Real Baking with Rose Levy Beranbaum

Turning the Tables

I’ve never liked or should I say accepted rules--at least not without questioning or testing them. But for the new year I’d like to offer up two for consideration and that’s the operative word—consideration!

Restaurant Reservations: How would you like it if you made a dinner party and cooked your heart out for your guests and a few didn’t show up without even letting you know before hand. That’s the way it is for restaurants, especially small ones that have even more trouble surviving, especially in this economy. Some restaurateurs are forced to take credit cards along with reservations.

Also, keep in mind that in order to survive financially, small restaurants need to turn the tables, i.e. you really can’t occupy your table for the entire evening unless, perhaps, you are willing to pay for two seatings.

Group E-mails: If you like or need to send the same message to several people, be sure to blind copy. This is not to keep anonymity of e-mail addresses as much as to prevent hackers—vampires of the internet (who adore group e-mails) from sending everyone in your address book endless spam. All you need to do is put the names in your group list in ( ) and they will be safe. Some people think of this as e-mail etiquette. Surprisingly, though, I’ve lost one very old friend and another previously friendly though evidently self-centered colleague after making this request. Each promised never to e-mail me again at all! And I had informed them in good faith assuming they didn’t realize the consequences of what they had done and would be glad to know how it works.

My husband Elliott has a saying that is a near mantra—it goes something like this: Do what you want as long as it doesn’t hurt others. Of course this is subject to interpretation and requires much turning of the tables but could well account for why our marriage has endured for 33 years as of this July 2009.

Happy and Considerate New Year!

From the kitchen of Rose on 01.03.09 at 9:00 AM in Announcements

Ho Ho Ho Hawaii

Never too late for a Xmas card of this extraordinary beauty from star blogger Hector of Hawaii! (if you don't know Hector, visit the forums!)

HECTOR SAYS: 5 months ago, while doing my daily run to empty the kitchen trash at my bakery internship, I noticed 7 full size sheet pans of dark chocolate macadamia nut bars. The bars were over-stirred while adding the nuts, so it cooled as the most 'unnaceptably' streaked dark choclate bars with delicious highlights of blonde nut oil! I no longer have this dirty task on my job description as I have been promoted to the cake team, but I still have over 7 kilos of this chocolate! When I came home with the precious trash, I placed the bars on a suspended big holed colander overnight in my oven with the lights on, so I removed the nuts.

Therefore, I made Cake Bible's Chocolate Pine Cone cake, in my opinion is the most chocolatey cake in the book, so chocolatey I am naming my rendition as the Chocolate Pine Truffle. This was my first cake in my new apartment, and you won't belief how relief I feel that I was able to bake! The cake celebrated my uncle's 60th birthday.

Be sure to include the cute whole pine nuts, if time permits place a pine nut under each and every petal! The caramel pine tree branches are entirelly optional, this time I brought these back and plan to keep in my airtight containers for reduce-reuse-recycle causes!

Merry Christmas dearest bloggers, it has been the best year yet, and may 2009 bring many high energy (and calories) joy joys.

Love. /H

From the kitchen of Rose on 12.31.08 at 5:41 PM in Photos

Switzerland Part Two--Ticino & The Chestnut Path

Never let it be said the Swiss don't have a sense of humor!

Chestnuts were planted in this region of the Ticino by the Romans 2000 years ago. They were a major food staple in this mountainous area as they could be dried, made into flour, roasted or produce chestnut honey, tiding the farmers over during the snowy winters.

After walking through the forest of chestnut trees we were treated to lunch at Il Castagno, which is also a hotel. The décor was most inviting with marble floor from the local quarry and chestnut wood tables.

The first course was fresh figs with excellent prosciutto but the second showcased the chestnut after which the restaurant is named. I’ve used chestnut flour in cakes but I never before experienced it in pasta dough. The combination of sweet earthy chestnut, fried sage, butter, and cheese was so heavenly I asked for the recipe. And the week of my return home I lost no time recreating it. The restaurant used 30% chestnut flour but I found that 50% was even better!

Incidentally, the red wine with the boar on the label (Wild Boar Hill) was the best I tasted in the Ticino area and happened to be from the vineyard of our charming escort Eliana who also gave me a rare corn flour that had been smoked. I can’t decide what to do with it first—corn fingers or perhaps bread for stuffing—no—it has to be corn fingers where the grain will star.

After lunch we walked through the town and discovered an ancient building that was used to roast chestnuts.

Inspired by the pasta I also tried making a loaf of bread, replacing the flour with 20% chestnut flour. I slashed it to resemble a chestnut and it was good but not great. Of course panettone with candied chestnuts (in the Bread Bible) is fantastic but the flour is not that interesting for bread.

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From the kitchen of Rose on 12.27.08 at 9:30 AM in Savory Cooking

Switzerland The Ticino

I will always remember my first trip to Switzerland but I absolutely can’t remember how many many trips I’ve made since then! For my first trip, I was working on an article on Swiss desserts for the then new magazine Chocolatier together with journalist Fred Ferretti. He was writing the text and I was recreating the recipes. But the budget was only enough for one writer to go to Switzerland for the research so I decided to pay my own way and go as well. I was already half in love with Switzerland having grown up with the tale of Heidi, her love for her grandfather and the alps. I also adored my grandfather whom I lived with for the first 4 years of my life and was bereft when my parents took me from my ‘alps’ (the Atlantic Ocean) to the big city of NY the way Heidi felt when she was taken to Frankfurt. But as I got older my thoughts turned less to Heidi than to chocolate and Switzerland was Mecca. I had to go. And then I had to return and explore every possible area of the country which is divided between French, German, Italian, and Romanche Cantons. Switzerland is a dream to travel through even for people who don’t speak any of these languages. The railroad networks through every major city with speed and reliability and interconnects with trams, cable cars, and buses. The most economical and stress free way to travel through the country is to purchase a Swiss pass www.myswitzlerland.com

This recent trip to Switzerland was a press trip focusing on the Ticino, the Italian most southern region, and the German northeastern region of St. Gallen, Appenzeller and Schaffhausen. It was so filled with experiences, great photos, and information I am compelled to divide them between several postings. But I must begin by saying that as on any trip, what made it most special was the group of extraordinary, fun, interesting, and warmly supportive participants not to mention the terrific new manager of media relations Michelle Kranz. We all so hit it off that even on optional events where we were free to do our own thing we still got together as a group!

The Ticino, a triangle of land surrounded on two sides by Italy, is divided geographically by the Alps. It has 303,000 inhabitants, is half covered by forests, and is the only Canton where Italian is the official language . So it is not surprising that one finds there such a felicitous marriage of Swiss efficiency and Italian romance.

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From the kitchen of Rose on 12.20.08 at 9:47 AM in Special Stories

Press Trip Departure

I'll be away this week until December 23 for a terrific sounding event in Naples, Italy called Pane, Amore, e Fantasia (Bread, Love, and Dreams) based on a 1950's movie starring Gina Lollabrigida.

Of course you'll be hearing all about it on the blog (after the Swiss trip postings).

I know you'll all continue to help each other in this busy and happy season of holiday baking.

Happy Holidays and Love,
Rose

From the kitchen of Rose on 12.13.08 at 3:56 PM in Announcements

New York's East Village Rebirth

Growing up in New York, I never would have thought that someday far into the future I would experience the best coffee (specifically it was cappuccino) in my entire life in the east village (and I’m not be hyperbolic)! In those days, East Village brought forth immediate depressing images of Tompkin’s Square Park, hippydom and the drug culture. But things change in two generations and now the East Village has become a destination. A mere 15 minute walk from where I live, it is a most appealing NY neighborhood. A few weeks ago I had three major epihanous experiences over three usually common place ingredients: mushrooms, pork, and coffee!

The first was at an enchanting new vegetarian restaurant, provocatively called Dirt Candy, off Avenue A on east 9th Street.

On their blog, chef/owner Amanda Cohen explains the derivation: “When you eat a vegetable you’re eating nothing more than dirt that’s been transformed by plenty of sunshine and rain into something that’s full of flavor—candy from dirt. Chef Cohen has created a most imaginative and tasteful menu. I was utterly blown away by an innocent little grey bunker-like appetizer billed as Portobello Mushroom Mousse and don’t miss the jalapeno hush puppies—crisp, airy--addictive. The mushroom flavor virtually exploded in my mouth, defying it’s ethereal texture. For photos of the restaurant and many of the specialties on the menu visit www.dirtcandynyc.com

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From the kitchen of Rose on 12.13.08 at 9:00 AM in Special Stories

How Sweet It Is

A few weeks ago I attended the launch of Amy Scherber and Toy Kim Dupree’s new book, The Sweeter Side of Amy’s Bread.

For those of you who don’t live in NY, Amy’s Bread is the one most often found at upscale restaurants that don’t bake their own (and few do!). There are also two consumer locations, one in the village on the famed Bleecker Street and the other in the Chelsea Market where the book party was held.

I am a great fan of Amy and Toy’s so I went to support them, not realizing I would get to meet almost the entire publicity department of my new publisher Wiley (who published this book)! And what a delightful part it was with a nice mix of colleagues and customers and many generous samples from the book. An older gentleman, watching me peruse the book, asked me if I was in it. My response was “why would I be?” and then I thought to look in the index and there was honored to find my name in two places!

As almost every bread baker I know, Amy and Toy are the soul of generosity and Amy told me that the recipes in the book are exactly the ones from the bakery—no secrets withheld.

I was thrilled to see that the book has the familiar ingredients charts I so adore and told Amy I was a little jealous that they got to put grams first! She said they insisted on it as that is the way they bake. The ounces and volume are in the second and third columns.

I’m sure you’ll value, as do I, the “Tips and Techniques” that appear throughout the book in a pale lavender rectangle, and a great version of Red Velvet Cake on page 105. But worth the price of the book alone is the moistest, darkest Devil’s Food Cake (page 175) I’ve ever encountered, in fact, I made the cake the very next week so I could have more of it!

The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread: Cakes, Cookies, Bars, Pastries and More from New York City's Favorite Bakery on Amazon.

From the kitchen of Rose on 12.06.08 at 9:08 AM in Announcements

There’s A New Bible on The Block

Since The Cake Bible was published 20 years ago, there have been so many books using the B word I’m expecting a whole section in the book stores devoted to food bibles.

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose….” of course is true up to a point, but I don’t need to tell you what’s in the name “bible” and if you’re going to use it as part of the name of your book it had better be one. The Flavor Bible is.

If you look up the word bible in the Encarta Dictionary, after you get past the first few religious connotation definitions, you’ll find the one that best applies here as well: “essential book: a book that is considered an authority on a particular subject.”

Written by my esteemed friends and colleagues Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, The Flavor Bible not only fits this definition it offers something beyond bible that is rare and precious: true originality. There is not a single recipe in the book—this is not about learning how to roast a chicken---it’s about understanding taste, flavor synergy, ingredients—what they are and how they work with each other. Beautifully organized alphabetically by ingredient and also including ethnic cuisine, each ingredient is coded for weight, volume, technique, and tips (occasionally function as in sesame oil: “heating”).

Studded throughout the book are quotes, concepts, and tips from illustrious chefs, past and present, and other notables such as the response of U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Simic when asked in an interview “What advice would you give to people who are looking to be happy?” His answer: “For starters, learn how to cook.” And here’s a great tip from one of my favorite chefs, Michèl Richard (who is a perfect example of happiness, married many years with more children than I can remember). He uses miso broth instead of chicken for his onion soup. This is one of Andrew’s favorite tips as well. Karen intrigued me with Dominique and Cindy Duby’s clever idea to alternate slices of apples and eggplant in a tart because the absorbent eggplant soaks up the juices of the apples to keep the tart less soggy -- so much so that the eggplant tastes like apple! Karen said “We haven't tried it yet ourselves, but the logic made immediate sense.” Yes indeed it does and I can hardly wait to see for myself!

This book will soon have you thinking like a food professional. It will change your approach to how you look at food and ingredients. Here’s how it works: A food professional approaching something new first smells, then tastes, and then the sensory brain starts spinning trying to imagine what it would enhance! An example of o

This scratch baking blog, featuring baker and cookbook author Rose Levy Beranbaum, is an online journal of Rose’s baking adventures, cooking tips, and scratch recipes. Her cookbooks include Bread Bible, Pie and Pastry Bible, Rose’s Christmas Cookies, Passion for Chocolate and The Cake Bible.