Brooks Bakes Bread

A novice breadmaker's adventures baking all 104 loaves from Beard on Bread

After one year and 104 recipes, I finished the Brooks Bakes Bread Project on March 27, 2012. You can still find me baking and cooking at my new blog, Tangled Up In Food.

Categories: Fried Cakes

Cake Doughnuts
February 18, 2012

by stacy

Published on: February 18, 2012

Categories: Cake Doughnuts, Fried Cakes

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“These fried cakes, which originated in New England, have been overwhelmingly popular in the American diet. Those of you who hark back to World War I will remember that the Salvation Army established itself in history with girls who carried doughnuts through to the trenches. People gave money for doughnut machines so they could be turned out by the thousands for the troops. Nowadays cake doughnuts are covered with chocolate and all kinds of icings, which are sometimes revolting.”
-James Beard, Beard on Bread

The recipe notes for Cake Doughnuts illustrate the two things that I absolutely love about James Beard’s books: how he provides cultural and historical context for the recipes, and how he is opinionated almost to the point of being a curmudgeon. After my experiences with almost setting oil on fire and managing to adhere dough to wax paper, Cake Doughnuts were the final Fried Cakes section recipe.

Here are the ingredients:

I halved the recipe, and substituted nutmeg for mace.

Last night, I mixed up my dough and left in refrigerator overnight to chill. The dough was similar in texture to a sugar cookie dough (and like sugar cookie dough, tasted pretty good).

This morning I rolled out the dough to a thickness of 1/4 inch and used my doughnut cutter to cut out some doughnuts and holes. Keeping in mind my previous frying experiences, I was very careful to maintain the oil temperature at 370 degrees and fried the holes for twice as long as the doughnuts to ensure that they baked all the way through.

I ended up with five very nice looking doughnuts:

and a corresponding number of holes:

Homemade Cake Doughnuts are delectable beyond anything you will find at the grocery store, or even Dunkin’ Doughnuts (and I say this as someone who would happily open the first Minnesota franchise). The outside is cooked to a crisp perfection, with a soft, sweetened inside. I think they’re wonderful plain; Mike frosted his with the maple glaze recipe from Maple Bars, and reports that the results were not revolting in the least.

Raised Doughnuts, Maple Bars, and Dough Gobs
January 28, 2012

by stacy

Published on: January 28, 2012

Categories: Dough Gobs, Fried Cakes, Maple Bars, Raised Doughnuts

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“[Raised Doughnuts] are old American standards and remain hearty, delicious tidbits for breakfast or for picnics or just between meal-snacking.”

“Maple bars are one of my great weaknesses, and I must confess that even now when I go to a bakery and see those luscious rectangles of fried dough with a maple glaze on them I am tempted to indulge and often do.”

“On Nantucket there used to be, and may still be for all I know, a summer hotel where on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays one could go and have dough gobs for breakfast. They were simply marvelous.”

-James Beard, Beard on Bread

Raised Doughnuts, Maple Bars, and Dough Gobs all use the same dough recipe; the only difference is the shape and the glaze in the case of Maple Bars. Since there is a limit to how much fried dough Mike and I can eat, I made one batch of dough, divided it into thirds, and used each portion for a different recipe.

Here are the ingredients:

Last night, I mixed up the dough, kneaded it lightly, and put it in the refrigerator to rise overnight.

This morning, I rolled out my dough and cut out a few doughnuts, some rectangles for the Maple Bars, and formed the rest into gobs. Then, I placed them on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper (as advised by the recipe) to rise for about an hour.

I ran into a major snag when I attempted to remove my dough from the wax paper: it was stuck. After several minutes of frustrating salvage attempts, I gave up, scraped all of the dough off, and re-formed my shapes. My advice is to skip the wax paper entirely and let the dough rise on a heavily floured board.

Heeding the lesson learned from Bunuelos, I was careful to monitor my oil temperature as I fried my various pastries. My results weren’t as aesthetically pleasing as I had hoped, but I was able to make some passable Raised Doughnuts, Maple Bars, and Dough Gobs.

While I let the pastries drain on paper towel, I mixed up half a recipe of a maple glaze using 1/2 cup of powdered sugar and about 3 tablespoons of real maple syrup.

Raised Doughnuts:

Maple Bars:

Dough Gobs:

These recipes taught me that there is a functional advantage to the hole in the center of a doughnut: it ensures that the pastry cooks evenly. Both the Maple Bars and the Dough Gobs were overdone on the outside, but still slightly doughy on the inside. Only the Raised Doughnuts cooked to perfection, inside and out. If I make doughnuts again, I would make them doughnuts shaped, but use the delicious maple glaze on top.

Bunuelos
January 28, 2012

by stacy

Published on: January 28, 2012

Categories: Bunuelos, Fried Cakes

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“Similar forms of this deep-fried pastry are found in Europe and Latin America…This version comes from Mexico.”
-James Beard, Beard on Bread

I have never deep-fried anything in my life. I am more likely to eat a salad than French fries, a bagel over a doughnut. But there is a “Fried Cakes” section in Beard on Bread, so on Thursday I embarked on a new culinary adventure.

I decided to start with Bunuelos because they looked to be the simplest of the fried cakes. In a rush of confidence after a particularly invigorating 5K run on the treadmill, I started baking at 9 pm on a work night.

Here are the ingredients:

I halved the recipe to yield about 16 Bunuelos.

I mixed the ingredients together to form a stiff dough, and then kneaded until it reached a smooth texture. Next, I divided the dough into 16 pieces and rolled each out into an approximation of a circle, about 1/4 inch thick. Now for the hard part: frying in oil.

I heated my canola oil up to what I though was the right temperature, judging by the fact that the mercury on my candy thermometer had surpassed “doughnut” (370 degrees Fahrenheit) and was off the chart. Why I thought this was the right temperature isn’t clear to me anymore. Maybe my logic was the hotter the better. Anyway, I placed two of the Bunuelos in the oil. Then the oil started smoking, a little at first, then a bit more, then before I knew it, black smoke had filled the kitchen and my eyes were burning. I had the intelligence to take the pot of oil off of the burner (my only redeeming moment of the whole debacle). Mike looked up “frying in oil” on his tablet while I opened all the windows.

“It’s a good thing you took the oil off of the burner when you did,” said Mike, “because once the oil gets 30 degrees hotter than the smoke point, it bursts into flames.”

At this point, it was 9:30 at night, we had to wake up for work at 6 am the next morning, our house was filled with smoke:

and my only two cooked Bunuelos looked like this:

But something (stubbornness? my type-A personality? a longing for fried dough?) made me heat up some more oil, carefully monitoring the temperature this time. I had to constantly adjust the burner temperature to keep the oil at a steady 370 degrees. But I was able to fry up some fairly nice looking Bunuelos, which I let drain on paper towel and sprinkled with powdered sugar and cinnamon.

Bunuelos are really, really good. They are deliciously fried and crispy on the outside, with a wonderfully soft center. I have to agree with Beard–they are “absolutely marvelous.”

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Brooks Bakes Bread

Cake Doughnuts February 18, 2012

Raised Doughnuts, Maple Bars, and Dough Gobs January 28, 2012

Bunuelos January 28, 2012

Cake Doughnuts
February 18, 2012

Raised Doughnuts, Maple Bars, and Dough Gobs
January 28, 2012

Bunuelos
January 28, 2012