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.