No, they’re not pastry and not really bread, either. They’re not even baked now that I think about it. However last year I swore that when tamale season returned, I’d do them. Also given all the holiday breads, cakes and cookies we’ve all been exposed to I think they might make a nice breather from […]
READ ONRegular reader and commenter Linda writes in with this very interesting question:
READ ONI checked your archives and did not see anything about equipment, particularly types of baking sheets and pans and which are better. I made your mother’s banana bread over the holiday break and it was absolutely wonderful! However, I used some new loaf pans and while the top was browned to perfection, I thought the sides and bottom were much too crispy and overdone. The same thing happened to a Tuscan Coffee Cake I’ve made every Christmas for the past several years when I baked it in my new cake pans. I’ve noticed that whenever I use my “new and improved” non-stick, heavy duty pans from reputable outfits such as Calphalon, they seem to overcook on the sides and/or bottom. When I use my ancient, inherited from mom and grandmother thin aluminum pans that I’ve used for decades, everything comes out perfectly.
I keep vowing to get a plugin to more efficiently handle the spam that comes into the comment fields here on joepastry.com. It would certainly save me the ten or so minutes I spend every day scanning all the e-missives that come in for approval and deleting them manually. On the down side I’d lose out on a lot of good laughs. Granted most of them are of the sardonic variety, the how stupid they think I am? kind of laughs.
I emit those dark chuckles when I see spamsters trying to get around my spelling filters with emails that offer free “pron” twenty four hours a day. On the other hand these people may have simply read a few of my posts and understand all too well how consistent I am at spelling. I get tons emails from a guy who calls himself “Best Waterfilter” and many, many others from a young lady with the unfortunate name of “Cheap UGGboots.”
READ ONI received several questions to that effect last week — oh and…I hope everyone out there had a terrific Christmas and a not-too-painful post-New Year’s hangover. My speculation is that most of the people who asked this question own Peter Reinhart’s excellent book, The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, for in it the panettone and stollen both employ the same dough, the main difference being that the stollen has twice the fruit plus marzipan.
Much as I respect and admire Peter Reinhart, I’m not down with his implicit assertion that panettone and stollen are the same thing under the hood. Reminds me of the time my uncle claimed that his new $25,000 Toyota was exactly the same thing as a $50,000 Lexus. Sure it had a dissimilar appearance and handled completely differently, but inside all the important parts were identical. Call me skeptical.
READ ONThat’ll do it for Joe Pastry for 2011. Thank you everyone for another highly productive, and frequently hilarious, year. Thanks for following along and — in many cases — contributing. Let’s do it again in2012!
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Having baked so many darn things the past eleven years, I confess I get a little cynical about preparations that seem to closely resemble other things. I do a sort of lazy man’s mental math…let’s see…brioche + sugar + candied fruit = yeah, I think I know what that’s all about. I think that’s why I’ve put off making my own panettone for so long. That and the fact that I’ve tasted so many of the impressively-tall-yet-disappointingly-dry versions. You start to wonder what all the fuss is about. Having finally made my own, now I know — and this stuff is good.
READ ONNo, reader Lusi, it certainly doesn’t. That story is but one of the many myths that attempt to explain the origin of panettone. For those of you who’ve never heard it, the legend holds that a prince of Milan once fell in love with the daughter of a local baker, Antonio, whose business was faltering. The prince disguised himself as a baker’s apprentice and began working at the bakery where he “mysteriously” began acquiring expensive ingredients like eggs, butter and candied fruits, all of which he put into a new bread he called “Toni’s bread.” Of course it was a smash hit among the populace. The bakery was saved, the prince married the daughter and everyone lived happily ever after. Ugh.
READ ONWell my pre-Christmas preparations have certainly been getting the best of my schedule. This morning I’ve been shopping, simmering stock, baking panettone and assembling a rather complex gingerbread interpretation of our house (a special request from elves 1 and 2). So it’s been a rather busy morning. I hope for better this afternoon. If not […]
READ ONI’ve had a cold the last few days which is why I’ve been moving slow (that Christmas party in Chicago was a doozy). However I did give the recipe a dry run last week and since then four other readers have done the same. The jury is in agreement that the Fiori di Sicilia is […]
READ ONThis last week I’ve received quite a bit of correspondence from readers who, motivated by the prospect of home baked pannetone, have initiated their own homegrown bread starters. The giddy joy they’ve radiated has charmed me to say the least. And indeed I relish an opportunity to help modern bakers get personally acquainted with some of the best & tiniest friends mankind has ever had.
To say that I’m impressed by fermentation is a vast understatement. In truth I am in awe of it. Who, after all, can fathom how it came to pass that almost without fail — on virtually any part of the planet — the microbes that will win the day in a bowl of flour-water slush won’t give you anthrax, hemorrhagic fever or acne, but will instead leaven your bread or ferment your beer for you? I mean…what are the odds?
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