Home Baking: The Artful Mix of Flour and Traditions from Around the World

685 Pages·2003·12.91 MB·English

by  Duguid

HomeBaking
THE ARTFUL MIX OF FLOUR AND TRADITION AROUND THE WORLD
Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid
Location photographs by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid Studio photographs by Richard Jung
ARTISAN • NEW YORK
A NOTE ABOUT HOME BAKING
BREADS FOR EVERY OCCASION
INTRODUCTION
PASTRY
Sweet Pies, Tarts, and Pastries
Savory Tarts and Pies
BREAD
Festive Breads
Family Breads
Artisan-Style Loaves
SMALLER BREADS
Rolls, Bagels, and Sweet Buns
Skillet Breads and Pancakes
Flatbreads and Crackers
CAKES AND COOKIES
Everyday Cakes and a Few Fancy Ones Too
All-Around-the-World Cookies
GLOSSARY OF INGREDIENTS AND TECHNIQUES
CONVERSIONS AND PAN SIZES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INDEX
A Note About Home Baking
Home baking is different from professional baking, just as cooking at home is
different from cooking in a restaurant. Ovens are different, ingredients can be
different, and, most of all, our motivations and expectations are different.
In many parts of North America, home baking has taken a back seat to
professional baking over the last few decades, and it’s too bad. On the positive
side, we probably can buy better bread (at farmers’ markets, bakeries, natural
foods stores, and supermarkets) than at any other time in history, and we have
commercially made cakes and pastries that are unimaginably good. But with the
rise of professional baking, home baking has suffered. Here in the city, we don’t
know of a single household where someone bakes on a regular basis. People are
busy. Both parents generally work, and anyway, baked goods can be easily
purchased.
In this book, and in these recipes, we raise the flag of home baking because
we believe that if home baking traditions wither, then as a culture, and as home
cooks, we lose a great deal. Not only do we lose these foods for future
generations to enjoy, and all of the tastes, smells, and textures that they embody,
but we lose the traditions themselves. Going relaxedly into the kitchen to make
bread or a batch of cookies, knowing that you can and that it’s an easy,
rewarding thing to do, is as important as the food itself.
So in the recipes we try to put a more casual approach back into baking. Not
everything has to be exact or perfect, whether it is a bread, a flatbread, a cake, a
cookie, or a pie. Part of a yeasted dough can be put away for later, used perhaps
to make a simple fruit cake or tart or a savory flatbread. It may seem silly to take
a dough and see how many different shapes of rolls you can make, but maybe
silly is good, and so are whimsy and fun.
The point of it all, it seems to us, is to have fun baking, and to make good
food for yourself and for the people you love.
Home Baking for Every Occasion
To Dazzle Guests
Three-Layer Walnut Torte with Whipped Cream
Martha’s Mother’s Cookies
“Building-Block Cake”
Fruit Custard Tart
Perfumed Filled-Quince Bread
Alsatian Onion Tart
Tender Potato Bread
Teresa’s Coconut Custard Tarts
Savory Mushroom Strudel
Down-Under Fruit Pastries
Mince Tarts
Pissaladière
Our Household Staples
Robin’s Bread
Snowshoe Breads
Ciabatta
Dom’s Large-Batch Italian Boules and Focaccia
Bread Baker’s Fruit Tart
Free-form Fruit Galette
Mandel-Melbas
Moroccan Biscotti
Breton Butter Cake
Last-Minute Baking
Cathead Skillet Biscuits
Mountain Women’s Roti
Banana-Coconut Bread for Pam
Simplest Apple Pie
Buttermilk Fruit Cake
Four-Minute Cake Valerie
Cranberry-Chocolate Sweet Buns
Treacle Tart
Free-form Fruit Galette
Naomi’s Any-Day Skillet Cake
Corn Bread with Cracklings
To Feed a Hungry Crowd
Truck-Stop Cinnamon Rolls
Thai Tuiles
Golden Mixed-Greens Pie
Farmhouse Meat Pie
Danish Log
Dom’s Large-Batch Italian Boules and Focaccia
New Year’s Pear Cake (doubled)
Fresh Quark Stollen
Fruit and Nut Powerpack
Sweet Potato Dinner Rolls
Irish Soda Bread
Potato Pletzel
Standbys for Snacking
Remnant Rye-Butter Crackers
Semolina Crackers
Coriander Cookies
Mandel-Melbas
Pfeffernusse
Cretan Spiced Crackers
Child-Friendly Recipes to Make Together
Independent Brownies
Eva’s Chocolate-Flavored Cake
NYC Calzones
Raisin Drop Cookies
Semolina 1-2-3 Cake
Russian Apple Pancakes
Ventry Sourdough Pancakes
Country Apple Pie in a Potato Crust
Campfire Baking
Cathead Skillet Biscuits
Bannock & Damper
Lebanese Sajj Bread
Czech Potato Pancakes
Mountain Women’s Roti
Himalayan Steamed Dumplings
Great for Sandwiches
Olive Panini
Soft White Sandwich Loaf, American Style
Tibetan Overnight Skillet Breads
Sweet Farsi Tandoor Bread
Galician Hearth Bread with Whole Corn
Hazelnut-Currant Boule
Ciabatta
Unusual Techniques to Try
Sweet Anise Bagels
Montreal Bagels
Special Spiced Rye from Gotland
Kazakh Dried Fruit Pastries
Portuguese Mountain Rye
Ukrainian Hazelnut Roll-ups
Ukrainian Christmas Bread
Sweet Ramadan Half-Moons
Pugliese Sponge Breads
For Those Who Can’t Eat Gluten (Celiacs)
Light as Air Spirals
Corn Bread with Cracklings
Easy Cheese and Bean Rounds
Buckwheat Crepes (traditional version)
Persian Cardamom Cookies
Rice Flour Muffin-Cakes
Pain aux Pruneaux
For Those Who Prefer Whole Grains
Russian Rye Cookies
Sweet Anise and Sugar Crispbreads
Whole Wheat Kouignaman
Whole Wheat Ciabatta
Large-Batch Whole Wheat Pan Loaves
Papaya-Almond Whole Wheat Bread
Galician Hearth Bread with Whole Corn
Great for Toast
Almond Milk Bread
Helen’s Special Raisin Bread
Robin’s Bread
Challah
Greek Easter Spiral
Velvety Bean Bread
Classics
Lemon Pound Cake
Challah
Rich and Sticky Buns
Chelsea Buns
Childhood Gingerbread with Molasses
Rugelach
New England Brown Bread
Leekie Pie
Butter Tarts
Exotic Flavors
Spicy Dal Crackers
Pain aux Pruneaux
Nigella-Date Hearth Breads
Tibetan Overnight Skillet Breads
Spicy Banana Rounds
Jamaican Coconut Pie
To Take as a Present
Banana-Coconut Bread for Pam
Ciabatta
Portuguese Egg Tarts
Fresh Quark Stollen
Lime Zest Macaroons
Mince Tarts
Butter Tarts
Chocolate Bread Batons
Hazelnut-Currant Boule