Got Rhubarb?

Rhubarb is currently in season and if you don't already have a plant of your own you can find it at the local farm market, roadside stand and sometimes in a grocery store.  The recipe that follows is an all-purpose coffee cake; meaning that it is not restricted to rhubarb.  You could substitute apples, fresh cherries, blueberries or just about any other favorite fruit.  Between you and me the tartness of the rhubarb is a nice compliment to the crunchy streusel topping.

I made this today.....

Rhubarb Coffee Cake

Prep: 30 mins Cook: 45 mins Total: 1 hr. 15 mins Servings: 12 Yield: 1 - 9x13 inch cake

Ingredients - Cake

1 ¼ cups white sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 eggs, beaten

1 cup sour cream

3 cups diced rhubarb

 Ingredients- Streusel Topping

1 cup white sugar

¼ cup butter, softened

¼ cup all-purpose flour

Ground cinnamon for dusting

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9x13 inch baking pan.

In a large bowl, stir together 1 1/4 cups sugar, baking soda, salt and 2 cups flour. Stir together the eggs and sour cream until will mixed.  Add to the dry ingredients and stir until smooth then fold in the rhubarb. Pour into the prepared dish and spread evenly. 

In a smaller bowl, stir together the remaining 1 cup sugar and butter until smooth. Stir in 1/4 cup flour until the mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle the mixture on top of the cake then dust lightly with cinnamon.

Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 45 to 60 minutes depending on your oven.

Pro Tip –  I threw a double fistful of chopped walnuts in the cake batter along with the rhubarb because that was what was left languishing on the pantry shelf.  Good pick.  

Got Blueberries?

I can make these from memory.  Our go-to household muffin.  The revenge of the ginormous blueberry muffins.....

 

Tom’s Blueberry Muffins

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

In a large mixing bowl mix together the following:

2 C of flour

1 C chopped walnuts (Feeling bold?  Double-up)

3 t of baking powder

1/3 C of sugar

1 t of salt

In a second bowl mix together the following:

1 egg

1 4oz container of all-natural apple sauce (they come in a 6-pak)

½ C of canola oil

¾ C of milk

2 C of fresh (not frozen) blueberries (throw caution to the wind and use an entire pint)

Pour the bowl of mixed wet ingredients into the bowl of mixed dry ingredients. Gently blend together. Don’t mash the blueberries!

Anoint muffin tin with vegetable oil cooking spray.

Bake for 20-30 minutes. Check towards the end as ovens vary.

Yields one dozen muffins. These don’t last but a couple of days in our house. Enjoy!

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Optional: Using a mixer or food processor blend an 8 oz. pkg of cream cheese with ¼ C of sugar. Fill the 12 places in your muffin tin with ½ of the batter. Spoon a dollop of the blended cream cheese on top. Cover the cream cheese with the remaining ½ of the dough. Bake per instructions. The result is a blueberry/cheesecake muffin.

Got Butter?

Saw this in the New York Times last week and decided to make it.  If you do the math this works out to an entire tablespoon of butter in every biscuit!

Buttermilk Biscuits

By Melissa Clark Updated Sept. 26, 2024

Total Time 30 minutes
These soft and tender biscuits are made with cultured butter, which is made with cream that is cultured, or fermented, before it is churned. Cultured butter can be made at home, but it is becoming easier to find in supermarkets. It’s worth seeking out. Any true butter fanatic should try it at least once.  (I used regular unsalted sweet cream butter because that's what I had)

Ingredients
Yield:12 to 15 biscuits
● 335 grams all-purpose flour (2⅔ cups)
● 75 grams cake flour (¾ cup)
● 10 grams baking soda (2 teaspoons)
● 4 grams baking powder (1 teaspoon)
● 6 grams fine sea salt (2 teaspoons)
● 15 grams granulated sugar (1½ tablespoons)
● 2 sticks salted, cultured butter, chilled and cubed (1 cup)
● 1½ cups buttermilk, chilled

Preparation
1. Heat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar.
3. Using a pastry cutter or fork, quickly cut butter into flour mixture until it forms pea-size crumbs and is uniformly mixed. (For flaky biscuits, you want the butter to remain cold.) Make a well in the center of mixture and pour in buttermilk. Stir together until it just forms a moist, slightly tacky dough.
4. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead 2 or 3 times, then pat out into a ¾-inch-thick round. Using a 2-inch round cutter, cut the biscuits. Do not twist the cutter; doing so prevents proper rising. To prevent sticking, dip the cutter lightly in flour between biscuits. Also, do not reroll scraps, but pat them together and cut into rounds. Transfer biscuits to a baking sheet.

Bake until brown, 15 minutes. Serve hot.
 

Pro Tips
● Measurements for dry ingredients are given by weight for greater accuracy. The equivalent measurements by volume are approximate. Pulse very cold or frozen butter into dry ingredients with a food processor to a crumb-like consistency.

Recipe Of The Day

One of the things about sourdough baking is that maintaining your starter is akin to having another dependent.  Only you don't have to change its diaper and send it to college.  Nevertheless, once a week you have to feed it - a process of discarding half and replenishing it with equal amounts of high-protein flour and water.  Back in the fridge it goes.

On Saturday morning I divided and fed my starter.  

I reserved the half I would have discarded or redirected to baking bread and used it to ferment and overnight sponge for pancakes on Sunday morning.

It is an easy recipe resulting a very good pancake.  

If you follow the recipe below cut everything in half which is plenty for a hearty breakfast for two adults.  I used-up the last of some blueberries and buttermilk we had and served it up with Irish butter and local maple syrup.

If I was making this for guests I'd make a full recipe, amp-up the blueberries and fry-up some breakfast sausages from the local butcher.

This Lactobacillus fermentation is working rather well.  

Recipe here.

Raising a toast to Mad Scientist cooking....

Recipe of the Day

 

Lumberjack Cookies

INGREDIENTS

1 - cup sugar

1 - cup shortening

1 - cup dark molasses

2 - eggs

4 - cups all-purpose flour

1 - teaspoon baking soda

1 - teaspoon salt

2 - teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 - teaspoon ground ginger

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 375°F.

In a food processor cream together the sugar and shortening.

Add molasses and eggs.

In a large bowl mix together the dry ingredients and stir-in the contents of the food processor.

Work the stiff dough with a wooden spoon.

Put ½ cup sugar in a small bowl.

Pinch-off a piece of dough and roll into a 1-1/2-inch ball. Roll dough ball in sugar until covered.

Place dough balls on parchment paper-covered cookie sheet spaced 3 inches apart.

Bake for 30 minutes – give or take. Yield is about 4-dozen cookies. The dough will keep for a week or more in the refrigerator.

Gentlemen: Start Your Starter

Friday is generally Feed The Sourdough Starter Day. 

This is maintenance so that there is leavening agent in the garage fridge. 

For each jar: 

120g water in a bowl

100g old starter

  10g Bob’s Old Mill Rye flour

 90g King Arthur high protein bread flour

Whisk and return to clean jar with airlock lid. 

First picture was noonish. Second just now- 7 hours later. 

 

Discard starter makes the best buttermilk sourdough pancakes on the planet. Great bread and pizza dough too. 

The jar on the right is three year old San Francisco starter from Amazon. 

The jar on the left is from a friend in Algoma, via a sister in Michigan, who got it from a New York City 3 Star Michelin Chef, who brought it from France 42 years ago. 

Raising a toast to Lactobacillus fermentation…

Pro Tips - you can go away for 2-3 weeks and your starter will respond well to a feeding.   I keep a batch of each in the freezer as backup. Just in case.

Use bottled water if you are on treated city water.

Cookn' With Propane

I'm back to baking on a regular basis with about seven or eight successful bakes in the last several weeks.  

Heretofore, I thought I had lost my mojo.  'Twas instant dry yeast  that had lost its vigor a year before its x-date printed on the jar.  Believe the results - not the Best By Date.

With the lengthening days and warming weather it's getting close to firing-up the backyard brick oven.  Nevertheless, that doesn't mean you cannot make pizza in you kitchen range.

If you have a stone and get preheat it to 550F you can turn-out a darn good pie with an excellent homemade crust in under ten minutes.  Pro Tip:  Rao's Pizza Sauce.  (Three kinds)

I'm cooking with propane so your mileage may vary.....

 

From The Kitchen

Among other things the weekend agenda included hard rolls......

Fresh-Baked Breakfast Treat

Made these today for a cold, snowy morning breakfast treat.

 

Sourdough Breakfast Rolls

 

Starting the day with these sourdough breakfast rolls is a real treat. No kneading required. Just mix the dough before you go to bed, and you will have freshly baked bread for breakfast in 45minutes the next morning.

 

Prep Time 10 mins

Cook Time 15 mins

Total Time 25 mins

Servings 8 rolls

 

Ingredients

● 420 g high protein unbleached bread flour

● 6 g yeast

● 250 g water

● 50 g milk

● 80 g sourdough starter

● 9 g salt

 

Before you go to bed

1. Mix all ingredients before you go to bed. You don't have to overdo it, just make sure that all flour is hydrated. Cover the dough with cling film and let it ferment overnight at room temperature.

 

Next morning

1. The first thing to do the next morning is to preheat the oven to 480ºF / 250ºC.

2. Pour out the dough on a floured working surface and fold and stretch it into an elongated package. Let the dough rise for 30-45 minutes. Divide the dough into 6-8 pieces and put them on parchment paper on a pizza stone or cookie sheet.

3. Bake them for 15 to 20 minutes. They should have a nice golden brown color. Let them cool on a wire rack or eat them immediately.

 

Pro Tip

These would make for a hearty hoagie roll for lunch sandwiches. Cutting and baking these in smaller rolls would yield an awesome dinner roll.

 

VERY easy recipe that yields big dividends from your domestic tranquility account....

 

 

Kitchen Magician

We recently returned from a marathon road trip to the Gulf Coast and while we were away my two strains of sourdough starter languished alone in the dark confines of the fridge in the garage.  And not so remarkably after almost three weeks of neglect they bounced back immediately following a feeding.

The other day I fed them again on their regular Friday schedule and reserved what would have been discarded to make sourdough blueberry pancakes for breakfast and a rustic sourdough loaf.

Yummy bakery if you can get it.

Recipe here:

Start to finish 12-14 hours. Hands-on time is less than 1 hour.

385g water
90g starter
520g flour (100g whole wheat and 420g high protein bread flour)
12g table salt (to be added later)

Mix water with starter to make a slurry. Whisk the flour together and add to the slurry. Mix
everything by hand. Cover and allow to rest for 15 minutes.

Stretching the bread:

Stretch and turn eight times. Rest another 15 minutes. Sprinkle half the salt on the dough then
stretch and turn 8 times. Let it rest for 15 minutes. Sprinkle the dough with the remaining salt
and stretch and turn 8 times. Cover the dough and let it rest overnight (8-12 hours) at room
temperature (68-70 F) until doubled in size. If it is warmer this may take 6-8 hours. Wet hands
are non-stick.

Forming the loaf:

Dump the dough out onto a floured counter. Cover with a bowl and let it rest ½ hour. With wet
hands stretch and fold the dough forming a round loaf. Place on a floured towel and place in a
bowl seam side up. Cover and allow to rest in the fridge for 1-4 hours.

Baking the loaf:

45 minutes before baking allow the cast iron pot and lid to preheat in a 450 oven. Tip the
towel-lined loaf from the bowl into parchment paper-lined cast iron. Slash and bake covered
for 40 minutes at 425. At 40 minutes remove the lid and bake for 20 additional minutes at 425
(uncovered). Reduce heat to 400 and continue baking for 10 - 15 minutes. Remove loaf to a
wire rack and allow to rest at room temperature.

Resist any urge to cut the loaf before it has cooled. Place the loaf cut side down on a cutting
board for up to a day before bagging in plastic.

Good Looking Deli Rye Seeks Pastrami For Casual Relationship

This. 

 

Fresh from the oven. 

One of my regular standbys is the salted deli rye.  (Scratching my German itch)

 

This is an easy, short-order loaf as it uses a stand mixer and doesn't require a 24 hour proof as the French boule does.

If one of my meat-smoking friends could conjure-up some home-cured pastrami we’d have a terrific start to ringing-in the New Year…..

 

Good Eats

Sourdough boule #3.

 

Me thinks I have the recipe figured-out. 

And because there are garden tomatoes continuing to ripen in the garage, the other night delivered BLTs. 

Some of my friends tell me that Nueske’s is the Gold Standard of bacon. Nonsense. Marchant’s bacon is. 

And by the time December rolls-around home-grown tomatoes will be a fond memory.

 

Care and Feeding of the Science Experiment

 

Making Pat’s Sourdough Bread at Home:  The starter I received as a gift in class can be traced back through Pat’s sister in Michigan, to her daughter in NYC, to her friend Laurent Gras, a Michelin starred chef from France.  We’ve been given a gift of a 40-year-old starter that began its life in France.  Here’s how to keep it going.

Feeding the starter:  

120g water

100g old starter

100g flour (includes a heaping tablespoon of rye flour)

Mix the water and starter to make a slurry.  Add flour and stir until lumps have dissolved.  Pour into a quart mason jar and set on the counter at room temperature.  Cover. The starter should double in volume.  Then settle down to its original level.  After 24 hours, refrigerate.  Starter can live in the fridge for approximately 7 days.  Feed once a week.  For more sour flavor use starter that has been refrigerated 4-6 days.

 

Pro Tip - Top jars with a Pickle Pipe. It's an airlock. 

The Science Experiment

I’ve been struggling with my sourdough since I purchased some San Francisco starter earlier this spring.  I was not achieving a satisfactory loft. I wasn’t baking bricks but results were sub-optimal.

So I took a sourdough class at the community college.  Who knew there was such a thing?

It was a cozy group that got the bread-baking itch during COVID. 

My two takeaways were:

1.  Fold and stretch the dough instead of kneading it. Less rough handling and allow a 10-12 hour proof. 

2.  I received a gift of a 40-year-old starter that has its origins in France and landed in Algoma via a chef in NYC. 

Last Thursday there was this....

 

 

By all outward appearances a great crust, good-looking ear and a nice crumb.  Nevertheless, when tasted the following morning there were salty spots.  I made the beginner mistake of incorporating a coarse sea salt into the fold which didn't efficiently dissolve into the dough.

That's OK though.  I'll break-up the loaf and toss it into the woods for the critters.  Waste not - want not.

I started another dough immediately and proofed it over night.

 

Inasmuch as this has become a living thing I have to give this gaseous, bubbling mass a name.  The Blob maybe?  During the stretch and pull phase I incorporated the correct amount of salt using ordinary, fine-grained table salt.

Here is the final result....

 

 

Great crust, good-looking ear, nice crumb and a great taste.  Nailed it!

 

Raising a toast to Lactobacillus fermentation.....

The Best Part Of Waking Up

Delightful sight and smell to wake-up to.

Homemade, sunrise boule......

 

The Science Experiment

One of the things about sourdough baking is that maintaining your starter is akin to having another dependent.  Only you don't have to change its diaper and send it to college.  Nevertheless, once a week you have to feed it - a process of discarding half and replenishing it with equal amounts of high-protein flour and water.  Back in the fridge it goes.

On Friday morning I divided and fed my starter.  

I reserved the half I would have discarded or redirected to baking bread and used it to ferment and overnight sponge for pancakes on Saturday morning.

It is an easy recipe resulting a very good pancake.  

If you follow the recipe below cut everything in half which is plenty for a hearty breakfast for two adults.  I used-up the last of some blueberries we had and substituted skim milk which happened to be what we had.  Serve with butter and local maple syrup.

If I was making this for guests I'd amp-up the blueberries, use buttermilk as the recipe calls-for and fry-up some breakfast sausages from the local butcher.

This Lactobacillus fermentation is working rather well.  

Recipe here.

Raising a toast to Mad Scientist cooking....

Lunch

In keeping with my Mad Scientist streak, among other things I baked a sourdough loaf yesterday.  I'm getting better at it and even signed-up for a sourdough class at the local community college.

 

Started the dough over the weekend and woke to this upon rising yesterday morning.

 

 

Lettuce and vine-ripened tomatoes from the garden, locally-sourced bacon, mayo and frilly toothpicks to hold all of this summertime goodness together.

 

 

Enough of the same for lunch again today.

 

There's another 1200g dough doing a longer cold proof in the garage fridge.

The science continues....

 

The Science Experiment

It was last weekend that I took the plunge and baked my first sourdough bread.  Not only did it look good - it tasted good too.  It makes terrific toast for breakfast.

My culture now lives in the fridge so I only have to feed and care for it once a week.  If I'm going to perform a bake I bring it out, feed it and allow it to set on the counter to come-up to room temperature and begin percolating.  That takes only a couple or three hours - enough time to go out and weed the garden.

On Saturday I mixed a batch of dough and let it proof 24 hours at room temperature.  By Sunday morning it looked like this...

And I baked a half-dozen sourdough rolls.

This was done indoors in the kitchen range so as to reduce unknown variables that may impact the bake.  With enough practice I'll eventually move this out to the brick oven to up the ante.

These were quite yummy.  A big batch would be terrific for deer camp.

Raising a toast to Lactobacillus fermentation.

The Science Experiment

Once the plague of Covid descended-upon the land and I was spending less time traveling and more time indoors at home I decided to turn my hand at bread-making.

One thing led to another and before too long the 2021 international travel budget was repurposed as an outdoor brick oven, pizza-making was introduced to the line-up, outdoor grilling over a wood fire was promoted and naturally dough-making for indoor use and outdoor applications was practiced, practiced-again and continues to be experimented-with.

Over the weekend I baked a sourdough loaf indoors.

It started with the fermentation of a sourdough culture a couple of weeks ago.  I had to feed it every day, discard waste product and repeat.  With the passage of time it became a living organism.  It was reminiscent of feeding and changing an infant.  Although I didn't have to read it a bedtime story and tuck it in at night.

A 24-hour room-temperature proof of my basic French boule recipe followed.  The only change was the substitution of the sourdough culture for instant dry yeast as the leavening agent.  Here is the bubbling blob of future bread goodness.

It was a success.  And practice should improve future results and variations on the theme.  Think: sourdough pancakes, rye bread, pizza dough, pretzels, etc.

Yeast-based breads, at least in our culture, are consumed in greater quantity than bread-stuffs leavened with a fermented culture.  It is thought that it was the Egyptian pharaohs first used lactic acid-based bacteria cultures in bread leavening.  This practice spread throughout the world and eventually landed here.

In American popular culture (pun intended) it is believed that sourdough came to San Fransisco via Europe as a consequence of the California gold rush.  Subsequent gold discoveries in the Klondike introduced sourdough to western Canada and Alaska.  

The culture that I grew is a San Fransisco strain acquired from Cultures For Health.  They've got all sorts of resources for a foodie to experiment with Lactobacillus fermentation.

I am told that by means of carefully feeding, growing and nurturing my sourdough culture (it is a living thing after all) that as the bacteria evolve over multiple successive generations its quality and consistency will improve over time.  It sounds like the art and science of raising a child to be a productive citizen.

That sounds like an artisanal challenge for a bread-making hobbyist.

So, stay-tuned.  This could be fun adventure and a delicious science experiment.....

Home Baked Bread

It has been awhile since I made this.

Homemade cranberry walnut loaf.

Included in this was an entire heaping cup each of toasted walnuts and craisins (dried cranberries).

Very yummy with butter or cream cheese and makes a kick-ass french toast.

 Gonna make this again - maybe with dried, Door County tart cherries.

Can't wait to unlimber the Forno for the season.....