Tuesday, April 1, 2008

It All Started With 16 Egg Yolks


This is the beginning of my Cinnamon and Chocolate Babka.....16 egg yolks, count'em 16

This dough is extremely wet due to all the yolks and butter and you must refrigerate before using. I ended up cleaning runaway dough twice during this process. My dough rises really fast here. I turned around and looked at my container and my dough was up to the rim. I turned back around a few minutes later and my dough had bubbled over my container and all over my gas cooktop. I would have had pictures but multitasking while pissed is not one of my strong suits.


Scharffenberger Bittersweet Chocolate for one Babka and Baker's Cinnamon Filling from King Arthur Flour for the other Babka.


3/4 cup of bittersweet chocolate


Ready to take a 1 hr 40 min nap before my bake


After 35 minutes in the sun



a monkey on someone's back = a serious problem that will not go away

I have a serious Culinary Monkey on my back that is rearing it's ugly head. This monkey keeps throwing a wrench in all my cinnamon breads. EVERYTIME I make a cinnamon bread the minute it comes out and starts to cool my bread separates from my top crust. Never fails. This has happened w/fresh dough, frozen dough and now babka dough. I called the KAF Baker's Hotline today for some advice and they told me to slash my dough before baking to let steam escape. I did that with the 2nd batch of loaves and the same thing happened. UGH! I now have a lengthy email into their bake professional hotline and am awaiting an answer. The bread tastes incredible but I always end up with a gaping 2 inch whole from my top crust to my inside swirly layers. HELP........has anyone else had this problem???? I am sick of this monkey flinging pooh at my cinnamon bread. I know I could just always make rolls and I love rolls, but I want to conquer cinnamon bread. I have not made a loaf yet that this hasn't happened. Everytime I think I have this quandry figured out.......I don't!

And now I have a mess to clean up.......I am outta here!

5 comments:

Lora said...

Just send that nasty old separated bread down here. I wouldn't want you to have to deal with anything that wasn't "Perfect" and after all it is presentation/presentation/presentation-so as an act of kindness and compassion, I will take all of those inperfects off of your hands!

Obsessive Foodie or Food Addict....You Decide said...

Lora~Yeah, I am ALWAYS lacking on the presentation part. I wasn't that impressed w/the chocolate Babka either. From now on....I ONLY make cinnamon babka. Chocolate is definately the lesser babka...not the cinnamon as stated in Seinfeld.

You will eat cinnamon bread??? Did we find something you will actually consume???

k said...

It's gorgeous though! I think you are too hard on yourself.

La Cuisine d'Helene said...

Wow this looks so good!

Obsessive Foodie or Food Addict....You Decide said...

K~thanks!

Helene~thanks for stopping by. It was delicious and I think I have my problem solved which makes it even better hahahah.