some free time

this is the debut of rose levy beranbaum's pie and pastry bible in my kitchen.
her flaky pie pastry is interesting enough. the butter to flour ratio is quite high, but not 4:5 yet. her method portions out the butter 2:1, using the larger portion to rub into the flour, moisture-proofing it, and the smaller portion for whacking into flat pieces. she uses cider vinegar (which i happen to have) and ice water to bind the dough, and because of the initial moisture-proofing, the gluten cannot overdevelop. but a lack of practice caused some ugly looking pie shell.
it was a quiche lorraine, with some onion for more taste. rose had a whacky technique of moisture-proofing the shell from the custard mixture: the moment the blind-baked shell comes out of the oven, brush it was egg white, which will quickly cook to form a thin crisp glaze layer over the crust, thereby moisture-proofing it.

today i woke up to make some over the top version of cinnamon buns. this one is nigella's schnecken. other versions include pastry cream in the swirl, and some use brioche for the bread. i wanted to use dorie's recipe for pecan honey sticky buns, but there were no pecans, and the brioche dough required overnight chilling. so i made the schnecken.
this dough contained butter, milk and eggs as the liquids - no water - so it was almost like a brioche already. ever since judy's class, i am careful to check for the gluten window.
the syrup was a mixture of butter, demerara, golden and corn syrups. at first it looked like a creamed mixture, but in the oven it would caramelise. after smearing it over the base of the pan, i dotted it with walnuts.
the dough took a long time to roll into the required size. i had to keep letting it rest. but it was able to go quite thin without tearing.
the dough rolled up very nicely. the underside was just a little tacky to feel like it was stuck on the tabletop, yet still able to lift away when i pulled it up to roll. i managed to make quite a tight roll and it looked like a popiah after slicing.
the buns were placed over the walnuts and proofed, then baked. i think i didn't bake long enough, because the syrup at the base didn't thicken/darken quite enough. anyhow, when i flipped it over to let it unmold onto the wire rack, some of the syrup came out and splattered onto my legs and it was HOT.
these definitely took up half the day. but that's how long bread baking takes; it's a lot of waiting time. and then some breads just require a bit more effort, a bit more fiddling with.

i like my sugar and butter in bread rather than cake. so brioche, cinnamon buns, shnecken, and sticky buns are all delicious.