Savory Chive-Pesto Brioche Rolls

From the moment I saw the recipe for Holly B's Savory Brioches on Dana Treat, I knew this was a recipe I wanted to make. My friend Charity inspired me to get on the homemade bread bandwagon about a year ago and since then I've conquered my fear of yeast and love making homemade bread. Don't worry, we still consume plenty of store-bought bread around here too (there's nothing like a turkey sandwich on Dave's Killer Bread!).

This recipe spoke to me because I love being able to cut fresh herbs from my garden (chives!) and because it was an invitation to fill these savory rolls with more than just chives, garlic and cheese. This time around, I added pesto. Next time I may throw in sun dried tomatoes or prosciutto.

I baked five rolls to have with soup for dinner and because I was impatient I only let them do their final rise for about 30 minutes. I froze the remaining five after I put the dough in the muffin cups, without the egg wash, and the second time around let them rise for several hours before baking. We had the last five as an appetizer with cocktails over Mother's Day weekend, in the sun on my parent's deck. Both batches were amazing, but round 2 was so light and fluffy. It's the worth the wait to add more rising time!

The directions are long, but after I read them through 2 or 3 times I realized this really wasn't that difficult of a recipe. But do read the directions first because this is a 2-day project!

What savory goodness would you add to brioche rolls?

Cheddar-Garlic-Chive-Pesto Brioches
Adapted from Dana Treat 


Makes 10 rolls 

¼ cup warm water
2¼ tsp. (1 packet) quick-rise yeast
1 egg plus 1 yolk for dough, plus 1 yolk for wash
2 tbsp. honey
¾ cup whole milk
6 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted, for dough, plus 2 tbsp. for brushing surface
¾ tsp. salt
3+ cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp. pressed garlic
¼ cup minced chives
1 cup grated extra sharp Cheddar cheese

1/2 cup pesto (this is my addition and I used Kirkland Signature pesto from Costco) 

The day before: 

Put the water and the yeast in a mixer bowl and swish around with a spoon.  Attach the dough hook.  Add the 1 egg plus 1 yolk and the honey and mix briefly.  Add the milk, 6 tablespoons melted butter, salt, and 3 cups flour and mix until smooth.  (This will take about 5-10 minutes.)  Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula and mix again.  Toss a handful of flour on top of the dough and mix for a couple of seconds or until the dough balls up, but stop mixing before the flour disappears.  The dough will be soft and sticky.  Turn into a well-oiled bowl or tub with enough room for the dough to triple in size.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Day of: 

The next morning, butter the rims and cups of 2 standard-sized 12-hole muffin cups.  Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and shape into a rough rectangle with your hands.  Lightly flour the top of the dough, then flip and flour the bottom.  Roll the dough into a rectangle about 8 by 16 inches and ½-inch thick.  Regularly check the underside of the dough for sticking and scatter on a bit more flour.  The dough should be free from the surface but not too floury.

Position the rectangle of dough on your work surface with the short sides at the top and bottom and the long sides left and right.  Brush the entire surface with the remaining two tablespoons of melted butter.  Scatter on the pesto, garlic, chives, and Cheddar cheese (or whatever savory goodness you want to fill your rolls with).  Press the toppings lightly into the surface.

Fold the top 1/3 of the dough to the center of the bottom 2/3, as if you were folding a letter.  Fold again to close the bundle.  The dough will now be folded in thirds.  Use the rolling pin to gently flatten the dough to about ¾-inch thick.  Now use a pizza cutter or sharp knife to cut the dough into 10 event strips along the short dimension.

Take up a strand of dough, one end in each hand.  Stretch the dough slightly and twist 3 or 4 times in opposite directions.  (Or, you can place the strip on your work surface and use the palms of your hands to roll the ends in opposite directions.)  Now gather both ends in one hand, maintaining the twist, and grasp the loop that’s hanging down with your other hand.  Place the ends in one of the muffin cups and arrange the loop around the rim on top of the cup.  (It will seem like there is a lot of empty space but the dough will fill it when it rises and bakes.)  Repeat with the remaining strips of dough, filling every other cup to give the brioches plenty of room to expand.

I just twisted up the dough and piled it in! 

Whisk the remaining egg yolk with 1 teaspoon of water and brush the tops of the brioches.  Cover with plastic wrap and set to rise in a warm place until puffy and roughly doubled in size, 30 to 90 minutes (I'd recommend 90 minutes or even several hours). 

Preheat the oven to 375ºF with the rack in the center position.  Remove the plastic and bake the brioches 10 minutes, then rotate the pans and bake another 5 to 10 minutes longer, or until golden brown and not doughy in center.  Cool.

Project Cookbook: Summer Corn & Clam Chowder with Rosemary Biscuits

Similar to my duck recipe, I made this many moons ago (well in February, when heart-shaped biscuits were a perfect Valentine’s Day treat) and am finally just getting around to posting it now! I’ve been a slacker with my 2012 cookbook project, but plan to start stepping it up!

This chowder comes from the Clinton St. Baking Company cookbook. Until now, I haven’t been able to turn the page from my favorite pancake recipe but my friend Jenny, who introduced me to the book, assured me every other recipe is fabulous and I should start with the Corn & Clam Chowder.

She was right, it was delicious and a big hit with Curtis and then again the second night when I brought the leftovers home to have with my mom. It has a nice kick, so if you’re not a fan of spice, I’d recommend using less cayenne.

This is a summer recipe, that I made in the middle of winter. But now that I have it under my belt and know how good and easy it is, when fresh corn season rolls around, I’ll be ready to make summer chowder!

I made heart-shaped rosemary biscuits to go with the chowder, a recipe from one of my favorite food blogs: From The Little Yellow Kitchen and served them with honey butter like they suggested. Honey butter is heaven. And it’s even better paired with savory, salty biscuits!

This isn't a very beautiful photo, but I can assure you the chowder is delicious!

CORN & CLAM CHOWDER

Clinton Street Baking Company Cookbook

Serves 8 to 10

2 cups fresh shucked corn (from about 4 ears) – I used frozen

1 cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

½ cup chopped raw sliced bacon

3 cloves garlic, smashed and minced

1 whole medium sweet onion, minced

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 bay leaves

2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves, chopped

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 small Idaho potatoes, peeled and cut into big chunks

2 tablespoons salt and ground white pepper, blended

4 cups clam juice

2 cups chopped clams (frozen or fresh) – I used canned

1. First, puree the corn: Put 1 cup of the raw corn and ½ cup of the heavy cream in the bowl of a food processor or blender and pulse or blend until pureed. Set aside.
2. In a medium to large stockpot with a lid, add the olive oil and bacon. Cook on medium to high heat until the bacon is lightly browned and the fat is drawn out. Add the garlic, onion, cayenne pepper, bay leaves, and thyme, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until the onion is translucent and soft.
3. Sprinkle the flour over the bacon-and-onion mixture. Stir in the butter and mix until the flour and onions are fully incorporated and make a smooth paste (this roux will slightly thicken the base of the soup). Add the potatoes and the remaining cup of corn and cook for another 5 to 7 minutes. Add the salt and pepper and clam juice, plus 2 cups water. Add the chopped clams and bring the soup to a boil.
4. When the soup is slightly thickened, add the pureed corn mixture and the remaining heavy cream. Do not bring the soup back to a boil. Continue simmering until the potatoes are just cooked. Adjust the seasoning to taste. Remove the bay leaves.

MINI ROSEMARY (HEART-SHAPED) BISCUITS WITH HONEY BUTTER

From the Little Yellow Kitchen

Makes 12 small biscuits

Ingredients

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon of baking soda

3 tablespoons cold butter, cut into pieces

1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped

1/2 cup buttermilk

Directions

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl. Work the butter into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles forms large crumbs. Stir in the rosemary. Slowly add 1/2 cup of the buttermilk using your hands to mix it in and a ball of dough forms. Do not over work the biscuits or they will be tough!

On a lightly floured surface, pat the dough into a circle about 7 inches in diameter and 1/2-inch thick. Using a cut out 12 small biscuits using a small cookie cutter.

Bake until they are lightly golden on top, 10 to 12 minutes. Serve warm.

HONEY BUTTER

Ingredients

4 tablespoons softened butter

2 tablespoons honey

Directions

Using a fork, mash the butter as you stir in the honey. (Forget the fork, I whipped it in my kitchen aid mixer which made it nice and fluffy!)

Recipe #4 from Project Cookbook: My 2012 New Year’s Resolution to cook at least one recipe from every cookbook I own.

Texas Style Kolaches

If I lived in Austin, TX and had a kolache bakery down the road from my house, it would be bad news. I’m pretty confident I’d eat so many I’d turn into a kolache.

When Curtis and I stayed with Kelly and Mark in January (click here for an avocado margarita recipe and my Austin Top Ten list) they introduced us to so many fabulous new foods. We don’t own a deep fryer so most of these new experiences will have to stay in Texas, but kolaches are a baked homemade bread treat that I couldn’t wait to try making when we got home.

What is a kolache you ask? They are an amazing Czech pastry traditionally filled with something sweet but they can also be savory. Kelly brought home jalapeno sausage and bacon and cheese kolaches. They’re a perfect little square bun of sweet pasty bursting with a slightly spicy, savory filling. Curtis and I both fell hard!

As soon as we got home I consulted with Google and found a kolache recipe on The Homesick Texan blog. So the first weekend we stayed home, and I had enough time to let the dough rise, I was all over this. It turned out to be super simple - yes you do have to run into the kitchen occasionally and punch down the dough, but it’s really enjoyable when you have the time. I made them on a Saturday, refrigerated them and then baked them on Sunday morning so we could have them for breakfast fresh and hot out of the oven. Our kolaches in Texas were square and mine turned out round, but they tasted pretty close to the real thing!

The filling possibilities are endless. I’m sure it wouldn’t be a traditional kolache, but you could be seasonal with corned beef and cabbage, add pulled pork and BBQ sauce, cream cheese, cinnamon and sugar, or Curtis suggested next time we put in an egg yolk (this could be tricky, but I’m willing to try it!).  The first time around I wanted a full combination of what we tried in Texas so I stuffed mine with little chunks of apple sausage, bacon, pickled jalapenos AND cheese! They rocked.

Here’s the recipe from The Homesick Texan who describes kolaches as a sweet, soft, yeasty roll filled with either apricots, prunes, cheese, poppy seeds or sausage. 

What kind of a filling would you put in your kolaches?

Kolaches 

from The Homesick Texan who adapted from recipes found in Texas Monthly and the HoustonChronicle

Ingredients:
1 package of active dry yeast
1 cup of warm milk
1/4 cup sugar
3 cups of all-purpose flour
2 eggs
3/4 cup of melted butter
1 teaspoon of salt

Method:
In a large bowl, combine yeast, warm milk, sugar and one cup of flour. Cover and let it rise until doubled in size.

Beat together eggs, 1/2 cup of melted butter (reserve 1/4 cup for brushing on the pastry) and salt.
Add egg mixture to yeast mixture and blend.

Stir in about two more cups of flour, 1/2 cup at a time. The dough should be soft and moist.
Knead dough for about 10 minutes on floured surface. Don't worry, it’s a joy to knead as the dough is smooth and highly malleable. (I just used my kitchen aid, the bread hook and let it do it's thing for about 10 minutes.) 

Put dough in a greased bowl and let rise covered until doubled in size—about an hour.

After dough has risen, punch it down and pull off egg-sized pieces. In your hands, roll pieces into balls and then flatten to about three inches in diameter. Brush with melted butter. Place flattened pieces on a greased cookie sheet, cover and let rise again for another half-hour.

After second rising, with your finger gently make an indention in the center of the dough (be careful not to flatten it too much) and fill with one tablespoon of fruit filling (recipe to follow) and sprinkle with posypka (recipe to follow). (This is where I stuffed in my sausage, bacon, jalapeno and cheese mixture.) 

Bake in oven at 375 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes. Brush with melted butter when you take them out of the oven and serve warm.

Kolache filling

Do anything you want! I combined cooked cut up apple sausage, bacon, jalapenos and cheddar cheese. Here is what the recipe suggested: 

Ingredients:
1/2 pound of dried fruit such as apricots or prunes.
Sugar to taste
1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
Lemon zest

Method:
Soak the dried fruit in water for a few hours or overnight.

When fruit is re-hydrated, cook on low for 15 minutes, adding sugar to taste (I find the fruit sweet enough so I don’t add sugar, but you may prefer it sweeter), cinnamon and lemon zest. Mash with a potato masher until you have a puree.

Posypka

Ingredients:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon butter
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

Method:
Mix all ingredients until crumbly.

This recipe makes about 18 kolaches, depending on how large you make them. And the variations are endless. For additional flavor you can soak the dried fruit in tea such as Earl Grey or you could sprinkle goat cheese on the apricot kolaches before baking. You can also make sausage and jalapeno kolaches by wrapping the three-inch flattened piece of dough around a two-inch piece of sausage and a couple of pickled jalapeno slices.

Homemade Bread

When I visited Megan at her ranch a couple of weeks ago I had the most incredible homemade focaccia bread. As I raved about it Megan asked if I ever make my own bread. At the ranch they make fresh bread daily, and according to Megan it’s not that hard.

Then this past weekend we had our friends Charity and Jason over for dinner and Charity e-mailed me ahead of time and said she’d bring bread. She now makes all their bread and wanted to share some.

I've always been afraid of yeast, but that's all the inspiration I needed.

Charity’s bread was incredible and she brought me a print out of the step by step tutorial from Dana Made It.

I decided I'd make some to bring to my parent's house but a few things went wrong. My braids were fat and then skinny. I smashed two loaves onto one baking sheet. When they came out of the oven, they were flat and hard, nothing like what Charity's looked like. And most disturbing... Denali the visiting dog helped herself to the entire cinnamon loaf right off our counter. But the good news is that even though it was flat and ugly, the bread was really tasty.

Round two went much smoother. I used King Arthur bread flour (vs. the whole wheat / white mix I had in my flour container). I gave each loaf its own baking sheet, made nice fat even braids and skipped the egg wash. And I let the bread cool way up high out of the dogs reach.

After working through a few kinks, I've decided this is fairly easy. Yes there is a lot of rising time, but hardly any hands on work. It’s so worth it, 100x better than any grocery store or even bakery bread I’ve had.

Braided Bread
Makes 2 loaves

1/4 cup warm water
2 1/2 tsp yeast (or one yeast packet)
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 cup hot water
1 tsp. salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. butter

2 1/2 cups flour
1 egg
1 3/4 - 2 cups more flour

Cinnamon variation:
1 Tbsp. butter, melted
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 1/2 tsp. cinnamon


Click here to see the full tutorial and recipe.

Black Bean and Sweet Potato Soup with Irish Soda Bread Scones

I’m playing a bit of catch up, I wrote this and meant to post it the weekend before St. Paddy’s Day. Vacation photos coming soon…

Sunday, March 14: The other day I was browsing all my favorite food blogs and came across two recipes that I thought would make a perfect Sunday dinner. This soup is from Two Peas and Their Pod – the cooking couple, a great blog full of healthy recipes. I made the soup even healthier by adding kale and then counter balanced it with some Italian sausage (because that’s how I roll). And I found the Irish Soda Bread Scones at Wicked Good Dinner, another great food blog. In my mind, Irish Soda Bread is one of the best parts of St. Paddy’s Day, so I couldn’t pass these up. I kept it simple by leaving out the caraway seeds and used craisins since that’s what I had in my panty. The combination of the spicy soup and slightly sweet scones made one delicious dinner!

Black Bean and Sweet Potato Soup
adapted from Two Peas and Their Pod

Ingredients:
1 T olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb. Italian Sausage
1 large sweet potato, peeled and chopped
1 roasted red pepper, chopped (you can use jarred)
Kale – a few leaves rinsed and chopped
2 cans low sodium vegetable broth (15 oz. size)
2 cups water
3 cans low sodium black beans, rinsed and drained (I realized at the last minute I didn’t have black beans, so I used kidney beans, which were great, but next time I will use black beans)
3 cans diced tomatoes with green chiles
1 T chili powder
2 teaspoons cumin
Dash of red pepper flakes
1/2 bunch of cilantro, chopped
Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions
1. In a large soup pot, heat the olive oil. Add in the onion and cook until tender. Add in the garlic and cook for about 2 minutes. Add the Italian sausage and cook for about 5 minutes.
2. Stir in the sweet potato and roasted red pepper. Cook for 5 minutes.
3. Add in the broth, water, black beans, kale and tomatoes. Stir well.
4. Add the chili powder, cumin, and red pepper flakes. Stir and toss in the cilantro. Stir again. Let the soup simmer on medium low for 30 minutes, or until the sweet potatoes are soft.
5. Season with salt and pepper and serve hot.

Irish Soda Bread Scones
adapted from Wicked Good Dinner

Ingredients
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup organic raisins (I used craisins)
3 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup organic cane sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
8 tablespoons cold butter
1 tablespoon toasted caraway seeds (I skipped this)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Salt (I used ½ tsp.)

Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a medium bowl, soak the raisins in the vanilla and buttermilk for 15 minutes.
In a large bowl, whisk the together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Using a pastry blender, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Drain the raisins, saving the vanilla buttermilk. Stir in the caraway and raisins. Add the egg and buttermilk and mix with a spoon until just incorporated.

Place the dough on sheet pan lined with parchment paper that has been lightly floured and form dough into an 8” round loaf. Gently flatten the loaf with your hands until it’s about 3” high. Cut into 8 wedges and slightly separate each wedge on the baking sheet to allow room for expansion when baking.
Bake for 25 minutes or until light golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet.