Archives for 2007

Thanksgiving With (As Always) Cranberry Bread

cranberry nut bread This is the bread I will be serving at Thanksgiving dinner this year. It is the same bread I made last year, and just about every year since I learned how to turn on the oven. It is the same bread you will see here next year if this blog is still around. It’s cranberry-nut bread, the recipe clipped from the back of a long-ago Ocean Spray bag.

The rest of the menu will be similarly well-worn: roast turkey with the same chestnut stuffing we’ve had since my husband and I shared our first Thanksgiving, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, squash, creamed onions, apple pie, pumpkin pie.

I may vary the sweet potato treatment a bit from year to year. I add a brussels sprout or two if I the urge strikes me. I like to try new pumpkin pie recipes from time to time. But by and large, the menu is eminently simple and predictable.

This is not because I’m not an adventurous cook (although I’m the first to admit I’m not). It is because Thanksgiving dinner is not about the Cuisine, it’s about the Food. It’s about the familiar, abundant dishes you know will always be on your plate, year after year, dishes that come together to create what my husband calls “the perfect mouthful.” These are things that would be sorely missed if they weren’t on the table. This is food that tastes good without having to fuss with it. It’s food you know you can count on.

Now that I think about it, Thanksgiving dinner is a feast that’s a lot like the family I’ll be sharing it (whether physically or in spirit) with.

So no recipes today. The bread recipe is still on the back of the cranberry bag if you need it, but I suspect you don’t. Just make what you made last year.

Have a beautiful Thanksgiving, everyone!

Win-Win

Is anyone up for a game of “Connect the Facts”?

Fact One: For reasons that are not altogether clear to me, I seem to have acquired an extra copy of Peter Reinhart’s latest book, Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor.
Fact Two: Next week, most of us in the U.S. will be sitting down to our most important and most lavish feast of the year, but many people here and around the world will not have enough to eat.

In this game, everyone wins, even if you don’t win.

The rules are simple. All you have to do is make a donation, in any amount, to the hunger-fighting organization of your choice between now and November 30. Leave a comment here indicating what your organization is (you don’t have to say how much you donated), and you will be entered into a random drawing to win the book.

That’s all there is to it. Of course, I have no way of knowing whether you actually made a donation, so we’re on the honor/karma system here.

Here are some organizations you might consider to receive your donation (but feel free to choose a different one):

The Hunger Project: About | Donate
The Heifer Project: About | Donate
America’s Second Harvest: About | Donate
Action Against Hunger USA: About | Donate

How about making an online donation right now, so you don’t forget? Please be as generous as you can!

Thank you.

Finnish Rye

There are many things I like about this Finnish Rye. It’s dense but moist, chewy and a bit crunchy, rich in whole grain flavor but a little sweet as well. It’s very good, although not what I’d want to eat every day.

The thing I love about this bread is how an incredibly simple technique – rolling the underside of the dough in coarse flour during the last turns of the shaping, and baking with that flour-dredged underside on top – produces such a striking crackled crust. If I were ever to open a bakery (which I never will), this bread would definitely be one of the ones front and center in the window.

The combination of the dark-colored dough and light-colored flour here makes for an especially beautiful contrast, but the same technique could be used with just about any boule-shapeable dough and any coarse topping such as semolina, cornmeal, bran, or even small seeds.

[Read more…]

Semolina Bread with Fennel & Currants (and Pine Nuts)

When it comes to baking, I would make a terrific Boy Scout. I just do not like to be caught unprepared. 50-pound bag of flour? Check. At least 10 pounds of high-extraction flour in the refrigerator at all times? Of course. Five-year supply of panettone molds? Just got those in.

In other words, I stock up.

This is not about buying in bulk to save money, although that’s always nice. This is more like, I’m notoriously bad at planning ahead, so I plan way ahead. If that makes any sense at all.

How uncharacteristic of me, then, to allow my supply of dried currants to run low. But how truly characteristic of me to discover this right when it is time to add them to the dough. Let’s just say that mise en place is a concept that is not fully en place in this kitchen.

[Read more…]

Pan de Muerto

The first days of November mark Mexico’s Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos), a lively and rich tradition in which departed loved ones are honored and the cycle of life is celebrated.

Although I have never had the opportunity to visit Mexico during this festive time, I wanted to try my hand at making Pan de Muerto (Bread of the Dead), which is traditionally sculpted in a representation of bones. I adapted this one from a recipe in Diana Kennedy’s My Mexican Kitchen: Techniques and Ingredients, as posted on Epicurious. My changes reflect what I discovered worked best for me in making the recipe twice.

The bread is sweet and eggy, similar in texture to a yeasted coffee cake. This one has no anise seed, although other recipes I have seen include it. I didn’t use orange blossom water, only orange zest, and the result was a subtly citrus-scented loaf. [Read more…]

Bostini Cream Pie: Folded, Not Whisked

Daring Bakers logo When I joined the Daring Bakers, this was exactly what I was afraid of, and exactly what I was hoping for.

I’ll come right out and admit it, I’m afraid of cake, my number one baking nemesis! Although the name of this month’s challenge is Bostini Cream Pie, it’s cake alright, individual orange chiffon cakes no less, atop creamy vanilla custard and drizzled with smooth chocolate glaze. I’m quite sure Mary (Alpineberry) didn’t mean to freak me out on my very first challenge, but goodness, did it have to be cake? With me and cake, it’s always something: it sticks to the pan, it falls, it cracks, it’s too wet, it’s too dry. It’s always something with cake.

But as much as I was dreading cake, I was also hoping to learn some things and have fun exploring new baking territory. And this challenge did not disappoint in those departments. Who better than a cadre of Daring Bakers to help me face my cake phobia and come out with something that was lovely and delicious? (See the recipe here.)

[Read more…]