#kitchnbakingschool

Kitchn Baking School Day 5-Sourdough Breads

I know I’m like super late with this one, but sourdough starter takes 5 days, and I had another setback so I couldn’t actually make the bread itself. I actually don’t like sourdough bread, so I briefly thought about skipping this week but I at least made the starter.

Kitchn Baking School Day 16-All About Sugar and Baking

This is the final week (sadface), and it’s all about sugar!!! Sugar is an extremely important ingredient in baking, but I didn’t know it was this important. I always figured it was there for sweetness, but it does so much more than that. It helps keep goods from drying out, it can provide crunch and texture. It makes soft, chewy goods tender, and keeps drier goods tender. Sugar also builds structure, whether creaming it into butter to make cookies or with egg whites to make meringue, like we did back in Egg Week. Under heat, sugar provides color to a creme brulee, or a garnish to snowy sugar cookies around the holidays. Simply put, sugar is awesome stuff! There are so many different types too, but I’m only going to discuss what I have in my kitchen.

Granulated Sugar-also known as white sugar. The most common variety, highly refined and used in almost every baked good. If a recipe simply states “sugar”, this is what you want.

Powdered Sugar-also known as confectioner’s sugar. Dissolves very easily, common in glazes and frostings.

Brown sugar-I have both light (left) and dark (right) in my kitchen. Dark has a higher molasses content to it, is all. I love brown sugar on its own. Many use them interchangeably, but I prefer to use light in most cases. Some cases, i.e. apple pie around Thanksgiving, I use dark. If a recipe does not specify light or dark brown sugar, I usually use light.

Kitchn Baking School Day 15-Croissants

Confession: The only croissants I have made before this day have been in those blue tubes where you pop them open, tear along the preforated edges and roll up. After I overworked the puff pastry dough though, I felt I had something to redeem. The dough process was very similar to puff pastry, but had the addition of yeast to make them puff up and rise.

Kitchn Baking School Day 13-Rich Yeast Breads and Sweet Breads

I know I’m a bit late, but I was really busy yesterday and bread is less forgiving than other stuff. That said, here I am now!! Rich yeast breads are set apart for their use of eggs, sugar, fat and/or dairy. Examples include brioche, cinnamon buns and challah. They tend to be softer, less chewy and more flavorful. They also make fantastic French toast and bread pudding, from what I hear.

I made challah for this assignment. I used to attend a summer camp under Jewish ownership, and those are the only times I ever had challah. I love the stuff though, even though it has been 7 years. Challah is similar to brioche, not quite as rich since it's made with water and oil. Oil though is mainly for kosher reasons. Although I am not Jewish and do not keep kosher, but I used oil anyway.