Today’s baking challenge, hamantaschen. Hamantaschen are Jewish pastry that are eaten on Purim, a holiday that celebrates Esther saving the Jews from Haman, an adivsor to the Persian King who wanted to annihilate the Jews. This year, Purim will be celebrated from sundown on March 11 until March 12. Continue reading
baking
6 posts
Have you ever been down for no particular reason? For instance, you go to bed feeling happy, cheerful and sleepy and then you wake up, feeling like a blight on humanity. Continue reading
Back by special request, we are bringing you our latest contest installment: CASSEROLES. You love them, they’re easy, they usually contain some wonderful form of cheese. What’s not to like? But after awhile, you do end up running out of ideas and it’d be great to get new ones to reinvigorate the ol’ repertoire. We only have a few weeks left of winter so why not celebrate the end with homey goodness? Conversely, what better way to celebrate spring with one made with new vegetables? Continue reading
Christstollen is delicious German Christmas bread with a long history. It goes back to early 15th century, although the ingredients they used were slightly different. Because of fasting during the Advent season, no one could use butter, so they had to use oil. Continue reading
Hey all you bakers and baker-wannabes!! Quick reminder for you to brave the grocery store today and get 2 pounds of flour (!), eggs, milk, sugar, and butter (I get the Kerrygold UNsalted – it’s freaking delicious). Then find a big mixing bowl and your rolling pin, and a couple of cookie sheets. Oh, and make sure you have saran wrap. That’s it! Oh wait, if you want filled, get some jams or whatever. Don’t get the cheap crap, get something a bit pricey that has sugar and not HFCS.
Croissant is not that difficult, but it is time-consuming and a little bit moody depending on the weather. Those of us in Cali are going to have a time of it I tell you, what with all the rain.
So tune in tomorrow at around noon-ish pacific time. I’ll be sortof liveblogging the prep with cell phone pics of the mess. You can post your questions in the comments and I’ll do my best to help you through. The full recipe is down the main page if you lost it.
Come bake with Stabby! Your xmas dinner will thank you.
Attention! I will start my batch of these bad boys on Tuesday, December 21, mid-morning PST avec live-blog.
Please note that the amounts may vary slightly on the baking day-of due to humidity, but have all this on hand. Also, I’ll be live-blogging this with pics so you can see when I modify, why, and where.
DOUGH
1.5lb milk / 680g lait
1 tsp dry yeast / Cuillère à café levure boulangere
2 lbs flour / 900g farine
5 oz sugar / 150g sucre
salt / sel
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20oz butter / 600g beurre – I use the Irish butter, Kerry Gold I think it is.
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If you are making pain au chocolate:
bittersweet chocolate / couverture/nutella
I’m also using 1c of BiL’s home made pumpkin pie filling
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EGG WASH
1 egg, 2 yolks / 1 oeuf, 2 jaunes
water, eau
First Step:
combine warm milk with yeast – set aside
mix flour with salt and sugar
add milk and stir with a wooden spoon enough to combine, do not overwork
wrap dough in plastic and refrigerate for 8 hours
Second Step
Cut butter into 8 pieces, pound thin, refrigerate
Roll half of the dough into a rectangle on a floured counter.
Incorporate half of the butter with one single turn and two double turns
wrap in plastic, refrigerate overnight, repeat with the second half of dough and butter
Third Step
Roll half of each package to form a rectangle 3mm thick. Cut triangles for croissants and rectangles for pain au chocolat.
Form the croissants, brush with eggwash, let proof until risen, bake at 375F for 12 to 15 minutes.
A bientot!