Short and Tweet

Short and Tweet Challenge 26: Cheesecake Cheer

Tue, 22 May 2012 18:08:00 -0400

For 29 April’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet I had hoped to discover that a month with five Sundays has a special name but it seems that it doesn’t. My disappointment could only be salved by thoughts of the sense of cheerful indulgence that accompanies the prospect of cheesecake. Everybody who’s eaten the Classic cheesecake on pg 458 has declared it to be the best that they’ve ever eaten. The East End cheesecake pg 460 has a very short pastry-shortbread base and different texture for those whose preference is for that: option 3 was a Cherry crumble cheesecake, pg 462. This cheesecake has a sponge base that absorbs fruit juices, and a crumble topping which covers any cracks (a useful tip). For people who can not bear cheesecake (an ugly rumour, I know, but I’ve heard this), then the Apricot meringue tart on pg 451 offers a more abstemious bake. I’ve offered some observations on the vexed issue of why cheesecakes crack: these are not meant to be comprehensive but I hope they might provide some helpful tips. (The above photograph is from @BakerHay who baked the East End Cheesecake)

As some of you know, I worked at a bakery that specialised in cheesecake when I was at school. I liked the owners so much that I’ve had a soft spot for cheesecake ever since that is conflated with my enjoyment of the frequent mentions of Mindy’s Cheesecake in Damon Runyon’s stories.

@lapindor of Lapin d ‘Or and More made several changes to the classic cheesecake recipe as part of her Kitchen Catch Up (pictured above). @lapindor’s Kitchen Catch Up has particularly snagged my attention because of her strategic use of the Eat Your Books site to guide her in using up excess ingredients or those nearing expiry dates. I enjoyed her strategic substitution of hazelnut butter in the cheesecake biscuit base to use up some remnants lurking in the fridge. Her overall verdict: “This cheesecake was very easy to make as there was no fuss with the usual separated eggs having to be whisked and folded or water baths to struggle with”. I applaud the post as, alongside @zeb_bakes’ recent Home-made Jaffa Cakes, it offers a useful sanity check as to the reality of menu planning and recipe execution in domestic kitchens.

I doubt that I’m the only one to smile in wry recognition when reading @underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree’s account of her childhood exposure to cheesecake in the form of frozen Sara Lee: “I always hated that gloopy fruity sauce which sat a top the weirdly tangy cheesy stuff, like gone off cream, and invariably the cheesecake would still be slightly frozen in the middle”. Claire has a memorable account of dinner table glares and being compelled by ‘good manners’ to eat something that she loathed.

Claire opted for Short and Tweet: East End Cheesecake (above photograph) as a conscious decision to extend her repertoire. From her description of the flavours, she has no cause to regret this decision. The base was, “a very thin layer of shortbread on the bottom of your cheesecake and is utterly scrummy…As for the filling, on first bite it is very subtle but becomes ridiculously addictive with each subsequent forkful. Along with the hints of lemon and vanilla, there is a gorgeous caramel undertone which I think must come from bringing the butter and cream to the boil before adding to the cream cheese”. Claire mentions a crack. A common tip is to leave the cheesecake in the cooling oven (having vented it gently or even wedged open the door a little to ensure a gentle reduction in temperature). Depending on your preferences (and how easy it is to reduce the oven temperature in a controlled fashion), it might be as well to cover the top of the cheesecake with sour cream to conceal any crack.

@BakerHay delivered a “very light, smooth, delicious cheesecake: @BakerHay’s East End Cheesecake. Like @underthebluegum’s, Heather’s cheesecake cracked so she camouflaged it with a sifting of icing sugar (a useful tip).

In general, cheesecakes tend to crack as they settle because of the temperature drop after being removed from the oven. However, the filling may also crack if too much air has been introduced to the mix. The filling should be sufficiently well mixed to blend the ingredients but not over-mixed to the point where too much air is incorporated. If too much air is present then the cheesecake may puff up (in an attractive manner) while in the oven but then deflate. If an oven is too hot, then not only air but moisture is lost from the wet mixture. This moisture loss can be uneven initially (particularly in large, deep cheesecakes) and as this stabilises across the cheesecake, it can lead to cracking or even contraction and shrinkage.

The type of cream cheese (or cottage cheese) can influence not only the texture but the cracking of the cheesecake. It’s not unusual for lower fat cream cheese or cottage cheese to produce a coarse, somewhat grainy texture. The amount of whey will affect the moisture content of the mixture and this may crack. Likewise, changing the specified extra thick double cream of a recipe for whipping cream or single cream will alter the fat and moisture content and therefore how it responds to baking and cooling.

My Best Beloved (BB) opted for the Cherry Crumble Cheesecake. This was partly to indulge my fondness for cherry cheesecake but also because the crumble topping held out the promise of concealing a multitude of errors, should the cheesecake crack. The sponge base was a surprisingly fussy method. The egg and sugar foamed in a satisfactory light and fluffy manner but adding the syrup and lemon zest thinned the mixture and it didn’t approach a state of thickness again. Folding through the flour was tricky and there was such a tiny volume of sponge that it was difficult to spread it over the base of a 25cm tin (above photograph).

BB made the crumble topping but continued to rub in the fat until it resembled fine breadcrumbs rather than “dry pastry crumbs” which meant the topping didn’t resemble the one in the illustration. We reduced the almond extract in the filling to a scant 2.5 tsps rather than the specified 3 but, even so, the taste was overpowering (for the first 4 days, thereafter, it mellowed considerably).

We had to bake the sponge base for longer than specified as it was scarcely holding together after 12mins (our mixture was probably considerably more dense so wasn’t cooking as quickly) and was sickly yellow rather than golden. The filling was not at all set after being baked for 20mins so we were a little concerned that the crumble topping might sink into it. It didn’t, but putting the topping on took so long that the oven cooled substantially (BB found it difficult to pull the cheesecake out a little, avoid burns from the oven door and shelves and sprinkle the crumble, all within a reasonable timescale). Suffice it to say that the cheesecake was not merely “a bit wobbly” after the extra 30mins, it was scarcely set more than 1.5cm in from the edge. We baked it for another 20mins after which it was still rather more unstructured than I liked but we were in danger of overcooking it.

Against the advice to leave the cheesecake alone until it was firm and chilled for 4 hrs, my BB tried it after 2hrs. It was almost inedible. The sponge was well-flavoured but the overwhelming taste of almond extract made the filling unpleasant. The filling was no better after standing overnight and the texture was sloppy rather than “dense and creamy” (I think the photograph is from day 2). We were so unhappy with the cheesecake that we didn’t distribute it to friends and neighbours so it remained in the fridge, with tiny slivers sampled for more than 10 days. After 4 days, the filling mellowed and firmed up. After 5 days, the cheesecake was good and its flavour and texture continued to improve over the remainder of the lifespan.

BB seems to have made a number of mistakes with this cheesecake that played havoc with the baking time and it took a lot of maturing in the fridge before it pulled itself together and became edible. I haven’t had the heart to bake this again but might try it in the future as it has the potential to be a good recipe.

Although it hasn’t been another trip to the Broadway of Damon Runyon, it was a treat to read about everyone’s cheesecakes. Thank you.

Short and Tweet Challenge 23: A Bevy of Beautiful Buns

Tue, 08 May 2012 15:07:30 -0400

This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was for Banana maple pecan buns, pg 83; Spiced stout buns pg 84; Sticky toffee apple buns, pg 85: by special extension we’ve included Dan’s bun recipes from the Guardian [above photograph is from @tomasi_carla who baked Dan’s Hot Cross Buns].

I’ve often thought that I dislike buns. As ever, I realise that’s because the ones that I’ve eaten have mostly been commercially-prepared ones with the wrong sort of texture and far too much spice. Nonetheless, I have an emotional affinity for buns that possibly has its roots in childhood associations although I never had the experience of this woman who has strong memories of being searched for buns by elephants (Anna369):

“As children we were sometimes taken to the Zoo (Chester) and in those days one could actually reach out and pat the elephants…

They were extremely friendly and used to search our pockets for bread. There was a fence, but with their trunks the elephants could reach us. Mum and Dad always ensured we had pieces of fresh bun for them to find in our pockets. I had pigtails, and can remember being a very small child standing in front of a very large elephant. It went through my pockets with care and ate its bit of bun. Then it returned to me and with the tip of its trunk it explored my pigtails, each in turn. Next it explored me; all the way down my front it explored me with its trunk…With the tip of it’s [sic] trunk it felt over my face; I could feel it tickling; a bit whiskery; and I could feel its ever so gentle breath.

I can remember standing absolutely still with my eyes tight closed, trying to hold my breath; not afraid; I just didn’t want to frighten the elephant away by moving.”

I think the Chester Zoo elephants would have liked both @tomasi_carla’s buns and her adaptation of the recipe into a braid (above) with cranberries and walnuts (buns, braid and loaves are Storifyed: @tomasi_carla’s East Bun Parade).

@miskmask of Misk Cooks has composed a poem to accompany her hot cross buns: Dan Lepard’s Hot Cross Buns. (Like @tomasi_carla, she opted for the recent Guardian recipe). It’s difficult not to quote the entirety of 100% yellow but my favourite lines are, “cardamom and cinnamon that lingered in sweet warm aromas of rich gilded colours”.

Beyond the seasonal poem, @miskmask has produced a superb illustrated walk through of how to make these buns, along with her own substitutions. Go, see how another baker has done this. Cheer for her as @miskmask declares, “Thanks to Dan Lepard, I’ve broken the tradition of baking bullet-proof buns”. Her overall verdict: “I recommend these wholeheartedly. Easy to make and absolutely delicious”.

The lovely @zeb_bakes of Zeb Bakes tried out the Toffee apple buns (storifyed) and enjoyed them despite finding the process rather a faff at some points. I think it’s fair to say that we all had a little difficulty with the rolling, filling and slicing into tidy pieces part of this recipe. What with it being the first attempt for most of us, perhaps it’s not that astonishing.

@underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree definitely shared my instinctive dislike of hot cross buns but was nonetheless game enough to try two of these week’s recipes: Short and Tweet: ‘Banana Maple Pecan Hot Cross Buns’ and ‘Sticky Toffee Apple Buns’. Being very open-minded, Claire’s assessment of the banana pecan buns is: “although we didn’t really like them, they were probably the best hot cross buns we had ever had”.

@underthebluegum is considerably more enthusiastic about the “sticky toffee apple buns.This recipe has definitely made it into my top five favourites that I have tried so far from “Short and Sweet.” The buns are kind of like a Chelsea bun with attitude – instead of raisins, these spiral buns are stuffed with pecans and chunks of apple cooked in a caramel and rum sauce”. There are very helpful notes about cutting the dough and Claire has good suggestions for variations on this recipe.

After recent baking disappointments, I’m delighted to report that @lapindor of Lapin d ‘Or and More pronounces herself: Pleased as Punch and has a charming photo’ to illustrate that. Serendipity and some overripe bananas led to her baking both the Banana maple pecan buns (pictured above), and the Spiced stout buns (below). There are intriguing notes about the tea and dark ale used for the spiced stout buns.

My ever game Best Beloved baked both the Stout spice buns and the Toffee apple buns. You will have to take my word for this as I can’t locate the camera card and both sets of buns were dispersed to neighbours before they were cool although a couple of each may have remained behind for quality control purposes. Best Beloved’s comment (after forgetting to put the pecans in the toffee apple dough and having trouble with the syrup was that although tasty, “These buns are far from a relaxing afternoon bake”. We might attempt the recipe again and follow @zeb_bakes’ example in using the Silverwood .

Thank all of you for sending along your bun bakes. Apologies for the delayed compilation of the posts as there were some unusual techical problems.

Short and Tweet Challenge: May 2012 Schedule

Thu, 03 May 2012 15:44:00 -0400

May 2012 schedule for the #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet. (Read about #shortandtweet challenge and its conditions.)

The dates are those by which I’d like to receive links or photographs: please tweet these @foodcraftspace or @evidencematters using the hashtag #shortandtweet or leave links in the comments for the appropriate challenge announcement post. I’ll then collate these into the compendium post for that challenge.

The choices for some of these challenges vary as I realise that some of us have different ingredients available (or want to use up previous special purchases) or may be concerned about exposing ourselves or others to particular temptations. Nonetheless, I hope that it is stretching some of us to experiment with unfamiliar techniques or to tweak our familiar routines or recipes.

There is no challenge set for the first Sunday of May.

My optimism about picnics in April was spectacularly misplaced. The long-range weather forecast for the UK indicates that we may have a snowy Bank Holiday.

13 May As the weather forecasts don’t mention a heatwave I hope that having an oven on to bake bread will not be oppressive, so it’s a bread week again. The two-day loaf pp 41-2 has a long slow rise in the fridge. The sponge and lengthy fermentation delivers a flavourful loaf, as does the blend of flours. If you haven’t baked this loaf previously it’s good to do it now before Summer so that it’s easier to observe how much the dough rises and estimate whether the sponge yeast needs to be reduced for the warmer months.

Although it’s based on Doris Grant’s famous no-knead wholemeal loaf, the Sprouted grain seed bread pp 38-9 may need to be planned 4-5 days ahead of time if you prefer to sprout your own grains rather than purchase them. Dan gives some guidelines for sprouting grains and advises the baker to “leave [the loaf] a day before slicing”. Misky of Misk Cooks has some notes on her sprouting experiences (the speed of sprouting is affected by the ambient temperature and light). Sprout People have some good photographs to illustrate various sprouted grains and seeds as well as a video of sprouting instructions. It seems rather blithe to say that this is an easy loaf to bake once you have the sprouted grains but it’s straightforward and is good with the spreads and chutneys linked in the Weetabix muffins section.

If you didn’t bake the Wholemeal loaf for the last challenge, then please read the notes and guidance pp 30-1. The Wholemeal loaf pg 31 is a good, basic recipe. We tend to sieve out the bran from the wholemeal flour for the initial standing period and add the bran back during the micro-knead. Take a look at the posts linked from the wholemeal loaf compilation because there are lots of helpful tips and you’ll learn about Gamle Ole - a cheese that is so strong Misky says “it squeaks and waddles across the worktop when you turn your back on it”.

The Spelt and ale loaf pg 32 is a variant of the wholemeal loaf. Dan highlights that the malt in the ale can “[make] the dough work very quickly so bake it as soon as it’s increased in size by 50 per cent, as the spelt dough will collapse if left too long”. Another useful note from Dan is that heating the ale drives off some of the alcohol which might otherwise slow down or even stop the yeast action. This is a good loaf for a ploughman’s lunch.

20 May I propose we bake muffins which double up either as a decent breakfast or tea item as well as being portable enough for picnic items. Read the tips and notes on pp 180-2.

The Weetabix muffins pg 189 match well with fruit or a nut butter for breakfast: eg the spiced apple butter (you might need to modify the spicing of the muffin to suit this), banana curd or banoffee curd. Without the cinnamon, the muffins are a good savoury option: eg cheese spread; a fairly thick peanut chutney or is a tasty complement alongside a little cheese or meat/substitute (the muffin similar options team well with banana chutney). This recipe yields approximately 10g of raisins, 16g of added sugars (11g of sugar and 5.5g syrup) per muffin.

Banana bran muffins pg 185: Dan highlights that this recipe makes a large batch of muffins or a cake tray bake. Each muffin (assuming a batch of 20) contains approx. 15g of added sugars and 15g each of banana and raisins.

The Dark blueberry bran muffins pg 188 can be dairy-free but also bake well with dairy milk or hemp milk. If blueberries are expensive or not in good condition then it might be useful to substitute an eating apple or dried apricots chopped into appropriately small chunks. (I sometimes find bran a little bitter so adding some ground cardamom can be useful to mask this if you’re baking for someone with a similar level of bitterness detection.) Each muffin has around 15g of added sugars and 20g fresh/dried fruit.

The Clementine and oat muffins pg 186 work well with other citrus fruits (it’s quite straightforward to substitute as Dan gives useful quantities). These muffins are large: each contains approx. 20g of added sugars without the icing (an additional 16g if glazed); and 10ml of fruit juice and bits.

The Double-corn bacon muffins pg 533 should suit people who prefer a savoury to sweet bake. It’s good for breakfast, a snack or picnic. The muffins are large and bake well as a batch of 16 rather than the suggested 12 with a suitable reduction in baking time.

27 May I havered about the order of the last two bakes. However, for this week it may be a good time to experiment with pizza if you don’t usually make your own dough. I worked in a pizzeria when I was at school and we only baked ‘thin and crispy’ pizza as thick crusts were anathema to the owners. Dan offers a basic pizza dough recipe on pg 529 with a suggested variation for a longer fermentation dough or a sourdough pizza on pg 530. Read the notes for the shape and bake pg 529 and the personalised pizza pg 530 because there are good ideas there for modifying the dough to enhance the bake and the flavour (eg, including whey from mozzarella). In the pizzeria we used a very wet dough with minimal bakers yeast, some old dough and a long, slow fermentation.

My favourite topping is still black olive and anchovy over crushed tomato and oregano. It will be interesting to learn about other bakers’ preferences. I can only echo Dan’s advice to be sparing with the sauce and topping and to heat the oven as high as is bearable. (You may have a better idea of what works for your oven after baking the first one or two pizza of the batch. NB, the doughs keep well in the fridge if you don’t want to bake the whole batch in one night.)

3 June My optimism about the need for picnic foods continues as we head towards June and the deferred Bank Holiday for the Diamond Jubilee. Hot water crust pastry for raised pies pg 513 looks as if it involves extraordinary effort but is a straightforward bake. The pastry can be converted to vegetarian if vegetarian white cooking fat is used rather than lard.

Dan’s recipes for the fillings are mostly based on pork. Gammon and pork pie pp 514-6 describes how to shape the raised pie and is the method for the other recipes. This is a classic pork pie with a well-flavoured jellied stock.

The Ruddy pork pie filling pg 517 takes its colour from a reduction of red wine that is pureed with bacon and used as a marinade for the pork pie filling. The stock from boiling bacon ribs can make a particularly good jelly for this pie.

Pigeon, pork and herb pie filling pg 517 uses less pork than the other recipes and Dan suggests that the pigeon breast might be substituted with dark turkey leg meat. Note the use of lardons to supply some of the fat that is otherwise missing from the reduced amount of pork and the use of pigeon or turkey.

Dan comments that this pie is not readily adaptable for vegetarians: “As I can’t think of a vegetarian filling that would suit the long cooking time, this one is strictly for the meat-eaters” (pg 513). However, for anyone who would like to try a vegetarian version, I’ve had something that resembles this Deep Mushroom Family Pie with chestnuts poached in red wine which was very savoury. I can also recommend the original Gayler recipe on which this Mosaic carrot and green bean pie is based so this might be a good picnic pie.

I look forward to seeing people’s contribution to the May challenges.

Short and Tweet Challenge 25: Cookies, Oatcakes, Sweet or Savoury Biscuits

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:13:00 -0400

This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was for Sesame, date and ginger biscuits pg 255; Peanut butter cookies pg 240; Walnut chocolate cookies pg 238; the savoury biscuit options were the Buttermilk oatcakes pg 259 (a previous challenge) or the Blue cheese and oatmeal biscuits pg 256. [The opening photograph is from Jo of Zeb Bakes’ peanut butter cookies.]

This selection of biscuits and cookies put me in mind of picnics and indulgences. They’re the sort of food that I associate with the desire to share them with others or enjoyable solitude.

zeb_bakes of Zeb Bakes made a social event of this challenge: Peanut Butter Cookies from Short & Sweet. Jo’s chum, E, visited and was a “good sport, not only did she do the washing up, but she made these fantastic peanut butter cookies !” Go along and admire the photographs and specialist baking mat; note the technique for flattening the cookies part-way through the bake. The final verdict: “Even Brian, who hates peanut butter with a vengeance, ate two of them and said they were good”. Jo tweeted that she’s not normally a fan of such cookies but these are so good she will bake them again.

@north_19 of North 19 blog was so smitten by Jo’s photographs of the cookies that she gracefully acceded to a friend’s request that she should make these and produced some very sociable-looking tins of them.

@BakerHay had guests who prefer milk-free items, so she prepared the walnut chocolate cookies and was delighted with them (we’ve storifyed her account: @BakerHay’s walnut chocolate cookies from Short & Sweet). Heather’s guests had run the marathon so were suitably revived by the cookies that they declared, “deliciously dangerous”.

@lapindor of Lapin d’Or and More fair hummed with delight about her choice: My favourite things, in a cookie. I’m rather envious of the china set in the photograph. In summary, the verdict was: “lovely light and delicate texture but pack a punch of flavour. I had one with an espresso style coffee as recommended and the two go really well together. I have yet to try the after dinner option with a shot of grappa but it sounds good to me.”

@underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree has been cooking up a storm with all of the various cooking challenges in which she’s participating at present and I’m intrigued to follow her diversity of cooking and baking exploits. Claire decided to eschew the sweet bakes and try out the savoury options for this week:Short and Tweet: Buttermilk oatcakes and Blue Cheese & Oatmeal Biscuits. Echoing reports from the previous challenge with the Buttermilk oatcakes, Claire found these a tad sweet but overall, “they have the potential to be the perfect cheese board accompaniment”.

Claire’s experience with the Blue cheese and oatmeal biscuits was mixed. It looks like there were problems slicing the mix thinly and the colour was grey rather than toasty golden. Claire used Blue Tower cheese (an unknown variety to me). Blue Tower seems to be a soft, creamy blue: when I’ve made these previously I’ve used a relatively harder blue cheese, such as a Stilton or a Dorset Blue Vinney and this may well have made for a stiffer mix that made slicing more straightforward after sufficient chilling. Despite their appearance, and in common with other bakers, Claire finds these “addictive”: ” Taste wise, however, they were fantastic. Having shunned blue cheese for a long time, I am slowly coming round to its pungent charms and these biscuits were perfect – quite mellow with just the right hint of cheesy ripeness”.

Like Claire and other bakers, the savoury biscuits and crackers in Short & Sweet have been particularly popular in our household. From the first time we made the rye crackers and buttermilk oatcakes, we haven’t bought commercial versions since. The other option we bake is the salted oat cracker that Dan Lepard terms the “matinee idols of the cracker world – suave, sophisticated and scrumptious”. (The above photograph shows oatcakes after they’ve been through the burger press.)

My Best Beloved baked buttermilk oatcakes, the peanut butter cookies and the sesame, date & ginger biscuits. We tend to flatten the peanut butter cookie batter after three minutes in the oven: we do this because it means we can control the size and crispness of them more easily (we use the bowl from an individual tea-strainer - as pictured above - alongside the baked cookies). We used the burger press again for the sesame, date and ginger biscuits (pictured below).

I’m increasingly concerned that the Baker’s Self-Criticism Bug might be crowding out some of my Best Beloved’s enjoyment of baking. ‘Eating to critique’ isn’t in line with my sunshine thoughts of picnics, visitors and special treats. The following passage makes me think of this because it blends childhood, food (both as nourishment and a social event that is intended to bond families) and provenance.

Rose Edelman is a empath who can taste the emotions of a cook in the food they produce. Her first experience of this is when sampling her mother’s test-run for the cake for her 9th birthday. “My birthday cake was…built from scratch—the flour, the baking soda, lemon-flavored because at eight that had been my request; I had developed a strong love for sour. We’d looked through several cookbooks together to find just the right one, and the smell in the kitchen was overpoweringly pleasant. To be clear: the bite I ate was delicious. Warm citrus-baked batter lightness enfolded by cool deep dark swirled sugar. But …as I finished that first bite, as that first impression faded, I felt a subtle shift inside, an unexpected reaction. As if a sensor, so far buried deep inside me, raised its scope to scan around, alerting my mouth to something new. Because the goodness of the ingredients—the fine chocolate, the freshest lemons—seemed like a cover over something larger and darker, and the taste of what was underneath was beginning to push up from the bite. I could absolutely taste the chocolate, but in drifts and traces, in an unfurling, or an opening, it seemed that my mouth was also filling with the taste of smallness, the sensation of shrinking, of upset, tasting a distance I somehow knew was connected to my mother, tasting a crowded sense of her thinking, a spiral…None of it was a bad taste, so much, but there was a kind of lack of wholeness to the flavors that made it taste hollow, like the lemon and chocolate were just surrounding a hollowness. My mother’s able hands had made the cake, and her mind had known how to balance the ingredients, but she was not there, in it…I was hoping I’d imagined it—maybe it was a bad lemon? or old sugar?—although I knew, even as I thought it, that what I’d tasted had nothing to do with ingredients…with each bite, I thought—mmm, so good, the best ever, yum—but in each bite: absence, hunger, spiraling, hollows. [Aimee Bender: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake]

Next week’s challenge is shamelessly luxurious to make up for my disappointment that months with five Sundays don’t have a special name. Classic cheesecake on pg 458 is regularly declared to be the best that people have ever eaten. It is pretty much “cream cheese and little else”. The East End cheesecake pg 460 has a pastry base and different texture for those whose preference is for that: Dan has additional suggestions for people who prefer grainier, coarser-textured cheesecakes. Option 3 is a Cherry crumble cheesecake, pg 462. This cheesecake has a sponge base that absorbs fruit juices, and a crumble topping to the cheesecake. Dan helpfully points out that if you have the sort of family that carps about cracked cheesecake, a crumble topping conceals this rather well. You might wish to adopt this suggestion for other cheesecakes. For people who can not bear cheesecake (an ugly rumour, I know, but I’ve heard this), then the Apricot meringue tart on pg 451 offers a more abstemious bake.

If you blog about your experience with one of the above recipes, please post links in the comments or tweet pictures or links to @foodcraftspace or @evidencematters using the hashtag #shortandtweet - Thank you. It’s the same procedure if you don’t blog but just post a photograph of your work. Please send the links by 8pm 30 April or as soon thereafter as practical (it’s slightly delayed because I shall be on holiday).

Schedule for the #shortandtweet April 2012 challenge. The schedule for May is being drafted but I’d be grateful for suggestions in the comments.

Thank you for sharing your biscuits, cookies and sweet bites. I look forward to learning about your preferences for cheesecakes or other options.

Short and Tweet Challenge 24: Soda Bread

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 16:19:09 -0400

This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was for the slab form of Oatmeal soda bread, or its seaweed variation on pg 51; the Breakfast soda bread on pg 52; or the North-South cornbread on pg 53. [The opening photograph and one below are from @BakerHay who baked a delightful spelt version of the soda bread.]

Soda bread is inextricably linked with the taste of terror for me. Years ago, on a family holiday near Dublin, soda bread teas were ubiquitous. We ate more than our fair share of soda bread from bakeries and tea-rooms. Despite this, when somebody told my mother that we couldn’t leave without tasting the soda bread from a certain tea-room, she decided we should go. Her plans included a cliff top walk that was vertigo-inducing at the best of times but perilous after two days of heavy rain of the sort we’d just had.

Despite the mud and the absence of a guard rail between the walker and a sheer drop of what felt like 300 feet to the Atlantic beating the bottom of the cliffs, my mother insisted that we walk in search of this special soda bread. At various points, the path was less than six inches wide, and our walking crocodile of one adult and five children had to turn our backs towards the gorse, and shuffle sidewards along the crumbling path that occasionally gave way beneath our feet, sending a clod of mud and grass on a long drop. My younger sisters were openly weeping but as they were at the back of the line it was too difficult to abort the trip and negotiate the unseen curves to return. So, we pressed on to further horrors and dangers.

When we reached the end of the walk, our faces were numb with fear and the outlines of our arms, legs and neck were softened by the hairs that had been standing on end for far too long. Inevitably, the tea-room with the special soda bread was closed. We walked stiff-legged into the nearest teashop we could find and even my young sisters drank tea as they needed to wrap their hands around something warm. The damp texture of the soda bread seemed distressingly like the clods that had given way beneath our shuffling feet. The taste was metallic and almost made us retch. But, the taste was probably the after-effects of the adrenaline, rather than bad judgment by the baker.

We returned by a different route. As we passed the start of the cliff walk, we saw that it had been roped off, with a sign warning of ‘Extreme Danger’. Since that day, I’ve rarely eaten soda bread and remain absurdly sensitive to the metallic taste of bicarbonate of soda.

So, when @lapindor of Lapin d ‘Or and More opted for the oatmeal soda bread it brought back memories: So So Soda Bread. “We ate the bread fresh from the oven with a ploughman’s type lunch. I liked the chewy crust but found the crumb a little too damp for my taste.” She’s resolved to experiment with Dan’s other soda bread but do go across and admire her Thelma & Louise (aka “useless and the layer”) sub-par baking recycling system.

I’m often intrigued by the substitutions that bakers in other countries have to make and I’ve learned interesting bits and pieces from @underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree over the past challenges, from the need for different ingredients to the adaptations for altitude. This week’s challenge has a lovely, Mma Ramotswe, feel to it, as Claire substituted sorghum for oatmeal: Short and Tweet: Seaweed, Onion and Toasted Oatmeal Soda Bread: “I couldn’t find oatmeal of any variety in the shops. Plenty of oats, yes, but oatmeal, no…I spotted a large sack of coarse sorghum meal languishing at the bottom of the supermarket shelves. The only thing I know about sorghum is that, like oatmeal, you can make porridge from it.”

Claire then had some different problems with the Breakfast soda bread which she resolved after consultations with both Misky and Dan Lepard. It’s a valuable reminder, yet again, of the importance of different baking parchments, and understanding the impact of fans in convection ovens (head over there for the details).

My Best Beloved had many plans to make these soda breads but they didn’t materialise. It may be some time before the memory of the cliff walk subsides enough to allow me to bake and taste soda bread (much as I think it’s a useful item in any baker’s repertoire).

This week’s challenge is for sweet or savoury biscuits. The unbaked mixture for Sesame, date and ginger biscuits pg 255 stores well in the fridge, ready for a quick bake. Dan suggests options to replace the fruit, the seeds and the spice flavour so it’s well worth a consideration. Peanut butter cookies pg 240 are a good, oaty chew by themselves but add a lot to an impromptu sundae, served as Dan suggests, with ice-cream and a drizzle of sauce. We bake a batch of peanut cookies every 10-14 days which may indicate something about how much we like this recipe.

Walnut chocolate cookies pg 238 are a useful standby for gluten intolerant guests or family members: the recipes uses cornflour which is interesting to bake.

If bakers are more interested in a savoury biscuit option, then I’d suggest the Buttermilk oatcakes pg 259 from a previous challenge (the compilation has some useful tips) or the Blue cheese and oatmeal biscuits on pg 256. I found shaping the oatcakes to be finnicky so the following photographs show my current method which uses a burger press (we bake the oatcakes every fortnight). (Sprinkle finely ground oats onto the bottom sheet of waxed paper, put a spoonful of mix on top, then place the top circle of waxed paper on top, and compress in the burger press.You can smooth out the grid pattern on top before baking or after a couple of minutes in the oven.)

Schedule for the #shortandtweet April 2012 challenge.

Thank you for sharing your soda breads. I look forward to learning about your preferences for biscuits, cookies and sweet bites.

Short and Tweet Challenge 22: Various Flavourful & Colourful Breads

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:24:00 -0400

This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was for Spelt and ale loaf, pg 32; Simple walnut loaf (pleasingly purple), pg 35; Soya and linseed loaf, pg 36 (works well with hemp milk as a substitute for soy milk); Multigrain and honey loaf, pg 39; and the well-named Black bread, pg 43. The April Challenge Schedule has some suggested spreads and fillings for these breads. [The opening photograph is @underthebluegum.]

It was store cupboard clear out week for @underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree: Short and Tweet: ‘Soya and Linseed Loaf’ and ‘Black Bread’. The Soya and linseed loaf (above) was probably a little under-proved but despite this the flavour combination was well received and, “[the loaf] got the thumbs-up from the OH who said it made “good butties” the next day (that translates as “sandwiches” for us southern softies)”.

I admit that I laughed when Claire reported her apprehensions about the “ominous sounding black bread”. It’s time for a small confession. One of my very glamorous aunts used to smoke Sobranie occasionally: both the Black Russians and the Cocktails. She had socials where she served a selection of small chequerboard black and white bread with vibrant toppings. Many of the toppings were revolting (I have a, fortunately, hazy memory of toppings that involved pink cocktail sauce with tinned mandarin orange segments and another of chicken breast slices atop rough chopped green grapes and olives) and it was probably a very dark pumpernickel bread rather than this sort but I’ve had a soft spot for black bread ever since.

Claire has some baking notes (eg, dust the bread with flour, not sesame seeds) and an overall summary of the black bread: “I reckon this is one of those breads that will divide opinion. All those random ingredients come together to create a loaf with a deep, complex flavour that is very far removed from your everyday sandwich loaf. Me and the OH both enjoyed it and it was also still good and moist the next day”.

@BakeCakeCrumbs of Cake, Crumbs and Cooking has a well-illustrated account of various stages of the recipe: Black Bread - Short and Tweet. I commend these photographs to you because at various points during this rather unusual bake, you might otherwise question whether or not you’re doing the right thing, and these process shots might reassure you. There’s no getting away from it, the ingredients are odd and the technique unfamiliar. The bread crumb looks good and I feel that my aunt would have approved of its dramatic appearance. @BakeCakeCrumbs’ feedback on the black bread: “[It’s] a stunning loaf - visually, texturally and flavourwise, but use seeds that you know you like the flavour of”.

Fans of Little E should brace themselves for an indirect rather than verbatim critique from her this week. @jerronimissus of Jerronimissus under-baked her loaf and was disappointed with the outcome but should nonetheless be proud that she has such an astute daughter, as amply demonstrated in the course of Multigrain honey loaf. When offered a piece of a handsome-looking loaf, Little E refused to be taken in by appearances. “Sensibly she turned my offer down. I guess Mummy shouting “oh no my bread’s completely ruined!” made it seem less appetising.”

@lapindor of Lapin d ‘Or and More has more than a touch of tristesse in her account of the multigrain and honey loaf: One step forward, one back. Embracing the joie de vivre of my picnic vision, we learn that, “the weather has stayed pretty light and sunny but my loaves are rather leaden”. Now, it seems the loaf tasted good enough after the first attempt to justify a second try to improve the texture. However, the second attempt resulted in a different texture problem (photograph above).

My Best Beloved baked the Multigrain and honey loaf (above) and we were both delighted with it. We both have a sweet taste for some savoury items so the level of honey in this was fine for us. The crumb was light and it sliced well. The sponge was left to stand overnight. I’d mention that our oats and seeds didn’t disintegrate into a porridge but looked like soaked grains (we used Flahavan’s Jumbo Oats which are quite sturdy) which may have given us a more robust dough. And, it’s a quirk rather than an evidence-based practice, but we tend to sieve the bran out of wholegrain flours and then add it back in at the end of the second micro-knead. (It seems a little pointless for this loaf as the flax and sunflower seeds would be sharp enough to cut the gluten without the bran.)

With a tin loaf, we usually take it out of the tin at 15-20mins (when it holds its shape). We then lie it on each side & the bottom for the remaining bake time because otherwise the sides of a tin loaf can be uninteresting and this way improves the all-round crust.

My Best Beloved’s Black bread was on course for an interesting bake until a fumble with it during proving broke the nicely taut shape (which sounds rather like a cautionary tale that Edward Gorey might have illustrated in a baking focused version of The Gashlycrumb Tinies). Thereafter, the dough spread into a dark ooze of the sort that a sci-fi film afficionado watches nervously in case it flies through the air and wraps round the face of the unwary. The dough was irregular and quite shallow which made it difficult to bake but we persevered. It was so wide that we had to over-bake it a little to ensure that the middle cooked (at its widest point it exceeded 12ins/30cm). That aside, we were pleasantly surprised by the taste of the loaf albeit we’d further reduce amount of seeds when we next bake it (1tsp of cumin and fennel the blend is a good accompaniment to caramelised carrot soup and also peanut chutney). In memory of my aunt, the bread is smeared with almondaise and some semi-dried plum tomatoes.

8 April is Easter Sunday. Dan Lepard has some interesting twists on traditional bakes for this time of year. The Banana maple pecan buns, pg 83, are a fine option to replace hot cross buns: they are moist and full of flavour, rather than the disappointingly dry doughs with overpowering spices that are too commonly available and that have so disappointed me that it’s been many years since I’ve agreed to sample one. For anybody who does want a well-spiced dough with plenty of fruit, the Spiced stout buns pg 84 are good (if your spices are very fresh, you might want to reduce the suggested quantity). For both of these recipes, there is a useful tip for piping the crosses on pg 85. Bakers whose families are jaded with exposure to too many hot cross style buns might be able to tempt their kith and kin with Sticky toffee apple buns, pg 85. The rum syrup can be replaced by an orange or lemon syrup (dilute some blitzed marmalade or concentrate some squash) if you prefer.

Schedule for the #shortandtweet April 2012 challenge.

Thank you for sharing your flavourful and colourful breads. I look forward to learning about your preferences for buns.

Short and Tweet Challenge: April 2012 Schedule

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:40:00 -0400

April 2012 schedule for the #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet. (Read about #shortandtweet challenge and its conditions.)

1 April It was rather tempting to go for a special edition April Fool’s Day bake of a croquembouche, very tricky brioche, or a super-crusty baguette. However, as it’s warm weather in the UK, I’ve been looking at added flavour loaves that make it easy to gather together spontaneous picnic foods but are not so summery that no one particularly fancies them if April Showers start with a vengeance. Whether you have cheese, hummus, marmalade, taramasalata, or fruit in mind as a filling, a good flavoured bread makes an extra special sandwich for a simple picnic.

I propose that we bake the Spelt and ale loaf, pg 32; Simple walnut loaf, pg 35, which is pleasingly purple and might intrigue children who’ve ended up with an indoors picnic because the weather changed; Soya and linseed loaf, pg 36 (I loathe soya milk but have made this with hemp milk and it was very good); Multigrain and honey loaf, pg 39; and finally, a bread that looks spectacular with a red, white, pink or vivid green filling, the well-named Black bread, pg 43 which owes its colour not only to the treacle but the small amounts of cocoa and coffee that add a rich, savoury note to the dough.

The Black bread and the Soya and linseed loaf match particularly well with almond mayonnaise instead of butter or similar spreads: a fairly thick peanut chutney is a tasty complement to the black bread, spelt and ale loaf or the multigrain and honey loaf. Both the walnut loaf and the multigrain and honey loaf are good with apple butter or a pleasantly bitter marmalade. A final suggestion for a filling or spread is potted cheese which will be good with most of these unless it’s a very special collection of odds and ends of cheese-the sort of cheese that was meant by Jerome K Jerome’s description from Three Men in a Boat.

Bakers whose families are jaded with exposure to too many hot cross style buns might be able to tempt their kith and kin with Sticky toffee apple buns, pg 85. The rum syrup can be replaced by an orange or lemon syrup (dilute some blitzed marmalade) if you prefer.

15 April This is a quick bread selection. My first suggestion is the slab form of Oatmeal soda bread, or its seaweed variation on pg 51. The oatmeal is steelcut rather than rolled and it’s important to this recipe to use the correct one. If you can’t obtain the recommended oatmeal, then the Breakfast soda bread on pg 52 might suit your pantry stores better. If soda bread doesn’t suit the family then I will again recommend the North-South cornbread on pg 53 for anyone who didn’t make it during the previous challenge.

22 April My optimism about the need for spontaneous picnic foods continues. The unbaked mixture for Sesame, date and ginger biscuits pg 255 stores well in the fridge, ready for a quick bake. Dan suggests options to replace the fruit, the seeds and the spice flavour so it’s well worth a consideration. Peanut butter cookies pg 240 are a good, oaty chew by themselves but add a lot to an impromptu sundae, served as Dan suggests, with ice-cream and a drizzle of sauce.

Walnut chocolate cookies pg 238 are a useful standby for gluten intolerant guests or family members: the recipes uses cornflour which is interesting to bake.

29 April I was hoping to discover that a month with five Sundays has a special name but it seems that it doesn’t. Nonetheless, to make up for the disappointment that it doesn’t, I’m going to go ahead with my original thought of cheesecake. Please look at the notes for low temperature baking on pg 369 and how to make a gluten-free cheesecake on pg 460.

Everybody who’s eaten the Classic cheesecake on pg 458 has declared it to be the best that they’ve ever eaten. It is pretty much “cream cheese and little else”. The East End cheesecake pg 460 has a pastry base and different texture for those whose preference is for that: Dan has additional suggestions for people who prefer grainier, coarser-textured cheesecakes.

Option 3 is a Cherry crumble cheesecake, pg 462. This cheesecake has a sponge base that absorbs fruit juices, and a crumble topping to the cheesecake. Dan helpfully points out that if you have the sort of family that carps about cracked cheesecake, a crumble topping conceals this rather well. You might wish to adopt this suggestion for other cheesecakes.

For people who can not bear cheesecake (an ugly rumour, I know, but I’ve heard this), then the Apricot meringue tart on pg 451 offers a more abstemious bake. The apricot conserves can be swapped for a different fruit and the meringue topping is a good contrast of textures.

I look forward to seeing people’s contribution to the April challenges.

Short and Tweet Challenge 21: Light Spelt Rough Puff Pastry in Various Presentations

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:30:00 -0400

This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was for Light spelt rough puff pastry, pg 497. Dan Lepard suggests using it as pie top, tart bottom, wrap-around, or nibble. A flexible item, suited to sweet or savoury, and very accommodating. Yet, it’s hard to escape the feeling of conflict, great effort and strategic manoeuvering that accompanies pastry-making in essential baking techniques: “We shall meet at Philippi, Jeeves”. (PG Wodeshouse: Thank You, Jeeves). [The opening photograph is @joellybaby’s Red Onion Upside Down Tart.]

@joellybaby of Joelle McNichol tweeted the rather wistful comment: “my first puff pastry didn’t break my record of not being much cop at pastry. Shame, I had high hopes for that nice dough”. I’ve storifyed her tweets, so if anyone can troubleshoot what might have gone awry, please speak up. Although the tart tasted fine, it would be good to have the crisp flakiness of the pastry to offset the soft sweetness of those unctuous red onions. I’d not have thought of pairing red onions and fresh figs but the colours complement each other well on the plate and now that I’ve mulled it over, I’d think that the marzipan sweetness of the fig would not only be a pleasant combination with the onions but might entice otherwise reluctant fruit and vegetable eaters to try both.

@Zeb_Bakes of Zeb Bakes sent along her baking notes for these attractive tarts. “I made this one with a light wholemeal flour called Swiss Dark as I didn’t have any spelt and I forgot to egg glaze the pastry. The toppings were mozarella cheese, roast peppers skinned and butternut squash, some griddled asparagus found in the fridge and fresh tarragon and pepper. Dan’s instruction to bake your squash whole and then peel is is not easy, unlike slipping the skin off a roast red pepper which is definitely easier! Perhaps most of us would find it easier and more fuel efficient to cut the squash into chunks and roast it.” The overall verdict, mentioned in brief in The Russians Are Coming: “they were scoffed down in seconds”.

It’s fair to say that @underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree approached this week’s challenge with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. However, being as curious and up for experimentation as ever, Claire participated and used the challenge to re-evaluate her current favourite rough puff pastry method and recipe: Short and Tweet: Light Spelt Rough Puff Pastry. “I must admit my heart didn’t leap when I saw this listed on the S&T schedule… My previous go-to rough puff recipe was Yotam Ottolenghi’s…but this requires the rather tedious task of grating copious amounts of frozen butter. In contrast, Dan advocates just mixing fridge cold cubes of butter into the flour which was a darn sight easier.”

Claire has included a good photograph of her folded pastry and her usual helpful observations on cooking at altitude and notes that the recommended oven temperature is too high for her. I’m intrigued by this as the typical advice is that oven temperatures need to be increased slightly at altitude for various reasons relating to decreased air pressure, the more rapid evaporation of water vapour, the more intense action of leavening agents etc. The family’s reactions to the savoury fillings were that they ranged from OK to tasty. Overall, however: “the pastry was very, very good. It was airy, crispy and the addition of the spelt flour definitely added flavour…Would I rush to make Dan’s rough puff again? By ‘eck I would and I have definitely found my new puff pastry recipe of choice. Sorry, Yotam. You have been usurped.”

Welcome back to @jerronimissus of Jerronimissus with Piff Paff Puff. I’ve missed the comments from Little E so was pleased to read that she’s still in fine form. “[The apple turnover] layers all puffed up beautifully. I will definitely use this recipe again… and again… Little E left the [pasty which used the same pastry] at dinner without even trying it (“pastry is yucky”) but gobbled up the turnover quite happily. I think that we can conclude from this that pastry is, in fact, not yucky and she’s just being contrary.”

Welcome back also to Louise McLaren of Please Do Not Feed the Animals! who baked the chorizo tarts for an al fresco dinner: Spelt Rough Puff Pastry. In a recurrent pattern that will be recognised by reluctant pastry-makers everywhere, although not expecting to find the recipe straightforward, @LouMcL had a pleasant surprise. “How lovely to have a bit of extra flavour and goodness from the spelt flour. I really wasn’t expecting to be able to make a successful puff pastry so easily. There is a bit of rolling and folding but I just let the pastry rest in the fridge each time and got on with whatever else I was doing…it really felt I had done virtually nothing. The pastry puffed up brilliantly. Just as good as the ready-made stuff. The taste, however, was far better”.

@BakerHay offers yet another elegant presentation: Light Spelt Rough Puff Pastry with Tapenade and Roasted Peppers (storifyed). @Zeb_Bakes and Heather have a silky sheen to their peppers that adds a lot to the visual contrast and appeal of their dishes. As noted in the Storify of this, I often enjoy the process photographs because it helps to show other (nervous) bakers that there’s usually a time when rough puff pastry is full of generous smears of butter that sometimes stick to the rolling pin but it still comes good, after chilling and good handling. Occasionally, I fantasise about organising myself enough to achieve @BakerHay’s stylish presentation of food: some day.

Heady with successful bread-making (Short & Sweet 2 day loaf), and drawing a discreet veil over the Sophia Loren-related upset, my Best Beloved set about the light spelt rough puff pastry with a will. We started the pastry in a cool kitchen but several interruptions meant that by the time the second roll out was done for the second set of roll and folds, the kitchen had warmed up so much that the butter smears were sticking to the rolling pin, and the pastry was beginning to drag, rather than roll. Now, our fridge maintains 2C for most of its zones but as luck would have it, we only had room in the 5C zone when we were making this pastry (that’s not intentional zoning, I keep several thermometers in the fridge as well as its own digital readout so I track the temperatures that way). The pastry just didn’t seem to chill down sufficiently to allow it to roll out properly.

We decided to leave the pastry until it had chilled properly and felt cold all the way through. This took several hours. However, you can see how much the pastry has relaxed and it was much easier to roll out after its long rest.

We were very pleased with the taste of these pastry bakes: both the tapenade and pepper and the apple puffs. The fillings were good and the outsides of the puffed pastry left nothing to be desired. However, honesty compels me to admit that all of the pastries were damp at their centres and under-cooked. I havered about mentioning this but it wouldn’t be right to leave anyone thinking that they’re the only ones who’ve had difficulties with this. Julia Dunway mentions, in passing: “One secret I learned is that puff pastry cooks fast on the outside but the inside is often undercooked (convection oven) If I put the pastries in the still oven at a lower heat for 15-20 minutes and covered them with foil then the insides were fine”.

Next time, we might add in a 4th roll and fold set but make the final roll thinner as we tend to prefer quite small amounts of pastry to filling. We can’t turn off the fan in our oven but next time we might start them lower to try and ensure that the pastry cooks through properly. (I suspect an over-hot oven at the start which led to a reduction in baking time overall may have contributed to our pastries’ outcome.) For a lifetime first in making this pastry, however, my Best Beloved is very pleased in parts with this curate’s egg but disappointed in others: we’ve had to have the “Baker’s bug” discussion about getting too caught up in “getting things right”. We met at Philippi, and have retired from the field with an creditable performance but no outright victory here.

It’s tricky to think of something seasonal for an April Fool’s Day bake other than stating, “It’s a croquembouche - no options”. However, as it’s warm weather, I’ve been looking at added flavour loaves that make it easy to gather together spontaneous picnic foods but are not so summery that no one particularly fancies them if April Showers start with a vengeance. Whether you have cheese, hummus, jam, taramasalata, or meat in mind as a filling, a good flavoured bread makes an extra special sandwich. I propose that we bake the Spelt and ale loaf, pg 32; Simple walnut loaf, pg 35, which is pleasingly purple and might intrigue children who’ve ended up with an indoors picnic because the weather changed; Soya and linseed loaf, pg 36 (I loathe soya milk but have made this with hemp milk and it was very good); Multigrain and honey loaf, pg 39; and finally, a bread that looks spectacular with a red, white, pink or vivid green filling, the well-named Black bread, pg 43 which owes its colour not only to the treacle but the small amounts of cocoa and coffee that add a rich, savoury note to the dough. The April Challenge Schedule has some suggested spreads and fillings for these breads.

Schedule for the #shortandtweet April 2012 challenge (partially complete: to be updated as I’m checking some items).

Thank you for sharing your pastry bakes. I look forward to learning about people’s preferences for picnic breads.

Short and Tweet Challenge 20: Sophia Loren Cassata Cake, Saffron Peach Cake & Butterscotch Banana Cake

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 01:53:00 -0400

This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was for Saffron peach cake pg 137 (an earlier challenge resulted in some useful tweaks); what Dan styles the “‘Sophia Loren’ of cake: four layers of orange sponge cake filled with a simplified Sicilian cassata mixture and drizzled with a light orange syrup”, pp 132-3; option three was a deep-flavoured Butterscotch banana cake, pp 126-7. It’s been an interesting selection of bakes that has generated questions about cakes with dome tops, what variety of cinnamon is commonly available in South Africa, and why a period of fast and abstinence has a cake associated with it. [The opening photograph is @joellybaby’s banana cake.]

This week’s cakes have felt uncannily family and nostalgia related. Because of the saffron, the Saffron peach cake nods toward traditional associations with Mothering Sunday and, for me, the Butterscotch banana is reminiscent of childhood toffee smells. Looking at #shortandtweet-ers’ Orange cassata cake, there’s a sense that if we did not quite reach the acme of Sophia Loren, we brought to mind a glamorous aunt who somehow manages to wear a frilly-tiered outfit with panache. Monday 19 March was St Joseph’s Day (celebrated as Father’s Day in some countries) and in Italy, this is celebrated with regional food (this is Italy, what isn’t?). When I was at school, I had a weekend job in a pizzeria that was owned by Sicilians: so, from my n=1 experience, Sicilians (and others) celebrate by making and eating Sfinci di San Guiseppe (also pasta topped with breadcrumbs to recall the carpenter’s sawdust). Anyone who had been following #shortandtweet would have been able to do this because it involves frying choux puffs and filling them with a custard or creamy filling that is very similar to ‘Sophia’s Cassata’ filling. I was charmed to learn that @tomasi_carla made these traditional pastries and we’ve storifyed her account: @tomasi_carla’s Sfinci di San Giuseppe.

@underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree baked two cakes: Short and Tweet: ‘Butterscotch Banana’ and ‘Orange Cassata’ Cakes. There were some hiccups with both: “I can say straight up that neither would win “Prettiest Cake in Show” but taste-wise, there were varying degrees of success”. In an entertaining mix of personal preferences and interesting adjustments to allow for the impact of baking a sponge at altitude, @underthebluegum has a number of grumbles and misgivings about the Orange cassata cake. “Given my cake’s stunted stature, cutting it into three gave me a queasy moment but it was just about manageable. However, even after padding it out with the ricotta filling and giving it a drizzle of orange icing it looked a bit squat and lopsided..In the recipe intro, Dan refers to this dish as the ‘Sophia Loren’ of cakes. I am not sure what decade he was talking but my cake was certainly no sixties screen siren. I guess with a squint and in the right light it could possibly pass for today’s septuagenarian Ms Loren but that is probably being generous.” Remarkably enough, despite the low expectations: “I was surprised to find just how much I enjoyed this cake”.

@north_19 of North_19 kindly sent along her account of making the Orange cassata cake. I’ve storifyed her experience but reproduced some of it below because it highlights some common problems.

“To be honest, with my consistent lack of ability to bake sponge with a flat top, I should have known I would never have resulted in the poster-child of layer cakes. I should have baked just one large one and sliced it up, rather than two with their very domed tops (see ‘wonky cakes’ pic.”)

“On the day it was baked, the cake was ok. Ricotta filling lumpy, and strangely textured…The after-taste was a little sharp and peel-y (my brand of candied peel?). However, the next day, something rather splendid had happened. The ricotta filling gently leaked into the sponge, mellowing the flavours beautifully, creating something far greater than the sum of its ingredients. I would make it again, to relish the next day.”

“Oh, and I could do with some practise (advice?!) at creating the perfect flat-top sponge.”

Please read @north_19’s full account on Storify (where I’ve made some comments) and chip in with any advice. My additional suggestions are mundane and remedial rather than a pointer towards flat-top sponge perfection. It’s possible that the cakes rose unevenly because: i) the batter wasn’t level in the tin (an offset spatula might help to rectify this); ii) the oven isn’t level; iii) the oven has temperature zones that cause one side of the sponge to rise/set more rapidly (rotate the cake tins halfway through the cooking time; heat a bake stone in the oven and place the cake tins on that to reduce the temperature imbalances).

Domed tops can occur for several reasons. One of the likeliest problems is uneven transmission of heat so that the outer walls of the tin conducted the heat quickly and set the outer edges of the sponge while the centre of the sponge mix heated more gradually and then rose higher than the sides. In recipes with chemical leavening agents, the gases can’t escape from the cake mix once the crust has formed around the edges and they crowd towards the weakest spot (the unset centre) and push that up more. Domed tops can sometimes be fixed if you act quickly: as soon as the cakes are out of the oven, keep on the oven gloves and, using a clean tea towel, gently press down to flatten the dome and level the cake (watch out for steam as it can scald). Alternatively, when the cakes have cooled enough to be removed from the tin, invert the cake onto its top so that the top flattens under its own weight while cooling on the rack. This is helpful when slicing a cake into even layers for sandwiching.

It is at this point that I should mention that my Best Beloved succumbed to the siren promise of the Sophia Loren description and baked the Orange cassata cake. This was an ambitious choice for somebody who has never previously baked a sponge cake and so it was, perhaps, inevitable that at various points there were moments that resembled The Great British Bake Off in drama and emotion. The cake was fragrant and tasted delicious but a too-hasty turning out of one of the cakes, in combination with inadequate preparation of the sponge tins, meant that at one point we considered converting the presentation to an orange sponge and cassata trifle.

My Best Beloved removed the two cakes from the oven, and, giddy with success, turned one of them out before it had cooled enough. A section of the cake stuck to the silicone pan, and some of the part that did release broke up: despite the recipe instructions, neither tin had been lined. At this point we had nothing to lose as plan B was to serve it as a trifle so we placed the still warm sponge topside down onto some clingfilm, drizzled it with a small amount of warm sugar syrup, scraped the remaining sponge out of the pan and matched/patched up the holes, then gathered the clingfilm together to create a slight tension and gently slid the whole cake back into the still warm pan and left it to set (topside still down). We twisted and pegged the clingfilm to provide a gentle pull to encourage the cake to stick back together. (If the cake tin had been metal rather than silicone, we would probably have just folded the excess clingfilm flat and put a plate and suitable weight on top of the sponge to press it together but the silicone is flexible enough that it might have bulged.) The sponge was coaxed into sticking together well enough that it formed a sound base for the cake (we didn’t attempt to slice it into layers and the topside remained at the bottom) and held together without falling apart when it was cut and served. The final cake was just two layers of sponge, sandwiched and topped with the ricotta filling. It lasted 4 days in the fridge and matured delightfully.

I feel as if I’m highlighting the mistakes that my Best Beloved made rather than celebrating the fact that most of the procedure was correct, the cake crumb was light and it was delicious. It’s the more impressive that this was a lifetime first attempt at baking a sponge and it feels mean to detail the errors. However, it’s sometimes useful to have some back-up plans for taking remedial action and I’ve offered the above description of ‘how to stick a sponge cake back together’ in that spirit. Nonetheless, I’m conflicted precisely because I think that a number of home bakers are discouraged when their own attempts don’t look as fabulous as the photographs in a book or because other people criticise their mistakes while ignoring how good something tastes. None of the bakers who attempted it has any criticism of the taste, but none is wholly content with the appearance of their very first attempt at baking this cake. If none of the cakes achieved Sophia Loren status, I still think that we have a baker’s collection of aunts, wearing frilly outfits with panache.

I’m pleased to welcome back @joellybaby of Joelle McNichol. Her photographs and comments are storifyed: @joellybaby bakes Butterscotch banana cake. Go and admire the photographs, you might well think you can smell the caramelised banana just by looking at them.

As mentioned above, @underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree baked two cakes: Short and Tweet: ‘Butterscotch Banana’ and ‘Orange Cassata’ Cakes. In her account of the banana cake @underthebluegum speculates whether the taste of the delectable caramelised banana was smothered by her substitute spicing and wonders if other bakers had a similar experience (from the other accounts of this cake, it doesn’t seem as if this is a common problem). My own observation is that cinnamon is notoriously tricky to judge in recipes from other countries because it’s rarely clear which variety of cinnamon the recipe writer is using (eg, a floral or hot variety with varying strengths). Eg, we purchase Sri Lankan cinnamon in the UK; the commonly available cinnamon in the US is Indonesian cassia: it would be interesting to know which cinnamon is typically available in South Africa.

@BakeCakeCrumbs of Cake, Crumbs and Cooking has a helpfully illustrated account of various stages of the recipe: Butterscotch Banana Cakes - Short and Tweet. The write-up includes several useful tips. “Verdict? Great recipe - quite time consuming in terms of making the caramel, cooking the banana in it and then leaving to cool but once that bit is done, it’s plain sailing…[One] of my colleagues said that she thought these were possibly the best cakes I have ever taken to work!”

@BakerHay likewise baked the Butterscotch Banana Cake and had good intentions about giving them to her neighbours although it’s murky as to how many managed to make the handover. Her assessment is: “oil based cake light, moist and delicious”.

@lapindor of Lapin d ‘Or and More gave us: Reasons to be cheerful Jill’s variation on the Saffron peach cake substituted frozen nectarines for the peaches (in keeping with the desirable gold colour). Jill has some wisdom from Prue Leith and some praiseworthy reasoning on the health virtues of cake that contains fruit, nuts and saffron. Jane’s post triggered a series of questions from a visitor. Condensing the Q&A, I mention the following as it seems arcane to some people. Saffron has traditional associations with Mothering Sunday and Simnel Cake in the UK. Although Mothering Sunday is part of the Lenten calendar in the UK, and therefore a period of fast and abstinence, it has a cake associated with it because there is an official relaxation of Lenten observance to allow a day of celebration, also known as Refreshment Sunday.

It’s apparent that #shortandtweet search doesn’t always show everyone’s tweets so I apologise if I missed any notifications - please let me know and I’ll update this compilation.

I propose that we close the month with Light spelt rough puff pastry, pg 497. Dan Lepard notes that, “A smidgeon of baking powder softens the pastry and helps to gently aerate the tender buttery flakes as they bake”. This is a fairly free-form recipe as Dan suggests using it as you would puff pastry (lids for pies, or bases for tarts); as a wrap-around for items such as Pigs in blankets, or simply prepped for nibbles.

However, pp 498-503 have some excellent “ideas for individual savoury tarts”: be sure to read the additional baking notes for First-class tarts pg 498. The tarts can be as small or large as it suits you and the toppings can be simple or sophisticated. They’re flexible and allow a range of toppings to be baked at the same time (useful in families where people rarely agree on a single dish). For smaller households, the pastry freezes well and defrosts without mess for fast pie tops or tarts.

Schedule for the #shortandtweet March 2012 challenge.

Thank you for sharing your cakes. I look forward to our spelt rough puff pastry, whether whether it’s acting as a pie top, tart bottom, wrap-around, or nibble.

NB: apologies for the delay in sending out this compilation, it’s taken me a while to recover from a lengthy migraine. I’ll update this post with a link to the April Challenge schedule as soon as practical.

Short and Tweet Challenge 19: Glorious Choux, Paris-Brest and Fripperies

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 17:45:00 -0400

This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was for choux pastry, in one of several forms. My parents had a French cookery book that would have stoked the imagination of any 9 year-old whose pocket contents included a penknife, biro and a miniature brandy in hopes of being called upon to perform an emergency tracheostomy (the brandy was to sterilise blade/tube/skin). One of the more memorable recipes was for an eel dish that stipulated freshly-drawn eel blood for the sauce (the method involved impaling live eels on a hook, a sharp knife and a dish to collect said blood). When it came to pastry, however, the author assumed that eel-slaying sophisticates with sufficient sang-froid to hold a wriggling, inverted eel would be in no need of guidance: “Take a quantity of rough puff pastry” was as detailed as it got. I knew what puff pastry was but the recipe that fired my imagination was Paris Brest. I had no idea what choux pastry was but I instinctively knew that I liked the sound of a praline filling and toasted almonds on top. And I dreamed of the time when I could eat this delight. What made this recipe the more intriguing was the account of origins of the recipe: developed, allegedly, in honour of the Paris-Brest cycle race (hence the shape).

“[The baker’s] tire-shaped choux pastry was piped full of a huge amount of calorific praline cream, perhaps mimicking the newly invented inner tubes of the day and traditionally baked almonds and icing sugar decorated the cake, imitating the tread of the tyre and dust from the road.” The Hungry Cyclist: Paris Brest – The Breakfast of Champions

Whether we had similar associations or not, all of this week’s featured participants chose the Mini coffee Paris-Brest pg 418 for this week’s (the opening photograph is from @joellybaby).

I’m delighted that @joellybaby of Joelle McNichol joined in such style. I think several of us might identify with the self-doubt about pastry skills (“not much cop at pastry”). I’ve storifyed her tweets and photographs and they’re worth a look and a warm, “Hello”. The following is a photograph of Joelle’s piped paste before it goes into the oven.

Recuperating from a recent unpleasant bug, @underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree produced: Short and Tweet: Mini Coffee Paris-Brest. The write-up includes helpful guidance on ‘What not to Google’ (I can only second this: a search for a routine gadget that vibrates air pockets out of wet concrete yielded results that were startling and disturbing albeit not in the way I needed); oven temperature (matched experience with our fan oven); and how you might serve this if you can’t slice your pastry wheels in half, horizontally. It says a lot that, despite a couple of bumps with the custard and the wet caramel, the verdict is: “Despite the slip ups, the resulting dessert was delicious and one I would definitely make again”.

@lapindor of Lapin d’Or and More tackled: Paris-Brest, a challenging subject. In a theme that runs through #shortandtweet, Jane declares, “Pastry and I are not the best of friends and I felt apprehensive throughout making these”. After working through the recipe, she summarised the matter thus: “The finished pastry did taste very good but I really don’t think I would make them again unless I can rid myself of the fear of pastry; it just makes the process feel hard work rather than fun”.

As I said in@lapindor’s comments, I feel that pastry is one of those things that we tend to attempt infrequently, and because we do it so irregularly, there’s no accumulation of competence with it. We tend to remember the problems from our last attempt rather than the fact that it tasted fine and that any errors could probably be fixed by tweaking the technique or that we would know more about what to expect if we did it again, within a reasonable time scale.

I wanted to write something here about how difficult it is to bake alongside someone who is baking something like this for the first time but that’s in danger of being a very long, off-topic digression. Let’s just say that reading the recipe through several times is essential, not optional. If someone is hurrying you along, so as to not boil off too much water at the early stage, this is not the time to start cross-examining that person as to why that detail isn’t in the recipe (because every recipe would be impossibly long if you had to explain every detail and anticipate every, “Why?”). This stage lead to a more con brio explanation of the water content of choux paste (and types of butter) than I would have anticipated even a few moments earlier.

Plainly, pastry causes disruption even in otherwise tranquil kitchens. In an attempt to circumvent what was an increasingly sharp-toned interrogation about why and how the water content in choux paste turns to steam in a hot oven, and how the increased pressure pushes out the skin of the dough, resulting in an airy, crisp shell, I played the McGee joker. I fetched McGee on Food and Cooking: An Encyclopedia of Kitchen Science, History and Culture and read aloud the following:

“Choux is the French word for “cabbage,” and choux pastry forms little irregular cabbage-like balls that are hollow inside like popovers. Unlike popovers, choux pastry becomes firm and crisp when baked. It provides the classic container for cream fillings in such pastries as cream puffs (profiteroles) and éclairs…and deep fried beignets, whose lightness inspired the name pets de nonne, “nun’s farts.”

Choux paste was apparently invented in late medieval times, and it’s prepared in a very distinctive way. It’s a cross between a batter and a dough, and is cooked twice: once to prepare the paste itself, and once to transform the paste into hollow puffs…As with the popover, the surface sets while the interior is still nearly liquid, so the trapped air coalesces and expands into one large bubble.”

I can report that even the most inquisitive of people can be diverted away from questioning the fine detail of steam expansion puffing out a pastry ball by learning of the existence of “nun’s farts”. (Having learned that “nun’s farts” are fried beignets, retribution awaits the person who mislead in my formative years by confidently assuring me that “nun’s farts” was the colloquial translation for Religieuses (Mintwonderland has some charming pictures of Religieuses)).

Pour revenir à nos moutons, we had to tinker with the oven temperature because you can see how well advanced the browning of the dough and almonds was after 7 minutes (as above). They did puff up but not as dramatically as the first-time choux baker had hoped (we revisited the issue of whether the water and butter mix had been left to boil for too long and if the pan had been too large). We belatedly learned that one of the intended recipients of the pastries doesn’t like coffee and another was apprehensive about dentures and caramel. So, the wheels were served, intact, with strawberries and something my family refers to as Tangy Cream (it’s double cream with natural yoghurt/crème fraîche, stirred together, with dark brown sugar to taste and left to stand; after standing you can mix it to form a uniform colour, streaks or a marble effect).

Update: Peter Evans (@EvansPeterJ) tweeted a picture of his Paris-Brest from Short & Sweet that he’d prepared for a New Year’s Eve celebration. “Was indeed a lovely thing to do, my first time with choux and by heck they were tasty!”

It’s Mothering Sunday in the UK next week so this week’s challenge recipes are: Saffron peach cake pg 137 (an earlier challenge resulted in some useful tweaks for people who haven’t tried this previously); what Dan styles the “‘Sophia Loren’ of cake: four layers of orange sponge cake filled with a simplified Sicilian cassata mixture and drizzled with a light orange syrup”. Dan has provided notes for advance preparation on pg 133, specifically for a special occasion. The recipe for Orange cassata cake is pg 132 and the cassata filling is delectable (see March schedule for more notes and suggestions); option three is a deep-flavoured Butterscotch banana cake to evoke nostalgia in anyone who lost a filling to Banana Split Toffees and would appreciate both a more adult version and less dental jeopardy (again, the schedule has additional notes and reminders).

Schedule for the #shortandtweet March 2012 challenge.

It’s apparent that #shortandtweet search doesn’t always show everyone’s tweets so I apologise if I missed any notifications - please let me know and I’ll update this compilation.

Thank you for sharing your Paris-Brest. I look forward to our cakes, whether or not they’re associated with Mothering Sunday.

Short and Tweet Challenge 18: Perfect Pita Bread, Simple Bagels and Double-Corn Muffins

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 18:35:00 -0500

This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was for Perfect plain pita pg 76 or the Garlic, thyme and lemon version pg 77; Simple bagels pg 61; or Double-corn bacon muffins pg 533. The opening photograph is from Carla (see below) because, as ever, I’m in awe of her tidiness and am smitten by her kitchen.

I’m not a bagel enthusiast, mostly because I find the supermarket versions to be clammy and dense. For no particularly good reason, such bagels remind me of acres of sun-starved goosepimpled flesh in a park on the first sunny day, slathered with sun-screen or drenched in a tanning oil to accelerate the burn. I was therefore delighted when Dan Lepard gave headnotes on how to tweak his bagel recipe to adjust the chewiness and crumb. @lapindor of Lapin d’Or and More rose to the challenge of: Simple bagels. This is a good, illustrated account of shaping and poaching the dough. I like the summary and concur with the crumb sentiment: “I am no bagel expert so am not sure if I should have retained a bigger hole in the centre and if they should really be a bit flatter in shape…[Inside, you can see that] I have a few big air holes and I suspect a more open crumb than a traditional bagel. No complaints though as they were delicious and I was actually quite proud of them”.

Although she was stricken by a nasty bug, @underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree baked her way through the bagel recipe twice: Short and Tweet: Bagels. Go along for the useful notes and the briefly alarming digression into “poaching beagles”.

Although Bialys aren’t strictly related to bagels, the chew and the crumb are likewise important so I’d point people towards @Zeb_Bakes of Zeb Bakes’s post: Bialys for Mellow Bakers. There are some good hints and tips here for additional toppings and serving ideas that might be adapted to this bagel recipe. It is also via the ever-helpful @Zeb_Bakes that I found these How to shape & bake your bagels videos.

Most of us opted for the pita bread challenge, egged on perhaps by the enthusiasm of those of us who’ve made them before (“almost qualified for the title of ‘the easiest bread in the world’”) and been taken aback by the difference between these and what is typically available in supermarkets. There’s also a whiff of kitchen excitement with pita bread. The baker arms-lengths a thin piece of dough into a searingly hot oven, and within a couple of minutes the heat turns the water content to steam, puffing up the dough to the point where nervous watchers suspect that the tension will be too much and it will burst and deflate, only somewhat less spectacularly than a over-stretched balloon. When the bread cools it relaxes and deflates but the pocket remains, waiting to be opened and stuffed.

@Misky of Misk Cooks offers a picture of Elmo Gnome alongside a description and shots of her ideas of how to stuff them: Dan Lepard’s Perfect Plain Pita Bread. There are clever suggestions for how to roll the dough out to the correct depth, how to move the bread with tongs and plenty of enthusiastic appreciation. “So, will I make them again? Yes. In every language recognised by the human ear, I say “Yes!”

Will I ever buy store-made pitas again? Not by the hairs on your chiny-chin-chin.”

There’s interesting discussion in @Misky’s comments. I’m one of those who confesses to finding Short & Sweet to be both a remarkable baking resource and a fountain of benign domestic tyranny as the vast difference between home-made versions of items such as pita bread and that which is commonly available means that it’s unlikely one would voluntarily purchase them again.

@BakeCakeCrumbs of Cake, Crumbs and Cooking sent along a well-illustrated account of mixing dough and baking: Perfect Plain Pittas. “Tender and chewy, these are a million miles from the long-life excuse for pitta bread that you find in the supermarkets…[It’s] quite fun to keep seeing them pop out all puffed up! My one regret is that my oven has a solid door so I can’t see the magic happening!”

@Mitchdafish of Mitchadafish blog joined the WI not long ago and used their recently launched flour to bake her delightful breads: Pita.

@tomasi_carla tweeted a very helpful series of photographs and comments about making these pita, griddling them (rather than baking them in an oven) and serving suggestions: Dan Lepard’s Perfect Pita. There are helpful notes about cooking them from frozen. Update: Carla cooks the pita on both sides when she griddles them.

@BakerHay tweeted some pictures and comments about her experience in baking both the plain and garlic, thyme & lemon pita: @BakerHay bakes Dan Lepard’s Perfect Pita Bread.

@Choclette8 of Chocolate Log Blog tweeted her semi-wholemeal pita, baked at 225C. These pita have more colour than those made wholly with white flour and the pattern reminds me of reticulated seed pods.

My Best Beloved baked both the plain pita and, in the sweet flush of success, the double-corn bacon muffins. The pita were a light-crumbed triumph. In a (perhaps) poignant commentary on our lives there was lots of excitement derived from staring through the glass door of the oven to see the pita swell and then suddenly expand (see first photograph).

The Double-corn bacon muffins tasted fine but were a tad claggy in the centre (the empty case shows how damp the muffin mix was even after standing when first removed from the oven). This is possibly because Best Beloved’s reservoirs of patience had been sapped by the keen attention to detail paid to executing the pita bread recipe well so parts of this recipe went awry. Not least, grated aubergine had to substitute for the courgette and a misunderstanding meant that far too much of the aubergine was added. I suspect that the surfeit of aubergine accounted for the muffins being cooked and golden on the outside at the end of the baking time but claggy within: we returned the muffins to the oven for an additional 7 minutes which improved the texture (albeit the centre was heavier & damper than I like) but over-baked the top and darkened the colour.

This week’s challenge recipes are: Mini coffee Paris-Brest pg 418; Rhubarb and custard buns, pg 422; a third option is to use the sweet choux paste as a pie crust, as Dan outlines, pg 525. If you have any sweet choux paste left over, then if you adapt Dan’s recommendation for Soup choux, pg 524, and pipe/bake tiny blobs of it, you might sprinkle them on top of a stewed fruit dish (with or without tossing them in a dipping sugar of, eg, cinnamon and icing sugar). It looks very special and far more complicated than it is: it also offers a good texture contrast. (There are additional notes in the Schedule for the #shortandtweet March 2012 challenge).

Schedule for the #shortandtweet March 2012 challenge.

It’s apparent that #shortandtweet search doesn’t always show everyone’s tweets so I apologise if I missed any notifications - please let me know and I’ll update this compilation.

Thank you for sharing your pitas, bagels and muffins. I look forward to our many explorations of choux pastry.

Short and Tweet Challenge 17: Dan Lepard's Abundance of Meringues

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:53:03 -0500

This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was for meringues in various guises. Eg pg 445 (plain, Double chocolate or Lemon sherbert) to be served plain or teamed with suitable available preserves (eg, chunky marmalade as a good contrast to the chocolate meringue shells); Apricot meringue tart pg 451; sunshine in a jar with the easy lemon curd (pg 342) and eating that with individual meringues or using it to prepare either the Lemon meringue sundae on pg 452 or Sue Lowenbein’s suggestion on the same page for an ice-cream gâteau. [The opening photograph is @underthebluegum’s Lemon meringue sundae.]

There are so few ingredients in a basic meringue (egg white and sugar) and yet so many ways for the unwary to go awry. In some households, it has to be said, this may be attributed to a failure to read the useful headnotes for the recipe, or the blithe assumption that large and medium eggs sizes are equivalent and thus specifying that detail in a recipe is a charming foible on the part of the author. My Best Beloved’s lifetime first attempt at both meringue and lemon curd is pictured below. Both of them tasted fine. Nonetheless, I should draw attention to the relatively poor volume of the meringue and blobby shape that indicates the sugar was added a little too early, when the egg-whites were not quite at the soft peak stage. The lemon curd was as easy to make as the recipe promised. This version was too liquid at room temperature, yet in the fridge, it set more like a very good soft spread butter than a curd: I feel this may reflect that my Best Beloved used medium eggs rather than large which makes a difference when the recipe involves 5 egg yolks and a large egg.

Harold McGee is the sort of investigator who poses questions such as, Why whip egg whites in copper bowls? and researches the answer (if you’re interested in an updated answer to this question and would like to know far more then read Chapter 2 of McGee on Food & Cooking). Meringues are a friendly science lesson in the kitchen and teach a lot about the effect of whipping on unfolding proteins and incorporating air to create a foam. The addition of fine-grained sugar helps to stabilise what McGee describes as a “fragile egg-white foam into a stable, glossy meringue”: he has some interesting notes about the different effect of beating or folding sugar into the foam (folding in the icing sugar makes the meringue more tender).

Last week Claire, @underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree, baked five pies as part of her domestic renaissance of the pie. This week Claire prepared another fine abundance: Short and Tweet: Lemon Meringue Sundae, Double Chocolate Meringues, Coconut Meringues with Roasted Pineapple. Her summary: “All three recipes bring meringue kicking and screaming into the 21st century and yield such fabulous results that meringues are definitely going to be included at my dinner table from now on”. The following photograph is of her chocolate meringues: go and read her observations and experiences about all three.

@Misky of Misk Cooks has a rather playful account of her meringue baking: Dan Lepard’s Double Chocolate and Lemon Sherbet Meringues. Along with the photograph of the chocolate meringues (below and notice the difference between these and Claire’s above) there is shot of the empty bowl that the lemon sherbet meringues had been mixed in: Misky made the latter with Half Spoon Granulated Sugar rather than sugar and has some helpful notes about both the baking and texture of that in the finished meringue.

@lapindor of Lapin d’Or and More almost didn’t participate in this challenge: ” I was checking back through the challenge options and grumpily announced to my husband ‘it’s meringues’ expecting him to look bored, but a hopeful smile ran across his face and after checking he had actually heard what I had said I realised he would quite like some meringues, thank you. So meringue prejuduces aside I went into the kitchen.

Well, they were very easy and very delicious, delicate crisp outer shell and soft mallowy centre, what more can I say”. As it turns out, she has a bit more to say about meringues, blood oranges, fruit salads, biscotti and bergamot marmalade: Nearly didn’t make them, glad I did. I like this shot of the meringue texture and recommend you enjoy the colourful photographs on her blog.

As for us, we tested the first batch of meringues (shown above) which were caramel chewy in every mouthful when fresh (a little drier after an overnight stand, but still chewy). The second batch were prepared with greater attention to the recipe (we had to scale it down as we didn’t have enough eggs) and we were rewarded with a thick and glossy meringue mix. We should probably have checked more carefully after 90mins as the meringues were slightly cracked after 2hrs. However, these meringues had much greater volume, and were crisp on the outside and fluffy inside with a slightly chewy centre. They were lighter in colour and I suspect that the first batch were more caramelised because the sugar bonded with the water in the egg-white in a slightly different way and because the icing sugar was whisked into the meringue mix rather than folded.

This week’s challenge recipes are: Perfect plain pita pg 76 or the Garlic, thyme and lemon version pg 77. These breads are only vaguely related in taste and texture to the ones that are commonly available from supermarkets and are worth trying. Dan Lepard says: “Pita needs very little yeast, as the rolling and the very hot oven create the lift. So if your oven doesn’t get hot enough, you’ll have to make them at a friend’s house”. This is true - you will only get the full benefit of this recipe with a suitably hot oven. You will need very good, long tongs or superb oven gloves. You have been warned (but please make them as they are a revelation if you’ve not had fresh pita recently). Simple bagels pg 61 offers a very relaxed way of preparing a recipe that had always seemed fraught with complexity when I’d read about it elsewhere. There are notes to tweak the texture by altering the quantity of water or modifying the length of time for the rise. Again, unless you’re near a very good source for them, it’s remarkably different to make your own and discover that the result is not intrinsically heavy. For anyone who didn’t bake last month’s North-South cornbread pg 53 or who did bake it and wants to use up some of the polenta or yellow corn meal, then I suggest the Double-corn bacon muffins pg 533. These are an excellent hearty lunch or tea-time item (works well with firm cooked mushrooms for those who don’t want bacon): I’ve heard that they’re good for brunch but I tend to have a punitive attitude to that institution (only within my own household and only if I’m the one responsible for preparing and serving it).

Schedule for the #shortandtweet March 2012 challenge.

It’s apparent that #shortandtweet search doesn’t always show everyone’s tweets so I apologise if I missed any notifications - please let me know and I’ll update this compilation.

Thank you for sharing your delightful meringues and I look forward to next week’s pitas, bagels and muffins.

Short and Tweet Challenge: March 2012 Schedule

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:20:38 -0500

March 2012 schedule for the #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet. (Read about #shortandtweet challenge and its conditions.)

4 March Perfect plain pita pg 76 or the Garlic, thyme and lemon version pg 77. These breads are only vaguely related in taste and texture to the ones that are commonly available from supermarkets and are worth trying. Dan says: “Pita needs very little yeast, as the rolling and the very hot oven create the lift. So if your oven doesn’t get hot enough, you’ll have to make them at a friend’s house”. This is true - you will only get the full benefit of this recipe with a suitably hot oven. You will need very good, long tongs or superb oven gloves. You have been warned (but please make them as they are a revelation if you’ve not had fresh pita recently).

Simple bagels pg 61 de-mystified bagels for me and presented a very relaxed way of preparing a recipe that had always seemed fraught with complexity when I’d read about it elsewhere. There are notes to tweak the texture by altering the quantity of water or modifying the length of time for the rise. Again, unless you’re near a very good source for them, it’s remarkably different to make your own and discover that the result is not intrinsically heavy.

For anyone who didn’t bake last month’s North-South cornbread pg 53 or who did bake it and wants to use up some of the polenta or yellow corn meal, then I suggest the Double-corn bacon muffins pg 533. These are an excellent hearty lunch or tea-time item (works well with firm cooked mushrooms for those who don’t want bacon): I’ve heard that they’re good for brunch but I tend to have a punitive attitude to that institution (only within my own household and only if I’m the one responsible for preparing and serving it).

11 March When I was little my parents had a French cookery book that gave full and grisly details of how to cook an eel dish that required fresh eel blood for the sauce (it involved impaling live eels on a hook, a sharp knife and a dish to collect said blood). When it came to pastry, however, it was assumed that one pretty much already knew what was required: “Take a quantity of rough puff pastry” was as detailed as it got. I knew what puff pastry was but the recipe that fired my imagination was Paris Brest. I had no idea what choux pastry was but I instinctively knew that I liked the sound of a praline filling and toasted almonds on top. And I dreamed of the time when I could eat this delight. What made this recipe the more aspirational was the book’s account of how the recipe was developed: allegedly, in honour of the Paris-Brest cycle race (hence the shape).
“[The baker’s] tire-shaped choux pastry was piped full of a huge amount of calorific praline cream, perhaps mimicking the newly invented inner tubes of the day and traditionally baked almonds and icing sugar decorated the cake, imitating the tread of the tyre and dust from the road.” The Hungry Cyclist: Paris Brest – The Breakfast of Champions

Dan Lepard mentions the Paris Brest cycle race as well so this week is choux pastry and variations. For some of us, the stand out recipe is for Mini coffee Paris-Brest pg 418. There is coffee cream custard filling and instructions for drizzling a caramel over the top (this may well be tweaked into a praline that is smashed up and heavily dredged on top: I have a premonition).

For anyone who has their own rhubarb, or is putting up rhubarb this month, there is a delightful choux recipe for Rhubarb and custard buns, pg 422. These are both good and flexible: a friend didn’t make the custard but put together a half yoghurt, half whipped double cream filling which provided a good, slightly acid bite to the buns. The recipe also works well with roasted apples.

The third option is to use the sweet choux paste as a pie crust, as Dan outlines, pg 525. This is a very helpful hint for those of us who have sporadic difficulties in piping that make it difficult to envisage a tidy array of buns or homages to small bicycle wheels.

If you have any sweet choux paste left over, then if you adapt Dan’s recommendation for Soup choux, pg 524, and pipe/bake tiny blobs of it, you might sprinkle them on top of a stewed fruit dish (with or without tossing them in a dipping sugar of, eg, cinnamon and icing sugar). It looks very special and far more complicated than it is: it also offers a good texture contrast.

18 March It’s Mothering Sunday in the UK so I feel obliged to mention that there is a recipe for Saffron peach cake pg 137 which some people baked for an earlier challenge, with good results and some useful tweaks.

Option two “is the ‘Sophia Loren’ of cake: four layers of orange sponge cake filled with a simplified Sicilian cassata mixture and drizzled with a light orange syrup. The sponge alone is a good standby recipe for the lunchbox”. Dan has provided notes for advance preparation on pg 133, specifically for a special occasion. The recipe for Orange cassata cake is pg 132 and the cassata filling is delectable: if you have any Fiori di Sicilia or Panettone essence from other recipes, then that might be another way of flavouring the filling to taste (adjust the vanilla accordingly). It’s a delight even though it reminds me of a post-restaurant romantic clinch and my Best Beloved’s ill-timed burp that gave me the full experience of the apricot cassata that I hadn’t eaten.

Option three is a deep-flavoured Butterscotch banana cake that also makes excellent cupcakes. This is a cake for anyone who has, or whose mother has, fond memories of Banana Split Toffees and would appreciate both a more adult version and less dental jeopardy. There’s also a handy Short & Sweet tip about baking powder, the alkalinity of ripe bananas and its impact on the crumb of a cake.

25 March I propose that we close the month with Light spelt rough puff pastry, pg 497. Dan Lepard notes that, “A smidgeon of baking powder softens the pastry and helps to gently aerate the tender buttery flakes as they bake”. This is a fairly free-form recipe as Dan suggests using it as you would puff pastry (lids for pies, or bases for tarts); as a wrap-around for items such as Pigs in blankets, or simply prepped for nibbles.

Short and Tweet Challenge 16: Light Cream Cheese Pastry and an Abundance of Pies

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:41:00 -0500

This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was for light cream cheese pastry as a pie topping for: Chicken and mushroom pies, pg 488; Shin of beef, chorizo and pinto bean pies, pg 489; Pork and parsnip pies, pg 491; Leek, smoked haddock and Lancashire cheese pies, pg 491; or Broccoli, Stilton and potato pies, pg 492. The opening photograph is from @Misky of Misk Cooks who baked it for her wedding anniversary dinner (further tribute to the excellent nature of these pies is almost superfluous).

There’s a shared nostalgia about pies that evokes an affection that seems at odds with pie consumption amongst #shortandtweet -ers (nobody confessed to a Gregg’s habit or regular visits to a take-away). When discussing pies on Twitter it seems that a number of us hadn’t baked or eaten them in years. None of us seems entirely sure why although I suspect that several of us had rarely baked them because of apprehensions about the fat content or the calories in combination with the perception that pastry is inconvenient and fiddly (Sustainable Table offers an overview of the history of pie and changing perceptions of it). So, I’m pleased that pastry’s reputation has been redeemed by this effortless recipe for light cream cheese pastry. The pastry stores well in the fridge or freezer and it is easy to roll. This pastry means that it’s easy to transform left-overs into a delectable pie which is a boon on any one of those evenings in the week when culinary ambitions were high, right up until the realisation that the journey home would take 3 hours rather than 90 mins or that somebody has the sort of homework that doesn’t allow for attention to be split between a maths-averse child, a large knife and several burners. Now that #shortandtweet -ers have re-discovered the delight of pies some of us plan to include them in our repertoire of regular recipes and meals.

Claire, @underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree, is leading the way to the domestic renaissance of the pie: she made all 5 of the pies despite some hiccups relating to the availability of ingredients in Johannesburg: Short and Tweet: Savoury Pies with Light Cream Cheese Pastry. Go and learn how she coped with the absence of some ingredients and substituted others; what her tips are and what won out in the overall taste stakes. Claire’s summary is wholly positive: “It really is the perfect pie crust: quick to prepare, easy to roll, cooks to a nice crisp on top whilst being rich with pie juice underneath. I also found that the dough keeps well for up to two days in the fridge. If not eating in polite company, then it is lovely to break off chunks of pie crust with your fingers and use it to scoop up the succulent filling beneath”.

@Misky of Misk Cooks provides a delightful report: Dan Lepard’s Chicken and Mushroom Pie with Light Cream Cheese Pastry–Short and Sweet Challenge. “I served Dan’s Chicken and Mushroom Pie for my 32nd wedding anniversary dinner. Now that’s a testament to how confident I am about the recipes in “Short and Sweet”. It never lets me down; never disappoints, even on an occasion like a wedding anniversary. Husband declared it delicious.” I’ve included an image of how the dough looks after it’s been kneaded smooth.

@Mitchdafish of Mitchadafish blog enjoyed her: Pie. @Mitchdafish offers good advice for anyone who doesn’t have pie plates: “Decided to make the pies in cereal bowls as that is all I had, here are the snaps: The dough was a dream, no sticking or crumbling. Went brown. Tasted delish. Perfect”.

@jerronimissus of Jerronimissus is gaining in confidence from week to week: Light cream cheese pastry for pie tops. Nicky declares, “This pastry is brilliant!”: and, “Everyone thought it was really tasty (yes, including Little E who I promised could have left overs the next day as she was most put out I was having friends round for dinner and she wasn’t joining us!) and it was an economical way to make a big tasting pie”. Nip across and admire the cute pie funnel.

@tomasi_carla and zeb share a dislike of the soggy underside of a pastry lid (a strong reason as to why some people don’t like pies, it seems). Nonetheless, intrigued by favourable reports of the pastry, Carla, opted to make up the pastry with her own tweaks (to make it flaky) and use it for a delightfully light pasty. I’ve Storifyed Carla’s account of leek, mushroom, spinach & parmesan pasty.

@Zeb_Bakes of Zeb Bakes likewise tweaked the recipe to produce a Quark Felin Ganol pastry pie that sounded delightful (Felin Ganol is the mill that produced a flour with which @Zeb_Bakes is experimenting).

My pies will remain veiled in obscurity until I can wrangle the camera’s memory card.

Overall, this pastry has been a substantial hit and may well become bakers’ preferred pastry for savoury pies.

Next week’s challenge recipes are just as comforting in a sweeter vein: choose one of the meringues on pg 445 (plain, Double chocolate or Lemon sherbert) which can be served plain or teamed with suitable available preserves (eg, chunky marmalade is a good contrast to the chocolate meringue shells); Apricot meringue tart pg 451; create your own sunshine in a jar by making easy lemon curd (pg 342) and assembling either the Lemon meringue sundae on pg 452 or Sue Lowenbein’s suggestion on the same page for an ice-cream gâteau that uses similar ingredients (substituting crème fraîche for ice-cream).

If you blog about your experience with a recipe, please post links in the comments or tweet pictures or links to @foodcraftspace or @evidencematters using the hashtag #shortandtweet - Thank you. It’s the same procedure if you don’t blog but just post a photograph of your work. Please send the links by 8pm 26 February or as soon thereafter as practical.

Schedule for the #shortandtweet March 2012 challenge.

It’s apparent that #shortandtweet search doesn’t always show everyone’s tweets so I apologise if I missed any notifications - please let me know and I’ll update this compilation.

Thank you for sharing your delightful pies and I look forward to next year’s contributions.

Short and Tweet Challenge 15: Crêpes, Scotch Pancakes or Battered Fish & Onion Rings

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:49:00 -0500

This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was for Crêpe Suzette Tour d’Argent pg 280; Betsy’s Scotch pancakes pg 279; or the Beer batter for fish that Dan details pg 285 (with a helpful suggestion to make onion rings from any leftover batter: “frozen ones on sale at the supermarket are just so dismal”). The opening photograph is @lgarland1’s luscious stack of Betsy’s Scotch pancakes.

Working with batters seems to have created feelings of guilt (“It’s batter, it will go straight to my thighs”) and nostalgia for tea-time/breakfast pancakes and proper fish and chips.

Betsy’s Scotch pancakes were a popular choice. I’ve storifyed @lgarland1 of Lauren Garland’s pancakes because they illustrate an additional note that Dan Lepard offered when some of us were surprised by the thickness of the batter. To paraphrase, because there are so many variables involved, humidity and temperature of the day and the ingredients affect the absorption of the liquid into the dry ingredients, it is notoriously difficult to give accurate liquid amounts for batters. Most batters will benefit from a little test-cooking and thickness adjustment before preparing a full batch. Interestingly, Dan says, ” [Scotch pancakes] should be thick, almost like a soft bread, almost like a English muffin”. Lauren’s pancakes look like they match that description so she might have some useful advice on batter thickness for anyone who wants to experiment.

The chemical activity for the Scotch pancakes is a judicious combination of ingredients, the viscosity of the batter and heat. It’s a batter that releases some air bubbles and traps others. Both the milk and egg contribute steam and this helps the batter to rise alongside the quick lift from the bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar. Betsy Morrison mentions the importance of not turning the pancake more than once and this may be because turning encourages the flour protein and eggs to set on both sides which would restrict vertical expansion? The recipe instructs us to turn the pancake when we see “the air bubbles pop on top..’Not back and forth, mind, that only makes them tough’”. It’s possible that, once turned, the air bubbles continue to push up but are prevented from escaping by the set top and therefore give a light, aerated crumb. I’d speculate that the sugar might also work to preserve a tender crumb. However, I may be very wrong albeit it might explain why the drop scones with which some of us may be more familiar, tend to be flatter and less aerated.

Several of us reported a difficulty in finding a sweet temperature spot on our griddles or gas braai for these scones and had a few singed test runs. Nonetheless, I think we all enjoyed them, including that very important arbiter of home cooking, Little E - resident critic of Jerronimissus. @jerronimissus made a stack for breakfast and reports, “Little E’s opinion is what we’re all most concerned with and she said she wanted to eat the whole lot…”: Practising for Pancake Day. @jerronimissus has some useful shots of the batter thickness for anyone who wants to compare the one that they used to another.

Mitchdafish of Mitchadafish blog happily tweeted: “They were brilliant, loved the way they rose, magical. Maple syrup / lemon mmmmm”.

@lapindor of Lapin d’Or and More posted: Drop everything, the drop scones are ready. I not only enjoyed looking at the photographs but yet again envied the welsh griddle pan last seen in cider vinegar muffin week. I recommend going across to see the savoury and sweet ways in which Jill served these which has me reflecting on why I haven’t tried blue cheese and honey and when I might rectify this.

My Scotch Pancakes varied in depth, according to how much milk was in the batter. The very thick batter clung on to the spoon and had to be scraped onto the pan and pushed out into a circle: it rose a lot and had a light crumb.

After adding more milk, the pancakes were more like a ‘conventional’ drop scone - thinner and more dense.

I’m, again, grateful to @underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree for the vicarious enjoyment of a landscape I haven’t seen and a style of cooking I’ve not tried (Claire cooked on the gas braai mentioned above): Short and Tweet: Scotch Pancakes, Crepes Suzette and Beer Battered Fish. “I love cooking Scotch pancakes and often make them on trips into the African bush as they are so easy and no resting of the batter is needed. From start to finish, you can have a steaming pile of pancakes in about 10 minutes.”

Claire provides a charming account of what lies behind the name, Crêpe Suzette Tour d’Argent, and recreates this elegant pudding. I agree with her observation, “the big revelation was the inclusion of vanilla in the crêpes which added a really lovely creaminess”. Despite her disparaging notes about her flambé skills the crêpes were well received.

Finally, in a nostalgic flourish and in contrast to the sophistication of the crêpes: ” I made Dan’s beer batter for fish which was certainly very welcome as a good portion of British battered fish and chips is one of the foods I miss most from home…Dan’s recipe calls for the use of a “light ale” but South Africa being a nation of lager rather than ale drinkers, I had to settle for a rather dark imported Belgian beer, which whilst imparting a lot of flavour, did lead to quite a dark, rather than golden, batter”. The onion rings met with approval and Claire suggests that they might benefit from a light dredging with flour to help the batter adhere to them.

My battered fish didn’t take on the same hue as Claire’s because I used a pale ale. I also suspect that I was overly frugal with the volume of cooking oil which added to the difficulties of cooking the early batches of fish and onion rings because the oil temperature dropped steeply when an item was added. Nonetheless, the batter was light and crunched in a satisfying manner which contrasted well with the fish.

I haven’t battered and deep-fried fish in a long time. To digress, I think a number of home cooks have taken all of the warnings about chip-pan fires and such so much to heart that it’s difficult to feel confident around a pan of hot oil, no matter how well prepared you are with fire blankets and other paraphenalia. It’s rather a shame because it’s easy to lose track of how good fish and chips can be (I don’t live near a good take-away) and the merits of deep-frying as a method for cooking fish.

Fish is notoriously fiddly to cook. It needs to be cooked at lower temperatures than meat and is annoyingly fragile and prone to a collapse even when cooked perfectly and handled as if it’s more delicate than gossamer. For some fish, protecting it with a batter and then immersing it in hot oil (which Harold McGee reports to be “a relatively inefficient conductor of heat”), insulates the fish and heats it gently from all sides, allowing it to cook through, yet remain moist.

The first piece of fish I cooked dropped the temperature of the oil so much that it took a while to recover which is why the fish was dry after opening it (the fish was overcooked although the batter was not). After lecturing myself on the false economy of using too little cooking oil if it meant the fish didn’t cook properly, I heated a larger amount of oil and the subsequent pieces were fine. I rarely deep-fry, so I havered about whether I’d cook this recipe again although everyone who ate it enjoyed it with a sense of being indulged. It feels like an extravagant use for oil/dripping (I have some irrational guilt around anything that approximates to food waste). On balance, I would cook this again but I’d agree a time with neighbours as it’s probably worth me cooking enough for a fairly large number to justify that amount of oil and the lingering smell. (Time wasting economies R Us.)

It’s apparent that #shortandtweet search doesn’t always show everyone’s tweets so I apologise if I missed any notifications - please let me know and I’ll update this compilation.

Next week’s challenge recipes are all pies with a slightly unusual pastry. Pg 487 is the recipe for light cream cheese pastry and it is flexible and versatile: it rolls easily straight from the fridge and it freezes well. Dan suggests: Chicken and mushroom pies, pg 488; Shin of beef, chorizo and pinto bean pies, pg 489; Pork and parsnip pies, pg 491; Leek, smoked haddock and Lancashire cheese pies, pg 491; or Broccoli, Stilton and potato pies, pg 492. NB, in keeping with the quick and easy nature of this pastry recipe, Dan suggests using cans of soup to make the gravy for these recipes. However, I’ve substituted my own soup in a couple of the recipes and adjusted the thickness with either flour or some beaten egg, depending on the available ingredients. If you blog about your experience with a recipe, please post links in the comments or tweet pictures or links to @foodcraftspace or @evidencematters using the hashtag #shortandtweet - Thank you. It’s the same procedure if you don’t blog but just post a photograph of your work. Please send the links by 8pm 19 February or as soon thereafter as practical.

Short and Tweet Challenge 14: Lentil-stuffed flatbreads; North-South cornbread; Superwraps

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:15:00 -0500

This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was for Lentil-stuffed flatbreads pg 73; Superwraps pg 72 or North-South cornbread pg 53. [I’ve opened with @north_19’s photograph of her cornbread as it seems particularly comforting in the present weather and I’m feeling a trifle nesh and in need of even vicarious comfort.]

Although she name-checks Little House on the Prairie, @north_19 of North_19 has woven together a day that sounds like a grown-up version of A.A. Milne, it’s only an outdoor hum for snowy weather that is missing from Wintry Weather, Cornbread & Spicy Beans. In default of the hum, there is a quick overview of varieties of cornbread and a recipe for the spicy beans (featured in the following photograph) which is well worth a look in addition to photographs of her snowy garden (including footprints but neither Wizzles nor Woozles).

It’s my week for vicarious enjoyment. @underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree has fond memories of cornbread: “I love cornbread. It reminds me of road trips across the US and the guilty pleasure of an American diner I used to visit in London for a pulled pork sandwich and a side of cornbread all washed down with a Long Island iced tea”. I found Claire’s notes helpful when making this recipe and will adapt some of her tweaks (such as adding spring onions and sweetcorn) next time: Short and Tweet: North-South Cornbread.

The cornbread was soothingly simple to put together and I intend to make up bags of the dry-mix to pull out mid-week to make up a fast accompaniment to stews or soups. My Best Beloved would happily have eaten the entire quantity at one sitting had I not insisted that I needed to know if it would re-heat well (it does - even in a microwave). I didn’t have room for a skillet in the oven so resorted to a somewhat too shallow roasting tray (I reduced the bicarbonate of soda slightly to compensate for the faster cooking time) but the crumb was still light and tender.

I was delighted that several people made up the superwraps (they’re still on my schedule but keep being bumped). @jerronimmissus of Jerronimissus had tried out the Superwraps with oatmeal the first time and although they were OK, decided to re-do them using quinoa. The second time was the charm although I haven’t been able to locate a photograph for them.

@BakerHay tweeted a picture of her enticing superwraps as part of an elegant brunch and table-setting. This photograph contributes to the realisation that we all have very different understandings of the same word. In my household, brunch is the term for what is plonked in front of people when they are too late for breakfast and threats of wholly-disproportionate retribution are scarcely sufficient to bring them shuffling to the table under threat of having nothing until the evening.

Misky of Misk Cooks brought a smile to my heart with the shapes and faces she created while dry-toasting the quinoa for Dan Lepard’s Superwraps. In amongst musings about the nutritional profile of quinoa and its change in appearance as it was processed during the recipe, there are Misky’s level-headed interpretations of the recipe instructions: “Knowing from experience that when Dan says ‘”thin” he means “thinner than you’d believe possible” … I just kept rolling and rotating and flipping each 70 grams of dough until doing so any further seemed obsessive.”. Misky enjoyed the wraps and, importantly, “Mr Misk liked them, too. That’s always an important consideration in whether I’ll make something again or not. I’ll be making these again”.

A number of us cooked up the lentil-stuffed flatbreads with extra notes and guidance from the very helpful Franka Philip (@trinifood of Can Cook Must Cook) who was kind enough to share a gallery of photographs that illustrate how she and Dan Lepard made these.

@Zeb_Bakes of Zeb Bakes advises us to Try A Little Tenderness in her characteristically well-documented manner. There are some helpful, close-up illustrations of the roti making (including enviously thin rolling and superb colouration) alongside stray thoughts about why the lentil filling changed to red from the original yellow-orange (I think it has something to do with the interaction of the turmeric in the lentils and the acid of the dough/alkali of the baking soda). I was completely smitten by the image of the breakfast roti, served with egg and bacon in glorious sunshine.

@Zeb_Bakes mentioned rolling pins in her post and @tomasi_carla posted a photograph of some of her varied collection of them. Carla had also prepared the stuffed flatbreads with some of her own tweaks (she included potato and leeks and prepared the breads in a chargrill pan) and I’ve collected her tweeted notes with Storify: @tomasi_carla’s #shortandtweet flatbreads. Her conclusion? “That is one bread I will [definitely] make again.”

A warm welcome to @Leavened_Heaven of Leavened Heaven who has embraced his need for “clandestine midnight baking” and joined us with, Lentil-Stuffed Flatbreads; My Inaugural #ShortandTweet Adventure. There are lively notes and a reminder as to the need to be methodical: “Towards the end of the batch, when the family were getting cranky re the lack of dinner on the table, I made the mistake of rushing one and not using enough flour, and stretching the dough too thinly at the join. The results were a selection of tears in the flatbread, which produced the only runt of the litter. Overall, I rate the whole thing a success”.

Mitchdafish of Mitchadafish blog had had rather a trying time prior to attempting these which may explain the declaration: Lentil-stuffed Flatbreads - the stuff of nightmares. Apparently, the previous irritation meant that “these flatbreads did not have the benefit of much in the way of patient bakers ju-ju. It was the stuffing and rolling that challenged my patience”. Fortunately, @ernyberny stepped up to cook them which possibly averted something dire.

This is where I confess that I knew in advance that the stuffing and rolling of the flatbreads would completely sap my small store of tolerance so I delegated these tasks to my Best Beloved (I find it best to be realistic about what I can/not do). We enjoyed them with both cauliflower and egg curries: however, I’m also considering them for a hearty snack in the near future after seeing @Zeb_Bakes’s breakfast version.

@jerronimissus of Jerronimissus was pleased to announce, “Another success in the Short and Tweet kitchen”: Lentil stuffed flatbreads officially “yummy yummy”. This is the official verdict of 4year-old Little E and should therefore be accorded great weight. “Little E is really keen on flatbreads and these and the Superwraps are a brilliant way to give them a bit of a nutritional boost.”

It’s apparent that #shortandtweet search doesn’t always show everyone’s tweets so I apologise if I missed any notifications - please let me know and I’ll update this compilation.

Next week’s challenge recipes are batter-based. Crêpe Suzette Tour d’Argent pg 280 looks like an extravagant dish but might just be an excellent way to use up small amounts of Cointreau or Grand Marnier left over from recent festivities. Less frivolous, but just as delightful for those of us with fond memories of similar drop scones, is Betsy’s Scotch pancakes pg 279. When you read the cooking notes, you can hear the friendly admonition. Another option is the Beer batter for fish that Dan details pg 285 (note the helpful suggestion to make onion rings from any leftover batter: “frozen ones on sale at the supermarket are just so dismal”). If you blog about your experience with a recipe, please post links in the comments or tweet pictures or links to @foodcraftspace or @evidencematters using the hashtag #shortandtweet - Thank you. It’s the same procedure if you don’t blog but just post a photograph of your work. Please send the links by 8pm 12 February or as soon thereafter as practical.

Schedule for the #shortandtweet February 2012 challenge.

Outline for #shortandtweet challenge and its conditions. Thank you to everyone for taking part. I look forward to seeing next week’s crêpes, drop scones or battered fish and/or onions.

Short and Tweet Challenge 13: Spinach and ricotta pasties or Buckwheat kugel

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:01:00 -0500

This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was for Spinach and ricotta pasties pg 538 or Buckwheat onion kugel pg 539. Yet again, I’d selected these recipes with some reservations that I discovered to be shared by others (judging by various comments on Twitter or in blog posts) but, yet again, we seem to have been won round by the recipe and our enjoyment of the results. [I’ve opened with @north_19’s photograph of her kugel exploits.]

@north_19 of North_19 offers us a charming post with a dash of childhood reminiscence and useful asides on noodle making: Buckwheat kugel: it’s all in the noodle. Go, admire the grit as she refuses to be daunted by her first (unhappy) attempt at the noodles. Stay for the successful attempt, helpful notes and superb photographs.

As far as I know, everyone else opted for the Spinach and ricotta pasties, or some variation on them although several of us have kugel on their schedule (including me).

For me, one of the entertaining and slightly intimdating aspects of reading through other people’s #shortandtweet is the blend of homesteading and effort that goes into their rendition of the recipes. A while ago, I learned that several people had used their home-brewed vinegar to make the Cider Vinegar Muffins; last week, @BakerHay mentioned she’s used her husband’s homemade stem ginger for her cookies; and, this week, @CarlLegge of Carl Legge used home-prepared ingredients for pretty much everything bar growing and grinding the wheat: Nettle & brocciu pasties (yes, that does include his own whey cheese). The photograph shows said pasties with Carl’s home-canned beans (of course).

It was good to see @BakerHay’s delicious pasty and what she declares to be “Amazing aroma”.

I had a, “We’ve all been there” wry moment when reading @jerronimmissus of Jerronimissus Short and Tweet challenge pasties in “turned out ok” shocker! First of all, congratulations on conquering the oven problems and baking a successful batch of cookies. Secondly, I was tickled pink by Little E: “The dough started off a nice pinky colour and Little E got very excited that I was going to make a pink dinner. I tried to explain they wouldn’t stay pink but she still got very cross and refused to eat them once cooked as they went a lovely orange. In fact, the dough was looking very orange by the time it came to be rolled out”.

@TonyInga of Pane Artigiano enjoyed making these pasties and thought the mushrooms added a meaty texture to the spinach and the pastry was like a bread dough that worked really well. However, although for different reasons to Little E, it seems the his children weren’t too fussed on them, which leaves more pasties for appreciative adults.

Misky of Misk Cooks was pleased to report that even by her discerning standards (she’s done several #shortandtweet challenges a second time to ‘get it right’) this recipe worked for her, “Either this recipe is dead easy, or my skills are improving because I didn’t need a second go to get it right”: Dan Lepard’s Short & Tweet Challenge: Spinach Pasties. The pastry was so straightforward that the only issue was the wilting of the spinach: there’s a discussion in the comments and I’ve left several links on the same topic over at Jerronimissus’ post.

Reading through Short and Tweet: Spinach and Ricotta Pasties by @underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree, I was pleased to read: “The crust was a revelation, being not so much the pastry that one would expect to encase a pasty, but rather a bread dough that had to be kneaded and rested repeatedly”. It echoes my thoughts on this pastry because I typically consider pastry to be quite finicky and demanding in a way that I don’t have time to indulge (spare the rod, spoil the mille feuille and all that).

@lapindor of Lapin d’Or and More is another virtual member of the ‘appreciative of unfussy pastry club’: Spinach and Ricotta Pasties. ” I was initially uninspired as I am not a great fan of pastry but yeah these are made with an enrichened yeast dough rather than buttery pastry so suddenly I felt compelled to make them.” Judging by their lovely, golden colour they were well worth it.

I was pleased with our pasties despite being disappointed that I had to use frozen spinach as no fresh was readily available. I can add that variations of broccoli, cauliflower, leeks and feta cheese all work very well with this fuss-free, useful pastry that doesn’t demand molly-coddling of the sort I’m not prepared to give for a mid-week dinner.

I should also mention that several of those who’ve baked the pasties have reported that they reheat well or are good cold (and ideal for a packed lunch because it’s a good, robust pastry). Various blogs have tips about wringing out spinach distributed amongst them and are definitely worth filing away those hints for other recipes.

It’s apparent that #shortandtweet search doesn’t always show everyone’s tweets so I apologise if I missed any notifications - please let me know and I’ll update this compilation.

Next week’s challenge recipes are Lentil-stuffed flatbreads pg 73; Superwraps pg 72 or North-South cornbread pg 53: the Feb. schedule has notes on the first two of these recipes so please consult them as they may be relevant. If you blog about your experience with a recipe, please post links in the comments or tweet pictures or links to @foodcraftspace or @evidencematters using the hashtag #shortandtweet - Thank you. It’s the same procedure if you don’t blog but just post a photograph of your work. Please send the links by 8pm 5 February or as soon thereafter as practical.

Schedule for the #shortandtweet February 2012 challenge.

Outline for #shortandtweet challenge and its conditions. Thank you to everyone for taking part. I look forward to seeing next week’s breads with curries, stews or other sustaining fillings.

Short and Tweet Challenge 12: Spelt and ginger cookies, Rye and raisin cookies

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:01:38 -0500

This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was for Cookie Monsters everywhere who are feeling the need for some options now supplies of their “sometime food” from the holiday season have finally run out: Rye and raisin cookies pg 247 or Spelt and ginger cookies pg 245. I’m a tad ambivalent about cookies as I rarely eat them and I never bite into a softish one without the apprehension that it’s actually stale. However, this is not an ambivalence the household shares and (thankfully) is a non-issue among the neighbours to whom we pass on the baked goods.

@BakeCakeCrumbs of Cake, Crumbs and Cooking tweaked the sugar content and size of the cookies: Spelt ginger cookies and Rye and raisin cookies. Both of these were a hit although there are some slight bakers’ niggles as to why subsequent batches of the rye and raisin spread more after the batter had stood during the first bake-off and whether the late addition of bicarb might contribute to the spread. Overall, however, although the rye flour had been viewed with some suspicion: “I was prepared not to like the rye and raisin cookies…I was pleasantly surprised because these were delicious. The rye, raisin and chocolate blended really well flavourwise, and the texture of slightly crispy and sugary and then chewy raisin was great”.

As with several other bakers in the challenge, the spelt and ginger cookies garnered a rhapsody of delight: “I had a couple almost straight out of the oven and they were utterly delicious - slightly crispy edges and a great chewy centre, gently spiced with ginger and lovely little nubbles of stem ginger to add a bit of bite. My only regret was that after only a couple of days they had softened significantly and were just chewy without the delicious contrast of crispness round the edge that I had so enjoyed the first day. I wonder if they could be re-crisped in the oven?” I didn’t keep any so if anybody else can answer this question, that would be Good to Know.

@TonyInga of Pane Artigiano likewise baked both cookies (as @BakeCakeCrumbs suspected, I had noted that they nicely used up a whole egg between them, with a yolk in one and a white in the other). There are several eminently desirable photographs in his Flickr Cookies Galore photostream and Tony tweeted that they were “scrumptious”. @CarlLegge of Carl Legge opted for the same flavour pairing as I did: Spelt, ginger and cardamom cookies. In the comments, Carl makes a good case when posed with the conundrum of whether there is rhyme or reason to when something is best termed a biscuit or a cookie. @CarlLegge remarked: “I just love using spelt in baking” and this affection for a flour seems to be spreading. @tomasi_carla reports that she is entirely smitten after baking with spelt flour. Carla has a set of photographs that look as if they’re a spread for an interior design shoot. There is great enthusiasm for the spelt and ginger which even made an appearance at breakfast, sandwiching a banana slice.

The rye cookies look remarkably come hither with the addition of a walnut streusel topping (an idea I may well be adopting in the near future). Please welcome @BakerHay to #shortandtweet. I’m delighted by the casual note to Heather’s photo in which she mentions that she used “hubby’s homemade stem ginger”. Between the people who made their own vinegar and used it for last week’s cider vinegar muffins and now homemade stem ginger, I occasionally have the nagging feeling that I’m not really trying. Welcome back to the industrious @underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree who also baked both recipes: Short and Tweet: ‘Spelt and Ginger’ and ‘Rye and Raisin’ Cookies. There are several useful baking notes: “Both recipes were a breeze to make…Don’t be tempted to overcook them – they are ready when the outer edge is firm to the touch but the middle is still very soft and looks undercooked”. And there are thoughtful opinions on the appropriate place for these recipes in the hierarchy of baked goods: “Dan’s cookies are cookies of virtue, upping the fibre content with spelt and rye flours and packed with wholesome raisins and ginger. They are the sort of cookies that you would find in a wholefood’s café somewhere between the gluten free muffins and the beetroot brownies. The sort of cookies you could happily put in your kid’s lunch box without risking the wrath of Mr Oliver”.

It was unexpectedly restful to see a post from @lapindor of Lapin d’Or and More because of the charming photographs of her walk to work - what a remarkably tranquil start to the day wherever practical. The title of the post sums up the reaction of most of us: Cannot Eat Just One: Spelt & Ginger Cookies and the overall verdict is, “they are really moreish and hard to resist one after another once you taste them”. Jane used a duck egg yolk and I’d be curious as to whether this affects the texture or sense of richness in a noticeable way. (Digression: there’s been some recent research speculation that fat should be considered another taste sense. I don’t know but I think it’s a provocative finding that might bear further exploration.)

@Mitchdafish of Mitchadafish blog was in rather playful mood after her delight that the spelt and ginger cookies had baked so well (Mitchdafish observed family preferences and omitted the stem ginger but it doesn’t seem to have affected the bake). @jerronimmissus of Jerronimissus attempted the spelt and ginger cookies but reported that they turned into delicious brandysnap style cookies (big and flat, presumably lacy) after two attempts. We tweeted a couple of exchanges about why this might be and @jerronimmissus is planning to purchase an oven thermometer but it would be very helpful if other bakers had some ideas as to what might have happened. (Without starting down a veritable warren, there is substantial controversy in the baking world about issues such as the appropriate temperature of butter when making cookies and for how long the butter and sugar should be creamed but because of the melted method, that usual sticking point wasn’t an issue here so I’m short on suggestions.)

Like several others, I baked both of these recipes and although most of them were re-distributed soon after cooling I have strong suspicions that more of the spelt and ginger disappeared en route than the rye cookies. Similarly to several bakers, I weighed out the spelt and ginger mixture to 15g balls but only obtained 26 and a bit cookies. However, one would need 525g of mix to make 35x15g of cookies and I didn’t have a mix of that size (mine was nearer 430g). Like @CarlLegge, I added cardamom to this mix because I need to grind some for a curry and thought I might as well use grind a little extra as we’re partial to it. I added a touch of cardamom and some orange extract to the rye and raisin cookies. The initial reaction was that these additions made the raw mix taste like a famous Chocolate Orange but I wasn’t too sure what would happen after the bake. I can confidently report, however, than a 2 day old rye and raisin cookie is still nicely chewy with a crisp bite through the surface and the flavour has matured nicely. First taste response to the scarcely cooled cookie was that it was far too sweet but this no longer seems to be the case. (I’m firmly resisting the temptation to digress into the vexed question of whether most cookie/biscuit batters are better for being matured for up to 36hrs before baking.) I should mention that I also made the Oat and sour cherry cookies (pg 248) during the cookie marathon and that these were a tremendous success (because I had the spelt flour out, I used half white spelt and half plain flour). In the spirit of partial disclosure, I include another clip from Cookie Monster and mention my extreme partiality for sour cherries, particularly when soaked in a little cherry extract or Amaretto.

It’s increasingly apparent that #shortandtweet search doesn’t always show everyone’s tweets so I apologise if I missed any notifications - please let me know and I’ll update this compilation. The compilation may also be delayed while I try to sort out some technical glitches with some of the images.

Next week’s challenge recipes are Spinach and ricotta pasties pg 538 or Buckwheat onion kugel pg 539. If you blog about your experience with a recipe, please post links in the comments or tweet pictures or links to @foodcraftspace or @evidencematters using the hashtag #shortandtweet - Thank you. It’s the same procedure if you don’t blog but just post a photograph of your work. Please send the links by 8pm 29 January or as soon thereafter as practical.

Schedule for the #shortandtweet February 2012 challenge.

Outline for #shortandtweet challenge and its conditions. Thank you to everyone for taking part. I look forward to seeing next week’s savouries to liven up the end of the month.

Short and Tweet Challenge: February 2012 Schedule

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:23:00 -0500

February 2012 schedule for the #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet. (Read about #shortandtweet challenge and its conditions.)

I’m suggesting more choices for some of these challenges as I realise that some of us have different ingredients available or may be concerned about exposing ourselves or others to particular temptations.

5 February Lentil-stuffed flatbreads pg 73 which Dan Lepard made with @trinifood who suggests that these are excellent with meat curries or well-spiced vegetable dishes. I’m going to suggest Superwraps pg 72: although they were in a recent challenge not many of us did them and it might be useful to have some more experience with them (NB if quinoa isn’t available or not to taste, then Dan suggests that finely kibbled grains of barley, rye, millet or oats might be substituted.) If neither of those fit in with your usual menu then the North-South cornbread pg 53 looks like an interesting recipe (uses polenta or coarse yellow corn meal as well as strong flour).

NB: Dan Lepard has provided some further guidance for anyone substituting oats or similar for the quinoa in the Superwraps. The recipe involves soaking the grains and an earlier attempt by @jerronimmissus who prepared these Superwraps with oatmeal flagged some questions about this. [1, 2,. “[During the recommended soak] oatmeal releases starch and fibre, like rice does, whereas quinoa+amaranth [grains] stay intact. [So, the difference is that] oatmeal just makes the texture slightly rubbery, like a staffordshire oatcake.” I asked: “[if] oats would gloop up & be difficult to crumble in after soaking?” and Dan said: “They are, but not too much trouble, you just have to work them through with fingers”.

Further update: lovely @trinifood says: ” If you want the peas extra fine, best to grind them, that’s what roti makers do”.

12 February In preparation for Valentine’s Day, Crêpe Suzette Tour d’Argent pg 280 looks like an extravagant dish but might just be an excellent way to use up small amounts of Cointreau or Grand Marnier left over from recent festivities. Somewhat less frivolous, but just as delightful for those of us with fond memories of similar drop scones, is Betsy’s Scotch pancakes pg 279. When you read the cooking notes, you can hear the friendly admonition. If neither of these appeal then I’m pretty curious about the Beer batter for fish that Dan details pg 285 (note the helpful suggestion to make onion rings from any leftover batter: “frozen ones on sale at the supermarket are just so dismal”).

19 February The first time I ate cream cheese pastry was after not eating pastry for years and semi-suspecting that I didn’t like it: cream cheese pastry changed all that and I (yet again) realised that it’s possible to have had so many bad or indifferent experiences of a foodstuff that it erases memories of the good examples. Pg 487 is the recipe for light cream cheese pastry and it is usefully flexible and versatile: it rolls easily straight from the fridge and it freezes well. Dan suggests: Chicken and mushroom pies, pg 488; Shin of beef, chorizo and pinto bean pies, pg 489; Pork and parsnip pies, pg 491; Leek, smoked haddock and Lancashire cheese pies, pg 491; or Broccoli, Stilton and potato pies, pg 492. NB, in keeping with the quick and easy nature of this pastry recipe, Dan suggests using cans of soup to make the gravy for these recipes. However, I’ve substituted my own soup in a couple of the recipes and adjusted the thickness with either flour or some beaten egg, depending on the available ingredients.

26 February I propose that we close the month with recourse to our stores of preserved or tinned fruit or by making good use of available citrus fruits. Choose one of the meringues on pg 445 (plain, Double chocolate or Lemon sherbert) and eat them plain or with suitable available preserves (eg, chunky marmalade is a good contrast to the chocolate meringue shells). Apricot meringue tart pg 451 offers ‘crisp pastry with a layer of apricot conserve, a puddle of semolina pudding, covered with meringue’: it’s only 50g of semolina/ground rice so it sounds like an interesting texture that wouldn’t make a gloopy filling. People in need of end of month cheer and with some vanilla ice-cream to hand might like to fill their kitchens with the sunshine of making easy lemon curd (pg 342) and making either the Lemon meringue sundae on pg 452 or Sue Lowenbein’s suggestion on the same page for an ice-cream gâteau that uses similar ingredients (substituting crème fraîche for ice-cream).

Short and Tweet Challenge 11: Soft baps and Cider vinegar muffins

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:10:00 -0500

This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was for Soft white baps pg 60 or Cider vinegar muffins pp 65-69 or Superwraps pg 72. As far as I know, nobody attempted the Superwraps [update: mea culpa, I was wrong]. The runaway baking, taste and texture revelation for this week was for those of us who’d never attempted the soft white baps before. The photograph above is an stack of enticingly soft baps from @tomasi_carla who captured the essence of these baps when she said they have “the sweet smell of babies”.

@tomasi_carla has more photographs of her baps and they are well worth looking at: she reports that she baked them at 200C but turned the fan off which may account for the comparatively paler colour of her baps.

I’m very pleased to welcome some newcomers to this week’s #shortandtweet: @lapindor of Lapin d’Or and More and @underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree. Update: please extend your welcome to @Jerronimissus of Jerronimissus.

Jane of Lapin d’Or and More baked both the muffins and the baps. I particularly envied the welsh griddle pan that figures so prominently in Cider Vinegar Muffins from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet.

The answer to the question Jane posed in relation to the soft baps lead to some controversy in my household: Baps, Barm Cakes, What Would You Call Them? As a Southerner, my Best Beloved does not distinguish between such baked goods. As a Northerner, a barm cake has a tangy bite from the barm leaven (a variation on sourdough) and a soft texture with a lightly-floured top: for me a soft bap has a lighter texture which can be compressed round a filling but will bounce back, and a sweeter flavour with a floury top. I will admit, however, that these views may be idiosyncratic, and might reflect living in the NW of England (we’ll leave aside my time in Scotland and that other soft roll delight, the Morning Roll, which has its own subtle differences despite similar ingredients and technique).

Take a moment to admire the gumtree and azure sky in the blog banner of Under the Blue Gum Tree. Read about Claire’s experience of dodgy yeast, and how her success with Dan Lepard’s micro-kneading and Easy White Bread recipe helped her out at culinary school. “For my final exam, I secreted myself at the end of the kitchen and hoped that the examiner wouldn’t notice that I was using an entirely different recipe for my rolls. Luckily I got away with it and couldn’t help feeling a bit smug when I got singled out for the quality of my bread. Thanks Dan!” Claire and I seem to have had some similar misgivings about the rise of the muffin dough at various points: The Short and Tweet Challenge. Claire reports: “My dough also didn’t rise as much as expected…So sure was I of impending failure that I even checked my storecupboard to ensure I could whip up a batch of baps instead. Still, I ploughed on with my muffins and when they hit the pan, they dutifully rose beautifully. Once baked and cooled, I slit one open and was relieved to see it looked just like the picture [in Short & Sweet]”.
@north_19 of North_19 has triggered a hunt for pig cheeks in several parts of the UK after posting her Chinese-style pig cheek baps. In the comments, there is even talk of bartering baps to wheedle pig cheeks out of butchers who don’t usually carry them but do have a strong interest in good bread. Nicola has provided a very useful series of photographs of various stages of the dough and its mixing as well as the recipe for her siren-call Hunanese-style braised pig cheeks.
Mitchdafish of Mitchadafish blog offers a gallery of filling ideas to excite meal times and hunger pangs: Floury baps. Like many of us, Mitchdafish delighted in this recipe: “The texture and flavour could not be beaten… if Dan had been in the room at this point we would have stuffed him in a floury bap, smothered him with sauce and garnish and gobbled him up”.
Misky of Misk Cooks baked the soft baps early in the week and shared my enthusiasm for them: Short and Sweet Challenge: Soft White Baps. Although Misky and her family enjoyed the baps, she felt that she’d discerned a “slight heavy chewiness”. So, in typical Misky style, she repeated the recipe the next day with a few tweaks to her original attempt: “The result was perfection. There was a volleyball-ish oven spring, very soft and tender crust, airy crumb. It was a totally different roll. I put it down to a few things: full-fat milk instead of semi-skimmed, real sugar, and mixed entirely by hand rather than using the standmixer. The blanket fold might be responsible for the near anti-gravity spring in the oven”.
@TonyInga of Pane Artigiano approached this week’s challenge with his typical zest: At Last! - Bread Baking! Now, just to add further unnecessary detail to Jane’s question above, I’d say that Tony’s baps look more like a cob (NB, not a crusty cob), albeit with this dough it would taste a little different.
@BakeCakeCrumbs of Cake, Crumbs and Cooking has some good illustrations of the dough mixing process (includes a Danish Dough Whisk - I have one of these and have a soft spot for it): Soft White Baps. The recipe stood up well to being halved and still delivered a delightfully soft bap.
@Choclette8 of Chocolate Log Blog was sufficiently intrigued by this week’s recipes that although she typically participates when chocolate in an ingredient, or a recipe can be tweaked to include it, she just had to try the cider vinegar muffins and produced a beautifully sunny-coloured result.

However, the prize for the most-gloriously coloured cider vinegar muffins must go to @CarlLegge of Carl Legge: Cider vinegar muffins, egg and salad. In a charming insight into what it must be like knowing people who live The Good Life, for Carl, this recipe “meant I could use our hens’ eggs…and the cider vinegar I had made earlier in the year”. Carl has some useful tips and you can learn just how helpful a salad ingredient chickweed is in these thin months for vegetables.

Update to add the write-up from @Zeb_Bakes of Zeb Bakes: Dan Lepard’s Cider Vinegar Bread Muffins with the understandably exuberant subtitle, These are the best muffins I’ve ever tasted!.

Jo’s made some interesting observations about subtle changes to the recipe from when it was first published in the Guardian.
“I approached the muffins with a little hesitation as when we had made them before they had always disappointed a little, tasty but very heavy and doughy, more like a crumpet inside than anything else. But, ever the optimist I thought I’d have another go. I’m really glad I did.”
“[The] cooking method is quite different from how it first appeared…The result transforms these little lovelies giving them a wonderfully delicate light crumb and that special muffin crust that you only get from baking them off in this way, soft and yet crispy with a little hint of toasted flour and with a bit of bite.”
Go, look at Jo’s folded dough which is a thing of beauty: note yet another person who has home-brewed their own cider vinegar. Admire the griddled dough below (Jo has useful advice on how not to over-cook them) and then move on to the lovely finished result.

And now - some Superwraps, Huzzah for @jerronimmissus who attempted these for us: Superwraps. People with a keen eye for observation (and a touch of covetousness) may well notice Nicky’s pastry cloth on which she rolls out the dough (go, look - it’s got helpful guidemarks). I think that a number of us will share a moment of understanding when Nicky reports crises of confidence along the way in making up this recipe. If anybody can cast light on various of the issues then please leave a comment for her. One useful note may be to consult the rye crispbread week where a number of us commented on the issue of rolling them to sufficient extra-thinness.

Nicky’s overall report is: “These tasted nice and it was good to do something a bit different…Now I don’t know if it was the oatmeal, if I added too much water or overworked the dough, or used too much flour when rolling, or cooked them a bit too long, or what but these were chewy. Dare I say, rubbery…I will definitely try these again with the quinoa and see how they turn out. A major plus was that my four year old happily gobbled a couple up and ate some of her salad so overall I think we have to class these a success!”

It is safe to say that the household and neighbours’ enthusiastic response to the soft baps means that they are now a permanent part of the baking schedule in my home. The oven spring of these baps initially took me by surprise but as I’ve recently baked a third batch of them, this does seem characteristic of the dough.

My muffins are considerably paler than those from other bakers. I don’t know if this is related to the pale colour of the vinegar I used as other participants had the benefit of their home-brewed condiment. My muffins also look a little drier but this is probably because I forgot to cover them while they were pre-cooked on the griddle.

If I’ve omitted anyone, please let me know and I’ll update this post.

The challenge for next week is a return to interesting flours used in sweet recipes: Rye and raisin cookies pg 247 or Spelt and ginger cookies pg 245. If you blog about your experience with a recipe, please post links in the comments or tweet pictures or links to @foodcraftspace or @evidencematters using the hashtag #shortandtweet - Thank you. It’s the same procedure if you don’t blog but just post a photograph of your work. Please send the links by 8pm 22 January or as soon thereafter as practical.

Schedule for the #shortandtweet January 2012 challenge.

Outline for #shortandtweet challenge and its conditions.

Thank you to everyone for taking part. I look forward to seeing next week’s cookies which strike me as more interesting than your average elevenses (or 2amses if you’re a shift worker or insomniac).