The Best Smell in the World

I love making bread. Love it, love it, love it.

Why, you ask? Because there is probably no better smell than freshly baked bread. It starts with the yeast as it proofs--not a strong smell, but if you happen to be standing by the bowl, watching the yeast slowly bloom--as I usually am--then you get a whiff of the promise of a heavenly aroma, and it's glorious.

Then, after you've kneaded and punched down, and kneaded again the large, floury mass that is to become your bread, you place the (in this case) braided loaves in the oven and wait. And in about 10 minutes, it happens. Your house begins to smell INCREDIBLE. That heady aroma can linger for hours, tempting you toward the kitchen until long after the loaf of bread is gone.

I'm strange. I know.

But I made a challah yesterday, because Andy had never tried it before, and, since it was Friday, I figured, why not?

Sidetrack: Challah is a huge part of my childhood. I'm not a religious person--not by any stretch of the imagination. But I'll do Shabbat if it means I get to eat a piece of challah. I learned my honey challah recipe back in 2006 (for the Rosh Hashanah meal I cooked for my roommates at Columbia...), and I feel that I am a more complete person because of it. When I was little, my Oma (that's "grandmother" in Dutch, in case you didn't know) used to make the perfect challah toast when she came to stay with us. I don't know how she did it, but she always managed to char the outside of the bread but keep the inside flaky and soft. And then she'd spread just this much butter on it and cover it with hagelslag (pronounced "hachelslach"). I'm pretty sure that if heaven exists, the angels get to eat this every morning for breakfast.

Anyway.

So the challah turned out really, incredibly, beautifully well. I did end up using more flour than intended, but I think that had something to do with the extreme humidity yesterday. The dough was very sticky and hard to knead.

The first rise went well--the dough rose so much that I had to punch it down just to keep it in the bowl. The second rise, after I braided the bread, yielded two massive loaves. Much more massive than intended, actually.

I brushed the dough with egg and then baked it at 375 for 40 minutes. the intoxicating aroma of fresh challah pervaded the house for hours and hours after I took the loaves out of the oven to cool.

Half a loaf was gone before I even left for rehearsal.

And the best part is: Andy's first piece of challah wasn't just processed, enriched flour, mass-produced bread--it was the real deal...and it definitely got the seal of approval. :D!

Kay

PS Please enjoy this awesome picture of my dad trying a piece of challah.
He is adorable:



PPS Happy Independence Day!

Luck 'O' The Irish...

[EDIT]: BY THE WAY: Check out my head shot photography page. It has been updated! Now, on to your regularly scheduled posting. [/EDIT]

I honestly thought about going for the cliché and baking green cookies. I managed to quell the urge, however. Instead, I went for the next best thing: more beer bread!

Now, here's the thing about beer bread: while the basic recipe is always the same, with every new beer you add to the main ingredients, you change the taste and texture, sometimes entirely. As you might remember, I did make beer bread for Super Bowl Sunday--two different loaves, actually: Black Lager and Honey Porter. I remember the Lager being distinctly better than the Porter, at least as per my roommates and their friends' between-play comments.

But for St. Patrick's Day, I decided to add a little cliché to my non-green bread: Guinness. Oh my gosh, the smell that pervaded my house as it baked....mmmmmmmm. I brought the loaf to my rehearsal, and it was gone within minutes. The bread was so rich and flavorful, I can hardly imagine using any other beer ever again. I don't know how well it keeps that amazing, moist goodness, as even the second batch (baked at the request of my friends) barely lasted more than 20 minutes, but I can only assume.

This bread is definitely worth every second of its long bake time. And, it is quite possibly, the best way to add a little Irish to your St. Patrick's Day.

Guinness Bread







Now, how to do easter without falling into the usual bunny-and-eggs clichés....?

Kay

P.S. I'm taking part in this month's BreadBakingDay, which you can read about here. Yay for March celebration breads!

Julia Child's French Bread: Rise for Me?

"Feeeed me, Seymour," screamed the yeast in my poor, thin little batard. I looked down at its pale, dessicated visage and cringed. But then I took a bite, and all was well again.

The Daring Bakers, a group of men and women (and by group I mean there are hundreds of 'em) get together every month to bake the same recipe, chat about the process and post the results on their blogs. I started my blog specifically so that I could become one of these amazing women.

Of course I had to start on the month they decided to follow a fifteen page recipe: Julia Child's French Bread. You can imagine, what with a fifteen page recipe, that it might be time-consuming. You imagine correctly, dear Reader. It took me about eight hours--from first rise to first bite--and though I struggled to get my little yeast to rise for me--which, sadly, the didn't end up doing in as impressive a way as I'd hoped--it turned out pretty damn good.

So, having completed that gargantuan task, and after struggling through the question of how to properly knead the bread and exactly how I was to keep the fire alarm to stop ringing every time I opened the oven to spritz the loaves with water, I'm officially a Daring Baker!

I cannot wait until next month!

Julia Child's French Bread
(for the recipe, click here...if you dare!)





Yay!




Love and Cookies,
Kay

Dreaming in Black and White (Cookies)

I love New York City. I haven't been back (home) since early November, and I won't be going back most probably until July. But today the temperature dropped and I could almost remember the feeling of early spring in the city, so I decided to celebrate it with an icon of the good ol' Big Apple: Black and White Cookies.

Black and White cookies are amazing. When my sister and I were young(er), our parents used to take us to South Florida's version of a New York deli, Toojay's, where Ari and I would split a black and white cookie. There's something truly wonderful about the taste of a black and white, a cakey, spongy base with the sugary goodness of the icing, all with a just-barely-hidden bit of a lemony zest.

I've tried making these before, using an internet copycat recipe that claims to be the recipe used by Zabar's, but I've never had any luck with them. They always come out too dense and hard to be real black and white cookies, which, as the story goes, were originally made from leftover cake batter.

So I tried something new, and the batter came out amazingly cakey and spongy, just as I'd remembered. The icing's consistency required a little tweaking, but I think I got it right. And then I gave one to my roommate, who has never been to New York--she gave it a two thumbs up. Now I just need to find a true New Yorker to give it an authenticity test...

New York Black and White Cookies







I also made another loaf of rosemary focaccia bread last night to compliment the super veggie noodle soup I made for my sick roommates:



And now, I am off to ready myself for rehearsal number three, as well as for my second night of work at Domino's Pizza.

Kay

Focaccia Bread

Happy S.A.D.! (Single's Awareness Day!)
I made a rosemary focaccia bread for my friend's potluck dinner tonight...
I need to bake bread more often.

Superbowl, Super Tuesday, and other superlative days

It's been a little while since I've updated, but certainly not since I've baked.

I made some chocolate chip cookie and chocolate cheesecake bars at my friend Josephine's house the other night, and as soon as she sends me the photos, I promise to post them.

I've been feeling kind of low the last few days, so I didn't go out for the Superbowl or even Super/Fat Tuesday. But my roommates had some friends over to watch the superbowl, so I baked two loaves of beer bread, one with Sam Adams Black Lager and one with Sam Adams Honey Porter. The overwhelming vote was in the direction of the Black Lager, and understandably so. From reviews and other blogs I've read, it seems like the number one rule is, "the darker the beer, the better the bread." Which is not to say that there was anything wrong with the honey porter. It was quite good, as well. It's funny, because I'm not a huge beer fan. In fact, I hate it, because it's like drinking a loaf of sour bread. But it definitely works when enhancing the flavor of a loaf of bread.









Two days ago I was bored, and I've been trying to put together a collection of different cake-themed cookies, like the Boston Cream Pie, etc. I remembered a friend mentioning that I should try red velvet, so I figured, why not?
I took my basic sugar cookie recipe and added some basic moist chocolate cake ingredients as well as some red food coloring...and then filled and topped the cookies with a cream cheese frosting. The result was fantastic. I think these cookies are up there with the Boston Creams and the Vanilla Chai Teas.





I also decided that it's time to start actually selling my cookies. And so, witness the birth of Kay's Cookies:




I think pieces are finally starting to fall into place.
This is the best I've felt in weeks.


Kay