Whole Wheat Chocolate Levain Cake

There is cake and there is cake. Of the really good ones, some are dazzling, others unassuming. This one is of the second variety. A simple dessert relying in a large part on a century-old leavener for lightness. When birthdays are involved, I usually glaze it (with dark chocolate melted together with a bit of butter and a hint of powdered sugar) but most of the time, I leave it bare or just sprinkle it with confectioners' sugar. Either way, it is always a hit (it was a favorite of Noah's) and I love it that it makes use of surplus starter I might otherwise have to throw out.

The recipe is an adaptation of one I found on the King Arthur's website (which I halved in this particular instance to tailor it to my shallow flower-shaped French mold). When I make the whole recipe instead of halving it (and I usually do), I use a nine-inch springform pan and I bake the cake a while longer.

Ingredients

For those of you who are using BreadStorm (including the free version), please click on this link to import the formula.  For more on BreadStorm, you may want to read this post.

* This time, I used Sonora whole wheat pastry flour that I bought from Nan Kohler in Los Angeles a couple of months ago but in the past, I have made this cake with unbleached all-purpose flour or with regular white whole wheat flour. They both work perfectly but you may find, as I did, that using a locally grown and milled soft wheat brings it an intriguing flavor and a lovely texture. I am not sure how the recipe would turn out with regular whole wheat flour though. It might be too heavy and the taste of the grain might be overwhelming.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the more interesting the flavor of your starter, the tastier your cake will be. In other words, this is a good recipe to make on bread-baking day: you will probably have taken your starter out of the fridge a couple of days before, kept it at room temperature and fed it regularly. It will be bubbly and happy and at its peak in every way. That's the way you want it, both for bread and for cake.

Method

1. Combine mature starter, milk and flour in large bowl. Cover and let rest at warmish room temperature for 2 to 3 hours or until somewhat expanded
2. Preheat oven to 350°F/177°C and lightly oil a cake pan
3. In another bowl, beat together sugar, oil, vanilla, salt, baking soda and cocoa
4. Incorporate the egg
5. Gently combine chocolate mixture with the levain-flour-milk mixture, stirring till smooth 
6. Pour batter into prepared pan
7. Bake the cake for 30 to 40 minutes until it springs back when lightly pressed in the center and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean 
8. Remove from oven and cool on a rack
9. Enjoy!

 

Christine Ferber's Beraweka

I already knew Christine Ferber for a master confiturière (jam-maker). I have her book, Mes confitures (now available in English), which I consider my jam bible. I do own a handful of other jam books accumulated over the years but if I were to be sentenced to a desert island and could only take one with me, hers would be the one: the flavor combinations are spectacular and the recipes spot on. I also like the fact that the book is organized by season. Needless to say, in my part of the world, the chapters that get the most mileage are summer and fall but if the above-mentioned desert island involved a tropical clime, I wouldn't mind putting the winter chapter to the test (hello, pineapple, banana and coconut jam!).
What I didn't know and learned from my favorite French radio food podcast (in an episode broadcast live from Strasbourg a year ago and available on the web until September 2014) is that Christine Ferber is also a celebrated pâtissière-chocolatière-confiseuse (pastry-chef, chocolate maker and confectioner), that she owns a pâtisserie (pastry-shop) near Colmar in the Alsace region of France and that every year she makes a sumptuous traditional Alsatian holiday bread, the Beraweka, also known as Beerawecka or Bierawecka or Birewecke.
The origins of the bread (traditionally enjoyed at Christmas with a glass of vin chaud - hot mulled wine -, Gewürztraminer or Riesling vendange tardive (late harvest Riesling) upon returning home from midnight mass) are a bit unclear: some believe Beraweka to be as old as Alsace itself (Beera meaning "pear" and Wecka "bread" in Alsatian) while others think it was brought to the area by the once vibrant Jewish community as a traditional Passover dessert (bere meaning Pessa'h in Yiddish). In the Jewish version, it requires plenty of dried fruit but no pears and it remains unleavened.
There seem to be as many recipes as there are spellings for Beraweka: some call for dried apples; some require scalding all the dried fruit before soaking it in kirsch; some replace almonds with hazelnuts. The variations are endless. In Christine Ferber's village of Niedermorschwihr, the bread is traditionally made at home from a recipe handed down from mother to daughter since the sixteenth century. She feels very fortunate because her fellow villagers still honor the age-old tradition of bringing their holiday breads to the baker for baking, which means that each December she gets to experience many different Berawekas.
Winters can be long and harsh in Alsace and drying fruit has always been a favorite way of making sure summer bounty would remain available throughout the cold and dark months. Ferber says she starts drying pears from nearby orchards in August. She chooses barely ripe sweet pears, cuts them in half, removes the core, and cuts eight slices out of each half. She puts these slices on racks in the oven and lets them dry for eight hours at 70°F/158°C. She stores the dried fruit in a dry spot away from the light. She also dries her own questches (damson plums).
Christine shared her recipe with the audience. I have translated it below, with some modifications. Many Alsatian Beraweka recipes use regular bread dough. Christine's uses brioche dough. Since the amount of dough is minimal (just enough for the fruit to stick together), the bread never dries out and keeps forever. Christine says she still has some at home that she made five years ago. I wasn't planning on making brioche, so I used a bit of levain-based sifted flour dough I had just proofed for another recipe. It turned out just fine. I doubt I'll have enough left over to test the five-year shelf life though...
Christine also uses two different kinds of anise when I only had one sort: rather than using more of that one, I replaced the other one by a good pinch of mixed baking spices. Finally since there were no pictures of the Beraweka on the podcast's webpage and I couldn't find attractive ones elsewhere on the web, I didn't know what it was supposed to look like. Looks-wise, mine certainly didn't end up like a winner but when I bit into a slice, I felt transported as by magic to a faraway place and time that tasted just as Christmas does in dreams.

Pierre Hermé, the renowned pastry chef and macaron all-time wizard, has been friends with Christine Ferber for more than forty years (his mom is from the same village). According to him, her Beraweka is one of the five products that should be on everyone's bucket list (he didn't actually use the expression "bucket list" but he did say it was one of five products everyone should taste at least once in his or her lifetime). I don't know if I'll ever make it to Niedermorschwihr but at least I have Christine's recipe and now so do you. Christine said it herself, the bread really isn't difficult to make. It only requires a bit of time and patience. As for another Alsatian Christmas favorite, the Stollen, she said the best she has ever had was Pierre Hermé's (who got the recipe from his own mother). 

Ingredients (for two breads)
(Note: Christine actually makes four 250 g-breads with this recipe. Since I didn't soak the pears in water, I ended up with a lighter"dough"which I decided to divide in two)

• 100 g dried pears (Christine soaks hers for 24 hours in 500 g hot water. See Note, Method, step 1)
• 100 g dried plums, pitless (in the absence of Damson plums, I used California dried plums, also known as prunes)
• 100 g dried figs (I used small black mission figs)
• 100 g dried apricots (I used unsulphured ones)
• 100 g raisins
• 50 g kirsch (to which I added another 50 g for a total of 100 g)
• 50 g candied lemon, slivered (home-made would be preferable to store-bought and certainly closer quality-wise to what Christine has available to her in Alsace but it is an extra-step and if it prevents you from giving the bread a chance, it isn't worth it. I used candied orange and lemon that my friends from Tree-Top Baking kindly gave me. Next year if I get my act together early enough, I might try making my own)
• 50 g candied orange, slivered (same remark)
• 40 g walnuts, roughly chopped
• 40 g almonds, peeled (mine were pre-sliced)
• 5 g green anise (I used regular ground anise seed)
• 5 g baking spice (a mixture of cinnamon, mace, anise and cardamom) (Ferber uses ground anise seed)
• 100 g brioche dough (or any other bread dough you have on hand), divided in tiny pieces
• walnuts and almonds for decoration (I skipped that step)

Method: (the bread is made over three days but requires minimal intervention until the third day)

1. On the first day, scald the pears and let them soak overnight (Note: I did that and my pears -which were fairly tender to begin with - ended up way too soft). So, as an alternative, if your dried pears are almost tender enough to be eaten straight out of the bag, just slice them into slivers on the second day and add them to the bowl with the other fruit
2. Soak the raisins in the kirsch and let them macerate overnight
3. On the second day, sliver the figs, apricots and plums. Put these slivers together with the pears and the raisins in a large bowl
4. Add the candied lemon and orange and leave to macerate overnight, covered (that's when I added the extra 50 g of kirsch since I wasn't using the softened pears)
5. On the third day, add the spices, the walnuts, the almonds and the little pieces of dough
6. Mix until everything sticks together
7. Pre-heat oven to 300°F/150°C
8. Wet your hands and shape the breads as small bâtards
9. Set on a parchment-paper baking sheet and bake for one hour (Christine didn't mention proofing but I didn't feel comfortable going straight from mixing to baking. So I set the baking sheet inside a tightly closed clear plastic bag and gave it an hour. I could see no appreciable difference in the size of the breads but maybe the levain still worked a bit of its magic)
10. Bake for one hour
11. Cool on a rack (Christine doesn't say to glaze the bread but I did. When it came out of the oven, I brushed it all over with a bit of confectioner's sugar diluted in two tablespoons of kirsch and a drop of boiling water. It made it all shiny)
12. When cool, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and wait at least a week before eating
13. Enjoy!

Pre-soaking

Post-soaking

Pre-baking

Post-baking

The Beraweka is going to Yeastspotting, Susan's weekly round-up of breads.

More info: If you read French, you might enjoy this interview of Christine Ferber for Le Journal des femmes). 

Morning Cuddle Bread with Oats, Plums and Hazelnuts

The anxiety of influence is most certainly a reality for some. After all, a whole book has been written on the subject (although the author probably didn't have the art of baking in mind) but I am happy to report I don't suffer from it. I love leisurely browsing through books and/or exploring online worlds and letting ideas wash over me, leaving behind precious little nuggets of inspiration. Sometimes - and that's the most fun - these nuggets combine to form something completely different.
That's how the morning cuddle bread came to be. A couple of weeks ago a British Columbia food podcast had pointed me towards an oatmeal, walnut and plum bread, which the Man pronounced to be a wonderful breakfast bread...

...and as I was contemplating what to bake for him for Valentine's Day, I remembered another fruit and nut bread I had once bookmarked in Les 20 meilleurs ouvriers de France et médaillés d'argent se dévoilent et vous offrent leurs recettes choisies, a book put together by l'Équipe de France de boulangerie (the French Baking Team) in the early 90's.  What I had liked most about it was its endearing shape (two entertwined pieces of dough) and its name, pain câlin du matin (literally morning cuddle bread).

Oven-roasted hazelnuts

The two recipes got reborn as one: from Chef Bruce (the British Columbia baker), I retained the idea of the plums (the Man is a huge plum fan!) and the nuts (but instead of the walnuts, I used the fragrant hazelnuts my friend Meeghen had brought me from her own orchard). I also stayed with the mix of wheat (whole-grain and all-purpose) and oatmeal (I love the tenderness of an oatmeal crumb). From the French recipe - by Gérald Biremont, "meilleur ouvrier de France" (best artisan baker in France) - I took the shape and the name. After all, what's more appropriate on Valentine's Day morning that a sweet little cuddle?

Interestingly both recipes call for a straight dough but I always prefer using a preferment: the bread keeps better, if nothing else, and I find it tastier too. So I reinterpreted the Canadian recipe to use both a poolish (made with only a speck or two of instant yeast) and some levain. It took its own sweet time to ferment but, hey, Valentine Day comes around only once a year. Besides the dough did all the work, leaving the cuddling to us...

Ingredients: (for 8 morning cuddle breads or 4 cuddle breads and a loaf)

For the poolish

• 280 g all-purpose flour
• 280 g water 
• one tiny pinch of instant yeast (0.06 g)

For the final dough

• 200 g mature white starter at 100% hydration
• 320 g all-purpose flour
• 150 g white whole wheat flour
• 115 g old-fashioned oat flakes, coarsely ground in a food processor
• 180 g water  (amount to be adjusted up or down depending on your flours, the humidity in the air, etc.)
• 100 g oven-roasted hazelnuts, roughly peeled and chopped
• 110 g dried plums, roughly chopped
• 19 g salt

Method: (this bread is made over two days since the starter and the poolish both need to be fed the evening before and to ferment overnight)

1. The night before, mix the poolish and feed the starter. Let both ferment overnight at room temperature (if very warm where you live, fermentation could be faster, which means you may need to adjust your schedule accordingly)
2. On baking day, mix the flours, the starter, the poolish and the water until all the ingredients are well distributed and all flour is hydrated. Let rest for 20 minutes
3. Add salt and mix on low speed until a soft pliable dough is formed (don't overmix)
4. Add the plums and hazelnuts and mix gently (I find it easier to take the dough out of the mixer at this stage and mix in the fruit and nuts by hand)
5. Set in an oiled container and let rise until at least doubled (it took close to 6 hours at 72°F/22°C)
6. Divide in two pieces of roughly 850 g each
7. If you want to make only cuddle breads, then divide each of these pieces in 8 and make 8 baguette-shaped cylinders. Twist them together by pairs. If you want 4 cuddle breads and one loaf, divide and shape accordingly
8. Proof until doubled in size (in my case, it took one hour and a half at 72°F/22°C). Pre-heat oven to 400°F/204°C
9. When ready bake for 15 minutes (with steam the first five minutes) then check the color and if necessary turn oven down a bit. Turn the breads 180° and bake another 15 minutes. They will be ready when they have a rich color and sound hollow when thumped on the bottom.
10. Cool on a rack!

Enjoy!

The morning cuddle bread is going to Susan for Yeastspotting.

Pavé au levain

Have you ever wished you could just bake (part of) your levain and eat it, so that you can savor its pure unadulterated flavor? Every time I feed it and breathe in its fragrance I wish I could do just that. But of course I resist the impulse (since it probably wouldn't turn out too good as is anyway) and I just keep on enjoying the scent. Recently however I have been feeding my liquid levain (not the one I made with Gérard) some high-extraction organic flour from Québec I received as a present and the levain started producing such aromas that the impulse to just bake it became irresistible. That's when I remembered the pavés au levain we made last spring at SFBI in Didier Rosada's Whole Grains workshop. So, yes, you can have your levain and eat it too. And I cannot even begin to describe how delectable the result is. Pure heaven! Didier said hazelnuts and/or fruit can be added to the dough. But I don't see how it is possible to improve on the flavor. Ingredients (for 4 smallish free-form pavés): 295 g white starter @95% hydration, fed three times with high-extraction flour (if no high-extraction flour is available, use 80 % organic all-purpose flour and 20 % organic whole wheat flour after sifting out the coarser bran particles) 736 g high-extraction flour 573 g water (I started with 442 g and added more water on the go until the dough reached medium soft consistency) 18 g salt 7 g diastatic malt powder (if no malt had been added to the flour at the mill, which was the case for this Quebec flour) Method:

1. Mix flour and water (at the required temperature to get a final dough temperature of 70-73ºF/21-23ºC) and let rest (autolyse) for about 45 minutes
2. Add the levain and more water as needed, mix until very soft
3. Add the salt (I love the way watching the dough tighten up once the salt is added and I now always add the salt towards the end of the mixing as I find it makes it easier to get the right consistency)
4. Add water if needed after incorporating the salt
5. Transfer dough (which will be rather slack) into an oiled bin, cover tightly and let ferment at warm room temperature for two hours with one fold after the first hour (since the room was cool, I let the dough ferment three hours with one fold after two hours)
6. Invert the dough onto a table dusted with flour, then cut squares or other shapes free-form using a sharp dough-scraper
7. Transfer to a baking sheet covered with flour-dusted parchment paper, dust with more flour and let rise, covered, for an hour and a half
8. Pre-heat the oven at 450ºF/232ºC after putting into it a baking stone and a heavy-duty metal pan (for steaming)
9. Gently slide the breads onto the hot baking stone, add one cup of water to the metal pan and quickly close the oven door
10. Bake for 35 minutes (a bit longer if you made big loaves, a bit less if you made individual ones). Check at mid-point to see whether or not you need to rotate the loaves (Didier advises keeping the oven door ajar for the last 10 minutes of baking but I think that mostly apply to professional ovens. If there is one thing that my home oven does well, it is exhaling steam full-speed the minute it detects any. So I didn't open the door)
11. When done, let cool on a wire rack and prepare your taste buds for rapture!

The pavé au levain goes to Susan, from Wild Yeast for Yeastpotting.

Kouglof with Cherries & Saffron

This lovely recipe was sent to me by Christiane Macri, a SHB blog friend (in case you are wondering, SHB means "serious home baker" as I learned today in a mail from the Bread Bakers Guild of America). As I didn't have a kouglof pan, Christiane was kind enough to send me one as well. Merci mille fois, Christiane! The kouglof (also spelled kugelhof or Gugelhopf or kugelhopf, etc.) is a brioche of Germanic origin, very common in the Alsace region of France as well as in Germany, Austria and in the Czech Republic. It is usually made with baker's yeast, raisins, almonds and sometimes a few drops of kirsch. According to a local legend, the Three Kings stopped in the village of Ribeaupré (Alsace) on their way to Bethlehem and created the kouglof as a thank-you present to a pastry-shop owner who had offered them hospitality. To make it more distinctive, they gave it the shape of their turbans. Christiane's recipe uses white starter, raisins and almonds. I replaced the raisins by dried cherries and the almonds (which I didn't have) with toasted hazelnuts. I also replaced part of the all-purpose flour with white whole wheat flour. The original recipe called for 175 g of butter but Christiane reduced it to 150 g and I followed her lead. I had to adjust the flour and liquid amounts to take into account the difference between French and US flours. Finally I added saffron because I love the way it showcases the flavor of the cherries. A bundt cake pan can be used in lieu of a kouglof pan. Ingredients: 470 g unbleached all-purpose flour 120 g white whole wheat flour 150 g mature white starter 20 g water, lukewarm 4 eggs 5 g salt 100 g dried cherries (or raisins) 80 g ground hazelnuts (or almonds, sliced thin) 50 g sugar 30 g warm water (to soak the cherries or raisins) 150 g butter, at room temperature 100 g milk, scalded, then allowed to cool 1/2 tsp saffron threads, steeped in scalded milk for one hour

Method:

1. Soak the cherries in the warm water
2. Place flour, salt and sugar in the bowl of the mixer and mix (using the hook)
3. Add starter, milk (with saffron threads inside)
4. Mix for one minute
5. Add eggs, one by one
6. Mix for 5 minutes on medium speed
7. Add softened butter, little by little
8. Mix a bit faster for about 10 minutes
9. Add the cherries and mix on first speed one minute
10. Cover and let rise for 1 ½ hour
11. Butter or oil the pan
12. Sprinkle the sliced almonds or chopped hazelnuts at the bottom
13. Knead the dough briefly and shape into a ball
14. Make a hole in the center and stretch it until it is big enough to go over the central "chimney" in the pan
15. Transfer to the pan and let rise again for one to one and a half hour
16. Pre-heat the oven to 400ºF/200ºC
17. Bake for 45 to 60 minutes (according to your oven)
18. Unmold on a rack and allow to cool
19. Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar

Enjoy! Jan.3 update : Oops! I just realized I was showing you the kouglof slice lying down instead of standing up as it comes out when you cut it. Here is the "right" picture:

This kouglof goes to Susan, from Wild Yeast for Yeastpotting. For those of you who might be interested, here are a few snapshots taken a couple of years ago as we were crossing Alsace on our way to my in-laws (who live in Belgium):

Gâteau à l'orange (with white starter and yogurt)

When I first made this cake, the Man officially declared it to be the best he ever had. Hard to believe but that's what he said. Since it is easy and healthful, I have made it several times since, varying the ingredients: replacing some of the oil by applesauce (the cake doesn't rise as much), replacing the agave syrup by twice the same amount of sugar (makes the cake a bit lighter), skipping the eggs altogether (makes for a denser cake), using more oil (the cake rises a little more), replacing the yogurt by almond milk (makes for a lighter cake). The texture varies somewhat but the end result remains a very moist cake with a lovely orange flavor.
When I was growing up in Paris, a wonderful woman named Micheline worked in our house as a mother's helper. She came from the Berry in central France and had the strongest regional accent I had ever heard. She also had a huge heart and a sunny disposition. Her husband worked at the post office and her little boy was an adorable little rascal who one day - he must have been 6 - decided to drench passers-by in the street below (we were on the 8th floor) using the water hose my mom kept coiled on the balcony for her plants. He had a pretty good aim too!
Well anyway, Micheline was a very good cook and she often baked for us a "gâteau à l'orange", basically a pound cake containing equal amounts of butter, sugar, flour and eggs, plus one orange. She put the zest in the batter and poured the juice all over the cake when it came out of the oven. Scrumptious!
I made that cake many times back in the days when we had never heard of cholesterol and it was always a huge success. Since the cake is just as good made with more healthful ingredients, now that my local supermarket carries organic oranges (and needs to be encouraged to continue to do so), I see no reason not to indulge again.

Ingredients:

• 240 g mature white starter
• 228 g plain (or vanilla) yogurt (I used homemade full-fat yogurt)
• 30 g almond milk (regular milk would work fine) (depending on the hydration rate of your starter and the thickness of the yogurt, you may want to use a bit more or a bit less)
• 110 g white whole wheat flour
• 230 g unbleached all-purpose flour
• 80 g agave syrup
• 20 g liquid honey (I would have used 100 g agave syrup but I ran out)
• 1 orange, untreated, unpeeled, organic if possible, thoroughly washed, then chopped fine (rind and all) in the food processor (cut up the orange first to make sure there are no seeds)
• the juice of another orange
• 9 g baking soda
• 1 pinch of salt

Method:

1. In a large bowl, mix the starter, the flours and the yogurt
2. Add milk to adjust the consistency (it should be look like a starter with an 80% hydration rate)
3. Set to rise (the duration of the rise will vary according to the room temperature)
4. When nicely risen, pre-heat the oven at 350º F/177º C
5. Mix in the remaining ingredients, adding the baking soda last and pour into a pre-oiled cake pan (I used a kouglof pan as I like the shape but any deep pan will do. Don't substitute a shallow pan as the cake would end up being too dense)
6. Bake for 50 minutes
7. Let the cake rest 5 minutes before taking it out of the pan and setting it to cool on a rack
8. Drench with orange juice just before serving (if the cake is for grown-ups only, Grand-Marnier, Cointreau or Triple Sec can replace some of the juice).

Enjoy!

This "gâteau à l'orange" goes to Susan, from Wild Yeast for Yeastpotting.

Egg-in-a-cradle

I had some leftover pâte fermentée (old dough) from the Chestnut Flour Bread and I didn't feel like freezing it. So instead I baked 4 little rolls and I made myself this comfort food (I was by myself for dinner). Now that I have tried it, I'll have to do it again... and again. It is just delicious (and very simple to make. If you don't have pâte fermentée or don't feel like baking, just cut up a fat baguette or smallish batard into as many mini-logs as you need, remove some of the crumb and you are in business). I had shaped and scored the rolls in different ways as I didn't know which one would be easier to turn into an eggcup.

The fan shape? The purse?

The tulip?

The tulip (i.e. the one with an X-shaped score) turned out to be the most convenient to open up and hollow out.

What you need is this: bread + fresh eggs + crème fraîche (now that I have attended a cheesemaking class, I make my own and quite frankly you don't need to take the class to know how. You just need the culture which you can get here and a way to keep the cream and the culture warm and snug for 12 hours) + some chives (from the garden or the window sill) + some grated Parmesan cheese. You hollow out the bread, pour in two spoonfuls of crème fraîche, add some salt and freshly ground pepper, cisel some chives over it, break in the egg (if the egg is too large, the white will overflow. Just wipe out the surplus), top with grated Parmesan cheese and bake at 400ºF for about 10 minutes (if necessary, turn on the broiler for a minute or two to brown the top). (I overcooked mine by 1 minute but it was still very very yummy!). Enjoy!

This Egg-in-a-cradle goes to Susan, from Wild Yeast, for Yeastpotting.