I'm a Carb-a-holic!

I live and breathe bread! For the past 4 weeks I have been making and/or eating bread 16 hours a day, and for the other eight hours I am dreaming of eating or making bread! My apartment counters are covered with loaves of 1/4 eaten loaves and neighbors and co-workers are begging that I stop giving them the leftovers (it seems that Mr. Atkins has really given bread a bad name).

This week started off with three days of making Butter Braids--simply a butter rich dough that is formed into braids. We did 3, 4, 5 and 6 strand braids (I could handle up to 4 and then my brain shut down!). I also made a star braid, which used a 4-braid (in photo above). It was fun making these shapes, although I didn't care for the density and texture, which was almost cake-like and the flavor of the product.

As for special projects, this week we made many varities of rich doughs. Rich doughs are doughs that contain more than 10% butter. First we made Brioche, both as individual "a tete" forms, meaning that they have a "head" (shown above before baking) and in loafs (no photo).

Here is a photo of the individual "a tete" Brioche after baking.

Chocolate Croissants are a laminated dough, which means that butter is rolled into the dough in several "turns" or separate rolls. First the dough is made and a "butter block" is made, which is creating an even layer of butter the width of the dough so that it can be folded together with the dough. Both dough and butter are chilled and then the butter is added on top of the dough and the rolling begins! Between "turns" there is an hour chill period in the fridge, then the dough is pulled out again, rolled again and so on. The whole process takes quite a long time, but is very rewarding in the end! Above are the chocolate croissants produced from this process. I also made plain and almond croissants (no photos). I now have the official right of passage into the pastry world after having made croissants from my own dough!

On of the most decadent projects were our sticky buns! A rich buttery dough filled with sugar, cinnamon, raisins and pecans! Really sweet, but as a carb-a-holic I couldn't stop eating them! In the past I have always made them in individual muffin tins, but I liked baking them all together in a cake pan so that they pulled apart from each other and shared the sugary glaze.

Lastly, we made a Babka Coffeecake (no photo), which is a traditional Eastern European coffeecake made much like the sticky buns, but instead of cutting the log of rolled dough, it is coiled onto itself in a cake pan and baked whole and topped with streusel.. This coffeecake had a perfect texture, not too moist or dry and was not too sweet. Some of the more devout Seinfeld watchers may even recall an episode in which Elaine states "you can't beat a Babka" and, yes, she is referring to this most delightful coffeecake!

That's it for now. I continue to eat my way through loads of bread, croissants, sticky buns and coffeecake, just as would be expected of a carb-a-holic!