Baking with Kate
Aug 29, 2009 | From the kitchen of Rose
I brought a suitcase filled with flour, baking powder, and cake pans for our baking together experience.
Ginger cream scones seemed like a great idea as the ginger here is excellent and of course the double cream. This recipe is from the Pie and Pastry Bible and it worked quite well for the first batch.
Several days later, when I forgot to whip the cream, the scones turned into cookies--delicious but still flat as pancakes--no! make that crêpes! With US cream this does not happen as it is lower in butterfat.
Oliver's special request was for brioche. The dough couldn't have been more perfect but I wish I could say the same thing for my shaping technique. The loaf was a bit mishapen but no one seemed to mind--especially these two girls! Lesson learned, for brioche loaves best for the final shaping to press down the dough into a smaller rectangle and then roll it forward only once and pinch the seam instead of the usual three forward rolls. (I did this on my return and it worked perfectly.)
I baked this no knead bread in Normandy using the French flour recommended for hearth bread. It was flatter than any bread I've ever made. Oliver's Mom said she loved it better than any of the bakery French breads--isn't she sweet?! The flavor was good though.
Once we got to Devon I lost no time in making another loaf of no knead bread using the UK bread flour. Viva la différence!
This slice of the no knead bread reveals what great crumb structure. I discovered on my return home that using the same flour did not achieve the same results--in fact I needed to add extra flour as it was too wet. Kate unearthed some interesting research about fluoride (her water is not flouridated) and it's negative impact on gluten formation. So interesting!
The day of my departure I whipped up a beer bread (from my book which luckily Kate had) using the food processor. The dough was done in under 5 minutes and Kate baked it after bringing me to the airport. She's made it several times since. This was a special gift for Oliver as I knew he'd love it and I wanted to thank him for all the adventures. I used Guinness stout for the liquid.
I made Kate my favorite new cake from the upcoming book--the golden lemon almond cake. Since she didn't have a fluted tube pan I used the pumpkin pan, dividing the batter in two. It worked out perfectly--we gave one as a gift just as suggested in my book! We also made the basic yellow cake using US cake flour vs Kate flour vs one Kate had made with clotted cream which was excellent. Her Kate Flour really does work. But in a blind taste test I could detect the slightly floral quality that chlorine bleaching gives to cake flour.
Since rhubarb was in reason (I like this typo--of course I meant season) we made a compote and served it with one of the ginger scones (the cookie variety), clotted cream, and a slice of the génoise with lemon syrup I made to show Kate the technique for making this kind of cake.
Kate promised to make me ginger snaps (recipe on her blog) but we ran out of time. However, while Oliver, his Dad (who came up for a visit to meet me), and T went to the cheese shop in Topsham Kate whipped up a batch as a surprise. I took several home with me.
For lunch the last day Kate made the pasties she had promised. We ate them still warm while walking through the park. They were fantastic, hearty and comforting.
The dough has to be just right--strong enough to hold in the filling but fine enough to be tender. The filling is not cooked first so it can be juicy if it isn't allowed to sit and reabsorb the juices until just warm or room temperature. The dough was not a bit soggy.
Next visit we must try the Kate flour technique with all purpose flour as most of my cake recipes now use it.
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Rose in reply to comment from Kathleen
03/31/2010 11:22 PM
kathleen, it's a complicated answer: i'm taking a mental rest from writing as i don't have a new contract or deadline yet. but i can't stop thinking of ideas so it's not a complete rest. and also continuing active promotion of current book. thanks for asking!
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Kathleen in reply to comment from Rose Levy Beranbaum
03/25/2010 04:49 PM
Dear Rose,
Do you have another cake or baking book in the works? Or are you taking a well deserved rest from book writing?
Kathleen
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hector in reply to comment from Jeannette
03/24/2010 03:10 PM
aloha Jeannette, seems prohibitive and i don't see why prices wouldn't come down, specially when it hits the bargain USA market.
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Jeannette in reply to comment from hector
03/24/2010 03:04 PM
HI Hector, I'm not Kate obviously, but I have seen this Kenwood model advertised for sale here in the UK, but it is prohibitively expensive, to me anyway! I have a Kenwood stand mixer myself, it is 37 years old, and still works perfectly. I have been tempted to replace it with a new model but I hesitate because newer machines don't seem as sturdy as the older ones. As long as mine keeps on performing well I shall keep it.
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hector in reply to comment from Kate
03/24/2010 02:37 PM
http://www.kenwoodworld.com/en/CookingChef/
Greetings Kate, is this available on the UK? i can't wait to have one! and for one i thought Kenwood was leaving the stand mixer market. the ability to heat the mixer bowl via induction, is something i already do by placing my KitchenAid 6qt bowl directly on my induction stove.
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Rose
10/04/2009 04:20 PM
mamma po, i wrote to kate about the flour and here's what she said: Dove's Farm pasta flour (00), but I now prefer the 00 grade made from soft wheats by Molino Spadoni - Gran Mugnaio. I find it in the speciality sections of Sainsbury's supermarkets.
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Rose
10/03/2009 03:12 PM
josh, you're right--it doesn't take that long to mix the ingredients together but you are also building up the strength of the biga by developing the gluten.
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hector
08/30/2009 05:13 PM
Kate, let's hear from you!
ECL, the pouring shield of the 6 qt KA works VERY well, and I only put a piece of plastic wrap on the pourer opening or block it shut with my palm. Sometimes, to ensure things, I run a thin strip of plastic wrap between the closing center of the pouring shield and the mixer head. Unsure if the redesigned one piece pouring shield is as good thought!
For the 5qt, artisan or bowl lift, the pouring shield is USELESS!
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Kate
08/30/2009 03:50 PM
My mixer (and walls) give me the evil-eye every time I forget the tent now ;-)
We had a wonderful time together - these posts have brought back so many memories. I really must get my finger out and complete my own series of blog posts about our adventures!
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evilcakelady
08/30/2009 03:31 PM
Great photos of all the baking in action, and those girls are absolutely adorable!
Interesting fact about flouride and water. Portland water isn't flouridated either...very interesting.
(Zach, I enjoyed seeing Rose tent the mixer too! I thought to myself, "oh look! She really does tent the mixer!")
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hector
08/30/2009 02:45 PM
What I have been doing latelly to zero out ingredients jumping is to play human mixer and hold the flat beater, whisk, or dough hook with my hand. It works specially well with Rose's 2 stage mixing method.
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Zach Townsend
08/30/2009 02:21 PM
Yes -- and I love seeing it in action!
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hector
08/30/2009 02:17 PM
Tenting the stand mixer with plastic wrap is well documented on the cake bible and the pie and pastry bible!
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Zach Townsend
08/30/2009 01:42 PM
These are awesome photos and what a great process to see. The ginger cream scones look incredible, as does everything else.
One of the funnest things I noticed was the tent over the mixer. I don't know why I loved seeing that detail so much, but I did. :)
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Julie
08/30/2009 09:13 AM
Loved reading about what two bakers do when they meet! All those projects look like great fun, and with such educational results. Thank you for the tips about flouridated water and brioche loaf shaping.
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Josh S.
08/29/2009 11:59 PM
Hi Rose,
In the ciabatta recipe in the Bread Bible which I'm making now, you instruct to stir the ingredients for the biga "3 to 5 minutes or until smooth" and suggest similar times for a lot of the other pre-ferments in the book. 3 to 5 minutes seems like a very long time to me and in fact I set a timer because I wanted to be as exact as possible--and kept stirring the rather stiff biga for the duration of the time you suggest even though the mixture seemed perfectly combined after only a minute of mixing.
I realize that the moisture level in the flour, the kind of bowl and spatula you're using, etc. all has an impact on how long it takes to mix together, but I'm wondering if there is some other maybe scientific reason why you would want to stir a pre-ferment so long...like maybe trying to develop gluten or something like that?
Please enlighten me!
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Robyn
08/29/2009 05:56 PM
Have really enjoyed the vicarious trip in your company, thank you for taking the time to share with us over the series of posts.
In today's post it's the stacking cake racks that have caught my eye, they look great. Never seen anything like them here in NZ.
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Jeannette
08/29/2009 03:45 PM
Loved seeing these reports and pictures of your visit to Devon, reminds me of the lovely surprise we had meeting you there! And it's nice to see that even the queen of baking has some disappointments with some things, it makes the successes so much sweeter I think.
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hector
08/29/2009 01:13 PM
Lovelly posting, the best for the baker! I do notice that if I don't use my britta pitcher water for feeding my starter or when making bread, things slow down and are flatter. I can't wait to make your golden almond lux lemon cake, too!
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Anonymous
08/29/2009 12:30 PM
Lemon almond...c an hardly wait because that's my fave
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Alice
08/29/2009 11:09 AM
I love all your photos in this post.. feels like I am there with you. Sounds like a lovely time too! Looking forward to your golden almond lemon cake when your book is released.
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Mamma Po
08/29/2009 11:01 AM
All looks delicious. I'd love to know which baking flour you used whilst in the UK...From recommendations via comments on prior posts, I've just switched to the organic Doves Farm.
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Rose's Heavenly Cakes DVD Part 4
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