Sweet Potato Challah

 

Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart

Notes: I couldn't find a sweet potato challah recipe that I liked. Many used way too much honey (½ cup), didn't use enough sweet potato or had a wide variation in flour. As an experienced baker, I should be able to compensate and adjust recipes, but I also want things to turn out the first time, and would rather find a "good" recipe that I can just follow.

In the end, I adapted this Martha Stewart recipe for pumpkin challah, omitting all the spices so it wouldn't taste like pie. On Friday morning, I made a half recipe, all in the mixer with a dough hook. I didn't feel like I needed to bust out the paddle to combine some of the ingredients. Less cleanup = happy. 3/8 cup of egg yolks was 5 large eggs for me. The dough was extremely easy to work with, and formed a nice ball completely in the mixer. A minute or two of hand kneading afterwards was sufficient to get to the windowpane stage.

After an accelerated proofing in a warmed oven, I weighed out six balls of dough, and Dr. S and I made quick work of forming the ropes for braiding. I used this YouTube video as a refresher on 6-strand braiding. It also demonstrates a neat idea for applying the sesame seeds, by using your finger to tap them on each lobe.

The photo doesn't quite capture the beautiful coral colour of the bread's interior. It puffed up beautifully during baking to a nice high loaf. You can't taste any of the sweet potato flavour, but this bread is a nice change from the usual. I'm going to make it again using whole eggs, instead of yolks and see what happens.

Hazelnut Frangipane Tart with Caramelized Apricots and Nectarines

 

Recipe from In The Sweet Kitchen by Regan Daley

Notes: During our recent mini-vacation to San Francisco, I got a chance to visit the Berkeley Bowl, an independent grocer similar to Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. I was absolutely floored by the selection of produce: three kinds of blood oranges! Etrog in April! Several varieties of sweet potatoes and yams (actual distinction between the two!). Instead of souvenir trinkets, we brought back dried white nectarines from the Bowl, as I had never seen this before.

The tart consists of three components. I didn't have to make the pâte sucrée crust, as I already had a disc of Hermé's Sweet Tart Dough in the freezer, which I thawed, pressed into a 10" tart pan and blind baked. The frangipane was also a snap: toast hazelnuts to remove their skins, then blitz everything in the food processor. For the fruit component, I used the last bag of Enduring Sun apricots (the Natasha variety this time) plus some of the dried, white nectarines. These were reconstituted in boiling water, and left to soak in a covered bowl. The white nectarines REALLY plumped up: they were about an inch thick!

The next evening, it was time to assemble. After spreading the frangipane in the cooked base, I blotted the dried fruit and arranged it over the tart in a circular pattern. After the minimum time in the oven, the filling was cooked, but the fruit hadn't really browned. A mini blowtorch made quick work of caramelizing some of the edges. At this point, the recipe calls for making a syrup from the soaking liquid by adding sugar to it and reducing. I decided there was already enough sweetness in the recipe, and just reduced it, and brushed a few tablespoons over top.

This is absolutely delicious. I love frangipane, whether it's made with pistachios or almond or hazelnuts. And the flavour and texture contrast with the stone fruit works quite well.

Whole Wheat Raisin Focaccia

 

Recipe from Whole Grain Breads by Peter Reinhart

Notes: I've made the focaccia recipe in The Bread Baker's Apprentice before, in the raisin variation, and enjoyed it immensely. However, it's been 6 or 7 years (I know this, since I brought a slice to a date), so I felt it was time to try it again. This time 'round, I made the "transitional" version from Reinhart's whole grain book. That's his term for a non-100% whole grain product, to ease the "transition" to a whole grain diet.

On Sunday morning, I prepared the soft dough in a mixer, then spread it out on a sheet pan, pressing the raisins as I was dimpling it. It went into the refrigerator to ferment for the day. Do make sure to oil the surface liberally, and wrap it tightly in plastic wrap, to avoid any part of it sticking to the wrap or drying out at the edges. Later that day, I took it out around 16:00, and dimpled the surface some more, trying to get it to fill the entire sheet pan. I added a few more raisins at this point.

An hour before bedtime, after I had forgotten about the gently puffed dough, I turned on my oven. The focaccia had risen somewhat, and filled 95% of the pan. At the minimum baking time, I took out as it had gotten quite brown. The edges were a bit dry and crisp, but the inside pieces were fine. The focaccia is a bit on the dry side, but has a nice chew. I attribute this to letting it dry out too much, and perhaps overbaking. These transitional breads are pretty good, and I'll continue to bake through the book.

Apricot Pound Cake

 

Recipe from The Simple Art of Perfect Baking by Flo Braker

Notes: Continuing the pound cake theme (but failing at our goal of reducing dessert consumption), I dug out Flo Braker's book and finally made this apricot cake that I've looked at many times, and seen wonderful photos of, online. This project actually took longer than expected, because the first cake that I baked turned out like a cheap, paperback novel: flat, dull and dense. To the compost! My post mortem revealed that my ingredients weren't at the correct temperature, and I neglected to add the eggs slowly enough, so the batter split.

On my second try, I used a thermometer to ensure the butter was at the right temperature. I allowed the butter and sugar to cream for a much longer period, letting it become aerated and fluffy, turning a very light yellow colour in the process. This time, I carefully added the eggs by tablespoons (just like the recipe says), and was pleased that the mixture stayed smooth. Towards the end though, it did start to split. Compared to other pound cake recipes, this one calls for five eggs, so perhaps there's just a bit too much liquid.

This second cake came out of the oven much higher than the first attempt, but was still on the squat side. Oh well, on to the filling. I planned on making a double batch, as I wanted to ensure you could taste the fruit, and a third of a cup sounded like too little. From an online purchase over the holidays, I had a few bugs of Enduring Sun dried apricots leftover. I used the Larissa variety for this project. It turns out I made more than enough to fill the cake, but leftover apricot spread is delicious on toast.

The verdict? A wonderfully rich pound cake coupled with a tangy filling in a whimsical presentation. I would make this again.

Candied Orange and Yuzu Pound Cakes

 

Recipe adapted from The Cake Book by Tish Boyle via Lisa Campbell

Notes: There are two kinds of pound cake that I really love: the walnut kind at Chinese bakeries, and any lemon pound cake. The latter is usually flavoured with lemon zest or oil in the batter, and covered with a lemon glaze or syrup after baking.

I started this project out by soaking a package of candied yuzu peel (purchased on our Asia trip) in a mix of lemon and tangerine juice. My thinking was that I could soften and flavour the strips of zest, and have the delicately scented yuzu come through in the cake. For the second loaf, I slivered some spiced, candied orange peel from a previous project.

This pound cake recipe is rich: not only does it use the standard equal parts of flour, eggs, butter and sugar, it also calls for heavy cream. I wimped out and used table cream instead since we had it in the fridge. There's also a bit of insurance in the form of baking powder to ensure the cake isn't too dense. However, this turned out to be not the case. My cake had a few wet spots in the interior, and was a bit dense. I don't think I beat the batter long enough to fully aerate the butter, sugar and eggs. Anyhow, my tasters at work found it delicious, and I've been enjoying small pieces for dessert, reheated from the freezer. The yuzu flavour is not that strong though. But where can I get the zest of a fresh yuzu or even yuzu oil!?

Honey Whole Wheat Bread with Poppy Seeds and Lemon Zest

 

Recipe from Bread Alone by Daniel Leader

Notes: We're trying to increase our whole grain consumption, and cut back on rich desserts, so I turned to my collection of bread baking books for this project. This recipe uses a poolish starter, and is pretty simple to make. The flavourings come from the zest of a whole lemon, a ¼ cup of honey and several tablespoons of poppy seeds.

On paper, it sounded delicious, but I can't say I enjoyed this bread. I appreciate the long, slow rises and steps to build flavour, but the poppy seeds add an overpowering aroma that doesn't appeal to me. I'm going to eat this as toast, with lots of PB or marmalade (defeating the goal of eating less sugar and fat!)

Florentines: Step by Step

Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé by Dorie Greenspan

I dusted this book off the shelf, looking for a moderate challenge over a few weeknights. I can't recall how I arrived at this recipe, but I do know that I had two, neglected Seville oranges in a bowl on the kitchen counter. So the first step was to make the candied orange, following a recipe also in this book. Blanching the peels several times is a standard step anytime I've made candied citrus peel, but this recipe oddly instructs you to save the boiling water between rinses. I ignored that, and used fresh water for each boiling. After over an hour of simmering in the peppercorn-star anise-vanilla syrup, the Seville peels were still firm and slightly bitter, but were fragrant with the spices.

I made the Sweet Tart Dough (a full recipe) using freshly ground almonds (with the skins on, as I'm lazy). It's quite buttery and soft, and was easy to pat flat in a large freezer bag. After an overnight refrigeration, it was stiff and firm, but didn't take long to soften to a workable consistency. I rolled it out between two sheets of wax paper, guiding it into my sheet pan.

I made the first two components ahead of time. At this point, it was time to make the caramel mixture, and get ready to pour it onto the warm crust. Notice the cookie base shrunk quite a bit in the oven, and is a little too brown. It's so thin that it's quite easy to overbake.

Before starting on the caramel, I diced up the orange peel into small cubes, and put a tray of sliced almonds in the toaster oven to keep them warm. The caramel is made using the wet method with water and corn syrup. When it's dark enough, I added butter, heavy cream and honey. Once it recovered, I continued to heat it on a moderate flame. It took more than 10 minutes to reach the target temperature of 125°C (257°F). This photo was taken just before reaching that point.

With all the topping ingredients ready, I mixed the almonds and orange peel into the pot with the caramel, then used a wooden spoon to stir it all up. It didn't immediately thicken and harden as I expected, but stayed fluid enough for me to spread it all over the cookie layer. In the oven, it spread out just a little bit, but I took it out when it started to bubble, about 5 minutes later.

Once the base was completely cool, I tempered some 60% bittersweet chocolate and poured it over the florentines, cookie side up. Working quickly with an offset spatula, I spread it all the way to the edge, then took a cake comb and drew a wavy pattern on it. This turned out to be problematic, as the thin layer of chocolate set very quickly, and the comb wasn't able to leave a trail once the chocolate became firm. I was inspired by this post to apply the chocolate this way, but the original recipe calls for dipping each corner up to the midpoint of each cookie square.

The next morning, as I used a chef's knife to cut the florentines into squares, I was disappointed to discover that the chocolate was tempered so well, that it snapped and broke cleanly away from the cookie base. Even using a long, 12" serrated slicer to gently saw through the layers couldn't prevent most of the chocolate from separating. I did the best I could to keep the chocolate squares together with the florentines, before layering them in a container for transport.

Were these cookies worth a few evenings of effort? You bet. I love the chocolate and orange combination, plus the crispy nuts and cookie base. There's so many tasty things going on here! These freeze nicely too: a few minutes in a toaster oven make them warm and gooey and even more delicious.