cozonac, or hazelnut frangipane babka

cozonac is the romanian babka. it's traditionally made for all the big holidays. usually it's filled with walnuts, raisins, cubed turkish delight or cocoa. this past christmas i filled one with walnuts, and one with nutella and dried sour cherries. i wanted a new flavor for easter, and after some pondering i chose a hazelnut frangipane for one, and a drunken fig filling for the other. this was inspired by mark scarbrough's fig cookies. i used a mix of black mission figs, dried apricots and golden raisins. it's a great filling, but one that works best on a sturdy dough such as mark's biscotti, not on something that needs to rise and puff. it's a heavy mix, so i ended up with air pockets in the cozonac. not the most desirable effect, but still tasty. everybody loved the hazelnut frangipane, no flaws there.

this is not a spur-of-the-moment thing. you need to plan for it. it requires a half hour of furious kneading. (if your kid doesn't run in the kitchen all horror-stricken, you're not pounding hard enough). but once you got that part done, you can crack open a celebratory beer: prevailing wind is blowing. the recipe is here, and the only note is about the flour: the better the quality of it, the better your finished product will be. i typically use king arthur bread flour, even though some recipes call for plain flour.

i think the hazelnut frangipane recipe belongs to jacques pepin, but i'm not quite positive. i remember it was used in an apple tart, but where, i can't recall. you need one pound shelled hazelnuts, that's 454 gr. if you're lucky enough to find blanched ones, hooray for you, but if you don't it's really not a problem. toast the hazelnuts in a single layer, for 7-8 minutes at 375F. the skins will come off easily when you rub them with your fingers. it doesn't have to be perfect, you don't have to drive yourself crazy about it.

put the nuts in the food processor, with 3/4 cups sugar, 3 eggs, 3 tb butter and a ts vanilla. whizz until pulverized. i like a bit of texture, so i don't let it go to paste, i stop when it's still grainy. that's it. it's ready to be spread in the dough. i had a little bit left over, about 3/4 cup, but i promptly wrapped it up and put it in the freezer. it has aspirations of becoming the base lining in a sour cherry tart.

this is the fig filling. maybe it would have worked better had i used less, and i nearly wimped and did, but i had finished the celebratory beer by then, and i was feeling mucho macho.

the hazelnut one. very well balanced, the filling just a notch sweeter than the dough. this is exactly the kind of thing that pops into my mind when i hear the term 'home cooking'. it's comfort food, if not all desserts are comfort...

i love the crust. a lot of people sprinkle extra sugar or sesame seeds on top, but i like mine plain, with just the sheen given by the egg wash. what's more: cozonac makes a mean french toast or bread pudding when i have leftovers, which is rarely enough. not a bit goes to waste. i love food that permits a second shine.

artichoke beet pizza

i haven't cooked beets in a long time, and i don't even know how it's possible they slipped my mind. i saw this beet risotto on jessica's blog, apples and butter, and the beet invaded my mind like aliens taking over a host body. i made the risotto immediately, but it was so quickly polished off, there was no time for pictures. i'll make it again, it was kinda brilliant. the thing is, i got a bit carried away and i roasted a whole sheet of baby beets, a lot more than i needed for one dish. that's how this one got to be - a cross between the leftover beets and my daughter whining for pizza. the combo of beet and marinated artichoke is surprisingly good. it's excellent.

initially i didn't want to cook it, i was afraid these two have too much moisture and i'll end up with a soggy pie. it's all good as long as you keep them in a strainer for 15-20 minutes. as an alternative to roasting the beets, you can steam them. get small ones if possible, they cook faster and they're easier to peel. be careful with them, that juice staines right to the bone. once they're cooked and cooled, slice them thinly and put them in a mesh with the artichokes.

stretch the dough to the size and shape of your baking vehicle. spread with tomato-based pizza sauce. sprinkle a good handful of grated parmesan over it. then alternate slices of beet, artichoke and mushroom. don't overcrowd it. then take 4 or 5 springs of thyme and run your fingers against the stem to get the tiny leaves off, and sprinkle them evenly. i also used some chopped sage, but that's not as vital as the thyme. give it a grind of pepper and bake at 425F for 15-20 minutes.

it's the best of both worlds. your kid gets pizzzzaaaaa! and you get a few veggies in her, and a grown-up lunch. the spinach is dressed simply with olive oil, champagne vinegar, dijon and honey. it makes a great companion for the pizza but doesn't steal its thunder. i think it would be lovely with a few dots of goat cheese, and/or a few asparagus tips. i plan to turn all these ingredients into a panzanella, stat. the aliens are still eating my brain.

monkey bread

i saw this over at smitten kitchen. i have instantly fallen somersaulted in love with it. i had never heard of monkey bread before. i looked at the pictures and i felt like a kid who found proof santa is real after all. i simply can't understand how this is not something everybody knows about. [insert choice profanity here.] i think we shouldn't be allowed to graduate from childhood without having had a taste of this.

it's the perfect lazy sunday project. the dough needs to rise twice. we had a grand production tea during the first, me drinking my ubiquitous coffee, zhara her juice, and all her dolls were treated to crakers and dried apricots. when it was time to roll the monkey bread, i set up a playdough station for her so she could work, too. she loved that i kept saying monkey bread and demonstrated very noisily what it'd be like if we had an actual monkey in the kitchen.
as it always seems to happen with me, i started gathering my stuff and realized i didn't have enough all-purpose flour. i also didn't have any desire to change my fluffy fleece for freezing sleet, so i replaced half with whole wheat pastry flour. i only had dark brown sugar, and altough the original recipe advised against it, i decided to take my chances. finally, deb did a cream cheese glaze, but we ate the last of our cheese for breakfast, so i had to improvise and did a simple melted chocolate glaze instead. the rest of the recipe is unchanged.

4 tb/56 gr unsalted butter, 2 tb softened, 2 tb melted
1 cup/250 ml milk, warm
1/3 cup/90 ml water, warm
1/4 cup/55 gr granulated sugar
1 pk/ 2 1/4 ts dry yeast
3 1/4 cups/435 gr all-purpose flour,
2 ts/10 gr salt

for the brown sugar:
1 cup light brown sugar, or dark, it will be equally good
2 ts cinnamon
8 tb unsalted butter, melted

heat oven to 200F/100C. when it's warmed turn it off.
mix flour with salt in the food processor. in a separate bowl, mix milk, water, 2 tb melted butter, sugar and yeast. with the motor running slowly stream in over the flour. if it's too wet sprinkle some 2 tb additional flour, until the dough comes together into a ball, cleaning the sides of the robot. knead 15 seconds then turn into oiled bowl, cover with an oiled wrap and place in the warm oven to rise, about one hour, until doubled in size.
coat a bundt pan with the 2 tb softened butter. set aside. mix brown sugar with cinnamon. melt 8 tb of butter. now flip the dough onto a lightly floured counter and pat into 8 inch square. cut in 64 equal pieces, separating them as soon as they're cut. they'll morph back into a square if you don't. roll each piece to make it round. put each ball through melted butter, then sugar, then place it in the buttered pan. be sure to stagger the balls at the seams where they meet. cover tightly with wrap and put it back in the oven for another 50 to 70 minutes until puffy.

take the pan out and preheat the oven to 350F/177C. bake until the top is deep brown, 30 to 35 minutes. cool in the pan for a couple minutes and invert to a plate - any more and you'll have trouble getting it out. allow to cool for another 10 minutes, then glaze with whatever strikes your fancy. cream cheese is probably a good pairing and i might've tried it had i any cheese... even my chocolate supply was kinda low, so i combined 3 parts butterscotch chips + 1 part white chocolate chips + 1 part bittersweet 70% chocolate. melted those with a glug of milk and poured it all over. i should've probably thought ahead and put it on a rack, but i was already late and it didn't seem like such a big deal that some of it pooled in the inner circle. i ended up piling all of that on the last few pieces. i liked it very much, and i thought the whole wheat imparted a wonderfully subtle nutty background to it. the caramelized exterior would've been enough to convince me, glazed or not. to say it was good would be to trivialize things. so i'm not going to.

garlicky, lemony zucchini white pizza

i know, enough with the zucchini already, right? the thing is, i cook to order. the order of my bratty princess, who's realized all she has to do is ask, and food will just materialize on her plate. last night i had planned to feed her some leftover asparagus risotto. she loves it, except last night she just wouldn't take even a bite of it. so i started to name alternatives, which she shot down one by one. exasperated, i asked, what will you eat?!!! and she told me: pizza.
luckily i had picked up some dough at trader joe's. i was out of canned tomatoes so a red  sauce was out of the equation, but i had some leftover garlic alfredo, just enough to schmear it all over. i grated the zucchini, seasoned it and tossed it with the juice of half a lemon and some olive oil. then i put one gigantic garlic clove through the press and mixed that in. let it sit while i chopped some bacon and crumbled some feta. slapped everything on and baked it 20 minutes at 400F.

zhara ate three bites. i had plumes of smoke coming out of my ears by this point. she had a banana and went to bed. i had a slice. and my husband had the rest of it. in his defense, it was a skinny crust. why, it was almost flatbread.

roasted garlic bread

there's this bakery i stop by every now and then. it's nothing special, but they have a good cherry turnover and an amazing roasted garlic bread. i love this bread, it has a good crust and the inside is nice and chewy and dotted with whole, sweet roasted garlic cloves. only trouble is they make those loaves so damn small, i always feel like such a pig. and i can't buy more than one cause then it's like admitting up-front that one loaf is not enough bread for me. so yesterday, as i was pondering all this waiting for the cashier (though of a certain age, seemed to care very little about the little time she has left: took her foooorever to ring up my two items) and as the price came up on the screen, i felt the weightlessness of it. it, the paper my first crush stuck to my back in 5th grade, that said 'stoopid'. seriously, his name is romeo, and we did that whole thing where i shared my lunch and he pulled my pig tails but then he stuck this paper on my back and i was over him like that. [snaps fingers loudly] only this time, perhaps it was plastered to my forehead. that tiny loaf, have i mentioned the ridiculous price?! geez, i have all the ingredients in my cupboard. i really don't know what i was waiting for.

high on a chery turnover sugar rush i come home to research recipes. all the results were for garlic bread, meaning slices smeared with various garlicky spreads and baked. garlic sticks. i had no time to riffle through cook books. so i threw caution to the wind and tinkered with an existing cheese bread recipe i have. there's a certain texture i was looking for, this bread  is not spongy at all. i don't even like those breads you could compact into a tennis ball if you squeezed a little. i like hearty, crusty, consistent and this is all those things.

you can proceed with or without the cheese, but if you want it in be sure to get extra sharp aged cheddar. this time i used a mix of parmesan and this australian cheese i found at whole foods called fleur du nord which to me tastes a great deal like gruyere. does not work as good as sharp cheddar. and, for the love of good bread everywhere: if you don't have fresh rosemary just leave it out. i figured, eh, so what, i'll just use dry -despite my very bad track record of 'figuring' things on an empty stomach. i'll also try it with some whole wheat next time if i'm feeling extra adventurous.

so, preheat the oven to 400F. cut the tops of two whole heads of garlic, douse it with olive oil, wrap it in foil and roast for about 25 minutes. you want it good and tender, but still firm enough to gently squeeze out the entire clove. let cool.

for the dough:

4 1/3 cups bread flour

1 1/2 ts sea salt

1/2 cup warm water

1 ts caster sugar

1 cup to 1 1/2 cups warm milk (fat free works)

1/2 pack fresh yeast or 1 pack dry

4 oz extra sharp cheddar, about 1 cup, lightly packed

3 tb unsalted butter

1 tb chopped rosemary, optional

in a 2 cup liquid measure dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. let it sit until foamy, about 5 minutes.

shred the cheese in your processor. attach dough blade, add flour, salt and the butter cut in small pieces and pulse to combine. pour 1 cup milk over the yeast. with the thing running slowly stream in the yeast mixture as the flour absorbs it. use the additional quantity as needed, until the dough cleans the sides of the bowl. process another 45 seconds to knead. you'll have a smooth, firm dough that doesn't stick. put it in an oiled bowl, cover with oiled plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm spot for about 1 hour, 1 1/2, until double in size. (it may be triple. it's all good.)

when it's ready flaten it with your hands into a rectangle. take the first garlic head and squeeze violently. seriously. you want a paste to spread evenly all over the dough. if you manage to get intact cloves out, smush them. yeah, that's a culinary term. be very gentle with the second. these you want whole. dot the surface with cloves and then sprinkle rosemary. fresh rosemary. fresh. roll up the dough like a jelly roll and pinch the ends and the seam to seal. place in greased loaf pan, cover with oiled wrap and let rise another 45 minutes.
preheat oven to 375F at least 15 minutes prior. bake about 35 to 40 minutes, until loaf sonds hollow when tapped. cool on wire rack.

i made two smaller loaves. because i love bread fresh from the oven. i intended to freeze one, already baked and then you warm it up, from frozen. not a bad deal at all. but the first one was devoured so quickly, there was no point to it anymore. zhara loved it. mostly because she kept poking the garlic pocket in her slice and squealing, squishy! squishy! which is a favourite texture and word these days.

it's great for sandwiches and goes really well with soup. i'll be making this again and again. the curse of the stoopid has lifted. i think.

casual friday: onion pizza

although it's monday. i just like the expression. casual friday is any day you feel like slacking a little bit. or a day when your consort keeps imploring junk delivery. and once your child hears the word 'pizza' being uttered it doesn't leave her brain, not for a flying pony. are you to order pizza then? to quiet the revolution and to honor casual friday - which, stop kidding yourself: it's bound to come around once in a blue moon. ts, ts, ts. i would go without pizza forever [gasp!] rather than submitting to that pizza hut racket. on a mad day i'll buy the dough and skip a step and still make my own, thank you very much. (which is not to say i've never ordered pizza - just that each time i did, i ate it with a side of bitter regret).

now this is casual, remember? no measuring allowed. [taps pen against teeth] except for the dough, if you insist on making it yourself - leave a comment if you'd like my recipe.

preheat the oven to 400F. stretch the dough with your hands to fit whatever sheet/pan/stone you're using to bake it. spread with a few tablespoons pizza sauce. chop some bacon and scatter it across, then a cubed red pepper. crumble a chunk of feta - not a lot, say a piece the size of an egg. then grate some parmesan and sprinkle both cheeses on the pie. for the grand finale, thinly slice a medium onion, and spread it in a single, continuous layer on your cutting board. pour a little olive oil on top, sseason with salt and pepper, and mix it very well with your hands, crushing it a little as you go, as if you were kneading. distribute evenly on the pizza.

bake for about 20 to 25 minutes, depending on the thickness of your dough and the level of char you like on the top ingredients. serve with a green salad if you like. there were no leftovers. not a crumb.

The blue whale

A while ago I made this pizza while being on the phone the whole time. I honestly don't remember exactly what I did to it, and that caused me real, serious pain, cause it has to be the best one I ever made. I have since tried to recreate it, but of course it wasn't the same.

I know I caramelized a bunch of onions in the fat letf from frying the bacon; on the crust I put sauce and then a layer of thinly sliced zucchini, seasoned and tossed with a tbsp of olive oil; and then the onions, bacon, red peppers and feta cheese. The thin crust was crisp, and the edges were wonderfully puffed and soft, and that zucchini ... was tossed in lemon juice and olive oil. I'll have to redo this one right away, because Zhara loved it and ate a nice portion.

Which portion later got vomited all over her bedroom in the I-don't-want-to-sleep-even-though-I'm-dead-tired-and-it's-way-past-my-bedtime tantrums. She does this, when she gets upset, she vomits voluntarily and/or holds her breath until she passes out.

How nice of me to put this story in a food post. That pizza's not looking half as good  as it did before I remembered all this. Which is for the best, cause it's midnight and it's not wise or healthy to start on dough now. Eh. I must be not very smart.