baked goods – Page 2 – Simply Delicious: The Cookbook Project

17-22: Bread Loaves with Creamy Filling

Jamie Martin Group 17: Baked Goods, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods January 31, 2018November 8, 2020all-purpose flour, baked goods, breads, breakfast, cheese, chervil, chopped, cottage cheese, creamy, dill, easy, filling, herbs and spices, inexpensive, kneaded, lunch, melted, parsley, proofed, salt, sliced, snacks, tarragon, untested, vegetarian, white bread, whole wheat bread, whole wheat flour, yeast

One of the last few from the “in-the-queue-way-too-long” batch, here’s 17-22: Bread Loaves with Creamy Filling. I’ve been putting this recipe off for a while–I never seemed to have or remembered to buy cottage cheese to make it. Yes, in another 1980s-lowfat-health-craze-inspired moment, Simply Delicious chooses to sacrifice flavor for “health benefits”, this time by stuffing whole wheat bread with herb-flavored cottage cheese.

See? “Healthy” is right there in the description. Now, 30+ years later, we’ve determined that fats are probably better for you than we thought back then, and carbs/sugar are probably a lot worse for you. Remember, when they make things “low-fat”, they usually have to jack up the sugar to make it somewhat edible. Not really a great strategy for weight loss, as my parents’ yo-yo dieting throughout the 80s, 90s, and beyond can attest to.

17-10: Poppy Seed Bread

Jamie Martin Group 17: Baked Goods, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods January 23, 2018August 31, 2020all-purpose flour, anise, baked goods, breads, buns, butter, cheese, cumin, dough, egg wash, eggs, fairly hard, granulated sugar, grated, inexpensive, kneaded, milk, parchment paper, poppy seeds, proofed, rolls, salt, sesame seeds, side dish, Silpat, untested, vegetarian, white bread, yeast

One of the last entries from the Baked Goods chapter, 17-10: Poppy Seed Bread is essentially white bread with a sprinkling of poppy seeds on top. Simply Delicious shows it as a loaf, but I chose to make it into rolls/buns–since you’re already topping the bread with seeds, it makes it very reminiscent of sesame seed hamburger buns. 🍔

Even 20+ years later, most mentions of poppy seeds inevitably end up referencing this Seinfeld gag, where Elaine’s love for poppy seed muffins keep causing her to test positive for opium on a work-administered drug test.

This often leads to the question: Can poppy seeds really affect a drug test? And the answer, according to the New York Times, is actually “Yes!” 🤔 You’d have to eat a LOT of them (much more than what the recipe for this bread contains) to have it show up at levels that would cause alarm–but the claim does actually have merit.

18-2: Basic Yeast Dough II

Jamie Martin Group 18: Basic Techniques, Section 4: Cooking School January 1, 2018September 30, 2020all-purpose flour, baked goods, baking pan, bread flour, bread series, breads, cooking school, dough, fail, frozen, granulated sugar, kneaded, loaf pan, lukewarm, milk, proofed, rye flour, salt, scalded, sifted, vegetarian, white bread, whole wheat bread, whole wheat flour, yeast

Happy New Year! 🍾 We’ll start off this year (as I have other years) by finishing up a bit of old business from last year. I had started a Bread Series at the end of 2017, covering the first part of this Cooking School set (18-1: Basic Yeast Dough I) as well as including 20-12: Basic Rolls as a good base recipe to practice with.

Here, we’ll cover 18-2: Basic Yeast Dough II, which includes the fundamentals of the process of bread-making, as well as some tips on how to tell where your bread may have gone wrong. I’ve been making bread for a while, and I still run into trouble–it’s nice to know what I might have messed up so that I can try to fix it for the future.

Bread making is not a quick process–sometimes you can be working on a bread for 24-48 hours between the blooming, kneading, rising, and proofing. When I was being trained to make bread in the restaurant I worked in a few years ago, we would start making bread at 8 AM, and barely be finished by dinner time around 5-6 PM.

That’s not including our starter which had to be fed every day, as well as making all of the other baked goods that our pastry chef made daily. It can be a LOT of work!

20-12: Basic Rolls

Jamie Martin Group 20: Basic Recipes, Section 4: Cooking School December 19, 2017October 18, 2020all-purpose flour, appetizers, baguette, baked goods, bread series, breads, breakfast, brushed, butter, cardamom, cheese, chopped, cinnamon, coarse salt, cooking school, crescents, cumin, curry powder, dried herbs, egg wash, eggs, granulated sugar, grated, herbs and spices, lunch, melted, milk, nuts, party food, poppy seeds, pretzels, proofed, rolls, saffron, salt, scored, sesame seeds, slit, snacks, sunflower seeds, untested, vegetarian, white bread, yeast

Playing a bit of catch-up here since unscheduled interruptions, other non-food-related projects, and massive amounts of holiday baking have put me far behind in terms of keeping up with posts. I had started working on a Bread Series, starting with 18-1: Basic Yeast Dough I which I published back in October. Covering 20-12: Basic Rolls was intended to play off of that concept, giving you an easy recipe to utilize the lessons presented in both that post and its follow-up, 18-2: Basic Yeast Dough II.

Quick review: the last three chapters of Simply Delicious are part of its Cooking School, intended to review basic techniques, ingredients, and recipes with which all aspiring chefs should be familiar. I’ve covered a few bits and bobs out of those last few chapters, but much of it still remains untapped.

18-1: Basic Yeast Dough I

Jamie Martin Group 18: Basic Techniques, Section 4: Cooking School October 5, 2017September 30, 2020all-purpose flour, anise, baked goods, beer, bread series, breads, breakfast, butter, cake yeast, canola oil, cinnamon, cooking school, cumin, dairy-free, dried herbs, dried spices, durum wheat flour, eggs, fennel, garlic, granulated sugar, herbs and spices, milk, olive oil, poppy seeds, rye flour, saffron, salt, sesame seeds, shortening, snacks, untested, vanilla extract, vegetable juice, vegetable oil, vegetarian, wheat germ, whole wheat bread, whole wheat flour, whole wheat kernels, yeast

I’ve made a lot of bread during the 3.5 years I’ve been working on this project (both for the project and outside of it), and I hear a lot of the same remarks whenever I talk about making bread: “Oh, that seems hard”, or “It’s too much work to make bread”. I used to feel the same way, and shied away from yeast recipes for a long time out of a fear of failure. In cooking (like most things in life), you have to be ready to embrace failure and learn from it–otherwise, you’ll never get past heating up Hot Pockets in the microwave.

Simply Delicious even notes in their recipe blurb that bread making is perceived as hard. It’s maybe not the easiest thing in the world, but you’ll make a lot of friends fast if you can make them fresh bread. 18-1: Basic Yeast Dough I is the first in a three-part series on bread making, where you’ll learn some tips and tricks for improving your bread baking, as well as a few basic recipes that you can use.

17-14: Nutty Muffins

Jamie Martin Group 17: Baked Goods, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods September 15, 2017August 31, 2020all-purpose flour, almonds, at work, baked goods, baking cups, baking powder, breakfast, butter, candied, chopped, cinnamon, citrus, creamed, dessert, dried fruit, easy, eggs, fairly inexpensive, gift ideas, granulated sugar, hazelnuts, melted, milk, muffins, nuts, oranges, pecans, peeled, reduced, simple syrup, snacks, tangerines, toppings, untested, vegetarian, walnuts, zested

Here’s one of the last few recipes left from the chapter on baked goods, Group 17: Baked Goods. I made 17-14: Nutty Muffins for work–I thought they’d make a nice accompaniment to everyone’s morning coffee. ☕️

See? Even Simply Delicious shows them being served with coffee. Wikipedia offers a deeper dive on the history of muffins if you’re interested/bored. There’s a difference between these types of muffins (referred to as “quickbread” muffins or “American” muffins due to the fact that they’re very similar to a cupcake or other types of sweet, dense, cake-like bread) and the traditional “English” muffins that you get with Eggs Benedict or an Egg McMuffin.

17-23: Mocha Éclairs

Jamie Martin Group 17: Baked Goods, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods June 2, 2017September 5, 2020all-purpose flour, baked goods, boiled, brunch, butter, chilled, chocolate, choux, coffee, cored, cornstarch, creamy, crispy, custard, dark chocolate, dessert, dough, éclairs, egg yolks, eggs, fairly expensive, filling, folded, French, gift ideas, glazed, granulated sugar, hard, icing, lactose-free, MD2017, melted, milk, mocha, Mother's Day, party food, pastry, pastry bag, pastry cream, piped, powdered sugar, profiteroles, salt, Silpat, sliced, slit, stiff peaks, temper, untested, vegetarian, whipped, whipping cream

As part of my Mother’s Day brunch this year (MD2017), I wanted to push my limits by attempting some of the hardest pastry recipes in the book. I tested my skills not only with 17-44: Homemade Danish Pastries, but with this recipe as well, 17-23: Mocha Éclairs. My mom always referred to éclairs as something that challenged her when she was learning to cook and bake, and that a well-executed one was something that really impressed her. With that in mind, I knew this recipe was a must-do.

I may have to make a few adjustments to Simply Delicious‘ version of the recipe–first of all, there’s no chocolate listed anywhere in this recipe, and it’s advertised as “mocha”, which is coffee AND chocolate. We may have to do something about this “slicing the tops off” idea as well.

17-44: Homemade Danish Pastries

Jamie Martin Group 17: Baked Goods, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods May 29, 2017September 21, 2020all-purpose flour, applesauce, baked goods, breakfast, brunch, butter, cake yeast, chilled, chocolate, creamy, custard, Danish, dark chocolate, dollop, dough, egg wash, eggs, fairly hard, fairly inexpensive, flaky, folded, glazed, granulated sugar, layers, MD2017, melted, milk, Mother's Day, party food, pastry, powdered sugar, proofed, pudding, puff pastry, salt, sliced, untested, vegetarian, yeast

Strap in ladies and gents, this one’s a long one. As part of my Mother’s Day brunch this year (MD2017), I thought I’d raise the bar and attempt some of the harder ones in the book–nothing impresses your mother like showing her you can cook (and bake). My mom LOVES pastries, so I made her 17-44: Homemade Danish Pastries to nosh on while I worked on trying to serve up 5-4: Eggs Benedict. Luckily, these turned out better than my hollandaise sauce attempt did.

Obviously, mine look a bit different than what’s pictured on their card–we’ll get into all the decisions and pitfalls that led to that being the case after the jump.

17-39: Herbed Buttermilk Biscuits

Jamie Martin Group 17: Baked Goods, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods May 20, 2017September 20, 20204-6-09 dinner, all-purpose flour, baked goods, baking powder, baking soda, basil, biscuit cutters, biscuits, butter, buttermilk, cookie cutters, cut in, Dijon mustard, dough, dried herbs, easy, egg-free, flute, green onions, herb salt, herbs and spices, inexpensive, minced, parchment paper, parsley, ranch house, revisited, salt, scallions, shortening, side dish, Silpat, snacks, vegetarian

If you’re looking for a relatively easy homemade buttermilk biscuit recipe, 17-39: Herbed Buttermilk Biscuits isn’t a bad choice. I made these once before for a dinner I made about 8 years ago. I remember thinking they were very bland as written–hence my notes written on the front and back about adding more salt. After following my own suggestions this time around, they’re much improved.

I didn’t make these for any particular dinner or reason this time around, but they still made decent snacks and accompaniments to meals throughout the week.

5-20: Golden Cheese Tartlettes

Jamie Martin Group 05: Eggs & Cheese, Section 1: Appetizers & Starters May 7, 2017December 20, 202180s party, all-purpose flour, appetizers, baked goods, blender, blue cheese, brandy, breakfast, butter, Cheddar, cheese, chilled, cognac, Colby Jack, cookie cutters, creamy, dough, dried spices, egg yolks, eggs, fail, fairly easy, fairly inexpensive, filling, food processor, Gorgonzola, Grand Marnier, Greenback apt, herbs and spices, hors d'oeuvres, Jarlsberg, liquor, paprika, party food, pastry, pastry cups, pie crust, revisited, roach motel apt, Roquefort, shredded, snacks, Swiss, tart, tartlette, vegetarian, whole wheat flour

Finally, one from the “revisited” pile–those are recipes I’ve already made before, but am making again for the sake of this project. 5-20: Golden Cheese Tartlettes were one of the appetizers I made for a Valentine’s Day 80’s party I talked about in 1-22: Onion-Potato Diamonds–I thought these little cheese tarts seemed very 1980s.

They’re not kidding about the “fragile” part when it comes to these tartlettes–I originally made these for this project back in July of 2016, but the whole operation went so poorly that I abandoned it and never even posted about it. Now that I’ve bought the proper equipment and ingredients for it, it went much smoother.