Category:

Tools for Batter Breads

8/11/2015

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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Oh, did you need a cake? Ding!

7/19/2015

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This is a bread blog post without any photos, but when you find out why, you'll be as delighted as I am.

Tonight I decided I needed to get back to my wood/scene shop and get some work done on some projects I abandoned. A few days ago, they re-finished the gym floor and the out-gasses were unbearable, so I fled to the kitchen and my laptop. Yesterday I ventured back and decided that with some ventilation I could work there safely. But earlier in the day I found some spiced peach preserves from last year and realized they needed to be used up. So I thought, I'll whip up a sour cream coffeecake and then get backstage.

We were low on sour cream so I combined it with ricotta cheese and a squeeze of lemon juice and used a brand new batter whisk to mix it (more on that new addition to the toolbox in a future blog). I was pretty casual about measurements, so don't ask for a recipe! This improvised confection had about 10 minutes of baking left to go when a couple of staff members came into the kitchen looking for a small sheet cake that was supposed to be ready. The school has a three week camp for Mexican students going on, and one little girl was celebrating a birthday.

No cake. Not in any of the four fridges, not in the storeroom, not in the dining room, not in the giant walk-in cooler. Communication breakdown, evidently, between management and labor. I could tell they were dreading having to go back to the boarding house and tell the youngster there was no cake.

Except for the one in the oven.

This dilemma was too coincidental to be anything but Divine Providence, as evidenced by what happened next. I said, "How about a fresh, warm, rich coffee cake with a spiced peach filling? You could serve it with a dollop of ice cream." And that EXACT MOMENT, the oven timer's buzzer went off. A few minutes later, they were headed to a party with a homemade treat.

This sort of thing happens to me way too often for me to believe that it's caused by anything I'M doing personally. I'm in just the right place to help the guy in the parking lot, to find the expensive chef's knife for two bucks so I can give it to a culinary student, to hand somebody a random loaf of bread on the day they really need something to go right. I'm just putting myself in the path of God's grace and trying to stay open to the moment.

My experience tonight was another “ding” (you can read the full explanation my Bread Blog of July 7). Every once in awhile, God’s bell goes off, and He draws out a name and gives that person a prize, like a warm cake when you expected to leave empty-handed. Or better yet, He draws your name out and you get the chance to be a "ding" for someone else.

Never did get backstage tonight, but when I do, I have very expectation that something good will happen.

God bless and happy baking!

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Br. Anthony and Cinnamon

7/14/2015

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Br. Anthony in 2008

Our Br. Anthony died on Saturday, the feast of St. Benedict and the eleventh anniversary of his solemn vows. He had been married for 45 years and had ten children. After the sudden death of his beloved wife in 1997, he began to consider religious life, and he joined the community in 2001. You can read his full obituary HERE, which is well worth your time.

Br. Anthony loved anything flavored with cinnamon, and occasionally even lamented that I was a bit stingy with that spice. If a recipe called for a teaspoon of cinnamon, a tablespoon was what I'd be expected to use. I tried to make sure that the cinnamon sugar container on the breakfast table was kept full, as he sprinkled it liberally on toast, cereal, and just about anything else short of scrambled eggs! In his memory, I post this recipe for cinnamon biscuits twists, a sweet treat you can make in about 30 minutes. If you have someone as special in your life as out Br. Anthony was to us, it will be worth it to get up a little earlier give them a treat. Now I just wish I'd made them more often.

The photos below are from a version of the recipe that uses orange-flavored sugar, but I'm sure you get the idea!

Cinnamon Biscuit Twists
Dough
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbs. granulated sugar
1 Tbs. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
½ cup (1 stick) butter
½ cup milk
1 egg

Filling
2 tbs. butter, melted
3 Tbs. brown sugar
2 Tbs. ground cinnamon

Glaze
½ cup powdered sugar
2 to 3 tsp. milk
½ tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In a medium size bowl, stir flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt until thoroughly mixed. Using a pastry blender or 2 knives, cut in butter until mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Beat egg together with milk in a separate bowl, then add to dry mixture. Stir until dough clings together, then beat for about 1 minute by hand.

On a floured surface, pat dough into a rectangle 8 x 15 inches. Brushed dough with melted butter; sprinkle on brown sugar and cinnamon (add more cinnamon to taste). Fold dough in half lengthwise, making a 4 x 15-inch rectangle. Using a rotary pizza cutter, cut into 1-inch strips (you may also use a sharp knife but wipe the blade clean between cuts to keep it from sticking). Twist strips two or three times, then place on a lightly greased 12 x 15-inch baking sheet. Bake at 450 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Combine powdered sugar with milk and vanilla and stir until smooth. Place in microwave on high for 30 seconds. Brush as a glaze on top of twists; serve twists warm.

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Breadhead Breakfast Countdown 7/120

7/4/2015

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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: 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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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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Marcus Aurelius and Coffee Cake

6/11/2015

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Marcus Aurelius’s original statue in Rome, by Zanner. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Recently I started reading the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher. You might wonder what value there might be in such a project; you'll find a thoughtful blog HERE written by an Oxford professor about the Meditations' relevance today. For myself I offer no explanation other than it seemed to me that a well educated person should have read them at some point, especially someone like me who minored in Philosophy.

Surprisingly, my scholarly reading intersected with my passion for baking yesterday. I have been experimenting with various forms of yeasted coffee cakes, and decided to use my Best Ever Crescent Roll Dough, which I consider the gold standard for soft rolls and anything sweet. The dough, however, proved to be a little too soft and sticky; I had trouble rolling it out evenly and it developed several tears in the course of my making a chocolate-filled babka (click HERE for the recipe that was my inspiration). But I trudged on undaunted by the mess on the counter, my sticky hands, and the lopsided twist in the Bundt pan before me.

The result, however, was surprisingly appealing. In fact, I would argue that its attraction is based on its imperfections: the unevenly-sized twists, the long split that reveals the chocolate filling inside, even the lopsided profile all contribute to what I would not hesitate to call a truly beautiful loaf. Anyone who passed by as it sat cooling on the counter remarked on how attractive the babka was, how the open side revealing the filling made it more so.

Marcus Aurelius, as it turns out, would agree. That very morning I had read the following passage:

[W]hen bread is baked some parts are split at the surface, and these parts which thus open, and have a certain fashion contrary to the purpose of the baker's art, are beautiful in a manner, and in a peculiar way excite a desire for eating. And again, figs, when they are quite ripe, gape open; and in the ripe olives the very circumstance of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar beauty to the fruit. And the ears of corn bending down, and the lion's eyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars, and many other things- though they are far from being beautiful, if a man should examine them severally- still, because they are consequent upon the things which are formed by nature, help to adorn them, and they please the mind . . .
Meditations Book III, section 2

There is much to be admired in Marcus Aurelius' character and his writings, but I'm especially drawn by the fact that the most powerful man in the Roman empire of the 2nd century noticed the details of the baker's art, the graceful arch of the bending corn, and the regal structure of the lion's brow. Many of his reflections stress the need to live an intentional life, that no action should be without an aim, no choice be made thoughtlessly. A little something to ponder the next time you select a muffin from the case at Starbuck's, or sit down to enjoy a slice of homemade coffee cake.