Amazing Bread, Ridiculously Fast

I'm so excited - my new favorite-ever book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, finally came in from Amazon!

I'm normally skeptical of anything that makes that kind of claim - it reminds me of some oily-looking creeper in an infomercial trying to sell you a get-rich-quick scheme.  But I tried this on a recommendation from a friend, and seriously, it is the easiest bread I have ever made.  It is easier than using the bread machine.  And the product is way better - these are amazing artisan-style loaves with cracked, crispy crusts and light, moist insides.

The secret is that you don't try to do everything at once.  The first day, you just make the dough - the easiest bread dough you've ever made, and no kneading.  It really is about five minutes of hands-on time (ok, maybe closer to ten for me, but that's because ingredients are all in crazy places in my small kitchen).  Then you let time do the work as it sits in your fridge.  Because the dough is very wet, it keeps for a long time without drying out.  So when you want a loaf, just pull off a hunk, let it rest, and bake. You make a big batch - the single recipe makes four one-pound loaves, and you can easily double it - and you're ready to go for weeks.  Amazing! 

Basically, you have to try this!

I made the brioche dough, which has several more ingredients than the basic recipe.  So if you start with the basic recipe (which you should, it's great and very versatile)  you will have an even easier time. 

I have a big tupperware - a large dough bucket is better.  Extra bonus - you can mix and store in the same container, so there are no bowls to clean!

This is a mixture of water, honey, salt, eggs, melted butter, and yeast.  (Another way this recipe is flexible - use whatever yeast you have.  Bread machine yeast, rapid or quick rise, active dry - doesn't matter.  The long rise time will even it out.  I guess cake yeast would be different, but since I've never even seen it much less used it, I won't worry about that.  )

Here's how I know it's going to taste amazing:

Yep, there are three sticks of butter and 8 eggs in this recipe.  (It does make four loaves.  But still.)

Then I added a whole lotta A-P flour. 

A little elbow grease for the mixing.  Just mixing - no kneading!  That's right - no sticky countertop or bread board, no wasting huge quantities of flour to keep it from sticking, no mess, no sore arms.  Now it's brioche!  

Cover loosely and let it sit on your counter for a couple hours.  Then put on the top (again, not airtight), pop it in the fridge or one-pound portions in the freezer, and you're done for today!  It took me longer to write this post than it did to make dough for four loaves of bread.

I'll post the baking steps soon (om nom nom).  The dough is super-versatile; you can just make a loaf, or you can make it into cinnamon rolls, coffee cakes, challah, dinner rolls ... you get the idea.

I left the exact measurements out because I don't think the authors would really appreciate me spreading their copyrighted ideas all over the interwebs.  But you can almost certainly get the book at your local library for exact amounts.  I just wanted to show you how easy and fun this is!

Sushi!

Tonight's adventure: sushi!  We cracked out the wedding-gift sushi set (only a year and a half later ...) and got to it.  The hubs and I have been dreaming about hosting sushi parties, so we figured step 1 was actually figuring out how to make it.  And you know what?  It's ridiculously easy.

One caveat, for the sushi gourmet  - when I say "sushi", I mean "maki rolls."  More specifically, I mean maki rolls made without any raw fish.  I love raw fish in my maki at very high-quality restaurants, but I just doubt that I can get and safely work with sushi-grade fish when I'm 2000 miles from the ocean.

So, anyway, veggie maki rolls are really easy!

We hauled out the bamboo mat, which I thought would be hard to work with but wasn't.  Our mystery sources (i.e. YouTube) recommended covering the mat in plastic wrap to minimize sticking.  Sticky sushi rice is really, seriously sticky.  Who would have thought.

Then lay out a sheet of seaweed.  We got some really nice nori at the local co-op.  My husband swears everything there is organic, although I'm skeptical about the existence of certified organic seaweed.  Apparently darker color = better quality.  (Thanks again, YouTube.)

 

Fill a small bowl with water and get your hands wet.  This is by far the most important step if you don't want to wind up with sushi rice stuck all over EVERYTHING.  Then, with wet hands, grab a hunk of your prepared sushi rice (we used this recipe from Alton Brown) and press it firmly into your nori.

Go pretty much all the way to the edges, but leave a little space - maybe half an inch or so - at the end, so you won't squish rice out the end when you make the roll. 

Place fillings at one end (we made cucumber roll for me, and Philadelphia roll - cream cheese and lox - for the hubby.)

Then roll!  Your first roll you need to move somewhat quickly - don't rush, just don't hesitate.  You're trying to completely enclose the fillings.  After you roll, make the roll tight by squeezing the bamboo mat at the bottom of the new roll (where my fingers are in the pic below.)

Repeat until you're all the way at the edge ...

Then lift the mat away, and voila!  It's like magic!

To make eight even pieces (we tried six the first time, and the pieces were HUGE.  We couldn't fit them in our mouths.  This resulted in some hilarious photos of my hubby with half a piece hanging out of his mouth, which I will not be sharing because I like being married.)  Anywho, to make eight even pieces, we're going to cut the roll in half several times.  Use a wet knife to avoid sticking!  First cut it in half once and line the halves up.

 

Then... 

Ta-dah!

(Note that these are the first batch of uber-huge rolls.  That's why they're already starting to unroll - the small ones, which we cut smaller and used less rice for, held together much better.)  

It looks beautiful like this for a few minutes, but then it's so nummy that it will shortly look like this:

Best. Investment. Ever. (For coffee lovers, anyway)

I always thought that if you wanted fancy-schmancy cafe drinks at home - lattes, mochas, macchiatos - you would have to invest some serious cash.  Professional-quality espresso machines, complete with foamers, steamers, and other alien-tentacle-esque appendages, are pricey and intimidating.  Automatic machines with pods force you into buying nasty prepacked chemicals passing as coffee that cost as much as Starbucks anyway. Plus, I'm convinced that one day they are going to become sentient and take over the planet.

But, frou-frou coffee drinkers of the world, there is another way!  Introducing .... the Moka pot.

Specifically, this is a Bialetti Moka Express 6-cup Stovetop Espresso Maker.  It's cheap, simple, and requires only regular ground coffee and water.  And it makes excellent espresso.  In short, it is all your wildest coffee dreams come true. 

My first experience brewing espresso in my shiny new Moka pot was made even more of an adventure by the fact that the instructions were apparently translated by somebody who speaks English as a fourth language. (My favorite example : "screw top of pot on strongly, but do not prize handle.")

So in plain English, the wonderment ...

Unscrew the bottom half of the pot.

The strainer in the bottom half is just sitting; it comes out easily and reveals an empty well underneath.  Fill that well with cold water.  The instructions say cold.  I don't know why.  I just did it and it worked.

Then replace the strainer and fill with coarsely ground coffee.

 

Screw the top back on (securely, but remembering, of course, not to prize on the handle!)  Then put it on low or medium heat - if you have a gas stove, make sure the flame is smaller in diameter than the bottom of the pot.

Ok, this is the part that is truly magical!  The top half of the pot was completely empty when you put it on the stove, right?  But as the pressure builds up, water is forced up through the grounds and into the top, like a fountain!  A magical fountain of espresso!  

Pretty soon, the magical flow will slow to a trickle, then stop; the top will now be mostly full.  Turn off the heat.  Presto! Espresso!

If you just want to drink it straight, you're done.  If you want a latte, read on ...

To steam and foam milk, we heated some milk up in a pot on the stove.  (We used 7 oz milk to 3 oz espresso, based on a video recipe from Folgers.) Then we whipped it up with a little hand-held frother that we got in a hot cocoa kit last year.  If you don't have one, they're inexpensive.  I couldn't find the one we used exactly, but this one is the same brand to give you an idea. It's ten bucks from Amazon.

Hubby and I wanted mochas, so we added a little chocolate syrup to the bottom of each cup.  Then we poured the milk:

Added the coffee:

Top with more foam, and if you want, drizzle with chocolate!

 Artsy photo, because I'm obsessed with how delicious my new mochas are:

Seriously, this was just as good as anything I've gotten at a coffee shop, and I know my mad skillz will get better with practice.  You can use your favorite coffee, so you can tailor it to your tastes; you can also try adding flavored syrups or playing with the ratio of steamed milk, foam, and coffee.  Using the fuzziest of math, I figure for the $30 pot, if hubby and I replace mochas that cost $3.00 each at a coffee shop (and that's a low estimate), we'll break even after doing this just 5 times.  And hopefully we'll use it for years!

Who knew a good investment could be so nummy? 

Hamantaschen (that's the three-cornered Purim cookies, for the goyim)

What makes these cookies an adventure is that I only make them once a year.  That's a lot of time to completely forget all the good tweaks I come up with every time, but naturally never write down.  Plus, they take forever and are super-messy.  All in all, a recipe for yummy, sticky insanity!

Essentially, these are a heavy dough, shaped into a triangle that holds a sweet filling, usually prune or poppy seed.  The shape is meant to resemble the hat or pocket of Haman (boo! hiss!), the villain of the Purim story.  The dough has to be very hearty (read: tons o' butter) in order to keep its shape and hold in all the fruity goodness.  These are some serious cookies.

Anyway, I figure if it's a mitzvah (commandment / good deed) to share hamantaschen with my friends on Purim, I must get good-Jew points for sharing the recipe, too.  This is from my Purple Book, aka the book of family recipes my mom put together for me when I went to college.  It is my bible and you will see more of it!

Makes about 40 cookies.

Ingredients for dough:                                       Ingredients for filling:
1c softened butter                                            1c pitted prunes
2c sugar                                                           2/3c raisins  
4 tsp baking powder                                        1/2c coconut
5c flour                                                            2/3c chopped walnuts
4 tsp orange juice                                             (I cut this in half and used
2 tsp vanilla                                                      store-bought fillings in other
                                                                        flavors)


The dough is pretty simple to mix up - lots of butter, lots of flour, and a little orange juice for sweetness and moisture.  It's the classic cookie technique - cream butter and sugar together, add eggs. Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl.  Alternate mixing in dry ingredients and OJ.  Done!  It does need to be refrigerated for half an hour at least.  Since I forgot to get prunes for the filling, in this case "half an hour" meant "overnight, plus the time it takes me to get to Pick n' Save the next day."

After an eon in the fridge, the dough was pretty dried out and crumbly.  I was worried for a few minutes, but a little extra juice and some water brought it right back.  Hooray!  Time for fillings!

I bought a couple of "pastry fillings".  I don't really know what that means, but I couldn't find the prune butter my recipe called for.  My mother confirmed that this will work as a substitute.  Then I got fancy and decided to get 2 other flavors (just to use straight from the can, good lord I am not making 3 of these).

So the first thing to do is to rehydrate prunes and raisins.  Put them in a pot, with enough water to cover.  Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and let them simmer for 5 minutes.  I know, it looks a little gross and all that dried fruit makes you think of your Great-Grandma Myrtle.  Don't worry.  This will be DELICIOUS.

 My recipe calls for blending things up in a specific order.  I don't really worry about it and just dump everything in the food processor. You can also dice up your ingredients by hand. So in no particular order, add the prune butter, coconut, walnuts, and dried fruit.

Grind 'em up!

 Until it looks like this:

And that's your filling.  Taste it!  It's sweet and sticky and deep and earthy.  The hubs says too many walnuts.  Note to self: less walnuts next year.

Now the real fun begins! Roll out the dough and cut out 3" circles.

I have not suddenly developed uber-manly hands.  My husband is the family dough-roller-and-cutter. To the folding!

Add a teaspoon or so:

Fold up the edges:

 Pinch for a good seal:

 Scoop out any extra.

At this point, you may be saying to yourself "that's easy! What's all the fuss about?"  This cookie has the strange distinction of being quite simple - if you have unlimited counter space and three ovens.  If not, a little creativity is now in order.  Here's how we wound up:

Yes, I'm balancing the cookie sheet on the flour container so my hubby has enough room to roll out the next portion of the dough.  There's already a pan sitting on top of the oven, and one baking.  Amazingly, nothing went flying.  This time.

And that's not even taking into account the disaster area that used to be the rest of my kitchen:

Anywho, bake:

COOKIE TIME!

Normally I don't do a good enough job of sealing the ends, and one or two come open and spew fruity goo all over the cookie sheets. Apparently I was feeling particularly pinchy today, since even the ones that unfolded a little did not do so in a catastrophic manner.

Oh, and remember those store-bought fillings? The apricot and the cherry?  Yeah ... me either.  Well, actually, I did use all of the apricot.  Cherry's not really a standard flavor for these, and I never did actually get around to using it.  Expect a "what to do with leftover cherry goo" post one of these days.

Just a final laugh - "hamantaschen" has completely foiled Blogger's spell check.  It keeps trying to change the word to "Schenectady." Sorry for any unintended New York references that crop up in this post.