Bread

Parker House Rolls

June 27, 2015 by Charles 4 Comments

I don’t love the magazine Food & Wine. I signed up for a subscription by cashing in some airline miles due to expire. At the time, I was willing to try six months of content at no cost.

The food in the magazine looks great. It’s exquisitely staged and photographed on glossy magazine paper. The colors pop while the copy rolls along. But there’s just something about the magazine that I don’t love. Between the advertisements for exotic cruises and high-priced jewelry, the magazine gives the impression that none of its subscribers actually cook the recipes – that the subscribers have people for that kind of stuff. Food & Wine’s recipes look great to try – but they also look like, at least most of the time, that the recipes are tried only after they are cooked by the wait staff.

In my mind, the average Food & Wine subscriber is not the apron-wearing, oil-splashed, cooking type, …

Whole Wheat Banana Oat Yeast Bread

May 28, 2011 by Charles 10 Comments

Over the last few days, I’ve watched my bananas go from a bright yellow, worthy of wearing the leader’s jersey in the Tour de France, to a soft brown, like a tattered and mud-splashed elementary school bus.

Banana bread and banana muffins are always easy options for an overripe bunch. But banana bread is – let’s be honest – closer to cake than either bread or a trip to the bottom of the food pyramid. For that reason, I took my overripe bananas and turned them into real banana bread – not the quick kind. Indeed, if you know me, you know that I often enjoy taking the long and meandering route, passing through several culinary steps and preparation detours over what might have otherwise been a one-step, ten-minute trip, down the intercity highway (see curried couscous).

While this banana bread requires kneading and resting, rather than mixing and pouring, it is …

Whole Wheat Oat Bread

August 22, 2010 by Charles 6 Comments

It’s funny what we find intimidating.

For the longest time, the idea of making bread scared me. It just seemed so complicated. You had to make sure the yeast reacted. You had to make sure the water was at the precise temperature. You had to coax the dough into rising. You had to knead the bread – whatever that meant.

But then, I decided to just go for it. I opened up my cupboard, …

Irish Soda Bread

March 22, 2010 by Charles 1 Comment

Despite my blog name, there’s very little overlap between my time in the kitchen and my time in the courthouse. But last week, Caitlin gave me a fitting opportunity to meld the two seemingly disparate fields.

The day after St. Patrick’s day, Caitlin sent me an article by Clarence Darrow, the famous criminal defense lawyer. In the early 20th Century, Darrow represented a number of high-profile defendants, but none more famous perhaps, than John Scopes, the public school teacher who faced prosecution for teaching human evolution in Tennessee.

Several years after the verdict in the Monkey Trial, Darrow published his thoughts on selecting a jury in an article that appeared in Esquire. At the time of publication, Darrow was at the end of his illustrious legal career, and near his death. Yet, the article held nothing back.

“Selecting a jury is of the utmost importance,” he notes, and “choosing jurors is always a delicate task;” sentiments no less true today. But the insights he offers …

Brioche Loaves

June 4, 2009 by Charles 11 Comments

From a Croque Norvegien to an ABB&M, I’ve been in sandwich mode recently. Which got me thinking. Instead of running out and grabbing a new loaf of bread, maybe I could make my own.

I settled on brioche, a butter- and egg-enriched yeast bread, French in origin. Yet, despite its French origins, the French put their brioche in the viennoiserie basket. Unlike something in the bread basket, a viennoiserie (meaning “in the Viennese style”) boasts the addition of eggs, butter, milk, cream, or sugar, which gives it a pastry-like character.

Viennoiseries are leavened, often layered, and commonly served in the morning. Beyond brioche, …