Brioche is Not That Hard

I've had the pans for years. They come out of the cabinet for many holidays and I eye them and consider actually using them. This Easter I finally did it. I've read how wonderful good brioche is and figured that since I have a bread maker most of the work could be done for me. Being a purist is not something I worry about. So, here's the recipe I used from Taste and Tell. The original instructions are very, very long and detailed but I just proofed the yeast and then dumped everything in the breadmaker. Of course I set it on manual because I wasn't baking it in the breadmaker. One thing that is important is to let the bread rise over night - which I did. The brioche came out great and I got lots of compliments. I left the "heads" off for simplicity's sake. I took some advice from Askville on this.

During my search for info on brioche I discovered Once Upon a Plate.blogspot. The photography is seriously gorgeous.

Rich Man's Brioche from The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart

Sponge
1/2 cup unbleached bread flour
1 tablespoon instant yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm whole milk

Dough
5 large eggs, slightly beaten
3 1/2 cups unbleached bread flour
2 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 egg, whisked until frothy, for egg wash

Another Light and Easy Appetizer

I was in Costco yesterday and went by the giant crab display which got me thinking,
"I love crab. How can I work that into Easter somehow?" Endive as a crab delivery vehicle, that's how, wasabi optional. I found this idea on the Eating Well site.

Thoughts on Easter Appetizers

I always need to have appetizers. Actually, I'd rather just have appetizers than the big meal. They're so much more interesting. So, I'm having an Easter gathering with eight people, or so. The appetizers should be light - I'm thinking veggies are good, but they need to be different. Here's my list of possibilities:

Artichoke - I'll pull the leaves off this year. Only my SO ate them because the pulling was too hard to deal with.

Sugar Snap Peas with Sesame -

Once Upon a Plate.blogspot has a nice recipe, and her photography is lovely.

And then there are the salmon cucumber bites I made last year, or should I put the salmon on pumpernickle for a change? Pioneer Woman took an artistic shot that inspired me with the pumpernickle.

Wouldn't carrots - with the stems be cute on a bunny platter?? And how can I use the multitude of spring cookie cutters? Maybe cutting and baking tortillas would work?

Fresh Cherry Pie

The day after my neice's party we went cherry picking. The season was just finishing up so we had to do a bit of hunting. It was great fun and there were quite a few varieties of cherries. I kept taking pictures hoping they'd be fabulously artistic (Ha!)

I've also never made a cherry pie, especially from fresh cherries. There is one obstacle between the picking and the pie - the pitting. Since this might be the last time I cherry I didn't want to invest in a unitasker like a pitter. My research uncovered one recomendation to use a paper clip to pry out the pit. It took me forever to get a cupful of cherries. I hightailed it to Bristol Farms and picked up a pitter for around $3.00 and proceeded to kick myself for not doing that in the first place. Much better.

My sister had a great recipe and it came out nicely. My SO gets the cheapest pie turnover pastry things in the store so this pie was a special treat.

Here's the recipe:

1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
4 tablespoons quick-cooking tapioca
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup white sugar
4 cups pitted cherries
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C). Place bottom crust in piepan. Set top crust aside, covered.

In a large mixing bowl combine tapioca, salt, sugar, cherries and extracts. Let stand 15 minutes. Turn out into bottom crust and dot with butter. Cover with top crust, flute edges and cut vents in top. Place pie on a foil lined cookie sheet --- in case of drips! Bake for 50 minutes in the preheated oven, until golden brown.

Did you know they've changed the formula for Crisco? That was the sure fire ingredient for a good pie crust. They took out the trans fats and now it makes a greasy instead of flaky crust. This formula change is causing all sorts of problems. Melinda Lee talked about it on her show last weekend.