Lauher Tumbles

Strawberry Kolaches

Kolaches are a classic Czech pastry. They are made with a rich brioche style bread with a sweet filling. Prune, cherry, peach, and poppy seeds are typical examples. I chose to make a strawberry version using my own strawberry jam. There are four parts to the kolache, the dough, a cream cheese filling, strawberry jam, and a streusel topping.

The strawberry jam was made by cutting up enough strawberries to give about five cups of cut berries. These were heated in a sauce pan with three quarters cup of sugar and the juice of one lemon. The mixture was heated with stirring until the volume was reduced considerably and the berries had significantly thickened. The jam was transferred to bowl and placed in freezer to cool.

The cream cheese was prepared by adding four tablespoons of confectioner's sugar to a pound package of softened cream cheese. Two egg yolks and the zest of a lemon were added and the mixture was stirred until it was nice and smooth.

The streusel was very simple. Two tablespoons each of flour and sugar were stirred with a fork with a tablespoon of soft butter giving a mixture that looked like wet sand.

To make the dough I began with two cups of warm milk in my Ankarsrum mixer. To this 135 grams of granulated sugar were added along with a tablespoon of yeast. This was mixed for a couple of minutes, then 500 grams of flour was added. With the mixer running 6 egg yolks were added slowly, then two sticks of melted butter. Finally another 300 grams of flour was added bringing the dough together. It was kneaded for ten minutes to give a soft, somewhat sticky dough.

The dough was allowed to rise for an hour in the 85 degree proofing oven. The dough was then separated into 24 parts of about 80-85 grams each. Each portion was rolled into a tight ball and the balls were arranged on to two parchment covered half sheet pans. The pans were placed in the proofing oven for another 30 minute rise.

Using a 1/4 cup measuring tool that had a bottom about two inches across, a two inch depression was made in each dough ball. This flattened the balls and brought their edges into contact on the baking sheet. The balls were then brushed with an egg wash made from some of the left over egg whites. A tablespoon of the cream cheese mixture was added to each depression and smoothed out leaving a smaller depression for the jam. This depression was filled with about a tablespoon of the strawberry jam. Finally a small portion of streusel was spread over the top of each of the pastry.

The kolaches were baked for 18 minutes in a 350 degree oven. They were removed from the oven and immediately transferred to a wire rack for cooling.

Irish Soda Bread with Raisins

This is a very simple butter rich soda bread. Easy and quick to make.

Start with the butter, preferably Irish Gold. Take a stick and cut into a multitude of small cubes. I cut the stick in half lengthwise, then each half into three long sticks. Line up the six stick and cut them into small cubes. You will end up with lots of them. Put the small butter cubes into a small bowl and place it into the freezer.

Once the butter cubes are really cold combine the dry ingredients consisting of a 300 grams of flour, 75 grams of sugar, a teaspoon each of baking soda and baking powder, and finally a half teaspoon of salt.

Take the butter out of the freezer and break up the cubes and add them to the four mixture. Stir it all around with a spoon then add a cup of buttermilk. Stir it just a bit, then add a 100 grams of raisins. Once the raisin have been added stir more to bring it all together. Pick it up and shape it into a nice ball. The butter chunks will still be intact, that it is a good thing. They will melt in the oven.

Place the ball in a eight inch cast iron skillet or other suitable vessel and flatten it a bit. Bake it for 45 minutes in a 375 degree oven. Bring it out of the oven and immediately invert the skillet to release the bread.

Cranberry Walnut Bread

This is a very simple bread, easy to make. It makes one tasty loaf of bread in about three hours.

You start with 300 ml of warm milk, two tablespoons of sugar and a table spoon of yeast in the stand mixer bowl. This is stirred for a few minutes then a mixture of 450 grams of flour and a teaspoon of salt is added slowly with the mixer running. After half the flour mixture is added three tablespoons of melted butter is added. Then the rest of the flour is added and the dough is kneaded in the mixer for ten minutes.

The dough is transferred to a clean bowl and covered with towel. It is allowed to rise for one hour in the proofing oven. After on hour the dough is flattened and a quarter cup of dried cranberries and a quarter cup of chopped walnuts are spread across the dough. The dough is rolled up, folded over and shaped to fit a butter loaf pan. The pan is placed in the proofing oven for a half hour. At this point the dough should have risen to fill the pan.

Torta di Semolino

This is simple little cake that has a custard like texture. The recipe is based upon one published in Bake from Scratch. The method of preparing the cake is simple, but a bit unusual. It is made from a combination of semolina and almond flours.

You start by heating up 720 grams of milk in a saucepan then adding 90 grams of semolina flour slowly. You need to whisk continuously to avoid lumps. The resulting mixture thickens similar to polenta. Once you have a nice uniform mixture you remove the sauce pan from the heat and add 65 grams of almond flour, 85 grams of sugar, a tablespoon of butter, two teaspoons of vanilla, a half a teaspoon of salt, and the zest of a large orange. Stir thoroughly until everything is nice and smooth. Transfer everything to a bowl and let it cool enough to add two eggs. Beat in the eggs to give a nice smooth batter.

Transfer the batter to an eight inch round cake that has been buttered and lined with parchment paper. Bake the cake in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes.

Let the cake cool in the pan, then double invert it onto your serving plate.

Chocolate Cinnamon Cookies

These are very simple cookies, but they are truly great. Easy to make, even easier to devour.

The dry ingredients include 275 grams of flour, fifty grams of cocoa, two teaspoons of baking powder and a half teaspoon of salt. Whisk them together in a small bowel.

Cream two sticks of room temperature butter with 300 grams of sugar. Add two eggs and a teaspoon of vanilla and beat it until it is all well combined. Stir in the dry ingredients to give a nice stiff dough.

Measure out 50 gram portions of the dough with your hands and roll them into balls. Take each ball and roll them into cinnamon sugar (one tablespoon of cinnamon in two tablespoons of sugar). Flatten each ball and place it on a parchment covered half sheet pan. You should get twenty cookies, which you can place ten each on two pans.

Bake the cookies for 15 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Remove the pans from oven and leave the cookies on the pans to cool down and firm up.

Occhi di Santa Lucia - Sicilian Semolina Bread

This is a great recipe taken from Brian Hart Hoffman's Bake from Scratch magazine. Semolina flour is a bit hard to find. My store had Bob's Red Mill Semolina Pasta Flour. It works just fine.

Start by combining 300 grams of the semolina flour with 200 grams of standard bread flour. Add a tablespoon of yeast and table spoon of flour and place it all in the bowl of the stand mixer.

With the mixer running add 300 ml of warm water, a table spoon of honey and two table spoons of olive oil. The dough comes together very easily, but it needs a long kneading of 15 minutes.

Turn out the dough, shape it into a nice ball and place it in a covered bowl. Put the bowl in the proofing oven for an hour.

At the end of the hour divide the dough into two parts. Take each part and roll it into a nine inch wide twenty four inch long rectangle. Roll up the rectangle to give you a twenty four inch rope. Shape the rope into an "S" shape by rolling each end inward in opposite directions. Place the two rolled up "S" shapes on a parchment covered sheet pan and stick the pan back into the proofing oven.

After another forty minutes the dough should be nicely risen. Give it a quick water wash and sprinkle the surface with sesame seeds.

Bake the bread in a 400 degree oven for 17 minutes.

Let the bread cool for a bit before slicing it then eat!

Vasilopita, Greek Celebration Bread

Vasilopita is a Greek Celebration Bread very popular for New Year's Celebrations. It is a large enriched milk bread flavored with orange zest. I thought I would give it ago. Here is my recipe, for better or worse.

Start by adding a cup of milk to a two cup measuring cup and warming it in the microwave. Add a couple tablespoons of flour, a teaspoon of sugar and a teaspoon of yeast. Stir it well and let it sit for a half of an hour. In this time it should show lots of activity. Mine nearly doubled in size.

Add 850 grams of flour, 150 grams of sugar, a teaspoon of salt and a two teaspoons of yeast to the bowl of your stand mixer equipped with the dough hook. Run it a bit to combine the dry ingredients. Add the milk mixture, another cup of warm milk, plus the zest of a large orange. With the mixer running add four eggs and two tablespoons of olive oil.

Knead the dough as well as you can in the mixer, then transfer the sticky dough to your counter top for an addition five minute hand kneading.

Place the dough in a large bowel and put it into your (Brand New!) proofing oven at 85 degrees. After and hour and a half the dough should have risen considerably.

Transfer the dough to a preheated Dutch Oven. Give it an egg wash and sprinkle sesame seeds on top. White sesame seeds are the usual choice, but I only had black ones and they are just fine.

Put the lid on the Dutch oven and bake the bread for 30 minutes at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and continue baking for another 20 minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven and invert the bread onto a wire rack for cooling. The resulting loaf is pretty big, 1.5 kilos.

Snowflake Cinnamon Bread

One of my favorite shows is the Great British Baking Show. Not only is the show fun to watch, it is full of great ideas for my own next baking project. This year the Christmas special technical challenge was Snowflake Bread, also known as Star Bread. It is a simple cinnamon bread with a much more interesting shape as compared to your normal cinnamon rolls.

The following recipe is mine based upon things I have done before. It produces a dough that holds together well and is easy to roll out.

Start by weighing out 540 grams of flour and 60 grams of sugar and dumping them into the bowl of your stand mixer. Add a teaspoon of salt and a couple teaspoons of yeast. With the mixer running, pour in 280 ml of warm milk and one egg. Let the mixer to its job until everything comes together, then add six tablespoons of softened butter one table spoon at a time.

Let the mixer knead the dough for about six minutes then transfer the dough to a large clean bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it into your (brand new!) proofing oven for about an hour.

Make up a cinnamon sugar mixture for the filling, using a half cup of sugar and two tablespoons of cinnamon. Also melt a half stick of butter in a small bowl.

At the end of the hour divide the dough into four equal portions, forming each into a nice ball. They should weigh about 250 grams each. Take the first ball and roll it out into a circle about 11 inches in diameter. I used an upside down Fiesta dinner plate as a guide.

Transfer the dough round to a parchment covered half sheet pan. Brush the top with melted butter then cover it with one third of the cinnamon sugar. Leave about a half inch clear border around the perimeter.

Roll out dough ball two in a similar manner. Place it on top of the first round then cover it with melted butter and another third of the cinnamon sugar. Pull and stretch the two rounds to try to maintain the circular shape. Do the same with round three, again stretching the edge to maintain the shape.

Finally roll out the fourth dough ball and use it to top the third. At this point go around the circle pinching the four layers together perfecting the circle as well as you can.

Now comes the fun part. Take a standard ball jar with a two and half inch opening and invert it at the center of your bread to be. Press it in just enough to make a clear impression, a round mark. This mark serves as the starting point for your radial cuts.

Starting at the circular mark use a sharp knife to make four radial cuts at the points of a compass. Make four more cuts to cut each quarter into two eights, then eight more cuts to cut each eight into sixteenths.

At this point you should have a bread with an uncut round center with sixteen triangular pieces pointing outward. Take the ends of two adjacent triangles and twist them outward two times. When you have completed the two full twists then twist them again just a quarter of a turn and pinch the two ends together.

Complete twisting by repeating this process seven more times. When you finish go back around the pastry poking and pulling to make everything as neat as you can. Make sure the ends of each twisted pair are firmly pinched together.

Put the completed snowflake back into the proofing oven for another forty minutes or so. When it is fully proofed give the top of bread a egg wash followed by a thorough covering of turbinado sugar.

Bake the bread in a 375 degree oven for just 25 minutes. Let it cool on a wire rack. Take a picture quickly or you will never have a chance.

Then let everyone grab a arm of the snowflake and watch it disappear.

Almond Ball Cookies

The New Times Cooking section recently published a group of new holiday cookies. Vaughn Vreeland's Rum-Buttered Almond Cookies looked particularly nice. Here is my version. I used amaretto instead of rum.

The first step is to prepare some spiked butter. Melt a half stick of salted butter and combine it with two teaspoons of powdered sugar, a tablespoon of amaretto and a pinch of salt. You could stop here and just eat the butter, but let us carry on.

Combine three cups of almond flour with a cup and a half of powdered sugar and a teaspoon of salt. In a separate bowl whisk together an egg, two egg whites, a teaspoon of almond extract and two teaspoons of amaretto.

Add the eggs to the dry ingredients and mix it all together. The result will be a sticky dough mass.

Take two cups of sliced almonds and place them on a plate, a portion at a time as needed. Using your hands and your trusty scales weigh out 38 gram portions of the dough and form round dough balls.

Take each ball and roll it in the almonds making sure that the almonds stick. Place the ball on a buttered parchment covered sheet pan in three rows of three. You should get eighteen cookies, filling two pans.

Now using a pastry brush cover the tops of each cookie with the spiked butter.

Make the cookies for 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Remove the pans from the oven and let them cool on a wire rack. While they are cooling brush on another dose of the spiked butter and add a few flakes of sea salt to each cookie.

Amarettis

Amarettis are an Italian cookie that features ground almonds and various other nuts. Hazelnuts are are a traditional choice, but in my version I used half almonds and half pecans. They are very easy to make, most of the work is done by the food processor.

Load your food processor with 200 grams of almonds, 200 grams of pecan (or some other nut of your choice), 180 grams of light brown sugar, 80 grams of dark chocolate, a tablespoon of ground ginger, two teaspoons of instant espresso powder, and a teaspoon of sea salt. Give it all a whirl until the nuts are ground to a sand like consistency.

Dump the ground nut mixture into a bowl and stir in four egg whites by hand. Using your hands and your trusty triple-beam, measure out 30 gram portions of the dough and roll each into a ball. Roll the balls in powdered sugar, then place them on a parchment covered half sheet pan. Put about 15 on a pan. Flatten them just a bit.

Bake the cookies for 15 minutes in a 375 degree oven. They will be very soft when removed from the oven, but as they cool down on the still warm pan they will firm up.

Gâteau Breton

If you like butter you will certainly like this rich butter cake from Brittany. It is full of butter and egg yolks and tastes a bit like a short bread cookie. The recipe comes from a delightful book on French cakes written by Aleksandra Crapanza.

I baked mine in my Le Creuset Stoneware Tart Dish and it was thing of beauty.

Start by combining the dry ingredients, a cup of regular flour, a cup of cake flour, a teaspoon of baking powder and a half teaspoon of salt.

Cream two sticks of quality butter (I used Kerrygold) with a cup of granulated sugar. Blend in five egg yolks, one at a time, followed by two tablespoons of rum. Add the dry ingredients and blend well.

Spread the batter into the buttered tart dish and smooth it out. Give it an egg wash, then make a cross-cross pattern with a fork. You have do it. It's a tradition.

Bake the cake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees, then another 15 minutes at 325 degrees.

Cranberry Clove Torte

This is a simple torte based upon the famous New York Times plum torte recipe. It is very easy to make and quite tasty. The cloves are nice addition to the cranberries.

Start by combining the dry ingredients, a cup of flour, a heaping teaspoon of cloves, a teaspoon of baking powder, and a half teaspoon of salt.

Cream a stick of butter with three quarters of a cup of sugar followed by two eggs. Add the dry ingredients and mix well. Take six ounces of cranberries (half a standard bag), coarsely chop them and fold them into the batter.

Spread the batter out evenly in a buttered eight inch spring-form pan. Sprinkle turbinado sugar over the top and bake the torte for 40-45 min in a 350 degree oven.

Make sure to enjoy the aroma of the cloves.

Remove the torte from the oven and cool it on a wire rack. Release it from the spring form pan and enjoy.

Peach Cobbler

Peaches are one of summer’s true delights. I bought a beautiful box of Georgia peaches from Costco and they just begged to be put into a nice cobbler.

Cobblers are easy to make. Start by cutting a stick a butter lengthwise into nine square sticks, then crosswise to give a whole bunch of small cubes. Stick the cubes in the freezer for a few minutes while the rest of the prep takes place.

Grease a deep pie plate or a eight inch square pan with butter. Slice the peaches directly into the pie plate. I used five large ones which gave me just under two pounds of peaches. When you are finished add a half cup of sugar and stir the peaches to achieve an even coating.

In a medium bowl combine a cup a flour, a cup of sugar, a teaspoon of baking powder and a half teaspoon of salt. Take the cold butter cubes from the freezer and using a pastry blender cut the butter into the flour mixture. Add two eggs and and two teaspoons of vanilla. Mix it all together with a heavy spoon, then use your hands to pull it apart and dot the top of the peaches with chunks of dough. Try to cover the peaches completely, but don’t try to smooth it out.

Spread the top with fifty grams of sliced almonds and a sprinkle of turbinado sugar.

Snickerdoodles

Snickerdoodles are fun. Just try to say the name three times fast without smiling. They are also delicious and very easy to make.

First combine the dry ingredients consisting of 350 grams of flour, two teaspoons of baking powder and half teaspoon of salt. Cream 300 grams of sugar with two sticks of butter, beat in two eggs, then the dry ingredients.

In a shallow bowl make some cinnamon sugar using what ever ratio you like. I like cinnamon, so I use a 2:1 sugar/cinnamon ratio.

Now the fun part. Using your hand grab some dough and use you scales to measure out 40 gram balls. Roll each ball in the cinnamon sugar making sure it is well covered.

Place the balls on a parchment covered cookie sheet. Bake them for 12 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

Let the cookies cool on the the pan for a few minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack.

Baklava

Baklava is something magical. It is a thing of its own and a truly unique dessert.

It turns out it is actually pretty easy to make. It just take a bit of time and the courage to pour a huge amount of syrup over your freshly baked pastry.

The secret to making baklava is buying the phyllo dough. I bought a box of fillo dough form the Fillo Factory. Note the change in spelling. It is a bit hard to fine, most grocery stores do not sell it, but Whole Foods has it. The box says it contains approximately 18 sheets, the one I bought had 16. This is important, because you will want to make four layers.

But before you start layering you need to make the syrup. A cup of water, a cup of honey and three quarters cup of sugar are combined in a sauce pan and brought to a simmer. The zest of two large oranges is added. The syrup is simmered for about twenty minutes loosing about twenty percent of its volume. It is then removed from the heat and allowed to cool. It needs to brought down to room temperature before it is used.

The next step is to prepare the nuts. I used 18 ounces of walnuts, ground in the food processor. They are then mixed with a quarter cup of sugar and a tablespoon of cinnamon. Two sticks of butter are melted in a mall bowl.

The baklava is baked in a 13 x 9 inch metal baking pan. You start by buttering the bottom with some of the melted butter. The fillo dough comes in 13 x 18 inch sheets folded to give a double 13 x 9 inch sheet that just fits the pan.

One double sheet is placed on the bottom of the pan and melted butter is brushed all over the sheet. This is followed by three more double sheets, with butter spread on each one. After the fourth sheet is down one third of the nuts are spread evenly over the layer.

Add four more double sheets with buttering and then another third of the walnuts. Repeat with four more sheets and the last of the walnuts. Finally add the last four double sheets to complete the layering.

Take a sharp knife and trim the edges and corners of the layers to even things out. Then cut the layers into four long strips. Try to cut all the way to the bottom. Then make cross cuts on a diagonal to make the individual pieces. After the cuts are made the bake the pastry in a 350 degree oven for 40 minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven and place it on a wire rack. Now have a bit of courage and pour all of the cooled syrup evenly over the baklava. It will seem like you have way too much syrup, but you do not. All of it will be absorbed.

After the baklava has cooled completely, it is best to wait a full 24 hours for the syrup to be completely absorbed, go over your cuts again freeing up the individual pieces. Transfer them carefully to a serving plate. If any of them fall apart the cook gets to eat them.

Black Forest Cake

My friend around the corner was looking forward to his twelfth birthday. I asked him what sort of a cake he would like. He replied, "chocolate cake with cherries." That was a call for a Black Forest Cake. So here is the result.

I began by defrosting a 12 ounce bag of sweet cherries. The juice was separated and saved for later.

The dry ingredients consisted of 220 grams of flour, 65 grams of cocoa, a teaspoon and a half of baking powder, a teaspoon of backing soda, and a half teaspoon of salt all whisked together in a small bowl.

In a measuring cup 360 ml of buttermilk were stirred with a teaspoon of vanilla and a teaspoon of instant espresso powder.

In a large bowl 400 grams of sugar were mixed with 165 grams of canola oil. Two eggs and an extra egg white were then added and combined well. This was followed by alternate portions of the dry and wet ingredients.

The batter was beat until it was nice and smooth and then added to two buttered and parchment lined eight inch cake pans.

The cakes were baked for 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven. They were removed from the oven and cooled on wire racks for about ten minutes. The pans were then double inverted to remove the cakes.

Once the cakes were completely cooled, each cake was cut horizontally to give total of four shorter cakes. A large (huge) amount stiff whipped cream was prepared from 600 ml of heavy cream and 120 grams of confectioners' sugar.

One of the two original top cake layers was inverted on to a large plate, the curvature of the plate matching the curvature of the cake top. One quarter of the reserved cheery juice was poured over the cake, which easily absorbed it. This was followed by a layer of the whipped cream. One third of the cherries were embedded into the cream, staying away from the edges of the cake.

This was followed by the second layer, an original bottom layer upside down. It was given the same cherry juice, whipped cream and cherry treatment. The third layer was the second bottom layer right side up. It was given the same treatment using more whipped cream, another quarter of the cheery juice and last of the cherries.

Finally, the fourth layer was added, the remaining top slice right side up. The was given the last of the cherry juice then covered with whipped cream. This was followed by a thick whipped cream coverage of the sides of the cake. (At this point you hope that your huge amount of whipped cream was huge enough.)

For a bit of decoration, a bar of sweet chocolate was shaved with a vegetable peeler and the shavings sprinkled over the top of the cake.

Chocolate Charlotte Cake

I converted the recipe for my yellow Charlotte cake to chocolate. Because, of course, chocolate makes everything better.

The recipe changes by lowering the flour by 10 grams and then adding 25 grams of cocoa.

The dry ingredients consisted of 110 grams of flour, 25 grams of cocoa, a teaspoon of baking powder and a half teaspoon of salt.

A stick of butter was creamed with a 150 grams of sugar, followed by one egg and an extra yolk plus two teaspoons of vanilla extract. The dry ingredients were then added in alternation with 80 ml of milk.

The batter was then poured into the buttered Charlotte cake pan and baked in a 350 degree oven for 38 minutes.

The cake was cooled for a few minutes then inverted out of the pan and onto a serving plate.