Bread Art

Eleanor and Olivia getting creative with bread dough.

My daughter Eleanor and I invited our friend Olivia over to make homemade French bread during spring break but our baking project morphed into an art project when the girls decided they wanted to shape bread characters instead of loaves.

With just a bit of flour to keep the dough from sticking, a knife and some raisins for eyes and other features, the girls created the most adorable characters.

Eleanor's work in progress.

Olivia's creation just needs to rise for an hour before baking.

Bread art is definitely something we are going to have to tackle again. The soft dough was easy to shape and the the results were fun to eat. It is important though to keep an eye on your creations as they bake since the baking times will vary depending on size.

Eleanor's art.

Olivia's art.

This is Anpanman which is a popular character in Japan. Translated, the name means "Bean Bun Boy." Eleanor shaped him and brushed him with an egg wash right before baking to highlight his eyebrows, nose and cheeks.

 Anpanman didn't stay intact for too long. Warm homemade bread is just too delicious!

Here's my favorite recipe for French Bread:


French Bread
(makes 4 loaves)
2 packages yeast
2/3 cup tepid water
1/2 teaspoon sugar
7 cups bread flour (additional may be needed)
2 tablespoons rye or whole wheat flour
4 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 cups cold water
(cornmeal for sprinkling on sheet pan or parchment paper)

Combine yeast, sugar and tepid water. Let set for 5 minutes. Combine the remaining ingredients then add yeast mixture. Knead.

Let rise 40 to 60 minutes in a clean, dry bowl. Then deflate and punch into a 14-inch rectangle and fold into thirds.

Return dough to bowl and let rise 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Punch down the dough and shape into loaves, place them on baking sheets sprinkled with cornmeal or lined with parchment paper and let them rise for an hour.

Use a sharp knife to slash the top of each loaf in three places and place the sheet pans in a preheated 450 degree oven. Toss in 1/4 cup of water and quickly close the door. The steam makes for a nice crust. Bake the loaves for 20 minutes and then bake an additional 10 minutes at 400 degrees.

A loaf of just-baked French bread.

Spring Break 2015

My nephew Sam and daughter Eleanor have been volunteering since the start of the Wednesday Community Meal. I really appreciate their willingness to get up early during their spring break and work with me.

Thank goodness Portland area students are on spring break this week because we really needed the extra help of our young and energetic volunteers who come in to work whenever they are off from school.

High school seniors Zane and Sam helping to plate meals. Zane has been volunteering since he was in middle school.

We served 432 meals during our two hour service today, the busiest we've been since the summer.

Luckily we had good help and good food and the meal was a success. Most of the guests got homemade meatloaf, baked potatoes and pickled cucumber as their entree. We also served roast beef, corned beef, beef stir-fry and chicken cutlets.  Everyone was also offered soup, salad and dessert.

The first meal served today was roast beef, rice, roasted vegetables and pickled cucumber.

Many guests came by the kitchen window today to say "thank you" for what we do. It's towards the end of a month that's been exceptionally cold and rainy and it's clear that in addition to the food, our guests greatly appreciate the warmth of our dining room and the hospitality of our volunteers.

Regular volunteers Steve and Martha paused for a quick picture in the dining room. There was a nearly constant line to get in to eat today and the dining room was bustling.

Black Currant Macarons

I have a special fondness for black currant flavor because it brings back memories of when my husband and I lived in Northern Ireland during our first year of marriage in 1993. From jams and jellies to juices, yogurt and candies, the flavor was everywhere and I loved it because I'm a big fan of sweet/tart treats.

Even the bag of Skittles that we bought to share at the movies in Portrush, Northern Ireland had the flavor because in the United Kingdom, black currant is swapped for the grape ones found in bags bought stateside.

Because macaron shells are quite sweet, a black currant buttercream offers a nice balance. To make the buttercream, I used a high-quality black currant preserve that I simply whipped into unsalted butter. I also added a pinch of sea salt.

The Black Currant Preserves that I used.

These sweet tart cuties really are easy to make. For added interest,  I colored the shells using the marbling technique of painting stripes of violet gel coloring inside the pastry bag before I added the batter.

Here's the recipe:

Black Currant Macarons
180g ground almonds, sifted
270g powdered sugar, sifted
150g egg whites, aged 2 to 4 days in the fridge and then brought to room temperature
100g granulated sugar
Violet gel coloring

Line four heavy baking sheets with good quality parchment paper and set aside. Also, set aside two pastry bags for the piping of the macarons.

Sift together your ground almonds with the powdered sugar and set aside.

Whisk the egg whites (at room temperature) to glossy firm peaks adding the granulated sugar gradually in four parts.

Incorporate the dry ingredients into the beaten egg whites using a large rubber scraper.  Mix well. 

Fold the mixture with the rubber scraper by pulling down the sides and flipping the mixture over. Do this until you have a smooth mixture that falls like a “ribbon” off the scraper.

Using a small brush, paint three stripes of violet gel coloring on the inside of the piping bags. Don't go crazy and use too much or you will have a mess. A little goes a long way.

The three stripes of coloring painted on the inside of a piping bag.

Transfer the mixture into the two piping bags. Use rubber bands to close the piping bags. Clip the tip of the bags, one at a time, and pipe small quarter sized rounds, leaving 1-inch of space between each because they spread as they set.

The macarons resting before baking.

Leave to set for about 30 minutes or until the top has formed a crust and is not sticky to the touch.

While they are setting, preheat the oven to 325 degrees. A convection oven is preferable.  Bake one sheet at a time in the center of the oven for about 10 to 12 minutes or until the cookie is firm, matte and doesn't wobble when touched.

Leave on the baking tray until cool then lift them all off the parchment carefully. You may need to use a thin knife or spatula to help lift them off.

Sort into pairs and fill with Black Currant Filling. 

Filling the macarons.

Black Currant Filling
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup black currant preserves
1/8 teaspoon sea salt

Whip the butter until it is light and smooth. Add the preserves and sea salt.

Whip this together until the filling is light and creamy. When you first start whipping the ingredients together, it will look like a curdled mess, but don't panic. The filling will eventually come together and be beautiful. Just whip it and whip it good!

Happy National Macaron Day!

Today is National Macaron Day and bakeries across the country are celebrating by handing out macarons for a donation to a worthy cause.

Here in Portland, Oregon, a dozen bakeries are participating to raise funds for Meals on Wheels.

The annual celebration is always on March 20, the first day of Spring, and was first organized in New York City in 2010 by chef Francois Payard, owner of FP Patisserie, Francois Payard Bakery and Payard Patisserie & Bistro.

Macarons are growing to be so popular that I would encourage National Macaron Day to also be a time for home bakers to consider making the sweet treats themselves. They are so satifying to create and not difficult once you learn the technique and the flavor/color combinations are limited only by your imagination.

To help get you started here are a few tips:

TIP 1: MEASURE CAREFULLY. Use a scale to precisely measure out all of your ingredients. Have all the ingredients ready before you start making the macarons.

TIP 2: SIFT. After measuring, sift together your ground almonds and the powdered sugar.

TIP 3: HAVE YOUR PANS AND YOUR PIPING BAGS READY. Before starting, also have four sheetpans ready that are lined with good quality parchment paper.  Also have your piping bags ready. When you are ready to fill the bags, use a glass to help steady them and put a rubber band or twist tie on the back of the bags. You don't want your precious macaron batter escaping out the back while you pipe.

 TIP 4: START SMALL. When you start making macarons you'll have better results if you start out small. When you clip your piping bag, don't make the hole too large because the batter will be hard to control. Just clip a bit off the piping bag and take your time to pipe 1.5- inch rounds.

And finally, here is some flavor inspiration courtesy of my sweet niece Maya who loves macarons so much that whenever I make them I like to pass on a few packages for her to share with her friends at school. Two years ago, when she was in the sixth grade, she made me this adorable and useful list that I am definitely keeping forever.

Pizza To The Rescue

Volunteer servers Carol and Rusti posed for a quick picture at the start of today's meal. After days of rain in Portland,  it was so nice to see warm sunlight beaming into the dining room.

Well what a difference a week makes.

Unlike last week at The Wednesday Community Meal, when we had plenty of food and the service was smooth and easy, today's meal kept us hopping but we survived.

As luck would have it, we just weren't able to glean as much food early in the week and so when we emptied the refrigerators this morning and saw what we had — a few large containers of soup, some white rice, some fried rice, half of a pork roast, about 2 cups of sliced chicken, six pieces of salmon, a gallon of white sauce, pepperoni, some cheese and 32 pounds of ground beef  — we knew we had to think fast right from the start if we were going to feed everyone who would come to Trinity Episcopal Cathedral to eat.

In our downstairs stockroom we had pasta, tomato sauce and tortillas so we brainstormed and  quickly got a meal plan together.

We would make a pasta dish with the white sauce and a few pans of ground beef enchiladas with the tortillas, tomato sauce and cheese. With the remaining ground beef we would make meatballs and with the pepperoni we would make pizzas using French bread gleaned from Grand Central Bakery.

The pork roast and fish could be heated and served as is and the sliced chicken could be added to a small portion of soup to make a "chicken gravy" that could be served over a bed of rice.

Volunteer Dave kindly made a run to Cash 'n' Carry for salad ingredients and some additional items that were necessary to implement our plan including extra cheese and tomato sauce for the pizzas.

It really is amazing how our team comes together to make the meal happen no matter the circumstances. And truth be told, the times we're scrambling are often the most fun because it's exciting and challenging.

The first entree we served today was pasta with meatballs.

French Bread Pizza

There wasn't a dull moment at the meal today but it was indeed a success thanks in large part to pizza.  Besides the French bread pizzas that we made from scratch, we were fortunate to get a large donation of pizza from Pizza Schmizza right before the meal. At the end of the two hour lunch service every bit of pizza was gone but we made it, we served 306 meals and fed every single person who came to our door.

Tie Dyed Macarons

I've been wanting to attempt tie dyed macarons for some time now having seen them continually grow in popularity among bakers and finally took some time this past week to give them a go.

Just research "tie dyed macarons" on the internet and you'll find lots of examples, some cute and some not so much.  I think the best looking ones use just two colors, keeping the design clean and not convoluted. I wanted to create a tie dye effect without making macarons that looked like they belonged at a Grateful Dead merch booth. Sorry, Deadheads.

To create the effect, I just drew three lines of gel coloring up and down the inside of a piping bag before adding the macaron batter. I did learn that a little gel coloring goes a long way and next time I'm going to even use less. I do like how these look though and am anxious to keep experimenting.

Here's how I made them:

I had my supplies (a piping bag, gel coloring and a small paint brush) out and ready to go before I started making the macaron batter.

When the batter was done, I painted three lines of gel coloring on the inside of the bag.

This doesn't look like a lot of coloring but a little goes a long way and next time I'm going to use even less. I reloaded my brush before each stroke and I now know that a single load of coloring on the brush for all three stripes will do.

Once the batter was in the bag, my coloring overload became obvious and I believe it altered the texture of the macaron, making the outside too crispy.

The piped macarons.

The macarons after baking.

I filled these with peppermint buttercream and dark chocolate. Those recipes can be found here.

The macarons after filling.

Happy Pi Day!

It's Pi Day and this year it's extra special because we get to add two more digits to the equation (3.1415) and that won't happen for another hundred years!

It's really not too late make homemade pie to celebrate that wonderful, always the same, more than a trillion digit number that's the ratio of every circle's circumference to its diameter.

The record for memorizing digits of Pi certified by Guinness Book of World Records is 67,890 digits, recited in China by Lu Chao in 24 hours and 4 minutes on November 20, 2005. Now that's very impressive but not necessary, knowing the first five digits will suffice. There's even a handy symbol too — π, which is the Greek symbol for the letter "p" which was taken from the Greek word for "perimeter." 

Now back to the pie part of Pi Day, this chocolate cream pie is so simple to make and a family favorite. It can be made in 30 minutes and then just needs to chill in the fridge for a couple hours before serving. 

Here's the recipe:
Chocolate Cream Pie
(makes 1 9-inch pie)

First, make and bake a 9-inch pie crust. I used my favorite shortening crust recipe.

Pie Crust: 
1 1/2 cups flour
2 /3 cups vegetable shortening
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup water

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt and sugar. Add Crisco and using your fingers, break it into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs with some large pieces remaining.

Add the water, just a few tablespoons at a time until the dough is moist enough to pull together into a ball. Roll out on a floured surface for the bottom crust.

Place the dough in a pie pan and crimp the edges. Bake for 5 minutes and then reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for another 20 to 25 minutes or until the crust is set and golden brown.

Filling:

1 2/3 cups water

3 tablespoons cornstarch
5 tablespoons cocoa
1 (14 ounce) can eagle brand sweetened condensed milk
3 egg yolks, beaten
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

In a medium-sized saucepan, use a whisk to mix the water and cornstarch and cocoa until smooth.

Stir in Eagle Brand milk and the three egg yolks.

Cook the mixture over medium heat, whisking constantly until it becomes thick. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter and vanilla.

Let the mixture cool for 5 minutes before pouring into the baked pie shell. 

Let the pie cool at room temperature for 15 minutes before transferring to the refrigerator. Let the pie cool completely before slicing and serving.

Chocolate Mint Macarons

Delicious and addicting Girl Scout Thin Mints are what inspired me to create these Chocolate Mint Macarons.

When I handed one to my nephew Sam to taste and told him what my inspiration was, he carefully examined the macaron, took a bite and said, "You nailed it Heidi." Sam is so nice and encouraging!

The filling is a layer of Belgian dark chocolate and a layer of peppermint buttercream that's not too heavy handed with the peppermint extract and also contains just a touch of vanilla. The resulting macarons are chocolatey, minty and creamy all at once.

For the macaron shells, I used natural almond meal which is different from the almond meal I normally use in that it contains the skin of the almonds. I think the flecks of skin actually look nice and make the cookies resemble speckled eggs. 

The almond meal I used.

The almond meal before sifting. You can see there's a lot of skin in there.

Piped macaron shells. I really like how these look.

 I know I say it just about every time I come up with a new recipe but this is my new favorite flavor.

Another bonus is that unlike Girl Scout Thin Mints which are only sold for a few weeks a year,  you can make and enjoy these year-round.

Here's the recipe:

Chocolate Mint Macarons
180g ground almonds, sifted
270g powdered sugar, sifted
150g egg whites, aged 2 to 4 days in the fridge and then brought to room temperature
100g granulated sugar
food coloring (I used teal)

Line four heavy baking sheets with good quality parchment paper and set aside. Also, set aside two pastry bags for the piping of the macarons.

Sift together your ground almonds with the powdered sugar and set aside.

Whisk the egg whites (at room temperature) to glossy firm peaks adding the granulated sugar gradually in four parts.  Towards the end of mixing, add the food coloring and tint the batter as desired.

Incorporate the dry ingredients into the beaten egg whites using a large rubber scraper.  Mix well. 
Fold the mixture with the rubber scraper by pulling down the sides and flipping the mixture over. Do this until you have a smooth mixture that falls like a “ribbon” off the scraper.

Transfer the mixture into the two piping bags. Use rubber bands to close the piping bags. Clip the tip of the bags, one at a time, and pipe small quarter sized rounds, leaving 1-inch of space between each because they spread as they set.

Leave to set for about 30 minutes or until the top has formed a crust and is not sticky to the touch.

 The macarons resting before baking.

The macarons after baking.

While they are setting, preheat the oven to 325 degrees. A convection oven is preferable. 

Bake one sheet at a time in the center of the oven for about 12 minutes or until the cookie is firm, matte and doesn't wobble when touched.

Leave on the baking tray until cool then lift them all off the parchment carefully. You may need to use a thin knife to help lift them off.

Sort into pairs and fill with Mint Buttercream and Chocolate Filling.

Mint Buttercream
3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/8 teaspoon peppermint extract
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
food coloring, optional

Place all of the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer and whip on high speed until the buttercream is smooth and creamy. This takes about 5 minutes. Tint the filling if desired, I used teal and transfer it to a piping bag for filling the macarons.

Chocolate Filling:
(note: make this only when your macarons are sorted, flipped over and ready for filling. Once you melt the chocolate there's no time to waste, you've got to be ready to go.)

Place 1 cup of chocolate chips (I used Belgian dark chocolate) in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds. Remove from the microwave and stir. Keep microwaving for 10 to 20 second sessions and stirring until the chocolate is melted. Let the chocolate cool for a minute or two before transferring to a piping bag.

To Assemble:
Sort your macarons into pairs and flip both over. Starting with the chocolate, pipe a dollop on the back of one macaron from each of the pairs. Don't go too close to the edge or it will spill over. Let the chocolate firm and cool for about 10 minutes before proceeding.

Add a dollop of mint buttercream to the remaining macarons and sandwich the pairs carefully together. Don't press to hard or the chocolate will flow out and make a mess.

Filling the macarons.

Macaron closeup.

Like Clockwork

Before today's lunch service, volunteers Bill, Jay and Dave even had time for a doughnut break which is a major perk of being on the Community Meal's ace dishwashing team.  Every Wednesday morning,  Dave makes the trip to nearby Coco Donuts for his team's sweet sustenance.

 It was one of those days at The Wednesday Community Meal when there wasn't any scrambling or stressing and everything just came together quickly and easily.

By 10:15 a.m., nearly a full hour before service, we were way ahead of schedule, with all the entrees prepared and in the warmers ready to go. The ease with how things were coming together actually made me feel a little superstitious. I thought, this is too easy, something's going to go awry. Thankfully, it didn't.


Because of our amazing volunteers and who knows, maybe a little luck? — It was smooth sailing throughout our entire service. We served 255 meals today.

Leah and John made all of the gorgeous salads we served today.

John and Leah made croutons using sourdough bread donated by Ken's Artisan Bakery. John did the slicing and Leah did the seasoning. These just need some toasting and then they'll be ready.

The finished salads.

We had to change our entree a few times today but the first hundred or so guests in the door got cheesy pasta and meatballs.

Dessert today was cake donated from Baker & Spice Bakery.