White Loaves - Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia

White Bread - Baking with Julia

Whoo Hoo!
It's Tuesday.
And we're back! It's the first week of Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia edition.

For the past few years, a group of bloggers baked our way through the awesome Dorie Greenspan cookbook: Baking from My Home to Yours. When that finished (4 years later), we all wanted to continue baking! So we embark on baking twice a month from the classic book Baking with Julia - combining two treasures: Julia Child and Dorie Greenspan!

For this week's Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia, the organizers Laurie and Jules are hosting our inaugural baking extravaganza!

Whenever I make bread, I wonder why I don't make bread more often! I love the chemistry of it all...all those little yeast molecules coming back to life.

I made 1/2 the recipe for one loaf. I raced home after work, kneaded the dough, and let it rise while I went to pilates. Then I punched it down and let it go for a second rise while I shopped at Costco. It was a multi-tasking night!

Thanks to my friend Shannon, I was able to put lovely homemade Apple Preserves on the bread. Thanks Shannon for this treat!

Be sure to check out the other Tuesdays with Dorie members!

Recipe:
The Tuesdays with Dorie group encourages you to support cookbook authors like Dorie Greenspan and purchase the book. You won't be disappointed! You can also check WorldCat to see if your local library has the book.

White Loaves, page 81-82
Recipe is also on the host's blog:  Someone's in the Kitchen

New School of Cooking - Pro Baking 1 - Class 9: Cinnamon Rolls, Puff Pastry & Croissant Dough

I'm taking the Pro Baking 1 series (taught by Chef Carol Cotner Thompson) at the New School of Cooking in Culver City (Los Angeles) this fall/winter. In Class 9, we made cinnamon rolls with our brioche dough and started our Puff Pastry and Croissant doughs.

In Class 8, we started our Brioche dough (yeasted dough with added butter) and put it in the freezer. We made the Brioche dough using the paddle attachment of the KitchenAid. The paddle attachment pulls the gluten strands better than the dough hook, and it was a much faster process. I have made Brioche before with the dough hook and it takes a long time. I'm glad I learned this new method!

The day before this class, the staff moved our dough from the freezer to the refrigerator for proofing. We had it sit out for a bit on our tables and then made cinnamon rolls.

Cinnamon rolls - what a great treat to make any time of day!

After a brush with melted butter and a rise, these were baked up into yummy goodness.

The class had extra broiche dough so they made donuts and beignets. Sweetness. And it was on Superbowl Sunday so the beignets were most appropriate! Yeah, the Saints won! (See, I told you I was behind in posting about my class...now I'm all about the Winter Olympics)

These donuts were filled with cherries. OMG delicious.

We started our Puff Pastry and Croissant doughs. Both doughs are very similar but the Croissant dough has yeast while the Puff Pastry doesn't. The latin term for these doughs? "Butter delivery device veni vidi vici". We used close to 2 pounds of butter today...that's 8 sticks. We turned it three of the minimum four turns. To see how the turns work, please see Tracey's Culinary Adventure's great step-by-step process.

Stay tuned to see what we made in our last class with the puff pastry and croissant doughs!

Recaps of the New School of Cooking, Pro Baking 1 course:
Baking Therapy: Going back to school
Class 1: Quick Breads
Class 2: Custards
Class 3: Soufflés & Pate a Choux
Class 4: Tarts, Pie, Crisps and Cobblers
Class 5: Chocolate
Class 6: White Cake with Italian Meringue Buttercream
Class 7: Artisan Breads
Class 8: Flat Breads, Brioche and Focaccia

New School of Cooking - Pro Baking 1 - Class 8: Flat Breads, Brioche, and Focaccia

I'm taking the Pro Baking 1 series (taught by Chef Carol Cotner Thompson) at the New School of Cooking in Culver City (Los Angeles) this fall/winter. In Class 8, we continued with breads and doughs and made awesome crackers, pizza, focaccia, and started our Brioche dough.

I'm a little behind in posting...today, 2/14 is actually our last class. I'm bummed about it ending, I enjoyed it so much. She offers Pro Baking 2 but that won't be available until August 2010! Well, here is Class #8 of our 10 week class.

Making the Focaccia bread with sage. Yum!

We made a gigantic portion of focaccia! A full-sheet pan of bread!

Oh bread. I heart you.

I went home and made a spinach, roasted red pepper and egg sandwich on lightly toasted bread. Heaven! Then I cut up the rest, froze some and delivered the rest to friends! I can't have a sheet pan full of bread in the house!

We made amazing crackers. Amazing. You really need a pasta maker because you want to get them as thin as possible. You should see your hand under the sheet of dough.

After being spread out like an Ace bandage, olive oil and crushed red peppers are brushed on the crackers. Then, parm cheese and herbs are sprinkled on top. They bake up quickly.

These Spicy Country Crackers put the CRACK in crackers. Seriously. These are sooooo good.

I dropped some off at a friend's house and they said the expense of the class was worth it just for these crackers! :)

Chef Carol Cotner Thompson demonstrated making pizza dough and we each rolled one out. Oh, it was delicious. I need to get myself a pizza stone one of these days. Perhaps Santa will bring one around.

We also started our Brioche dough. Because you need 12-24 hours to make brioche, we started it in class, then the staff will move it from the freezer to the fridge on Saturday so we can make something yummy in Class #9. Stay tuned!

Recaps of the New School of Cooking, Pro Baking 1 course:
Baking Therapy: Going back to school
Class 1: Quick Breads
Class 2: Custards
Class 3: Soufflés & Pate a Choux
Class 4: Tarts, Pie, Crisps and Cobblers
Class 5: Chocolate
Class 6: White Cake with Italian Meringue Buttercream
Class 7: Artisan Breads

New School of Cooking - Pro Baking 1 - Class 7: Artisan Breads

Hallah for my Challah!

I'm taking the Pro Baking 1 series (taught by Chef Carol Cotner Thompson) at the New School of Cooking in Culver City (Los Angeles) this fall/winter. For Class 7, we moved from the sweet stuff to yeast breads!

This class is fantastic. I am leapfrogging over terrifying baking concepts! Today, it was yeast. I love bread (I have a button that says "I Love Carbs"), but don't make it. That is, until I had my class!

We learned all about yeast. The freeze dried yeast you get in the store is quite amazing - pretty indestructible stuff. You should keep it in the freezer, by the way. We learned about making your own starter with organic grapes, water, flour and time (read the La Brea Bakery cookbook for a good explanation and technique)...I won't ever be doing that, but learning about making your own starter from your regional yeast spores in the air is very interesting.

Rosemary Olive Bread

We made a Rustic Country Bread, Rosemary Olive Bread and Challah. We kneaded all the breads by hand. I felt very rustic and pioneer. Hee hee. I can knead bread, but the laundry back then? Holy smokes. I say a little thank you to my washing machine and dryer for saving me a day's worth of labor. Anyway, back to bread making...

Challah making! Oh, I faltered with the braid, but it all sorta came together. One side was bigger than the other, but my stomach could not tell the difference.

My Rustic Country Bread. This is super easy. The best part is that you take the risen dough out of the big bowl and just plop it onto a cornmeal covered pan. Yeah, it looks like a bone! :)

I'm not posting the recipes from class but they don't have special powers or ingredients...the class is more about technique. We spent a lot of time feeling different dough textures to determine the difference between dry, middle, and wet doughs. We kneaded our dough and brought it up for the instructor to feel it!

I'm excited because I have plans for my Challah...and it involves World Nutella Day (February 5th)! See the post on Saturday, February 6th. Cheers, Mary

Recaps of the New School of Cooking, Pro Baking 1 course:
Baking Therapy: Going back to school
Class 1: Quick Breads
Class 2: Custards
Class 3: Soufflés & Pate a Choux
Class 4: Tarts, Pie, Crisps and Cobblers
Class 5: Chocolate
Class 6: White Cake with Italian Meringue Buttercream

Monkey Bread - Day #7 - I Like Big Bundts

Day 7 of I Like Big Bundts: 30 Days of Bundt Cakes
Monkey Bread

Logo design: JustJenn of JustJennDesigns

TGIF! Whoo hoo! And that means you probably have two days ahead of you where you can wake up a little later and you just take it a wee bit easier. (Of course, you could be the family with more activities than ever on the weekend). If you have some kids around, consider making a homemade Monkey Bread with them this weekend.

I’m sure you’ve had the Monkey Bread made with Pillsbury refrigerated biscuits. And those spongy things do well. But you can make Monkey Bread with your own yeast, flour, cinnamon, sugar, nuts and your own two hands. Fun!

We are on Day #7 of I Like Big Bundts, my sleep-deprivation inducing quest to make 30 Bundts in 30 days...all leading up to National Bundt Day on November 15th!

Overall, the recipe is easy and just takes a little time - most of it resting and proofing the dough. Your kids will love shaping the dough balls, rolling them in butter and coating them with a brown sugar, cinnamon and walnut mixture. I, not a kid and being Japanese American, decided to avoid sticky hands by dipping and rolling mine with the aid of chopsticks!

Monkey Balls! ha ha ha

Left: before rising.
Right: yes, you guessed it...after rising for 1 hour in a warm location. At first, I thought my balls were too big. {Sorry, that was me giggling.} They turned out okay...but remember that they do get bigger.

Baked in a Bundt pan, Monkey Bread is perfect for a lazy weekend brunch. Your house will smell delicious!

Before the glaze of powdered sugar and milk...

This monkey bread won't be confused with the Pillsbury stuff. I think my dough balls came out a little heavy in texture. And that is ALL me. I don't work with dough and yeast much so I'm sure I over or under kneaded things. I will definitely try again!

And wouldn't you know it? The Los Angeles Times published three Monkey Bread recipes in their Food section this week! (Los Angeles Times, Monkey Bread: It's Play Dough for Bakers, Food Section, October 21, 2009) Author Jenn Garbee's basic dough uses butter instead of shortening in Martha's recipe.

See you tomorrow for another Bundt and every day from now til National Bundt Day (November 15th)! By the way, November 15th is also Katrina's birthday (Baking and Boys!)...awesome!

And a special shout out to Tracey of Tracey's Culinary Adventures and Lunettes of Not by Chamomile Alone for making Bundts this week!

- mary the food librarian

Recipe:
Monkey Bread
from Martha Stewart Kids

You might be interested in the Los Angeles Times Monkey Bread recipes too.

I Like Big Bundts recap:
The Food Librarian confesses: I Like Big Bundts
Day 1: Pumpkin Spice Bundt with Buttermilk Icing
Day 2: Chocolate-Cinnamon Bundt Cake with Mocha Icing
Day 3: Pumpkin-Apple Spiced Bundt
Day 4: Cinnamon Ripple Sweet Potato Bundt
Day 5: Chocolate Zucchini Bundt
Day 6: Cardamom Vanilla Bundt