Braided Lemon Bread
My dad has taught me a lot over the years. He taught me how to drive stick and made me drive from a full stop up a hill, over and over until I didn’t stall. He educated me in the rules of NFL football, quizzed me about team names, coaches, and quarterbacks, and taught me to love the Niners (in good times and bad). And, he taught me how to be resourceful in the kitchen.
In my dad’s kitchen, nothing is wasted. Food ingredient OR time. Leftover odds and ends of onions, peppers, and last night’s pork chops go into Sunday morning omelettes. Prep dishes are washed as the meal is being cooked or dessert is being baked, so that after you’ve finished eating or baking, all that is left are the dishes you ate off of. These are practices that I’ve happily brought into my own kitchen, and just one of the infinite ways that my dad has shaped and influenced my life. Thanks Dad, I hope you had a fantastic day!
So remember that lemon curd? We didn’t come close to finishing it off with the pavlovas, but I used the rest in this tasty breakfast “brastry” (bread pastry? no??)! A soft sweet dough is filled with a cream cheese and lemon curd filling, and when baked, will fill your kitchen with the most lovely smell; you’ll be able to close your eyes and imagine that you’ve opened that little coffee pastry shop you’ve always dreamed of.
Pavlovas with Meyer Lemon Curd and Fresh Berries
It seems that the warm summery weather we experienced two weeks ago was just a cruel, cruel joke. Not funny Boston. Not at all.
Over a month ago, when the weather was much like it has been the last week (dark… gloomy… wet… depressing…), I was using happy meyer lemons to substitute for the absent SUN, and I made these pavlovas and a meyer lemon curd. They were fun, light and bright, and rather uncharacteristic for me since they weren’t a cookie and didn’t have a crust! Pavlovas are meringues that are crispy on the outside, but fluffy and marshmallow-y inside, a textural dream. The tart lemon curd is rich and lemony; a little goes a long way because the pavlovas and whipped cream are just ever so lightly sweetened. Now that the berries are really coming into season and I’ve taken a peek at the 10 day forecast (more un-summer-like weather), I think I should make these again SOON!
For those that hate wasting anything in the kitchen like me (it’s my asian-ness), you’ll be happy to see that the number of egg WHITES in the pavlovas corresponds exactly to the number of egg YOLKS needed for the lemon curd… serendipity! I was left with quite a bit of lemon curd left over- which would seem to pose another kitchen conundrum- but stay tuned for how my resourcefulness prevailed!
Oatmeal Sandwich Bread and Meyer Lemon Blood Orange Marmalade
I finally had the opportunity to slooooooowww down this weekend and so I was happy to take advantage: I caught up on trashy reality tv, filled the apartment with the warmth and aroma of freshly baked whole wheat oatmeal bread (I wish I could bottle it!), and attempted to make jam for the very first time.
This bread is so good that I have actually been looking forward to waking up every morning for a toasted slice! It’s perfect with just a pat of butter, and even better with a bit of jam. It is earthy from the whole wheat and oatmeal, sweet from a touch of molasses, with a soft and tender crumb.
I’ve been eating this bread with a generous helping of home-made meyer lemon and blood orange marmalade. I was intrigued by the unique combination of Meyer lemon (a lemon-tangerine hybrid) and blood oranges and it certainly did not disappoint. It is a perfect balance of tart and sweet, like a little jolt of sunshine to break me out of my winter blues. Because both Meyer lemons and blood oranges are sweeter and less acidic than their lemon and orange relatives, the jam is not as mouth-puckering as one might expect from a fresh marmalade- the citrus is still a bit tart, but subtly so.
Making the jam was actually very easy, especially because I did not bother with canning the jam (trusting that I would succeed in eating the jam within a month, which, at the rate I am going through this jam, will not pose a problem!). Slices of fruit are cooked down until the pith and peel are soft and tender, then white sugar (for sweet) and raw demerara sugar (for slightly carmamelized flavor) are added until the mixture cooks down and sets into a sweet jammy goop. For next time, I would cut the slices into smaller segments, because although the cooking process renders the pith and peel into soft citrus candy, it is a bit difficult to spread these long tendrils on toast. I also think adding a bit of crystallized ginger might be heavenly. And I would love to learn to can, so I could make huge batches and enjoy all year round!
Berry Scones
I’ll admit it, I’m a total scone-a-holic. I blame it on the bakery on the first floor of my building, Mariposa Bakery, which offers at least 3-4 different kinds of freshly baked scones every day. Cherry walnut, orange currant, strawberry oatmeal, blueberry lemon… I know (have tasted) them all! Before them, I had no idea of the beauty of a good scone (its addictive powers!) and its infinite flavor combinations; my experiences pre-Mariposa were restricted to the Starbucks ones which are good, but not excellent, and taste a bit paste-y in comparison, likely because they are not baked the day of or on site. Mariposa’s scones are crisp on the outside, yet light and soft on the inside, slightly buttery but not too cake-y, more dense than a muffin, but not at all dry or overly sweet. It’s quite dangerous living in such close proximity to these delectable biscuit-like vehicles of butter and fruit, and I have to stop myself from stopping in there every morning on my way to lab. I save Mariposa scones for special days, when meeting friends there for a caffeine fix away, or for heavy lab days with 12+ hour timecourses or full Saturdays/Sundays.
The thing about scones is that though they are actually very simple to bake, they really taste the best the day of, while their outsides are still crisp and crunchy in contrast to the fluffy inside. This is simultaneously my excuse for consuming entire batches by myself within 12 hours as well as my excuse for NOT baking them to begin with as a preventative measure against eating an equivalent of a stick of butter in scone form.
Of course, there are some mornings (like yesterday) where my stomach DEMANDS scones, and with the prospect of spending the better part of a sunny 70 degree and not humid day in lab, I gave into my craving and baked these berry lemon scones. I couldn’t decide between blueberry lemon or strawberry orange, and so I just put in BOTH blueberries and strawberries- which resulted in these rather patriotic scones.
I’ve posted a scone recipe before, but I am always searching for a recipe that results in scones similar to the gold standard of Mariposa’s. There are endless permutations of scone recipes: buttermilk vs. cream, egg vs. no egg, obscene amounts of butter vs. less obscene amounts of butter… I have always been tempted to do comprehensive testing and comparison of these recipes, however have always been deterred from this endeavor in light of the issue elaborated above (wherein I eat the whole batch in one day). This recipe is CLOSE to those heavenly Mariposa scones.. it’s got the crisp exterior and biscuit-like interior, whereas previous attempts have resulted in more cake-y like interiors (which are good too! I just prefer less cake). Checking back to previously tried recipes, I find that the difference is that there is less butter (!!) and less liquid. In the end, I think this is close.. very close… for next time I would either use a fattier liquid (heavy cream) or 2 tablespoons more butter to see if I get even closer to Mariposa’s!
Berry Scones
adapted from Orangette
makes 8-12 scones
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup diced strawberries and blueberries
lemon zest from 1 lemon
- Preheat oven to 425 F.
- Beat together the milk and the egg and set aside.
- In a large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt. Rub the butter into the flour mixture (or cut using a pastry blender, or process using a food processor..) working until you have no lumps bigger than a pea. Add the sugar and whatever additions you choose, and stir or toss to mix.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, reserving just a tad of the milk-egg mixture to use as a glaze. Bring the dough together gently with a wooden spoon or spatula.
- Turn dough out onto a lightly floured counter and knead no more than 12 times. (My dough was a bit sticky so I had to add a bit more flour).
- Pat dough into a round approximately 1/2 inch thick, and cut into 8 or 12 wedges. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment.
- Using a pastry brush, glaze wedges.
- Bake for 10-15 minutes, or until golden. Cool on a rack.
- Attempt, and fail, at eating less than 2 of these the day they are baked.
Blueberry Galette
Sometimes baking or cooking endeavors proceed without any major disasters, but more often than not, there are some whoops! or oh CRAP moment, especially in my kitchen. Sometimes it’s mis-measuring or forgetting to add an ingredient, failing to read the directions ahead of time and proceeding with the steps out of order, over or under cooking- the list really goes on and on.
This time, it was an overlooked fissure in the crust, which resulted in an impressive flow of bubbling blueberry ooze.
It wasn’t the biggest oops moment in the history of my kitchen, and thankfully one without a noticeably adverse effect on the taste of the final product. I just scooped up the ooze and smooshed it back on top of the galette and we were back in business!
I suppose galettes are like the lazy person’s pie.. which is probably why I make them often. You can make a galette any size you want (for one person or two or more) and there is no need for a special baking dish. The crust is rolled out, a sweet or savory filling is dumped in the center, then the sides are folded up over the filling. No top crust, streusel crumble topping, fancy crimping or designs required. They’re rustic and simple, but amazingly tasty, especially with this bright blueberry filling and a dollop of freshly home-made whipped cream.
Oh, and this crust? It’s a revelation. Flaky, buttery, and crispy- the trifecta. I could eat this crust all day, every day.
Dorie Greenspan’s Good for almost Everything Pie Dough for Double Crust
adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan
for a 9 inch double crust (I halved the recipe and then divided the dough in half, and used only one half for the galette)
3 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 sticks very cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4 inch pieces
1/3 cup very cold vegetable shortening, cut into pieces
about 1/2 cup ice water (I ended up using less than this)
- Combine flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl.
- Add butter and shortening, and work into the dry ingredients using a pastry blender (or food processor), until the butter and shortening are cut into the flour with some pieces the size of big fat peas and the others the size of rice grains.
- Add ice water, a tablespoon at a time, using a fork to mix the dough. The dough should start to form moistened soft curds. The goal is to get dough that will hold together when pinched, using as little water as possible.
- Scrape the dough out of the bowl and onto a work surface. Divide the dough in half. Gather each into a ball and flatten into a disk and wrap in plastic.
- Refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour before rolling (or 30 min in the freezer).
Blueberry Filling
adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan
I made this amount of filling for 1/2 of a 9 inch pie crust, which could probably serve 2-4 (in this case, it served 2…)
1 cup frozen blueberries
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons flour
zest from 1/2 a lemon
freshly squeezed lemon juice, from 1/2 a lemon
pinch of salt
1 large egg for egg wash
- Preheat the oven to 400 F.
- Roll out the pie dough to a circle about 1/8 inch thick. If the dough is too hard, let sit at room temperature for 10 minutes until soft enough to roll out. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
- Mix together the blueberries, sugar, flour, lemon zest and juice, and salt in a bowl. Transfer to the center of the pie dough, leaving about 2 inches from the edge.
- Fold the edges up over the filling, leaving some of the filling visible. Brush the egg wash and raw cane sugar can be sprinkled on the crust for extra crunch.
- Bake in the middle of the oven, about 30-50 minutes depending on how large your galette is, until the crust is lightly browned and the filling is bubbly.
- Let cool 10 minutes before slicing to let the filling cool.
