Babka Till You Dropka

I'd like to start off by saying that I had no idea, that I still knew the lyrics to this song, but after a classmate of mine (Hi J!) asked if anyone could remember who sang it (Skee-Lo, by the way), I was able to make my way through at least the first two verses.  Oh mid 90's rap...also, did you know that Skee-Lo is from Poughkeepsie, NY?  That just seems illogical to me.

Unfortunately, due to crazy storm activity this past weekend, Julie got stuck in Maryland an extra night and had to miss class on Monday.  Breads is actually not a terrible time to have to work alone because it's a lot of "hurry up and wait".  Hurry up to get the dough together, and then wait to let it rise, etc, so I did okay.  This is why I love my classmates though - they look out for you!  All day long on Monday, people kept checking in with me to see if I needed any help, if I was still mise en placing while they were already mixing, they'd offer to get my dough started for me.  Let's face it, I'm a lucky girl to go to school with such awesome people.  On a funnier note, Chef Katie was demoing (showing us how to shape/prep each bread) with my doughs all day (since I had extra with Julie not being there), and she was telling us about one of the doughs when all of the sudden I felt someone hit me square on the back and instinctively I yelled out in the otherwise quiet kitchen.  Apparently there was a giant bug on my back, and one of my classmates decided to kill it/swat it away without giving me a heads up because A. she didn't want to interrupt the lesson and B. she didn't think I'd yell, lol.  Highly amusing - she's still tell me that she saved my life, lucky me (haha).

Sun-dried tomato on the left, Garlic-herb on the right

Awesome bakers carry their breads in LionBrand Yarn Bags

We also made delicious foccacia bread.  The recipe was actually for olive foccacia bread, but since I was alone that day and neither Dave or I are olive fans, Chef Katie said that I didn't have to add them.  So instead, I soaked a bunch of fresh rosemary in olive oil, and then brushed it across the top before baking.  Delicious!

Today we were working with rich doughs, kugelhopf, babka and stollen.  Kugelhopf (don't hassle the hoff!!) is a ring-shaped bread that's usually attributed to Germany and Austrian origins.  It, like many of the other breads made today, contains raisins (much to Dave's chagrin), and before you put the dough in the pan you brush the entire pan with melted butter and covered sliced almonds.  That way when the dough rises while baking, the entire outside and inside rings, as well as the bottom will be covered with almonds - yum!

Ring, Ring...Hopf phone!

As tasty as babka is - I'm going to admit it, I hated making the sweet dough that's used to make babka and stollen today.  It was highly frustrating, and it took us all day to make 2 breads!!  That's just crazy-talk. We made a traditional Eastern-European Jewish version of the babka - a few raisins, but mostly chocolate filling.  We brushed the dough with butter, sprinkled it with the chocolate, cinnamon-sugar and then streusel.  Then, we rolled up the dough and shaped it into rings, brushed with more butter (yum!) and streusel.  Like I said, they're a pain, but sooooo worth it.

Deliciousness

Then we made stollen, which just seems like a weird bread to me.  It's a traditional German Christmas cake that's generously filled with raisins and glaceed fruit.  It just keeps reminding me of my Mom making 5 bajillion fruitcakes every winter, all the while insisting that her fruitcakes are awesome, unlike all the others.  I'm sure she's reading this now, saying, "but they are great!" (Love you Mom!)  I just can't get into the glaceed fruit, it just keeps making me think of Jim Gaffigan's stance on fruitcake.  Fruit = good, Cake = great, fruitcake = nasty crap (skip ahead to minute 4:18).  The way it's shaped and panned also looks kind of funny to me - doesn't it kind of look like a mouth to you?  Crazy stollen...

At least the day is over.  This weekend was fun though, Dave and I had our friends Josh and Rachel over this past Sunday for a super-tasty, homemade brunch.  We were going to go out, but then I realized, "Hey, I have tons of stuff that I made in class, why go out when we can eat, drink and play ridiculous games at home?"  Why indeed!  We had some insanely delicious pecan sticky buns, that I reheated in the oven and drizzled a little flat icing over

pre-icing

Then I made a really tasty quiche with gruyere cheese and carmelized onions, while Dave made french toast with my leftover cinnamon-raisin bread and grilled up some turkey sausages.  All-in-all, a pretty great way to spend a Sunday. 

Plus, Dave and I found out that, apparently, we're known to Rachel's parents as "team cupcake".  I don't know what's funnier, being known as team cupcake, or seeing Dave's reaction to being called team cupcake.

Goodnight friends!