The only problem with these knives is that the blade is often only 6" long---not very useful for slicing larger loaves. But you can also find them as long as 8" or 9" on some restaurant supply websites, and they are usually piced under $30, sometimes half that. I must add the disclaimer that I haven't used any of these knives, so I can't vouch for their quality. But if you have the chance to visit a restaurant supply store (as a opposed to a high-end gourmet cooking boutique) you may find a knife worthy of your loaves. So the hunt for your perfect bread knife continues!
In my last post I wrote about bread knives, recommending a blade with a wavy edge instead of a serrated one with points. However, in addtion to bread knives there is something called a sandwich knife that also has a wavy edge to the blade. The blade is usually wider than most knives, so you can use it to spread condiments on a sandwich and then cut it neatly in half with the same knives---obviously they were developed in the food service industry for sandwich shops and delis.
The only problem with these knives is that the blade is often only 6" long---not very useful for slicing larger loaves. But you can also find them as long as 8" or 9" on some restaurant supply websites, and they are usually piced under $30, sometimes half that. I must add the disclaimer that I haven't used any of these knives, so I can't vouch for their quality. But if you have the chance to visit a restaurant supply store (as a opposed to a high-end gourmet cooking boutique) you may find a knife worthy of your loaves. So the hunt for your perfect bread knife continues!
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We had mashed sweet potatoes for supper tonight, and although I don't much care for them, the leftovers can be used to make a delicious quick bread, which is what I did after night prayer. You can also use self-rising flour, but omit the salt and baking powder as they are included in the flour mix.
Southern Sweet Potato Bread 1½ cups all-purpose flour 1 cup sugar 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice 1¼ tsp. salt 2 ¼ tsp. baking powder 2 eggs ½ cup vegetable oil 1/3 cup sour cream 1 tsp. vanilla extract 1 cup mashed cooked sweet potato 1 cup chopped pecans Sift flour, sugar, spice, and salt into a medium size mixing bowl. In another bowl, beat eggs, then add oil, sour cream, vanilla and sweet potato and beat well. Pour liquid mixture onto dry ingredients and stir until just blended—do not overmix. Fold in nuts. Pour batter into a well-greased loaf pan (9 x 5 x 3) and bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 60 or until top is golden brown and a cake tester inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool on racks for at least an hour before slicing; best if sliced the next day. Okay, you've been baking bread more often and now you're in the market for a really good bread knife. Before you drop too much money on a Wusthoff, here's a piece of advice: look for a knife with a wavy blade, not a serrated one with points. The points on a serrated blade can tear some breads to pieces before it slices them, especially if it becomes dull. A wavy blade will cut the crustiest artisan loaf with a minimum of crumbs, and nothing slices angel food cake better. The top knife I bought at Marshalls for about $7 and it's been cutting bread in the abbey dining room for about 10 years now. The bottom knife was made by the Clauss knife company of Fremont Ohio around 1920. It's worth looking for a knife like this at antique malls or on eBay, but don't spend more than $20 and have it professionally cleaned and sharpened. If you live in or near St. Louis, the place to have your knives sharpened is Berterelli's Cutlery on Marconi, down the street from St. Ambrose parish, right there on the Hill. I have mine done there and as far as I can tell, every chef and commercial kitchen in St. Louis does, too. They just expanded their retail section AND they now carry dough whisks, in both sizes. (Full disclosure: they sent me a couple of samples--but I would have written about them anyway, because it's a great store!)
The monks of St. Bede are definitely getting spoiled lately. Last Friday I baked an enriched soda bread flavored with coriander and cut rounds out to make strawberry shortcake (actually has a lot less fat than shortcake. the remaining pieces and crumbly parts will probably go into a peach trifle with spearmint and fennel, if I can keep Fr. Ronald from feeding the leftovers to the birds in the west garden. Saturday afternoon I made a monkey bread coffecake with refrigerator biscuits for Sunday breakfast. I know that seems like cheating to use pre-made dough, but it's so simple and so good that I'm not convinced that it's better to make the dough from scratch. There are lots of recipes out there, but the best IMHO is from www.cooks.com: MONKEY BREAD Content Copyright © 2012 Cooks.com - All rights reserved. 3 packages of buttermilk biscuit tubes 1 cup sugar (divided) 2 teaspoons cinnamon 1 cup butter 1/2 cup brown sugar Take 3 packages of buttermilk biscuit tubes (10 per roll) and cut each roll into 4 pieces. Drop roll pieces into 1 cup sugar and 2 teaspoons cinnamon. Drop sugar-coated pieces into a well buttered Bundt pan (don't squish roll pieces when placing them in the Bundt pan). Put 1/2 cup of the left-over sugar/cinnamon mix and 1/2 cup packed brown sugar and 1 cup of butter (2 sticks) into a small saucepan. Bring this mixture just to a boil; remove from heat immediately. Carefully drizzle over the roll pieces. Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes. Cool slightly in an upright position, then tip pan over onto a plate to remove monkey pull-apart bread. We're a bit bored with the same old ham-and-turkey-and-processed-cheese platters we've been getting for haustus, so recently I made sloppy joes (we haven't had them in ages) and last Thursday I made homemade pretzels and four different dips. I had to make pretzels to get a photo for the new book anyway, and in my casual cookbook reading I had been looking at sauces in The Joy of Cooking, so I put the two together. Pretzels can be made from just about any bread dough. What gives them their characteristic color and flavor is a two minute bath in boiling water with baking soda added. You do the same thing to bagels but without the baking soda. They drain for a few minutes on a cloth towel (paper towels adamantly stick to the pretzels) and then bake on sheet trays. I find that a non-stick surface is absolutely necessary, and a silicone baking mat is even better. For the dips, I made a cheese sauce with sharp cheddar, a mustard sauce with a little horseradish added, blue cheese dip, and a ricotta cheese dip: Drain 1 cup of ricotta for about 12 hours (place the cheese in a sieve lined with a coffee filter and suspend it over a bowl in the fridge). Place the cheese in a medium bowl and mash it with a fork. Add 3 Tbs. olive oil, 2 Tbs. of white wine vinegar and 2 Tbs. dry sherry and whisk. Whip a cup of heavy cream until soft peaks form and fold it into the cheese mixture. Fold in 2 green onions, finely minced and 1/4 cup of chopped herbs (I used parsley, basil, garlic chives and oregano). Cover and chill for two hours before serving. Can be made the day before. (This recipe is adapted from one I found in the Illinois Valley Herb Guild cookbook.) I've been baking a lot of cinnamon rolls lately, mainly because I've been trying to get the recipe just right for the new book. I usually make two or three dozen cinnamon rolls at a time, with at least one for the breakfast table and one for the freezer, plus extra for my kitchen helpers or to take to a friend. So it took some experimentation to get the ingredient amount right for a single batch of twelve rolls.
Baking cinnamon rolls makes me think of my Grandma Helen, whom we always called "Gramma Gome" since one of my silblings as a toddler couldn't pronounce "Garramone". She made cinnamon rolls that put mine to shame, and as is so often the case, even though I have her recipe I can't get them to turn out nearly as well. My father must have had them often while growing up, because he couldn't get my mother to make cinnamon rolls often enough. Once she had baked a batch for a bake sale, and he actually bought them from her because he couldn't bear having them in the house without sampling! My father passed away a couple of years ago, after a long, slow progression of congestive heart failure and emphysema. Because of this latter condition, he didn't like to talk on the phone--he'd get embarassed when he got out of breath. So I started mailing him homemade greeting cards instead, photo cards I made with inexpensive prints from Walgreens attached to card stock with double sided tape. I'd mail them every week or two, maybe more if I felt inspired. On his birthday he'd get two or three, as for Father's Day. I'd send pictures I'd taken of what was blooming in the garden or a unique stained glass window I'd seen, sometimes photos from the ball park, odd shots from my travels. I though that he'd enjoy the images as a retired professional photographer. In every card I'd write a little news of the day, but I'd always included some memory I had of him, or something he taught me for which I was espcially thankful, or why I was blessed to have him as a dad. And of course I always told him I loved him. But then again, using "of course" is perhaps not realisitic here---lots of people never get around to telling their parents they love them, at least after adulthood. But that's never been much of an issue in my family, and besides, I'd heard too many stories of regret in the confessional---I knew better. My father died in his easy chair, at home, (so may we all) with his wife Joyce in the next room. Joyce said that he got one of my cards on the day he died, and I mailed one that morning. Ironically, the card I mailed featured a photo of our abbey cemetery. Of course I grieved, but it was not as hard as I thought it would be. I came to realize that I wasn't quite so devastated because there wasn't anything important that I had left unsaid. No reason to anguish over "what I would have said if I only I had been there"---I had been telling him for months. And Joyce said he had saved every card. My dad's birthday is later this month, and I got a little tearful in Target this week when I saw the perfect card and had no-one to send it to. So I'm telling you all this to get you to do two things. First, write and send that card, make that phone call, or go into the next room and put your arms around that person you love and tell them how much they mean to you. Second, bake some cinnamon rolls. You'll be glad you did both. |
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