Thanksgiving Bread Baking Palooza and New Happenings

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving (I know I'm a few weeks late.) I had been baking up a storm the days leading up to the feast, wanting to get rid of as much wheat flour I had in the house as possible. I made about three pounds of Pain a l'Ancienne. The French bread was delicious, with a perfect chew and springy texture. We had a big group of ten eaters for the special day and everyone raved about this bread. In addition, I made three babkas with freshly toasted hazelnuts and a nutmeg dark chocolate ganache. I tried a new take on babka and used all cake flour, and it turned out just fine and tasty.

All the goodness aside, I'm turning a new leaf, and have to rid gluten, all gluten, from my diet. For years I've been struggling with lots of health issues, including vitamin deficiencies, unidentified weight gain, weird moodiness, consistent fatigue, and all points towards Celiac Disease. I found out on my birthday that I'd need to be making this diet/life change. So, yesterday was my first full week of gluten free and I see a difference in how I feel already. I won't pretend I didn't cry over the fact that my hobby was hurting me, and I was baking bread so well. I'm embarking on a new baking journey and all I can say is thank god macarons are gluten free.

Take Four: Babka, Streusel & Cheese

I'm telling you I followed the recipe exactly as written--I also just discovered there is a proof function on the oven--*sigh*--and I had to crank the oven up, way up and the baking time is nearly doubled. Where did I go wrong? I hope this is a 2016 finale, and not a sign of what is to come, which would possibly a cheesy mess? 

I made a Streusel & Cheese Babka from Uri Scheft's Breaking Breads. Or rather I should say, I got a version of it. As I type, the babka "thing" is cooling. I used King Arthur Cake Flour (unbleached) and their AP flour for the streusel.

Before going into the oven (I let the dough prove for an hour)

Close up of the raw streusel top (butter, flour, sugar, vanilla extract)

Edible concoction? Baked for approximately 30 minutes in total, anywhere from 325 degrees F to 400 degrees F convection

Edible concoction? 

UPDATE: I am not thrilled with this babka dessert by any means. The texture of the streusel and cheese layers are great, but the babka cake is dry and didn't rise much, if at all. I'm wondering if I kneaded the dough incorrectly, or if I rolled it out too much (deflating the CO2 from the dough). The flavor is a bit bland for my taste. I even added additional citrus, some grated orange peel, but it seems like it would be happier with a layer of lemon curd, or something. Seriously, it needs some personality. I think I'll try plopping some apricot jam on the top tomorrow.

Also, it's New Year's Eve and I'll be serving this babka sheet as dessert (eventually with some powdered sugar on top) to my family. I'm not big on holidays; I have anxiety, which isn't new if you've read my other blog(s) or know of me through some other avenue, about whether or not I'll get up in the morning. As I've mentioned before, I've found some solace, or so I thought, in baking. I'm kidding, about the babka; it smells delicious and I know what I put into it tasted good. But about myself, I've almost been meditating for a full year, but have gotten away from longer meditations lately. I won't be setting any resolutions. January 1st is another day. Change can occur at any moment and I certainly don't need to be lumped in with basic bitches, whatever they are. I will say that instead of my usual, "I wanna lose the 20 pounds," I'd rather do more and have more fun in 2017. I'd like to create many more delicious things to share, and hopefully, those things I've wanted will come along anyway. 

Happy New Year! xoxo 

Ari

Take Three: Babka, Chocolate Hazelnut

What's better than chocolate and hazelnuts and butter? I'll tell ya. When it's baked into a babka, a Polish / Ukrainian cake bread, that is! Is it Jewish, you may ask? Why, yes. Yes, it is. I've pictorially recorded the process that happened a few days ago. Once again, I used King Arthur (AP) Flour for the dough. Since I ended up with two babka, I split the free form babka creation in two and surprised the neighbors. Let's just say it went over.

Picture 1 (top left) and 2 (top right) are of the dough on Day 1. Picture 3 (->) is after I let the dough rest and ferment overnight in the fridge. The dough rose more than I expected.

The chocolate mixture in Pictures 4 and 5 include semi-sweet chips and chopped hazelnuts, with extra butter. I toasted the hazelnuts before chopping them.

The texture of the chocolate swirl was perfect; the temper on the chocolate left the consistency soft and pliable, and not at all chalky.

The Krantz Cake method was used for the design/construction for the dough placed in the loaf pan. I made a second babka, and placed it on a parchment on a half sheet pan. In the final picture, you can see the babka with the simple vanilla sugar glaze. I didn't want to overdue it with the glaze, as the glaze should complement the babka, not steal the thunder.

Talk about stealing the thunder, baking has gotten me to think about my life, more so than before. I think I've been saying I'm having a quarter life crisis for the last five years and I've found some content in the kitchen. To be frank, I had the hardest time cutting into this babka, although I've been perfectly able to eat it. The glazed babka looked beautiful, what I imagined to be right out of a magazine, but I also found myself filled with a sort of happiness and fulfillment, bordering on gratitude for having created something so delectable and so purposeful, which I haven't felt since I was in university. Is this a simplified version of feeling as one does giving life to human spawn? I suppose it's a flicker of that, but I have not had this feeling in any sort of job I've held. Maybe I do not feel as though I am creating anything worth while in the corporate environment. I think I'm struggling to find direction at work, and I just get baking. I suppose I am more creative than I would like to admit. That baking is both creating something lovely and inherently impermanent yet functional, is quite meaningful and fulfilling for me and delightful for those who partake in my edible creations.

In an effort to expand my baking horizons, I ended up a book store today and managed, magically, to score two fantastic books: Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice and Uri Scheft's Breaking Breads. I then ran over to the grocer to pick up some cake flour for a Streusel Cheese Babka in Scheft's book. Gotta go make the dough tonight! But let me return to  my previous statement. I was wondering, "what exactly is cake flour?" And do I really need it? I understand the protein concentrations vary, which I guess means the different flours do function differently. Protein content is another  topic for another post for another time.