Where's the PB&J in My Peanut Butter and Jelly Bread?

The very first time I flipped through My Bread: the Revolutionary, No-Work, No-Knead Method by Jim Lahey, the photo of his Peanut Butter and Jelly Bread immediately caught my eye. This bread contains both peanut butter and whole peanuts in the batter, as well as a swirl of jelly inside. You sprinkle chopped peanuts on the bottom of the loaf pan and on top of the loaf before baking, just for good measure. I love PB&J as much as the next person, and I figured this bread should be sensational.

I had some problems with this dough sticking when I rolled up the strawberry jelly inside it, even though I was working on a well-floured silicone mat. The loaf got a little mangled as I tried to get it into the loaf pan, and as you can see in the picture above, my jelly swirl ended up as a bit of a mess. But otherwise, my version looks pretty close to the picture in the cookbook.

Both Tom and I were incredibly disappointed with this bread. The texture and flavor were fine -- if you just wanted an ordinary slice of bread. But it didn't taste anything like a PB&J. There wasn't enough jelly flavor (there is 1/3 cup total in the loaf), and I thought that the peanut butter and peanuts would make the bread very peanutty, but it wasn't. Also, while the peanuts on the top and bottom of the loaf were crunchy, the ones inside the loaf that had been mixed into the batter at the beginning of making the dough were slightly soggy (after all, they had been in a wet batter for about 14 hours before baking). It was way too much effort to make this bread for what I got in return. Next time I want a PB&J, I'll just make a plain loaf of bread and add the peanut butter and jelly!

Recipe: "Peanut Butter and Jelly Bread" from My Bread: the Revolutionary No-Work, No Knead Method by Jim Lahey.

Ipso Fatto Instant Photo: Emily's Birthday Cake

Recipe: "White Chocolate Patty Cake" from Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan. Watch Marcel Desaulniers show Julia Child how to make this cake by going to this page and selecting "Marcel Desaulniers" from the drop-down menu of chefs in the "Prime Video Cuts" search box; the video is split into two parts.

Previous Post: "Patty Cake Patty Cake, Baker's Man, Bake Me a White Chocolate Raspberry Cake as Fast as You Can!," June 28, 2009.

Finally Turning the Page: Chocolate Swirl Sour Cream Coffee Cake

For years I have been making the recipe for Chocolate Banana Bread from Chocolatier Magazine's May 2002 issue. When I made the banana bread earlier this week, I couldn't help noticing that I've never tried the recipe on the very next page of the magazine -- Chocolate Swirl Sour Cream Coffee Cake. I decided it was finally time to give the recipe a shot.

The cake itself isn't all that unusual -- just your basic sour cream coffee cake. However, there is a layer of filling in the middle consisting of brown sugar, pecans, cinnamon and chocolate, and a topping made with the filling ingredients plus cake flour, cocoa powder, and butter.

This cake rose slightly above the top of my 2-inch high springform pan, and I was relieved that it didn't actually overflow. The finished cake was pretty ugly; the topping looked like a muddy mess and I sprinkled the slices with powdered sugar before serving to try to make it a bit more attractive. I thought the flavor of the cake itself was fine; the filling and topping were mildly interesting, but didn't make much of an impression. But the main problem with the cake was its texture, which was not tender at all. It had the slightly rubbery texture of a supermarket coffee cake. At least I know I haven't been missing very much all of these years!

Recipe: Chocolate Swirl Sour Cream Coffee Cake from Chocolatier Magazine, May 2002.

I'm Going to Have to Disagree With Ruth Reichl on This One: Chocolate Banana Bread

Earlier in the week I wanted to do some baking to use up some ingredients I had on hand, and I remembered the perfect two-fer to use up both some overripe bananas and sour cream -- Chocolate Banana Bread. This recipe comes from the May 2002 issue of the now-defunct Chocolatier Magazine and it has always been one of my favorites. It's a really unique take on banana bread, and with both cocoa and chopped chocolate in the batter, the resulting loaf is definitely more decadent and dessert-like than traditional banana breads.

As I had my bread in the oven on Monday, Tom asked me where the recipe was from. I told him, and asked him why he wanted to know. As it turns out, Ruth Reichl -- the former Editor in Chief of the late and great Gourmet Magazine -- was also facing an oversupply of overripe bananas and had just tweeted a request for banana bread recipes. Tom replied to her tweet with a link to this recipe. Later on in the day, Reichl posted an entry on her online journal discussing the banana bread recipes she had received and posting quite a few of them. I was hoping that this recipe would have made her selected list, but it didn't. In fact, I was quite dismayed when I read one of the criteria Reichl used for sorting through the recipes she received: "Half of the recipes included chocolate of some sort; not my idea of a good time, so I ruled them out."

Not her idea of a good time?! I have tremendous respect for Ruth Reichl, but I'm sorry, that's just nuts. Chocolate and bananas are made for each other! Surely anyone who has ever tasted a frozen chocolate-covered banana can attest to this. And let me tell you, Ruth Reichl is really missing out. This bread is luxuriously dense and moist, and the chocolate truly elevates the banana flavor to make it something special. Perhaps one day I will try the banana bread recipe Reichl finally settled on and see how it compares!

Recipe: "Chocolate Banana Bread" from Chocolatier Magazine, May 2002.

Ipso Fatto Instant Photo: Red Velvet Cupcakes

As I was pondering what to bake for work this week, it suddenly dawned on me that with Valentine's Day having just passed by this weekend, there was really only one choice. I can't think of anything more valentine-y than red velvet cupcakes with heart-shaped sprinkles!

Recipes:

• Red Velvet Cake from Cake Man Raven, recipe available here.
• Frosting recipe from Pumpkin-Raisin Bars, from epicurious.com.

Previous Posts:

• "Red Velvet Cupcakes = True Love," January 31, 2009.
• "Holiday Party Recap, Part III: Ready For a Throwndown!," December 17, 2008.
  

It's Back, and It's Bigger: Cinnamon Pinwheel Raisin Bread 2.0

Having four days off from work this past week gave me lots of time to bake. It also meant eating a lot of meals at home. I got into the habit of having a couple slices of cinnamon raisin toast for breakfast each day. By the end of the week, I was already running low and I decided to make another loaf.

The last time I made this bread, I had a lot of trouble handling the dough after sprinkling on the cinnamon-sugar and rolling the dough up into a log. The dough is quite wet after the first rise and the recipe instructs you to add more flour to make a hard-to-stir dough before mixing in the raisins. I did this step last time, but apparently I didn't add enough flour. So this time, I added a lot of flour, enough to make it really difficult to stir (even though I was using my kitchenaid stand mixer outfitted with a dough hook to do the stirring). It was so stiff that it was a challenge to get the raisins evenly distributed through the dough. But I was able to easily roll up the dough and get it into the bread pan for the second rise without incident. I noticed that there seemed to be more dough in the pan than last time, and the loaf certainly rose much higher out of the pan before baking. As you can see from the picture below, the resulting loaf was much larger than my previous effort.

After the loaf cooled and I cut it open, you could see a clean pinwheel pattern to the cinnamon-raisin swirl. While this loaf looked prettier than the last loaf, both loaves tasted pretty much the same. I don't know if my adding more flour is responsible for this loaf turning out so much larger. Bread baking can be highly variable depending on rising temperature and rising times. My approach to bread baking is completely different than my approach to baking cookies or cakes. So long as it tastes good, I'm not going to sweat the details!

Recipe: "Cinnamon Raisin Pinwheel Bread" from Kneadlessly Simple: Fabulous, Fuss-Free, No-Knead Breads by Nancy Baggett.
Previous Post: "Snowmageddon 2010: a Bread Marathon," February 8, 2010.

Sustenance for the 46th St. Shovel Brigade: Chocolate Chip Cookies

Today, like almost every other day for the last week, Tom and I spent some time outside shoveling snow. Digging out our cars for what seems like the umpteenth time might seem a little tiresome, but I really enjoyed being out in the sunshine and getting out of the house for a while. Most of all, I appreciated having the chance to chat with all of our neighbors. Not surprisingly, after the blizzard we had yesterday, everyone was out shoveling this morning. We live in a wonderful neighborhood with some terrific neighbors -- and the camaraderie on the block today was just delightful. Tom, being the incredibly thoughtful person that he is, even shoveled the walks of two elderly neighbors across the street.

When I finished shoveling, I decided that everyone deserved some chocolate chip cookies after all of their hard work. I had some cookie dough handy that I made on Monday; originally I had planned to bring cookies to an office happy hour that was scheduled for today. But with the federal government being closed since last Friday afternoon, my batch of dough was all dressed up with nowhere to go. I baked the cookies and delivered them in batches (while they were still warm) to everyone on the street. These beautiful, fat cookies were -- as always -- crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside, and bursting with chocolate and rich caramel-y flavor.

The recent snowstorms have wreaked havoc on a lot of the things that most of us take for granted. God only knows when basic services like mail delivery and garbage pick-up will resume. But at least I know that come hell or high water, I can count on our lovely neighbors to be full of good will and good cheer!

Recipe: Chocolate Chip Cookies from the New York Times, July 9, 2008.

Previous Posts:

• "Measuring Up the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie," July 11, 2008.
• "Chocolate Chip Cookie Redux," July 21, 2008.
  
• "An Extra Bittersweet Goodbye," July 8, 2009.

Snowmageddon 2010: a Bread Marathon

As you may have heard, D.C. was just hit by a big snowstorm. I'm happy to report that we are no worse for the wear. Tom and I made it through the weekend without losing any trees, gutters, or our power supply. In fact, we took advantage of our time cooped up inside to bake a lot of bread. I already had a container of bread dough in the fridge (from the master boule recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day), and I baked a loaf for our neighbors. Tom also has been experimenting with no-knead doughs and he baked up a couple of loaves using coppa, parmesan cheese, rosemary, and garlic. And after we ventured into the winter wonderland at the tail end of the storm on Saturday and discovered that CVS was open, I was able to buy some raisins and try Nancy Baggett's recipe for "Cinnamon Pinwheel Raisin Bread" from Kneadlessly Simple: Fabulous, Fuss-Free, No-Knead Breads.

The base dough for this bread is Baggett's recipe for "Country Fair White Bread," which contains bread flour, sugar, salt, yeast, and ice water. After the first rise, you stir in melted butter, nonfat dry milk, beaten egg, and raisins. After incorporating those ingredients and letting the dough rest for a few minutes, you shape the dough into a rectangle, brush it with beaten egg, sprinkle on a mixture of cinnamon and sugar, roll it up into a log, and put it in a 9- by 5-inch loaf pan for the second rise. I found this dough almost impossible to handle. Even though I shaped it into a rectangle on a well oiled and floured piece of parchment paper, it was very sticky, and my log got pretty mangled on the way into the loaf pan. After the second rise, you brush the top of the loaf with more beaten egg and sprinkle on more cinnamon sugar before putting it in the oven to bake.

This bread was really delicious. It tasted just like store-bought cinnamon-raisin bread (here, that characterization is meant as a compliment). The texture was lighter than the Oat-Whole Wheat Honey-Raisin Bread I made last week, since this recipe included only white flour. Tom and I enjoyed some toasted for breakfast today, and the bread was a lovely, sweet treat!

Recipe: "Cinnamon Pinwheel Raisin Bread" from Kneadlessly Simple: Fabulous, Fuss-Free, No-Knead Breads by Nancy Baggett.

Ipso Fatto Instant Photo: Double-Ginger Chocolate Chunk Cookies

There is only one thing I would have changed about this cookie. I ran out of the semi-fine sanding sugar from Surfas that I've used previously to coat the cookies before baking, so I used coarse sanding sugar instead. (If you look at the photo from the last time I made these cookies, you can see the difference -- the sugar crystals were much larger this time around.) The coarse sugar is a little much and the overly crunchy texture distracts and detracts from the wonderful underlying flavor of the cookie. That said, the cookie is still so delicious that most people probably didn't notice.

Recipe: Double-Ginger Chocolate Chunk Cookies by Susan Spungen for more.com.

Previous Posts:

• "The Best Thing I've Ever Learned During a Conference Call: Double-Ginger Chocolate Chunk Cookies," December 4, 2009.
• "Ipso Fatto Instant Photo: the New and Possibly Improved Ginger Chip Cookie," December 6, 2009.