melting your mouth

I made this gluten-free quick bread for a brunch several weeks ago, and now I’ve finally found the time to write it up. This is my first foray into gluten-free baking, and it turned out surprisingly well. It seemed like a good breakfast bread alternative for those who for one reason or another have to stay clear of gluten. I can (and do!) eat as much flour as I want, but I really enjoyed this bread, too. It’s healthier than most breakfast breads since most of the sweetener comes from the fruit, with just a little bit of honey. And the nuts, while adding wonderful flavor, also mean that it will stick with you better than the normal carbohydrate only quick bread. It’s a winner all around!

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It’s that time of the month again … time for another Daring Bakers‘ event. This time, Kelly from Sass & Veracity and Ben from What’s cooking? hosted us to make a Danish Braid. Making this was a lot of fun. I have never made this kind of pastry before. The process is somewhat like making puff pastry (also on my list of things to try to do). After making the dough, which is deliciously flavored with orange and cardamon, you spread it with butter and fold it up on itself, then you keep rolling it back out and folding it in on itself several times over the course of a couple hours, so that you have thin layers of dough with butter in between. The dough is also yeasted, so after assembling the braid, you let it rise for a couple hours. Mine actually didn’t rise as much as it probably should’ve, but it still tasted fine and made a nice light, flaky dough.

This time we were allowed to put our own touch on the recipe by choosing the filling. The recipe came with directions for an apple filling, but I decided to use blackberry preserves instead. At the last minute I remembered that I also had some blanched almonds left over from the Opera Cake last month, so I ground those up with some sugar and an egg to make almond paste, which I spread in the braid underneath the jam.

This is definitely a recipe I will try again, and since the dough made enough for two braids, you might even hear about it again if I think of an interesting enough filling!

I didn’t make any changes to the dough recipe, so I will refer you to Kelly’s post for the recipe, which came from Sherry Yard’s book The Secrets of Baking. Thanks to Kelly and Ben for a great event! And make sure to check out everyone else’s Danish Braids on the Daring Bakers’ Blogroll … there are some great ones out there!

Tarts are a special dessert to me. In my Mom’s family, we always had Chess Tarts, usually made by my grandmother Meme, at special gatherings like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Before she moved into a retirement home, Meme taught me to make her tarts and gave me many of her tart pans so that I could make them on my own. So anytime I get to pull out her tart pans is special but I don’t think I’ve ever used them to make anything but Meme’s chess tarts, using her recipe for the pastry and the filling.

But, inspired by a recent post from Feeding My Enthusiasms for what Elle calls St George’s Chocolate and Qunice Jam Tarts, I decided to branch out. These tarts consist of pastry topped with jam (she used quince, I made some with apricot and some with orange marmalade) which is then topped with a filling made of dark chocolate and ground almonds. They are apparently reminiscent of English Bakewell tarts, though those usually don’t have chocolate in them. I made my own pastry instead of using ready made pie dough. I also used a new recipe for pastry, which I altered from a recipe my friend Stirling found at Cook’s Illustrated. It uses vodka to replace some of the water, which makes the pastry easier to work with but doesn’t make the pastry tough. The vodka evaporates while it bakes, and it apparently doesn’t react with the gluten in the flour the way water does to make it tough.

The tarts turned out pretty well. The new pastry was buttery and flaky, though a little less brown than my usual pastry, and the chocolate filling was rich but nicely complemented by the fruit in the jam. The apricot and orange were both good, but Matt and I both like the orange ones better. I didn’t really think the almonds added all that much though. I felt like they just made the filling heavier without adding much flavor. I think next time I would try using hazelnuts instead, which I think might go better with the chocolate anyway. But overall, it’s a recipe I would recommend. If you want to try the filling, click here for Elle’s recipe. My modified pastry recipe follows.

Sweet Pastry

3 c flour, sifted
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 c butter (1 stick), cut into slices
1/2 c shortening
1/4 c ice water
1/4 c vodka

Measure out sifted flour. Sift dry ingredients. Cut in butter and sugar. Add ice water and vodka, and mash together until just blended. If the dough won’t stick together, add a little more vodka. Pull off a small piece of dough and roll out to fit in tart pan. Place the dough in the pan, and use the palm of one hand to cut off the extra dough from around the pan. Reuse the extra dough scraps for the next tart. This makes enough pastry for a couple dozen tarts or two pies.