Guest Blogger – from Grammar Grinch to Brilliant Baker, my gal pal Anne has you covered!
Anyone who has been following EYHOE knows I often refer to the “brains” of my company. I know most of you see me as the sole person and “face” of my business/social media posts, but that is far from the truth! For yeeeears now my associate and dear friend, Anne Cira, has been keeping me organized, she updates website content, helps with marketing/advertising, keeps me sane, and, ever so gingerly, Anne will light a flame under my bum when needed! Oh, and let me not forget – she is the master Grammar Grinch, never hesitating to school me in my never-ending grammatical mistakes. I tell her – what am I going to do? Leave me in the kitchen, I am a much better cook then I am speller lol. But apparently not all cooks do not know how to spell. After working with Anne for a few years I have learned that she is not only a brilliant business woman, compassionate friend and whip-cracker (when need be) BUT also a magnificent baker! You should see the assortment of Christmas cookies I receive each year; no I take that back, what you really should see is the SPREAD SHEET Anne uses to organize her Christmas baking marathon that she embarks upon each year! Even though Anne is insanely organized outside and inside the kitchen, and all her baked goods are super yummy, even she runs into the occasional baking adventure (a.k.a. nightmare). I think we all do from time to time. Read on to hear about her whoas and wins, and to steal a few tips and tricks along the way!
Thank you for the kind words, Annie! My baking adventure started with a recipe for a sweet dough bread that I got from a friend’s mom back in the 70’s (which is the last time I had it, as I don’t think I ever actually made it before). The recipe was quite sketchy, little more than an ingredients list. The first thing on the list is 5 pounds of flour! So my first step was to make adjustments to a more reasonable amount.
I’m not much of a bread baker, so I contacted Chef Nance about the recipe, as Pauline’s (the mom) breads always came out hard – delicious, but hard, but her sister’s breads (from the same recipe) were softer. So I wondered if she left something out (accidentally on purpose, maybe? She gave me the recipe rather grudgingly, like she thought I wasn’t up to it.). Nance agreed that maybe it needed a little more liquid.
I did some Googling, and found an Emeril recipe that was somewhat similar…but my recipe had more eggs in it, which kind of balanced out the liquid – in my mind, anyway! LOL The other reason I found for hard bread was under-kneading…which, looking back, I think may very well have been the case, as I recall Pauline making a fuss about how hard the dough was to knead. That didn’t scare me, as I have my beloved Kitchen-Aid! (And I sure wasn’t using 5 pounds of flour!)
One of the things omitted from the recipe was rising time. My “research” came up with 1 to 2 hours as being reasonable for the first rise, and maybe 30 minutes for second rise, so that’s what I figured on.
Prepped all my ingredients on Wednesday, so I could jump right in on Thursday morning.
I jumped in…got started beating the eggs, and realized that I had forgotten to melt and cool the shortening…God bless my microwave and refrigerator! Nuked the shortening, stuck it in the fridge to cool down, while I cut parchment and got a few things in order.
Mind you, I have used my dough hook only once before, for a much different recipe, so this was a challenge…Emeril’s recipe said to beat the eggs with the dough hook (I would have used the paddle until I was ready to put in the flour, but who am I to argue with Emeril? haha). It was weird, and took a while to get the eggs fluffy. By that time, the shortening had cooled, and I put it in and proceeded. Got the yeast mixed in (it had proofed nicely so I felt good about that), added salt, and then started adding the flour, a cup at a time. Foolishly, I tried to put the flour in using the measuring cup, which makes such a mess…so for cup #2 and forward, I used the waxed paper method, which is much neater. What I hadn’t figured on, though, is that the dough hook mixes differently from the paddle. I thought it was safe to increase the speed (using Emeril’s instructions) – and then of course the flour started shooting all over the place! Ugh! This led to slow beating, then faster beating, alternating with the additions of flour…finally got it all combined and let it rip…but at that point I started to worry that I might have beaten it too much…ugh!
I was so stressed at this point that I totally forgot to do the “windowpane test”, which I had been counting on to tell me if I had kneaded enough. I have to say, though, that the dough really looked nice, smooth and elastic, just as a good dough should.
Put it in the bowl (which I greased, although not specified by Pauline), covered with plastic wrap and put it in the oven to rise. I was proud of myself that I actually remembered to warm up the oven while I was putting the dough together…and then turn it off before putting the dough in!
Came back in an hour to check on it, and found that it had hardly risen at all!
Panic set in, and instead of working on EYHOE menu additions as I had planned, I started Googling, and convinced myself that I had probably killed the yeast by adding the salt when I did. Found a “fix” that involved making a yeast/flour combo and kneading it in, and starting the rising process all over again. I printed out the instructions, resolving to do it if the dough hadn’t risen much.
I also found a tip about putting a cup of boiling water in the oven to speed things along, so I did that, and also covered the bowl with a kitchen towel, which I should have known to do in the first place…the flying flour really messed with my head! LOL
Went back to check on the dough (now about two hours into the process) and found that it had risen appreciably – yay!!! Big sigh of relief, and decided to just let it go for a while, as it was not yet doubled in size. Boiled the water again and put it back. Ended up letting dough rise a total of 4 hours.
Next step was “form into loaves”…what kind of loaves? Who knows? Pauline certainly didn’t tell me. I decided round would be nice. Made my loaves, and put them on a waxed paper-covered baking sheet, and put them in the oven to rise again (with the towel and boiling water this time, wasn’t taking any chances!).
I don’t remember how long I let them rise, probably an hour or so…finally it was time roll out the dough and bake those puppies! Had to scrape them off the waxed paper – note to self, use parchment next time, or grease the waxed paper!
I don’t think I kneaded the rolls of dough long enough, as they were a little uncooperative about connecting in the circle shape, and were not as smooth as I had envisioned. Pauline’s final products were doughnut-shaped, with a definite hole in the center. Mine, not so much…
At that point, I just wanted to bake them and get it over with! Taking no chances, I sprayed the parchment with a little baking spray, put the sheet in the oven, actually remembered to do the ice cube trick, and set the timer. The end of the adventure was almost in sight.
Had to reduce the heat after 15 minutes, and I turned the sheet as my oven tends to be a little hotter in the back…remembered to do more ice cubes toward the end of the baking time…and finally, they were done!!!! Not pretty, and didn’t look much like Pauline’s, but they were done!!!!
My husband had some on Easter Sunday and pronounced it tasty, with a good crust, but bread was a little dry; I agreed. I was just happy it was edible!!
Thus endeth my sweet dough baking adventure. Unless my son tells me it’s his new fave, I don’t think this will become an Easter tradition!! Needless to say, I’m not sharing the recipe! 🙂 But I will share my “research” links below!
The windowpane test: https://www.thekitchn.com/bakers-techniques-how-to-do-th-70784
Repairing the dough: https://www.wikihow.com/Fix-Dough-That-Won%27t-Rise
The ice cubes: https://food-hacks.wonderhowto.com/how-to/3-bakers-tricks-getting-perfect-crispy-bread-crust-home-0169757/
The boiling water: http://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/how-to-rise-yeast-dough-in-a-cool-or-drafty-kitchen-185778
I know the feeling Anne you invested so much of yourself into this project that you were not giving up – no matter what – someone was eating Easter Bread on Easter.
I had somewhat a trying time this year also. I always add a dyed hard boiled egg to each of my braided bread rolls before I cook them. This year I read that you shouldn’t boil the egg that it would cook while the bread was baking for 20 minutes. The problem was that my bread was baking in 12 minutes and getting really brown. I put foil on the top of them and barely made it to 14 minutes. You know what this means? The eggs were not totally cooked through. They were just cooked enough to not get some egg-borne disease if you ate them within the hour – and that was only the two I checked. Only God knows about the rest of the eggs. I still went ahead and made a sugar glaze complete with rainbows sprinkles. I wrapped them in clear cellophane all the while worrying that I was going to poison every female on my mother’s side of the family – this was a ladies Good Friday get-together. I was giving each aunt and cousin their own personal roll the following day. Everyone loved how beautiful they looked. The whole time I was thinking to myself “Nancy what are you doing? You love these people – you have to tell them not to eat the egg.” I explained to them what had happened and told not to eat the egg.
The point is that it took me the whole entire day to do this and no matter what – someone was eating Easter bread on Easter or Good Friday.
Anne we need a new recipe to try next year – one that takes two hours tops. There will be no raw, barely cooked or sufficiently cooked eggs involved. I can ship one of mine and you can ship me one of your.
You’re so right, Nancy, I was not giving up – and apparently neither were you! Let’s start a search for a new Easter Bread tradition for both of us! 🙂