I don't know what "I" did this summer, much less you!

Since I last wrote, we've lost a dear elderly dog, a newish beloved car, a hated mower, and today part of a tooth.  A few other things, but those are the highlights!  Ah well, on to better times!

I grew up on a dairy farm in northeast Oklahoma, the youngest of 3 daughters.  My sisters are 8 and 9 years older than me, so there were a lot of years when I was the only kid at home to help with the chores.  Our nearest neighbors were at least a mile away, so my childhood had a lot of alone time. (Which I still crave like crazy!)  I have strong memories of being out between the dairy barn and a hay barn and looking for "perfect" cow pies.  The ones that the cows stood still for usually made for a nice round shape, more of a cake than a pie.  I would pick up a handful of gravel and drop the stones into the pile and make them "pretty".  I was a strange child apparently.  (My maiden German surname means gravel!)  Anyway the point of that story was to say that was the peak of my interest in decoration.  I'm NOT a fancy cake decorator!  If you have a cow pile you want dressed up though, I'm your girl!

Tonight I baked a special order of Pecan Sandy Shortbread cookies, or Mexican Wedding cookies.  Not listed on the menu, but I am HAPPY to try most anything, at least once!   Email me with your ideas!  bbctulsa@gmail.com.

Random Pictures of Baked Goodies

Life is a bit hectic at the moment, fortunately getting ready to go on vacation for a week.  Boy, do we need a week off from reality!  Found a few pictures of things I've meant to write about and just haven't had the time or presence of mind to do so!  Here for your perusal.....


First up, Pecan Rye.  Oklahoma pecans baked into a bread with rye, whole wheat and bread flour.  Tight crumb, crusty crust.  One of my favorite breads at the moment!

 

 

 

 

Honey Oat Sandwich Loaf.   A good general sandwich loaf for slicing as thickly or thinly as you desire!  Good dose of oatmeal and can also add whole wheat for even more wholesome goodness!  This loaf is baked in a Pullman pan to keep the loaf square.

 



 

 

 

 

 

Pain au Levain.  An experiment using only the yeast in my starter.  Need to play around with this dough some more, but expect to be seeing this added to the menu before long!

 

 

 

 

 

That Chocolate Cake.  Pure chocolate through and through.  This cake was for a milestone birthday so I added a third layer and added raspberries to the top.  Wish I had used some raspberry jam as a filling and will do so when you order yours, if you wish.  Best chocolate cake I've ever had.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chocolate Croissant.  Another experiment.  Laminating dough takes some elbow grease rolling by hand.  Not quite ready to make a menu appearance, but soon!!!

 

 



 

I love you, chocolate chip cookies!!

There are so many baked goods to love; but since childhood, the top of the list has been held by chocolate chip cookies.  They were always made with the Tollhouse recipe found on the back of the yellow bag of chocolate chips.

As a burgeoning gourmet cook I thought there surely had to be a better recipe.  I've tried other recipes in years past and read many more.  I've seen fancy blogs researching and they say they have the world's best chocolate chip cookie.  Perhaps they do have the best, but after my searching I ended up back nearly where I started.

I am a bit of a chocolate snob and no longer use Nestlé's famous chip.  I prefer Ghirardelli Bittersweet chocolate chips.  In the past the recipe had a statement to cream the butter and sugars for several minutes rather than until creamy.  That extra time to properly mix those ingredients really make a difference in my mind.  I've made these cookies for years to many rave reviews. 

My cookies also have Oklahoma grown native pecans.  I found a source for local pecans, a man in a small hamlet that gathers, cracks and picks out pecans.  The pecans this man found are tiny, but so much flavor.  It was a bit of an expedition to meet up with this man.  I drug my sick husband into the car to go with me.  We were to meet up with this man at the "town" post office.  We arrived at the agreed time.  Never have I seen such a busy post office.  I guessed they didn't have local delivery and everyone in the area had to pick up their mail there.  So many people arrived as we sat there, each time we hoped this was the "one".  Finally 30 minutes later a guy comes walking around the corner of the post office with bags in his hands.  This was the guy!  The pecans were beautiful, but so little.  I can't imagine picking them out myself.  I feel lucky to have found these pecans and have many pounds of them in my deep freeze to last out until the next season. 

If you aren't nutty like me, the cookies can easily be made without them.

Is it a sin?? No! No it isn't!!

Who doesn't love a good, simple, gooey cinnamon roll? 

I don't know about your school growing up, but at my school the best thing in the cafeteria were their cinnamon rolls.  They always made them on chili and beef stew days.  Much bargaining went on for exchanges with the few strange kids that didn't like those rolls.  They were so fun to eat, unrolling them, one long curled sweet roll.  And oh, that very center piece, THE BEST!  Happy memories for me for sure.

When I was engaged to be married some, uh hmm, years ago, my sister gave me several handwritten recipe cards of some of her favorite dishes.  One of those cards was for "School Cinnamon Rolls".  It took years of cooking before I ever attempted a recipe calling for yeast.  Can't really recall that first batch, but they must have been OK as I have made them many times since.  Fortunately the instructions were pretty easy for me to understand.

I know some folks like their dough rolled more thick, but I like mine rolled thin, the better to get more soft sweet bites.  The rolls at school had only sugar and cinnamon, never any nuts or, gag, raisins.  Some people like them loaded, but not me, I am a "School Cinnamon Roll" purist.  That yeasty dough needs nothing else to muddy the sensational mouth feel.  So my rolls are filled only with butter, sugar and cinnamon.

My Cinnamon Rolls come with a simple vanilla glaze, drizzled over when they first come out of the oven.  The smell is really divine.  I have made many dozens of these rolls recently and the smell still gets me.  

These rolls are heavenly, not at all a sin!  

Views expressed are solely my own, not from above!

  

My First Menu!

 bbctulsa@gmail.com

Breads

Epi, a baguette, handcut to resemble a wheat shaft, creating more crusty goodness, see the first B in my logo, great in lieu of dinner rolls $6/loaf

Honey Oat Pan de Mie, honey and old fashioned oats in a great sandwich loaf, can be all white or a blend of white and white wheat, a 9 inch loaf $7/loaf

Focaccia, thinner than others you will find in our area, topped with extra virgin olive oil, coarse salt and rosemary.  makes a nice sandwich split and stuffed, perhaps grilled?  or if you fancy a sweet version?  try it with a sugar and cinnamon topping instead $5/quarter sheetpan

Pecan Rye, tons of local pecans kneaded into a hearty dough of white, wheat and rye flours $7/small loaf $10/large loaf

Plain ole white bread, soft simple bread baked in a traditional bread pan $5/loaf

Plain ole wheat bread, same as above but with some whole wheat added $5/loaf

Pretzel buns, great for hamburgers or other hearty sandwiches  $18/dozen

Cinnamon Rolls, very yeasty simple roll, rolled thinly with only butter, sugar and cinnamon, topped with a drizzle of vanilla glaze  $18/dozen

 

Cookies

Chocolate Chip, one big cookie, a classic with Ghirardelli chips and Oklahoma pecans $12/dozen 

Luxurious Peanut Butter, with chopped cashews, another big cookie   $12/dozen

Walnut & Rosemary Shortbread, a smaller cookie, but loaded with rosemary and walnuts  $10/dozen

Chocolate Shortbread with cacao nibs, exotic cookie with housemade cacao nibs $15/dozen

 

 

Cakes and Sweets

Grandma’s Crazy Cake, a recipe from my Grandma, no eggs in this gooey chocolately goodness  8 inch square pan $12

That Chocolate Cake, ridiculously moist and chocolaty  2-9 inch layers but nothing fancy $25

Whole wheat muffins, a simple, slightly sweet muffin.  available in 2 sizes, regular and mini.  the mini muffins make great little appetizers when stuffed with pimiento cheese, or other savory filling.  have the regular sized ones baked with a jam surprise for a little pizzazz   regular size  $15/dozen, mini $10/dozen

Apricot Danish, small simple Danish filled with a dried apricot filling and a drizzle of glaze  $20/dozen

 

Your own project??  Have an idea but I don’t have it listed?  Let me know and I’ll give it a try!

I will be working on perfecting other breads and pastry soon!  In the mix, croissant, and more whole grain breads.

The will to mill!

It has recently come to my attention that there is more to the world of flour than good King Arthur Flour.  Have been a big fan of KA products for years, and will continue to be a fan.  In the process of learning more about bread baking, I was introduced to the idea of milling my own wheat.  Looked around online at mills and looked at prices and decided I could buy a lot of KA flour for that much money.  One day I went to an estate sale and they told me of another estate sale I should check out.  I checked it out.  Oh my!  It was a beautiful, stately mansion, I could have lived in that kitchen.  Catching my eye was a Bosch mixer and a Whisper Mill grain mill.  Everything was full price that day so I left it behind.  Got the long suffering hubby to go back with me near the end of the last day when everything was half off.  Most everything was gone by the time we got there, but there in the kitchen, alone, was the Whisper Mill.  After much hemming and humming and hmmmmmming I stepped up and brought it home.

After researching this beast I discovered it was missing a couple of small but essential parts.  Found the parts on ebay.  (What CAN'T you find on ebay?)  After a misdelivery to Oregon and not Oklahoma, the parts finally arrived!  So today was the day to put the mill to the test!

First off, this thing is about 2 or 3 times louder than the loudest vacuum I've ever heard.  But after just a few moments my cup or so of wheat berries was turned into whole wheat flour!  It seemed really soft and smelled really, um, wheaty.

Not having much time or patience to pussyfoot around with a long rise type bread I went with my easiest, fastest dough.  Mixed and kneaded in my vintage Cuisinart.  (Yes, Cuisinart can be vintage.  Mine was made in Japan!  How much do you see made in Japan anymore?)  I used a 50/50 mixture of all purpose flour and my freshly ground wheat flour.  Wasn't sure how it would react, having never tried a combo like that before, but I ended up pretty pleased with the result.  Nice crust and a slightly more interesting flavor.  Need to do much more experimenting, but this has potential. 

Can I grow wheat in the backyard?? 

Lamination Lamentations

I've been working on getting laminated doughs figured out.  I've had some success with pan au chocolate and croissant, regretfully they were consumed before I could snap a picture.  Not as pretty as some I've seen, but respectable.  Then I had to try this recipe yet again. 

I was presented this recipe some 10 years ago in culinary school.  The recipe is for Harry's Bar Signature Rolls.  The description for them is "these deliciously flaky and buttery pastrylike rolls, gently conical in form, like an Adriatic spiraling seashell.."  I dutifully followed the recipe to a tee.  They were certainly delicious, but not "gently conical", more like a comma, as you see in the below picture.  Chef took one look at the rolls and said "What happened?"  How the heck was I supposed to know?!?  I was the student, why didn't he tell ME what I had done wrong!?!

Over the years I run across the copy of the recipe that Chef gave me and I give it one more try.  Every single outing has ended up the same.  I'm much better at rolling the buttery dough out now, but I still end up with 2 pans of commas. 

I think there has been a step omitted from my copy of the recipe and I have spent quite a bit of time trying to find the recipe online to see if there have been any additions or notes made and I have had zero luck so far.  I thought EVERYTHING was online these days, but zippo on this so far.

Will most definitely try making them again, but I don't know when I can take the heartache again!

Muffin to it!

This weekend I had a request from my Mom for 2 dozen muffins to take to a chuch function.  Being a "good" girl I was happy to oblige! 

I've not considered myself much of a muffin baker until recently when I made some really delicious bran muffins.  Really tasty despite the bran!  I like making them in the mini size and then filling with some pimiento cheese, good for snacking or would be a nice addition to a party platter.  Also nice to bake them with a spoonful of jam in the middle for a sweet surprise.  I tend to like things more savory than sweet so these were less sweet than the average.

For the church function I decided to try out a new recipe for pumpkin muffins with candied pumpkin seed.  They turned out well, but I have really got to read better.  Mom needed 24 muffins, the recipe said it made 12 muffins, so I doubled it.  Apparently the 12 muffins were the huge Texas sized ones.  I ended up with about 48 regular sized muffins.  I've been passing them out right and left and freezing what was left.  I should have realized that the amount of ingredients I was using was ridiculous for 2 dozen.  Good learning experience apparently.  These were sweet muffins, but not hurt your teeth sweet at least.  Mother said the church folk liked them so guess that's good enough for me!  More appropriate for fall perhaps but given some cold weather we've had recently they still worked. 

Without further ado; the muffins.

Honey Oat Sandwich Bread

I do love many different types of bread.  Today it is the Honey Oat Sandwich loaf.  This is a nice loaf, with a tight crumb good for sandwiches or just for toasting.  Depending on my mood or who I'm making it for it is made with either all white flour or a half and half mixture of all purpose and whole white wheat.  It rises more vigorously with all white flour, but a touch of the white wheat does add a little more earthy flavor to it!  Loaded with old fashioned oats and a good bit of honey, this loaf has good shelf life.

Since I brought up flour, let me mention that I use mostly King Arthur Flour.  Occasionally I will use some Hodgson Mill flour.  Am anxious to try out some War Eagle Mills flour for a more local source of flour.  My Mother was dedicated to Gold Medal for many years, but it does not perform as well for me in breads as King Arthur.  King Arthur is a good compromise between price and quality.

Apparently not everyone has a flour collection as I do.  My chest deep freeze is full of flour.  (On clutzy baking days, MY chest can be full of flour!)  On my last inventory I had about 8 different flours.  That is barely a good start!  All purpose, semolina, almond, sprouted wheat, rye blend, bread, organic bread, whole wheat.   There are some other grain blends in my kitchen freezer as well.  Suppose there is a 12 step program for this addiction?

I'm still developing menu items, but all that I've written about before are keepers.  Expect to see them again and again.  Trying to branch out into new directions in bread slowly.

Here is a loaf of the Honey Oat Bread.  It is  baked in a 9 inch pan de mie, or Pullman pan, weighing in at over 1 1/2 pounds.  Easy to slice and slice thinly.  Can't wait to try it this summer with garden tomatoes on a blt!

 

Is something rotten in Denmark?

Today I decided to try my hand at  "quick" Danish pastry.  Granted there was no repeated turning and refrigerating, but it was still not MY definition of "quick"!!  The dough is quickly mixed in a food processor. 

(My Cuisinart is 28 years old, still running strong, although the plastic bits and pieces are getting a bit fatigued.  Just got a, new to me, used metal blade in the mail today.  Gotta love ebay for such items.)

The dough is certainly enriched, with eggs and ricotta cheese.  A quick rest in the fridge and it gets rolled out.  I decided to try 2 different fillings.  The first filling uses dried apricots, cooked with water and rum!  Mmmmm, rum.  The second filling was cream cheese.  I just love a little of both in each bite, so had to combine.  4 inch squares of dough are filled with a generous spoonful of each filling, folded up, egg washed and a light flurry of sliced almonds added just before going into a hot oven.  Then, hot out of the oven, a brush of apricot glaze, then a drizzle of icing. 

These were pretty tasty.  Not lots of crispy layers of dough, but a satisfying mouth feel all the same. 

Here's a picture of a couple of them..

  

More dough in the fridge to mess around with tomorrow.  Practice practice practice!!

Also, today I made 2 Italian baguettes; they were very puffy.  Good flavor, need to try it again as it was a very wet dough.  The wet dough should give this loaf a pretty good shelf life though.  So many breads, so little time!

Misery??

“Without bread all is misery.” - William Cobbett, British journalist

 

Why yes, it is!!

Walnut Rye Bread

Made a hearty Walnut Rye Bread today to accompany a Gawd Forsaken Liver Loaf.  The problem with the liver loaf was, well, the liver. In the process of making the liver loaf I discovered that I am indeed squeamish.  The calves liver had to be chopped, then run through a meat grinder and then pushed through a sieve.  Needless to say the texture was soft.  My kitchen had to be sanitized afterwards due to the meat grinder going off the rails and strewing chopped raw liver all over the mixer, countertops and a little on me!  Let's not even discuss the sieving of this odd mixture, well, ok, let's DO discuss.  This was finally a chance to pull out my beloved, rarely used tamis (sp), or drum sieve.  A friend brought it to me from a trip to Paris!  (Have yet to visit there.)  While I still love that sieve, I completely wore myself out trying to push this mixture through; so much so I decided to regrind the whole mess.  Long story short, the second grind didn't help much, but used a regular mesh sieve and that went somewhat better, but half the product was completely left out once this abomination went into the oven!  Contemplated taking photographic evidence, but am glad now that I didn't as I think I might have nightmares to see that process again!

Folks that like liver seemed to think this was an OK endeavor, but for me, never again!!

Seems like I started to write about the Walnut Rye Bread that I made.  T'was a titch over 2 pounds out of the oven.  It is a lovely dense loaf that expanded nicely in the hot oven.  Crispy and thick crust with a LOAD of walnuts.  Some bread flour, but mostly white whole wheat and rye flour.  Made from a wheat biga that I started last week and have been feeding on a regular schedule, not too dissimilar from the dogs.......

The Walnut Rye Bread will certainly have a place on my new menu. 

Unafraid of Yeast!

Unafraid of yeast!

I have taken the plunge into the blogosphere.  We will see how it goes!

Starting a new home based bakery in my home in Tulsa, OK.  Oklahoma has passed a cottage foods law that allows baked goods to be sold from an unlicensed home kitchen.  This will let me try to make a living while still having a life! 

Working on menu ideas, focusing on breads, rolls and cookies.  I will be posting menu items and pictures soon. 

Pretty exciting to contemplate the possibilities.