A Celebration of Wheat 6.27.11

Clear Flour Bread,, 178 Thorndike Street, Brookline, MA
http://clearflourbread.com/

I figure I'd include the website since I've featured so many of this bakery's products on my blog.  Today's special is Pain Meunier

Pain Meunier ("Miller's Bread") - Each step of taking grain to flour is used: cracked wheat, whole wheat flour, wheat germ & white flour

It's like a wonderful, whole grain, sandwich bread.

Let's talk crumb!  This loaf has a loose, yet pretty regular (even texture) crumb.  It's not completely even, since you can see the holes toward the top of the loaf are larger than the ones near the bottom.  Nice for sandwiches, or when I top them with tomato sauce and melted cheese (like a pizza). 

Bread in many languages (from Google Translator; but don't ask me how to pronounce them)

brood - Afrikaans bukë - Albanian
خبز (khubz)- Arabic
հաց - Armenian
çörək - Azerbaijani ogia - Basque
хлеб - Belarusian
রুটি - Bengali
хляб - Bulgarian
pa - Catalan
(miànbāo) - Chinesekruh - Croatian
chléb - Czech
brød - Danish
brood - Dutch
leib - Estonian
tinapay - Filipino
leipä - Finnish
pain - French
pan - Galician
პური - Georgian
Brot - German ψωμί - Greek
બ્રેડ - Gujarati
pen - Hatian Creole
לחם (lehem) - Hebrew
रोटी (roti) - Hindi kenyér - Hungarian
brauð - Icelandic
roti - Indonesian
arán - Irish
pane - Italian
(pan) - Japanese
(ppang) - Korean
panis - Latin
maize - Latvian
duona - Lithuanian
roti - Malay
brød - Norwegian
ħobż - Maltese
نان - Persian
chleb - Polish
pão - Portuguese
pâine - Romanian
хлеб (hleb) - Russian
хлеб  - Serbian
chlieb - Slovak
kruh - Slovenian
pan - Spanish
mkate - Swahili
bröd - Swedish
ரொட்டி - Tamil
బ్రెడ్ - Telugu
ขนมปัง - Thai
ekmek - Turkish
хліб - Ukrainian
روٹی - Urdu
bánh mì - Vietnamese
bara - Welsh
ברויט
- Yiddish

A gluten-free wedding 6.25.11

Harvest-on-Hudson, 1 River Street, Hastings, NY
Bouchon Bakery, Ten Columbus Circle, Third Floor, New York, NY (for the macaroons only)

Wedding Cake!  I haven't gotten a description on the wedding cake yet, but it was chocolately, with a raspberry cream layer and chocolate ganache (with gelatin).  Yum!

Wedding favors were classic French almond macaroons (chocolate and vanilla).  I ablsolutely love these and need to learn how to make them.

Love the feet!

Dessert also included a cookie plate for each table.  Gluten-free?  The mini cannolis were great.

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies 6.24.11

Trying out another recipe from Baking Illustrated.  I'm pretty happy with how these cookies came out.  I'm trying to use up the last of my Splenda Brown Sugar Blend, so I substituted half of the brown sugar for the Splenda blend.  I hope I didn't compromise too much on the coloring or the spread of the cookies.  Using the sugar blend means the dough has less sugar content, so the cookies will brown less and spread less....theoretically.

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

What's really interesting is the shaping procedure recommended by Baking Illustrated.  For each cookie, take a scant 1/4 cup of dough and form it into a loose ball.  Then tear the ball into two equal pieces, turn the torn side up, and push the two halves together.  This gives the top of each portion of cookie dough a very ragged look.  When the dough softenes up in the oven, the jagged balls smooth out slightly, but still have a nice (rustic?) homemade look to them.  The method, however, is a little time consuming, so I'm going to see if there's a faster way.  Maybe I can scoop out two cookies and rip each portion in half, turning them jagged side up on the baking sheet. 

I had some trouble with the oven temperature this morning.  The first batch cooked for 15 minutes, but I was blocking the temperature gague in the oven, so it went up to 400 at some point (cookies were supposed to be baked at 325).  For the second batch I didn't block the sensor, so they baked at 325 the entire time and took 18 minutes and still didn't come out as brown as the first six. 


Thick and Chewy CC Cookies baked at 325 F (as directed in the recipe)

Thick and Chewy CC Cookies (accidentally) baked at a higher temperature

I like the thicker, rounder cookies better, so I'd try baking at 350 or 375 next time.  Although, I'll have to compensate for using all brown sugar, so we'll see what happens.  Also, I never tried doing a direct portion scoop, I pulled each cookie dough ball in half as directed by baking illustrated.  I really like how the tops look, so maybe that's a good method to go buy. 

Black and White Cookies 6.22.11

Yes, I'm obsessed with Black and White Cookies

I made these during class (we had a lot of extra time).  I overbaked them by 3 or 4 mintues, so they turned out over dry.  I forgot to bring in my lemon extract, so I substituted with lemon juice (I should have used lemon zest) and I didn't add enough so the cookies were not lemony enough.  Icing came out okay, although I added a littlt bit too much black food coloring to the chocolate icing.  Also, when I was scooping them, I forgot to press down the second portion scoop into the baking sheet, so the cookies baked up higher than usual.

The sizing was okay, and the final presentation looks good.  Next time they will be perfect.

Clear Flour Bread 6.12.11

Clear Flour Bread, 178 Thorndike Street, Brookline, MA

I brought home a loaf of sourdough after my stage today.  I actually sliced this and froze it.  It lasted for a week.  I toasted pieces straight from the freezer for breadfast toast or sandwhiches.  I was very happy with the quality even after a week.  The bread still had a moist crumb, and toasting it gave the slices a nice crunch.

Japonaise Bakery 6.11.11

Japonaise Bakery, 1020 Beacon Street, Brookline, MA

I'm impressed with the good quality of all the products here.  When I brought all of these home after my stage, I devoured the ham and cheese croissant and the tuna roll (not pictured).  I was really hungry, and after sampling a lot of sweets, I was craving something more savory.  I also had a slice of strawberry shortcake (not pictured) in the store, which was very good too.  My favorites at Japonaise are the Ichigo Cream and the strawberry shortcake....guess I'm a farawla fan at heart.

Ham and Cheese Croissant

Maple Pecan Cinnamon Roll

Chocolate Dipped Cake

Melon Pan (named so because it is shaped like a melon!)

Wild Berry Scone

Maple Pecan Cinnamon Roll - very sweet!

Pan Au Raisin

Paris-Brest Take 2

I am practicing my Paris-Brest cake for my trial day on Saturday.  Take 1 was hampered by difficulty with my pate a choux.  But all was corrected for take 2 (well mostly all.  I could have cooked the pate a choux a little more, and I should have egg washed the pate a choux before baking.).  But I'm happy with the results now and think this will be okay for the stage. 

Paris-Brest cake: half filled with lemon pastry cream and powdered sugar, half filled with vanilla pastry cream

A slice shows nice proportion of cream, although I might try a little more pastry cream next time.

Here's the cake before the top is replaced.  I portioned the top for easier serving.

Clear Flour Bread Part II 6.7.11

Clear Flour Bread (formerly Clear Flour Bakery), 178 Thorndike Street, Brookline, MA

My sampler pack from Clear Flour Bread includes (clockwise from the flower): the flower, french baguette, new england night, and rustic olive roll.

The flower is my favorite.  The middle of the flower is doughy and delicious.  It's like the muffin top of the flower.  It is good to dig out the bread from the interior of the petals too.  That's my second favorite part.

French: traditional - flour, water, yeast, and salt - thin crisp crust
New England Night: organic rye and whole wheat is filled with pecans, sweetened with cranberries, and moistened with milk & honey
Rustic Olive Roll: our crunchy smoky Rustic Italian rolled with extra strength California green olives in a special spicy marinade

Kent's Country Cookies 6.4.11

Kent's Country Cookies, Fayetteville, GA

Gourmet Cookies, very good.  Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Cookies (foreground) and Chocolate Chip Cookies (background)

Japonaise Bakery 6.1.11

Japonaise Bakery, 1020 Beacon Street, Brookline, MA

Ichigo Cream - croissant layered with our soft, silky custard cream and fresh strawberry slices

This was pretty delicious. The texture of the flaky croissant contrasts with the soft custard.  The strawberries give yummy flavour and additional texture.  This is certainly my favorite dessert at the bakery.

Custard Cream - Sweet bread filled generously with our silky custard cream and covered with a soft, semi-sweet topping

The custard cream was only my second favorite.  These prewrapped pastries are all about the cream.  The cream is very good, but with the bread and topping is very sweet and all parts have a very soft texture.

Custard Cream dissected

Clear Flour Bread 6.1.11

Clear Flour Bread (formerly Clear Flour Bakery), 178 Thorndike Street, Brookline, MA

New England Night (This is a roll, but it also comes in loaves.) - organic rye and whole wheat is filled with pecans, sweetened with cranberries, and moistened with milk & honey

The bakery has been in business over 20 years.  Owned by Abe Faber and Christy Timon.  If you are walking toward the bakery (front door on the left) on the sidewalk, you will pass the kitchen and smell the most wonderful aroma of freshly baked breads.