Real Baking with Rose Levy Beranbaum

There’s no time I enjoy living in New York more than December. (By the way, when a New Yorker says New York it means New York City.) Though the city is dramatic and often beautiful in all seasons, it is at its most spectacular when dressed for the holidays.

This week I walked uptown to a fascinating Austrian wine and food pairing from the Burgenland. As it was only two blocks away from Rockefeller Center I paused to enjoy the newly lit tree for 10 full minutes, with the same wide-eyed wonder as all the tourists surrounding me. I think the tree was all of 80 feet high but rose to 84 feet with the placement of the magnificent Swarovski crystal star on top.

The Austrian wine and food pairing was most successful because it demonstrated dramatically how the wine changes with the food that accompanies it. I loved the Heinrich St. Laurent 2005 by itself and with the Viennese fried chicken and especially with the accompanying sauce of lingonberries, but not when I sipped it with the Kobe beef roast where the Weninger Blaufränkisch Reserve 2003 which initially I had found quite closed suddenly blossomed. But the two biggest surprises were the sparkling grüner veltliner that went with all the hors d’oeuvres but was also extremely enjoyable by itself as was the Kracher 2003 TBA (short for trockenbeerenauslese for those who fear pronouncing it or want to boast extreme familiarity). Many people refer to this dessert wine as liquid gold and this particular one deserved the name in full. In fact it was so perfectly balanced between refreshing acidity and honeyed apricot sweetness it needed nothing at all to accompany it other than a willingness to fall to one’s knees in gratitude (difficult to do when seated).

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From the kitchen of Rose on 12.01.07 at 11:17 AM in Announcements
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first published in the April 2005 issue of Food Arts Magazine

It is a common misconception, which I have shared until very recently, that 100% whole wheat bread is by its very nature dense and bitter. On a trip to the Bay Area, while researching the story in this issue on the Bay Area bakeries, I was invited to an unusual bakery in Oakland: Vital Vittles, which specializes in kosher, organic, 100% whole wheat bread. They didn’t tell me why they had invited me until I tasted the bread and then Kass, the owner, admitted that it was to disprove what she had heard me say about whole wheat on the radio a year before when on tour for “The Bread Bible.”

To my amazement, the bread made with 100% whole wheat had the aroma of a new-mown lawn combined with freshly cut hay. Kass explained that the bitterness I had experienced was due to rancidity. It was absent in her bread because she used wheat berries ground the same day as baking the bread. A wheat berry can be decades old and if stored properly, will still be viable, the fats in the germ protected from oxidation by the bran, its outer coating. The moment the wheat berry is broken or ground, oxidation starts to take place. Most millers agree that once ground, the flour should be used within 3 days or held for 3 weeks due to certain enzymes that would render it undesirable for bread baking. Three months is the limit for shelf life of the whole wheat flour unless frozen. But for the best flavor, it is ideal to use it the day it is ground.

I immediately asked Kass for a few pounds of wheat berries and the day I returned home I started grinding and developing a recipe for 100% whole wheat bread. I discovered that the secret to lightness of the crumb was not only the freshness of the flour but also not allowing the dough to double during rising which tears the more fragile gluten. The result: This soft, moist, slightly chewy, crunchy with walnuts loaf that captures the true nutty-sweet multi-dimensional wheaty flavor of the grain.

Note: The average bread made with refined flour has about 66 percent hydration. This bread has almost 88 percent hydration due to the very absorbant bran. It is preferable to weigh the flour as no two flour mills grind the same, which would impact the volume significantly.

Continue reading "Rose Levy Beranbaum’s 100% Whole Wheat Epiphany Loaf" »

From the kitchen of Rose on 11.30.06 at 6:32 PM in Bread
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To my view, the pastry world is divided between two different personality types: chocolate and vanilla, chocolate reflecting the heavy hitters and vanilla the more subtle and complex. I love both flavors but if I had to chose only one it would be simple: vanilla wins hands down, not only because I love its flavor but because it is one of those rare synergistic ingredients that enhances others. If chocolate is king, then vanilla is queen. And it is indeed the power behind the throne. Where, after all, would chocolate be without vanilla to round out its harsher, coarser characteristics. And in the domain of ice cream, vanilla reigns supreme as our number one flavor.

The term plain vanilla is an absurdity. There is nothing plain about magic. Perhaps the concept came about because vanilla sauces and creams are often used as a base for other more intense flavors; but there is nothing plain about it at all. In fact, when it stands on its own as vanilla ice cream or vanilla pound cake, it is the very essence of purity and haunting floral flavor notes that make one yearn for the impossible while feeling utterly fulfilled in the moment.

Continue reading ""Rose's Vanilla Bible" for Food Arts Magazine" »

From the kitchen of Rose on 08.13.06 at 9:57 AM in Publications
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May 2005, Food Arts Magazine, Best Bakeries of the Bay Are

April 2005, Food Arts Magazine, a new 100% whole wheat walnut bread recipe to satisfy the new dietary guidelines

Food Arts, May 2004: Article on the new technology in thermometers

March 2005, Hemispheres Magazine (United In Flight Magazine) Bread story (with recipe on their website www.hemispheresmagazine.com, click on cyber bar)

Food Arts November 2003 pages 94 - 102: "Rose's Vanilla Bible"

Bride's Sept/October 2003 pages 169 – 171 Wedding Cakes

From the kitchen of Rose on 03.03.06 at 10:07 AM in Publications
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The following is an interview I did with Marguerite Thomas for IACP Food Forum, the publication of the International Association of Culinary Professionals. It was published in the early part of 2006. You can download the 500k PDF here.

Let's start with the beginning, The Cake Bible, the book that made your name when it came out in 1988. The Pastry Bible and The Bread Bible followed. Did you first come up with the concept of a book, or a series, and the "Bible" title, or did you write the first book and then you and your editors worked out that brilliant title?
I had it in back of my mind to do a "bible" sort of definitive book, and though the word "bible" did occur to me, I would never have had the temerity to call it that if, not for [the late food writer] Bert Greene, who was my best friend. He came up with the title entirely on his own. He insisted that I call it a bible because, he said, I was his muse and he knew that's what the book would be because of my approach to baking. I resisted at first, but when everyone at the publishing company starting calling it by this name -- and giving it more respect -- I started to reconsider.

It's hard to imagine not liking that title.
I asked the bicoastal restaurant consultant Clark Wolf, whose opinion I greatly valued, what he thought of it, and he said it would be like sticking my chin out and saying, "Here! Punch me!" This clever assessment helped me to realize that I believed 100 percent in what I was doing and that I was willing and ready to take it on the chin!

Was The Cake Bible your first book?
My first book was Romantic and Classic Cakes (Irena Chalmers Great American Cooking Schools Series, 1981). It was written on an IBM Selectric typewriter, and it was a great dress rehearsal for a larger book. I could never have written The Cake Bible, with all its depth and continuity, without a computer.

(More after the jump)

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From the kitchen of Rose on 03.02.06 at 9:09 AM in Press Mentions
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i'll update this blog entry with the current list of books that have recipes that i've written

REVISION: I have updated "The Cake Bible" for the first time since its publication almost 17 years ago. The update includes new chocolate information, the new types of yeast, and new sources for ingredients and equipment. Look for copies that indicate the revision on the cover.

"Mom's Secret Recipe File," pub date Mother's Day 2004, contributed 3 recipes

Fine Cooking Magazine issue 65, June/July 2004 "How to Make a Lattice Pie (with a wonderful new flaky, tender, and delicious pie crust and step-by-step photos on the making of the lattice so that even someone who has never made one before will see how easy it is)

"What Do Women Really Want: vol.1 Chocolate," by Donna Barstow, pub date May 2004, contributed the foreword.

"Food & Wine An Entire Year of Recipes 2004," page 333, contributed Christmas Sugar Cookies from "Rose's Christmas Cookies."

Food & Wine "Best of the Best the best recipes from the 25 best cookbooks of the year," pages 56 through 67 (from "The Bread Bible.")

"On Cooking a Textbook of Culinary Fundamentals, Fourth Edition, Pearson Prentice Hall, page 1078, excerpt from "The Cake Bble.

From the kitchen of Rose on 02.28.06 at 4:25 AM in Cookbooks
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