Category Archives: Bread Bakers Apprentice Challenge

Baking

Celebrating Blog Post #500 – Apple Cinnamon Ginger Crunch Cake


On May 19 2009, I wrote my first blog post . Today marks my 500th! I never set out to write a blog. It happened accidentally. I joined an online group who were baking their way through Peter Reinhart’s tome, “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice”. I was hoping to increase my bread baking skills beyond the simple challah I baked each Friday.

The premise of the group was that we would work our way through the book, alphabetically, from Anadama Bread to Whole Wheat , one loaf each week, for 43 weeks. Group members would share their experiences in a Google group. I noticed that some members were chronicling their journey via blogging. It seemed like a cool idea, so I stayed up all night and figured out, with the help of wordpress.com, how to do it.

Here is a shot from that first post. My bread turned out perfectly, but clearly my photography skills needed work.
There were 212 of us, from all over the world, who started the challenge together. Only 12 of us actually finished! I loved the whole process! At heart, I think I am a born storyteller, so blogging really spoke to my soul. I love to create, so baking, taking photos of the process and telling stories about it really fed my creative needs.

After I finished my final loaf, I just kept on blogging. Along the way, I bought a better camera, took some online classes in food writing, and photography and attended several workshops on food styling and photography. One of the best investments I ever made was purchasing this online course from Rachel Korinek, of Two Loves Studio. She is an amazing teacher and extremely generous with her time. I have also been inspired by the effervescent Bea Lubas. Her ability to tell stories is unparalleled.

Another outstanding teacher is Joanie Simon of The Bite Shop. Her youtube videos on food photography, released every Thursday, are the highlight of my week. I have learned so many tips and techniques from her. All of these mentors have helped me along my journey, but the most important tip I have learned is practice and perseverance. Nothing replaces these.

With 500 blog posts under my belt, I am excited to see where the next 500 take me. I have a loyal group of followers who encourage me by leaving me questions and comments. Thanks from the bottom of my heart. It’s so nice to know someone is out there reading what I’m writing!

I am so grateful for the community of food bloggers and photographers. For the most part, they are people who are generous of spirit. I adore the trait of generosity. My fellow food bloggers and photographers share knowledge and offer gentle and constructive criticism as well as heaps of praise. I feel like I have found my tribe.

To celebrate this milestone I decided that a special cake was in order. This cake is quite spectacular. It starts with three layers of moist apple spice cake. Each layer is covered in silky cinnamon Swiss meringue buttercream. To finish this gorgeous cake, I added a drizzle of apple cider caramel.
The cake batter is crammed full of diced apples. I used three huge Honeycrisp for mine. When you mix the batter together you will think you made a mistake because it is so thick. It basically looks like bits of diced apples, barely held together by batter. Don’t worry. As the cake bakes, the apples release their moisture and your cake will be perfect.

This cake recipe is barely adapted from John’s recipe on The Preppy Kitchen. His knowledge of  cake baking is mind-boggling. He taught me about cake strips. They help prevent domed and cracked tops and over-cooked edges.

 I went with a silky Swiss meringue buttercream, accented with cinnamon. While admittedly a bit more work than a simple American buttercream, I just adore the light and velvety texture of a Swiss meringue buttercream. If you are curious, here is everything you ever wanted to know about buttercream from the über-talented Stella Parks.

For the shiny caramel drizzle recipe, I went straight to Tessa Huff’s gorgeous book, Layered, for inspiration. In a traditional caramel sauce, you use water and white sugar. Tessa suggests reduced apple cider and brown sugar instead. The tang of apple cider is perfectly balanced by the toasty notes of brown sugar in the cooked caramel. It really helps to offset the sweetness of the buttercream.

I added a little surprise of crunch between each layer with a ginger-pecan crumble, because texture is important in everything.

Truthfully, we didn’t drink the Prosecco (in the first photo of this post) with this cake. My first slice I had with some ice cold milk, and the second (and third, if we’re being honest), I had with tea. My fourth slice I just ate standing in front of the fridge. I ended up making this cake three times, before I got it exactly where I wanted it, so we had lots of cake. Even the mistakes were delicious. The first cake was served at our Rosh Hashanah dinner, with a birthday candle for my cousin Barbara. The second and third cakes were sliced, photographed and then wrapped and sent off to my husband’s office, where most of my baked goods go to have a happy ending.

Click here to print recipe for Apple-Cinnamon Crunch Cake with Caramel Drizzle.

Mediterranean Chicken Sandwich

Last week, as I was watching TV, this commercial caught my attention. It featured a young woman, staring wistfully, at the bountiful bread counter at Whole Foods. As they panned across the crusty artisan loaves, the tagline, “Maybe bread and you should be a thing again”, scrolled across the screen.

Personally, bread and I have never broken up. Bread has a very special place in my heart. It’s how I began my blogging journey, nine years ago, as I baked my way, alphabetically, from Anadama to Whole Wheat, in Peter Reinhart’s Bread Baker’s Apprentice. 

I’m a big believer in Julia Child’s credo, “Everything in moderation…including moderation.” So many people I know are abstaining from bread. While I don’t indulge in it everyday, I believe that if it’s good bread, I have a responsibility to eat it. The burnished crust on the baguettes at my local bakery were too calling my name.Sandwich making is not as simple as slapping a filling between two slices of bread. There’s an art to it. I’ll fill you in on how the pros do it.

Use two sauces instead of just one. Elevate plain mayo by adding a teaspoon of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce. Their smoky mild heat takes plain mayo from drab to fab. Slather this on one side of the baguette. On side two, spread some olive tapenade for a punch of umami. You can make your own, or purchase some from the olive cart at the supermarket.

If it’s not the height of tomato season, roast some little cherry or grape tomatoes. Make sure you oil and season them well. Every layer of the sandwich should be seasoned. Slice some roasted or grilled chicken. A supermarket rotisserie chicken is perfect for this.

Even if you aren’t an onion fan, I urge you to try pickling some onions. It takes about 15-20 minutes and is simple to do. It removes all the harshness of raw onions and becomes quite mellow. I’ve included instructions in the recipe. Don’t forget to show your avocado some seasoning love as well. A squeeze of lemon or lime juice, some salt and pepper are all that’s needed. Finish with some fresh basil and some peppery arugula or a handful of micro greens.Dagwood would be jealous!

Click here to print recipe for Mediterranean Chicken Sandwich.

Delicious Gluten Free Bagels… An Oxymoron?

ready to eat 625 sq 2I consider myself to be something of a bagel aficionado. Partly because I have eaten my fair share (and perhaps several others fair shares as well) over my life span, and partly because I have baked hundreds of bagels myself, after learning the craft when I participated in the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge.

I will not delve into the hotly contested debate of New York vs. Montreal style bagels, because really, that argument is laden with trash talking and never ends well. For those not familiar with the difference between the two styles, a little bagel primer here.

Montreal bagels are thin, a little sweet and quite chewy. They are boiled and then baked in a wood fired oven. They are really only good within the first few hours of being baked. After that, they get quite tough and leathery. New York bagels are bigger, doughier and fluffier than Montreal style bagels. They are also boiled first and then baked, but not usually in a wood fired oven.

montreal bagels labellednyc bagel labelledOne’s bagel preference is imprinted on them early in childhood and it’s extremely tough to shake it.   Personally, I do not care for either Montreal or New York bagels. I grew up in Toronto, and for me, bagel bliss is a Bagel World Twister. Weighing in at 8 ounces, these behemoths are chewy in the center and heavily seeded with poppy to create an extreme crunch on the outside. Twisters are spiralled by hand; the dough is literally twisted before the loop is closed to form the bagel. The result is that the baked bagels tear apart in beautiful little sections. All the better to slather on salted butter.twister 625Bagel World realized that it is a hazard to your health to eat twisters on a regular basis, so they created Twister flagels (flat bagels). I do not care for them quite as much as a regular twister since the chewy middle part has all but been eliminated. Sadly, I no longer live in Toronto and here in Ottawa bagels are made in the Montreal style. Blech!

I’ll be so bold as to bring a different species of bagel into this discussion: The Gluten-Free Bagel. Are delicious gluten-free bagels possible, or is that an oxymoron? Up until about 5 years ago, I would have said that gluten-free bagels should not even be allowed in the same conversation as regular bagels. We put out youngest son on a gluten free diet about 12 years ago, and one of the hardest things for him to give up were bagels. I tried buying commercially made gluten-free bagels and truthfully, they were awful. The vast majority of them were made from a combination of rice flour and tapioca starch. The texture was quite gluey.

Then, a friend of mine, who suffers from Celiac disease, gave me a recipe for gluten-free bagels that he discovered in the magazine “Living Without.” I was sceptical, but when I read the list of ingredients, I was intrigued. These bagels incorporate 6 different types of flour (Garbanzo-fava bean flour, brown rice flour, arrowroot flour, potato starch, tapioca flour and amaranth flour) to create a multi-grain flour blend.  In addition, the recipe also calls for flax meal (ground up flax seeds). All these ingredients combine together to create a bagel with some heft and chew. I will be honest and tell you that they are best toasted, but if you are unable to have gluten, these really are a delicious substitute.

I make them regularly for my son and decided to blog about it, since gluten-free diets seem to be gaining in popularity. Today I made a batch of seeded (poppy and sesame) and a second batch of cheddar jalapeno gluten-free bagels. The dough for regular flour bagels needs to spend a night or even two in the fridge to allow the gluten and flavours to develop. Since these are gluten-free, they can be made quite quickly.

This is quite a sticky dough, so it is best made in a stand mixer. Start out with the paddle attachment and then switch to the dough hook after several minutes of mixing. A plastic pastry scraper will make it easier to get the dough out of the bowl and a metal bench scraper makes portioning the dough easier.essentials labelled

jamie's bagel mixadding liquidcutting dough with bench scraperrolling balls of dough 2making the holestretching dough boiling bagelsThe seeds are sprinkled on after boiling and before baking.seeded bagels ready for ovenFor the cheddar jalapeño bagels, I mixed in some shredded cheddar and finely diced pickled jalapeño peppers. After 10 minutes in the oven, they get topped with some additional cheddar, for the the last 10 minutes of baking.

adding cheese topping after 10 minutes of bakingcheddar jalapeno bagels done

bagels in wooden dough bowlClick here to print recipe for Gluten-Free Seeded Bagels.

Click here to print recipe for Gluten Free Cheddar Jalapeno Bagels.with cream cheese and jam

ready to eat 1

Confessions of a Bread Baker’s Apprentice

I am feeling a little lost after finishing the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge. My last post just seemed so final and shockingly, I still have things left unsaid.  So here, in no particular order, are the final thoughts/reflections/confessions of this Bread Baker’s Apprentice.

10.  When the number of  mail order parcels arriving from King Arthur Flour began to rival those from J Crew,  I knew I was a true bread freak.

9.  I spent $30.25 on a 4 ounce bottle of Fiori di Sicilia . No, that’s not a fancy perfume. It’s an aromatic essence of Sicilian flowers.  It is the flavouring used in authentic Italian Panettone bread.  The recipe uses 1/2 an ounce.  I discovered that I hate Panettone bread.  I still have 3.5 ounces left.  Oh well, the bottle is pretty!

8. I still have not mastered the “windowpane test”.  For the uninitiated, this is a test to determine when the dough has been kneaded enough.  After kneading for awhile, you cut off a small piece of the dough and gently stretch and pull it to see if it will hold a paper-thin translucent membrane, without ripping or falling apart.  Every time I tried this test, my dough ripped.  I continued kneading for several more minutes, but my dough still ripped.  TxFarmer, a fellow BBA Challenger,  achieved perfect windowpanes with every loaf she produced. (see the photo below)  She also produced drool worthy photos and gorgeous breads.  I am more than a little envious!

100%全麦面包 <wbr>– <wbr>取长补短

7.  I speak to the woman on the order desk at King Arthur Flour more often than my own mother.

6.  On of my fellow challengers, named Susie, made many of her breads in the shape of the letter S.  She baked 22 of the 43 breads and hasn’t been heard from since last November.  I’m a little worried about her.

5.  I’m thinking it of requesting the Poilâne Miche pillow for my birthday this year. Bread #33 in our Challenge was the Poilâne-Style Miche.  Poilâne is a bakery in Paris famous the world over for their bread. They make a cushion in the shape of their most famous bread.  It is only $82.23 (that includes shipping).  I can have a loaf of the real bread shipped to me for $62.30, but I figure the pillow will never get stale!

4.  I still have not mastered my slashing skills.  Slashing (also known as scoring) the bread prior to baking is done to allow some of the trapped gasses to escape. The tool I bought to slash with is called a lame but it does not work very well.  Someone told me to try a straight edge razor blade (the old fashioned kind) but I can’t find them at my local pharmacy.  I found a web site that will ship me 1000 of them for 2 cents a blade but I worry that my name will be placed on a “persons of interest” list since I am stockpiling dangerous weapons.

3.  I have bought Peter Reinhart”s new book Artisan breads and am considering baking my way through that one!!

2.  Peter Reinhart  may have replaced Nick Malgierei in my baker fantasy dream.

1.   I  don’t even bat an eyelash when the lady at King Arthur Flour tells me that shipping to Canada is a $25.00 flat fee and all I am ordering is a $5.99 bag of Sir Lancelot High Gluten flour because I need a bagel fix bad!

Thanks again to Nicole of Pinch my Salt for organizing this challenge and of course to Peter Reinhart for writing such a wonderful book.  It truly is a fantastic tutorial for anyone interested in learning to bake their own bread.  I am grateful for all the new bread freak friends I have made along the way.

#43. The End! (Roasted Onion and Asiago Miche)

I waited to make the last bread in the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge until all my children were home and the whole family was under one roof again.  It only seemed fitting that we should end this together as we were all home together last spring when I began my journey.  So finally, the planets were aligned and we were ready for a family dinner.  It turned out that my nephew was in town visiting, so we invited him to join us.  Only one hitch in the plan.  My nephew’s mom was visiting with him.  It had been a long time since I had seen my (ex) sister-in-law, as she and my brother-in-law were divorced over 12 years ago.  But in the spirit of, “the more the merrier”, we invited her to join us as well. 

I have to admit that it was a bit strange at first, but once I pulled this bread out of the oven, and sliced it up there was no need for any more awkward conversation.   I poured some wine, sliced more bread, served dinner and soon we were all laughing and telling stories about when the kids were little and reminiscing about family holidays of years gone by.  Before I knew it, over 4 hours had flown by.  It was really nice to catch up and have a visit.  I do believe that this is a magical bread, able to bridge any gap and smooth out any awkwardness that life has thrown in your path.

The recipe makes such a huge amount of dough that it has to be kneaded by hand as it will not fit into the mixer.  I began with roasting the onions in the oven and ended up burning them.  I put a second batch in the oven and proceeded to burn them! again!  So then I sliced them thinly and caramelized them on top of the stove where I could keep an eye on them.

I sliced the green onions and chives and grated some Asiago cheese.

 Once the dough is mixed, the green onions and chives are kneaded in and then it’s shaped into a boule and placed in the fridge for an overnight rest to allow the flavours to develop.

The next day, the dough is brushed with olive oil, dimpled and covered with a thin layer of Asiago cheese, the caramelized onions and more cheese.  Into a hot oven and 20 minutes later, golden perfection.

The crust was crunchy on the bottom, chewy on top from all that cheese and the bread had a beautiful open crumb.  A perfect ending to the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge!!