Later kiddies!
Headed to Chicago with the wife and little ones for a long weekend. It’s my first time in a car with two children so, pray for me. See you Wednesday!
READ ONAuthor: joepastry
How to Get a Head in Baking
Well the brioche turned out pretty darn OK yesterday. The crumb was tender, yellow and buttery and the shapes were good. Fewer of the little têtes flopped over than usual, and that was nice, but really beside the point. Personally, I get very irritated by bakers and baking instructors who call any brioche à tête […]
READ ONIs This Man the Antichrist?
Charles Stuart Platkin, the latest in the never-ending string of diet scolds and/or killjoys that our culture churns out, can be heard today on NPR. I caught the feature at 1 P.M. Eastern, you can probably hear it again this evening at rush hour, or listen to it here. I found his tirade against cupcakes […]
READ ONThe Brown Butter Advantage
One nifty little brioche trick I picked up a few years ago involves adding a small amount of brown butter to the dough. The roasty, nutty character it brings to the finished product is subtle but worth it. And anyway it’s more butter, so how can you go wrong? Just add an ounce or so […]
READ ONWhat’s the deal with the top knot?
The shape of a brioche à tête, it may surprise you to learn, is primarily functional. When made properly (that is, with lots and lots of butter) brioche dough needs a large amount of yeast. Why? To lift all that fat off the ground of course! Such a high proportion of yeast causes an extremely […]
READ ONFor the Week of May 21, 2007
Brioche is truly amazing stuff. Sticky buns are really just the beginning of what this dough can do. In fact it’s amazing all by itself, which is why I think it would be worthwhile to stay on it for another week, and prepare it in one of its more classic forms: brioche à tête. Tête […]
READ ONMesdames et Messieurs…ze Sticky Bun
Now that’s a breakfast I can really get behind. Sadly, I awoke too early and was a bit too bleary to remember to take a picture of what the sticky buns looked like when they were fully proofed and ready for baking. Suffice to say they were extremely soft and poofy (the dough felt almost […]
READ ONAh, cupcakes.
Is there anything better with a glass of milk on a Spring afternoon? I think not! Which is why, when we passed a developmental milestone with little Josephine this weekend (a potty-related thing you don’t need to know about) there was no question as to the reward: a gummy candy crocodile she saw at Target. […]
READ ONAnd now a word from the Butter Council…
I’m a broken record on this but I’ll say it again: any time you’re gearing up for a butter-intensive project, pay up for some of the good Euro stuff. It’ll be double the price of your garden-variety unsalted, but the taste — especially in something like a brioche where there are no other competing flavors […]
READ ONYou say tomato…
Is there a difference between sticky buns and cinnamon rolls? Eh, not really. The main difference is shape. Sticky buns tend toawrds squareness since they’re usually made in baking pans, and cinnamon rolls (frequently made in round molds, at least in bakeries) are round. Usually. To me the two are different only in that cinnamon […]
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