Chocolate Sour Cream Bread

So in my infinite avoidance of any responsibility I have that is not related to East Asia, I’ve discovered some cool keyboard functions on my computer for typing in Mandarin. For example, did you know you can use the trackpad to write characters?  It takes some getting used to and isn’t very practical for writing entire e-mails or what have you, but it’s a lot of fun to play with.

我想要绿萘.

I have learned how to type some important phrases as a result, such as the absolutely vital “I would like a green tea”.  I don’t remember how to write latte, but I know how to say it, which is more helpful anyway.  I am so ready to go China, you guys.  So ready.

 

On the subject of things you actually come to this blog to read about: I have so many baking recipes to post!  At long last!  Because I made this bread, which as you can see requires sour cream, and then I had a ton of sour cream leftover, so I had to find something to do with it… and baked more things!  I also have a couple of dinner recipes, so expect more content showing up soon. I adapted this recipe from the Magnolia Bakery cookbook (I say adapted; I was too cheap to buy some ingredients so I made some substitutions and messed around a little bit…).

Ingredients:

• 3 cups + 2 tbsp flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 9 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder + 3 tbsp butter, melted OR 3 oz unsweetened chocolate
• 1 shot espresso OR 1 tbsp instant espresso + 1 1/2 cups boiling water
• 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) butter
• 2 2/3 cups firmly packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup cour cream
• a handful of slivered almonds (optional)

Recipe:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and ready a loaf pan.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a small-ish bowl and set aside.

Now here is where I messed with the recipe a bit because I didn’t have certain ingredients.  The original recipe says to put the chocolate and the espresso powder shit in a bowl and pour the boiling water on top until the ingredients melted.  What I did was melt the 3 tbsp of butter in a small pot, stir in the cocoa powder, and then dump that into a different pot with the brewed shot of espresso in it, stirring until it all melted together.

After that madness, cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl for about 3 minutes before adding the eggs one at a time.  Gradually add the dry ingredients beating until just combined and smooth.  Mix in the sour cream and then gradually add the chocolate mixture as well.

Pour the batter into your loaf pan.

 

If you’re using almonds, sprinkle the almonds on top.

Then, bake for 70-80 minutes.  I know, that’s so long!  I think (I made it a week ago early in the morning) mine took about 70.  A cake test should come out clean.

Like I said, I’ll be posting more recipes soon, and most of them involve sour cream, so if you’re looking to get rid of the sour cream you used here, stay tuned.

I feel a little bit at a loss when it comes to today’s book recommendation.  I actually read a ton of books recently, all novels, but most of them were by Banana Yoshimoto, whom I know I’ve mentioned before.  I highly recommend anything she’s written.  I also read a couple of big-name Chinese writers, including the most recent Nobel winner Mo Yan, but I don’t actually want to recommend them…  I suppose I enjoyed Ryu Murakami’s Popular Hits of the Showa Era, which is a slim, bizarre, almost surreal novel about a war between a group of loser guys and a club of jaded housewives.  I was curious about Murakami because, as you probably know by know, I’m crazy about Haruki Murakami, and looking in bookstores and at the library I always see his books mixed in with Ryu Murakami’s.  I did enjoy it, but I’m not in love with it.  Still, it’s worth a read, and it is quite fun.

Cinnamon Pull-Apart Bread

And we’re back to baking!  I haven’t baked as much lately, and I don’t really know why…  Very silly, so I’ll have to fix that soon.

So I biked downtown for the first time in ages the other day.  I had to go to the library to get a book, but had fines and couldn’t check anything out…  But I ended up at this really wonderful little place that I’ve been meaning to try since I came here.  It’s called Grahamwich, it is divine, and it is strangely cheap.  Also it’s got gorgeous design.  I can’t even tell you.

 

Even though it was absolutely frigid, it was a beautiful day, and it made me so happy to be on the bike and taking pictures.  It’s been too long because we’ve had dreadful weather all winter that’s made it physically impossible to go out on a two-wheeled vehicle.

 

One thing I love about winter: the beaches are deserted.  I’m always surprised/dismayed when summer comes around and the park near where I live is swarmed and the bike path becomes hazardous.  Not only is that crush of people stressful and annoying, but it prevents a person from singing a mix of Lady Gaga and Indigo Girls at top volume while biking.  If a person were into that kind of thing.

You’re here for food, though.  Let’s get to it.

I feel bad taking so many recipes from Joy the Baker, but she is truly primus super pares in the world of baking blogs.  This recipe isn’t even adapted, and I am suitably ashamed.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 envelope dry active yeast (2 1/4 tsp, acc. to Joy)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 tablespoons/2 oz butter
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 large eggs

For filling:

• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 4 tbsp/2 oz butter, melted and cooled

To do:

First, stir together 2 cups of the flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl.  Pour the yeast into 3 tbsp water with a pinch of sugar and stir.  Let sit for five minutes until it foams up.

Whisk together eggs in a different bowl.

In a saucepan, melt the butter and milk together.  Remove from heat and add water.  Let that cool for a bit.

 

Add that and the activated yeast to the flour mixture and stir until incorporated.  Then, whisk in the eggs completely.  It will take a long time and you’ll be totally convinced that there is no way the eggs will get with the flour/milk, but keep at it.  Also, it looks nasty as hell.

Add the rest of the flour to make it look even nastier.

Trust.

Transfer the dough to a greased mixing bowl and cover with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel.  Sit that down in a warm, dry place and wait for an hour so it can double in size.  While bread chemistry is happening, mix the dry ingredients from the filling part of the recipe in a small bowl.

 

Also grease a loaf pan while you’re at it.

 

I worked on my political theory final while I waited for the dough to rise.  Super fun.

Deflate the dough and knead in 2 tbsp flour.  Cover with a towel and let it rest for five minutes.  I don’t know why you’re supposed to do this.  I will find out and let you all know.  Maybe I will write a bread science post some day.

Anyway.

Roll out the dough on a lightly-floured surface until it’s about 20 in x 12 in.  I actually didn’t have a lot of trouble with this dough being super sticky or recalcitrant or anything, which made me very happy.  I did have trouble rolling it out for a while, but then I realized that I had these height guards on the end of my rolling pin…  Don’t judge, we all have those moments.

 

With a pastry brush, slather it in the butter.  Or a paint brush.  Whichever you happen to have.

Then, sprinkle with the cinnamon and sugar.

Actually.  Okay, the original recipe acknowledges that it seems like a lot of sugar, but says to roll with it.  I disagree because jesus, it is a lot of sugar.  I would recommend using half the sugar, but if the original recipe works for you, go for it.

 

Slice this into six-ish strips and stack the strips on top of each other.  Then, slice that into six squares.

 

Pile those into the loaf pan like so:

 

I’m trying to think of an analogy and failing…

Like stacking books on a shelf.  There we go.

Place a kitchen towel over the loaf pan and do the whole rising thing again.  In the mean time, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Then, bake for 30-35 minutes.  The original recipe cautions you to make sure it’s really baked all the way through before taking it out.  The top should be a deep golden brown.  If it’s lightly browned, the middle may still be raw.  Cue paranoia, I know.  Sorry!

 

It’ll be okay.  I believe in you.

 

The book I wanted to check out at the library was by Kim Young-Ha and it was called Your Republic Is Calling You, about a North Korean spy living in ROK for years and years who gets called back suddenly.  My school library actually had a different book of his called I Have the Right to Destroy Myself that I quite enjoyed.  It’s very short and a very quick read (I read the whole thing in the bath), and it’s sort of about a guy who helps people kill themselves, and about these two guys who know a woman who killed herself with the first guy’s help.  I don’t know if that makes sense, but it’s a solid little book, and worth a read if you want something that doesn’t require a huge investment but isn’t some throwaway thing.

Fabulous Oat Bread

I don’t know if you’ve noticed that I tend to write more posts late at night.  I do this because I do most of my work at night.  So basically I write up recipes when I should be doing something else.  I’m having a hard time writing the section of my paper on building certification in China, so I thought I’d write about bread and see if it got miraculously easier.

I doubt it, but let me hope, okay.

I got this recipe from the side of a bag of King Arthur bread flour.  I think the recipes that come printed on packaging are seriously underrated.  This bread, for example, is insanely delicious, and I could easily have missed out by tossing the bag out when I was done with it.  Very foolish.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups bread flour
• 1 cup old-fashioned oats
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp of honey (or brown sugar)
• 2 tsp instant yeast OR 1 packet of active dry yeast (if you use the latter you have to “activate” the yeast in a bowl of warm water first.  Just pour it in and stir for a bit.  There should be directions on the packet.)
• 1 1/4 cups lukewarm milk

The thing I love about bread is that it’s so easy to make and so deeply rewarding.  I think a lot of people can be intimidated by bread because it involves yeast, and rising, and resting, and all sorts of mysterious stuff.  But in fact, bread is just the beautiful and elegant application of friendly food chemistry.  And, best of all, it results in bread.  A friend of mine was talking about how much he loves bread and wants to make some someday because when you’re done, you’ve got this loaf, right.  And the loaf is all yours.  You made that entire damn thing, which you can toast, or use to make sandwiches, or puts eggs on, or eat with pasta, or use as a soup mop.  It’s such an everyday item that, today, we imagine mostly as a processed product pre-sliced.  But it can also be a magnificent and delicious act of creativity and science meeting in one yeasty, warm loaf.

 

Throw everything together in one large mixing bowl and beat until the stuff forms a “shaggy” dough (as the bag says).

 

Yes, that is a fleck of wrapper stuck to the butter.  Yes, I removed it once I took the picture.

 

So now you want to knead by hand (10 minutes) or a bread machine (5 minutes.  Also, what are you doing with a machine?  This is the best part.  Cut it out.)

Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and let it hang out somewhere warm to do some rising.  At this point, if you’re using a bread machine I cannot help you.

After about an hour, shape it into a log, applying flour to every surface that will touch the bread, including yourself.

 

Cover the log with plastic wrap and let it rise again for about 90 minutes.  The recipe says to put it in a bread tin and wait until it crests the edges, but I don’t have a bread tin.

 

Bake in an oven preheated to 350 degrees from about 35-40 minutes, or until golden brown and hollow sounding when you knock on the bottom.  This may involve pulling the bread prematurely out of the oven and knocking on it. This is my other favorite part of baking bread.

I have some pictures of me crouched next to my oven holding my loaf and looking really triumphant, but they are silly so you cannot see them.  (I was crouched next to the oven because my apartment is rather frigid, and I usually huddle with the oven for warmth when it’s on.)

But here are some things you can do with your bread:

 

Poach an egg and drop it on top.  Or, scramble or fry the egg.  Hard-boiled eggs will probably not work very well here.

 

Heap Nutella on top.  Or pumpkin butter.  I have put all sorts of things on this bread.  Delicious.

The possibilities are endless.  The loaf is yours.  Go forth.  And bake some bread.

 

 

One of my friends is taking a class on Modern Japanese History, and she gets to read this book by Haruki Murakami (I know I’ve mentioned him before) called Underground, which is actually non-fiction.  It’s an aggregation of people’s stories who were the victims of a sarin attack on the Tokyo underground by a religious cult called Aum some years back.  He interviewed a bunch of people and compiled all the stories in a book interspersed with some of the details of the attack–which lines were targeted by which cult members, that kind of thing.

So I checked it out a couple of days and I’m about halfway through.  And… it’s an interesting experience because it’s at once very chilling and very mundane.  The stories are told by normal people, with normal lives and feelings and personalities, so in that sense the book doesn’t feel like an account of such a dramatic, tragic, and eerie event.  On the other hand, it is about a dramatic, tragic, and eerie event, and it’s a little bit terrifying as a result.

What I love best about it is that, aside from the bits of background information, it’s not about Aum.  I still know nothing about them.  Because they don’t matter.  It’s the action that matters, but most importantly, it’s the people themselves.  The ones who died, who were hospitalized for days, the ones who never recovered, the ones who want to forget, the ones who feel like they got off lucky.  And I think this is how stories of crises should be told.  I think it does the victims better justice, in any case, because trying to analyze the motives of, for example, a terrorist or an extremist group like Aum gives them power and legitimacy, and that should be the opposite of what we want.

 

In other news, a Chinese national won the Nobel Lit Prize today, making him the 3rd of 7 Nobel laureates in China who won in a field outside of physics.