Category: Recipes

Thanksgiving Stuffing from Homemade Bread

jeff 38 Comments

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(photo by Mark Luinenburg)

We’re spending Thanksgiving with friends this year, and our family is doing the stuffing and bread for a table for 25.  Sounds like a job for a household where they bake bread twice a day anyway…

I’m making the stuffing from basic boules, ball-shaped breads as above.  You can use any lean dough you like, including whole-grain dough from the new book.  Tomorrow I’ll be using the Peasant Bread from my first book, which is basically the white-flour Master Recipe, swapping out 1 cup of whole-grain rye for 1 cup of all-purpose flour.

Breads for the table are going to be a mix of seeded and unseeded rye breads, very rustic, maybe Anadama bread from the new book.  All we’ll need is the belt-buckles on our hats.

Two other Thanksgiving recipes from the “library” are:

Thanksgiving Buns and Other Helpful Holiday Hints

Thanksgiving Cranberry Corn Bread

OK, let’s make some stuffing… Read More

Pumpkin Pie Brioche just in time for Thanksgiving!

jeff 277 Comments

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Pumpkins are associated with the quintessential Thanksgiving dessert, a decadent pie filled with spices and sweetness. The pumpkin adds a smooth and luxurious texture that amounts to pure comfort food. Pumpkin is not only wonderful for its flavors but is also chock full of healthy vitamins. This was the inspiration for making a pumpkin pie brioche to include in Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. It can be baked as a loaf, in a brioche pan or even made into our Indian Spiced Doughnuts (page 287) or as the bottom crust for the Pear Tarte Tatin (page 290). It is fabulous as dessert or breakfast.

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Apple, Ham, and Blue Cheese Tart, plus: the secret to getting really thin crust (and a visit to White Pine Orchard for apple-picking)

jeff 52 Comments

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Apples in a savory tart/pizza?  Absolutely!  One typical combo in a savory fruit tart is blue cheese and pear, but this is the Upper Midwest in October, and our friend Keith Kozub runs the world’s finest organic apple orchard:  White Pine Orchard, near River Falls, Wisconsin.  We went apple-picking with friends and ended up with what seemed like bushels of apples.  This will be the first of many new apple recipes, and it was a chance to play with a better way to get a really thin crust for this kind of tart or pizza… Read More

Sweet Provençal Flatbread with Anise Seeds

jeff 26 Comments

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In our first book, we covered the classic European baking tradition, and that meant lots and lots of bread from France, a country where I love to eat anything, but especially bread.  Sweet Provencal Flatbread with Anise Seeds is a marvelous example of a bread that is  so versatile that it can be split to make great sandwiches today, and then dunked, stale, into strong cafe au lait tomorrow morning.  You can mix a whole batch with the sugar, orange zest, and anise seeds, or roll a little of those three into a plain dough to make just a pound’s worth (see end of post). Read More

Julia Child’s Beef Wellington, With Our Brioche Crust (Filet de Boeuf en Croûte)

jeff 32 Comments

Julia Child's Beef Wellington, With Artisan Bread in Five Brioche Crust (Filet de Boeuf en Croûte) | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking has a terrific French bread recipe, but it takes about three days to prepare—still, it was one of the first loaves I ever was really, really happy with years ago. Back then, I wasn’t thinking about brioche, or brioche-wrapped beef tenderloin, but you can bet that I am now. The brioche recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day is one of the most popular ones in our book. Recently I remembered that Julia Child’s Beef Wellington recipe actually calls for brioche rather than the more traditional puff pastry (it’s in Volume Two of “Mastering the Art…”). Voilà! Easy Beef Wellington? Well, all I can tell you is that the pastry part becomes easy if you have our brioche dough in the freezer or fridge. And the result is scrumptious and festive. But five minutes a day? Well… Read More

Apple and Pear Coffee Cake with Brioche

jeff 95 Comments

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The University of Minnesota is a leader in developing new varieties of apples. Among them are the Haralson, Honeycrisp, Prairie Spy and dozens more. The latest to hit the markets is the Sweetango. The new apple is sweet and juicy, like its mother (Honeycrisp), but it has a little more acid to it, from dad (Zestar). The combination is incredibly tasty with a lovely snap.

I moved here from Vermont where the quintessential baking apple was the McIntosh. Now that I live in the land of 10,000 lakes and almost as many apples I like to use a variety of them in my baking. I combine apples that will break down and those that will keep their shape. I also like to use some that are sweet and others that have a bit more acid. To add a bit of perfume and richness to the mix I add a bit of pear.

This coffee cake is a perfect way to show off the autumns best apples. Mixed with brioche and streusel topping the cake is great for brunch or an after school snack. Read More

Brioche à Tête

jeff 43 Comments

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We have finally, finally finished our Final Pass manuscript (final seems to be the recurrent theme).  That means we don’t get to look at Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day again until it’s in print.  The book won’t be on shelves until October 27, and after that, we won’t be posting on good old-fashioned brioche for a while, so I decided to reprise a great post from a year and a half ago, Zoe’s post on Brioche à Tête–I’ll give you the link at the end.  There’s one nice tool to have– the brioche pans, which you can get from Amazon.

It’s also another shameless excuse to savor another great photograph from Mark Luinenburg, who did all the photos in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day (above), as well as the new shots for Healthy Bread.  All you need to do is start with our brioche dough, and then go to Zoe’s post on the Brioche à Tête.  It’s much, much easier than it looks (non-chefs can do it).  For something less rich, try the challah dough if you like, on page 180 of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. 

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Kohlrabi Greens Pesto for Grilled Pizza

jeff 27 Comments

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This year my family finally signed up for a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share.  Every Friday, our farmer wakes before dawn and drives to the Twin Cities and other communities to deliver the week’s bounty of organic produce.  We pick up a half-share; above is just a portion of one Friday’s haul (though this year’s drought has definitely decreased the crop).

Every week, we get whatever’s in the box.  I’d never eaten Kohlrabi before  (the bulbous thing on the right, with greens growing out of it).  When you get lots of something you’ve never eaten, there’s only one thing to do, at least at my house… make it into bread or pizza… Read More

Breakfast Pizza

jeff 66 Comments

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We had friends for brunch this past Sunday, and I decided to try something I’ve been meaning to do for a while:  Breakfast Pizza.  It’s basically a pizza dough base, topped with egg, cheese, and whatever meat you like, if you’re a meat eater (we are).  In order to contain the egg, which might otherwise run off the pizza, I baked this pizza in an unfinished, plain black 12-inch cast iron pan.  The result is closely related to the Italian frittata. Read More