Category: Recipes

Chocolate-filled Beignets (or Soufganiyot, or whatever you’d like to call them)

jeff 33 Comments

sugar-snow-skinny.jpgIf you’ve been to Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans, you’ve had the best beignets (French-style doughnuts) around.  They’re really not very hard to make at home; check out my book, on page 197, and the chocolate-filled variation on page 199.  We make them at my house for Hannukah (tonight was the last night), and they are sublime (the same deep-fried treat is called soufganiyot in Hebrew).  The only special equipment you’ll need is a candy thermometer.

Start with a pound of dough, choosing challah (page 180), or brioche (page 189), which will make 5 or 6 beignets.  Roll out the dough into a 1/4-inch rectangle, then cut into 2-inch squares using a pizza wheel or a sharp knife.  Place a half-ounce of bittersweet chocolate into the center of each square.  Gather the edges of the dough around the filling, pinching at the center to form a seal; you may need to use a bit of water to help the edges stick together.  Read More

Rustic Whole Wheat Bread for Pappa al Pomodoro (and some Holiday gift ideas)

jeff 33 Comments

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Once again, my gracious friends Jim and Theresa invited my family to their gorgeous cabin, where we needed a warm-up.  Jim made fantastic Italian Tomato Soup (Pappa al Pomodoro), which is actually a bread soup usually made from stale Peasant Bread (see page 46).  But we decided to use the dough from the Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread on page 78 instead, forming it into rustic round loaves.  That’s them just after being slashed, above.  Because they’re free form loaves rather than loaf pan breads as in the recipe, you can bake at 425 degrees F, right on the baking stone for about 35 minutes (use steam from a broiler pan to get a great crust). 

Northern Minnesota is JUST like northern Italy in winter, isn’t it?  Though I guess tomatoes in the soup would make this southern Italian.  Want to make it? Read More

Incorporating dried fruit, nuts, or herbs into stored dough: Thanksgiving Cranberry Corn Bread

jeff 106 Comments

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Read on for a discussion of how to roll things into stored dough.  It works the same whether you’re rolling in dried fruit, nuts, or even herbs…

Before I launch into our Thanksgiving Cranberry Corn Bread, Zoe and I want to thank everyone who posted their bread stories into our blog this past week.  Hearing other people’s stories about their bread has been the best part of doing this website. Kelly (see the post from 11/11) is the first winner of the signed book.  Kelly does not use her bread machine and loves giving bread away.  Bravo.   Beth, who posted on 11/14, is the 2nd winner– a working mom with an active blog of her own.   We’ll be in touch with both of you.

This week’s bread is a yeasted corn bread adapted for American Thanksgiving but based on the Portuguese Broa style (page 146 of The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day).  It’s basically our regular Master Recipe, but with 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour taken out and replaced with an equal amount of cornmeal.

More in The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, and our other books.

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Yeasted chocolate cupcakes… little morsels from no-knead chocolate dough

jeff 32 Comments

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OK, I know, these aren’t really cupcakes because they aren’t cake!  They’re yeasted, so they’re actually super-mini chocolate breads based on Zoe’s chocolate bread in our book (page 211).  I wanted you to get a sense of how versatile this method really is— need a quick kid treat?  If you’ve got chocolate dough in the freezer you are set.

I didn’t frost them because they were perfect without it– maybe a little cherry jam if you really want something with them.  Just mix up a full or half-batch of the chocolate dough, and then break off little pieces and load them into muffin tins, or mini-muffin tins (the picture above has both).  Be careful not to overbake these little guys; the regular size are done in no more than 20 minutes at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C), and the minis are done in 15 minutes. 

This is all a welcome distraction from writing (I ate about four of these this AM!)… our new book’s manuscript is due 1/3/09, with likely release 12/09.  Wish us luck, and follow our new book’s progress on Twitter!

Pletzel (a mission to bring this fabulous bread back from near extinction!)

jeff 86 Comments

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This is a flat bread made with an enriched dough, topped with sautéed onions, sprinkled with poppy seeds and drizzled in olive oil. Okay, so many many years ago when the pletztel was in the height of fashion, it was done with dough slightly less decadent than brioche and the oil used was less exotic than extra virgin olive oil, but it was still superb. It was a bread brought to the states from Eastern Europe and was easily found in Jewish bakeries all across the country, until about 25+ years ago. I blame the rise and global domination of the bagel for the demise of this fabulous bread, along with its cousin the bialy. Once again people are craving great bread, demanding it in fact and they need to know about making the pletzel: Read More

Pumpernickel Bread– how to make your own caramel coloring

jeff 59 Comments

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I’ve been getting a lot of questions about the caramel color, a brown and slightly bitter powder made by over-caramelizing sugar) that we call for in the pumpernickel bread recipe on page 67 of the book.  It’s hard to find in local stores, and it’s not an absolute requirement for the bread, but most U.S. consumers will miss it if it’s left out.

Yes, caramel color can be made at home, but not as a powder– what you make will be a liquid that is added to recipes; you should decrease the liquid a bit to account for the extra. Here’s what I’ve done at home (it won’t be quite as dark a result as powdered caramel color): Put 3 tablespoons sugar and 1 tablespoon water into a saucepan. Melt the sugar over a low flame, then increase heat to medium-high, cover, and bring to a boil for 2 minutes. Add a pinch of cream of tartar and continue to boil uncovered until the mixture becomes very dark. Remove from heat and allow to cool partially. Very carefully, add a quarter cup of boiling water to the pan (it may sputter and water may jump out of the pan so wear gloves and keep your face away from it). Dissolve the caramelized sugar and cool to room temp. Use about a quarter-cup of this mixture in place of commercial caramel color powder in our Pumpernickel recipe on page 67.

If you use liquid caramel coloring like this, you need to add extra flour to make up for it– about twice the volume of flour as liquid.  Otherwise the dough will be too loose.

Craziest Pizza Combo Yet: Limpa Dough, Tomato, Anchovies, and Black Olives

jeff 18 Comments

OK, so I rolled some ground anise, orange zest, and ground cardamom into some light rye dough (see page 65) and it was going to be a limpa loaf, the traditional Scandivian spiced rye, and I was going to use that dough for a class I taught Tuesday night.  Never got to it.  What to do?

Tonight it’s pizza topped with tomato, anchovies, fresh mozzarella, and cured black olives.  I’m starting to think you can get away with anything if you keep an open mind.  We all devoured it. 

Challah done two ways from the same dough (Jewish New Year’s loaf AND a braided challah)

jeff 160 Comments

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It’s Jewish New Year (tonight) and the traditional loaf, a round, turban-shaped one (round=continuity of life) took a back seat in this photo– so I decided to do a challah extravaganza and go through both shapes, which are easy once you see how they’re done.  Here’s the turban from a little closer:

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They’re both made from the same dough but the New Year’s  turban always has raisins or other sweet fruit (to symbolize a sweet new year)– we’ll roll them into the dough so you don’t have to mix up a special one.  Read More

Brioche Dough Recipe

BreadIn5 535 Comments

Brioche Dough Recipe | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Here is a classic fall recipe with a twist. It is a lovely and quick dessert, especially if you have a bucket of brioche on hand. For those of you who do not already own The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, here is the recipe and it can be used for all of these wonderful treats: caramel sticky buns, grilled fruit tart, fresh fruit muffins, Brioche à tête, apricot pastries and fabulous doughnuts! Actually the possibilities are endless, just use your imagination and let us know what treats you’ve come up with. Read More

Marco’s Heirloom Tomato Bruschetta (and, how to hear about new recipes on Twitter)

jeff 4 Comments

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Years ago, my friend Marco (from Livorno in Italy) made my family a beautiful and simple dinner of buttered pasta with Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and this gorgeous bruschetta with fresh tomato.  The cheese was brought from his mother’s kitchen in Livorno, but the fruit were perfect locally grown heirloom tomatoes.  Someone recently gave my wife and me some heirloom Brandywine tomatoes, vine-ripened, and we thought of Marco.  This dish is really just tomatoes on toast, but it manages to approach the sublime — that’s why it went into our book.  To hear about new recipes when they’re posted here, follow me on Twitter if you’re already signed up, or join Twitter today.  For more about our bruschetta recipe, from page 49, read on… Read More