A Good Bake: The Art and Science of Making Perfect Pastries, Cakes, Cookies, Pies, and Breads at Home: A Cookbook - Hardcover

Weller, Melissa; Carreno, Carolynn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1524733431 ISBN 13: 9781524733438

Verlag: Knopf, 2020

Inhaltsangabe

From the James Beard Award nominee, a comprehensive baking bible for the twenty-first century, with 120 scientifically grounded recipes for sweet and savory baked goods anyone can master.

"A very good combination: Baking science all of us can understand and a splendid collection of recipes. . . . A baker’s must!” —Dorie Greenspan, author of Dorie's Cookies and Everyday Dorie 


Melissa Weller is the baking superstar of our time. As the head baker at some of the best restaurants in the country, her takes on chocolate babka and sticky buns brought these classics back to life and kicked off a nationwide movement.

In A Good Bake, Weller shares her meticulously honed, carefully detailed recipes for producing impossibly delicious--and impossibly beautiful--baked goods. A chemical engineer before she became a baker, Weller uses her scientific background to explain the whys and hows of baking, so home cooks can achieve perfect results every time. Here are recipes both sweet (Pumpkin Layer Cake with Salted Caramel Buttercream and Brown Sugar Frosting) and savory (Khachapuri with Cheese, Baked Egg, and Nigella Seeds); beloved classics (Croissants and Chocolate Babka) and new sure-to-be favorites (Milk Chocolate and Raspberry Blondies)--as well as Salted Caramel Sticky Buns, of course . . . all written and tested for even the most novice home baker to re-create.

With gorgeous photographs by the award-winning Johnny Miller, and tutorials that demystify all of the stuff that sounds complicated, like working with yeast, sourdough starters, and laminating dough Weller's book is the one guide every home baker needs.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

MELISSA WELLER received a James Beard Award nomination for Outstanding Baker in 2016. A French Culinary Institute graduate, she trained at Babbo and Sullivan Street Bakery in New York City. She was chef-partner at High Street on Hudson; head baker at Per Se, Bouchon Bakery, and Roberta's; an owner and founder of Sadelle's; and the head baker at Walnut Street Café in Philadelphia. She lives in Brooklyn.
CAROLYNN CARREÑO is a James Beard award-winning journalist, the author of the cookbook Bowls of Plenty, and the co-author of thirteen cookbooks. She lives in San Diego and Mexico City.

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Milk Chocolate and Raspberry Blondies
 
Makes 2 dozen blondies
 
I’m not always fan of blondies. I often find them to be too sweet, but these are different. First, they are made with salted butter. Then they are dotted with raspberry jam, which is a bit tart, and sprinkled with sea salt, so they have a nice balance, and in my opinion, they really break the blondie mold.
Note: You will need an 8- x 12-inch baking pan to make this.
 
Nonstick cooking spray
All-purpose flour - 2 cups - 240 grams
Baking powder - 1 teaspoon - 5 grams
Milk chocolate - 8 ounces (1¼ cup milk chocolate chips) - 226 grams
Dark brown sugar - 1½ cups (lightly packed) - 300 grams
Large eggs – 2 - 100 grams
Salted butter, melted and cooled slightly - 16 tablespoons (2 sticks) - 226 grams
Pure vanilla extract - 2 teaspoons - 10 grams
Raspberry Jam (page 350; or store-bought) - ½ cup - 145 grams
Flaky sea salt (such as Maldon; optional) - 1 teaspoon for sprinkling
 
Get prepared
Arrange the oven racks so one is in the center position. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
 
Spray the bottom and sides of an 8- x 12-inch baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.
 
Whisk the flour and baking powder together in a small bowl and set aside.
 
Unless you are using chocolate chips, chop the chocolate into ⅜-inch pieces. Pass the chocolate through a fine-mesh strainer to sift out any dust and discard the dust.
 
Make the batter
Combine the brown sugar and eggs in a medium bowl and whisk until the mixture is smooth and lightened in color. Gradually add the butter, stirring with the whisk as you add it and taking care that it doesn’t slosh out of the bowl. Use the whisk to stir in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture and fold it in with a rubber spatula until almost no flour is visible. Add the chocolate and fold it in until the chocolate is evenly distributed and no flour is visible.
 
Bake the blondies
Using a rubber spatula, transfer the batter to the prepared pan. Use the spatula to get the batter into the corners of the pan and to smooth out the top. Drop in the jam in ½-teaspoon-size drops, distributing it over the surface of the batter. Draw a small paring knife back and forth through the batter, running it through the jam across the length of the pan and then back across the sides. Sprinkle the salt, if you are using it, over the top.
 
Place the blondies on the center rack of the oven and bake for about 30 minutes, until the batter has puffed up, rotating the pan from front to back halfway through the baking time. Remove the pan from the oven and put it on a cooling rack; let the blondies cool to room temperature in the pan. Use a large knife to cut the blondies into 24 equal pieces.
 
The blondies may not look completely set when they come out of the oven. Not overbaking them is the secret to a moist, chewy texture.
 
Store the blondies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week or freeze for up to 3 months.
 
 
 
 
New York Cheese Danishes
 
Makes 16 to 18 Danishes
 
These are New York Danishes, not to be confused with European-style Danishes, which are made from a dough similar to croissant dough, making them crispier and flakier. New York Danishes are softer, with a homier feel. They are about the size of a sticky bun, so there is a lot of filling relative to the amount of dough, which I like.
Note: You will need one large disposable pastry bag.
 
For the filling
Cream cheese, softened - 8 ounces - 226 grams
Granulated sugar - 1 tablespoon - 13 grams
Large egg yolk - 1 - 17 grams
For the dough
Master Recipe for Laminated Babka Dough (page 190) - 1 recipe
All-purpose flour for dusting
For finishing the Danishes
Large egg - 1 - 50 grams
Fine sea salt - big pinch
Apricot jam - 2 tablespoons
Water - 1 teaspoon
 
Make the filling
Put the cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or a food processor fitted with a metal blade) and mix on low speed to combine; don’t mix longer than necessary as you don’t want to aerate the mixture. Add the egg yolk and mix until it is blended in, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Transfer the filling to a large disposable pastry bag and refrigerate for about 2 hours,
until the filling sets up, and for up to 2 days.
 
Roll out the dough
Remove the laminated block of dough from the refrigerator and set it on the counter to rest for 20 to 30 minutes, until you can feel that the butter layers inside the dough are just becoming malleable (but not soft) when you bend the block slightly.
 
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
 
Lightly dust a large flat work surface with flour. Remove and discard the plastic wrap and place the dough on the floured surface with the long edge parallel to you. Lightly dust the top of the dough and the rolling pin with flour and roll the dough out to a rectangle that is 18 inches from side to side and 12 inches from top to bottom, dusting with flour as needed. (If the dough is springing back before you can roll it to those dimensions, transfer it to a parchment-lined baking sheet and refrigerate for 20 to 30 minutes to relax the gluten. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and continue rolling it out until you reach the correct dimensions.) Using a pastry wheel, trim the top, bottom, and sides so you have clean, straight edges. Use the trimmings to make Baked Trimmings (page 129) or discard them.
 
Using the pastry wheel, score the dough at every inch mark on the top and bottom edges. Using the straightedge as a guide, cut the dough into 16 to 18 (1-inch-wide) strips.
 
An unfloured surface gives you the surface tension you need to twist the dough. If the dough is sticking to the surface, which it will if the dough is warm, flour your hands.
 
Pick up one strip and lay it horizontally on a section of your work surface that has no flour on it. Twist both ends in opposite directions several times until the length of the strip is completely twisted. Place both hands gently on the twisted strip and move one hand toward you and the other hand away from you to get one more twist into the strip. Pick up the strip and coil it into a tight spiral. Bring the outside end of the coil underneath the Danish and pinch it together with the end that is at the center of the Danish. Place the Danish with the pinched coil underneath on one of the prepared baking sheets. Continue shaping the remaining Danishes in the same way, putting them on the baking sheets, with 2 to 3 inches between them, as you work.
 
Cover the baking sheets with damp, lightweight kitchen towels and set the pastries aside in a warm place to proof for 1½ to 2 hours, until they look puffy.
 
Finish and bake the Danishes
Arrange the oven racks so one is in the top third of the oven and the other is in the bottom third. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
 
Whisk the egg with the salt in a small bowl to make an egg wash. Brush the wash over the surface of each Danish; discard the remaining egg wash. Press both of your thumbs into the center of each Danish to create a flat-bottomed crater about 1½ inches wide.
 
Remove the pastry bag from the refrigerator and cut a ¾-inch opening at the tip. Pipe a heaping tablespoon of the filling to fill the center well of each Danish.
 
When you have filled all of the Danishes, use wet fingertips to dab down any peaks of cheese that were created during piping, as these will burn in the oven.
 
Place one baking sheet on each oven rack and...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Knopf
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2020
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1524733431
• ISBN 13: 9781524733438
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 496
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Purmerul LTD; https://strengholt.nl/en/; ; 22 Liuleburgaz Str., floor 4, app. 9; Plovdiv; Bulgarien