Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Lately I've been hearing and reading about how good the bread recipes are from the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.

I'm not sure if I'll ever get into the habit of baking my own bread so I borrowed the book from my local library rather than spend money on yet another cookbook that just sits on the shelves.

I've never had any interest in baking my own bread because I didn't think I'd have the patience. Five minutes seems reasonable to me and reading this book has inspired me to finally try it.

In quickly reading through the recipes I noticed that they look straightforward and manageable so I am excited to try one soon. Page 5 is what really encouraged me because it lists what we DON'T have to do - steps from traditional bread baking that they omitted.

1. Mix a new batch of dough every time we want to make bread

2. Proof yeast

3. Knead dough

4. Cover formed loaves

5. Rest and rise the loaves in a draft-free location

6. Fuss over doubling or tripling the dough volume

7. Punch down and re-rise

8. Poke rising loaves to be sure they've "proofed" by leaving indentations

Huh? So glad that those steps are "don't". I don't even know what most of those steps mean - they sound complicated which is exactly what has prevented me from attempting bread baking. I'll report back as soon as I've tried a recipe or two. If you've tried any of these recipes, please share your experience or recommendations.

The secret to the "five minutes" is to make a big batch of dough and refrigerate it so you can bake a fresh batch daily. It is a great idea for the winter when I don't mind turning on my oven. The recipes really do look much easier than the normal bread making process and the reviews of the book are very positive.

By the way, when I was searching Amazon I noticed that the authors have another book called Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients - I like the "healthy" part of the title and it got great reviews. If I have good luck with the recipes from the first book, I'll most likely end up buying the "healthy" book.

Chocolate Toffee

Chocolate Toffee
Originally uploaded by love_yellow

One more holiday treat to share... my friend Robin made her family's recipe for chocolate toffee. I hadn't eaten this kind of toffee in a long time so I didn't even know that it could be so good.

I always thought toffee was kind of hard and chewy and stuck to your teeth, but this was so fresh that it was not hard and sticky at all. I could taste the fresh butter and toasted almonds. It was quite addicting and I'm embarrassed to admit that I ate half of it in one day.

Because it's a secret recipe I cannot share it, but I was hoping to inspire someone to make or bake gifts rather than buy. Consumable gifts are practical and if they're made/baked by you, it's a lot more personal.

I was also delighted by the care and thoughtfulness of the way she wrapped her home baked gift. She included a couple of cookie cutters - the double heart for me and a guitar shaped one for my guitarist husband. How could I not photograph it and share it with everyone. Thank you Robin!

Easy Persimmon Crisp Recipe

Persimmon crisp
Originally uploaded by love_yellow

OK, I promise this will be the last post on persimmons this season but I wanted to share this...

When I have a huge bounty of fruit I like to make "crisps" because it maximizes the amount of fruit you use in the recipe. Unlike a cake or cookie where you have a lot of other "fillers" - like flour, sugar, eggs, butter, etc.

Why don't I just eat it raw you say?

I do. However, during the harvesting process much of the fruit falls to ground and get damaged. The cracked and bruised fruit are perfectly good but I can't eat them fast enough. They tend to rot very quickly and end up throwing them away. So instead of discarding them, I like to salvage the parts of the fruit that are still good and either freeze it or cook with it. I've done this with other fruit too because I have apple and plum trees that like to produce a ton of fruit every other year.

I searched and tried many crisp recipes and have arrived at a recipe modification that I like best because, as usual, I've decreased the sugar and increased the fiber. Fruit is naturally so sweet, why would you need to add more sugar? But I do like how the brown sugar caramelizes with the butter to add that extra punch of wonderful flavor in the crisp topping.

INGREDIENTS
Topping:
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
¼ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup rolled oats
¼ cup ground flax seed or oat bran
¼ cup (packed) golden brown sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom (optional)
¼ teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

Fruit:
2½-3 pounds persimmon, cut into cubes/chunks about ½ to 1-inch in size
1 tablespoon cornstarch or tapioca starch

PREPARATION
For topping:
Mix first 9 ingredients in large bowl. Add butter and rub in with fingertips until small moist clumps form. Cover and refrigerate 20 minutes.

For fruit:
Preheat oven to 400°F. Toss persimmon chunks and starch in bowl. Transfer persimmon mixture to 11x7-inch glass baking dish. Sprinkle topping over. Bake until topping is dark golden brown and fruit is bubbling, about 40 minutes. Transfer crisp to rack and cool slightly, about 30 minutes.

It tastes great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Pumpkin-zucchini bread or muffins

Pumpkin loaves
Originally uploaded by love_yellow

I always crave baked goods made with pumpkin at this time of the year. Finally, I think I've nearly perfected a recipe for pumpkin bread that has whole wheat flour, less sugar and less oil.

Baking is tricky because you can't just make straight substitutions without sometimes serious consequences, so it really is a trial and error process. The biggest consequence I usually face is that my baked goods end up being too dry and tasting like cardboard (at least that's what my husband says).

Finally, through several tries and errors I have come up with a healthy recipe that is moist and delicious and doesn't give you the terrible sugar spike. The only part of the recipe that's not perfect is that I've resorted to using Splenda which I don't generally like to do - so I"m still working on how to replace that with stevia without compromising the texture and moistness and taste, of course.

I also added a few extra chopped walnuts because the crunch gives it a nice texture and of course adds other beneficial nutrients. I also like that the nuts add protein and good fat to an otherwise almost all carb bread.

So here's the recipe for 3 loaves (maybe it's 4). Or 2 loaves and about 12 muffins. Sorry I can't remember exactly the quantity - I didn't use standard size loaf pans this last time. You might as well make a big batch because the incremental amount of work to make 4 loaves is not that much. It freezes really well so if you make it soon, you'll have some in your freezer that you can whip out for Thanksgiving.

I used mostly organic ingredients - good ingredients always improves the flavor. I found organic pumpkin puree and organic zucchini at Trader Joe's.

Pumpkin-zucchini bread or muffins

* 1.5 cups Splenda
* 3/4 cup honey
* 1 cup vegetable oil
* 1 cup applesauce (unsweetened)
* 6 large eggs
* 2 15-ounce can solid pack pumpkin
* 2 cups shredded zucchini
* 6 cups whole wheat flour
* 2 teaspoon ground cloves
* 3 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 3 teaspoon ground nutmeg
* 2 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 2 cups coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour four 9x5x3-inch loaf pans. Beat sugar, honey, applesauce and oil in large bowl to blend. Mix in eggs and pumpkin. Sift flour, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, salt and baking powder into another large bowl. Stir into pumpkin mixture in 2 additions. Mix in walnuts, if desired.
Divide batter equally between prepared pans. Bake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour 10 minutes. For medium size muffins it takes about 20 minutes. Transfer to racks and cool 10 minutes. Using sharp knife, cut around edge of loaves. Turn loaves out onto racks and cool completely.
If you try it, let me know how it goes.

I made some for my brunch party today.

Pumpkin-carrot walnut cupcakes

Both my parents' birthdays are within a couple days of each other so we always celebrate together. Mom likes pumpkin bread and Pop likes carrots so I combined the 2 ingredients to make birthday cupcakes for them. Decorated with Johnny-Jump-Up flowers cultivated in my garden specifically for eating.

Making it more healthy...
Yes, of course I altered the recipe which is based on Spiced Pumpkin Bread from Epicurious.com. It came out moist and delicious so I'll do it again...
- instead of 3 cups white flour, I used 2.5 cups whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup white flour
- instead of 1 cup of oil, I used 1/2 cup of oil and 1 cup of unsweetened applesauce (more liquid to balance the dryness of whole wheat flour)
- decreased the sugar to 1.5 cups (instead of 3 cups) and also added 1/2 cup honey (which helped to also increase the moisture)

- also added 2 shredded cups of carrots - this is optional since the recipe doesn't call it for it

Don't overbake...
If you bake them in a cupcake tin, then between 15-20 minutes seemed to be the right baking time, depending on your oven. And because it's based on a "bread" recipe, they're really more like dense muffins than a light cake. And because they're not too sweet, they worked well as breakfast muffins and tasted better the next morning. :-)

The frosting...
Just a basic cream cheese frosting - found a generic recipe and just decreased the sugar. You know... cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar and vanilla.

All in all in turned out well and everyone enjoyed looking at them as well as eating them.

April 30, 2009 UPDATE...
In yesterday's San Jose Mercury News article in the Food section, Katherine Greenwald writes a great story titled "What's this flower doing in my food?" If you want to learn more about which flowers are edible, this is a must-read. More on this topic in a future blog entry!

Re-USE

Recycle World image
Originally uploaded by love_yellow

Today I'm going to indulge my crazy habit for collecting vintage kitchen wares. I'm drawn to them because of their unique, colorful and retro designs. I justify the purchases because I believe that by RE-USING old stuff, it's a way of recycling. Plus buying this old "junk" from garage sales and thrift shops is often inexpensive.

Remember Pyrex from the 60's and 70's?
OK, maybe you're not old enough, not to say that I am :-) But one of the things I have collected is vintage Pyrex glass. Not only do they make the table fun and bright, but they are immensely useful for baking, storing leftovers, preparing food and many other uses! Bringing food in these dishes to parties is always a hit.

Check out all of the fun and wonderful ways people use their vintage Pyrex in this Flickr group called Pyrex in Action. It's really inspiring! Do click on the link, I think you'll enjoy it.

Can't we just re-use the old stuff?
It's a sad reality that we need to keep manufacturing new stuff that people buy to keep our economy going. But I also imagine a world where we can re-use as much old stuff as we can before sending them to our landfills. I'm so glad the retro design movement is popular right now... I know I'm not the only one acquiring old junk. :-)

To celebrate Earth Day, I'm thinking about having a contest and give away some vintage Pyrex. I'll decide later... come back soon!

Doctoring recipes

Lemon blueberry yogurt pound cake
Originally uploaded by love_yellow

It drives my husband crazy that I'm constantly fussing with recipes to make them more "healthy", that is, if baked goods can be considered healthy.

Sometimes I fail miserably and what was suppose to be a healthy blueberry muffin ends up tasting like cardboard and doesn't quite satisfy the sweet tooth. But hey, at least I'm trying and with some practice I'm starting to get the hang of it.

Baking is tricky because it's more of a science than cooking, so you can't just change the measurements and expect it to turn out well. So unless you're scientifically inclined, trial and error (and taking lots of notes) is the only way to go.

Last week I made a second attempt at "improving" a lemon blueberry yogurt pound cake based on a recipe from Food Network's Ina Garten. I substituted the white flour for whole wheat flour, decreased the sugar and added stevia, increased the yogurt a little and added (frozen) wild blueberries.

It was a total hit! Really moist, good flavor with a nice pucker of lemon and just enough sweetness to satisfy the sweet tooth. This doctored recipe is a keeper!

If you'd like details on the "improved" recipe, write a comment and I'll reply. :-)