Croissants - or Crescent Rolls?

MMM, while waiting for the sheeter to get installed, I've been playing with handmade croissants. I am surprised that with over 50 baking books, only two have formulas or recipes for croissants. I was willing to part with a bit of our dinner roll dough to make these. for each pound of dinner roll dough ,I folded in a half pound of butter (The batch shown in the photo was 1 pound to 1/4 pound). The taste was to die for - I want a lighter texture in the final product!

Happy Thanksgiving 2007

We may never buy a turducken again! After years of enjoying the novelty of eating internet-procured turducken for Thanksgiving, we finally made our own this year. We bought a turkey breast (with bones and some back meat), a very small chicken, and a frozen duckling on Sunday. Sunday afternoon, I boned all birds, even though the duck was still pretty icy inside. I packaged the meats seperately in the fridge until Thursday morning. It wasn't necessary to debone the duck or the chicken as a whole bird, but I like the practice.

On Sunday evening, I roasted all of the removed bones and tendons on a rimmed sheet pan and tossed them into a pot of cold water and simmered them for several hours. After straining out the solids, I rapidly chilled the stock (you may do this by placing the stock in a shallow pan, adding ice, and/or floating enclosed ice packs and stirring frequently. The goal is to get the stock temperature from 135 degrees F down to 40 degrees as fast as possible - certainly less than 4 hours!

On Monday, I made a concentrated brine using salt, bullion, spices, and herbs. I kept it chilled in the fridge until Thurday morning.

On Thursday am, I skinned the duck and the chicken. I placed the brine concentrate, ice water, and all the poultry in a very large heavy duty food safe bag and left it out on the front porch for 3.5 hours (outdoor temp was 36 to 39 degrees all day).

Around 2 pm, I drained and patted dry all the meat and layed the turkey breast skin-side-down on a piece of clean light-weight muslin. Making sure to keep the layers pretty even, the duck meat and the chicken were piled onto the turkey and then one small link of andouille, sliced in half was place on the top. A two person job: pulling the muslin around to make a cylinder with the turkey, then tying to keep the ballotine shape. Cover in aluminum foil. We baked in a 350 degree oven for several hours (Almost three for a 12 pound roast) until an instant read thermometer measured 165 in three separate places along the centerline of the roast.

Stollen

Who knew? Evidently every baker in the world except for me has baked some holiday version of fruit bread. Whether it be Pandoro, Pannetone, Stollen, or grandma's fruitcake - I think the aroma of holiday breads evoke the most distant memories we ever formed.

I can picture the scene. I am in my highchair, the one my mom loaded into the trunk only hours earlier. I grip the cool plastic tray with both miniature hands and discover the spongy, soft and sticky slice. It's golden and studded with liquor-soaked fruits. A line of winter white almond paste threads its way through the center of the golden folds. The buttery, tangy, sweet slice of heaven is coarsely protected with a fat layer of snowy powdered sugar. This whole memory is completely fabricated - I'd never tasted stollen until I pulled two from the oven last friday.

As I was mixing the dough, I was drawn to the enticing aromas - cinnamony, brandy-laced, heady with yeast and eggs and dairy. I zested half a grapefruit, and orange and a lemon right into the mixing bowl. I rolled out a bit of almond paste and placed it onto the center of the preshaped loaf and gently folded the dough over and coaxed the loaf into a crescent.

Trembling with restraint, I loaded the loaves into the waiting oven. It was impossible that baking this silken dough could possibly improve the sensory delight. Yet, this necessary exercise was prescribed by the rule of following directions the first time any bread is made. Saddened by the realization that I would no longer be tasting bits of the dough, I waited for the timer to alert me that it was almost time.

One half of a loaf had been consumed before the loaves were cool. Another loaf was gone by monday morning. To the best of my knowledge, there are no existing specimens from this baking experiment. Alas - you may enjoy the photos. I started with Peter Reinhardt's, "The Bread Bakers Apprentice" formula for Stollen and adjusted it to fit my available and preferred ingredients.

I think I'll be baking more for the holidays!

Sheeter

Some of you know that BBC got a sheeter from Ebay last month. When I got it, it was in less than prime condition. Still, being the trooper that I am, I am going to clean it up and repair it if I can.

The only clean thing about it was the control box. So I have been scraping, sanding, and vacuuming and scouring the outside parts.

http://www.barefootbaking.com/sheeter.html

The parts department at Rondo is especially nice to me and for that I am entirely too grateful! The man I have been speaking with probably hasn't a clue of my background, but I guess I have been keeping up.

(Joseph, I have to admit that I used to be an unhappy engineer. Now I am a happy baker who gets to make her own projects!)

A friend of mine wanted to open Bed and Breakfast and asked 20 B&B owners for advice - they all said, "Learn to repair toilets and faucets!" So I guess my advice to would-be professional bakery owners is to learn to repair ovens, refrigeration units and mechanical doo jiggies AND sink drains! HA HA and start with a lot of money!

So far, the project is daunting, but I think I can accomplish the installation by Thanksgiving and then the adjusting part will get started. I still need to receive the "rotary phase converter" from Arco in Shelbyville, IN. I'll then need to get wonderful electricians to install the converter and a female outlet. So far, I haven't had much luck in getting the unit down stairs, but my rigger just asked someone else to do it. Bummer.

In the meantime, I have been thinking up new items for the bakery. Along with expanding our croissants to include almond and maybe even baked sandwiches, I plan on all sorts of laminated goodies by May for the Greatest Spectacle in Tasting.

I can't operate it without the safety guards repaired and I am going to find out if they are reversible without taking off the front [spring-loaded] panel.

Caio and have a great weekend.

Natural Flavors continued.

Butter popcorn flavor linked to lung disease in factory workers

One of my baking colleagues sent us this link to a news service. I don't know if it has any truth in it, but for now, I'm going to add this to the conversation regarding artificial and natural flavorings.

Also for an entertaining experience about the history of butter: http://www.webexhibits.org/butter/

It can't be leftovers if we haven't made it yet

Okay okay. It's just step two of leftovers for two. Leftovers for 4 or 5 days!

I've been systematically getting the freezer cleared out for winter. The freezer contributions? Ham from last winter and chicken thighs from the latest meat sale. I also had a package of red beans and rice mix. Yikes I admitted that!

Okay add a sauteed half an onion from the fridge and that's it. Here's the trick to a never ending pot of dinner. Before each dinner add a half cup of rice and a cup of water, and cook it again. Season before serving. Yes, the protein level goes down throughout the week - but the flavors meld a good long while and the whole meal gets better as the week goes on. Wanna be cheaper, add rinsed cooked beans (or canned) as you go along - you may be able to get four more servings for less than a dollar.

I humbly apologize to food lovers and purists for this abomination of classic soul food. I admit there has been a lot of doctoring done to this to make it taste better. Can you say, "Tony Chachere's"? Tomorrow I'm going to get a bell pepper. I suggest you all start with the trinity of Onions, peppers and celery to start these leftovers.

food porn watch

food porn watch

Hmm, I guess it'l take a while before these folks will check out the blog.

Here's looking at you guys.

JCD

WOW! A Saturday off!

Woo Hoo - 'got to sleep in this morning and have a happy Saturday morning complete with local tomato juice, potatoes obrien, and hubby special biscuits and gravy. One more pot of Peruvian/Kona coffee blend to top it all off.

Sheldon, a horticulturist extraordinaire, stopped by to grab a half bag of pine needles from the back yard for a neighbor's azalea. I was a little embarassed for him to see the disheveled backyard and realized I could be spending a few hours out there to make next spring a little easier. I wish Poke and Stinging Nettle were cash crops, I'd be rolling in the money!

Alex' s breakfast special -
half pound of peeled and diced potato
one green or red bell pepper diced
one small onion diced
8-14 ounces sage sausage (or any other bulk sausage that you like)
6-8 biscuits already baked
ground cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste
1-2 ounces by weight of flour (1/4 cup?)
a pint of milk - any fat content you'd like
canola oil

In the cast iron skillet set on medium heat, slowly brown the potatoes, half the peppers and half of the onion in 2 tablespoons of canola oil. Season to taste, preferably at the beginning and then adjust at the end, but it takes a bit of practice to do this, so if you are making this at home, season at the end, but measure how much it took. Keep the heat lower than you think, because you'll need to keep them warm until ready for service.

In a non stick skillet, cook the crumbled sausage, and the remaining diced peppers and onions over medium low heat so there's no pink left in the sausage and the onions and peppers are soft and sweet. Drain any excess fat and throw away if desired. Don't pour it down the drain. Season sausage/peppers to taste, but be very careful if you bought the sausage so you don't accidentally oversalt. Mix the flour with 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper and sprinkle over the hot sausage/pepper mixture. Stir well and then add 1 cup of milk. Bring to a simmer and adjust the thickness by adding more milk if necessary. Alex used the whole pint. Again, adjust seasoning if necessary!

To serve, make "MMMMM" sounds, then put a split biscuit on the plate, pile a spoonful of thoroughly brown and caramelized potatoes nearby and top the biscuit halves with spoonfuls of the chunky sausage gravy. Make more "MMMMM" noises and smack your lips a few times.

Do they recognize quality?

A long post: Photo of the day is of the shaping room of the bakery. We're getting ready for a new delivery of equipment. That cabinet is a front-projection TV that will be removed to make room.

Today's post is inspired by an archived article in Food Arts Magazine about upscale restaurant chefs curing their own salame (salumi). One chef, Michael Symon, of Lola in Cleveland, was quoted, "it makes us better cooks, teaching us respect for ingredients and increasing pride in our products...Usually the restaurant world is about immediate gratification. The wait helps them grow as cooks".

The fact that no amount of added "natural flavors" will ever be a substitute for real flavor, sourdough bread in point, supports the ideal of learning a craft and making something great with that craft. You may have read previous posts regarding long slow fermentation in breadmaking to draw out flavors in flour. Well, guess what? This principle lies in almost all things of quality.

A friend and I were looking at the meat counter at our local "better" grocer and I was lamenting that the "dry-aged" cuts had all been trimmed or worse removed from the display. She mentioned that the customers didn't want to buy "old meat". Hunh? Did I miss something? Does America want to taste beef? Or do they want to season the crap out of "fresh meat" so they taste the seasonings and not the meat? Are we turning Japanese (While the Japanese are embracing the wet and dry methods of aging beef)? Ironic?



Are we raising our children to believe that fast food burgers are what a burger is supposed to taste like? You don't need a grill to make a better burger! And don't get me started on my childhood staple of pizza. Nutrition aside, I am grateful my family includes butchers, bakers, cooks, and backyard gardeners!

In the last three months, at home, I have:

• baked bread (duh!)


• roasted green coffee beans


• dry aged beef roasts


• brined and smoked meats


• baked a least 5 delicious pizzas


• churned my own gelato and ice cream


• ground my own meats


• and prepared fresh vegetables in at least five different ways (steaming, roasting, grilling, sauteing, and braising)
  

Most of the above mentioned items are available commercially, so I don't need to make them myself, right? Isn't it easier to buy them than to make them? Perhaps, but the bought ones aren't the same quality you'd find if you made them yourself, are they? I mean, when I roast coffee beans, I can make sure the only things going into my roaster is coffee beans (no foreign material if you know what I mean). I can choose where the beans come from (are they a fair trade country recognized by the US as such?). I can choose to blend different beans for a different flavor and I get to roast them as dark as I want. I can even roast as few as one pot's worth!

Meat grinding you say? What's the deal with that? Well, first of all, I don't want to pay for water - many commercial grinders work so fast and for such long hours that crushed ice is added to the meat to keep the fat from melting during the process. And even though the package says 85% lean, who's checking that that is what really is in my package? Maybe I got the fat that was supposed to go in the next package? Is the fat in ground beef from the same cow or even from the same cut of meat? Why do I need to have my beef sprayed with something that keeps it looking red and shiny for days? Can you spell salmonella? At least I know my equipment has been cleaned and sanitized and I know whether I am using the same equipment for beef, veal , pork and poultry. Do you know where your ground meat has been? **Note from Marsh Butcher in Kokomo: He does NOT use ice, since they do smaller batches and you get the labeled cut (or better). That means you might be getting tenderloin tails in your ground sirloin, Darn!


I recently bought a chicken from a local farmer who also sells at the farmer's market. I haven't thawed it yet, but plan to do so soon. Since she brought it to the market, it had to be commercially processed and that means frozen. If I want a fresh chicken, I need to go to the farm and pick it up there. The whole idea of seeing her process sounds cool to me except that I might feel bad for the chickens. I think I'll call her to see if she has fresh ducks and turkeys, maybe I can get the TurDuckHen poultry from her for Thanks giving.


Thank you, dad, for bringing home lamb and mutton and teaching us the difference and showing us to respect our food. I am sorry for the times I only wanted food from a box and orange pop for breakfast.