Bread Sculpture

Behold, my rooster, perched majestically next to our head chef's sugar work at culinary school. (I like to think he comes to life when no one's watching and pecks his neighbor.)

Why did I make a bread rooster, an inedible one at that? Because the world's greatest pastry chef (you know who you are) offered to show me how to do it. I recently spent a Saturday morning glomming this rooster together from pieces of baked bread dough, using isomalt as the glue. Isomalt is a sugar substitute, a type of sugar alcohol that when heated to 300 degrees has excellent stickability similar to hot glue.

I am no sculptress, ask anybody, but something about this felt like Play-Doh. We weren't getting a grade on it, and there was no time limit for presenting to the chef. It was a chance just to play with dough, and it felt fantastic.

I had asked for this special class outside of class, because our curriculum doesn't cover bread sculpture and who knows, somebody might need a showpiece in this new economy we live in, I don't know. I live in hope.

Meanwhile, I did complete two original recipe entries for the California Raisins competition. Here's a glimpse of Blackbird Bun and Pain au Raisin. Done, gone, and in the hands of the U.S. mail.

Toque's off to the pastry chef who encouraged me to work on this lengthy project - the same one who taught the bread sculpture class. This journey is worth the sticky hands and the floury eyebrows.

It is my raison d'etre.

Royal Wedding Breakfast

Wishing Jeeves were here to take charge.

Two days to go for Prince William and his bride-to-be, Kate, and the silver service isn't polished yet. Great Scot, that makes me a laggard!

On the up side of preparations for a Royal Breakfast at my friend Trish's castle, I've made a pastry cream and a Blackbird Bun (see above). This bread is my twist on Scotland's Black Bun from The Book of Bread by Judith & Evan Jones. I tip my fascinator to them (British term for fancy headpiece. Please see Ellen Christine Millinery, sharper than Jeeves himself, if you need hat guidance. Like her hats, Ellen stands above).

To celebrate the twining of new monarchs, Trish and I took repose at the nearby Cultured Cup tea shop to muse on our strategy for serving guests at 4 a.m. Dallas time. I had a lovely cup of tea whose name translates into "floral marriage," or something. We knew the dress for our event would be tiaras and pajamas, but what to serve?

Given the early call to the post of this blessed thing, we decided on an egg and sausage casserole of the type you make up well in advance and pop in the oven as Kate processes down the aisle. Bangers, beans and tomatoes would be on the plate if we were turning the castle into a pub, but for us, we'll go with strawberries and whipped cream (stand-in for clotted variety), Madeleines, lemon tea cake, rolls, fruits and an unusual item with ties to the French Pyrennes. Right ho, it's not Welsh, Scottish or remotely Irish, but I'm desperate to try this recipe from Bernard Clayton Jr.'s book The Breads of France and How to Bake Them in Your Own Kitchen.

He gives you the Gateau Basque - not a cake, bread or a pie, but something of all three. It makes up similar to a pie with top and bottom crust, and includes pastry cream and cherries. Brilliant!

Assorted jams will add the final touch of color and sweetness.  (Bless me, I forgot the flowers.)

God Save the Cream!

(Photo by John H. Ostdick for Singing Wheat Kitchen)

Imagining the best, and thinking of Spain

As I rolled along at the Home Slice Bakery in Dubois, Wyoming, a Frida Kahlo costume on my head and a glass of wine nearby, I never imagined the road ahead, what waited for me beyond the barn with the two black angus steers and the goat pen, beyond the bees in clover.

I thought I was in the mountains just to volunteer for a friend who's a devoted baker for her community, population less than a thousand. I could playfully channel Kahlo while rolling dough, or Julia with my nip of wine, but I never played "let's make believe you're a Le Cordon Bleu student." Never saw it coming, never sensed it. It was not up my sleeve or in my heart to do.

Then we came to the end, which is a title for a book about getting "freed up" in the ad agency world, which is just what happened to me when I came down off the mountain. Suddenly I had too much time and empty hands, but no more kitchen in the Grand Tetons. Before I could think it through, I enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu in Dallas as a baking and pastry student - because there was no one to stop me, not even myself. I knew if I thought too much about it, I'd talk myself out of it. Even the great Southern hospitality queen Paula Deen told me that it was "just courageous" to start on this journey (she meant at MY AGE), and she's right. She would know.

A year later, I have done the unthinkable, the unimaginable, the unbelievable leap into the unknown. This is bigger than Wyoming, bigger than baking school. I have applied for the BasqueStage Sammic Scholarship. Know what that is? A chance to work in the restaurant Martín Berasategui, which has three Michelin Stars, in the Basque region of Spain. A 6-month commitment, the chance of a lifetime you look for all your life.

Have I gone mad? (You might have thought so after seeing those Kahlo flowers on my head.) Surely it takes a special kind of imagination to see yourself living in Espana, taking direction in another language, soaking in the exquisite culture, cuisine and new life (at your age). What's more important even than applying for it, what I embrace, is discovering that when you toss your sombrero in a ring like this, you declare yourself to the world that you are a candidate - for whatever comes, whatever waits, wherever you go, and why.

I wish myself luck in this endeavor, I wish all the candidates the best - and there are some very good candidates. Everyone deserves the chance to stretch the imagination wider than the strudel dough, beyond where they thought they could go in one terrific leap of faith. We all deserve the right to believe in the outrageous behind every good fortune.

Saludos!

Inside Singing Wheat Kitchen

What does Singing Wheat Kitchen look like, the place where I hurl the flour, splash berry gelee on the floor and stir the pots till they splutter and hiss with promise? Singing Wheat is my kitchen, to be sure, with a sink and an old stove that barely qualify as equipment. It is a kitchen where anything happens, but it's something more.

Singing Wheat is a state of mind, not a workspace or horrors, a cubicle. It's a playroom and a tearoom like Nancy Drew used to visit when she was out chasing clues. You wouldn't think it a suitable space for a baking & patisserie student like I, not with those Persian rugs on the floor and a piano in the corner.

Singing Wheat used to be part of a garage, but we made it over. Notice the antique secretary with the blue-on-white plates? Gives the room a sense of timeless beauty. There are many oddities that find a place here. There are assorted leftovers of 1930s Fiesta ware, a non-singing cuckoo clock, a collection of cobalt blue glassware in a window, an antique turtle table with a marble top, which is where the bread dough hangs.

The family kitchen queens who came before me saved everything - assorted pitchers large and small, Depression era crockery, ice picks, silver service, even children's tea sets. There are white linens that make you think of The French Laundry. Crystal sherbet glassware. Candelabra. Tattered cookbooks. It's all here, with fresh flowers some days, and often, whacking good bread.

I go in there every day, but I'm never sure what will come out. Today it's a twist on herb bread, two twists, made with rosemary, thyme and basil from the garden. Tomorrow, maybe cream roses, or a fresh batch of diminutive madeleines. I never know, I just let the whim carry me off.

As I child I was given a chemistry set, now I have my own lab, a gentle place of aromas. Experiments. Poetic crusts. Drop in, we're always open on days ending in why.

(Photo by John H. Ostdick, Singing Wheat's Chef de Partie)

Daily Bread Part II

It's Spring Break at culinary school, which gives me time to fling flour and try out a few ideas worthy of play-dough. I love the tip from the book Tartine Bread to try baking loaves in a Dutch oven. Author Chad Robertson said the cast iron would give the bread a soft interior and a crunchy exterior - it's just the right vehicle so you can preserve moisture inside the baking loaf. This means you no longer have to use the cast iron skillet under the baking loaves, throwing water in the hot skillet to create a sort of steaming effect. Pfish. The steam always seems to escape before I can what-ho the oven door.

To use the Dutch oven in an oven, all you do is plop the dough in the vessel, slash the loaf top and cover with lid. What could be simpler?

The boule comes out with a marvelous shape, too. It looks like this.

I have another pile of dough rising right now that's headed for the Dutch oven, Pain de Campaigne Poilane, Poilane's Peasant Bread. Nothing has ever compared with Poilane bread from Paris. I don't know if they still do this, but there was a time that you could have a loaf FedExed from Europe France to your house. And I did. It's that good. This is not the place for me to go into the history of Poilane, but suffice it to say that when an author claims to have a recipe of Poilane's, I like to give it a go.

This particular version comes from a book published a few centuries back, 1978-ish. The book is called "The Breads of France" by Bernard Clayton Jr., which appears to have been updated for release in 2004 with Patricia Wells. Good for you, Bernard! I'm working from the old version and having a decided run of luck. The author spent time traveling the byways of France and digging out bread recipes the rest of us have no access to. For instance, he writes about the use of old ship blankets to cover the French rolls aboard the passenger liner the S.S. France, which is no longer seaworthy. Unless you got aboard and worked with the boulangers as monsieur did, then you have no access to the petits pains or stories about rolls cloaked in old woolen blankets. I made the rolls, and they are good as golden. The ship is no longer working, but the rolls do.

Another recipe in the book, called Pain Brie Normande, is a must-do this week, because when would I feel like beating dough with a rolling pin for 10 minutes while in school? You beat the dough. You hit it firmly and repeatedly with authority. It's a pummeling sort of process that requires a striking repose. I must know how this turns out. I also want to try the Gatueau Basque - not a bread, not a cake nor a pie, but something of all three with pastry cream and cherries, too. Who has time for such baking romance when human resources management is next up at school, in a class called "hospitality"? All in good time.

Meanwhile, you know those chocolates twists they have at Amy's Bread in The Village, NYC, USA? They can be yours if you venture inside "The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread."  I did as part of Spring Break, and have been guzzling them ever since, though they're secured in the freezer under leftover crepes from International Patisserie class and my final practical loaf of nuts, cheese and cranberry from breads class. I  recommend that you choose a good high-quality chocolate instead of the bittersweet baking chocolate I found lurking in the pantry, masquerading as a staple.

Heavens, I've just eaten one twist too many. Hoist the rolling pin! Bring out the Normandy dough!

Daily Bread

What are you reading? Answer, The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum and Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman. Why? It's a quest. I'm always in search of how to get more flavor out of the flour. These two books are good road maps for the journey.

Friends know I'm loaf loony. They want me to teach how to make good bread. Mon dieu, I'm still trying to figure it out.

One thing I know: Better bread doesn't come in a day. Oui, you can find recipes that simply explain how to mix flour, water, salt and yeast for a bread you can eat in a few hours. In fact, my first bread book was a gift from Dear Val, called Judith Olney on Bread. If you're just starting out with home-baked breads and you're impatient, Olney is there for you. Get started.

The day will come, though, when you ask yourself why the bread doesn't taste earthier, deeper, like artisan breads. Stroll into Poilane on the rue du Cherche-Midi in Paris, open le bouche and you'll know what I mean. Better bread is made over time, certainly more than a day, and with advanced skills at understanding the use of clock, temperature and ingredients. This is why I have trouble with my friends, who want a demo class that's sure-fire. That would take a few days, a bread camp, maybe. I don't presume to know everything about how to get the best results, but I'm willing to eat my way through it.

Years ago after Olney, I jumped into The Village Baker by Joe Ortiz and have never looked back. Ortiz and his wife, Gayle, have a bakery in Capitola, Calif., and have made countless pilgrimages to bakeries in France, Italy and Germany to learn the true heart of artisan baking in the European traditions. They have done the hard part for you.

Aha! Thought I, reading how Joe learned to "build" his pre-ferments (bread dough starters) over several days. See, it takes time to build flavor, I knew it all along.

Joe's book still has an honored spot on the shelf near my stove, along with Gayle's book The Village Baker's Wife, with a great collection of croissant and pastry recipes. Next to those, I added Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. Right now I'm baking off recipes from 3 of the aforementioned books, just to compare taste, crust, crumb and aroma - Pain de Campagne, Vermont Sourdough with Whole Wheat and Whole-Wheat Bread with a Multigrain Soaker. Doing this while eating handfuls of bread pudding from Commander's Palace that we made in class last week. Bread, always bread.

The moral of all this bread talk is - work it. Find recipes and try them out. Listen to what these knowledgeable and passionate experts know about grains, weather conditions and yes, math. Follow your bouche, and your nose.

Get your hands doughy.

Goodnight, bread. (Vermont Sourdough loaf and rolls in Singing Wheat Kitchen)

Crepes Suzette

I finally set something on fire at culinary school. What a feeling! Can't believe it myself when I look at this image of my first Crepes Suzette, with no signs of black torchy ash or anything. But I assure you, I flamed it like I'd been playing with fire all my life (well actually . . . ).

In the international patisserie class one is introduced to the concept of crepe-making.  There's nothing to it. You make a batter, you swirl it in a beautiful crepe pan, you set your crepes aside as you prepare the sauce, which is artfully done table side in restaurants that uphold the dessert showmanship traditions.

To channel Suzette, I took a little sugar into another pan and caramelized it, added a little butter, some julienned orange and lemon peels, a touch of orange liqueur and a little cognac for the big finale. You just voila the cognac into the pan (off heat for safety), tip the pan into the flame to introduce alcohol to the heat and whoosh, you're aflame and feeling clever.

Toss a bit of cinnamon into the flame like you're the Sorcerer's Apprentice, you know, swish and flick, and you'll get a sparkling affect they say is riveting at the table. 

Where do you start? The taste makers at Bon Appetit published this basic crepe recipe. To do it the Suzette way, use this Crepes Suzette recipe.

Keep in mind if you leave out the sugar, you can use the crepes for many savory dishes, by coating them in a sauce, filling them with all manner of ingredients or stacking them and topping them to your heart's desire.

Can you make this in a dorm room: Yes, but don't set it afire. Leave off with the cognac.