Bread Is the New Black

Dear Reader,

We know. It's been a long time since our baking antics have been recorded. We're sorry for that. Our lives have finally calmed down to a point where we are both willing AND able to work on this blog again, and we're excited! Let's return back to the criteria we wrote in 2010....

To start, Listle and I have found it almost impossible to define "bread". There are a lot of things we want to make that could be called bread, but don't have leavening, so we can't use that as a rule. We can't say anything that's a staple is bread, because there's a lot of superfluous bread products. We can't say that anything that can be made into a sandwich counts as bread (although cinnamon rolls sandwiching some nutella and banana could be quite tasters...). We'll probably discuss and refine our definition a lot throughout the year. So let us say that, like pornography, we can't tell you what bread is, but we know it when we see it.

Here are some rules:
1.) Six of our twelve breads must have yeast (it's no good to do quick breads all year - and yeast seems to be what scares people, meaning us).
2.) We can't make the same bread in the same month.
3.) We want to explore as many breads as possible, so no repeats per individual. You can, however, make the same bread as someone else later in the year.
4.) The breads must be shared with one other person -with witnesses, who may or may not also get bread.
5.) We will incorporate reviews of good breads that we didn't make that we eat throughout the year.
6.) We will include book reviews related to bread.
7.) Finally, keeping up on posting on the blog is obviously a bit of a challenge for us :). So we must post our breads within two weeks of baking them. (We found that we were forgetting details of our cakes last year because we waited too long to post. No good!)

Thank you for reading again! We're happy to be back!

Dueling Chocolate Chip Cookies

It. Is. On.

(NOTE: Elizabeth will write in black. Ann will make commentary in green.)

Before I get to reporting The Hitting and The Biting and The Slapping, let me explain how our duel began. This being the Year of Cookies, we wanted to start off with the quintessential cookie. America's favorite: the chocolate chip cookie. We thought it would be fun to make different recipes on the same day, and compare them for deliciousness.

CHOOSING:

We decided NOT to use nuts (gasp!) so that we could taste the purity of the classic CCC (that's what experts call chocolate chip cookies. You didn't know? Non-expert.)

We found CCCs in nearly every baking cookbook I own. Here are just a few that we looked at:

(Spoiler alert: we chose the top two cookbooks on the right.)

We read through many, many recipes. Both of us wanted a classic taste, but we wanted to use different ingredients and mixing techniques from what the other sister was using. After all, what good is a duel if you're going to end up with the exact same cookie?

In the end, I chose a CCC recipe that I found in Flour: A Baker's Collection of Spectacular Recipes, by Joanne Chang (she calls it a "Chocolate Chunk Cookie." Show off). Flour is a bakery and cafe in Boston. No, I have not been. Yes, I am angry about it.

I loved Chang's decision to stick with a classic---the cookie is based on the Nestle Toll House bag version, which she describes as "an amazingly swell cookie." She changed it up a bit by using bread flour (for extra chewiness) and by using dark chocolate and milk chocolate chunks. Still, the method and technique are classic, and the ingredients are ones that I have on hand any day of the week. And that's what I wanted: classic and easy. I didn't want cayenne-spiced specialty chocolate in a cinnamon dough. Dipped in white chocolate. Served by an owl monkey. Okay, yes to the owl monkey. No to the rest.



(Here I leave room for Ann's stupid choice and even stupider reasons)

Okay, first off, I have to state how difficult it was for us to take our angry face pictures, not because it's hard for us to make angry faces, but because we had to get so close to each other. Being that close to someone is weird!

I picked a recipe from Alton Brown's baking cookbook, I'm Just Here for More Food. Why did I pick this one? Honestly, I can't remember. Listle took forever to post this because she's "busy" and "has four kids" and her "husband" is an "emergency doctor" and has a weird "schedule" and she's the Young "Women's" President. Blah blah blah. Some of us are in SCHOOL, Elizabeth. Some of us are in school. Anyway, I think I picked it because I knew that melted butter would result in a different kind of cookie. According to people on the internet, melted butter results in a more tender, moister (sorry, Mrs. H-B), and less chewy cookie. I like chewy cookies, but this seemed like the easiest way to see a difference from cookies that use the creaming method, which requires softened butter and sugar. Alton calls the method on this "The Muffin Method", since you're supposed to just barely mix everything together. Alton seems to be pretty reliable in his recipes, so I went with him.


MIXING AND BAKING:

My dough being mixed. Light and fluffy and gorgeous.

Melted butter for Ann's dough.

This was probably the most fundamental difference in the two recipes.

Ann and I tried several times to get that egg dripping just perfectly. We should work for National Geographic!

(Don't tell Listle, but I already do.)

Dueling dough

Showdown at high noon. These dough balls clearly hate each other.

BAHAHA! Ann loses a dough ball due to her antics.

THE RESULTS:

My cookies worked. Ann's were lousy. What more is there to say?

My cookies: Excellent chew. Delicious flavor.

Ann's cookies: Sad. Crumbly.

To be fair, my cookies were also overbaked - the recipe called for a much longer baking time than was required, so these were way way way crisp. A lot of stuff I'd read online said that melted butter cookies are thinner and crispier than softened butter, so I have no idea what happened with this. Sad sad Ann.

THE NEXT DAY:

Chang recommends that the dough rest in the refrigerator overnight. She writes, "This allows all of the liquid from the egg and butter to absorb fully into the flour, creating a cookie with better flavor and a nicer texture." I didn't do a side by side taste test of fresh cookies (the day-old cookies were, of course, a day old), but they did seem to taste better. I was mostly shocked by the color difference. Can you spot the day-old cookie in this pile?

If you can't, you are blind. (Actually, it's a lot more clear on the original high-resolution photo.) It's the one that is so much lighter than the others. This did not have to do with bake time. The darker color of the cookies that were made from refrigerated dough was due to the flour fully absorbing the other liquids. Here's another shot:

Cookie baked after 12+ hour refrigeration on the right.

Ann's dough didn't fair so well after refrigeration:

Ann's dough, with my kids' hands in it ("Look mom! It's sand!")

We weren't able to make dough balls with it. We used it as an ice cream topping.

THE WINNER:

Elizabeth. As expected before the recipes were even chosen. Yep.

Boo hoo hoo!!!! She's right....she's right!!!!!!

Post script:

So I wanted to try the cookies again to see if there was some fluke that made them not work at all the first time. I made them the next weekend, and I had the exact same result. Although I didn't overbake them at all (I think I may have even taken them out after ten minutes), they still held their dough ball shape and were crumbly. However, the flavor of the cookies was so great - they had plenty of salt, which I will swear is the key to a good CCC!!!! Much like calling CCC's by their full names, non-experts also put too little salt in their cookies, and they're just substandard. These were salty and delicious, even if they didn't have the texture I was going for. So Listle still wins, but I will live to beat her another day!

RECIPES:

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

from Flour by Joanne Chang

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks/228 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup (150 grams) granulated sugar
3/4 cup (165 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup (140 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup (150 grams) bread flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
9 ounces (255 grams) semisweet chocolate, chopped (about 1 1/4 cups)
2 1/2 ounces (70 grams) milk chocolate, chopped (about 1/2 cup)

Directions:

Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or a handheld mixer or a wooden spoon) cream together the butter , granulated sugar, and brown sugar on medium speed for about 5 minutes, or until the mixture is light and fluffy. (This step will take 10 minutes if using a handheld mixer or a spoon.) Stop the mixer a few times and use a rubber spatula to scraped down the sides and bottom of the bowl and the paddle to release any clinging butter or sugar. Beat in the eggs and vanilla on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes, or until thoroughly combined. Scrape the bowl and the paddle again to make sure the eggs are thoroughly incorporated.

In a medium bowl, stir together the all-purpose flour, bread flour, baking soda, and salt until well mixed. Add the semisweet and milk chocolates and toss to combine. On low speed (or with the wooden spoon), slowly add the flour-chocolate mixture to the butter-sugar mixture and then mix just until the flour mixture is totally incorporated and the dough is evenly mixed.

For the best results, scrape the dough into an airtight container and let it rest in the refrigerator overnight (or for at least 3 to 4 hours) before baking. When you are ready to bake, position a rack in the center of the oven, and heat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Drop the dough in 1/4-cup balls onto a baking sheet, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Flatten each ball slightly with the palm of your hand.

Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, or until the cookies are golden brown on the edges and slightly soft in the center. Don’t let them get brown through and through. Part of their appeal is the chewiness of the slightly underbaked centers. Let cool on the baking sheet on a wire rack for 5 to 10 minutes, then transfer the cookies to the rack to cool completely.

The cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days. The unbaked dough can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

Yield: 24 cookies

Chocolate Chip Cookie #10
from I’m Just Here for More Food by Alton Brown
2 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
2 cups dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees*.

In a large mixing bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
In a medium mixing bowl whisk together the melted and cooled butter, sugars, egg yolks and vanilla until combined.

Make a well in the center of the flour mixture, pour in the butter mixture and fold the ingredients together just until combined. Add the chocolate chips and fold to combine. Do not overmix.

For individual cookies, use a spoon or a disher and dish out your cookies, 2 inches apart, on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. *

Bake for 12-15 minutes (Start checking at 10).
Let cool on the baking sheet for 2 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack or paper towel-lined counter top.

*As soon as you put the cookies or cookie cake into the oven, turn the temperature down to 350 degrees.

Cookie Review - Tiffany's Bakery

After school last friday, I took a break from my usual role of The Boring Mother Who Asks You To Do Homework And Practice Piano (I've carefully honed my craft), and I took the kids to the bakery around the corner. We brought along Adam's friend, Holden.

 Two of my short kids and one very tall friend

Ann noticed that Luke has two different shoes on (pretty common at our house). Good eye, Printer!

When we moved here, I was really excited to see a bakery so close to our house. I love bakeries! But Tiffany's was really disappointing. It reminds me of a grocery store bakery that hasn't found its grocery store yet. The bakery items are unimaginative and lackluster. There is no bread sold at Tiffany's Bakery. There are donuts, sugar cookies, m&m cookies, chocolate chip cookies, and decorated cakes, in addition to a few other random items. Nothing I have tried has been very good. When you steal a bite of your kid's cookie and kinda wish you hadn't, then you know something is very wrong.

This time I asked the worker to give me the best cookie in the place. He gave me four kolachies. 

They were filled with apricot and raspberry jams. They were better than other Tiffany's items I've tasted (even the sugar cookies are lousy. The SUGAR COOKIES! How can you go wrong with a sugar cookie?), but the kolachies weren't all that great either. They didn't have good flavor, and they weren't flaky.

All in all, it was a fun trip with the kids, but as far as a "cookie run," it wasn't very satisfying.

There is another bakery about 3 minutes farther down the road. Its offerings are quite good, but very expensive. We'll go there another Friday after school and review the cookies. It might require a subsidy of some sort. I'll make the kids hold up cardboard signs on the corner, and I'll post about that too.

C is for Cookie, That's Good Enough For Us!

Welcome back to another year of baking, dear reader! You'll notice that although we gave bread another shot, it didn't really pan out. Listle was busy with new responsibilities at church, and Ann was pretty swamped with school. Somehow, bread felt really daunting all the time. Therefore, we're abandoning it for now and moving on to something that feels more familiar, but still worthy of exploration: cookies!

As usual, it's hard to define a cookie. Epicurious says that they're "hand-held, flour-based sweet cakes", but what we can think of many exceptions to this. What about macaroons or meringues? How do madeleines fit in? Are there other exceptions to the definition that don't start with M? So, as usual, we all know a cookie when we see it.

Here are our rules:

1.) We can't make the same kind of cookie in the same month, unless we're doing a bake-off (which may or may not have already happened!).

2.) We want to explore as many cookies as possible, so no repeats per individual. However, you can make the same type of cookie as someone else later in the year.

3.) The cookies may be shared with at least one other person.

4.) One kind of cookie must be decorated with frosting so we can practice more piping.

5.) We will incorporate reviews of good cookies made by others that we've sampled throughout the year.

6.) We will include book reviews related to cookies.

7.) We will be AWESOME about posting our cookie baking adventures within two weeks. No six month long gaps! We promise!

Ann's January Bread - Southern-Style Cornbread

(Apologies that these posts are so late...I need to repeat over and over again: "I love school...I love school...")

Hooray for bread. Perhaps because we took nearly a year off, I still feel insanely intimidated by the prospect of bread. And maybe I feel intimidated because I don't understand the differences well enough yet. Clearly, I need to do some research and actually explore the many bread-making books that I own as I get more into this. But to ease into a new year of bread-making, I went with something relatively simple: cornbread. But I wanted something that used a cast-iron skillet, all Southern style.

This came out all super crispy due to the pre-heating of oil and butter in the cast iron pan, and it wasn't sweet, which made it perfect to match with chili that has three kinds of chili powder and cooks slowly for many many hours....nom nom nom.


Southern-Style Cornbread
from www.cooksillustrated.com

Ingredients

• 4 teaspoons bacon drippings or 1 tablespoon melted butter and 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
• 1 cup yellow cornmeal , preferably stone ground
• 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon table salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/3 cup water (rapidly boiling)
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1 large egg , beaten lightly

Instructions

1. Adjust oven rack to lower middle position and heat oven to 450 degrees. Set 8-inch cast-iron skillet with bacon fat (or vegetable oil) in heating oven.

2. Measure 1/3 cup cornmeal into medium bowl. Mix remaining cornmeal, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in small bowl; set aside.

3. Pour boiling water all at once into the 1/3 cup cornmeal; stir to make a stiff mush. Whisk in buttermilk gradually, breaking up lumps until smooth, then whisk in egg. When oven is preheated and skillet very hot, stir dry ingredients into mush mixture until just moistened. Carefully remove skillet from oven. Pour hot bacon fat (or melted butter) from the skillet into the batter and stir to incorporate, then quickly pour batter into heated skillet. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven and instantly turn cornbread onto wire rack; cool for 5 minutes, then serve immediately.

You may have noticed...

Dear lone reader,

As you probably have realized, there haven't been any postings in Our Year of Bread in quite some time. This is not due to a lack of devotion to our beloved blog, nor to any horrific falling out between sisters (although Listle has pulled enough stunts in the past year to warrant my hate, as well she knows...). Rather, the major focus of my life completely fell apart, and I just didn't have the desire or energy to pretend to rib my sister about her baking skills, much less make bread. We discussed our options and decided to go on temporary hiatus until I felt like baking again. However, one thing we didn't discuss was who would let everyone know this, so our apologies for keeping you in the dark. A new year usually brings a new baking project, but for us, it brings a return to the Year of Bread. Plus, I have more friends with stand mixers now that live in town! Here's to a better year than 2010, and here's to some wicked awesome bread!!!!

Love, Year of Bread

Ann's March Bread: Brioche

Okay, okay, I know that this post is WICKED late, and I've been enticing the wrath of my sister for the past six weeks. I had good reasons! Such as school and getting engaged. Guess which one I enjoyed more...that's right, reference class! Just kidding, sweetie.

After failing at my bread planning last month, I was determined to do better this month. I only succeeded marginally, but that counts! My entry for an egg bread is brioche, which is a French white loaf bread with lots of butter and eggs to make it rich, almost cake-like (still clinging to last year...). I've never actually had brioche before, so I don't have anything to compare it with to make sure mine was good, but I thought it was really good.

So one of the other reasons I didn't make brioche last month was that, besides my bad timing, I each recipe I looked at said that you couldn't use a hand-held mixer because of the lengthy mixing time the dough requires to get elastic and satiny, and it's a really wet dough that wouldn't work at all to knead by hand (this totally makes sense after having made it). Dorie (I like to think we're on a first name basis now) said in her recipe that she mixed it by hand the first time she made brioche, and it was worse than running a half-marathon. One of the hallmarks of my existence is my laziness, so there was no way I was going to do that. Instead, I elected to spend a day with my lovely friend Mrs. H-B, who happens to have a Kitchen Aid mixer (my #1 priority on my gift registry). I decided to make two recipes (Dorie's and Ina's), just to see what the differences were in texture, since they had quite different methods. Well, my normal method of not adequately planning for time was once again true in this case. I had to keep the Dorie brioche dough refrigerated for a while, and that meant that I had to stay at Mrs. H-B's until super super late. One of the requirements of the recipe was to lift up the dough every half hour to deflate it. Since I also had an hour-long drive home, so this meant that I just reached over to the passenger's seat and punched it down every half hour, and then continued along with one greasy hand.

When I got home, I stored both doughs in the fridge overnight, and then baked them the next day. First, the Ina dough finished, and I couldn't wait for it to cool to before I started eating it. AMAZING. The bread was soft, pliable, and pulled apart in an almost like petals made of elastic. Yeah, I know that doesn't make any sense, but I've thought that analogy for days, and that's what I'm going with. I shared this with Megs and her visiting parents, and we slathered each piece with homemade blackberry jam from Padre. It was completely decadent, but felt comforting and cozy instead of rich. There was a very slight sweetness and the eggs gave it a really distinct flavor that was so different than your average loaf of bread. It had twice as many eggs as the Dorie loaf, which gave it a much deeper yellow color.

The next day, I tried the Dorie loaf. It was also good, but didn't have that same elasticity (although it wasn't as prevalent in Ina's after it cooled, either), and didn't rise as much as the other too. I'm not sure if this was because of my haphazard rising in the car, but the dough was absolutely gorgeous before I got it home (or maybe it dried out too much in the fridge too?), so I'm guessing that's what happened. And, frankly, Dorie has never steered me wrong. Based on pictures from other blogs that have tried the same recipe, I'm pretty certain I just did it wrong. I'll have to try it again when it doesn't involve prying plastic wrap off the bowl with one hand while I try to navigate rural Indiana roads with the other.

The Dorie bread is in the front, the Ina bread in the back.

Ina Garten's Brioche
from Barefoot in Paris

1/2 cup warm water
1 package dried yeast
3 tablespoons sugar
6 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
4 1/4 cups unbleached flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 egg mixed with 1 tablespoon milk, for egg wash

Combine the water, yeast, and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix with your hands and allow the stand for 5 minutes until the yeast and sugar dissolve. Add the eggs and beat on medium speed for 1 minute, until well mixed. With the mixer on low speed, add 2 cups of the flour and salt and mix for 5 minutes. With the mixer still on low, add 2 more cups of flour and mix for 5 more minutes. Still on low speed, add the soft butter in chunks and mix for 2 minutes, scraping down the beater, until well blended. With the mixer still running, sprinkle in the remaining 1/4 cup of flour. Switch the paddle attachment to a dough hook and mix on low speed for 2 minutes. Scrape the dough into a large buttered bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight.

The next day, allow the dough to sit at room temperature for 1 hour. Grease two 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2-inch loaf pans. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board and cut in half. Pat each portion into a 6 x 8-inch rectangle, then roll up each rectangle into a cylindrical loaf. Place each loaf, seam side up, into a greased pan. Cover the pans with a damp towel and set aside to rise at room temperature until doubled in volume, 2 to 2 1/2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. When the loaves have risen, brush the top of each with the egg wash and bake for 45 minutes, or until the top springs back and it sounds slightly hollow when tapped. Turn the loaves out onto a wire rack to cool.


Dorie Greenspan's Brioche
from Baking: From My Home to Yours

1/3 cup warm water
1/3 cup warm milk
2 envelopes active dry yeast
3 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
3 large eggs (room temperature)
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks, 12 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into pieces, at room temperature
Egg wash:1 egg, beaten to blend with 1 tablespoon water

Place 1/3 cup warm water, warm milk and yeast in the bowl of a standing heavy-duty mixer; stir until yeast dissolves and let proof for 10 minutes. Add flour and salt, mix on low speed just until flour is moistened, about 1-2 minutes. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Beat in the eggs on low speed, then add sugar. On medium speed, beat until the dough comes together, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low. Add butter, two tablespoons at a time, beating until each piece is almost incorporated before adding next. Increase speed to medium-high and beat until dough pulls away from sides of bowl, about 10 minutes. Transfer the dough into a clean bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise at room temperature until almost doubled in volume, about 1 hour. Punch the dough down to deflate it every 30 minutes until it stops rising (it will take 2 hours in total). Cover bowl with plastic and chill in the refrigerator overnight. The next day, butter and flour 2 large loaf pans (8 1/2*4 1/2 inches). Divide dough into 2 equal pieces. Cut each dough half into 4 logs. Arrange logs crosswise in bottom of each prepared loaf pan. Place loaf pans on baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap and let rise for another 2 hours. Preheat oven to 400°F. Brush the brioches with the egg wash (be careful not to deflate, be gentle) and bake until they are golden brown and sound hollow when tapped, about 30-35 minutes. Let cool to room temperature, then run a knife around the side of the pans and turn the loaves out onto a rack. The loaves can also be wrapped airtight and frozen for up to 2 months.