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Zucchini Crisp II

8/15/2015

Zucchini, like apple crisp, requires ice cream!

Finally got around to making the zucchini crisp. In a previous posted I noted that I found the recipe in Sauce magazine, a St. Louis publication which focuses on all thing culinary in the metro area. It's distributed free in restaurants and retailers all over the city, and I always pick up a copy when I'm in the Lou.

I like the idea of zucchini crisp because there's always too much of that vegetable in any neighborhood with at least one garden. We didn't grow any this year, but when I posted a request on Facebook I got an abundant supply. For my first attempt I followed the recipe exactly. . .

(Momentary aside)
I'm annoyed by people who post reviews of recipes on websites, and it's clear from their description of all their personal adaptations that they never made the recipe at all! I read the comments for a recipe for zucchini waffles today, and the reviewer had used bananas instead of zucchini, added chocolate chips, and made the batter into pancakes. Seriously?

. . . but I thought it turned out a bit bland. So I tried it again and added 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and a splash of balsamic. BOOOM! The flavor really popped with that addition of tart flavors, and the brethren devoured the whole pan---a double batch---in about 24 hours. Click HERE for a link to Sauce's original recipes page (with several savory recipes for zucchini as well) and do some of your own experimenting.

The crunchy, sweet topping for zucchini crisp is a large part of its appeal.

God bless and happy baking!

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Tools for Batter Breads

8/11/2015

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Butter Pecan Breakfast Bread is an example of a quick bread or batter bread.

Although yeast breads are my specialty, I do enjoy making quick breads or batter breads, meaning breads that are leavened with baking powder or baking soda (or a combination of both) and therefore take less time than yeast breads. Scones, muffins, biscuits, waffles, pancakes and cornbread all fall into this category, so many of them are served at breakfast, brunch, or tea time. My new cookbook Breadhead Breakfast Treats will feature quite a few batter breads, since I have a supernatural love thing for anything that can be served with maple syrup and Irish Breakfast tea.

You can mix batter breads with nothing more than a bowl and a wooden spoon, but over the years I've found a few other utensils that make the process a little easier. I find that the plastic scraper in the upper left is handier than a rubber spatula for getting batter out of a bowl, plus it can be used to divide pizza dough and clean a counter top. Hodgson Mill sometimes gives them away free at demos (I usually have an ample supply at my demos) but you can get them at a lot of cooking stores for less than a dollar.

The three whisks pictured here are all made by different companies but serve the same purpose. They're all sturdier than most wire whisks and can mix batter breads faster and with less effort than with a wooden spoon. Since batter breads--especially muffins--can become dense and gummy when overmixed, it could be worth it to invest in one if you bake batter breads often. The top whisk is made by Best Manufacturing of Portland OR, the same company that makes my favorite flour duster and is a new addition to their catalog.* It's a little big for a single batch of pancakes, but if you mix larger batches of batter breads for Christmas gift giving, it's worth getting. I used it to make a double batch of zucchini bread this week and found it to be a great help, and easier to clean than a brotpiskar or dough whisk, which is what the next two tools are.

Brotpiskars are a Scandinavian invention (Danish or Swedish, depending on whom you talk to!) and are also for mixing batter breads and even yeast doughs. They come in two sizes, usually 14" and 11". The larger one in the photo is one my mom bought for me in 1979, and it's mixed hundreds if not thousands batches of dough. They are available from several distributors, including Amazon, King Arthur Flour and Fox Run. The smaller one was imported from Poland, and is available from Saint Bede Abbey's own Monks' Market website.

The small tool at the bottom of the photo is a heat-sensitive cake tester, manufactured by Nordic Ware. You insert the probe into your batter bread and wait a few seconds. The tip turns red when the cake or bread is done. (Please note that the cake tester is not for yeast breads, which finish baking at a lower temperature.) I know I can use a toothpick or a piece of uncooked spaghetti to test, but I saw this in a restaurant supply store for less than $5, so I decided I needed it! I appreciate having it when I have altered a recipe or used a different size of pan than the recipe calls for, so I'm less sure of baking times.

Since I posted a blog recently about owning too many tools, I'm hesitant to encourage more spending on utensils. But if you enjoy baking and do it often, you may find these mixers worth keeping in the drawer. I must confess, sometimes having the right tool encourages me to bake a particular recipe more often. Besides, none of the people who enjoy the results of my baking obsession have ever complained about the clutter!

God bless and happy baking!

*Full disclosure: Best Manufacturing sent me a sample of this "Baker's Whisk"--I received no additional compensation or benefit and all opinions expressed here are my own.

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Breadhead Breakfast Countdown 41/120

8/7/2015

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Day #41

Overnight Multi-grain Waffles

Haven't been doing much with the new cookbook lately, and for a few hours yesterday I thought it would be necessary to cancel or at least postpone the project. I had been told that I was going to be teaching an additional class at the Academy first semester, one with a new book in a subject I hadn't taught before. Anyone with experience teaching a new class knows that it means a daily extra hour or two of work writing lesson plans, finding resources, creating and grading assignments. So I figured that meant the book project would have to be put on hold. But my informant was, it turns out, misinformed. I decided to celebrate my narrow escape by making multigrain waffles.

I like just about any breakfast recipe you can start the night before, and these flavorful waffles are among my favorites. Although the recipe I'm sharing uses fast-rising yeast, I usually make these heart-healthy treats with sourdough starter, but that’s a recipe for another cookbook! The brethren gobble them up, especially our Br. Luke, who recommends that you pair them with fresh fruit instead of syrup. If you can’t bear to wait until the next day to enjoy them, let the batter rise for at least one hour, then proceed as directed.

---Don’t feel restricted to the flours named in the recipe. You could replace the rye with amaranth flour (a high protein grain first grown by the Aztecs) or the whole wheat with spelt or kamut (similar tasting ancient grains with less gluten). Try miller’s bran or rolled oats instead of wheat germ, or crush some granola for a unique crunch. Whenever using flours other than all-purpose white, you may find you need to add a little more milk to make the batter pourable, since some grains absorb liquid faster than others. You can even make these waffles gluten-free with a GF baking mix (Hodgson Mill makes a good one) or any all-purpose GF flour, but don’t use malt syrup.

Here's the recipe I used, originally published in More Breaking Bread with Father Dominic:

Overnight Multi-grain Waffles
1 pkg. fast rising yeast
1½ cups all purpose flour
¼ cup whole wheat flour
¼ cup rye flour
2 Tbs. wheat germ
1 tsp. salt
1½ cups milk
1 Tbs. malt syrup, dark corn syrup, or molasses
1 Tbs. vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract

Combine yeast, flours, wheat germ, and salt in a medium size bowl and stir until thoroughly blended. In a separate container, combine milk, syrup and oil and heat to 120 degrees F. Pour into dry ingredients and stir until batter is smooth. Cover the bowl with plastic and place in a cool place overnight (it could be the refrigerator, but a counter in an air-conditioned room will do). In the morning, stir batter down. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until thoroughly incorporated. If the batter seems a bit stiff, stir in a couple of tablespoons of milk at a time until it flows freely. Preheat waffle iron and use batter according to manufacturer’s instructions.

National Waffle Day is August 24, the anniversary of the patenting of the first U.S. waffle iron invented by Cornelius Swarthout of Troy, New York. Get yours out fire it up for some multi-grain goodness.

God bless and happy baking!

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Zucchini Crisp

8/5/2015

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http://www.tammysrecipes.com/node/2897 I doubt if mine will look so pretty!

August 8th is National Zucchini Day, and as all zucchini growers ( and their neighbors!) know, it can be a challenge to find ways to use this over-abundant squash. I recommend Zucchini Crisp---like apple crisp, only using cubed zucchini. There are several recipes out there, but I recently came across one in Sauce Magazine a food periodical published in St. Louis. Their version wisely instructs you to remove the seeds of the zucchini before cubing it, which helps disguise the fact that you are eating vegetables instead of fruit. They also use enough lemon juice to counteract the blandness of the squash. I think I would add an additional tablespoon or two of apple cider vinegar as well, or maybe even something balsamic. The recipe can be found as part of the Sauce article about how to use zukes in several creative ways. Check it out HERE. I haven't made this yet---but six pounds of zucchini are being delivered to the abbey kitchen tomorrow . . . .

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MoBot Class 2015: "Pizzas From the Garden"

8/3/2015

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Many people don't realize that the Kemper Center for Home Gardening at the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis has a fine demonstration kitchen. They have cooking classes throughout the year, and every summer for the past few years they've asked me to teach one. I usually arrange for my class to coincide with a Cardinals home stand against the Rockies, so my cousin Chris has a reason to fly out from Denver and be my kitchen angel!

The class was based on my cookbook Thursday Night Pizza, although I played around with the dough recipe a bit, using the Italian dough recipe but using bread flour and adding a bit of olive oil. The results were outstanding, if I can say that with even a modicum of modesty---some of the best crusts ever. The recipe is HERE. All of the pizzas we made were heavy on the veggie side, and mostly harvested straight from the Gardens the day before, with a little assistance from local farmers' markets. We had two different kinds of eggplant for the Ratatouille Pizza, three kinds of peppers for the Italian Beef Pizza, and a variety of tomatoes for the Four Cheese Tomato Top.

It's not possible to do a "hand-on" class for 30 people, but I try to get a few students involved, including this intrepid Breadhead who attempted pizza crust tossing live and without a net. Using bread flour means that the dough has enough protein to stand up to a few mistakes, and it also adds to the chewiness of the finished product. Using a rolling pin can overwork the dough and result in a flat, dense crust, so if you don't toss you can just spread it out with your fingers.

The four cheese tomato top turned out superbly---my favorite pizza of all time---thank to the assistance of this novice pizzaiola. We had fresh oregano and garlic chives from the Gardens to enhance the cheese mixture. The fourth pizza was made with a white wine sauce flavored with fresh thyme, then topped with kale, mushrooms, black olives and goat cheese.

I hope to get back to the Kemper Center in the spring when my breakfast breads cookbook comes out (I already have tentative arrangements with the Missouri History Museum to do some events there as well). Remember to visits the "Events" page to know where I'll be baking next.

God bless and happy baking!

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Zucchini Crisp II

Tools for Batter Breads

Breadhead Breakfast Countdown 41/120

Zucchini Crisp

MoBot Class 2015: "Pizzas From the Garden"

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