Tag Archives: baking with julia

The Brioche That Killed My Kitchen Aid

Posted on May 20, 2013 | 5 Comments

It’s Tuesdays with Dorie where a group of bakers and bloggers bake up the same recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking With Julia. Then we ~~brag~~, I mean, blog about our results.

A year ago I made my very first attempt at brioche dough. To say it was a success is an understatement. (I’m humble like that.) I used the dough to make PECAN STICKY BUNS that turned out to be the best I have ever made and quite simply the best I have ever eaten.

Today’s recipe takes the same beautiful and buttery brioche dough and goes the opposite direction creating a savory pocket. Yum.

I mean, um, not so fast. While there are several steps to making brioche dough, one of the most important is to beat the dough in a mixer until it pulls together into a tight ball and then add butter until it falls apart. Yep, falls apart … and it will. Then the mixing continues until the dough reunites into the most elegant of soft bread doughs. Checking out my blog post from last year will give you the best idea of how this happens successfully.

For my savory pockets I was about 7 minutes into the 20 minute mixing and beating process when my Kitchen Aid let out a whoop and a holler and ground to a shrieking halt. “What just happened?” my Chief Culinary Consultant called out from the living room.

“I have no idea” I said, as I began to disassemble the mess of wet, buttery dough from the blades of the Kitchen Aid. Several attempts later only confirmed that the gears within my 17 year-old Kitchen Aid are stripped out. As I looked on in disbelief my eyes fell upon the label HEAVY DUTY proudly stamped across the top of my mixer. Heavy duty? I hadn’t even begun to mix this brioche!

I cleaned up the mixer and got it ready for the Chief to take to the shop and “fix.”

In the meantime I had this half-beaten, not nearly flaky enough dough laying on the counter. No problem for me. I will just finish this little project by hand. About this time the “culinary consultant” says, “why don’t you just finish it in the bread machine?”

“THAT won’t work” I quickly countered. After all, this is brioche. It takes a lot more mixing than a bread machine can give it. (I thought a “consultant” would know that.)

Two minutes into kneading by hand and I knew I was in trouble. I had butter oozing from one end of the counter to the other. The recipe says that the butter and the dough should stay “cool” as it is mixed together. I can guarantee there was nothing cool about my hands, my kitchen, and my temperament.

Off the to the bread machine I went.

I guess he did know what he was talking about. Enough said.

It took three rounds of mixing in the bread machine but the dough finally came together making this lovely round ball.

The dough is placed in a large bowl, covered tightly with plastic wrap and left to raise for 2 to 2 1/2 hours. At this point I punched it down and re-wrapped it and placed it in the refrigerator over night.

After bringing the dough to room temperature it was ready to make into savory pockets. Dorie’s recipe calls for a savory filling of cooked potatoes, caramelized onions and fresh asparagus. This combination sounds wonderful to me but not-so-much to my sous-chef dish-washing mom. So, I opted for freshly made BBQ pulled pork in some of the pockets and a whipped sweet potato in the other.

Half of the dough I froze for another day. It will stay for up to a month in the freezer!

The dough is rolled and cut and each little pocket made with a circle of dough on the bottom and a circle of dough on the top. The edges are meant to be sealed and crimped a bit like pie dough.

It is so warm in the house today the dough rose quicker than I could get it in the oven. Some of the little pockets stayed together, some popped open.

In the end they were edible.

In the future I am sticking to sticky buns!

You will find the recipe on the blog of our host Carrie of Loaves and Stitches. I follow Carrie’s blog and find it fun and interesting! Nancy Silverton is the contributing baker for Savory Brioche Pockets.

Blessings and Happy Cooking!
Catherine

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Posted in Bread and Rolls, Main Dish, Pork, Side Dishes, TWD:BWJ

Tagged baking with julia, bread dough, brioche, Dorie Greenspan, Julia Child, main dish, Pulled pork, savory pockets, side dish, sweet potato, tuesdays with dorie

Mocha Chocolate Chip Cookies

Posted on March 18, 2013 | 23 Comments

Cookies are not my “thing”. Mostly because they just never turn out that well. You know, soft and chewy on the inside and crispy on the outside. So when, Tuesdays With Dorie baking group chose Mocha Chocolate Chip Cookies for this week’s recipe I thought, “yawn.”

Then there are the ingredients … apricots (not my favorite) coffee powder – not a coffee drinker. I haven’t found any espresso powder in my travels and so I use instant coffee granules ground into a fine powder.

Oh ya, and 1 pound of chocolate. I decided to go with Ghirardelli all the way.

Cookies were made the usual way. Dry ingredients mixed into the butter, sugar, egg mixture. Stir well. Add the rest. Important step — refrigerate, a couple hours or overnight. BTW- ground coffee granules worked beautifully.

The cookies baked up stunningly delicious. I absolutely love the mocha flavor! I used 1 tablespoon of the ground coffee granules and it was just the right amount! I gave away as many as I could and had to freeze the rest to keep from eating them all! This recipe makes 4 dozen cookies.

The apricots added just the right amount of softness to the cookie. According to our neighbor who received the first pan full right out of the oven, “they were great with a cup of coffee!”

Rick Katz is the contributing baker who baked these cookies alongside Julia Childs on her PBS series, Baking With Julia. Dorie Greenspan is the author of the cookbook we are cooking our way through, Baking With Julia. Hosting this recipe is Peggy of Galettista. She will post the full recipe and details. Check it out there and add to your chocolate chip cookie arsenal. You will want to make these asap!
~Blessings, Catherine

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Posted in CHOCOLATE!, Cookies, Dessert, TWD:BWJ

Tagged Baking, baking with julia, chocolate chip cookies, Cookies, Julia Child, mocha chocolate cookies, tuesdays with dorie

TWD: Baking With Julia: Croissants

Posted on March 4, 2013 | 28 Comments

From Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking With Julia, comes this recipe for that famous French pastry – croissants, even though France is not where croissants originated. This week’s recipe is actually two recipes. First, the making of croissant dough. Second, turning that dough into croissants. The contributing baker for this recipe is Esther McManus. Here is a link http://video.pbs.org/video/2250835454/ to a video of she and Julia Child making croissants. I watched it before making my croissants and it was very helpful and lots of fun to see Julia in action! I had so much fun making croissants. It took 2 days. Will I do it again? Absolutely! This blog post is loaded with pictures and I hope you enjoy the process. The full detailed recipe is posted by TWD host, Amanda of Girl+Food=Love. Amanda has done an awesome job detailing the recipe!

The dough consists of yeast, flour, sugar, salt, and milk. Once made it is wrapped and placed in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours or overnight. Mine rested overnight, rose slightly from the yeast and remained a beautiful dough to handle the following morning.

If butter insults your healthy-living sensitivities, you might as well stop right here. These croissants require butter — 4 1/2 sticks of it! My motto “everything in moderation” means I will make the croissants, use the butter, and only eat the unbelievably delicious croissants “in moderation”!

While the dough is resting, the butter is mixed with flour. The flour helps to absorb the water in the butter as the croissant dough is rolled and baked.
The butter/flour mixture is placed on plastic wrap, shaped into a rectangle, wrapped and placed back in the refrigerator.
Incorporating the butter into the dough requires time and patience. There is a lot of rolling. But that is the fun part too! The dough is rolled into a rectangle 24″ to 26″ long by 14″ wide. The piece of chilled butter is placed in the middle of the dough.
The dough is folded over the butter making a nice little “packet”. This is the beginning of the buttery croissant dough to follow.
Rolling, rolling, rolling. This way, that way. Roll, roll, roll.
Next step is to fold and refrigerate for a rest (2 hours). The dough … not me! I am making lunch.
Dorie and Esther do a great job explaining step-by-step how to roll, fold, rest. Roll, fold, rest. This happens 3 times in 2 hour intervals.
This is turn #2. See the marking? It’s mandatory to making the croissants! Roll, fold, mark, rest.
The final fold is called “the wallet”. It is like closing a wallet or a book. This is the end of recipe #1! The dough can be used right away, left in the refrigerator overnight and used the next day or frozen for up to a month.
I cut the dough in half, wrapping and freezing half to make chocolate filled croissants on another day.
After the third turn and 2 hour rest in the refrigerator the dough is rolled, again. Using a lot of flour while rolling keeps the buttery dough from sticking to the counter. I started out “sprinkling” flour on the counter. I quickly realized I needed a handful here and a handful there. Be generous with the flour and make sure the dough stays chilled. Do not over-roll until the dough is warm. This will cause the dough to release the butter and you will be very unhappy with the end results. If the dough gets warm, pop it back in the refrigerator for an hour or until the butter is set and the dough is re-chilled.

The dough is rolled into a rectangle about 20″ to 24″ inches long and 15″ to 18″ wide. This takes patience in rolling, but the result is worth it!

Once the rectangle is formed the dough is folded in half and cut into triangles. The video of Esther and Julia shows how to do this the very best.

Now each triangle is stretched. This is the only picture I ended up taking of stretching the triangle and it came out blurry. Sorry about that, but I still want you to see the stretching as it is an important step. Making the dough longer will result in more layers within the croissant, creating the flakiness we are striving for.

I measured my croissants 3″ across the top when I made them. They turned out a little on the small side and next time I will start with a triangle that measures 4 inches across the top. The ideal place for rising is a turned-off oven containing a pan of hot, steamy water. The croissants need 3 to 4 hours to rise.

They bake for 12 minutes, then are turned front to back and baked another 4 to 6 minutes. Since mine were small I baked them for a total of 16 minutes. I only baked one pan at a time.

Making these croissants reminded me of why I choose to join the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group in the first place. I am sure I would not have tackled this multi-step, multi-page recipe without the prompting from the group. It continues to thrill me to be baking through the book, Baking With Julia!

My family is happy with these results and so am I. But wait … there’s more -

I hope you will stop by later in this week when I show you how I turned the other half of the dough into the best of all bites - pain au chocolat!

~Blessings, Catherine

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Posted in Bread and Rolls, Breakfast and Brunch, TWD:BWJ

Tagged Baking, baking with julia, bread making, butter croissants, croissant dough, croissants, Dorie Greenspan, french croissants, pain au chocolat, tuesdays with dorie

French Apple Tart

Posted on January 21, 2013 | 24 Comments

It Tuesdays With Dorie which means I have baked from Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking With Julia. I’ve never made a french apple tart and this week’s recipe got my attention. Dorie writes, “This open-faced tart is beautiful … beneath the gossamer blossom is what the French call a compote, a sweet, thick purée of oven-roasted Granny Smith apples.” Are you interested?
In Dorie’s cookbook this recipe takes up 2 1/2 pages. That turns me off. I took one look down through the recipe and thought it seemed so time-consuming. My best baking projects are fast and easy and look like they took a long time. Yes, I am fickle like that. But, I am happy to report — this isn’t nearly as time-consuming as it seems at first glance. And the finished tart is … well, worth it! Also, my granddaughter, Tayler, is here visiting and she cheerfully helped me as my Chief Designer!

First things first …the recipe calls for 1/4 recipe Flaky Pie dough. This has become my very favorite pie dough recipe and you can get it here. I was immediately happy and “all in” because I keep this pie dough frozen for just such a moment as this! I thawed the pastry dough over-night in the refrigerator. First thing in the morning I placed it in my 9″ springform pan and baked it. While it was baking I started chopping apples.
The recipe calls for Granny Smith apples. I used mostly Granny Smith and a couple of Gala apples too. Apple chunks are tossed with sugar, flour, cinnamon and fluffy bread crumbs. This recipe calls for very little sugar but the result won’t give it away. What intrigues me is that those apples could be cooked down in a pan on the stove or in a skillet stove-top. But instead, it calls for spreading them on a baking sheet and roasting them. Interesting.

Before I started this recipe I decided I wasn’t going to take pictures except of the finished tart. As you can clearly see I went for my camera before I finished slicing the apples. The colors are so pretty and I so want to share that with you! The apples roasted for 20 minutes and were gooey, caramelized and wonderful! THAT picture would have gone right here … but I forgot to take it!

The roasted apple compote is spooned into the baked pastry shell. At this point my chief designer, Tayler, began working her magic. We peeled apples, dipped them in lemon juice (to help keep them from browning) and she began the task of layering the apples. We had room for two circular layers and one rosette in the middle. After brushing with melted butter and sprinkling with Turbinado sugar, our tart baked for 30 minutes. The tart was done but the edges not quite dark enough so I turned the broiler on for just 2 minutes to give the edges the stunning black effect. The recipe suggests sprinkling with white sugar but I always keep Turbinado on hand and if you do too, then by all means use it for the sprinkling on the top.

Our tart didn’t stay under this cover long since it was the crowning touch to our Sunday dinner shared with family.

This tart is not overly sweet making it a perfect finish to any dinner. (Only 3/4 cup sugar in the entire tart.) The roasted apple purée is a perfect contrast to the crackle of the crust and the pure apple flavor of the topping.

The contributing baker for this recipe is Leslie Mackie. This recipe is hosted by TWD baker, Gaye of Laws of the Kitchen. She will post the full recipe on her blog.

As for me and my family — we will be making this again!!

Blessings and Happy Cooking!
~Catherine