a taste of tradition

Christmas is a holiday full of traditions and memories, and I hope everyone has a handful of new ones from this year. As promised, I am going to share the process of our annual family baking tradition. My great grandmother used to bake German Stollen bread every Christmas morning when my grandma was young, and the tradition has been passed down from there. I started helping my grandma make the Stollen (and decipher the old, handwritten recipe) a few years ago, and this year was extra special because I actually understood the process and why it takes so long to complete. Even though we did things a little different than I might of learned in class, the Stollen was absolutely delicious and gobbled down yesterday morning.

Before we begin, it's important to note that we use a potato sponge for the bread instead of a basic flour, water and yeast mixture. You can't really taste the potatoes in the bread, but I'm sure it adds a little something extra to the final product. Here is the sponge being made on the night of December 23 before it was fermented overnight.

Before I left for the evening, a brief moment of panic set in when I asked my grandma if she had everything to complete the bread the next day. She said yes, however, after a short second exclaimed, "I don't have any raisins!" Since we don't put anything except raisins in the bread, this is a rather important ingredient. Luckily, we were able to make a run to the grocery store and save Christmas. Lesson learned: make your list and check it twice, just like Santa Claus.

The next morning, I returned to grandma's house to get the dough all mixed up. I should have brought my new Kitchen Aid 6-qt mixer along with me, but it wouldn't be Christmas if the dough didn't run up the beaters of grandma's trusty small mixer.

Another interesting item here is that we always have to add an undisclosed amount of flour to the dough to make it workable and not runny. Which leads to that small bowl getting fuller by the flour scoop. Once the dough started looking good, we emptied it out on to a floured cloth and the eight minutes of kneading began. Last year I thought this was hard work, but it felt like clockwork to me after my bread baking in class last term.

Once my grandma was satisfied with the kneaded bread, we covered it to let it rise into one huge loaf.

After two hours, it was time to separate the gigantic loaf into three separate loaves and let them rise again. Here are the two smaller loaves getting ready for a proofing by the heat vents.

Another few hours and it's time for the oven. These babies came out nice and brown and were slathered with butter...

and powdered sugar.

The whole process took about 24 hours and then the bread was covered until Christmas morning. And all that's left to do at that point is pray that the bread is done inside and tastes as good as it looks. There's always a sigh of relief from my grandma's mouth when we first cut into the bread on Christmas and all looks well.

But the true test comes after my great uncle spreads a slice with butter and powered sugar and takes the first bite. Once it's been approved by him, it's time for the whole family to dig in and devour two of the loaves. This bread is seriously hard to quit eating. I had at least 5 pieces.

That's just one of the perks of being a baker. You have to try your work and make sure it's up to par. And then try it again just in case. My grandma taught me that.

Another Christmas, another Stollen. Here's to another year of delicious and tasty traditions!

a trail of bread crumbs

It's official - I've made it through the first term of school and definitely feel more like a chef than I did ten weeks ago. And even though I've hung up my pastry kit for three weeks, I will be indulging in some baking adventures over Christmas break. And eating a ton of holiday cookies. Mmmm frosted sugar cookies.... Before my mind is completely taken over by a spoonful (or twenty) of sugar, here are the details of my last day in the classroom kitchen in 2010.

We arrived on Saturday morning ready to take our final written exam and bake up some stellar biscuits and muffins, however, we had to wait a bit to do so. Our first project of the day was English muffins. English muffins are my favorite go-to breakfast food and I never thought I could make any that would taste as good as my trusty Thomas brand muffins, but these were very delish. The dough is fairly easy to make and to my surprise, this bread is not baked but fried in a skillet in butter. Chef gave us compliments on our work and immediately slathered up one with butter to eat.

Next up was bagels. Again, I questioned that we could make bagels to taste as good as the ones at the store or at Einstein's, but these turned out pretty well and were fun to make. We rolled out dough, cut it into 2oz chunks and rolled each one out in a strip, then wrapped it around our hand to get the circle shape. We then boiled the dough circles in water with a little malt syrup and baked them off. This is the traditional way to make authentic chewy bagels, not the soft, fluffy bread ones you most often see today. Our bagels weren't the prettiest thing since sliced bread, but they sure tasted good.

Next we took our written exam - which I am pretty sure I got an A on - and then went to lunch before our practical exams. But a funny thing happened on the way back to the kitchen...we were locked out of the kitchen and Chef's keys wouldn't work. So while he went to get a set of keys from the dean, we all played a pastry trivia game in one of the classrooms. The second question left me in a standoff with my teammates. The question was "name a German holiday bread traditionally made with raisins and currants." Of course I know it's stollen bread - I have eaten this bread every Christmas morning since I was born basically. But no, my teammates wanted to say kugelhopf since we made that bread in class one day. I ended up being right and it made me even more excited to bake stollen with my grandma next week. Using only raisins - no currants or candied fruit for this family.

Anyway, we finally made it into the kitchen and were given a break on our practical due to the lock out incident. We only had to make biscuits for our final grade. We ended up making a batch of blueberry muffins too, but weren't graded on them. I'm proud to say that my biscuit making skills have gotten better every week. I prepared the dough, cut them into squares (I'm against using a traditional circle cutter because it's so cliché), brushed them with egg wash and popped them in the oven. Here are the beauties that earned me 49 out of 50....

Not only do they look better than last week's biscuits, they tasted better too. I am making a vow right now to never buy Pillsbury biscuits again. These are so simple to make and the fresh taste is definitely worth it.

Thanks for all of your support and kind thoughts as I cut and burned my way through term one. Merry Christmas to you all and stay tuned for a family Christmas baking adventure. There's bound to be a fun story in the Fry kitchen next week as we make the annual stollen!

I'll leave you with a trivia question. In the photo below (and above), what does the front and center English muffin resemble? Winner gets a spatula signed by yours truly.

the scone stands alone

Check out these chocolate chip scones. They are so amazingly large and in charge that I had to begin my blog this week with a picture of their grandness. In case you're wondering, yes, these were the largest scones made in class on Saturday. And while a handful of students were chattering about the grand size of my scones, Chef reminded me that no one else in the class knows more about baking than I do at this point, so I shouldn't worry about what anyone thinks unless it's him. Noted and appreciated, Chef. 

The main reason I was able to make these plus-sized baked goods was because I was in a group by myself. That's right; my one remaining group mate for the term didn't show up. So I made everything just how I wanted it, but I also found myself looking around the room wondering if I was doing everything correctly. It really forced me to trust my instincts as a chef and believe that I was doing things right. It also made me work extra hard because not only did I have to scale all of the ingredients, make all of the dough, pan and bake the breads and watch the timer on the oven, but I also had to keep my area clean and wash every dish I used. Phew. Needless to say, it was an exhausting but very rewarding day.

Our final exam and practical is next week and we were able to whip up another round of practice biscuits this week. Here is my second (and better) attempt at this quick bread.

 
And now for the twist - not only do we have to make biscuits for our final grade, but we also have to make blueberry muffins. Luckily I had chosen these muffins to make from our long list of options. I made a batch using the muffin method, which is a much quicker/simpler method than the more common creaming method. It makes the muffins taste more like bread than cake, which is not desired by most consumers these days, but I thought they were pretty darn good.

I feel pretty confident that I can bake up a few good biscuits and muffins next week, but I might try to whip up a practice batch or two this week just to be sure. Wish me luck!

And just in case you're wondering exactly how grand my scones are...

 

pumpkins and biscuits and burgers - oh my!

Yesterday in class I more than made up for my lack of participation in the kitchen on Thanksgiving. It was a day filled with various pumpkin desserts, bread pudding and biscuits. It was also a day of snowfall. We were dismissed from class at noon because of the snow, yet we still managed to complete everything on our list. We have officially made the transition to quick breads and I could not be happier. Au revoir to yeast and waiting forever for our breads to rise! Bonjour to biscuits, muffins and scones - my comfort zone! But first, a journey through the pumpkin patch.

I must confess that I'm not a big pumpkin pie fan, although I always have a polite slice on Thanksgiving. So I wasn't extremely excited to see two pumpkin desserts on our to-do list yesterday. However, the pumpkin pave' we made first is one of the best pumpkin desserts I've ever had. Pumpkin pave' is basically a pumpkin cheesecake with streusel crust and topping. Much creamier than pumpkin pie and not quite as strong. I have two of these babies at home and not enough family and friends in Indy to share them both with...

While the pave' was in the oven, we began mixing up the ingredients for our pumpkin bread. I have a recipe at home for pumpkin cranberry bread that makes a pretty delicious bread and this one wasn't quite up to par in my opinion. It came out of the oven looking like a brick, but my very kind fiance tells me that it was delish.

Bread pudding was up next. Much to the dismay of my male classmates, we didn't have bourbon in stock to make the sauce. I'm not sure there would have been any bourbon left to make the sauce after they got a hold of it anyways, but that's beside the point. Bread pudding was easier to make than I thought it would be, but I probably won't be making it again in the near future. Who likes soggy bread with raisins? Perhaps this is why it's normally served with a warm bourbon sauce. Ours came out of the oven nicely browned with a uniform jiggle and earned praise from Chef.

Next stop - quickbreads! After a short biscuits demonstration from Chef, we all prepared a small batch of biscuits to practice for our final practical in two weeks. The nice thing about this practical is that I can actually practice at home if I want because the recipe is considerably less complicated and time-consuming than the others. It's all about texture, flakiness and rise with biscuits. Here's a side view of my first attempt.

Even with all of these scrumptious desserts and breads leaving the kitchen with me yesterday, the work that I'm most proud of this weekend is the dinner that I made later that evening. Feast your eyes on this gorgonzola and sage hamburger (recipe courtesy of Rachel Ray) complimented by sweet potato fries. This was seriously one of the best burgers I've ever had. Judge for yourself - with your eyes only of course. For the record, Greg's taste buds agreed with mine.


Hold on to your spatulas because next week things get even quicker - several types of muffins and scones are on the agenda!

turkey and top chef

I'm kind of embarrassed to report that I took the Thanksgiving holiday off from baking. That's right readers, I allowed my mother to bake her frozen Sara Lee pies instead of whipping one up from scratch for my family to enjoy. But hey, once they have the real thing do you think they'll ever settle for less again? No. So really, I am saving everyone a lot of taste bud therapy here. Don't worry, Mom - everyone loves Sara Lee (especially when she gets dropped on the floor right before we leave).

The only chef-related activity I engaged in during Thanksgiving break was watching the entire season of Top Chef: Just Desserts. And it was FABULOUS. I personally cannot ever imagine memorizing tons of recipes and working under that kind of pressure, but it sure is fun to be sucked into the television drama of pastry for several hours. And now I am refreshed and ready to get back into the kitchen this weekend. Bring on the bread!