wheatgirl

Garlic Slathered Stretch Bread © MARCY GOLDMAN’s RECIPE from A Passion for Baking, Oxmoor House, 2007 (Pizza and Flatbreads Chapter) I am doing a first! I am contributing a recipe from my new cookbook, A Passion for Baking, (Oxmoor House 2007) as a public service to Egullet. No more pining or wondering about a bread that is the next best thing to….(fill in the blank and trust me, for me, it’s not Hagen Daaz). This simple white dough gets smeared with a garlicky past that bubbles up in the oven and then gets crisp and bakes up into a golden wonder. Leftovers can be sliced in sticks for dipping into marinara or used as a sandwich bread and pressed in a zesty Panini style snack. This has an Olive Garden sensibility about it. This is one of those make-it-once and then make it once a week thereafter recipes. No one remembers anything else about the food when this is served as part of the meal. It’s like the meal where time stands still…….I use Fermipan or Saf yeast for this bread and a bread machine is find for making the dough. For more on this or other recipe help, visit my site www.betterbaking.com where the Baker is IN, for questions. Dough 2 cups warm water 1 3/4 teaspoons rapid-rise yeast 1 3/4 teaspoons salt 4 teaspoons sugar 4 cups bread flour Garlic Slather Topping 6 cloves garlic, finely minced (I use more but I am starting you off ..s.l.o.w.) 1/2 teaspoon salt 2/3 cup mayonnaise 1 cup Parmesan cheese 3/8 teaspoon mixed Italian herbs 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil 2 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and drizzle with olive oil. In a mixer bowl, hand whisk the yeast and water together and let stand 2-3 minutes to dissolve the yeast. Briskly whisk in the salt, sugar and most of the flour to make a soft dough. Knead with dough hook on the lowest speed for 5-8 minutes, adding in more flour as necessary until dough is resilient but not tough. Remove the dough hook and spray the dough with nonstick cooking spray. Cover the entire mixer and bowl with a large, clear plastic bag. Let rise until doubled in size, 90 minutes to 3 hours. Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface and gently deflate the dough. Cover lightly with the clear, plastic bag and make the Garlic Slather Topping. For the Garlic Slather Toppoing, in a mortar and pestle, mash the garlic with the salt to a fine paste. Remove to a medium bowl. Fold in the mayonnaise, Parmesan cheese, herbs and olive oil. Divide dough in two portions. Stretch each to a long oval or 18 inches by 6 inches or so. Place on the prepared baking sheet, evenly spaced apart. Using the back of a spoon, spread the filling all over the top of each bread. Top each with the mozzarella cheese. Cover lightly with the large, clear plastic bag and let rise 60-90 minutes until puffy. Preheat the oven to 400 F. Bake until nicely golden on top and topping is sizzling, about 20-25 minutes. Makes two flatbreads which serves 2 greedy people of 6 polite diners.

I use bread machines quite often to prepare (but not bake) the dough. Chelsea buns are fine in the bread machine. I put in the water first and yeast, and cover that with 1 cup of flour. Swish it with a spoon and then add in the rest of the ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, salt, etc.) and mix to make a messy/mass of ..pudding/like dough. Let it stand about 5 minutes and then put the machine on DOUGH Mode and let it go. As it kneads/mixes, dust in a bit more flour, as required, to get a soft dough that holds in one soft/bouncy/ball. Then let it do its thing. Let it rise/When the machine beeps -gently deflate the dough on a counter top and continue on with the recipe (raisins or currants, rolling, forming and final rise) Good luck! wheatgirl from www.betterbaking.com (there is also a more modern Chelsea Bun in my cookbook but I also love vintage recipes)

hi, I adore dried fruit but I do agree, (and this is as a pastry chef) they are kind of ubiquious these days. Dried cranberries are the kiwis of the millennium. I often combine dried with fresh fruit and grind up a complete orange or clementin (in a sweet and sour approach)...so consider dried pear, dried cranberries, WHOLE fresh craberries, fresh quartered apples, and a ground orange - and cook that down in recipes calling for similar ingredients. The combo of fresh and dried, and the citrus perk it up. OR, combine dried apricots with Dijon mustard for a great pickled veal or roast ham topping. Hot and sweet is another way to go - and it is something with tomato, dried fruit, vinegar and chilis that would update or alter the sticky dried fruits for you. What is nice about the fruits is the body they add, nutrition, but the sheer bulk in a recipe, as well as flavor and glazing abilities. I also suggest finely finely diced raisins or dried anything - so that you get a bit of the flavor of these things but visually - do not encounter big hunks of dried fruit. Visuals are part of what you perceive flavor to me. And finely minced (almost confetti like) raisins or dried cherries, is a more subtle approach.

For a delectable hamtashen, please enjoy one of my own favorite Purim recipes at www.betterbaking.com. Bon appetit!

I have a luscious, tender, buttery, White Chocolate and Challah Bread Pudding at my website - I also have a Bread Pudding Muffins, there, and in my cookbook The Best of BetterBaking.Com....website is www.betterbaking.com. If you have trouble accessing it, email me.