for topping) in a food processor.  Blend well, until mixed.  

Whisk a little bit of the flour, yeast, sugar, and dough enhancers in water, and allow to autolyze.

Add salt, soup powder, the rest of the flour, and 2 oz. + 2 teaspoons of the onion yogurt blend.  Reserve the rest of the yogurt blend as a fantastic dip/spread!

Knead for 15 minutes, until the dough is elastic and will not break if stretched.  

Place dough in a lightly greased bowl and allow to rise, covered, for 1/2 - 2 hours or until doubled.

Remove dough from bowl and give it several soft kneadings and envelope turns.  On a lightly greased baking sheet, shape into a boule.

Allow to rise for 45 minutes or so, while preheating the oven to 210 degrees Celsius.  

Before baking, brush with milk and arrange onion slices on top as desired.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown, with an inner temperature of 205 degrees Celsius.  Enjoy!  Trust me, it sounds strange, but the yogurt-onion blend is amazing!

Or: Harvest Apple and Spice Bread

(okay, I know this bread looks really stupid and like a first grader made it.  I got dumb and silly, but it was still so tasty!)

Unlike David, I love actual apples.  Moreover, we have the dried fruit resulting from ten or so pounds of them (an unexpected and enormous present from our neighbors), and I'd better use some up.  So...

165 grams flour

3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

2 teaspoons honey

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

dough enhancers: 2 teaspoons vital wheat gluten, pinch of ginger, 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

1 cup total yogurt (2 oz. + 2 teaspoons yogurt for dough)

1/2 ripe red apple

2 oz warm water

2 tablespoons chopped dried apples, plus extra for decoration

First, blend the yogurt with the 1/2 apple until very smooth.  

Whisk a little bit of the flour, yeast, honey, and dough enhancers in water, and allow to autolyze.

Add salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, the rest of the flour, and 2 oz. + 2 teaspoons of the apple-yogurt blend.  The rest make a pretty good spread!

Knead for 15 minutes, until the dough is elastic and will not break if stretched.  

Place dough in a lightly greased bowl and allow to rise, covered, for 1/2 - 2 hours or until doubled.

Remove dough from bowl and give it several soft kneadings and envelope turns.  On a lightly greased baking sheet, shape into a boule.

Allow to rise for 45 minutes or so, while preheating the oven to 210 degrees Celsius.  

Before baking, brush with milk and decorate with bits of dried apple, though you don't have to make it as dumb-looking as mine!

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown, with an inner temperature of 205 degrees Celsius. Hope you like it!

This, by the way:

is the original crumb from the fennel bread, and I had identical results with the onion and apple variations, including the satisfaction!  And thanks again to Jan for the idea!

I made a 9x12 pan of cinnamon buns and I've got a problem.  I have made this recipe several times, and the buns taste Great!  In making them the dough feels great, it rises nicely, the buns roll out and cut just fine, and after the second rise they look simply awesome!  Even when they come out of the oven they look (and smell) wonderful.  However, as they cool, the center two buns "fall".  I make 12 buns in my 9x12 metal cake pan (3 rows of 4 buns).  The outer buns stay nice and tall on the side next to the pan wall, but slope toward the center of the pan.  The center two buns are maybe half the height of the outer edge, and maybe half as tall as they were when they came out of the oven.

I suspect my problem has to do with oven temperature and time, but I follow the recipe I have religiously (375' oven; 18-20 minutes).  After 20 minutes the buns are quite brown on top, and I would hesitate to leave them in longer as I fear they would become too dark.  Any suggestions???

I've been a longtime reader (lurker) of the The Fresh Loaf and haven't really had the chance to bake for a while, oven use when it was hot out just wasn't working, I was really busy with work, etc. But I recently jump started myself back into it with the BBA Challenge, and the realization that my girlfriend didn't care about me using the oven at her house!

This weekend I decided to get in touch with my sweet side. I made cinnamon buns on sat and croissants, chocolate hazelnut danish and an apricot basket ( unglazed in pictures). I used the recipe out of artisan baking by ciril hitz. My assistant was also helping me out with the weekend bake.

Assistant below:

I have been playing aroud a lot with a standard white loaf recipe from my grandmother. So this just another experiment to see how far I can take the basic dough. Was up at 5.30 am, so decided it would be buns for a late breakfast.

Full post on my pathetic blog

Time For Cinnamon Buns