Donuts (and Filled Paczki)

Here is the update for variations on the Paczki recipe to make Donuts or Filled Paczki. Basically, the only difference is in the shaping stage so if you can get that far then you are good to go.

For Filled Paczki, you are going to cut circles about 2.5 inches in diameter. I had a little tool that could cut and crimp, but if you are in a pinch, you can just use the rim of a pint glass. Roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thick and then cut your circles. Once you have all your dough shaped, add about a teaspoon of your favorite pie filling in the middle of half of your circles - a true Paczki in my opinion has either Apricot or Prune filling. These fillings will be fine if all your friends are 80 or older, but if you have younger folks you might be sharing these Paczki with, then feel free to try apple or some other filling. Then whisk up one egg - you can add a little water to make it more like an egg-wash, but if you just whisk the egg that is fine. Then brush on your egg(wash) around the teaspoon of filling and place an unfilled circle on top of the filled one. Crimp the corners to make sure you have a good seal. The egg-wash will act as a glue to keep the Paczki from busting open when frying. Once you have completely shaped and filled your Paczki, let them rise for 30 to 45 minutes until they look fairly plump. Fry for about 2-3 minutes a side until deep golden brown. Then toss in sugar and enjoy.


For Donuts, roll out your dough to 1/4 inch thick. Then use two round anythings for the cutting. I used the rim of a pint glass and pop-bottle cap. Keep rolling out and cutting until you have used up all your dough and then let your Donuts rise for about 30 to 45 minutes. They will plump up a little bit more once they are in the fryer so don't worry if they don't look like full size donuts after raising for awhile, they will. Fry for about 2 minutes a side. They don't have to be as dark as the Paczki, but you still want to make sure they aren't doughy in the middle. Test the first few that you fry to see what works best. Roll in cinnamon sugar or make an easy glaze to dip them in. For my glazed donuts, I just used 1 and 1/4 cup confectioners sugar and 1/4ish cup of milk. Just combine the two until you get a glaze that is fairly runny, but will stick to your finger if you dip it in.
For both the Paczki and the Donuts, let them cool for a few minutes before rolling in the sugar or glazing. And when you are rolling out your dough, make sure you are being pretty generous with the flour on your floured surface. Otherwise, when you cut the dough and try to move your circles, they will stick to the surface and quickly no longer resemble circles. Another good idea is to move your cut dough to parchment paper when you let it proof before frying. Enjoy!

Soda Bread

Well I lied. I will post about donuts and filled Paczki later. Today we have more important things like St. Patrick's Day to talk about. St. Patrick's Day is great because it highlights great Irish traditions, food and culture. My favorite among these is ... whiskey. But this isn't a booze blog, it's a baking blog. So my real favorite among these is ... Soda Bread! Now like most things you will eat and drink on St. Patrick's Day, the Soda Bread that you see here isn't entirely the same as its authentic Irish counterpart. Thus, I titled this post Soda Bread and not IRISH Soda Bread. Just like how Corned Beef and Cabbage isn't an Irish delicacy and green Bud Light is an abomination to distinguished Irish drinking heritage (Guinness, Jamesons, etc.), the Soda Bread that we have here isn't truly authentic. It sure evolved from the Irish original, but isn't quite the same. Like I have mentioned before, most breads were developed through very simple means. Irish Soda Bread was originally a peasants bread consisting of flour (usually whole wheat), baking soda (as the leavening agent), salt, and buttermilk (because it was around as a by product of making butter). The two key ingredients here are the baking soda and buttermilk - those are what keep this Soda Bread somewhat authentic. The additions over the years of sugar, raisins and caraway seeds, although delicious, are not truly authentic to the original. This recipe here was passed on up to me from my sister and turned out to be a tasty, sweet version that is totally acceptable to me and my 0% Irish palette. So I hope you enjoy it.
Ingredients:

• 4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 heaping teaspoon of kosher salt or 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 1 cup raisins

Recipe:

1. Combine all the dry ingredients (except the raisins) in a large mixing bowl.
2. Mix in the buttermilk and raisins gradually until a wet dough forms.
3. On a floured surface work the dough just enough to form it into a round loaf about 2 to 3 inches high and about 8 to 9 inches in diameter. Don't work the dough too much and there is no reason why you should knead this dough. Working and kneading it too much will only result in a tougher final product.
4. Place your loaf on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and cut a cross into the top. I would say to cut about 1 inch deep into the top of the dough.
5. Bake at a 450 for 15 minutes and then rotate the loaf and turn down the heat to 400 and bake for another 25 minutes.
6. Let cool for at least an hour. I let mine cool overnight.

Some people are particular about having their Soda Bread with butter and jelly, but this loaf will taste great all by itself. Try it any way you like. It doesn't really matter, it will all taste the same after you've had a few pints and your ears are bleeding from all the bagpipes. Enjoy!

Paczki

In our family we don't call the Tuesday before Lent begins Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday, we call it Paczki Day. It's a day that we look forward to all year and Paczki are one of our most cherished family traditions. Some of you might be asking yourselves two things: What are Paczki? and How in the hell do you pronounce Paczki? To answer your questions: Paczki are a traditional Polish fried doughnut and in typical Polish fashion are pronounced nothing like they are spelled; the pronunciation that we have always used is poonch-key. I'll post two recipes here, one for Raisin Paczki and one for Filled Paczki - and when I say filled, I mean filled with Prune or Apricot pie filling. As my grandmother was explaining to me the other day, the Raisin Paczki recipe is the official family recipe and the shaping method for the Filled Paczki was given to her by another non-related polak.
For this recipe, I'll give you the ingredients list, but I won't write out the instructions in steps. I am going to pass them along to you like they were passed along to me. It might be a really wordy post, but picture yourself in the kitchen being handed down a family tradition. You don't just get it passed down in a series of step and instructions, it's a conversation. So I welcome you into that conversation and present to you what I will call Sarnowski Raisin Paczki.
Ingredients:

• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 stick of butter
• 1/2 stick of margarine
• 1 fresh yeast cake
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 cups flour
• 1 whole nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup raisins

First of all, you need to hydrate the yeast. Make sure you buy good yeast. We had a disaster a few years ago when the yeast was close to its expiration date and the Paczki never raised properly. So you want to make sure that your yeast is crumbly and not too gummy. In a drinking glass (my grandmother has been using the same one for close to 40 years) put about 1/2 cup of lukewarm water (her official measurement is to the top of the Pepsi logo on the bottom of the glass) and then crumble in the entire cake of fresh yeast. Then stir in a heaping teaspoon of sugar and make sure the yeast dissolves and you get tan yeast water. Then let it sit for a few minutes to activate. While the yeast is starting to bubble, scald and cool the 3/4 cup of milk. You can scald it until it gets that skin on the top or just heat it up a little bit and let it cool - that way you don't have to skim off the top. Also, while you have the time, sift 2 cups (half of your total) flour.
Now come back to the yeast. The yeast mixture should rise to the top of your pint glass. It may take a few minutes, so give it some time. Once your yeast has risen combine the scalded and cooled milk, 2 tablespoons of sugar, and the entire glass of yeast mixture in your large mixing bowl. Then add in your 2 cups of sifted flour. Make sure you scrape down the sides of the bowl as you mix. You will end up with a really wet dough, which is good for now. Cover the bowl and let it rise for 30 minutes or so. When you are getting close to the end of the 30 minutes, melt your butter and margarine in a frying pan over the stove, sift the remaining 2 cups of flour, and beat 3 eggs.
After the dough has rested and raised to about double the original size, mix in your melted butter and margarine and your 3 eggs. Now you will have pretty wet mixture. This is the perfect time to grate in your nutmeg. Grate in about 1/2 to 3/4 of the nutmeg or more if you are feeling particularly wild. Also, it is much easier to add in the raisins now, while the dough is really wet, than when we combine the rest of the dry ingredients. So you should have a well mixed wet dough with the nutmeg and raisins worked in.
Now it is time to add in the 3/4 cups of sugar you should have left, the 1/2 teaspoon salt, and gradually work in the 2 cups of sifted flour that remains. By the time you finish mixing you should have a slightly wet looking dough. Cover the bowl with a towel (my grandmother always has these towels that have a year long calendar printed on them - does anyone else have those? I am pretty sure she is the only person I have ever seen have them. I would swear she screen prints them herself) and let the dough rise for one hour. When you are getting close to the end of the hour, start to heat your oil. If you plan on making these every year or want to modify the recipe to make doughnuts (I'll post that later), you might consider investing in a deep fryer. I got one for like $50 at Target. It's not too big, but it's better that using a big pot on the stove and getting oil everywhere and setting your house on fire. Plus, you can use it for the rest of Lent by having a neighborhood Fish Fry every Friday. Anyways, get your oil up to 375 degrees.
After an hour, your dough should have just about doubled in size. Now the fun part. If you are doing the Filled Paczki you will begin shaping and filling which I will post later with variations for making doughnuts, but if you are making the Raisin Paczki, you can start frying as soon as the dough is done rising for an hour. For the Raisin Paczki, you just spoon about 1 to 2 tablespoon-sized balls of dough from the mixing bowl and drop them in the fryer. Use a basket if you have one, because having 375 degree oil splatter on you doesn't tickle. Fry the Paczki until they are a dark golden brown, but not too dark. It might take a couple attempts to get it right. Try biting into one after it has cooled to make sure it isn't doughy in the middle. You'll get the hang of it pretty quick. Let the oil drip off and cool the Paczki on a wire rack covered with a paper towel for a couple minutes and then roll in sugar. A gallon size freezer bag with a couple cups of sugar does the trick. Just shake a few Paczki around inside until they are well coated. Then have at it. This recipe should make about 3 to 4 dozen Paczki depending on how big you make them. And once you share these with family and friends, 3 to 4 dozen won't nearly be enough. I'll take you through the shaping process for the Filled Paczki and talk about variations for the recipe to make doughnuts later this week. Happy Lent!

Beer Bread: The Best Bread I Have Ever Made

The title of this post is no exaggeration. This recipe for Beer Bread turned out to be the best loaf of bread I have ever made - both times I made it. I am not quite sure what accounted for this amazingness. It may been the beer selection. It may have been that I used one bottle for the bread and drank the other five while baking. But either way, when I tasted this loaf, I thought it was by far the best loaf of bread I have made to date. It was a perfect combination of a crunchy, hard crust and soft, doughy crumb. Also, the aroma and flavor were a bit nutty and sweet. It turned out so much better than I anticipated. All beer breads I have had in the past have usually been a little too doughy and heavy for my liking. This recipe, which is a conglomeration of a few that I was able to find online and in a few books, turned out to be quite the satisfactory loaf. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 3 cups sifted all purpose flour
• 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 12oz. beer

Recipe:

1. Most recipes that I found called for sifted flour, which I think it a way to avoid that heaviness that I have always experienced with beer bread before. So I highly suggest sifting the flour first since it seems to have worked out well with this loaf.
2. Combine all dry ingredients in your mixing bowl. Some recipes mentioned that you could use self-rising flour instead of the using baking powder as the leavening agent. I prefer to use the baking powder.
   
3. Pour in your bottle of beer. Open the others to start drinking.
4. Mix for about 2 minutes with a dough hook or by hand until a really wet dough forms.
5. Use either a greased spatula or floured hands to transfer your dough to an oiled loaf pan. No need to let it rise or knead the dough. Just pop it in your preheated oven.
   
6. Bake at 375 degrees for about 65 to 75 minutes.
7. Let cool for a few minutes in the loaf pan and then for about 45 minutes more on a wire rack or countertop before cutting into it.

I'm not sure how much using different beers will affect the bread. I used a pretty great Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale. I think you will probably get best results from using a pretty decent beer. If you use something cheap - like say that case of Nati Light that you have sitting around from your last frat party - then you will probably get some crappy bread. Give it a try and see what you get.

Chocolate Chip Bread

Here is another variation on the Cinnamon Raisin Bread from the last post. Pretty similar in terms of preparation and recipe, but just a few simple variations make a great, unique sweet bread. This just goes to show you how flexible a simple bread recipe can be. You could make this recipe plain, with no Chocolate Chips and it would probably make a great loaf, or you could come up with some other creative variations of your own.
Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups of milk
• 3 1/2 cups of flour
• 3 tablespoons of sugar
• 2 1/2 teaspoons of instant yeast
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt (I used Kosher salt here)
• 1/3ish cups of chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Warm your milk to about 95 degrees and then whisk or slowly sprinkle in your yeast until dissolved.
2. Combine the rest of your dry ingredients in your mixing bowl. You can just eyeball the amount of chocolate chips you want, but I used about 1/3 of a cup on this loaf.
3. If you are using a stand mixer, mix for one minute with your paddle attachment while you add your yeast and milk mixture to your dry ingredients. You should obtain a ball of dough.
4. Switch over to your dough hook and mix for another two minutes. If you are not using a stand mixer, just combine steps 3 and 4 mixing by hand until you have a nice soft, slightly sticky ball of dough that looks like it could use some kneading.
5. Knead for 10 minutes on a lightly floured surface and then form the dough back into a ball and put in a covered, oiled, large mixing bowl for about an hour.
6. After the dough rises (1.5 to 2 times it's size), roll it out - now this time I tried a little bit of a different shaping method. I rolled the dough out until it was between a 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch thick. Then I folded in the sides until I had the width I was looking for and then I rolled it up as usual. I thought this would be easier than trying to roll out to a rectangle.
7. After rolling up your dough, place in your lightly oiled, covered loaf pan let it rise for one more hour.
   
8. Bake in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20 to 25 minutes until nice and golden brown. I was running late for work so I took mine out a little early. Fortunately for me, the same coworker who I made this for because she likes chocolate chip anything also happens to like breads that are a little under-baked and doughy. So all in all, it was a success.

Cinnamon Raisin Bread

Batteries are like super expensive so I regrettably have yet another post without any pictures. So you will just have to use your imagination for this one. Also, the reason I haven't been on in a while is because it took me two weeks to come up with this recipe. Here's why: the first week I tried making the bread, I had forgotten to check what I had in the pantry before baking. I assumed I had packets of yeast and I had just planned on using one packet for this recipe. Well, when I got to baking at 3:30 last Monday morning, I opened the pantry and low-and-behold no packets of yeast. So I say to myself, "that's fine, I'll just use some from the jar of yeast I have in the fridge. I bet you a packet of yeast is about half a teaspoon." So I used half a teaspoon of yeast. Do you know how much is in a packet of yeast? Let me tell you. It's 2 and a quarter teaspoons. 2 and a quarter is much different than half a teaspoon, especially when you are talking about yeast. So there was not a whole lot of rising going on in this situation here. But this week I tried the recipe with the appropriate amount and I think it turned out pretty decent. Here you go:

• 3/4 cups warm water (95 to 105 degrees)
  
• 3/4 cups milk
• 2 teaspoons instant yeast
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
• 3 cups flour (I used bread flour because I had it on hand, but all-purpose would be fine)
• like a handful of raisins
• cinnamon sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons melted butter

1. Put your warm water in your mixing bowl and whisk or stir in your yeast until it is pretty much dissolved. Try not to get too many clumps in there. You can avoid the clumps by slowing sprinkling in the yeast while stirring.
2. Add the salt and sugar and stir to dissolve everything.
3. Add your flour. I like to go a half cup at a time, but it doesn't really matter. I've just found that if you're scooping out a bag, the half cup is a little more manageable and you don't pack the flour that much.
4. Begin to add the milk a 1/4 cup at a time. After the first 1/4 cup start to mix the dough and continue to add the milk as necessary. You want to achieve a dough that is just a little bit sticky. So add milk until all the flour in the bowl is picked up and included in the dough, but don't add to much so that the dough looks wet or makes that noise while mixing that sounds as if someone is chewing with their mouth open. It's gross and it means your dough is gonna suck.
5. While you are adding the milk a 1/4 cup at a time you can start to sprinkle in your raisins. These two steps seem to be kind of by the seat of my pants I know, but it is really all about what your preference is and there isn't too much of a science to it. Once you have made a few loaves of bread, you can kind of tell how wet or dry dough should look and to what degree of stickiness you want it to be. And as for adding the raisins, just add a little at a time so that you don't have a bunch of raisins that are sitting at the bottom of your mixing bowl instead of in the dough. You can also add in the raisins while kneading if you want, but I think it is easier to just add them while mixing.
6. Mix for about 2 - 3 minutes until you have achieved a nice slightly sticky ball of dough that looks ready for some kneading and then let it continue mixing for about 1 minute. The whole time, I just used my dough hook attachment, but you could probably start with the paddle and do the last minute with the dough hook.
7. Now knead for 10 minutes on a slightly floured surface. The dough should be nice and soft and not really sticky anymore by the time you are done. Then form it into a ball.
   
8. Let it rise for one hour. I like to put it in a large mixing bowl coated with spray oil and covered with a dish towel.
9. After is rises (hopefully) for an hour, go back to your floured surface and roll it out. I like to put my loaf pan on the table to I know how wide to roll it and generally you can roll it out 1.5 times long as it is wide.
10. Brush on your melted butter so the cinnamon sugar has something to keep it company. Then sprinkle on your cinnamon sugar leave about a 1/4 inch border. How do you make cinnamon sugar? Well you take cinnamon and you take sugar and you put them together. I don't really use an exact ratio or anything. In fact I use an ancient little bottle that is in the shape of a bear - it looks like one that honey usually comes in, but it has a shaker style top. So my rule of thumb is to fill Mr. Bear up to his mouth in sugar and then up to his eyes with ground cinnamon. (A camera could really come in handy right now) Then screw on the lid and shake him up. When you have a consistent light brown mix, then you got yourself some cinnamon sugar. You have to add cinnamon or sugar as necessary until you get what you are looking for. Just don't fill to the top because you want some room for the cinnamon and sugar to mix while shaking.
11. Then roll up your dough like a rug and put it in your loaf pan, coated with spray oil, to raise for another hour or so.
12. Preheat to 400 F and bake for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, rotate the pan and bake for 5 to 10 minutes more. When you approach that 25 minute mark, start checking to see how the loaf is looking and it will be done when the crust is a nice dark golden brown.
13. Cool for about an hour before slicing. Then have at it.
    

Sandwich Rolls

In an effort to respect everyone's New Year's Resolutions, I think I am going to stick to breads and rolls for the next few weeks. This week I made some rolls using a recipe for a basic sandwich bread. It was a pretty easy recipe and also pretty versatile. You could make rolls or loaves and when you think of all the options you have with shaping methods and "toppings," you really have a lot you can do. Unfortunately, the batteries on my camera died so no pictures on this one (I was a little too lazy at 3:30 am to go digging around for new batteries). Here's the recipe:

• 1 Tablespoon Instant Yeast
• 2 Cups Milk
• 6.25 Cups Bread Flour
• 1 Tablespoon Kosher Salt
• 5.5 Tablespoons Sugar
• 6 Tablespoons Melted Butter
• 1 Egg

Warm the milk to around 95 F and add the yeast. Let the yeast hydrate for a few minutes. Combine all other ingredients and then add the milk and yeast. Then mix for 2 minutes or so on low and knead for about 5 minutes. You'll end up with a course dough at first and not particularly sticky compared to other bread doughs. By the time you are done kneading, you should have a soft barely sticky dough. You can refrigerate the dough up to 4 days before baking, but I usually give it about 12 hours in the fridge. That gives it enough time to experience the slow, cold fermentation process.
When you are ready for baking, you can choose whatever options you want in terms of shaping or added toppings. I ended up just making some simple round rolls. Easy enough to shape and simple to try different toppings. It was kind of like shaping cookies, just slice off a piece of the dough and roll into a ball. And you can go for whatever size you want. I topped some with Sesame Seeds and others with Asiago Cheese.
Now to get that nice sheen that you always see on restaurant rolls, you can use an egg wash - or even better a honey wash. A Tablespoon of Honey and 3 Tablespoons of Water whisked together will give you not only that sheen, but also a great little hint of sweetness to the rolls.