Cinnamon Swirl Bread

My Mom used to make cinnamon swirl bread sometimes when I was a kid.  The other day I decided I had to have some!  I've worked with yeast breads before (with some success), but it has been many years.  I had just been to Costco and bought some fresh yeast and my other ingredients were fresh, so off I went.

America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book

I only needed the yolks from my eggs, so I put the whites into a container (and marked it!) for the freezer - most likely destined to be a future Angel Food Cake.

King Arthur Flour has this cool yeast spoon that measures out exactly the amount of yeast in one of those little packets - 2.25 tsp.

Here's my ingredients all measured out...wasn't sure which way to go with it, so I did it both ways.

You mix the brown and white sugars and reserve some for the topping.  I made a little error here - I should also have mixed in the cinnamon at this point but I didn't figure that out until later.  I still used the cinnamon in the swirl part, but just lightly spread it around over the sugars.  It turned out fine, but I'll pay more attention next time.

I gently warmed up the milk, and whisked in the melted butter and the egg yolks here.

I put most of the flour and yeast salt and (cinnamon) sugar mixture in the mixer.

Then I slowly added the milk mixture into the dry with the mixer on low...this took about 2 minutes.

At this point I thought it needed a bit more of the flour, so I put in just a spoonful at a time till it came together.

Then I turned it out on a floured board...

...and smoothed it out into a ball.

I lightly oiled this bowl and put the dough in here to rise.  Then I also lightly oiled some cling film and put that on top.

Earlier I had turned my oven on low for a few minutes and then turned it off.  Here is where I put the dough to  rise.

 And here she is about an hour and a half later.  POUFY.

Then I turned it out on the board.  I wish I had a little bit bigger board but oh, well.  I tried to spread it out like they said, but the dough was a little rebellious and would only work with me so far.

Here is where I sprinkled the sugar mixture on and wondered, "What about the cinnamon?"...so I read more carefully and realized it should have been in there all along.  So I just dusted it on there and then rolled it up, pinched it closed, and put it in the lightly oiled pan seam side down.

Here's how she is after the second rise.

On goes a little more of the cinnamon sugar and a spritzing of water to keep it in place.

And here is the finished bread!  I liked how much this rose, but maybe next time I will use a slightly larger pan.  See the little gap in the bottom there?  Oops...gotta watch how I place it in the pan, too.

I think this 'tearing' effect is from the top not being nice and smooth going into the oven.  It didn't affect the taste at all.

And here are the lovely swirls!  If I had been able to spread the dough out more, I would've gotten a more swirly effect than this one, but I'll take this for a first effort. :-)

The only real problem this bread presented was the AWESOME yummy smell driving everybody crazy in the house until we could dig into it!

That little gap there came from not rolling the dough quite snugly enough in that spot.

Next time I will try it with raisins.

This experience has renewed an interest in bread-baking for me so I have been reading the bread books in my collection and hope to be doing more soon.  I always thought you were sorta locked into a time thing when working with breads - how long it has to rise, etc.  But as I'm reading, you can exercise a measure of control over the process - speeding up or slowing down the rising process.  I'm so excited about this, because maybe it means I won't have to always wait for a weekend day to try a new bread!

~ks

Cake - Take #2

Last week's red velvet cake needed six egg yolks.  So I saved those extra whites and put them in the freezer for this week's cake - Angel Food Cake.  I went with a recipe from Cook's Illustrated.

Cook's Illustrated Cookbook

I still needed six more egg whites for this cake, so I've saved those extra yolks and will be doing a zabaglione a little later today...mmmm....

Now, I've never made an Angel Food Cake before.  I like them ok - I guess I've just typically gravitated toward a little bit richer cakes.  So I had to buy a new pan.

So first you need to separate your eggs.  I understand (by research, not my own experience) that this is easier done when the eggs are still cold from the fridge.  So I did that.  But the whipping of the whites is easier done with room temperature whites, so I let them sit on the counter for a little bit while I got the other things ready.

I like it when recipes are listed with weights for the ingredients - I have a little scale and I use it especially with baking.

I wisked half the sugar and the cake flour and set it aside.  Then I started whipping the egg whites with the cream of tartar and the salt - started kinda medium low for a minute, then increased to medium high for another minute.  Then I gradually added the other half of the sugar with the mixer going.  They only want you to get to 'soft peaks' here and that only takes another minute or two.  With egg white whipping, there are: soft peaks, firm or stiff peaks, and then there's waaaay too far, and there isn't much time in between these, so you have to stay close and pay attention.  I think I got to a pretty good place with my egg whites.  :-)   Then I added the vanilla, almond extract, and lemon juice - this you just beat till blended.

Then I sifted the flour/sugar mixture into the whites, a little at a time, and just gently folded each addition in.  I'm always afraid of deflating things at this point, so I try to be very gentle with folding.

Then I put the batter into the pan.  Since my pan has a removable bottom, I didn't treat the pan at all.  If you have a one-piece tube pan, they suggest that you cut out a parchment to lay into the pan so you can get the thing out later.  No greasing of the pan is necessary - in fact, you don't even want it because it will not be good for the egg whites as it won't allow them to 'climb' the pan and the batter won't rise.

Then it bakes in a low oven (325) for 50-60 minutes.  About half-way through, I did carefully turn it around in the interest of even baking.

Here she is right out of the oven.  Now it needs too cool for a looong time - like two hours and upside down, which is why the pan has those 'feet' on it.  If you have a tube pan without the feet, you could turn the pan over and put the center tube over a metal funnel or a slender bottle or something.  It needs to cool upside down so that it won't deflate.  I did check my pan several times along the way as to temperature, and it really did need that long to get completely cool.

Since my pan is in two pieces I did put it on a half sheet pan with some parchment -I had no idea if I'd get any leakage.

And, voila!  No leakage!  As good as that is, I will probably not bet on it anyway in the future, as a leak like that would be a pain in the neck to clean up off the oven floor.

To get the cake out of the pan I did have to gently run a butter knife around the inner and outer tube parts and it came right out.  Then I needed to run that knife between the pan bottom and cake bottom to get that to come off.

So I placed it on the plate this way - as it was in the pan.  My Grandmother said she usually flips it so the flatter side is up.  I didn't know the protocol and I don't know if it matters.  This isn't a 'gorgeous' cake by any means - but it really did come out very, very nice.  It would be great with fruit - sort of like a strawberry shortcake thing, it was good with ice cream, it was good by itself.  My family liked it - they said it was nice and tender and not 'tough' like the kind you get at the grocery store.  I will be doing this again.

I'm not sure if this was supposed to have risen more, but this was delicious as it was.

My Great-Grandmother was a young mother during the depression.  I guess they must've had chickens or some other easy access to eggs, because my Grandmother said that her Mom made one of these cakes every day back then.  Remember, no mixer - she just used something like this whip and her strong arm.  Wow.  I'm not sure I'd even want to try this without my trusty Kitchenaid mixer.


~ks

Most turkeys taste better the day after, my mother’s tasted better the day before. ~Rita Rudner, comedian

Traditional Holiday Dinner - turkey version

A lot of us enjoy turkey on Thanksgiving, as did my family.  We actually bought two turkeys anticipating more demand than we had, so we ended up freezing the second one and I made it up for Christmas as well.  We sort of did the gathering in pieces and had part one at my daughter's home on Christmas Eve, where she served a beautiful ham and delicious home-made rolls and sweet potato casserole and green beans.  I brought the mashed potatoes, the cranberries, and some spiced nuts.  The Christmas day thing was just very low-key.  In fact, it was so low-key that we decided not to do a 'dinner' at all, but rather to treat the meal as the left-overs that we all know are so good.  We just had a lunch so we could all go home early and kinda crash.  I cooked up the turkey (explanation to follow), and removed all the meat from the bones.  We made sandwiches on nice bread and had a salad.  Then the day after Christmas, we had my son's brothers over for another round of holiday dinner yummies and some games.  (We highly recommend Apples to Apples!)

Let me explain it dish by dish...

First, the star of the show, the turkey.  Last year I followed Alton Brown's advice for roasting the bird and it came out great.  This year I saw Cook's Illustrated had a way to BRAISE the bird.  I love braised foods, so I had to give it a try.

First, I broke it down.  I got to pull out my really nice meat cleaver for this.  However, since this recipe is for parts, they actually suggest that you buy a turkey breast and turkey legs.  That would save you the butchery, if that bothers you.  It doesn't bother me.  Buying in parts would also save you time, but then you don't get the other parts, which are good for stock.  Your choice.

I took the legs apart and cut the breast away from the back.  The stuff in the black pan got further broken down (read: hacked up) and I made a nice stock with it.   The parts on the cutting board got brined for about 6 hours.



Here's the bed of veg for the turkey:

Carrots, celery, onion, garlic, parsley, dried porcini mushrooms (which I rinsed and rehydrated in warm water - that water went into the braising liquid, too).

You rub the bird with butter, then roast it in a 500 degree oven for about 20 min.  This was supposed to develop the crisp skin that's so desirable.  I loved most everything about this recipe, but this one area fell a little flat.  For me, though, it was no big deal since I removed the skin in the end anyway.  I guess you could roast it a bit longer if you were after the crispy skin.  After the roasting, you put in the stock and some wine.

Then they want you to cover it tightly with foil.  Well, it's awfully hard to wrap a HOT thing tightly with foil!  Of course I had on my mitts, but I had trouble getting the foil to really form to the pan.  Enter my Engineer Husband - "Why don't you use some of those black clips?"  Now, I use these clips ALL the time in my kitchen and I love 'em, but I hadn't thought of that till he said so.  Naturally, it worked perfectly.  This gets put back into a lower temp oven for about two hours.  I checked mine at 1:45 hours and it had reached it's temp.

I got these turkey lifters a few holidays ago, but they've been cumbersome to use with whole big birds.  With the bird already in  parts, though, these were perfect transportation vehicles.

I also followed their gravy recipe and it came out really nice - and I'm not a huge gravy person.  However, I accidentally left it at home so the family didn't get to try it.  :-(

That's where Cook's Illustrated leaves you - serving the hot bird.  But I made this bird the day BEFORE the gathering - we always do this in my family.  

I cut the meat off the breast as neatly as I could and placed it on the left.  I hand-shredded the dark meat and placed it on the right.  Then I shredded as much of the remaining white meat as I could and put it with the rest of the white meat.

Then I put the braising liquid back into the pan with the meat to keep it moist.

Then I just covered it up and refrigerated it till the next day.  We warmed it in the oven and made delicious sandwiches with it.

Save the crispy skin thing, this came out very nice and I'd definitely do it again.

Orange-Cranberry Sauce.  This was done in a pretty usual way - to a point.  Berries, water, and sugar in a pan.  But I read another CI recipe and gave this variation a try....Added the zest of an orange to the cooking. Then, off heat, added two tablespoons of Grand Marnier.  I was a little afraid of it being a little too... well, boozy.  But I had a spare set of ingredients and could recover if it failed.  But it did not fail.  It was quiet nice and I will be making it again.  Soon.

Mashed Potato Casserole.  In another recipe from CI, I made this nice potato dish.

It called for Russets, but I had Yukon Gold, so that's how it went.  In these potatoes are all the good things...cream, butter, garlic, chives, eggs (don't worry, this dish gets baked).  They gave me the hint to swirl it with a fork to make it look fancy and get crispy golden peaks.  Everyone liked 'em.

Spiced Nuts.  For munching, I made these spiced nuts which I made last year and were a big hit.  This is the cinnamon version from ATK Family Cookbook.  This is so easy.  You beat an egg white or two (depending on how much you're making).  Coat the nuts with the egg whites - thoroughly.  This is what will make the spices stick to the nuts, so they need to get moist all over.  Then you drain them off in a colander for about five minutes - we don't need the excess.  Then you coat the nuts with your spice mixture and spread it out on a rimmed baking sheet or two - I used two for two pounds.  Bake it, stirring up the nuts and rotating the pans halfway through. 

There are many ways you could go with the spices, there are several variations in the cookbook, but my family likes the cinnamon sugar version.  There are a few more spices than that, but that is what I think of when I think of these nuts.

I make two pounds for the holiday gatherings.  That lasts a couple of days.  I use equal parts walnuts, pecans, and almonds.  They are always a big hit with kids and adults alike.

Dessert.  I don't think there was a pie anywhere this season for us...But we had lots of other sweets around.  I made Mexican Wedding Cookies a.k.a. Russian Teacakes, but didn't get a picture of that.  I also made these Oatmeal Fudge Bars:

These are pretty rich, so I cut them into pretty small squares.  This is also the first chocolate recipe that I have tried where I also used a bit of espresso powder.  Now, I don't like coffee, nor do I like coffee-related desserts like Tiramisu or mocha ice cream.  But I keep hearing how just a little espresso powder 'enhances' the chocolate. So I gave it a try - and these are very nice.  The chocolate seems, I don't know...more sophisticated?  I will be trying other recipes using that espresso powder.

Well, that's about it for me.  Clearly it was a Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen holiday for me.  Darn them.  They keep putting out books and magazines and I keep thinking I don't need another one, but then I see the new issue and there's stuff in there I want.  Well, I do love what they do, and I recommend their TV shows and books to anyone trying to learn how to cook and/or bake.  They're on PBS as Cook's Country and America's Test Kitchen.

Hope everyone's holiday was lovely and filled with loved ones.  Merry Christmas!  and Happy New Year!

~ks