Golden Braid

Still on the subject of cooler weather and what that means in the kitchen, it is also fun now to bake bread. It did get cool enough in the house that I used a heated pitcher of water to help the dough rise by putting both in the microwave and closing the door because it just wasn't rising in the chill of the house. The good news is that the oven warms everything up once it gets going and the fragrance of fresh yeast bread has a soul satisfying warmth for the spirit all its own.

This particular bread was made for today's auction at P.E.O., the women's scholarship group I belong to. Every year we have a silent auction to raise funds for the scholarships and freshly baked bread gets lots of bidders. I made a golden braid of dried fruit laced deliciousness. Orange zest complements the dried cranberries, golden raisins and chopped citron. Since the bread has very little sugar, it can be used with soup or sliced thin and buttered for a breakfast or afternoon nibble.

The recipe is from a book that has festive holiday bread recipes. I added dried cranberries and chopped citron, increased the amount of orange zest and added a bit more water. The recipe said to put the dried fruits in with the flour, but next time I think I'll knead them into the dough once it it mixed and kneaded.

Fruited Braid
Makes 1 loaf
Adapted from a recipe in The Festive Bread Book, by Kathy Cutler

1 tablespoon active dry yeast
2 tablespoons warm water (105 – 115 degrees F)
2 ¼ - 3 cups unbleached bread flour
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons grated orange zest (colored part only)
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons golden raisins
½ cup dried cranberries
¼ cup chopped citron
3 tablespoons sugar
1/3 cup warm milk (105 – 115 degrees F)
1 egg
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened


Dissolve yeast in warm water. Set aside for 5 minutes.

Combine 1 ½ cups flour, salt, orange zest, raisins, dried cranberries, citron and sugar in mixing bowl. Mix thoroughly.

Mix together the warm milk and egg. Add the milk mixture, yeast mixture and butter to the dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly.

Add enough remaining flour to make a soft dough. Knead on lightly floured surface until smooth, about 10 minutes.

Place in greased bowl, turning to coat top. Cover and let rise in warm place until double in bulk – about 1 hour.

Punch down dough. Divide the dough into thirds. Make three ropes. Braid on a greased, parchment covered, or silicon mat covered baking sheet.

Cover and let rise in a warm place until double – about 30 -45 minutes.

Brush with melted butter. Bake in a preheated 400 degree F oven for 20 minutes, then turn down temperature to 325 degrees F and bake another 20-30 minutes until loaf is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped on the back.

Cool on a wire rack.

OPTIONAL: If you want to decorate the loaf: Make the Confectioners’ Icing, then drizzle it over the cool loaf. Sprinkle with the almonds and candied cherries to decorate. Let the icing dry before serving.

Confectioners Sugar icing: Mix together 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, 1/4 teaspoon grated orange zest and 1-2 tablespoons milk. 

Spring Fruits in Scones

If you read through some of my blog posts it probably seems like I bake all the time, just because. In truth I used to do just that, but for a while now I've had to curtail my impulse to bake for a couple of reasons, but mainly because as we get older it seems to be harder to burn off those extra calories and so fewer calories are needed. While I would love to eat nothing but baked goods, good sense encourages me to fill up on fruits and veggies and quality protein instead.

That said, I still love to bake, so it is wonderful when I have a reason to bake something as delicious as scones. This past weekend I attended a P.E.O. conference in LA and we had a very early flight, so I made scones for Sweetie and I to enjoy at the start of our trip, plus I made a few extra to enjoy with committee members during our early morning committee meeting on Sunday. Since I had fresh blueberries and apricots on hand, plus a bag of sweet, moist dried apricots, I decided to make scones with them, some sliced almonds, and to use buttermilk for the liquid. It's tang goes so well with those fruits and it helped to keep the scones moist until Sunday morning, even though I baked them on Friday. P.E.O. supports women in their educational goals through scholarships and low interest loans, plus we own a college, Cottey College. The effort is almost all done by volunteers, like my fellow committee members, so they deserved some fine scones for getting up so early, right?

These were rough looking because I barely gathered the dough bits together, similar in technique to making Irish soda bread. The upside of that is they were tender and almost flaky. There was enough butter that you didn't need to add any and the flavor combination with the apricot, blueberry, lemon and almond flavors, combined with buttermilk, was excellent and hit the spot in the early morning with a cup of coffee. These don't take much time and would take even less without the dried apricots and if you left the peel on the fresh apricots, so mix up a batch yourself. You'll be glad you did.

Blueberry and Double Apricot Scones
Adapted from a Ladies Home Journal recipe March ‘97
Heat oven to 425 degrees F. Grease a cookie sheet or use parchment or silicone mat.

3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup sugar
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature (no substitutions)
1/4 cup finely diced dried apricots
½ cup chopped fresh, peeled apricots½ cup fresh blueberries, dusted with a bit of flour
½ cup sliced almonds
1 1/4 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel

Glaze: 2 tablespoons heavy cream
2 tablespoons sparkling sugar

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl. With pastry blender or two knives, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add diced dried fruit, fresh apricot pieces and the blueberries and sliced almonds. 

Combine buttermilk, egg and lemon peel in a bowl or measuring cup. Pour over crumb mixture. Stir together with fork just until mixture comes together. Gather dough gently into a ball; it might be crumbly...that is OK. Divide dough in half and transfer to prepared cookie sheets. Shape each piece into a 6 inch x 1 inch thick circle, 2 inches apart. Using floured knife, cut each circle into 6 wedges.

For glaze, brush tops with cream and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake 20 – 25 minutes until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Makes 12 scones.

Bread Baking Babes May Stromboli

There are entirely too many bread books and blogs with bread recipes...or not enough. One of my favorites is Carol Field's The Italian Baker. I was thinking of having the Babes bake her very complicated Panettone con Dotteri e Noci, a recipe that has intrigued me for a while. Once I realized that it is a laminated dough and that April and May can be too hot for laminated dough, I looked elsewhere for May's bread.

I'm inviting ya'll to gather round the kitchen table in May of the Bread Baking Babes 4th year and bake Stromboli. It's still Italian and should be delicious! It's getting to be picnic time, or will be by the time this bread gets posted, so I hope you'll enjoy it. The challenge for me with this one is to roll it up so that the whole thing doesn't unravel when sliced, a problem I've encountered with cinnamon breads.

The dough itself is pretty basic but maybe that's OK because we can enjoy the product as much as the process this way.



I found the recipe at Girlichef's blog. Heather has been a buddy in the past and this recipe was part of her celebration when she conquered her fear of yeast. If you go to her blog you can see the nice tight slices I hope for and look at that gorgeous sea salt and rosemary on top to say nothing of the filling. Bet this bread would go well with a glass of a hearty red wine. Join me?

Here is the link to Girlichef's post. I used her photo, too, but will post my own once I get back home to my own computer in a couple of days. I brought a thumb drive with me on vacation, but it seems to be lost. It had the post I was going to do for this challenge and the photos, too.

I do hope that you, dear reader, will be a Buddy this month. Just bake this lovely bread by June 26th and send me an e-mail (plachman at sonic dot net) with a link so that you can be included in the round-up at the end of May.

In that spirit, I'm sending this over to Susan at Wild Yeast for Yeastspotting, the weekly yeasted bread extravaganza. Be sure to go there after this Friday for this week's entries.

Also, be sure to check out the other Bread Baking Babes' blogs to see what they have done with this yummy and fairly easy bread. The links are to the right on the sidebar. Picnic anyone?
XO Elle

P.S. After baking it myself, have added weights for most of the ingredients...in italics after the measured ingredient.

Stromboli
adapted from Ultimate Bread by Eric Treuille & Ursula Ferrigno

Ingredients:
2 tsp. dry yeast (1 packet dry yeast...I used fast acting) (7 grams)
1 ¼ c. water (268 grams)
3 ½ c. unbleached flour (470 grams)
1 ½ tsp. salt (11 grams)
3 Tbs. olive oil (38 grams)

For the filling and topping:
8 oz. smoked swiss cheese (226 grams)
3 cloves garlic, minced 8 oz. Prosciutto, sliced thin (226 grams)
4 oz. pepperoni, sliced thin (113 grams)
Handful of fresh basil leaves
~1 tsp. coarse salt
3 sprigs rosemary, stems removed
~1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Sprinkle yeast into 1 c. of the water, in small bowl. Leave for 5 minutes to then stir to dissolve.

Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in center and pour in dissolved yeast and the oil. Mix in flour from sides of well. Stir in reserved water, as needed, to form a soft, sticky dough.
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead until smooth, silky, and elastic...~10 mins. Pour dough in a clean, oiled bowl and cover with clean kitchen towel. Let rise until doubled in size, 1 1/2-2 hours.

Punch down and chafe* for 5 minutes. Let rest 10 minutes.

Shape into a 14" x 8" rectangle. Cover w/ clean towel and let rest another 10 minutes.

Spread your cheeses, meats, garlic and basil evenly over dough. (You can use your own combination of meats and cheeses, or roasted veggies and garlic or whatever you like for filling.) Roll up the dough like a swiss roll, starting at one of the shorter sides, but without rolling too tightly.

Place on oiled baking sheet. Use a skewer or a carving fork to pierce several holes through the dough to the baking sheet. Sprinkle with 1 Tbs. of olive oil, salt, rosemary and pepper.

Bake in preheated (400 degrees F) oven for 1 hour, until golden. Drizzle remaining olive oil over top. Slice and serve!!

Hearty Fresh Blueberry Muffins

As we head toward the longest day of the year it gets light earlier and earlier and stays light long into the evening. One of the side effects is that I often wake up much earlier than I do when days are shorter. The birds around here start singing about 5 am these days, including the annoying peacocks a few blocks over. Despite being tired from all the unusual physical labor necessary for the remodel my eyes seem to pop open sometime between 5 am and 6 am with little hope that I'll be able to get any more sleep.

That's what happened yesterday, so I decided to make good use of the early hour by baking something for breakfast. There were fresh blueberries on sale at the market and we had not had fresh blueberry muffins for a long time, so I scrounged in the baking pan cupboard and came up with an 8 hole muffin tin. Further search would have waken Sweetie, so the recipe would have to be adjusted to the smaller pan.

I love blueberry muffins! The lemon zest perks up the flavor, they have less sweetness than some for the batter so that when you bite into a warm, juicy berry you really taste that awesome blueberry flavor.

I've been reading a great cookbook called The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread and decided to jump off from their recipe for French Blueberry Muffins. I like oatmeal and brown sugar in breakfast foods, plus whole wheat flour for flavor and heartiness, so the dry ingredients changed a fair amount. Since I had brown sugar, I also included some baking soda not in the original recipe. The molasses in the brown sugar interact with the baking soda to make the muffins lighter. Egg substitute was easier to measure for the reduced amount of egg, but I think that 2 medium eggs would also work. Their recipe called for whole milk but I had 2% in the fridge, so that was changed, too.

Finally, I had fresh blueberries. Having never tried this recipe with frozen ones, I'm recommending that if at all possible, go with the fresh ones. Think of the flavor and anti-oxidants!

These don't need additional butter or anything else, really. They are moist, bursting with blueberry flavor and heartier than some muffins because of the whole wheat flour and oats. They are hardly like the French ones in the book, but the proportions remain the same, for which I thank authors Amy Scherber and Toy Kim Dupree.

With a bowl of fresh fruit and a cup of coffee these muffins make getting up with the sun a fine way to start the day.

Hearty Fresh Blueberry Muffins
based on French Blueberry Muffins in The Sweeter Side of Amy's' Bread

1 cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup whole wheat flour
¼ cup rolled oats
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup brown sugar
½ tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled a bit
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons egg substitute (or 2 medium eggs)
¾ cup milk (I used 2%)
Grated zest from ½ a lemon
1 cup fresh blueberries

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F with rack in the middle of the oven. Grease 8 muffin cups or line 8 cups with cupcake papers.

In a large bowl combine the flours, oats, sugars, baking powder, baking soda and salt with a whisk.

In another bowl whisk together the melted butter, egg substitute or eggs, milk and lemon zest.

Add the wet ingredient mixture to the dry ingredient mixture, stirring with a fork for a few strokes; just enough to incorporate 90% of the dry ingredients into the wet.

Add the blueberries and continue gently mixing just until ingredients are combined. Immediately scoop the batter into the prepared muffin tin, dividing the batter as evenly as possible among the cups.

Bake for about 20 minutes, rotating the pan half way at 10 minutes. Muffins are done when the tops are golden brown and when a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean (well, there may be blueberry juice clinging to it, but no uncooked batter, OK?)

Allow the muffins to cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove from the pan and cool some more if you can wait that long. Enjoy these muffins while still warm or serve within 12 hours for the moistest muffins. Wrap any remaining muffins airtight and store in the fridge.

Makes 6-8 muffins

World Bread Day 2009 - YES WE BAKE

This year the theme for World Bread Day...TODAY!... is Yes We Bake.

THE ROUNDUP CAN BE FOUND HERE...Lots of great breads from all over the world!



Get past any fear of yeast and of baking...and even of bread...all those carbs...because bread can be a good part of your day and diet.

For a very, very long time most of our ancestors consumed a lot of fruits, berries, veggies, nuts, seeds and whole grains. Meat and fish were enjoyed in quantity when they were available, and in tiny amounts when they were scarce. So we, in general, are kind of hard wired to do well with this kind of diet.

We are in the final weeks of harvest here in Northern California. This past weekend I brought in lots of ripe tomatoes, most of them smaller than the summer tomatoes, but still juicy and delicious. I harvested dark and light purple eggplant, beans, basil, and the last of the beautiful blue bachelor buttons. Even the zucchini is slowing down...but seeing as I've had zucchini since May that is hardly surprising. The chard seems to be putting out new growth a plenty, but chard likes the cooler weather. The walnuts are ready to bring in to be cracked and used in all manner of winter breads and muffins and cookies. My solitary pumpkin is almost ripe, too. It's going to be sad to rip out all of the plants that have given so much food over the past months, but before we know it the rains will be here and new seeds will sprout, including sweet peas. Nature's cycle rolling on.

With the rain beating on the windows and the fire going, I decided to bake something really different for World Bread Day. It even has the antioxidant powers of chocolate!

In preparation for this great annual event, I looked through countless books, magazines, blogs and recipe sites. I wanted to make something that challenged me a bit. While I was looking through a wonderful book, The Italian Baker, by Carol Field, published in 1985, I noticed that she had a recipe for a not-too-sweet Chocolate Bread and for a sweet Milk Bread, followed by a recipe where you hid some of the Milk Bread inside two layers of the Chocolate Bread.

Elsewhere I had read about a snail shaped bread that sounded like fun, so I combined the two ideas for this bread. She had mixed semisweet chocolate chips into her Chocolate Bread, but I decided to layer them in and roll it all up like a jelly roll for a nice swirl inside the snail shape.

Baking it in a springform pan was something I saw in another part of the book where she described it as a mold for pannettone.

Finally, since there was going to be quite a bit of Milk Bread dough left, I decided to use it for something I had seen in another book, The Festive Bread Book, by Kathy Cutler. It describes how to shape a wheat sheaf shaped bread, which is appealing at this time of year. Since the Milk Bread dough is very easy to work with, it seemed like a good way to play with it. It turned out really well. You can read about it and get directions for making your own at The Bread Baker’s Dog blog.

When making the Chocolate Bread and Milk Bread Snail Loaf, you start with the Milk Bread sponge, then make the Chocolate Bread dough while the sponge rises, let the Chocolate Bread dough have it’s first rise while you shape the Milk Dough rectangle, then shape the Chocolate Bread dough rectangles and put it all together and bake it. Although it seems complicated, both doughs are easy to work with.

I have given the Stand Mixer directions for both doughs. If you would like either the By Hand directions or the Food Processor directions (Carol gives all three!), just e-mail me and I’ll send you the method you want to use. Typing all three for the blog was beyond me.

O.K….let’s BAKE!



Pane al Latte e Cioccolata
From The Italian Baker by Carol Field

First make the Milk Bread:

SPONGE:
1 ¾ teaspoons dry yeast or 2/3 small cake (12 grams) fresh yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
½ cup warm milk
1 cup less 1 tablespoon (130-135 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour

Stir the yeast and sugar into the milk in a large mixing bowl or mixer bowl; let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes. Add the flour and whisk vigorously to make a thick batter. Cover and let stand until doubled, less than 1 hour.

DOUGH:
1 egg 1 tablespoon rum
1 cup milk, room temperature
½ stick (55 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 ¾ cups (175 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon (5 grams) salt

Add the egg, rum, milk, and butter to the sponge and mix with the paddle for about 1 minute.

Add 1 cup of the flour and the salt and mix on low speed. Change to the dough hook and add the rest of the flour and knead until soft, silky and elastic, 3 – 4 minutes once the flour is incorporated. Finish kneading briefly by hand on a lightly flour surface.

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled, 1 to 2 hours. The dough should be very soft but slightly tacky, and if you pinch the surface, the little peaks of dough should hold their shape.

Cut the dough into three equal pieces. Take one of the pieces and shape on a lightly flour surface into a 6 inch by 12 inch rectangle. Set aside, lightly covered with plastic wrap or a tea towel while you shape the chocolate dough at the end of its first rise.

NOTE: WHILE THE SPONGE IS DOUBLING, MAKE THE Chocolate Bread (Below) and begin its first rise.

The Chocolate Bread part:

1 package (2 ½ teaspoons active dry yeast or 1 small cake (18 grams) fresh yeast
½ teaspoon sugar
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon warm water
4 ½ cups (600 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons (125 grams) sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably Dutch process
2 teaspoons (10 grams) salt
1 ¼ cups warm water
1 egg yolk (reserve the egg white for glazing the loaf)
1 tablespoon butter, room temperature
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips, chopped coarsely in a food processor or by hand

Stir the yeast and ½ teaspoon sugar into 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon barely warm water in a small bowl; let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes. Mix the flour, ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, the cocoa, and salt in a mixer bowl. Stir 1 ¼ cups water, the egg yolk, and butter into the dissolved yeast. Pour the yeast mixture into the flour mixture and mix with the paddle until well blended.

Change to the dough hook and knead 2 minutes at low speed, then 2 minutes at medium speed. The dough should be velvety, moist, and elastic.

Place the finished dough in an oiled bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled, about 2 hours.

Punch the dough down and cut in half on a lightly floured surface. Shape one of the pieces into a 7 inch by 13 inch rectangle. On another floured surface shape the second piece to be the same size.
(You should have already shaped the Milk Dough rectangle)

On one of the chocolate rectangles, sprinkle about 1/3 of the chopped chocolate chips, leaving an inch edge all around with no chips. Place the slightly smaller milk bread dough rectangle over the chocolate rectangle. It should cover the chocolate chips. Push down lightly to seal the chips in.

Sprinkle about 1/3 of the chopped chocolate chips over the milk dough rectangle, leaving about ½ inch edge all around with no chips. Place the second chocolate dough rectangle over the milk dough rectangle. It will be larger. Press it down to the other chocolate dough to enclose the milk dough and chips completely.

Sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of the remaining chocolate chips along the long side of the rectangle. Begin to roll at that side and roll up jelly roll fashion, adding another strip of chocolate chips bits as you roll until all chips are used up. Seal the dough once you reach the end.

Butter the inside sides of a 10 inch springform pan and line the bottom with a circle of parchment. Set aside.

Take the ‘jelly roll’ of bread dough and squeeze one end a little to thin it and lengthen the rope of dough. Starting at the end, make a snail shape with the dough rope, sealing the end. Place the ‘snail’ into the springform pan and cover with plastic wrap or a tea towel and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Bake in a preheated 425 degree F oven, first brushing the loaf with the lightly beaten egg white from the chocolate bread dough. Bake 45 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees F and bake another45 – 50 minutes. If needed, cover the top with foil if it gets too dark. Although it tastes fine, you can see that the top of my loaf got pretty dark.

Cool the loaf in the pan. When it is cool, remove the springform pan sides and place the loaf on a cutting board to cut. I cut wedges while it was still slightly warm and the chips were melty….delicious!

I also found that the interior was still a bit unbaked, so I returned the loaf, set on a baking sheet, to the oven at 350 degrees F for about another 20 minutes. Because of the chips it is difficult to tell when the interior is fully baked. Perhaps using an instant read thermometer would work.

While the chocolate snail is baking, you can take the remaining two thirds of the Milk Bread dough and braid it into a loaf, make a sandwich loaf, (or make the harvest sheaf like I did, which is described HERE) and then bake it at 400 degrees F once the chocolate snail bread is done.

Happy Easter!

Tulips and daffodils,


green, green grass, sunshine (we got lucky), colored eggs; all are part and parcel of Easter at our house.



Without kids at home, we skip the Easter basket and candy, although I do have a brightly colored Easter basket on the table filled with colored egg shells from a few years ago. The ends were pierced and the egg blown out of them, then they were rinsed out and decorated. I keep them in an egg carton with the season decorations. They may last forever!

Today was the first morning that it was warm enough to eat breakfast outside (and we ate a few hours later than usual, too, which helps). We had a festive breakfast that included Sweetie's famous fruit bowls

plus the Bread Egg Nests with colored eggs that I tried this year.

Read all about the nests at the Bread Baker's Dog. They are yummy and you get a sweet roll and a soft boiled egg in one pretty packet.

Hope that your Easter, Passover, or other rite of Spring is delightful!

Will Sit for Bread

Xam says there's something delicious over at the Bread Baker's Dog blog...click HERE to go there and see!

Oats Whole Wheat and Barley Rolls

If this posts gets a nursery rhyme stuck in your head, that’s OK if that motivates you to bake these rolls. Of course if you forget to add the oats, like I did, it is a more pedestrian Whole Wheat and Barley Rolls.

There is nothing like fresh, warm from the oven dinner rolls at a potluck, especially when you know that the hostess is providing slices of ham and roast turkey. It may not seem as seasonal as candy cane cookies or fudge, but pot lucks are so typical of entertaining during the busy holiday season…the work is shared and we get to make something wonderful to bring. I'm submitting this as an entry for Bread Baking Day # 15, hosted by Annarasa, with the theme of celebrations.

This recipe is based on one of Marion Cunningham’s from The Fannie Farmer Baking Book. In case you have not read this book, it is a wonderful compendium of basic baking recipes, plus riffs on those. I especially like the front and back endpapers which have measurement equivalents, a basic pie dough formula, how to make a piece of parchment into a piping bag, how to soften gelatin and other tips.

Twenty-four to thirty soft, crusty, warm, yeasty dinner rolls are hard to beat. I made mine as pull-apart pan rolls, leaving about 2/3 of them plain on top and adding seeds to the rest. I replaced some of the all-purpose flour with barley flour and whole wheat flour and used my whole wheat starter.

NOTE: To use regular yeast instead of starter, when I add the starter to the other ingredients, leave that out and sprinkle 1 package dry yeast on top of the ingredients, stir, and let stand to dissolve.

A bonus is that your house smells yeasty and wonderful for hours. These would also be great for Christmas dinner, with roast beef or turkey or goose.

Whole Wheat and Barley Rolls
1 ¼ cups milk, warmed
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick or ¼ cup0 butter, softened (plus another 2 tablespoons if making pan rolls)
1 cup whole wheat starter – if using dry yeast, see Note above
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 cup barley flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2/13 – 3 cups all-purpose flour

Stir the warm milk, sugar, salt, and butter together in large mixing bowl. Make sure that the liquid is no warmer than 115 degrees F dry yeast, ten degrees less for cake yeast and starter.

Stir in the starter, then beat in the barley flour, whole wheat flour and ½ cup all-purpose flour.

Switch to the dough hook if you are using one. Beat in the rest of the flour on low speed. Continue to knead with the mixer 5-6 minutes or turn out onto a flour surface and knead for 6 – 8 minutes, until smooth and elastic.

Put into a large, greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap,a nd let rise until dougle in buld, Punch down and form into rolls.

Pan pull-apart rolls: Melt 2 – 3 tablespoons butter in a shallow dish in the microwave, making sure to cover the dish with waxed paper to keep spatters down.

Take the dough ball and divide it in half. Roll each half into a roughly 12 inch rope. Cut each rope into one inch pieces.

Roll each piece between the palms of your hands into a ball. Continue until all balls are made. Dip each ball in butter, coating all sides, then place in an 8 or 9 inch cake pan, leaving a little room between balls. If desired, sprinkle with seeds.

Cover loosely and let rise until double in bulk.

Bake in a preheated 425 degree F oven for about 15 minutes, or until the tops are a ddp golden brown. Remove from the oven, ease the rolls out of the pan and onto a rack to cool for a moment. Serve while warm with butter.

Spicy Pumpkin Muffins for Fall

Yep, the long awaited season of Fall will officially be here...I think tomorrow...and I'm welcoming it with open arms. The cool air, bright colors, and harvest flavors are such a delight in the Fall.

A local bakery used to have a pumpkin muffin with a sweet cheese surprise inside each fall, usually through Thanksgiving. The crumbly topping was part of the charm, too. Now the bakery is owned by someone else and the pumpkin muffins no longer have the cheese filling and the topping isn't as copious, but the muffin itself continues to be one of the best. The pumpkin flavor is intense, the spices are rich and they add walnuts for crunch.

Baking and cooking things that require long oven time, or roasting and braising become a favored activity in the autumn. Last week I tried making my own version of the pumpkin muffins, although I didn't do a topping, just a sprinkle of broken toffee walnuts. I used canned pumpkin, which is so easy, but the pumpkin flavor wasn't quite as intense at the bakery's. I added some molasses and maple syrup for sweetness and flavor, sour cream for moistness and tang, and applesauce to add moistness and cut the amount of oil needed. They must have been good because Sweetie ate three of them barely out of the oven. I thought they tasted better the next day.

So here's to Autumn - more baking weather, brisk walks through fallen leaves, brilliant blue skies and new recipes.

Spicy Pumpkin Muffins

started with basic muffins in Joy of Cooking, then went wild

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 large eggs ( or ½ cup egg substitute)
1 cup canned pumpkin – not pumpkin pie filling
¼ cup vegetable oil
¼ cup unsweetened applesauce
¼ cup maple syrup
¼ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup molasses
¼ cup sour cream or nonfat sour cream
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
½ cup raisins
¼ cup chopped walnuts or chopped toffee coated walnuts

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease and flour (or use baking spray) one 12- cup muffin tin. Set aside.

In a large bowl or on a large sheet of waxed paper, measure out all of the dry ingredients and spices: flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, ginger, nutmeg. Mix together with a fork. Set aside.

In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, pumpkin, oil, applesauce, maple syrup, granulated sugar, molasses, sour cream and vanilla.

Put the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture bowl. With as few strokes as possible, combine the wet and dry ingredients. Do not over mix. Fold in the raisins just to distribute.

Fill the muffin cups ¾ full with the batter, dividing evenly among the cups. Sprinkle the tops with the chopped nuts.

Bake in the preheated oven 20 – 25 minutes, or until muffins spring back when the center is gently pressed.

Makes 12.

In the Land of St. Honore'

Tanna of My Kitchen in Half Cups is the hostess of this month's Daring Bakers's challenge. She chose this wonderful and flavorful Tender Potato Bread from Home Baking: The Artful Mix of Flour and Tradition Around the World, by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. You can find the recipe on Tanna's site and at the bottom of this post.

Be sure to check out the other Daring Baker's to read their stories and see their creativity with the Tender Potato Bread by visiting the Daring Baker Blogroll here.

If you have a moment, I'd love your comments. Just click on COMMENTS below and thank you for visiting and hearing the latest story from this Daring Baker.

Tender Potato Bread
(from Home Baking: The Artful Mix of Flour & Tradition Around the World by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid; who also wrote Hot Sour Salty Sweet)
Daring Bakers Challenge #13: November 2007

Host: Tanna (My Kitchen in Half Cups)
Post Date: Monday, November 26
Makes 1 large tender-crumbed pan loaf AND something more; one 10X15 inch crusty yet tender foccacia, 12 soft dinner rolls, or a small pan loaf
Suggested Toppings:
For Loaves and Rolls: melted butter (optional)
For Foccacia: olive oil, coarse salt, and rosemary leaves (optional; also see variation)
For Anchovy-Onion Focaccia: Instead of oil, salt, and rosemary, top with onions slow-cooked in olive oil or bacon fat, a scattering of chopped anchovy fillets, and flat-leafed parsley leaves.
Alternate fillings, seasons, shapes are up to you.

Some additional notes about this challenge, recipe and the dough:
If you are new to bread and already your whisks are shaking (or is that your boots), you may bake the bread (or one of it’s variations) just as written.
There are no pictures. I give you the recipe. I cannot give you a photo or drawing of the recipe because that part is yours. That being said there are lots of pictures of other bread recipes that will provide great ideas for you if you decide to unleash that aspect of this recipe.
Potatoes and potato water give this bread wonderful flavor and texture. The dough is very soft and moist and might feel a little scary if you’ve never handled soft dough before. But don’t worry: Leaving it on parchment or wax paper to proof and to bake makes it easy to handle.
Once baked, the crumb is tender and airy, with tiny soft pieces of potato in it and a fine flecking of whole wheat. The loaves have a fabulous crisp texture on the outside and a slightly flat-topped shape. They make great toast and tender yet strong sliced bread for sandwiches. The dinner rolls are soft and inviting, and the focaccia is memorable.

I have chosen this recipe because it gives directions for different ways of shaping the dough and provides oven times and temperatures for those variations.

Some Notes about Flour:
King Arthur Artisan Organic All-Purpose Flour is fairly new in the markets in the US now and is advertised to be best for making European-style hearth breads with a protein level of 11.3%

Conversion Chart for yeast:
1 oz/ 1 Tablespoon of fresh yeast = 0.4 oz/ 1.25 teaspoon active or instant dry yeast = 0.33 oz / 1 teaspoon instant or rapid rise (bread machine) yeast. Reference: Crust & Crumb by Peter Reinhart
Link to online conversion chart for converting recipes from Imperial to Metric: Cooking Conversion Online (http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/cooking)
Remember, being a Daring Baker is about trying new recipes, techniques and taking risks. It’s reaching just beyond your comfort zone.
This is a Daring Baker Challenge, not a contest and not a competition because at its heart and soul is support and sharing the how to of the baking we do.

Challenge Recipe:
Metric measurements are from the European edition. Thank you Linda (Linda.kovacevic.nl) from Make Life Sweeter

Ingredients:
4 medium to large floury (baking) potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks.
Tanna Note: For the beginner bread baker I suggest no more than 8 ounces of potato; for the more advanced no more than 16 ounces. The variety of potatoes you might want to use would include Idaho, Russet & Yukon gold, there are others.
4 cups(950 ml) water, reserve cooking water
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
6 ½ cups to 8 ½ cups (1 kg to 1350g) unbleached all-purpose
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
1 cup (130g) whole wheat flour

Making the Dough (Directions will be for making by hand):
Put the potatoes and 4 cups water in a sauce pan and bring to boil. Add 1 teaspoon salt and cook, half covered, until the potatoes are very tender.
Drain the potatoes, SAVE THE POTATO WATER, and mash the potatoes well. Tanna Note: I have a food mill I will run my potatoes through to mash them.
Measure out 3 cups(750ml) of the reserved potato water. Add extra water if needed to make 3 cups. Place the water and mashed potatoes in the bowl you plan to mix the bread dough in. Let cool to lukewarm (70-80°F/21 - 29°C) – stir well before testing the temperature – it should feel barely warm to your hand. You should be able to submerge you hand in the mix and not be uncomfortable.
Add yeast to 2 cups all-purpose flour and whisk. Add yeast and flour to the cooled mashed potatoes & water and mix well. Allow to rest/sit 5 minutes.
Note about Adding Yeast: If using Active Dry Yeast or Fresh yeast, mix & stir yeast into cooled water and mashed potatoes & water and let stand 5 minutes. Then add 2 cups of flour to the yeast mix and allow to rest several minutes. If using Instant Dry Yeast, add yeast to 2 cups all-purpose flour and whisk. Add yeast and flour to the cooled mashed potatoes & water and mix well. Allow to rest/sit 5 minutes.
Sprinkle in the remaining 1 tablespoon salt and the softened butter; mix well. Add the 1 cup whole wheat flour, stir briefly.
Add 2 cups of the unbleached all-purpose flour and stir until all the flour has been incorporated.
Tanna Note: At this point you have used 4 cups of the possible 8 ½ cups suggested by the recipe.
Turn the dough out onto a generously floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes, incorporating flour as needed to prevent sticking. The dough will be very sticky to begin with, but as it takes up more flour from the kneading surface, it will become easier to handle; use a dough scraper to keep your surface clean. The kneaded dough will still be very soft. Place the dough in a large clean bowl or your rising container of choice, cover with plastic wrap or lid, and let rise about 2 hours or until doubled in volume.
Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and knead gently several minutes. It will be moist and a little sticky.
Forming the Bread:
Tanna Note: It is at this point you are requested to Unleash the Daring Baker within. The following is as the recipe is written. You are now free to follow as written or push it to a new level.
Divide the dough into 2 unequal pieces in a proportion of one-third and two-thirds (one will be twice as large as the other). Place the smaller piece to one side and cover loosely.
To shape the large loaf:
Butter a 9 x 5 x 2.5 inch loaf/bread pan. Flatten the larger piece of dough on the floured surface to an approximate 12 x 8 inch oval, then roll it up from a narrow end to form a loaf. Pinch the seam closed and gently place seam side down in the buttered pan. The dough should come about three-quarters of the way up the sides of the pan. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 35 to 45 minutes, until puffy and almost doubled in volume.
To make a small loaf with the remainder:
Butter an 8x4X2 inch bread pan. Shape and proof the loaf the same way as the large loaf.
To make rolls:
Butter a 13 x 9 inch sheet cake pan or a shallow cake pan. Cut the dough into 12 equal pieces. Shape each into a ball under the palm of your floured hand and place on the baking sheet, leaving 1/2 inch between the balls. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for about 35 minutes, until puffy and almost doubled.
To make focaccia:
Flatten out the dough to a rectangle about 10 x 15 inches with your palms and fingertips. Tear off a piece of parchment paper or wax paper a little longer than the dough and dust it generously with flour. Transfer the focaccia to the paper. Brush the top of the dough generously with olive oil, sprinkle on a little coarse sea salt, as well as some rosemary leaves, if you wish and then finally dimple all over with your fingertips. Cover with plastic and let rise for 20 minutes.
Baking the bread(s):
Note about baking order: bake the flat-bread before you bake the loaf; bake the rolls at the same time as the loaf.
Note about Baking Temps: I believe that 450°F(230°C) is going to prove to be too hot for the either the large or small loaf of bread for the entire 40/50 minutes. I am going to put the loaves in at 450°(230°C) for 10 minutes and then turn the oven down to 375°F (190 °C) for the remaining time.
Note about cooling times: Let all the breads cool on a rack for at least 30 minutes before slicing. Rolls can be served warm or at room temperature.
For loaves and rolls:
Dust risen loaves and rolls with a little all-purpose flour or lightly brush the tops with a little melted butter or olive oil (the butter will give a golden/browned crust). Slash loaves crosswise two or three times with a razor blade or very sharp knife and immediately place on the stone, tiles or baking sheet in the oven. Place the rolls next to the loaf in the oven.
Bake rolls until golden, about 30 minutes. Bake the small loaf for about 40 minutes. Bake the large loaf for about 50 minutes.
Transfer the rolls to a rack when done to cool. When the loaf or loaves have baked for the specified time, remove from the pans and place back on the stone, tiles or baking sheet for another 5 to 10 minutes. The corners should be firm when pinched and the bread should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.
For foccaia:
Place a baking stone or unglazed quarry tiles, if you have them, if not use a no edged baking/sheet (you want to be able to slide the shaped dough on the parchment paper onto the stone or baking sheet and an edge complicates things). Place the stone or cookie sheet on a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 450°F/230°C.
If making foccacia, just before baking, dimple the bread all over again with your fingertips. Leaving it on the paper, transfer to the hot baking stone, tiles or baking sheet. Bake until golden, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a rack (remove paper) and let cool at least 10 minutes before serving.

Summery Daring Delight

In eight months, the daring Bakers have gone from two to eighty-nine members. Not all of them participate each month, but many do. We now, thanks to our founder Lis and Ivonne, have a website with a blogroll where you can link to other Daring Bakers' sites and see what they all have done with this challenge.

Strawberry Mirror Cake

Peabody of Culinary Concoctions by Peabody has given the Daring Bakers a challenge for July that produces a beautiful 10” cake, uses an awesome quantity of eggs and strawberries, and presented some new challenges for me. It’s called the Strawberry Mirror Cake - the perfect cake for summer. When it is unmolded from the spring form pan, the Bavarian cream forms a pale pink shell, topped with a glistening mirror of red tinted but clear strawberry gelatin. You can find the recipe on Peabody’s site here and at the bottom of this post. If you refer to it as you read through this post, it will make more sense.

First of all, I’ve never made a mirror cake before. I’ve never made a Bavarian cream either. My sponge cake skills were rusty since it’s been years since I made one. The good news is that I did have a small bottle of Kirsch (clear cherry brandy) in the cupboard, and some cake flour left over from the March challenge. Although I use it once in a blue moon, I also had some cream of tartar.

The first part, lining the jelly roll pan with parchment paper, was easy and fun and I was so glad that I let Sweetie talk me into buying some new 11 x 17 inch rimmed pans recently…sure I probably would have bought them anyway, but it was nice that he wanted me to…I think he enjoys the challenges as much as I do. Being the official taste tester has its advantages.

Since I knew that I would be doing separated eggs for both the cake and the Bavarian, I separated the eggs for both at the same time, then saved the Bavarian eggs in sealed containers for later. Separating the eggs while they were chilly, then letting them come to room temperature to bake with seems to work well. I also made the strawberry juice the day before I made the Mirror. Since I was processing strawberries for the Bavarian cream, it seemed like a good time to do it.

Sponge Cake
One of the key things about making the sponge cake is to beat the eggs and sugar for a looooong time to get the air incorporated. Because I only have one Kitchen Aid mixer mixing bowl, I actually beat my egg whites first, with sugar added as directed, almost to glossy stage, then transferred them to another bowl while I beat the eggs and sugar.

Once the eggs and sugar were light and thick and yummy looking, with vanilla incorporated, I whisked the whites in the non-mixer bowl for a while to bring them up to glossy stage, then followed the recipe by sifting flour over the egg sugar mixture and folding it in. I lightened the mixture with some of the whites, then folded in the rest of the whites gently, taking the spatula down the center, then up the side of the bowl, turning the bowl a bit, then repeating…center, side, turn, center, side, turn.

The most nerve wracking part was spreading the batter in that huge pan, trying to keep the air in the batter in the process. This batter bakes up into a fairly thin cake, but that’s OK. You need room for two layers and the Bavarian cream in that spring form pan.

I also found that leaving the parchment on the cake while cutting out the two layers was a good idea, but peel the parchment off fairly soon so it doesn’t stick when the cake cools the rest of the way. The diameter of the cake needs to be about ½ to 1 inch smaller than the spring form pan to allow the Bavarian cream to surround it.

Bavarian Cream
I made the Bavarian cream a couple of days later. The cake was in the fridge and it seemed like it would keep for a couple of days. We had invited guests for dinner on Saturday and I wanted to serve the cake to them. I left the mirror part for Saturday morning, but I did make the juice early…more on that later.

The first thing I did was prepare the puree. Since I had bought a large clamshell of strawberries at the grocery store…about 4 pounds of them!...I estimated how many would make 1 ½ cups of puree. After removing the caps and slicing them, I put them in the food processor and let it whirl until it looked like a puree, seeds and all. Then I left for lunch and put it in the fridge. When I came home, I put the puree in a bowl and sprinkled on the gelatin, stirred the gelatin in, then set it aside.

When the yolks that I had separated the day before were at room temperature, it was back to beating eggs and sugar a long time until light. I had no trouble with the hot milk, with adding it carefully to the sugar and yolk mixture (and yes, I did temper it), nor with cooking that mixture the proper amount.

No trouble with adding the puree/gelatin mixture, but the cooling over ice water was a problem. Turns out that my ice maker was not making much ice, so the cooling too forever.

I finally added a package of frozen limas that no one wanted to eat. That helped. In the end I put the bowl of gelatin mixture directly in the freezer and stirred it about every minute until it was almost the right consistency, then finished it in the ice bath. Unorthodox, but necessary. Here is how the gelled bavarian without cream looks:

Folding the whipped cream into the gelatin mixture was similar to folding the whipped whites into the cake batter. You get the idea.

Now that the cake has had plenty of time to cool in the fridge and the Bavarian cream is made, it’s time to assemble the cake, up to the Mirror part.

I put together the soaking sugar syrup flavored with the kirsch, then prepared the 10-inch spring form pan. Covering the circle of cardboard with foil was not as simple as I had thought it would be. I ended up going over the whole disc with a rolling pin to flatten everything nicely. I also made sure to coat the sides of the pan all the way up to the rim with the oil. Notice the space between the edge of the cake and the sides of the pan in the photo below. That's where the Bavarian goes.

The syrup went on the cake nicely, the Bavarian cream needed a little pushing down with the spatula to make sure it covered the space between the cake and the pan sides, but putting the cake together was simple. I had lots of Bavarian cream, but needed to restrain myself from using too much so that there would be room for the Mirror. In the photo that came with the recipe, it looked like the cream was supposed to be about the same depth as the cake. I almost forgot to use the soaking syrup on the second layer, but remembered right before I covered it with the cream.

The top was as even as I could make it, but not really level.

Into the fridge it all went to chill overnight. The kitchen looked like a cyclone had hit it. Even though I made the cake early, there were still an amazing number of bowls, pans, and spatulas to wash.

The official recipe puts the Mirror next, but you need to make the Juice before you can make the mirror, so here we go…

The strawberries need to be processed first, caps removed and sliced or chunked to make them easier to crush. While the berries and sugar were simmering, I discovered that I had no more cheesecloth, nor a jelly bag, so I improvised by using a coffee filter. Worked like a charm. It is important to not press on the fruit, just let the mixture drip. That way your juice is clear and your mirror will be lovely.

On to the Mirror. It’s Saturday, in the morning. I have a ton of things to do to get ready for the dinner party, but the mirror is first.

I stirred the gelatin into the lemon juice, kirsch and water mixture. The hardest part was deciding how red to color the mirror. I think I used 4 drops of red food coloring. The ice bath situation was not any better than it had been for the Bavarian, so I did some freezer time, stirring the mixture with my clean fingers to keep the heat level even as it cooled, then finished it in the ice bath. The layer I poured over the Bavarian, which had been chilling overnight, was more than 1/16 inch because the top was not even and I wanted to make sure that the mirror was over the whole cake. The limitation was that I didn’t want to have it go over the rim of the spring form pan. Tricky!

It’s Saturday afternoon. The Mirror has set, the house is clean, the dinner prep is underway and it’s time to finish the cake. Oh, yes, and take photos, too.

The towel I use to wrap around the pan is too short! I add some paper towels quickly doused in hot water and wrung out. While they sit on the outside of the pan, I take a small sharp knife and run it all around the edge at the rim, making sure that the tip of the knife hits the Bavarian cream and that I get all around without taking the knife out. Now for the most daring part. I take off the towels, slowly unlatch the pan and….ta da!...the cake is ready for the serving platter. Well, almost ready. The sides of the cake look pretty plain, although the mirror is lovely. Since I still have lots and lots of strawberries, I decide to slice them and march the slices around the side of the cake. When I plated the slices after dinner, I drizzled a spiral of strawberry puree on each dessert plate first, then put on the cake slice.

Thank you Peabody for picking a very good challenge for July. Making the cake increased my skills and the cake itself was certainly enjoyed by our guests and by Sweetie. It was pretty, sweet, light, and rich…prefect for a dinner party. I would probably make it again, but most likely with raspberries. I would also make sure that I had plenty of ice for the ice water baths. Now I only wish I could give you a piece of the Strawberry Mirror Cake.



Strawberry Mirror Cake

Daring Bakers Challenge #8: July 2007
Host: Peabody (Culinary Concoctions by Peabody)
Post Date: July 30th

Recipe Quantity: One (1) 10" Cake

Special Pans: 11 x 17" Jelly Roll Pan, 10" Springform Pan, 8 1/4" Cake Round or Tin (or pattern)

Ingredients/Steps:
A. Strawberry Mirror Cake
• 3 eggs
• 3 egg yolks
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 egg whites
• 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
• 2 TBSP sugar
• 2/3 cup sifted cake flour
• ½ cup water
• 1/3 cups sugar
• 2 TBSP kirsch or strawberry liqueur

1.Preheat oven to 450F. Butter and flour the sides of an 11-by-17 inch jelly roll pan(rimmed baking sheet). Line bottom of pan with a sheet of parchment paper cut to fit bottom pan exactly.

2.Beat eggs, egg yolks and ¾ cup sugar together in a medium bowl until thick and light. Beat in the vanilla.

3.In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until foamy, ad cream of tartar and beat until whites begin to form peaks. Add the 2 TBSP sugar and beat until the whites hold stiff, glossy peaks(do not over beat).

4.Sift flour over the egg yolk mixture and fold in . Stir in one fourth of the whites. Then carefully fold in the remaining whites.

5.Spread batter evenly in pan. Bake until light brown and springy to touch(7 to 10 minutes).

6. Cool in pan 5 minutes. Run a knife along edge to loosen. Invert cake tin to cut out 8 ¼ inch circles of cake. Wrap the cake layers, separated with waxed paper, and set aside. Cake may be frozen at this point.

B. Strawberry Bavarian Cream
• 2 ½ TBSP unflavored gelatin
• 1 ½ cups strained strawberry puree(1 ½ baskets)
• 5 egg yolks
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 ½ cups milk
• 1 TBSP lemon juice
• several drops of red food coloring
• 1 ¾ cups whipping cream

1.Sprinkle the gelatin over the strawberry puree in a small bowl and set aside until spongy.

2.Combine egg yolks and sugar in a bowl' beat until light. Bring milk to a boil in sauce pan. Pour hot milk into yolk mixture ans stir with a wooden spoon(it doesn't say so but I would temper the egg mixture first to be safe). Return this mixture to the saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until your finger leaves a clear trail in sauce when drawn across the back of the spoon.(Do not boil or mixture will curdle.) Immediately remove from heat and stir in softened gelatin mixture. Pour into a stainless steel bowl places over a bowl of ice water. Stir in lemon juice and a few drops of red food coloring. Cool over ice water, stirring occasionally, until mixture thickens to the consistency of softly whipped cream.

3.While gelatin mixture is cooling, whip the whipping cream until it holds soft peaks. When the gelatin mixture resembles softly whipped cream, fold the whipped cream into the gelatin mixture.


Strawberry Mirror
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 TBSP kirsch
• 1 TBSP water
• 1 TBSP unflavored gelatin
• Few drops of red food coloring

1.Prepare strawberry juice.

2.Place lemon juice, kirsch, and water in a small bowl. Sprinkle gelatin over this mixture; set aside until spongy and soft.

3.Measure 1 ½ cups Strawberry juice into a small saucepan and bring to a simmer; pour over gelatin mixture and stir to dissolve gelatin. Tint to desired color with red food coloring. Place bowl over bowl of ice water and stir occasionally until the mixture is syrupy and just beings to thicken(do not let jell); remove from ice water.

4.When mixture is syrupy, pour a 1/16-inch layer over the top of cake. Refrigerate until set.

Strawberry Juice
• 1 ½ pints of strawberries(18 oz)
• ¾ cup sugar
• ¾ cup water

1. Wash and hull strawberries; coarsely chop.

2. Place strawberries in saucepan; crush to start juices flowing. Place over low heat; add sugar and water; simmer slowly 10 minutes.

3.Pour juice and pulp through damp jelly bag or cheesecloth-lined colander and drain into a bowl for 15 minutes(Do not press down on fruit).

Soaking Syrup
Combine water and the 1/3 cup sugar in saucepan; bring to a boil to dissolve sugar. Cool to room temperature; flavor with liqueur. Set aside or refrigerate in glass jar until ready to use.

To Assemble the Cake:
1. Brush sides of 10-inch springform pan lightly with flavorless salad oil or almond oil. Cut out a cardboard circle that is exactly the same size as the bottom inside of the pan; cover cardboard with aluminum foil and fit into bottom of pan. Center one layer of the cake bottom of pan. Brush the cake with some of the soaking syrup to just moisten(not drench) the cake; set aside.

2. Prepare Strawberry Bavarian Cream. Immediately pour about half of the Bavarian Cream over the first layer of cake in the pan. Set the next layer of cake on top of the cream. Pour remaining Bavarian Cream over cake and smooth top of the cream with spatula. Refrigerate until the cream sets(1 to 2 hours).

3.Prepare the Strawberry Mirror.

To serve:
Wrap a hot towel around the outside of springform pan for a few minutes. Run a small sharp knife tip around the edge of the Strawberry Mirror to separate it form the sides of pan. Mirror will tear when sides are unlatched if it is stuck at ANY point. Slowly unlatch the pan and slide it off the cake. Slice cake in wedges and serve in upright slices.