Frangipane Rolls フランジパンロール

My wife’s sister sent this recipe from King Arthur Flour to my wife knowing my wife is a fairly accomplished baker (challenge???). It appears to be a very fancy recipe and the “frangipane” was even a separate recipe. In any case, my wife rose to the challenge. Being a King Arthur recipe, the original recipe called for their “Raspberry and orange jammy bits” in the filling which we would have had to buy. She skipped this and just used the “frangipane”. The thin layer of frangipane added a nice and distinct almond flavor and the rolls had a nice texture and slightly sweet taste (picture #1). It took some work for my wife but she said it was worth it. 

Frangipane recipe (makes about 360 gram which is perfect for the frangipane rolls recipe below)

Ingredients: 
6 tablespoons (85g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup (99g) granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 cup (96g) King Arthur Almond Flour
3 tablespoons (23g) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour or King Arthur Gluten- Free Measure for Measure Flour
1 large egg, at room temperature
2 teaspoons almond emulsion or almond extract

Directions:
1. In a medium bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter, sugar, and salt until pale and fluffy, about 1 minute on medium speed.
2. Stir in the flours, egg, and almond flavoring. Mix until just combined.
3. Use the frangipane as desired: fill tart shells, pipe into croissant dough, top slices of Bostock, or come up with your own way to use this flavorful, nutty filling. Bake the frangipane as directed in your recipe or until it’s golden brown and smells nutty.
4. Store leftover unbaked frangipane in the refrigerator, covered, for up to 1 week or freeze for up to 2 months.

Frangipane roll recipe:

Ingredients: (doubled the original recipe)

Tangzhong (starter)
6 tablespoons (86g) water
6 tablespoons (86g) milk, whole preferred
4 tablespoons (28g) King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour

Dough
5 cups (600g) King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour
1 cup (226g) milk, whole preferred
2 large eggs
8 tablespoons (114g) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
2 tablespoon (18g) instant yeast
2 teaspoon (12g) table salt

Topping
2 tablespoons (28g) milk,whole preferred
2 tablespoons (25g) granulated sugar, optional

Directions:
1.To make the tangzhong: 
In a small saucepan, combine all the ingredients and whisk until no lumps remain.
2.Place the saucepan over medium heat and cook the mixture, stirring regularly, until thickened, paste-like, and the spoon or spatula leaves lines on the bottom of the pan. This should take 2 to 4 minutes, depending on the strength of the burner.
3.Remove the tangzhong from the heat and transfer it to a large mixing bowl, the bowl of a stand mixer, or the bucket of a bread machine (wherever you plan to knead the dough).

4.To make the dough: 
Weigh the flour; or measure it by gently spooning it into a cup, then sweeping off any excess. Place the flour into the bowl with the tangzhong and add the remaining dough ingredients. Mix to combine, then knead — by hand, mixer, or bread machine — until a soft, smooth dough forms, about 8 to 10 minutes on medium-low speed of a mixer. (The dough may be tacky and stick to the sides of the bowl slightly; that's OK.)
5.Shape the dough into a ball, place it in a lightly greased large bowl or standard dough rising bucket, cover, and refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours. The refrigerated rise will make the dough much easier to handle and shape
6.To assemble: On a lightly floured surface, gently deflate the dough, divide it into four pieces and shape each piece into a ball.
7.Cover the dough and let it rest for 10 minutes.
8. Prepare a square pan with a parchment sling or reusable silicone liner. Lightly grease any exposed sides of the pan.
9. Working with one piece of dough at a time, roll it into an 8" square. If the dough begins to snap back during rolling, set it aside and begin rolling out the second piece. After a couple of minutes, return to the first piece to continue rolling it to the full size (this gives the gluten a chance to relax).
10. Portion one quarter of the filling onto the top half of the square. 
11. Starting at the top, spread the filling across the entire width of the square and down about 4", leaving the bottom 4" bare (#1). If the filling is difficult to spread, warm it in the microwave for 15 seconds and stir; check the consistency. Repeat, if necessary, until it's easily spreadable.
12. Using a bench or chef’s knife, cut the uncovered dough at the bottom into very thin strips (anywhere from 1/8" to 1/4" wide) (#2).
13.Starting from the filling-covered top and rolling toward the uncovered strips, roll the dough into a log about 8" long.
 14. Lightly press the strips into the rolled log to secure. Cut the log into four 2" pieces and then place them, seam-side down, in a row and in alternating orientations in the pan (#3).
15. Roll, fill, and shape the remaining pieces of dough, placing the rolls into the pan to form 4 rows of 4 buns, each row in an alternating pattern (#4 & #5). Cover the rolls and let them rise for 60 to 75 minutes, until puffy.
16.While the rolls rise, preheat the oven to 350°F.
17.To finish and bake the rolls: Gently brush the rolls with milk, being careful not to deflate the delicate dough, and sprinkle generously with granulated sugar.
18. Bake the rolls for 30 to 35 minutes, until the tops are golden brown; a digital thermometer inserted into the center should read at least 190°F (#6).
19. Remove the rolls from the oven and cool in the pan until you can transfer it safely to a rack to cool completely, at least 15 minutes. Serve the rolls slightly warm or at room temperature.
20. Storage information: Store leftover mini wool rolls, well wrapped, at room temperature for several days.

These rolls have a very delicate flavor accented mostly by the frangipan which provides a delicate slightly sweet almond flavor. The bread has the texture and flavor of a milk bread while the frangipan provides a slightly custard like filling interspersed through out the bread. This is definitely a very sophisticated bread.  

Mary Walsh's Currant Cake マリイウオルシュのカラントケーキ

We like food themed travel shows. One of which was by Phil Rosenthal. It started as a PBS show “I’ll Have What Phil is Having” which evolved into a Netflix show called “Somebody feed Phil”. Although we had forgotten about it, turns out we had a copy of “Somebody feed Phil The book”. We rediscovered it while looking for another cookbook on the book shelf. It is an interesting read of behind-the-scene stories of the first 4 seasons but it also contains recipes provided by the local chefs they visited during the show. Among those recipes, was one titled “Mary Walsh’s Currant Cake”. Since St. Patrick's day was coming up and the current cake was basically an Irish soda bread my wife decided to make it. According to the book, although it was called current cake one of the secrets of why it tasted so good was that Mary didn’t use currents. She used sultanas (golden raisins) instead. Maybe she used sultanas because she didn’t have any currents. We, of course, didn’t have any currants either (we also didn’t have any sultanas). So my wife used raisons and dried fruit medley from Harry and David. (So really we should probably call our version dried fruit medley cake). As the queen of ingredient substitution in recipes my wife did not stop there. The recipe called for orange and lemon zests but we did not have any oranges. We did, however, have some Meyer lemons which have a flavor that is a cross between a lemon and an orange. So she used that instead and it worked well.

You can see the dried fruit medley and raisins on the cut-surface (picture #1)

Ingredients:
2 ounces (½ stick/55g) unsalted butter (room temperature), plus more for the pan
3¼ cups (450g) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
2 tablespoons (25g) castor or light or dark brown sugar
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon kosher salt
Zest of 2 Meyer lemons
1 cup dried fruit medley
1 cup of raisins
1 large egg
1¼ cups (300ml) buttermilk
2 tablespoons (30ml) heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon brown sugar

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 425°F (220°C) and place a baking rack in the lower third of the oven.
Lightly butter an 8-inch round cake pan. In a large bowl, mix the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt together. Use your fingers to rub the butter into the dry ingredients. Use a citrus peeler to zest the Meyer lemons. Add all the zest and the dried fruit to the bowl with the flour mixture and stir until well combined.

Put the egg in a medium bowl and whisk in the buttermilk and cream. Set aside 2 tablespoons of the buttermilk mixture.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the remaining buttermilk, stirring to make a very moist, shaggy dough. Or, use your hands: grip the edge of the bowl with one hand, stir with a broad circular motion with the other. Turn the dough out onto a well-floured work surface and dust your hands lightly with flour. Gently shape the dough into a thick, roughly 6-inch (15cm) round and use a bench scraper or large spatula to transfer the dough to the center of the cake pan.

Brush the top and sides of the dough with the reserved buttermilk mixture and sprinkle the remaining brown sugar on top (#2). Put the cake pan in the oven, reduce the temperature to 400°F (180°C).

Bake for about 40 minutes until the bread is lightly golden brown on top and sounds hollow when tapped (#3). Transfer the bread to a wire rack and let cool for about 20 minutes. Cut the bread into thick slices and serve it warm with butter.

This is a very nice soda bread. Perfect for Saint Patrick’s day. It had a dense moist texture and a mild slightly sweet taste. The robust flavor of the butter milk as well as the citrus note from the Meyer lemon zest came through nicely. The dried fruit added a nice burst of sweetness.

Sweet Onion Bread Pudding 玉ねぎのブレッドプデｨング

I do not know how my wife decided to make this dish. She apparently saw this recipe on line and decided to make it.  The recipe calls for cubes of bread. She did not feel like using our home-baked milkbread or other breads we baked. So we ended up getting a loaf of whole wheat bread from Whole Foods. Although the original recipe was called “soufflé”, this is not a souffle. My wife decide to call it “bread pudding”. In any case, this is a good side dish. For the first time we tasted it, onion flavor was sort of strong (even though we used sweet onion and sautéed for a long time). But it calmed down and eventually tasted just right. It heats up  nicely by briefly microwaving. As shown in the picture we served this as a snack with Greek rice stuffed grape leaves (dolma or dolmadakia, store bought)

The recipe came from “Southern living”.

Ingredients: Recipe X 1/2
1 tablespoon butter
2 cups chopped Vidalia onions
1 cups fresh bread cubes (crusts removed) 
6 oz. evaporated milk
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cups shredded Parmesan cheese (or combination of other cheeses)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Ingredients (Original recipe)
2 tablespoons butter
4 cups chopped Vidalia onions
2 cups fresh bread cubes (crusts removed)
1 (12-oz.) can evaporated milk
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/4 cups shredded Parmesan cheese (or combination of other cheeses)
1 teaspoon salt

Directions
Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat; add chopped onion, and sauté 10 to 15 minutes or until tender.
Place onion and bread cubes in a large bowl. Stir in milk, eggs, 1 cup cheese, and salt. Pour into a lightly greased soufflé or baking dish. (For 1/2 recipe I used the smallest pyrex baking dish). Sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup cheese.
Bake at 350 ̊ for 25 minutes or until set.

This is basically an onion flavored bread pudding. It is very flavorful (and very rich). Initially the onion was quite strong. It got better with time as the onion flavor blended into the cheese and bread. The 1/2 recipe was perfect for us.

Corn Sage Muffin Variation コーン、セージ、マフィンバリエーション

It is getting to be the season for fresh corn and we have gotten quite few ears of it recently. We (mostly my wife) love corn and we’re making quite a few corn dishes. This particular baking project started out as one of my wife’s regular sage corn bread (in muffin form) but she realized the recipe called for 1 1/2 cups of corn puree and she only had a cup; not quire enough of the corn puree required to make the batch of muffins. Then she remembered we had left-over corn, roasted red pepper, edamame and bacon salad that we had made a few days ago. She thought, ‘That salad included corn. If I substitute the salad for the missing corn, wouldn’t that make up the shortfall?’ She first contemplated pureeing the salad and adding it to the corn puree but in the end, she decided to just put a cup of the salad into the batter to add some additional texture.   I will never fathom how my wife (the queen of substitutions in recipes) comes up with these things but this substitution happened to result in a very good muffin. The red in the picture is the roasted red pepper. The green is the jalapeños pepper and boiled edamame. The flavors of these ingredients, particularly the roasted red pepper really comes through and went beautifully with the over all corn sage flavor of the muffin. This is a variation well worth repeating.

The picture below shows the salad she added.

The ingredients and directions for the two recipes she combine are shown below for convenience

Ingredients: For the muffin
1 cup grated corn
1 stick butter
6 large sage leaves (or several sprigs of rosemary)
1 cup of corn salad (this is the current variation in the recipe) (Salad recipe below)
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
3/4 corn flour (or corn meal)
2 cups All Purpose (AP) flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup sugar (or more for a slightly sweeter muffin)

Directions:
Grate the ears of corn on a stand grater. Scrape the ears with the back of the knife to get the remaining "corn milk" . Melt the butter in a saucepan (do not allow it to boil or brown). Mix in the grated corn, salt, and sage leaves. Cook until creamy and thickened, making a kind of polenta. Remove the sage leaves. To achieve a really smooth emersion blend it further in a “motor boat” blender. Allow the mixture to cool. Add the buttermilk and eggs and mix until blended.

In a large bowl sift together the corn flour (or corn meal), AP flour, baking soda, baking powder, and sugar. Add the 1 cup of corn salad and mix in the dry ingredients to coat with a bit of the flour. Add the liquid ingredients and stir until blended. Scoop into the prepared muffin tin. Cook in 400F degree oven for 18 to 20 minutes for muffins, or until a skewer comes out clean and the muffins are nicely browned.

Ingredients: For the corn salad
1 roasted red pepper, skin, ribs and seeds removed and cut into small squares
2 ears of fresh corn on cob, microwaved wrapped in wet paper towel for 2 minutes or more until cooked
1 sweet (Vidalia) onion, finely chopped
2 strips of bacon, cooked to crisp and crumbled
1 large jalapeño pepper, seeded, deveined and finely chopped
1 cup of boiled edamame, shelled (or lima beans)

For dressing:
1 tbs Dijon mustard
1 tbs honey
2 tbs rice vinegar (or any vinegar)
8 tbs or more fruity olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
For roasted red pepper
I roasted them at 450F in the toaster oven on convection mode for 20 minutes turning a few times so that all the surface was cooked/charred. I then put them in Ziploc bags to steam for 30 minutes. Once cooled down, remove the stem end, skin, ribs, seeds and peel. (The skin will come off easily).

Combine all the ingredients, add the dressing and stir well.

Mango Chutney Almond Milk Rolls マンゴーチャツネとアーモンドミルクロール

This is another example of my wife’s major morphing of a recipe into her own version. She saw the sweet roll recipe in Washington Post which used almond milk, marmalade filling, orange juice and  orange zest for glaze. Since we did not have Almond milk we ended up making it, although in retrospect, we are not sure why the recipe even calls for Almond milk. We had marmalade but did not have orange zest or orange juice. So my wife used Major grey’s mango chutney instead of marmalade and omitted the orange juice. Since she had some sweetened condensed milk left over from making milk bread she decided to use that in the filling too. This is quite different from the original recipe but when substitution of ingredients is needed, my wife is very inventive. The mango chutney worked very well. In any case, this roll is very tender and slightly sweet and perfect for breakfast.

Ingredients:
For the dough
3 1/2 cups flour, plus more as needed for rolling the dough
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. Salt
2 1/4 yeast
2 1/2 cups almond milk (not sure why almond milk is required next time I’ll just use regular milk)
4 Tbs. Salted butter
1 egg

For the filling:
30-50 grams sweetened condensed milk
30 grams butter softened
2 tsp sugar
3 Tbs. Major Grey’s mango chutney

Directions:
Add the dry ingredients; flour through yeast to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the wet ingredients; almond milk through egg. Mix until smooth dough forms. Knead for 10 minutes. Turn out onto floured surface and shape into a loaf. Put in a bowl, coat the surface with vegetable oil. Cover and put in the dough proofer at 78 degrees until doubled in size. Punch down the dough. Cover and let rest for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile make the filling by mixing together the ingredients for the filling. Roll out the dough into a large rectangle (#1). Cover the rectangle with the filling then roll it up as tightly as possible without squeezing out the filling (#2). Cut the roll into 14 to 16 equal slices. Put the slices cut edge down in a greased pyrex cooking dish. (Note: it is rather hard to cut the slices; they tend to squish. Out of frustration I just made the last part of the dough into a loaf and cooked it on a small cookie sheet. (I did not take a picture of this.) The loaf turned out just fine and could be cut into slices after it was baked. I might do this in the future instead of trying to make the rolls. ) Bake in a 375 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown (#3, #4).

These muffins were quite good. The dough had a crunchy crust but a soft interior. The filling formed a light custard like texture which was slightly sweet but with a lovely hint of spice from the chutney. Several large pieces of mango from the chutney provide a moist surprise burst of flavor. These were perfect flavorful pastries to have for breakfast with coffee.

Cookie Butter Swirls クッキーバターバンズ

Since we got Brod and Taylor’s folding proofer for bread, we are on their mailing list which includes new products and recipes. One of these had a recipe for a lemon and poppy seed buns. The appearance of the buns was very similar to the Swedish cardamon buns that my wife baked sometime ago. So, I drew my wife’s attention to this recipe. She was not crazy about the lemon poppy seed filling. She immediately thought of using the left-over “cookie butter” she made. (First she had excess chocolate covered cookies to use up. Now she had excess chocolate covered cookie butter to use up.) So instead of using the lemon poppy seed filling called for in the recipe, she decided to use the excess cookie butter she had as the filling. She then used the same technique of forming the buns that she used for the Swedish cardamon buns. The result was this elegant looking and good tasting sweet buns/swirls.

Ingredients (makes 12 buns):
Dough
120g (½ cup) Milk (my wife used 1/4 cups evaporated milk, since she had it, and 1/4 cup regular milk)
120g (½ cup) Yogurt, plain unsweetened
2 Eggs (one whole egg + an egg yolk for the dough and the egg white for an egg wash on the final buns.)
45g (3 tbsp + 2 tsp) Sugar
6g (2 tsp) Instant yeast
85g (6 tbsp) Butter, softened
420g (3 ½ cup) All-purpose flour
5g (1 tsp) Fine salt

Filling
370 g Cookie butter (This used up all the available cookie butter)

Glaze
The egg white from the separated egg above.
Sugar

Directions:
Set up the proofer
Set the proofer to 78°F (25°C) and put the water tray in the middle of the warming plate. Pour ¼ cup (60 ml) of water into the tray and place the rack on top of the tray.

Mix the dough:
Using a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine the flour, yeast, sugar and salt in the bowl of the mixer. In a separate bowl, mix the milk, yogurt, and egg, until well combined. Add the wet mixture to the dry. Add the butter. Mix on low speed for 2 to 3 minutes until no dry remains and the butter in incorporated. Turn to medium speed and mix for 7 to 10 minutes until the ingredients form a smooth elastic dough.

1st fermentation: Transfer the dough to a greased bowl and place in the Folding Proofer for 1 to 1 ½ hours until doubled in size.

Roll the dough:
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Roll into a rectangle measuring about 10.5" x 16" (27 x 40cm).
With the dough facing you lengthwise, spread filling over the entire surface of the dough.
Spread the cookie butter in a thin layer (#1)
Fold the dough into thirds like a letter. To do so, take the left side and fold it in toward the center. Take the right third of the dough and fold in to the center on top of the fold just made.
Refrigerate it for about 15 minutes which will make it easier to cut and shape.
Roll the dough out again to a 16.5" x 8.5" (42 x 22cm) rectangle (#2). Do the letter fold again and re-roll it out to 16.5” x 8.5” again.
Line two sheet pans with parchment paper. Set aside.
Cut the dough into 12 strips. To do this, mark the dough with 3 lines making 4 section. Then mark each of these 4 sections with 2 lines making a total of 12 sections. Then go back and cut the entire length of the dough where marked (#2). Take one dough strip and twist each end in opposite directions until the entire strip is twisted (#3).
Starting at one end coil the strip to form a circular bun, tucking the tail underneath (#4).
Place on the prepared pan. Repeat until all 12 buns are shaped and placed 6 on each of the 2 trays (#4). (The buns are placed 6 to a tray and each tray is cooked individually. This allows each bun to receive even heat and expand without touching another bun).

Final proof: The cookie sheets do not fit in the proofer. Cover it with a plastic wrap, and place the trays on the towel so they are not resting on the cold table top. Cover with another towel. Allow the buns to rise for about 1 hour.

Glaze the surface: First paint on the egg white then sprinkle on the sugar
Near the end of the proofing time preheat the oven to 375° (190°C).
Bake: Bake the buns at 375°F (190°C) for 18-20 minutes (#6).

My wife is really getting good at forming these swirl/buns. Her idea of using the cookie butter (this is made of chocolate cover cookies) really worked. The buns were sweet but not too sweet with a subtle chocolate flavor and slightly crunchy surface and soft inside.

Cheese Stuffed Romanian Flat Bread チーズ入りのルーマニアのパン

Although we have an “excess” of baked goods due to my wife’s baking binge (all hardships should be so easy), she saw an interesting recipe for “Cheese stuffed Romanian flat bread” on Washington Post and declared that she had to make it. Of course, nothing goes without a hitch. The recipe calls for cooking the bread in a cast iron skillet. We know we have a small and large cast-iron skillet plus a cast iron grill. We used to keep them in the drawer under the stove but since that is prime space and we were not using them much, we got organized and moved them somewhere else. For the life of us, we could not remember where “somewhere else” was and after extensive looking could not find them. Like pancakes, my wife made the dough and formed it,  I cooked the bread using a small non-stick frying pan instead of cast iron pan.

The bread looks a bit overdone but it tasted ok with a toasty flavor, crispy crust and the soft cheesy center. Despite some difficulties, I have to say this was a sucess.

As usual, my wife deviated from the original recipe.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups (313 grams) all-purpose flour, plus more as needed
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons (7 grams) quick-acting or instant dry yeast
1 pinch fine salt
6 tablespoons sunflower oil or other neutral oil
1/3 + 1/2 cup milk

Filling
6 oz. Ricotta cheese (this is what my wife used)
3 Tbs. Honey
1/8 Tsp. Cayenne pepper
1/4 Tsp. Salt
6 ounces farmers cheese or cottage cheese (if using cottage cheese hang shortly in a cheese cloth to drain excess liquid).

Optional:
Honey, for drizzling
Flaky sea salt, for sprinkling (optional)

Directions:
Put the flour, yeast, salt, sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer with a dough hook. Add the oil to the milk and stir into the dry ingredients. If the mixture seems dry, add cool water, 1 teaspoon at a time; if it seems tacky, add a little more flour. Knead the dough until soft and smooth, about 10 minutes. (Cover the bowl with a clean, damp cloth and let the dough rise at room temperature for 1 hour, or until almost doubled in size. (Alternatively, cover and refrigerate the dough overnight.)

Lightly flour the work surface and turn the dough out onto it. Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces. Working with one piece at a time, roll the dough into a 10- to 12-inch-wide circle. Crumble or spread a sixth of the cheese, about 1 ounce (28 grams), in the center, leaving a 5-inch border around the cheese. Fold the sides of the round into the center in 7 to 8 folds, overlapping them slightly. The dough should cover the cheese. Then press the filled circle of dough with your hands or use a rolling pin to gently press the bread closed. Repeat with the remaining dough and cheese.

In a large, cast-iron skillet (or if you can’t find it any non-stick frying pan will do) over medium heat, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil until it shimmers. Swirl the pan so the oil coats the bottom and place one of the dough rounds in the pan. Fry until golden brown on the bottom, 2 to 4 minutes, then flip and cook until golden brown on the other side, another 2 to 4 minutes, adjusting the heat as needed. Transfer to a plate and cook the remaining dough rounds, adding more oil as needed.

Serve warm, with honey and flaky salt, if desired.

 

In the picture it looks like these became a bit “high-done” but they were nicely crunchy and had a toasty flavor. The mildly sweet and creamy ricotta cheese filling was lovely with the finely textured bread. These opened all kinds of possibilities for potential variations…think ham and cheese.

Wheat Berry Whole Wheat Bread フィート・ベリー入りの全粒小麦粉のパン

This is another installment in the continuing saga of finding items in our freezer which are well past their “best-used-by (BUB)” date. This time it was wheat berries which had a BUB date of 2020. They smelled OK (usually we can smell rancid oil in whole and white grain flours if bad). We decide to cook it and see how it came out. On previous occasions we cooked the wheat berries several different ways but regardless of the method used we found them way too hard and chewy. Basically we didn’t like them and that was probably one reason why they languished past the BUB date in the freezer. So, this time we got aggressive in our cooking method. Using the Instant Pot, we cooked one cup of wheat berries (first toasted and then washed) with 4 cups of water under high pressure for 50 minutes, let it depressurize naturally and drained.  Amazingly they came out ok. As a matter of fact we initially thought we may have over done it and maybe they were a bit too soft but they had a much more reasonable chewy texture and firmed up as they cooled. The end result was almost 4 cups of cooked wheat berry. Next question was how we can use this? My wife looked for the bread recipes which use wheat berry and found one she wanted to try from “Bob’s Red Mill” website. The next picture shows the final product. (Note from wifey: Please observe the small piece of bread at the side of the picture with the half-moon shaped bite mark in it. While setting up the photo opportunity someone who shall remain nameless…husbandito-wa, couldn’t wait to taste the bread and took a chomp out of the end piece.)

Ingredients (makes two loaves)
1/4 cup sugar
2-1/2 cups buttermilk (the original calls for non-fat milk)
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp salt
2 eggs large, lightly-beaten
4 cups unbleached white AP Flour
1 cup cooked wheat berries*
2 tbs. instant dry yeast
1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 cup of toasted walnuts (optional)

*Original recipe calls for cooking 1 cup of wheat berries with 3 1/2 cup of water. As we mentioned above this will produce nearly 4 cups of cooked wheat berry. Using CCK (Common Culinary Knowledge), we decided 4 cups of cooked wheat berry was way too much. For one thing, our largest Kitchen-Aid mixer would not be able to handle 6 cups of flour and 4 cups of cooked wheat berry. So, instead, we used 1 cup of cooked wheat berry.

Directions:
Using a standing mixer fitted with a paddle, combine the sugar, whole wheat flour, and yeast. Stir in the milk. Beat vigorously for 2 minutes. Cover the bowl with a towel and let rise for 30 minutes.

Stir down the dough to deflate it (after 30 minutes, the dough did not raise much). Switch to a dough hook, stir in the, eggs, oil, salt, and 2 cups of the unbleached white flour. Keep adding flour until a smooth dough is formed. Right at the end, mix in the cooked wheat berries. Knead the dough for 7 to 10 minutes. (I was only able to knead for 7 minutes because the mixer was at the maximum amount of dough it could handle and started to overheat.) Turn the dough out onto a work surface that has been dusted with flour. Knead in the walnuts if using them. Put the dough in an oiled bowl, turning to coat. Cover and let rise in a proofing box at 80F until doubled in size.

Coat two 8" loaf pans with unsalted butter.  Turn the dough out onto a work surface and cut in half. Shape each half into a loaf and place in the loaf pans. Cover and let rise 30 minutes in a proofing box at 80F while you preheat oven to 375°F.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the loaves shrink slightly from the sides of the pans and sound hollow when tapped.

Immediately remove from the pans and cool on a wire rack.

This is a great bread. The comments on the Bob’s Red Mill website warned that the wheat berries exposed on the surface got hard but we did not encounter too many. The bread has a light moist texture and whole wheat flavor is subtle but comes through. The wheat berries were not chewy but they did add a unique flavor which was very nice. In general, we really like this bread.

Crispy Roasted Porcelet Belly パリパリ皮のロースト(子)豚バラ

Some time ago, we bought a special pork belly called “Porcelet” from D’Artagnan. It is from a milk-fed piglet and arrived with the skin on. The quantity was quite large so we divided it into 3 pieces one of which we used right away and froze the other two. Since the pieces in the freezer generally will not improve the longer we keep them frozen, we decided to make something out of one of the pieces. We thawed a portion of about 2 lbs. After consulting many recipes on the Internet, I decided to use the recipe from “America’s test kitchen (ATK)” on YouTube. It is a modification of a Chinese dish called “脆皮燒肉”. Actually ATK has two versions of video posted; one by  “The Pangs”, a father and son (Kevin Pang) Chinese cook duo and the other by Dan Souza. After watching both (which are mostly the same recipe), I cooked this porcelet with crispy skin. I made two sauces; one by Dan Souza which is inspired by North Carolina BBQ sauce with mustard and vinegar and the other by the Pangs which is Hoisin sauce based. We had this with oven fried potato which my wife made (using white potato and a bicarb treatment but using olive oil instead of duck fat) served with ketchup (picture below). OMG! This is an excellent pork dish with very crispy skin, juicy and tender meat/fat.

Here is the appearance of the pork belly after it was finished. The skin is golden brown and has multiple bubbles and extremely crispy.

Ingredients (This made three large portions providing servings for both of us for several meals over several days):
2lb skin on pork belly (in our case, porcelet belly)
Salt (for salting the skin)
Vegetable oil (to add to the rendered pork fat to make it 1 cup of fat)

For dry rub
Brown sugar and salt (1:1) ratio, we used regular sugar with one tsp dark molasses and kosher salt (#2)
Chinese 5 spice powder, optional, but makes it closer to the authentic flavors).
We found this rub a bit too salty so we will change the ration when we make it again.

Sauces (the amounts are from the original recipe, I made a much smaller amount keeping the ratios of the ingredients the same)

For the Chinese sauce
1/2 cup Hoisin sauce
4 tbs rice vinegar
1 tsp grated ginger
2 tbs scallion, chopped

For the Mustard sauce
1 cup Dijon mustard

1/3 cup wine vinegar (I used rice vinegar)
1/4 cup brown sugar (I used dark buckwheat honey)
1 tbs Worcestershire sauce
Hot sauce (as much as you like, I used 1tsp Sriracha)

Directions:
Cut the pork belly into three equal portions (#1)
Cut the skin and underlying fat (but not the meat) every 1/2 inch interval (#1)
Put the dry rub (#2) on the meat side including the ends and sides but not on the skin (the sugar will make the skin burn while baking)
Salt the skin surface (about 1/2 tbs for each piece) (#3)
Refrigerate without covering for 12-24 hours  (To dry the skin surface) in a glass baking pan (liquid will come out while in the refrigerator)
Some juice accumulated in the bottom of the baking dish and the skin surface looks dry without residual salt visible
Place the pork in a baking pan with the metal rack
Bake at 250F for 2 and half to 3 hours (to the internal temperature of 195F, in my case the temp went over 200F) (#4)
Set the pork aside and pour out the rendered fat to the 1 cup measuring cup. Add more vegetable oil to make it 1 cup.
Pour the fat into a 12 inch frying pan and place the pork skin side down in the cold oil and then turn on the heat to medium (#5)
Fry for 5-8 minutes or until the skin is golden brown and develops multiple bubbles and crispy (#6)
Let the meat rest for 10 minutes before slicing using the slits on the skin as a guide.

This pork was fabulous; probably one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. The meat was tender and the skin was wonderfully crunchy. It had a delicate pork flavor. We tried both sauces but we probably like the hoisin-based sauce best with this wonderful pork. The mustard sauce is good but a bit too vinegary for our teste. In any case, this is an amazing dish and the skin was crispy beyond belief. We are glad we made this dish. Our only concern is that it tasted a bit too salty for us. I may reduce the salt and/or increased the drying time in the refrigerator.

Addendum:
For us, knowing how best to reheat the left-overs is often important (since this is something we often do.) Particularly for this dish when re-heating, we would like to have the skin crispy and the underlying meat juicy. So, I sliced two each for a small appetizer one evening. I wrapped the slices together, standing up and wrapped all sides and bottom with aluminum foil but exposed the top (skin). I placed this package skin side up in the toaster oven and toasted at 7 (darkest setting for toasting bread). This heating method worked very well. The skin was crispy and the meat/fat underneath is soft and juicy and nicely warmed up. The picture below shows how I served it with the two sauces; The dark one on the left is the hoisin-based and the one on the right is mustard and vinegar. We both agree that the hoisin-based sauce is much better. The next batch I may add Chinese 5 spice powder in the rub.

Fastnacht Cake Version 3 ファストナハトケーキ V3

Since “Fastnacht” day (“Fat Tuesday”) is approaching, my wife made a new and improved version of “Fastnacht” cake. This one is made with Japanese sweet potato (satsuma imo サツマイモ), is double layered with “rivels” between the layers and on the top and as an additional innovation my wife added; a medley of dried fruit.

The “rivel” layer is difficult to see but it is there as is the dried fruit.

Ingredients: My wife will tell what she did to make the cake (makes two round 8 inch cake/bread)
1/2 cup warm mashed sweet potato (please note the original recipe specifies HOT)
1 1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 pkg active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water if blooming the yeast
4 cups of AP flour to start, adding more as needed to make velvety dough.
1 cup of dried fruit cut into small pieces

Ingredients and directions for rivels (Crumb topping)
Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup flour and 4 tbs. butter softened until the ingredients are completely combined and look like fine crumbs. (I added the ingredients to a small food processor and processed it until small clumps formed. These rivals were much finer than the ones made by hand.)

Directions:
Put the mashed potatoes into the bowl of a stand mixer. Using a mixing paddle beat in the butter, then the egg and a mixture of sugar, salt and nutmeg. Beat until fluffy. Bloom the yeast in warm water.
Beat the yeast into the potato mixture. Switch to a dough hook and alternately add the flour and milk beating well after each addition. If necessary add more flour to make a soft dough. Knead the dough on a floured surface until smooth and satiny. Spread the dough into a flat square and cover the square with the dried fruit then fold the dough over the fruit and knead until the fruit is well distributed. Put the dough into a greased bowl. Grease the top of the dough, cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled.

Punch down the dough. Since the recipe makes two cakes split the dough into quarters so the rivals can be put into the middle of each cake. Then put 1/4 of the dough in the bottom of the 8 inch pan (#1). Sprinkle on 1/4 of the rivels (#2) and top that layer with another quarter of dough (#3). Do this for both cakes. Brush the tops with melted butter and cover both with the remaining rivels. Let the cakes rise in a warm place for about 30 to 40 minutes while the oven preheats. (This is a variation from the original PA Dutch recipe. It does not call for the second rise; the cakes are cooked immediately after they are put in the pan. I’ve made fastnacht cakes both ways and think the cake made with a second rise is much better. It comes out much thicker and has a lovely tender texture.) Cook in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until golden brown. Picture (#4) shows the cake as it came out of the oven.

This is a good moist “cake” with a pleasing tender texture. (Although it is known as a cake, that might not be the most accurate nomenclature. It is not a cake in the traditional sense. It is more a mix of a cake and a very soft bread). It is only very slightly sweet. The sweet potato flavor is very subtle but does come through. The middle layer of rivels made with the food processor were much finer than those made by hand and maybe as a result almost disappeared. Nonetheless they added a layer of moist texture. The dried fruit really added and provided a little additional burst of flavor and sweetness. The cooks who wrote the original recipe that appeared in the 1940’s cookbook my wife uses, may not recognize this as the fastnacht cake they knew but as far as I am concerned this is the best version my wife has made yet.

Clam Chowder 子ハマグリのチャウダー

 Recently while talking to my wife’s sister, she mentioned that she had made clam chowder using frozen baby clams. In the past, we used canned baby clams to make clam sauce for pasta as well as chowder. We always avoided using canned chopped clams which were very chewy and rubbery. Since we could not get our preferred brand of canned whole baby clams, we have not made either pasta sauce or chowder for a long time. We checked our regular grocery store (home delivery) and found that they carry frozen baby clams from Pana Pesca. We have had frozen squid and octopus from them before. We decided to try the clams. Around the same time, I came across YouTube video of New England clam chowder by Kenji Lopez-Alt. So it appeared that all the stars and the moon were aligned for me to make clam chowder. I made a chowder based on Kenji’s and my old recipes. I used a strip of bacon and used the bacon bits and chopped parsley as garnish.

The baby clams are pretty good and the best among the PanaPesca frozen seafood we tried.

Ingredients:
10.6oz (300gram) frozen baby clams, thawed and juice preserved
One medium onion, finely chopped
3 stalks of celery, finely chopped
1/4 cup of AP flour
2 bay leaves
5-6 baby red potatoes, peeled and cut into small dice
1 medium carrot, peeled and cut into small dice
1-2 strips of bacon (or salt pork)
2, 8oz bottles of clam juice
2 cups or less whole milk (amount adjusted based on the thickness of the chowder you like)
3 tbs olive oil + 1 tbs butter
Salt and pepper to taste
Fino sherry (optional)

Directions:
In a soup pot, add the bacon and cook until crispy and set it aside leaving bacon fat in the pot.
Add the butter and oil and sauté the celery and onion until cooked but not browned (4-5 minutes on medium to low flame. I also seasoned this with salt and pepper)
Add the flour and cook for a few minutes (do not brown), add the clam juice and about1 cup of milk and stir on medium flame until thickened add more milk to adjust the thickness to your taste.
Add the bay leaves, the clams and simmer for 7-8 minutes.
Meanwhile cook the potato and carrot in a separate pot in salted water (I would have cooked the potato and carrot in the same pot in which chowder was cooking but I took the suggestion from Kenji to cook them separately so that the potatoes would not dissolve).
Drain the potato and carrot and add to the chowder.
Season with salt and pepper (you could use white pepper but I used black pepper)

For garnish, I crumbled the bacon strips and finely chopped the parsley
I also added a small amount of Fino sherry to the bottom of the soup bowl.

We were quite pleased with the quality of the clams. We had this as a lunch with several slices of rustic apricot cranberry bread which went very well.

Cold cucumber soup 冷製胡瓜のスープ

Getting home delivery of groceries is very convenient but one problems that the quality of the fresh produce may be quite variable since we cannot inspect the product before buying. Broken eggs are not uncommon as well the the delivery of wrong items. We have also disable the automatic option for substitutions if the item we requested is not available. This is because the substitutions may not be always appropriate. For example, the substitution of shallots for jalapeno. Talking of wrong item being delivered, we recently received 4 giant American cucumbers instead of a package of 4 mini-cucumbers. (We like these because they are the closest in taste and texture to a Japanese cucumber). Although we do not like regular American cucumbers rather than throwing them out, we tried to use them. This is one of such attempt. We made cold cucumber soup with mint and buttermilk. We had it as a lunch with our usual potato salad and coleslaw. I also served skinned Campari tomato with broccoli and pecan, apricot bread. This was certainly all home-made vegetarian salad and soup lunch which was quite good and filling

Since I had few Japanese cucumbers (from our Japanese grocery store), I garnished the soup with several slices and chiffonade of mint leaves from our herb garden.

For both coleslaw and potato salad, we used home made Greek yogurt (from heirloom yogurt my wife makes regularly) which make it very creamy and also healthier (hopefully).

Since I made miso salad dressing several days ago (recipe from Washington Post, subject of another post), I dressed Campari tomato and blanched broccoli.

Although we jointly prepared the cucumber soup, I peeled, chopped and blended but my wife was in charge and ask her to take over for the recipe.

The recipe came from Southern Living on line.

Ingredients:
21 oz. cucumbers (in our case this was two big American cucumbers)
2 cups whole buttermilk
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt (we used home-made)
3 tablespoons chopped fresh mint (from our herb garden)
3 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon, plus more for garnish (we did not have fresh, we used 1 tsp dried)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice plus 1 tsp. lemon zest (from 1 lemon)
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions:
Peel, seed, and chop 2 of the cucumbers.
Process chopped cucumbers, buttermilk, yogurt, mint, tarragon, lemon zest and juice, and salt in a blender until very smooth, about 2 minutes, stopping to scrape down sides as needed.
Chill 1 hour or overnight.
We served with slices of Japanese cucumber and chiffonade of fresh mint leaves.


This was a quite nice cold soup. I usually do not particularly fond of buttermilk but for this soup, the buttermilk really tasted great. The slices of Japanese cucumber added nice fresh cucumber taste. One thing that was kind-of odd was that the soup was effervescent. You can see the little bubbles in the pictures above and interestingly the bubbles didn’t go away after the soup had been in the fridge for some time. The bubbles added to texture giving the otherwise velvety smooth soup and somewhat grainy mouth feel. Nonetheless it was a very good cool refreshing soup.

Marbled matcha milk bread 渦巻き抹茶食パン

 My wife saw this recipe on the King Arthur’s website and as part of her project to try every type of Japanese milk bread (shoku-pan 食パン) she could find (as witnessed in the number of milk bread recipes in this blog), she decided we had to make this. Who could pass up a Japanese milk bread with swirls of matcha green tea in it? The original recipe called for a single loaf made with three equal portions placed in the baking loaf pan. My wife decided to just make 2 separate loaves. Rolling the dough to make the different colored swirls was a bit tricky, and required some teamwork. But the end result, with nice concentric swirls (below), looked better than the pictures of the original 3 part loaf. Visually stunning, we can taste the green tea (quite a good amount of matcha 抹茶 green tea powder went in). 

As usual, I ask my wife to take over.

Ingredients
Tangzhong 湯種
1 cup (227g) milk, whole preferred
1/2 cup (60g) AP flour

Dough
1/2 cup (113g) milk, whole preferred; cold*
2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
2 tablespoons (25g) granulated sugar
1 large egg
3 1/2 cups (420g) AP Flour
2 teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons (57g) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for greasing pan
2 tablespoons (12g) matcha powder
1 tablespoon (14g) water

*Cold milk will help cool down the tangzhong and bring the dough to a slightly warm temperature.

Directions:
To make the tangzhong: In a small saucepan, whisk together the milk and flour. Cook the mixture over medium heat, whisking constantly, until a thick paste forms and the whisk leaves lines on the bottom of the pan, about 4 to 6 minutes. Transfer to the bowl of a stand mixer.

To make the dough: Using a whisk or the whisk attachment of the mixer, add the milk, yeast, sugar, and egg into the tangzhong and whisk until fully combined.

Add the flour and salt to the mixing bowl and use the dough hook attachment to knead on low speed until a shaggy, cohesive dough forms, about 1 minute.

With the mixer still on low speed, add the butter about one tablespoon at a time, waiting to add the next piece until the previous one is fully incorporated, about 3 to 4 minutes total. Increase the speed to medium-high and continue to mix until a smooth, elastic, and tacky (but not sticky) dough forms and pulls away from the sides of the bowl, 7 to 10 minutes.

On a lightly floured surface, divide the dough in half. Knead one half briefly, form into a tight ball, place in a greased bowl, and cover.

Transfer the remaining half of the dough back to the bowl of the stand mixer and add the matcha tea and enough water to get the tea incorporated into the dough. Knead, beginning on low speed and working up to medium, until fully incorporated, about 1 to 2 minutes. (Don’t worry about any remaining small clumps of matcha; they won’t appear in the finished loaf.) Transfer the matcha dough to the lightly floured work surface, knead briefly, round into a tight ball, place in greased bowl, and cover.

Let the dough rise at a warm room temperature until doubled in volume, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

To shape the loaf: Turn the matcha dough onto a lightly floured work surface and divide it into 2 equal portions and set aside. Repeat with the plain dough (#1). Let the dough rounds rest, covered, for 15 minutes to make the dough more pliable and easier to work with.

Use a lightly floured rolling pin to roll out one portion of plain dough into an oval. Repeat with a portion of matcha dough (#2). Stack the matcha dough on top of the regular dough, then lightly press with the rolling pin to cohere. It should measure 11” X 8”. (#3). Starting on the short end, roll up the dough into a tight cylinder (#4). Cover and set aside while you repeat the process with the remaining portions of dough. You should end up with two cylinders, each made up of two kinds of dough.

Arrange one cylinder on your work surface so that the short end is facing you, then use a rolling pin to flatten it into a 12” x 8” rectangle. The plain dough will be covering the matcha dough entirely, but you will see a flattened green and white spiral at both ends (#5). Starting with the shorter end, roll up the dough into a tight log (#6). Place the log, seam side down, into a buttered 8 1/2” x 4 1/2" loaf pan. Repeat with the remaining dough and put it seam side down in the second loaf pan (#7).

Cover the pan and set it in a warm place. Let the dough rise until it looks puffy, springs back slowly when gently pressed; about 30 to 40 minutes. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350°F. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown and the interior of the loaf registers at least 190°F when measured with a digital thermometer (#8).

Remove the loaf from the oven and turn onto a wire rack to cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing.

This is a visually beautiful and delicious tasting bread. The green tea flavor is very mild but does come through. The texture of the bread is very soft as is typical of milk bread. It is great lightly toasted and buttered for breakfast. 

Home-made English Muffin 自家製イングリッシュマフィン

We posted English muffin previously but have not made them for some time especially since my wife started making English muffin bread. But for some reason, my wife started making English muffins again. One of the problems in making English muffins is that the dough is very sticky and it is very difficult to handle especially if you use English muffin rings. My wife used to cut the dough using a kitchen scissors to place it in the ring. My version of "no-knead English muffin" was a bit easier. This version my wife used came from YouTube and used a lot of cornmeal as a way to handle the sticky dough. (Although this was the amount of cornmeal shown in the video, a lot less probably would have worked just fine.) The result was rather rewarding. It is definitely an authentic English muffin.

I ask my wife to continue. This recipe came of aYouTube video called "Sheldo’s kitchen". My wife painstakingly wrote down the recipe, frequently stopping the video.

Ingredients:  (12 muffins)
4 cups (560 g) AP flour

1 1/2 tsp (10 g) salt

2 Tbs. (28 g) sugar

1 tsp yeast

3/4 cup (167g) greek yogurt

325 Ml water

oil 3 Tbs. (40 g) vegetable oil.

Double recipe:

8 cups (1,120 g) AP flour

3 tsp (20 g) salt

1/4 cup (56 g) sugar

2 tsp yeast

1 1/2 cup (334g) greek yogurt

650 Ml water (milk?)

oil 6 Tbs. (80 g) vegetable oil.

Directions:

Stir to wet all the flour. Stir to further combine and knead slightly.  In the first  90 minutes, 3 sets of stretches each 30 minutes apart. Take dough and pull out one side and fold it to the middle. Do that with each of the remaining 3 sides. Let the dough rest 30 minutes and repeat stretch 2 more times for a total of 3 stretches. Leave undisturbed for 1 hour. Put covered in fridge for 10 to 48 hours. The longer it is in the fridge the better the taste. 

Cover cookie sheet with corn meal. (A little less cornmeal than what I used here would probably work just fine). While the dough is still cold make it into a round. Put a large hole in the middle and pull the edges out straight and stretch into a log. Divide the log into 12 portions (24 if using double recipe). Make each portion into a flat round and move the edges to the middle then roll into a ball. Put on corn meal covered tray about 2 inches apart. Dust the top with corn meal. Cover and let rise until doubled.

Using 2 spatulas lift the dough into a skillet (no butter). Flatten the top. Cover with a lid and cook 6 minutes. (After 2-3 minutes rotate so it browns evenly.) Turn over and tap the top with a spatula to flatten. Cook another 6 minutes with lid off. After they have cooked 12 minutes check temperature. It should be 200 F to be done.  

Let it cool off a bit before separating the muffin using the "fork method".

These were our idea of genuine English muffins. They toasted up nicely with lots of “little nooks and crannies” to catch the melted butter. The crusts were crunchy and had a mild taste of cornmeal which was very nice. (One of the problems was during cooking the excess cornmeal tended to burn). While very good they were a bit of work to make. Making English muffin bread is much easier. 

Blueberry cake with miso crumbles ブルーベリーケーキとブルーベリー味噌クランブル

 We, especially my wife, have been exploring Western-style dishes using miso such as miso-peanuts butter cookie, miso maple syrup loaf, smothered chicken with miso and bourbon, carrot cashew spread with miso and avocado miso dressing. This is another one of these dishes made by my wife. The miso is in the crumbles.

This is a very moist and delicate cake/muffin with a nice crusty top. I can definitely taste miso.

I will ask my wife to fill in the ingredients and directions.


Ingredients:
For the crumble:
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (3/4 cup for the crumble, 1 3/4 cups for the cake)
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 Tbs. Butter melted
3 Tbs. White miso

For the cake:
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour (mentioned as part of the 2 1/2 cups above)
1 1/2 tsp. Baking powder
1 tsp. Salt
1/4 tsp. Baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) butter melted and cooled slightly
2 large eggs
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup whole milk greek yogurt
1 tsp. Vanilla
1 pint blueberries

Directions:
Mix the ingredients for the crumble until combined and set aside. In another bowl mix together the dry ingredients (flour through baking soda) and set aside. In another bowl mix together the wet ingredients (melted butter through vanilla). Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Fold in the blueberries. Spread in a 9X13 pyrex baking dish that has been light greased with a greased parchment paper on the bottom. Spread the crumble over the top. Cook in a 350 degree oven for a total of 60 to 70 minutes. Start checking every 30 minutes and tent the top with aluminum foil if the crumble starts to get too dark. Cook until the top is firm and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan for a least 2 hours. 

This is a very unusual cake (in a good way). The combination of the whole wheat flour, miso and brown sugar makes a sweet/salty/robust flavor we have never tasted anywhere else. The miso is very pronounced. The blueberries add a burst of fresh sweetness which helps bring the other flavors back into balance. The crumble is nice and crunchy. It complements the tender texture of the cake. And the cake is extremely tender. I had trouble getting it into a storage bag in one piece even after cooling several hours. I couldn’t slice or serve it until it had been in the fridge overnight. Even then we had to eat the slices with a fork or spoon. Nonetheless it is a nice bread with coffee in the morning.

Breakfast croissant casserole クロワッサンキャセロール

 One day my wife decided to make this croissant casserole dish she saw at an on-line recipe site. It is a cross between quiche and French toast but closer to a crustless quiche. It is the usual milk, egg, and cheese mixture but instead of a pie crust or regular bread this dish uses croissants. Although this was entitled "breakfast croissant casserole", we had this as a lunch with cucumber tomato salad.

She cut the recipe in half and used small store bought croissants. This is a good quiche-like breakfast dish but I was not too crazy about it especially knowing how much bacon, egg and cheese went in. I will let my wife to provide the ingredients and directions.

Ingredients: This is a reduced recipe amount because we weren't feeding a crowd)
4 strips of bacon (crisped and then crumbled)
2 onions chopped
3 eggs
1 cup whole milk
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup grated cheese (I used smoked gouda and cheddar)
3 croissants

Directions:
Crisp the bacon. Set aside. Using the bacon drippings saute the onions until slightly brown. Cool slightly. Mix the eggs, milk, Dijon, salt, crumbled bacon and cheese together. Arrange the croissants in the baking dish. Pour the liquid egg mixture over the croissants making sure they are submerged. Cover and put in the refrigerator overnight. The next morning cook in a 375 degree oven for 30 minutes until golden brown. (I used the small blue pyrex baking dish and cooked it in the toaster oven).

This turned out to be an entirely ho-hum form of savory bread pudding. The croissants seemed to dissolve into the pudding like egg mixture which contributed to the quiche like consistency. Don't get me wrong it was quite good and makes an interesting egg alternative to an omelet.

PA Dutch Schnecken ペンシルバニアダッチ シュネッケン

My wife grew up in the PA Dutch area of Pennsylvania and PA Dutch food is something special for her from her childhood.  For Christmas, we usually get German-style cookies from a bakery called “Bredenbecks” which is located in Philadelphia, (historically Germantown but currently Chestnut Hill) and has been in business since 1886. According to my wife, these cookies were her grandfather’s favorite and he used to bring a large tin of them from Bredenbecks every year when her grandparents came for Xmas. So, for my wife, Bredenbecks’ cookies are associated with a good time during the holidays as a kid. Last Xmas, my wife decided to try something different in addition to the traditional German cookies. So she ordered a tin of “Schnecken” (which means “snail” in German).* As I mentioned before, I am not a “desert” person and I have to admit I am also not a charter member of the traditional German cookie fan club. For these reasons I have no problem by-passing a plate full of them without taking one. But the schnecken were great! (My wife actually caught me red-handed snarfing some directly out the tin between meals). 

*digression alert: One year my wife decided to order a stollen in addition to the traditional German cookies from Bredenbecks. While the cookies are shipped in a tin, the stollen was shipped in a light cardboard box. The goodies were delivered to the front door and quickly discovered by the resident squirrels who recognize a good thing when they smell it. They busted into the box and helped themselves to the stollen. By the time we got home the only things left were a cardboard shipping box with a large hole in it, a few large crumbs and chunks of stollen scattered all over the front porch. It was a merry holiday for some lucky squirrels. 

Recently my wife was going through one of the old PA dutch cookbooks she has when the recipe for PA Dutch schnecken jumped out at her. Knowing how much I liked the ones from Bredenbecks she couldn’t ignore the recipe and decided to surprise me with some. As shown in the picture below the schneken from Bredenbecks are little cookies and shaped more like a mini-croissant than a snail. 

As shown in the next picture, the PA Dutch schnecken my wife made is more like cinnamon a bun but as you can see, it is indeed shaped like a “Schnecken”.

The picture below shows the cut surface. Alternating layers of bread and cinnamon sugar/ butter. This version is not too sweet but very flavorful and we are enjoying them mostly as a breakfast.

I ask my wife, as usual, to share the “how-to” part.

Word of advice from wifey: in the tradition of old recipes used to make dishes for large farming families (such as the PA Dutch), doing hard labor chores the yield from this recipe is quite generous.…it makes 2 dozen schnecken! 

Ingredients:
For the dough
1 package of yeast
1/2 tsp. Salt
1/3 cup sugar
4 to 5 cups AP flour
1 1/2 cup milk (buttermilk would work too)
2 eggs beaten
1/4 cup melted butter

For the filling
1/3 cup butter softened
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp. Ground cinnamon

Optional topping
1 egg white mixed with 1 tbs water
1/2 tsp. Sugar per muffin (more or less to taste)

Directions:
Add the dry ingredients (yeast through flour) to the bowl of a mixer with a dough hook. Mix together the wet ingredients (milk through melted butter) together and mix well. With the mixer running add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Add more flour as needed to make a soft dough. Knead for 7 to 10 minutes. Cover and let rise in a warm place.

Meanwhile combine the ingredients for the filling (butter through cinnamon) into a paste and set aside.

When the dough has doubled in size punch it down and divide it into two portions weighing them to make them about even in size. Roll out each portion into a rectangle of about 15 X 18 inches. Spread 1/2 the filling over each rectangle right to the edges. Roll up each “as for a jelly roll” as specified by the instructions. Cut each roll crosswise into 12 pieces. (A word of advice: to get pieces of somewhat equal size, cut the roll into thirds. Then cut each third into fourths (3 x 4 = 12). Place the slices cut side down into a well greased muffin tin. (First picture below) Cover and let rise until double. Just before baking brush each muffin with the egg wash mixture and sprinkle on the desired amount of sugar per bun. This sugar will caramelize slightly when cooked. Bake in a 375 degree oven form 18 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. (Second picture below). Another word of advice: remove the buns from the tins immediately after they come out of the oven before the caramelized sugar hardens . Once it hardens it will become extremely difficult to extract them. Also, scoop any caramelized sugar left on the bottom of the tins before it hardens and spread onto the buns.

Here are a bunch of snails. 

Imagine how nice it was to come home to the rich baking smell of butter, cinnamon and caramelized sugar. As usual my wife made a small one for me to eat immediately upon my arrival. Needless to say that one disappeared very quickly. While this is basically a cinnamon bun it is more demure than its better known cousin the sticky bun. The sweetness is just right with a gentle taste of cinnamon and a lovely soft slightly chewy dough. Only 2 dozen yield?