Wild Yeast

Notes from my kitchen, in which I bake bread and raise a few other matters

We Will Be Amused


Image courtesy of SF Food Wars

Hey, guess what? I am honored and excited to have been selected to compete in the next SF Food Wars smackdown: “Amuse Brunch (brunch in a bite).”

As with Yeast Affliction, my previous foray onto the culinary battlefield, 20 cooks and bakers will attempt to dazzle three judges and 200 brunchists-at-large and capture the title of most amazing/amusing brunch bite. The roster of competitors and their dishes will be announced soon and will undoubtedly promise a brunch spread that will amuse even the most astute bouches.

All this amusement will transpire at noon on Sunday, May 16, at Thirsty Bear in San Francisco. Tickets, which are $15 and include a beer, mimosa, or Bloody Mary, go on sale on May 4 at noon sharp, on the SF Food Wars website. If you want one, plan to have your clicking finger poised on the mouse at 11:59 a.m.; these gems sell out fast!

Steamed Ginger-Persimmon Pudding — Not for the Birds

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

I remember suet as the thing my grandmother would press with birdseed and hang outside her window to attract cardinals and goldfinches. In my recollection it was not, even though my family is from good English stock, something that was for people. If my grandmother cooked with it, she kept it to herself, which was a good idea, since I would have run screaming from anyone suggesting I eat the fat that blankets cows’ kidneys.

To be honest, the thought of it doesn’t do much for me now, either. But that’s the point of Daring Bakerhood, isn’t it — jumping out of one’s comfort zone and into the rendering pan? And I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised with how this pudding turned out, fat and all. It was like a very moist cake or bread pudding (actually, it is a bread pudding), without the meaty flavor I was expecting.

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Bake a Better Bread Stick

I’ve said it before: I love grissini. These thin, dry bread sticks are a perennial crowd-pleaser — rustically beautiful, always whimsical but never frivolous, a snap to make and (literally) to eat. Their flavor is eminently versatile, subject to the baker’s inclination — the toss of a fennel or sesame seed here, the grind of a pepper mill there. I’ve made them plenty of times, sourdough or straight, and they’ve been toothsome and quick to disappear every time.

These are better, and I have the numbers to prove it.

I would not presume to say that the addition of ground flaxseed and a bit of rye flour to the dough make the grissini taste better, as that is a matter of, well, taste. My taste says they taste pretty fine. My daughter’s taste says so, too.

But even if you disagree with our taste (and I don’t think you will), numbers don’t lie. Consider these numbers:

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Stick a Spoon In It

The 2010 April Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf’s Den. She chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make Brunswick Stew. Wolf chose recipes for her challenge from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt Lee and Ted Lee, and from the Callaway, Virginia Ruritan Club.

Go figure. In past months, we Daring Cooks have made dishes originating from China (potstickers), Viet Nam (pho), Italy (risotto and gnocchi), India (dosas), the Middle East (mezze), and Thailand (satay). Although the cooking of these things may have been unfamiliar to me, the dishes themselves were not; I had eaten (and love) all of this fare from far-flung lands, thanks to the wonderfully diverse and food-centric part of California I call home. This month, however, when we were charged with preparing traditional American eats — the Southern classic Brunswick Stew — I was caught without a clue.

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Pear Frangipane Brioche Tarts

Have I mentioned that I love brioche? OK, so it’s rich and sweet and buttery and I don’t recommend eating it every day. On the other hand, it is rich and sweet and buttery. And it’s easy to make it even better with the addition of things like frangipane, which is… rich and sweet and buttery and almondy. (See? Even better.)

Frangipane is essentially a baked almond pastry cream. In school we learned to make it by combining vanilla pastry cream, a cooked custard that can be used without further baking, with almond cream, which is not pre-cooked and lends a lighter, cake-like texture. There are plenty of other frangipane recipes out there if you don’t want to use this two-part process, but the pastry cream and almond cream can also be used on their own, so they’re nice recipes to have, and you can vary the proportions of each depending on the texture you want your frangipane to have (more almond cream for a puffier frangipane). Zoe Bakes has a great photo tutorial on making pastry cream.

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