Good Ol' Brownies

Day 16: Today is National Chocolate Day. Coincidentally, it's also National First Responders Day. Therefore, I went with my first response and made good ol' cake brownies out of the red-and-white Better Homes and Gardens cookbook which has been my companion since...good grief, really?...1966. It was the first cookbook in my kitchen as I set up housekeeping on my own at a time when I barely knew how to boil water. I graduated from the "Cookies" section to the "Bread" section within a year, and the rest is history. I've never been one for exploring recipes for main dishes, but carbs? Give me a sack of flour, a little sugar, a couple of eggs some butter, and a cupboard stocked with additives like baking soda/powder, yeast, vanilla, and I'm a happy camper. And oddly, there was a time when I didn't care for chocolate. My, how times change!

Refining A Recipe

Day 40: When can you call a recipe "original?" I've heard it said that you have to change at least three ingredients, but with basic breads, that's nearly impossible. I found a recipe for Dutch oven raisin bread on line, and when I made it, I wasn't fully satisfied with the results. With over 50 years of bread-baking experience behind me (I've made all my own bread since I was in my early 20s), I was confident that I could make adaptations which would yield the loaf I wanted. I changed proportions, used regular yeast instead of instant, revised the number and length of rise times. My version is slightly less hydrated which makes the dough easier to handle, although it's still quite sticky. I know some of you were waiting for this adaptation, so here ya go! If you don't have a banneton, simply shape your loaf by hand.

Crow's Dutch Oven Raisin Bread

400 g bread flour
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon table salt
½ teaspoon yeast
1/4 cup warm water for yeast
1 1/4 cups warm water (110 degrees F)
1/2 cup raisins

Soften yeast in 1/4 cup warm water for 10 minutes. Stir together flour, sugar, cinnamon and salt. Pour in warm water and yeast. Stir until a shaggy, wet dough forms. Stir in raisins and mix until evenly distributed. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to raise for 45 minutes.

Sprinkle a clean work surface with a little flour. Scrape dough out onto the prepared surface and use a bench scraper knead and fold for a few minutes, adding only enough flour to keep it from sticking to your hands. Let rise for an additional 45 minutes.

Scrape dough out onto a floured surace and knead for several minutes. Place a piece of parchment paper in a banneton, folding so that it sits flat against the bowl. Place dough onto the parchment paper in the banneton and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for another hour. Halfway through this third rise, begin heating a Dutch oven to 400 degrees.

At the end of the final rise time, remove the dough from the banneton on its parchment paper and slash in a few places. Transfer dough with the parchment liner into the Dutch oven. Cover with a lid. Bake on center rack.

Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for 5 minutes more. Remove from the oven and carefully transfer bread onto a wire rack to cool completely before slicing.

High Hydration Loaf

Day 26: Since discovering the joys of baking no-knead sourdough in a Dutch oven, I've been wanting to expand my repertoire of breads. I finally got around to hunting for recipes, and found one for a high-hydration loaf (85%) raisin bread from a reputable source. This is not a sourdough recipe, mind you. It's good old-fashioned raisin bread. It uses instant yeast, and at first I blamed the low amount of oven spring on the fact that it is added dry to the flour, but then I realized I had forgotten to slash the top of the dough to let the steam escape. Setting that small oversight aside, it is delicious! I'm going to do some fine tuning of the recipe, though, using part of the water to activate the yeast ahead of time, before adding it to the flour. I like to see my yeast working before committing it to a dough. I may also give the dough an additional rise (it only had two of half an hour each), which also means one additional round of stretching and folding. This bread is worth perfecting!

Baklava

Day 20: I don't make it often, but I keep phyllo pastry on hand (commercial, frozen) for those emergencies when nothing will do but baklava. The question was whether or not there were any walnuts in the freezer as well, although I could have used pecans (another staple) to make it even richer. Digging past pine nuts, the aforementioned pecans and hazelnuts, I found a 12-ounce bag of walnut pieces, just perfect for my 13 x 9 pan and half a box of phyllo. Baklava is so decadent, it's hard to believe how simple it is to make. You don't really even have to stick to a recipe, unless you're aiming for specific proportions. Just mix up some sugar with cinnamon and cloves, and stir in the walnut bits. Have lots of melted butter on hand, and coat the bottom of a pan before layering on the first two leaves of phyllo. After each two, brush butter on the pastry and add two more. Do this a couple of times until you have 6-8 leaves of phyllo on the first layer. Sprinkle on part of the walnut mixture, and then add another 6-8 sheets of phyllo. You'll want at least two layers of walnuts (I usually make three) before adding the last 6-8 phyllo leaves. Butter the top layer, and score the pastry into serving-sized pieces. Bake at 350 until golden brown. In the meantime, make a syrup of 1 part sugar, 1 part water, 1/2 part honey. Mix together, bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes or so. Allow the syrup to cool a bit, although you'll want it to still be warm. When the pastry is done, let it cool for about 10 minutes before pouring the warm syrup over the top. Let it set for at least six hours so the syrup can soak into the phyllo. And then...enjoy!

A Good Ear

Day 252: When my sourdough starter died of causes unknown approximately a year ago, I was plunged into a period of existential crisis which lasted about six months. During that period, I could not turn out a decent loaf of bread. Oh, they were fine as far as taste was concerned, but invariably, the second rise would be weak and I would get very little oven spring. I blamed the weather. I blamed the cold. I blamed the yeast and the wheat crop and the flour mills. I tried waiting for a warm sunny day. I changed brands of flour and yeast. I bought a bread machine. But for the life of me, I could not figure out what was causing my loaves to be flat and dense. In over fifty years of bread-making on a ten-day schedule, I had had a few unresponsive doughs, but never such a long run of failures. "I think," I said to myself, "that I've lost my mojo."

I was lamenting the issue to a friend one day, and he offered me some of his sourdough starter. I am tempted to say I prefer sourdough over yeast breads, but the truth of it is that I simply prefer homemade bread regardless of the type. I took Ed up on his offer, and after doubling his starter a couple of times, I made a sourdough loaf. The results fell somewhat short of my expectations, but I could see there was hope. Then I started poking around for different recipes and came up with a high-hydration "artisan" loaf which required baking in a Dutch oven. It has now become my favourite version of sourdough.

This loaf should have the perfect "ear" typical of artisanal breads, i.e., it must be shallowly scored with a bread lame or sharp knife so that when oven spring occurs, it does not burst along the top or sides, but opens along the cut. It tends to get rather crisp along the edge and is inconvenient when slicing the bread, so after my loaves have cooled, I make a horizontal cut to prune the "ear" from the top of the loaf. You understand, of course, that this is for purely functional reasons. It has nothing to do with wanting to have a piece of fresh-baked sourdough lavished with butter for a nibbly-bite, nothing at all.

Icebox Cookies

Day 138: For want of anything better, today I am going to share with you my mother's recipe for "Icebox Cookies." Please note that these are called "Icebox Cookies" and not "Refrigerator Cookies" because they come from an era when powered refrigerators were not the common household appliance they are today. Foods were kept cold in an icebox which had to be replenished with ice on a schedule determined primarily by local weather conditions. The iceman came 'round to the door like the milkman, bearing his wares for a fee. Our household was one of the modern ones, keeping up with the Joneses with an electric fridge, but the name "Icebox Cookies" was destined for posterity. The dough, chilled so it can be sliced easily, makes these cookies simple to prepare. The mapleine gives them a unique taste, so close your cookbook on the "refrigerator cookie" page and try these instead.

3 cups sifted flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup shortening
1 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. mapleine
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup walnut or pecan pieces

Cream the shortening with the brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, mapleine and vanilla. Sift flour with baking powder and salt. Add flour mix to moist ingredients and combine thoroughly. Add nut pieces if desired (pecans are my favourite for this). Divide dough into two parts and roll each into a log. Wrap each log in wax paper and chill in the icebox/fridge for at least four hours or overnight. Preheat oven to 400 F. Slice dough into thin rounds (a little thinner than 1/4"). Place on ungreased baking sheets and bake for 10 minutes or until the edges start to brown slightly. These are a crisp, yet tender cookie, and dunkable if you wish.

Stollen

Day 62: To be perfectly honest, I think one of the main reasons I enjoy the Yule season is because it gives me an excuse to bake even more than usual, letting me trot out the recipes for specialty breads and cookies that I don't make at any other time of year. A good example of this is stollen, a sweet breakfast loaf with German origins, with raisins, candied fruit and almond slivers studding each and every slice. It can be eaten plain or buttered (the dough is already butter-rich), and may be served warm or cold. It freezes well, so it can be made weeks in advance to give as presents to special friends. Years ago, I was on the receiving end annually, thanks to a neighbour who shared my sentiments on breads as gifts. She is no longer with us, though, and my recipe is different from hers. In fact, I follow the one in "Joy of Cooking" with two notable exceptions: I soak the raisins in brandy overnight (or longer), and I use loaf pans which increase the cooking time by 10 minutes (roughly). One final note: I hear people ask, "Why is it called 'stollen?' Is it Russian?" After asking a couple of individuals why they would make that supposition, I determined that they assumed it was named after Stalin. No, stollen is German, and specifically a Christmas bread. It is similar to the Russian Easter bread called kulich, but minus the saffron and not as labour-intensive. Spelling matters.

St. Nicholas Day Tradition

Day 54: Happy St. Nicholas Day! For me, the 6th of December marks the start of the holiday season. As a youngster, the occasion meant a visit from St. Nicholas...not Santa Claus, not Father Christmas, but a figure somewhere between the two, with a blush of St. Francis of Assisi thrown in for spice. I pictured St. Nicholas as physically resembling Father Christmas: tall, thin, heavily and luxuriously robed, bearded, and with a wreath of holly and mistletoe on his head. His companions were the forest creatures, chipmunks at his feet, birds on his shoulders, deer following adoringly behind as he made his evening rounds to the children of the world. He did not bring toys, clothes or the other trappings one would expect from Santa's bag. Instead, he brought sweets and fruit: mandarin oranges, chewy dates and figs, ribbon candy, crystallized maple sugar in the shape of leaves. I never knew which door he'd open, but it always seemed to be the one farthest from where I was waiting to hear the "thunk" of a sackful of goodies hitting the floor when he tossed it inside. And oddly enough, my father always seemed to miss the event, having excused himself to visit the kitchen or bath. Today, I celebrate St. Nicholas Day with a tradition I began in adulthood. To open the holidays, I bake one of my favourite cookies, either Spritz or Russian Tea Cakes. I think St. Nicholas would approve.

The Cart, The Horse

Day 223: Sometimes the relative positions of the proverbial Cart and Horse are not easily within our control. I bought an Instant Pot and my initial experiment involved making jasmine rice, a task apparently beyond the skills of the Aroma rice cooker for some reason, and I was so pleased with the results from the IP that I decided to move to a significantly higher level of Pot use: yogurt. I happened to have some Greek yogurt in the fridge to use as a starter, and after reviewing dozens of YouTube videos (most of which prided themselves on being "no-boil" methods requiring ultra-pasteurized milk), I elected to use a "boil" method similar to that in the instructions for my old yogurt-maker. The process was very simple: bring standard whole milk to 180 degrees on "sauté," cool it to 110, add the starter culture and let the Pot do the rest. Eight hours from the time I set the IP to "Yogurt," I had...yes, yogurt. It seemed a bit loose, and in any event, I wanted Greek-style yogurt, so I poured it into a jelly bag and put it in the fridge overnight. In the morning, I had...yogurt cream cheese! Two hours probably would have been sufficient to leave it the consistency of Greek yogurt. Nine hours produced a bagful of the most delicious yogurt cheese imaginable (and salt-free!). This was the Cart, coming well before the Horse of bagels which I just harnessed and brought out of the oven stable. Little backwards there, but in the end, a very tasty lunch, and I can tell you this: I will never buy commercial cream cheese again.

Let This Be A Lesson

Day 219: Let this be a lesson to you...or in my case, a reminder of something I had forgotten from fifty years ago: flour matters. A month or so ago, I inadvertently ran out of flour. When I pulled out what should have been a new bag, it turned out to be sugar instead. Suffice to say that this put me in a panic because it was almost Bread Day, and there wasn't enough in the countertop canister for a loaf. I checked my grocery store on line and was surprised to see that they were out of Gold Medal, the only brand of bread flour I've used in half a century. I looked at two other stores. They were also out, so I went back to my usual store and ordered their house brand. When Bread Day arrived, I used a combination of what was left in the canister and the new flour, and thought that my loaf was a little slow to rise. The next time I made bread, the slow rise was undeniable. A subsequent loaf was also slow to rise and the texture was dense...like my head, which hadn't made the obvious connection yet. Instead, I assumed my sourdough start had lost some of its potency, so I strengthened it over a period of several days with feedings. When I made the sponge for my next loaf, it behaved properly in the early stages, but again, the loaf was reluctant and heavy. By now, I had gone through most of the five-pound bag of house-brand flour and was on the verge of buying another one because I was again having trouble locating Gold Medal bread flour at any of the stores near me. At some point in my search, the little lightbulb in my brain came on. It was the flour's fault! I persisted in my search for Gold Medal until I found it, bought the few bags the store had in stock, and made a perfect loaf after consigning the remainder of the house brand to cookies.

Kulich

Day 186: It has been over forty years since I made kulich. This traditional Russian/Ukrainian Easter Bread is also known as paskha, and is perhaps one of the messiest doughs I have had the joy of working. There are two ways to give it its unique texture, kneading in either beaten egg whites or softened butter just before the final step of adding the fruits. One way or the other, you can count on working with a sticky, gooey mass for at least half of the 12-plus minute knead time. Is it worth it? I think so. The bread is redolent with the exotic scent and flavour of saffron, which also gives it its rich yellow hue. Served warm, it does not need anything else; not butter, not sugar, not jam or jelly. The raisins and candied fruit peels provide a light sweetness, although if you're like me, you'll probably save a bit with icing on for your last bite. Tradition holds that it should be presented with a pink rose (real or frosting) laid on its frosted dome, but I had neither handy, and in any event, Kevin showed up on my doorstep within minutes of the time I'd applied the frosting. I sent one of three home with him with wishes for a happy Easter.

Here is the "butter last" version of my recipe. Figures in parentheses are for a half-recipe.

4 1/2 tsp yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
1/2 cup warm water (1/4 cup)
1 cup warm milk (1/2 cup)

2 cups flour for sponge (1 cup)
1 tsp salt (1/2 tsp)

1/2 tsp saffron, ground (1/4 tsp)
1 cup golden raisins (1/2 cup)
2 Tbsp rum/brandy (1 Tbsp)
1 tsp vanilla (1/2 tsp)
1 tsp cardamom (1/2 tsp)

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar (3/4 cup)
6 eggs at room temp, separated (3)
6 1/2 cups flour (3 1/4 cups)
1 1/2 cups soft butter (3/4 cup)
1 cup chopped almonds (1/2 cup)
1 cup mixed peel (1/2 cup)

powdered sugar plus one egg white and a little lemon juice for icing

2 2-lb coffee cans or 3 6" panettone forms for full recipe

Dissolve yeast in warm water. Set aside to proof for 10 minutes. Soak raisins and spices in rum/brandy. Sift 2 cups flour into a bowl and add the warm milk. Mix well. Mix in proofed yeast to make a sponge. Cover, and let rest in a warm place for 30-60 minutes, or until bubbly. Separate eggs. Beat yolks with sugar until lemony and light. Drain rum/spices from raisins into the egg mixture, reserving raisins for later. Add vanilla. Beat until well combined. Beat egg whites with a pinch of salt until fluffy but not stiff. Add egg yolks to sponge. Gradually add beaten whites, stirring in gently. Gradually add flour until a soft dough forms. Pour out onto floured board. Knead in remaining flour (about 12 minutes). When the dough feels elastic, begin kneading in the softened butter (sticky!). Transfer to a lightly greased bowl and allow to raise in a warm place for 1 1/2 hours. Punch down and knead for a few minutes more. Dust raisins and peels with flour. Knead them into the dough with the almonds. Divide dough in half and place in two parchment-lined tins or three 6-inch panettone forms. Allow to raise until dough almost reaches the top (roughly 1 1/2 hours). Bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes depending on size. Allow to cool. Make an icing with 1 egg white, powdered sugar and a touch of lemon juice.

Cookie!

Day 52: The world is a pretty grim place right now, so I decided to get a tiny little head start on the holidays by making spritz. Normally, I wouldn't start my holiday baking until St. Nicholas' Day when spritz or sandies would kick off the season. However, I'd run myself out of cookies, and since I am the original Cookie Monster, I had a good excuse. There was just one hitch: margarine. The recipe calls for three sticks, leaving it up to the cook to decide whether they want to use butter, margarine. or a combination of the two. For decades...decades!...I've made spritz using one cube of margarine and two of butter. I seldom use margarine anywhere else, except in my chocolate chip cookies. And now, stick margarine has all but disappeared from grocery store shelves, with the exception of that branded Imperial.

I don't know what they put in Imperial, but a few months ago when I made my first batch of chocolate chip cookies using it, they flattened out to wafers with little chocolate mountains poking up. Not only were they flat, they didn't taste like they should have done. I tried to find another brand of stick margarine, and that's when I realized there was a problem. Apparently, no one is making it now. Several experiments later, I found that by adding almost a full cup extra of flour, they were at least edible. So why did I dive right into spritz without thinking about that?

I thought the dough looked and felt off in the mixer bowl, but when I tried to put it through the cookie press, it became obvious that it was just too gooey. I put it back on the mixer and added flour...roughly an additional 3/4 cup to the 4 cups specified in the recipe...until it reached the right consistency. Perhaps I could have added another 1/4 cup of sugar as well (I'll do that next time). Imperial margarine is a royal disaster.

Always Better Homemade

Day 105: They're always better when they're homemade. I may not be much of a cook otherwise, but I am proud of my baking skills, especially when it comes to bread products. English muffins are a favourite. They are made from a soft dough which requires no kneading. First of all, however, you will need to have the forms/rings. Amazon has quite a few different styles, and they usually come in sets of 12. Mine are tinned, and roughly 50 years old. Modern versions are likely to be stainless steel. My recipe as given below is lavishly adapted from one in an old cookbook, and delivers light, airy muffins with a marvelous crumb.

2 1/4 tsp. salt
3 Tbsp. sugar
1/4 + 1 1/2 tsp. butter
1 3/4 cups scalded milk
2 1/4 tsp. dry yeast
1/4 cup water
1 egg
3 1/4 cups bread flour
Cornmeal

Place the salt, sugar and butter in a large bowl and pour the scalded milk over them. Stir to dissolve, and then cool to lukewarm. Soften the yeast in 1/4 cup warm water. Give it about 15 minutes to fully activate. Add one cup of flour to the milk mixture and beat well. Add softened yeast and egg, and beat until fully combined. Gradually add the remaining flour, mixing thoroughly until a good batter forms. The batter will be soft. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm location for 1 1/2 hours.

Grease two cookie sheets and the insides of the muffin rings. Sprinkle the sheets and rings with a light dusting of cornmeal. Spoon batter into rings and "encourage" it to adhere to the sides by pushing it out until it sticks. Dust the tops of each muffin with more cornmeal and pat each one flat. Cover with a cloth and let rise for an hour. Bake at 425 degrees for 14 minutes, flipping the muffins over halfway through the bake time. Once baked, remove the rings. When cool, split with a fork by inserting it into the sides of each muffin all the way around. Lift the halves apart. These freeze very well. Makes a dozen delicious muffins just begging for butter or homemade jam.

As Goes The Loaf

Day 81: You have only one chance to get this right: "As goes the loaf, so goes the year." Although I was unable to document the saying, I believe it is of Scottish or British origin, and asserts that the first loaf of bread baked after New Year's Day predicts the course the year will follow. Will it be lumpy? Crusty and hard? Will it fail to rise entirely? I wasn't willing to take any chances, and fell back on my tried-and-true sourdough, changed up a bit with half a cup of whole-wheat flour to replace an equivalent measure of white, along with an appreciable handful of golden flaxseed to add character. I don't want 2021 to be plain or boring, and neither do I want it to be ponderously heavy or tasteless. The whole wheat offers a mild piquancy, gives it a hint of down-home, neighbourly goodness and the seeds provide small and tasty surprises. No one wants peppercorns and pea gravel in their breakfast toast, and that was certainly the fare offered up by 2020. I was pleased when the loaf emerged from the oven without cracks, rifts or fissures, perfectly golden-brown and raised to a perfect crown.

The Greatest Thing Since...

Day 13: Over fifty years. That's how long I've been making my own bread: over fifty years. Bread-making is part of my household routine, just like washing the dishes, putting on a new bog roll, vacuuming and dusting (well, maybe not vacuuming and dusting...I have better things to do than vacuum and dust). "Bread Day tomorrow," I say to myself as I pull the second half loaf from last week's baking out of the freezer, or "Gotta put sourdough start down tonight" as I set out a pan to remind myself to do it before bed. Why, then, have I never bought a bread slicer? I've struggled with lopsided slices forever, and although I've never actually sliced a finger, I've come way too close for comfort. Now by "bread slicer," I do not mean some fancy gadget which does the slicing for you. I suppose to be semantically correct, this simple non-mechanical device should be called a "bread slice gauge," but that's too much work to say. Even Amazon refers to it as a "bread slicer" despite its notable absence of a blade. Yes, I finally took the plunge, and with even slices falling like dominoes from each cut, I have to say that it's the greatest thing...well, you know the phrase...the greatest thing since sliced bread.

The Better Bagel

Day 208: Without question, a bagel should have character. Whether you spread it with cream cheese or butter, the unique taste of the bread should carry through to your palate. Even with lox (a potent flavour indeed!), the bagel should provide a strong base to support its accompaniment. Having not made bagels in probably 30 years, it shouldn't have surprised me that I couldn't find my recipe. I searched all my cookbooks, leafed through all the cards in my file box to be sure I hadn't misplaced it, but I could not find the recipe I knew I'd used. I recalled that it used potato water. That was always a sticking point when I wanted to bake bagels: whether or not I had a spud on hand. The recipes in my assorted books were all milk-based. Milk? In a bagel? Unthinkable! Still, desperate times call for desperate measures, so I used the recipe in the Jones' "Book of Bread" which was almost identical to the one in "Joy of Cooking." That was Wednesday. The result was insipid, bland, flavourless, flat and hardly worthy of the butter I spread on them when I sampled them. I sent out an all-points bulletin to friends, and two responded with a recipe I had also seen on Kosher.com. Halved, it appeared to be close to my tried-and-true (and mislaid) version. I made bagels again on Thursday, real bagels, good bagels, bagels with crunchy crusts and tender, light middles. Alas for having no cream cheese, butter sufficed quite nicely, thank you, and I reproduce the Crow-adapted recipe here as a public service.

Bagels - Makes 12 - Oven temp 425 degrees - Cooking time 23-25 minutes

First, boil a large potato in enough water to yield 1 1/4 cups when drained. Do something else with the potato. It's the water you want. Cool it to lukewarm, or if you're reheating it, reheat it to lukewarm.

Dissolve a scant Tbsp. of dry yeast in 1/4 cup of the potato water. While it's softening, sift 3 1/4 to 3 1/2 cups of flour. In another bowl, thoroughly combine 1/8 cup vegetable oil, 2 tsps. salt, 2 eggs and the remaining potato water. Add 1/2 cup of flour, then add the dissolved yeast. Now stir in enough additional flour to make a soft dough. Turn the dough out onto a floured board and knead for 10 minutes, adding more flour as required (repeat caution here: NEVER force dough to take more flour than it wants!). Place the dough ball in a greased bowl and turn it once to grease both sides. Let raise in a warm place for 1 to 1 1/2 hours (until doubled). Divide the dough into 12 pieces. Form each one into a rope about 6" long and join the ends by dampening them with water and pinching or rolling them together to form circles. Place each shaped bagel on a lightly floured board to prevent sticking. If the holes want to swell shut, stretch them gently apart with floured fingers. Let the shaped bagels rest for 15 minutes while you bring 3 quarts of water plus 2 Tbsp. sugar to a boil. Now comes the fun part! Drop each bagel into the boiling water, no more than three to a pan. They will sink to the bottom. When they float free and the water begins boiling again, time them to boil 1 minute, then flip them over and boil for another minute. Lift them out with a slotted spoon and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving plenty of space between them. Whip a whole egg and brush on the tops to make a nice glaze. If you're of a mind to do so, you can press poppy/sesame seeds or onion bits onto the glaze. I prefer mine plain. Bake at 425 degrees for 23-25 minutes, depending on how crisp you like the crusts. Enjoy your bagels hot or cooled!

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Day 38: As the phrase says, "...and now for something a little different." I've been cutting it pretty close to the wire insofar as making bread right before I run out lately, due to the fact that I'm so intensely involved in quilting that everything else has to take a back seat. I never seem to remember to start the sourdough sponge the night before, not until I get up in the morning and chide myself with, "Damn. I forgot to put the sourdough down again." I decided I'd revert to another of my old stand-bys, one which makes two loaves. It's called Cinnamon Swirl bread, and the recipe appears in the classic Better Homes and Gardens cookbook...you know the one. It has a red gingham/buffalo check cover, and no kitchen should be without a copy. I made my first loaves of plain white bread from the instructions in its pages, lo, some fifty years ago. I'm still using the same cookbook, despite its pages being stained and torn and sometimes falling out of the ring binder, despite the fact that I have a newer edition (hardbound and difficult to keep open to the proper page). So, sandwiched between two power outages, the cinnamon swirl bread came to fruition, stock for the next two weeks.

Getting A Jump On St. Nick

Day 52: St. Nicholas' Day (December 6) normally initiates the cookie-baking season in my kitchen, but this year I got the jump on St. Nick with a batch of premature spritz. Spritz are one of my two favourite Christmas cookies, the other known variously as Russian tea cakes, sandies or snowballs. The holidays are not fully in sway until both varieties are baked, bagged and frozen. Spritz are a bit of a pain to make, but not nearly as much so these last couple of years as previously. I invested in a trigger-operated cookie gun which spits out uniform bits of molded dough with each individual click. The secret to success lies in having the cookie sheets cold when the dough is extruded onto them; the chilled surface makes them adhere. I put my heavyweight pans in the freezer the night before, and shooting cookies was an absolute breeze the following morning. The crunch of abundant crystal sugar provides texture to the rich, buttery, almond-flavoured cookies. I was delighted to find it in colours other than red and green this year. I mean, whoever heard of a green snowflake outside of politics?

Bread Day

Day 16: My grandmother was the needleworker in my family, but my mother occasionally did embroidery or knitting, and during the Fabulous Fifties, "days of the week" kitchen towels were very popular. She stitched a set with vegetable characters involved in various household chores: dusting, laundry, and even making bread. Although the towels were labelled "Monday," "Tuesday," etc., and one scene in which the vegetables were engaged in making bread. I always thought of it as "Bread Day." When I set up housekeeping on my own at age 18, my mother outfitted me with some essentials like sauce pans, cooking utensils, flatware and dishes, and the "Bread Day" towel was among the hand-me-downs. I used it as a dish towel for several years, but when I started baking my own bread, it seemed the logical candidate to toss over the rising loaves. Put to such a use, it became known as my "bread rag," and not being subjected to the harsher wear of drying dishes, it survived (albeit somewhat holey) until just a few years ago when I finally tossed it out. Today, I still use cotton dish towels to protect my loaves from drafts, and when I give bread as a gift, I wrap it with one. Memory being what it is, I do not recall which day of the week had been appointed "Bread Day," but it's a moot point. "Bread Day" happens roughly every 10 days around here.

Bread Day

Day 146: In polite terms, I might be called a "utilitarian" cook, i.e., I only cook because I have to eat, and dining out isn't an option. If it takes more than one pan and five minutes, I can't be bothered. Still, every rule has its exceptions, and the one deviation from norm in my world is that I like to bake, and particularly, I like to make bread.

I was in my late teens when I made my first loaves. They weren't exactly bricks, but I definitely didn't have the science down pat. I'd watched my foster sister's grandmother making bread, tried to remember the rules she'd laid down, like not forcing the dough to take more flour than it wanted, testing the rise with a pressed-down thumb, working the dough until it felt satiny under the fingers. Persistence pays off. In a few years as a young housewife, I was making bread on a weekly basis.

The tradition continues to this day. With the exception of the months I had one arm in a sling following a shoulder rebuild, I have made bread approximately every ten days for almost half a century. Bread Day is as much a part of my household routine as...well, I'd say "dusting and vacuuming," but I don't do those tasks nearly as regularly. I love the aroma of the rising dough (sourdough in this case), and of course nothing in the world beats the scent of bread fresh from the oven. Yes, it requires a certain degree of commitment and scheduling to set aside five hours for the process, but oh, the end result is worth it!