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Tartine’s Shortbread

I’ve lost count of the number of shortbread and sable recipes palling around on the Misanthropic Hostess.

I think shortbread has become my holy grail. Such a simple cookie.  And, probably because of this, so easy to get “not quite right.”

This recipe comes from the first Tartine cookbook.  I bought the book for the famed bakery’s laminated dough recipe.  But, like a moth to the flame, this, not their croissants was the first recipe I tried.

And, it does not disappoint. It’s crisp yet tender, light yet sings of butter.   In fact, of all the recipes I’ve tried over the years, this one comes the closest to, what I’m beginning to suspect is an imagined shortbread ideal.

Shortbread

Tartine

Ingredients

  • 1 C + 1 TBS (9 oz, 255 g) unsalted high-quality butter, very soft
  • 1/2 tsp (2 ml) salt (TMH uses kosher)
  • 2 C + 1 TBS (9 oz, 255 g) all purpose flour
  • 1/2 C + 2TBS (2 2/3 oz, 75g) cornstarch
  • 1/3 C (2 1/2 oz, 70g) granulated sugar
  • 1/4 C superfine or granulated sugar for topping

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Butter a 6X10 or 8X8 glass baking dish.
  2. Place butter (should be the consistency of mayonnaise) in a mixing bowl.  Add-in salt and mix well with a wooden spoon.
  3. Add granulated sugar until just combined.
  4. Sift-in flour and cornstarch.  Mix only until a smooth dough forms.
  5. Pat the dough evenly into the prepped baking dish.
  6. Bake until the top and bottom are light brown, about 30 minutes though it took about 40 in my oven.
  7. Let cool on a wire rack just until the shortbread is warm.  Do not allow to cool completely.
  8. Sprinkle the shortbread with superfine sugar.  Tilt the dish so that the sugar coats the entire surface evenly, top out the excess sugar.
  9. With a thin, sharp knife, cut shortbread into fingers or squares.
  10. Chill completely before removing the squares from the pan.
  11. Will keep in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

 

Second Tuesday tally

858

…this isn’t counting the toffee, a late swap-in for the bad caramel juju I had going on.  I’ll figure out how to count this at the end…but for reference, there are currently six, one-gallon bags of it sitting on our piano.

I have now entered the “what was I thinking” portion of this regime.  It happens every year and I liken it to when I used to swim the 1,000 .  Every time I’d pass the 350 mark…when the adrenaline of the start had worn off but there were many flip-turns to go I’d always wonder…what the hell am I doing?  Of course, if I made good time (for me), the whole thing was over in about 11 minutes.  Holiday bake-a-palooza takes significantly more time though is no less athletic.  At least I can listen to podcasts as I bake.  When I swam I used to sing REM’s End of the World over and over.

It’s all about the crust, ’bout the crust not the filling. It’s all about the crust, ’bout the crust…

Well, the filling is important too.  But in this post, just in time for Thanksgiving, we’re focusing on crust.

And a song that has been stuck in my head for weeks.

The following things top my list of fears: sharks, bears, spiders, making pie crust and fake hair pieces (don’t ask).  If I were ever to get caught in the storyline of Stephen King’s It, the fear scenario would include me in a mall with hundreds of those hair-piece kiosks while being chased by a bear toward a fountain filled with sharks as I tried to make a pie crust.  I don’t know where the spiders would fit in but they’d be there.

I’m proud to say that over the summer I conquered one of those fears.  And it isn’t the one about the fake hair.

During baking class we spent a week on pie crusts.  While we’d already learned the important “cutting-in” technique that combines the butter into the flour (snapping the butter and flour with your finger-tips), it was the discussion of pie-crust philosophy that helped make things click in my brain.

Butter is good for flavor.  Shortening or other 100% based solid fat is good for flakiness.

The deal with butter is that it isn’t 100% fat.  It also contains water.  Generally speaking, the higher quality the butter, the lower the water percentage.  Water plus gluten (by way of flour) equals chew.  So the goal with pie crust is to optimize both flavor and flake.

Which is where the vodka comes in.  And, I don’t just mean the cocktail I suggest you drink while making pie crust.  I’d heard about people who incorporated vodka into their pie dough and asked about it in class.  The instructor explained that the alcohol works as a sort of drying agent and the vodka is tasteless when it bakes-off.  So, the theory is that by replacing some or all of the water in a recipe with vodka the flakiness of the dough is potentially heightened.

This, I had to try.  I  replaced half of the water with vodka.  And went 100% butter.

The results of the trial were successful.  Always one to follow the scientific method,  I tried it several more times across the summer, all with consistently flakey and tasty crust.

Even the next day.

The other thing that has helped to eliminate my fear of pie crust is that I’ve gotten over whatever prejudice I had in my head about using the food processor to cut the butter into the dry ingredients.  Pie crust is pretty easy by hand.  It’s a snap with a food processor.

So my friends, do not fear those holiday pies!

Soundtrack: Do I really need to spell it out?

Pie Crust

adapted from Cooks Illustrated

this makes a double crust

Ingredients

  • 2 1/2  (12 1/2 ounces) all-purpose flour
  • 2 TBS sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 20 TBS (1 pound 4 ounces or 5 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces and frozen
  • 1/4 C (2 ounces) vodka, chilled (I keep a bottle in the freezer for this and the impromptu Moscow Mule)
  • 1/4 C ice water

Directions

  1. Process flour, sugar and salt in food processor until combined.  If you decide to go old school and do this by hand, whisk together ingredients in a large bowl.
  2. Scatter butter in processor bowl and pulse  until butter cuts-in and is reduced to pea-to-lima bean size.  You want visible pieces of butter.  If doing by hand, using the tips of your fingers only, snap the butter into the flour, shaking the bowl every once in a while so that the larger pieces rise to the top.
  3. Sprinkle-in all of the vodka and half of the water, pulse so that the dough starts to come together.  If the dough is dry, add-in the remaining water one TBS at-a-time until the dough barely holds together–it’s okay if you have crumbly pieces you don’t want an actual dough.  If doing by hand, sprinkle vodka and half the water over the flour-butter mixture and, using clean hands, gather the dough together, working gently adding in the remaining water as needed.
  4. Whether working by hand or processor, dump dough out on to a floured surface.  Split it in half and  push each half into a 4-inch disk (still okay, in fact it’s good if the dough barely holds together.  Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least an hour before rolling-out and proceeding with your pie.

 

 

 

 

Make yo’ jack-o-lantern proud

Research tells us that smell is one of the strongest memory evokers.  One example of this for me is the shampoo and beauty aisle in the grocery store.  Every time I walk by the end-cap I get hit with the almost memory of shopping with my mom as a small child at the local Alpha Beta.

The smell of the spices in pumpkin bread is another one in my nostalgia rolodex.  As a kid, my family spent many summers camping in the Sierras and throughout the Pacific Northwest.  In preparation for these trips, my mom would make (what seemed like) endless loaves of pumpkin and banana breads to sustain us on the road.  To this day, the smell of pumpkin bread reminds me of cold mornings on picnic benches waiting for the sun to crest the mountains as the smell of coffee percolating (in a real percolator) on the Coleman stove slowly filled the air.

It doesn’t matter that I don’t really like pumpkin bread.  Or banana bread.  The idea of it always makes me happy.

I needed something to take to a morning committee meeting in early October (I’ve talked about how I sometimes have to incentivize my committees before) and in coming up with ideas it occurred to me that the Misanthropic Hostess was lacking a pumpkin bread recipe.

Never able to leave a good recipe alone, I realized that pumpkin is an excellent backdrop to a host of flavors.  In this iteration I added toasted coconut and dried cranberries to one loaf and white chocolate chips to the other.  Nuts are also an obvious addition here but the receiving committee has a couple of members with nut allergies and the last thing I want on my employment record is murder via baked good.  Bright citrus zest or a sweet carmel sauce would also play nicely with pumpkin.

Want to win some goodies?  Go here and make your guess in my annual holiday bake-a-palooza contest.

Pumpkin Bread

adapted from Libby’s available at www.cooks.com

Ingredients

  • 3 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 tsp. baking powder
  • 2 tsp. baking soda
  • 1 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. each nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon
  • 1 1/2 c. each granulated sugar and packed brown sugar
  • 1 c. oil
  • 1 15 ounce can pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 c. each dried fruit, nuts, chocolate, coconut….

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line and butter two 9 1/2 X 51/4 inch loaf pans (or something close to this size)
  2. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices. Add the sugars, mixing well.
  3. Mix dry ingredients with the oil and pumpkin, stirring until well combined.
  4. Add eggs, one at a time, blending thoroughly.
  5. Fold in fruits, nuts, chocolate.
  6. Pour into prepared pans.
  7. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 to 60 minutes or until tester comes out clean.
  8. Cool for 5 minutes. Remove from pans. Place on wire rack to cool.

 

 

Ya’ll ready for this?

Nope, it’s not the ultimate cheer.

It’s Misanthropic Hostess holiday baking!  And nothing says holiday baking better than a crappy shot of my freezer.

In this case, it’s what’s on the inside that counts.

I officially kicked on my holiday baking on November first with eight batches of assorted sable dough.  While these babies were the first made, they’ll actually be the very last to be baked-off at the end of the month.

As the long time listeners know, I have a contest each year to make this month of madness a little more interesting.  The first year was about pounds of butter.  Last year was we did ounces of sugar.

This year: Total Units.

Here is how this will work.  You all have until midnight next Monday to guess the total number of cookies, candies etc that will be “delivered” as part of my holiday baking machine. We’re going with units delivered instead of units produced overall because while I try to be as efficient as possible I also always leave room from mess-ups, broken cookies etc in the overall totals.

Leave your best guess in the comments section of this post.  The winner will get an extra batch of their favorite treat–and yep, I’ll ship.  Each Tuesday I’ll provide an update of the running total.

To help you along, I’ll give you some hints:

  • I’m making 11 different kinds of goodies (the cut-out sugar cookies count as two because some get sanded while others get the royal icing treatment).
  • There are 40 recipients on the TMH list.  I admit, this is a bit misleading because a recipient can count as anything from an individual person to a family of seven to an entire department.
  • If my math is correct, this will require 40 total batches of the 11 different treats.
  • Based on my calculations I will use roughly 20 pounds of butter, 25 pounds of flour, 35 pounds of combined sugars and 15 pounds of assorted chocolate varieties.
  • The total unit calculations will not include any add-ons that aren’t part of the original plan.

In addition to regularly scheduled Thursday posts, each Tuesday I’ll update with a running total.  This number will be slightly off from the final (total produced versus total delivered) but will be a decent real-time estimate.  I’ll also be instagramming the good, the bad and the ugly if you want to follow along: #TMHostess

…and away we go!

 

Sugar (cookie) Skulls

Growing up in San Diego, sugar skulls, or calaveras, were as much a part of Halloween and its neighbor, Dia de Los Muertos as carved pumpkins and witches.

Celebrated on November 1st and 2nd, Dia de Los Muertos originated in the cultures that lived in what is now Mexico.  When the Spanish conquered the Aztecs in the early 16th century, they attempted to convert the indigenous populace to Catholicism.  As happens with many efforts at colonization, the results were mixed.  The traditional Aztec celebration of Mictecailhuati evolved into Dia de Los Muertos as the Spanish attempted to align the tradition with the Catholic All Saint’s Day.  Based on my research, the interpretation of the folk-Catholic cocktail is loosely geographic: South of Mexico City the emphasis is on celebration whereas North of this, the holiday takes on a more religious tone.

As the name suggests, this Mexican holiday is a celebration of remembering and honoring the dead.  It is believed that on Dia de Los Muertos, deceased loved ones are allowed to return to earth and celebrate with their families.  Or, in true guilt-based family fun, harass those families who have neglected their dearly departed.

Sugar skulls are an important symbol of Dia de Los Muertos.   Traditionally molded from sugar (or clay), they are sold and made in the days leading up to the celebration and then exchanged as gifts to living and dead alike.    Intricately decorated with bright colors and an emphasis on sparkle, they are meant to be happy rather than scary.

When I found a skull-shaped cookie cutter over the summer, I knew it was time to make some sugar (cookie) skulls of my own.  I used my never fail sugar cookie recipe and Sugarbelle’s never EVER fail recipe for royal icing.  While I give myself a C+ for decorating prowess (I quickly found my decorating tips weren’t nearly fine-enough for detail work), it was serious A+ fun.

Next year?  Sugar skull decorating party at my house!  How fun wold it be to base-glaze these babies, invite a bunch of friends over, add some adult beverages and go to town with the crazy colors and themes?

Speaking of holidays…my holiday baking regime kicks-off this weekend.  I’m not kidding.  Stay-tuned for a Tuesday post about this year’s “contest.”

And of course, Happy Halloween and Dia de Los Muertos.

Sources:

Day of the Dead

National Geographic Education

MexicanSugarSkull.com

Bringing home the maple bacon

That’s right, I’m not above starting with a little bacon porn.

Zoe Nathan of Huckleberry, Milo and Olive and Rustic Canyon fame is another of my lady baker-crushes.  So, it wasn’t without anticipation that I patiently waited for her first cookbook, Huckleberry, stories, secrets and recipes from our kitchen to come out earlier this fall.

I’ve talked about Nathan’s iconic Santa Monica brunch (well, and lunch and dinner) spot before.  And even though I still don’t have any tattoos and still feel the same about coconut water, Huckleberry is still a favorite of mine.

And now, so is the cookbook.  I’ve been working my way through the cheery, yellow-polka-dot  edged book, and have to admit my favorite part so far is her double-page spread of “Apologies” that appears right before the index  like a little chocolate served after dessert and coffee.  She is my kind of lady. Oh, and the recipes are great too.

The maple bacon biscuits at Huckleberry are compulsory for any first timer (or second timer…or third timer).  Almost criminal in their decadence, these sweet-savory-crumbly-rich treats alone are worth spending 30 minutes in line listening to the couple in front of you discuss their call-back triumphs and whether that pilot where they had a walk-on will get picked up.

As if you needed further proof than “bacon” to try these, I’ll tell you, they woke Tom out of his general TMH-baking immunity.  People often comment that TD must love all of the baked-goods produced out of the TMH kitchen. And sometimes he does.  But mostly he just ignores it all.  It’s probably the peppercorns I use.  Well, these babies, baked before the sun came up one weekday morning for a meeting caught his attention.

Because they are baked from frozen, this is a great recipe to make through the baking, freeze and have on hand when someone needs a little extra loving’.

Maple Bacon Biscuits

from Huckleberry, stories and recipes from our kitchen, Zoe Nathan

Ingredients

  • 15 slices thick-cut bacon
  • 2 TBS bacon fat (reserve this from cooking your bacon)
  • 6 C (750g) all-purpose flour
  • 2 TBS baking powder
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 C (50 g) granulated sugar
  • 2 1/4 tsp kosher salt
  • 2 C (450 g) cold unsalted butter cut into 1/2 inch squares
  • 1/2 C cold maple syrup + 3/4 C for glaze
  • 3/4 C cold buttermilk
  • 1 egg+ 2 TBS water for egg wash
  • fleur de sel for topping

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
  2. Lay bacon on a sheet pan or on a wire cooking rack fitted into a sheet pan (TMH method) and bake until golden brown, about 15-25 minutes.  Allow the bacon and fat to cool.
  3. Chop up bacon and reserve 2 TBS bacon fat.
  4. In a very large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt.  Whisk or toss well to combine.
  5. Add-in the cold butter and work it/cut it in with your finger tips (it’s sort of a snapping-motion) until the pieces of butter are about the size of lima beans.
  6. Add the first 1/2 C maple syrup, buttermilk, bacon and bacon fat.  Lightly toss.
  7. Immediately dump everything onto a clean surface with plenty of room to work.
  8. Using only the heel of you palm, flatten out the the dough.  Gather the dough back together in a mound and repeat.  After 2-3 repetitions, the dough should begin holding together.  Do not overwork the dough, you should still see pea-sized pieces of butter in the dough.
  9. Flatten the dough into a 1 inch thick disk and cut-out the biscuits (remember to resist twisting the cutter as you pull up).
  10. Gently push the scraps back together and cut once more (TMH note-I got exactly 18 biscuits out of this).
  11. Freeze raw biscuits for at least two hours.  Can be frozen, tightly wrapped, up to a month.
  12. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  13. Remove biscuits from freer.  Space them with plenty of room to breath on two ungreased baking sheets.
  14. Bush with egg wash and sprinkle with flour de sel.
  15. Bake from frozen until cooked through and starting to brown, about 25 minutes.
  16. Pour 2 tsp maple syrup over each biscuit to glaze and bake an additional 5 minutes.
  17. These are best eaten the day, nay, minute they come out of the oven.

Pumpkin makes the girls go crazy

It’s funny because it’s true.

I’ve spoken of my…struggles…with pumpkin.  Savory gourd I can hang with.  Sweet, not so much.  However, if Trader Joe’s is to be believed, I am in the very slim minority.  Not sure if anyone caught this but nearly every single item in their latest frequent flyer news letter was pumpkin-ified.  Pumpkin yogurt.  Pumpkin macarons.  Pumpkin body butter.  Now I know those guys at TJs like to have some fun but they wouldn’t make it if it didn’t sell.

And this is why I have not one, but two pumpkin recipes this month.

Everyone’s favorite fall spice profile marries with pumpkin, oatmeal, white chocolate and pepitas.

While these aren’t exactly healthy, I bet you could eat half a dozen for the same number of calories in in tall pumpkin spice latte.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

adapted from Chow.com

Ingredients

for the cookies

  • 2 C all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/3 C rolled oats (not instant)
  • 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • 1 tsp fine salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 1 C packed dark brown sugar
  • 1 C granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg, at room temperature
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin purée (not pie filling; about 1 3/4 cups)
  • 1 C white chocolate chips
  • 1 C pepitas (I used the roasted pumpkin spice from TJs)

Directions

  1. Heat the oven to 350°F and arrange the racks to divide the oven into thirds. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside.
  2. Whisk the flour, oats, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, salt, and nutmeg in a medium bowl to  break up any lumps; set aside.
  3. Place the butter and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and beat on medium speed until lightened in color and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Stop the mixer and scrape down the paddle and the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
  4. Add the egg and vanilla, return the mixer to medium speed, and beat until incorporated, about 30 seconds. Stop the mixer and scrape down the paddle and the sides of the bowl.
  5. With the mixer on low speed, add half of the reserved flour mixture and mix until just incorporated. Add half of the pumpkin and mix until just incorporated. Repeat with the remaining flour mixture and pumpkin.
  6. Fold-in chocolate chips and pepitas.
  7. Drop 8 dough rounds per baking sheet by the scant 1/4 cup, staggering them 2 inches apart on the prepared sheets.
  8. Place both sheets in the oven and bake for 12 minutes. Rotate the pans from top to bottom and front to back and continue baking until the cookies are golden brown on the bottom and around the edges, about 12 minutes more.
  9. Place the baking sheets on wire racks and let the cookies cool on the sheets for 3 minutes. Using a flat spatula, transfer the cookies to the wire racks to cool completely.
  10. Repeat with the remaining dough using cool baking sheets.
  11. Place all of the icing ingredients in a medium bowl and whisk until evenly combined. (You may need to add more milk by the 1/2 teaspoon if the glaze is too thick to drizzle.)
  12. Place all of the cooled cookies on cooling racks or parchment. Dip a fork into the glaze and drizzle it over the cookies in a zigzag pattern. Let the cookies sit at room temperature until the glaze has set, about 20 minutes.

Chomely Challah

See what I did there?  Tired of me asking that question?

The weeks we spent on yeasted bread were favorites in my summer baking adventure.  There is something incredibly satisfying about producing a giant, golden, cross-hatched country loaf.  Or baguette.  Or brioche.

The instructor insisted we go old school: no mixmaster, just hands and floured surfaces for kneading.

Chef May’s reasoning was that we needed to understand by touch the difference between dough that is ready to rise and dough that needs more kneading.

Working with my hands is one of the pleasures of baking for me.

Challah was one of the enriched breads we tackled.  Something that’s long been on my list to try, I’ve always been intimidated by the complicated braiding involved.

Beautiful, elegant challah can be a work of art.  Often it is braided with six strands.

As you can see, I struggle with just three.  And this was my second attempt.

As homely as my version baked-off, it was a decided favorite at work.

Once the weather cools down a bit and my kitchen isn’t a rain forrest of heat and humidity I plan to considerably hone my challah-making skills.

Challah

from the New School of Cooking

Ingredients

  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 C warm water
  • 1 TBS dry yeast
  • 1/2 C oil (I use grape seed)
  • 1/4 C sugar
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 3 3/4-4 C all purpose flour
  • poppy seeds, sesame seeds or 1/2 C chocolate chips
  • 1 egg yolk beaten with 1 tsp water

Directions

  1. Dissolve 1 tsp in 1/2 C warm water in a large mixing bowl.  Sprinkle yeast on top and let stand for 10 minutes.  Stir to dissolve.
  2. Combine yeast mixture with oil, remaining water, sugar salt, eggs and half the flour.  Mix well.
  3. Stir-in remaining flour.  Dough will be sticky.
  4. Cover dough and let rest for 10 minutes.  Turn out onto a floured board and knead for 10 minutes, adding flour as needed.
  5. Place in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap.  Allow to proof until doubled.
  6. Punch down.  Divide dough into 3 equal parts.  Shape into strands.
  7. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet and braid loosely.  Fasten ends securely.  Let rise until doubled.
  8. Brush with beaten gold and sprinkle with seeds.  Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes until deep golden brown.