pancake batter, sugar brioche, and cinnamon rolls

I did not talk about it the last time I posted, but my house sat under the smoke from the chemical fire in Deer Park, Texas.  Allergies are always bad this time of year but I could taste the chemicals in the back of my throat.  The government was saying the air quality was moderate but I have an acquaintance who is a neurologist and she said the numbers of people coming to the hospital with strange things was way up.  I got sick. 

My allergies changed into something that had fever.  Every adult I was around with that fever caught crud.  It has been an interesting week trying to care of short people.  And I swear Blue was some type of prehistoric marine mammal in a previous life.  He likes to spend an hour in warm water if you let him!

But while this has been going on with life, I have been trying to keep up with bread.  I have now come to the conclusion that my hot cross bun recipe translates into many lovely things.

The hot cross buns have walnuts and cranberries in the recipe.  I leave those out it the dough becomes many things.  I leave it as a batter, it becomes pancakes.  The plain dough makes lovely sugar brioche.  And after eating lovely sugar brioche in New Orleans, I wish some in my own kitchen.  I laminate the plain dough with butter and swirl in cinnamon and brown sugar, it becomes cinnamon rolls that are better then what can be purchased out.

pancake batter, sugar brioche, and cinnamon rolls

Note:  I started with the hot cross bun recipe from Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book.  I have tweaked to use sourdough and make the dough richer.  

a couple tablespoons of sourdough starter

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup water

3 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons salt

3 cups flour (no more, even for kneading)

1/4 to a 1/2 cup butter

In a large bowl, about eight hours before you want to make pancakes, mix the starter, buttermilk, water, and three cups of water together.  Cover and put in a warm place to become bubbly.  Depending on how warm your kitchen is, eight hours is a good guess but it could be less or more.

Take out a couple of tablespoons of the starter and mix back into your starter jar.

Into the bowl, put the sugar, eggs, and salt.  Mix well.

At this point, take the amount of batter out of the bowl that you would like to become pancakes.  I put it into a quart canning jar.  If the dough is stiff due to the water content of the flour, I will add some more buttermilk to thin it.  Remember, the dough is yeasted so it is still growing.  Leave plenty of room or it will explode in the refrigerator.  It is a mess to clean up.  And yes, it has happened to me.

When you are ready for pancakes, warm up a griddle on a mediume low heat.  Melt butter.  Drop the batter by tablespoons on to the griddle.  Koda Bear usually eat nine to twelve before school and I am a genius for making sure there is pancake batter every morning!

To the rest of the dough, mix in 2 cups flour.  It should start being a soft dough.  Add another 1/2 cup if it is too soft.  Turn it out on to a clean surface and knead until it starts to become smooth.

Put the butter on the counter and beat it flat.  I fold it, sprinkle with flour, and beat it again.  Sometimes, I beat it with my hand.  Sometimes with my rolling pin.  I am going for soft pliable butter.  The little bit of flour will let it be kneaded into the dough easier which is what I do next.  I knead the butter into the dough until the dough is smooth and the butter is well incorporated.

Put the dough into a ziploc bag and refrigerate at least over night.  Refrigerating for 24 hours is good too.

When the dough has been refrigerated, make buns or cinnamon rolls.  Follow my cinnamon roll directions for shaping and baking.  I will have to change that because I have been laminating 1/2 cup of butter into my cinnamon rolls.  It really takes it to the next level but I have not taken enough pictures.

If you make sugar brioche, this dough balls are much too big.  Make them about golf ball size.  Because the dough is cold, it may take all day for the dough to rise and get puffy.

Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes.  I do not preheat.  The bun needs to be golden.

I am still experimenting with how to add the sugar.  Currently, I am using a egg white wash and granulated sugar while the bun is still warm.  I will continue to experiment with it.

I am trying a new brioche recipe this week but I will be surprised if it is as good as this.  Why do I try?  Because other people rave.  And I know everyone has different tastes.  Why not try?

I am making sugar brioche for my birthday breakfast.  It will be a day of food I wish to eat!

my odd travels

My bag and I went on our travels.  It was the first time I slept in the back of the new Subaru.  And I was glad to be above the ground because the ground was saturated!  But saying that, I did not realize how different the angles were in the new car versus the old car.  I am going to have to go about making my bed differently in the future.  I kept trying to slide out the back!

Noticed I said the ground was saturated.  I ended up in New Orleans with rain.  Lots of rain.  So instead of trying to cook outside in the rain, I went into a restaurant.  The one I hoped to go to is no longer but I went to another that was quite good.  Aranas on Magazine.  It was loud but so loud I could not interact with anyone if I did not wish to.  I sat at the bar and ate and crocheted.  I talked with the chef about knives.  I had actually spent time in a bar with him many moons ago.  I always said I would try his place and now I have.  I was very surprised he remembered me.

The next day I tried to go to the art show that I wished to.

Come to find out, the gallery was attached to a public school in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans and was not open.  I was disappointed.  But I did find out interesting historical facts.  The gentleman portrayed in blue on the mural was Homer Plessy.  In 1892, he board the all white car of a passenger train.  The decision of the Supreme Court in his case was the foundation for Brown vs the Board of Education and desegregated schools.  To me, this is huge because I was part of desegregation in the late 1970's, early 80's.  I was the white girl who got bused to the inner city school.  It was interesting to see where some of what I experienced started in a historical sense.

And there were good views of the Mississippi river.

Otherwise, I tried some good food and drove home.  I am going to try to recreate those sugar brioche in that picture.  So good.  I am close!  That recipe is going to be interesting just because I use it for so many things.

I need more traveling in my future.  I may try to go to that show later in the month.  I may just try to go camping out west.  Both are possibilities.  The odd travels are interesting and I do enjoy them.

traveling bag

I was working on a shawl watching videos on Instagram and I had an urge.  No, it was a compulsion.  I decided to make myself a leather messenger style bag.  A traveling bag. 

I blame it all on Jason Momoa.  He carries a saddle bag most places and in on of his movies.  I decided I needed something similar.  I have the skills.  There were supplies.  Why not!

I ask the boyos what leather I could use and they picked this.  It will change color as I use it into something I like better.  Or I can always add black or dark brown leather dye to it.  I liked the cow shaped edges so I tried to incorporate them as much as possible.

  

I used the dimensions from my grocery bags.  A little bit bigger actually.  Because it was my traveling bag of course.  I sewed it on my treadle sewing machine.  It was a little bit difficult but not too bad.

The most difficult part was how heavy it was!

I also gave it two inches of depth which I normally do not do with my grocery bags.

I had an elk button from a Turkish coat I had my to wear to Renaissance fairs but took it part a few months ago.

Two pockets.  Wrap tie closure.  It is pretty lovely.  I am very excited to use it tomorrow.  I am traveling to New Orleans to see an art installation done by India Flint.  Since she is Australia based, this is one of the few US locations she will be showing at.  

I am VERY excited!

annotto as dye

There has been a lot of velociraptor holding going on here.  He settles for me when he will not settle for anyone else.  It makes life a bit interesting.  And life feels a lot like I should be holding be holding on with both hand while the road winds.  It is good and I am grateful but it is a ride.

Which means things I am working on are taking more time then I thought they would because time and attention.  Dye pots are fun because I just have to remember to stir them.  I had a friend ask me if I ever dyed with annotto.  I told her I had cooked with it but I had not tried dyeing with it.  

That conversation made me curious.  I went to the grocery store and all I could find was ground annotto but I decided I could work with that anyhow.  I have been looking for oranges so why not.

I took a picture of the silk I dyed while it was wet.  It is much more intense this way.  I would like to see if adding more annotto to the pot makes it more intense.

I did dye some cotton.  One piece was also dyed with iron added to the pot.  I wish to add more plant dyed fabrics to my quilts.  In another words, taking a long process and making it even longer.  Yes, that sounds about right!  But I enjoy it very much and it makes me happy so I think that is what truly matters.  

I have a pot of eucalyptus going right now.  I stirred it today and decided to let it go longer.  I will be curious to see how it turns out.  I hope to attend an art installation this coming weekend with lots of plant dyed and printed pieces.  I am pretty sure I can make it happen but there is those curves in the road that come up.  Since it is in a different city and would require a small road trip, I am keeping my fingers crossed!

Mondays and cooking the wolf

I recently talked about keeping food around for when people are hungry.  Soup is really one of my go tos.  But what happens when no one know what is for dinner?  I start looking through the refrigerator to find something to make into dinner.  None of us are very found of going out.  

Lately, I find I have been making casseroles that are rifting on Mexican flavors.  I try to keep a couple jars of cooked beans in the refrigerator at all times.  That way I CAN have soup any time I wish.  There is normally cheese and recently, there have been tortillas.  The boyos find they are a helpful side.  If there are any meat bits, they can go in.  I can add vegetables if there is something that fits the flavors.  Then the possibilities are endless.

The one pictured above is quite simple.  I really only had tortillas, cheese, and beans.  But I warmed the beans, flavored them milder then I normally do and added oregano, and layered with cheese and tortillas.  I popped it into the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit until bubbly.  It tasted like enfrijoladas but in a casserole.  The only problem was there was not enough leftover for the boyos lunches.

One that I did not take a picture of, I used a green chili enchilada sauce as a base.  And soup. I used soup as one of the layers.  It was put together very similarly to the first one but I think I had a little leftover ground beef.  It tasted totally different.  But this time there was enough for the boyos the next day.  Then my Beloved started figuring how cheap it was to feed the crew for two meals.  It was about $3 a meal per person.  He was comparing this to going out.  But it was food that was close to being inedible.

This last week, I made something that was vegetarian again because I had no leftover meat bits.  I did have some cream cheese that was close to going bad so I blended that with a jar of cooked beans to be used as a sauce.  I heated four jars of plain beans and seasoned them spicy this time.  I had Koda Bear grate cheese for me and he and my Beloved layered beans, cheese, bean sauce, salsa, and tortillas into the casserole pan.  I baked until bubbly and it fed everyone at the table.  It fed the boyos the next day.  Plus it was my lunch and the Tall Short Persons.  

I have started with the Imperfect Produce boxes and I will see how that changes thing.  We do eat veg but Mondays have seemed to be using leftovers.  But I can be creative.  I did laugh at the bunch of turnips and the bunch of beets.  They were both one huge one!  But I like both roasted so it is all good.  I wonder how that roasted veg would taste in one of these......