TWD- Brioche Pockets

When my daughter tasted one of these pockets she said "this tastes like something Grandma would like."  And sure enough yesterday my mom had emailed me how she loved these.  My son gave me a "you've got to be kidding me" look.  He just couldn't get into bread stuffed with the rest of his meal.  I liked them, but wouldn't give them the high praise my mom did. I think it was a little too big for my liking.  I would have preferred this about half the size and perhaps with a sweet and savory filling.  But I did love working with the brioche dough.  It rolled out very easily and didn't have the shrinking problem I find with other doughs such as pizza dough.  I used half the dough for the pockets and made the bread on page 189.  I'm going to freeze it and pull it out Memorial Day weekend for french toast.

Did you know....

that a bread I once considered "healthy" in my grocery has 43 ingredients, many of which I can't pronounce?  But this wonderful rustic potato bread only has 6 ingredients.  I am trying to get my family to eat more real and whole foods and less processed food. One small way I am doing that is by making my own whole wheat bread each week for the kids' sandwiches.  This bread is a welcome addition to my bread rotation, especially if I swap out the white flour with wheat flour.  For this recipe I did half white flour and half wheat flour, but when I make it again I would try all wheat flour.  I love that potatoes, skin and all, are incorporated into the bread.  When I make baked potatoes the skin (and nutrients) are left behind, so what a sneaky way to get them in some bread. I also loved the short rise time on this bread.  This bread is low maintence but high in taste and nutrition.  Sounds like a win, win, win for a busy mom!

Coasting with Cookies

This was a nice break after the 2 day affair with croissants.  I was afraid these would turn out flat (as chocolate chip cookies usually do when they have a cup of butter and only 2 cups of flour) and in fact these did, but overall they were a very good cookie.  I love the idea of making these mocha and using a menagerie of chocolates.  For me that meant I could use up little bags of white, bittersweet and semisweet chocolate that were taking up space in my fridge. I left the mocha out of half the batch so they would be kid friendly and so my husband I wouldn't eat all of them!

Crossing the finish line with Croissants

This was a hard one!  I've baked a wedding cake before and I thought this was harder.  I guess harder in that it took more physical strength (my arms are sore today) and croissants are just plain high maintenance. I had a heck of a time getting the dough to roll to that magic 24 to 26 inches. The ruler quickly became my friend and enemy.  Friend when I reached 24 inches and enemy when it would show me I had to pull out some more muscle to makde the dough stretch some more.  It was a stubborn dough. I also had a issue of the butter seeping out of them when the were rising in the oven.  Obviously I made my oven too hot.  But then the butter also seeped out when I baked a second batch and let them rise on the counter.

So was as it worth it?  I didn't try one because I'm participating in a Whole30 challenge so all that flour is out for me.  My son loved them.  My daughter was non-committal and my husband commented that they were quite a bit smaller than the ones at our favorite French bakery.  But I'm glad I did make them and more glad to be finished.  Ever since I saw Martha Stewart make croissant dough on her show years ago, I have wanted to at least say "yeah, I've made croissants."  No biggie.  (but actually we all know it was!)

If I didn't speak Spanish...

...I would swear that Boca Negra meant disaster or big fat mess.  When I flipped this out of the pan, a disaster was lurking behind the parchment paper.  I should have taken the advice of others on the P&Q page and baked this for longer than 30 minutes.  It came together beautifully.  Even the butter incorporated very smoothly, so I had such high hopes for this.  The top of the cake look just as described in the book after 30 minutes, but it just wasn't long enough to hold it's shape.  The taste of the "cake" wasn't bad.  I served it in cups like pudding, but because it was not baked long enough it was so rich that more than a couple bites was enough. I'll be curious if anyone was able to get this work with a 30 minute bake time.

TWD-Foccacia Falter

Did anyone else open up this recipe on Monday afternoon and then read about the 24-36 hour rise or was it just me who planned this out so poorly?  I have made foccacia before and don't remember such a long rise, so I didn't think to read through this recipe earlier.  So I took the bread recipe and cut it in half (6-1/2 cups of flour seemed like it would make enough foccacia for all of Italy).  After the second rise, I split the dough in half and put it in oiled Ziploc bags as instructed.  Five hours later I took the first bag out to bake and the other bag is still in the fridge for tomorrow's dinner with soup.  I am hoping the long results with the slow rise are worth it, because I was not too impressed with the first batch.  It was fine, but was lacking something that I am hoping will be there tomorrow.

TWD - Cheating on my old pie crust with French Apple Tart

I've been merrily making the same pie crust for years.  My mom would tell me tales of new recipes and methods she had tried, but I would have no part of it.  I loved my tried and true crust.  But then this one came along and it may be time to ditch my old pie crust recipe.  This one is similar with both butter and shortening, but somehow it's butterier and flakier.  So this recipe is a keeper not just for the wonderful crust, but also the filling.  I loved the filling and was glad I had a little left over.  The book suggested it could be saved and eaten as an ice cream topping.  As if.  I couldn't wait that long and ate it with a spoon while I waited for the tart to bake.  And I love the French bakery look of this tart too.