Tag: baking

Recipes

Green tea black sesame swirl bread

by Audrey3 Comments on Green tea black sesame swirl bread

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When the weather gets cold, my favorite weekend activity is baking a good loaf of bread. There is something about the smell of bread baking – the air is tinged with this light, yeasty smell, and because the oven is on, the room gets toasty. Lastly, cutting into a steaming, freshly baked loaf of bread is the best reward to a day of baking.

While more time consuming compared to other baked goods like cakes or cookies, bread is not hard or intimidating to make (even though it can seem like it is). The majority of your time will be spent allowing the dough to rise, and if you are like me, you can spend that time with a good cup of coffee and an episode or two of Friends.

This specific recipe has an Asian influence, and has a slight sweetness. This is definitely not a dessert bread, as I didn’t want this to feel like cake. However when toasted, this is an awesome option for breakfast with when spread with some softened butter and honey.

green tea bread

For those of you who are wary about cooking with yeast, let me give you some of my top tips before I jump into the recipe:

Yeast works best in a warm, somewhat humid environment. So this recipe is actually way easier to make in the summer for me since my kitchen will naturally be on the warm side. However, when the weather is cool, you can easily fake this environment by preheating your oven, turning it off, and allowing it to cool to a mild warmness. If you can stick your hand in it and not feel like you will be burned, the oven is ready. Simply pop the dough in, and let the yeast do it’s work.

Aside from your kitchen environment, the key to the success of this recipe is in activating the yeast before you even touch the flour. Many recipes I come across do not treat yeast properly. First of all, yeast is what causes this bread to be fluffy. Without activating it, you might as well not use it. Which is why it is so important to mix the yeast in warm liquid like I do in the first step. You know it’s good to go if there is a bit of a frothy texture on the top of the liquid after 5 minutes. That means the yeast is active and energetic. From there, you are good to go!

Ingredients:

  • 2 1/4 cups flour
  • 3 tbs sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3 tbs matcha
  • 1 envelope yeast
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 2 1/2 tbs softened butter
  • 1/3 cup sugar for filling
  • 1/4 cup ground black sesame
  • 1 beaten egg diluted with a splash of water

Step 1: Warm milk and water in microwave until lukewarm. It’s ready when it feels like warm bath water. Stir in yeast. Set aside 5 minutes to activate.

Step 2: Mix flour, sugar, salt and matcha in a bowl. Add yeast mixture, stir, and then the butter. Stir until combined. Turn onto a lightly floured work surface and knead 5 minutes until smooth and elastic. If you poke the dough with your finger, it should slowly bounce back.

Step 3: Place dough in an oiled bowl. Cover bowl with oiled plastic wrap. Make sure the plastic leaves plenty of room for the dough to rise. Cover plastic wrap with a damp towel and raise for an hour or until doubled in size.

Step 4: Mix ground sesame with remaining sugar, set aside.  When dough is fully risen, punch gas out of dough.

Step 5: On lightly floured surface, press dough into a large rectangle. You want the dough to be about a centimeter thick. Spread sesame mix over dough, leaving an inch of space on one of the longer edges of the rectangle. Roll dough into a log, moving towards the empty inch with the dough. This clean area of the dough will help seal the edges together. When fully rolled, pinch edges of dough together to create a seam.

Step 6: With a large knife, cut into the log. Leave one end intact. This will create a large, long V-shape. Take the two ends and start twisting them together. When fully twisted, pinch the edges together to keep the log intact, and then start rolling the log into it’s self to create a rosette. When the bread is fully wrapped together, pinch all end seams together to keep the ball uniform. Transfer onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Step 7: Dab the egg wash onto the clean parts of the dough’s surface, making sure to leave the sesame undisturbed. Cover with plastic wrap and towel and rise another hour.

Step 8: Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. In the mean time, baste bread again with egg wash. When oven is ready, place bread in oven and bake 25-30 minutes.

*If bread browns too fast while baking, cover top with foil.

*Tip for proofing bread: to help yeast work efficiently, let bread rest in a warm place. Preheat oven to 200 degrees, but then turn off heat a few minutes into pre-heating. The heat is right if it feels mildly warm, but not enough to make your hand sweat or burn you.

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Recipes, Uncategorized

Cherry clafoutis

by Audrey4 Comments on Cherry clafoutis

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The first time I ate clafoutis was at a birthday party my host family held. As you guys may have read in my About page, I lived in Paris with a  Franco-Italian host family this last Spring semester of college. As awkward as it was with the language barrier, the family always invited me to their family gatherings.

My host aunt brought over two desserts, an apple and prune clafoutis. Both of which were shoveled onto my plate at dessert with a stern look from my host uncle. He said, “You must try both of them, my wife made them and they are delicious.” I, with a completely full stomach, accepted with a hesitant smile. He then made an “I’m watching you,” gesture with two of his fingers and then gestured to the two plates of cake. I all but licked my plate clean under his watchful eye and received an “I told you so.”

Regardless of how full I was, I loved those desserts. Mostly because of how simple they were. My host aunt explained the steps to me, it was pretty easy. A clafoutis is basically a custard poured over fruit, then baked. In the oven it will rise, looking almost like a cloud. Once cooled it sinks back down to create a dense cake. Cherries in this case make the dessert pretty striking and the acidity helps cut through the sweetness of this dessert.

*Fun fact for the day, the clafoutis cake (pronounced like clah-foo-tee) originates from the Limousin region of France. Looking back on my time there, I knew my host mother’s family originated from a southwestern area close to that region. Though I never found out what actual city where she was from, I wonder if she came from the region of the clafoutis.

Ingredients

  • 1 1/4 cup milk
  • 1/3 cup sugar plus 2 tablespoons for sprinkling
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 tablespoon almond extract
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • Zest of one orange
  • 1 cup pitted, halved cherries

 

sugar

In a large bowl, stir together the sugar, flour, salt and zest.

 

eggs

Add the eggs. Stir.

 

milk

Then add in the milk and extract.

 

fill 1/3

Pour enough mixture to fill a greased dish 1/3 of the way. Bake at 350 °F just long enough to create a skin at the surface stable enough to support the cherries. This can take about 5 minutes depending on your baking dish.

 

cherries

Pull out the dish and add the cherries. Sprinkle with a little additional sugar. For those watching their sugar, you can either adjust or omit this step.

 

fill

Pour the remaining batter on top and return to the oven for another 40 minutes. The clafoutis is done when it is puffed, like a cloud, and golden brown. A toothpick when inserted should come out clean.

 

final 2

Let cool just enough for the cake to sink back down. While this dish is good cold, it is best warm with a bit of ice cream like shown above in my mini version made with leftover ingredients.

 

 

 

Recipes, Uncategorized

Almond fig galettes

by Audrey4 Comments on Almond fig galettes

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I recently got my hands on a giant box of fresh figs. I have never cooked with them before, I really have only seen them in jams and cookies, however I always loved their subtle sweetness. I am also smitten with how pretty these fruits are. Green skin with slight splashes of pink hide a rose interior. I’ve never worked with these fruits fresh, and to be honest, they are pretty boring looking once dried or cooked. These turned brown when baked, which lost all the pretty coloration. However they did become chewy, which gives a good texture to this dessert.

Since I didn’t have much experience with figs, I went to Pinterest to try to get an idea on what I could do and I found that tarts and galettes were the most popular choice. I have also never made a galette before, so I thought, well here’s a way to knock out two culinary experiences with one stone. The crust comes from the Smitten Kitchen, and I added an almond filling to make the galette a bit more substantial than just a fruit filling.

Ingredients

The crust

  • 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/2 tablespoon sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • A stick butter, cut into centimeter sized cubes
  • 1 cup ice cold water, only 1/4 cup will actually be used

The filling

  • 1 tablespoon melted butter
  • 3/4 cup ground almonds
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
  • 1 tablespoon dark rum
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon zest
  • 4-5 fresh figs, sliced

 

flour

First, drop a couple ice cubes into the water. Set aside. Then in a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar and salt.

 

butter

Drop in the butter. Using a fork, start pressing the butter into the flour. Make quick, pushing movements. The goal here is to not make a dough by stirring, you are in a way, massaging the butter into the flour to make a sandy mixture. Move as quick as you can to ensure the butter doesn’t have a chance to warm and soften. Stop when you see pea sized bits of butter left, like in the picture. It doesn’t have to be even. In fact, you want it to be lumpy- those lumps of butter will create the flakey layers in your crust.

 

water

At this point, measure out 1/4 cup of the ice water and start mixing it into the mixture. Make sure any ice cube pieces are not included when you pour. Again, this will not be a stirring motion. You want to try to press the flour clumps into the water. Keep pressing until you get a uniform dough.

 

ball

When the dough starts to pull together, use your hands to knead the ball a couple times to ensure it is fully combined. Then wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

 

filling

Mix together all the ingredients for the filling, except the figs, until combined. Set aside.

 

roll

Once the dough is fully cooled, cut it into four pieces. Leave three of these pieces wrapped in the plastic, and return them to the fridge. You want to make the galettes one at a time, and having the coldest dough possible will make your life easier. I promise you. Take the quarter of the dough and push its corners with your hands until you attain a make-shift circular shape. Flour your work surface and your rolling pin, then start rolling the dough until it is about 1/4 an inch thick.

 

fill

Take your almond filling and spread it in the center. Then spread your figs. You can move the figs in any shape you want, you can spiral them in a circle for example. However I wanted the almond filling to show, so I went in a line.

 

fold

Fold and pleat the sides together and transfer the galette to a baking sheet lined with foil. Repeat the process for the last three pieces of crust dough.

 

final 2

Bake at 375 °F for 50 minutes to an hour until the crust is golden brown. The goal is for the bottom of the galettes to be opaque and cooked through. If the almond mixture browns too fast, cover the baking sheet with foil.

The smell of these baking in my kitchen was unimaginable. Something about a simple butter crust turns unbelievably nutty in the oven. These could be made the more traditional route with sliced pear, the pear almond tart is one of the most common French pastries I’ve ever seen. However, there’s nothing funner than cooking with a new ingredient. I embrace the fact that I am a baking nerd. Let me know what you guys try out with this recipe!