I remember the first time I learned about bannetons. I was trying to re-create a pain au levain that the U.S. bread team had developed and the instructions called for the dough to be proofed in a banneton. It was a lot of fun in those days, when I knew next to nothing about baking, to be constantly learning something new.
A banneton is a wicker basket that it used to proof bread. It can either be a half sphere or an oval in shape, and most often they are lined with linen so that the dough doesn't stick to the basket (though most of the time the banneton gets liberally floured either way). There are also bannetons made of plastic, which don't need to be lined and which hold the flour better than the traditional wicker.
You use the banneton in the final proofing stage, after it's been shaped and before you bake the bread. Flour the banneton, if needed, and place the dough in upside down so that the top is inside the basket and the bottom seam is visible.
Is a banneton completely necessary? Not really, but it can be a nice tool to have. You can find them for less than twenty bucks, or you can even make one yourself.The banneton shown in the picture is actually a homemade one from the Fresh Loaf. Sadly, I rarely use a banneton due to the production nature of most of my baking, but having one (or making one) for the occasional artisan loaf can be a great tool in your home baking arsenal.
One of the breads I make on a regular basis at work is a jalapeño sandwich bread. It gets used for mainly for canapés and toast points for barbecue. I love making it because of the wonderful spicy aroma and the pleasant heat it has. Of course the recipe that I make is industrial sized, using three pounds of peppers making it not particularly good for home use.
However, I was recently reminded of this HI-Rise Corn Bread from one of my favorite baking books, Maggie Glezer's Artisan Baking. The recipe doesn't originally have jalapeños, just fresh corn and stone ground corn meal. I usually add the peppers, though, if I make this recipe at home because the heat and the corn go so well together. Maggie's recipe is after the jump, but I definitely recommend getting her book if you're interested in baking as it's a really great read and very helpful. I always love the results from this bread, the sweet corn and heat just make the best sandwiches. Toast the slices to really bring out the aroma.
Ever since I switched to buying raw milk in bottles a couple of months ago, I've been searching with ways to use up slightly sour milk. I'm working at incorporating more milk into my diet and cooking, so that I'm able to use it up before it goes off, but I'm just not always able to manage it. However, I'm learning that there are a number of ways to incorporate the sour milk into cooking and baking and I'm beginning to see it as a culinary asset as opposed to a hassle that must be dealt with if I want to prevent waste.
Saturday afternoon, knowing that I had about two cups of sour milking hanging out in the fridge, I started googling around and discovered that in addition to biscuits, pancakes and waffles, a number of people make cake using sour milk. There was one story that I found particularly endearing, about how when one woman was young, she and her siblings would hide a glass of milk in the back of the fridge, so that it would sour and their mother would have to make this cake.
I cobbled together pieces of several recipes and came out with a cake that was light, fluffy and with just a bit of tang from the milk. I used a lot of cinnamon and so it ended up tasting a bit like coffee cake. The next time I make it, I think I'll dust the top with the turbinado sugar, in order to end up with a caramelized, crunchy top. It would make a great addition to a brunch menu, or would be wonderful for a special treat, especially topped with a cream cheese frosting. The recipe for my sour milk cake is after the jump.
The idea started as a way to use up some sour* milk. I couldn't bear to just pour it down the drain and so I started scouting around for ways in which to use it up. I remembered reading a line in a vintage cookbook about saving sour milk for quick breads and muffins (oh, the food knowledge we've lost over the years, I'm sure my grandma Bunny would have know what to do with sour milk without consulting a cookbook). Flipping through my turquoise-covered Joy of Cooking (the edition from the late 1960s), I settled on making a batch of biscuits.
I realize that for many of you out there, the idea of making biscuits to go with dinner isn't a groundbreaking idea. However, I grew up in a family where we did not eat bread products with our evening meal (although my grandparents always had bread on their dining table and my sister and I used to think it was the most thrilling thing ever) and so for me, dinner-time biscuits feels subversive and exciting.
They came together quickly and baked up quickly, adding a level of special-ness and comfort to a regular old dinner. There were a few leftover and I ate them for breakfast the next day with peanut butter and homemade jam.
*When raw milk sours, it's still usable in baking and cooking. Sadly, when pasteurized milk goes bad, it's just bad and can't be salvaged.
I love making cakes, and after I made a few for friends, I became the resident birthday cake baker -- not with a box mix and a quick lather of frosting, but rather a myriad of flavors, frostings, and marzipan decorations on top. And now it might be time to take the whole practice to the next level.
Disney's FamilyFun.com is having a best cake face-off and they have some super funky cakes on display, one of which won their "Great Cake Contest." These definitely aren't those simple, old-school cakes. There's a cake-filled dear head mount for hunters, elaborate castles, Pooh in the honey, and some really, really great food-themed cakes -- spaghetti, a bucket of KFC with a whole slew of chicken, and the awesome cheeseburger above. What's even better about this whole thing -- there are recipes for each so you can try them on your own.
Check out the cakes and weigh in below: Do you think the best cake won?
So that 36-hour cookie (unless you make use of vacuums and cut the time) has been all the rage these days, and I've been itching to see what all the fuss is about. While I'm not crazy enough to make them in my AC-free apartment, I happily accepted some fresh-baked cookies from a friend of mine. You know what? I was far from a big fan. Very far.
I loved the texture, but there was just too much darned chocolate, and my mouth even rebelled at the taste a little, getting a bit itchy. Even though my friend knows his way around baking a chocolate chip cookie, there's a chance he fudged something up, but even still -- it should've been good enough for a "wow" instead of a "huh..." Any of you out there feel the same way?
Personally, I'm going to stick with my faux Tollhouse recipe that's part of The Essential Baking Cookbook. It's great with chocolate, white vanilla, and sinfully delectable with butterscotch. Check it out after the jump.
Have you ever seen a beautiful loaf of artisan bread and wondered how the baker got those great slash marks? Well, they got it by using a tool called the lame (pronounced lahm). The lame creates that slash, or score, in the bread, which is also called an ear.
The lame probably originated in France, but it was quickly adopted by artisan bakers in the US. It creates a score on the top of the bread that even a very sharp knife can't achieve, which is due to the curve of the lame as well as it's razor edge. When the bread expands in the oven, the crust will split at some point, no matter what. Scoring the top not only creates an aesthetically pleasing look to the bread, it also allows the baker to control how and where the inevitable split will be.
The lame is used by holding it gently by the very end, and dragging it across the surface of the dough just before putting it into the oven. You need to use enough pressure to cut into the dough, but try not to go too deep. Also, the lame should be held at a slight angle to the dough to get a proper ear. Most doughs with a stiff enough consistency should get a good ear, but really wet doughs will not.
The best one I could find for a home baker was this lame from King Arthur Flour.com. It should stay sharp for quite some time, and it comes with the blade guard for more safety while you're not using it. Professional bakers have a lame which has a replaceable blade, while this version does not. At under $7, this lame could be a great asset to your tool kit if you're really serious about bread.
Okay, I'm taking a big risk here. In addition to showing off my unattractive, massively egotistical side, I'm also going to put myself in danger of a little self-incrimination. Here goes:
When I'm sober and clear-headed, I'm a pretty decent cook, but when I'm seriously impaired, I am a culinary god. In all honesty, imagine Drunken Master with a baking sheet. I'm that good.
I've allowed my skills to deteriorate since I left grad school, but, once upon a time, my addled forays into the kitchen were widely regarded as moments of pure magic. Admittedly, impaired kitchen godhood wasn't a quick process: after mastering the beer-and-cabbage ramen dish that my friend Julie was famous for, I played with various crudite, cheese, and dip combinations before moving on to seriously impaired baking.
While I won't endorse BWI (baking while intoxicated) on the grounds that it is incredibly stupid, I have to admit that the biscotti that I produced at 3:00 in the morning with a houseful of goofy friends were truly amazing. Perfectly crisped, with just the slightest touch of anise, they were a great late-night snack, and the perfect accompaniment to the coffee that I would inevitably be guzzling the next morning.
Admittedly, my forays into the world of BWI were not without their dangers: piles of filthy bowls and measuring tools were common, as were flour-covered counters. More important, although I never burned a biscotti, there were a couple of times when it got pretty close. With that in mind, I was particularly impressed by Dizzy Dee's Five-Minute Chocolate Cake. A mix of six simple ingredients, the recipe uses a mug as both the mixing bowl and cooking vessel, which makes clean-up a lot easier. Also, the cake cooks in the microwave, so you don't have to worry about torching your dessert!
I am not a pie person. I enjoy eating them, but I find the process of making crust, rolling it out and getting it into the pan more bother than I can really deal with. However, I happily embrace all varieties of crisps and cobblers because they are hugely easy and are a wonderful way to use all that great summer fruit.
Yesterday, I made the easiest cobbler ever. It requires just one bowl, one measuring cup and a baking pan. Butter your favorite baking pan and set it aside. Pour five or six cups of blueberries into a medium-sized mixing bowl and add a few cubed nectarines (not required, but very tasty). Sprinkle cornstarch, sugar, cinnamon and grated nutmeg over fruit and squeeze half a lemon in. Stir to combine and pour into the baking pan. Use the same bowl to mix up the biscuit-style topping (recipe after the jump) and spoon it over the top.
I took it to a cookout last night and it was the perfect finish to a meal of hamburgers, potato salad, grilled corn and fresh, garden squash.
My boyfriend doesn't like blueberries, particularly baked goods with blueberries in them. He had an unfortunate encounter with a blueberry pancake when he was a kid that has left him permanently scarred and so he now avoids them entirely. This means that if I bake items with blueberries, I am responsible for the entirety of the batch and so I've all but completely given up making blueberry muffins and cakes (I will make up batches of things with blueberries if I know I'll have a crowd who will help me eat them up).
While it's not exactly the most scientific and perfectly matched comparison, Ideas in Food took on the notion posted in The New York Times, where the perfect chocolate chip cookie takes 36 hours. I don't know about you, but whenever I want cookies, I'm sure as hell not waiting 36 hours, especially since that amount of time will usually end the craving and make me remember just how unhealthy and dangerous it would be for me to make a bunch of cookies for my single self.
Anyhow, to simulate the 36 hours, Ideas in Food vacuum-sealed the dough. "I did not make a test batch of cookies with unprocessed dough so this was an entirely unscientific experiment. What I can tell you is that the dough darkened and became fully saturated, similar to the way that the dough usually looks after a couple of days in the refrigerator. It also changed the texture of the dough, making it a bit more elastic to the touch." So, is there anyone out there with a vacuum sealer that wants to put the two techniques head to head?
I have a foodie confession: While I do like fruit, I almost never eat it in its full form. I try -- really I do. I buy fruit and eat some nibbles, but before I get to the rest, it inevitably goes bad and I have to either have to throw it into a smoothie pronto, or freeze it for a smoothie later. But that's not the case with my beloved banana.
Banana is the wonderful fruit that's good even when it's bad. The blacker and more shriveled that the skin is, the better it is for baking up a batch of banana bread. I picked some up a few weeks ago, with the best of intentions, but they went black before I could eat them. But they're bananas! So, no matter how hot my apartment was, I knew what I had to do.
As if that wasn't good enough -- recipes that allow you to make the most of fruit going bad -- banana bread is one of the easiest and most forgiving foods to bake. The above was whipped up half-assed. I doubled my recipe. I didn't level off my measurements. I smushed and mixed it all together in the end with a potato masher. But still, the end result was a nice warm cakey bread with a little bit of melting butter.
With E3 in full swing this week (full coverage on our sister blog Joystiq), I thought it might be a good time to post my incredibly fun pac-man cake. It's not very difficult to make and since it uses cupcakes and mini-cupcakes, it can be made for any number of people to enjoy.
Start with any size batch of cupcakes and mini-cupcakes prepared in paper holders so you can move them around easily. I used red velvet cake because it was the preference of the birthday boy whose wife requested this cake. The background obviously needs to be black so you can use either black foil cake board wrap or, as I did, just use black poster-board. It has a nice dull finish for the video screen effect and since the cupcakes are in paper cups, they'll never touch it anyway.
I used black buttercream icing purchased from my wonderful and helpful local bakery shop. I've never successfully created true black icing and always just get really dark gray but theirs is tasty and crusts well. All of the cupcakes were iced and smoothed for a flat surface. I found my round cut-outs incredibly helpful for this cake. The smallest size circle was used with light yellow fondant to make the pac-dots and the middle size for the power pellets, both of which were placed on the mini-cupcakes to create the maze of the game. The largest circle was a perfect size for our hero in dark yellow fondant with a small triangle cut out for his mouth.
Have you ever had a great loaf of bread and wondered how it got that delicious flavor? More than likely, it was because the baker used a starter. A starter, or levain, is a mixture of water and flour that has developed its own yeast colony. When you use a starter, it is either the only or the main source of yeast in the bread, and using it lends a couple of really great qualities to the final product.
First of all, the bread will taste better. Bread made with starter will have a complexity of flavor, as well as a beautiful aroma. The bread will also have a longer shelf life. The organic acids that result from fermentation lower the pH of the bread, which slows down the staling process and discourages mold growth.
If you bake bread at home, I encourage you to use your own starter. You could get some from a friend, or maybe your local artisan bakery if you're lucky. There is another option, though: you could make your own starter from scratch. All you have to do is mix water and flour together. Then you have to feed it by adding water and flour on a regular basis in order to get the nascent yeast population to grow. This can be a little involving, but if you're serious about baking your own bread then this could be the next step in your evolution as a baker. Sourdough Home offers a very good explanation of how to start a starter and in quantities good for home use.
Here are a few tips before you get started. Organic flour probably has more yeast left in it than processed flour, so that's recommended. Use regular tap water. If you don't have any experience with preferments or starters, then you may want to do some more research. As Sourdough Home points out, it's a good idea that you know what a proper starter looks and smells like to have a successful one yourself. I suggest doing some reading and visiting your local artisan bakery to see if they'll help you out. Bakers tend to be good about sharing knowledge, so you have a pretty good chance of getting a few pointers, at least. Hopefully, you're on the road to having your very own starter, and a lifetime of great bread!
Baking Bites is a really great baking blog. I always enjoy reading it, and Nicole usually has great recipes and cool gadgets. As I was perusing the blog today, I was especially attracted to this post about the non stick oven spill catcher.
My first thought, being a sucker for kitchen gadgets, was "ooooh, neat!" My next thought was "is that really necessary?" Why not just put a foil lined cookie sheet under whatever it is that you're baking? It would be less expensive just to utilize products you already have on hand, not to mention easier to just toss the foil when you're done.
However, at just five dollars, and with it being non stick and all, the spill catcher could be an economical and easy way to avoid making more garbage while you're trying to keep your oven clean. How do you feel about the non stick oven spill catcher?
A jar of honey can become a sticky mess. Next time you're adding honey to another dish or a mug of tea, use a honey dipper to prevent a thick gooey layer from spreading.
I love making cakes, and after I made a few for friends, I became the resident birthday cake baker -- not with a box mix and a quick lather of frosting, but rather a myriad of flavors, frostings, and marzipan decorations on top. And now it might be time to take the whole practice to the next level.
Have you ever seen a beautiful loaf of artisan bread and wondered how the baker got those great slash marks? Well, they got it by using a tool called the lame (pronounced lahm). The lame creates that slash, or score, in the bread, which is also called an ear. .jpg)
Okay, I'm taking a big risk here. In addition to showing off my unattractive, massively egotistical side, I'm also going to put myself in danger of a little self-incrimination. Here goes:
With 
Chocolate-stuffed bananas on the grill
Tyler Florence welcomes new daughter
Beware kids' menus!
