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Breadhead Breakfast Countdown 7/120

7/4/2015

Day #7

A House in Order

Last day at the cabin—tonight I return to the abbey and tomorrow I leave for a monastic worship conference. Not much baking today. Mostly cleaning up the kitchen area, running the vacuum, packing up. Abbot Philip and Br. Robert will be using the cabin after me, so I don’t want to leave a mess. But just to keep my hand in I mixed up a batch of honey multi-grain bread to leave in the freezer—a little treat for my confreres.

Today is the 4th of July, a day on which I always take time to write letters of support for military personnel. These aren’t people I know: I get the names through anysoldier.com. I do this throughout the year, and try to send a donation to the Paralyzed Veterans Association every now and then. I can’t say I agree with every aspect of U.S. foreign policy and practice, but I can say that I respect those who serve our country so generously, and at such a cost.

I realized earlier in the week that we had a brand new American flag still in the package at the cabin, but no way to fly it. There was a bracket for a flagpole on the front deck, but no metal or wooden pole to be found. But I went out into the shed and found an old section of a bamboo fishing pole that happened to be the right height and fit the bracket perfectly. I attached with flag with some bread ties (it just seemed right) and it went up yesterday morning, just in time for the holiday weekend. I’ve been saying the pledge of allegiance every morning, like we do at school. In the classroom it’s routine, but out here all by myself, with the flag aglow in the early morning light, it always makes me tear up.

You’ll see from the photo that our curb appeal is a little lacking because we have scaffolding up for repairs and painting next week. Originally I wasn’t going to post the picture for that reason, but it occurred to me that it was aptly symbolic in its own way. Our nation is always being rebuilt, always under construction, constantly in need of repairs and a fresh coat of paint. “A house divided cannot stand,” declared Abraham Lincoln, but neither can a house neglected; complacency is as dangerous as division.

Today when we reflect on the many blessings of living in a land of abundance and freedom, let’s all ask ourselves: what am I doing to build up the house of our nation? What is the legacy I am leaving to future generations? What am I doing to support those who protect those freedoms, whether they serve in a branch of government or a branch of the military? How can we ensure that all citizens enjoy a fuller share in that abundance, a greater share in those freedoms which we treasure?

If I were a better writer (or a better politician) I might offer more specific suggestions or a call to action. For me, I’m writing a few letters to soldiers overseas, and baking a little bread to share. Later today I’ll visit Br. Anthony in the nursing home, and figure out how to help an older couple of my acquaintance who need some help with groceries. Little things, and I hope I can do greater things tomorrow. I pray we will all do greater things tomorrow.

God bless and happy baking!

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Breadhead Breakfast Testing Countdown 6/120

7/3/2015

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Missed a day of posting, because yesterday was not particularly productive from a recipe standpoint. The WiFi in the lake clubhouse was not working, and I don’t know of any place in nearby Henry with free WiFi so I had to drive to Chillicothe (about 20 miles) to use the signal at MacDonald’s. I discovered that their wireless wasn’t working either. What to do? No-one seemed to know of another place in town with free WiFi.

Since I’m a monk, I tend to look at these things through a spiritual lens, so asked myself, “Do you suppose this setback is diabolical or providential?” I decided to assume the latter, and set off in search of a local coffee shop in the hopes that Chillicothe hipsters or 20-somethings had a place to gather and ignore each other as they played with their devices. (That sounds unnecessarily snarky, now that I reread it—electronic addiction is pretty widespread among “grown-ups, too!)

I remembered that Chilli had a small downtown area, so I set off in that direction, but took a wrong turn and ended up near the Marina, which confirmed that Divine Providence had orchestrated my predicament. I discovered a sizable patch that some civic minded person or group had planted with wildflowers: a patchwork of coreopsis, painted daisies, black-eyed Susans, cone flowers, and bachelor buttons. Since I love photography as much as baking, I parked the Tracker and got out my camera. The resulting images are nowhere near as lovely as the reality, but I share some of them nonetheless.

After a half hour of snapping away and patiently waiting for the red admiral butterflies to light on the cone flowers, I went off in search of electronica again, only to pass by a garage sale—irresistible to a bargain hunter like myself. In conversation with the home owner about what I was searching for (vintage kitchenware and interesting plates for food styling), I asked if there were someplace nearby I could access the internet, she said, “Oh, I have it here in the house—bring your computer in!” Divine Providence in the form of good old-fashioned Midwestern generosity.

In short order, I posted the previous day’s blog and checked my messages, and left with five charming bread plates and a vintage potato peeler. I came dangerously close to buying an embroidered tablecloth as well, but monastic frugality prevented me—it was worth what she wanted, but still out of range of my meager vacation fund. I set off again for the cabin, after promising that if I came back into town, she’d get some coffee cake!

Back at the Lake I got to work on a recipe to share with the Lake Thunderbird monthly newsletter, The Chair Tree; the lake manager Chris asked if I’d share an article for the August issue. Since I’m always at the lake around the Fourth of July, I combined blueberries, raspberries and white chocolate morsels as the filling for a “Red, White and Blue” sour cream coffee cake. Perfect for a breakfast alfresco on the deck. Get the recipe HERE.

My experience yesterday was what I refer to as a “ding”. As many Breadheads know, when I give a bread demo I like to give away door prizes, most of which are the result of my bargain hunting. For example, this week I found a like-new Springform pan for $3, a $60 Mac chef’s knife for $2, and a vintage rolling pin for a buck! I give away cutting boards, bread knives, handmade beeswax candles and cookbooks, too. Everyone who comes to my demos gets a free raffle ticket. I set my kitchen timer for a random time under 10 minutes, and when the bell goes “ding!” I stop what I’m doing and draw a number for a prize.

So every once in awhile, God’s bell goes off, and He draws out a name and gives that person a prize: an unexpected wrong turn that leads to a beautiful patch of flowers, a random encounter with kindness, a sunset or rainbow or shooting star that only you get to see. Not every setback is meant to test our patience; some of them are meant to increase our trust and our joy.

God bless and happy baking!

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Breadhead Breakfast Countdown Day 4/120

7/2/2015

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Day #4

Lemon Fantans

Recently I gave a talk on yeasted coffeecakes in Effingham, Illinois (obviously with this book project in mind), and I made a pull-apart lemon breakfast bread that was a big hit. I got the original recipe from Leite’s Culinaria, another fine website worth exploring. The pull-apart shape seemed a bit awkward for the breakfast table, so I decided to adapt it based on one of my favorite dinner rolls: butter fantans.

Butter fantans are an old-fashioned roll you don’t see much anymore, in part because they are difficult to manufacture in large batches. As you can see from the photo, you have to roll the dough out, cut it into strips, stack them, cut them into sections, and place into muffin tins. If you want the directions for making butter fantan dinner rolls click HERE.

One of the trickiest parts of making these rolls is getting the amount of butter between the layers just right. Too much, and the sections fall apart as you take them out of the pan; too little, and the sections don’t pull apart. In the case of lemon fantans, the butter combines with the sugared filling in the heat of the oven and makes a delectable, gooey syrup. There’s lemon zest in the sugar and lemon juice in the icing, so the fresh flavor bursts in your mouth with every bite. And if you are cutting back on refined sugar these days (and we all should) you can serve these warm out of the oven without icing and no-one would complain. The delicate flavor pairs nicely with Formosa Oolong tea.

To make these rolls you have to trim the dough into a perfect rectangle, so there are a few scraps of dough leftover. I used mine to make a couple of hamburger buns for a Sloppy Joes lunch tomorrow. My week at the cabin is flying by, so tonight I’m relaxing on the patio with iced tea and the Cardinals versus the White Sox game on the radio.

God bless and happy baking!

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Breadhead Breakfast Testing Countdown Day 3/120

7/1/2015

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Day #3

Successful Failures

First thing after morning prayer and breakfast I mixed up another batch of coffee cake dough with a little less liquid. As you can see it rises up beautifully, which is in part because of the starch in the potatoes. But it also helps to be using really fresh yeast.

Whether it's fresh cake yeast, active dry, fast-rising or instant, every package of yeast will have an expiration date on it. Fresh cake yeast can be used only for about two weeks before it loses its potency, about 2 months if it's kept in the fridge. Yeast in dry form lasts two years from the time its packaged, longer if you put it in the fridge or freezer, although I buy it bulk and go through about a pound every month, so I don't really need to freeze mine! You can learn more HERE.

So when people tell me that they've had a recent bread failure, I always ask first if they checked the expiration date on their yeast package. Often they admit that they don't have any idea when they bought the yeast or how long it's been in the cabinet. By the way, baking powder and baking soda can also lose their raising power, especially when not stored properly, so check those boxes as well before you begin your next quick bread recipe. I bought two fresh containers myself for this week of testing.

Although you might not be able to tell from the accompanying photos, yesterday was not a very successful day of baking. regarding the cook book anyway. These two (cinnamon babka on the left, fig swirl on the right) were created with a method I call a half-pipe twist. The dough is prepared as if for cinnamon rolls, but the long log is sliced lengthwise, and the two sections twisted together. The babka was made in a Bundt pan, the fig swirl on a baking sheet. The photos below of a twist made with almond filling should give an idea.

So what was the problem? The method works easily with a sticky filling like almond or raspberry pastry filling because the layers stay together, but cinnamon sugar is dry and fig preserves are runny, so trying the twist the strands together is a messy affair, to say the least, so much so that I couldn't get any photos of the process because I was too busy freaking out. The finished breads were beautiful and delicious, and I had the pleasure of giving the fig swirl to the staff at the Lake Thunderbird and the babka to the volunteer staff at a resale shop in Chillicothe which supports local charities. But I'm not sure if I want the new cookbook to include a recipe which will make a less experienced baker feel frustrated. If you have thoughts or suggestions, feel free to share them in the comments.

Half of my second batch of dough for the day was made into an apricot lattice braid, which turned out just fine. You might think that there isn't much filling in each slice, but I find that if I use more the result is too sweet even for my sugar-craving palate. I've presented the lattice braid in three cookbooks already and I may not want to include it a fourth time, so again this bake was not as productive for my current project. The directions can be found in a previous post, although for a savory version using apples, cheddar and ham. Check it out HERE, but please ignore how little I knew about food photography back then!

This last recipe, for a cherry almond crisp coffee cake, is a great disappointment. Not because of its appearance, which I must confess is extraordinary, nor for its taste, which is exquisite, but because its not my recipe and I can't include it in the new cookbook! I found the original on the website www.betsybakes.com, a site you should be checking into regularly. Her version was made as an apple crisp coffee cake, but my sister Angela loves cherries, so I created this adaptation. I wanted to have it in the new book, but professional courtesy (and copyright law!) demanded that I contact Betsy to secure permission. She was prompt and gracious in reply, but since she created the recipe as a commission for Red Star Yeast, she had to decline. The link above will take you to her original recipe. I hope my photo will inspire you to try either version.

In spite of all the frustrations, it was a successful day of baking. I learned a thing or two, produced beautiful breads and attractive photos, and for supper I had my first experience of making stir-fry completely from scratch (it needed more garlic). Tomorrow morning, I'll boiling more potatoes and mixing dough for my next baking adventures.

God bless and happy baking!

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Breadhead Breakfast Testing Countdown: Day 2/120

6/30/2015

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Day #2

Fine Tuning

,

The new cookbook is going to have a number of coffee cakes made with the same basic yeasted dough, a variation on my Best Ever Crescent Rolls dough. That recipe produces a soft dough which results in a tender crumb, but it's a little tricky to handle for braiding and some other kinds of shaping---notice the tear in the side of the rolled up dough pictured above, which I made yesterday morning. That sort of fussy dough can be problematic for beginning bakers and even for those with more experience. So I need to fine tune the recipe a little more.

I don't want to suggest that I'm not satisfied with the results---this Nutella-filled babka with a streusel topping turned out just fine. But it was a tad frustrating to handle and I did utter a few words that a monk ought not to use. So I'll try another batch rtomorrow with a little less liquid and see what I get.

The other recipe I made was Apricot Blossoms, which I used to call Apricot Daisy Coffee Cake, until I realized it doesn't resemble a daisy as all. The filling is pastry filling and the icing is made with powdered sugar, orange zest and juice. It's baked on a 16" pizza pan, although you could make a pair of smaller ones with a couple of 12" pans. The secretaries in the Lake Thunderbird club house office preferred these over the chocolate babka, much to my surprise.

Later in the afternoon, I did something I don't do at home very often---almost never during the school year---I took a nap. Ahhh, summer!

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Breadhead Breakfast Testing Countdown: Day 1/120

6/29/2015

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Day 1:

Choosing Recipes

I'm settled at our little cabin at Lake Thunderbird for a week of relaxation, watching movies, and testing recipes. Abbot Philip's parents, God rest their generous souls, gave the community this cabin after it got to be too much for them to take care of. All of my books since Bake and Be Blessed (2001) have been either partially written or edited in this little retreat. For example, all the introductory chapters of Thursday Night Pizza (2010) were written here over the course of four days of energetic typing.

I spent most of yesterday morning shopping for groceries at the local Hyvee and the afternoon rummaging through the walk-in cooler at the abbey. Saturday night I spent baking several loaves of whole wheat bread to keep the community supplied in my absence. Now that I'm here and settled in, it feels like I've unloaded a truckload of utensils, but the cabin's kitchen is equipped for only the most basic cooking, although it does have a decent set of pots and pans thanks to my friends Brittany and John. At least I left a rolling pin and a pizza pan here!

One advantage to the cabin is that it has an ordinary consumer grade oven instead of the convection giants we have in our commercial-size abbey kitchen: I can really test the recipes so people can reproduce the results at home. The sink is a little small---it seems like I'm doing dishes the whole time I'm here---and the counter top feels a bit cramped. But with a laptop you can knead dough and watch a DVD at the same time (see photo above) and since there I didn't bring any bread, the first order of business was to mix up some multi-grain dough and bake sandwich bread and long loaves for hot dog buns.

Actually, most of the recipes for Breadhead Breakfast Treats have been made multiple times, but I haven't always gone to the trouble of writing down exact measurements, nor taken decent pictures. Unlike the kitchen of every other food blogger in the country, the abbey kitchen has little natural light and unnaturally ugly counter tops. Much of my baking is done at night when fluorescents are all that I've got, so I don't get many decent photos unless I set up my photo shoot the next day in another space. The back wall of our little A-frame cabin, however, is almost all window, so there's good natural light for 10 to 12 hours a day, which is how long I intend to spend baking for the next five days or so.

I've been reviewing recipes for several days now, and I think I have the list narrowed down for the most part. (Sorry, not sharing the complete index just yet!) About half of them have appeared in the cookbooks from my TV series (no longer in print), but the rest have been developed since then. All of them are monk tested.

So how did I choose my recipes? I had about 70 possible on my original list, but that would make the book so large that there'd be a risk of pricing ourselves out of the market. My publisher (Josh Stevens of Reedy Press) said that about 40 recipes would make for just about the right size, once you include photos and accompanying notes. So I had to do some recipe triage, which I completed today, although there will probably be some tweaking along the way. I've tried to choose breakfast breads that have been monastery or family favorites, or that got rave reviews from Breadheads over the years. I omitted anything that seemed obscure, overly complex, or commonplace (everyone has a banana bread recipe and there's nothing special about muffins, IMHO).

Although I like making breads with fresh ingredients whenever possible, I realize that scheduling time for baking is difficult in many households, so I'm making judicious use of prepared fillings which can be kept in the pantry for when the baking mood strikes or an afternoon suddenly opens up. This week I'm concentrating on yeasted coffee cakes that use the same basic dough but are all shaped differently, with a variety of fillings.

As I'm typing this, a light rain is falling outside, but it looks like the fireflies are undeterred. One year they were so thick in the woods behind the counter, it looked like a movie set for a fairy tale. Hope I get some sun tomorrow for some good photos. Since we don't have Internet (or even a phone!) here at the cabin, once a day I'll be going to the lake association clubhouse to use the WiFi and post updates. Right now, time for one last sink of dishes before bed.

God bless and happy baking!

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What I did Friday morning . . .

6/26/2015

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That is all.

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Upcycle update and a new assignment

6/25/2015

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On June 1st I wrote a blog about accessorizing my new monastery room with pieces I upcycled from rolling pins, antique silverware, and vintage oak taken from a junk desk. The room feels quite homey and I've settled in nicely, but one thing was missing---a decent trash receptacle.

http://drshell.home.mindspring.com/collection2.html

The room had a garbage can, of course; every monastery room comes with one, in this case an ugly, dented, yellow can made of metal. It had to go. In the past I had made trash bins of scrap plywood from backstage. (For those who who may be mystified by this reference, I'm the stage manager of our high school.) I have one of these in my classroom, painted in our school colors, and a couple more in the dressings rooms. They're designed so you can slip a plastic grocery bag over the handles, rather than buy more plastic for garbage bags. (You can buy them from a woodworker online; click HERE.) But since I'd gone to the trouble to make unique and playful clothes hooks and shelving for my room, I decided to go back to my pile of vintage lumber and see what I could cobble together.

So with a lot of measuring and gluing, a Kregs pocket hole jig and a right angle drill attachment, I got my solid oak trash bin. The lumber didn't cost me a thing--look at that gorgeous grain--and the brass handles to hold the bags were 50 cents at a flea market, so I still feel quite monastically frugal. I learned a lot from the project--for example, old-fashioned shellac is NOT as forgiving as polyurethane--and next time I might go about it a little differently, but over all, I'm delighted with the results.

What does this have to do with baking? Not a darn thing, really, except that my new trash bin sits next to the desk where I type my recipes and compose my blogs. And I believe that having a cozy space with decent, simple furnishings and plenty of natural light is conducive to good writing, which is what I know have in my new room.

Just in time, too. This week my publisher and I agreed to produce another cookbook: Breadhead Breakfast Treats. From now until October my blog posts will be primarily (although not exclusively) a record of the process of testing recipes, taking pictures, and trying to get my part delivered to the editor by October 25 (my birthday). So I'll be spending lots of time with my laptop at my desk, with my new trash receptacle beside me slowly filling up with the shells of sunflower seeds. That is, when I'm not in the kitchen, up to my elbows in dough.

God bless and happy baking!

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Italian Onion Herb Bread

6/17/2015

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Italian Onion Herb Bread in the abbey kitchen, fresh from the oven.

Last night was the annual picnic for the Illinois Valley Herb Guild to which I belong. I heard that beer brats were going to be served, as well as tortellini, so I thought---as usual!---we needed some homemade bread to go along with such alfresco delights. I chose to make skinny loaves of Italian Onion Herb Bread, a perennial favorite here at the abbey, which could be used to house the brats or to mop up bolognese sauce.

After these beauties were out of the oven, I realized two things: 1) I needed to make sweet hot mustard as well; and 2) I had never posted the recipe for Italian Onion Herb Bread on my recipes page. The first task required some experimentation with regular yellow mustard, St. Bede honey, crushed red pepper, horseradish and garlic, and after all the multiple tastings and tweakings, I couldn't tell you the recipe if I tried. A task for another day.

But the recipe for Italian Onion Herb Bread has been duly posted on my recipes page; for a shortcut, click HERE. If you make a dozen of these beauties for a bake sale, I guarantee you'll sell every loaf. I like to make them in "W" pans (usually called "French bread pans") but you can roll out long skinny loaves and bake them on a standard sheet tray as well. Mine look like this and are made by Fox Run, but there are lots of other shapes and sizes out there: HERE's a sampling. The ones pierced with holes are more expensive but create a more crisp crust.

God bless and happy baking!

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Coffee Cake Exceptionale revisited

6/16/2015

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In May of 2012 I posted a brief blog and a recipe for Coffee Cake Exceptionale, a recipe I adapted from a spiral-bound family cookbook---not MY family, but thank you, Kathy Miller of Norway, Iowa!. The original, however, is from Betty Crocker; remember these old recipe cards that came in a yellow or green box?

Anyway, Coffee Cake Excpetionale is a classic sour cream coffee cake, marvelously rich and delightfully versatile. The original recipe calls for a traditional brown sugar cinnamon filling, but over the years I have used fresh peaches sprinkled with ginger sugar and nutmeg, Solo cake filling in various flavors, pineapple ice cream topping, homemade apricot preserves, and store-bought marmalade. Leftover cranberry salad from Thanksgiving? Sure! Some slightly mushy blueberries you would hate to throw out? Don't mind if I do! Whatever fruit's in season, whatever's in the pantry, chances are you've got something that will make a great filling for this breakfast treat.

I got the recipe out again because I had to make a thank you gift for one of the guys who works in the abbey powerhouse who did me a favor. Everybody calls him Scooter, and he looks like a ZZ Top groupie, long beard. tats and all---nicest guy you'll ever meet. Anyway, I owed him a favor, and when we were talking about our various canning exploits, he told me that he had some strawberry rhubarb jam that just didn't set up. With some urging from his wife he discovered that with some ice and milk in a Bullet blender, the failed jam made a great smoothie, but he had a lot of it to use up. So I asked him to bring some in and I would use to make something yummy.

A mid-afternoon snack using my Great-grandma's china.

I've been in coffee cake mode lately, since I just gave a demo on yeasted coffee cakes to the Home and Community Education chapter at Effingham, IL (recipe handout HERE). The one you see on the right has a salted caramel hazelnut chocolate filling (yes, JIF makes such a thing) and a light sprinkling of the kind of streusel topping you'd find on apple crisp. I served it at the HCE demo and it was a big hit. (Incidentally, special thanks to Seimer Milling and to Hodgson Mill for providing quality ingredients and some terrific goodie bags for our attendees. They are both members of the Home Baking Association--more about that organization in a future blog.)

I considered the possibility of just using my Best Ever Crescent Roll Dough, which makes outstanding breakfast rolls no matter what filling you use. But like I was in coffee cake mode and decided to save the strawberry filled swirls for some other morning. The ones here were made just like cinnamon rolls, but with strawberry pie filling mixed with fresh strawberries rolled up in the dough.

In the end I opted for good ol' reliable Coffee Cake Exceptionale, but had to sub Greek yogurt for the sour cream (we'd used up all of the latter on taco salads at lunch). If you're wondering about how much filling you need, I used a 12 oz. can of strawberry cake filling mixed with the pint of runny preserves, and had just enough. Using a more liquid filling like fruit helps keep the coffee cake more moist, too.. I also added a streusel topping, just because that's how I roll. (1/2 cup each of flour, brown sugar, and quick cooking oatmeal, mixed with 2 tsp. of cinnamon and 3 Tbs. of softened butter). The recipe makes a 9" x 13" cake, so I served half in modest portions to the brethren, then dressed up the rest for Scooter and his wife.

Need to tell a co-worker "thank you" this week? Want to show a friend or family member that you think they are "exceptionale"? Ten minutes of prep and and hour with the oven is all you need. Click HERE to get the recipe. (And for those noticed the omission of the sour cream from the ingredients, I fixed it! 1.5 cups).

God bless and happy baking!

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Breadhead Breakfast Countdown 7/120

Breadhead Breakfast Testing Countdown 6/120

Breadhead Breakfast Countdown Day 4/120

Breadhead Breakfast Testing Countdown Day 3/120

Breadhead Breakfast Testing Countdown: Day 2/120

Breadhead Breakfast Testing Countdown: Day 1/120

What I did Friday morning . . .

Upcycle update and a new assignment

Italian Onion Herb Bread

Coffee Cake Exceptionale revisited

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