Milk and Honey Bread

I once read a magazine article about Vermont in which the author recounted her first visit to this state from her home state of Texas.  She was 10 or 12 at the time, and believed that with the dairy cows outnumbering the people (at the time) and the state flower being the red clover, this really was the land of milk and honey that she had read about in the Bible.  She was here in the late summer, and with the golden afternoon sunlight and the scent of the newly mown hay, she truly believed herself to be in heaven.  I wouldn’t want to give anyone the wrong idea by concurring, but I do understand how she came to that conclusion.  There are those heavenly moments — picking berries warmed by the summer sun, the fresh cool breezes sweetly scented with apple blossoms and lilacs, magic evenings lit by fireflies, bright red apples against a dazzling blue autumn sky — but to say it’s a land of milk and honey is to be both literally accurate and nearly deceitful by omission, making it a very interesting comment.

And yet by encompassing the two extremes, it is perfectly representative of the nature of Vermont, a place in which there is precious little middle ground and plenty of polar opposites.  Those winter days in which the temperature plummets to -20° F, sometimes for weeks on end, are in sharp contrast to the midsummer heat waves and stifling humidity.  Verdant, vigorous, and diverse wild foliage that overwhelms lawns and gardens in a desperately short growing season.  Lovely fresh evenings and clear mountain streams, peaceful enjoyment of which is prohibited by swarms of mosquitoes.  It is as much as anything a land of contrasts.

Last spring, a late-April snowstorm damaged many of the early-blossoming apple trees, impacting the autumn apple harvest.  This year, widespread flooding has wiped out many of strawberry fields and prevented planting of main vegetable crops, particularly in the Champlain Valley.  The current estimates are that it will take six weeks for the water to recede enough to plant in some places, by which time the growing season will be nearly half over.  For farmers dependent upon the income and residents who wish to support their local farms and bolster their local economies and buy food raised locally, this will present some serious challenges.  Then of course there is the acreage of feed corn that has not been planted, and the flooded fields where the hay has not grown and therefore cannot be harvested, the absence of which will be severely felt on the diary farms next winter.

We are far from alone in being flooded, and thankful for not being in a tornado-prone location.  This is a pattern we have lived through before, and one which I am sure will come again.  An old logger I used to know would say at the end of a week when he didn’t make a profit on his work, “if this business was good every week, everybody would be in it.”  I have often thought his philosophy was adaptable to the state as a whole:  if it was beautiful all the time, everybody would be here.

It is for us then to make the most of these individual moments, to notice them and preserve them in our memories in order to sustain us through the mud and floods, the ice storms and relentlessly gray skies, because when there is beauty, it is a beauty that is unmatched.

As I write, we are having another thunderstorm.  It is our fourth thunderstorm in as many days, after weeks of simple rain.  The first of this series, the one four days ago, was perhaps the worst thunderstorm I have ever experienced.  I am not one to object to foul weather; being something of a Romantic, in general I enjoy the rain.  I like the sound of the rain on the roof, and I find it soothing.  I like to read away rainy afternoons with a pot of tea.  Nighttime storms are exciting.  But even I must admit this to be an unusual series of storms, an unusually wet spring, far over and above anything I am accustomed to.

But for all havoc that the rain is wreaking on the land, it is not surprisingly conducive to baking in my kitchen.

This bread is very moist and fine-grained, and makes excellent sandwiches.

1/4 cup warm water

2 tsp yeast

1/2 cup raw wheat germ (optional)

2 cups warm milk

1/4 cup honey (raw, unfiltered honey is best)

2 tbs butter

1 tbs salt

flour, either white, white whole wheat, whole wheat, or a combination of these

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water.  Sprinkle over this a handful or two of flour to create a protective barrier between the yeast and the forthcoming warm milk.  I wanted a primarily white loaf, but I didn’t want to use entirely white flour because I wanted the finished bread to be somewhat firm and somewhat more nutritious, so I began with a white whole wheat flour and then sprinkled over a little extra wheat germ for good measure.

Add the milk, honey, butter, and salt with a little more flour of your choice.  (I began adding white flour at this point.)  Stir until smooth and then continue adding flour until you have a very soft dough that can be kneaded.  Turn the dough out of the bowl onto a floured work surface, and continue adding just enough flour at a time to keep the dough from sticking to the work surface as you knead it.  When you can see that the gluten has begun to develop little web-like formations in the dough, butter the bread bowl, gather the dough into a ball, and then put the dough rounded side down into the bowl, turning it over again right away, so that the rounded top, now buttered, is upright.  Cover the dough with a clean towel and allow it to rise.

For more explicit instructions, please see Techniques to Use.

When you and the dough are ready to proceed, butter two 9×5″ loaf pans.  Divide the dough in half, and with each half, spread the dough into a rough rectangle and roll up like a jelly roll, starting with the long side.  Place in the pan and press with the back of your fist to make sure the dough is even in the pan and that there are no air bubbles in the bottom.  Allow the dough to rise, covered with a towel, until it reaches the top of the pan or no more than an inch above the rim.

Preheat the oven to 350° F.  Bake the loaves until the bottom is golden brown.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool, covered with a towel, on a rack.  Be sure the bread has cooled completely before you attempt to slice it.  Because this bread is made with milk, it is very tender, and slicing it too soon is likely to compress it, giving it the appearance of being underbaked.  It needs the cooling time to develop its structure and become firm.

Once it is cool, it will slice very easily.

You can serve it buttered with honey, or make it into delicious sandwiches.

And because it is so moist, it freezes particularly well, if you want to make a double batch and put some aside for another day.  A sunny day, perhaps.  You won’t need to wait for a rainy day.

Chicken Salad

My son tells me that chicken salad is old people’s food.  He is very happy to eat it, but he prefers that I not offer it to his friends.  How can I argue with this?  “But it’s really good,” I say.  “It is really good,” he says.  “It’s delicious.  Just don’t give it to my friends.  It’s not what they want.”

Not that I really have to worry about this.  His girlfriend is vegetarian, and his best friend subsists solely on frozen pizza and Doritos.  This friend says, “I don’t eat leaves.”   You may think I am exaggerating, but this friend, at 16 years old, was also completely unfamiliar with pumpernickel bread and croutons until a few weeks ago.  I could expand this list, but it’s so absurd, you wouldn’t believe me.  He brings a backpack full of junk food every time he comes over.

The girlfriend, however, did try the Spinach & Cheese Pie, and she really liked it.

Occasionally I do something right.

Usually I am accused of keeping nothing in the house to eat.  One particularly memorable evening, my son was looking in the refrigerator and he said, “There’s nothing in this house to eat.”  I had just been grocery shopping that day, and I said, “But the cupboards are full of food,” to which he responded, “But there’s nothing to eat.  There are only ingredients.”

Feeding children is far more difficult than it should be.  I have rigorously avoided processed foods; nurtured a love of rolled oats, plain yogurt, and fresh vegetables; and tried to instill a sense of balance and proportion in my children’s eating habits.  On the plus side, my son’s favorite vegetable is kale, but to the negative, he refuses to eat natural peanut butter, preferring instead to support the agri-business I loathe.  I have been remarkably consistent in sticking to my convictions regarding food quality and nutrition however, and it is beginning to show in my son’s thinking, although in unanticipated ways.

Last weekend, he spent the night at the house of a new friend.  He was very impressed with their reclining furniture, big-screen tvs, video game systems, and the pantry full of junk food (none of which we have), but at the end of his accounting of their lifestyle, he said, “…and his mom made us pancakes for breakfast.  It really weirded me out though; she used a recipe to make the pancakes.”   I was happy that she didn’t “just add water” (or worse, microwave something from the freezer), so I asked why he found this so weird.  “You just dump everything into a bowl and it comes out pancakes.  She had to keep reading and reading.  It was just weird.”

I may have created a culinary monster.

It is true that I don’t use a written recipe for most of things I commonly make.  Pancakes, banana bread, carrot cake, sandwich bread — these things I make all the time and I don’t pay much attention to what I put in.  A little more of this or a little less of that — the outcome is the same.  And they eat it so fast, it doesn’t matter.  Yesterday afternoon, for example, I made a banana-chocolate-chip cake.  It was gone by lunch time today.  The vanilla cream cake I made on Monday afternoon:  it was gone by breakfast on Tuesday.  And on Wednesday there were complaints again that there was nothing to eat in the house, despite the big pan of Spinach & Cheese pie (which was already half gone by 6:00 that evening) and this chicken salad which I made at the same time, and the two loaves of Milk & Honey Bread.  But there were no cookies, no cake, nothing good to eat.

I have accepted that I will not win, and I no longer try.

This chicken salad is delicious (even my cousin says so, but she is 58, and therefore qualifies as an old person, so her opinion is automatically discounted with a brief “my point exactly”), and it is one of those “two birds with one stone” kind of undertakings.  I don’t like to use canned chicken stock, and I won’t buy it, and neither will I use bouillon cubes.  I like to always have homemade chicken stock on hand, but that is not always strategically convenient.  In making this chicken salad, I get both several chicken meals and plenty of chicken stock for when I need it.

This is more of a process than a recipe per se, as the amount of any ingredient is dependent upon what you have available and what you like and a myriad of other factors.  Here is a general outline to follow; the details are up to you.

Leeks love chicken.  Or maybe chicken loves leeks.  The two are soulmates, whichever way you look at it.  I always include leeks when I am poaching chicken; it is my first consideration.  And I always, always include bay leaves and celery.  Black peppercorns are a must, and usually I add just two whole cloves.  Cloves are very strong, and I don’t want my stock to be clove flavored, but I do want the cloves to flavor the stock, so through trial and error, I have determined that two is the right amount to add a nuance of flavor without overwhelming the whole thing.

If I have some leftover white wine I will add that.  I learned a few years ago that some flavors are fat soluble and other flavors are alcohol soluble, and that in order to get the most flavor out of a piece of meat, it should be simmered with both fat and alcohol.  It does make a noticeable difference, and I do prefer it with the wine, but I don’t always have it on hand, so while have been known to open a bottle especially to put in the stock, I won’t go out to get a bottle.  I do have limits.

Garlic I will list as optional.  I used to always include garlic, but lately I have been leaving it out.  I will put garlic with beef always, but not so much with the chicken these days.  Perhaps it is the cloves; I don’t think I care for the combination of garlic and clove, and I prefer the clove with the chicken.  (Although I put whole allspice with the beef and garlic, and I like that, so this is faulty reasoning.)  Garlic is optional.  I leave it at that.

For herbs, I like to add thyme, particularly lemon thyme, marjoram, parsley, sometimes chives, if I have them.  I have used rosemary, but that can easily overpower the stock, so I don’t usually include it.  And never include fresh basil:  it will become bitter with long cooking.

I did put onions in the photographs because I liked the way they looked, but I didn’t actually put onion in the stock.  They were still on the table from making the Spinach & Cheese Pie, just before I put the chicken to cook.  I don’t put carrots in the stock for the same reason I don’t put the onion in:  they are too sweet.

As for the chicken itself, I used split breasts with the skin attached.  In this package, there were four very large pieces.  I don’t like chicken thighs or drumsticks; they have too many bones and ligaments and other connective tissues.  The nice big pieces of white meat are much easier and more pleasant to work with.  But they must be on the bones in order to give the stock the right flavor and body.  The stock should be gelatinous when it is done.  The fat from the skin will also flavor the stock well, and I will skim it from the stock before using it, so it is good to include it.

If I have any leftover stock from previous stock-making, I will add it, and this time I also had drippings saved from a roasted chicken, so I added those as well, and covered it all with cold water.  Then I cover the pot and put it on low heat.  Once it comes to a boil, I let it simmer for about an hour or a little longer.  Then I turn off the heat and let everything cool together.  The vegetables will continue to flavor both the chicken and the broth as everything comes to room temperature.

When the chicken and stock are not more than warm, I remove the chicken from the stock, discard the skin, and separate the meat from the bones, discarding the bones.

To make the salad, I start with the dressing.  I don’t like mayonnaise, so I avoid it whenever possible.  When it’s not possible, I thin it so it’s not gloppy.  In this case, I use equal parts Miracle Whip and the chicken stock that I just poached the chicken in, about 3/4 cup of each.  It takes only a minute or two of whisking to make the salad dressing smooth.  It will seem thin at first, but it will thicken as it stands, and thicken more as it cools.

To that I add a combination of dried herbs.  I like to use the dried herbs in this portion of the recipe because they won’t deteriorate over the few days I expect to keep the salad in the refrigerator as fresh ones will.  I have used herbes de Provence, when I have had them (I am out just now), or in their place fines herbes, as I did here.  Any such combination is fine.  In addition to this, I add a pinch or two of Bell’s Seasoning and some salt and pepper.

I swear by Bell’s Seasoning, and I won’t make stuffing without it.

Then I chop some celery and dice the chicken, and stir the whole thing together.

At this point, you can serve it right away or chill it until you’re ready to serve it.  It will keep in the refrigerator for several days without suffering.  It is good on a bed of lettuce with cucumber slices, it is especially good with fresh tomatoes in season, and it is good on Knotted Herb Bread or any other firm sandwich bread you might have.  Here is it on Milk & Honey Bread with baby red romaine:

When the chicken stock is completely cool, I strain it and save it for another day, and we eat chicken salad until it’s all gone.  (It does last longer than the cakes…)

Spinach and Cheese Pie

Years ago, my college roommate and I took our children on a picnic to Quechee Gorge.  Her daughter and my daughter are about six months apart in age.

The day before the picnic, I made a muffuletta, chopping the olives and garlic very fine and layering the meats and cheeses and vegetables in the bread that I made.  I also made chocolate chip cookies, mincing the walnuts so fine that no one would know there were walnuts in them at all (this makes the cookies very soft and moist).  I made a cooler full of lemonade, and I bought some crisp purple grapes to go with it all.

The day of the picnic, the sky was overcast, and it sprinkled a little, but not enough for us to call it off.  We took the kids down to water and let them play a while, and later moved up to the picnic tables.

I unpacked the muffuletta, the cookies, the grapes, and the lemonade from my picnic basket.  (This is the same picnic basket that I encouraged my mother to buy when I was in elementary school, so that when we attended the end-of-year family picnic at school each June, we would have a proper basket to carry our supper in.)  Naturally, I had the plates and the napkins and cups to go with it all.

She pulled a peanut-butter & jelly sandwich out of a brown paper bag and said to me, “We have very different ideas of what it means to go on a picnic.”

We never went on another one together.

Today is perfect picnic weather, and it has me thinking about what I will make for picnics this summer.  Of course, it is supposed to rain again tomorrow, and keep raining through the weekend (I can no longer remember when it wasn’t raining), so I don’t know when we will actually get to go one.  It will have to stop raining eventually.

My muffuletta menu is a good one, but one that I have repeated several times, including last summer when I took the kids and their friends to the beach.  They still like the muffuletta and look forward it, so I don’t want to kick it out of the repertoire, but I do want to add variety.  I did swap brownies for the cookies last time, and that was well received, but not quite the change I have in mind for this year.

Of course, now that they are teenagers, they don’t get up in time to eat before we leave the house, so the picnic menu has expanded to include breakfast as well as lunch.

I love picnics.  A picnic is an aesthetic experience that can’t be bested.  And truly, a little planning goes a long way.  Thus, I have been on the lookout for new items to include for our picnicking pleasure.

Last summer I made an Italian pie out of Swiss chard and pancetta and Parmesan cheese — I think.  I don’t remember exactly.  The crust was made with olive oil.  I am certain of that.  I found the recipe in a book that I borrowed from the library.  It was a good pie, one that was served at room temperature, but I thought I could make a few improvements to it, so last winter when I found myself with a package of spinach that needed to be cooked right away, I thought of that recipe.  But the book wasn’t here, and I wasn’t going looking for it, so I decided to check some of the other cookbooks that were here to see if I could find another recipe similar to that one. I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I did discover one that was called Spinach and Egg pie in a collection of recipes from Calabria.  I made it instead, and the kids devoured it.

Yesterday I found large boxes of baby spinach “reduced for quick sale” at the grocery store.  At only $1 a box, I know a good deal when I find one.  So bought some ricotta, mozzarella, and Parmesan cheese to go with the spinach, and this morning, I tinkered with the Spinach and Egg Pie recipe a bit, and I now have a new addition to my picnic menu.

There are indeed eggs in this pie, but it is far more about the cheese than the eggs, so I thought the name was misleading, hence the name change.  The original recipe noted that a crust could be made, but it was given without a crust.  I too chose to go crustless, firstly because I want to be able to eat this pie at any temperature without considering the merits of the crust, and secondly because I want to make a lot of it, and a crust of the necessary proportion would not be worth the effort.  Better still if I can save the calories here and apply them to dessert later.

This sounds like a tremendous amount of ingredients, and it will look it in the shopping cart, but when it’s done, it will fill an 11 x 14″ baking dish, which isn’t so much if you have teenagers to feed.

You can, of course, divide this recipe in half if you don’t have teenagers.

4 10-ounce packages of spinach (baby or not, it doesn’t matter)

48 ounces (3 lbs) ricotta cheese

1 lb mozzarella cheese, grated

6 tbs shaved Parmesan cheese

8 eggs

1 medium sweet onion, chopped fine

2 tbs chopped fresh herbs (basil, parsley, thyme, oregano, marjoram)

1 tsp salt

freshly ground black pepper

Steam the spinach until it is all wilted.  I used my pasta pot — the two-piece construction of it is perfect for steaming vegetables (I use it for corn on the cob too).

The pot was full to bursting when I put it on the stove, but after a couple minutes, there was plenty of room to spare.

Set the spinach aside and allow it to cool and drain.

Preheat the oven to 350° F.

In a very large bowl (I used my bread bowl), combine the ricotta cheese, eggs, herbs, and salt and pepper.  Whisk until the eggs are thoroughly mixed into the ricotta.  Stir in the mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses and the onion.

Squeeze any remaining liquid from the spinach and beat the spinach into the cheese mixture until it is evenly combined.

Butter a large baking dish (as I stated above, mine is 11 x 14″, but you can use a combination of smaller dishes if necessary; this is the pan that I also use for lasagna), and pour the spinach and cheese mixture into it.

This took just over an hour to bake, about 65-70 minutes.  Baking times will vary depending on the size of your pan(s).  It is done when the cheese is set and no longer jiggles when you shake the pan.  I knew this one was done when I tilted the pan and the entire mass gently slid away from the side of the pan, indicating that it was a solid whole.

See, it doesn’t look like four pounds of cheese, eight eggs, and two-and-a-half pounds of spinach.  It is smaller than the average lasagna.

Allow to cool on a rack until it reaches the desired temperature.  It is good any way you serve it:  hot, at room temperature, or chilled.  You can make it in advance or serve it right away, as you please.

It is delicious plain, but I like it with a fresh marinara sauce (recipe is forthcoming) and oil cured olives.

This will make our picnics extra fine.  It would also be good for brunch.

Vanilla Cream Cake

I adore lilacs.

There are, as I understand it, some scientists (real, legitimate, respected scientists) working in the more abstract areas of science, who believe that time travel is theoretically possible.  Not necessarily in an HG Wells way, nor in a Doc Brown kind of way (no DeLoreans are theorized), but in an Einsteinian kind of way, theory of relativity and whatnot.  For the less scientifically advanced among us, there is always the Proustian way of time travel, that of the madeleine and cup of tea.  (Which reminds me, I haven’t made madeleines in a really long time…)  For myself, however, lilacs have the power to transport me further back than the Proust’s madeleine, yet not quite so far as HG Wells’ time machine, no quantum physics necessary.

Lilacs are intoxicatingly old-fashioned.  The floral equivalent of wicker porch furniture, lemonade sets, and lace-trimmed napkins, lilacs are one of the few hold-overs from past eras that are welcomed wherever they go.  The scent holds all of history, and when I am in a room filled with the scent of fresh lilacs, my mind and my emotions sail the lilac-scented breeze back through time, visiting long-ago eras in which table linens were routinely white and ironed with starch, and in which moments of quiet reflection were highly valued.

I can’t get enough of lilacs, but only the real thing will do.  Soaps and candles and other things made with the intention of recreating the magic of lilacs only insult the senses with their false claims.  When the lilacs are blooming, I have the need to surround myself with them, to sleep with them at the bedside, to smell them every moment, for they are in bloom a very short time, and it is a long year from one blossoming to the next.  When they are gone, I cannot bring their scent to my mind, and they are lost to me until I see them again.

But for all the delight their scent brings, their taste is quite another matter.  They are edible, and I have met people who claim to like the flavor of lilac, but I don’t really believe them.  Lilacs are meant to be smelled, not eaten.

What to do then, when the house is filled with lilacs, and the mind is slipping in and out of the stream of time, in no hurry to come back to the present?  Today, I encouraged my mind to stay a little longer in the past by making a vanilla cream cake.  It worked ever so well.

Does anyone remember Victoria magazine as it was in the 1990s?  That was when it was a Hearst publication.  It was beautiful, full of flowers and lace and tea cups and old books and picnics.  I would wait expectantly from one issue to the next, always anxious to see what the next exquisite feature was going to be.  Had I known they would discontinue its publication, I would have saved some of my back issues.  A couple years ago it was sold to Hoffman Media, lock, stock, and copyright, but the current editorship lacks the vision of its predecessors, and on the whole I find the reincarnated version more like a zombie rather than an actual living thing.

Anyway, as I was going through my trove of recipe cards the other day, I found one on which I had glued the recipe for Vanilla Cream Cake, as published in Victoria magazine in the very early 90s.  This was the feature in which I first read about vanilla sugar and vanilla brandy, and the recipe calls for both.

I had never made it before today, and that is truly a shame.  I could have been enjoying this delight for 20 years.  Fortunately, like lilacs, it will never wear out its welcome.

Since this was my first time making this cake, I followed the directions and used a tube pan, although in the future I will not do this.  My guess is that for reasons unknown to myself, the amount of batter this recipe makes is more than will fit in a single 9″ cake pan, but is not enough to fill two 9″ cake pans.  (Why they didn’t scale it up or down, I can’t imagine.)  I have a very nice Magic Line 9″ cake pan that is 3″ deep that I like to use for single-layer cakes, and that is perhaps what I will use in the future.  I also have a deep 9″ pan with a somewhat rounded bottom that I purchased as a “European” cake pan, said to be preferred in Europe because the rounded edges make covering the cake with marzipan and fondant somewhat easier.  I cannot attest to the veracity of this statement, but I do know that the pan is large enough to accommodate all the batter for this cake, and that the cake would be exceedingly lovely baked in it.  The finished cake does not fill the tube pan, and is, in fact, quite short, and I believe I would prefer it without the hole in the center.

2 1/4 cups cake flour

2 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup heavy cream

3 tbs vanilla brandy

4 eggs, the very freshest you can find

1 1/4 cup vanilla sugar

vanilla confectioner’s sugar (or glazing sugar), to decorate

Preheat the oven to 350° F.  Butter and flour a 9×3″ round cake pan or tube pan.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt until well mixed.

Whip the cream with the vanilla brandy until stiff.

Beat the eggs with the sugar until thick and pale.

Stir the flour mixture into the eggs and sugar.  Gently fold the whipped brandy cream into the batter, and then transfer the batter to the prepared pan, smoothing the top of the batter as evenly as possible.

As usual, I forgot to time how long the cake baked.  The recipe card says it will take 55 – 60 minutes, but that is twice as long as a typical cake of this kind.  I did notice that this cake took a very long time to rise.  Usually cakes rise quickly in the oven, but this one was so slow, I made a point of checking my oven temperature.  When it did rise, it did so beautifully, and the finished cake was exceptionally light.  It was fully baked when the top was a light golden brown.

Remove from the oven and allow cake to cool on a rack.  When I removed it from the tube pan, it was so delicate that it broke apart, and I had to piece it back together on the cake plate.  This is partly, if not mostly, the result of its being very short in the tube pan; there is no way to support the cake as it slides off the tube, unlike a pound cake, for example, which is tall enough that you can touch the cake without touching the hot center tube of the pan.  Thus another reason to use a deep round pan.  The next time I make this cake, I will line the bottom of my deep 9″ pan with parchment to keep the cake from sticking to the pan.

When the cake is cool, or mostly so, sift a little confectioner’s or glazing sugar over the top.  I used vanilla glazing sugar, as that is my preference.  I recommend eating this one while it is still just a smidge warm.  It is incredibly tender and very lightly flavored, hardly sweet at all.  It is a perfect cake for an afternoon tea at which sandwiches and other sweets will be served.

And since you weren’t here to smell it, I must tell you that when you put two large bouquets of lilacs and a vanilla cream cake in one room, it must surely be the scent of heaven.

Maple-Walnut Tart

One day my mother and I were driving past the Vermont Country Store in Rockingham, and we decided to stop.  They have always had interesting stock, perhaps more so then, 25 or 30 years ago, because it was unpredictable — you never knew what you were going to find.  (It’s a bit more regular these days, and a little less fun.)  We had some time to spare, so we browsed around a while, and on our way out, there was a woman standing on the front steps pointing to a column of smoke on the hillside opposite the store.  “Oh, they must be making maple syrup,” she was saying to her friend who was standing on the lawn.  She then went on to explain about the sugarmaking process, and whatever else she might have said we didn’t hear because we were having too good a laugh.  It was the first weekend in October, and the foliage was peaking (which clearly was what brought that woman and her friend out that day), and the smoke was undoubtedly from somebody burning leaves.  That she thought herself knowledgeable enough to lecture on the making of maple syrup but didn’t know during which season this was done struck us as ridiculous, and we didn’t care if she knew it, although I am quite sure she was oblivious to us and our laughter as she was to many things.

Still today, if we see someone burning brush in the fall, my mother and I will say to each other, “Oh look!  They must be making maple syrup!”  It still makes us laugh 25 years later.

I, myself, am no expert in the making of maple syrup, but I do have a detailed understanding of how it’s done.  The first Maple Festival was held in St. Albans when I was in junior high school, and I entered their very first maple syrup essay contest.  I had just fallen in love with photography, and had begged my mother for a camera long enough that she finally bought me one for my birthday.  It was a point-and-shoot, not an SLR like I truly wanted, but it was a place to start, and I was happy to have it.  This began my photojournalism phase (which, sadly was discouraged, and I have always regretted not pursuing it despite the discouragement).  I set about doing “research” for my essay, taking photographs of everything I could.  This was more of an excuse to use my new camera than anything else, as the photos were not to be included with the essay.  My mother was my brother’s Cub Scout den mother at the time, and when she said she was taking the boys to see how maple syrup was made, I was more excited than the boys were.  We went to Mr. Granville Thompson’s sugarhouse, and he gave us a wonderful tour and had the boys help out for the afternoon.

Then my father arranged for me to visit his friend’s sugarhouse.  This was a larger, more commercial operation, although not large in comparison to the really large producers.  His process was advanced enough to have a reverse osmosis machine that extracted much of the water from the sap before it even reached the evaporator.

But he still used a good old wood-fired evaporator.

I wrote about my neighbor who made syrup in his backyard, about Mr. Thompson, and about my father’s friend and his fancy machine, all of which together won the contest.  There was an awards banquet, and we attended with my aunt and uncle who live in St. Albans.  My uncle was happy that I won, but he was even happier that the son of one of the state’s largest maple sugar producers came in second.  (He didn’t like the boy’s father and thought it served him right not to win first place.)

I was to find out later that my essay was published in The Maple Syrup Journal.  I didn’t even know there was such a publication as that, but when I heard about it from a family friend and wrote to the publisher asking if I could buy a copy, they graciously sent me two copies, one for me and one for my parents.  Had I known in advance, I surely would have wanted my photographs included too!

This story ends in the more recent past with the first time I took my kids to a sugarhouse.  It was on the official “open sugarhouse” weekend.  I heard about a sugarhouse up in Fairfield or somewhere near there that was having a pancake breakfast, and I thought this was going to be the perfect introduction to sugaring for my kids.  Well, we got there, and they sure were proud to show off their new boiler.  It was a hulking, gleaming stainless steel thing, totally enclosed and oil fired, so there was no smoke, no steam, and worst of all, no sweet maple scent in the air.  There was nothing to see but that monstrous hunk of the shiniest stainless steel.  There wasn’t a fingerprint on it, and nothing that indicated maple syrup was being made in it.  And the syrup that they did make in it that they were so eager to share tasted awful.  It was absolutely yucky.  The kids didn’t really care, but I was disconsolate.

Over the next couple years we went around to a variety of sugarhouses, and we saw a couple other stainless steel, oil-fired boilers, and that syrup tasted yucky too.  Without a doubt, the best syrup is made in an old, cast iron, wood-fired evaporator, with the wood smoke the maple-scented steam, that tastes complex and real.  The smaller and older the sugarhouse, the better the syrup.

For the past couple years I have bought my syrup from my friend’s grandparents.  I am thinking next spring I am going to beg her to take me out to their sugarhouse to meet them and thank them in person, and maybe take some new sugarhouse photographs, if they wouldn’t mind.

This recipe for Maple Walnut Tart started out as a bar cookie.  I liked it quite a lot, but the kids were ambivalent.  Then at Christmas, I was in charge of making dessert as usual, and I wasn’t interested in making another pie, but there was a strong desire for pie amongst other family members.  I thought about it for a while, and decided to offer up the maple-walnut bars in the form of a tart.  In order to do this, however, I needed to increase the amount of crust to fit the larger tart pan, but because the tart pan is shallow, I didn’t need to increase the amount of filling.  By changing this ratio of crust to filling, I created a sensation I was unprepared for.  Because the filling is so sweet, having less of it against the thicker, shortbread-like crust makes it far more enjoyable and less likely to make your teeth ache.

I brought two of these tarts to my father’s memorial service (in lieu of his favorite maple-walnut ice cream), and they were the hit of the afternoon.  Our guests were impressed by the roses on the cupcakes, but thing everyone wanted to eat was the tart.

This is a very rich dessert, best served in narrow wedges with good strong coffee.

For the crust:

1 3/4 cup flour

1/2 cup sugar

3/4 cup butter

For the filling:

2 eggs

2/3 cup sugar

3/4 cup maple syrup (the darker the better, grade B if you can)

2 tbs flour

1/4 tsp salt

2 tbs melted butter

1 1/2 tsp vanilla paste (or vanilla extract, if you can’t find the paste)

1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 375° F.  Have ready a shiny, 11″ tart pan with removable bottom.  (This really doesn’t need a nonstick pan.  This tart won’t stick to anything, including your diet.  The light shiny color of tinned steel will bake better than a dark pan.)

Combine flour and sugar and cut in the butter until it is quite fine.  Press the crust firmly into the tart pan as evenly as you can, paying particular attention to the edge where the bottom meets the sides.  The mixture will be quite crumbly and it won’t want to stick together, but that is okay.   Once it is baked and the filling is poured over it, it will all come together.

Bake the crust for about 15 minutes or so, just until it starts to look just a little beige, not quite tan.  Don’t let it brown at this stage.

While the crust is baking, combine all the ingredients for the filling.

When the crust is ready, pour the filling over, and spread it evenly.  The crust may appear a little puffy, and that’s okay.  The filling will totally fill the pan, right to the edge, so be careful, but do use it all.  It will all fit.

Reduce the heat to 350° F, and bake the filling for about 25 minutes, or until a lovely golden brown.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a rack.  The crust will be very soft when you first take it out of the oven, but it will become quite firm as it cools.  Wait until the tart is completely cool before removing from the pan.

At Christmas I did guild the lily and serve it with whipped cream, but that is really unnecessary.  My sister-in-law to-be took a slice home to warm up and eat with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  She was very pleased with the dessert, and disappointed that I didn’t make it again at Easter.  It is indeed sweet and rich, and I prefer it plain with very hot coffee.

Hermits

It is cold and rainy, and I desperately want to drink this cup of tea that I just made, but it is far too hot at the moment.  Of course, I could close some of the open windows, but that is simply too much effort.  We have old windows (original to the 200-year-old house), and some of them open well and others don’t.  For screens in these windows, we have the old-fashioned adjustable kind, with wood and aluminum frames that fit across the bottom of the open window, with the lower half of the window resting on the top of the screen.  These screens are 14 – 18″ tall, so in order to have the windows open but keep the bugs out and prevent the cat from jumping out onto the porch roof, our windows must be open 14 – 18″.  There is no opening the window “just a little.”  Thus, it is breezy in the house in cool, wet weather.  But trying to remove the screens when the window won’t open any higher, or keep the cat in when the window is stuck open, or not break the glass when the window suddenly plummets in its casing (which happened last October, actually, when I closed the windows for the winter:  broken glass everywhere, cat running along the porch roof chasing birds that have nested in the eaves)…  No, it’s better to put on a sweater and make a cup of hot tea than to try to close the windows once they are open for the summer.  Especially since I’d only have to open them again in a day or so anyway.

Those are nice words, “open for the summer.”  They remind me of the seaside.  And the creemee stand.  It’s finally beginning to hint at summer here.  The leaves are beginning to fill out (slowly, as they have had no sun to help them along), and the apple trees are in blossom, and they mowed the grass in the cemetery today despite the rain, so it smelled like summer for a little while over there.  We have had steady rain every day for as long as I can remember, with the exception of last Thursday when I was baking for the reception after my father’s memorial service, so I haven’t been able to take any photographs of the apple blossoms (or make any bouquets of them, or even smell them).  Tomorrow, perhaps, I will stand in the rain with my camera and see what happens.  I certainly won’t be having a picnic any time soon.

In January, when my father died, I immediately said to myself that I was going to make hermits for the reception after his funeral.  I was determined.  There was no question in my mind.  At the time, I didn’t know just when that would be.  As I have already related in my post on Peach Basket Upside-down Cake, my father was very fond of hermits, although I suspect not many people know that, so the significance of the choice would be lost on everyone present, but that was never a consideration.  I knew it and that was enough.  When the day came to mix the dough for the hermits, however, it was the nicest weather we have had all year, and I had to ask myself if our guests would want to eat old, brown, lumpy hermits at this time of year, when most people begin to yearn foods that are fresh and light and taste of summer.  But the forecast for Sunday was for rain, after a rainy Saturday, which was to be preceded by a rainy Friday afternoon and night, and then be followed by a week of rain.  So I recast my imagination, thinking of us all damp, up to our ankles in mud, chilled, stockings ruined, and then of us coming in to that giant old aluminum coffee urn, holding 50 cups of coffee at least, the thick-walled stoneware mugs nearby and the hermits on a tray beside it, and it all seemed quite right.

Hermits are such lovely cookies.  Not lovely to look at perhaps (if you’re looking to be impressed), but deliciously moist and chewy, homey and comfortingly old-fashioned, and they are a delight with a cup of coffee.  Everyone seems to agree that they are traditional to New England, but are they drop cookies or are they bar cookies?  My father remembered them being big and round and thick, but my mother remembers her mother buying them from “the bread man,” and they were thinnish bar cookies, cut into wide rectangles.  Both memories are from the 1930s and 40s, and both my parents grew up in Vermont.  I have looked at many different recipes, and no one so far has convinced me that one way is more traditional than the other, so I suspect it is largely a matter of time and preference, and what kind of baking pans were available to any given cook.  Easier and time saving for commercial bakers to make bars, whereas the old woman near the one-room schoolhouse in far northern Vermont during the Depression might not have had a pan the right size to make bars, or maybe she simply liked the round cookies better too.  I have no true knowledge; I can only guess.

I like round cookies, and my father preferred his hermits round, so I made them round.  I like this particular recipe because it calls for cold coffee and lots of nutmeg.  When it comes to the raisins, I like to use a combination of regular raisins and currants.  The currants have a slightly different flavor than the raisins, and their little size helps pack the dried fruit into the dough.  If your raisins aren’t as fresh as they once were, cover them with boiling water for a short while before making the dough.  The cookies are meant to be good keepers, but the raisins need to be moist at the start in order for them to stay fresh a long time.

1 cup butter

2 cups brown sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup cold coffee

3 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

1 tsp cinnamon

2 1/2 cups raisins (or a combination of raisins and currants)

1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts

Cream butter and sugar.  Add eggs and then coffee.

Whisk dry ingredients to combine, then stir (with a wooden spoon or a rubber scraper) into butter/sugar mixture, then stir in raisins and walnuts.

Chill the dough until quite firm.  [The first time I made this recipe, I was interrupted and wasn’t able to return to cookie making for three days.  I was worried about the dough, but needlessly, as the cookies turned out perfectly.  I now plan to make the dough a day or two ahead — the flavor improves as the dough rests.]

Heat oven to 400° F.  I prefer to use a cookie scoop to form the cookies, but they can also be dropped by rounded tablespoons onto an ungreased, shiny cookie sheet.

Before putting them in the oven, lightly press each cookie with the heel of your hand to flatten slightly.  The cookies spread only a little, so it is helpful to give them this head-start.

Bake until they are deep golden brown, and then remove to a rack to cool.

These will keep for at least three weeks (maybe longer) in an airtight container.  I have a large red tin that I line with wax paper to store them in — usually.  This time, though, there weren’t any left to store; they and their peanut butter compatriots were warmly received and quickly devoured.

Peanut Butter Cookies

As it turns out, there is no such thing as too many peanut butter cookies.  Perhaps I should have known this, but I will need to keep this fact fresh in my mind for future entertaining.

I have made peanut butter cookies for as long as I can remember.  I used to make them with my mother when I was young enough that I had to stand on a stool to reach the counter.  Sometimes she would use chunky peanut butter and decorate them with peanut halves, other times she would use a glass with a cut flower design on the bottom to press the cookies after shaping.  Sometimes they were chewy, sometimes crumbly, but always delicious.

I started using this recipe about 20 years ago.  The second or third time I made them this way, my friend’s older sister was visiting from New Jersey.  I had met her once or twice before, but I didn’t know her well; she was several years older than me, married with children, and my friend (her sister) was the only thing we had in common.  She tasted one of the cookies and couldn’t believe that I had made it.  She kept repeating over and over, “it tastes like it came from the bakery!”  I didn’t think I had done anything unusual before that point, but I understood from her tone and repetition that having a homemade cookie taste like a bakery cookie was a very good thing indeed, so I have never used any other recipe since.  (There wasn’t a bakery anywhere near us, so while I had had manufactured cookies from the grocery store, I wasn’t familiar with “bakery cookies” as such.  In my experience, there were store-bought cookies and homemade, and no other category.)

My son (then 15) made these by himself for a birthday party last summer, and is now considered a stellar cook by his friends.

After yesterday’s reception, there were no leftover peanut butter cookies to bring home.

1 cup smooth peanut butter

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Beat the peanut butter and butter until thoroughly combined.  Add the sugars and cream until smooth.  Beat in the eggs until well-mixed.

Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl, whisking until thoroughly mixed.

With a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, stir the flour mixture into the butter/sugar/egg mixture, just until all the flour is incorporated.  Do not overstir.

Chill the dough for at least an hour, or up to two days.

Preheat the oven to 375° F.  Have ready two or more shiny cookie sheets.  (Shiny cookie sheets are important for correct baking.  I do not recommend dark or nonstick cookie sheets, nor do I recommend insulated (Air Bake) cookie sheets.  A shiny, sturdy, sheet pan works best.  The cookies will not stick.  The cookie sheet in the photo below is, in fact, the very same cookie sheet I used for the cookies I made for my friend’s sister.  They are the only ones I have used for these 20 years.)

Pour a little turbinado sugar into a small bowl.

Taking a tablespoonful or a little more of chilled dough at a time, roll the dough into a ball, and then roll the ball in the turbinado sugar.  This sugar coating will give the finished cookies a little sparkle and a pleasing crunch around the edges.  Place the balls on a cookie sheet, evenly spaced, a couple inches apart.  When the cookie sheet is full, press the dough with the tines of fork twice, once each in opposite directions.

Bake the cookies until they are very lightly browned around the edges and very pale in the centers.  They will be soft and puffy when you take them out of the oven, but they will collapse and become crinkly as they cool, and the color will darken slightly as this happens.  If the cookies are too soft to remove from the cookie sheet immediately, let the sheet cool on a rack for a few minutes before transferring the cookies to another rack to finish cooling.

The peanut butter flavor will intensify as they cool as well.

They may be stacked when they are completely cool.

These cookies have a soft chewy interior and a crunchy, crumbly edge, giving you the best of both worlds.  They stay fresh for at least three days, although I have never had a batch last longer than that, so they may, if hidden in a secure location, stay fresh longer.

Four Dozen Roses, a Hundred Cookies, and Two Tarts

Cookies aren’t the only thing on Sunday’s dessert menu.  I just finished four dozen cupcakes, each with a peach colored rose (the roses on the guestbook/photo table are peach colored).  This is Saturday’s night-time-artificial-light photograph.

Sunday morning’s sunlight was somewhat less than weak, so the lovely natural-light photograph I had hoped for didn’t materialize.

I did manage a couple close-ups on Monday morning with some of the leftovers.  Of course, by this time they had traveled several hundred miles and had been in two cars and three buildings, in and out of the rain between each one, but they held up rather well.

I didn’t count the cookies, but there were 15 dozen, give or take a dozen.  It would have been okay with guests if they had all been peanut butter.

Maple Walnut Tart is always welcome at a gathering.

The Cookie Tray ~ thoughts on entertaining a crowd

My father’s memorial service is being held on Sunday (tomorrow, as I write).  I am providing the baked goods for the reception afterwards.  I have been struggling with exactly what to make and how much of it will be needed.  The editors of the weekly newspaper in which everyone looks for notices of such events overlooked our submission, so our announcement was a week late appearing in print, giving people only three days to plan for the service.  (The florist got the other end of the stick and had the flower arrangements ready a week early.)  It is supposed to rain on Sunday.  It is graduation and wedding season, so people have other plans.  It has stopped snowing, the trees are leafing, and funerals are not a way to enjoy spring.  My father died in January, which, at times, seems an eternity ago, and people forget.  And my father was old.  Many of his friends are already dead or too infirm to be out.  For all of this, it would seem that we should expect a low turnout.

But my father lived in the same town for 60 years.  He worked with many other loggers and foresters over the years, and he was very well known and well liked.  The service is on a Sunday afternoon, the quieter part of the weekend.  We have been talking about it and telling people for three weeks, so the date shouldn’t be a complete surprise to most people.  He was part of a large family, and many relatives are in coming in from out of town for the service.  And he died in January after a long life, so there is a certain emotional distance that has been created, lessening the heavy sadness that often accompanies a memorial service.  It will be, by mid-afternoon, a low-key social event more than a funeral.  It’s something to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon, and there will be people there that haven’t been around for quite a number of years.  It’s a good opportunity to catch up and see people, particularly after a long winter that was extended by a late spring.  And there will be lots of good food.  These are all reasons to expect a good turnout.

My mother consulted her sister-in-law, soliciting her opinion on how many people we should expect.  Her first husband died several years ago, and my mother thought she would have some helpful insights.  She suggested that we prepare for 50 guests at the reception following the graveside service.  My mother then went out and bought paper plates, cups, and napkins for 100.

That leaves me not knowing what to think at all on the matter of funerals and memorial services, but I do have some thoughts on what kinds of treats to make, if not how many.

For any kind of open reception or party or cookout (think July 4th, family reunions, graduation celebrations, open houses), the cookie tray is failsafe.  Cookies are easily made, universally liked, come in hundreds of varieties, can be made ahead, keep well, transport well, don’t need plates or forks or refrigeration, and leftovers always find a home (and not necessarily yours!).  Here are the primary things to consider when selecting cookies for a cookie tray.

1.  Don’t buy cookies from the grocery store.  Yeah, I know you’re busy.  You’re busy, I’m busy, everybody’s busy.  People will take an hour to tell you about how busy they are.  If you choose the right kinds of cookies to make, it will not take a significant amount of time.  I become angry instantly when someone brings store-bought cookies to a bake sale.  The sale principle applies to your reception/party:  if people (guests or customers) wanted store-bought cookies they could buy them themselves.  Give people something special that they can’t get anywhere else.  It is more welcoming, more personal, and shows a greater respect for your friends by treating them to something made with thought and purpose and love.  Homemade cookies are not an afterthought.

2.  Choose your recipes carefully.  This is not the time to consult Martha Stewart.  It is not Christmas or a bridal shower or a baby shower or any time to make something fancy or delicate.  Or frosted.  Even when it comes to the basics, Martha and her minions very often complicate things that should remain simple in their never-ending quest to improve upon the old and sell more books and magazines.  Many people already consider me a troglodyte, and more will join their number, but sometimes you really can’t improve upon the old fashioned way of doing things.  The secret is in the choosing.  For a successful function, you don’t want trendy, you want reliable.  But you don’t want boring either.  Choose wisely, and all will be well.

Do not choose cookies that need to be rolled out and cut into shapes.  These are too time consuming and fussy when you many other preparations to make.

Do choose cookies in which the dough is rolled into a “log,” chilled, and cut into slices.  This is so much easier.  The dough can be made in advance and the cookies baked at your convenience, all or only a few at a time.

Do not choose filled cookies, even if they are your favorites.  These too are fussy, they do not always store well, and they can make travel difficult.  This includes thumbprint cookies.

Do choose cookies which improve with keeping, such as hermits and orange shortbread bars.  (Recipes will be posted over the next couple days.)

Do not be predictable.  Abandon the peanut blossom.  Leave it behind, please.  Forget that cookies can be made with M&Ms in them.  Erase them from your mind.  There are hundreds of other cookies that are just waiting to be loved.  Save the chocolate chip cookies for picnics; that’s where they are the happiest.  Also be aware that brownies do not come with a guarantee.

3.  Try to provide a well-rounded mix of flavors.  When I am compiling recipes for a event, I divide my choices into several categories and make sure that I choose only one from each.  For example, I might say there are plain cookies (sugar cookies, sour cream cookies, snickerdoodles, peanut butter cookies, anything with a singular primary flavor), spicy cookies (gingersnaps, molasses cookies, anything featuring a strong mix of cinnamon, ginger, or cloves), fruited cookies (hermits, oatmeal raisin cookies, coconut, all the chunky-bumpy cookies), and chocolate cookies (self explanatory).  Then select varieties that will be in opposition to each other.  In this example, sour cream cookies and hermits are both made with nutmeg, so I would choose one or the other, and not have two nutmeg flavored varieties, even if they are in separate categories.  Selections should be further refined based on the type of occasion, the season, and the other foods that are being served, variables too great to explore here.

4.  Plan ahead.  It is not often that anyone hosts a spontaneous reception for 50 or more people.  With the right choices, everything can be done in advance, and while you may run out of ice, you won’t have to worry about dessert.

I am getting on with my cookie making now.  I will post the recipes individually for easier access.

No cookie-making operation is complete without the tea pot and the cup of tea.

Knotted Herb Bread

The herbs that the cat didn’t dig up are doing well.  The thyme and mint are doing particularly well.  Last summer’s basil is growing madly in the window now that the weather has finally warmed up.  It didn’t care for the cold during January and February, but it has forgotten all that.  Last summer’s rosemary is still contributing too.  The new sage is doing well, and I think the new oregano and the new marjoram are about to hit their stride.  It’s good to have the fresh herbs available.  They make me want to cook more.

I often read about how New England women are particularly knowledgeable about herbs and how practiced they are in cooking with them.  This idea has always confused me.  I am not sure to how many generations previous they are referring.  My mother never cooked with herbs.  She never even bought a clove of garlic.  Onions she used daily, and she used a lot of sweet spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg), but never herbs.  I don’t recall my grandmother ever using herbs, no aunts, no great aunts, no neighbors, no one at any of the many potluck suppers I ever attended.  The one exception to this rule being dill, in the summer, when making dill pickles.  Of course everyone had a spice rack, always a wedding shower gift, with all the original jars still in it, dusty with faded labels, the jars and their contents often 30 or more years old.

My best friend’s family was from Maine, and her father made maple syrup in the backyard, but I don’t recall there being any noticeable herbs in their house.  So I don’t know where that often-repeated factuality comes from, but I would like to know more about it.  I don’t have any New England cookbooks published prior to 1900.  I suspect the idea had to come from before then, because I have no evidence of it since.

For me, cooking with herbs always seemed foreign, and therefore somehow sophisticated.  Truth be told, however, growing up, I didn’t like the flavor of herbs.  This could be accounted for by the fact that the any I might have tried were likely to be upwards of 25 years old.  Certainly none of them were ever fresh.

It wasn’t until quite recently, however, that I began to experiment with herbs and understand their proper use, and now I can’t imagine being in the kitchen without them.

The other day when I was browsing through cookbooks, the lemon & honey bread wasn’t the only recipe to catch my attention.  I also was intrigued by a recipe for Garden Herb Loaf in a Fleischmann’s Yeast cookbooklet.  It was one of those publications that required a certain number of empty packets be sent in with some quarters for shipping and handling.  Judging from the arrangement of recipes, it was put out to publicize their RapidRise Yeast product.  For a single loaf of this herbed bread, the recipe calls for two packets of RapidRise Yeast.  That seems excessive to me, so as usual, I made a few changes to the basic recipe.  I also thought it needed a change of name, as the shaping of the dough was the most interesting part of it all.

1/2 cup warm water

2 tsp yeast

3/4 cup milk, warmed

1/4 cup butter

2 tbs sugar

1 tbs salt

3/4 tsp dried marjoram

3/4 tsp dried thyme

3/4 tsp dried rosemary

1 egg

flour

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water.  When it is foamy, throw a handful or two of flour over the water and add the remaining ingredients, making sure the milk is warm but not hot.  Add enough flour to make a soft dough that can be turned out and kneaded.  Add flour a handful at a time as you knead the dough.  This dough will not be particularly sticky, so it will need less flour than some of the other bread doughs I have suggested.

The web-like formation of the developed gluten is particularly clear in the photo above.  For more explicit instructions, please refer to Techniques to Use.

As I most like to do, I let this dough rise overnight.  It was a silky dough, but very slow to rise.  Even after sitting in the kitchen at a comfortable room temperature for 8 hours it was not overrisen.  I never use the RapidRise Yeast because I prefer the flavor of slow-rise bread, so I am happy to to let it sit unattended while I sleep.  If you prefer to use a faster yeast product, that option is available.

When you are ready to proceed, divide the dough into three equal sections.  Roll each piece into a 36″ long rope.  Because the gluten was so well developed in this bread, making the ropes was a bit of a slow process.  If you have trouble getting them to be long enough, let one rest while you work on another.  The gluten will relax as it rests, and you will be able to stretch it further.  When all three ropes are long enough (and 36″ will seem very long at this point), braid the ropes.

When you have a very long braid, tie a knot in the center.  This is the trickiest part of this, because while the dough will braid easily, once it is knotted, it will be difficult to adjust the knot (if, for instance, it is not in center, or if the braid is turned sideways, or such).  Once you have knotted it, tuck the ends under the knot in opposite directions, to make a round loaf.

Place the dough on a greased baking sheet and allow to rise until doubled.

Preheat the oven 375° F.  Bake the bread until deep golden brown.  Remove from the oven to a cooling rack.  Brush the hot loaf with soft butter, and then sprinkle with additional marjoram, thyme, and rosemary.

I thought about sprinkling just a pinch of salt on the loaf, to provide a little contrast in flavor, but I am glad I didn’t.  If you use salted butter, which I did, you will not need to sprinkle salt; the salt from the butter will be perfectly right.

Allow the bread to cool thoroughly before slicing.  The finished loaf is redolent of herbs and butter and has the soft and squishy texture of a dinner roll; it is as rich as one as well.  It slices easily when cool, and can be made into very thin slices, which are particularly nice.  The braided loaf is lovely, but for a large group, I would consider forming this dough into individual rolls.  It would be an excellent dough to use for cloverleaf rolls.

I am serving this with roasted chicken and potatoes and carrots this evening.  I can’t wait.