Kevin: Seasonal Breads — Cinnamon Rolls Recipe

Coffee and newspaper in hand, I stepped out onto my patio and into that strangely orange-gold light that suffuses a clear fall morning. Each season seems to have it's own special brand of light: the harsh, white clarity of a frozen winter morning; the sweet, yellow dance of spring; the somehow round color of summer; and, so, to the particular hue of fall.

Traffic is light at 8:00 on a Sunday morning and most people sleep late, so the sounds of bird calls and songs are clear and add a pleasant punctuation to the Telemann sonatas playing faintly on the radio inside. The newspaper rustles reassuringly.

The odor of fresh coffee mixes with dusty scents of the season's change and the fainter smell of paper and newsprint. And then I pick up the first hints of yeast and cinnamon. A promise growing more insistent as the minutes tick by until, mouth watering, the timer calls me back into the kitchen.

I return to the patio with fresh coffee and a cinnamon bun.

I'd made the buns the night before, letting the dough rise, then forming the buns and letting them rise partially again, before placing the pan in the refrigerator. When I got up Sunday morning I pulled the pan out of the fridge and let it warm for an hour before baking the rolls.

Just imagine how good fresh cinnamon rolls would be on Christmas morning.

Cinnamon Rolls
Makes 8 rolls.

Ingredient US Volume Metric Volume US Weight Metric Weight
Dough:
all-purpose flour 4 1/2 c 1060 ml 23 oz 630 g
quick yeast 2 1/4 tsp 12 ml 1/4 oz 7 g
milk 1 c 235 ml 8 oz 225 g
unsalted butter 1/3 cup 80 ml 2 3/4 oz 80 g
granulated sugar 1/3 cup 80 ml 2 3/4 oz 80 g
salt 1/2 tsp 2.5 ml -- --
eggs 3 large
Filling:
light brown sugar 3/4 c 175 ml 5 5/8 oz 160 g
all-purpose flour 1/4 c 60 ml 1 1/4 oz 3 g
ground cinnamon 1 tbsp 15 ml -- --
unsalted cold butter, cut into pieces 1/2 c 117 ml 4 oz 113 g
half & half 1 tbsp 15 ml -- --
Glaze:
powdered sugar 1/2 cup 117 ml 2 oz 58 g
half & half 1 tbsp 15 ml -- --

Dough:
Heat milk, butter, sugar, and salt in a small saucepan to about 120F (50C), stirring steadily.

Combine half the flour (2 1/4 cups 530 ml 11.5 oz 315 g) and all of the yeast in a bowl. Gradually stir in the milk mixture then beat in the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Make sure all these ingredients are thoroughly mixed.

Mix and then knead in remaining flour. You’re shooting for a soft, smooth, and elastic dough but it shouldn't be sticky, you may need to add some additional flour.

Shape into a ball and place seam-side down in a greased bowl. Spritz the top of the ball with cooking spray and cover bowl with plastic. Let rise until doubled in bulk — 1 - 1 1/2 hours.

Deflate the dough and place it on a lightly floured surface, cover with a clean towel, and let rest for 10 minutes.

Filling:
Mix together the brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon in a bowl and cut in the butter with a pastry knife

Roll the dough out into a 12 inch (30 cm) square. Sprinkle the filling evenly over the rolled out dough and roll the dough into a log, pinching the edges to seal. Slice the log into eight equal-sized pieces and arrange in a greased 13 x 9 x 2 inch (33 x 23 x 5 cm) baking pan.

Cover dough loosely with clear plastic wrap, leaving room for rolls to rise.

At this point you can refrigerate the dough for anywhere from 2 to 24 hours. If overnight, allow the rolls to sit out for 20 minutes, then refrigerate. The next morning remove the rolls from the refrigerator, take off the plastic wrap, and let stand at room temperature for 1 hour.

If you are making the cinnamon rolls immediately, don’t chill dough. Instead, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and let dough rise in a warm place till nearly double, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Heat the oven to 375F (190C) and brush rolls with half & half. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes until golden brown.

Glaze:
In a medium-sized bowl stir together the powdered sugar and half & half. The glaze should be thin enough to drizzle over the rolls.

Technorati: Food recipe baking bread artisanal artisan bread baking kevin seasonal bread cinnamon rolls sweet rolls

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Ever wondered how to cut an epi?

Just in time to impress your friends and family with a lovely epi, or sheaf of wheat, loaf at a holiday dinner, I posted a step-by-step lesson in how to cut an epi. It is actually simple once you have seen it done and it offers a less common alternative to the dinner rolls we have been baking here this month.

Technorati: Food | recipe | baking | bread | artisanal | artisan | bread baking | epi | kitchenMage

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Kevin: Holiday Rolls - Yeast Beer Rolls Recipe

No one in my family is a big bread eater. I probably eat far more bread than anyone else and that's mostly in the form of sandwiches (which I love — shut-up Beth). But the holidays seem to call for bread and, in particular, those soft dinner rolls your mother used to buy and finish baking.

I've made these slightly sweet, tender, and buttery rolls in the past. Unfortunately I had no idea what recipe I've used in the past, so I decided to use Rose Berenbaum's recipe from The Bread Bible. Rose let me down. Alternatively, I screwed up. At any rate, the dough was so soft I couldn't get any loft, it simply spread out like a pancake. The rolls tasted fine, but looked terrible. Not something I wanted on a holiday table.

Because I had other commitments I didn't have time to experiment, so I decided to fall back on a recipe I developed a couple of years ago. I knew these would look great and taste great — and besides, I hadn't made them in a while. Besides, they make great little turkey sandwiches.

I was trying to make a beer bread. I thought whole wheat would play well with the beer, but I didn't really want a whole wheat bread. I wanted the flavor as an ingredient. Besides it's sometimes tricky to get a good rise out of whole wheat (the fragments of bran tend to cut the gluten strands) and I certainly didn't want to repeat the pancake experience. I added honey because beer and whole wheat tend to be a somewhat bitter and I chose a dark porter to get a strong beer flavor.

Whole Wheat Beer Rolls
Makes 16 rolls.

Ingredient US Volume Metric Volume US Weight Metric Weight
instant yeast 1 1/2 tsp 7 ml -- --
honey 2 tbsp 30 ml -- --
porter beer warm, flat 1 1/2 c 255 ml 12 oz 337 g
bread flour 1 1/2 c 350 ml 7 1/2 oz 220 g
whole wheat flour 2 1/4 c 530 ml 11 oz 330 g
butter melted and cooled 1 1/2 tbsp 22.5 ml -- --
salt 2 tsp 10 ml -- --
egg 1 each
water 1 tbsp 15 ml -- --

Using the paddle attachment on a stand mixer, combine 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) yeast and bread flour. Whisk the honey into the beer, then, with the motor running on low, add the beer. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to sit for 1 hour. This is called a poolish.

Combine 2 cups whole wheat flour and remaining 1 teaspoon of yeast. Sprinkle flour over over poolish, sprinkle salt over flour, and recover bowl with plastic. Allow to ferment for 4 hours. The poolish will break through the flour cover — not a problem.

Using the dough hook. Mix together the flour into the poolish then add melted butter.
Knead for four minutes at medium speed. The dough should be slightly sticky but should clear the bowl. Add additional flour if needed and knead for another 2 - 3 minutes. Dump dough onto a floured board and knead another minute or two until dough is fairly smooth and resilient. Allow to rest 5 to 10 minutes.

Clean and dry mixing bowl and spray with a nonstick spray. Shape dough into a ball and place seam-side down in bowl. Spritz top lightly with cooking spray and cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let rise until doubled in bulk — 60 to 90 minutes.

Punch down dough and turn out onto floured board. Lightly knead dough and form into a flattened ball. Allow to rest 10 minutes.

Using a dough scraper cut dough in four equal quarters. Set three quarters aside and cover. Shape remaining quarter into a flattened ball and divide into four quarters. Shape each quarter into a ball and place on a parchment-covered baking sheet. Repeat for remaining dough, cover, and allow to rise until rolls double in bulk.

Heat oven to 400F/205C.

In small bowl, beat together egg and water. Brush rolls with egg mixture and bake on middle oven rack for about 25 minutes. Watch closely to avoid overcooking.

Cool on a wire rack.

Technorati: Food recipe baking bread artisanal artisan bread baking rolls holiday thanksgiving kevin

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Beth: Holiday Rolls - Rosemary Fans

Due to a recent move, I have found myself without my usual bounteous herb garden, which is a truly sad thing. While the place we are renting in theOtherCity has a couple of tiny beds with a few herbs in them, it is pretty thin pickin's around here at the moment.

This, as you might imagine, throws a huge wrench in all of my plans for recipes that I was going to write about:

• Lovage? Nope.


• Thyme? Not really.


• Sage? Yes! But sadly, while aromatic, it's got thick leaves and isn't so tasty. (infusions perhaps...?)


• Basil? Laughter echoes from a back room.


• Bay? Amusingly enough, yes. There is a sweet bay 'tree' that has a dozen leaves on it. Maybe I can use one this winter.


• Mint? How can there be no mint?


• Rosemary? As I have said elsewhere, the three small rosemary plants are a saving grace.

Luckily for me (and Kevin and Susan who don't have to fill in my spot this week), my chosen recipe for this week uses rosemary, which available pretty much year round here - even in my tiny little herb garden. The bread dough is simple, another derivation of Peter Reinhart's polish baguettes from Bread Baker's Apprentice, and shaping the rolls is quick, easy and (as you can see in the photos) not an exact science. Grab the kids and let them help.

kitchenMage's Rosemary Fans
Ingredients | US volume | Metric volume | US weight | metric weight
Starter:
water 1/2 cup | 115 ml | 4 ounces | 112 grams
bread flour 7/8 cup | 205 ml | 3 3/4 ounces | 105 grams
whole wheat flour 1/2 cup | 112 ml | 2 1/4 ounces | 62 grams
instant yeast 1/8 teaspoon | <1 ml | a pinch | seriously
Dough:
water 1 cup | 235 ml | 8 ounces | 224 grams
whole wheat flour 1/2 cup | 115 ml | 2 1/4 ounces | 63 grams
bread flour 3 1/4 cup |765 ml | 14 1/2 ounces | 466 grams
instant yeast 1 teaspoon | 5 ml | 1/8 ounce | ~3 grams
olive oil 1/8 cup | 30 ml | 1 ounces | 28 grams
salt 1 tablespoon | 15 ml | 1/2 ounce | 15 grams
Filling:
olive oil 3 tablespoons | 45 ml | 1 1/2 ounces | 42 grams
rosemary fresh, chopped 1 tablespoon | 15 ml

Notes: You can substitute almost any other savory herb for rosemary, although fresh herbs really do work best for this.

Mixing the starter
In mixing bowl, combine starter ingredients and mix until well combined. Cover and let rest on the counter for about two hours until it is very bubbly. (You can shorten this to ~20 minutes or wait as long as 4-5 hours. You can also refrigerate the starter for 24-48 hours after it bubbles.)

Mixing the dough
Add the water and whole wheat flour to the starter and stir to combine. Let the mixture rest for a few minutes so the flour can hydrate. Add the rest the dough ingredients except the salt and mix until everything is integrated. Cover and let rest for 20 minutes.

Sprinkle the salt on the dough and continue mixing (or kneading) until it is firm yet supple and smooth. (about 6-8 minutes by mixer, 10-12 by hand) As always, remember that you may need to add a bit more flour.

Same recipes, different bread

I think every baker needs a few never-fail recipes in their back pocket. Recipes that they can play with endlessly with a fair degree of certainty of success. This recipe is a variation of one of my standby recipes: a polish baguette from Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice. If I had to pick just a few breads to bake all the time, this would be one of them. In its original form, it makes wonderful baguettes and is well suited to being shaped for specialty breads like epis. and I have been able to corrupt... err, vary it pretty endlessly over the years.

I have had success with up to ~60 percent whole wheat flour; I haven't tried more but my guess is that, with a bit of extra yeast and a pinch of gluten, this would work with almost (or entirely) whole wheat. 75 percent white whole wheat should be a breeze — and if I could find mine in the boxes stacked in the pantry, I'd have tried it. (Someone should do it and report back.)

If I want my bread to have a slightly more open crumb, I add a bit of additional water, but just a few teaspoons. The dough is forgiving and, once you have made it a few times, you can easily feel when its tolerances are being stretched.

In fact — confession time — I once made a double batch of this bread. Except I didn't double the yeast. And I tripled the oil. (don't ask, it was late, I was rushed and had no business driving a KitchenAid...) As I kneaded the dough, stumbling my way through a series of "this feels all wrong" corrections, I slowly figured out how badly I had screwed up. Ever the good food writer, I trudged on, determined to take photos for an article titled "How to waste two pounds of flour" that I would write someday. Except for one problem: the bread was fine. It wasn't great, but it was good. This recipe earned its place in my back pocket that day.

Roll the dough in flour and place it in a clean bowl. Cover the dough and let rise until doubled in bulk (about an hour).

When the dough has doubled, turn it out on a lightly floured counter and flatten into a rectangle with your hands. Let the dough relax for a minute while you prepare a muffin tin by lightly rubbing each cup with olive oil.

Using a rolling pin, roll the dough into a 12x18 rectangle. If the dough starts resisting and springing back, let it rest for 5 minutes and then finish rolling.

Brush the dough with olive oil and sprinkle liberally with chopped rosemary.

Cut dough in half and lay one piece of dough on top of the other. Repeat this process once so that you have a single four-layer stack that's about 6x9 inches in size.

The shape of the stack of dough determines exactly how you cut the individual rolls. I usually cut the stack into thirds and then each of those pieces into four rolls. Like this. (It doesn't matters if one side is all uneven, like these outside edges, as long as you put a cut edge facing up in the muffin tin, this will work just fine.)

Cover and let rise until doubled in bulk, about an hour. Bake in a preheated 425F/220C. Bake bread for 25 minutes or until golden brown (~195F/90C internal temperature). Cool rolls in pans for 10 minutes and then place on rack to finish cooling.

Flickr set with additional pictures of shaping.

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