Holiday Food Fun
Merry Christmas!
We are having a wonderful Christmas Day! It is gray and overcast with occasional flurries, so once again a perfect day to cozy up inside or bundle up and go out to play.
I have a Christmas music playlist that is classic versions of the hymn like carols as well as some of the Hallelujah chorus so we kept an ear on the reason for the season :)
So, food!! Right around Thanksgiving, I gathered various baking supplies to start making some Christmas favorites. But the work thing got in the way and NOTHING, not a single Christmas cookie, was made.
Friday night, when I turned off the computer and officially started my holiday time off, I made a list:
All summer, off and on, I was craving Boston Cream Pie or eclairs … similar flavors. I had decided as the work week was ending that I’d make eclairs as I had time to make the choux pastry and cream and put it all together. As I was looking for a recipe, I came across the recipe for an Éclair cake: an ice box cake with layers of graham crackers and vanilla pudding, topped with Chocolate ganache. I remembered there was a recipe for graham crackers on Smitten Kitchen that was in the back of my mind to try. In addition to no unpronounceable ingredients, I used about 1/3 whole wheat pastry flour AND reduced the sugar a wee bit.
So – homemade graham crackers and homemade vanilla pudding lightened with stabilized whipped cream happened on Saturday. As a note to myself, I “rolled” the graham crackers like I roll the sourdough crackers I make: using my pasta roller. I thought the grahams would be softish and I could cut the baked irregular shapes. BUT, they were crisp and it was a bit of a mess getting them cut to fit. Next time, I’ll roll with a rolling pin and cut square. Flavor is wonderful and I will not be buying graham crackers again. Plus, easy!!
I made a small loaf sized version of the Éclair cake to see how all went together. I hoped that the irregular crackers would soften in the cream and all hold together but I thought if it was a mess, I’d remake the graham crackers. But all was well, so on Sunday I carried on!
Very good, hits all of the éclair buttons and I have more in the freezer when the craving hits again!
After tasting and re-tasting the eclair cake, sugar cookies kind of lost their appeal. And even though I knew it would be another very sweet thing, I saw Smitten Kitchen’s Baklava Babka and thus revised the remainder of my list:
The dough looked very like the brioche dough that is the basis for doughnuts and cinnamon rolls. And I’ve made both of those with a sweet, stiff sourdough starter … so I went sourdough/natural leaven for the recipe.
Sunday night I mixed the sweet starter: 90 grams flour, 20 grams brown sugar, 40 grams water and 25 grams of my sourdough starter. By Monday morning, it was nice and bubbly. I added the remainder of the recipe ingredients, adjusted for the starter, mixed and put it in the refrigerator for a long, cold ferment.
This morning, I got the dough out, let it warm up, prepared the filling, rolled and shaped. I wanted to make a pretty round like the Smitten Kitchen’s Baklava Babka , vs 2 loaves but I don’t have a tube pan.
Emmett helped me look for alternatives.
We settled on a springform pan with foil wadded up to hold the center open.
Fortunately, I followed Smitten Kitchen’s suggestion to cut off the ends of the rolls and bake those with the filling that spills out when you shape the babka. I say fortunately, because I baked those first and then got to eat some while waiting for the main event. The house smelled so good, it would have been torture to wait without a taste!
The Baklava Babka! Mine is probably less baklava-like than Smitten Kitchen’s as my dough got puffier and I probably did not roll it as thin – next time.
It is wonderful. Very sweet and thankfully it will freeze well as I’m about done with sweet. It is also a candidate for bread pudding and/or French toast :)
Spinach dip and Cranberry salsa remain on my list, but right now … believe it or not … I am not hungry!
Emmett says Merry Christmas and thank you Santa for the good chew!
Auggie says Merry Christmas, also and is thankful that Emmett is growing up and being less of a pain! (mostly…)