Soda Bread: Or, reconnecting with my roots

Have you seen that video of the two Irish rowers being interviewed at the Olympics? It's great. "...got to put on the podium pants as well, so that was quite nice" like yes you did! They keep it real on the urine sampling too.

Well, I'm part Irish, and though I've never been to Ireland the rowers have me feeling a bit proud of me heritage. So, I made Irish soda bread, and loved it. It's a round loaf of bread risen without yeast--just with baking soda and buttermilk...basically, a large biscuit with slightly less butter, but you can slather as much as you want on a slice.

The bread is best the first day, but toasted the second day with butter and jam it does quite nicely for elevensies. The recipe I used calls for whole wheat flour and wheat bran, which adds a nice nutty heartiness to the bread.

Brown Soda Bread
Yield: 1 loaf

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups (8 3/4 ounces) all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 cups (6 7/8 ounces) whole-wheat flour
• 1/2 cup (2 ounces) cake flour
• 1/2 cup toasted wheat germ
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted, for brushing the loaf
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and place a rack in the upper middle of the oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment, silpat, or greased foil.
2. In a large bowl, whisk all of the flours, wheat germ, brown sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar, and kosher salt. Rub in 2 tablespoons butter with your fingers until the mixture looks sandy/like crumbs.
3. Add buttermilk and mix together with a fork until the dough comes together in shaggy clumps. Turn out onto a floured work surface and knead just a few turns, until it comes together into a lumpy but cohesive dough (Baking Illustrated says 12-14 turns).
4. Pat into a 6 inch diameter round and place onto prepared baking sheet. Score with a serrated knife in a cross, cutting about 3/4" into the loaf (pretty deep). 
5. Bake 45-55 minutes, or until the loaf is golden brown on the outside and a tester comes out clean from the middle. If you're using an instant-read thermometer, cook until the center is 190 degrees F. 
6. Brush with melted butter immediately after taking the loaf out from the oven. Let it cool on a wire rack until room temperature, 30-40 minutes, before slicing in.

Recipe from Baking Illustrated.

Cinnamon Caramel Pinwheels

Mmmmmm. I'm home for Thanksgiving! With everyone home and an amazingly well stocked kitchen and a post-college wind-down cold Ugh. I've basically lost my voice, but I can still bake as long as I wash my hands all the time. And no coughing or sneezing.

But listen up, y'all, 'cause these pinwheels are poppin'. A thick, buttery, brown sugar caramel sauce envelops the bottom (and later becomes the top) of a pan of light, fluffy, quick-baking, biscuit-dough cinnamon rolls. No separate glaze to make, just melt it together in the microwave and dump in the pan before the rolls go in.

This is the only picture of the finished rolls that I could, with a good conscience, show you. The others look like a pile of brains.

There are a lot of ingredients in this recipe that you might not keep in stock. Buttermilk, sour cream, and cake flour. Luckily, these are easily substituted for and the results were great. I used greek yogurt for the sour cream (not for health--there's so much butter in these it wouldn't make much of a difference--but because it's what we had). One Fage is a cup, which is exactly what this recipe calls for!
I also used some milk and a squeeze of lemon juice for the buttermilk, and flour with a teaspoon of corn starch for the cake flour.

Soft soft dough with warm, chewy caramel soaked in. Sweet sticky rolls for a decadent breakfast!

Cinnamon Caramel Pinwheels
yield: 9 rolls

Ingredients:

• 4 tbsp unsalted butter
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar

• 2 cups minus 1 tbsp all-purpose flour 
• 1 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 tbsp granulated sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 1 cup sour cream or greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup buttermilk (or just shy of a 1/4 cup milk plus a squeeze of lemon juice)

• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon (you could probably use more, they weren't that strong with this amount)
• 1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Method:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degress and put a rack in the middle. Make a parchment paper round to fit in the bottom of a circular cake pan, then grease the whole thing with spray. 
2.  Put honey, butter, and brown sugar in a microwaveable bowl or measuring cup and microwave until melted and easy to stir. Stir to combine, pour this glaze in bottom of prepared pan. Rinse this bowl (we'll use it soon).
3.  Sift together flour, cornstarch, 1 tbsp sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt (Note: kosher salt is much less dense than table salt, so use less than the recommended 1/2 tsp if using normal table salt!). In the same bowl in which you stirred together the glaze, mix 6 tbsp melted butter, the sour cream or yogurt, and the buttermilk or substitution. 
4.  Put half of the flour mixture aside in an extra bowl, then add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix gently to combine. Then, add in the remaining flour mixture, and mix (hands help here) to form a shaggy dough. Dump out on a clean counter and knead a few times until it comes together.
5.  In a small bowl, mix 1/4 cup sugar and the cinnamon. Press the dough out approximately into a 12x9" rectangle and brush with the 1 tbsp melted butter, leaving 1 inch on one of the long edges for sealing the dough. Sprinkle the butter completely with cinnamon sugar and roll up the dough, starting at the edge that doesn't have the 1 inch margin. Roll as tight as possible, and seal by pinching the dough together at the end. 
6.  Cut dough into 9 pieces (about equal) and lay in pan with two rolls in the middle and seven rolls around the perimeter. Bake for 25 minutes, or until golden and firm to the touch. Let rest 5 minutes, then flip onto a serving plate and remove the parchment. Serve warm!

Recipe from Fast Breads, via Serious Eats.

Banana Bread

I call this is the kind of banana bread you make when you have an extreme number of bananas to eat, all speckledy and starches converted to sugars and whatnot. All of these bananas give amazing banana flavor to the bread, too.

There's a crumble topping too! Butter and brown sugar and a bit of flour and lots of aromatic cinnamon. My favorite bits are the pockets of banana bits that didn't get fully mashed up! So delicious.

You could of course add chocolate chips, or walnuts, or pecans, or all three! With or without the crumble topping, it's amazing. The huge amount of bananas (4 per loaf) keep the bread moist and lend a ton of flavor.

I also discovered that a smear of peanut butter, drizzle of honey, and sprinkle of cinnamon totally elevate it to something even more extraordinary, if possible. Desserty, filling, sweet, nutty, and smooth.

And if you don't have 4 overly ripe bananas at once, just peel and freeze as many as you do have. Then, thaw them in the microwave for a minute or two before mashing.

They also make excellent one-ingredient ice cream!

But back to the bread...here's the recipe! File it away for when the freezer starts screaming for ethanol-induced ripe-banana mercy.

Banana Bread
Yield: 1 loaf

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 bananas, mashed
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup canola oil

• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon butter

Method: 

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Butter and flour a loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and oil. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth top.
3. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons of flour and the cinnamon. Cut in the butter or mash it in with your fingers until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
4. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a tester inserted into center of loaf comes out clean.

Adapted from Leftovers for Lunch.