TWD -- Can-do Cantuccini

Practically perfect in every way

I loved this recipe. I was thrown at first by the name, but once I read this was real-deal biscotti, I couldn't wait to try it. I have been making biscotti off and on for some time, but had never run into a recipe for unblanched almonds. What were they and where did one get them? I ended up using a product called "raw almonds" so I hoped that meant unblanched.

I followed the recipe exactly and found the end product "practically perfect in every way," as Mary Poppins would say. I have come to believe that a biscotti recipe without any fat makes a cookie too tough and crunchy, but these weren't. My eight-year-old granddaughter even liked them and wasn't put off by the fact that they didn't look like the traditional cookie. I am going on a Cooks' Tour tomorrow and will take these along to pass out on the bus.

TWD -- Buttermilk Scones with two changes

We've all done it, I'm sure. Just
when we're ready to stick something in the oven we remember we forgot a key ingredient. In the case of Marion Cunningham's Buttermilk Scones, this week's Tuesdays with Dorie assignment, it was the sugar. The scones (I chose the pinwheel version) were cut, buttered and ready to pop in the oven when I suddenly remembered the sugar that was supposed to go in with the flour and buttermilk. By then it was too late so I decided to see if the sugar would be missed -- it wasn't. I had sprinkled enough sugar on the completed pinwheels that it made no difference whatsoever that there was none in the dough.


Oops, I forgot the sugar when making the dough

I made one other alteration in the recipe. I substituted self-rising flour for the flour, baking powder and salt called for in the recipe. I like scones with made with self-rising flour, a softer flour that makes for a more tender and less dry scone. After tasting the finished product I was glad I had made the substitution. The scones were wonderful and all but melted in your mouth.

But then I tend to like Marion Cunningham's recipes. As the editor of two revised editions of the Fannie Farmer Cookbook (a mainstay in my kitchen) I have come to trust Marion. And I love to watch her with Julia on You Tube making the recipes in "Baking with Julia." She's so relaxed, poised and elegant that it's hard to believe that she suffered from agoraphobia. When I learned this fact about her by reading her Wikipedia entry it just made me admire her all the more.

Marion suggested several kinds of fruits to put in the pinwheels but I picked something not on the list -- dates. It was an awesome choice and one I will make again. I liked the dough so well in this recipe that I thought it could be used to make quick cinnamon rolls when there is no time for yeast dough to rise. I served my scones with shepherd's pie, another British favorite in our house.

TWD: Onion Bialys: How do they eat them in New York?

I couldn't wait to try the Onion Bialys for this week's Tuesday with Dorie assignment. I love bagels -- love to make them, love to eat them. But bialys were uncharted territory for me. I had never heard of them, so consequently had never eaten one. For the correct pronunciation, I consulted the The Free Dictionary on the internet and learned the i was pronounced like an e.  I liked the fact that were from Poland and, according to the book, they were popular at New York brunches. When you live in a town the size of a postage stamp, eating brunch in New York seems so "Sex in City."  And that onion topping with poppy seeds looked awfully yummy in the pictures.

I wondered, "Would they taste like bagels without the water bath?" I was eager to find out. If these could taste as good as bagels, eliminating the water bath would save a step.



First batch -- too fat and with not enough of an indentation

I made mine in two batches. I believed I was following the directions in the book for batch No. 1, but my first half dozen obviously didn't look like the pictures. They were way too fat and the indentation in the middle was not nearly big enough. That's when I found Bill Dube. After Googling "how to shape bialys," I happened on Dube's You Tube video where he shows not only how to shape the dough (he uses the bottom of a water glass to make the indentation) but how to make the dough in a bread machine. I liked Dube's affable presentation so well, I watched a few of his other videos and decided he would make a great next-door neighbor. We could swap bread stories to a fare-three-well and sample each other's experiments.

Bath No.2

Thanks to Bill's help, my second batch turned out looking much more like the ones in the book. I couldn't wait to eat one.
I waited until they were relatively cool before slicing the first one. To my dismay, the filling spilled out of the indentation during the slicing process. This was a puzzler. Did people at New York brunches eat the entire roll without slicing? I couldn't picture people all over New York slicing into bialys and watching the topping fall out on the white tablecloth. The dough seemed too chewy and bagel-like to attempt eating one whole. After mulling this conundrum over, I decided to spoon out the filling, put it in a cup while I sliced the bialy horizontally, toast the two halves and then reapply the topping over the buttered halves. It was delicious fixed this way. My goal now is to finagle a trip to New York, find a brunch spot that serves bialys and watch how the natives eat them.






TWD -- Country Bread: good but not great

Joe Ortiz' Country Bread, this week's assignment for Tuesdays with Dorie, was good, but not great. This is the kind of bread I love to make -- a mixture of wheat, whole wheat and rye flours with little or no sugar and oil -- a true artisan bread.

Baskets from Discount Drug Mart

I chose to divide my dough in half and make two loaves, not one, using baskets from our drug store (when you live in a small town you buy everything from window shades to lettuce at Discount Drug Mart.) I bought two wicker baskets there years ago and they are the perfect size to make 1 12-2- pound loaves of bread. I let the dough rise in the baskets seam side up, turn them out on a pizza paddle covered with cornmeal and slide them onto baking tiles.

I had three problems with Country Bread. The first was the yeast. I bake with instant yeast and the recipe called for active dry yeast. I know to use less instant yeast than a recipe for active dry yeast calls for, so I allowed for that fact. What I didn't allow for was the difference in rising times. My dough rose faster than the recipe indicated and I think my loaves were actually over-risen when I slid them in the oven.

My second problem was the amount of water. I thought my dough didn't have enough. Somewhere in the Baking with Julia book, it indicates a cup of flour used in the recipes should weigh 5 ounces. Using this as my guide, I used the minimum amount of flour called for (a total of 30 ounces) and used the 20 ounces of water indicated. That equates to a 66 percentage of four/water ratio. I normally like my bread with a 68 percent ratio and was tempted to add more water to get there, but decided to follow the recipe instead just to see what would happen.

My last problem I believe is the fault of the recipe. I view the baking temperature to be too low for this kind of bread. I normally start an artisan loaf at 460 degrees, then reduce the heat (only if it's browning to fast) after about 10 or 15 minutes. At 425 degrees, my loaves didn't brown that nicely.

When I cut into one of the loaves, I saw that the crumb was too tight and too dry -- an indication that more water was needed and that the dough had over-risen and had somewhat collapsed in the oven. Should I make this loaf again I would add more water, shorten my rising time on the second rise and jack up the oven temperature to at least 450 degrees.


The finished product

For those who love to make this kind of bread, I recommend two books: "The Bread Bible." by Rose Levy Beranbaum and "Bread" by Jeffery Hamelman.