TWD: Golden Brioche Loaves

Dorie Greenspan's Golden Brioche Loaves have long been on my baking "to do" list, but it took Margie of Tea and Scones to push it to the top of my baking agenda. Margie selected the recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie's weekly baking assignment. Check out Margie's blog for the recipe and TWD for other version of this French classic.

So how did my first attempt at Brioche go??
Well not too bad, it baked up slightly darker than "golden", but it still had a great taste and light, pillowy texture.

So here it the life cycle of my Brioche (in pictures of course)...

Step 1: Yeast, water, milk, flour, and salt after a few quick pulses.


Step 2: Add the eggs.


Step 3: Add the butter, a little bit at a time. This step took FOREVER. Who would have thought it would take so long to incorporate the butter into the dough.


Step 4: All the butter incorporated into the dough. Beat for about 10 minutes till the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl.


Step 5: Transfer to a bowl, and let the "rising" begin.


Step 6: A few hours later, let the "rising" end.


Step 7: Cut the dough into two (or four) equal pieces. (I didn't have two 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 loaf pans so I used four mini pans. ) Cut each piece of dough into 4 equal pieces and roll into logs.


Step 8: Arrange 4 logs crosswise in the bottom of each pan. Sticky, sticky dough.


Step 9: Leave the dough at room temperature until the dough almost fills the pans. Oops, my loaves rose a little too much.

Step 10: Bake the loaves until golden brown. I cooked mine for about 25 minutes and they came out a bit too brown and a little dry. So next time I would stop at about 20 minutes.



So like I said, a little dry and a little too brown, but not half bad for my first loaf of Golden Brioche!!!

TWD: Not-Just-For-Thanksgiving Cranberry Shortbread Cake

I just got back from vacation ( a Carnival cruise but thankfully not the one that was stranded at sea with no power and water), so I had to scramble to get this week’s assignment finished on time.

Ta-Da
Not-Just-For-Thanksgiving Cranberry (Blueberry) Shortbread Cake

This week’s TWD selection was made by Jessica of The Singleton in the Kitchen (click here for recipe). Way to go Jessica, you made a delicious choice.

Because of my late return I didn’t have time to go to the store and get cranberries, so I had to raid the refrigerator and use what was on hand. The only non-moldy fruit I could find in the frig was some slightly expired blueberry fruit spread. It wasn't too, too expired so I decide to take a chance. (I'm such a rebel.)


Like many other TWD bakers, I grated the dough instead of trying to roll it out to the correct size. The grating was a lot easier but also a lot messier.


So how did it taste?

Pretty darn good.

Kinda like a cross between a sugar cookie and a scone. Crunchy on the outside, soft and moist on the inside. Not too sweet, with a little tartness from the fruit. In the book Dorie also suggest using caramelized apples instead of cranberries. I think I’ll give that a try for Thanksgiving. I’ll let you know how it goes…

Ginger Blueberry Scones

I had a grueling baking schedule planned for this past weekend but the glorious weather lured me away from my kitchen. Early Sunday morning the temperature was 61 degrees and 50% humidity. In New Orleans! In the middle of August! Crazy, freaky weather.

I did manage to keep myself inside long enough to bake one item: Ginger Blueberry Scones. They just took a few minutes to mix and bake, and then I sat on my patio (with a blanket) and had breakfast Tea & Scones.



Ingredients

* 2 cups all-purpose sifted flour
* 1/4 cup sugar, plus more for sprinkling tops
* 1 tablespoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 teaspoon ginger powder
* 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold and cut into pieces
* 1-1/2 cups fresh blueberries
* 1 teaspoon lemon zest
* 1/3 cup heavy cream, plus more for brushing tops
* 2 large eggs

Directions

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2) In a large bowl, whisk together flour, 1/4 cup sugar, baking powder, ginger, and salt. Note: if you like a sweeter scone (like me), use 1/3 cup of sugar instead of the listed 1/4 cup, if you like really sweet scones, use 1/2 cup of sugar. If you want coffee cake instead of scones, use 3/4 cups of sugar. If you want... well you get the idea.

3) Add the cold butter to the flour mixture and using a fork, your fingers or a pastry blender, cut the butter until the largest pieces are the size of small peas.

4) Stir in blueberries and zest.



5) In a small bowl, whisk together the cream and eggs.

6) Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the cream/egg mixture.



7) Stir lightly with a fork just until the dough comes together.



8) Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead 3 or 4 times. Don't over mix or the scones will be tough.

9) Place the mound of dough on a baking stone and pat into an 8" round about 1-1/4 inch thick.

10) Brush the top with cream and sprinkle with sugar.

11) Using a floured knife, score the top of the dough into 8 wedges. Only cut half way through the thickness of the dough, don't cut all the way through.



12) Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes, or until golden brown. I like mine extra golden brown so I baked it another 5 minutes.



13) Remove baking stone from oven and using the score lines previously made in dough, cut the scones apart.

14) Transfer the scones to a wire rake to cool. Or just eat them hot like me.

Lemon-Lime Curd Cake with Blueberries

I stumbled across the delicious looking cake on Vita Arina’s flickr page and started to drool. Now I’m not a big fan of lemon curd (don’t you just hate that name?), but this cake looked scrumptious enough to tempt even my anti-lemon heart.

I started the egg whites beating, mixed up the batter, and then folded the peaked eggs whites into the batter.

Here are the cakes just out of the oven. I over baked them of course (I over bake everything), but they weren’t too, too dry. The cakes had a faint lime flavor and the spongy, airy texture of angel food.


Here is the lime curd in the staging processes. My curd came out much more yellow than Vita Arina’s. It must be the Egg Land’s Best eggs that I used. Notice how bright, almost neon, the yolks are? No Photoshopping, I promise.


The finished curd. Look at the little bits of lime rind suspended in the curd. It makes it looks so old-fashioned and home made.


Next it was time to prepare the whipping cream frosting. The recipe called for gelatin to “stabilize” the heavy whipping cream. I had never done this before, but you know what--It really worked! I took the final pictures of the cake outside in 95 degree heat and 100% humidity, and the cream frosting did not droop or melt one bit. Thanks, Vita. Stabilized whipping cream frosting is a amazing.

Here is the gelatin softening, and then melted. Vita said to heat gelatin over a low fire to liquify it, but I just zapped the bowl in the microwave for 15 seconds at 30% power. Worked fine.




Be careful when you pour the gelatin into the cream. Do it slowly and consistently and keep the beaters going. Some of my gelatin clumped and I had little semi-solid balls of gelatin in the frosting. Nasty.

Next came the assembly. Cake-Curd-Blueberries-Cake-Curd-bulueberries-Cake.



One third of the curd goes between each layer, and the final third goes into the frosting. The curd really added a nice flavor to the whipping cream. Not too citrusy or sweet. Just perfect.


So here is the final cake. Not as nice as Vita Arina’s, but not too bad for a novice like me.

Blueberry Buckle

Blueberrylicious!

Thank you Alton Brown for this quick and delicious Blueberry Buckle (Crumb Cake) recipe. I’ve never had better. It was moist and tender and dripping with juicy berries.


The batter only took a few minutes to mix and then in went the plump blueberries. I folded as gently as I could, but the batter was stiff and a few of the berries broke apart. I may be making excuses, but I like the way the berry juice stained the batter. It adds a dramatic touch. Next time I’ll break even more berries, so there.


The buckle just out of the oven. Alton said to bake in a glass pan, but I didn’t have one so I used my Pampered Chef 9x9 brownie pan. It baked up just fine. The recipe calls for powdered ginger in the batter and nutmeg in the crumb topping. Honestly I couldn't detect any hint of ginger in the cake, but I could smell the nutmeg in the topping. Next time I'll cut back on the nutmeg, not because it wasn't good, but I just associate nutmeg with apple pie and not blueberry.


Yummm, or like I said earlier: Blueberrylicious!