Gruyere-Stuffed Crusty Loaves, King Arthur Flour Bakealong for March

This weekend I made the Gruyere-Stuffed Crusty Loaves that were the March recipe in the King Arthur Flour Bakealong. The recipe makes four little loaves of bread that are about four servings each, I would estimate. I baked two and froze the others for later.

This recipe took the most time of the three I've done so far. There was a lot of "inactive prep time" for the dough to rise and I kept thinking of the Great British Bake-off tent while I was waiting. On Saturday night, I made the starter. It was drier than the one on the King Arthur blog, even after resting overnight. Then I made the dough Sunday after grocery shopping - because we were out of bread flour and I needed to buy the cheese - and it needed to rise another two hours. After lunch, I shredded the cheese and patted out the dough. Once covered in shredded cheese, the dough was rolled up and sealed, then left to rise again for about 90 minutes. At last, I cut the roll into four slices and baked two in mid-afternoon. Luckily they turned out great and the one we ate right away was delicious. The cheese makes the slice taste a bit salty, and H. thought they reminded him of soft pretzels.

We reheated the second loaf today for lunch. It was still excellent. The next test will be whether the frozen ones turn out as well. They looked pretty sad and flat when I took them out of the freezer and wrapped them up today, but hopefully the dough is resilient.

Almond Puff Roll, King Arthur Flour Bakealong for April

 Since I don't have much time for baking during the academic year, I haven't participated in the earlier Bakelong recipes. I decided to go backwards while I wait for the new June recipe from King Arthur Flour. This was Almond Puff Loaf from April.

It was not hard and did not require any unusual ingredients. H and I went shopping for a new sofa in the morning, during some spring rain. We successfully bought a sofa (delivery in 3-5 weeks), and went to our favorite stores (World Market and Tuesday Morning) afterwards, then had lunch at Culver's. We were going to a friend's house after supper to play board games, but we had the whole afternoon available, so I decided to make the recipe.

First, I made the bottom crust, which is essentially a biscuit dough shaped into a flat rectangle. I didn't like this part because it was super sticky and I wasn't sure it was coming out properly. The top crust is a choix. I've never made one before, but it was easy. One spreads that on top of the sticky bottom layer with a spatula, and it looked a bit like whipped potato. Then one bakes for an hour and the choix puffs up into a rounded oval loaf. When you take that out of the oven and it starts to cool, it sinks and leaves a flatter pastry that is something like a Danish (without filling). Finally, you spread the loaves with jam (I used raspberry, which I bought at Tuesday Morning) and powdered sugar icing. Both the choix and the icing are flavored with almond.

These are the loaves before slicing. The pastry was light and flaky and not too sweet, but there was plenty of sweetness from the toppings. We took one loaf to board games and kept the other for ourselves. I still have a few cookies left from last weekend, but we're eating well. And it's raining again.

Rugelach, King Arthur Flour Bakealong for May

Yesterday afternoon I made some rugelach, a pastry I never heard of before discovering the King Arthur Flour Bakealong. They were surprisingly simple to make. I had to walk over to the neighborhood market for some supplies, but that was an opportunity to get a little exercise on a cloudy, drizzly afternoon. The dough is just butter, sour cream, and cream cheese mixed with flour. You roll it out and cover it with the filling, then cut it into wedges like a pizza and roll up the pieces to make these little crescents. The first photo above shows rugelach with a chocolate filling.

This next batch had a walnut-raisin-brown sugar filling. I wasn't sure I would like it, but it turned out lovely (and I accidentally made too much filling so I may need to make another batch of dough to use it up).

The third batch had my favorite filling: apple cinnamon. Made by grating an apple (I used a Fuji) and cooking it with cinnamon, cornstarch, and lemon juice until thickened. The grated apple was fantastic by itself, but delicious in the pastry.

I don't know how many of the Bakealong recipes I'll make this summer, but I'm going to shoot for one a week and see how that goes. King Arthur releases a new recipe every month, but I could always go back to a previous year for more, if I need to.

You Can't Go Back

The view from a colleague's office this week shows the new building looking dangerously like a building. There are dozens of contractors installing utilities and putting up frames for the walls. The floors were poured just before final exams. Now that the semester has ended, the construction has gotten intimately close. All the faculty with offices on the west end (those facing this sight) had to clean out and move their furniture this week. Some could just shift things away from the windows, others needed to completely empty the room. On Thursday, crews came to move the heaviest items into storage (in my labs, because where else?) and Friday different crews came to disconnect the heating fixtures and begin to build temporary walls. After the temporary walls are up, the exterior wall will be demolished and replaced with a new wall, which will form one side of the three-story atrium that eventually will join our existing building to the new construction. In the photo above, you can see the two bridges that will span the atrium so that we can get from one side to the other. My department will move up to the top floor.

We are all coming closer to accepting that this is happening. That we will have to move out of our offices next spring into temporary spaces, and that the building we've known for years (up to 30 years for some people) will be transformed into something different. Already, the new construction has made irreversible changes. The basement is no longer department storage and student study space: it has been gutted in preparation for the new mechanical equipment. Our rooftop greenhouse has been deconstructed and now one can look out over an almost-featureless rooftop from the hallway windows that used to provide a sunny view of tame jungle. Part of me wants to cling protectively to the familiar, shabby, grimy walls and fixtures. Another part of me knows that's silly and hopes that the shiny new stuff can help me forget the old stuff. This time of transition, which will last at least another year, is going to be difficult.

I spent the first half of the week finishing my grading and calculating final grades. I did some cleaning: throwing out decades-old sets of textbook transparencies, packing books for recycling, putting the detritus of the just-ended semester in order. Next week, I'll get serious about my summer goals. I have a list of about 18 things I want to do; that's not entirely realistic so we'll have to see how much I actually do.