Farine

Blood of the Dragon: Healthy New Year Orange Cake

My brothers and I grew up eating a marvelous orange cake which I sadly probably won’t make again even though I have the recipe and it couldn’t be easier to make or more delicious: 150 g butter + 150 g flour + 150 g sugar + 2 whole eggs + 1 orange (juice and zest) + 1/2 packet of baking powder. Mix everything (except juice). Bake. When cake is done, drench with juice. Revel!
Over the years, I have made it over and over and it always met with the same unmitigated success. I even made it once ages ago for friends who were coming for tea one snowy Sunday afternoon and I burned my wrist when taking it out of the oven and it fell to the floor face down! There was no time to bake another one, so I took a spatula and rescued as much as I could of the part that wasn’t in contact with the floor. Of course it was all broken but I pressed it into a charlotte mold and since it was still warm, it took the shape of the mold very nicely. When it had cooled enough, I unmolded it and drizzled warmed up apricot preserves over it. It was beautiful and even better than the original. My guests asked for the recipe which I provided – skipping the floor part – and all was well.
I had forgotten all about it until our youngest son’s fourth grade teacher enrolled her whole class in a New York State writing program and the kids were asked to write about specific incidents in their childhood. So he wrote about the cake being scraped off the floor minutes before our guests arrived and his writing was so good and so funny that his piece was chosen to be read aloud in assembly! I was mortified but that wasn’t the worst of it.
The worst came what he wrote about a very bumpy flight from Athens to Paris when he was 5 years old. He explained that he had been seating next to me and that the whole plane had been jolted when we were hit by lightning (true), that we had made an unplanned landing in Lyon to check for damages (they were minor) and that we continued to Paris under the cloud cover and that everybody got sick (true again); that we landed in Paris so fast that we were on the ground barely one minute or two before we took off again at warp speed and everyone was deadly pale and afraid and the flight attendants were running down the aisle with a strained look on their faces (still true) and that I turned towards him and shook his hand and said: “A…, it was nice meeting you” (the hand shaking and stiff upper lip discourse all figments of his imagination, needless to say). That too was read in assembly!!! I was never happier to see a kid graduate to middle school so that I become anonymous again…

Well, to come back to the cake, I can’t make it anymore for health reasons but that doesn’t mean we don’t yearn for it every winter when huge baskets of oranges arrive at the grocery store… Last week it was blood oranges.

Blood oranges! When I was growing up in France, blood oranges were very sour. They truly had a bite, so much so that I actually didn’t care very much for them. They came from Spain and I don’t think they had as much sun as the ones we get here which come from California and are sweet and fragrant.
Blood oranges (don’t you love the name?) are rich in vitamin C, of course, but also in anthocyanin which is a powerful antioxydant. That gave me an idea. In honor of the Chinese New Year, I would bake a health-friendly orange cake (after all striving to keep my loved ones healthy throughout the year is certainly a priority) and call it Blood of the Dragon (as you can see, my youngest son doesn’t have a monopoly on imagination!).

Now I won’t lie and tell you the result is as airy and lovely as the original all-butter orange cake. You wouldn’t believe me anyway. The texture reminds me more of a pudding than a cake proper but it is very tasty and refreshing. Orange and ginger combine to give it a nice kick (next time I might even add a bit of fresh ginger) and, in the health department, you can’t beat the ingredients: nutrient-rich white whole wheat, natural starter (which makes it easier for the body to assimilate the nutrients present in the grain), ginger (a powerful antioxydant in its own right), fresh oranges, cultured buttermilk, olive oil, etc… So here is to a wondrous and healthy New Year!

Ingredients (for a 9-inch cake pan):

For the starter

180 g mature levain (starter)
180 g white whole wheat pastry flour
180 g cultured buttermilk
25 g ginger syrup

For the batter

80 g extra-virgin olive oil
juice and zest of 2 blood oranges
100 g unsweetened applesauce
50 g bits of crystallized ginger
pinch of salt
note: the oranges I used were very sweet and with the crystallized ginger and the bit of syrup in the starter, I didn’t need more sugar. You should taste the batter prior to baking (one of the advantages of baking without eggs is that you can actually have a taste) and determine whether or not sugar should be added

For the finished cake

blood oranges
confectioner’s sugar

Method:

Starter is prepared at least 4 hours before baking: mix all ingredients with wooden spoon, cover tightly and let rise at warm room temparature
When the starter has doubled, add other ingredients, mix with wooden spoon and pour in oil-sprayed pan. Bake for 40 minutes in pre-heated 350°F/177°C oven
When done (a cake tester comes out clean), turn off the oven and leave the cake inside for another 5 to 10 minutes with oven door ajar. Cool on a rack
Dust with confectioner’s sugar
Serve with freshly sliced blood oranges. Alternatively drench with blood orange juice before serving.

Blood of the Dragon Orange Cake is going to Susan’s for this week’s issue of Yeastspotting…

Beet Quiche

If you live in the United States and you have been following the news, then you already know that Seattle got snowed in and iced over this week, all in one fell swoop with no breather in between. Our world turned one solid color (or at least a continuum of white, black and grey) and it was all I could do not to check my camera over and over to make sure I hadn’t inadvertently changed the settings…

At first it was new and lovely and we marveled at the transformations it brought to the landscape : odd shapes suddenly appearing where there were just bushes before; cats’ pawprints quilting together otherwise untrodden lawns; stately evergreens slumping against the windless sky. But I soon found I wanted color back and I wanted it soon and since the forecast didn’t look encouraging, it had to be in our plates. No way we could hazard down the hill to the grocery store however, so making do with what we already had was a must. I looked in the crisper drawer: the beets we had bought last week at Ballard Farmers’ Market woke up and winked at me. I looked in the pantry: flour, poppy seeds and olive oil? Check! I looked in the refrigerator again. Eggs? Check! Cream? None! Milk? Check! Cheese? Fresh goat cheese only. Perfect! Beets and goat cheese are a match made in heaven… I decided to make a quiche.

First I steamed the beets. I considered roasting them but I wanted them to keep their firm cheeks and vibrant colors. There is a wonderful dignity to just-steamed-enough vegetables, don’t you think? Serene emissaries of the vegetal world, they carry the unadulterated tastes of the soil, the wind, the sun and the rain, combined and summed up in unique flavors. A gift too precious to be roasted away on a day when they have been cast as the stars of the show (don’t get me wrong, I love roasted beets as much as the next person, only not for this particular quiche…)

While the beets were steaming (thoroughly scrubbed but uncut and unpeeled), I mixed the dough for the crust (adapting a French recipe by Laurence Salomon which can be found here), rolled it out and baked it blind. Then I let beets and crust find their cool.

I had steamed three different kinds of beets (dark red, yellow and pink) and all were the same dull brown when they were done. But under their drab coats, their flesh was as exuberant as ever. The crust got a coat of mustard paint and a powdering of ground hazelnuts. Then the sliced beets amiably arranged themselves in nestled circles.

If there had been a way of making a quiche without a filling, I would have done it (just so the beets would continue to shine). But there wasn’t. Or rather if there was, I couldn’t find it. So I poured the egg, milk and cheese mixture over the beet petals and hoped the oven would do its magic.

Which it did. Pretty much.

Ingredients: (for an 11-inch tart pan)
For the crust (crust recipe adapted from Laurence Salomon)

150 g white whole wheat pastry flour (all-purpose flour can be used instead and will likely require less water)
10 g poppy seeds
50 g old-fashioned oat flakes
33 g extra-virgin olive oil
4 pinches of salt
50 to 70 g of ice water (depending on the flour, you may need to use more or less, so go easy on the pouring)

For the filling

Assorted beets (I forgot to weigh them but you won’t go wrong if you buy and steam four or five big ones. Leftover beets are delicious in soups or salads), scrubbed but unpeeled with roots and top stems (not leaves) uncut
150 g fresh goat cheese, crumbled
50 g ground hazelnuts (optional)
52 g whole milk
3 eggs
French Dijon mustard (you don’t have to use fancy – I used Trader Joe’s – but you need to make sure it contains no sugar as its role is to counterbalance the sweetness of the beets)
Hot pepper sauce to taste but preferably sparingly (I used Sriracha)
Salt and pepper to taste
Nutmeg to taste, freshly grated

Method:

Steam the beets and let them cool down. Then peel and slice them
Assemble the crust: pour flour, poppy seeds, oat flakes, salt and olive oil in the food processor with metal blade attached, pulse for 10 seconds (until oat flakes turn into coarse flour) and with the motor running, slowly pour in the water (just enough for the dough to form into a ball). Stop the moment it does. Wrap the dough in plastic and let it rest for 30 minutes (I put it in the refrigerator but I am not sure it was actually necessary as it may have made it harder to roll out)
After 30 minutes, roll out the dough and place it in 11-inch ungreased tart pan. Place a piece of foil in the pan and fill it with pie weights (you don’t need to prick the dough). Bake in preheated 350°F/177°C oven for 15 minutes, remove the foil and pie weights and bake for another 5 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on a rack
While beets and crust are cooling, whip the goat cheese with the milk and the eggs, adding salt, pepper and hot sauce to taste
When crust is cool, paint bottom with Dijon mustard and sprinkle ground hazelnuts on top if desired (the hazelnuts are optional: they soak up some of the liquid, preventing the dough from getting soggy and they add a layer of taste which I like very much but it mostly came through when we ate the quiche cold the day after. Their presence was barely perceptible when the quiche was warm and freshly baked)
Arrange the sliced beets in the crust and pour filling over them. Grate nutmeg over the quiche and bake in pre-heated 350°F/177°C oven for 30 minutes. Check doneness (the filling must be set) and if necessary, bake another 5 minutes until gently golden all over.
Let cool somewhat before unmolding.
Eat hot, warm or cold.

The beet quiche keeps beautifully in the fridge and tastes even better the day after. It also makes a comforting lunch to take to work if you can make it through the snow…

Breadfarm’s Winthrop Whole Wheat Bread

Winthrop Whole Wheat Bread (as made and sold at the bakery)

Related post: Meet the Baker: Scott Mangold

Loosely based on a Peter Reinhart recipe, the Winthrop loaf is a fairly simple bread to make at home. You just need to plan ahead since it requires two preferments: a 24-hour soaker (which spends 12 hours in the refrigerator and 12 hours on the counter) and a whole wheat starter. Breadfarm‘s owner Scott Mangold uses wheat from two different parts of Washington State: white whole wheat flour from Bluebird Grain Farms in Winthrop and coarse whole wheat flour from Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill in nearby Burlington. Having neither of those, I used what I had on hand, which was white whole wheat flour from Fairhaven and hard red winter wheat berries from the coop, which I ground coarsely with my own little mill.

It is also a rather forgiving recipe if you make sure to bring both preferments to room temperature before incorporating them. I miscalculated my schedule for the day and had to slow down the starter in the fridge. It came back to life beautifully. Scott says that as an alternative to making the soaker one day ahead of time, you can also make it only 12 hours before mixing and then skip the waiting in the fridge part by just having it rest at room temperature (about 73°F/23°C).
Breadfarm maintains a whole wheat starter at 100% hydration but any wheat starter can be used provided its hydration is appropriately adjusted. I used my regular white liquid levain (100% hydration) and simply fed it twice with coarsely milled wheat flour before using in the recipe. The important part is to make sure to feed the starter about 8 hours prior to mixing (although, as I said, I had to slow mine down and it still worked). It must achieve full ripeness. If fed coarsely milled flour, the starter holds longer between feedings and the resulting bread is more chewy.

Fairhaven coarsely milled wheat flour

Ingredients (for 3 small loaves):

(Scott uses his mixer at the bakery but at home I did the mixing by hand)

For the soaker

320 g white whole wheat flour
248 g water
14.5 g salt (all the salt for the formula goes into the soaker to inhibit protease activity)

For the starter

65.5 g ripe whole wheat starter (100% hydration)
262 g coarse whole wheat flour
262 g water

For the final dough

.85 g instant yeast (about 1/4 of a teaspoon) (used in a production situation to ensure that the bread rises on schedule but optional at home)
23 g water
590 g starter (all the starter)
582 g soaker (all the soaker)
227 g white whole wheat flour

Method:

In the video below, you see Scott mixing, folding, scaling and shaping. Only two folds are shown but Scott actually did three. Also the bakers working and chatting in the background are Caryn, Gregory and Nathan. Matt was in charge of the oven that day and he did the baking as Scott had to go home take care of his kids.

Proof the yeast in the warm water for 5 minutes (even if it’s instant as it makes it more active and you need to use less)
Combine all ingredients and mix until you get a good windowpane test (see video) but the dough is still loose and shaggy. Target dough temperature should be 78 to 80°F (26-27°C)
Fold three times at 25 minutes interval
Divide and shape as batards 25 minutes after the last fold (no pre-shaping)
Bake about 20 minutes after shaping in 450°F/232°C oven for 35 to 45 minutes with steam in the first few minutes.

Winthrop 100% Whole Wheat (the Farine version)

I had fun making the Winthrop loaf and I love its flavor. Scott says it has a small but devoted following among the whole grains crowd and I can understand why. It’s definitely a keeper!

The Winthrop 100% Whole Wheat Bread is going to Susan for Yeastspotting, her weekly roundup of breads and other baked goodies.

Meet the Baker: Scott Mangold

I wrote a while ago that if I ever got a new life and was reborn as a baker, I would like to start my career at Noah Elber’s Orchard Hills Breadworks in New Hampshire. Well, that’s still true of course. Only now I feel I have both sides of the country covered. In case the Northwest is where I happen to breathe a new life, then I’d like to go work at Scott Mangold’s Breadfarm in Washington State.
Not only do both Noah and Scott make excellent bread (would I consider spending the afterlife working for them otherwise?) but there is something about the ambiance in their bakeries, the cheerfulness and dedication of their teams and their own overall easygoing-ness (is there such a word?) as bosses that make me think I would learn well from either of them and have fun in the process.

Scott’s bakery is located in beautiful and fertile Skagit Valley in Edison, a village so tiny that if you blink as you reach it, you could pass it and never notice. With Vancouver two hours to the north, Seattle one hour to the south, the Cascade mountains to the east and Puget Sound close by to the west, Edison could be forgiven for thinking of itself as the center of the universe.

But instead of bragging, it has adopted a whimsical last frontier kind of attitude that has you sit up and notice and, yes, make a U-turn and park if you have already driven through…

The bakery sits next to the saloon in an old building that has hosted successively over the years a butcher shop (some of the village old-timers still remember accessing the meat locker in the back), a candlery and an upholsterery shop. When Scott and his wife Renee opened up in July 2003, there was no culture of bread in the area. None. Scott traveled with samples and brochures in his van and explained what they were hoping to do to whomever would listen and have a taste. The samples were a hit: the bread was well-received. Besides the brisk business they do in the shop, they now sell to nine grocery stores as well as to about fifteen restaurants including on the San Juan islands where mail and bread delivery go hand in hand.

Born in nearby Mt Vernon, Scott himself grew up as a fast food kid. His first job (as a high school student) was to wash dishes in a little restaurant in Wallingford. That’s when he discovered flavor. Three months later his newfound passion for food got him promoted to assistant chef. In those years, naturally leavened bread wasn’t on his radar: his chief interest lay in pastries and rolls. After college where he was a chemistry major -to this day he says science helps him a lot in his baking- he saved his money and signed up for a six-week intensive class in baking and pastry at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in Napa Valley. With that training under his belt, he started looking for a job. A year later, he landed at Grand Central Bakery in Portland, Oregon, and that’s when the love story started. As Scott remembers it, “I was enthralled from Day 1”.
Nineteen months later, Grand Central transferred him to all-organic Black Bear Bakery as head baker. Talk about trial by fire! But he got a lot of support and it was a fantastic learning experience. Fast forward another year and Grand Central found itself in need of a head baker at its Seattle location. It offered him the job. Scott drove up and spent a week there. Realizing that accepting the offer would the perfect way to round up his training in preparation for going on his own, he laid his cards on the table: he told the owners that his goal was to open his own place and that he would only remain in Seattle until he had the money to do so. But he wouldn’t leave before first training his replacement. It was a deal Grand Central could live with. Scott remained in Seattle four years. Then Breadfarm happened.

I visited shortly before Christmas. The air inside the bakery was redolent with the scent of spices (mostly ginger) and baking levain, a fragrance that does more for me than luxury perfume. I fell under the spell and found myself deploring -once more- that technology hadn’t progressed enough to make it possible for my camera to capture aromas as well as images.

Like miller Kevin Christenson, his almost neighbor and also his main purveyor of whole-grain flours, Scott wants to be part of a sustainable grain-growing, milling and baking local economy. One of his goals is to be a voice for the bakers by explaining why certain grains work better for them than others (each has its unique aroma and baking characteristics), by stressing the importance of consistency (one of the challenges of local grains is the way flour varies from one delivery to the next due to factors sometimes as simple and basic as changes in the weather) and by pushing for more storage down the road (more storage would allow for blending which would improve consistency). For a baker, consistency trumps local: at this point, Scott has no choice but to get his unbleached white flour from outside the state.
As you can imagine, I had an uphill battle with myself trying to decide which of Breadfarm loaves to feature on Farine. In the end, since I am still new to the area and basically learning its tastes and flavors, discovering the terroir if you will, I decided to go for the Winthrop Whole Wheat bread, made with two kinds of wheat, both grown in Washington. I had tasted it before and liked its nutty aroma. I also liked the fact that even though it was 100% whole wheat, it didn’t stick its wholesomeness in your face with a holier-than-thou kind of attitude: it was light, handsome and very pleasant. In other words, a winner.

Winthrop 100% Whole Wheat (Breadfarm)

Related post: Winthrop 100% Whole Wheat Bread

Blackberry Buckwheat Blossoms

When I met Fairhaven miller Kevin Christenson, he told me that buckwheat flour was his favorite and that he always added it to whatever he baked, mostly scones. I asked whether he might be willing to share a recipe but he demured. He said he was no baker, he just picked whatever scone recipe was on hand when he made breakfast for his family and replaced part of the all-purpose flour with buckwheat. So I started looking for a scone recipe I could use but most of the ones I found involved butter and since we are just recovering from the holidays, I thought, no butter, no, thank you, not this time.

That’s when I remembered Plum Gorgeous: Recipes and Memories from the Orchard, a lovely book by Romney Steele which I couldn’t resist buying last fall. Browsing through it, I found a recipe for butterless blackberry polenta muffins. Now my freezer is chokeful of blackberries I picked over the summer in the lanes around our house. I have already made blackberry jelly and blackberry frozen yogurt but I still have lots and lots. So why not bake muffins that would remind us of long walks in the hills along fragrant hedges?
Except for the cornmeal which I bought in bulk at the natural food store nearby without checking where it came from (or if I did check, I forgot), I used all organic Fairhaven Mills flours. The original recipe calls for all-purpose flour and polenta or stone-ground cornmeal. I used the cornmeal as indicated but kept only one third of the all-purpose flour substituting white whole wheat and buckwheat for the rest. I also decreased the amount of sugar (we like sweet baked goods to be just on the cusp of enough sugar. The original recipe uses over a third more than I do. If you have more of a sweet tooth, by all means dial it back in.)
I don’t know of any other wild berry that packs as much aroma and taste as Washington’s plump blackberrry (the two varieties that grow in our neighborhood each have their own distinctive flavor). Since the berries go into the batter still frozen, they poach gently during the baking, becoming so marvelously juicy that they burst in the mouth with every bite. As for the buckwheat and the cornmeal, they are perennial favorites. I have already made these muffins twice and we can’t get enough of them. So here is to you, Kevin Christenson! Thank you for these beautiful flours. Next time I pop over, I’ll bring you a batch…

Ingredients: (adapted from Plum Gorgeous)

80 g all-purpose flour
80 g white whole wheat flour
90 g buckwheat flour
90 g stone-ground cornmeal (or fine polenta)
70 g sugar
15 g baking powder
zest of one orange
2 eggs
160 g whole milk
52 g extra-light olive oil (safflower or other vegetable oil can be used as well)
130 g frozen blackberries (+ 12 for topping) (do not thaw before folding into the batter)
1 pinch of salt

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350°F/177°C
Line 12-muffin pan with paper baking cups
Combine flours, polenta and baking powder in a bowl. Mix well. Add sugar and orange zest
Lightly whisk together eggs, milk and oil in separate bowl, then stir in the flour mixture
Fold in the berries
Scoop the batter into the prepared muffin cups. Top with a blackberry if desired
Bake until golden, about 20 minutes.

The Blackberry Buckwheat Blossoms are going to Susan for Yeastspotting, her weekly roundup of breads and other baked goodies.

Related post: Meet the Miller: Kevin Christenson

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