Alpha Baker catch-up no. 2 - Raisin cinnamon awirl* bread

This is another catch-up post which I'm squeezing in before the Alpha Bakers hang up their alphas and become ordinary bakers again. I made this Raisin Cinnamon Swirl Bread quite a long time ago and I don't remember much about it except that it was a very straightforward process.

I also remember that the bread was delicious and that my loaf came out looking quite handsome with a nice rounded top. As you can see in the top photo, there's a gaping hole between the top of the bread and the first swirly bit, which means I did something wrong. Possibly not a tight enough roll. And now I come to think about it I remember that I found the instructions for rolling the dough up a bit mystifying.

The swirl is pretty to look at (even a half-hearted one like mine) but my favourite type of raisin bread is one with the spices mixed through it. I think this dough would shine more as buns, rather than a loaf. Then you could add icing...

*somehow I mis-typed swirl as 'awirl' but I quite liked it, so I left it.

My last catch-up will be the Luscious Apple Pie which I missed making with the Alpha Bakers last year, I think. Stay tuned.

A sandy star is born

Everything is better in a star shape. This is a universal truth. Actually when I was dipping the raw dough cut-outs of 'The Dutch' Pecan Sandies* in sugar and cinnamon, they resembled starfish more than stars. Which incidentally are pretty life-affirming themselves, in a blobby kind of way. 

And I don't know if it was all the influence of the shape but these biscuits really are stars. They're delicately crunchy, very sandy, nutty flavoured and perfumed with cinnamon and a mix of sugars. They got a thumbs up all round from my taste-testers. A definite hit.

I was busy telling my colleague that they weren't very difficult to make at all, and then I started to say, 'well except for the beurre noisette (that takes aaaages) and then mixing is quick but you need to leave it in the fridge, then roll it out, then refrigerate, then cut, then refrigerate, then dip....'. Hmmmm difficult really is a relative term. If you've ever made a 9-pages-of-instructions, behemoth cheesecake, cake and buttercream extravaganza then starry biscuits are somewhat of a doddle in comparison.

*I suspect biscuit marketers would have something to say about that name, it doesn't exactly roll off the page. 

I was wishing we had smellovision when I mixed the three sugars (white sugar, brown sugar and golden sugar) with vanilla essence, so you could all experience the aroma, which was unbelievably delicious. I spent the time while I was waiting for the brown butter to cool, hanging out next to the bowl of delicious sugary scents.

I actually made my biscuits with walnuts rather than pecans. I have a big bag (now slightly smaller) which I bought for another Alpha Baker project. Everything is going to be walnut until I get that thing finished. The nutty flavour was delicious so it seemed to be a happy substitution.

I had seen biscuits called 'sandies' before in North American recipes but I didn't know what they were exactly. There's no mystery once you taste one - they are gritty like a mouthful of sand except sweeter and tastier. The texture is intriguing if you haven't tried it before. I didn't have time to google but I'm wondering if they're related to the Spanish polverones which literally 'pulverise' when you bite into them? I always thought they were more shortbread-ish. Whatever they are, they taste great. Probably even if they're round.

Next week the Alpha Bakers are making Babka.

Half a sugar rose brioche

I read Alpha Baker Kimberlie's early post on making the Sugar Rose Brioche just as I started making mine. I saw she had made double the brioche dough recipe and thought, 'that's a good idea, I should have done that'. Then while my loaf was baking I read Marie's post and realised I really should have done that. I completely missed the instruction to double the dough recipe. This explained why I had such a good covering of sugar and cinnamon and why I thought my loaf would never rise enough to fill up the cake tin specified in the recipe. And it was lucky I realised in time that my loaf probably didn't need the whole cooking time since it was half the size. 

The loaf was still a little dry because I hadn't rescued it quite early enough. However it was extra sweet and cinnamony from the accidental double spice amount and it made delicious toast. This was fun to make and not as difficult as you might think to get that twisty shape. I also liked the texture this time although often I prefer more structured bready textures to brioche. 

Here I submit the evidence that I strained the egg AND the sugar and cinnamon. And I was rewarded for this unusual meticulousness by a shower of cinnamon all over the kitchen. You would be amazed how far the dust flew from those few teaspoons of spice.

I used quite a bit of flour to dust the dough since we're at full strength heat and humidity at the moment in Darwin and both the dough and I were sweating as soon as I took it out of the fridge. I can't tell if it made a (negative) difference to the dough. It seemed fine to me.

This is a circle of dough. I mean it is meant to be a circle even though it looks a lot lik a wonky rectangle. I managed to roll it out to the approximate size that was specified for the double recipe so once I rolled it up my swirls must have been a lot closer together then the full recipe. When we're talking more sugar and cinnamon to the crumb-age, I can't see any negative here.

I thought to myself as I was sprinkling, 'this recipe gives really good coverage of the sugar and cinnamon...'.

I rolled crossways from the corner of my rectangle to trick it into becoming a circle. 

The final cutting and shaping process for the loaf was a little intimidating. I managed to get through the cutting and twisting steps more or less okay, with just a few 'what?!'...'oh', moments. But when it came to the final curling of the dough onto the cake tin, I felt like I was playing twister, with all my limbs involved in holding pieces of dough, while simultaneously looking at the instructions. Only to find them lacking an explanatory picture for that crucial step. So many other photos, why none of the final shaping of the loaf?! On the other hand I have no photographic evidence of that step either (no more limbs to operate the camera) so maybe I shouldn't point the wooden spoon.

This made a pretty large loaf even with half the dough, so I imagine the full size must have been pretty big. It is a pretty impressive loaf which requires more patience and time than high level skills. It would make an eye-catching contribution to a breakfast or morning tea, even at half the recipe.

Next week we're making Hazelnut Praline Cookies.

The most delicious strudelly biscuit

Do not wait. Do not think. Do not stop. Go straight home and make these. You may want to stop for some ice cream to eat with them but that's the only diversion you should make. These are seriously delicious (not really biscuits and not really strudel) and you do not want to miss out. If you've read my other posts you won't be surprised to learn I did NOT wait the recommended 6 hours after baking to try these. I don't think I even made the 6 minute mark. And I just kept on 'trying' them. Eventually I rushed some over to my neighbour, just so I could truthfully say I hadn't eaten them all myself.

These are the rather prosaically named (for Rose) Cookie Strudel from the Baking Bible. I'm not sure I would have chosen to bake them, if left to my own devices, because the picture doesn't do justice to the flavour (how could it?!) plus it's always a bit trying to make this kind of pastry in the heat. I love Rose's rugelach but they always end up looking like they fell out of the oven when I make them at Christmas. Of course I've learnt some new skills over the last (almost) year; in particular the benefits of refrigerating dough/biscuits at every stage to help combat the effects of the heat and humidity.

Actually you might be slightly misled by my 'do not stop' advice since you have to wait a number of hours for the pastry dough to firm up in the fridge before you can finish these. And if you live in a very warm climate like Darwin you need to refrigerate during the shaping and before the baking too.

You can see that my dough came out very wet. It looks like cake batter almost. It was quite tasty but not really rating highly on the delicious scale for raw dough. 

It was a miracle that (after overnight in the fridge) that wet dough was able to be rolled out (using plentiful amounts of flour) into a thin rectangle (with some emergency refrigeration in between).

The scant filling of walnuts, currants and cinnamon on top of apricot jam makes this a fairly cheap biscuit/dessert to make. 

Now that my workmates have discovered phylliscaroline there are no baking secrets anymore and I fear I may have to make a batch for them to avoid outrage and retribution for not sharing. I might need to make it double batch. Surely I couldn't eat a double batch myself before I got to work...?

Next week the Alpha Bakers are making (the long winded) Marble in Reverse with Custom Rose Blend Ganache Glaze.