Cookbook review by Tracey Zabar
This book is filled with recipes for baking bread and some sweet things. Get in the kitchen and make some challah, sticky buns, or a very modern rugelach with strawberry jam and hazelnuts. Pretzels and chocolate cookies are next on my list.
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Sufganiyot with Blood Orange Jam
Makes 2 to 3 dozen doughnuts
Sadelle’s, which I opened in 2015, was conceived as a modern interpretation of a Jewish bakery. When Hanukkah rolled around, I wanted to offer sufganiyot, the jelly-filled doughnuts that are traditionally made during that holiday. I started with what is essentially a brioche dough, but then I swapped melted butter for cold— an idea I adopted from the blog Ideas in Food. The idea behind the swap is that yeast likes heat, so when the warm, melted butter reacts with the yeast, it gives a boost to the fermentation process; this causes the dough to rise more aggressively, which in turn results in a light, airy doughnut.
I wanted to use something seasonal for the filling, so I made a blood orange jam, which is delicious and also really pretty. You can also use a jam of your
choice.
Note You will need a large disposable pastry bag and a ¼-inch round icing tip (such as an Ateco #802 tip) to make this.
Unsalted butter 22 tablespoons (2¾ sticks) [311 grams]
Whole milk ¾ cup [180 grams]
All-purpose flour 4 cups plus 2 tablespoons plus more for dusting [498 grams]
Granulated sugar ¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon [63 grams]
Instant yeast 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons [15 grams]
Fine sea salt 2 teaspoons [12 grams]
Large eggs 4 [200 grams]
Nonstick cooking spray
Canola or corn oil 10 cups (or as needed) [2,200 grams]
For filling and finishing the sufganiyot
Blood Orange Jam (recipe follows) 1 cup [340 grams]
Confectioners’ sugar ¼ cup [30 grams]
Warm the liquids
Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Turn off the heat.
In another small saucepan, warm the milk over medium-low heat until it is warm to the touch.
Make and ferment the dough
Combine the flour, granulated sugar, yeast, and salt in a medium bowl.
Place the warm milk and eggs in the bowl of a stand mixer and add the dry ingredients. Fit the mixer with the dough hook and mix on low speed for 2 minutes. Increase the speed to medium and mix for 3 minutes to develop the gluten. Turn off the mixer, add about one-fifth of the warm butter, and mix on low speed for a few seconds until the butter is no longer sloshing around in the bowl. Increase the speed to medium-high and mix until the butter is completely integrated, about 3 minutes. Turn off the mixer, add more butter, and mix it in as before. Repeat, stopping the mixer and adding the butter in increments, and beating it in before adding more. When you have added and beaten in all of the butter, turn off the mixer.
Take the bowl off the stand, remove the dough hook, and wipe it clean with a wet hand. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set it in a warm place to ferment the dough for 2 hours, turning it once halfway through that time. To turn the dough, uncover the bowl and use a wet hand to fold the top edge down two-thirds and fold the bottom edge to meet the top edge, so the dough is folded like a letter. Fold the sides inward in the same way to form a sort of ball, then re-cover the bowl. At the end of 2 hours, turn the dough again. Re-cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator overnight to retard the dough.
Retarding dough slows down the fermentation and adds to the flavor, and also makes the dough easier to roll out and shape.
Roll out the dough and cut the doughnuts
Dust two baking sheets and your countertop generously with flour. Set the baking sheets aside.
Remove the bowl from the refrigerator, remove the plastic wrap, and use a plastic bowl scraper to scrape the dough out onto the floured surface. Dust the top of the dough with flour and pat the dough down slightly with your hands to make it easier to roll out. Dust a rolling pin with flour and roll the dough out to a ⅜-inch-thick 13- x 14-inch rectangle, dusting the top of the dough, rolling pin, and work surface periodically to keep the dough from sticking to the rolling pin or countertop.
Using a straightedge and pastry wheel, cut the dough into 2¼-inch squares. Lift each square with an offset spatula and place the squares on the prepared baking sheets, dividing them evenly. Cut a piece of plastic wrap to fit over one baking sheet. Spray one side of the plastic with nonstick cooking spray and gently place it, sprayed side down, over the baking sheet. Repeat, covering the second baking sheet with a sprayed sheet of plastic wrap. Put the baking sheets in a warm place to proof the dough for 2 to 3 hours, until the dough squares have swelled to one and a half times their original size.
Prepare to fry the doughnuts
Fill a large (12-quart) pot 2 inches deep with the oil. Fasten a deep-fry or candy thermometer to the side of the pot and heat the oil over medium-high heat until the thermometer registers 350°F.
Line a baking sheet with paper towels and place a cooling rack on top of the baking sheet. Place the setup near the stove. Have a pair of metal tongs and a slotted spoon or spider handy.
Fry the doughnuts
Remove the plastic wrap from one of the baking sheets. Wet your fingers—this will help you handle the dough without squishing it—and gently pick up and drop 4 or 5 squares of dough into the oil, holding your hand fairly close to the oil when you drop the dough in so it doesn’t splash up out of the pot, and fry for about 10 seconds, until the doughnuts have begun to expand. Turn the doughnuts with the tongs and fry them for a total of 2 minutes, flipping them from time to time so they brown evenly on both sides.
Turning the doughnuts often helps to keep them evenly shaped.
Use the tongs to remove the doughnuts from the oil and place them on the cooling rack to drain. Check the temperature of the oil and wait, if necessary, for the oil to return to 350°F. Add another 4 or 5 dough squares to the oil and fry them as you did the first batch. Add them to the cooling rack to drain. Continue frying the remaining doughnuts and adding them to the cooling rack. Let the doughnuts cool to room temperature.
Fill the doughnuts
Fit a large disposable pastry bag with an Ateco #802 tip and spoon 1 cup (340 grams) of the jam into the bag. Set it aside.
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Using the tip of a small sharp knife, make 2 slits about 1 inch deep to form an X in the side of each doughnut. Insert the tip of the pastry bag into the X and gently squeeze the jam into the center of the doughnut. You want about 1½ teaspoons (about 15 grams) of jam per doughnut so that the jam is in harmony with the dough and doesn’t overpower it. (If you want to be precise, put the unfilled doughnut on a scale and tare [zero out] the scale. Then pipe the jam into the doughnut and place it on the scale again to check if you have piped in 15 grams; if not, add more.) If the jam pops up out of a doughnut, lay the doughnut on your work surface with the X facing up and gently shake it to help the jam fall down inside. Place the filled doughnut on one of the prepared baking sheets and fill the remaining doughnuts with the remaining jam.
Put the confectioners’ sugar in a fine-mesh strainer and dust the sugar over the doughnuts.
Blood Orange Jam
Makes about 4 cups (1,300 grams)
This jam is a bit sweeter than traditional orange marmalade, so you get the lovely flavor and vibrant orange-red color of the blood oranges, without the bitter intensity that turns off some people, including myself. I use apple stock to set the jam; apples, specifically the skins and seeds, contain naturally occurring pectin, the substance used to set jam.
Pectin is found in varying degrees in all fruit. Acidic fruit, such as pears, quince, tart apples, and citrus fruit, are generally high in pectin. Commercial pectin is pectin in powdered form that has been extracted from fruit. Sugar is hydroscopic, which means it attracts water molecules. As the fruit breaks down in the process of making jam, the water molecules in the fruit head to the sugar molecules, leaving the pectin molecules in the fruit by themselves. The pectin molecules then form their own network, which suspends the fruit juices and creates a thick, jammy consistency. Natural apple pectin is easy to make by simply boiling apple skins and cores, where the majority of the pectin in apples is found. Natural pectin doesn’t create a gummy consistency that some commercial varieties do.
Granny Smith apples 1½ pounds (about 4 large) [680 grams]
Blood oranges 6 pounds (14 to 16) [2,700 grams]
Granulated sugar 3¼ cups [650 grams]
Make the apple stock
Wash the apples, remove their stems, and quarter them; do not peel or core them. Place the apples in a large (6- to 8-quart) saucepan, cover them with 6 cups (1.5 liters) cold water, and bring the water to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low to maintain a steady simmer and simmer the apples for 1 hour. Turn off the heat and pass the stock through a fine-mesh strainer; discard the contents of the strainer. (Do not press down on the apples as this will make a cloudy stock and a cloudy jam.)
Get prepared
Place two small plates in the freezer. (You will use these later to test the jam for doneness.)
Make the jam
Peel 2 of the oranges with a vegetable peeler. Cut the peel into ⅛-inch-wide strips, place the strips in a small saucepan, and fill the saucepan halfway with cold water. Bring the water to a boil over high heat and boil for 1 minute. Turn off the heat and strain the orange peels. Return the orange peels to the saucepan and fill the saucepan with cold water. Bring the water to a boil over high heat and repeat, boiling the peels for 1 minute and straining them again.
Repeat, boiling and straining the peels a third time. Set the strainer over a bowl to continue to drain the peels while you make the jam.
Blanching citrus peels rids them of their bitterness, so you’re left with just the concentrated, intense flavor of the peel.
Juice the oranges and strain the juice into a glass measuring cup, reserving all the seeds and the pith from 2 oranges. Measure out 4 cups (988 grams) juice and drink the rest. Place the seeds from the juiced oranges and the pith into a small piece of cheesecloth and tie the corners together with kitchen twine.
Place the orange juice, apple stock, sugar, and the cheesecloth bundle in a large stockpot and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Reduce the heat to medium and boil for 40 to 50 minutes, until the jam has set, skimming off any scum that forms on the surface. Turn off the heat.
To test to see if the jam has set up sufficiently, remove one of the plates from the freezer. Place a spoonful of jam on the plate and return the plate to the freezer for 2 minutes, then gently slide your finger through the jam; if the skin on top of the jam wrinkles, it’s done. If not, put the jam back on the heat and cook it for a few more minutes, then test again in the same way using the second plate you put in the freezer.
Remove the saucepan from the heat, pour the jam into a heat-proof storage container and set aside to cool to room temperature with the lid slightly ajar. Cover and refrigerate the jam until you are ready to use it, or for up to several months.
Reprinted with permission from A Good Bake: The Art and Science of Making Perfect Pastries, Cakes, Cookies, Pies, and Breads at Home by Melissa Weller and Carolynn Carreno. Copyright © 2020 by Melissa Weller. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
