(This week Michelle completes her sourdough adventure. (Shhhhhh……. but it ends with tasty perfection.) I loved reading this Post, the last paragraph is filled with Morgando-wisdom. Thank you, Michelle, for helping me the past two weeks. When MIchelle gets her own Blog up and running, I will share that address with you. Mary)
by Michelle Morgando
These baguettes look good enough to eat. And, they didn’t disappoint.
Sourdough starters require time and commitment to keep them alive. Each week or so, they must be split and then “fed”, usually equal parts of spring water and all purpose flour. After one day, one half is ready to be used for baking; the other half is kept as the “mother” starter. As long as you have one of the mother starters in reserve, you are in business. I have also learned how to rev them up if they are a little lazy (potato flakes or apple cider vinegar) and I can now recognize the health of my starters just by smell and consistency. I also began experimenting with different flours, which I would add to the “baking” portion of the split starter. For these starters, I just followed my instincts. I now have an intense rye starter and a sour and pungent whole wheat starter, all ready to go.
Whole Wheat Starter
Rye Starter
This past weekend, I used the whole wheat starter to make whole wheat sourdough English Muffins. They are griddled in a little butter to cook instead of baked. They are soft on the inside, crispy on the outside and after toasting, a little sweet butter and homemade berry jam was all I needed. Grocery store muffins will never grace my pantry again. I also made some fig jam and an apricot and peach jam in anticipation of my next baguette foray.
Fig Jam
Peach & Apricot Jam
I then experimented with making homemade hot dog buns and they were delicious. They were not done with the starters but with a simple yeasted dough to get me back in the groove. After my small successes with the English Muffins and the hot dog buns, I was ready to tackle the baguettes.
Nancy had been playing with the recipe and sent me her revisions. I started with making a biga which is composed of the sourdough starter, water and flour. It is allowed to rise for a couple of hours and then has an overnight rest in the fridge. The next day I made the dough using the starter, let it rise and then back in the fridge overnight. On the third day, I let the dough rise a little and then formed the loaves, this time using baguette molds from my friend Scott. This eliminates the danger of deflating the dough after it is formed because it rises and bakes in the mold. To my delight, they rose beautifully, baked without deflating and had the characteristics of a good baguette, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. While these loaves do not have as many holes in the dough as some standard baguettes, I was happy, happy, happy.
Baguette Dough
Over the past few weeks of my baking journey I have been reading a wonderful book entitled “How to Bake a Perfect Life” by Barbara O’Neal. While it probably falls within the “check lit” fiction genre, don’t let that deter you from picking up a copy. It is a wonderful story about a woman who believes her sanity was saved by bread, particularly by her many times over great grandmother’s starter that was brought from Ireland and kept alive by the female bakers in the family. I believe, as the author does, that your starters, and ultimately your breads, take on the character of your mood. Whether you are happy, mad, sad or frustrated, it will show in the final product. I now know that my starters and breads will no longer sense my fear. If a recipe works, that is satisfying, if it does not; I know I am not a failure. It is just another opportunity to learn. I can’t wait to learn more!
BLUEBERRY-MASCARPONE ROULADE, this week’s French Friday with Dorie recipe
When I spotted this week’s FFWD recipe choice, Blueberry-Mascarpone Roulade, I immediately thought of the Tour de France 2012. Stick with me here. Having begun Saturday, June 30th and continuing through Sunday, July 22, the world’s most famous bicycle race covers an astounding distance of 3,497 challenging kilometres (2173 miles). The term roulade originated from the French verb rouler which means to roll. Since I’m a bicycle fanatic, every morning, before going to work, I flip on my television and follow those two-hundred competitive riders as they roll through the French countryside. Go Bradley Wiggins!
This is the batter for the sponge cake, turned out on a jelly roll pan covered with parchment paper.
The batter is spread over the parchment paper. Next time I will be sure to blend the top more evenly.
Understandably, if you’re American, your first thought may be “jelly roll” because a dessert roulade is a sponge cake rolled around a sweet tasting filling. Although we’re most familiar with the Bûche de Noël, this week’s recipe would be a perfect dessert finale for your upcoming Bastille Day party on July 14th.
A traditional Bûche de Noël, made with a Génoise cake and chocolate buttercream, and garnished with powdered sugar, raspberries, and spruce sprigs. Photo by Wikipedia
Et, merci à Dorie, c’est facile.
We’re on a roll —– after cooling, the baked sponge cake is laid on a towel, coated with confectionary sugar, and spread with the prepared filling. Then the cake is rolled about one and a half times, finishing with the seam at the bottom. Refrigerate the wrapped cake.
The roulade is now ready to return to its “towel home” and return to the refrigerator for at least two hours.
Although a roulade can be filled with anything, this one is filled with ‘a mixture of blueberry-speckled sweetened mascarpone and whipped cream’. Because I’d never made a roulade before, I admit to approaching this week’s choice with trepidation. However, my worries were unfounded.
Dorie makes this easy for a first-timer like me. 1) Make the berries. 2) Bake the roulade. 3) Make the filling. 4) Assemble the cake. 5) Refrigerate. She also suggests making a berry coulis to serve with the roulade and this is a great idea. Next time.
If you’re game for making this roulade, stop here for a close version. To see what my colleagues baked this week, roll on over to this finish line.
There have been many challenges this past week or so since my stepfather died, but honestly, the one I feared the most was melding my baking style with my mother’s.
Let me explain.
My mother belongs to an online cooking group called Tuesdays with Dorie. Twice a month, she and approximately 500 other dedicated bakers from around the globe try their hand at creating an assigned recipe. The group is currently working their way through the book Baking with Julia, which was compiled and written by Dorie Greenspan. My mother was a recipe behind, so she suggested that we bake together to help her catch up.
Baking with Julia
Herein lies the challenge:
I am a by-the-seat-of-my-pants baker. I read a few recipes and then make it up as I go. I skip steps, omit or add ingredients, and rarely measure. Much of the time, my end results are good if not great, but occasionally there are some big flops.
My mother, on the other hand, is a by-the-book kind of gal. If she doesn’t have the precise ingredients on hand (may God strike you down if you substitute regular vanilla when it calls for Tahitian Vanilla), she will either run to the store or not make the recipe. She checks accuracy of liquid measurements by squatting to eye level, and she times everything to the second. As she says, “I don’t waver from the exact.”
I knew we were especially doomed when she opened the weighty Baking with Julia to page 315, and announced we were making Hazelnut Biscotti. “My biscotti always turn out awful,” I confessed.
“Mine too,” my mother countered.
Hazelnut Biscotti made by Katrina of BakingwithBoys.com
I would have considered throwing in the dishtowel right there, but I didn’t want to leave my mom in the lurch and I figured that during this biscotti round Julia Childs AND Dorie Greenspan had our backs. With uncharacteristic politeness and restraint, we began to bake. She got out the ingredients while I scanned the recipe.
We decided to make pistachio biscotti as those were the nuts we had on hand. (Thank goodness Greenspan offered them as an alternative in the preface of the recipe or we would have been in the car on our way to the store.)
Our first disagreement was over the merits of splat mats versus parchment paper. My mother had misplaced her silicone splat mats and felt they were too expensive to replace at $7.00 apiece. I couldn’t live without my splat mats and felt they were a more environmentally-friendly alternative to parchment.
“Well,” said my mother as she ripped a length of parchment paper from the roll to prepare the the biscotti baking pan. “Dorie advises the use of parchment.”
“Heaven forbid we should use something else,” I thought but smartly did not verbalize. I was on my best behavior.
Pistachios
My mother measured the 2/3 cup of pistachios on a cookie sheet (no parchment needed for this step) and put them in the oven to toast. We set the timer for ten minutes, and then got into a minor squabble about the necessity of mise en place. I preferred the grab-it-from-the-cabinet-as-you-need-it-and-then-put-it-back method, while my mom quoted Mary Sue Salmon, her first French cooking teacher, who said you always prepare a mise en place before you start cooking. Midway through our discussion and with four minutes to go on the timer, I smelled something burning.
“The nuts!” I yelled as I lunged for the oven. I pulled out the pan only to discovered that the nuts were already overdone. I examined one closely and then retrieved the bag of already shelled pistachios from the pantry.
“Mom,” I said carefully, we were both just barely hanging on this week and I didn’t want this to totally push her over the edge, “Um, these were already toasted.”
We looked at each other and started to laugh.
When we finally pulled it together several minutes later, we got serious about our biscotti. This wasn’t about baking styles anymore, this was about getting something posted. We both realized that we needed to join forces to make this work.
Chopping pistachios
We cleared the counter and started again. I chopped the nuts and my mom finished getting out the ingredients. I even measured the dry ingredients into a separate bowl rather than throwing everything together willy-nilly as usual.
“Where’s the baking soda?” I asked. According to Greenspan, “It’s the baking soda in the dough that gives the biscotti their wonderful open, crunchy texture.”
“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” said my mom, in a near panic. Before I could respond, she had grabbed her keys and flown out the door. “I’m just running over to a neighbor’s,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”
While she was gone, I mixed up the rest of the batter. Earlier that week I’d read a baking hint that suggested always doubling the amount of vanilla you add to a recipe. So I did, hoping that Childs and Greenspan would approve. I couldn’t find the brandy, so I made a mental note to ask my mom when she returned.
Once I added the baking soda to the dry ingredients, I mixed everything together. I was just about to shape the dough onto the cookie sheet when I remembered the brandy.
“Oh man, I forgot the brandy and I’ve already mixed the wet with the dry,” I told my mom.
She retrieved the cognac from the pantry and handed it to me. Forgetting myself for a moment, I failed to measure, and simply chugged some into the batter, probably about three times the suggested two teaspoons. The room filled with the smell of alcohol.
“I hope these turn out,” said my mother as she retreated to the kitchen table where she’d set up camp since her baking soda run. She poured herself some more Fritos, her comfort food of the week. “I don’t want to get kicked out.”
No pressure there.
Batter complete, I began to shape the dough. Greenspan suggests making two chubby logs 12 to 13 inches long. “Chubby logs” was a vague description, so my mom got out a measuring tape and pulled up the food site Vintage Kitchen Notes. Paula, from Argentina, had kindly posted a photo of her biscotti logs before they hit the oven.
Chubby biscotti logs
After much shaping and reshaping, we put the biscotti in the oven for the first and then the second baking. As my previous biscotti attempts had been undercooked, I left the crescent cookies in the full fifteen minutes for the second go-around. For good measure, when the timer dinged, I turned off the oven and left them in another three minutes.
As you might imagine, with all that baking time, the biscotti were a little overdone. “Hard as a rock,” according to my mother. Nonetheless, we filled a special tenth anniversary bowl of my mom and Michael’s with our baking feat and headed over to a friend’s house. Adriana and her parents are originally from Sicily, and we knew they would be hard, yet fair critics.
Anniversary Bowl
I explained to our tasters that the cookies were a little firm. “Be careful not to break a tooth,” my mother helpfully interjected. I suggested they not only dunk them in a drink, but maybe soak them a while.
The verdict: Overcooked by several minutes, but great flavor.
Pistachio Biscotti
I guess my mom and I learned a little something from each other during our baking challenge: Exact is good as long as you are willing to throw in something extra now and then.
(If you are interested in the retro kitchen mixer tshirt I am wearing in the photo above, please visit Caustic Threads located at Etsy.com. Shop owner Erica Voges creates and prints these original designs for an amazingly economical price. Check out her wares and support a small business today!)
Erin, a fellow Coloradoan who blogs on Dinners, Dishes and Desserts is hosting an on-line bake sale to raise funds for the Colorado Disaster Relief fund. All of the proceeds will go to the Colorado Disaster Relief Fund c/o Red Cross to help with fire victims. Devastating wild fires have caused massive destruction in our home state, and you can help by bidding on some marvelous treats starting at 8 AM mountain time this Sunday, July 8. If you’ve never participated in a virtual bake sale before, take the opportunity to peek at this site. It’s fun. I’m already gearing up to bid on the Oatmeal M & M cookies that Liz who blogs on that skinny chick can bake is making.
Pop on over to Dinners, Dishes and Desserts to take a gander at the preview and support this good cause. We thank you.
(My friend and neighbor, Michelle Morgando, who is a professionally-trained chef, is my guest contributor today. Although Michelle, who is also a judge and lawyer, is about to launch her own food blog, she has generously agreed to help me and share her expertise with my readers during this time. Thank you, Michelle, and, to all you American readers, Happy 4th of July.)
by Michelle Morgando
Pane-Siciliano and my sourdough story
I must make a confession, my name is Michelle and I am afraid of bread. Well, I am not afraid of reading about it, drooling over pictures of it, shopping for it or most importantly, eating it. Last year in Italy I think I ate half of my body weight in bread in one week. No, I am afraid of making breads, particularly those that involve yeast. I must also disclose that I am a professionally trained cook. I went to culinary school at the very young age of 42 and loved every minute of the two years I spent in school, with the exception of the bread and pastry classes. I had wonderful instructors but I was so intimidated by the process. I often wondered why I was so afraid of bread, it has so few ingredients. All you need are measuring cups and spoons, or a reliable scale, and infinite amounts of patience. Actually, what you truly need is an ability to give up control. Once bread is mixed, scaled and formed, all you do is put it in the oven and wait. Maybe that is my problem. I can fix a broken Hollandaise, shuck bushels of clams and oysters without losing an important body part or calling 911 and I can grill you the perfect steak. Those things I have control over from start to finish. Bread, on the other hand, can’t be remedied once it goes in the oven. I have learned in the past several years that bread is like a horse or a dog; it can smell your fear.
For the past year or so, I have contributed to a forum that has many wonderful cooks as members. One of the members, Nancy, started a thread on bread baking. She is not professionally trained but is as fearless as anyone I know in the culinary industry. We have never met in person but e-mail almost daily and have spoken on the phone one time. Nancy decided that it was time to experiment with sourdough starters. She tried to make her own with no success and then found a wonderful website that will send you, at no cost, an 1847 Oregon Trail Sourdough Starter. It comes to you in a little envelope and is dehydrated so you must bring it back to life. After reading her posts, I decided to face my fears and begin my own sourdough trail.
I patiently waited for a couple of weeks for my starter to arrive as I kept track of Nancy’s efforts. Her breads were so beautiful and she posted step-by-step instructions along with great photographs. My starter finally arrived so I set about rehydrating it with water, flour and some dried potato flakes. It sounded simple until I was reminded that I have to give my starter a name. All of Nancy’s were called “Bob” and a one point she likened them to Tribbles (all you Star Trek fans will get this reference). I decide to name mine “Bettie”, after my mother who passed away last year. I was hoping she would bring me good bread karma.
So, as you see in my opening picture, my starter is all fed and ready to go. You can tell it is doing well by the amount of “action” it has. It should be very bubbly and alive. Lo and behold, here is “Bettie” after two days:
“I often wondered why I was so afraid of bread, it has so few ingredients. Actually, what you truly need is an ability to give up control. Once bread is mixed, scaled and formed, all you do is put it in the oven and wait. Maybe that is my problem.”
MY PREMIER SOURDOUGH EXPERIENCE
I decide to start with the most basic of breads, the sourdough baguette. I found a recipe from a site that I have trusted in the past and followed the recipe as written. I was a little suspicious because not only did it call for the starter to make the initial “sponge”, which is later mixed with flour and water to make the final dough, but it also called for additional yeast and vital wheat gluten. Yeast I have, vital wheat gluten entailed a trip to Whole Foods. I was tempted to leave out the additional yeast and/or wheat gluten but given my past disasters, I figured the experts knew what they were doing so I ignored my suspicions. The sponge rose beautifully, as did the final dough. Encouraged, I deflated the dough to form the baguettes and all I can say is the consistency was like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree. It was sticky, runny and downright impossible to work with. Disappointed, but determined not to waste two days of work, I dumped it on the counter, added a lot of flour, kneaded it and put it in an oiled sheet pan. I brushed the top with olive oil, added some coarse salt and dried herbs and baked a focaccia. My lovely Italian neighbor, Adriana, took it to her parents’ house that night and they had it with antipasti. They said it was delicious, maybe they were being nice.
I began to suspect that I just did not have what it takes to be a bread baker. I still had more of the Bettie starter so I then attempted sourdough biscuits. These are the same as a good old Southern biscuit but are made with a sourdough starter and no butter. To my complete surprise, not only did they turn out but they tasted terrific:
No sourgrapes needed…… my first attempt at sourdough biscuits worked.
Meanwhile, Nancy had moved on to increasingly complicated recipes. She sent me the recipe for Pane Siciliano, a wonderfully moist and dense olive oil based bread using the sourdough starter. I was scared of trying the baguettes again so I decided to try her recipe. This was truly a three day labor of love between making the biga (the sponge), making the final dough, forming the loaves, letting them rise and finally baking them in a 500 degree oven with steam. I thought since I failed at making the most basic of breads, I might as well go down in flames with a really complicated recipe. The difference was, I was not afraid of this recipe. The final results were spectacular as you can see in the opening picture.
Pane Dough, oven-bound…
I am slowly gaining more confidence and am now experimenting with creating different starters from my “mother” starter. More on that later, and my second attempt at the baguettes. Wish me luck, I already have the courage.
Two books that I find invaluable are: Baking With Julia, by Dorie Greenspan (based on the PBS series) Le Cordon Bleu, Professional Baking, by Wayne Gisslen (3rd Ed.)
“STOP! DON’T TAKE ANOTHER BITE.” ( I guess the bread was soooo tempting “we” could not even wait for Mary’s photo op. Yeah, they look contrite!
Let’s see if I have this straight. In Italy, it’s focaccia. In France, fougasse. The names of both breads are derived from focus, theLatin word for “fireplace”. These flatbreads were originally cooked on a hot hearthstone or in ashes rather than an oven. Not often seen in a Parisian boulangerie, fougasse is “rooted in Provence,” as Dorie explains, “where olive oil trumps butter and rusticity reigns over prim, precise, and formal.”
The finished product. Think of this as a leaf from the Tree of Life.
In a word, fougasse may not be très chic or Parisian-sophistiqué but it sure is délicieux. Now, leave it to the French to get fancy. Fougasse is often cut in a leaf shape to suggest the Tree of Life. To make the traditional pattern, you slash 2-inch slits in the dough and then nudge and tug the slits open. Honestly, that “technique” caused me the most stress. To check that the holes remained holes, I opened the oven five times to monitor the nine openings and managed to burn my right thumb twice!
Fougasse is a yeast-raised bread seasoned with olive oil, fresh rosemary and studded with oil-cured black olives. There is nothing difficult about mixing the dough and shaping it into flatbread ( the recipe makes two). I did let the dough rise for two hours before stirring it down to chill overnight and shaping and baking it.
The dough, after rising two hours, before stirring it down to chill in the fridge.
After deflating the dough,I placed it safely in the fridge for an overnight slumber . Note the soldiers on guard.
Dorie gives explicit and excellent directions as to shaping fougasse. It’s amazing how nicely a 12” X 9 “ rectangle can be transformed into a leaf. Here, a slash. There, a slash. Everywhere a slash, slash. Viola. Done. It is important, however, for tasty results that the bread be at least one-inch thick.
Please note that fougasse will not bake too dark. Its brown will be a golden hue. The salt on top? I used Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt, author Michael Ruhlman’s salt-of-choice.
The rectangle prior to surgery.
Slash, Pull, Tug, Pray.
The definition of chutzpah may be sharing your first attempt at fougasse with my five-star neighbors, Ray Dillion and Dominick Prudenti, former East Coast delicatessen owners. As well as, Sicilian-born-and-bred, Adriana Scrima and her family. Relying on Dorie’s every word and explicit directions, I baked pretty darn good fougasse. Pat Mary on the back. Although my neighbors all lean Italian focaccia, my French fougasse earned some respect.
Oven-ready.
I would suggest the fougasse ultimate Provençal eating experience is with savory bites and a glass of Sancerre while dreaming of the Côte d’Azur. That’s, of course, reality. Far better is to just BE there.
Although we cook from the book and urge you to purchase Dorie’s “Around My French Table”, go here for this recipe. To see how my baking buddies did this week, go here.
Demolished before the pasta dinner. No contrition. Note the basalmic – a good companion.
