More blueberry buns! (a poem)

I don’t make these very often, so it always feel like an Occasion.  I got so exited that I took a bunch of pictures, but then I turns out I already blogged here about the process (you can perhaps forgive my memory lapse given that it was almost three years ago!).

Since I have included the pictures already in this post, I will take the liberty of writ out the steps in poetic form instead:

 

1. Snatch a round wad of fresh, fresh, fresh, dough / That’s already had sev’ral hours to grow;
2. Roll it out pancake-flat and round / With two tablespoons of blue-filling crowned;
3. Fold it tight-closed like half of a moon / Fingertips pounce upon’t to form a cocoon.
4. Peel it on up from its bed on the table / pinching as tight as your fingers are able;
5. 
6. Pinch and pinch and pinch some more / Lest blueberry filling sploosh out on the floor;
7. When the pinching time’s fully done / Lie it so gently next to your last bun;
8. 
9. Now if, on the pan, a bun should crack open / Pinch ever more tightly and start in to hopin’
10. 
11. Pinch one more time when all are at ready / Brushing with egg, your painting-hand steady,
12. 
13. Sprinkle with sugar a bit oversized / That all of your bun-dreams may be realized.
14. Now toast them all gently at three-fifty degrees / Half an hour, and beware of “burnt-hue disease.”
15. Now cool on a rack and keep off grubby paws / For “Filling is Hot” comes with no escape clause.
16. 
17. For ten to fifteen you will be forced to wait / But the reward for patience is sure to elate…
18. As your teeth sink with joy in the prize that you’ve won / Your very own homemade blueberry bun!

Enjoy!!!

Unafraid: zero-waste challah, the eco-happy way

Don’t know about you, but I was afraid of dough for a long time.  Afraid to let it touch anything, because it’s so darn sticky.  Afraid to let it rise uncovered, careful to set it on parchment or silicone when baking.  Careful that the challahs were spaced just so when I put them in the oven to bake, so they wouldn’t end up touching.  Careful, and afraid.

But just look at my challahs now!

• They’re naked, completely uncovered as they rise.
• They’re bare-bottomed, sitting right on the table.
• I’m not using a baking pan at all.

Experience and a couple of good tools have changed all that… mainly the little bench scraper in the back, which I’ve raved about here before.  Also, a baking stone – preheated properly, it’s hot enough when you put the challahs in that nothing will stick to it.  Even if it does stick, a nudge with the scraper is enough to dislodge it. 

Also, I oil the challah generously as I portion it, so that by the time I’m finished rolling out the “snakes,” the wooden tabletop is pretty much non-stick.  Not so much that the challahs slide around, or else it would be impossible to form them properly, but just enough that there’s no danger.  (I tell myself this is also good for the table.)

Because the challah strands are oiled, they’re less subject to evaporation and won’t dry out too quickly while they rise.  I also brush them generously with egg before baking, so hopefully, they’re still supple enough on the outside to allow for expansion.  (If they dry out enough that a skin forms, the outside of the bread will crack when the bread puffs up in the oven, leading to an unsightly “blowout” in an uncontrolled location, usually right above the bottom crust.  Ask me how I know this.)

I still use a lot of parchment paper and plastic and tinfoil and whatnot in my baking… but I am happy that another aspect of my challah-baking process has become both more masterful (cuz I’m unafraid!) and more eco-friendly.

Since I’ve ditched the plastic bags I used to rise the dough in for buckets, and reuse the buckets for challah storage, this means challah-baking has finally become a ZERO-WASTE process around here!

By the way, you don’t even have to waste water to clean dough buckets:  if you let them sit uncovered for a few hours between challah-making during the day and late at night after Shabbos dinner when the challah needs storage, then the small amount of dough in the bucket will dry onto the sides.  Just wipe it out firmly with a (cloth!) napkin and the bucket is ready to reuse.  (If flies are drawn to the challah bucket while it’s drying, drape a (cloth!) towel over the top.)

Hmmm… can you think of any other ways to bake eco-friendly?

Look what ELSE you can do with yeast!

In all the years I have been playing with yeast and homeschooling, I have never, ever thought to mix the two!  Luckily, Ms Frizzle did, and last month’s Magic School Bus science kit was all about bacteria and fungi. 

Oooey gooey fun!

For all the exciting details, please see the full post over at my regular blog!

 

How many any other cool ways are there to use baking to teach science???

Pot pie with Sweet Potato Dumplings / Biscuits

When you want a chicken pot pie but are a) you only have one frozen pie crust (or don’t want to fuss with a top crust), and can’t even think of a b), why not make this EASY sweet-potato-dumpling topped version instead? 

(if you are enthused by this idea, see also this post about putting cornbread on top of chili)

You don’t even have to use meat! 

Putting a quick bread on TOP of a moist, savoury dish (whether it’s meat or dairy or even vegan, as I have been known to do with roasted root vegetables and tofu) compensates for all the downsides of quick breads – namely that they tend to dry out quickly and be less full-bodied in flavour, while lacking the exquisite texture of true breads.  Baked on top of a yummy filling – whether you have a bottom crust or not – the quick bread (dumplings, cornbread, beer bread or any quick bread you like) stay moist, absorb flavour, and add texture and substance to round out a meal.

(Technicality:  FYI, “quick bread” is the term used to describe any non-yeasted bread, including soda-risen breads, fruit/veggie breads like banana or zucchini loaf, coffee cakes and the ilk)

The only catch with this recipe is advance planning:  you’ll need to bake the sweet potato ahead of time.  To get two cups of mush, you could use one very large sweepo or two mediumish ones.  Scrub them up, poke them repeatedly with a skewer (save the skewer!), stick them in the oven at any temperature (350-400) and poke them after an hour, then every half an hour until they’re soft all the way through.  Allow to cool, then peel and mash.  If you haven’t planned ahead, you can microwave the sweepo – scrub, poke, place on a plate with a paper towel and nuke it for 10 minutes, then check every 4 minutes until it’s done.

Here’s the recipe for the dumplings.  It’s really just a quick biscuit dough, but I like the fact that it contains so much sweet potato – yummy and better for you that way:

Sweet Potato Dumplings / Biscuits on a Pot Pie

(recipe makes enough to put half on a pot pie and bake half as 6-7 freeform biscuits on the side)

What you’ll need:

• 2 cups sweepoes, mashed (see above)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp table salt (don’t use kosher salt for small quantities like this, but if you must, cut it in half)
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup vegetable oil (you could use half or all butter for a yummy dairy version if you wanted)

What to do:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Fill a homemade or frozen pie crust in any way you like – veggies, chicken, whatever you want inside, with any sauce or seasoning you enjoy. (*see below)
3. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl.
4. Add oil to mashed sweet potatoes, then add dry ingredients and stir until mixed (don’t beat or overmix, but there shouldn’t be any white clumps left).
5. Drop dough in generous tablespoons onto your pot pie, using another tablespoon to help.  Cover most of the surface, leaving some openings.
6. Drop remaining dough by tablespoons onto a cookie sheet or baking pan lined with parchment.
7. Bake biscuits for 15 - 20 minutes, or until golden brown.
8. Bake pot pie an additional 15-20 minutes until golden brown and sizzling.

I wasn’t going to include the pot pie filling recipe, because it’s not really a recipe, but I thought it might be helpful to somebody.  Please accept this in the spirit of “take it and run with it and play with it” rather than as strict, literal instructions.  :-)

* Pot pie filling – Meat or Vegetarian:

Here’s what I used last night:

• Onion
• Frozen veggies (any:  I had tail ends of beans, peas, corn, broccoli, spinach, and a bag of mixed veggies)
• Cooked chicken or turkey (I had a frozen baggie of chicken saved from making soup over Pesach.  It was NOT a big baggie – you don’t need much.)
• If you prefer a vegetarian/vegan version, roast a bunch of root vegetables along with some cut-up (extra-firm) tofu and substitute those (you can add beans, too) where I mention chicken below; use pareve soup mix or storebought veggie broth instead of chicken soup.
• A few tbsp of flour
• Wine (white is probably best, but I had zinfandel) – splash or more, to your own preference.
• Chicken broth, leftover chicken soup, or water / soup mix.
• Salt, pepper to taste.

What I did:

Fried onion until translucent, then added frozen veggies.  Stirred until veggies had just thawed, then added chicken.  Stirred just until chicken started to thaw, sprinkled with flour and stirred for a while.  Added wine, stirred it a bit, added soup, and simmered gently until thickened.  Seasoned with salt & pepper to taste – and it was done!  This was maybe 10-15 minutes minutes, start to finish.

(sweet potato image © Petr Kratochvil, c/o Wikimedia)

Wish I’d taken pictures, but you’ll have to take my word for it that this looked and smelled amazing coming out of the oven…

Witchcraft, divination or… good clean bread-based fun?

My vote is with the latter (cast yours below in the Comments section!). 

When I posted a reminder on facebook last night to think about including a key in the first post-Pesach challahs (see this old post to find out why), somebody posted a link to this article (“Shlissel Challah – The Loaf of Idolatry?”) and someone else recommended this one (“Serious Segulah or Pagan Piffle?”). 

One person wrote, “the origins of shlissel challah is completely avodah zarah [idol worship].”  Ouch.  One commenter in a thread of one of the posts above wrote that a prominent rav “called this shlissel challah minhag "ridiculous", a violation of nichush [divination], and told his wife not to "dare" do it.”

I read the articles – really, I did.  I love fascinating new information.  I love controversy.

The first article (“Loaf of Idolatry?”) made me sad, partly because his article claims to be all scholarly but he doesn't really prove his point at all.  It’s full of footnotes and nicely formatted, but it mainly lacks substance.  Just because Christians did it did something in Europe doesn't mean they started it (he says that they did it, but not that we didn't).  As one commenter pointed out, we do have (and I had seen but then forgotten) bread stamps from the time of the 2nd bais hamikdash.

As for the charge of nichush [divination], this is totally NOT the intention of that prohibition, which (in my limited understanding) is more against auguring by natural signs.  Like whether, if a rodent sees its shadow, winter will end sooner, or later, or whatever.  We’re not allowed to say the ending of winter has anything whatsoever to do with the cloud conditions over Punxsutawny Phil.

The author of the first paper (“Loaf of Idolatry!”) also claims those who use a key view "a die-cut piece of brass as an intermediary between them and the Almighty." Just so you know where he’s coming from.

There’s a reflex these days, in the religious community, against doing anything that smacks of “what the goyim do.”  I was even told at one point that it might not be such a good idea to decorate our houses with greenery at Shavuos (a well-documented and longstanding tradition) because it’s too similar to the Christian practice of bringing a tree and garlands into the house in December.

In the case of this article, I remain unconvinced.

That said…

I am most definitely against placing too much faith in segulos [auspicious deeds or objects], which has been way abused, if frum magazine ads are any indication.  There are always people willing to prey on the gullible or desperate by selling “charms” in various forms. 

But if you think of the key as an object to help us focus our kavannah [intentions] at a particular time of year... I say yea… and yay (cuz it involves bread, which I love)!

There’s a BIG difference in mindset between thinking, "this holy key will 'unlock' my income!" and thinking, "I hope this key symbolizes good things to come" (presumably with effort and prayer).  To me, this is a lot like what we do with various symbolic foods at Rosh Hashanah.

Israeli blogger Ester, from Kosher & Frugal, DID post a sensible warning we should all keep in mind: 

“Keys are often made of metals than can leach out into food if baked.” 

So although in past years I have wavered on whether or not to wrap the keys, I definitely did this year and will continue to do so as long as we keep on doing this minhag… which will, God willing, be for many years to come.

(I used tinfoil this year because it provided a tighter seal than parchment paper, which I’ve sometimes used in past)

*** LATE-BREAKING NEWS!  As I write this, I discovered this new article, which seems very authoritative, supporting the practice or at least not relegating it to the trash bin of “maybe Christians did it at one time so we definitely shouldn’t ever ever ever.”

This 2010 poll on the wonderful frum women’s site, imamother.com (still have no idea how to pronounce it - “imma mother” or “I’m a mother”? and I wonder if the ambiguity is intentional) reported that 61% of the 88 respondents bake a key into their challahs, while 17% don’t do anything special the Shabbos after Pesach.  Another 13% bake challahs in the shape of a key, which is a fascinating variation that I do want to try someday.

SO, nu?  Are you baking schlissel / key challah?  If not, why not, and if so… how do YOU do it???

Transform Pesach brownies into… something else

If your family is sick of Pesach brownies, or never liked them in the first place, or you’re looking for something a little shmancier, why not turn regular brownies into… well, this little compact-brownie terrine-thing that I don’t have a name for? 

(If after reading this post you know what it’s called, please leave a comment letting me know!)

It reminds me of those 5-layer Pesach bar cakes that you can buy for ridiculous prices in stores… only much, much cheaper.

I use two cast-iron loaf pans, which is nice because they’re heavy, thick and sturdy, but I imagine any two pans the same size will work.  (cast iron is also nice because it kashers for Pesach nice n’ easy when I self-clean the oven…).

This is not so much a recipe as a technique I hope will inspire you to great heights of deliciousness.

• You may want to line your loaf pan with plastic wrap before you begin for ease of removal.  I forgot – doh!
• Bake two square pans of Pesach brownies (recipe below, or Ester has a good one at her Frugal and Kosher blog).
• Cut brownies in half and place one half in the bottom of the loaf pan. 
• Brownies may crumble; that’s okay.  Just spread the pieces out evenly and squish any crumbles in to fill the cracks.  It’s okay if it looks a bit messy; it will hold together after hours of compaction.  (is that a real word???)
• Sprinkle brownie layer with kosher l’Pesach liqueur.  Any flavour you like will probably work – I used chocolate.
• Top with another brownie half.
• Spread with melted seedless jam – I like raspberry.
• Top with another brownie half and top that with liqueur one more time.
• Cover with plastic wrap and add second pan.  Weight it down and leave it for several hours (or overnight?).
• Remove from pan if it comes out easily – if it doesn’t, leave it in the pan and slice/serve it from there.
• When it’s done, you can melt chocolate and spread a hard coating on the outside to make it more like the cakes you buy in the store.

   

Brownies Recipe (copied & pasted from this thread)

These are fudgy and gooey in the middle and always a big hit. You can never have enough. They are best served with vanilla ice cream.

1 cup oil

4 eggs

2 cups sugar (I used 1 3/4)

1/2 cup potato starch

1 teaspoon vanilla (don’t have vanilla yet – drat)

1 cup cocoa

1 bag (2 cups) chocolate chips (I used only 1/2 cup)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients and pour into a 9-inch round or square baking pan. Bake for about 30 to 45 minutes – until top is cracked.

Okay – you’ve read the recipe.  What would you call this dessert????

Annual Homeschool Matzah Bake 5773/2013

Once again, we had some friends over for what’s become an annual pre-Pesach ritual:  home matzah baking!   Not kosher-le-Pesach, of course, but still… fun.

Recalling pitfalls from previous years, I vowed to:

• have enough rolling pins this year (everybody wants to roll!)*
• mix the dough by hand (no mixer – too sticky and, surprisingly, slower)
• no pasta roller – it produces more professional results but also, surprisingly, slower

(previous years’ posts:  5772, 5771, 5770 (just us, no friends))

I also pre-measured the flour and water, so each bowl had 1 cup of flour, with 1/3 of a cup of water standing by to pour in.

*NOTE:  To make sure I had enough rolling pins, I went to Home Depot yesterday and bought a 4-foot dowel (maybe 1.25” diameter?) and had them slice it into 4.  With a bit of sandpaper, a good washing, and a final oiling step, I had four perfectly useable kid-size rolling pins, for maybe $7-8.  (I did try Dollarama first but they had no rolling pins of any description, and I certainly didn’t want to end up with those horrid plastic ones.)

 

With the kids, I talked about all the yummy things we put into challah… like eggs, sugar, honey, oil, yeast, salt.  Mmm!  And then I told the kids – we don’t use ANY of that in matzah.  It’s like the opposite of tasty bread.

I also showed them what flour is made of – not just wheat flour, but all five of the grains that are traditionally considered “chametz” at Pesach time.  I expanded the “chametz museum” from last year’s edition a little bit by going to Noah’s (natural food store nearby) and buying 10-35 cents’ worth of each of wheat, barley, rye, oats and spelt, in as whole a form as I could find (they only had rye flour):

Naomi was dressed for the occasion in her brand-new apron from Uncle Richard.  She didn’t plan her outfit – everything just happened to co-ordinate perfectly.  Me with my Martha Stewart daughters… sheesh.

 

And then… well, the next little while was a blur, but eventually (not within 18 minutes, because my oven was broken; yay, the guy came to fix it this afternoon!), we all had some yummy black-bean spread on the matzah we’d made by hand.

 

And then… we did it all over again with another friend in the afternoon!

  

Happy Pesach, world!!!  Best wishes for a kosher and wonderful yom tov.

Love from the entire MamaLand administration, staff and volunteers (namely me).

Note:  for a full recipe and further instructions, you can visit Amital’s blog here.  Thanks for sharing your link!