Welcome Spring

I find it both pleasant and poignant that spring arrives in the city before making its way to Westchester.  New York City is about 30 miles south of Ossining (where we live) and generally is about two to three weeks ahead of our “blooming” schedule.  I’m always happy to see the flowers in the city, but would rather them be showing off in our backyard.  There is something exciting about the wait paired with knowing what's to come.  It's as if the city landscape is showing me a teaser trailer for the blockbuster of flowers heading my way.  But I’m ready for it to be here now!!!  (A similar feeling I imagine Siena has when she is ready for more milk).

A happy part of spring’s return are the gardens I’m greeted with on my morning commute to work.  Along Houston St., on grounds owned by NYU, is a lovely space planted with a grove of forsythia bushes.  Aside from a few crocuses popping up here and there nearby, these bright yellow, glorious beings herald the breath of fresh air heading our way.  When the morning sun strikes the opaque, golden petals the light reflects back into the rest of the environment making it feel warmer and more lush, less brown and barren.  The city transforms from a cement and brick “working world” into a thriving and exciting place when the trees and bushes start to bloom.  There are many parks and gardens dotting Manhattan and one generally only need to travel a block or two to find some green space.  New York City planners weren’t fools.

Outside, daffodils have started playing their part along with hellebores and green leafed structures soon to be lilies, and I continue to threaten to go out and clean up our garden from last year's remaining leaves.  We’ve only had once nice weekend so far and I was able to make it out, but since then it’s returned to the bitter Ides of March, making me want to stay in doors and snuggle on the couch with a baby.  In spite of my efforts, plants are doing their own thing just the same.  Matted leaves are poking up in tented areas revealing tulips hiding out underneath and the first of my very own daffodils smiled their shining faces out to the world a couple of days ago.  Spring is like clockwork, whether I’m there or not, things are going to bloom.  I of course want to be able to assist and encourage the growth, but Mother Nature has style all her own and won’t let me down whether I get out there tomorrow or two weeks from now. 

I find that part of the excitement of garden clean up falls under the umbrella of therapy.  Much like the feeling many of us get from cleaning the house, cleaning up the garden, seeing an area go from “dirty” to clean is healing.  The cobwebs of your mind are swept away as you pick and poke through the dried grasses and vines, looking for shoots and emerging bulbs, carefully rooting around, so incredibly focused to the point of everything else falling away, ceasing to exist, leaving only you and your garden together in a deep bonding moment.  This may sound a little too philosophical for non-gardeners, but if you are someone who raises plants in any kind of focused way then you know what I’m talking about.

In looking for baking inspiration this week I definitely took cues from the world outside my window and along the walk to work, but I also looked to my beloved friend caffeine.  Anyone who has ever had a baby must understand the mental state to which I have arrived.  Siena is now ten weeks old (pushing 11) and is doing beautifully.  She is really starting to smile, have the occasional laugh and is definitely on the road to talking with her strange cooing sounds mingled with what sounds like a consonant and/or vowel from time to time.  It’s this first round of communication that has left me more in love with her than ever before and is making the lack of sleep more bearable.

As time wears on and I continue to have broken sleep, I find I’m both more creative and less patient with the rest of the world.  Though Siena is sleeping quite a bit and luckily has been a good sleeper so far, it’s that continual break in sleep I imagine to be the culprit of my demise.  I’m sure there are parents out there who get/got a lot less sleep than I do and can’t really sympathize with what I’m expressing, but really all I mean to say is that I’ve upped my coffee consummation considerably since Siena came on the scene.

The single morning cup no longer sustains me.  I need at least two to get things headed in the right direction and I most definitely need another large one late in the afternoon to finish out my day.  I’m sure many holistic folks out there would not agree with my methods and might suggest trying to forgo caffeine all together, letting my body get back to a natural wakeful cycle, but the problem with that is, “I like coffee”.  I like everything about it:  the taste, the smell, and the bonding act of going to a coffee shop with friends.  It’s both my mom’s and my favorite flavor of ice cream, it’s the special thing in chocolate desserts that make them come alive and by golly I downright want it in my life.  Is it another unhealthy addiction in a long line of unhealthy addictions?  Sure, but if I can’t drink coffee and eat butter then I’m not sure life is worth living. 

Having said that, I went on a coffee binge of a different sort.  Instead of finding the local coffee shop nearest my current location, I turned to the Internet and began searching for coffee related desserts.  Aside from ice cream and traditional coffee cakes, I wasn’t coming up with many desserts having coffee as their main focus.  It tends to be a component ingredient; often finding it’s way into sweets via a couple teaspoons or tablespoons of instant espresso powder.  Though I do like the powder, it’s not what I had in mind.  The problem was that everything I found with coffee wasn’t quite what I was in the mood for.  There were tortes (Passover appropriate) and buttercreams, but I wasn’t really feeling anything I ran across.  Chocolate did sound good, as it always does, but I didn’t want to go the full on brownie route with coffee mixed in for good measure. 

As it happened, it always does, I bookmarked several things that sounded good.  I kept returning to a Brown Sugar and Chocolate Chip Pound Cake with Maple-Espresso Glaze recipe I found on epicurious.com because it sounded good and contained ingredients I already had on hand…no trips to the grocery store needed.  I was watching Siena that night while Brian was out and there was no way I was going to wake her up at 9:00pm for a quick jaunt out for specialty ingredients.  This cake has buttermilk in the recipe and I had an opened carton sitting in the refrigerator from the bread I made last week.  There is nothing I hate more than using 1/2 cup of buttermilk in some recipe and then not finding a need for it until three months later when I discover the carton in the fridge, desperately in need of tossing down the drain.  There is nothing delicious about thick, over-ripe buttermilk.  But I digress…

The reason I found this coffee cake in the first place, in spite of the word coffee being in the name, was the glaze.  There are a couple of tablespoons of the aforementioned instant espresso powder as a key component, and it came up in the recipe search engine.  Coffee cake with a maple coffee glaze and some chocolate chips thrown in for good measure (and having all the ingredients in my pantry at the moment I was ready to bake) converged in this week’s Fabulous Pastry…or coffee cake as it were.

Coffee cakes are certainly simple enough to make.  They are generally a one mixing bowl wonder.  Prep the ingredients, mix them in order and it’s relatively fool proof, but how to make it more interesting was my conundrum.  I make coffee cake rather frequently.  As I look back over the past year and a half, there are several which have made their way across my lips and down to my hips.  They generally are pretty, solely because of the Bundt pan I bake them in.  Add a little glaze to the impression left by the design of the pan and you have a beautiful brunch treat for your friends…but I’ve been down that road before and feel like I’ve thoroughly explored it, at least for the time being. 

I felt a need to reinvent coffee cake if you will, take it to a slightly more elevated and elegant place.  Thus I present to you the Spring Awakening/Solid Gold Dancers Coffee Cake.  A little glitz, a little glam and a whole lot of spring go into making this dense and shiny wonder.

I started out by making the basic cake recipe, no changes for once, but put it in my 12 cup Angel Food Cake pan instead of the Bundt.  My desire was to get more of a plateau shape, an even surface with which to decorate and pour the glaze.  The second step was the glaze itself.  In my mind it was going to be a somewhat muted, pastel yellow reminiscent of the petals of pale daffodils, but what came out in reality was something very different.  A traditional glaze for coffee cake is usually confectioner’s sugar and water.  With the addition of a little yellow food coloring, this would make the imagined yellow glaze, but the recipe called for instant espresso as well as maple syrup in the icing.  Once I mixed them into the confectioner’s sugar I began to see more of a “brown” tone happening to the color scheme.  Not one to be put off so quickly, I went ahead and added enough yellow food coloring to kill a horse.  The result was a lovely shade of gold.

Gold can go one of two ways in my humble opinion:  bright and shiny or “baby poop” ochre.  Let’s just say I wasn’t shooting for the latter direction and resorted to my magic tin of tricks.  This tin is what I refer to as my decorating tool kit.  Inside are different tips for piping bags, gel colors, regular food coloring, a sturdy paintbrush and several different colors of luster dust.  Recently I pulled out the gold dust for the Sunshine Shortbread, but in this application I sprinkled it like glitter over the gold glaze (as opposed to painting it on).  The dust adhered nicely to the drying sugar coating and imbued it with a lustrous shine.

Admittedly, the color and texture of the glaze were a happy accident, but aren’t those sometimes the best kind?  All that was left was to fill the center with fresh cut flowers from the garden.  I discovered that a small glass container, once housing a votive candle, fit nicely into the center hole left from the cake pan, but I would imagine a deep shot glass would work just as well. This I filled with water and turned into a miniature vase for forsythia, crocus and fern leaves.  The bright yellow and deep purple popped off the gold glaze with sunny brilliance and I couldn’t have been more pleased.  The cake made me want to pin a corsage to my head and shake my rump on the dance floor, but I made do with a small dance in the kitchen with my cats as a humble audience…okay, they were embarrassed for me.

With a little food coloring and a little sparkle, anyone can pull off this cake.  It truly is one of the most simple, humble baked goods I’ve created in a long time and with a few quick and easy steps turned into something I would happily serve at any festive get-together or party.  Our friends George and Rachel came up on the day it was baked and were able to share in the caffeine inspired naughtiness while visiting with Miss Siena.  George and Rachel are also expecting a baby girl and we were able to pass on some of the things Siena has outgrown.  It seems too soon that she could have gotten bigger, but the proof is in the pudding (or the diapers) and she doesn’t fit into her petite newborns anymore.  I blame all that milk she keeps requesting.  It’s just who I am.

Aromatherapy

It all began innocently enough, mystery fruit appearing on my desk one fateful Monday morning.  They were clearly labeled with pink post-it notes (my favorite) denoting the specific types of citrus.  Much like Alice discovering the bottle marked “drink me”, I was intrigued by the display.  The first was a sweet lime with no acid, the second a sour orange and the third was also marked as an orange with bergamot flavor. 

My friend Sara had clearly been out shopping again.  She is as much a foodie as I am,  and is always bringing new and interesting items into the office from Union Square Farmer’s market or Dean and Deluca.  These fruits happened to be from the latter and she thought I would be interested in trying them.  Indeed!  I have been on my winter citrus kick for some time now and this is exactly what I needed to shake things up a bit. 

The fruit were a perfect solution to the conundrum of what kind of birthday cake to make for Izabella and Jonathan.  They share the same birthday week in March, and every year I try to think of something new and fun and different to make for them, especially since they are such dear friends.  Now, I always hate cramming two celebrations into one, but it’s hard to pull off two fantastic birthday cakes in one week with my hectic schedule, so when I saw the strange and wonderful fruit on my desk I felt inspired to do some testing and create one fabulous cake for two fabulous people.

My main inspiration came from the bergamot.  Scratching the surface of its yellow flesh yields a slight grapefruit scent, somehow deeper and more bitterly fragrant; something I couldn’t quite put my finger on but I knew instantly that I loved it.  I decided right then and there to do a bergamot infused cake for my friends with some type of curd filling and a lovely buttercream on the outside.

I headed over to Dean and Deluca to look around and see what I could find.  Their citrus selection is ridiculous, in a good way.  Actually, their selection of everything is ridiculous, and not necessarily cheap either.  Any sort of gourmet item you may be looking for lives just beyond their front door in well-lit display cases full of treasures.  Cheeses, breads, specialty baking and cooking items line the walls in a most welcoming fashion, calling you to spend tons of money in order to surround yourself with food related luxury…and it works.  I can never get out of there without going a little nuts.

As far as the fruit goes, you name it, it was there.  I wandered around and around looking for bergamot, but didn’t see it labeled anywhere.  I saw a grouping of unmarked fruit with the guise of lemons and low and behold it was they.  All I had to do was scratch the peel with my nail, and the bitter, musky scented oils clang to my finger as if in a tender embrace.  I asked the gentleman working the fruit counter to be sure my nose was correct and he assured me I was.  Then he threw me for a loop and asked with a slight Italian accent, “what are you going to do with those?”  I responded with my desire to use them in cake, to which he nodded in approval and said that it was a good idea.  The man said most people don’t know what to do with them, but infusing dessert was an excellent idea.  Apparently he was from Calabria, Italy and this is the region of Italy where most bergamot is grown, the coast along the toe of the “boot”.  I thought it a rather strange coincidence, but also a happy one.  He went on to tell me how bergamot was a very common fragrance component to cologne and candles from the 1970’s and that as an essential oil it is still in great use today.

Who would have thought the fruit guy would have so much knowledge about the random item I was looking for, but it was very exciting to me and made me want to learn more.  After he made the comment about candles and cologne the scent clicked with me, you know, one of those strong sense memory moments from a time gone by.  I’m sure I’ve smelled it many times not realizing what the fragrance was.  Upon further research I discovered bergamot has been in use much longer than the 1970’s.  Bergamot was an original scent component of Eau de Cologne created by Italian chemists in Germany during the 17th century and is still found in about half of all women’s perfumes as well as one third of men’s colognes…aromatherapy at its best. 

My favorite part of the research led me to a paper on herbal remedies in Calabria.  The paper focused mostly on folk cures for the “evil eye”, which I found hilarious, but when bergamot wasn’t lifting curses off desperate housewives it was employed as an aid in treating both malaria and depression.  Additionally, it’s a main component in Earl Grey Tea.  This fruit seems to have a long history of uses and I only happily discovered it by accident on my desk in March of 2011.  It goes to show you how many unknown treats are out there waiting to be discovered.

So there I was, back at the fruit stand, picking up my bergamot, when the idea for a curd filling hit me.  Originally I thought I would use all bergamot to flavor the cake, but after having tasted the fruit and smelling the zest I began to think it might be too much.  I also thought that I needed a color contrast to liven up the cake’s appearance a bit.  Blood oranges were sitting casually, not too far from the bergamot and I began to think about the blood red flesh and juice inside.  Though they definitely taste of orange, the natural red color could really add a saturated punch to citrus curd and make it stand up and shout.  So I bought some of those too as well as a couple of sour Seville oranges to mix in.  My plan was coming together.

The last component was the outer look of the cake.  Here again I have to thank Sara.  She had sent me a link to a blog featuring a citrus related cake, and on top of each slice were slivers of candied lemon.  This got me thinking about a bigger concept.  What would a cake look like completely covered in candied fruit?  I was about to find out.  So I bought several extra bergamot and blood oranges and left Dean and Deluca feeling prepared for cake creation.

The precious weekend rolled around and I was flustered.  In my former life, I was used to having long stretches of time to devote to baking or other activities, but now with little Miss Siena in the mix I’m learning to moderate my tasks and break things down into manageable parts.  Not a bad thing, really, and something I could certainly apply to the rest of my life instead of continually trying to bite off more than I can chew with the time I’m given.  Plus our friend’s David and Jack were coming up that weekend to meet our daughter and have a little getaway of their own.  My plan had been to start experimenting Friday evening with candied fruit, but as per usual I came home late from a busy day and couldn’t be bothered to do more than watch mindless reality television.  It would have to wait.

Saturday dawned, our guests arrived and we went off for a visit to one of our favorite little towns, Cold Spring.  I’ve mentioned it in the blog before and am never hesitant to tell people to “go there” for a fun time, especially if you like good food and antiques.  The Main street is lined with tons and tons of cute shops, eateries, bakeries, antiques and every sweet little thing your heart can imagine wrapped up in a pretty New England village package.  Every time we go there I discover something new.  This time it was a section of town beyond the railroad tracks, out along the Hudson River where there was a lovely promenade and a restaurant called the Hudson House.  We decided to pop in and see what they might offer for lunch.  It was quiet, charming, care-worn in appearance and was empty enough to feel baby friendly at that hour of the day.

We strolled in and had a fantastic lunch, but the insane discovery for me was the popovers.  I have never made popovers, but have seen Martha Stewart do it a number of times on her holiday specials.  I know you need a hot oven and a hot popover pan.  I don’t own a specific pan for this (I know many of you are gasping in surprise), but if I did, I would certainly try to create these little pockets of steamy goodness.  I can only recall having them at one other restaurant on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, aptly named the Popover Café, near Brian and my first apartment together.  These popovers were as beautiful, light and flakey, as the one’s I remember enjoying from so many years ago, and were accompanied by delicious honey/strawberry butter.

After a little nosh, we hit a few antiques shops rather quickly as it was late in the day and everything seemed to close down by 5:00pm.  Working my way through tiny, overflowing booths and isles with a stroller is a new feat, but I think we managed just fine and Siena is able to “say” she has now been antique-ing with her dads (something I’m sure she desperately wanted to do).

We returned home exhausted from all that shopping and eating, but it was time to candy some fruit.  I put David and Jack to work perusing cookbooks (to assuage my gilt of being a neglectful host) as a fun distraction while I began slicing fruit on the mandolin.  I sliced up three large bergamot and one blood orange to boil and then cook in simple syrup…a one to one ratio of sugar to water.  The basic Candied Fruit recipe can be found by clicking this link.

The fruit cooks for about an hour, simmering in syrup until they become translucent.  After they are done, lay them out on parchment-lined sheets to cool.  They will be quite sticky, but the sticky-ness factor (I learned) will aid you when it comes time to decorate the cake.  The slices will keep in an airtight container until you are ready to use them, but since I was using them the next day I kept them on the sheet pans covered in plastic wrap overnight.  Candying the fruit makes the entire slice edible, rind and all, and intensifies the flavor something fierce.  The perfume-like fragrance and taste of the bergamot was strong.  I recommend only eating a few slices at a time or it might feel like you are downing a pint of perfume…not something I would try at home.

It was important to get the fruit done in advance so I could focus on the cake Sunday morning.  I got up bright and early with Siena.  Who needs an alarm clock when you have a 9 week old?  After she ate breakfast and chatted with me about all her hopes, dreams and favorite flavors of milk, she took a nap and I began to work on the cake.  I found The Whiteout Cake recipe in Baked: New Frontiers in Baking (the first cookbook from Baked Bakery in Brooklyn)and began to prep my pans and get the ingredients ready.  I suddenly felt like I was back in pastry school, trying to mise en place as quickly as possible, get the pans ready and be done with everything before the teacher moved onto the next step.  Baking with a baby is sort of a race to see who will get done first.  Will I get the cakes in the oven before she wakes up???  Luckily, yes I did…and she didn’t even wake up when I turned on the Kitchen Aid.  Now that’s a good baby!

The Whiteout Cake (from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking)

2 1/2 cups cake flour

3/4-cup all-purpose flour

1-tablespoon baking powder

1-teaspoon baking soda

3/4-teaspoon salt

Zest of 1 bergamot (my addition)

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

1 3/4 cups sugar

1-tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 1/2 cups ice cold water

3 large egg whites, at room temperature

1/4-teaspoon cream of tartar

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Butter three 8-inch round cake pans, line the bottoms with parchment paper, and butter the parchment.  Dust with flour, and knock out the excess flour.

Sift the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together into a large bowl.  Add zest.  Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and shortening on medium speed until creamy, 3 to 4 minutes.  Add the sugar and vanilla and beat on medium speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Scrape down the bowl, add the egg, and beat until just combined.  Turn the mixer to low.  Add the flour mixture, alternating with the ice water, in three separate additions, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.  Scrape down the bowl, and then mix on low speed for a few more seconds.

In a medium bowl, whisk the egg whites and cream of tartar until soft peaks form.  Do not overbeat.  Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.

Divide the batter among the prepared pans and smooth the tops.  Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through the baking time, until a toothpick inserted in the center of each cake comes out clean.  Transfer the cakes to a wire rack and let cool for 20 minutes.  Invert the cakes onto the rack, remove the pans, and let cool completely.  Remove the parchment.

While the cakes were baking I began to make the curd.  I love curd.  I’ve said it a million times and I’ll say it a million and one, it’s probably one of the best things I’ve ever eaten.  Lemon, lime, grapefruit...who cares…I love them all, and blood orange curd is my newest favorite.  I used Martha Stewart’s basic lemon curd recipe from her Baking Handbook as my base, and just changed out the juices and zest I was using.  My version is as follows:

Marty’s Blood Orange Curd (based on Martha Stewart’s lemon curd)

8 large egg yolks

1/2 cup freshly squeezed juice from 2 blood oranges, 1 Seville orange and 1 bergamot

Finely grated zest of 2 blood oranges

1-cup sugar

1/8-teaspoon salt

1 1/4 sticks (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cold, cut into pieces

Combine yolks, orange zest, juice, and sugar in a heavy-bottom saucepan; whisk to combine.  Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon (be sure to scrape the sides of the pan), until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon, 8 to 10 minutes, and registers 160 degrees on an n instant-read thermometer.

Remove saucepan from heat.  Add salt and butter, one piece at a time, stirring until smooth.  Strain through a fine sieve into a medium bowl.  Cover with plastic wrap, pressing it directly onto the surface of the curd to prevent a skin from forming.  Refrigerate until chilled and set, at least 1 hour or up to 1 day.

The color is stunning.  It had a lovely, luscious red-orange hue that looked perfect sandwiched in between the layers of pale yellow, bergamot-scented white cake.  All that was left was the Swiss Meringue Buttercream.  By this time Siena was up and running once more, maybe because she too will come to love buttercream and was eager to find out how to make it.  Brian was good enough to entertain her and our houseguests while I finished up the cake. 

Assembly is the fun part, the time when the creation really comes together and you either wind up with a masterpiece or a mess.  In this instance I think it came out beautifully.  I trimmed the “bubble” top on the cakes to make them level, layered on the blood orange curd and did a smooth coat of buttercream on the outside before letting it chill in the fridge for 15 minutes (this allows the frosting to set up for the next coat.)  After an additional smooth coat of buttercream, I began placing the candied fruit on the cake in a decorative pattern.  The blood orange slices made a nice trim along the bottom while the bergamot resembled the petals of a flower all along the top and reminded me of the spring days so close around the corner.  I say, if the crocuses are blooming in the garden then it’s the perfect time to bake this candied fruit/floral cake, and we all devoured about half of it that evening.  I admit the cake was a bit more time consuming than I had planned on, but when you are creating something you love it tends to be the case.  There is no point in making mediocre cake, or any other product for that matter. 

The following week brought about St. Patrick’s Day once more.  A new project ramped up at work leaving me little time for anything else, including any green desserts.  If I were honest with myself, and I usually am, I have to say it didn’t pain me much to miss out on making anything for the “holiday” itself, primarily because I don’t do anything for it other than stay out of the way of drunken teenagers on the commuter train.  I don’t recall it being quite like that when I was growing up, but maybe I was oblivious, joyfully chasing rainbows on my unicorn, running through fields of four-leaf clover…or maybe there wasn’t a large Irish Catholic community where I grew up.  Either way, it’s not one of my favorites.  That is not to say other people might not want a recipe for something warm a tasty on this special day.

The weekend after St. Pat’s, when things had settled down once more and I could collect my thoughts, I turned to my cookbook collection for inspiration.  Part of me wanted to create something outrageous and green to honor the color spirit of March 17th, but the other side of me who really wanted to relax and spend time with my family wasn’t up for another lengthy weekend of baking.  I’m learning my limits.  I was keen on making the traditional Irish Soda Bread I baked last year for this blog, but I’m not a big fan of repeating recipes.  I’m the same way with weeknight meals: not a fan of repeats.  What interests me is continuing to try new things, the creative spark of trying a recipe I’ve never made before, so I went in search of something different.

With my time constraints I looked to find something pretty yet fairly speedy to make and something that could tie in with dinner in some way (killing two birds with one stone).  I rarely do anything savory because of my horrible sweet tooth, but bread seemed like a good way to go (and I was also desperately craving carbs).  I turned Jim Lahey’s My Bread for inspiration.  I have done a couple of his breads before and they always come out great.  The fact that you can mix the ingredients in a bowl, cover it and walk away for 12-18 hours while it proofs is very appealing to this workaholic/new dad.  And low and behold, what did I find??? 

Jim’s Irish Brown Bread

2 1/4 cups bread flour

3/4-cup whole-wheat flour

1-teaspoon salt

1-tablespoon wheat bran

1/4 teaspoon instant or other active dry yeast

3/4 cup Guinness stout, at room temperature (about 72 degrees)

3/4-cup well-shaken buttermilk, at room temperature

Additional wheat bran or flour for dusting

In a medium bowl, stir together the flours, salt, wheat bran, and yeast.  Add the beer and buttermilk and, using a wooden spoon or your hands, mix until you have a wet, sticky dough, about 30 seconds.  Cover the bowl and let sit at room temperature until the surface is dotted with bubbles and the dough is more than doubled in size, 12 to 18 hours.

When the first rise is complete, generously dust a work surface with flour.  Use a bowl scraper or rubber spatula to scrape the dough out of the bowl in one piece.  Using lightly floured hands or a bowl scraper, lift the edges of the dough in toward the center.  Nudge and tuck in the edges of the dough to make it round.

Place a tea towel on your work surface and generously dust it with wheat bran or flour.  Gently place the dough on the towel, seam side down.  If the dough is tacky, dust the top lightly with wheat bran or flour.  Fold the ends of the tea towel loosely over the dough to cover it and place it in a warm, draft-free spot to rise for 1 to 2 hours.  The dough is ready when it is almost doubled.  If you gently poke it with your finger, it should hold the impression.  If it springs back, let it rise for another 15 minutes.

Half an hour before the end of the second rise, preheat the oven to 475 degrees, with a rack in the lower third, and place a covered 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 quart heavy pot in the center of the rack.

Using potholders, carefully remove the preheated pot from the oven and uncover it.  Unfold the tea towel and quickly but gently invert the dough into the pot, seem side up.  (Use caution—the pot will be very hot.)  Cover the pot and bake for 30 minutes.

Remove the lid and continue baking until the bread is a deep chestnut color but not burnt, 20 to 30 minutes more.  Use a heatproof spatula or potholders to lift the bread out of the pot and place it on a rack to cool thoroughly.

Variation:  Add 1 1/4 cups currants to the flour mixture in Step 1.  Increase the amounts of Guinness and buttermilk to 1 cup each.

Jim's bread is a variation on Irish Soda Bread, minus the soda.  It has wheat bran, wheat flour and bread flour.  To be honest it’s a beautiful crusty brown bread that doesn’t resemble soda bread in its flavor profile, but I was game.  It doesn’t call for caraway seeds, what I believe to be the key to the traditional recipe, but does mention adding currants as a variation to add a little sweetness to this otherwise slightly salty, rustic bread.  In place of the baking soda is yeast, a smell I’ve come to adore.  After the dough has risen and you punch it down for the first time, releasing that fragrant bread-like smell, is when you know you are onto something special.  The other undoubtedly Irish ingredient in this bread is Guinness beer.  The malt taste hangs out on the back of your tongue, bringing a depth to the bread it would otherwise be missing.

To me, this bread is elevated peasant food.  Something to serve with cabbage and potatoes or corned beef, but also raises up a basic weeknight soup from its usual doldrums.  I found a recipe for a Spring Vegetable Bread Soup in the April 2011 issue of Everyday Food.  The brown bread was the perfect playmate for the lovely green peas, onions and zucchini, but was also wonderful on it’s own with some salted butter.

Any of Jim’s breads are a quick and easy solution to having fresh bread every week.  All you need is a sturdy cast iron pot with a tight lid, one that is oven safe, to do all the baking.  The hot pot simulates the process of wood firing in some magical/scientific way, giving you gorgeous crusty bread from your regular old oven.  There is something so comforting about the yeasty smell floating through the house.  It makes me think of grandma in the kitchen and all the favorite bakeries I’ve ever walked into.  And the look is stunning.  A loaf of fresh bread stands on it’s own, photographs beautifully (in my opinion) and is the epitome of home cooking. 

Now I sit on the train, heading to work once more.  It’s Friday and is time to start thinking about my baby/baking weekend…not baking the baby, of course.  It’s the time when I let myself begin to switch gears from the non-stop thinking and planning of the busy workweek to my relaxing downtime with family and friends.  With April swiftly approaching and a couple of “teaser” warm days in March, my brain is wandering to the tender leafed greens and soft yellow daffodils peeking out of the ground.  If there isn’t inspiration to be found out in the blooming garden, then I don’t know where to look.

As per usual since Siena came to us we will be having visitors over the weekend.  We have had more people in the last 10 weeks come to our house than the near four years Brian and I have lived there.  I guess that’s what a baby does, she draws people to you with her wily baby charms, and then if you are me, you ply your friends and family with baked goods and hope they want to come back for more.  It’s just who I am.

Sunshine Shortbread

I must begin by declaring, ”I’ve been in a shortbread kind of mood”.  It’s something I come back to again and again when I get that craving for something rich, dreamy, buttery and deceptively easy to make.  Some weeks are like that, the kind where you need an extra stick of butter or two (or four) to help get you through…especially with these long, cold and (occasionally sleepless) winter nights.

The idea of “sunshine” came about for obvious reasons.  I’m happy to report we had a few days with the golden orb shining accompanied by moderate temperatures, enough to finally melt the interminable snow, which has haunted the northeast for the past two months.  My craving to get back outdoors has been building in tandem with my craving for the rich and fatty goodness contained in the tiniest morsel of good shortbread. 

I finally returned to work this week from my two month “vacation”.  It was hard to leave Brian and Siena, though I know it’s a normal part of being a parent…the part where we are required to keep a roof over the aforementioned child’s head.  Going back to work was both difficult and somehow strangely simple at the same time.  The simple part is that it’s just work, a creative job I enjoy, but nothing nearly as rigorous or time consuming as taking care of a teeny-tiny person around the clock.  And I think the weirdest part of all was it didn’t seem like I'd ever left.  I attribute this to the fact that the past two months of my life have been unlike any other two months I’ve ever known.  The sudden, life-altering occurrence of a child being born changed everything instantaneously, and other than that horrible opposite end of the spectrum (death) I can think of no other happening in life with such a gravity and displacing force.

Stepping back into my role at work was easy, a known entity, unlike the little person living at our house.  Siena is both familiar and still a stranger.  Both she and her needs change every day and meeting those needs are a glorious challenge.  My profession is creative and I do quite a bit of problem solving, but those problems generally fall into familiar areas that I have been trained to deal with over “X” number of years.  Siena is only seven weeks old and it’s seemingly a whole new ballgame everyday. 

There is a satisfaction that comes with problem solving for both babies and commercials and also in the realm of baked goods.  As I mentioned, I was craving shortbread, but I was also in a mood to create.  I love to read recipes and precisely execute them, but I feel like I have a new goal lately:  making them my own.  I suppose that’s what any good cook or baker does; taking tried and true recipes and turning them on their ear in some way.  A little more of “this” and a little less of “that”, all the while spinning new flavor profiles, creating unexpected textures and thrilling at the chance of making something even better than what you started with.

It was this frame of mind that took me into the first of two shortbread forays this past week.  My beloved Martha Stewart has what I have always thought to be the ultimate shortbread recipe in her Baking Handbook (my bible of sorts).  The recipe is quite simple with only a few ingredients, one of the beauties of shortbread in my opinion.  Basically you put them all in a mixer, spread them out in the pan, chill and bake for a small amount of time.  What could be simpler?  The answer is “nothing”, but I wasn’t in the mood for simple, I was in the mood to play around and experiment. 

First off, I was interested in additional flavor combinations.  Martha’s basic shortbread has no flavorings to speak of outside of the sugar, butter, flour and salt.  This is not something I’m sneering at, for I love it dearly, but I’m still in that citrus state of mind and wanted to see what I could do (if anything) to elevate the recipe.  Here is Martha’s recipe for Shortbread Fingers.  My version goes something like this:

Marty’s Citrus Thyme Shortcakes (A variation of Shortbread Fingers)

Ingredients:

2 sticks of unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan

8 oz cream cheese, room temperature

1/4-cup grapefruit juice

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2-teaspoon salt

1/2-teaspoon baking powder

Zest of 2 grapefruit

1 tablespoon dried thyme

1-cup confectioners’ sugar

Sanding sugar, for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Butter a 9x13 inch rimmed baking sheet and line with parchment paper, leaving a 1-inch overhang on long sides.  Whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, zest and thyme in a small bowl; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and cream cheese until fluffy on medium speed, 5 minutes.  Add confectioners’ sugar; continue to beat until very light and fluffy, about 2 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.  Add grapefruit juice; beat just until incorporated.  Add flour mixture, and beat on low speed, scraping down sides occasionally, until just incorporated.  (It should have the consistency of soft cookie dough.)

Using a small offset spatula, evenly spread dough in prepared baking sheet.  Chill in the freezer or refrigerator until dough is firm, about 20 minutes.

Prick dough all over with a fork.  Bake, rotating sheet halfway through, until shortcake is golden brown, 40 to 45 minutes.  Transfer to a wire rack and immediately sprinkle with sanding sugar.  While still hot, use a large knife to cut shortcakes into desired shapes.  Cool completely in the pan.  Keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

I’m not sure what spurned my interest in mixing the citrus and herbs.  I love the addition of rosemary to Christmas butter cookies I make each December, lavender sneaks around as infusions with cream in several summer desserts I can think of and many times a dish for something as drab as chicken will get spiced up not only with herbs but citrus juices as well.  It stands to reason that these flavors can stand up together in a less traditional format such as a dessert…and they did.

The result of my test was less like shortbread and more like shortcake.  Adding the baking powder, grapefruit juice and cream cheese gave these bars a bit of height, a crumb if you will and some moisture not typically found in a light, crisp shortbread.  But the thyme and grapefruit were heavenly.  These two are definitely going to be best friends in the dessert world for me from here on out, and I daresay adding the zest of 2 grapefruits and a tablespoon of thyme to any cake or cookie batter would seriously bring it to the next level.  My recipe would be good with summer berries and a drizzling of heavy cream, no doubt about that, and I’m proud of myself for going out on a limb with the limited time I have.  With a few tweaks, I’m sure the cakes could become more balanced and a little lighter on the palette, but no one at work seemed to have a problem eating them with their morning coffee.  But if it’s tried and true shortbread you are looking for, then read on my friends.

Sunshine…yes, that’s what I wanted and that’s what I got: a golden, orange disk of deliciousness radiating the love of my kitchen.  Saturday was that occasional March day that comes along to tease you.  It teases with 60-degree weather and is enough to drive anyone into the haze of pre-spring fever.  Stepping out into the backyard without a coat on for the first time in months is sheer bliss.  Feeling the warmth on your face and the skin on your arms is a refreshing homecoming.   Inspecting the leaf-strewn garden, somewhat muddy and still frozen about an inch under the soil is akin to entering a candy store for this light starved caveman. 

After months of not entering my sacred, therapeutic shrine (otherwise known as the backyard) I felt antsy.  The question of what survived the incredibly long and ongoing winter was plaguing me.  I suppose this is the question all gardeners ask at this time of the year and the honest answer is it’s too early to tell.  But oh what joy!!!  I found the daffodils and tulips were starting to sprout.  I’d noticed a few along the Ossining Main St. sidewalk earlier in the week, inhabiting the small squares of soil underneath the ginkgo trees.  I thought maybe the store owners hadn’t planted them deep enough because it seemed too early, but it made me happy just the same.  Finding them in my own garden sent me over the moon! 

With the sun shining down I did a little light, outdoor house keeping.  I picked up a few leaves, did a cursory sweep of the flagstone patio and in accordance with my Martha Stewart calendar knew it was also the moment to prune fruit trees (while they are still dormant).  We only have one, a dwarf golden delicious apple, so it wasn’t a terribly difficult task.  Happily, our next-door neighbors also have a couple of apple trees so we are able to get some pollination action going on.  The more I walked around and picked up, the more green tops of sprouting daffodils called out to me with their lusty contrast to all the drab brown everywhere else…and that’s when I knew, I wanted to pay homage to this moment.  Thus, Sunshine Shortbread was born.

Returning to the kitchen in the afternoon (and while Siena was taking a nap), I noticed within the pages of my new best friend and cookbook companion, Baked Explorations:  Classic American Desserts Reinvented, there was a recipe for a traditional shortbread, one made with slightly different ingredients than I had used before.  This one calls not only for egg yolks, but also 10x sugar and rice flour.  But the coup de gras was the addition of fleur de sel.  If you have read this blog for any amount of time you know how I love the pairing of sweet and salty.  The harmony between sugar and salt is strangely unparalleled and this recipe puts it right out there, front and center.

Classic Shortbread with Fleur de Sel (From Baked Explorations)

Ingredients:

1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes, cool but not cold

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons superfine sugar, or 1-cup confectioners’ sugar

1/2-teaspoon salt

3 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/2-cup rice flour

2 egg yolks

1-tablespoon fleur de sel

In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on high speed until smooth.  Add the sugar and salt and beat again just until incorporated, about 2 minutes.  In two additions, using a wooden spoon or the absolute lowest speed on your mixer, stir in 3 1/2 cups of the all-purpose flour and all the rice flour, just until incorporated.  Add the egg yolks, one at a time, and stir just until combined.  If the dough looks too wet, fold in the remaining 2 tablespoons flour.  Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until it is uniform.  Do not overwork it.  Divide the dough into eight equal balls, then shape them into disks, wrap them in plastic, and refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Dust a work surface with a sprinkling of flour.  Working with one piece of chilled dough at a time while leaving the others in the refrigerator, roll a disk into a slightly less than 1/2-inch round.  Cut the round into wedges like a pizza. 

Prick the top of the shortbread with the tines of a fork and sprinkle a bit of fleur de sel over the surface.  Transfer the cookies to a prepared baking sheet.  Bake the shortbread for 17 to 22 minutes, or until they just begin to brown.

Set the pans on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes before transferring the shortbreads to the rack to cool completely.

Shortbread will keep in an airtight container, at room temperature, for 5 days.

Not only are the ingredients different, but also the baking process itself.  The recipe asks you to divide the dough in two, make disks and then chill them in the fridge for an hour.  After that you make 8 smaller balls of dough, roll them out like you would a crust, then cut them into wedges before baking.  This is where my creative streak took over once more.  Going with the idea of sunshine, I decided I wanted to make two large, traditional pans of shortbread instead of the 8. 

First off, I wanted the sunshine to be orange, makes sense, right?  I added quite a bit of yellow food coloring and a couple drops of red (red food coloring is stronger than yellow, so watch out) to achieve the desired result.  I also added the zest of one orange to make the shortbread taste more like it looked.  Both the zest and colors were incorporated along with the egg yolks, before the flour mixture goes in.  This tinting process will work for any cookie or cake batter.  Second, I had on hand both a 9-inch and a 10-inch tart ring.  Instead of dividing the dough and chilling the disks in plastic wrap, I divided the dough and used my fingertips to spread it into the rings on parchment lined baking sheets.  I then put the pans in the refrigerator for an hour before pricking them all over with a fork and baking at 325 degrees for 45 minutes.  In this instance they truly did come out golden and sunny, and to gild the lily I painted the top with gold luster dust for added sparkle.

The flavor:  ridiculous…and I mean that in the best possible use of the word.  The texture is so very light and buttery with the topping of fleur de sel cuddling up like a baby blankie to the super-fine sugar.  If I could wear shortbread as a winter coat, this would be my parka.  If you don’t bake anything else for a very long while, it must, must, must be this recipe you try.  You will not be disappointed either doing it with my method or the one recommended by the Baked guys.

As for the finishing touches, one can’t have sunshine without something for it to fall upon.  In a similar fashion to the flower cake I made around this time last year, once you start to assemble the sunshine (I laughingly say assemble because it requires so little work) you’ll see how large it is.  None of my 12-inch cake platters could hold it.  Therefore I resorted to my full sheet pan, the only one I own, and the only pan that won’t actually fit into my oven.  This is large enough for all those bigger creative projects you find yourself in. 

Having laid out the sun I was inspired by my brief respite in the garden and began to scour the fridge for some plants.  We had scallions and parsley on hand which seemed to pair perfectly as new sprouts.  There were also broccoli and Brussels sprouts which I could also see making lovely little plantings.  I found some whole-wheat flour and cocoa powder in the pantry making the perfect dark soil for the plants to “shoot” out of.  Lastly, I needed some atmospherics for the sky, but we had recently run out of spray-can whip cream…that’s right, I said it…say what you will but strange things find their way into your fridge when you are stress eating and taking care of a newborn.   Brian suggested making clouds out of parchment paper and I think they turned out rather cute.

With more time (and planning) it would be fun to look for green dessert components to use as the plants.  Some time in a candy store might reveal all sorts of treasures I’ve never thought of.  But necessity breeds invention and a sudden inspiration from the garden required swift action. 

Responding to creative impulses in the world of baked goods can be somewhat challenging at the offset, but with an open mind and a willingness to learn great things are possible.  For me, the Sunshine Shortbread and the experimentation with the Grapefruit Thyme Shortcakes were a great jumping off point, not to mention fun to do.  Plus, both of these recipes have very few ingredients, so if it doesn’t necessarily work out the first round it’s not an incredibly expensive loss. 

Being creative is what I love whether it’s at a work setting, in the kitchen or with learning what works (and doesn’t work) for our daughter.  I think being a parent is going to require a lot of creativity on my part.  Siena wants to learn things about the world and Brian and I are the ones to introduce the world to her.  Hopefully this introduction is from a loving and artistic background that will someday inspire her to take chances and create something (a whole world) that she loves.  Maybe she’ll even want to make shortbread.  A dad can dream.  It’s just who I am.