Chocolate Bread

This blog entry is brought to you by my lovely daughters, Julia and Claire, who did every bit of the production of this bread.

That weekend I happened to be buried under editing and grading and couldn't figure out how I was going to spend any time baking. But Claire happened to have some free time, and she wanted to bake. So I asked her to make this chocolate bread.

Julia also had some time and offered to do the food styling and photography. Can you tell?

One thing that Claire really appreciated as she made this bread--she had never made yeast bread before--were Maida's extremely specific and detailed instructions. When I write down the recipes, I probably leave out steps that are obvious to me but not to beginning bakers. But Maida really holds the baker's hand. I still had to show Claire how to knead bread, though.

Claire followed the recipe to the letter, except for the raisins. I wanted raisins, though, so we put raisins in half the dough and just walnuts in the other half. That's why the bread looks a little funny--it's two balls of dough in one loaf.

This is the last yeast bread recipe in the book, and I'm kind of sad about that--as I've mentioned before, Maida's yeast breads always turn out really well and are fun to work with.

This bread is really interesting--it's not a sweet bread necessarily and it's not super chocolatey. It just has an interesting, complex flavor and bitter edge that allows it to go in many directions. I liked it a lot with butter and honey, but I also really liked it with a creamy ripe cheese (a Brillat-Savarin). Julia toasted hers and ate it with almond butter. We put in some dried cherries because we didn't have enough raisins, and that was a nice touch as well. So this is a great bread for breakfast or a cheese course, but it's definitely not dessert.

Here's the recipe. Make it when you have some time and want to try something different.

Chocolate Bread

4 c. (20 oz.) bread or all-purpose flour (you can use some whole-wheat)

1 envelope instant ("rapid-rise") yeast

1/2 c. (3.5 oz.) sugar

1 t. salt

2/3 c. (2 oz.) cocoa powder

2 t. instant coffee (or if you have coffee made, you can use 1/4 c. coffee instead of the water below)

1/4 c. (2 oz.) warm water

1 c. (8 oz.) milk

2 T. (1 oz.) butter, room temperature

2 large eggs

1 t. vanilla

1 c. (4 oz.) chopped walnuts

1/2 c. (2.5 oz.) raisins or dried cherries

In the bowl of a mixer, mix the flour, yeast, sugar, salt, cocoa powder, and instant coffee. Add the water, milk, butter, eggs, and vanilla and beat until well mixed. Stir in the nuts and raisins. Either switch to the dough hook or take the dough out and put it on a floured surface and knead it until smooth and elastic. Let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled--at least an hour. Punch down the dough, knead a bit, and shape into a loaf by rolling it out into an oval and rolling that oval up jelly-roll style. Put the loaf in a buttered loaf pan. Cover with buttered plastic wrap and let rise another hour or so, again until doubled (Claire said that hers never really doubled, but it turned out well anyway).

When the dough has almost finished its rising time, heat the oven to 350. When it's preheated, put the bread in and set the timer for 20-30 minutes. At the end of that time, cover the bread with foil so that the top doesn't burn while the bread bakes, and let it bake for another 30-40 minutes--total baking time should be about an hour. I just learned today that the proper temperature for bread is 210 F, so if you have a thermometer, take your bread's temperature to make sure it's done.

When the bread is done, remove it from the oven and let it cool 5-10 minutes. Unmold it from the pan and let cool on a wire rack. It's probably best to let this cool at least an hour before you slice into it.

Zwieback

I am going to have to challenge this recipe on several fronts. Here it is in a book of American Desserts, but it is neither a dessert nor particularly American. Of course, a lot of the muffins and such in the book are not desserts either, so OK. And of course, the US is a melting pot of cultures, so a lot of the desserts in the book have an antecedent in other countries.

Still, zwieback? In the US, you can only find the stuff in the baby food aisle as a food "for teething babies". We usually had a box in our pantry because Mom used zwieback for crumb crusts (try it some time: it gives you a more neutral crunch than a graham cracker crust would).

Here in France, however, zwieback (biscottes) reigns. In the US there is a full grocery store aisle devoted to breakfast cereal; in France, there is one devoted to crunchy dried bread products. I'm not sure if these products are meant to substitute for or supplement fresh bread, but my guess is that people buy them for le goûter.

Ah, le goûter. As the British have their afternoon tea and the Germans have Kaffee und Kuchen, this is an afternoon snack ritual. Unlike the above, however, there is nothing really cozy about this afternoon snack, which according to my dictionary consists of "bread, butter, chocolate, and a drink". French kids have a long day at school--9 to 5--and don't usually sit down to dinner before 8 (despite this 35-hour work week, most working people don't come home before 7). Therefore, they require sustenance to get through the piles of homework that await them.

Since Mom may also be at work, since there may not be a bakery nearby, biscottes are a popular bread substitute. You can eat them as a tartine with butter and jam (as above) or with Nutella. One of my market vendors tells me that applesauce and biscottes is a classic goûter. My Franco-American kids tend to buy sandwiches or reheat leftovers for their afternoon snack, but I decided to make them the classic French snack.

It's a rather long process, this zwieback thing. Make dough, let it rise. Cut into rolls, let them rise. Bake and cool. Slice and bake again. Let me just say that they weren't finished when the girls came home from school. However, the rolls were. They were a big hit with Julia, who begged me not to toast all of them. Which reminded me of something her father said many, many years ago when I was trying out a recipe for rusks. Sami looked upon them in horror and asked, "You did THAT to perfectly good rolls??" I guess that zwieback were not a happy part of his childhood.

Finally the zwieback were done--on a Saturday. Of course I timed it to be finished when the girls needed no after-school snack. I put some sugar and coconut on some to try and duplicate a favorite German treat--not worth it. The verdict: I love them. I can't stop eating them. They taste just like the kind from the bright yellow box. I bet they'd make a fabulous cheesecake crust.

The rest of the family--not so much. "They're too crunchy! You can't even get your teeth through them!" And so my adventure in French culture through an American dessert book was not an unqualified success. No problem--I've got a big bowl of applesauce and a large container of zwieback in the kitchen, and I'm sure to have several happy afternoons with them.

Here's the recipe. Make them if you'd like something crunchy, toasty, not too sweet.

Zwieback

4 c. (20 oz.) unsifted flour (I used some whole wheat flour)

1 envelope rapid-rise yeast

1/2 c. (3.5 oz.) sugar

1 t. salt

3/4 t. nutmeg

1-1/4 c. (10 oz.) milk

4 T. (2 oz.) melted butter

1 egg

In a large bowl (you can do this in a mixer with a dough hook, in a food processor, or by hand), whisk together the flour, yeast, sugar, salt, and nutmeg. Add the milk, butter, and egg, and stir until the dough holds together. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and stretchy. Return to the bowl, cover with a towel, and let rise in a warm place for about an hour, or until doubled in volume.

Punch the dough down and turn it out back onto your floured surface. Roll into a cylinder of sorts and cut that into 12 even pieces. Line two baking sheets with foil or parchment. Form each piece of dough into a ball by pulling the sides out and then tucking them under. Put the balls on the baking sheets, cover with tea towels, and let rise again for 1 to 1-1/2 hours.

When you're ready to bake, heat the oven to 400. Bake the rolls at 400 for 10 minutes, then turn down the oven to 350 and give them 15 more minutes.

Let the rolls cool; do yourself a favor and eat one hot from the oven. You can let them sit out on the counter overnight if you want, or you could refrigerate or freeze them. Anyway, you want them pretty cool or even cold to slice them well.

When you're ready for the second baking, heat the oven to 300 (if you have convection or if your oven runs hot, I really recommend something more like 250). Slice the rolls horizontally into rounds (the French way) or vertically into slices (the American/German way); either way, the slices should be about 1/2 inch thick. Put the slices on parchment- or foil-lined baking sheets. Bake them until they are golden and hard to the touch. Maida doesn't give a baking time, so let me suggest giving them 15 minutes, then turning them over and giving them another 10 minutes or so. That was plenty for mine; your results may vary depending on your oven.

Let cool and then store airtight. Consider making some applesauce. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to my kitchen for a cup of tea and a little zwieback.

Carol's Crescents

I need more holiday spirit. Sure, I cooked a Thanksgiving turkey. I went to the school's holiday sale and picked up an Advent wreath and an Advent calendar, which I filled with goodies and hung up. It's snowing outside, for crying out loud. But I'm not feeling it. I think I need to bake more cookies.

These are technically not cookies: they're "yeast pastries". Yes, they have yeast in them. But they also have a ton of butter and sour cream. They were fun to make, and they made lots of people smile. Maybe "yeast cookies"? No, that sounds awful.

These are really rugelach--Eastern European Jewish pastry at its finest. I handed out a lot of these--at a parents' meeting, at the market--people first said, "Mmm! This is delicious!" and "Madame, you are adorable," and even "Congratulations!" (I think the translation for the French adorable is actually closer to "sweet". And I guess "Félicitations" is something you say when you're giving compliments. You learn a lot when you hand out cookies.)

But then they asked, "What kind of pastry is this? Where does it come from? (Why isn't it French?)" It's always hard to answer that kind of question. I just usually shrug, "Well, you know, we Americans take our cuisine a little bit from everywhere." (But I love that people are interested in this!) The recipe comes from an American desserts cookbook, but this obviously has its roots elsewhere.

Just did a little research: the rugelach we know today, especially the recipe I have posted here, probably came from Hungary, and with the sour cream and walnuts, that makes sense. But read this little tidbit from Joan Nathan's Jewish Cooking in America, "

It was Mrs. Knopf's friend Maida Heatter who put rugelah on the culinary map with Mrs. Heatter's grandmother's recipe. It is the most sought after of all Mrs. Heatter's recipes and is the rugelach most often found in upscale bakeries nationwide."

This isn't even the famous recipe that Nathan refers to: That one is in Maida Heatter's Cookie book, and it involves cream cheese (an American innovation, thanks to Philadelphia cream cheese) and no yeast. But this one should be famous--and maybe it is now, throughout my little corner of the world.

Here's the recipe (French ingredients and grams for my friend Cécile, who asked for the recipe). Crank up the Christmas carols and be prepared to share with strangers.

Carol's Crescents

1 c. (8 oz./225 g.) butter

1 T. sugar (I used a package of vanilla sugar instead of the sugar/vanilla)

1 t. vanilla

1/4 t. almond extract

1 t. salt

1 c. (8 oz./225 g.) sour cream (I used crème fraîche legère)

3 egg yolks

1 package yeast

3 c. (15 oz./425 g.) flour (T55)

Make the dough the day before: Melt the butter in a large glass bowl or medium saucepan in the microwave or on the stove. Make sure it's cool enough to touch, then add the sugar, vanilla, almond, salt, sour cream, and egg yolks. Mix that together well, and then add the yeast and flour. Beat well with a wooden spoon for a few minutes. Turn the dough out onto a large piece of waxed or parchment paper, shape it into a fat cylinder, and refrigerate it.

When you're ready to roll and bake (and you can do this a bit at a time, depending on how many you need), get out the following:

1 c. (4 oz./115 g.) walnuts

1 c. (7 oz./195 g.) sugar

1 T. cinnamon

1-1/4 c. (6 oz./170 g.) currants or chopped raisins and/or chopped dried cherries

Consider starting with half the amount of walnuts/sugar/cinnamon; I only used about half of what I had. Put the walnuts and sugar in a food processor and pulse until the walnuts are pretty fine. Add the cinnamon.

Cut the refrigerated pastry into 5 more or less equal pieces. Sprinkle a few tablespoonsful of the walnut/cinnamon-sugar mixture onto a rolling mat or clean countertop. Roll out the dough into about a 6-inch circle; turn it over a few times and press in the walnuts as you go. Use a pizza cutter or long knife to cut the circle into 16 wedges. On the outside of each wedge press a few raisins/currants/cherries, and roll that baby up (the picture above may help you visualize what you should be doing). Put the rolls fairly close together on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Repeat with as many pieces of dough you have the patience for.

When you have a sheet full, heat the oven to 350 (180C). When it's preheated, the rolls have probably had enough time to rest (they won't rise despite the yeast) and can go in the oven for 20-25 minutes (mine took 15). Remove the crescents from the paper and cool on a rack.

Enjoy these fresh--once you've tasted one, you'll realize the importance of giving away as many as possible!

Old Grand-Dad Sticky Buns

Mmmm...sticky buns. What a perfect Saturday breakfast for a cold and cloudy June day. These turned out to be our breakfast and a snack with tea (and rum!) later in the afternoon, because when we "gifted" these to our British friends, they promptly invited us for tea later in the day and "regifted" them as part of the spread. Pontlevoy hospitality at its best!

Sticky buns can seem like a big deal, but if you have enough time, they're not that hard. Here's my process:
You start by mixing the flour and yeast and sugar and salt together. With instant yeast, you don't really have to proof it anymore. At least, I've had good luck with this for the past few years (knock wood). Just add the warm milk and water straight to the flour mixture.

OK, with no heavy-duty mixer, I've just mixed this roughly by hand and am ready to knead. Like all of Maida's yeast doughs, this one handles really nicely and doesn't take long to achieve the desired smooth liveliness.

Getting ready for the first rise on Friday afternoon. It was cold that day, so it took a while.

But it finally did rise quite a bit--note the big bubble where my fingerprint had been. Now it's time to get the "sticky" part ready.

Mmmm....brown sugar, pecans, and rum. It's supposed to be bourbon (hence the "Old Grand-dad"), but we had dark rum, and it was very good. Also these are supposed to be baked in muffin tins, but I didn't have 2 big muffin pans available. I think this was easier and safer (less chance of bubbling. Note the parchment paper liner. This was a very good idea!

OK, the dough is all rolled out and buttered, sugared, and liquored up. Note that it's bigger than my Silpat. I need a bigger Silpat. I think there's one in a box somewhere...

OK, got these babies sliced up. I made 16 instead of 24. It seemed like the right size.

Here they are, all lined up and ready to go into the fridge for their overnight rise.

OK, I've stumbled into the kitchen and reached for the camera. Oven, camera, coffee. I'm dedicated to my baking. Note how well these rose even in the fridge.

About half an hour later--coffee is ready, family is starting to stir, kitchen smells fabulous.

These even flipped successfully! Maida says to wait 20 minutes or so before digging in, but you'd better believe we didn't. Yummy fluffy bread dough and sweet, boozy, nutty syrup. What's not to like?

Here's the recipe. Make it when you have some spare afternoon time before a lazy morning.

Old Grand-dad Sticky Buns

1/2 c. (4 oz.) water

1 c. (8 oz.) milk

About 4 c. (20 oz.) unsifted all-purpose or bread flour (I used some whole wheat flour)

1 package (2-1/4 t.) instant yeast

2 T. (0.9 oz.) sugar

1/2 t. salt

1 egg yolk

2 c. (14 oz.) brown sugar, divided

1/2 c. (4 oz.) bourbon or dark rum (I’m pretty sure I didn’t use that much, and you could taste the booze anyway. Judge the amount by taste and how expensive your booze is.)

4 oz. (1 c.) toasted pecan halves or pieces

2 oz. (4 T./1/2 stick) butter, room temperature

2 t. cinnamon

The night before you want to eat the sticky buns, heat the water and milk to just barely warm in a microwave or on the stove. Meanwhile, mix together the flour, yeast, sugar, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the milk and water and then the egg yolk and mix until it all comes together. You can do this with the dough hook of a mixer or with a food processor or by hand. If you do it by processor or by hand, you’ll want to knead the dough for about 5 minutes, or until it is “smooth and feels alive.” Return the dough to the large bowl, cover it with a towel, and let it rise in a warm place for an hour or two (depending on how warm the place is), or until doubled.

Get out a 13x9-inch pan (or two muffin pans, if you have them), line it with parchment or foil, and butter that. Sprinkle on half the sugar, then the pecans, then about half the bourbon/rum. Set aside the prepared pan. Punch down the dough and turn it out onto a floured mat or board. Roll it out into the biggest rectangle you can. Then spread that rectangle with the soft butter. Mix the cinnamon into the remaining brown sugar and sprinkle that on the butter. Then roll up the dough like a jelly roll and pinch the ends shut. Using a sharp knife or unflavored dental floss, cut the roll into about 16 pieces. Arrange the pieces in the prepared pan, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight (If you want to bake these the same day, let them rise in a warm place for another 45 minutes to an hour).

When you get up the next morning, take the rolls out of the fridge and heat the oven to 375. Make some coffee and potter about. When the oven is hot, remove the plastic from the rolls and put them in the oven. You might also consider putting a large foil-covered sheet pan on a lower rack, though my rolls did not boil over. Bake for 25 minutes, until the rolls are nice and brown and the syrup is all bubbly. While the rolls bake, prepare a large tray or cookie sheet by lining it with parchment or foil. As soon as the rolls come out of the oven, put the sheet on top of the pan and flip it over, letting all the syrupy goodness drip over the rolls. Let the rolls cool enough that you can touch them, and use two forks to pull them apart. Enjoy all day.

Cinnamon Rolls

These cinnamon rolls turned out to be completely unnecessary but ultimately much-loved.
Why? I had planned to have them for Saturday breakfast, my usual time to crank out sweet breads and muffins. It was going to be a bit tricky because Sami needed to leave for Paris relatively early, we had overnight guests, and we were having a dinner party for said guests the night before. And as we all know, yeast dough needs time to rise. Lots of time.
No problem, I told myself, I'll make the dough Friday afternoon, roll it up and set it to rise before I go to bed Friday night, and then I'll just rise bright and early and put the rolls in the oven so that everyone can have fresh, hot cinnamon rolls in the morning.
Well, I did one of those things: I made the dough in the afternoon.

Note the mashed potatoes. They make all the difference in the dough, I think. Maida's yeast doughs are always a delight to work with--springy and not too sticky. I mixed this with my hands, and it turned out perfectly.

Here's the dough Friday afternoon. I covered it and put it on a cool windowsill so that it wouldn't rise too fast. It filled up the bowl and puffed up a few inches over the top. By the time our dinner party, which didn't get started until 8 and involved several bottles of wine, was over, I was in no condition to roll out dough. So I just punched down the dough and hoped for the best.

Note to self: when hosting French people, have less food than you think you need and more wine than you think you'll want.
Late in the evening, after the vegetable tart and the lamb cooked in milk and the spicy Swiss chard and the delightfully smelly Saint-Nectaire our guests had brought, I put the beautiful banana upside-down cake on the table. Everyone cooed, but for one guest who proclaimed that she could not abide cinnamon. Note to self: This seems true for a majority of French people. Very little of the cake got eaten.
Great, I told myself, those cinnamon buns will be quite the hit tomorrow morning!

So I got up and went to the bakery for something more traditionally French, like a baguette. Note to self: many French people prefer not to eat in the morning. Don't bother.

Nonetheless, they oohed and aahed over the rolls and their progress. But Claire was the only one who actually ate one. Can you tell which one?
Later I had one for lunch. It was sooo good. I wanted to be like Maida's husband Ralph, who apparently ate a whole batch over the course of the day: "It was his dinner. Then he had to go to bed. A few hours later he asked for more." But I had to hold firm, so I packed a basket with some of these and brought them to a French-American family in town. I told the French husband my story of the unnecessary cinnamon rolls, and he told me, "You shouldn't force people to eat food they don't like. You should bring it to people who appreciate it." And I believe they did.
One more note: Claire's friends at school, seeing her pick at her cafeteria lunch, sent her to the nurse to get a lecture on eating disorders. Apparently they've never seen her eat cinnamon rolls.

Here's the recipe. Serve it to appreciative folks.

Cinnamon Buns

210 g. or about 8 oz. potatoes
4-1/2 c. (22.5 oz.) unsifted bread or all-purpose flour (I used about 1-1/2 c. whole wheat)
1/2 c. (3.5 oz.) sugar
1/2 t. salt
1 envelope (2-1/4 t., I think) instant yeast
1 c. milk
1 egg
1 t. vanilla
2 oz. (1/2 stick) melted butter, cooled a bit

Peel the potatoes and boil them (no salt!) in water just to cover. When they are tender, drain off some of the water into a bowl for later. Mash the potatoes by themselves--no butter, no salt. Let the potatoes and water cool to warm room temperature.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, and yeast. Make a well in that and add the potatoes along with 1/4 cup of the potato water, the milk, egg, vanilla, and butter. Use the dough hook of your stand mixer or a wooden spoon or your bare hands to work that all into a smooth dough that "feels alive." If you have a mixer, it'll just do its thing; if you're working by hand you'll want to dump out the dough and knead it for a while. When the dough feels smooth and lively, put it back in the bowl, cover it with a towel, and let it rise 1-1/2 hours in a warm place or 4-5 hours (or overnight) in a cool place.
When you're ready to roll, have ready the following ingredients:
2 T. sugar, mixed with 1-1/2 t. cinnamon and 1/4 t. nutmeg (This may not seem like enough cinnamon sugar. I worried about that, but the rolls were cinnamon-y enough. You could add more if you feel it necessary.)
1 oz. (2 T.) melted butter
5 oz. (1 c.) soft raisins (I probably used half of that)

Punch down the dough and roll it out (on a floured surface) into a large rectangle: Maida says an 18-inch square. I didn't measure, but rolled it as far as my Sil-Pat went.
Now smear/brush the dough with the melted butter, sprinkle it with the cinnamon sugar, and then distribute the raisins. Roll it up into a nice log. Since there's not too much sugar, this should roll neatly. Mark the log into 12 even pieces and then slice it. If you've got unminted dental floss, you can use that to cut your pieces. I love doing that. I did not, however, so I used a knife and that was fine. Put the pieces on a greased jelly roll pan (or back on the Sil-Pat), cover them with a towel, and let them rise for an hour in a warm place, or in a cool place overnight.
When you're ready to bake, heat the oven to 375. Take the towel off the rolls and put them in the oven for about 20-25 minutes (mine needed at least 25, and my oven seems to run hot).
While the rolls are baking, make the glaze:

1 T. (0.5 oz.) butter, room temperature
about 1 c. (4 oz.) powdered sugar
Pinch salt
1/2 t. vanilla
a few drops almond extract
2-3 T. light cream (or half and half or milk)

Mix this all together in an electric mixer, or mash it together with a fork. Glaze the rolls while they're still hot, preferably. Enjoy. Try to restrain yourself. But you'll probably ask for more in a few hours.

Doughnut victory!

Doughnuts (donut is also an acceptable variant, according to Merriam-Webster) and I have a love-hate relationship. I love a really good doughnut and hate a bad one. Also I hate what the good ones do to my waistline, but fortunately there aren't that many good ones around. Krispy Kreme? Please. One bite and I'm ready to go into a sugar coma. No, the best doughnuts I've ever had were in Flagstaff, Arizona, probably about 10 years ago. There was a little donut shop near the depot there, and their doughnuts were out of this world. They were substantial and yeasty enough for you to know that there was real dough involved, yet they had all the crispness and lightness and sweetness a doughnut deserves. The Hampton Inn in Bozeman, Montana, also serves up a mighty fine doughnut. So fortunately for me, I'd have to travel far through time and space to get the perfect doughnut. Until now.



I've actually made doughnuts several times before, from various recipes, and they were...OK. The dough tasted good, and they were all nice and crispy, and you could tell I'd made an effort and all, but they lacked the lightness of a good doughnut. The girls turned up their noses at them because they "weren't like Krispy Kreme." Of course, my plan was to be better than Krispy Kreme. And now I am! Even Claire's friend Abby, who has probably eaten quite a few doughnuts in her day, told me so.
When I was making the dough I had a good feeling about it. I remember thinking the same about the dough for the Cream Cheese Coffee Cake a couple of months ago. It has just the right consistency--just firm enough to work with, very smooth, very elastic, very alive. I believe the secret ingredient is the potato and the potato cooking water. It must be perfect yeast food!
Let me just point out how fool-proof this recipe must be, because I fooled with it quite a bit. First of all, not having read the recipe carefully (surprise!), I microwaved the potato. Oh, I thought I was so smart. But then I wasn't, because I realized that the potato water was crucial. So I broke the potatoes into pieces and poured boiling water over them. The potato had kind of dried out in the microwave, so it bore the indignity well. When that had cooled, I had my potato water. Genius. Well, not really. I also changed the order of mixing around to accomodate for a big old Kitchenaid mixer and instant yeast. And I took the possibly fatal step of using some white wheat flour. Finally, I fear the transfat, so I fried these in a combination of peanut and canola oil. And still these doughnuts were fabulous. So I'm sure when Alicia makes them according to all the rules, they'll be twice as good. But she probably doesn't like doughnuts anymore (hey, remember riding our bikes to Winchell's after swim team? That was when we could really put away the doughnuts...sigh).


Here they are, in all their greasy glory. Somehow we neglected to get a shot of a glazed one.
After I'd eaten one and started on the donut holes, I realized we were in danger, so I sent Claire and her friend off to give the rest to the neighbors. I'm not sure how many actually made it there...
Here's the recipe. Make it sometime soon.

Doughnuts
(makes about 11)

6 oz. potatoes (I used Yukon Gold, but it probably doesn't matter much which kind)
1 cup water
About 3-1/4 c. (about 16 oz.) unsifted flour (I used about 5 oz. white whole wheat and the rest bread flour.)
6 T. (2.6 oz.) sugar
heaping 1 t. bread machine yeast
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. freshly grated nutmeg
1 egg
1/2 t vanilla
2 oz. (1/2 stick) butter, in small pieces at room temperature
A lot of cooking oil--I probably used at least a quart

Start making this the night before you want them, and be ready to get up about 2 hours before you want to eat them. You'll need a small saucepan, a heavy-duty mixer with a bread hook, and a food processor or stick blender. Get your butter out of the fridge, if you haven't already. Peel the potato, cut it into quarters, and cover it with 1 cup water. Bring to a boil and simmer until tender. Let the potato cool in the water. When it is lukewarm, puree the potato with the water with the stick blender or in a food processor. Now, in your mixing bowl measure 3 cups of flour (15 oz) and add the sugar, salt, yeast, and nutmeg. Whisk that together and make a well in the center. To that add the potato mixture, the egg, and the vanilla. Put in the bread hook and turn the machine on. When the mixture is holding together nicely, start adding the butter, a few pieces at a time. If the mixture seems too soft at any time, add a bit of flour, but be careful to keep it a soft dough. I made the mistake of adding too much flour, but the dough forgave me after I added a bit more lukewarm water. When the butter is all added in, keep kneading for a few minutes on medium speed until it's nice and smooth. Maida says you should knead until "the dough is smooth, rubbery, and feels alive." I liked that so much that I kneaded by hand for a while until I felt the dough was perfect. Put that back in the mixing bowl and let it rise until double, about an hour or so. I put mine on the dishwasher while it was running, and it seemed to like that.
Now punch down the dough, cover it with plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge overnight.
When you awaken, get the dough out of the fridge. It should have risen considerably. You'll also want a pastry cloth or board, a rolling pin, and a doughnut cutter--I used a large (about 2.5 inch) and a small (about 1/2 inch) round cutter. Roll out the dough on the floured pastry board and cut out the doughnuts. When you gather the dough between cutting, you may need to let it rest a bit before you roll it out. Put them on greased aluminum foil to rise, and cover them with a tea towel. Maybe you want to go on a nice hourlong walk while you wait. Or you could drink tea and while your time away on Facebook. Whatever. Anyway, after about an hour, get out a big pot and fill it about 2-3 inches up with oil. (Here once again I'm parting company with Maida. She wants you to do it in less oil in a skillet. I feel much safer with a deep pot. I'm just saying.) Put your thermometer(s) in and wait (a LONG time--about 30 minutes) for the oil to heat up to 365.
While the oil is heating, you should make the glaze:

1-1/2 cup (8 oz.) powdered sugar
1/2 t. vanilla
1/8 t. almond extract
4-6 T. milk

Put the powdered sugar, vanilla, and almond extract in a bowl. Add about 4 T. milk first and beat with an electric mixer. I found that 4 T milk was enough to make a "thick but pourable" glaze, but add more if you need it. Let that sit.
Get out a couple of forks, or a spider, to turn and remove your doughnuts. You will also want a metal spatula. Also get out some brown paper bags and a rack, and make room on your countertops. It also helps to have a trusty assistant for glazing (and tasting) purposes.
OK, when the fat is FINALLY hot enough, proceed. Maida recommends starting with just two doughnuts, so that's what I did. And I followed her (messy) procedure: Put the spatula in the fat for a minute. Then put the spatula under a doughnut and transfer it into the fat, waiting for the doughnut to float off. Repeat. Let the doughnuts cook for 2 minutes on one side, then turn them over with your forks (try not to poke them, though) and give them another 2 minutes. Fish them out and let them drain on the brown paper bags. Continue with all the doughnuts (I did 3 at a time from then on), and then do the doughnut holes (I did them in two batches, probably 1 minute per side. Sometimes they flip over on their own).
You need a trusty assistant because the doughnuts need to be glazed while they're hot--Maida says no more than 1 minute after they leave the fat. So have your trusty assistant put the doughnuts (careful! They're hot!) on the rack and use a pastry brush to brush both sides liberally with glaze. The assistant should also run through the house yelling, "Hot now!" and then ask for samples.
Enjoy these hot and try to control yourself.

Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

Alicia, you're right about two things: sugared strawberries are better, and it's really hard to say goodbye to a daughter. Oh, one more thing: that saying about getting only as much as you can handle--not sure I can buy into that one, either. Actually, you're right about many things...except raisins. Raisins are good.
I proved that once again today when I made the Cream Cheese Coffee Cake. OK, I'm totally out of order, but I really needed a project today, and I always make something special on Saturday mornings, so this fit in perfectly.
This really is quite the project, even though it wasn't that difficult. It just takes a really long time. Claire and I didn't have "breakfast" until about 11. Good thing I had cut up that ginormous melon I got at Whole Foods yesterday (making lemonade from airport lemons)--that tided us over nicely. Got up at 6:30, made dough (which comes together really fast in the food processor), and let it rise while I went to The Evil Empire (7:30 on Saturday morning is a great time to go there!) to buy cream cheese and other necessities. Got home, started laundry, did some dishes, and then Claire was up in time to make the filling for me. She did a great job with that. The directions for making the braid weren't all that clear, and even though I usually don't need pictures in a cookbook, some line drawings would have been helpful. Nonetheless, we rolled out the dough and brushed on the apricot jam and spooned on the filling and braided it up. I even used a ruler to cut the dough strips! Then another hour to kill--editing and laundry and dishes and trying to avoid the reality of a too-empty house. Finally it was time to bake that sucker. I hadn't noticed that you were supposed to shape the dough on the aluminum foil. Fortunately, I had formed it on a silicone rolling mat (thanks, Dad and Sharmyn!) that was oven-safe, so I could just transfer that baby to the baking sheet. I then made a little foil shield around the coffee cake to protect against leakage. If Julia hadn't taken the one operating camera to France (which was a good thing, mind you!), I could have shown you how that looked. But there was actually little to no leakage. And it really did "look spectacular" and "taste sensational". I made just half the recipe, but hardly dare say that there's one little end piece left. Let me just say that I only had three thin-ish slices. Don't know where the rest went (do you, Claire?)...
Verdict: it's a keeper. The dough is really nice to work with--rolled out easily and didn't give me any trouble at all. The filling was just right, and it looked pretty darned professional. If I can figure out how to upload cell phone photos, I'll show you just how good :-). In the meantime, here's the recipe I made:

Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

Dough

3 T. (1.5 oz.) unsalted butter, melted
1/3 c. warm water
1 egg
1-1/2 c. (7.5 oz.) flour (I used about half white whole wheat and half all-purpose)
2-1/4 t. (1 envelope) instant yeast (I have a jar of bread machine yeast in the fridge)
1/4 t. salt
1/4 c. sugar

Mix together the water, butter, and egg in the measuring cup. Put the dry ingredients in the food processor and buzz until they're mixed. Then open the feed tube and pour in the wet ingredients. Process that for one minute. Mine formed a ball first, then got soft and mushy. It turned out OK, though. Then turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead it for 1 minute. Put the dough into a greased bowl, cover it, and let it rise for a couple of hours. While it's rising, get your cream cheese out of the fridge to soften.

Filling
1-1/2 t. water
1-1/2 t. rum
1-1/2 t. sugar
1/4 c. (1.2 oz.) golden raisins
1 8-oz. block cream cheese, room temp.
1/4 c. (1 oz.) powdered sugar
1 egg yolk (save the white!)
1/2 t. vanilla
grated rind of about 1/2 orange
about 3 T. apricot jam (don't mix this into the filling!)

Put the water, rum, sugar, and raisins in a microwave-safe bowl; cover and zap for 1 minute on high. Let that sit and cool while you mix together the cream cheese, sugar, egg yolk, vanilla, and orange rind. When that's all nice and smooth, beat in the raisins.
If you have a Silpat or something like that, get that out. Flour it lightly and turn the dough onto that. Roll it into about a 12-inch long rectangle (maybe 12x8? I didn't measure...). Face the dough lengthwise, if that makes sense. (See? A picture is worth a thousand words!) Then mark about 1-1/2 inches on each side of the dough--these are the parts of the dough that will form the braid, and they need to stay "naked" for now. Brush the apricot jam onto the middle of the dough, then cover that with cream cheese filling. Now mark the bare dough at one-inch intervals, and cut it into strips, so that you have a sort of fan pattern on both sides. Now fold up the top and bottom like a burrito, and then carefully fold each strip over the filling, alternating to make a braid. If it looks good and the filling is covered, you're in good shape. Now cover the masterpiece and let it sit on the counter for another hour while you tend to your business. I bet you could also refrigerate it overnight, let it sit on the counter, and then bake it up in the morning. So anyway, shortly before your hour is up, preheat the oven to 350 and mix together
The egg white you saved
About 1 T. milk.

Pick up the Silpat and move it carefully onto a baking sheet. Uncover the dough and brush it with the egg white mixture (Maida wants another egg yolk for that purpose, but the white worked fine for me). Then roll up some long strips of aluminum foil into "snakes" and surround the braid with them, as a kind of side support. Now put it in the oven and let it bake about 25 minutes, until it's gorgeous and golden brown. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Maida says to let this cool to room temp, but we had it very warm and it was delicious. It's also delicious at room temperature. This should really serve at least 4, but it did quite nicely for 2.