Cinnamon twist finale

This is it: my last Breakfast Breads class! Two variations of a cinnamon coffee cake for our finale, one with a raisin filling, the other a pecan/chocolate chip combo. The dough included a yeast/water/pastry flour slurry {left to rest for 30 minutes}, flour, malt, salt, whole eggs, butter and a milk/yeast slurry {added last}. The dough is rolled out, brushed with butter, covered with filling and rolled into a log. A slit is cut down the center of the log, leaving 2 inches on either side. Then the log is picked up and twisted and placed on a baking sheet or cut to fit in a loaf pan. Proofed and baked at 350 degrees for about 30-40 minutes. It was not bad; the raisin variation was much tastier than the nut one.

Bread class starts in May. Until then, there are a few recipes I've been meaning to try...

Cherries, nuts & poppyseeds

After a break for Family Day weekend, school is back in session. Ingredient-wise, danish dough is similar to croissant dough except that eggs are included. It's moister and the easiest to work with out of the pastry doughs I've made so far. We made poppyseed {above} and nut & cherry {below}. For the poppy seed filling, sugar, honey & water are brought to a boil, poured over poppyseeds and blended with cake crumbs, eggs & cinnamon. The dough was rolled out, covered with filling and rolled into a log and sliced.

The nut filling was a one-step method which included: ground hazelnuts, cake crumbs, butter, sugar, vanilla & spices. The dough for this was rolled out and half was covered with the filling and the uncovered half was folded over it. The dough was then cut into strips and each strip was twisted and then coiled up into a circle. A dollop of cherry filling was then placed in the center of each.

Both types of danishes were proofed and baked at 390 degrees for about 15 minutes. The poppyseed ones were dusted with icing sugar and the nut ones were brushed with apricot glaze {I could have done without that - too sticky!}.

Fluffy!

So it turns out bagels are pretty easy to make. Yeast and lukewarm water are mixed to make a slurry, then bread & rye flour, vegetable oil, sugar and salt are added on top. After being mixed for 5 minutes, the dough is kneaded, rounded up and left to rest for 30 minutes. We also made a cinnamon-raisin version of the dough. Here the dough is mixed for 4 minutes, then the cinnamon & raisins are added in and everything is mixed for an additional 2 minutes.

After the resting period, the dough is divided into 100g pieces and rolled into balls. Using the end of a wooden spoon, a hole is poked through the center of each ball and stretched open to form a ring. Each ring is dropped into a pot of boiling, salted water until it floats {this only takes about 10 seconds}. To make poppyseed or sesame seed versions, the tops of the bagels are dipped into the seeds after coming out of the water. Then these go into the oven for 20-30 minutes at 375 degrees. I really liked how chewy they came out; definitely not as dense as a Montreal-style bagel.

Voila!

Croissant dough is similar to puff pastry, but the fold-in process is simpler {3 single folds}. We made ours last week and froze it, then rolled out the thawed-out dough in today's class. It was then cut into triangle shapes and filled with either chocolate or almond paste. Then, the widest end of the triangle is rolled towards you {à la Pillsbury croissants in the can} and the "tails" of the croissant are pinched together {they separate in the oven but this ensures the croissant keeps its crescent shape}. Baking time is 375 degrees for 20 minutes. Drizzled with melted chocolate, gone in a day.

Hot buns

It looks like most of our breakfast breads are going to involve yeast and proofing and waiting. Eating the result is worth it but sometimes you don't want to stand around at 9am waiting for bread to rise, you know?

I've never eaten a Chelsea Bun before, but it's basically a cinnamon bun with some candied cherries in it. Brown sugar, salt, shortening and milk powder are mixed + one egg + sifted bread & pastry flour. Finally, a yeast & warm water slurry is added on top and everything is mixed for about 6 minutes. The dough is left to rest for 30 minutes.

Instead of baking ours individually, we baked 6 to a pan {the top photo is one of the extra buns that didn't fit into the pan}. Caramel glaze {brown, sugar, sugar, butter, honey, water} is spread onto the bottom of the lined pan and topped with cherries. The dough is rolled out into a large sheet and covered with caramel glaze, cinnamon sugar, pecans and raisins. The sheet is rolled into a log and sliced into buns, which a placed in the pan and proofed until the buns expand enough that the gaps between them are filled. THEN they are baked for 40 minutes at 360 degrees.

Lots of work on these, but when the pans are inverted and all that gooey caramel drips out you forget that you just spent 3 hours on them. Mmmmm...

Bonjour brioche!

School is back in session for the new year, which means it's time for Breakfast Breads! I doubt anyone loves breakfast as much as I do so a whole class dedicated to it means many calories and less sharing with my co-workers than usual.

Brioche is a sweet bread that consists of: a sponge {flour, milk, yeast} that has been set aside for 30 minutes, combined with a dough made of flour, salt, sugar, eggs {whole + yolks}, lemon zest & vanilla. Butter goes in last and the resulting dough is set aside and covered for 20-40 minutes. After being kneaded, the dough is separated into balls which are placed into a pan, proofed for 20 minutes and baked for 20 minutes at 375 degrees.

It's pretty good; I'll add raisins when I make this again.