Monty would be Proud

As of this very minute, about 4 p.m. on Thursday Aug 25, 2011, the Yumarama Blog has just 24 of them to go before hitting the amazing milestone of

Yes, we’ve now received TWENTY THOUSAND Spam comments! Spam, spam, spam, spam and spam… as Monty Python said so many years back.

This blog started up back in April 2008 and in that time has seen a pretty steady increase of not just spammers but actual visitors as well. Although we’re not exactly Google-ish in visitor count, Continue reading “Monty would be Proud”

Changing Courses: Pro Baking on the Horizon

The Yumarama Bread Blog is about to see a slight change in focus. It seems, you see, that I’ve somehow got myself enrolled into a Professional Baking Course at the local university  – Vancouver Island University, a.k.a. VIU, a.k.a The Culinary Institute of Vancouver Island –  which happens to be literally 5 minutes away from home.

What’s the focus and how will it affect what I post here?

The course is focused on a number of baking practices and areas, aside from straight up bread making. The course outline states:

“In addition to theory courses, the program covers artisan and commercial breads, rolls, sweet yeast products, pies, puff pastry, cookies, cakes, decoration, icing and finishing, French pastries, muffins, cup cakes, marzipan and chocolate. Also covered in the program are safety, conventional kitchen skills, sanitation, personal skills, and elementary management procedures. Students will also be trained in the operation and use of our newly built wood-fired brick oven (the first in a Canadian Educational facility).”

Basically, it’s a “full on bakery” education, less emphasis on bread lab (where the primary focus would be delving intricately into specific kinds of breads) and more on learning overall production skills, managing time and creation of multiple types of baked goods. I’ll also be getting back into cakes which I had stepped away from for the last couple of years.

  

The main instructors are department head Mr. Martin Barnett (above, left) and Pastry Chef Ken Harper. 

Continue reading “Changing Courses: Pro Baking on the Horizon”

Luscious Lemon Curd

There I was, left with five naked lemons that had bravely given up their zest for use in last week’s delicious Lemon Pull Apart Bread. What to do with so many lemons, I thought? Lemon curd! Delicious, zippy, tasty lemon curd!.

If you’ve never had lemon curd, don’t be put off by its name: think of it as the tasty cousin of lemon meringue pie filling. In fact, some people use it as such. It’s a soft pudding texture loaded with fragrant and lemony yumminess.

And with just five ingredients, making up a batch is really easy!

After a surprisingly lengthy search and seeing some unusual videos, I located this recipe on YouTube from Larousse Cuisine, Larousse being a hugely respected French Cooking Academy:

Continue reading “Luscious Lemon Curd”

Pull Apart, Again. Now with more lemons!

Since the previous run at the Cinnamon Pull Apart – which has the complete recipe details and pics – was such a success (vanishing in about 12.6 minutes), I thought I’d give the Lemon version a go. The dough recipe is the same as the previous post so grab that there; the details of this lemon filling are a little bit further down here. For this post, we’ll catch up with the last part of the process since the basic dough instructions are exactly the same ast those for the Cinnamon version. Here we’ve got the stacked and filled pan. So what was different this time?

The dough itself began the same as the previous dough except this time I used the famed Bertinet “slap it around” Stretch and Fold method. Sort of surprisingly, it worked! What was a very wet, sticky sugary dough in not too much time became easy to handle. And I did it all by hand; no mixer used at all. This is where the Bertinet method really came in handy.

You can see the Bertinet video on the Stretch and Fold page.

Continue reading “Pull Apart, Again. Now with more lemons!”

Cinnamon Pull Apart Bread

Funky AND impressive looking while still relatively easy to put together, this is a tasty treat you can serve guests or family and pile up the accolades. And it makes the house smell great.

As there are several blogs out there with the step-by-step in photos, I’ll simply leave you to visit them to see the process; I’m adding lots of yummy photos and links at the end. The recipe below should still be a great guide to making this a go-to treat in your own home. I’ve included a gram and ounce conversion based on volume equivalent tables I’ve been able to find online.

Ingredients:

Dough:

Grams Oz Vol
446 g 15.7 oz 3 1/2 C All Purpose flour (2 3/4 C + more as needed)
53 g 2 oz 1/4 C granulated sugar
6 g 0.2 oz 2 1/4 tsp instant dry yeast (one pkg.)
2 g 0.07 oz 1/2 tsp salt
56 g 2 oz 1/4 C unsalted butter
75 g 2.6 oz 1/3 C milk
56 g 2 oz 1/4 C cool water
4 g 0.14 oz 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
100 g 3.5 oz 2 2 large eggs, room temp. (weight without shell)

TIP: To get cold eggs from the fridge to room temp quickly, place them in a bowl and cover them with ‘almost hot’ tap water before getting on with other prep. By the time you need them, they’ll have warmed up significantly.

Cinnamon Filling: Continue reading “Cinnamon Pull Apart Bread”