Battling My Sweet-Yeasted-Dough Demons: Paul Hollywood's Brioche

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For some reason, every time I decide to make something sweet that's yeast-based, whether it's challah or gooey butter cake, the elements contrive to work against me and the thing turns out to be a huge flop.  I end up nervously hovering over my dough, waiting for it to double while I curse the rain and wish I had ever seen what doubled dough should look like so I could be sure I'd recognize it when it happened.  And usually I give up and bung it in the oven after waiting an hour past the recommended time, and usually that ends up being a mistake and I can only guess that my dough was under-proved... I don't have this problem with savory breads (but maybe it's just that it's less noticeable when they're a bit under-proved, and they're just a bit denser which isn't such a big deal in my book), but the sweet doughs always seem to elude me.

So I'm not sure why, when Bloomsbury asked me to test a recipe from Paul Hollywood's new book, How to Bake, I chose brioche.  It's everything I'm crap at: a sweet dough, with more ingredients than your average bread, and a recipe that requires planning, patience, and 2 days to babysit your kitchen.  And yet, somehow, once I saw the photo of that fluffy, gorgeous, golden crown of deliciousness, I just couldn't get it out of my head.

The End of an Era, Marked by Crumb Coffee Cake

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So, my MA course is officially over.  We've all handed in our dissertations, and even though some people are still working on their books (poor researchers...), most of us are starting to look for agents and publishers to take us on.  It's a whole new ballgame, and this time we're on our own.  No weekly workshops where we can glean advice from those farther along than the rest; no meetings with grown-up writers (ie tutors) who can guide us in the right direction; no grades/marks to let us know whether what we're doing is working.  Nope, each of us is on her own now, and that's both freeing and terrifying.

But it doesn't mean we can't still meet up and gossip over cake every now and again, and that's exactly what we did a couple weeks ago!  After much back and forth on scheduling and location, we settled on a date and time and met up at our classmate C's house in West London for brunch.  And yes, the tube lines were down, and yes, the journey was long, but it was so worth it for the lovely outdoor space and even lovelier hospitality.

Fall Nostalgia Favorites: Gooey Butter Cake

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Well, it's starting to get fall-y again out there – the wind is picking up, leaves are already beginning to litter the sidewalks, and the humid midday gloom is replaced with cool, breezy evenings.  This time of year always makes me feel massively nostalgic, both for San Francisco, my heart's forever home, and for St Louis, where I went to college and experienced many wonderful autumn seasons.  The minute that fall bite hits the air I start craving long, leaf-crunching walks through residential streets, hot apple cider, and gooey butter cake, best consumed sitting in the window at Kaldi's, watching the dusk fall on the seminary park outside.

Gooey butter cake is a St Louis institution.  It tastes as good as it sounds (does what it says in the tin, as the Brits say): gooey, sweet, buttery, with a crisp top and a soft cakey bottom.  It's divine.  So when I saw the recipe in the New York Times a while back, and then again on Smitten Kitchen, I bookmarked it immediately.  But it's pretty involved, and I'm generally pretty lazy, so it wasn't until this past week that I got around to making it.

A not-so-short story about shortbread.

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You may sometimes wonder, as does my mother, who eats all this stuff I bake?  Well, for a while it was my classmates I depended on to make sure we wasted not, but then classes became fewer and farther between.  And other people started bringing snacks (usurpers!), and I didn’t want them to think I was trying to steal their thunders.  So when the bf started working full time I was pleased to be able to ply him with tupperwares full of brownies and coffee cake and cookies. 

Butter cookie FAIL: "tastes just like butter" is not as delectable as it sounds.

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My consolation prize: delicious oaty raspberry bars.

It all seemed so simple.  Make this recipe from Smitten Kitchen, refrigerate the dough, then slice an bake, just like I did every weekend in college (with pillsbury, not pot, people)!  I even felt secure enough to be a little bit adventurous and divide the dough into 2 before adding the different flavors, thus creating more dishes (and work) for myself.  But hey, I thought, what's another dish or six when this recipe looks so simple?

I can make real dinner too!

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 Duly noted: broccoli in the oven is easy and delicious with minimal cleanup!

I just wanted to share that I am capable of cooking healthy, non-butter-based dishes.  Like garlic sauteed chicken (olive oil, not butter, so there) with chili-flake roasted broccoli and baked sweet potato.  HA!

That is all.  Now I'm off to go bake some cookies.

A little substitution... and bibbity boppity boo!

Pin It Baking over here can be trying. Not only are the conversions a bitch (my recipes now have temps in both Fahrenheit and Celsius, and ingredients in cups and grams), and the ovens electric and therefore highly varied, but there's also the matter of being a poor student.

Point the first: poor. Meaning I don't have the money for such indulgences as a Kitchenaid mixer, or even a Cuisinart like my mom has at home (Hi Cuisinart, baby, I miss you!), or even such small luxuries as different sizes of pan/sheet/dish in which to bake.

Point the second: student. Which not only reiterates the poverty, but also means I'm here for a limited time, which makes any investment I could feasibly make seem like a stupid waste of money, since I can take very little back with me across the Atlantic.

So why do I keep trying? Because baking makes me happy.

Snickerdoodles in our new flat

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We moved into our new flat over 6 weeks ago, but the new, working replacement for our broken oven only arrived last week. So I'm sure you can imagine how much I'd been dying to bake, and the fact that I was denied only made me fantasize harder about tarts and pies and cookies and cakes.

So when the new oven was installed, I immediately started thinking about what would be my christening baked good. I settled on Snickerdoodles, because the cookies here all seem a little too sweet for my taste, and i just wanted something cinnamon-y and soft and subtle, without chocolate (I know, blasphemy).