Brioche is something I’d heard of before, seen on TV, but I’d never had it let along made it. I knew what was in it; I have recipes in about 4 different books for it, and a Google search brings back “about 4,130″ results. It’s not hard to find how to make brioche.

I was making foie gras for a party, and I thought the brioche would go really well with it. Why? Was it:

A. Because I have such a keen culinary mind that I just knew that the butteriness of the brioche would pair well with the foie gras’s fatiness?

B. Because the genius-level gastronimical intuitiveness that I’ve so carefully honed knew that the flaky texture of the bread would so beautifully contrast to the smooth texture of the duck liver?

C. I had foie gras at a restaurant that was served on brioche so I copied it?

You can make your own guesses (keep in mind that my wife says all multiple choice answers are ‘C’).

Regardless of the REAL reason I decided to use this for foie gras, I pushed ahead and took down my Bread Baker’s Apprentice, only to find not one but three recipes. Since I was baking this for a party, I went with the Rich Man’s brioche, as it used the most butter.

Rich Man’s Brioche

from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice by Peter Reinhart

Sponge

• 1/2 cup unbleached bread flour
• 1 tablespoon instant yeast
• 1/2 cup lukewarm whole milk

Dough

• 5 large eggs, slightly beaten
• 3 1/2 cups unbleached bread flour
• 2 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 egg, whisked until frothy, for egg wash

Sponge

Place the flour and yeast in a large mixing bowl and stir together. Add the milk and stir, until the flour is completely hydrated. Let the sponge ferment for 20 minutes, covered with plastic wrap. The sponge is ready when the bowl is tapped and the sponge rises and then falls.

In the same mixing bowl, add the eggs and beat on medium spead until it’s smooth. When I say to beat something with the mixer, I’m using the paddle attachment, not the kneading hook. Separately, put the flour, sugar and salt, and stir it. Add to the sponge and eggs, then mix for 2 minutes. The gluten needs to develop, so rest the dough for about 5 minutes. Start mixing again on a medium setting and add the butter, 1/4 of the total amount at a time. Each time butter is added, mix until it’s blended into the dough before adding more. Continue to mix for about 6 minutes more. As the dough mixes, the butter causes it to stick to the sides of the bowl; stop the mixer and scrape this down periodically. The dough ends up soft and smooth and really clingy.

The recipe says to line a sheet pan with parchment to put the dough onto here, but I sprayed the inside of a gallon ziplock bag and put the dough in the back instead. I put the dough in the refrigerator overnight then. In the morning, I took the dough out of the fridge, and quickly formed 2 balls which went into fluted pans, and one loaf that went into a regular bread pan. I worked quickly, as the recipe says to work the dough when it’s cold. I also used nitrile gloves to keep the dough from sticking too badly. I filled the pans so they were only about half full, allowing room for the bread to expand while proofing.

After the dough was in the pans, I lightly sprayed it with some Pam and covered with plastic wrap. After a couple of hours, the dough had about filled the pans, and I brushed the egg wash over the top of the loaves of dough and recovered for about 30 minutes, about when the dough had doubled since going into the pans.

The recipe called for the oven to be preheated to 400 °F for petites brioches. I didn’t make these, so I set it to the lower setting of 350 °F. I actually preheated the oven well before the dough was ready, so that my Hearthkit would be up to temperature, too. I baked the brioches for 15 minutes, turning it around at 10 minutes for even browning, then checked to see if the bread was done. It took about 4 more minutes until it got to where I liked the color. I immediately removed the bread from the pans and put the loaves on a cooling rack. I cut into one of the fluted loaves to try it. I almost wish I hadn’t! It’s just too good.

So I learned what brioche is, and I learned that I shouldn’t make it too often; that’s a lot of butter!  I didn’t have to butter it to grill it, though, and probably wouldn’t want to toast it in the toaster, as it may catch on fire from burning the butter!

Overall, this was one of the easier breads I’ve made, yet it came out beautifully.  I have my gastrointestinal, I mean gastronomical, gut instincts to thank… Ok, I have the chef at the River Cafe to thank for letting me know how good brioche and foie gras are together; now I know how good brioche is all by its lonesome!

The recipe called for a poolish to sit overnight. This part was easy, just flour, water and yeast. Overnight, it rose decently, and all looked good.

I turned on the mixer, and pretty quickly turned it off, diving for papertowels… Flour and water were all over the counter, though not a huge quantity, just a big mess. I got things under control and used a spatula to combine the loose flour with the poolish. This worked much better, and the dough mixed much better. I added in the salt and yeast, and the mixer did it’s thing.

When 25 minutes were up, I put my hand in the batter, I mean dough… no, I mean batter. The dough was so wet it was pourable. Now, I know I made a mess earlier, but not that much flour came out. This dough just seemed WAY too wet, but I went on, thinking maybe that it would seem less so as it continued proofing.

At 50 minutes, same thing. So now I’m thinking that I have 20 guests coming over for a party, and I’m going to have nothing but bread batter to bake. It might work in loaf pans, but not as boules, which is what I was going for. I also figured I could just run to the bakery if I needed to, but I didn’t want to do that… I wanted to make my own bread!

Then I had an idea. I went back to the batter and divided it into two bowls. I put one half back into the mixer and turned the mixer on, then I added, slowly, more flour until I was happy with the consistency. I put this back into the dough doubler and did the same with the other half of the original batter. I restarted the timer and waited.

This turned out to be about as good of a French country boule as I’ve made. Part of it had to do with the Hearthkit I have in my oven, I think. The oven spring was great. A lot of it was luck and maybe finally getting to the point where I was comfortable with the feel of the dough.

I’ll report back when I try it. Next time, though, I also fixed brioche… which went much smoother.  What I did learn, though, and I think this is important… This is just flour and water and yeast.  It’s cheap.  I can play around with it a bit and the world won’t end.  I just don’t have to be afraid to make a change if I want to; if it doesn’t turn out, I’m out very little other than time.  But if I learn something more, it’s even worth the time.

We have relief in sight. The high on Sunday was almost 90 degrees, and it was humid. Same on Monday. But yesterday, that all changed, and today, on Wednesday, the high is… 66!!! That means I won’t burn up while baking, yea!

I spent last weekend in Pittsburgh, which is a foodie destination as good as about any in the US, in my opinion. If you haven’t been there, don’t laugh. Email me, and I’ll help you plan a trip that you’ll absolutely love, and it will cost a lot less than a trip to NYC or the like.

On Saturday morning, my wife and I went to the Strip District, which is a great place for all kinds of food. One bakery had bread for sale right on the sidewalk, and looking at it just made me want to get into the kitchen and enjoy some bread baking. This weekend I’ll be doing some of that, I promise!

The breads just smelled great and looked great, even the day old asiago! There’s something about bread that just speaks to me, I think. I’m beginning to realize that my style of cooking (not just baking) is artisanal, whether it’s bread, stew, spaghetti sauce or barbecue. I really get into the selection of ingredients, the process that cooking takes, the art and science of how flavors come together. When I get bread from a bakery, I find my reaction is either that I think I can do better, so why don’t they; or it’s that they make great bread that I only wish I could make.

So I’d like to hear from readers… What makes you ready to get back to baking? What about bread says something to you?

Every once in a while, however, I want something simpler. Some things call for simple. I don’t think I’d care for sausage gravy on a baguette. No, that needs biscuits!

Biscuits are too easy to waste time on pressurized cans with doughy mascots on them. In not much more time than it takes your heartbeat to return to normal after jumping from the ‘pop’ (come on… it makes you jump every time, doesn’t it?), you can make from-scratch biscuits that put those to shame.

Pinch My Salt had a great buttermilk biscuit recipe that I decided to try over the weekend. The recipe is simple:

• 1 1/4 C. cake flour
• 3/4 C. all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 t. baking powder
• 1/2 t. baking soda
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1/4 C. butter, cut into small chunks
• 3/4 C. buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 500 °F (I use convection/bake). Keep the butter really cold until you use it. Mix the dry ingredients, then add the butter, mixing by hand. Once the flour is in loose crumb form, add the buttermilk, mixing only enough to combine ingredients.

Flour a work surface lightly, and, by hand, pat out the dough to a 3/4″ to 1″ thickness. Cut biscuits and place, touching, on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes, turning the cookie sheet around at 5 minutes to get the most even baking.

Place the finished biscuits on a cooling rack for a couple of minutes before using, as the insides will be hot enough to cause problems… Ok, go ahead and butter one up, but be careful!

These are great biscuits to try; they’ve become my standard for use at home. One thing to remember - handle as little as possible; this allows for lighter biscuits. The more you handle them, the tighter the dough will become.

Sometimes fast and easy is needed, but I still love the process of taking my time.

To be frank, it’s been just too hot to bake in the house!  So what I’m writing about today is the anticipation of baking weather… Autumn!

The smells of yeasty dough, baking bread, melty butter on bread too hot to eat… That’s all part of the autumn season to me.  I’m anticipating some great bread this year, after all I learned last year, when I first started baking.  I have a Hearthkit in place in the oven, and my oven window, after a $225 replacement from cracking the glass, is ready to go.

Here’s what I’ll be doing differently this year:

More types of bread, including a good, dark, sweet pumpernickel and a miche or two

• Stuffed breads
• Cinnamon rolls
• No-knead bread
• More cinnamon rolls
• A brioche or two
• At least one apple pie

If you have anything you’d like a novice like me to try, let me know.  I’m up for about anything, as long as there’s no coconut in it!

My wife and I did make something that just about anyone with an oven can make, though. It fits very well with summer fare and almost can’t be messed up…

Fruit Pizza!!! Okay, that wasn’t a surprise - it’s in the title of the post. But it’s good stuff, nonetheless!

The way my wife and I make this is to use a sugar cookie crust. And, almost to my shame, we used two tubes of Pillsbury sugar cookie dough. That’s right; I didn’t even make the dough… My shame is almost too much to take.

I spread the dough in a greased deep dish pizza pan and baked at 350 degrees F for about 15 minutes, until it looked done. My wife, in the meantime, mixed 8 ounces of cream cheese with one stick of butter and enough confectioner’s sugar to get the consistency that would spread (maybe half a box of sugar). This cream cheese icing was spread on the cookie crust after the crust cooled.

The crust and icing were topped with fresh fruit. Any fresh fruit that you like will do, but we used kiwi, strawberries, blackberries and raspberries. The nice thing about fruit pizza is that, as fruit comes into season throughout summer, it can change by using the fruit currently in season.

The pizza was refrigerated until it was time for dessert. It’s easy, not time consuming, and you (and your guests) will love it!

I posted this elsewhere, but I wanted to add it here also, mainly to solicit summer baking ideas from readers.

So… What do some of you bake differently in the summer than in other months? Why only summer? What WON’T you bake in the summer?

So what does Chelsea Market have to do with baking?  There are more bakeries there than anything else.  The largest of them is Amy’s Bread, which has locations elsewhere in NYC, too (they started in Hell’s Kitchen), but the Chelsea Market location is great in that the whole bakery is exposed to the public via floor to ceiling windows.

I’ve never seen so many couches lined up, and racks and racks of dough rising.  Several people all working at once on different doughs, and flour everywhere (though never a mess!).  I don’t know if you can see in one of the photos that the oven has several levels, and they were all filled with baking loaves.

The bakery has a small retail spot that sells not only a wide variety of breads, but also dessert pastries and sandwiches on, of course, their own bread.  I walked by at one point and noticed about a dozen large pieces of carrot cake; I was back 20 minutes later to find they were all gone!

If I’d had more time in NYC, I would have thought of asking for a tour of the bakery.  I did try the bread, and it was very good; Friday’s special is black olive bread, which had nice chunks of olive.  I also tried a rustic Italian bread that had good crust and great crumb to it.

I loved seeing the different bakeries at the market… But I have to admit, there’s a local bakery in Ohio that can compete with them any day, too; it’s still not the same as getting a good loaf in NYC!

 Amy’s Bread

75 9th St.

New York City, NY 10011

So how do I improve it for baking bread?  I’ve already cracked the window, so I have to stop that.  The one tool that I’ve read about that I wanted to try was a Hearth Kit (www.hearthkitchen.com).  It’s basically a baking stone with curved baking stone sides and a wire rack.  The idea is that the stone heats up to the desired temperature and radiates heat to the middle of the oven.  This supposedly eliminates the fluctuation (or at least reduces it) from the oven warming up and cooling down to keep its temperature.

The Hearth Kit comes with the bottom stone, 2 side stones, a rack that can used for broiling or allowing more food to be places in the Heart Kit, an instructional/recipe booklet, a thermometer so you know when the stone is heated up to the right temp and a cd.

My CD didn’t work, but I didn’t complain at all.  Why not?  Well, because I was at the Frontgate (from Skymall if you’ve flown and seen the catalog) outlet, and they had a couple of 22″ Hearth Kits for a good price.  Regular price for the Hearth Kit is $199, including shipping; Frontgate had it for $25!!!

So it was an easy decision to get a Hearth Kit to try out.  I’m going to be baking on it as soon as my oven is fixed (I still don’t have the glass replaced!).  I’ll report back on how bread does using this instead of just a baking stone.

I’d read all the books about how to bake artisan breads in a home oven.  I have 2 stones, one for the dough, one above to even out the temps.  I use a shallow pan to create steam by pouring boiling water into it when the dough it put in the oven.  And I have a pretty good-but-cheap spray bottle to spray the oven when I put bread in it.

There’s the culprit - The Spray Bottle!  Ok, I’m the culprit, but the spray bottle was my tool of ineptitude.  Here’s the basic scenario:

• Dough is in it’s final fermentation
• Oven goes on at 550 degrees F
• Dough is read
• Oven is opened
• Dough is put on the stone via peel
• Boiling water is added to the shallow pan on the top shelf
• Oven is sprayed with spray bottle containing distilled water
• Oven is closed
• Temp is lowered to 475
• Crack appears in glass during the baking of the bread

What did I forget?  If you guessed that I forgot to cover the glass in the oven window before spraying, you win the prize!!!

Yes, I forgot to cover the glass, and I must have dribbled a drip of water on it, causing the glass to crack due to it being heated to well over 500 degrees.  $150 for the glass + $75 for the repairman = $225 mistake made using a $1 spray bottle.

In the future, I’ll be using an oven door sized piece of cardboard to ensure no water is dribbled anywhere near the glass!  The heat in the oven will keep enough to do what I need it to do, which is actually the main reason, I think, for having it up so high to start.  You don’t lose all the heat when you open the door to do what you need to do to get the dough going.

I’ve been trying to get bigger holes in the crumb of my bread (the crumb is the part that’s not crust), but I hadn’t been having much success. The breads tasted good, but I really wanted that holey look and texture. Hamelman describes a technique for folding the dough during the first fermentation (rise, or bulk fermentation). Simply put, the dough is poured out onto a heavily floured workspace, and the dough is folded, right to left, left to right in thirds, then the same top to bottom and bottom to top.

When folding, the flour helps the dough not stick to the surface. The right third is folded over and pushed down gently to only partially degas the dough, then the left third is folded over the rest and again gently degassed. The top third is folded down, degassed gently, followed by the same treatment of the bottom third. Each time the dough is folded, the excess flour has to be brushed away to ensure it isn’t left between layers, as it won’t be incorporated into the dough and will leave streaks in the final bread.

This sounds more involved than it really is; the folding is simple. the end product is worth it, and I don’t know that I’ll ever punch anything down again!  I did 3 recipes, all using the folding method, and all came out with much better crumb than before.