sweet hearth

elevenses pumpkin bread

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 10:00:06 -0500

Hello, Sunday! In this newly minted Windy City of Boston, there is nothing today calls for more than a lazy morning. Sure we could pull out all the stops for a big brunch, but why go through all that when there’s something as simple as pumpkin bread to satiate the Sunday morning haze? Plus, you can finally put that can of pumpkin to use. You know, the one that’s been sitting in your cupboard since last Thanksgiving (& I mean LAST last T-day. 2009). Unless that’s just me? If for some reason you stay on top of your yearly pumpkin consumption, this is well worth a quick trip to the store for a bit of canned pumpkin.

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, or, like I, only know this from watching The Lord of the Rings movies, elevenses is what you eat when your tummy has the grumblings around 11am. The thing is, I can’t call the Hobbit-maker himself a genius for inventing this brilliantly-timed meal - people dine on elevenses all around the world, from Australia all the way West around the world to New Zealand & everywhere in between where the British have left their mark & they have been doing so since, well, we can only assume since the 13th century when the clock was invented. It’s the rough equivalent of fourses, or teatime & since teatime is perfectly accepted with all its pomp & circumstance, elevenses should really be given the same respect.

Traditionally, elevenses can be eaten anytime after 11am, but once you hit 12pm, it’s too late. That’s called lunch. Elevenses is a small, but essential window, when most people have coffee or tea & a small sweet snack to contrast with the savory lunch to come. Sound familiar? Anyone who’s ever had a mid-morning coffee break has been partaking of the elevenses tradition. In fact, back in the early 1800s, “coffee break” had not yet evolved, but “elevenses” was quite liberally interpreted as “whiskey break.” Employers were even expected to supply whiskey for their employees. I can’t imagine that this was good for the industrial revolution. Ah well. It led to our modern-day coffee breaks & society as we know it, so all is well in the world.

So, pumpkin bread…tea…whiskey…what’s your poison?

Probably not the pumpkin bread. Because, did I mention, you can kind of construe it as “healthy”? Whole wheat flour, good crunchy nuts & oats & all with a base of pumpkin for cryin’ out loud! That’s fiber, a handful of vitamins & even some Omega-3s & antioxidants if you play your nuts right. It makes a great snack today & it’ll be great through the week to grab for breakfast or pack for elevenses as you head out the door. Unless, you don’t have any left by the end of the day today. Ahem.

Pumpkin Bread

For the batter:

1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup canola oil
2 eggs
1/4 cup water
1 + 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup hazelnuts, toasted & coarsely chopped

For the topping:

1/2 cup ground “stuff” (I used hazelnuts, cacao nibs, flax seeds, sesame seeds…get creative with your favorite nuts & seeds, then grind them up together)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup oats
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold

Whisk together the pumpkin puree, oil, eggs, & water. Add in the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon & hazelnuts & whisk until everything is just combined.

Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan & spread it around evenly. Set aside.

Stir together the ground stuff, brown sugar & oats. Then, rub or cut the butter in so that it’s evenly dispersed & makes the whole thing look like wet sand. I think it’s easiest if you use your fingers for this.

Sprinkle the topping evenly over the batter. Pop it into a preheated 350 degree oven for about an hour - it should spring back when you press lightly onto the bread with your fingers. If the topping starts to burn before it’s fully baked, lay some foil over the top & let it go longer.

Eat & Enjoy!

"One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are..."

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 08:27:50 -0500

“One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.”

- Luciano Pavorotti

love is in the air, smelling like black raspberry & almond

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 17:51:00 -0500

By now, CVS has probably already put it’s red-packaged candies on the discount shelf, but in my opinion, you can never have too many sweet things!

I mean love. You can never have too much love. Love in the form of Black Raspberry Linzer Cookies! Mmm.

When I was growing up, Sunday was the day for my family’s weekly bagel run at Zaro’s & if we were lucky, a chance to pick out one of the face-sized cookies to munch on through the day. Oftentimes, the cookies varied with the season & were decorated accordingly with that frosting that shattered into my teeth with a delicious snap at each bite. If I wasn’t in the mood to break a tooth, the rainbow-sprinkled sugar cookies that crumbled before they even got to my mouth fit the bill. & on the rare occasion of a very sweet treat kind of day, the Linzer cookie, with a bubble of red jam (the actual fruit flavor was indiscernable) domed at the center, was my pick.

Unlike Oreos, these cookies could not be pulled apart into individual halves, so I had to find an equally pleasing method of consumption: breaking them in half & biting into the half moons of jam first before starting in on the main cookie event. It was just jammy enough to make my teeth stick together & come apart without the need for too much fluid rescue. Is that love, or what?

Linzer cookies are the diminutive form of the Linzertorte, a tart that originated in Linz, Austria, thought to be the oldest tart in the world. Recipes for it can be found dating back to 1653 & back then, it was made using clarified butter & lemon juice; and it was baked in a silver bowl, filled with black currant jam, & topped with a lattice crust. & ground nuts were always used in place of the majority of the flour.

Today, the Linzer cookie can be found everywhere from Austria to Zaro’s, thankfully. If the cut-out is round, it even has a special Austrian name: Linzer Augen, or Linzer eyes. I personally think they taste best that way (with the round cut-out, not with eyes) but it’s a good idea not to think of body parts when biting into that gooey center.

The cookies themselves have absolutely no relation to Valentine’s Day, though since they can be cut into various shapes & they follow the red & white theme of the day, they’re an acceptable February 14th confection.

& if you’re into that sort of thing - extrapolation, I mean - these cookies are really great for representing the other V-day. At least they’re onsiderably more subtle than certain representations made this time of year at a certain liberal-arts college in Poughkeepsie that really is co-ed.

Also good for broken hearts. Or if you’re vegan. & if you’re feeling really creative, I’m sure you could get the Batman symbol on here…

Linzer Cookies

1/2 cup sugar
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 egg
1 teaspoon maple (or regular vanilla) extract
1 + 1/2 cups almond meal
1 + 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon fresh lemon zest
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 cup black raspberry preserves (or any variety you prefer)

Cream together sugar & butter, then beat in the egg & extract. Stir in the flours, zest, salt, cinnamon, & nutmeg until the dough comes together in a ball. Wrap in plastic & refrigerate for an hour.

When its good & chilled, preheat the oven to 400 degrees, & lightly flour a work surface. Roll the dough out till it’s 1/8 of an inch thick. Use the rim of a glass or your favorite cookie cutter to cut out shapes, & use a smaller rim of a glass cookie cutter to punch a hole in half the cookies.

Bake cookies on parchment-lined baking sheets for 5-7 minutes until they start to brown. Let them cool for at least an hour.

Place all your “top” cookies - the ones with holes punched in them - on a place or cookie sheet &, using a sifter, sprinkle them all with the powdered sugar. Turn the “bottom” cookies upside-down & put a teaspoon or so dollop of the preserves on top. Sandwich the tops & bottoms together, making sure the preserves squish through the hole & look scrumptious.

Eat & Enjoy!

warming chocolate & black pepper ice cream

Sat, 05 Feb 2011 18:04:00 -0500

Back in November, I was browsing through David Lebovitz’s blog & stumbled upon a recipe for Milk Chocolate & Black Pepper ice cream that he swore would make sense on your taste buds, even if the initial thought of pairing the two sounded a bit odd. I was intrigued, so on a walk-by of Heather’s Heat & Flavor during Thanksgiving in Cleveland, I stuck my nose into no less than eight jars of peppercorns, trying to sniff out which one could possibly have undetectable chocolate notes to complement chocolate ice cream.

Failing this, I asked advice of the shop’s proprietors, & although they thought I was more than a little crazy to even consider peppering chocolate, they happily sold me three different kinds of pepper, in addition to two different kinds of cinnamon & one pouch of cocoa (you can never have too much cinnamon or cocoa, really).

I smuggled the drugs through airport security, no problem, & recently found myself back at my stovetop in Boston with a saucepan-full of hot & beautiful chocolate custard & freshly ground Grains of Paradise pepper in a small bowl, which I almost couldn’t bear to toss in. Even as I gave the grinds a final sniff, revealing an earthy scent & a mellow but present zing, I was hesitant. But never fear. Even if this combo originated from a clumsy cook elbowing a jar of pepper into chocolate, the result was a very happy accident. You’ll love it.

Pepper is one of those things that I always use, but never give much thought to - what does its fruit look like, where does it come from, & most importantly for my ancient-looking jar, how long does it take for it to spoil? It’s time I started paying as much attention to it as I do my salt (yes, I do pay salt lots of attention). Starting now, with the diva-licious Grains of Paradise.

Grains of Paradise are pepper-y, but technically, these Africa-natives are members of the zingiberaceae family & I hardly think there could be a more appropriate name. Zing? Absolutely. This is the same family that gives us ginger, cardamom & turmeric, & its members are typically known for their medicinal properties, zippy flavors & warming sensations.

Through the years, Grains of Paradise has been used for its antimicrobial & antifungal properties to treat everything from measles to leprosy to heartburn to bad breath (quite the repertoire), but it was most commonly used to flavor Hippocras, a spiced wine that was very much enjoyed during the Middle Ages & was a favorite drink of Louis XIV. Today, in a reincarnation of this tradition, Grains of Paradise makes a yearly appearance in Samuel Adams Summer Ale. Following tradition of course, perhaps we should consider using the seasonal ale as a mouthwash?

Hm…

Now, after all this Paradise talk, I suppose I should let you know that any high-quality pepper will give this ice cream a contemporary edge. As long as it’s fresh, grind it up, throw it in, & see what kind of flavors it brings out. I used my [clean] coffee grinder to make sure the pepper was ground up enough so that there weren’t whole peppercorns to accidentally crunch down on, but not so much that it was powdered & the texture was completely lost.

Also, the original recipe called for milk chocolate, & sure, maybe that tastes good too, but I’m a bittersweet gal through & through - just ask Mr. A - & while the milk chocolate-pepper combo might allow more of the pepper flavor to come through, I was more interested in adding a little something special to an already fabulous dark chocolate ice cream, rather than the other way around.

The result is a pepper-studded cream that warms your throat as you swallow, even though it might still give you a brain freeze moment if you’re not careful. It’s a more mellow version of the popular chili-chocolate friendship & it just adds a little extra something to your standard chocolate ice cream.

Thanks to Living the Sweet Life in Paris for this brilliance.

Chocolate & Black Pepper Ice Cream

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate in chip or chopped form
3 cups Half & Half
3/4 cups granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
4 egg yolks
2 teaspoons Cognac
1 tablespoon freshly ground pepper

Place chocolate in a large bowl, with a strainer over it, & set it aside.

In a saucepan, heat Half & Half, sugar, & salt over medium heat till it starts to steam. Meanwhile, whisk egg yolks together in a medium sized bowl. Once you see the milk steaming, pour it, little by little, into the yolks, whisking with each addition.

After most of the milk is added, pour it all back into the saucepan & continue to heat until the mixture thickens. (Running your finger along the back of the spoon with leave a solid trail that does not run).

Pour the custard through the strainer over the chocolate, then stir the chocolate till it melts. Add in the Cognac & pepper.

Let it cool down in the refrigerator for at least a couple hours before freezing in your ice cream maker. Yes, YOUR ice cream maker. It really isn’t as big of an investment as you might think…

Eat & Enjoy!

tea with cookies, cookies with tea

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 12:56:00 -0500

To be perfectly honest, I’m growing a bit weary of writing about the snowy comfort foods, but since it is only the beginning of February, I suppose it’s only fair that Ms. Winter still gets to continue in full force for a while yet, no matter what Sir Phil reports (who, by the way, is currently under investigation for fraud).

But when will the cozy comfort food ideas run out?? Never, I say. Never. Today I’m going with a bit of a lighter concoction: the perfect cookie for dipping in your warm cup of tea or coffee…or hot chocolate, for those super-indulgent folks out there (I tip my insulated, waterproof hood to you all). But really, they’re most appropriate with tea, since these cookies actually contain the leaves of camellia sinensis inside of them - a spicy blend of black tea, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, clove, & cardamom, or, in a word, chai.

In the most literal of terms, chai (pronounced as an affricate at the front of your mouth for all you Jews who are still saying it gutturally) simply means “tea” in Hindi. But for most of us in the US of A, chai signifies a beverage that is warming in temperature, taste, & texture, due to the common way of serving the cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, & clove-spiked tea with hot, frothy milk.

This spice blend, served as a warm beverage sans tea leaves, can be traced back to over 5000 years ago, when it was served to the Indian elite as a remedy according to the ayurvedic medial system, which regards health as a complex balance between three elemental energies. The spice components of the blend - all native to India - served different purposes within the body, & masala chai was considered a healing beverage with a variety of nutritional benefits.

Fast forward a few thousand years to the rapidly expanding British empire in the mid-1600s. Explorations of the Far East brought tea to Britain, & as is usually the case with new, imported, exotic goods, tea drinking was very expensive &, therefore, very fashionable. The wife of Charles II, Queen Catherine of Braganza, was a tea-drinking trend-setter, & by the early-1800s, tea consumption had become popular among the masses as well. The East India Company then decided to try growing their beloved tea in India instead of exclusively sourcing it from China, & in an act of reverse colonialism, the tea plants & the native masala blend became fast friends & masala chai took both India & Britain by storm. I suppose it’s not the worst thing to come out of colonialism.

In recent years, all things chai have become increasingly more widespread & popular. Back at the pink & brown bakery, we made a Chai Latte Cookie whose dough contained the contents of Chai tea bags & white chocolate chunks (that was the “latte” part). They were chewy & spicy - no need to dip them in anything or enjoy them with any accompaniment whatsoever. They were a meal unto themselves, & we only made them once a week, adding to their alluring mystique.

That’s not quite what I wanted to recreate today, but I was after the aromatic chai-ness of them. So, as usual, Cook’s Illustrated provided the bones of this recipe, but I had to customize it a bit to add the spicy intrigue. I might try this again with Earl Gray tea or a little lemon zest & poppy seeds or toasted slivered almonds…lots of possibilities, really. Just imagine any light flavor you’d want in cookie form & figure out how to pack that light flavor into two tablespoons worth of dry ingredient.

A couple noteworthy items: if you don’t have superfine sugar on hand, put a cup of granulated sugar in a food processor or coffee grinder & swish it up for 20-30 seconds; & as for the chai, if you’re using loose tea, you’re in luck, because it’s easy to measure out two tablespoons, but if you’re like me & only have teabags, cut them open to measure - I used Stash Chai Spiced Black Tea & ended up dumping six bags into my dough. Also, this recipe makes a lot of cookies, which is great if you’re hungry now & great if you anticipate being hungry a week from now: the dough freezes well if you double-wrap it in plastic.

Chai Spiced Butter Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup superfine sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg + 1 yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 + 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons chai (yes, the actual tea)

Beat together the butter, sugar & salt until it’s nice & fluffy.

Add in the yolk to combine, then add in the egg & vanilla & continue to beat till it’s a pale yellow pillow of sweetness.

Stir in the flours & tea till everything just comes together. Then, divide the dough in half & wrap each half in plastic wrap. Put the dough in the refrigerator for at least an hour (or this is when you could stow it away in the freezer).

After it’s had time to chill, lightly flour a work surface & roll the dough out to about 1/8 inch thickness & cut out whatever shape seems right to you. Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven on parchment-lined baking sheets for 6-8 minutes, till the bottoms are starting to brown.

Eat & Enjoy!

hello weekend gianduia truffle tart

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:38:00 -0500

Hazelnut + chocolate is one of my favorite flavor combinations ever. In gelato terms, thats a cup filled half with hazelnut & half with chocolate, every spoonful with some of each. In candy terms, that’s Ferrero Rocher or any truffle that combines the two. & in daily quick fix terms, that means a spoonful of Nutella, jar to mouth with no interference. Don’t pretend you don’t do this. The peanuts & chocolate combo runs a close second, but that’s a story for a different day. Today, beautiful Friday with a couple a snow-free days ahead of us, is for gianduia truffle tart.

Gianduia is a Piedmontese marionette character, known for his affinity for wine, food, & the lovely lady marionettes. But due to the fame of hazelnut confections in the Piedmont area of Italy, Gianduia has evolved to become the name associated with a hazelnut sweet things, like gelato or a truffle. But this wasn’t always the case.

Back in the 1940s, Signore Pietro Ferrero, the pastry maker who would go on to found the great hazelnut-chocolate companies, Nutella & Ferrero Rocher, was trying to make ends meet when rationing due to World War II was making chocolate scarce. He brilliantly chose hazelnuts to fill in for the lacking chocolate & apparently, the nutty edge to his chocolate treats stuck. He called his original company “Pasta Gianduia,” using the marionette as a marketing tactic to appeal to children, & since then, gianduia has stood for the beautiful hazelnut-chocolate marriage in Italy, no matter if the product has the Ferrero stamp of approval or not.

This tart is, truly, very easy to make, thanks to Joanne Chang’s simple recipe for a Homemade Nutella Tart, upon which this recipe is based.. I have faith in you. If you’ve made pie dough before, you can certainly make a tart shell, & if you’ve heated milk on the stove before, you can absolutely make the chocolate filling. Besides, there’s very little that can go wrong when you’re working with chocolate & hazelnuts. There isn’t even any baking involved after you’re done with the tart shell. & the velvety chocolate, paired with the soft crunch of the shortbread-like tart is the best reward of all.

Pate Sucree Tart Shell

1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon milk

Combine sugar, salt, & flour, then cut in butter, one tablespoon at a time, till the mixture is sandy looking. Stir in yolk & milk till the dough comes together in a ball, then pat into a rectangle about 1-inch thick, wrap in plastic, & refrigerate for an hour.

On a well floured surface, roll the dough out to a circle with an 11-inch diameter. Press dough into a tart pan, trimming the edges & using the excess to patch up any holes or build up areas that look a little thin. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes until the tart shell is a warm golden brown & your kitchen is perfumed with buttery sweet goodness.

Gianduia Truffle Filling

1 + 1/2 cups whole hazelnuts
2 cups Half & Half
16 ounces semisweet chocolate
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt

Toast hazelnuts in a 350 degree oven until the nuts are fragrant & browned, about 10 minutes, then rub the skins off each nut. I know this sounds tedious, but if they’re toasted enough, the skins come right off. Then, count out 20 nuts & set aside - these are for decorating purposes. Divide the rest of the nuts in half. Grind one half till fine, & roughly chop the other half.

Heat the finely ground hazelnuts & the Half & Half over medium heat till the mixture is steaming but not quite boiling. Then, turn off the heat & let the hazelnuttiness infuse the milk for about an hour.

Meanwhile, place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl, & set a mesh strainer on top of the bowl. Then go relax for a bit.

After the hour is up, gently reheat the milk mixture back to the steaming point, then pour the mixture into the strainer over the chocolate & filter out all the little hazelnut bits.

Stir the chocolate & milk together to melt the chocolate, add the chopped hazelnuts, the vanilla, & the salt & mix it all up. Pour this into the prepared tart shell, smooth the top, decorate with the remaining whole hazelnuts & then refrigerate for about 4 hours to set. Make it pretty, & this will definitely impress.

Eat & Enjoy!

P.S. I didn’t try it this time, but I’m fairly sure that, if you’re over the moon for this filling, you could refrigerate the filling while it’s still in the bowl, then scoop it into balls with whole hazelnuts in the centers, sprinkle crushed hazelnuts on the outsides & call yourself master of Ferrero Rocher. Maybe you’ll see this grace the pages of Sweet Hearth soon…

snowstorm prep: cream & currant scones

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 19:36:00 -0500

& winter continues! We have another storm on the way, even though Boston has by far surpassed its snow quota for the month, season, & year. Most of us have, of course, gotten into the snow prep groove - making sure we have the necessary groceries so we won’t need to leave the house; placing the shovels & ice scrapers, boots & gloves out by door; pulling our windshield wipers up so they don’t freeze to the window.

But I bet most people haven’t thought to round out their prep with scones, insuring a delicious breakfast to savor while the flakes pile up outside & a filling snack to warm you after pumping the snowy iron as you dig your front steps, car, or entire roof out of the white mess.

They’re simple & delicious. & they have currants. Currants are like diminutive raisins. An elegant form of the dried grape. Almost haute couture. Very…au courant, if you will.

Ahem. Did I take that too far?

Anyways, currants come from a small, hardy shrub that is quite different from a grape vine, despite the similar taste of the dried berries to raisins. & even though they are rather delicious, packing all the punch of grapes with just a tad more brightness, currants are less widespread than raisins, probably due to the fact that currant cultivation was banned in the United States from 1911 to 2003.

During this past almost-century, currants scared the bejeezus out of people, since they thought cultivation might threaten the timber industry. A certain disease, by the name of White Pine Blister Rust, loves those to feed off the needled pines & also likes to gestate in the shrub (though it does not harm them). This ban has since been lifted, but people still aren’t crazy about the risk. I don’t blame them. Any disease that combines the words “blister” & “rust” sounds pretty awful to me.

But when they’re added to scones, the tiny fruit is a perfect complement to these light & flaky pastries, which aren’t anywhere near the overly sweet hockey pucks that Starbucks passes off as a breakfast treat of the same name. Pulling these open reveals a layered interior that provides a great canvas for butter, jam, or, as I like, nothing - they are flavorful enough on their own & seem to be made for eating with your fingers, flaky layer by flaky layer, as the other flakes pile up outside.

Cream & Currant Scones

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, grated & cold
1/2 cup currants
1 cup + 2 tablespoons Half & Half, divided

In a large bowl, combine the flours, baking powder, sugar, salt & cinnamon, if you so desire.

Then, quickly, toss in the butter & stir gently till the butter is well dispersed before adding in the currants.

Pour in the Half & Half & stir till combined & then knead a couple times till a ball forms. Place the ball & bowl in the refrigerator for 10 minutes.

Lightly flour a work surface & roll out the dough to a square about 12 x 12 inches. Then, fold the dough, as you would a business envelope into thirds & fold that 4 x 12 rectangle into thirds again to form a 4 x 4 square. Place the square back into the bowl & back into the fridge for another 5 minutes (we just want to keep it nice & cold at this point).

Roll the dough out again into a 12 x 12 square & starting from one end, roll the dough into a log, patting it down to about 12 x 4 once you reach the end.

With a very sharp knife, cut the dough into 4 squares, then cut each square on the diagonal to form 8 triangles. Place triangles on a parchment-lined cookie sheet, brush with the remaining 2 tablespoons of Half & Half, & bake for 12-14 minutes in a preheated, 425 degree oven until the scones are a light golden brown.

Eat & Enjoy!

"When my great-uncle August was in his twenties, he left Iowa & went to study cake decorating at..."

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 10:41:00 -0500

“When my great-uncle August was in his twenties, he left Iowa & went to study cake decorating at the National Baking Institute in Chicago. He learned everything from spun sugar decorations to ice sculpture. He went to school for 2 years & when he finished, he went back to Iowa & worked in the family bakery. Except for the odd wedding cake, he never used the fancy stuff he learned. He was in charge of yeast breads & cinnamon rolls. Just after the end of WW II, the Valley Dairy Farmer’s Association had the first of the now famous Milk & Honey Festivals. August made a model of the Statue of Liberty out of 250 pounds of white cheddar cheese, surrounded by American Beauty roses of spun sugar, especially for the occasion. He showed me the page from Life magazine he kept folded up in his wallet, one summer when we visited. On it was a picture of a much younger man, smiling next to a 4 foot tall Liberty. He told me he had 6 proposals of marriage from that photo, one from the East Coast even & he smiled & I saw him grow 30 years younger & I knew in our hearts we never get old.”

- Brian Andreas

breakfast, lunch & dinner brioche

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 12:47:00 -0500

Like the elusive perfect baguette, brioche is one of those breads that always looks picture perfect when you’re standing in the right bakery. If I let myself buy one, it takes an impossible amount of self-restraint not to bite into it the second my claws pounce upon it, & when I do take it, that first bite is the divinely-inspired juxtaposition of flaky, buttery goodness supported by a light & airy pillow of bread.

Less like a pastry & a bit more substantial than a croissant, brioche is your pre-buttered bread that goes well with, well, everything. Plain? Definitely. Jam? No doubt. Cheesy & grilled? Yes, please. It goes from sweet to savory & back again. Of course I want to make it. Don’t you? Ok, maybe you just want to eat it. I know I do.

Brioche is one of the richest breads out there that’s still considered “bread” & not “pastry.” It contains an obscene amount of eggs & butter - an amount that would be considered disgusting if only it didn’t taste so damn good. The word itself comes from the French, meaning “to grind” or “to knead,” which hardly does it justice. Why couldn’t they have come up with something more fitting, like, The Best Bread Ever or Gluttonous Deliciousness? Only, it would be translated into French, automatically sounding more beautiful, tasty & well, classy. If I’d been there, I would have steered them towards something better.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t there. & apparently, neither was Marie Antoinette. Most of us have, at one time or another, learned something about French history or at least heard about Marie Antoinette & her insensitivity towards the peasants when she gave them the figurative royal middle finger in saying, “Let them eat cake,” when she heard that they had no bread to eat. You might have heard that this proclamation is grossly mistranslated (or, rather, deliciously mistranslated), since the original French was: “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.” Even if you’ve never spoken, heard, or seen French before, you know that the word there is brioche, which is obviously not “cake,” at least, not in the English sense of the word.

But for a bigger shock, it’s possible that Marie Antoinette never even uttered these words. We get this proclamation from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s autobiography, Confessions, & in it, he attributes this phrase to an unnamed “great princess.” At the time that he wrote this, Marie Antoinette was just thirteen years old. It all sounds like a lie to me.

Luckily, there’s no falsehood in brioche itself.

I mixed this dough on Friday afternoon, refrigerated it overnight, & then woke up a little early on Saturday morning to finish it off so we could eat it with scrambled eggs for breakfast. I was even able to squirrel away some slices from the hungry Mr. A to leave out for the rest of the day & night, & today, they took a soak in some milk & made some beautiful French toast.

I know it sounds like a lot of time, but it’s worth it, & it really doesn’t take much work.

Brioche

Sponge

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1/2 cup milk, warmed to around 90 degrees

Dough

5 eggs, room temperature
1 + 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 + 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1 + 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

Egg Wash

1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon water

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour & yeast, then add in the warmed milk, mix it up, & let it sit for about 25 minutes.

Mix in the eggs, then the flours, sugar, & salt, & stir till it all comes together uniformly.

Add in the butter, a couple tablespoons at a time, mixing it with each addition to incorporate it slowly. (I kept my mixer on a low speed & added 2 tablespoons every minute or so). Then, once all the butter is added, continue to mix a bit more till the dough is nice & smooth, if a little sticky still.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, then turn the dough out onto it & flatten into a thick rectangle. Spray some plastic wrap with oil, then use it to cover the baking sheet, & put the whole thing in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours or overnight.

The next morning (or just later in the day)…

Butter up 2 loaf pans (or use these & forget about needing to grease ever again).

Remove the baking sheet from the refrigerator, lightly flour your hands, divide dough into 16 equal portions, & roll each portion into a ball. Then, place 8 dough balls in two rows of four balls in each loaf pan. It’s ok if you have to squeeze them in there. Lightly spray plastic wrap & place over each loaf pan before putting the pans in a warm place to rise for 1.5 hours.

After, when the dough has almost reached the top of the pans, whisk the yolk & water together & brush it onto the tops of both loaves. Replace the plastic wrap (spray them with a little more oil), preheat the oven to 400 degrees, & let the loaves rise a little more for about 30 minutes.

By now, the dough should have risen just above the tops of the loaf pans. Remove the plastic wrap, place the pans in the oven, & bake for about 25 minutes till they’re a mouthwatering golden brown & your kitchen smells buttery good.

Wait, if you can, for them to cool a little, then slice, eat & enjoy!

ice outside, cappuccino ice cream in the kitchen

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 19:08:00 -0500

We woke up again yesterday to a winter wonderland, but since it just snowed a significant amount on Tuesday, this snow feels less like wonder & more like plain ol’ winter. Betty White is further buried - I did dig her out today, though, & the full-body ache is slowly setting in as I type - the sidewalks are icier where neighbors are, like myself, too lazy to dig, but in my kitchen, we’re defying winter. Who says you can’t have ice cream when the mercury dips below a certain point? Not me. & to all the naysayers out there, I wave my delicious cup of ice cream in front of your faces.

The truth is, being cold outside can go two ways: either your heat is malfunctioning & you desperately need something hot to warm your icy innards, or you’re so into being cozy, with the fireplace & the blankets & the warm clothes, that you’re actually quite warm & could use something chilled. Hopefully you are in the latter category (if not, I send happy space heater thoughts your way), & will indulge me in a ice cream so chock-full-o’ coffee that you might as well have it for breakfast.

& if you were in Italy, I think that would be perfectly acceptable. After all, according to many sources, ordering a cappuccino in an Italian cafe after 11am is punishable by death (I don’t entirely believe them, as I was never even slapped in the face when I ordered a post-prandial espresso & milk combo), but before the almost-noon hour, it is the drink of choice, & it is to be consumed standing up, at an espresso bar, in just a few sips. It is served hot but not scorching, so no need to let it cool off or blow on it, just tilt it back with your head & get on with the morning. So, cappuccino in ice cream (ok, it’s not gelato, but maybe next time), I can only assume that it would be welcomed with open arms & baci.

However, cappuccino’s namesake might not be so open to such a decadent breakfast. Cappuccino gets its name from the Capuchin monks, an order of the Catholic Church that arose in the early 1500s. The Capuchins are a Franciscan offshoot whose followers wanted to live more primitively than the Franciscan monks at the time - no one was to touch money & everything was to be acquired via begging - & so, like most stories of how radical religious sects begin, the Capuchins were initially persecuted due to their differing strain of beliefs. They eventually found refuge among another sect of monks & in gratitude, the Capuchins from then on donned the same hoods that this other sect wore (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?) - hoods called cappuccio.

Current speculation suggests that, in another act of flattery, cappuccinos are named after the Capuchins, since the frothy milk looks like a little hood on the espresso. I don’t think the monks would be too thrilled about this connection. They might, however, appreciate the naming of the Capuchin monkey…

This recipe makes a strong batch of coffee-infused ice cream, & I mixed in some cacao nib brittle to add a little extra dimension & crunch to it. That part is certainly optional if you’re just looking for your caffeine fix, but the light chocolate aroma & hint of sweetness from the brittle make a good companion to this ice cream.

Cappuccino Ice Cream

3 cups half & half
3/4 cups granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 cup coffee, medium grind
4 egg yolks, whisked together

In a saucepan, gently heat half & half, sugar, vanilla, & coffee over medium heat until the mixture begins to steam. Then, little by little, add it to the egg yolks, stirring all the while so that the eggs get accustomed to the heat.

Pour the yolk mixture back into the saucepan, & continue to heat over medium heat, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens (running your finger through the mixture on the back of the spoon will leave a trail that doesn’t drip off).

Set a mesh strainer over a bowl, & once the mixture has thickened, strain it into the bowl - this will catch larger coffee grounds & any egg yolk that might have cooked.

Let this cool in the refrigerator for at least three hours before freezing it in your ice cream machine.

Cacao Nib Brittle

from Joanne Chang’s Flour

1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup cacao nibs
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
Pinch of salt

Line a rimmed cookie sheet with parchment paper & spray with canola oil.

In a sauce pan, heat the sugar & water over high heat until it boils. Continue to boil for about 5 minutes, or until the color of the syrup changes to a golden brown.

Pour in the cacao nibs & swirl them around in the saucepan until the golden turns to amber.

Then, remove form heat & whisk in the butter & salt. Quickly pour the mixture into the cookie sheet, tilting the sheet a little in every direction to let it spread evenly.

Let it cool for about an hour. When you’re ready, break the brittle up into whatever size pieces you need. Larger pieces look nice for garnishing, but smalled pieces are good for mixing into the ice cream. To get them nice & small, but the brittle into a Ziploc bag & use your rolling pin over it to crush the pieces. Stir them into the ice cream after it’s already been frozen in the ice cream machine.

Eat & Enjoy!

wintry mix of salted butter, chocolate chips & nutmeg

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:59:00 -0500

No apologies, no excuses, thank you Madame Child. It’s January 19th & after quite some time, Sweet Hearth is back in action. Happy 2011! December was a blur of red & green M&Ms, car rides with Betty White (my car, not the actress, though the two are not entirely dissimilar) & Mariah Carey, & snowsnowsnow. We just got dumped on again last week, & then again yesterday, & now it’s nothing but cold rain. But I’m not complaining.

I considered digging Betty White (the actress) out of her igloo (just kidding), before the snow-turned-freezing rain formed an impenetrable force field of ice that will last until Spring, but then I reconsidered, because what better way to break in the 2011 Sweet Hearth than to make a back-to-the-basics-with-a-twist salted butter chocolate chip cookie?

There is no better way, of course. Trust me. Sure beats shoveling snow.

Salted butter is usually verboten when it comes to baking, since, as a science of exact measurements, the variability that comes with a butter that contains however much salt its brand decides on (& yes, it varies widely from one brand to the next) is too much for OCD bakers. We like to know exactly how many individual grains of salt are going into our doughs & batters, so the range of 1-2% salt that salted butter contains is too much of a gamble.

& normally I stick to this rule. Sweet cream, unsalted butter is a clean palette to build some sweet thing upon, & in most instances, unsalted butter is actually more fresh than its saltier counterpart. Salt was originally added to butter as a preservative - since it’s able to draw water out from the interior of foods, it acts as a natural antimicrobial agent, & it can keep the dairy from going bad for months on end, even though butter is usually viewed as the epitome of farm fresh goodness. The reality is that the salted butter on the grocery shelf can be, well, old, & although it’s still technically “good,” I don’t know about you, but the thought of old dairy gives me the creeps.

However, salted butter does carry its own special something that butter + salt doesn’t quite equate. In fact, the flavors that come out when one uses salted butter in a sweet recipe can be very different, & not in a “this tastes old way” - pleasantly so. Especially with the recent trends of salted caramels & fat grains of sea salt atop all things sweet, why not use salted butter in cookies, & deliberately so - not just because I ran out of sweet cream & I can’t bear to leave the house?

David Leibovitz provided the bones of this salted butter chocolate chip cookie, but since its chilling to the bone outside, I decided a little extra warmth in these cookies would be a welcome twist on the standard. Nutmeg adds a subtle spice, just barely detectable, but warming all the same, to the already comforting stand-by. I went with freshly grated, since it smells heavenly & little threads of it deliver an elegance that the ground stuff doesn’t usually achieve. However, if all you’ve got is ground, go ahead & add it - it’ll still add a nice bit of something different.

& hold up. Can we just take a moment to look at how cool the innards of this plain, brown seed are? Way to be fierce, nutmeg. Tyra would be proud.

Salted Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies with Nutmeg

4 ounces salted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 + 1/3 white whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons nutmeg, freshly grated
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

Cream together butter & both sugars till smooth like the blanket of snow outside.

Beat in the egg & vanilla, letting the mixture lighten & get shiny.

Stir together flour, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, & chocolate chips, then add it into the creamed & beaten mixture.

Scoop the dough into 2-tablespoon-sized balls (I use a #40 scoop) onto parchment-lined cookie sheets & bake for 10-12 minutes till they’re just set in a preheated 350 degree oven. Makes about 2 dozen cookies.

Eat & Enjoy hot out of the oven on a cold winter day!

"I don’t believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanations over the food you..."

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 08:25:07 -0500

“I don’t believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanations over the food you make. When one’s hostess starts in with self-deprecations such as “Oh, I don’t know how to cook … ,” or “Poor little me … ,” or “This may taste awful … ,” it is so dreadful to have to reassure her that everything is delicious and fine, whether it is or not. Besides, such admissions only draw attention to one’s shortcomings (or self-perceived shortcomings), and make the other person think, “Yes, you’re right, this really is an awful meal!” Maybe the cat has fallen into the stew, or the lettuce has frozen, or the cake has collapsed - eh bien, tant pis!”

- Madame Julia Child

dreary afternoon biscotti

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 18:06:00 -0500

As the weatherman said this morning, two parallel lines of “weather” were flanking Boston today, with nary a drop to be found in Boston proper. I actually felt more than a few drops (thanks, weatherman) as the sun shone & the temperatures climbed into the 40s, & combined with the steadily sinking sun, I’ve got all the lights in the room on to stave off the gloom outside.

Here’s the cure: hot tea & biscotti.

In Italy, the word “biscotti” means “twice-cooked” - “bis” meaning “two” & “coctus” meaning “cook” - & refers to virtually any hard biscuit (if you think about it, the words “biscotti” & “biscuit” are the same word). Really. If you peruse the supermarket aisles there, you’ll find entire biscotti aisles, akin to our supermarkets’ sections for crackers or chips.

But when most of us envision “biscotti,” we think of something very specific, & those specific somethings are known to Italians as, “cantucci.” For these cookies, a sweet dough is shaped into a large oval & then, once baked through, the oval is sliced, the slices are individually turned on their sides, & the cookie is baked again.

The resulting oblong cookie is usually studded with almonds, pistachios, or chocolate (yum), & its consistency is hard enough to break a tooth if you’re not careful & don’t take the time to dip it in some sort of liquid before consuming. Italians like to dip their cantucci in espresso or Vin Santo (literally, “holy wine”) to soften them & to make eating them an actually enjoyable experience.

If you happen to be in southern Italy around Lent, however, you’ll find that these same exact cookies go by the name “quaresimali,” as in “cookies that are eaten during Quaresima” - the Lenten fast. & if you happen to be at my parents’ house at any time of the year, you’ll find that these cookies go by the name “mandelbrot” (literally, “almond bread”), & we store them in the freezer for optimal crunch. (And I’m not talking about a mathematical set of points in the complex plane, you math geek, you).

Mandel bread is the Eastern European Jewish equivalent of Italian biscotti, though a connection between the two is barely discernable (though I plan to have my way with this connection very soon). The main difference between two region’s interpretation seems to be the presence of a fat, making the Eastern European version a little softer &, therefore, a little easier on the teeth. Who knows? Maybe our dipping arms are so tired after Passover** that we prefer a low-maintenance cookie to eat during the rest of the year.

This recipe is the same one my mom has been using for years, with my contribution being the ground anise for a little extra something. You won’t break any teeth with these, though best to have something hot to dip them in to up the warm & fuzzy factor. Also, gotta practice for Passover…

Monday is for Mandel Bread

2/3 c vegetable oil
1 c granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups white whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp anise seeds, ground
1 + 1/2 cups slivered almonds, toasted

Stir up the vegetable oil, sugar, eggs & vanilla. Add in the flour, baking powder, salt, & anise. Then mix in the almonds. Easy as that.

Divide the dough in half & shape each half into a long, oval loaf on a cookie sheet - roughly 12 inches long x 5 inches wide x 1 inch tall - & bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes, until the tops are lightly golden-ed & the dough doesn’t give much if you press lightly on it with a finger.

After this, remove from the oven & give them 10-15 minutes to cool off. When you can handle them, slice each loaf on the diagonal so that you end up with about 30 biscotti-shaped cookies. Turn each cookie on it’s side, cut side exposed, & return them to a 200 degree oven for about 15-20 minutes till they’re toasted.

Eat & Enjoy!

** I was hoping to find an amusing link about dipping things on Passover. Unfortunately, no one has anything funny to say about this odd ritual. Sad, I know. The short of it is that on Passover, we dip foods in other foods, & not once, but twice. If you find anything remotely entertaining about Passover dipping, please tell me.

more-than-decadent chocolate mousse ice cream

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:15:00 -0500

So, I just noticed that it has been entirely too long time since chocolate has been part of my Sweet Hearth musings (ok, it’s been entirely too long since I last posted, but that’s beside the point). A whole month! How can I even call myself a chocolate-lover?! This is inexcusable. I hang my head in shame.

To make up for it, today I bring you some of the most amazing chocolate ice cream ever. Actually, ice cream is a bit inaccurate. This is more of a frozen chocolate mousse: all the wonder of chocolate mousse, but a little more solid, a little more cold.

Now, normally, I do everything I can to avoid using more tools than absolutely necessary, because in this apartment sans dishwasher, I know that my own two hands will have to deal with the repercussions of any extra spoon or bowl dirtied. This means that I scan recipes before I begin, looking for the smallest measurement called for & use that measuring utensil, so I often find myself scooping out 2 cups of flour with a 1/4 cup scoop. Ok, it’s a little embarrassing now that I type it out, but I really, really hate doing unnecessary dishwashing. & at least I get to practice my counting.

Anyways, back to the chocolate. When I looked over this recipe, I realized that it required lots of dishes. Like, way more than I usually consider acceptable. A small saucepan. A medium saucepan. An electric mixer. A bowl with a strainer. Ugh, it gives me the chills just thinking about it. But what can I say? The lovely Orangette won me over in writing out the recipe (she usually does), & I decided to put my laziness aside & follow her lead.

After all that, I’m glad I gave it a chance. The end result is delicious & not quite like any other chocolate ice cream I’ve ever had, because essentially, you’re making a mousse instead of a standard custard base. Most ice creams begin by stirring eggs into hot milk or cream & then continuing to stir basically non-stop until the mixture thickens into a custard. If you’re making a fresh fruit tart or eclairs or something else that is filled with custard, you’d take the mixture off the stove at that point, chill it in the fridge, & then use as necessary. For ice cream, instead of sitting in the fridge, the mixture goes into an ice cream maker & is slowly frozen to achieve that cold but not frosty ice cream mouthfeel.

For this recipe, however, the process is slightly different: you begin by whipping the eggs for a few minutes to incorporate lots of air into them, & then you add them to the hot milk or cream mixture. This seemingly small change alters the entire composition of the ice cream, giving it a light & airy texture while still being very rich akin to mousse, unlike the heavier custard that we’re used to.

It’s this that requires so many bowls & utensils, but it is also this that sets it apart from everyday ice cream. That’s not to say that I’ll be making this on a recurring basis, but maybe I’ll keep it as a trick up my sleeve for a special occasion…

Mr. A says: “It’s better than fudge, which is too sweet; it’s better than ice cream because it’s fluffier; & it’s better than a baked good because it’s cold, refreshing, & filling. Essentially, it’s the perfect dessert. Imagine my reaction if you came up with a vanilla version of this! Oh man, endless praise would come. Endless praise.”

Vanilla version TK, obviously.

More-than-decadent Chocolate Mousse Ice Cream

8 oz bittersweet chocolate chips
1 cup milk
1 cup 1/2 & 1/2
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup + 3 Tb granulated sugar
3 Tb water
6 egg yolks
1/8 tsp salt

Place the chocolate in a large heatproof bowl & position a strainer on top. Set aside.

In a small saucepan, bring the milk, cream, & vanilla to a boil, then remove from heat, cover, & set aside.

In a medium saucepan, stir 1/2 cup of sugar & water together over a gentle heat, & let it simmer for about ten minutes, swirling the pan to keep the mixture moving every so often. You want it to get to a caramel color.

Then, over a low heat, gently add the warmed milk mixture to the caramel & whisk together. The caramel may seize up with the addition of the cooler mixture, but keep stirring over the heat till it dissolves again.

Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks & the remaining 3 Tb of sugar with an electric mixer until they’re light & fluffy, about 5 minutes.

With the mixer on low, add the caramel milk to the yolks in a slow, steady stream. Once it’s all incorporated, pour the mixture back into the saucepan & heat over a low flame until it thickens (when you run your finger through the mixture on the back of a spoon, your finger will leave a clear trail). Try not to let the mixture boil.

After it has thickened, remove the mixture from the heat & pour it through the strainer into the bowl of chocolate. Let it sit for about 60 seconds to melt the chocolate, then stir it all up till smooth.

Cover the bowl & let it come down to room temperature in the fridge for at least an hour, then freeze in your ice cream machine or according to your own creative methods.

Eat & Enjoy!

sagittarian sunshine olive oil cake

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 21:38:00 -0500

Tonight marks the beginning of that eight night ode to miracles & lights, & as a new spin on all things fried & dripping with oil, I started thinking about a miraculous cake that I saw grow up on a warm June day in 2008, on sixty acres of land in Castelvetrano, Sicily where Olio Verde produces their famous unfiltered olive oil.

That day, Gabriella Becchina, the heiress to Olio Verde who possesses the kind of beauty that Americans usually only see on billboards or in magazine ads - the kind of beauty that is commonplace in Italy - led a tour of the groves, & it ended with a tasting of different “vintages” of oils, learning about the changes in sediment, color, & therefore taste, as oil ages.

But it wasn’t the unique bouquet of flavors in the oil or the idyllic vision of precisely-planted olive trees that stopped me in my tracks. Rather, it was the pranzo, the mid-day meal, with ingredients that had just been picked, that had me hungering for more.

Fresher than fresh tomato-basil salads, drizzled with just enough olive oil to balance all the flavors; thinly sliced meats wrapped around a zucchini & cous cous combination; & long loaves of crusty bread to bring it all together…

…& then there was the dolce served afterwards: Torta all’olio.

Unlike most of the cakes I’ve come across in my Sweet Hearth endeavors, this cake uses olive oil as its primary fat. & this isn’t surprising, considering the tip of the Italian boot historically lacks cows & consistent cold storage yet excels in the olive oil department. So, rather than beginning a cake recipe by creaming butter & sugar until light & fluffy, or using tasteless canola oil to make a non-dairy version, southern Italians use olive oil as a rich, delicious, & local fat, even in their sweets.

Ladies & gentlemen, after this cake, my life was forever changed.

It had a dense, impossibly moist crumb, with the complex flavors of olive fruit, grass, & a slight bitterness (don’t make that face - these are all good things), rounded out by orange & lemon flavors, all of which had come directly from the land outside the door. It was delicious.

Today, I did my best to replicate this cake in my chilly Boston kitchen, though I had to convert the metric system recipe to my cups & teaspoons, & I wanted to bake it in a Bundt pan, with a dusting of sugar rather than a citrus glaze, as the original recipe calls for.

It’s still a far cry between the Sicilian late-Spring & Boston in the almost-Winter, but this Olive Oil Cake binds the two together in a fitting communion of olive oil richness & citrusy sunshine. It also happens to be a scrumptious tribute to oil & all the miracles that can be performed with it. Yum.

Scrape of a match. Crackle of flame. Wick to wick, then set in place. My mother’s baritone, which dances between keys with a strength that belongs solely to those who not only march to their own drummer but also sing with their own band, begins: ”Ma’oz tsur yeshu’ati…”

As the moon wanes into the darkest time of our calendar year, I wish you an exquisitely bright Festival of Light. A little cake never hurt anyone either.

Happy Chanukah!

Citrus-Laced Olive Oil Cake/Torta all’olio

2 whole lemons
2 whole oranges
3 cups sugar
5 eggs
1 + 3/4 cups extra virgin olive oil
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1 + 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp salt
1 + 1/2 tsp baking powder
Confectioners’ sugar for dusting

Place the sugar in a medium-sized bowl & zest both oranges & lemons into the sugar. Stir the zest around until it’s evenly dispersed, & set aside.

In a small bowl, juice the lemons & oranges to end up with about 3/4 cups of juice. Set that aside as well.

In a mixer, beat the eggs until they’re broken up & combined, then add the zesty sugar mixture & beat for 5 minutes, until it’s fluffy & a buttery yellow color. & while you’re waiting, combine the flours, salt & baking powder.

Alternating between the two, gently add the flour & oil to the sugared eggs, starting & ending with flour.

Lastly, gently stir in the lemon-orange juice.

Pour the batter into a greased Bundt pan & bake in a preheated 325 degree oven for around 75 minutes until it’s lightly browned on top.

After the cake has cooled for about 15 minutes, remove from pan, & when it’s really cool a little while later, dust it with confectioners’ sugar & make it look even more amazing than it already does. If you can resist, this cake magically grows even more moist on the second day. Go ahead & have it for breakfast.

Eat & Enjoy!

*NOTE: I’m not going to tell you to go out & buy expensive olive oil when you make this cake (oh yes, you will make it), but keep in mind that there’s a lot of olive oil in here & the flavor does come through. Try your olive oil before you pour it in here - if it has off-flavors, your cake will too.

flaky lemon-cranberry scones

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 21:47:32 -0500

Well, Turkey Day came & went, & now radio stations have permission to play All Christmas All the Time; the CVS Christmas selection seems a little more reasonable than it did last month; & us foodies are simultaneously struggling to finish our Thanksgiving leftovers while still making it to the gym on a regular basis so that we can eat more.

After so many days of eating the same thing, I think most of us are at our wit’s end when it comes to turkey sandwiches, but the flavors of this holiday season are so fantastic that I’m pretty excited that we get to stretch our stomachs for the next month in an effort to keep our mouths full of all the tasty goodness.

I still have a fridge drawer full of lemons, so I’m glad this recipe gave me the chance to lighten the load just a little bit, but the real star of these scones are the fresh cranberries.

Cranberries (no, not those cranberries) are actually one of only a few fruits that are native to American soil & were known as “popokwa” by American Indians. When English speakers first saw the tiny red fruits, they thought the flowers looked like cranes, which is how we get to “cranberry” today. I, however, vote for a return to “popokwa.”

Anyways, cranberries were integral to American Indian life before those Pilgrims presumably used them as a side dish at their first Thanksgiving table. Aside from being a food staple, cranberries are a natural astringent & were used as medicine (nothing helps an arrowhead wound like a cranberry poultice); & the berries made a strong contribution to fashion, strutting the runway as that deep red color that’s appropriately known today as “cranberry.”

Dried cranberries are pretty popular today as an alternative to raisins, but fresh cranberries rarely make an appearance on the table - & when they do, they’ve usually been boiled into a sauce & weighted down with sugar so that they scarcely resemble their former selves. But fresh cranberries are loaded with antioxidents, vitamins C & K, fiber, & manganese, making these juicy berries extremely healthy in addition to possessing a unique tartness that is actually pretty refreshing when it comes to cutting through all the not-as-wholesome treats of this season.

Yet that same tartness often deters people from partaking in this nutritious fruit, & after receiving fresh cranberries in my not-quite-CSA, I was determined to put them to good use without drowning them in sugar.

Actually, I really just wanted scones for breakfast this morning. But it just so happens that these are easy & seasonal & are a great post-Thanksgiving cool-down. (& with all the turkey going on, breakfast-appropriate leftovers never hurt anyone either). The cranberries go in coarsely chopped to retain their virtue, the lemon zest freshens & lightens, & the scones are just sweet enough to be delicious without compromising their place on the breakfast table.

To achieve the crunch on the exterior with a flaky, light interior, make sure all your ingredients are as cold as can be, & work quickly. These shouldn’t take too much time to pull together - for your sake & theirs.

Perfectly Flaky Lemon-Cranberry Scones

Dough

1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup + 3 Tb granulated sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tb fresh lemon zest
8 Tb unsalted butter, frozen & grated & frozen again
1 + 1/2 cups fresh cranberries, coarsely chopped

Topping

a couple Tb of milk
a couple Tb of granulated sugar

Whisk together the milk & yogurt until uniform, then place bowl in the fridge.

Toss the chopped cranberries with the 3 Tb of sugar & then let them sit in a colander to let the juices drain out.

Whisk together flours, 1/2 cup of the sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, & zest. Then, using your fingers, lightly toss in the butter till it’s evenly dispersed

Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture & stir till it’s just combined. Then, pull it together into a ball, knead it a couple times, & roll it out on a good & floured surface until it measures about one square foot, adding flour as needed.

Using a bench scraper or a good spatula, fold the dough onto itself in thirds as you do before placing a letter in an envelope. Then fold that rectangle into thirds again, creating a rough square. Place the square back into the bowl & refrigerate for about 15 minutes. Don’t clean up your work surface just yet.

After it’s chilled, take the dough square, & roll it out again into another one square foot, still using flour as needed. Then, sprinkle the cranberries all over the surface, pressing down a little to get them good & cozy in there.

Using that bench scraper or good spatula, roll the dough up, jelly-roll-style & flip it seam-side-down. Use your hands to coerce the log into becoming a rough 12 x 4 inch rectangle with a relatively flat top.

Then, with a sharp knife, cut the rectangle into four equal 3 x 4 inch small rectangles. & cut each of those on the diagonal to end up with eight triangles.

Transfer them to a lined baking sheet, brush the tops with milk, sprinkle with the granulated sugar, & bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for about 20 minutes until the tops are golden. Eat & Enjoy!

seasons of banana bread

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 14:06:00 -0500

As we approach Turkey Day, bloggers everywhere are giving you their secrets for the perfect turkey & the most enticing way to set your holiday table, but not me. Thanksgiving is quietly creeping up on me this year, & I can’t wait for it to jump out of the closet with a big ol’ “BOO!” on Wednesday when I join the masses of harried travelers who’ll be trying to move from point A to point B with as few hiccups as possible. Today, I am furthering my own delusions by discussing something that has absolutely nothing to do with the big T: banana bread. (Though if you want to twist this into a Thanksgiving-appropriate post, it makes a great breakfast for house guests. I’m just sayin’…)

Banana bread was one of those recipes that got me at an early age. Unlike how I do it these days, that was during a time in my life when I didn’t spend hours seeking out recipes online & reading through all the comments to ensure that I felt confident enough to make necessary changes & improvise a bit; but it was also after I had grown out of the Klutz & Carebears cookbooks mentioned in an earlier post.

In those days, I baked using the gigantic Doubleday Cookbook whose red binding was just starting to fray & whose pages were stained with splatters of meals past. If there was something in particular that I wanted to bake, I’d turn to the index where there was sure to be a listing, & without a question of whether the ingredients seemed to be in the right proportion or whether the baking time seemed a little too long, I trusted & I baked.

It was the Banana Tea Bread on page 667, however, that won my heart. (Yes, I made it that many times that the page number is emblazoned in my memory). It was just enough out of the ordinary to seem slightly more grown-up than chocolate chip cookies or brownies, yet still so simple & with easy directions that helped me turn out a perfect loaf every time. & so, I rested on my banana laurels with the same recipe, despite the advances of the internet, for about a decade.

It wasn’t until the summer of 2004 when my banana boat was rocked hard by a vegan with a mission.

I spent that summer working on a farm as part of a fellowship program, learning the ins & outs of eating locally & living sustainably, & while my fellows & I did our best to fill our diets with only foods that we had raised with our own hands in our own backyard, somehow we always ended up with a box-full of bananas that we couldn’t eat nearly as quickly as they could ripen.

Enter Chana & her vegan banana bread. Chana’s recipe was unlike any loaf that had ever graced my kitchen. It was moist & light & chewy, & as most of my favorite recipes go, it required but one-bowl to assemble. It always disappeared within a few hours of emerging from the oven, & in the off-chance that it lasted until the next morning, it miraculously grew even more moist with age. I was sold.

This recipe stuck with me in the years that followed, sustaining me through a 50-page thesis, the post-college blues, parts one & two of a quarter-life crisis, & multiple cross-country moves. Part of the joy of it was the pleasure of reconstituting inedibly ripe bananas into something wholly delicious. But perhaps the more salient aspect of making & eating that particular banana bread was the memories that that it held for me. Cutting sliver after sliver of the cake, swearing I wouldn’t indulge in a whole new piece, I was simultaneously under the scorching summer sun surrounded by freshly planted rows of carrots; I was on the kitchen floor of my off-campus house on a break from a late-night study session; I was in my light-filled mudroom-turned-bedroom on 17th Street between Mission & Valencia on the rare day off from work; & I was with countless friends, new & old, with whom I had shared the recipe & its fruit.

Powerful stuff, this flour-sugar-banana combo.

But all good things must come to an end. With these new Sweet Hearth beginnings & some inspiration from Joanne Chang, I had the thought that perhaps this marks an embarkation into a new era. & naturally, a new era signifies new banana bread. This new recipe makes impossibly delicious bread that is so moist, you can almost convince yourself that you’re just eating a dressed up banana (which makes it healthy, of course, so have another slice).

The old is not forgotten, but there are new recipes to try, new things to eat, & old bananas just waiting for new life…

Reincarnation Banana Bread

1 + 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cups walnuts, chopped & toasted
1 cup granulated sugar
2 Tb dark brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
3 + 1/2 bananas, ripe & mashed
2 Tb plain yogurt
1 tsp vanilla

To start, stir together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, & walnuts in a just-right-sized bowl & set aside.

Then, whisk together the sugars & eggs until they’re all light & fluffy. Slowly add in the oil & keep whisking till it’s all incorporated. Gently stir in the bananas, yogurt, & vanilla & make sure it’s evenly dispersed.

Fold the flour mixture into the sugary, banana-y egg mixture. Don’t overmix, but make sure there aren’t any little flour pockets hiding anywhere.

Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan & bake for an hour in a 325 degree preheated oven. If you can, wait for it to cool for about ten minutes before turning it out of the pan & your secret is safe with me if you stealthily pick a crumb here & there in the process.

***

For old time’s sake, here’s the tried & true vegan recipe. For a vegan version, the recipe called for Egg Replacer, but you’ll end up with a great loaf whether you use a real egg or a schm-egg.

Chana’s Banana Bread

1/4 cup canola oil
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg or “egg”
3 bananas, ripe & mashed
1 + 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Stir together the oil, sugar, egg & bananas. Add in the flour, baking soda, & salt, & mix until the batter is uniform throughout.

Pour batter into a greased loaf pan & bake at 375 degrees until it’s golden brown & springs back at the touch of a light fingertip. The egg or “egg” sometimes changes the baking time, so check on it after thirty minutes, even though it might take closer to 50 minutes to bake.

sweet & tart lemony luscious loaf

Sat, 20 Nov 2010 10:25:00 -0500

I’ve noticed a steady stream of lemons coming from our not-quite-CSA share every other week, but I guess I never took the time to notice the accumulation until today when, upon reaching into the fridge for an apple, I couldn’t open the fruit drawer because, along with the two pears in there, it was packed to the overflowing point with lemons.

It’s not exactly as if I reach into the fridge for a lemon in the same way I might want to grab an apple or an orange. I’m not going to bite right through its pucker-inducing skin, & I’m not the kind of person who’s going to peel it & chow down on its juicy innards. Lemons, while useful in many instances, are usually only used in bits & pieces in my kitchen. I need a teaspoon of lemon zest for one recipe, a squeeze of juice to put in my drinking water, & the end result is a fridge full of bald, half-used lemons. & it’s really not the season for lemonade.

During these days when I just want to sit with a steaming cup of something, I wanted to use those lemons for something that could squeeze out the coziness of mid-autumn while still honoring the crisp zest of the yellow citrus. Lemon poppyseed loaf, it is!

The black & blue seeds that stud this loaf are harvested from the poppy flower plant that’s native to west Asia, & they’ve been cultivated for their seed pods since the fifth millenium before the common era by the ancient Sumerians. References to poppy seeds can be found throughout recorded history, used to aid everything from sleep (the Wicked Witch of the West knew about that one) to fertility to wealth. Poppy seeds have even been used to induce invisibility.

Of all of those purposes, I’m thinking that the promise of invisibility is what drove these little seeds to cause quite the stir between the 1830’s & the 1860’s when China & Britain had a kerfuffle over the seeds’ presence in the Chinese market. Sadly though, people were more interested in the well-documented opiate qualities of the seeds over the promise of invisibility, & this is what brought the two countries to their knees in a little thing called the Opium Wars.

The pinhead-sized seeds have been the source of great controversy for many years, & with good reason: they are the source of morphine, thebaine, codeine, papaverine, & noscapine, among others. MythBusters actually confirmed that the consumption of as little as two poppyseed bagels or an entire loaf of poppyseed cake could cause a person to test positive for narcotics. Of course, if you ate an entire poppyseed cake, I’m guessing you might test positive for a few other things as well.

Knowing all of that, the idea of lemon poppyseed loaf was sounding even more interesting.

I’ve been perusing the Flour cookbook a lot these days as I try to read it, cover to cover, to understand the author’s voice & little quirks that are usually skipped over for the sake of how much flour & to what temperature to heat the oven. Believe it or not, there’s a lot more to cookbooks than ingredient lists, & you can really get to know an author by reading one like you might read a novel. Or a picture book.

When I came across the recipe & photo for the “French Lemon Poppyseed Pound Cake,” I knew it would come up soon in my baking future. I found the recipe amounts & baking times to be a little off for use in my kitchen & oven, & I don’t think I’ve ever used as many bowls & utensils as I did while making this, but the result was a light & lemony loaf with a good poppyseed crunch & just a hint of tartness from the glaze on top. I cut it open as soon as it was cool enough to handle, after restraining myself for over an hour as the sweet citrus aromas blew around my apartment with the chilly autumn breeze.

After all that lemon overload business, I unfortunately only ended up using a single lemon. My fruit drawer is still packed, but if it’s any indication, this came out of the oven about 24 hours ago, & with three people eating it, there are just two slices left. (& if you ask me again in another hour, there might just be two crumbs left). I think some more of those lemons will have a date with some poppy seed destiny in the coming days.

Happy weekend!

Sweet & Tart Lemony Luscious Loaf

Loaf

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup half & half, at room temperature
3 Tb fresh lemon zest (about one lemon)
1 Tb fresh lemon juice (about 1/2 lemon)
3 Tb poppy seeds
4 eggs
1 + 1/4 cups granulated sugar

Glaze

1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
1-2 Tb fresh lemon juice (about 1/2 lemon)

Butter & flour a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan & set it aside to watch the action.

Stir together the flour, baking powder, & salt, & then let it join the buttered & floured pan.

Whisk together the oil, half & half, lemon zest, lemon juice, & poppy seeds in a large bowl.

In yet another bowl, whip the eggs & sugar until the mixture is light, fluffy, & somewhat glossy. If you’re using a standing mixer, this will take around five minutes on a medium speed.

Then, gently fold the flour mixture into the egg mixture until it’s all incorporated. & after, take that mixture & gently add it to the milky lemon blend.

Once it’s all together, pour it into the loaf pan & bake for about an hour in a preheated 350 degree oven until the top springs back when you press lightly into it.

After baking, while it’s cooling, whisk the lemon juice into the confectioners sugar, & after the loaf has cooled for about a half an hour, turn it out of the pan & spoon the glaze over it. Slice, eat & enjoy!

crackin' crackers

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 08:54:59 -0500

This weekend, Mr. A & I took a little 4-wheeled sojourn down to the third smallest state on the Sound, so obviously, snacks were in order. Car trips require munchies. Something crunchy, something bite-sized, & something to keep the stomach occupied so that it doesn’t get any bright ideas about getting nauseated.

Now, it just so happens that Mr. A is a cracker fiend, no hyperbole necessary. I’m pretty sure I even owe him the gift of a personalized cracker recipe (& he’s probably forgotten about this…until now). &, while I obviously enjoy the baking bit, I haven’t really ventured into crackers due to my insatiable sweet tooth. However, with the driving & the love of crackers & the challenge of something new, I decided that I had a date with cracker destiny.

Crackers are one of the oldest foods of wayfarers: they’re cheap to make & produce & lacking ingredients that are prone to spoilage, they remain edible for long periods of time - perfect for voyages into the wildernesses of both land and sea. The two main ingredients are almost always flour & water &, lacking a leavening agent, the end result is, in clear contrast to regular bread, flat.

Cultures all over the world have some form of a water-flour food combo, & it is usually considered a staple in their diets: in the Northern European lands they have crisp bread; in Norway, it’s flat bread; in the Middle East & Africa, pita & lavash are the names of the game; South Asia & East Africa go for chapati; it’s wafers for Christians; matzah for Jews; & for those in Middle Earth, it’s Lembas bread.

& yet, although the substance has been around for a long time, the “cracker” is a modern-day invention, being first documented in the mid-1700s, thanks to a Newburyport, Massachusetts man named Theodore Pearson. He established the first cracker production facility in the United States in 1792 with a product that he called, “Pearson’s Pilot Bread.” It was a great success with the seafaring & (eventually) Manifest Destiny folks, & Pearson made quite the name for himself.

But his cracker market monopoly did not last for long, & in 1801, Joshua Bent founded a rival cracker-baking company in Milton, Massachusetts. He was a biscuit baker by trade, & as the legend goes, he coined the term “cracker” when, after a happy accident of burning a batch of biscuits, he could hear the burnt product cracking in the oven.

(Thanks, Encyclopedia Americana, Volume 8.)

Almost a century later, in the late 1800s, Pearson, Bent, & a handful of other cracker bakeries that had since sprung up merged together into the National Biscuit Company. & if you use the first two to three letters of that name to form an acronym, you’ll come up with the name of the largest bakery in the world….

But I wasn’t looking for Graham Crackers, Wheat Thins, or Fig Newtons (save those for another day) - in picking out a cracker recipe, I wanted something basic, easy (ok, part of the definition of “cracker” is ease), & within reach. I wanted something that could function as a jumping off point for what will inevitably be a cracker-filled future. I pulled my Baker’s Dozen Cookbook off the shelf, & as it turned out, Fran Gage had a lovely “Spicy Cornmeal Crackers” recipe waiting for me. It was basic with just a little punch of crushed red pepper flakes, some cornmeal for bite, & coarse sea salt for added crunch.

I took my chances & substituted in whole wheat flour for half the flour Gage called for, & it seemed to be a mild change in the finished product. This is a great basic recipe & the pepper adds just enough heat to make your mouth feel slightly warm - nothing you can’t handle though. Overall, they baked up with great crunch, which I think is the only real prerequisite for being a crack-er.

That said, Mr. A tends to prefer his crackers with a little more shazam, so I might try adding in flax, sesame, sunflower, or poppy seeds next time, & I might also play around with the spices. Hopefully these crackers will stand up to those changes, & Mr. A will start thinking that the store-bought stuff is [ahem] not all that it’s cracked up to be…

(Sorry, I had to!)

Crackin’ Crackers

1 cup cold water
1/4 cup olive oil
1 + 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup corn meal
1 + 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
2 tsp coarse sea salt

Combine water & olive oil, then mix in the flours, corn meal, salt, & red pepper flakes. Stir until it all comes together, but not much longer after that.

Turn the dough out onto plastic wrap, shape into a thick rectangle, & put the little package in the fridge for an hour. (The dough might seem wet - it’s ok, it’ll be easy to work with post-chillaxing).

When you take it out of the fridge, divide the dough in half, & working with one half at a time, roll it out on a lightly floured surface into a very thin 16 x 12 inch rectangle. The thinner the dough, the crispier the cracker! Place it onto a cookie sheet, & then do the other dough half.

Prick the dough all over with a fork, brush the entire surface with water, & then sprinkle the coarse salt all over.

Bake for about ten minutes in a preheated 500 degree oven until it’s good & brown.

Once it’s cool, break the sheet of cracker into more manageable, hand-held, one- or two-bite-sized pieces. Eat & enjoy!

curing a cold with cinnamon swirl loaf

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 11:16:00 -0500

The sun rose on a gray Wednesday in Boston, where it wasn’t quite rainy but not sunny side up either; & I think this autumn chill has seeped too far into my bones, since I, too, woke up cold & a little rainy. Ah, the common cold. It gets us all sooner or later each season, & for me, this season, it was sooner. So I did what any normal sweet hearth does when feeling under the weather: I cozied up on the couch with a steaming cup of herbal tea & I figured out what to bake.

What? Isn’t that what everyone does?

When I was in grade school, I would always want to bake on sick days, & even though my smarty pants mother insisted that preparing food when you’re sick will only infect others, my little baker self did not understand what the problem was. So I’d pull down my Care Bears or Klutz Cookbooks off the shelf, put on my little apron, & get cracking.

Yesterday was no different. I’m happy to report that I have since advanced beyond cookbooks that feature cartoon drawings of bears, but yesterday was not a day for anything fancy. Yesterday called for warmth, comfort, & homey-ness. Yesterday called for cinnamon swirl bread.

The ground spice featured in this loaf is taken from the dried inner bark of a tropical Asian tree that goes by the name “cinnamomum” (the added syllable really takes it to a new level), & it is distantly related to the bay laurel tree, which is responsible for bay leaves & the expression, “resting on your laurels.”

Cinnamon has been a “hot” commodity (& literally, hot, in the case of the cassia variety) since at least 1200 BCE, when Sri Lanka was tempting Egyptians with it for medicinal, flavoring, & embalming purposes. The common link between all of these uses, of course, is the phenol component of cinnamon, which acts as a preservative. Because of this, cinnamon was commonly used as an antiseptic in Ancient Rome & Greece; it helped fight the Bubonic Plague during the Middle Ages; & it was used to prevent spoilage (or to mask the smell of decay) in the thousands of years of meat-eating, pre-refrigeration.

It’s traveled the world since then, appearing in such memorable performances as hot chocolate in Central America, meat dishes is the Near East, & most notable for the matter at hand, cinnamon rolls in Northern Europe.

I’m not the greatest bread baker, but considering the cinnamon-sugar guarantee as the end result of this, the only thing that really could have screwed this up was forgetting the cinnamon & sugar, & there’s no way I would have done that. Thanks to The Pioneer Woman, this recipe mixed up very nicely, & the dough was really easy to work with - it didn’t require too much flour to roll out, & it played very well with my rolling pin.

Next time, I might try slicing this before baking & arranging it in a pan over a bed of even more cinnamon, sugar & maybe some pecans to make sticky buns.

& maybe it’ll even help my sore throat. In fact, I should probably eat another piece to help prevent heart disease, colon cancer, & various other infections…

Cinnamon Swirl Loaf

Dough

6 Tb butter
1 cup milk
2 + 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
2 eggs
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 + 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt

Filling

3 Tb butter, melted
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 Tb cinnamon

Extra

2 Tb milk
1 Tb granulated sugar

Melt butter in a small saucepan. Then, remove from heat, & add in one cup of the milk. Sprinkle the yeast over the milky butter & give it a gentle stir. Let it rest for ten minutes.

After, beat together the eggs & 1/3 cup of the sugar, & slowly drizzle in the milky, buttery yeast. Whisk till thoroughly combined.

Then, add in the flour & salt & combine. It’ll get sticky & doughy - at this point, if you’re using an electric mixer, knead with a dough hook for 5 or so minutes; if you’re using your hands, get in there & start kneading for about 10 minutes, till it’s satiny smooth.

Lightly grease a large bowl, place dough ball inside, turn to coat, cover the bowl with plastic, & let it rest for about 2 hours in a cozy place.

In the meantime, butter a loaf pan, & stir together your sugar & cinnamon. (I hope this does not take you the full two hours to complete, though kudos to you if it does).

When it’s ready, turn the dough out onto a floured surface & roll it into a long rectangle, about 20 inches long and just smaller than the width of your loaf pan. Brush the rectangle with the melted butter, & then cover the entire thing with your cinnamoned sugar. Don’t hold back.

Starting from one end, start rolling the dough into itself, tightly. Compress it as you go. When you get to the end, brush it with a little water to seal the end to the rest of the roll. Then, place the whole thing seam side down into the loaf pan. Cover in plastic & let it rest in its cozy place for another 2 hours.

Finally, after it’s finished resting, brush the top with milk, sprinkle on the remaining tablespoon of sugar, & bake in a preheated, 350 degree oven for 40 minutes.

Remove from the pan soon after its out of the oven, & if you can contain yourself, it’s best to let it cool for a few minutes before slicing into it.