Jalapeño Cheddar Corn Bread

This bread instantly became the new staff favorite.  I combined spicy jalapeño peppers, sharp cheddar cheese and whole grain corn meal to make this lovely loaf.  The inspiration came from a traditional Portugese Broa which is a yeasted corn bread.  I've always enjoyed the levity the yeast brings to the texture of the cornbread.  It also lacks the overt sweetness most northeastern cornbread's bear.

The process begins with a polenta-like mixture of boiling water and corn meal.  This sits overnight so the corn can absorb the water and the mixture can cool to room temperature.  I also made a biga eight hours before mixing the final dough.

I tested a variety of different jalapeños: frozen, small diced, sliced, with seeds, without seeds...  I decided I liked the flavor of the fresh, whole peppers while I required the spicy kick obtained by using the seeds and ribs from the pepper's interior.

I cut the peppers in half lengthwise before slicing them into semi-circles.  When I mixed the dough, I combined the flour, biga, soaked cornmeal and water first.  I delayed the yeast addition by 5 minutes and I added the salt 5 minutes after the yeast.  After the dough reached it's full development, I slowly added the shredded sharp cheddar and the sliced jalapeños until they were evenly distributed through the dough.

I rolled the dough into squares, folded the corners into the center and proofed upside down on a bed of cornmeal.  After a couple hours at room temperature, it was ready to flip over and bake in the deck oven.

The interior is soft and flavorful.  This bread is the perfect compliment to chili but being as though it's 100°F outside and I refuse to make chili...I used it for my pulled pork sandwich and it was great.  It also makes a yummy fried egg sandwich in the morning.  Best of all, each serving contains 8 grams of whole grains because of the whole grain corn meal in the dough.  Good for you and tasty - - sounds like a winner to me!

I am submitting this post to Susan from The Wild Yeast Blog for her weekly YeastSpotting segment.  If you would like to know more about my recipe, please email me.

Trablit Troubles

Trablit is a super expensive coffee extract,  roughly $2 for one ounce.  It is basically reduced espresso.  It is used in many pastry applications because you can acheive a rich coffee flavor without adding a ton of liquid and throwing off the balance of the ingredients.  Mark makes his own at the Patisserie.  He starts with two cups of espresso and finishes with just enough to flavor some buttercream.  He's making a lot of it now to flavor the Buche de Noel components but that's another story.

Mascarpone is the equivilant of cream cheese in Italy.  It is much richer and less sweet however it has the same basic consistancy and the Italians would use it for the same applications as we use cream cheese.  It is my favorite thing to spread on the Chocolate Cherry bread that I make on occasion.  Like trabilt, Mascarpone is very costly.

Trablit and Mascarpone...anyone guessed where I'm going with this.  Yup, tirimisu!   I completed an 18 week pastry internship at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Naples, Florida during culinary school.  One of my responsibilities was to mix the filling for the tirimisu, which is an incredibly popular italian dessert with coffee, cream and lady fingers.  Done right, it is very tastey.  At the Ritz, we had to produce hundreds at a time for banquets and the restaurants on property.  The filling was mixed in a 60 quart mixing bowl.  I emptied at least 10 pounds of mascarpone and an equal amount of heavy cream (also expensive) into the bowl.  This mixed until it got nice and fluffy then I added the trablit.  A couple weeks before this particular mix, the banquet kitchen brought us a box of flavorings they didn't need.  They were cleaning house and discovered a bunch of pastry stuff.  In the box was a jar with a steaming coffee mug on the label and the inscription was written in Asian characters.  The contents were thick and dark, just like trablit; steaming coffee = trablit.  The Ritz is teaming with chefs from all over the world so I figured this was a trablit equivilant from Asia that one of the Asian chefs in banquets must have ordered.  Good for us in the pastry kitchen because we did't have to buy it.  I dumped the whole bottle in the mixer.  I tasted the filling to make sure I added enough and yick! that wasn't trablit...it was soy reduction!  Of course it wasn't a steaming cup of coffee, it was a steaming bowl of Ramen.  Hundreds of dollars of cream, mascarpone and soy...there's no coming back from this.  It's like adding salt instead of sugar to a cake mix.

The pastry chef, Frederic Monti, was a screaming Frenchman ala Gordon Ramsey.  He made everyone cry.  The last person I wanted to tell about my mistake was Chef Monti but I had to inform someone.  I walked into the pot room to grab the garbage can and our dishwasher asked what was wrong.  She was a firey Hatian lady who had filed a complaint against the chef when he told her she stinks like garbage.  Velma didn't stink, the remark was just one of his wonderfully motivating quips.  Lucky for me, I speak a bit of Hatian Creole and this lady liked me.  When I told her what I did, she hastily removed the bowl and cleaned up my mess.  She told me not to tell anyone, she'd take care of it.  She quickly cleaned the bowl and gave it back to me to start anew,  all before the chef walked out of his office. 

I am not a fan of hiding these matters from your boss and a smaller place would notice the missing ingredients but the Ritz was different.  Velma was privy to the 10 minute tirade the day before because I over baked the gingerbread men and the 20 minutes Chef Monti yelled the previous week because I rolled the scones to thin.  She knew I needed a break and she knew the cream wouldn't be missed.  Here's the big, huge, never-forget-this, moral to the story.  No, it's not 'taste ingredients before you add them', though it could be.  It's not 'never work for a hotel or other major corporation', though that's my motto.  It is 'be kind to your support staff!'  Make friends with the dish washers and garbage men, no matter where you may be.   It will pay off in the future...I promise.  Oh, and always remember, you're not the first to make a mistake.  At least one person has already added soy to the tirimisu!

Ginger Bread

Josie and her ginger bread

I thought it would be fun to play with the concept of gingerbread this year.  Instead of a traditional cakey or cookie-like dough, I decided to make an actual bread.  I started with a basic 25% wheat, 75% white flour formula then I added spice...heavy on the ginger, a little cinnamon and a sprinkle of nutmeg and clove.  Finally, I chopped candied ginger and I dumped a few handfuls of raisins into the mix.  I shaped the dough into logs and scored a straight line down the center.  I was pretty happy with the way it came out but it was missing something.  Then I remembered the jar of black strap molasses I had hiding under my work station.  It's been there since I was pregnant. I used to put a tablespoon in a glass of milk for extra calcium, magnesium, potassium, and iron in order to remedy my crampy legs.  Betcha didn't molasses was so good for you!  

Back to the bread....the 2nd batch I mixed included the molasses and now I'm content.  There's an extra richness.  It has the gingerbread flavors with a bread texture.  I can't believe I forgot the molasses on the first go as this is the base for most gingerbread cakes and cookies.  I also changed the shape a bit.  Instead of logs, I twisted the dough into turbins or spirals.  This makes for larger, softer slices.   Next mix I will be replacing the raisins with currants because a) it will make it a little more delicate b) those currants are tiny but they pack a big punch of flavor and c) I have a huge box of them in storage!



I brought a loaf home from the bakery on Sunday, hoping to share it with my family.  Yesterday morning, Josie and I ate the whole thing before Kevin even saw it.  Whoops!  Guess I'll have to make another batch so he can get a taste too.  I was going to toast it because it was a day old (yes, I'm spoiled) but it didn't require any heat to bring out all the flavors.  The best part about the bread is the little bits of candied ginger that melt in your mouth with every couple of bites.  I'm so excited about this bread...a holiday treat without the sweet.  The sweet, hopped up on sugar and butter, candied loaves of holiday tradition wear me out after a while.  I can only eat so much candied citrus peel before I'm ready for the fun to be over.


After a conversation with Mark and Christian, we decided to make this bread part of our line-up through the holidays.  It will be available at the Patisserie on Thursdays and Sundays through December.

Mmmm....Rosemary

When I returned to work after my most recent maternity leave, I was told that the hotel/restaurant next door to the Patisserie was serving rosemary baguettes and they were telling their clients that I made them.  They were really giving their guests something frozen and reheated they ordered from Sysco.  I only know this because our customers were coming in and asking if we had any rosemary baguettes.  So, I did what any decent baker would do....I started making them!

I tweaked my basic sourdough formula...a little less wheat...a little more levain, which is a stiff wheat and rye sour...a pinch of yeast to make it less dense and more airy....fresh rosemary from Keith's farm.  For the first week or so, I shaped the dough into stubby baguettes but I wasn't happy with the crust.  It was a little too think on the bottom.  Then I remembered I had some square proofing baskets I wasn't using.  I dusted the molds with brown rice flour to keep the dough from sticking and to give the crust an interesting look.  Also, a generous dusting of rice flour has a much better mouth feel than a heap of regular flour.  The end result is my new favorite bread.  I am so in love with the rosemary loaf that I haven't eaten any other bread since it's conception (expect for a little Stollen but that's a special treat).  I really hope our customers find as much value in it as I do so that I can keep baking it.  The hotel/restaurant next door actually started ordering it in roll form.  Now everybody wins!