Torrijas, a Spanish Easter treat

All relevant religious holidays in Spain have a reflection in the food. Spain was a strictly Catholic country for centuries with the liturgical periods tightly marking the habits, and with food rules that had to be obeyed. Though nowadays the religious rules regarding food, like fasting on certain days during Easter, are largely overlooked, funnily enough the food traditions remain and making torrijas for the Easter celebration, usually a labor holiday lasting four days, is one of them. Also you can find them in pastry shops, restaurants and bars all over the country during this period. Torrijas are apparently a rather ancient recipe, as they first appear quoted by a Spanish author in the 15th Century. Now... listen to yours truly pronouncing this funny word here.


Torrijas are a very simple dish, very similar to French toast and pain perdu, most often made by soaking slices of stale bread in sugared milk, also flavoured with cinnamon or vanilla, then bathed in beaten egg, fried in oil and sprinkled with a mixture of sugar and powdered cinnamon. In fact, another one of the many ways developed by the not so well-off to use up bread leftovers. Though today bread especially baked for the purpose of making torrijas can be bought. As it usually happens with most traditional dishes, the perfect ingredients and method are controversial matters, torrijas made with sweet wine instead of milk and others bathed in syrup after frying being also popular. And of course, the best torrijas are always one's mother's, no discussion about it!

Homemade torrijas

By Miriam García
Published: April 23, 2011
Torrijas are a very simple dish, similar to French toast and pain perdu, most often made by soaking slices of stale bread in sugared milk, then bathed in beaten egg, fried in oil and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.


4.0 stars based on
35 reviews


Prep time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes
Total time: 2 hours
Yield: 16

Ingredients

• 4 cups (1 liter) milk
  
• 3 tbsp sugar (or honey if you prefer)
  
• 1 stick cinnamon
  
• 3-4 medium eggs
  
• Sunflower oil or other insipid oil for frying
  
• Sugar and cinnamon for sprinkling
  

Cooking Directions

1. Cut the bread into 1 inch (2.5cm) slices. Arrange them on a shallow dish that can hold the milk.
2. Put all the milk in a saucepan with the sugar and the cinnamon stick, bring to a boil. Turn off the heat the moment it starts to boil and leave to infuse for 5 minutes.
3. Pour the milk on the bread and let soak for one hour.
4. Beat the eggs in a plate large enough to hold at least one torrija.
5. Heat the oil to medium in a large frying pan that can hold several torrijas at the same time. With a spatula (the bread might be overly soft), carefully transfer the soaked slices one by one into the egg and turn them to coat. Then transfer the slices to the hot oil.
6. Fry for a couple of minutes on each side, until brown.
7. Take out to a dish lined with a paper towel and thoroughly sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Enjoy warm or cold.

Tips for superb torrijas: I find the result is best when you let the bread go very stale before soaking, so that the slices can soak as much milk as possible and yield a very creamy inside afterwards. So what I do sometimes is to slice the bread before letting it dry overnight, to assure that the loaf dries thoroughly (and because slicing is a lot easier while the bread is soft). And I recommend you make sure that the slices soak as much milk as feasible, so it is best to check how they are doing within say 20 minutes after pouring the warm milk on them, because you can always add a little more if the slices have soaked up all the liquid in the dish, say another cup. For me these are indeed the secrets for a lusciuosly creamy interior that looks and tastes more like pastry cream than like plain milk-soaked bread. Because that is what I really love about torrijas, that the alchemy of soaking and frying metamorphoses the simplest ingredients into something different and truly delicious.



Check this article at Honest Cooking.

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Sobrasada stuffed rolls and a CSN giveaway

All the nutrition experts tell us that we must eat a good breakfast. That breakfast is the most important meal of the day, that it charges our batteries and it sets the tone for the entire day. I could not agree more, especially when breakfast includes some protein and not only varied sugars. I must admit breakfast makes me as happy as swinging on a swing set in the summer... I love it. For me the ideal breakfast is a fried egg with bacon and white bread... ahem. No, I do not have such a breakfast every day because then I would not fit through my door. Breakfast is a concept I try to instill in my children without really succeeding, even though I always try to sit with them for breakfast, especially on the weekends, when everything goes at a slower pace... Sometimes I make the effort to prepare luscious breakfasts with sausages, waffles, nuts, churros and other delicacies (not all at once...), but it doesn't really work. So today's breakfast is aimed for those that appreciate it the most at my house: yours truly. My kids do not even dare to try a bread with spicy charcuterie, what a sin to stain the bread with red... "looks like blood, Mom. Why don't you leave the bread alone?" Argggg. And they care even less for soft boiled eggs. They don't know what they're missing.


And... I am again hosting a giveaway thanks to CSN Stores! A gift certificate worth $75 to be spent on one of the many online CSN stores will be awarded to one lucky reader. So what do you have to do to enter?

• Just follow The Winter Guest on Facebook and leave me word of it in a comment to this post (the link is on the right sidebar). Those who are followers already, just tell me so to enter.
• The giveaway starts today and the final date is March 1st (00:00 AM). Each comment will be assigned a number and I will use a random generator to pick the winner. I will be posting the winner soon after.
• Please note that CSN only ships items within the United States and Canada.

So back to my recipe, this type of stuffed roll is typical of the northern region of Spain, mostly Asturias, though they usually pack whole chorizos inside the breads. These breads are called panes preñaos, which literally means pregnant breads. They are delish. But this time I have used a more Mediterranean charcuterie, a kind typical from the Balearic Islands called sobrasada. Sobrasada is a kind of very soft chorizo, almost a spread, one of the most delicious foods made with pork meat in Spain.



Sobrasada stuffed rolls

• 600g organic wheat white strong flour
• 400g water
• A dash of olive oil
• 10g fresh baker's yeast
• 1,5 tsp salt
• Sobrasada to taste (if you can find it) or a whole chorizo sausage
  

1. Weigh the flour and yeast and crumble the latter on top of the flour. 
2. Add the rest of the ingredients, knead well to develop the gluten, then make a ball and put it into an oiled bowl. Cover and let ferment. Mine took 2 hours, with one intermediate folding.
3. Preheat the oven to 250ºC (mine is convection type, I put some floor tiles in it to aid temperature stabilization).
4. When doubled in volume, tip the dough on the counter and press with your hands to deflate. Divide into 8-10 portions, depending on your bread-devouring ability.
5. Flatten each portion into a square and place two heaped tablespoons of sobrasada on its center (or the chorizo sausage). Roll the dough into a neat roll and pinch the seam to seal.
6. Repeat for all the rolls and leave them to ferment, covered, till almost doubled.
7. When risen, place them in the hot oven. Generously spray the oven with water two or three times during the first five minutes. I have found that turning the air off during these first minutes aids to prevent an early formation of the crust. The aim is to keep the moisture inside the oven for the maximum time possible, because the oven convection fan in fact extracts the moisture from the oven. As I have heat "accumulators" in my oven, that is the tiles, the temperature doesn't go down excessively if I keep the fan off for 10 minutes.
8. Bake the rolls 25-30 minutes, lowering the temperature to 200ºC once the breads have sprung and the crust has started to form. Check the inner temperature for doneness, it should be around 92-95ºC.

I advise you to eat them with a good fried or soft-boiled egg... well, at least that's my preference. And these breads, like any other, can be removed from the oven before they are browned and freezed after letting them cool, of course. To eat them later, take them out of the icebox and bake them straight in the oven for another 10 minutes. And there you have freshly made bread rolls... delicious. Wouldn't you like rolls like these on a quiet Saturday or Sunday morning? And yes, these penguins are egg cosies, courtesy of my sister-in-law P. Aren't they cute?

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Roscón de Reyes or Three Kings cake

Roscón de Reyes is a strong tradition in Spain (check the pronunciation of roscón here). It is eaten on the Día de Reyes or Three Kings day and also on the previous eve, when traditionally presents are given, in remembrance of the presents the Kings brought to baby Jesus. Roscón de Reyes is a brioche-y bun in the shape of a crown, traditionally studded with colorful candied fruit and scented with orange and lemon zest and orange blossom water (these flavorings are essential to a Spanish roscón, otherwise you just cannot call it such). Today roscón has become so widely popular that the cakes are baked all over Spain in huge amounts since the beginning of January or even earlier, which inevitably means that in many supermarkets and pastry shops you find stuff of very low quality. Which inevitably leads, if you are fond of baking at all like I am, to prepare it yourself. And it is not difficult, only a bit time consuming as any yeast-leavened sweet bread is. But well worth the effort.




The Christmas season has not always been so Christian as it is now. The origin of roscón has nothing to do with the arrival of the Magi to Bethlehem to worship the child, but appears to be related to the Roman Saturnalia. These were celebrations dedicated to the god Saturn in which the Roman people celebrated the longer days that started soon after the winter solstice. For these celebrations round cakes with figs, dates and honey were prepared, which were divided equally among the commoners and the slaves. Already in the 3rd century, it was usual to hide a dry bean inside the cake, and the fortunate finder was named king of kings for a short period of time agreed beforehand. This type of game was popular in the Iberian peninsula since the Roman era, he who found the bean had to pay the treat for the others... Nowadays a small figurine is hidden in the cake and the person who happens to find it is set to pay for the roscón. That is not possible if you make it at home, of course.

This recipe is uncomplicated and it works, although you need to have a basic knowledge of bread kneading and sweet doughs in general. It is adapted from my Thermomix cookbook. It yields 2 medium roscones or a large one.

Roscón de Reyes

For the flavored sugar

• 120g icing sugar
• Zest of 1 lemon
• Zest of 1 orange (feel free to use more)

For the preferment

• 40g whole milk
• 30g water (you can use also 70g skimmed milk instead of the milk and water)
• 10g fresh baker's yeast
• 130g strong flour

For the main dough

• 30g whole milk
• 30g water
• 70g butter, softened
• 2 large eggs or 3 small ones
• 15g fresh baker's yeast
• 30g orange blossom water (it may sound like a lot, but roscón is not roscón without this)
• 1 tbsp rhum (optional)
• 450g strong flour
• 1 pinch salt
• The flavored sugar
• The preferment

For garnish

• Beaten egg glazing
• Candied fruit
• Sliced almonds
• Sugar
• Butter

1. Fine, let's make the preferment first. Sift the flour, crumble the fresh yeast on top, add the liquid and knead until just mixed. 
2. Then fill with tepid water a bowl where the dough ball can fit and put the dough in it. When the dough is fermented enough, the ball will float. It can take from 15 minutes to half an hour, it depends on the temperature on your kitchen. 
3. In the meantime, zest the lemon and the orange and mix the zest with the icing sugar; cover and set aside to let the aromas permeate the sugar.
4. Now for the main dough: sift the flour again, add the crumbled yeast, eggs, flavored sugar, orange blossom water, milk, water, preferment and salt (everything but the butter). Knead by hand or in a stand mixer with the hook attachment until you have an elastic dough. Make a ball and leave to rest for 10 minutes, covered. I prefer to let the dough stand for a while without the butter, as fat interferes in the gluten formation. Somewhere in the future I will divide the dough in two and try to add everything altogether to the first dough and delay adding the butter to the second dough, then check if the final cakes show some difference.
   
5. After the rest, flatten the dough on the counter and smear the soft butter (I prefer to do this by hand), knead thoroughly to mix well. When the dough is smooth enough, make a ball, put into an oiled bowl, brush the surface with oil too and let double in bulk, well covered. Mine takes between 3 and 5 hours, but it depends on temperature again and on how active your fresh yeast is.
6. Once the dough is doubled, tip it on the floured counter and flatten with your hands to degas completely. Divide the dough in two, then make a ball with each dough portion. Set one aside.
7. Leave the first ball to rest for a couple of minutes. Prepare two parchment papers the size of your oven sheets, flour them lightly. 
8. Lay one of the dough balls on one of the papers, then punch a hole in the middle with your floured fingers and start opening the hole. Stretch the ring of dough little by little. If it tends to shrink, let it rest for another couple of minutes before resuming your stretching. In the end the ring should be about 6-7cm thick and have an oval shape about 30x40cm.
9. Brush the roscón thoroughly with beaten egg, cover with plastic (though the plastic shouldn't touch the roscón as it would stick to it) and let nearly double again, it will take at least one hour. Repeat the whole process for the second dough ball.
10. Half way the rising, preheat your oven to at least 180-190ºC if your oven is of the air convection type like mine, somewhat closer to 200ºC if radiation type, but not higher than that (again, you know this depends largely on every oven).
11. When the roscones have almost doubled, brush them with egg again, very carefully as the dough is a delicate thing at this point. Then you have two options: the traditional one is to stud the whole thing with colorful candied fruit as though the fruits were the jewels in the crown. The second one and my favourite (at home we are not exactly fond of radioactive-colored candied fruit in cakes) is to mix a handful of sugar in melted butter or in some water (just enough to get a crumbly mixture) and sprinkle on the roscón. Then sprinkle some sliced almonds too on top... delicious.
12. Put the roscones into the oven for 10 minutes, then lower the heat by 10ºC and leave some further 10-15 minutes (cover with aluminum foil if you find they brown too much). After the baking time, take them out and let cool on the sheets.

This time my roscones were a bit overfermented, that is why they are a bit on the flat side. A good roscón should have a rounder section. Nowadays a lot of people like their roscón stuffed with whipped cream, ganache or many other fancy fillings, you just open the roscón like a giant bagel and pipe the filling, then replace the top half. I do not like this at all, but feel free to do it. I won't interfere, but I will lose all respect for you... However, of course you must have your roscón with hot chocolate... I admit no objections about it. I would be soooo disapointed if you would not...



And by the way, this is my first submission of the year for YeastSpotting, Happy New Year, Susan!

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Tortas de aceite or sweet olive oil wafers for World Bread Day

These tortas de aceite, meaning olive oil wafers, originate from Andalusia and they are one of those sweet things that are well known and widely eaten throughout Spain because they are just delicious. They are one of those wafers you eat unnoticedly one after another... to regret it after a few days when you cannot button up your trousers... And it was one of those recipes that has been in the pipeline since years ago, so what better occasion than the celebration of the World Bread Day to tackle them. It is also one of those miraculous cases where the taste of the homemade product is identical to the purchased one... yes, I tell you, it's unbelievable, they are just as delicious, with their anise flavour. Only their looks are not just as wonderful, but you can not compare a home oven with an industrial oven. The taste though... mmm.


The recipe is taken from the Andalusian government specification for the production of tortas de aceite, but modified and fine-tuned according to some hints found here and there, even at Wild Yeast (Susan succeeded in making wonderfully looking tortas). This is what the Government of Andalusia tells us about these tortas:

The name "TORTA DE ACEITE" expresses the specific characteristics of the product since it is a confection made from extra virgin olive oil in a proportion 27.7%. The combination of this factor with its fully manual processing, gives the product its most precious qualities: a light, thin crust, a flaky interior and its distinctive flavor and aroma of olive oil.

Well, that's it, all you need is good virgin olive oil (bushels of oil...), and to pour a lot of love in preparing them.

Tortas de aceite y anís, sweet olive oil wafers
Yields around 25 tortas

• 660g AP-flour (the recommended flour is W=100 strength, that means something in between all-purpose and bread flour. I used 350g spelt and 310g AP flour. You know the exact amount can vary depending on the flour absorption qualities.)
• 27g inverted sugar *
• 230g water
• 13g fresh yeast
• 280g virgin olive oil
  
• 10g aniseed
• 7g sesame seeds
  
• 3g salt
• 10g plain sugar
• 0,3g aniseed oil or essence

* Inverted sugar is commonly used to retard sugar crystallization in the food industry and to retain moisture in packaged foods and expand shelf life (source). It's very easy to make at home, by heating common sugar in some water with lemon juice and sodium bicarbonate. I guess the recipe includes inverted sugar only because it is a commercial formula. At home it could be omitted and you could use plain sugar, in which case, as invert sugar has a sweetening power of 130 compared to 100 of sucrose, the final amount would be at 27g·130/100 + 10g = 45g of normal sugar. Although it would be necessary to slightly adjust the amount of flour, as invert sugar is liquid and plain sugar is solid.

1. Weigh the flour and put in a bowl. Add the liquid ingredients and mix well (I do this in a stand mixer).
   
2. Add the solid ingredients and knead a couple of minutes. It really is not necessary to develop the gluten, I did it because I love to knead.
   
3. Cover the dough with a shower cap and let double in bulk. Allow the yeastie-beasties to enjoy the moment, after all these happy little creatures believe that life is nothing but eating and replicating... unaware that they live and work for a supreme being until they are slaughtered in an oven... How poignant. The specification indicates that the dough must be between 25º and 28ºC after kneading... Mine scored a perfect temperature, as you can see in the photo.
4. Preheat the oven to 190ºC if convection type, higher if radiation.
   
5. When the dough has doubled in bulk, put on the counter and pat it to deflate. Pinch dough balls the size of an apricot and roll them into circles of about 20cm in diameter and about 3mm thick. There is no need to flour the countertop because oil oozes from every pore of the dough. Put sugar on a plate and coat one side of each torta by resting it on the sugar. Place the wafers on parchment paper with sugar side up and bake around 10 minutes. Be careful when approaching the end of the baking, because my experience is that since the edges start to toast until they get completely browned it may take less than a couple of minutes. This may be due to the fact that invert sugar caramelizes at a lower temperature than sucrose.
6. When done, take them out to a cooling rack. The aroma throughout the house is fantastic. I recommend to bake these wafers if you have visitors whom you wish to ask some favor. They will not refuse.

This bread goes to the celebration of the World Bread Day at the blog 1 x umrühren bitte.

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Bread with sparkling water

Picture this: you have guests for lunch or dinner and you offer them a drink when they arrive. With the kindness and the greatness that distinguishes you, you offer to prepare some glasses of water with coloring agent, carbon dioxide and tons of sugar or aspartame. Mmm, your guests are sure to salivate at the prospect of tasting this delicious beverage. Well, that sounds exactly like one of the many sodas whose drinking we've come to find normal, though I won't mention its name. Doesn't it sound disgusting? Perhaps it is. You're probably wondering what's this all about. Well, a few days ago a respected Spanish mineral water company offered to send me a bottle of Vichy Catalán. I accepted for three reasons: first because D. and I have been drinking Vichy Catalán for 20 years, the second because I was assured that by the acceptance of this gift I committed to nothing, and the third that this company has the good sense to use glass to bottle the water. And the prospective of talking or not talking about the water in my blog made me reflect on what we drink and why.


At present I only drink water and wine (and gallons of cava when the gods are propitious..., and I don't drink beer because it tastes like pee...). Don't think that this has always been that way, in the past I used to drink that soda whose name I don't remember. Until I started having weight problems and became interested in nutritional issues. And to wonder what foods and drinks are harmful, not only for weight, but for your overall health. I know, many of you will tell me that one can't always stop and think about everything he does. Well, it depends. If I were invited to dinner by George Clooney it wouldn't take me very long to decide if it's good or bad for my body (a few milliseconds, plus it's neither good nor bad, it's sheer science fiction), but when it comes to what I put into my body, you might as well think about it. Others could object that I shouldn't drink alcohol then. Certainly I don't drink it every day, but I take my dose of red wine antioxidant... To cut a long story short, I've been drinking this sparkling water for 20 years because it's delicious, with a nice salty touch of its own. I think it was one of my sisters-in-law who introduced it in the family and her oldest daughter baptized it as spiked water when she was little... It's sad that spring water producers have to fund studies to prove that the mineral water is good for your health... my grandmother knew that. Michael Pollan is right to advise us not to eat anything your grandmother wouldn't consider edible... But it seems that humans have no common sense and we need to be reminded of the obvious.



Stop the musings. This gift seemed an ideal opportunity to test the action of carbonated water in a homemade bread, so that's what I did. I used an organic flour that I brought from my trip to Denmark because it showed some nice little pictures of bread in the package... but had rather little gluten, so I noticed when the time came to use it, at least the package read 10% (mmm, and the Roskilde supermarket was a bit out of my way to return the flour...).



Bread with sparkling water

• 300ml good sparkling water
• 480g bread flour
• 135g sourdough starter 100% hydration (50/50 wt.)
  
• 2 tbsp oil
• 5g salt

1. Mix all the ingredients except the salt, leave to autolyze. I used Dan Lepard's kneading system, shaped the dough into a ball and left it to ferment, covered.
   
2. After one hour proofing, I folded the dough once and put it in the fridge to retard overnight.
3. The next day I left it at room temperature to warm up and resume the fermentation (around 3 hours). When doubled, I shaped it into a plump batard.
   
4. Once the bread had doubled, I put it into my oven at 250°C. Since my oven is disastrous, as soon as I opened it four or five times to spray water, the temperature dropped to 230° and remained so throughout the baking. The bread took 40 minutes to score an inner temperature of 92ºC.

The result was a fairly densely crumbed bread, very tasty and with a nice crispy crust. As yesterday it wasn't my most brilliant day, my results are inconclusive because in order to check the difference sparkling water can make in a bread I should have used my regular flour, as I haven't the basis to compare, because the Danish flour was a bit weird. On one hand I mentioned it showed a very low percentage of protein in the package, on the other hand while kneading it gave me the feeling that the dough was very strong. Perhaps the density of the crumb is due to not having done a thorough kneading... I should have waited till the next day to eat the bread, but I couldn't restrain myself and half of it disappeared on the midday meal. It was gorgeous, despite its faults...

This one I'm sending to Wild Yeast's Yeastspotting.

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L'Alsace is a kugelhopf

Where do you start when you have so much to tell? These holidays have been dense in events and encounters. They started out in Strasbourg, continued in Heidelberg, lingered in the German Nordfriesland, continued briefly in Denmark and culminated in the Netherlands... what a journey. 7000km of roads and feelings, fine rain and high winds, stifly heat and watery cloudy days, endless skies, close friends, relatives and associates, jokes, Nordic blues, bright greens, misty horizons, sunsets, ships, lighthouses, shoals, islands, castles, Vikings, channels, rowing boats, pools, bicycles, waffles, berries, fish sandwiches, barbecues... So many things? 25 days go a long way or so it seems. So I returned with my eyes filled with images, my suitcase full of ingredients from distant lands and heaps of recipes to try... Yes, proper cooking is the only thing I've really missed in this trip.




So I have the intention of writing several posts illustrating the places we have visited on vacation. Although I don't make any commitment about it, because of the naturally chaotic flow of my mind and the demands of the times ahead, with the start of school involving a million things to do.



At our first stop, Strasbourg, Alsace, France, we stayed at a cute little hotel some thirty kilometers of the city, in a lovely Alsatian region called Little Switzerland. A dog and two cats dwelt in that hotel, and my kids fell in love with them all. A charming innkeeper looked after us very well. The city of Strasbourg, a name that we are used to connect to the headquarters of the European parliament, houses a beautiful old quarter, criss-crossed by numerous canals deriving from the River Rhine and full of medieval houses in half-timbered façades. I don't know why, but in these old streets I was all the time expecting to find a stinking mob cheering some poor prisoner's execution just around every corner...



Perhaps the only frustration this trip has left in me, apart from having spent too little time with friends, is not having bought a traditional kugelhopf mold in Strasbourg. Does this word sound familiar? For those who've never heard about it, kugelhopf is a sweet bread enriched with butter and eggs, related to brioche, with a characteristic grooved shape and a central hole. Its introduction in France is attributed to Marie Antoinette (originally from Austria, therefore) and its name appears to derive from its resemblance to a hat used in the Middle Ages, named gugelhut. This cake is completely naturalized now in the Alsace region, where there is no family gathering or celebration without it. It is baked in a terracotta glazed mold from Soufflenheim, nicely decorated. I didn't buy one not only because they're not exactly cheap, but especially for its bulky size.



But as I did buy a book with typical Alsatian recipes, here goes the famous bread. I do have a kugelhopf-like silicone mold, although less tall.



Kugelhopf or Köjlupf (recipe from Mon Alsace gourmande, Simone Morgenthaler)
For 2 molds of about 20cm diameter

• 900g bread flour
• 150g sugar
• 15g salt
• 300g unsalted butter
• 4 medium eggs
• 400ml milk
  
• 40g fresh baker's yeast
• 150g raisins (I didn't add them, my kids wouldn't have eaten the bread)
• 75g whole almonds
• 1 small glass kirsch (optional)
• Icing sugar for sprinkling

1. Let all the ingredients get to room temperature.
2. Prepare a leaven with the yeast, half the milk and the right amount flour to make a batter-dough of medium consistency (I added 120g, but according to the subsequent results, I advise to add at least twice as much for the reasons explained below). Leave to ferment, well covered in a warm place.
3. In a different bowl mix the remaining flour with the salt, sugar, eggs and remaining milk. This second dough was tough as a brick in my case, even after having reduced the amount of flour in 100 grams from the original. I think I messed up and more flour is needed in the leaven, so that the second dough is more manageable. Or maybe larger eggs should be used... Knead for 15 minutes. In my case I was on the verge of getting hurt because of the toughness of the dough and I added a bit more milk.
4. When the leaven has doubled in volume, add it to this second dough. I sweated and toiled to mix something as soft as the leaven into something so hard, I almost lost my tendons in the attempt. And I appreciate my tendons a lot, they've been with me all my life... But surely the funniest task of all was adding the butter, after the leaven was incorporated... I had great fun, as well as getting sore hands and get into butter up to my eyebrows. I had to do this in three runs, because the dough was rebellious and shameless. After a while (I lost track of time...) the dough was reasonably uniform and elastic, so after ignoring the window-pane test, I locked the dough in a bowl (step back, you rogue!) and covered it in case it wanted to escape... or attack me. I left it to proof. Although I knew it would proof only if it wanted to... such a character. It took about two hours.
   
5. Once doubled, tip the dough on the countertop and flatten with your hands to deflate, and incorporate the raisins and kirsch if desired. Anything containing alcohol is a good addition. I tell you. Although I should have added the alcohol to the damn dough while kneading, to narcotize it... Butter and flour the molds. I only have one Kugelhopf-like mold, so I used a loaf pan too. Placed the almonds on the bottom of both molds. Divide the dough and place it in the molds, which should be filled to something in between 2/3 and 3/4 of the height.
   
6. Preheat the oven to 200ºC (air) while the dough undergoes the second fermentation, it should reach the edge of the pans. Bake in the oven about 20 minutes, after which the temperature can be lowered to 190ºC if the tops brown in excess. Continue baking another 20 minutes, that is 40 minutes baking in total. You can also cover the breads with foil. Remove the breads from the oven and unmold on a wire rack. Leave to cool and sprinkle with the icing sugar.

The breads were a bit too brown because of not having used the super-perfect-dreamy terracotta mold... when I say I "need" something it's because life is difficult without it. The bread is delicious, not sweet at all and with a salty punch. And if you have leftovers, it's perfect for French toasts... yum.



I'm sending this bread to Susan's Wild Yeast for the weekly YeastSpotting.

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Suikerbrood or Dutch sugar loaf

I have a soft spot for The Netherlands. I spent a year and a half living there, in Delft immediately after leaving college, 20 years ago now... unbelievable. When I look back I only regret that there were a lot of things related to my present hobbies that I didn't enjoy, like cooking and lacemaking (being so close to Belgium!). Mmm, those were the times when all my time was really mine, all the money I earnt was for me... No responsibilities, no mortgages, no children... Yes, those were the times. We'll be spending part of our next vacation in The Netherlands, visiting good old friends, riding bikes and watching the tall ships. Therefore with rather anticipated nostalgia, I felt an urge to prepare this delicious and very typically Dutch sweet bread, suikerbrood, meaning sugar loaf, for the first time. And surely it won't be the last.


I've searched the whole net for information on this bread, but the Dutch food blogging community doesn't seem to be as large as other countries', like mine for example. The information in Wikipedia is rather silly:

Suikerbrood or sûkerbôlle in Frisian, is a bread typical from the Northern region of The Netherlands, Friesland. Its shape has developed from a former round shape to a loaf type bread. The Frisian sugar bread contains 40% sugar and cinammon too. This bread is baked in some other parts of The Netherlands though, like Limburg in the south and North-Brabant, where the sugar content is lower (25%) and no cinammon is added. In Friesland this bread is presented as a gift to women who have just given birth to a girl.

It's a pity I couldn't use sourdough. I'm not baking very much lately because of the scorching heat, so my sourdough is quietly resting in my fridge. The real bread is fluffier than mine, I remember it being almost as airy as a pannetone, but the directions in the recipe I found called for a second proofing of only 15 minutes (???!!!). I proofed it 45 minutes and maybe it needed even somewhat longer. I must remark though that I used less yeast, because the recipe called for 25g fresh yeast for 1/2kg flour, and that's a lot in my opinion. The final volume after baking should be almost 4 times the unleavened dough, my bread was slightly over 3 times. But it was delicious all the same. This bread includes ginger syrup, which is hard to find here in Spain. So I had to prepare it myself to be faithful to tradition... recipe follows. The ginger syrup gives the bread a subtly special flavor.

Suikerbrood or sûkerbôlle (adapted from Living on bread and water)

• 500g strong flour (I used spelt. The original recipe called for all-purpose flour, but I think this is heresy when you use baker's yeast)
• 10g salt
• 1 tsp ground cinammon
  
• 3 tbsp ginger syrup
  
• Milk to be added to the syrup up to a volume of 200ml
• 15g fresh yeast (if you can only use 10g and retard the first fermentation in the fridge overnight, the bread will sure have more character)
• 75g melted unsalted butter
  
• 2 eggs
• 75g sugar (the type of sugar the Dutch use for this can't be found in Spain. See how it looks here. You can use sugar cubes instead, crushed with a rolling pin. This type of sugar melts during the baking and leaves a lot of sweet and gooey pockets in the bread... Though the original recipe calls for 150g sugar, I preferred to reduce it)

Ginger syrup (from the recipe for candied ginger by David Lebovitz)

• A couple of fresh ginger roots
• 1 cup sugar
  
• 1 cup water
  

1. Peel the ginger and slice finely.
2. Put everything in a pot and boil till the ginger is tender, or until the syrup scores 106ºC. I'm a primitive being and I didn't measure anything though. You just need a minimum of 3 tbsp of the damned thing. And you can keep the candied ginger for your next Christmas confections.

Fine, now that you have your ginger syrup, proceed to preparing this utterly delicious and utterly Dutch bread:

1. Pour the syrup into a measuring cup and add the milk till you get 200ml of liquid.
2. Add the eggs.
3. Melt the butter and add it too; mix well.
4. Weigh the flour and crumble the yeast in it. Add the liquid ingredients and start kneading till you have a reasonable gluten development. My dough was a bit on the dry side, maybe that's another reason why the crumb was on the dense side.
5. Put the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with plastic and leave to double in bulk. Mine took less than one hour yesterday because of the heat in my kitchen. Simply amazing. I can't imagine what could have happened had I added the original amount of yeast. I would have needed a machete to get into my kitchen.
6. Preheat the oven to 170-180ºC.
   
7. After the first proofing, tip the dough on the countertop, deflate it and shape it into a large rectangle by sliding your fingers underneath the dough and pulling. The rectangle needs to be as wide as the length of your loaf pan, so that the rolled dough fits into the mold. I don't have photos of the process as it was almost night when I started and I don't have the proper photography props. I admit donations though. And my baking inspiration doesn't arrive when it's called, I couldn't tell her to come back the next day... no no no. My dough had a wonderful gluten development I don't always get, because I could stretch it a lot without much effort. The heat also has something to do when the dough carries butter.
8. When the dough is well stretched, scatter the sugar pieces and sprinkle the cinammon. Roll the dough carefully to make a cylinder, lift it and put it into the oiled and floured loaf pan. Cover with plastic film and let it at least double in volume.
9. Bake it 40 minutes. Watch it every now and then to prevent it from browning too much on top. When done, unmold on a cooling rack. Let it cool.
   

If you like bread that is sugary and smells of cinammon, this is up your alley. Undescribable if you have it in a veranda with tons of butter... like the Dutch do... eet smakelijk.

And I'm sending this one to Wild Yeast, for the weekly YeastSpotting.

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Daring Cooks' challenge June: Pâtés and bread

This month the Daring Cooks' challenge has turned out pro-French and I found it's been an excellent proposal, although in reality there were two challenges in one. It so happens that I had recently attempted a campagne-style pâté with a not-so-satisfactory result, so it was a good opportunity to undertake a tried and tested recipe and use a surplus of pork liver that I keep in the freezer since January... And the experience has been a success... I'm still licking my lips.


Being that I always tend to be unruly and disobedient I didn't exactly make baguettes, and I added raisins, which I think divinely combine with pâtés and foie. The possibilities of pâté offered were varied, including vegetarian options. I chose the most genuine, the pig's liver pâté. I also introduced some changes in the paté quantities, but the ingredients are the same.

Our hostesses this month, Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz, and Valerie of a The Chocolate Bunny, chose delicious pate with freshly baked bread as their June Daring Cook’s challenge! They’ve provided us with 4 different pate recipes to choose from and are allowing us to go wild with our homemade bread choice.



Three Spice Liver Pâté
For a 25 x 12,5 cm loaf or pan

• 350g pork liver (454g in the original recipe, but I was afraid that the liver taste would be overwhelming)
  
• 350g minced pork meat (227g in the original recipe)
  
• 250g Ibérico pork lard (227g in the original recipe)
  
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 shallots
• 1 whole egg y 1 egg yolk
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cilantro seeds
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp salt (3/4 tsp in the original recipe)
  
• 1 tbsp peppercorns
• 2 tbsp sweet wine (cognac in the original recipe)
  
• 2 bay leafs
• 1 package bacon

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
   
2. Cut the liver and bacon into pieces and put them in a food processor (I use my Thermomix). Process briefly.
   
3. Grind the cilantro and cumin seeds in a coffee-grinder.
   
4. Add the minced meat, the peeled garlic cloves, the diced shallots and all the spices and salt, except the peppercorns, in the processor bowl. Process till you obtain a fine puree. Add the wine, the coarsely crushed peppercorns and the eggs and mix thoroughly.
   
5. Line a loaf pan or terrine with bacon slices. Place a bay leaf on the bottom and pour the meat-liver mixture in the terrine. Smooth the surface, place another bay leaf and cover with more bacon. Cover with a lid or aluminum foil.
   
6. Place a deep dish in the oven and place the terrine on it. Fill with boiling water till it reaches 2/3 of the height. Bake for 1 1/4 hours.
   
7. When done, take out the pâté and leave to cool completely. I preferred to leave it to rest overnight in the fridge for the flavors to develop.

Being that I already have some practice in baking bread, I won't dedicate much attention here to the bread part of the challenge. I used this recipe, but shaped into small batards and I added a couple of handfuls of raisins, previously boiled in sweet wine. The bread was not perfect-looking, but it was delicious with the pâté. The pâté itself was quite addictive, even though I would reduce slightly the amount of cinnamon. I liked the sweet wine instead of the cognac. But I'm a real sweet-wine-geek, I would add it everywhere. If you think the amount of pâté is too much, consider that is freezes beautifully if you don't feel like eating the whole terrine in one go. I will make this recipe again, no doubt.

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Challah, from far away

Though the English-speaking blogosphere is packed with Challah recipes, this word is quite unknown in Spain. All ethnicities and nationalities with communities of a certain importance in the United States enjoy an amplification and diffusion in the rest of the world of all their characteristics and peculiarities that for example we Spaniards do not enjoy. When we were compelled to emigrate, we had a lot of Spanish-speaking countries to go to, instead of heading for the United States, like Italians, Germans, Swedes, Irish, Russians, Poles, etc. And now our cuisine is not as widely known as theirs.


It's funny how in almost all the books where I have the recipe for challah (see here its pronunciation, I mean hear it), the name is written in the form challah. I guess that's the spelling in Yiddish and German. But in Spanish we would pronounce that starting with a sound like in the Italian word ciao, for example. I have a book in Spanish in which it is correctly transcribed, jalá, which leads me to worship the translator... I like that book, New Jewish Cooking by Elizabeth Wolf Cohen. Although the recipe I used here is not from this book, but from a baking course on festive breads. Are you yawning yet? Good. This is my method for screening my readers. Only the chosen ones will get to the bottom of the chasm of knowledge...



When I brought home my first challah from my baking course, my youngest son liked it a lot, so with the happy occasion of his birthday today, I decided to bake him a challah, because he doesn't like cakes... And also because challah is delicious. Here it is:

Challah, Shabbath's bread (recipe by Paul Merry)
Yields 2 biggish plaited breads

• 1/4 tsp saffron
• 270ml water
• 700g bread flour (I used 500g spelt and 200g Manitoba flour)
• 10g salt
• 12g fresh yeast
• 2 tbsp agave syrup (the original recipe calls for honey instead)
• 3 medium eggs
• 80g softened butter, at ambient
• Poppy seeds
• 1 aditional egg for brushing
  

1. Lightly toast the saffron to boost its flavour. I put the threads on a little piece of aluminum foil and heat it with a lighter. Put half the water in a bowl, heat it in the microwave and leave the saffron to infuse. Let cool.
2. In the meantime mix the liquid ingredients. Add the cooled saffron mixture to the rest of the liquid (substract the infusion water from the total), then add all the solids except the butter and the poppy seeds.
3. Knead well until gluten begins to develop, around 10 minutes. Then add the softened butter in small pieces and continue kneading until the dough is smooth and supple, but not too soft. Make a ball, place it on an oiled bowl, cover and let it double in bulk, from 1 hour to 1.5 hours.
4. When doubled, punch it to degas. Leave it in the same container to continue the fermentation till almost double again, at least another hour. Once fermented for the second time, tip the dough on the countertop, degas again and try to shape it into a flat rectangle. Cut the rectangle into two equal parts (you can weigh the portions, but I'm a primitive person without scale), then roll each portion into a cylinder and divide into three pieces, to make the strands of the plait. Each portion is shaped into a long thread, about two fingers thick. Leave the stretched strands to rest a couple of minutes on the counter for the dough to relax.
   
5. The next step is to make the plait. What, you don't know how to make a plait? Shame on you. Here's an instructional video. The braid should be initiated at the center, progressing to one end. Then flip the bread and make the other end of the braid. The center should be thicker than the ends. Try not to overtight the crosses, better let the braid a little loose, because it needs space to rise. It's a good idea to make the braid on a well floured baking sheet so that you don't need to transfer it later.
   
6. Make a glaze with one egg yolk and a little water (the remaining egg white can be frozen). Brush both braids, trying not to let much egg flow between the strands, so that it doesn't act as glue. You can brush them a second time after a few minutes. After the final glaze, sprinkle poppy seeds on the loafs and allow them to rise a third time. They will take less than an hour, so turn on the oven to 190ºC immediately.
   
7. When properly risen, put the loafs into the oven. In my oven they took something in between 20 and 25 minutes to bake. To test for doneness, press the sides near the base, and if the bread springs back, they are ready. Handle them with great care not to break them and leave to cool on rack.

I think less yeast can be used, 10g or less may be more than sufficient. The neatness in making the strands is important for the outcome. The first loaf (which is not in the photos, uh-huh) looked worse, because all the strands rose to almost fuse with each other. The second loaf was much better looking, although the center burst to some extent. I have to improve my braiding technique. I'm willing to bake all the challah loafs that may be required. And some more. Yum.



I guess you know it keeps very well inside a plastic bag, but if you don't find it as good as freshly made, you can always slice it and toast it. It is delicious spread with butter. And as French toast...

This challah goes to Susan's Yeastspotting!

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The Winter Guest on TV...

May I have your attention, please? Today I feel brimming with self-esteem. Yesterday I was on the Spanish TV, La Sexta, in a short report on homemade bread, thanks to my friend Bea from La cocina de Babette. She does have a leading role in the video, teaching her pupils to knead, haha... oleeeé.


You can find the video here, for you to see that the breads I post are real and that I even know how to knead... ;-). Yes, I'm sorry, it's in Spanish... enjoy it!

And building upon my self-esteem rise, I forgot to post about this collaboration in the excellent blog Learnfoodphotography. Thanks a lot, Neel, for thinking I had something interesting to say about the subject.

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San Francisco sourdough bread

Those of you out there who are among the followers of the Holy Sourdough know that the only rite of passage that allows you to qualify for a gold-plated bread-scoring tool is to make a San Francisco sourdough bread... I admit I had always wondered, somewhat skeptically, if San Francisco yeastie beasties would be much different from the ones in the Spanish plateau (the rain in Spain doesn't stay mainly in the plain...). But I've been lucky enough to get some of these bugs from my generous friend Bea... so that I could check myself. I haven't reached a definite verdict though.


Here's what baker Peter Reinhart says about the bugs and San Francisco sourdough:

(...) a wild strain of yeast called Saccharomyces exiguus is used to make sourdough bread, as opposed to S. cerevisiae used in regular breads. But the complex sour flavor is not created by the wild yeast. Other bacterian organisms, specifically lactobacillus and acetobacillus, create lactic and acetic acids as they feed off the enzime-released sugar in the dough, and these are responsible for the sour flavor. San Francisco sourdough bread, for example, has a particular type of local bacteria called Lactobacillus sanfrancisco (...) that gives this bread a different quality, more sour with a thicker crust, than any other wild-yeast bread made in other parts of the world.

If Reinhart says so... The peculiar flavor that this sourdough imparts comes from one of those bacterias, from the lactobacillus type. Well, I only know that I have baked two breads with this sourdough so far and either I've finally learnt to bake decent bread or this sourdough is really special. Both breads were wonderful, with a delicious flavor that caused them to disappear in no time. The recipe I used is nothing special:

• 200g San Francisco sourdough, fed with spelt for several days (baker's percentage: 100%)
• 300g water
• 500g white bread flour (I had to add 50g more)
• 2 tsp salt

1. Mix all the ingredients and knead by hand or in a stand mixer, till the gluten is well developed. Make a ball and put it inside an oiled bowl, cover with a plastic shower cap and put in the fridge. Leave to proof overnight.
2. Take the dough out of the fridge the next morning and leave it to temper on the counter and to further proof. It must double in bulk. It will take at least 2 hours.
3. When doubled in bulk, tip the dough on a well floured counter and shape in whatever shape you like. Then put the formed loaf on a floured cloth, a bannetone or a large bowl, depending on the bread shape, and leave to rise again.
4. I usually bake my loafs in a Dutch oven. Preheat the oven to 250ºC (that's the maximum reached by my oven) with the Dutch oven inside. When the loaf is doubled, take the Dutch oven out on the counter and slide the bread into it. Score it, cover with the lid and put it back into the oven. This bread hardly took 30 minutes to bake. Check the inner temperature, it should be at least 92ºC (large tears rolled down my cheeks when I opened the Dutch oven to find such a stunning bread... I had never baked such a beautiful bread before... so well risen, with such an appealing color...).
   
5. Then let the loaf cool on a wire rack and... devour it. I can't express how delicious it was with butter...

And being that I am a studious little girl, I'm more than willing to try this sourdough again just to check if its flavor and aroma are really special or not... as many times as needed. Sorry, I must be going, I've got some baking to do. Bye.



I almost forgot! I'm sending this bread to Susan's Yeastspotting... don't forget to check it tomorrow for a weekly showcase of breads!

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Kulich, a Russian Easter bread

No, I don't have any Russian relatives, friends, not even an acquaintance... pity. But last Saturday I attended an excellent course on Easter breads at La Cocina de Babette, an alternative cooking school in Madrid. We prepared Russian kulich, British hot cross buns and Jewish challah. We had a grand time, though we did work hard. Making three leavened breads in just one day is quite an effort!


The course was taught by Paul Merry, an Australian baker based in England, owner of a baking school in Dorset (my dream life...). And baking side by side with a professional, you always "absorb" some expertise... at least that's what I like to believe. Kulich is a typical leavened sweet bread eaten at Orthodox households on the Easter Vigil. This Merry man knows this bread at first hand, as one of his aunts is married to a Russian. According to Tatiana M. Maslenikof, owner of the Russian restaurant El Cosaco, in Madrid:

On Holy Saturday, during the day, it can be quite hectic at a Russian home while preparing for the grand night. Children paint eggs and mark them with the letters X. B., the initials of Xristos Boscrecie (Christ is risen). The housewife has already been preparing the various dishes for several days, among them the traditional desserts paskha and kulich; the first one need to be pressed under some weight for two days... Fish is forgotten and hams, piglets, poultry and lamb take over the kitchens.
It's time for a general house cleaning and for adorning every corner with flowers. The table is covered with a white tablecloth and the colourful delicacies are laid on it.

I wonder about the age this is describing... I doubt this would be possible under the communist rule. I found this sweet bread is something in between stollen and brioche, with a soft inside and bursting with almonds and dried fruit. I loved to learn how to prepare it, as I had been eyeing the recipe in Tatiana's book for ages, but never had the guts to make it. The kulich recipe in the book is slightly different, with a lot more egg yolks. I'll try it some time. The main problem here in Spain is the bread shape. It's almost impossible to find a commercial mold with that height ratio (double height than width), so at the school we used empty tomato cans, scrubbed clean and lined with parchment paper.

Kulich according to Paul Merry
Makes 2 medium-sized kulich

First sponge

• 150ml milk
• 250g bread flour
• 10g fresh baker's yeast

Mix everything, cover and leave to ferment overnight at ambient temperature.

Second sponge

• 150ml milk
• 100g bread flour
• 30g fresh baker's yeast

The next day, mix the ingredients together and then add to the first sponge. Leave it to ferment for an hour, until the surface is bubbly.

Final dough

• 650g bread flour
• 1 pinch salt
• 50ml vodka
• 100ml honey
• 100g vanilla sugar
  
• 250g butter, at ambient temperature
  
• 4 eggs
• 150g sultanas
• 100g raisins
• 1 tsp saffron threads
  
• Zest of 2 lemons
• 50g candied peel
  
• 100g blanched almonds
• 15-20 cardamom pods
  

1. While the second sponge is rising, prepare the rest of the ingredients. First put the saffron to soak in the vodka. Coarsely chop the almonds and zest the lemons. Cut the candied peel in small pieces. Open the cardamom pods and grind the seeds in a mortar or coffee grinder.
2. Mix all the liquid ingredients, which must be at ambient temperature. Warm up the honey if needed to make it more fluid. Add the vodka with the saffron and the eggs. Mix the liquids with the second sponge and then add the rest of the flour, the salt and the ground cardamom.
3. Knead thoroughly till you have a homogeneous and smooth dough. Then add the butter cut in chunks. Knead to incorporate the butter.
4. Once the gluten has developed, add the raisins, sultanas, almonds, lemon zest and candied peel. Distribute them evenly.
5. Form the dough into a ball, then place it into an oiled bowl and leave to double in bulk (around an hour).
6. Prepare the molds in the meantime. Line the inside with parchment paper, cut a circle for the bottom and a large strip for the sides. Let the paper extend over the tin edge as needed if the tin is not tall enough. Use double paper if you like.
7. When the dough has doubled, divide it in two; then loosely shape each portion into a cylinder that can be inserted into the mold. Let it carefully fall inside and press it a little bit to fill all the gaps. The tin should be half full approximately.
8. Leave to proof again, loosely covered in plastic so that the dough has place to rise 3-4cm above the tin or paper edge.
   
9. Heat the oven to 170-180 ºC. Then bake for around 40 minutes. Check for doneness with a wooden skewer. If the kulich tops brown too quickly, cover them with foil.
   
10. When they're done, take them out and leave to rest in the mold for 15 minutes. Then carefully tip the molds onto a wire rack and extract them from the mold in a horizontal position. Put them in an upright position and check that they're set enough to stand (otherwise they would need some more time in the oven).
11. You can optionally ice them with a mixture of water and sugar once they've cooled.
    

Eating kulich is a wonderful way to celebrate Easter... though that doesn't mean we won't be making Spanish torrijas this year, no, no, no. We are gluttonous...

I'm sending this Easter bread to Susan's YeastSpotting.

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