I was perusing the forums at eGullet and noticed an interesting “demo”. A member posted his (her?) process for making baguettes a l’ancienne, also known as slightly sour, naturally yeasted baguettes.

Now I was immediately impressed by the photos of big, uneven holes and a lovely crispy crust. Though the recipe takes a few days, it is a very low maintenance dough. All you need is about a tablespoon of sourdough starter, which doesn’t have to be fed, or a small hunk of dough from an already proofed loaf. My results tasted great - moist, open texture and a fabulously crispy crust. I ended up simply brushing the baguettes with water before slashing them to avoid tossing water into my oven. Did I mention how great the crust was?

I am not great at shaping baguettes. They will sometimes “poof” out all over the place in the oven. But I will make every effort never to complain about it again because the uglier baguettes turned out to have the more open, highly irregular crumb I was looking for. Though I have made this recipe a few times now, I will add a bit more water in the future, as I don’t want the dryness of Southern California to mess with my results. The high hydration of the dough is important for the texture of the bread and the crust.

I highly encourage you to head over to the eGullet forums and read the original post. I am going to take the advice of the poster and tweak this a little more until it is as good as I can get it. And I won’t say no to any of the trial runs.

There is nothing wrong with spelling the word for these fried rings of dough as “doughnuts” or “donuts”. They are both correct. Just ask spell check. I personally use the “donut” spelling, as it is faster and simply more economical as far as I am concerned. There is nothing wrong with spelling or dialect variations, particularly when involving pastry.
This week, as you may have guessed, I made donuts.

Fried dough is a bit tricky. Most fried bread products are rather small: dumplings, beignets, klejner, etc. They are small because the outside browns very quickly and large pieces of dough will not be cooked all the way through. In fact, one of the tales about the origin of the donut states that the center was poked out because it was always soggy. Where the “nut” came from, I simply do not know.

Homemade donuts are something that I never really thought that I would make. I know a good place in my neighborhood to get them, but to be honest, I rarely do. Health concerns, you know. But when I was little, I loved to get a sugar coated, fluffy yeasted donut whenever possible. I hated the glazed ones. One day, my donut was not cooked through as well as it should have been (perhaps the origin myth is true!) and I became rather ill. Same thing the next time. That was the end of those donuts.

My favorite donuts are plain cake donuts and cake donuts with rainbow sprinkles. The sprinkles make me feel like a kid, which I love. Cake donuts are not yeast-raised, but are put together much like a quick bread and leavened with chemical leaveners. The batter is a snap to put together, you chill it for at least 3 hours to make cutting it easier and then you fry it. Which means that you can prepare it the night before and have fresh donuts in the morning. I opted for a pumpkin donut recipe from Epicurious - what better way to celebrate fall? The dough has little fat in it, but the frying compensates. The pumpkin flavor was subtle, but there and they tasted very good plain. The crumb was moist but not dense and they weren’t as greasy as I expected them to be at all. I tried them with a maple flavored glaze, but the glaze overpowered the pumpkin flavor. I switched to a spiced sugar mixture, using the same spices as the pumpkin dough. Once the donuts were rolled in the spiced sugar mixture, they were outstanding. Why haven’t I seen these down at the donut shop?

(more…)

I could definately be vegan. A great deal of the foods that I eat are vegetarian and many can be made vegan. I have experimented with vegan baking, which, by and large, has produced some wonderful results. I actually have many other vegan recipes and substitutions that suprise people, from cookies to cakes. Does it seem like I am dwelling on the sweet side? I am. Anyone who bakes will know that the biggest challenge about being vegan is the baked goods. It is hard, and in some cases nearly impossible, to replicate the properties of ingredients like eggs and dairy in baked goods. I will not be trying a vegan flan, meringue or whipped cream in the near future. This isn’t to say that it cannot be done, but it certainly won’t be easy.

I’m glad that Sam picked Vegan cooking as the theme for this month’s IMBB. I think it will increase awareness. Beyond the basics, veganism covers a wide range of eating habits. Many vegans are “activists”. They are vegan because they believe that it is wrong to eat/use/exploit animals in any way. No leather, no silk, no wool, no honey. Other vegans share these same beliefs to varying degrees, perhaps eating honey or wool. Just like any other lifestyle, I don’t think that this is “incorrect”, though I know that many people might disagree. I believe that if you think you are doing the right thing by not using leather or eating animal products, but you still eat honey, there is nothing wrong with considering yourself to be a vegan. I don’t know how vegan activists feel about the group of people, ever growing, who are vegan for health reasons. A low fat, vegan diet may slow or stop the progression of some types of cancer, including prostate cancer and lymphoma. Many people eat vegan, but continue to use other types of non-food animal products.

When I make something vegan, I do not tell people - excluding veg friends - that it is vegan. I prefer to suprise them with it once they’ve already eaten some. This cheesecake got good reviews, even after it was revealed to be vegan. Now, it was not as creamy or decadent as the cheesecake I made before, but I don’t think anyone would deny that this is a tasty cheesecake. It was a cross between a dense, New York style cheesecake and a lighter, European style cheesecake. It had a great texture, a bit melting, light and fluffy. I chose to make it lemon flavored, not wanting another dense chocolate dessert, but you could substitute orange or lime juice for the lemon.

I don’t think you want to see the nutritional information for my last cheesecake, but this one has no saturated fat and no cholesterol. Per slice, not necessarily by weight, this cheesecake has half of the calories and more than 3 times less fat than the regular cheesecake. Good reason to have seconds!

(more…)

Gourmet Magazine’s September 2005 Cook the Cover contest ended yesterday. The featured recipe was fur a chocolate pudding cake called the Chocolate Mink. I couldn’t resist giving the recipe a shot, particularly when it was formulated for the convenient serving size of two portions. I decided that my addition to the recipe would be to add raspberries, since raspberries and chocolate make a wonderful combination. I layered them along the bottom of the ramekin and stirred a few into the batter.

According to the recipe, it was supposed to be a “gooey, flourless chocolate pudding cake”. I like chocolate pudding cake quite a lot and was suprised when mine didn’t turn out as advertised, but I quickly realised that this unexpected outcome was the result of my failure to read the recipe all the way through.

I admit that I was hoping for a sort of raspberry sauce to form, but, though my little cake was neither puddingy nor saucy, it was still tasty. It looked gorgeous, unmolded very easily and was a nice, rich chocolate brownie cake. Baking uncovered gave it a nice crust and the raspberry layer made sure that every bite had a hint of berry to compliment the chocolate.

I’m not sure if it would have been a contest winner, but it definately proves that with good ingredients, you can’t go wrong even if you don’t follow the recipe.

(more…)

Just in time for Weekend Cat Blogging, hosted by Eat Stuff, you can see the hazards of leaving the newspaper unattended at my table.
Phoebe loves to get under things, but not as much as some of the cats at Stuff on my Cat. Too cute!

I feel like I have been in a bit of a rut lately. Looking back through the last couple of weeks, I can see that this isn’t entirely true, not as far as posting is concerned, but that doesn’t change the way I feel.

I think it’s because of the seasons. It’s the end of summer and the end of the summer season means cooler days and heartier meals. Some of my favorites - grilled corn on the cob, for example - are approaching their inevitable disappearance from my table. This means that I’ve been doing quite a bit of repetitious eating.

I can’t hang onto the old favorites forever, particularly when it is darn hard to get ahold of fresh corn on the cob in the middle of winter, so some new favorites are just beginning to make an appearance. This cornbread fuses the changing of the seasons.

I love cornbread because it’s a bit hearty and a bit sweet. This one is very moist due to the inclusion of shredded zucchini, which I know is still prevalent in people’s gardens. The buttermilk and molasses make this bread taste sweet and buttery. Serve it on the side of a hearty winter stew or with butter and jam along side of something grilled.

(more…)