and everything nice

Last year, when I got together with Carol to learn how to make her wonderful Limpa Bread, she also gave me the recipe for the white bread she makes for special events. She wrote out the recipe for me with limited details…. almost cryptic.

I made it a couple of times, kind of winging it, with much success, according to my friends and family, but now it’s been a while, and my memory is fuzzy, so I have to make it again and write down the details! What I think about this bread is that there’s a lot of wiggle room in the recipe. It’s just yeast and flour and water and salt and oil. That’s it. Kind of hard to mess up if you know what to look for, and know how the dough is supposed to feel. I used to be afraid of yeast, but now I just think of working with it as a big, fun science experiment. Carol says yeast is weird and unpredictable, and I agree. Just make sure your yeast is fresh (check that expiration date!), and store it in your fridge. I get a jar of it, and keep the jar in my freezer, just to be sure.

White Bread

• 3 cups warm water (about 110°)
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 Tbsp active dry yeast
• 1 scant Tbsp salt
• 6 cups (1 pound plus 11 ounces) flour, divided, plus a lot extra

In the bowl of your stand mixer using your paddle attachment, mix 4 cups (1 pound plus 2 ounces) of the flour with the warm water, oil, yeast, and salt. This should take just a few minutes. Let sit for 15 to 20 minutes. It should end up with a few bubbles.

Just a few bubbles here.

Add and mix in the remaining 2 cups of flour, using the paddle attachment. When everything is mixed, switch to the dough hook and mix on low (#2 on my Kitchenaid) for about 8 minutes. Dough should pull away from sides of bowl, and be stretchy/tacky/easy to handle. If dough is still too wet and sticky, add a little more flour, one tablespoon at a time, until it becomes tacky and pulls away from the bowl. But remember, too much flour = dense bread. For the record, I probably added almost an extra cup of flour, one tablespoon at a time, until the dough was the right consistency. But every time will be a bit different, so pay close attention to the consistency of your dough.

Stretchy, tacky, not too wet, but not too dry.

Dump dough onto floured surface and knead by hand for a bit more, until dough is springy. Shape into a ball.

Yeast jar is for scale…

Cover with a tea towel (you can do this on your counter) and let rise for one hour.

Wow.

Punch down to release air. You want to get rid of extra large pockets of air, but not *all* of the air.

I may have gone overboard here! You just want to get rid of any extra large pockets of air.

Cut dough in half (I use my bench scraper for this).

Shape into loaves by stretching the dough and folding into thirds like an envelope. I elongate the dough because I like long loaves.

It’s a little sloppy, but that’s okay.

Or you can get fancy and braid one of the loaves…

The one on the left is the envelope fold.

Place dough seam side down on a greased or parchment lined pan.

Cover with tea towel and let rise for another 30 minutes. While the dough is rising, preheat your oven to 350°. When the 30 minutes is up, make decorative cuts in the dough with a sharp knife.

I cut about a half inch deep.

Bake in 350° oven for 35 to 40 minutes. Bread will sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. Let cool (if you can wait) almost completely before slicing. This bread is delicious served with pasta, or any meal, and it is also wonderful sliced and toasted, with butter. You can even use it as sandwich bread, because it has a lot of body to it.

White Bread

• 3 cups warm water (about 110°)
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 Tbsp active dry yeast
• 1 scant Tbsp salt
• 6 cups flour, divided, plus a lot extra

In the bowl of your stand mixer using your paddle attachment, mix 4 cups of the flour with the warm water, oil, yeast, and salt. This should take just a few minutes. Let sit for 15 to 20 minutes. It should end up with a few bubbles.

Add and mix in the remaining 2 cups of flour, using the paddle attachment. When everything is mixed, switch to the dough hook and mix on low (#2 on my Kitchenaid) for about 8 minutes. Dough should pull away from sides of bowl, and be stretchy/tacky/easy to handle. If dough is still too wet and sticky, add a little more flour, one tablespoon at a time, until it becomes tacky and pulls away from the bowl. But remember, too much flour = dense bread.

Dump dough onto floured surface and knead by hand for a bit more, until dough is springy. Shape into a ball. Cover with a tea towel (you can do this on your counter) and let rise for one hour.

Punch down to release air. You want to get rid of extra large pockets of air, but not *all* of the air. Cut dough in half (I use my bench scraper for this). Shape into loaves by stretching the dough and folding into thirds like an envelope. I elongate the dough because I like long loaves. Place dough seam side down on a greased or parchment lined pan. Cover with tea towel and let rise for another 30 minutes. While the dough is rising, preheat your oven to 350°.

When 30 minutes is up, make decorative cuts in the dough with a very sharp knife, and bake in 350° oven for 35 to 40 minutes. Bread will sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. Let cool (if you can wait) almost completely before slicing. This bread is delicious served with pasta, or any meal, and it is also wonderful sliced and toasted, with butter. You can even use it as a sandwich bread, because it has a lot of body to it.

Note: If you want the shinier, more golden bread with sesame seeds, lightly brush the loaves with an egg wash (one egg mixed with two teaspoons water) and sprinkle with sesame seeds just before putting in the oven.

Second Note: If you make this bread with bread flour, it is fluffier and softer, kind of like what you might get at an Italian restaurant. I can’t decide if I like the more sturdy, all-purpose flour bread better, but I’m definitely leaning in that direction.

This one is made with bread flour – light and fluffy.

Nothing like freshly baked bread!

This is another St. Louis thing. Another craving that comes from some deep memories that I can’t even put my finger on. When I first started thinking about making gooey butter cake, I think somehow I was really thinking about this crumb cake, or perhaps something in between. My memories may have gotten jumbled and mashed together, but what I do know is that this is another heavenly German yeast cake, like the ones I grew up with in St. Louis. Our last trip to St. Louis, we stayed with Cheryl and Brian (Brian is the one who introduced me to the “no-knead bread“.) I grew up two doors down from them in St. Louis, and spent just about all of my free time with their daughter Stephanie. Stephanie and all of her clan were there in St. Louis for this visit as well.

Back together, with our kids.

It makes my heart so happy to know that our kids are having this same experience that we had; of all of us being together, laughing, sharing good food, and just spending time with each other. These folks are my second family, and I adore them.

Cheryl and Brian came to visit us here in Seattle last month, and we got to be tourists together.

At Pike Place Market

And Cheryl and I even got to dance together on the Pier to a vintage “Artizan Military Band Organ”. You put a dollar in, and it plays really loud for a long time. Some things you just can’t imagine will happen until they do.

Cheryl is wearing her “314” hat. It’s a St. Louis thing….

What does all of this have to do with crumb cake, you ask? Well, I did make this crumb cake for Cheryl and Brian while they were here. Brian is into yeasty things just as much as I am, if not more so, so I just had to do it.

I must say that if you are not familiar with this type of cake, you ought to know up front that the cake is not sweet! The topping is sweet, but not the cake. It is a buttery yeast dough, kind of like brioche. It is a wonderful compliment to any sweet topping, and the sweet toppings are usually doused with powdered sugar, so you really don’t need the cake itself to be sweet. Just the topping please.

The best recipe I found was Ruth Cousineau’s recipe on Epicurious. I tweaked a few things here and there, and got more ideas from George Greenstein’s book, “A JEWISH BAKER’S Pastry Secrets“. Warning! This recipe is time consuming, but worth it.

Look at that tender, yeasty dough, and plentiful crumb topping!

German Style Crumb Cake

(Adapted from Ruth Cousineau’s “Old-Fashioned Crumb Cake” recipe.)

For cake:

• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup warm whole milk (105°-115°F), divided
• 1/4 cup plus 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
• 2 cups (10 oz) bread flour (or all-purpose if you don’t have bread flour)
• 1 scant teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 pinch cardamom
• 6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon pieces and softened slightly

For crumb topping:

• 2 1/4 cups pastry flour (or just 2 cups all-purpose if you don’t have pastry flour)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
• 2 sticks (1 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• Powdered sugar, for dusting

Special Equipment

• a stand mixer, paddle attachment and dough hook
• two 8″x 8″ metal baking pans

To make the dough:

Stir together yeast, 1/4 cup warm milk, and 1 teaspoon sugar in bowl of mixer until yeast is dissolved, then let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes.

Stir together lemon juice and remaining 1/4 cup warm milk and let stand until curdled, 1 to 2 minutes.

Add remaining sugar, flour, salt, egg, curdled milk, softened butter, vanilla, and pinch cardamom to yeast mixture. That’s right, just dump it all into the bowl. Mix at low speed until all ingredients are incorporated and a dough forms. Switch to a dough hook, and beat on medium speed until dough is silky (a bit shiny) and elastic, about 5 to 8 minutes.

Scrape down sides of bowl to form a small ball of dough, sprinkle it with a tablespoon of flour, cover bowl with tea towel, and let rise in a warm spot in your kitchen for an hour to an hour and a half…. until doubled in size.

Punch down the dough to release the air, scoop out of bowl and divide into two balls. Working on a floured surface, stretch the dough of each ball, fold in thirds like an envelope, rotate and fold again into thirds like an envelope, creating two tight loaves. Let sit for about 15 minutes.

While dough is resting, butter your two 8″x 8″ pans, and then make your crumb topping.

To make topping:

Put sugar, pastry flour, cold cubed butter, cinnamon, salt, and vanilla into the bowl of your stand mixer (yes, you’ll have to wash it). Using the paddle attachment, beat on low speed until topping resembles sand or crumbs, with some larger clumps. Clumps should come together when pinched with your fingers. Do not cream!!! If you prefer to do this by hand, use a pastry blender to blend the ingredients. If you see some chunks of butter that have not blended in, use your fingers to blend it in.

Back to the dough:

Roll out each ball of dough into a square that is a bit larger than 8″x 8″.

A little lopsided, but that’s okay.

Place dough into buttered pan, making sure the dough goes all the way to the edges and corners. Take a fork and poke the dough in nice little rows.

I love these pans.

Sprinkle dough with crumb topping.

Yes, it’s a lot of crumb topping!

Cover pans with a tea towel and let cakes rise for about one hour… I know, I know, I’m sorry. You have to be patient.

About fifteen minutes before rise time is up, preheat oven to 350°. Bake cakes on center rack for 25 to 30 minutes. The topping will be slightly browned, and the cakes will have risen a bit. The tops should feel firm to the touch and spring back when lightly pressed with the fingers (careful not to burn yourself!) or small spatula. I don’t use the toothpick test for these cakes, as it is not dependable with yeast cakes. Best bet is to use an oven thermometer to be sure your oven is at the correct temperature while baking.

Cool on wire racks in pans. Serve warm or at room temperature. Sift a light coating of powdered sugar over the tops before serving.

This cake is best the first day, but also keeps well at room temperature for several days if covered well with plastic wrap. Dust (or heavily douse) each piece with powdered sugar before serving. If serving the next day or so, cover with foil and heat in a 350° oven. You can also heat each piece by placing in the microwave on a plate for 7 or 8 seconds (no more!!!). I don’t really believe in microwave ovens, but this works well to ever-so-slightly warm and soften day-old crumb cake… or two-day-old, etc. But it tastes fabulous at room temperature as well.

German Style Crumb Cake

(Adapted from Ruth Cousineau’s “Old-Fashioned Crumb Cake” recipe.)

For cake:

• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup warm whole milk (105°-115°F), divided
• 1/4 cup plus 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
• 2 cups (10 oz) bread flour (or all-purpose if you don’t have bread flour)
• 1 scant teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 pinch cardamom
• 6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon pieces and softened slightly

For For crumb topping:

• 2 1/4 cups pastry flour (or just 2 cups all-purpose if you don’t have pastry flour)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
• 2 sticks (1 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• Powdered sugar, for dusting

Special Equipment

• a stand mixer, paddle attachment and dough hook
• two 8″x 8″ metal baking pans

To make the dough:

Stir together yeast, 1/4 cup warm milk, and 1 teaspoon sugar in bowl of mixer until yeast is dissolved, then let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes.

Stir together lemon juice and remaining 1/4 cup warm milk and let stand until curdled, 1 to 2 minutes.

Add remaining sugar, flour, salt, egg, curdled milk, softened butter, vanilla, and pinch cardamom to yeast mixture. That’s right, just dump it all into the bowl. Mix at low speed until all ingredients are incorporated and a dough forms. Switch to a dough hook, and beat on medium speed until dough is silky (a bit shiny) and elastic, about 5 to 8 minutes.

Scrape down sides of bowl to form a small ball of dough, sprinkle it with a tablespoon of flour, cover bowl with tea towel, and let rise in a warm spot in your kitchen for an hour to an hour and a half…. until doubled in size.

Punch down the dough to release the air, scoop out of bowl and divide into two balls. Working on a floured surface, stretch the dough of each ball, fold in thirds like and envelope, rotate and fold again into thirds like an envelope, creating two tight loaves. Let sit for about 15 minutes.

While dough is resting, butter your two 8″x 8″ pans, and then make your crumb topping.

To make topping:

Put sugar, pastry flour, cold cubed butter, cinnamon, salt, and vanilla into the bowl of your stand mixer (yes, you’ll have to wash it). Using the paddle attachment, beat on low speed until topping resembles sand or crumbs, with some larger clumps. Clumps should come together when pinched with your fingers. Do not cream or over mix!!! If you prefer to do this by hand, use a pastry blender to blend the ingredients. If you see some chunks of butter that have not blended in, use your fingers to blend it in.

Back to the dough:

Roll out each ball of dough into a square that is a bit larger than 8″x 8″.

Place dough into buttered pan, making sure the dough goes all the way to the edges and corners. Take a fork and poke the dough in nice little rows.

Sprinkle dough with crumb topping.

Cover pans with a tea towel and let cakes rise for about one hour… I know, I know, I’m sorry. You have to be patient.

About fifteen minutes before rise time is up, preheat oven to 350°. Bake cakes on center rack for 25 to 30 minutes. The topping will be slightly browned, and the cakes will have risen a bit. The tops should feel firm to the touch and spring back when lightly pressed with the fingers (careful not to burn yourself!) or small spatula. I don’t use the toothpick test for these cakes, as it is not dependable with yeast cakes. Best bet is to use an oven thermometer to be sure your oven is at the correct temperature.

Cool on wire racks in pans. Serve warm or at room temperature. Sift a light coating of powdered sugar over the tops before serving.

This cake is best the first day, but also keeps well at room temperature for several days if covered well with plastic wrap. Dust (or heavily douse) each piece with powdered sugar before serving. If serving the next day or so, cover with foil and heat in a 350° oven. You can also heat each piece by placing in the microwave on a plate for 7 or 8 seconds (no more!!!). I don’t really believe in microwave ovens, but this works well to ever-so-slightly warm and soften day old crumb cake… or two day old, etc. But it tastes fabulous at room temperature as well.

And just for the fun of it…

Life is too short not to dance.

This post is a long time coming. I am from St. Louis, and it seems to me that people from St. Louis feel very strongly about St. Louis; they have a fierce pride in their city, and all the cool things about it. I am no exception.

I don’t think that I always felt that way, but certainly as I have gotten older, I have come to cherish all the things that I used to take for granted. Like the St. Louis Arch, for example. It really is pretty stunning.

The St. Louis Arch, glistening in the summer heat.

Last year when we visited St. Louis, we went up in the arch with my sister Linda. You go up in these teeny tiny elevators, and you have to wait in a cramped hallway for the elevators to arrive and unload.

My sister Linda leads the way.

And here’s one of the views from the top…

My city.

As a kid growing up, the arch was always there, and I didn’t think much of it. But now, I find it awe inspiring. It is imprinted in my being, and somehow part of me. And it is beautiful.

Me and my family at the bottom of the Arch.

Another St. Louis memory that is hardwired into me is the famous Gooey Butter Cake. I won’t go into too much detail about its origins, but rumor has it that it was created by mistake by a St. Louis baker, who somehow screwed up the ingredients in his cake, and was so frugal that he decided to serve it in his bakery anyway, cut into squares like brownies, and it was an instant success.

I remember getting this cake at many different bakeries in St. Louis… the Famous-Barr bakery stands out in my mind. Famous-Barr was a department store where we did most of our shopping. And Famous-Barr was truly “famous” for many things, including French Onion Soup. My sisters and I would walk to Famous-Barr just to sit in their café and eat their delicious French Onion Soup. But other days, we would make the trek on foot and go to the bakery, sometimes to buy a pound of floury chocolate chip cookies, and eat practically the entire bag on the walk home. And of course, there was the Gooey Butter Cake. This cake oozes St. Louis, no pun intended.

This cake is not meant as a dessert. It’s more of a Sunday brunch item. I remember many discussions with my sisters about this cake… about the gooey-ness of it, the sweetness of it, the weirdness of it. How the corners of it were so good because they had more edges, which were crispy and chewy. How the middle had extra “goo”. As I got older, in my twenties, I may have decided that it was too sweet for me. Too gooey. Too something. But now that I have kids, I somehow long for it. I want them to have this experience too.

We actually just got back from another trip to St. Louis. While there, I stopped at Trader Joe’s, and picked up the “St. Louis, Missouri” bag. They have bags featuring every state, and I couldn’t wait to pick up my St. Louis bag while there.

One unusual thing about St. Louisans is that when we meet someone, and find out they are also from St. Louis, the first question is “Where did you go to high school?”! It’s true; it’s a thing, and has been for as long as I can remember, so I think it’s hysterical that they put that question on the Trader Joe’s St. Louis bag. I proudly used my St. Louis bag at my local Trader Joe’s here in Seattle, and got lots of “oohs and ahhhs” over how cute it was. I tried not to gloat. It’s cool to be from St. Louis.

So here’s the thing – when I got home from the store and was unloading groceries, something caught my eye on the bottom of the bag that I hadn’t noticed… I mean, who puts decorations on the bottom of a bag? But here it is:

Yes, that’s right, a recipe for Gooey Butter Cake!!!!

Honestly, it took my breath away. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy and miss St. Louis horribly, even though I had just come back from a visit there. I made this version of Gooey Butter Cake last year and brought it to a potluck, expecting everyone to gasp in horror at how weird and gooey and sweet it was. I expected to take it back home with me. Well, it was a huge hit, and people tried to be subtle as they sidled up for a second piece. Or a third. This particular version is made with cake mix (I kind of don’t believe in doing that), and although it’s pretty awesome in its own way, it’s not the Gooey Butter Cake that I grew up with. It’s not the one that came from older, traditional St. Louis bakeries, with a barely sweet yeast dough offsetting the sweet, gooey topping, that came in a white box tied with string. So after seeing this recipe on the bottom of the Trader Joe’s bag, I decided it was time to make the real thing.

I went to Deb Perlman’s blog, Smitten Kitchen, and looked at her recipe for St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake. I had been wanting to make this recipe for years. And it was now time. I did indeed make it (tweaked only a few things), and it was delicious! Although not exactly how I remembered it. But as I said to my sister Jane, it’s hard to compete with a memory.

St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake

(Slightly modified from Smitten Kitchen)

For the cake
1/4 cup warm whole milk (at about 100°)
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
6 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
3 tablespoons sugar, plus a dash more
1 teaspoon salt
1 large egg at room temperature
1 3/4 cups (235 grams) all-purpose flour

For the topping
3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon light corn syrup
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons (145 grams) all-purpose flour

Confectioners’ Sugar for sprinkling

For the cake: In a small bowl, mix warm milk with a dash of sugar. Sprinkle the yeast on top and let sit for 5 minutes. Whisk gently until it dissolves. Set aside.

Using an electric mixer with paddle attachment, cream butter, sugar and salt. Scrape down sides of bowl and beat in the egg. It won’t look completely mixed in, but that’s ok. Alternately add flour and the milk mixture (start and end with flour), scraping down sides of bowl between each addition. After the final addition of flour, mix until dough is well combined – a minute or so. At this point, switch to a dough hook and continue to mix on medium speed for about five minutes, until the dough is smooth and easy to handle (soft and a tiny bit elastic).

I love the way this feels. Yeast doughs are the best.

At this point, lightly butter two 8″x8″ metal cake pans. (You can use just one 9″x13″ pan if you choose, but the cake tends to over bake that way, so it’s worth it to use the two 8″x8″ pans. I ran out and bought two Magic Line pans just for this purpose, and I have no regrets.)

Next, divide the dough in half and make into two balls. Press and carefully stretch the dough into the pans with your fingers, pressing the edges a bit up the sides of the dish to create a kind of crust.

I’m so excited about these pans – they perform beautifully!

Cover pans with plastic wrap or clean tea towel, put in a warm place, and allow to rise until doubled, 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Here is what they look like after rising.

Nice and puffy!

For the topping:  When dough is just about done rising, preheat oven to 350 degrees. To prepare topping, in a small bowl, whisk corn syrup with 2 tablespoons water and the vanilla. Using an electric mixer with paddle attachment, cream butter, sugar and salt until light and fluffy, 5 to 7 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl and beat in the egg. Alternately add flour and corn syrup mixture (start and end with flour), scraping down sides of bowl between each addition. Do not over mix!

Spoon topping in large dollops over risen cakes.

Use a spatula to gently spread topping in an even layer, leaving about a 1/4 inch of the edge dough showing.

Bake for about 30 minutes on the center rack in your oven; topping will begin to melt immediately. It will then bubble and turn a golden brown, but will still be slightly liquid in center when done. A toothpick test does not work with this cake, so you have to gauge it by color. When you take the cakes out, the center will still jiggle. Don’t worry; the cake will set as it cools. Do not over bake!

Place on cooling rack and let cool completely (this can take up to an hour and a half… longer if you used one larger pan…).

You should know, the corners are the very best part. They are extra chewy and crispy. The edges have the same appeal. This is one more reason to bake these cakes in two 8″x8″ pans – more edges and corners!!

Strange and beautiful.

Sprinkle liberally with confectioners’ sugar before serving. This cake is best served the day it is baked, but it still tastes good the day after, if there’s any left…

And just for the fun of it, another picture from our most recent visit to St. Louis. The train at the fabulous St. Louis Zoo has been a tradition for our family since I was little.

Sharing the magic.