Farm Fresh Eggs

Ms Scrumptious has finally recounted the adventure of buying eggs in the country around here in Michigan, a story I've been meaning to tell for ages. It delights me every single time I pull off the road onto the gravel drive behind an old farmhouse, wave hi to the cats and dogs and horses, and help myself to the eggs offered in a mini-fridge on the honor system. Thanks for sharing the photos and the story, Ms Scrumptious! And thank you so much for the wonderful visit, too. :)

(This has been an In My Box/Kitchen Empress crossover post!)

Quick Rye Bread Recipe -- Easy step-by-step guide with photos

As I learned from Alton Brown recently in his episode on muffins, the term "quickbread" distinguishes this class of breads from those that rely on yeast for leavening, since quickbreads generally use baking soda or baking powder for leavening and therefore do not require rising time.

The quickbreads most of us are familiar with are the sweet, fruity ones, like muffins and banana bread. Somewhere I happened upon a recipe for rye quickbread in the past few days, though, so I felt inspired to try my hand at another type of whole-grain loaf that didn't depend on yeast. I was craving bread today and didn't want to wait several hours before I could eat it fresh from the oven, steaming and crusty and spread with fresh organic butter. As I am writing this post, I smell the sweet, delicious scent of molasses-rich rye bread baking in the oven, and I know this is going to be a winner.

This is a modified version of a recipe I found on the veggieboards (here). It yields a delicious result in just over an hour from start to finish: dense, moist, and sweet with molasses. I would recommend it especially for avocado sandwiches, as suggested by the original poster, to accompany fresh salad and soup, or perhaps as the sandwich bread for a simple ham & cheese. Umlud and I are probably just going to devour it plain with some sharp cheddar cheese. It bears a little resemblance to the flavor & texture of the yummy fresh-baked bread we used to get with salads at Intermezzo in Berkeley.

Hunks of cheddar cheese with delicious, wholesome molasses-rye bread. So hot from the oven, the steam blurred the photo. . . :)

Quick Rye Bread
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Baking time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

• 1 cup organic milk or soymilk
• 1-1.5 Tbsp. cider vinegar
• 1 Tbsp. organic brown sugar (optional; I think I'd omit.)
• 3 Tbsp. unsulphured molasses
• 1 1/2 cups rye flour
• 1/2 cup spelt flour
• 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 2 Tbsp. caraway seeds (I used 1/2 tsp fennel seeds and 1.5 tsp cumin seeds, since I didn't have caraway, yielding an Indian-spiced bread delicious with cheddar cheese)
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• additional whole wheat flour for kneading

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
2. In a small bowl or glass measuring cup, sour the milk by adding in the vinegar, waiting a couple minutes, stirring, and adding a splash more of vinegar if necessary.The milk will be thick and a little chunky, sort of like yogurt or buttermilk.
   
3. Stir in the molasses and sugar, if desired. Set aside.
4. In a large bowl, combine the rye flour, all-purpose flour, oats, caraway seeds, baking powder, and baking soda. Add the milk mixture and stir well. Your dough will be rather sticky.
   
   Photos courtesy of Umlud, mostly.
   
5. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured bread board or countertop. A rubber spatula will help for scraping out stubbornly sticky dough.
6. Knead until the dough holds together (2 to 3 minutes).
7. If the dough remains very sticky, knead in a little more flour. Shape the dough into a round.
   As you'll see in this little video, courtesy of Umlud, the dough is really quite sticky. It would be handy to have extra flour at hand to bind all the dough together and remove it from your hands.
   
   
   
   
8. Place it on a lightly oiled baking sheet, and finish shaping as necessary, flattening and rounding until you have a satisfactory-looking rustic loaf. Bake until crusty and well browned (about 1 hour).

The Kitchen Empress is applying for her very first professional baking gig. Wish me luck!

Local sources for raw goat and cow milk in Livingston County, Michigan

Above, goat and proud owner at the Chambers family farm in Pinckney, Michigan. Image from Heavenly Dairy.

As I was recently raving about in Our Lady of the Lakes, I have recently discovered sources for local goat and cow milk in Livingston county, Michigan.

The lovely folks at Garden Patch Farms have pointed me to a local goat herder at Heavenly Dairy in Pinckney, and an organic bovine dairy in Cohoctah Township called Dairy Delight, both also in Livingston County. :) In the words of Kris Unger of Dairy Delight: "We disasterized the food system," she said. "How dare the government tells us we can't drink raw milk."

I'll follow up with a visit to the farms and photos sometime soon!!

By the way, Jim Wallace has compiled a helpful online list of local sources for raw milk, in case you're interested but don't live here in Michigan. There's another list available here.

And Dr. Mercola just wrote a couple pieces on the politics and trials and tribulations of organic dairy farming, including some information on the health aspects of organic dairy consumption, and one on weight loss and milk consumption.

Step-by-step illustrated breadbaking guide

Delicious, homemade whole wheat bread with crunchy hints of cornmeal and 10-grain cereal.

Recently, in Our Lady of the Lakes (my personal blog), I was waxing philosophical about bread baking. Though I've been making quick breads frequently for many years, it hasn't become a regular practice for me to bake yeasted breads up until recently. It's a combination of interest in cooking, desire for delicious homemade bread, concern for health, stress relief, and budgetary reasons* that compel me to make my own breads.

Under regular circumstances I don't have the time to do so as a doctoral student juggling papers, meetings, and teaching responsibilities, but the spring term brings some extra time. Now that I am becoming more comfortable with the process, though, I find that it isn't nearly as time-consuming as it can seem. If you're doing work from home, taking a break to knead or punch down a dough can be fun and very relaxing. Also, contrary to popular understanding, baking yeasted bread really isn't difficult, as long as you have a clear sense of the appropriate proportions and the stages involved. Recently I've made several variations including leftover rice, sweetened condensed milk, cream, and a variety of other things I had leftover and needed to clean out of the fridge. All of them have been exceptional.

As I explained in my post a few weeks ago, I bake from the Tassajara Bread Book by Edward Espe Brown, which lays out the directions in easy, clearly explained steps with images, perfect for beginners. Here are a few photos of my process, making a nice sweet whole wheat loaf with molasses, whole milk, and a hint of cornmeal and multi-grain cereal.

I opted to make 3/4 of Brown's general whole wheat bread recipe, yielding three nice loaves. I only took the photos later in the process, after the second rising. I turned the nice dough out on a floured board, cut it into three roughly evenly sized pieces, and began the final kneading and shaping of the loaves.

Ingredients:

I. For the sponge:

• 6 cups lukewarm water (subsitute a portion with milk, if desired)
• 2 tablespoons yeast (2 pkgs)
• 1/2-3/4 cup honey or brown sugar or molasses
• 2 cups powdered milk (I omit, using regular milk instead)
• 7-9 cups whole grain flour
  -- Brown calls for whole wheat flour, but I generally use a mixture including whole wheat flour (I use King Arthur brand), buckwheat, spelt, and rye flours, and about a half-cup each of whole-grain cornmeal (polenta) and 10-grain cereal from Bob's Red Mill (the 10-grain cereal contains: whole grain wheat, whole grain corn, whole grain rye, whole grain triticale [wheat], whole grain oats, soy beans, whole grain millet, whole grain barley, whole grain brown rice, oat bran, flaxseed)
  

II. For adding after the sponge rises:

• 2.5 tablespoons salt
• 1/2-1 cup fat (oil, butter, etc; I often use almond or other nut oils with beautiful results)
• 6-8 cups additional whole wheat flour
• 2-3 cups whole wheat flour (for kneading)

Directions (I still recommend Brown's book for more complete explanation)

I. Make the sponge.

1. Dissolve yeast in the water.
2. Add sweetening and powdered milk.
3. Stir in the flour until a thick batter is formed.
4. Beat all these ingredients together well with a spoon, about 100 strokes.
5. Let rise for 60 minutes.

II.

1. Fold in salt and oil.
2. Fold in additional flour until dough comes away from the sides of the bowl.
3. Knead for about 10-15 minutes on a floured board, using more flour as needed until dough doesn't stick to hands or board.
4. Place into an oiled bread bowl, and let bread rise for 50 minutes
5. Punch down.
6. Let rise 40 more minutes.
7. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (F).
8. Turn the dough onto the board, shape into a ball, and cut into four even pieces. Shape into balls again, and let sit for five minutes.
9. Now, shape your dough into loaves.

It's best, in general, to use a flat palm for kneading, pushing the dough forward with the weight of your whole body, centering the weight into the ball of the hand toward the end of the push.


Occasionally I also do a little punching, though. With a heavy dough like this one it can be easier to get it compacted this way, and it's a fun way of getting out aggression, too.

10. Once you finish the final kneading (about 5-6 rounds of kneading, folding in half, turning a quarter turn, and kneading again), it's time to finish shaping the loaves. Roll the dough into a little log shape, then proceed to pinch the seams together.

11. Then pat it into the form of a loaf, squaring off the edges.


(Action shots above courtesy of Umlud.)

12. Put the loaves into greased pans, and press down into loaf pan with flat fingers. (I actually have only one bread pan at the moment, so I typically make rolls or round loaves and just one rectangular loaf. Up top is the prettiest of the three that I made this time, a round loaf.)
16. Remove from pans and cool on baking rack.
13. Let loaves rise for about 20 minutes.
14. Cut slits into the top of the loaves, about 1/2 inch deep, to allow steam to escape.
15. Bake at 350 degrees for about 50-70 minutes, until the top is nice and golden brown. If you have differently shaped or sized loaves, they may need to bake different amounts of time.
17. Though Brown recommends letting it cool for an hour to ensure the slices are clean, I like to eat it right out of the oven with organic butter and organic strawberry jam. Sunspire makes a delicious one you can buy in a big jar at COSTCO for about $8, probably less than the cost of making it yourself in the height of berry season. (That is, unless you have access to berry fields where you can pick organic strawberries for $1 a pound, like Ms Scrumptious does at Eatwell Farms!)

*Even buying the highest-quality whole grain flours, I save considerably on the loaves. Comparable bread from local bakeries like Avalon or Zingerman's cost in the range of $7-10 for a fresh loaf, plus the cost of gas to and from the market, no small factor for those of us living in rural areas, as Wise Bread points out. In the winter, I also heat up my kitchen with the gas oven, reducing the heating required in the house.

Mexican Chocolate Cake - Recipe with Photo

Last night, in honor of my friend Jenay's birthday, I felt inspired to bake a cake, and I tried a variation on my favorite fail-safe chocolate cake recipe that was quite magnificent. The innovations built on one another slowly. Earlier in the day I had tried some lovely imperial melange tea I'd bought in an Arabic shop some time back, and I had some left over, so in lieu of my usual strong coffee I substituted the fragrant black tea for Aunt Georgie's original hot water.

That got me thinking how nice it would be to add spices; I considered cardamom, and even lavender, but I settled on cinnamon, thinking about the delight of Mexican chocolate. I fresh-ground a hint of cinnamon with a mortar and pestle, and the gorgeous aroma filled my kitchen.

When I added the first bit to the batter, though, it wasn't quite as strong as I wanted, so I grabbed another cinnamon stick from my Indian spice cupboard. There among the black cardamom pods, cloves, and dried pomegranate seeds, I noticed the jar of red chili flakes, and, thinking of the popular precolonial habit of merging the flavors of chili and cacao, I decided to throw in a pinch of that too.

By the time the fragrant spiced chocolate cake was baking in the oven in an old timer garage sale Bundt pan I'd unearthed in the back of my cabinet, I knew I was committed all the way and needed to find something to top the cake with. I settled on a glaze, but was disappointed with many of the first recipes I saw, which called for corn syrup. . . and then I found Rebecca Rather's Mexican chocolate cake recipe, bursting with real cream and melted chocolate, butter, and toasted pecans, and knew I had the right glaze, particularly since her chocolate cake recipe bore a real similarity to mine. I just opted for milk rather than half-and-half, and decided to keep the pecan halves intact, since I thought that would make an elegant topping for the cake.

What follows is my new Mexican chocolate cake recipe, my own version, from what I made last night with rave reviews from everybody at the party. :) I'm hoping a [bigger cake] photo will follow at some point, since many were taken there!


Mexican Chocolate Cake (with Pecan Glaze topping)

Ingredients

For cake

3 cups (300 g) sifted flour
2 cup (400 g) sugar
6 Tbsp (100 ml) baking cocoa
2 tsp (10 ml) baking soda
1 tsp (5 ml) salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup (120 g) organic unsalted butter, melted
2 cup (500 ml) sour organic milk (see note below in Directions, Tip #1)
1/2 cup (120 ml) hot black tea (Earl Grey or Imperial Melange)

2 Tbsp (39 ml) vanilla
2 sticks cinnamon
1 pinch hot red chili flakes (a bit more if you actually want it spicy)

For glaze

• 2 cups pecan halves (71/2 oz)
• 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted organic butter
• 1/2 cup whole organic milk
• 1/2 cup confectioners sugar
• 5 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), broken into pieces (I used a 4-oz bar of Ghiradelli bittersweet and1 oz of Ghiradelli 100% chocolate)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Special equipment: a 9-inch tube pan or 12-cup bundt pan

Directions

Preheat oven to 350F or 175C. Sift together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt into mixing bowl.
Add egg, butter, sour milk, hot water and vanilla.
Grind cinnamon and chili to a fine powder with a mortar and pestle. Add to the batter.

Beat (preferably with an electric mixer) at medium speed for 2 minutes.
Pour batter into a very well greased Bundt pan.
Bake at 350F or 175C until it tests done (a toothpick or fork comes out clean), about 55 minutes. Cool in pan.
Tip: To sour sweet milk, place 2 Tbsp (15 ml) vinegar in a measuring cup and add enough milk to make 2 cups (500 ml).

Walnut Molasses Hermits

They aren't the prettiest ever, but boy do they taste good.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 c unbleached flour
• 1/4 ts Salt
• 1 1/2 Tbsp pumpkin pie spice (or, 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp nutmeg, and 1/4 tsp cloves)
• 1/2 c organic unsalted butter
• 2 1/2 cup turbinado sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated white sugar
• 2 cage-free organic eggs, beaten
• 1/2 c unsulphured blackstrap molasses
• 1 cup raisins, chopped
• 2 Tbsp organic whole milk
• 1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped

Instructions

1. Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and spices.
2. Cream butter and sugar, add eggs and molasses.
3. Mix in the dry ingredients, raisins, and milk, then add walnuts.
4. Gather the dough together in one lump, cover with plastic wrap, and chill for 2 hours.
5. Preheat oven to 350F.
6. On a lightly floured board, roll out 1/2 of the dough at a time to a thin sheet and cut into desired shapes.
7. Bake on greased cookie sheets for 10 minutes.

Yield: 60 small cookies

(Based on recipe for molasses hermits from The New Settlement Cookbook, posted to MM-Recipes Digest by "Cindy Hartlin" on Nov 16, 1999.)