Adieu Sur La Table Grand Rapids

A chapter has come to an end, not only for me but for many who enjoyed what this place had to offer.

Sur La Table Breton South here in Grand Rapids MI has closed permanently. Once the virus hit, Sur La Table stores across the country were closed for a solid three+ months. Some went under the axe, although Breton South survived the first cut and opened for retail in early July. But Chapter 11 bankruptcy and sale of the company led to more closures including Breton. Classes never resumed and now the space is available for the next business that might want to set up shop. Who knows, eh?

It was a great place to teach pastry classes. The kitchen well appointed, sunny and light with plenty of room to do what needed to be done. I met lots of interesting people (both co-workers and students), learned a lot myself and enjoyed being busy with prepping, setting up and instructing all types of folks with all levels of interest and experience. Good stuff.

Morning buns

Macarons

Rustic Dutch oven bread

New York style bagels

Thanks for the memories.

On to the next chapter, whatever that may be. Meanwhile my new mantra is “I walk, I bake, I blog, I dream”.

Enjoy autumn and may you find your own new adventures.

Orange olive oil cake

My baking focus during these self isolation/shelter-in-place days has revolved around ingredients on hand that I’d like to use up or at least pare down - white whole wheat flour, whole wheat pastry flour, potato flour, semolina, rolled oats, coconut milk, coconut chips, a lime, rum, almond paste, dried cranberries, sesame seeds, chocolate batons, oranges/zest just to name a few.

So far I’ve made chocolate pistachio swirls (stay tuned), coconut pound cake with coconut ice cream (coming up soon), Danish dough destined for almond Kringle (I’ll write about that too), chocolate chunk cookies (whole wheat pastry flour), white whole wheat sandwich bread, cranberry-walnut whole grain bread & rolls (oats, whole wheat flour, sesame seeds), potato dinner rolls (potato flour) and pizza dough (white whole wheat, semolina). Who knows what else I’ll be getting myself into.

Boy oh boy. We, our neighbors and our freezer are all the better for it!

On to the task at hand. Some months ago I purchased Food52’s “Genius Desserts” - chock full of tempting treats, wonderful inspiration and so many recipes to try. This orange olive oil cake is one of them. Credited to NYC restaurant Maialino, part of the Union Square Hospitality Group owned by Danny Meyer (now hit hard by COVID-19 like so many others), the cake was developed by a former pastry chef there, Rachel Binder. The link I’ve given you takes you to the current recipe for said cake by the present pastry chef, Geoffrey Koo - very much like the one printed in “Genius Desserts” with a few tweaks in ingredient portions.

Described as having “a crackling crust” and a center that is close to pudding-like, it’s an easy one to put together. Buuuuutttt . . . . . first let’s take a quick detour.

I’ve been meaning to tell you about a local business here in Grand Rapids. It’s called Long Road Distillers and boy do they make some good stuff. They’ve got award winning spirits and plenty of inventive cocktails (usually available at their retail/restaurant space until the current crisis), but we particularly enjoy their amaro and liqueurs. We even took several bottles to the UK as hostess gifts last fall.

They’re available from a number of wine and spirits vendors around town, plus Long Road is offering online ordering/pickup now as well. And to top it all off we recently learned that they’re now contributing to the COVID fight and making hand sanitizer - how cool is that??!!

The Michigan fruit liqueurs are great in Swiss meringue butter cream and basic crème pâtissiére, or joined with vanilla extract in fruity cakes or blended into crème d’amandes for a baked almond fruit tart or cherry-berry version of croissant aux amandes.

The Amaro Pazzo (pazzo means crazy in Italian) is a wonderful coffee essence’d digestif made with Madcap Coffee, another local GR company. And the green walnut Nocino is superb. Hmmm . . . . how about those in buttercream too? Add it to the to-do list!

Time for cake.

The recipe calls for Grand Marnier or Cointreau, well known orange liqueurs, but I had neither on hand so decided to use Long Road’s raspberry just because I could.

I’ve been eating a lot of oranges lately and, since I don’t like to waste any citrus, I zest them before sectioning and store the zest packets in my freezer - et voilà, I have orange zest at the ready. Needless to say I have a LOT of orange zest on hand.

I’m giving you the recipe as presented in “Genius Desserts” but you can also click on the Maialino link above for the current recipe.

Heat your oven to 350ºF. Butter a 9-inch round, 2-inch deep cake pan, and line the bottom with a round of parchment.

Do your mise and have a medium bowl and a medium-large one on hand. You’ll blend dry ingredients in one and wet in the other.

Dry: In a medium bowl blend 260 g / 2 cups all purpose flour (feel free to sub in 50-60 g or so as whole wheat pastry flour); 350 g / 1.75 cups sugar; 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt; 1/2 teaspoon baking soda; 1/2 teaspoon baking powder.

Wet: In a medium-large bowl blend 285 g / 1.33 cups extra virgin olive oil; 300 g / 1.25 cups whole milk; 3 large eggs; 1.5-2 tablespoons orange zest (the more the merrier I always say); 60 g / 1/4 cup freshly squeezed OJ; 1/4 cup liqueur such as Grand Marnier or Cointreau - I used Long Road’s raspberry liqueuer instead.

Now blend the dry ingredients into the wet, and scrape into the prepared pan.

Note: My springform seemed a tad askew (I’ve had it a long time), and I could see light coming through along one of the bottom edges. Since this is a pretty wet batter, I wrapped foil around the outside of my pan to insure against leakage. It worked.

Bake about an hour until the top is golden, the center set and you have a dry or few crumb-ed tester poked in the middle. I baked mine 10-15 minutes longer than suggested since I could still see a bit of gooey-ness in the top cracks until finally I achieved the tester result I wanted. Moist is good, gooey and under baked isn’t.

Cool in the pan about 20-30 minutes then un-mold and cool completely.

Once sliced, the moist nearly pudding like center is clearly appreciated, making one harbor some concern as to whether it baked long enough. But do not fear - all is well.

For our initial taste test, I sliced a couple of thin portions to try au naturel. With a tender yet dense crumb, the olive oil and lovely hint of orange offer a completely different experience than a basic butter-made cake. The flavor is hard to describe - at first one questions its uniqueness, but then it starts to grow on you and becomes almost ethereal.

Next I accompanied it with lightly sweetened whipped cream and some fresh berries. What a delicious combo! I must admit that the raspberry liqueur didn’t provide that particular essence to the cake but that’s OK. Come to think of it, I could have drizzled some over the berries and cream!! Duh. Next time.

Of course Steve and I have to ask ourselves “what are we going to do with all of this?”. Well, as it turns out, we were experiencing a particularly beautiful day and some of our neighbors had social distanced themselves into lawn chairs out in the street. At another appropriate distance we set up a small table and brought out a tray of individual servings of cake with berries and cream for all to enjoy. Each person could approach safely, pick up their own and head back to their chair. What a great way to share!

As always, stay home, stay safe, stay healthy.

Rye buns

These buns are a true delight! Based on a recipe from “Brontë at Home: baking from the Scandi Kitchen” by Brontë Aurell, they come together like a dream, are great for any type of sandwich, have a lightness about them yet are sturdy enough to hold up to the juiciest grilled burger (which Steve’s tend to be!).

We’ve discovered that they’re great with most any sandwich you can dream up - one of our favorites is thinly sliced dried beef from our local Kingma’s market (no not the stuff you buy in packages in the cold meat section) with crisp lettuce and a schmear of mayo - yum! And a bit of cheddar never hurt either!!

Here’s an interesting bit of trivia: in Aurell’s book she mentions these buns are especially good for Biff Lindström. Now what in the world is that I ask? Biff is the Swedish word for beef and, as it turns out, there’s a Swedish specialty named after one Henrik Lindström, a prominent industrialist back in the 1800s. It’s a fried burger made with ground beef, egg, onion, pickled beetroot and a bit of its juice, capers, seasonings (salt and pepper) and optional chopped chives. Hmmm . . . . not being a beet fan, I’m not sure I’ll go for that one, but you might like it - you never know!

Even though they’re called rye buns and contain dark rye flour, these buns have only the teensiest hint of rye flavor. That’s neither good nor bad, just a simple observation.

For this project I used Bob’s Red Mill, a line of wonderful flours readily available at local markets around here. While I’m a big fan of King Arthur Flour’s range of products and can buy the standards (i.e. all purpose, bread, whole wheat, white whole wheat, self rising and even the sprouted wheat) at the grocery store, their specialty flours have to be ordered from the company which obviously requires some planning ahead. Cue Bob’s - yes!

The range of rye flours available go from white/light rye, medium rye, dark rye and pumpernickel. Here’s a great overview of rye from King Arthur Flour. Since rye flour doesn’t contain as much gluten as its wheat flour counterparts, for a better rise and lighter texture it’s best to combine it with all purpose. Using all rye flour makes for a dense loaf, plus the larger percentage of rye you use in your bread, the slower the rise.

No matter - this recipe works. You can accomplish it in a morning or afternoon and have fresh buns for supper. What’s not to like.

I use instant yeast as my go to dried yeast. It doesn’t require jump starting in tepid liquid like active dry does, however, if you’re proceeding with the recipe to complete that day, it’s doesn’t hurt to give the instant yeast a little bath in the warm liquid - gets it going just a tad faster.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, mix 10 g / ~3 teaspoons instant yeast with 160 ml (2/3 cup) EACH of tepid water and whole milk. Let stand 10-15 minutes to become frothy. Add 50 g (1/4 cup) light brown sugar and mix until dissolved.

Have 200 g (1.5 cups) dark rye flour and 390 g (3 cups) of white bread flour at the ready, as well as 1.5 teaspoons salt, 1 large egg, 84 g (6 tablespoons) softened unsalted butter.

On low speed add the rye flour to the yeast/milk mixture along with the salt, then the egg and butter. Increase speed to medium low and start adding the bread flour. You may not need all of it. Continue to mix for about 5 minutes.

You’re looking for a slightly sticky dough that’s pulling away from the sides of the bowl. FYI - I did end up using all of the bread flour.

Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place about an hour until doubled.

Before the first rise

After the rise

Turn the dough out on a lightly floured work surface, gently knead to form a log that you will then divide into your chosen sizes.

Note: the recipe yield will vary depending on the size you wish to make. For example, if making 9 buns (as the base recipe suggests), each one comes in at a hefty 122 g (4.25 ounces) which is a bit too generous methinks. For my first batch I chose 85 g (3 ounces) which gave me a yield of 13 buns, but since Mr. Steve prefers his burger buns a little larger, my second go-around yielded 11 buns at ~100g each.

Into the slider thing? Make them even smaller!

Shape each piece into a nice boule, place on a parchment lined sheet pan, cover with a damp towel or a lightly oiled piece of plastic wrap and give them a second rise for about 1/2 hour.

Meanwhile heat your oven to 350ºF. Brush lightly with egg wash and sprinkle sesame seeds (white or black or both) on top (or any seed mixture you like).

Ms. Aurell suggests moisture in the oven during baking. Place the sheet pan of buns onto the middle rack and place a shallow heat proof pan with a cup or so of hot water onto the bottom rack. Bake about 13-15 minutes until golden and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.

Great buns!!

So far we’ve had grilled burgers on these babies twice and a couple of different sandwiches. Definitely a keeper. Give ‘em a try - you won’t be sorry.

Happy spring!

Better late than never, it’s high time I sent welcome-to-spring wishes to everyone. Even though we actually had a bit of SNOW! the other evening, we’re seeing green shoots coming out of the bare ground and some tree limbs showing their first hints of leaves. We’ll take it!

It seems life has a way of carrying us onward, often to the point of prompting us to ask “what I have been doing these past few weeks/months?!” While I don’t have a specific recipe or new project to share with you on the blog this time around, I thought it would be nice to show you what I’ve been up.

Oh - news flash! I’ve finally added a search box in the blog’s sidebar so you can type in key words, e.g. “croissant”, and find posts I’ve written on that particular topic. Cool!

Crunch top berry mascarpone profiteroles

Hazelnut choux rounds getting ready for Paris-Brest

Lemon mascarpone cake with orange honey buttercream

Petite citrus cakes

Next up is my new favorite version of financier, those delightful teacakes that I love so dearly. This one is coffee hazelnut, dipped in dark chocolate ganache and topped with chopped toasted nuts. SO GOOD.

Coffee hazelnut financiers

I simply cannot ignore fresh fruit tarts - they always make me smile! These contain a baked ricotta custard/vanilla scented filling - deelish with fresh berries.

Sea salt caramel and espresso nib shortbread

Current shortbread flavors, all tubed up!

Breton blueberry almond tarts

Ham and cheese whole wheat spirals

Lemon ricotta cakes

Cream cheese Danish

Ham/cheese spirals and Danish combo

Another thing that keeps me busy involves planning and preparing for my classes at Sur La Table in Grand Rapids. Things like figuring out the best way to set up the class for optimum hands-on experience, determining quantities of dough that might have to be prepped ahead for topics like croissants or artisan breads, orchestrating a smooth flow to the class with delicious baked goods as the end result. What’s not to like.

Below is a test I did for a no-knead rustic bread baked in a Dutch oven style enameled cast iron pot. The loaf on the right was done in a gorgeous Le Creuset 2.25 quart lidded saucepan (sorry the lid is missing from the picture!) and the one on the left on a sheet pan. Not only the rise but the crusty, golden, shiny surface of the one from the cast iron pan can’t be beat! NOTE: one pound of dough worked very nicely in this size pan, the taller sides giving just the right lift to the dough.

Rustic no knead loaves

There’s lots to be learned. Check out the class calendar on Sur La Table’s website for all sorts of topics, both savory cooking and baking/pastry classes. There are a number of chef instructors, myself included, just waiting to share their knowledge with you.

Until next time - happy baking!

My first afternoon tea menu

I've finally done it!   My first afternoon tea menu has been created, implemented and served - yay!!

le menu

I created this tasty tea assortment as the result of partnering with Kim Murphy, the activities director at Heron Manor, a local assisted living facility just down the street from my home.

Kim contacted me several weeks ago with the idea of putting on a royal tea for the residents in commemoration of Queen Elizabeth's 90th birthday.  I was all ears.

la table

I was responsible for all the food planning, preparation and set up, and Kim kindly provided the tables, linens, assorted tea cups and saucers (many of which belong to a 97 year old resident there!), place settings, tiered servers and rose nosegays.

Everything but the fig spread and the strawberry jam was made by my own two hands.  I love that. 

orange currant and lemon scones

finger sandwiches

sweet treats

salted caramel, chocolate and lime ginger shortbread

It was a grand time.  There were a handful of men in the largely female audience of 25 attendees.  Some of the ladies donned lovely hats or tiaras in addition to dressing up for this queenly occasion.

Kim had chosen Earl Grey tea with vanilla and lavender, as well as a lemon herbal tea to serve alongside the goodies.

I spoke briefly about the practice of afternoon tea, and Kim presented some interesting facts about Queen Elizabeth along with showing a series of royal photos covering her life and reign.

A lovely afternoon with even more lovely people.

And so it has begun.

A couple of delicious restaurant desserts

I cannot believe it's been a full month since I've posted anything here!  Moving from the Northeast USA to the Midwest seems to be taking up a good deal of our time.  I've already missed the bulk of the Michigan strawberry season, thinking last week that I would make a tarte aux fraises that, alas, never materialized.

Although it did feel good to squeeze in a batch of ricotta buttermilk scones the other day and start to dream of a Michigan cherry ricotta tart for July 4th.

Recently we took a short 2-day trip to Traverse City and the Leelenau Peninsula with our British friends, Richard and Pauline.  We enjoyed picture perfect Michigan summer weather as we toured around the Sleeping Bear national lake shore and dipped our toes in Lake Michigan (Richard actually went in, head under!).

Richard and I running down the dunes at Sleeping Bear

Prior to the trip we had been given some dining recommendations by Patricia Christopher, a fine chocolatier in Grand Haven that we met a couple of months ago.  One of those was Trattoria Stella in Traverse City, very big on the farm-to-table approach.  We enjoyed the food although the service seemed a bit frenetic and the servers somewhat stiff and serious as they delivered their obviously choreographed lines.  Hey folks - lighten up!

I normally skip dessert but when it was time for that portion of the meal, I was intrigued by the choices, since typically I find many restaurant dessert menus to be unimaginative and not all that enticing.

I chose the strawberry-hummingbird option which turned out to be a delicious tart with a hummingbird tea infused custard baked in a lovely crust, topped with lemon ice cream and fresh strawberries and garnished with "hummingbird nectar glaze".  It was very nicely done!

Upon briefly researching hummingbird tea I discovered it's a blend of rooibos tea and hibiscus (apparently very attractive to hummingbirds).  You learn something new every day.

Once we returned to Grand Rapids from the north country Richard and Pauline were kind enough to treat us to dinner out in downtown GR before they took off for Chicago the following day.

I had been to Reserve Wine and Food once before for a wine tasting and thought it deserved another visit.  It's in a refurbished bank and is touted as a "hip and elegant locale" highlighting "farm to fork" cuisine.

After we had finished our delicious, well prepared and nicely presented meals, imagine my surprise to see a Basque cake on the dessert menu!  Whoa baby, now you're talking my lingo!!

Pauline and I both went for it, but since they only had one serving left, our server split it for us and added a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream "for your trouble".  Topped with a strawberry-rhubarb compote, it was deeeelicious.

Yessiree, it's good to be back in Michigan and see how far the culinary scene has come since we lived here 21 years ago.  And it's only the beginning!