When You Lose General Functionality

…naturally the best thing to do is to try to recreate recipes for breads you just bought in NYC, right?

So my mother was willing to drive us (me, one of my daughters, and my sister who happened to be up in the area) up to Riverdale to see our grandmother briefly; then we had to grab lunch and dinner.  We found a nice little upscale kosher grocery where we were able to get some fresh sushi, fish, salads, and a fresh loaf of seeded bread to go.  

As you may or may not know, right now I'm really on the verge of losing control.  So naturally this afternoon when I heard that my daughter who has been bounced back and forth between inpatient and partial outpatient hospitalization was being re-admitted to an inpatient bread, my mind turned to baking chocolate chip muffins, and making up a bread recipe to produce a loaf similar to what we had on Sunday (which of course was finished by Monday evening).

1 1/2 C water

1 tsp salt

4 C flour (use a mix of a variety; I used one cup each of plain unbleached, bread, white whole wheat, and stone ground whole wheat pastry flours)

2 1/2 tsp yeast (regular or bread machine/rapid rise; see notes below)

1 C seeds or chopped nuts, any varieties (I used 1/2 C each of sunflower and pumpkin seeds plus about 2 T each of sesame and poppy seeds)

If you're using a bread machine and bread machine/rapid rise yeast:

Put the water, salt, flour, and yeast in your bread machine on the quick dough cycle; add the seeds/nuts when the machine beeps or 5 minutes before the mixing is going to end if your machine doesn't give you a signal for that.

If you're using a bread machine or mixer and regular yeast:

Put the water, salt, flour, and yeast in your bread machine on the regular dough cycle; add the seeds/nuts when the machine beeps or 5 minutes before the mixing is going to end if your machine doesn't give you a signal for that.

If you're mixing by hand:

Use water between 115-120F.  Put the water in your mixing bowl, add the yeast and let it sit about 5 minutes to dissolve. Add about half the flour, then mix in the salt, then the rest of the flour.  This will be a pretty heavy dry dough compared to silky egg doughs, so it will take a good 10 minutes of heavy kneading, but it's worth it.  Then put a little vegetable oil at the bottom of your mixing bowl, put the dough in and roll it around to coat it, flip the dough over so that the coated side is up and the bottom which didn't get oiled is oiled, cover the whole bowl with plastic wrap, a cutting board, or a dish towel, and let it rise about 75-90 minutes. 

For all methods now continue here:

Take your heavy but happy dough, and shape it into a loaf.  You can put it in an oiled 9x5" loaf pan, on parchment paper on a baking sheet, or you can shape it into a baguette and put in a baguette loaf pan if you prefer.  Let it rise, covered, for 45-50 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Brush with warm or room temperature water just before baking for a crisper crust.

Bake for 45 minutes for a regular loaf, 35 for a baguette.

Cool on a rack completely before slicing.

Perfect Easy Bagels

Makes 12 bagels

Ingredients:

2 C water

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 T sugar or honey

6 C flour (preferably bread flour but regular unbleached works too)

2 1/2 tsp yeast

optional ingredients:

corn meal for pan lining

poppy seeds, sesame seeds, chopped garlic, chopped onion and/or coarse salt for topping

Put all the ingredients in your bread machine, ideally on the shortest dough-only cycle (my Zojirushi has a 45 minute cycle which is perfect).  Check it and if needed add a bit more flour or water to get a nice heavy but silky dough.  While that does the kneading, line two baking sheets with parchment or else cover them lightly with coarse corn meal.

Divide the dough into 12 balls.  One by one, take each, roll it into a snake, then work it into a bracelet around your wrist, working the two ends of the snake together so that you have your circular bagel.  Put six of these on each of the two baking sheets.

Preheat oven to 425F, and put up a medium pot of water to boil.  Let the shaped bagels rise for 30 minutes while the oven and water heat.

Now boil the bagels in the water, a few at a time, depending on how many will fit well into the pot in a single layer (my pots each fit either 3 or 4).  Boil them for about one minute on each side, using a slotted spoon to turn them over and then to return them to the lined baking sheets.  Now is the time you can sprinkle on toppings if you choose, when you return the bagels to the sheets and the tops are still slightly wet.

When all 12 have been boiled and then put on the baking sheets, it's time to bake them.  Bake for 10 minutes in the 425F oven, then take them out, flip each bagel over, switch which sheet is located where in your oven if they're not baking perfectly evenly, and bake for another 10 minutes.  Then take them out and cool for at least a little while on a cooling rack.

Slice, fill with lox or cream cheese or your favorite filling, and enjoy!

Chocolate Cherry Bread Recipe

I made this up last night so I better write it down here or I'll never be able to re-create it.

Ingredients:

1 1/3 C all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/3 C sugar

2 T Dari-Free powder (if using water as the main liquid)

1/2 C cocoa

3/4 C water or milk or soy milk

1/4 C vegetable oil

1 beaten egg

1 C chopped fresh cherries

Preheat oven to 400F (375 if using a glass pan).  Grease a standard loaf pan (mine is the glass kind, on the smallish side, more like 4x8.5 than 5x9, and this worked perfectly).

In a bowl, mix together the dry ingredients.  Stir in the liquid ingredients, just well enough to be stirred together.  Mix in the cherries gently.  Next time I might even add 1 C of chocolate chips, especially the miniature ones, but I didn't this time and the bread did come out rich and moist without them.

Using a spatula, pour the mixture into the loaf pan, and bake for about one hour.  Cool in the pan at least half an hour, then remove to cool on a rack once it's cool enough to come out of the pan easily.  I think these breads are best left overnight and then eaten the next day, but otherwise just go ahead and start slicing it once it's fully cooled.  These types of quick breads freeze very well too.

You can use this same recipe and make muffins; just divide the mixture into 12 standard muffin rounds and bake for 18-20 minutes.

Special Bonus Passover Apple Cake Recipe

The good news is this cake is so good the kids fight over it.  The bad news is I'm not joking, my kids actually fight over it.  Try it and see what happens at your house.

Equipment:

1 9x9 or 8x8 square pan or 1 9" or 10" round cake pan (I use a flexible silicone pan and it's perfect; if you're using a metal pan I would recommend lining it with parchment or foil)

hand or stand mixer

spatula

mixing bowl

measuring spoons and cups

Ingredients:

Baking spray or vegetable oil

2 T confectioners sugar (optional, for coating pan)

2 apples

1 tsp cinnamon

2 T sugar

4 eggs

3/4 C sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

1/4 C potato starch

1/2 C matzo meal or matzo cake meal

Preheat oven to 350F.  Spray or pour the oil in the baking pan.  Sprinkle in the confectioners sugar if using and shake it around the pan to coat it (it won't spread as well as flour or year-round confectioners sugar would, but it'll be good enough).

Slice the apples thinly and lay the slices in the pan.  Sprinkle them with the cinnamon and 2 T sugar.

Beat the eggs for 5-10 minutes, until they've gotten light in color and at least doubled in volume.  Then add in the other ingredients and mix for about 1 minute.  Pour the batter into the pan over the apples

Bake for 40-45 minutes until lightly brown and well-set.  Cool in the pan on a rack.  When it's cool, you can invert it for an upside down cake or just serve it right out of the pan.

I wanted to add a photo, but the kids seriously ate the whole first cake and fought over the last slice.  I have the second cake in the oven, and I'll add a photo when I can!

My never-fail hamentaschen recipe

1/2 C shortening

1/2 C (one stick) margarine

1 1/4 C sugar

3 eggs

1/4 C milk or soy milk

1 1/2 tsp vanilla (optional)

4 1/2 C flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 350F. Mix the fats with the sugar in a mixer or by hand until creamed together well.  Add in the liquids and mix well.  Add in the dry ingredients and mix gently; add extra flour if needed to make a soft but firm dough.  Let it sit 10 minutes to let the flour absorb the liquids well and be easier to roll out.  Put 1/2 to 1/3 of the dough at a time on a floured surface and roll out to 1/8 to 1/4".  Use a round cookie cutter (biscuit cutters, canning jars, old jelly jars, cereal bowls, anything round like that works).  Put the rounds on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper or oiled foil.  Put filling (chocolate spread like Nutella, pie filling, fruit preserves, peanut butter mixed with confectioners sugar, chocolate chips, whatever you like) in the center of each round and draw up three sides to make the rounds into 3 cornered triangular pastries.  Bake for about 20-25 minutes until lightly golden.  Remove each cookie to a rack to cool thoroughly.