Blueberry Muffins

I remember the blueberry muffins my oma making being so good.  Recently I tried them and realized how wrong I was.  Alton Brown's muffins, however, are good but I thought I could give it a try to improve them; this recipe is based off his.  The almond paste and butter flavoring ensure that even if you don't get a blueberry in a bite it'll still be delicious.

12 1/2 oz cake flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup vanilla yogurt
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable or other neutral oil
1 egg
1 1/2 tbsp almond paste
1 tbsp butter flavoring
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
hefty pinch of salt

1. Sift or whisk the flour, baking soda, powder, and salt together.
2. In a blender combine the yogurt, sugars, oil, butter flavoring, egg, and almond paste and blend unto homogenized
3. Take a tablespoon of the flour mixture and toss the blueberries in it, this will keep the berries from sinking to the bottom.
3. Pour the wet stuff on the dry stuff, and stir it together as quickly and using as few strokes as possible. The more your stir, the tougher they get so best to minimize it.  Fold in the blueberries
4. fill muffin tins 3/4 of the way full and bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. serve warm with butter or clotted cream.

Duck Fat Brioche

People go nuts for duck fat and for good reason; it's delicious.  This recipe replaces some of the butter with duck fat; it doesn't end up as savory as you would think, and would make great french toast or bread pudding.  You end up with a lot of dough. I used 1/4 of it to make rolls with a dried fruit filling, and the rest to make the loaf.  Either version makes a delicious breakfast.

Starter
2 1/4 tsp dry active yeast
1/2 cup warm milk
1 cup AP flour
1 tbsp sugar

Dough
6 eggs
1/4 cup warm water
2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter, at room temperature (2 sticks)
1/2 duck fat, at room temperature
AP flour (lets say maybe 4 cups)

For the fruit fillings
6 oz dried figs
4 oz prunes
3 tbsp honey
2 tbsp ground almonds
1 1/2 tbsp dark rum
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground pepper
pinch of salt

1 egg beaten with 1 tbsp water
demerara sugar

For the starter
1. Mix the yeast, milk, and sugar together and let sit for 5 minutes. In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, mix in the flour. Let it rise, covered, for at least 2 hours.

For the dough
1. Mix the eggs and warm water together.
2. Put 2 cups of AP flour in the work bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, slowly drizzle in 2/3 of the egg mixture with the mixer on low speed to make a batter. add in the salt and sugar.
3. Work in the butter and duck fat into the batter slowly, bit by bit.
4. Slowly drizzle in the rest of the egg mixture.
5. Switch to a dough hook attachment, adding in about 1/2 a cup at a time, work in the AP flour until you get a soft elastic bowl of dough.  It'll be somewhat softer than most bread doughs because the duck fat is so liquid-y at room temperature.
6. Knead the starter and the dough together until completely homogenized. It's easier to do this with a combination of your hands and a bench scraper.
7. Let rise in a greased bowl, covered until doubled in size, about 2 1/2 hours. punch down and then chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes so the fats have a chance to harden up.

For the filling
1. Simply put all the ingredients for the fillings in a food processor and process until it makes a chunky paste.  This should be enough to fill about 1/4 of the dough.

For the Fruit Filled rolls
1. Take a bit of the dough, roughly the size of half of a fist. Roll it out into a circle
4-5 inches wide. Place about 1 1/2 tbsp of the filling in the center (one of the spring loaded fishers is great for this).  Wrap the dough around the filling and squish/twist it to make a seal.
2. Let rise for 30-45 minutes on the pan you are gonna bake them on.
3. Snip the top with kitchen shears to make a shallow X.  Brush with the egg wash and sprinkle with the demerara sugar.  Bake at 375 until golden brown, 15-20 minutes

For the loaf
1. Divide the dough into 9 pieces, rollin each out into a snake the length of the loaf pan. place them in the pan, 3 across, 3 stacks high. (a roll out a bit of the dough, cut it into strips and decorate the top with a lattice pattern, it makes it look way impressive)
2. Let Bench proof for 45 minutes.
3. Brush with the egg wash and sprinkle with the demerara sugar.  Bake at 375 until golden brown and a bamboo skewer comes out clean, about 50 minutes, turning it halfway through the baking time.

Pandan Infused Tang Zhong Rolls

When I think of great bread I think French, Italian, maybe even German and American but not from Asia; then I found out about Tangzhong bread.  It's a cooked paste made of flour and water and/or milk added to the bread dough.  It makes the bread extra fluffy and moist.  I use this little trick to finally make rolls as good as my great grandma (god I was sick of my mom telling me they're good but not as good as her grandma). Pandan leaf can be found frozen and possible fresh in some Asian markets.  According to my boyfriend it's normally paired with coconut milk but I thought the sorta musty flavor would taste great in a yeast bread.

For the Tangzhong paste
30 gm bread flour
1/2 cup whole milk
1 leaf of pandan, crumpled to bruise

For the Bread
60 gm sugar
1 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 cup whole milk, warmed to about 110 degrees
1 tbsp dried milk powder
1 package dried active yeast
3 tbsp butter, at room temperature, cut into pieces
1 tbsp garbanzo bean flour
300 gm bread flour*

1 egg + tbsp water for egg wash
course/flaky sea salt like flour de sel

It's sorta pointless to include a measurement for the flour; so many things can affect how much flour is needed (how old the flour is, how it was stored, when the wheat was grown, the weather the day your baking).  You'll just have to start with 300 gm and add more as it needs it, after a few tries you'll get how the dough should look.

1. To make the tangzhong paste, combine all the ingredients for the Tangzhong paste, tearing the pandan leaf into several pieces.  Cook over medium low heat until it thickens, discard the pandan leaf.
2. Combine the tangzhong paste, milk, sugar, yeast, egg, garbanzo bean flour and 100 gm of the flour.  Let the sponge (thats what this is called) rise for 30 minutes to 2 hours.
3. Mix in the salt and then the rest of the flour.  You'll probably need to add more flour.  The dough should be sticky but not too sticky, keep in mind as the flour has time to absorb the moisture and as the gluten is formed during the kneading it'll become less sticky and its easier to add more flour later than more water.
4. Using the dough hook knead until the gluten is formed. You can test by tearing off a small bit, work it between your fingers into a disk like you're making a small pizza.  If you can form a membrane thin enough that you can see light through it, its ready.
5. Still using the dough hook, work in the butter.
6. Flatten the dough and fold it into itself to create a continuous membrane around the dough mass.  Move to a greased bowl. Let the dough rise until doubled in size, about 2 hours. This goes faster if you place it in a cold oven and place a casserole dish on the floor of the oven/ bottom rack if an electric oven. Fill the casserole with boiling water; the hot water will create the warm humid environment yeast loves.
7. Preheat oven to 350. Punch down the dough.  Divide the dough into 9-12 equal pieces. Flatten each of the smaller dough pieces and form them like before.  Place each into a greased muffin tin. Let bench proof covered until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.
8. Make shallow slashes in the top of each roll.  I use kitchen shears to make an X in each one but there are several different patterns you can make (a square, parallel lines, spiraling lines).  Brush with the egg wash and sprinkle with the fleur de sel.
9. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until they are golden brown.