Soooo...long time, no see is right. But let's take a poll, shall we? Raise your hand if you now know what a derecho is.
Mmmhmm...mmmhmmm...
That's what I thought. 100% of you living between Indiana and the East Coast raised your hands, plus a good number of those who live outside this area. For those of you who didn't raise your hands, a derecho is the biggest, windiest, most destructive storm short of a hurricane that you can think of. In fact, some of the winds present within the derecho were clocked at speeds that would qualify as Category 1 hurricane winds or F1 tornadoes. That's right. Hurricanes and tornadoes.
Needless to say this left me without a kitchen to bake in and, without the luck of parents who own a generator and had space in the freezer, would have left me with hundreds of dollars of wasted food. In the end I probably only lost about fifty dollars worth, which I know is a hugely lucky break. However, it has still taken almost three weeks to return to some sense of normalcy and actually bake and cook again. (And clean, and do laundry, and...) Although I have to tell you, as I write this, I keep glancing out the window at the pouring, sheeting rain thinking "No, not another one. Please, please, please, please give us rain but not another derecho!" We need the rain, we sure do, but I can tell you right now that with power pole supplies east of the Mississippi depleted we do NOT need the wind.
I know, I know, I hear your cries, "But where's the FOOD? You promised me food!" And I shall deliver. In fact, today I shall share with you one of my favorite doughs of all time. Those of you with a little Czech background have almost certainly heard of the klobasnek or the kolache. Those of you from Texas have also certainly heard of these, but by an incorrect name. What the Kolache Factory calls a kolache is, about fifty percent of the time, not.
What's the difference? A klobasnek (klobasnicky in the plural) is a soft yeasted dough wrapped around a savory filling. A kolache, on the other hand, is the same dough, but around a sweet filling, perhaps pie or (my personal favorite) poppyseed. The Resident Taste Tester, who grew up in Texas, has taken a while to learn the difference, but he knows he won't get any if he doesn't call them by their proper names. Of course, without him I probably wouldn't even know what a klobasnek or a kolache was, but once I had the traditional sausage and cheese variety I was bent on replicating them.
This search led to my favorite dough, so light and airy it is practically insubstantial. In fact, the next time I make klobasnicky, I may just have to make some without filling, just because. So here it is, dough for klobasnicky and kolaches. Try it with sausage, try it with poppyseed, try it plain - just be sure to try it.
Klobasnicky
The most important instructions for the following are those pertaining to the dough. For the fillings you may use anything that suits your fancy. I have made sausage and cheese, blueberry pie filling, and s'more varieties. I hope to make poppyseed kolaches when the filling shows back up in stores closer to the holidays. Also, a note about the dough. It WILL be sticky. You WILL make a bit of a mess. I would not add much extra flour, although you can use it on your hands to make the dough stick less.
1/4 cup warm water (about 115 degrees)
1 cup warm milk (about 115 degrees)
1/2 cup sugar
4 1/2 teaspoons yeast
1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 cup vegetable shortening (melted a cooled, but not resolidified)
1/4 cup warm milk (about 115 degrees)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 egg yolks
2 1/4 cups flour
Fillings of your choice
Warm the 1/4 cup water and 1 cup milk in a saucepan over medium heat to approximately 115 degrees. Stir together warm water, milk, sugar, yeast, and 1 3/4 cups flour and let raise for one hour in a warm place.
Add shortening, 1/4 cup warm milk, salt, yolks, and 2 1/4 cups flour. Beat until well-mixed and let raise again for approximately one hour or until doubled.
Stir the dough down to release the air. Prepare klobasnicky or kolaches. For klobasnicky, wrap sausage and cheese or other savory fillings entirely in the dough. Half of a good quality beef frank and a piece of cheese takes approximately a golf-ball-sized piece of dough. Do NOT overwrap. The dough expands in the oven. Traditional kolaches are formed by making an indentation in a ball of dough, then filling the indentation with filling such as lemon, strawberry, or poppyseed.
Let prepared pieces stand on greased cookie trays for 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Just prior to baking, you may coat the klobasnicky or kolaches with an egg wash made of one egg and a tablespoon of water. This is optional. Bake each tray for 15 minutes until pieces are golden brown. Remove with caution and allow to cool a bit before eating. Makes approximately 20.
Here is the problem with being a bit avante-garde in the kitchen: when you make something once and it turns out beautifully, you may never be able to make it turn out that way again. This situation doesn't totally apply to the recipe I am going to give you today, but there is one very important ingredient that the Resident Taste Tester and I believe I may have goofed unknowlingly the first time I made this bread, only to find the loaf lacking the second time I made it earlier this week.
Cardamom seems to be an acquired taste, a bit like anise (more on anise later. What? I'm half Italian, anise is bound to show up sooner or later!). In fact, the first time I made this bread, I wasn't sure I liked it. Neither was the Resident Taste Tester.
So we ate some.
And ate some.
And ate some more.
And in the end we both discovered that there is only one way to eat this bread - with a great big heaping spoonful of nutella slathered on top. I'm telling you, it's a beautiful way to go.
Then I made it again, just this Tuesday, and that's when the trouble started. I added a teaspoon of cardamom, just one teaspoon. Cardamom is quite strong as spices go, so that was a good amount.
It wasn't enough.
Somehow, someway, we are 99% positive that the first time I made it, I misread the recipe and made it with a tablespoon of cardamom, not a teaspoon. That would explain not only the lighter flavor, but the lighter color. No wonder we didn't know if we liked it! I wholeheartedly endorse using a tablespoon, but if you are unsure of whether or not you will like such a strong spice, by all means, use a teaspoon.
One final note. It is very possible that there will not be much in the way of recipes going up for at least a few weeks. For those of you living in your air conditioned offices and homes, it is a balmy 90 degrees out there with no signs of slowing. And we, unlike all of you, have no air conditioner. If you think you feel too hot to eat, just think how we feel. In fact, it was 74 in the house this morning when we got up at 6:30. It's 78 inside now. So I hope you'll forgive me, but the recipes may be few and far between, at least until I figure out how to cook outside over an open fire. Which may or may not be happening, depending on how desperate I get to eat something other than lunchmeat and grapes...
Cardamom Bread
This bread is actually meant to be made for Christmas in the shape of a wreath, but I found that it works just as well as two loaves. I will include the wreath-making instructions just in case you would like to try it that way, but the pictures here are for the loaves, and the loaves only, since I have never tried it any other way.
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon OR 1 tablespoon ground cardamom
2 packages active dry yeast
7(ish) cups of flour
1 cup butter or margarine
1 1/2 cups milk
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
In a mixer bowl, combine sugar, salt, cardamom, yeast, and 2 cups of the flour. In a 2 quart saucepan over medium heat, heat butter or margarine and milk until between 120 and 130 degrees. Turn mixer onto a low speed and beat liquids into the dry ingredients. Turn mixer speed to medium. Reserve one egg white and add the rest of the eggs to the mixer bowl with the mixer at a lower speed. Beat in almond extract and about 2 more cups of flour. Use a wooden spoon to stir in approximately 2 more cups, or as much flour as you can handle. Turn out and knead the dough on a well-floured surface, adding more flour until the dough is soft and elastic, perhaps even a little oily and does not stick to your hands. Place the dough in a greased bowl and allow to rise. The original recipe says that it takes an hour for the dough to double, but that is a lie. When the house is 74 degrees and it takes 2 hours to double, there is no way that a shorter amount of time will do. Go read a book. Take a bike ride. Lie in front of the fan and try not to pant. You're going to wait a while.
Punch down the dough (the above picture should prove that this is my favorite part). Turn out on a clean surface. Grease two loaf pans. Cut dough in half and shape into loaves. Place in pans. Allow to rise until doubled again, up to two hours. Read another book. Take another bike ride. I'm sure you'll find something to do. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brush loaves with reserved egg white. Bake for 1 hour, covering with foil for the last 15 minutes. The bread will still come out pretty dark on top, but do not be worried. This is perfectly normal.
Instructions for wreath (beginning after the first paragraph break above): Grease a large cookie sheet and the exterior of a 2 quart oven-safe bowl. Invert the bowl onto the sheet. Reserve a handful of dough. Mix egg white with a dash of milk. Roll the rest of the dough into a 30 inch rectangle. Roll longways into a rope and curl it around the bowl on the cookie sheet. Roll out the reserved dough and cut out holly leaves, then roll the scraps into balls. Position the leaves and balls on the wreath like holly berries. Affix them with the egg white and milk mixture. Allows to rise until double. Brush with egg white. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour.
