Baking Day! Whole Wheat and Molasses loaf and Fruit Crostata

Today I decided to try out an idea I found on The Kitchn for a biscuit crostata. They basically say "use your favorite biscuit recipe, then top with thinly sliced fruit." They used peaches, but since Dorothy doesn't like peach, I decided to go with apples.  Dorothy also suggested strawberry and kiwi, which sounded pretty nice as well. So off I went to the farmer's market for a load of fruit, and when I came home I started in.

For a biscuit recipe, I turned to Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for More Food, the companion to his earlier I'm Just Here for the Food.(1) In More Food, he breaks down baking into several "methods", including the Biscuit Method, the Creaming Method. and the Muffin method (among others). He explains the science behind what is happening, and why there are different techniques for different types of baked goods. After making this biscuit recipe, I don't know that I can ever make another. It's freakin' messy as a dough, and cutting it to make individual biscuits would be tricky, but even just making a sheet biscuit and cutting it yields an amazing result.

Fruit Crostata on Alton Brown's amazing biscuits

2 cups all purpose flour

4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

4 tbps (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, frozen

1 cup buttermilk (2)

1/3 cup plain yogurt (2)

1 egg

Sliced fruit (see below)

Sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 450°.

Mix the dry ingredients together well (pulsing in a food processor does this very well and very quickly). Use a box grater to grate the frozen butter, yielding butter shavings. Put the butter into the flour mixture and toss to spread around and coat the butter with flour.  Then use your fingertips to rub the butter and flour together until about half of the butter has disappeared into the flour. Put the bowl in the freezer.

Mix the wet ingredients together and beat well. Bring the bowl of flour back and pour the liquid in. Use a rubber or silicon spatula to mix it all together. When you are done you will have a very wet, sticky dough that is closer to a batter than what you usually think of as biscuit dough.

Lay out a 18-20 inch piece of waxed paper on the counter and dust it lightly with flour. Pour the batter into the center, and use the ends to fold the dough on top of itself. (The paper will protect your hands from getting the dough all stuck to them. Club hand is not your friend!) This is a somewhat messy process, and you'll need to watch that the dough doesn't escape out the top or bottom edge of the waxed paper. Give it about three or four folds from each side to get it "kneaded" and well mixed.

Now we have to get it onto the sheet pan(3). Since I wasn't cutting out biscuits that could be individually put onto the tray, I had to get creative. After a couple of false starts, I found a trick that worked: Get the dough spread out so that it is about 1/2 inch thick (don't worry about getting it uniform, it's not going to happen. Just estimate.) Dust the top with flour, then lay out a piece of parchment paper(4) on top of it. Carefully slide a cutting board underneath your waxed paper, then lay your sheet pan face down on top. Now flip! Peel back the waxed paper (yes, a fair amount of dough will be lost to the waxed paper. Sad, but true.) and you have a somewhat rectangular mass of biscuit dough ready to go.

For the topping you want fruit with some substance and strong flavor, sliced fairly thin. For the apple crostata quarter a medium to large Gala apple, slice the core off each quarter, peel them, then shave off very thin slices. Lay out to cover the biscuit and dust with a sprinkling (less than a tablespoon) of brown sugar and top with cinnamon. For the kiwi-strawberry crostata, peel and slice three kiwis and about slice about 8 strawberries (depending on size). Lay out to cover, alternating fruits, and dust with sugar. 

Bake for 15 minutes. Allow a few minutes to cool, then enjoy.

I also figured that as long as I was heating the oven up to 450°, I should take advantage of it and bake a loaf of a new favorite whole wheat bread I gleaned from James Beard's Beard on Bread. Pretty much any loaf I bake either comes directly from Beard or is based on one of his recipes. (One potato bread recipe has become a favorite of my family and neighbors, and I spend a week baking loaves to give as gifts.) This wheat loaf is amazingly simple, only requires a single rise, and happens to bake at 450°, meaning I could prep the loaf and let it rise while I made the crostatas, then just pop it right in the oven when the second crostata came out without having  to let the temperature adjust. It is also pretty unique in being made entirely from whole wheat, rather than a blend of whole wheat with all-purpose flour.

Fast Whole Wheat and Molasses bread

3 1/2 c whole wheat flour

1/4 c oat bran

1 tbsp salt

3 1/2 tsp yeast (1 1/2 packets)

2 tbsp molasses

2 cups warm water

Mix the flour, bran, and salt in a bowl and place in a cool oven(5) to warm up. Stir the molasses into 1/2 cup of the water and add the yeast to proof. Once the yeast is ready, pour into the bowl with the flour and add the remainder of the water. Stir to combine into a very wet, sticky dough.

Turn the oven up to 450° to preheat. 

Prepare a loaf pan with butter or non-stick spray, and put the dough in. Set somewhere warm to rise (should take an hour or two). Once the bread has doubled in bulk, put into the oven and bake for 45-50 minutes.

This bread has a great texture and lots of flavor. It is great as a dinner bread or for sandwiches.

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(1) I really can't recommend both of these books enough.  If I had to pare down to just five cooking related books, Brown's books would be two of them. They don't just list recipes, they teach you how to cook and why you do it that way.

(2) Brown strongly recommends using full-fat buttermilk and yogurt; however, when I went shopping I could only get lowfat or non-fat. I used the lowfat of both, and got great results.

(3) Technically, I'm using a quarter-sheet pan. If your oven holds a full sheet pan, I wanna come use your kitchen some time!

(4) Not waxed paper! Parchment paper is made with silicon, which is oven safe and won't stick to your dough. Waxed paper will melt and leave wax on your bread. Nasty!

(5) My oven has a "Keep Warm" setting that holds at about  170°. If you don't have this, turn your oven to its lowest setting and leave on for just a few minutes to warm up, then turn it off  for this step.