Daring Bakers: Cannolo

Recipe origins: Italy (UK)
Inspirations and References: Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, Allen Rucker, Michelle Scicolone
Hostess: Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

If you want me to giggle, all you have to say is the word "cannoli."

I blame a misspent youth watching American sit-coms. In this case, the Golden Girls.

For those of you who've been fortunate enough to avoid the show (really, it hasn't aged well). Three senior women all live together in Florida. One is an aging Southern Belle who's retained her vixen-like qualities; one is a slightly ditzy but sweet grandmotherly type from Minnesota, and a divorced teacher who's brought her slightly senile mum named Sophia with her.

I don't recall the entire episode, but I recall Sophia talking about her (dead) husband and the game of "find the cannoli."

So when I read this month's challenge was cannolo, well...my mind immediately went there...but with 90 year olds.

Now, I'm going to be a good girl and not draw any symbolism between cannolo-making and playing hide the cannoli. Really, you know. And if you don't, well...I've been told there are books and even DVDs you can get a hold of.

Regardless of such associations, cannoli are a treat. My occasional Saturday shopping at the swankychichifooderie will have my nose plastered to the cold case window spying the pyramid of cannoli--chocolate chip, vanilla and banana (with banana being my favourite).

Normally when I find food I like, I figure out a way to make it at home, but for whatever reason it never occured to me to do the same with cannoli. I'm not afraid of deep fat frying (although, truth be told, I don't like the smell of frying oil). I'm not afraid of sweetened cheese or cream. The pipine bag thing does concern me as it schmecks of foofy cake decorating--something I generally avoid.

I'll tell you something. This was probably the most fun DB challenge I've done in ages. Maybe as fun as the bagels from a couple of years ago.

I quartered the recipe--I didn't want to end up with 40 of these things, because I'd wind up eating 40 of these things. The dough was a little raggedy, so I added more oil and water. I let it rest about 2 hours before rolling and frying.

That's when I felt like one of MacBeth's witches. The violent bubbling from my cauldron as I lowered the dough-wrapped metal cylinder was jolly fun. I loved the warty toad-like appearance of the finished pastry...I really loved how easily the pastry released from the tubes. I shouldn't have worried about the piping--althought I could have probably done something fancy that peeked out the sides, I didn't need to: a simple vanilla swirl was all that was needed.

The finished product was crispy, with a relatively light pastry and filled with creamy sweet goodness. My friends and I were quite happy with them. Thanks Michele!

Click here for a list of participating Daring Bakers.

cheers!
jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Happy Cinnamon Bun Day!

When our darling Glamah of Coco Cooks Tweeted today is Sweden's National Cinnamon Bun Day, I grabbed hold of this opportunity to coax my latent (and totally fictitious) inner Swede out and celebrate with the rest of my bun-baking brethren and my sweet-toothed sistren.

No...I didn't start playing dollies with a root veggie...nor am I part vegetable (regardless of the quality of my writing some days).

It's been a while since I've had a cinnamon bun. Why? I must admit I've gone off them. Wherever I go, coffee shops and cinnamon bun emporiums try to convince me that insipdily sugary, tar-sticky, bready turbans mortared with icing so thick, one could restore parts of Hadrian's Wall with them.

Don't get me wrong, the first time I had one of those mall kiosk cinnamon buns, I was quite enamoured. Time passed and doughnut and coffee shops, grocery stores and cafeteria versions popped up and morphed what was a happy little swirly pastry into a Frankensteinesque Type-Two Diabetes inducing meal of a snack just put a bitter taste into my mouth.

Swirls of golden dough, filled with cinnamonny-sugar and dried fruit or nuts, glazed with a brushing of butter-dampened sugar. That's the kind of cinnamon bun I prefer.

What better to celebrate Sweden's foodie feast day than to remind myself of the buns I'd happily come home to?

I've written about cinnamon buns before, but I thought a new version was called for. This one's a little more straightforward, but easily adaptable --change the almonds to the fruit or nut (or combination) of your choice. Glaze the top with any flavour or any toffee or icing.

I must admit I wasn't fully paying attention to the buns as I cut them. Sometimes counting to 12 is beyond me. Sometimes 14 is easier than 12. I quite like the effect, away from the ordered three by four order these things usually demand. Instead there's an organic movement borne of living yeast pushing the dough to fill every possible nook of the pan. Some big. Some small. Deeper golden flecked with spots of bright slivers My tray of buns is, hence, oddly reminiscent of van Gogh's Starry Night.

It's a good version, with a slighty marzipan-ish flavour, adapted from Anita Stewart's The Flavours of Canada. Absolutely easy, yet takes much of an afternoon to make--most of that time taken up with proofing. A trifle, really, given you are returned with a house filled with bready and cinnamony scents.


Almond Cinnamon Buns
Adapted from Mrs. Peterson's Cinnamon Sticky Buns from The Flavours of Canada by Anita Stewart
(yield 12)

To bloom the yeast:
2 Tbsp hand-hot water
1/2 tsp sugar
1 dspn active dry yeast

For the dough
2 eggs, well beaten
100g sugar
110g butter, melted
pinch of salt
150ml hand-hot milk
420g ap flour
canola oil (or other flavourless oil)

For the filling
75g brown sugar
1tsp cinnamon
1dspn butter, melted
100g flaked almonds

For the glaze
2 Tbsp butter, melted
3 heaping Tbsp icing sugar
splash almond extract
2-3 Tbsp milk or cream

Bloom the yeast for 10 minutes or until a healthy, frothy head develops.

Whisk together the sugar, melted butter, salt and milk; add the eggs and bloomed yeast. Mix well. Add the flour, in thirds, beating well and scraping down the bowl between additions.
When all the flour is incorporated, lightly dust your counter with bench flour and knead for about 5-10 minutes or until the dough is elastic and as soft as a baby's bottom. Place in an oil-slathered bowl, cover and let double in size in a warm, draft-free place...about 90 minutes.

Mix the cinnamon and sugar together.

Line a 23cmx35cm (9"x14") lasagna pan with parchment paper. Butter the parchment.

Turn out the dough onto a floured surface. Knead for about five minutes and let rest. Give it the two-finger poke test*. When it passes, roll the dough into a 20cmx35cm (8"x14") rectangle.

Brush the dough with the melted butter. Sprinkle with spiced sugar and strew with almonds.

Roll up the sheet, so you have a fat, 35cm log. Cut into 12 pieces and place roughly 2.5 cm (1") apart in the prepared pan. Cover lightly and return to the warm, draft-free place until doubled in size...about one hour.

Preheat oven to 350F/180C.

Bake for about 15 minutes or until the buns are golden.

Brush the tops with melted butter, while the buns are still hot.

When the buns have cooled a little, but still warm, mix the melted butter, icing sugar and almond extract together. Add a little cream to thin it out. Drizzle over the warm buns.

* Two finger poke test: Poke the dough with your index and middle fingers to a first-knuckle depth. If the dents fill in, let the dough rest a little longer and try again. If the dents keep, you're good to go.


cheers!
jasmine


I'm a quill for hire!

Daring Bakers: Chocolate Eclairs

Hello all -- As you've probably guessed by the very recent proliferation of chocolate éclairs, the Daring Bakers strike again. Meeta of What's For Lunch, Honey and Tony Tahan are to thank for these wonderfully easy and tasty treats.

Anyway, as is the norm, Beelzebub isn't to be trusted with items made from choux pastry, so I made them at my parents' house.

To read what the other DBs did with this challenge, take a meander through our blogroll.

As some of you know, my dear chicken-craving Beanie is now an only cat and lives with his Gramma and Grampa. He kept a very, very close eye on me and the treats that came out of the oven. He asked ever so nicely to write to you since it's been a very long time since he last appeared here, and he promised to talk about the challenge. How could I say "no" to that face?

Hallo all you luvly humman-cats

Did you miss me?

I missed you.

So much happened since I last writed to you. I know you know that my humman's humman went away forever to play in the big catnip field in the sky and now eats all the chicken he wants. My humman is doing okay. She misses him and I miss him too.

I used to come out and visit with him. The OTHER cats never bothered. That rotten little goody two shoes Hagia used to have long talks with him on the phone--making up lies and stories about me--but she he never seened her. I visited--but he never gave me any chicken. How could he not give me any chicken? I'm a very handsome cat and chicken only makes me handsomer.

You know that Jasmine and Hagia and Zeus no longer live with me. Did they tell you why? If they did, don't believe anything they say. I'll tell you what really happened.

When Jasmine decided to buy the condo she didn't know if she could afford to keep me (and the others). Gramma and Grampa decided they would take care of me (and the others). I love gramma. She give me treats like chicken and turkey and oatmeal and ice cream. She even sews toys for me. Gramma says that the treats and toys are for all of us, but I know she really means just me.

I missed my humman-cat when she was away. The others didn't. They don't luv her as much as I do. She visited almost every day --I memorized her schedule and waited for her every day at the same time. The others never came out. She had to go looking for them. She didn't have to look for me because I was right there.

Well, something happened and she found Hagia and Hagia said I wasn't letting her eat and Hagia said she was scared and made up all sorts of stories about me. Everyone always says how nice and good Hagia is and she's little Miss Purrfect. I know that she's not, but nobody believes me.And the next thing I know she went away.

I was sooo happy I gots more cuddles and more food and then Jasmine spended more time with me. I'm so smart!

Everything was good until a couple of months ago. I like to rassel and Zeus used to rassel with me, but he decided he didn't want to rassel. So I figured he just need more rasseling to remember how much he liked rasseling. But Grampa decided that enough was enough took Zeus away.

Gramma got so mad at me. She said it was my fault that Hagia and Zeus went away because of me. She then said that they went to live with Jasmine. That's not fair! I'm supposed to live with my humman-cat, not them.

But there is a good side to all of this. I get two human-cats instead of one and they both give me lots of cuddles and lots of treats. So I guess that's okay. Gramma likes to take naps and I nap with her. Papa likes to fix things so I help him. And Jasmine comes and visits a lot so I get to see her too.

The only bad thing is that they got this black chair and I like it--but Gramma can't see me when I'm on it so sometimes she sits on me. Grampa put a big gold towel on the chair so she doesn't sit on me again. Doesn't it make my eyes look pretty?

Anyway, I promised I would talk to you about the special treats Jasmine made. She called them éclaws or something. I watched her make them and they looked easy to make. Gramma doesn't have a piping bag so they filled a zippy bag with the dough and clipped corner. They made fat worms and round buttons with the dough.

When they came out of the oven they were big and poofy. They smelled good. I asked for some but she said "No, Beanie, these aren't for pussycats." She's so mean to me. Then she took them away and said she would "finish them."

Finish them? She's going to eat them all by herself? She's so greedy. Couldn't she have saved one for me?

I looked at Gramma and she said that they were for a special lunch the next day.

I'm special. I should get one.

Gramma and Grampa and their friends went to have lunch and came back and talked about the éclaws. They said that Jasmine filled them with vanilla pastry cream and put chocklit on top. One of the friends said that some of the chocklit was spicy because the chocklit had chilli peppers in it and the rest was just nice because it had matcha tea tea with it.

I don't know. I think they would have been better with chicken.

cheers!
jasmine

Daring Bakers: Danish Braid

This month's challenge was a project I'd hope we'd do--a flaky and buttery type pastry. Not a flaky pie pastry (I can do that already), but one that's in line with croissants or puff pastry. Kellypea of Sass and Veracity and Ben of What's Cooking? challenged us to make a Danish braid. Fabulous! Woo hoo! Yippee!

But...ummm...all the Danish braids I've ever had were shop-bought things that were either bready or flaky. So how am I to figure out how my attempt fared against what it was supposed to be? But then again...does it really matter?

What I mean is...many recipes I try are ones that read well. The final product has an interesting title, has ingredients I have on hand (or ones I can easily get), is something I've heard of in legend (or on a blog somewhere). Stylized, retouched, pixelated purveyances generally don't lure me (I say *generally* I have my moments of weakness). Basically, if the end result is something I like, then I think it's successful. Full stop.



So when I tackled the recipe, the only clues I had to how it might turn out were the yeast (bready?) and Ben's comment about making puff pastry by hand (flaky?).

The filling I chose was a combination of pluot and granny smith apples. I'd not had pluots at all before, but they were ripe and available. Prepped them quite simply--sliced the pluots in wedges and interspersed them between slices of peeled apple, and then topped the fruit with brown sugar.

My only tip is to tightly plait the strands--don't do a haphazard brand, otherwise the strips will dislodge and leave you with something that looks more akin to a ribcage after the rise...fine if you were making a cadaver for a Hallowe'en party, but not really for this.



Oh, and how did it taste? Buttery, not too sweet, a bit spicy. Oh yes...and the texture? The bottom was a bit bready and the plaits were a bit flaky...

Normally I don't post the DB recipes and just send you to the host's site, but this time I am for two reasons--one: I wanted to provide the recipe for a single braid or at least six smaller pastries and two: the cardamom comes through really nicely...and I've been a bit remiss in cooking with cardamom over the past...well...while.

Danish Braid
adapted from Sherry Yard’s The Secrets of Baking; makes one braid

Danish dough
Ingredients
½ Tbsp dry yeast
60ml full-fat milk
30g sugar
finely grated zest of half an orange

¼ tsp ground cardamom seeds (a mounded ¼ tsp)

1tsp vanilla extract

1 well chilled egg

2 Tbsp orange juice

a healthy pinch of salt

250g plain flour (divided into 230g and 20g)

125g sweet butter

Putting it together

1. Whisk together the yeast and bowl. Then add the sugar, zest, cardamom, vanilla, egg, and orange juice and mix well.
2. Sift together the 230g flour and salt in a separate bowl. Pour in the liquid and deftly mix together. When incorporated, turn out onto a lightly floured surface and kneed until smooth and easy to work with, adding more flour if the dough is sticky.
3. Wrap in cling and chill for half an hour.
4. In a separate bowl, beat together the rest of the measured flour with the butter until smooth and lump-free. Set aside at room temperature.
5. After the dough (the detrempe) has chilled, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll the to 45cm x 32cm (18"x13") rectangle approximately 1cm (¼") thick. The dough may be sticky, so keep dusting it lightly with flour.
6. Spread all the butter (the beurrage) evenly over the center and right thirds of the dough. Fold the left edge of the detrempe to the right, covering half of the butter. Fold the right third of the rectangle over the center third. This is the first single turn. Mark the dough by poking it once with your finger to keep track of your turns. Place the dough on a baking sheet, wrap in cling, and pop into the fridge for half an hour.
7. For the second single turn, place the dough lengthwise on a floured work surface, with the open ends at your right and left. Again, roll out the dough into a 45cm x 32cm (18"x13") rectangle approximately 1cm (¼") thick. And again, fold the left third of the rectangle over the center third and the right third over the center third. Poke it twice and wrap in cling and refrigerate the dough for half an hour. Repeat twice more for a total of four single turns, adding a poke each time.
8. After the fourth go round, refrigerate at least five hours or overnight. The Danish dough is now ready to be used. If you will not be using the dough within 24 hours, freeze it by rolling the dough out to about 2.5cm (1") thick, wrap tightly in cling, and freeze; defrost in the refrigerator for easiest handling. Danish dough will keep in the freezer for up to 1 month.

For the Danish braid.
Ingredients
1 recipe Danish Dough (as above)
1 cup filling of choice
1 beaten egg

Putting it together

1. Line a baking sheet.
2. On a lightly floured surface, roll the Danish Dough into a 20cm x 25cm (8"x10"), 1cm (¼") thick. If the dough seems elastic and shrinks back when rolled, let it rest for a few minutes, then roll again. Place the dough on the baking sheet.
3. Along one long side of the pastry make parallel, 5cm (2") long cuts at roughly 1cm (¼") to 2cm (¾") intervals with a knife or rolling pastry wheel. Repeat on the opposite side, taking care to ensure you line up the cuts with those you’ve already made.
4. Spoon the filling down the center of the rectangle. Starting with the top and bottom “flaps”, fold the top flap down over the filling to cover. Next, fold the bottom “flap” up to cover filling. This helps keep the braid neat and helps to hold in the filling.
5. Fold the cut side strips of dough over the filling, alternating first left, then right, left, right, until finished, as if you are braiding hair. Trim any excess dough and tuck in the ends.
6. Brush, lightly with the beaten egg to coat the braid.
7. Cover with a greased sheet of clink and proof until doubled in size and light to the touch. Near the end of proofing, preheat oven to 200C (400F) and position a rack in the center of the oven
8. Bake for 10 minutes.Lower the oven temperature to 180C (350F), and bake about 15-20 minutes more, or until golden brown.
9. When done, remove to cool on a wire rack.
10. Serve still warm from the oven or at room temperature.
11. The cooled braid can be wrapped airtight and stored in the refrigerator for up to two days, or freeze for month.

To read what the other DBs did with this challenge, take a meander through our blogroll.



cheers!
jasmine

Edit: For those of you wondering about pluots, I've written a short post abou them here: