KimmyKokonut

Quite the variety!

Today we learned the ins and outs of sticky buns. Basically they are pretty easy but sticky and full of sugar. Lots of sugar. We used a yeasted dough which definitely put it ahead of Cinnabon refined processed crap. We made a schmear, which is basically melted butter, brown sugar and honey. The schmear was for heavily greasing the pans (large muffin size). We tossed pecans in the bottom of the pans (to become the tops of the buns). The dough was straightforward, a bulk proof followed by rolling out the dough into a rectangular shape, about 1/2″ wide. I spread melted butter over the entire surface and dusted, well more of a heavy layer of dust (dirt?) of cinnamon and sugar on top of the butter. We rolled the dough width-wise into a log and cut it into 1″ pieces. Then we let the buns proof until they were coming out of the pan.

Buns before proofing.

Bake until they are golden and gooey. Dump out of the pan so the sugar glazes the whole surface and eat! I’m not much of a sugar addict, so mine sat in the fridge for 4 days and I reheated it in the oven and it still tasted good.

Sticky-cinnaminny

The cracked corn bread we made had black pepper, red bell pepper, jalapeno and cayenne pepper. What fun! We used a medium coarse cornmeal, less coarse than polenta (even though the recipe called for cracked corn, it still came out fine). It had a sponge starter that was made the day before, but that was practically a 1:1 sourdough with some active yeast added to jump-start the action. The bread also had durum flour in it, which gave it a really nice color. My only photo is in the group shot, but don’t worry, it all got eaten.

Awaiting the oven.

Boiling dem bagels!

We also got to make bagels, but don’t get excited because they weren’t true bagels…at least not to me. I miss the nice Jewish doughy bagels of the East Coast, perhaps I can obtain an internship and bring good bagels to the West Coast? Every transplant I’ve met out here says they can’t get a decent bagel-I think the market already exists…

Quillisascut Hearth

Anyways, the bagels had malt powder in them which seems strange to me. It made it taste nice, but malt? Why? I think it acts as a sweetener. I remember the bagels I made at Quillisascut last summer were amazing. It helped that everything we made was amazing and the bagels were baked in an outside brick hearth oven. I didn’t get any photos of the process at school, but you can enjoy our bagel process at the farm. Same thing: knead dough, proof, shape, proof, boil, top with yummies, bake, eat.

The bagels were scaled at 4 oz each and rolled into a cylinder, then the ends were rolled together in the palm of one hand against the table. Our chef was very adement to make the bagel hole quite large, since they proof again and “it is important to have a bagel hole, not a sphincter; you don’t want asshole bagels.” (a direct quote). I think we were quite amused and ended up making the holes bigger than necessary. I kinda like my bagels to have a smaller hole-it adds to the doughy factor. We decorated our bagels with a variety of hawaiian sea salt, beet salt, sesame seeds, poppy seeds and kosher salt (not necessarily all on one bagel). They came out really golden and delicious and I think I have 2 left in the freezer awaiting a grumpy morning. I definitely advise you to try making it on your own, it’s really satisfying and the taste of a hot bagel out of the oven is scrumptious! I need to find my Quillisascut recipe and then I’ll post it. It was much closer to East Coast bagels than these were.