The immigrant groups that have historically gotten the most attention in Chicago are the Italians and the Irish. Italians because of Al Capone, and the Irish because, well, they’re everywhere there. This is not to take anything away from Chicago-Irish notables like Mrs. O’Leary (whose cow supposedly started the Chicago fire) and bartender Mickey Finn, who was so notorious for drugging and robbing his customers that he became the basis for the idiom “slip a Mickey.”
READ ONLovers of Continental breads and pastries constantly wonder why there are so many more bakeries in France than in the United States. The simplest answer is that the French outsource more of their baking than we do. Historically we Americans have done most of our baking ourselves. The more you bake at home, the less you need bakeries. That’s the general rule.
Yet the old Central European neighborhoods to the West of Chicago didn’t abide by that rule. The Polish and Czech kids I knew in high school came from the some of the baking-est families I ever saw. Their grandmas made cookies, pies and buns by the dozens during the week…yet they and their parents still went shopping at the Cermak Road bakeries on Saturday mornings.
READ ONWait, you spelled the word differently in this post. Yes, that’s right. It’s the Polish spelling (or so I understand) because this is the Polish version. Or at least it’s the Chicago Polish version. Or one of them at any rate. Polish kolaczki are envelope-like cookies, made with a cream cheese short crust and jam. To make them you’ll need:
4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
6 ounces (1 1/2 sticks) butter, room temperature
7.5 ounces (1 1/2 cups) all-purpose flour
pinch salt
about twelve total ounces of filling(s) of your choice
powdered sugar for dusting
Here’s another project I’ve been fearing, but can hold out no longer. My twin sister called me up this morning to ask when I’m finally going to bite the bullet and make some good ol’ Chicago kolache. If you don’t know what kolache are, you may recognize them from some of their other spellings: kolaczki, kolacky, kolá?e or kolace. Still nothing? Then you don’t live among many Central Europeans (i.e. Poles, Czechs and Slovaks).
READ ONTraveling on business today, but I should have some time to blog during my lengthy layovers. If I can find a decent hot spot, you should hear from me later! – Joe
READ ONReader Mark asks:
Living in Denver, Colorado, which is known (among other things) as the Mile-High City, I know all about falling cakes. Can you comment on how altitude affects the baking process and what adjustments need to be made to recipes?
Great idea, Mark, and well-timed. What happened to me with my Japanese cheesecake is in fact very similar to what happens to most bakers at high altitudes: they get a whole lot of leavening action, which weakens their cake’s (or muffin’s or whatever’s) structure and the thing falls.
READ ON…asks reader Marci. How is it that you can add a fatty mixture to a batch of egg white foam and not have it collapse? That’s an excellent question, for indeed egg white foam and fat don’t mix…at least until the foam has already formed.
Those of you who recall other posts on egg white foam may remember the mechanics involved. Each individual bubble inside the foam stays intact because it’s being reinforced by a mesh of egg proteins. The long protein molecules are attracted to the bubble surface because some parts of them are water-loving (hydrophilic) and some are water-hating (hydrophobic). The surface of a bubble is therefore an ideal spot for them. They can stick their water-loving parts in water, their water-hating parts in the air, and they’re 100% happy. Additionally, they can (and do) bond with one another side-to-side, the result being a film that helps keep the bubble from popping.
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I’m not going to call this chiizukeiki or Japanese cheesecake, I’ve decided. I’m going to call it “cheesecake surprise.” Because let me tell you, I put a bite of this into my mouth convinced that I already knew what it tasted like…but I was completely surprised. For Japanese cheesecake has the feel of a dense soufflé or angelfood cake, but it has none of the dryness those sorts of egg foam-heavy foods can have. Instead it’s entirely moist, lightly sweet and smooth, and it vanishes off the tongue almost instantly, leaving nothing but a hint of New York behind. Remarkable.
READ ONThe short answer, reader Timothy, is because it rises. And while that may sound like a smartass answer to your question, it really isn’t. Cakes usually fall because they rise too aggressively. If you think of a baking cake as a mass of expanding bubbles encased in a starch-and-egg batter, the ideal is a bubble size that’s large, but not so large that it taxes the structure of the cake. For it is the batter surrounding the bubbles that’s ultimately going to solidify and hold the cake up. If the bubbles get too big too fast, the bubble walls get extremely thin, so thin that even after they harden they can’t support the weight above them…and the cake falls. This is why more leavening — especially chemical or mechanical (air bubble) — isn’t always a good thing. A balance is what’s needed.
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