baking

Jul

03

We’re Just a Couple of Challah-back Girls!

baked goods / family recipes  Posted by / 7 comments

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I love cooking and baking and take just about any opportunity to try something new or make something. If I’m cooking, I’m a happy camper. So when my roommate Rachel wanted to buy Challah for Shabbat with a friend, I jumped right in and asked if I could make it.

I had this recipe floating around that belonged to my grandmother Ruth on my dad’s side of the family. Grandma Ruth was a tiny bird of a woman who ruled with the proverbial iron hand in velvet glove. My grandfather Cecil Gleason towered over her at 6’8 and she was a tiny just under five feet woman. He was Irish, she was Jewish/English (or maybe Welsh) I believe. I wasn’t as close to them as I was to my Mexican grandparents but they loved me and they were sure interesting as hell. Grandma Ruth’s father Cornelius Losey was from Holland. I’m not sure when they came over or how the Judaism got left behind but that’s all I have from my dad. If any long lost family members see this and want to fill me in, I’d be grateful. I think my Grandma Ruth gave me this recipe years ago when I was still married and came over for a vist in a little envelope with a few other recipes. I’ve never tried any of them, although I really want to try her oxtail soup recipe.

I dug around for the recipe and there it was on a faded index card and found not too much to go on, no measurements. See I get that from both grandmothers!

The recipe was written as follows: flour, honey, yeast, eggs, oil, salt and water. Braid into six strands and bake. Garnish with poppy or sesame seeds.

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Jun

29

Daring Bakers Challenge #4 – Danish Braids

baked goods / Challenges  Posted by / 12 comments

Brie oozing out

When I first saw this challenge posted, my first thought was, “oh holy crap no, there’s no way I can make that, I’m skipping this month,” but then I shook myself off and started thinking about fillings. The fillings got me going and as I read through the recipe, it actually didn’t seem that hard. Watching the video helped immensely (thanks to our hosts for providing that link) and I found other videos on Youtube that helped as well. I was starting to get excited about this recipe.

I ran into a few small snags. One was the weather here in Los Angeles. It was so hot I was calling in it Hell A instead of L.A. I worried that my dough wouldn’t hold the butter so I kept putting it off, hoping for cooler weather. One morning I woke up and decided to head off to Silverlake for ingredients. I neglected to check the weather and only when I was there did I find it was 110 degrees! Still I was dressed for the weather and determined to get what I needed. It turned out to be quite the odyssey.

For my fillings I wanted one to have something to do with these amazing glazed, roasted figs I had found a few months ago at The Cheesestore in Silverlake. I was lucky and found the one package they had left which caused a bit of consternation. Would it be enough? I quickly decided that chopped Fuji apples would be great with the figs and Brie and would augment my small quantity of the figs. The second braid would be filled with brandied cherries and dark chocolate, a little homage to someone I care deeply about whose favorite cake is Black Forest. To find out more about my crazy day hunting ingredients in 100-degree weather, check out my L.A. Journal.

I also sweet-talked my brother into taking me on a separate day to the Indian store I love in Los Feliz. They have a huge selection of spices and I was happy to find several varieties of cardamom. The proprietress let me snap away pictures at will in the store and seemed to be amused by my desire to do so. I have to go back, I completely forgot rosewater to try my hand at macarons ala Pierre Hermes.

Finally, a cooler day arrived and I was eagerly anticipating my baking. I gathered up my ingredients and three teenagers (my niece Arielle, my nephew Jesse and their friend Debbie who are out on summer break) and set off for last minute ingredients. We put off the dough for one more day and hung out a bit until they went off to the movies. The next day my brother Jesse dropped three sleepy teenagers off at my house and left whistling. I dubbed them Daring Baker Dude and Bakerettes and put them to work. Arielle grated orange rind, Debbie handed me flour and Jesse did a last minute store run for more flour. They all got to sniff the cardamom that I had found in cheaply at an Indian store in Los Feliz and I got to give a little impromptu class on spices, dough, yeast proofing and other fun tidbits. I found I really like teaching teenagers to bake! It helps that they were into it, interested and eager to learn. (If my brother is reading this, it does not mean your kids can hang at my house all summer long).

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Dec

26

Sometimes I Cheat Red Pear & Cream Cheese Tart

baked goods  Posted by / 0 comments

Sometimes I cheat.

I normally love making things from scratch. I enjoy the process tremendously and take pride in shopping for the freshest ingredients, doing things the traditional way, whipping egg whites by hand instead of using a mixer, etc., but sometimes I cheat.

Today is Christmas day and I needed milk, so I took a walk over to the local store that was open to get some. While there, I wandered to the produce aisle and was immersed in the rich fragrance of ripe pears. It was incredible. The whole store smelled of pears and when I turned a corner and saw the gorgeous red-gold color, I knew I had to bake something with them. I didn’t feel like rolling out dough, I’d already done that for the buñelos I made last night, but the pears were demanding that I bake something. So I cheated.

I filled a bag with pears, already calculating what I was going to make. A roasted pear tart with a cream cheese base. I slithered over to the dairy aisle and surreptitiously snuck a pre-made pastry into my basket, hoping no one I knew saw me. I picked up the cream cheese and made my get-away.

Sometimes I Cheat Roasted Red Pear & Cream Cheese Tart

Pastry dough (store bought, otherwise it won’t be a cheating tart)
About 10 Fresh Red Pears, sliced and cored, but leave the peel on
1 stick of butter
½ c. granulated cane sugar
¼ tsp. ground ginger for the pears
¼ tsp. ground nutmeg
1 package cream cheese softened

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Unfold the pastry dough and smooth out the lines. Lay it into a pastry dish or tart pan. Use pastry weights or beans to cover the bottom of the pan and bake for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees. You don’t want to cook the pastry entirely, just enough to get it semi-golden. Remove from the oven and let cool.

Slice and core the pears, leaving the peels on. Add them to a baking dish and sprinkle on the sugar and ginger evenly. Dot with the butter and put into the oven and roast them at 400 degrees till they are golden and caramelized, about 15 minutes. Let cool.

Add the softened cream cheese to a small bowl and mix in the ground nutmeg well.

Spread on the cooled pastry dough about ½ inch high.

Carefully arrange the roasted pears on top of the cream cheese, making sure to drain off any liquid. Reserve the liquid for later.

Place the tart back into a 350 degree oven for about another ten minutes, just till the crust is a deep golden brown and the cream cheese is bubbly.

Remove from the oven and let cool. Serve slightly warm with a drizzle of the roasted pear liquid. You can also take that liquid and make a simple syrup with using sugar and a pear liquor if you wish. Ice cream is good on this too, as is whipped cream.

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