A successful experiment: blueberry fritter bread!

For my very first job I worked as a hostess and cashier at a bakery and restaurant. There were many delicious things (cookies, artisan bread, pies!) but the most popular item they carried was fritter bread. Fritter bread was available in a wide variety of flavors and eaten both fresh and as amazing French toast. Fritter bread was pricey back then and even more so now—fetching $5.99 a loaf. I recently got the idea to try making my own with no-knead dough from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. This is also my first attempt at (almost) step-by-step photographic documentation… the light’s not great in the kitchen—apologies!

I adapted the blueberry compote recipe from She Simmers. I ended up with about twice as much compote than I needed, but the extra is delicious in plain yogurt (here’s an opportunity to make your own, if you haven’t tried it yet) or on ice cream. If you don't want the extra, half the compote ingredients.

And, without further ado:

Blueberry Fritter Bread

1 pint blueberries, washed but still wet

1/2 cup powdered sugar (more if your blueberries need it)

1 pound no-knead Artisan bread dough (challah, brioche, or boule dough)

Splash milk, cream, or lemon juice and additional 1/4 cup powdered sugar for glaze

Put wet blueberries in small saucepan. Add 1/2 powdered sugar. Stir to combine. Heat over medium-low heat until thick and syrupy, stirring occasionally. Carefully sample to check sweetness balance and add more sugar if necessary.

Transfer half of compote into a large bowl and let cool until warm, but not hot. Enjoy the other half on pancakes, yogurt, ice cream, etc.

While the compote is cooking, pat bread dough to roughly ¾-inch thickness on floured surface.

With a bench scraper or knife coated with cooking spray, slice the dough into small pieces.

Add the dough pieces (separate as you add them to the bowl if stuck together) to the compote bowl and gently stir until all the dough pieces are coated with compote. Transfer mixture to a greased loaf pan and let rise for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Bake in a 400 degrees for 40-45 minutes, until crusty on top. If in doubt, bake a little longer. There’s a lot of moisture in the dough and compote and you want to make sure it bakes all the way through.

Let cool in pan for 15 minutes then turn out onto wire rack. Let cool completely (if you can wait. I couldn’t). Gradually add milk, cream, or lemon juice to ¼ cup powdered sugar until a glaze consistency is reached. Drizzle onto bread.

There you have it!

See those blueberries? They're in the bread! That slice didn't last long...

Get creative with the filling- try raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, or apple. If you have any bread left over, I highly recommend French toast or bread pudding. Or, make two loaves and save one for later!

Dinner Party!

One of my favorite things to do is have friends over for dinner, drinks, and a board game or two. Our guests brought a delicious salad with tomatoes and cucumbers, and I prepared chicken piccata, garlic mashed potatoes, roasted beets and carrots, and baked a baguette. Also, I learned that I have a talent for Scategories.

And for dessert? I’ll keep that a secret until tomorrow.

This recipe comes from my favorite food magazine, Cook's Country. Simple, straight-forward recipes plus hints, tips, taste-testings, and equipment ratings... with lots of pictures!

Chicken Piccata

Adapted from Cook’s Country, December/January 2009

Notes: I skipped brining the chicken and omitted the capers. Some boneless, skinless chicken breasts are injected (“enhanced”) with a saline solution, so be sure to skip the brining if that’s the case. The sauce will smell really strong while reducing, and while it will have a lot of flavor, it will not be overpowering in the finished dish.

For the chicken cutlets, I sliced boneless, skinless chicken breast in two horizontally, starting at the thick edge of the breast. Pound to about ½-inch thick. No mallet? Use a skillet; that’s what I do. Two chicken breasts (cut into 4 cutlets) were enough for four, although the recipe suggests 8 cutlets for 4 people.

½ cup salt

½ cup sugar

8 thin-cut boneless, skinless chicken cutlets (about 1 ½ pounds)

Pepper

¼ cup flour

4 tablespoons butter

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons drained capers (unless you don’t care for them!)

1 cup low-sodium chicken broth

½ cup white wine

4 strips zest (each about 2 inches long)

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1. Whisk 4 cups cold water, salt, and sugar in large bowl until salt and sugar dissolve. Add chicken and refrigerate, covered, for at least 15 minutes but no longer than 30 minutes.
2. Pat cutlets dry with paper towels and season with pepper. Spread flour in shallow dish. Dredge one side of each cutlet lightly in flour; transfer to large plate. Heat 1 tablespoon butter in large nonstick skillet over medium heat until foaming subsides (I used a regular stainless steel skillet). Cook 4 cutlets, floured-side down, until golden brown, about 2 minutes. Flip and cook until just cooked through, about 1 minute on second side. Transfer to clean platter and tent with foil. Repeat with additional tablespoon butter and remaining cutlets.
3. Add garlic and capers to empty pan and cook over high heat until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add broth, wine, and lemon zest and simmer until reduced to ½ cup, 8 to 10 minutes. Return chicken and any accumulated juices to pan to heat through, about 30 seconds. Off heat, stir in remaining butter and lemon juice.

No-Knead Herb Baguette

Here is something else made from the same no-knead dough as the focaccia I wrote about in the last post. Easy and delicious!

No-Knead Herb Baguette

Note: If you're making the bread dough from scratch, you can mixed the herbs right into the dough.

Approximately 1 lb. no-knead boule dough
Flour
1-2 tablespoons herbs of choice, minced (I used thyme and oregano)
Olive oil

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Pat/roll the dough into a rectangle about a 1/2-inch thick. Drizzle olive oil over the dough and sprinkle on the herbs. Starting at the long end of the rectangle, roll up and pinch the edge shut. Tuck under the ends of the loaf. Let rise about 20-30 minutes, sprinkle with flour, score the loaf, and bake for 15-20 minutes with your preferred method of steam, if desired.

A Birthday of Baking: Rosemary Focaccia

Today was my birthday. I celebrated by visiting my parents and doing some baking. About an hour or so into my baking, my mom asked, "Is this really what you want to be doing on your birthday?" I replied, "Yes, as long as I don't have to clean up." She replied, "Sounds good," and went back to washing dishes. She told me I could count the dish washing as a gift. Thanks, mom! :) Later on, my husband's family came over for dinner and we had a delicious meal and a wonderful time.

I almost always have a batch of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day's master recipe on hand. When I go to my parents' house, I usually make it for them. Today, I made some focaccia with the dough and some freshly-picked rosemary from my mom's herb pot I planted for her. Focaccia is one of my favorites and tastes even better with fresh rosemary. Here's my version:

Rosemary Focaccia

Approximately 1 lb. of no-knead boule or olive oil dough
Several sprigs fresh rosemary, leaves picked and roughly chopped (dried can be substituted in a pinch)
Extra-virgin olive oil
Coarse salt (like kosher or sea) and black pepper

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Roll or pat the dough into a circle about a 1/2-inch thick on a cookie sheet greased with olive oil. Let rise approximately 20 minutes (the dough should no longer feel cool to the touch and be slightly puffy). Drizzle the olive oil on top of the bread and use a pastry/silicon brush to evenly spread it. Sprinkle with the rosemary, coarse salt, and freshly-ground black pepper. Dimple all over with your fingers (this is the fun part!). Bake 15-20 minutes, depending on how large the focaccia is and how brown you like it. Just keep an eye on it and take it out when it looks perfect. Enjoy!



I will post more things that I baked today in the next few days.

No-Knead Challah

One of my first memories of cooking that ended in utter failure was making french toast. I was in elementary school and had scaled down a recipe to make a smaller batch. Under the salt quantity, I had merely written "1/8." Now, at this stage in my life and culinary experience, it did not occur to me that 1/8 of a teaspoon was a likely amount of salt for french toast batter. Instead, I put in 1/8 cup. Whoops. I didn't realize the mistake until serving time. I was so excited because, visually, everything looked delicious. I was so proud of my creation! Then, we all took a bite. And that was all we took. My brother tried giving his piece to our beloved dog who ate everything. Well, almost everything. The dog tried one bite then proceeded to drink his entire water supply.

Anyway, we still like french toast. My dad recently told me he read the challah makes the best french toast, but he had never heard of it. I used to work at a bakery that made challah on rotation, but had never tried it for french toast. So, I decided to bake a loaf to bring with for my visit this weekend to make french toast for brunch!

I am a big fan of the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I'm guessing that most everybody is familiar with the method, and if you're not, I highly recommend popping over to their website to check it out. I made a half batch of their challah dough and make half into their strawberry danish recently feature on the website and the other half into a braided loaf. Compared to the other wet, no-knead doughs, this one was so easy with which to work! I was very pleased with how the loaf turned out. It smelled wonderful, but I didn't even taste it! I wanted to save it for french toast... more to come...


Upcoming posts: shredded chicken tacos, easy peanut butter brownies, and pesto!