Bread Everything

Sometimes it is best to go back to the beginning and find out where we started our love for things. With food, I know many things have changed over the course of my life, but certainly not that love of all types of bread.  The most common food I know about is bread and certainly something that we all have experience with, no matter where we are from, or how we have lived. Bread is a part of every culture. I cannot think of any other food that is equal in commonality. 

•         •     •

Up until possibly eight years ago, I would never eat avocados, olives, or mushrooms. I suppose that list is a lot longer but those three sticks out in my memory well. If I got a pizza with olives on it, you can bet I was picking them off. Mushrooms the same in any form, and avocados, are you kidding, I am not eating anything green that isn’t something I could have grown in my own backyard garden.  One day when I ate an avocado for the first time, it was on toast. It was in that very moment I realized I spend mostly all of my life depriving myself of one of the most beautifully tasting fruits on the planet. When perfectly ripe, they have that creaminess that melts in your mouth like ice cream. Spread like butter on toast and topped with some finely chopped tomatoes and I am in heaven. This, a typical Mallorcan breakfast I might add, commonly called a toastada, which I can add is with or without the avocado. Also, the Mallorcan’s love olive oil so they are always sure to add plenty to the toast before the spread and again on the top.

Why stop there, I then moved on to eating olives, mostly green as I just do not love black olives so much raw, but on pizza you can load them up. I am a bit bias towards the olives from Seville I should add, they are simply incredible. And, if you buy the giant ones pitted, you can stuff them with all sorts of amazingness and share with your friends. Finally, I started embracing mushrooms and wow, this is when I knew I was living the life of a buffoon. I now will eat raw champion mushrooms all the time, anywhere. They taste amazing, the texture is lovely, and they are quite filling.

Naturally then, when I think about bread, especially a basic white bread, I think about all of these toppings on them. Can you imagine how a slice of freshly baked rustic bread that has been toasted will taste when it is drizzled with olive oil and topped with some fried mushrooms. The beautiful pieces of mushroom strewn across the bread, and then you take that bite and answer to yourself the question of what really is heaven. You now have the answer.

•         •     •

Confession time: I actually have had to do a web search to see if it is possible to be addicted to bread. I love it so much and want to eat it with everything. And I can say with one hundred percent certainty, I am still just as tickled with the taste of a freshly baked loaf today as I was years ago. Nothing seems to take me to another place like bread does. Ok, that may not be true since I love so many foods, but bread for sure is in the center of my heart, right next to watermelon. But that is a discussion for another day.

•         •     •

When I was a child, we never baked our own bread. Well, that may not be exactly true. My mother baked bread all of the time, but I never once saw her making dough for bread. She always bought premade bread dough that we bought frozen in the market. Then the day she wanted bread she would take it out in the morning and get it into the pan. During the early part of the day it would defrost naturally, warm up, and then start to rise. Then she baked it and we ate it.

It never occurred to me, or at least I do not remember such thoughts, to ask why we are not making it start to finish, especially since we had done this very thing for most everything else we baked. Looking back on that it makes me sad knowing that baking bread is really as easy as can be for anyone. And yes, anyone can bake a good tasting loaf of bread. I say that with one stipulation, you do have to follow the rules or your bread could turn into bricks. We like bricks for door stops, but not with mashed potatoes, this I can assure you even though I know you already agree with me.

I think about those frozen dough balls all the time and it reminds me how it is engrained in the minds of most people that bread is a mystery and it takes a special code to unravel in order to replicate what we buy in the store.

A side note to this, leading up to the opening of my bakery I believed my bread was the best bread in all the land. I envisioned that on the first day of opening people would start lining up at the door waiting to come inside and buy bread, like I have seen happen with some other bakers in their shops. I thought we would need to close every day early because we ran out of everything. I really believed it. To the point where we would start giving out numbers to people to keep the crowds in some sort of order. I learned a hard lesson that day, and those to follow. There are people who take or leave bread, those who like bread, and those like me, who literally dream about bread. What I learned is that those first two groups are the ones who make up the majority of the human population. It did not always matter how great tasting my bread was if the people were still going to the market buying it for half or less than half of what I charged for something that could stay on their shelves for weeks at a time, maybe even years. I laugh! Have you ever seen the timelapse of a hamburger from the golden arches? Do a search on how long their burgers have lasted in tests and you will be amazed to see that even the breads help up for ages. We know why this happens, but what we do not know is why it doesn’t change the patters of people who eat those foods. And THAT is my point.

So today we are going to make a basic white loaf of bread. You can put it in a pan, or you can make it a round loaf, whichever you fancy more. I only ask you follow the instruction I give to you and you remember my mantra, which if you are following my blog, is something I repeat and will continue to repeat: If you are using a recipe, use the recipe, do not add more flour just because it felt sticky!! Enough said.

Not really! When I first started making breads on my own, I made door stops because I didn’t like that sticky gooey stuff called dough all over my fingers and not looking like they did on tv. I added more flour, and more, and more and more, and in the end, I got exactly what I asked for, a door stop that not even my dog wanted to eat. That hurts!

•         •     •

If you want to use a cup to do your measuring, just stop. Baking needs accuracy I am sorry to say so let’s be accurate. Get yourself a scale. In any local store you can pick one up for ten dollars plus one or two batteries, it will change your life, I promise. If you already use a scale then give yourself a shiny star, you deserve it.  Secondly, when I am not making a sourdough-starter bread, I like to use fresh yeast. I believe it gives a better taste to the bread than dry yeast. That does not mean I have not used dry or will use dry, just what my preference is when I have the choice.

•         •     •

Time to get the bread party started!!  This recipe will make two loaves of bread. I like to do this for a couple of reasons. First, the larger quantities reduce the margin of error, and second, I will often take one of the two loaves and do something different with it, like seed it or add nuts, etc.  Today, let us just make two loaves. Maybe you want to put one in a pan and one as a round loaf, your choice.

Ingredients
1000g white bread flour (please note to not use all purpose flour)
650g room temperature water
25g fresh yeast, or
14g dry yeast
20g salt

In another post, The rolls I love for sandwiches (https://ayeastedjourney.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-rolls-i-love-for-sandwiches.html) I provide two links of bread makers I know and how they work their dough. This will give you easy to follow steps on how to knead bread if you are unsure.

Method

1. Mix the dry ingredients together (flour, dry yeast if using, and salt). Do not worry about the salt bothering the yeast, I am sure it will be ok.
   
   
2. Add the water and fresh yeast (if using fresh). Using a bowl scraper, start mixing the ingredients all together. If you do not have a scraper you can use a spoon and or a spatula of some sort. Continue with this mixing until you have all of the ingredients worked together and there is no leftover flour.
   
   
3. Clean your worksurface and turn the dough out to that area so we can move to the kneading process. Do not leave any bits and bobs, as my friend Jack says, in the bowl. Now start kneading the dough in the manner that works best for you. The dough is going to be sticky at this point and you are going to want to add more flour. DO NOT! I promise you that stickiness is going away in a bit of time.  Continue kneading the dough for eight to ten minutes. Once the dough is not sticking to your fingers without you squeezing it of course, your dough is probably ready to move on to the next step.
   
   
4. Lightly dust the bowl you were using with some flour and then take the dough and place it inside the bowl, covering it with a tea towel. The first round of your bread making is now done. At room temperature, put that bowl to the side and let it rest for an hour. You can use this time to clean up your work station and relax a little bit.
   
   
5. After one hour, turn your oven on to a very high temperature. I usually turn mine up all the way. I believe a good hot oven is a great way to introduce your bread. At this time, I also will put a small metal tray in the bottom of the oven. While baking we will introduce a little bit of water in to that tray to cause steam.
   
   
6. Lightly dust you work surface with flour and take the dough out of the bowl so we can start working the dough. While the dough is sitting there, use your hands and knuckles to press the dough down to knock out the air bubbles and to spread the dough out.  Now cut the dough in half for two separate loaves.
   
   
7. Now you will decide if you are baking in a bread pan or a round loaf.
   
   
   - For a bread pan, lay your dough flat and stretch it out a little bit to form somewhat of a triangle. The wider part of that triangle, which is closest to you will also be the same width as your bread pan. Now starting at the top, fold toward you the dough until you can roll it. Then continue to roll it until it is at the bottom of the dough. Tuck in the edges as you make sure the longest part of the dough is on the top, lift the dough up and put it into your bread pan.
   
   
   - For a round loaf, if you have a banneton great, but if not, get a bowl which is big enough to hold the dough and have some room above for expansion. Cover it with a tea towel and push that towel into the bottom of the bowl with the sides of the towel overhanging the bowl. Now dust it heavily with flour and set aside.
   
   
   Take the edges of your dough and bring them in to the center one by one working your way around the dough until you form a ball that is upside down. Flip over the dough over and now you have formed your basic loaf. Now, using your bread scraper start sliding the dough around the work surface a little bit to create tension in the bread, mainly on the top. Once you have done this, gently lift the dough and flip it over putting the top side down into the bowl.
   
   
8. Cover both of your breads with a tea towel and let them rest for another twenty to thirty minutes. The amount of time depends on the temperature and humidity in your home. A good way to know if your dough is ready for the oven is the finger press test. If you push your finger into the dough (top side) and the depression comes out fast, your dough needs more time. If you press it in and it doesn’t come out at all then it means you went too long. But, just like the bears porridge temperature that was just right, if you press your finger into the dough and it comes out slowly, you are ready to bake.
   
   
9. Now that your dough is ready to bake, take one half of a cup of water and dump it into that hot pan that is in the bottom of your oven. This steam is going to help your bread rise by keeping the top soft and not forming a crust for the first 15 minutes or so.
   
   
10. Take a baking tray and on one side put some parchment paper down. Then get your dough that is upside down in the bowl and gently flip it over on to that paper so that the top side is up. Now put the other dough that is in your baking tray on the other side of the baking tray so you have both breads on the same tray.  Now, with a serrated knife or razor blade, score your bread a little bit in order to allow the gases to release while the bread is rising.
    
    
11. Put your baking tray into the oven in the middle if possible and then close the door.  Now turn the temperature down in your oven to 200c/392f and let your bread bake for forty minutes. If this is you first bread, I would recommend you look in the window of the oven starting around 25 minutes. If it looks like your bread is browning too much then turn the temperature down to 185c/365f and let bake at this temperature for the remaining 15 minutes to keep it from burning. You should not have a problem but it is good to check to be sure. Also, do this through the window if possible, instead of opening the door.

Once your bread is done, take it out and let it rest for one hour before cutting and eating as difficult as that will be. Use this time to take a photo to post on social media, and tag me of course so I can see how beautiful they have come out.  You can also use this time to make some different toppings for your bread if you desire and get yourself ready for that experience that will make you want to dance naked until the neighbors call the police. Do not worry, it happens to me all the time and now I just give the police bread when they come and they leave quietly.

I am really proud of you for being able to bake this bread. The first one is always the hardest. We will dig into different ingredients in our breads in future posts do not worry. When you taste the sundried tomato, olives, and rosemary rolls you will for sure sing out loud.

The Rolls I love for Sandwiches

Confession
When I first starting writing this blog, I wanted to start out by saying I wasn’t always a baker and I only picked up these skills in the recent years. This would not be a true statement. I have been a baker most all of my life, I just chose different professions along the way and had some gaps in time when baking wasn’t at the forefront of my thinking. When I was a kid and baking pies, or whipping my first meringue by hand, I defined myself as a baker.

I am a baker and I always have been a baker. I just needed the right amount of seasoning (life) to get me to where baking became my priority.

Why do I tell you this? It is simple. Only you can define what you are, what you want to be, and how you act accordingly. If at an early age you started surfing and continued to do it for thirty years, even though you never got good, you would not say you are not a surfer. Just because you did not get good enough to join the pro-circuit you would not say you are not a surfer. You are a surfer, and riding the waves that fulfill your dreams, no matter which diverged road you took, or take.  I say this because many, many people are afraid of baking bread, and baking in general. To work as a professional, it takes more than simple ingredients of course, but, knowing I could do it makes it clear to me that you can too.

Today you are going to read about my favorite bread roll. Four or five simple ingredients like most breads have, along with some time, patience, and love, you will be guided to baking amazing rolls, and you can add baker to your resume of life.

•         •     •

What is it that makes a sandwich roll memorable? There are many different types of breads used by different places. What I think is important are two things about eating hoagies (subs to the Northerners) or parmesans (usually a long roll with a red sauce along with whatever ingredients put inside; one, that the sandwich as a whole is what fulfills your expectations, and two, you think to yourself, damn that bread was good.

Growing up and always remembering the different breads I recall most hoagie shops like White House in Atlantic City, or the parm shops in Philly, is that their breads on their own were not memorable. Do not get me wrong, the experience at White House is what makes them stand out, but they use the same bread most every other sandwich shop is using. I understand the reasoning for this too. A place like White House probably turns 500 sandwiches a day and they cannot bake that much bread so they rely on a baker to provide it to them. That baker is probably baking twenty times that amount and supplying other businesses. I should note, I have not confirmed this with White House, it is just my guess.

But, every once in a while, you will stumble across a sandwich shop that makes a hoagie or a parm, or something else on a roll that leaves you remembering more than the experience, you leave remembering the bread.  That is what I am after every time. For me, it is all about the bread. I want that crunchy outside with a crust that is baked to perfection, slightly dusted from flour, a few cuts across the top, allowing it to breathe, and an inside that you cannot forget, chewy, almost sticky, and melting in your mouth.

It is without question, I believe, the French are most famous for baking a bread like this. In essence it is a mini baguette.  An interesting piece of information I found while doing research for this blog post is that the man who invented the modern-day baguette is the same man who invented the croissant. I cannot say if this is true or not but for certain the use of a steam oven is what has given these breads their classic crust and crumb.  This is a practice I put to use one hundred percent of the time when I am baking breads. Even if I do not want a crusty bread, but instead a soft burger roll, I always use steam in the oven.

So, what is this steam I am talking about and why do I insist it is so important. There are generally three ways to introduce steam into your baking: One, your oven is hooked up to water somewhere and it will allow misted water into the air inside of your oven, two, you can put a pan in your oven with water in it, or three, have a squirt bottle handy and every few minutes for the first part of the bake, you open the oven and squirt. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a steam oven, especially in-home ovens. If you are one of the lucky ones who does, please let me know when I can come over and play and we can bake an assortment of breads. In my bakery my oven was a steam oven and I loved it but my oven also had a fan that didn’t listen so well so even with the steam I never had enough water and supplemented it. That is a story for another day.

In your home oven, I recommend having a tray of water for your steam. At the time I turn my home oven on is the same time I will put a pan in the bottom, one that is capable of holding water, and certainly not glass. You dump water into a 300c glass plate and you will have serious problems in an instant so please never use glass like that!! 

When I first starting working out recipes in my home before I opened the bakery, I would use a squirt bottle to steam my bread. I will tell you what I liked about it first. I liked that I could open the oven and see my beautiful breads working their magic. What I didn’t like about it was everything else, most of all the notion that I kept opening the oven door, which was releasing heat and disturbing the process. The most important thing when baking bread is to trust the process and not disturb it, when you do is when you create problems. Take that advice to say that I prefer you do not use the squirt bottle method unless you are desperate. Deal?

•         •     •

Before we go any further, I want you to put an image in your mind.  You have a long, well crusted roll and a bread knife in your hand. You slowly start sliding your knife back and forth horizontally as you make a slice from one side of the bread to another, splitting it in half in preparation for your ingredients. You set the top side down and, on the bottom, you drizzle some of your favorite olive oil across the surface. Maybe you took olive oil a few weeks ago and put it into your favorite bottle with fresh thyme for seasoning and aroma. Now you gently take a handful of arugula and spread it across the surface, covering the bread and olive oil. On top, you have your nicely sliced pieces of tomato. Once this is done, you return the top half of the bread and you take a seat in your favorite place to enjoy a simple meal.

As you bite into that first piece of bread, you feel the crust of the bread crumbling between your teeth as you reach the softness of the bread, followed by the tomato and arugula. The flavors take you to a place you have not been and you want that moment to last forever.

Now, I ask you to hold that memory close to your heart as you continue to read, and when it comes time for you to bake your own bread. Then, when you have that moment, that bite, those sensations, and flavors, you will remember that those are from the gift you gave to yourself by making your very own bread.

•         •     •

Let’s bake some bread.

I have good news for you and bad news for you. Which would you like first? Ok, the bad news! Bread with a lot of flavor takes time. If you read my story about bagels, it is one and the same. With that said, you can still bake this bread in a couple of hours, no problem at all. The good news, the recipe could not be any easier.

I have two Dave Rules for you that are mandatory. One, do not add extra flour while kneading your bread, it is against the law. When you add more flour while kneading you are changing the recipe. Bread does not like to be dense, unless your secret plan is to use the bread as a weight to hold balloons down from floating away. And two, enjoy yourself. Your bread will know if you are not relaxed and it will act accordingly. Yes, it is true, your bread can read your mind, through your hands. Take a moment, breathe a little bit and then you are ready.

This recipe will make two loaves of bread

Ingredients:
1000g bread flour
650g water (room temperature)
25g fresh yeast or 15g of instant dry yeast
20g of salt
20g olive oil (optional)

The process

1. Place the dry ingredients in the bowl and mix together, if you are using dry yeast you can include this now. I know many times people will put the yeast in some water, but it isn’t necessary. If you properly work your bread the yeast will find its way around.
   
2. Add the water and yeast. If you are including olive oil then feel free to add that at this time.
   
3. Mix the dough. I use a bowl scraper to get the party started. As an added bonus, for the first ten people who send me a private message with their name and address, I will send them one of the bowl scrapers I had made for the bakery as a gift. As you are mixing the dough the ingredients start to work together to form a ball. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a perfect ball because we are going to work it on the counter in a moment, but you want to make sure there is no remaining flour.
   
4. Take the dough out and start to work it. Note, I did not say to dust the work surface, why? Correct, we do not want to change the recipe and turn our bread into a brick.  Use your favorite technique of kneading the dough, just make sure you are somehow stretching and folding it. When I studied bread making with Richard Bertinet, a true master of bread making, he used what is called he slap and fold method. You can look it up to see. Or, you can use another traditional method like my friend Jack Sturgess does which is pushing the bread outwardly and pulling it back over. I do not know what this is called. As a side note, Jack is very popular on YouTube and provides bread tips every single week and has been doing this for years. I highly recommend you check out his channel and follow him.
   
   You will know when the dough is done by how it feels and how it reacts to your hands. If you are not applying a lot of pressure when grabbing it and it doesn’t stick to you, this work is now complete.
   
5. At this time, you want to shape the dough a bit to ensure you are creating a top and bottom and building a little bit of strength. Do not spend much time on this, maybe thirty seconds to one minute.
   
6. Take a very little bit of flour and dust the bowl then return you dough to the bowl to rest, top side up. The cover it with a tea towel and let it rest for one hour.

Now that you have had some time to rest, maybe clean up the work area some, and of course, think about that arugula and tomato sandwich, it is time to prepare the rolls.

1. Turn on your oven as high as it goes and place that empty pan in the bottom.
   
2. Lightly dust your work surface and using your bowl scraper, turn the dough out on to the table. You do not want the dough to tear apart at this point, but it can stretch some, especially since we have the gluten working.
   
3. Now we can degas the bread. This is done in one of many ways and the idea is to simply get all the air out of the bread. I generally will lightly punch down on the dough until it flattens out. You do not want to beat the dough up like it owes you money, so if you do not get all of the air out, it is perfectly fine.
   
4. Reshape the dough and cut it into pieces. For this recipe we will cut each piece into 125g, which will yield thirteen dough balls. All of my life I am a superstitious person about so many things, and thirteen always topped the list. I would do anything to avoid the number at all costs, even if it meant taking an extra step on the sidewalk to ensure I walked fourteen, or if climbing a flight of steps with thirteen steps I would skip a step with each step I took, so I only took seven. Then one day a friend who I met in the bakery told me how lovely the number thirteen is and I should embrace it. That was like a light switch moment for me and now I love the number and do not mind including it in everything I do. I do not gravitate to it, but I also do not avoid it.
   
5. Reshape each ball into a small round ball where the top is nice and smooth and feels taught as you poke it with your finger. When all of these are done, we will start shaping the rolls.
   
6. Prepare the pan you are baking the rolls on. I suggest you will need two trays. Also, it might be good to put parchment paper down
   
7. With shaping, there are many different methods. We will not use a traditional method as with baguettes because these rolls are smaller and it just is not necessary, as we will get a nice taught top quickly.  We will use what is called the envelop method.
   
   A. First, flatten out the ball into somewhat of a rectangle shape. Not too thin like a pancake but certainly thinner than a typical slice of bread.
   
   B. Take the two top corners (the top left corner and the top right corner) and fold them in and down a little bit, forming what looks like the back of an envelope.
   
   C. Next take the top of the dough and roll that over to cover those folds you just made with the corners. Continue with the rolling until the dough reaches the bottom of the rectangle.
   
   D. As an extra added method of strength, take the palm of your hand and press that seam at the bottom of the dough to make sure they are together nicely.
   
   E. Putting the top side of the roll up, gently place your hands over the middle of it and start rolling the dough to get it to your desired width. It should, in theory, double the width of what you started with.
   
   F. Optional: Once you have widened the down, take your hands on a forty-five-degree angle and place them at the left and right ends of the roll and press them down and roll some more. This will create nice little tips on the end.
   
8. Place the completed roll on your tray and allow some space between each roll. As they expand a bit over the next twenty to thirty minutes and more in the oven, they will bake together if there is not enough room. Of course, that is ok, but it is not what we want for our experience.  Once you have all thirteen done, cover with a tea towel for twenty minutes.
   
9. After a bit of time has passed, we are going to dust and score our breads. We do this for two reasons: One, it looks really cool, and two, that scoring will allow the bread to breathe while rising which will prevent the bread from exploding uncontrollably.  Take note, we are not making soft top rolls so the temperature is different and we can control those differently to keep from exploding.
   
10. Remove the tea towel. With the classic baker style, holding some flour in your hand and a little opening at the end, whip your hand so that the flour softly flies out and covers the rolls nicely.  Once this is done, take a serrated knife or a razor blade if you have one, and slice the bread across the top from one side to the other.  You want to do this in a rapid manner and not go too deep. In the end, you want to break the skin of the top.
    
11. Now take a cup of water and put it into the oven. Set the oven temperature to 250c / 480F or as high as it goes up to that point. Place your tray of rolls in the middle of the oven, if you have two trays make sure you space them out.  Shut the door quickly and sit back for twelve minutes.
    
12. After twelve or so minutes have passed, turn your oven down to 200 and let the rolls bake for another 10 to fifteen minutes. The amount of time varies because every oven is a bit different and every oven will manage heat a bit differently.
    
13. Before removing the rolls from the oven please note, it is possible there is still a tiny bit of steam left inside, so be careful when pulling the door back to not be in the way of that steam releasing itself outside the oven. I cannot tell you how many times I have been steam burned because I always forget that. And look, we did this last part in thirteen steps, just like the number of beautiful rolls you just created.

Now that your breads are done, take them out of the oven and put on to a cooling rack. The breads need more time to relax after that time in the oven, for the crumb inside to rest and become what it is supposed to be. Do not rush this process.  In about thirty minutes start taking out your arugula and washing it. Then slice your tomatoes and have your olive oil handy.

I'll have a piece of that apple pie please

There are few desserts that are easy to make and taste amazing and nearly impossible to mess up. Apple pie happens to be one of those desserts.  In my life I have eaten many apple pies and baked quite a few I might as well add. As a child I was sure the one we had in our home was the best, but I can say with certainty that even pies coming from the market in prepacked wrap always tasted great to me.

In the bakery I started making apple pies for customers and I found quickly that they loved how they tasted along with how they never felt overwhelmed after eating them. I use simple ingredients in my pies as I believe that simplicity is what keeps its it consistent. When selling a pie, it is important that the second one tastes just as good as the first.

I learned to make apple pie when I was a kid. I do not recall how old I was, but I would guess around eight years old. My mother made them all the time and the routine always the same, prepare the dough, prepare the apples, create the pie, and bake. With that said, there is a bit of nuance that goes into them in order to make sure you have those nice chunky bits of apple, a sauce that is thick enough to drip slowly off the edge of your fork, and a crust that isn’t too dry, nor too moist, but instead, just right so that it is a bit flaky and yet doesn’t fall apart. Now that I put it that way, it sure sounds like the pie is much more difficult.  Nope!

When I was a kid and baking the apple pies my mother would help, mostly with paring the apples. I guess it was a bit of a dangerous job. If truth be told, the hand held paring tools, the ones that are wide at the top with two cutting blades and a handle you use to pull along an apple, still cut me from time to time. That is more about impatience than anything else though as I generally move very fast. As I think about it, that is kind of sad that I am not enjoying those moments and taking them in, but at the same time, in a bakery it is about quality, volume, and variety. I remember a couple of times taking off the corner of my nail and having to throw everything away to ensure there was no contamination. I am sure this is why she would peel the apples for me. Yes, I have used a paring knife, but I find them a bit too slow and if not done correctly, can waste some of the apple. 

Make the crust was always fun for me too. I would use our big rolling pin and push out the dough to a really big round circle, even though it wasn’t so round. All the outer edges would be broken in to jagged shapes, which was also good news because I would cut them off and eat the raw. I usually was kneeling on a dining table chair while mixing up the apples with the spices because I wasn’t tall enough. After I got the dough and apples in, I would not so carefully make a lattice pattern with strips of dough across the top. They never looked as good as my mothers, or Dee’s, the mother of our friends from down the street who was an amazing baker. 

I would never call her Dee, instead always Mrs. Fredrickson. But every time I went over, she would have some baked treat I could have a piece of.  Her kitchen wasn’t very big, but it certainly was covered with lots of machinery. At the window was her sink and to the right was the oven and her refrigerator. Then just across from the refrigerator was the dining table, which is where me, Joey, and Jr. would play rummy all day long during the summers, while enjoying her cookies or something else fresh out of the oven. 

By the time my pies were done baking I would have had maybe one half of a cup of raw dough, and certainly a half of a cup of the apple pie filling. Strangely I never felt sick afterwards, but thinking about those times now my stomach is telling me to not even think about it. 

Before we go any further, I want to make a confession, or would it be an assertion? I am particular, about everything! I like clothing put away a certain way though I don’t always follow the rules. I like to keep the house clean even though I am not a fan of cleaning. I like to do all of the hard work first during a day so that the easier work flows when I get tired. I like to work always before playing. And, I like my food to be neat and organized. Under no circumstances, do I believe ice cream belongs with apple pie, that is to say, Pie à la Mode. It is a strange name given it means pie in the current fashion, that is, what is fashionable. Does this imply that the pie is still a current fashion trend even to this day? 

Doing my research, I learn that it started with John Gieriet of the Hotel La Perl in Duluth, Minnesota, USA, and a native of Switzerland.  There was some speculation as to if a man named Charles Watson Townsend came up with the idea of ice cream on the pie, but in a New York Times article in 1936, it was cleared up that Townsend wasn’t the originator, but Gieriet.  All of that speculation aside, please, keep your ice cream off the pie, even if your pie is still warm from the oven and you have the perfect vanilla ice cream.

• • •

I know, I know, let’s get to the recipe and see how it comes out. Before we do, I want to talk about ingredients for a minute. Times are tough and spending money on non-necessary things can make one think twice about what they buy and the quality of those decisions. When baking, I believe the quality of ingredients really makes a difference. For instance, cinnamon. If you have had the opportunity to try fresh cinnamon from Morocco you will experience the rich deep flavor that you can never find in the plastic bottle in your supermarket. With that said, if there are ingredients that are not the highlights of what you are baking, then please feel free to cut corners where possible Not everything needs to be perfect to get to perfect results. 

My apple pie, is not dissimilar to many you will find. That is my disclaimer, but also brings up a good point. There are many, many variations of recipes throughout the world and we do not source any one person for all of them. I believe if we take the time to adjust the defaults and turn them into our dishes, then we can call them our own. Maybe I have said that before, but I will continue to remind you as I often see a lot of conversations around who really made what recipe. In this case, I took what I learned as a kid and turned it into what I bake today.

• • •

Question. Are you listening to music? I suggest that if you want to try this recipe, then you read it through thoroughly so you understand it, then you put on some good music.  Yes, I have a suggestion. I absolutely love La Donna è Mobile, by Verdi, but only if sung by Pavarotti, of course. In fact, while I write I listen to classical music all the time and this is amongst my favorites. 

The Crust

The crust to me is essential to get right, which includes ingredients, process, and temperature.  If you build your crust properly, you will have that amazing flaky crust, if not, you will just have an oily crust. Not a crime I suppose, but I say we shoot for the stars. 

First, we look at what we need:

300g of all purpose flour.
227g of butter
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon white sugar
6-8 tablespoons of cold water

Preparation

I like to use a food processor because it gives me the best results, but if you want to do this by hand you are welcome. First, I will explain the method with the machine and then I will explain it using your hands, which can be a meditation if you think about things in that manner. 

1. It is essential to make sure your butter is cold. What I like to do is measure it out and then return it to the refrigerator until I am ready to use it. If it is really soft, I will put it in to the freezer for a bit of time. I do not want it to be a rock, but if I were to chop it into cubes, they would stay solid and not be sticky.
   
   
2. Once you measure out the water, also return this to the refrigerator to keep it cold. Measuring this isn’t essential as we may not use it all or we may, we will know this as we mix our ingredients together. 
   
   
3. Now we can mix the dry ingredients together by putting them into the machine and pulsing it a few times.
   
   
4. Take the butter and water out of the refrigerator and start to add the butter to the food processor, about half. Turn the machine on and let it start mixing in, then slowly add the rest. Then start adding the water, do not add too much, maybe four tablespoons and let it blend. You want the flour to turn into a gritty sand like texture. No big lumps, but also, you do not want anything melted together. If at this point the butter is softening up, it probably means you had it mixing too long. Stop the machine and put the container in the refrigerator to let the butter cool down.  After mixing it when everything gets together it will start to shape into a ball, yes, even with the metal blades. This is when the dough is done so let’s get it out of that machine.
   
   
5. Take that beautiful ball of dough and form it into a round ball. Then cover it with plastic wrap as we are going to let it rest. But first, once it is covered, roll it on the table a bit to make it cylinder shaped. Not long, just no longer round. The reason is we are going to cut it and if we make it this shape, we are already on our way to the rolling out the round bottom. Once done, put it in the refrigerator.

Without a food processor. Using a bowl repeat steps one through three above just make sure your butter is in cubes. You can even use your fingers to mix up the dry ingredients

1. Add the butter to the flour. What you are going to do is start marrying the two together with your hands and fingers. Start working the butter with your fingers into the flour, rubbing your fingers together while they go through the butter and the flour. You do not want to let the butter soften so if you are rubbing it too much you will need to stop and chill the butter.
   
   
2. As you are breaking up the flour you will see the pieces, or chunks, of butter getting smaller and smaller. If the chunks are about the size of peas this is perfectly fine
   
   
3. Add some of the water to the dough mixture. Now take a fork and start mixing it together, you can mush it some and stir it some and just continue repeating this until everything is well mixed together. But note, if you are making this by hand, we already have determined we are going with rustic, so do not worry if this mixture is perfect, it will still turn out amazing as long as everything is nice and cold.
   
   
4. Take the dough in your hands again and start forming into a ball. Once you have it all together you are now done with making the dough crust and you can continue with step five above.

The Filling

Here comes another Dave rule, Daveism. No, I think this is more of a rule. In my opinion, the best apple for an apple pie is a granny smith apple. I have seen recipes where multiple apple types have been used and I have tried it myself. The results are never the same, especially with red delicious apples. They are too soft and not the right taste for an apple pie. In short, use granny smith apples unless there are no other options and your neighbor threatens to run around your house naked until she gets a piece of your pie. While the thought of that amuses you some, you remind yourself how it looked the last time she circled your house in her birthday suit because you held back on the watermelon ice cream.

Ingredients

6 granny smith apples
200g white sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons soya or almond milk
2 tablespoons corn flour
1 lemon

Preparation

It cannot get easier than this, I promise!!

1. Turn on your oven. It is always essential to make sure your oven is at the correct temperature when you put your pie, or anything else into it, so preheating is important. Maybe your oven heats up fast, but this process will go relatively quick and once we have formed the pie, we do not want to leave the pie sitting and waiting, we will go crazy because the smell of that cinnamon will tell our brains to eat it all now.  I set my oven to 225C or roughly 425F
   
   
2. I like my pie to be full. When I start to bake it, I want it to be a small mountain. This will ensure that I have a nice dense pie once it is baked. That means plenty of apples, even seven if they are not big, no one will call the police I promise. Peel and dice the apples into small chunks (how you want to see them inside the pie)
   
   
3. Squeeze the juice of one lemon over the apples and mix together with your hands. This will keep the apples from browning while you work through the rest of the process.
   
   
4. Now add the cinnamon, corn flour, and the milk to your mixture and stir together very well with a spoon and set to the side. 

Pulling it all together

Now that we have everything ready to go it is time to form our pie. I like to use a glass pie dish when I am baking my pies at home, but if you are baking in a commercial area, please use metal ones, never have glass in the kitchen. If you break something glass in the kitchen you have to toss everything out in the neighborhood.  If using a metal pan, maybe you want to butter and dust the outsides with flour to ensure the pie doesn’t stick to it, or use a vegetable oil spray and spray the outside. Either works fine as well as doing nothing. If the pie doesn’t stick of course we can cut nicer pieces later. 

1. Take the dough out of the refrigerator and cut a bit more than half of the log off and wrap up the rest and return to the box to keep cool.
   
   
2. Generously dust your work surface and put the dough flat side down on top and start to work it in your hands to flatten it out and make a round disk. If it is sticking at any time during this process or rolling it with the pin, just dust some more underneath.
   
   
3. Take your rolling pin and start to flatten out your dough. It is important to constantly move the dough in a circular manner so that your dough maintains some sort of circle shape. Continue to do this until the dough is somewhere between one eighth and one quarter of an inch. One eighth is too thin and one quarter is too thick.
   
   
4. Now that you have it nice and flattened out gently place it over the baking dish you chose. A simple trick is to fold the dough in half and place it half way into the dish, then unfold it the rest of the way to cover the other side. Make sure the bottom inside edges are touching the dough. If you have space between the two your dough will tear when we put the filling inside. Snuggly is the thought of the day during this step.
   
   
5. The outside of the baking dish needs to be one-half an inch of extra dough. Anything more than that we do not want so now you want to trim all of that excess off. Take that excess and put into a ball, we are going to use it in a minute.
   
   
6. Take the apple mixture and gently start pouring it into baking dish. Using the spoon, spread around the apples so they fill the nooks nicely and then let the rest start to pile up in the center. 
   
   
7. Take the butter that we have for the filling ingredients and cut into three or four pieces and put on the top of the apples. That will give this pie that extra specialness.
   
   
8. After you move the pie to the side, get the remainder of the dough out of the refrigerator and repeat the same process of flattening out the dough. This time, the dough needs to be able to fit over the top of the pie with one inch extra. We will pinch it in the next step. Put the rest of the dough with the scraps that you had from the other half of the crust.
   
   
9. Now we will overlap the dough. The top half of the dough will be longer than the bottom, so fold it over the top of the dough, this will make like an envelop of dough and then lay it flat on the rim of the baking dish.
   
   
10. Here you have many options on how to pinch your dough. We will go with the classic technique, but do not worry if it doesn’t look perfect, it will be beautiful.  The classic method is when you crimp the dough with the middle and pointer fingers of one hand, then take your index finger from the other hand and push it between the two fingers, creating a u-shape. You then move your fingers over to one half of the hump and repeat and then continue until you work your way all around the dough.
    
    
11. It is really important that you allow your pie to breath while baking or it can explode. What I like to do is cut slits that point toward the middle of the pie all the way around. Usually I will cut four, since no more is necessary.
    
    
12. Now is the creative part. What I like to do is roll out that extra dough and cut little shapes to put on top of the dough. My go to shape is a heart. I will place eight of them on the pie so each person eating a piece will have a heart with the widest part at the crust and the point facing the center. After you cut your shapes, brush the bottoms with your soya or almond milk and place them on the dough. This will seal them during the baking so they do not separate. Be creative. Tell me what designs you have put on your pies and show me photos too, I love to see how differently we have fun when baking and I always learn something new.
    
    
13. Paint the entire top of the pie with that same milk. You want a nice coat. If you see a little bit in a spot, do not worry about it too much, it will evaporate. This will give the pie a really nice shiny finish on the top.
    
    
14. Since we are baking this pie for a long time, we want to cover the crust for at least half of it so that it doesn’t burn. The crust can burn easily. What I like to do is take aluminum foil and make a strip that is about two inches wide, and long enough to go all the way around the pie. I wrap it around the pie snugly and fold the ends together. Then I crimp the foil over the crust and under the outside of the baking dish.
    
    
15. Put your pie in the center of the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes. At the end of this time, carefully remove the foil and bake for another 20-25 minutes. Every oven is different so the time and temperatures can be different too. If your oven runs hot or is accurate you can always lower the temperature some. The idea is that we want the pie to bake long enough that the apples properly bake, and that we get a beautiful light golden crust on the outside.

Now that your pie is done take it out and let it cool for at least one hour on a cooling rack before you cut your first slice. Smile, you survived your first Dave, plant-based apple pie and you did an amazing job.  Enjoy, just without ice cream.

The Chewy Bagel Everyone Loves

There are few breads that are baked that create a sensation in the mouth when you bite into them that can be explained without using words like yummy, amazing chewy, and the list goes on. My journey with bagels did not start at an early age but my love for them started with the first bite, and has never wavered.

 I recently read a quote in a magazine article about bagels that read,

“While a bagel is accurately ‘a round bread’ with a hole in the middle, it's really so, so much more than that.” Weinzweig, A. (2013, July 17). The Secret History of Bagels.

I could not agree more!

At an early age I learned a thing or two about baking. I was baking cookies as a very young kid, maybe five or so, and helping bake cakes too. Some breads though, we never baked. It never occurred to me to question why. I recall the breads we ate for the Sunday dinner always came from the market as a frozen dough, they would sit in a tin for some hours and then in the oven. Later to taste amazing, much larger in size, and always, served warm.  Strangely, as a young child, our house was not full of bagels. We would get them from time to time but they were not a feature in our home. My earliest memory of bagels was one day in the front of our house on a cold October afternoon, my cousin Albert and I were joking around and daring each other to do crazy things. I remember he topped the list when he put something on his bagel and ate it. To this day, that something is blocked from my mind, so I imagine it was probably gross.

As I grew older, I started to eat bagels often, and by my mid-teens I was always happy to buy a six-pack of them from the market, and just eat them. Even if they were not fresh, nor super tasty or chewy, I loved them. My favorites then, and to this day, are blueberry bagels. There is something magical about them to me, especially knowing that it doesn’t make sense to think of a blueberry inside a bagel, and yet, I can close my eyes in any given moment, and mentally bite into a blueberry bagel, and imagine every sensation. The taste of the berries, the intertwined colors of blue in the dough, and that chewy taste. What was also important was you could buy those six manufactured bagels for only maybe two dollars and they would make an entire meal. When I was living on my own in my teens, two dollars meant a lot and I needed to always spend it wisely.

When eating bagels there are some things to consider. Do you like to eat the bagel toasted or plain? Do you like toppings on your bagels or do you prefer them alone?  Let us make an edict right here and now about what is and what is not proper in terms of what you are supposed to do with your bagel. The number one rule to bagel preparation before entry into the mouth, is, there are no rules. Bagels are great any way you want them, toasted, baked only, with or without toppings.  If you like cream cheese, butter on toast, butter and jam, pizza bagels, toasted salad with cheese bagels, reuben bagels, you will get no complaints from me.

Yes, I have a favorite bagel, I love a bagel with cream cheese. But I do not cut my bagels. I will put the cream cheese right on the top and go full on while eating it. I also generally will not toast a bagel unless it is a couple of days old and you risk a tooth injury while biting into it. Only when I am making sandwiches will I slice the bagels. In our bakery, I used to make all sorts of sandwiches for the customers with bagels, mostly including ingredients like avocado and tomato, but sometimes in the morning I would bake pizza bagels and sell them cold. The question really becomes, what is your favorite kind of bagel. Please leave a message in the comments below and tell me your bagel memories too.

When I moved to Switzerland bagels became something I did not see very often and in fact it got to where I was only getting bagels when I would fly back to the United States. They just are not popular, which, I do believe is criminal. I traveled around a bit and the problem seemed to not be just in Switzerland. Every once in a while, I would find what someone would call a bagel a bagel, but the experience was not the same.  It is interesting because I believe bagels originated in Poland, while many think they were created in New York.  With that said, hands down, I believe the best bagels in the world come out of New York and Northern New Jersey. It pains me to include North Jersey in that list given I am from South Jersey. If you are from one or the other, you understand why I say that, we are two different states duck taped together. North of exit 80, to me you are a northerner, no discussion necessary. A ten-centimeter-wide, four-centimeter-high, chewy bagel out of New York a few hours after it was baked is unlike any other experience one can have.

Early in 2018, I started experimenting with bagels. What was important to me was to learn the basics from online recipes but then create my own version, that I could call my own, and share with the world without any worry whatsoever. What is important to know, like all bread recipes, there are always similarities so not everything is completely original, that is to say, unless you are using dried seaweed as your flour. Hummm, I will get back to you on that idea.

The journey of a baker is on of trial and error. The first few batches of my bagels were really good for one thing, hockey pucks. You would be sure to lose a tooth or two if you bit into them and certainly, you could carry one in your pocket as protection against a potential stalker in the night. You threaten someone with a stone bagel and they will back off, I am not saying this actually happened, or not, just saying.

What I concluded in the process of making bagels was that the ingredients are not the magic, but the process to get them shiny with a thin perfect outer crust and chewy on the inside, is where all the real magic happens.  Before we dive into making bagels, let me be clear, you can do them all in one day, but, if you want to reach the apex, I suggest you set aside two days to allow that dough to work its magic.

For my bagels, you will need some ingredients that are easy to find. I do my bagels in stages too, so you will not have a hard time finding. Like all of my recipes, I measure everything in weight, I never go by volume, as it can vary, especially with flour, and that is one thing we want to be sure we get right. And, I will repeat this a million times, but baking is different than cooking. With cooking if we are not accurate, we can still pull of amazing dishes, if we are not accurate with baking, amazing comes with luck and skill only.

This recipe will yield 10 or 12 bagels depending on how you cut them. If each dough ball weights 87 grams then you will have 12, if each one weights 104 grams, you will have ten. These weights can vary and you are welcome to make them even bigger if you wish, like 130 grams which yields eight big bagels. Note: depending on how closely you follow the weight instructions for ingredients, your weights could vary. What is most important is that each one weighs roughly the same amount so they all bake evenly.

Part 1: The pre-ferment
The first thing we want to do is make a preferment. This will enhance the flavor of the dough. You can skip this step and mix the ingredients with part 2 from the start, but I do not recommend it because the reward far outweighs the rushing through the process. Do not rush baking!!

Ingredients
450g bread flour              
340g water
3g/6g                          
(3 grams of dry yeast of 6 grams of fresh yeast. I prefer fresh every time)
1 tbsp Agave             
(You can also use maple syrup or another sweetener. We are feeding the ferment)

Method
In a bowl add all of the ingredients and mix until they are completely combined. Do not worry about the dough being sticky. Sticky is good. With bread, sticky is always better than dry by the way. If you ever have bread dough you are making and it is very dry, and you notice it is hard to knead, you will bake a brick.

Cover the bowl with a tea towel and let rest for four hours. In that time, it may start to bubble and even rise a bit. Make sure the temperature of where it is resting is not too hot, but not cold. If too hot it will ferment too fast and you will lose that taste you want to get. If too cold, the fermentation process may not happen. Generally, a good place to put them is in the oven, but please, do not turn the oven on. You can also let it ferment over night if you want to let the bagel process go even longer, or, suppose you want to start the work in the evening, and continue it the next morning, this also works.

Part 2: Mixing the final dough
Now that our pre-ferment has had time to work its magic, let us mix it together with the rest of the ingredients to finalize the dough.

Ingredients
200g bread flour              
30g hot water   
22g agave
20g salt
pre-ferment from part one

Method
in a bowl mix all of the ingredients together and form a dough ball. At this point, it may still be a little sticky but do not let that scare you. Once all of the ingredients are incorporated, lightly dust your work surface and toss the dough out to start kneading it. You could do this in the bowl, but on the work surface you will be able to manage it easier, and shape it better.

Knead the dough for about 8 minutes until any stickiness has gone and it forms a nice ball. Use any kneading technique you are familiar with as long as you are not tearing the dough. When you knead dough, you want to stretch it out and overlap it, but if you stretch it too much and it starts to tear, you are going too far.

Once you have completed the kneading, now you want to put your dough in the refrigerator for overnight. If you did the preferment overnight, then you will be making this batch for three days, otherwise it is two days. Don’t forget you can do it all in one day, but you compromise taste.

Part 3: Let’s make some bagels.
Doesn't that sound like something a game show host would yell out?!

Take your beautiful bagel dough out of the refrigerator and let it rest for five to ten minutes. It was cold in there and it wants to warm up a bit, but not too much before you start working it.

The next step you can do one of two different ways:
One, you can shape your dough into a log shape and eyeball the number of bagels you want to make. Just make sure you cut them evenly so that the sizes are all relatively the same, or
Two, you can weight out each piece. This is the preferred method as you are now a baker and remember, bakers like to be accurate. Save the nuance for that potato salad you are making to eat with the bagels later on in the day.

Once you have measured out each of your dough balls, roll them so that they form a nice round ball. You will have eight, ten, or twelve of these balls. The gluten in that dough has had some work so it will want to rest a bit.

Side note: Why do we let the gluten rest? When we work dough, the gluten builds tension. That tension is good, but it also is tiring for the gluten. Like when you go to the gym and exercise, you do not just go from one thing to the other without a little rest, and here it is no different.

After letting the bagel dough rest, we are now ready to shape them. Get a piece of parchment paper out that will hold all of them with space in between, we do not want them touching.  Take one of the dough balls and start to flatten it out a little bit in your hands. When you see it is no longer round, press your thumb through the middle to create a hole.

Once you have the hole, now you can start working the dough to stretch it out in your hands using your fingers and thumbs on the inside and outside. Pick the size of your bagel you want, but make sure the hole is big enough. If it is only an inch, it could close up by the time we start the boiling and baking process. Generally, I make mine about two inches or a tiny bit less. If you make the whole very big then the bagels will be fine, but you will not be eating a bagel, just something that uses bagel dough.

Lay each one of your shaped bagels out on the paper and then cover it with a tea towel and let that rest for about an hour. You want them to start to ferment and expand.

Twenty minutes before the bagels are done resting and fermenting, turn your oven on to 260 (or as high as it goes if it doesn’t go that high). We want the oven nice and hot when we start baking them.

Part 4: Lets boil some bagels.

Get a large pot and fill it about two thirds of the way with water and get it boiling. Once the water is boiling add a couple of tablespoons of baking soda in the water. This is used to help make that shiny outside of the bagel when it gets into the oven.

While the water is heating up, get some seeds or things you want to put on top of the bagels. Sesame seeds would be a great start, and leaving them plain is also perfect too.

Now that the water is ready to go, your bagels have fermented, you want to notice that the up side of your bagel is the top and what is touching the paper is the bottom. Gently lift the bagel and place it into the water. If it sinks and doesn’t float right to the top it means you have not fermented them long enough. If there is space, add a second, or a third, all the while trying to remember which side is the top and which side is the bottom.

Boil the bagel for one minute, then turn it over and boil for another minute. Once complete, take the bagel out of the pot and put it back on to a new piece of parchment paper. They will be wet and we do not want them to get the other ones which have not been boiled yet wet too.

Now take the second set of bagels and gently place them in the water. Once they are in the water, take the seeds and sprinkle them on the tops of your bagels if you are using seeds. This is the perfect time because the bagels are warm, and wet and the seeds will stick very nicely and very easily.

Continue this process until all of the bagels have been boiled.

Part 5: Baking the bagels

Because the bagels are wet, we do not need to introduce more water into the oven, but, if you want to spritz the oven with a bit of water, no one will call the bagel police.

Place the tray of bagels in the middle rack of your oven and bake for 12-14 minutes until they have a nice golden brown on the outside. Not too dark though, just right.

Once you take your bagels out of the oven, let them cool down a little bit before biting in to them. An hour would be perfect, but it is very difficult to wait that long once you smell how great they are, I understand. Just do the best you can!!

And a Bonus!!!

Do you like bagel chips? Simple!

Take a couple of your bagels that you baked and slice them into thin slices, maybe 5mm thick and lay them out on a tray with parchment paper. Once you have as many as you want, put them in the oven on a low to medium heat and bake them until they dry out. You can spice them up before baking them too if you want, by adding garlic salt or something else you fancy, like rosemary.

Please let me know how you like this recipe and if you have tried it. What worked and what didn’t work for you. And remember, bagels are staple foods, which means you can eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Well, I do!!

the best ice cream I never made

I was in the bathtub today, watching a documentary about Pavarotti, whose father was a baker. My bathroom is an open space and attached to my bedroom. On the other side of my bed is a double window that opens left and right to give me a clear view of the mountains of Mallorca. This is what I had in mind when I designed and built it, just a few short years ago.  

At the same time my phone rang, I was called by a dear friend from many, many years ago, who also happens to be an amazing writer, and has been helping me with a couple of projects. And in a moment of conversation, my lovely Sandy came in to the bathroom with some ice cream she just made for me, whispering that ice cream makes everything better. A beautiful surprise.  

Let me just say, we are vegans, so ice cream for us takes on a somewhat different meaning with ingredients than it does for others. The common vernacular for vegan ice cream is "nice cream." Over the many years I have always thought I perfected this and made amazing nice cream, until today, those words held true. 

Before I left Basel, I had a couple of friends over for dinner. I cooked a starter, a main, and prepared ice cream for them for dessert. At that time, five years ago, my ideals were not matched with my ability to make it taste great, along with an elegant texture. My base has always been bananas. I would slice and freeze them, and then blend them up with other things, like dates and a little cacao powder. Inevitably, by the time it came to serving, it would have crystalized in the freezer and the experience just wasn't the same. A couple of years later I found that mixing the non-essential bananas first, then adding them and serving fresh, would yield a nice creamy, and tasty dessert. Often, I would add berries, and a few nuts for variety, but I never really experimented.

As a child, I loved ice cream. I would get the banana boats and eat the insides first and then the bananas at the end. Actually, as I recall, I would really eat them in this order. First, all the whipped cream, then the vanilla, then the strawberry, and then finally the chocolate. My only variation to this would be when I wanted to mix the chocolate and vanilla together, which mean the strawberry came first. And then the bananas. I would always consider the plastic boat clean once I licked it and dropped into the bathtub with me for playing.

I knew the ice cream she made would melt so I took a small spoon my mouth, as quietly as I could to not alert my friend on the phone of my multitasking. Also, who really wants to listen to someone eat while they are talking on the phone? But how could I let it melt? A conundrum of sorts. During the call I managed to eat the softest six, or eight spoonful’s, problem solved.  

When I got off the phone, I called for Sandy, I had to tell her how I felt about the ice cream, but as she came into the room it wasn't so easy for me to speak as it was filled with such love that I admit the ice cream came first. Who could blame me, it was the best homemade ice cream I have ever eaten? Such simple ingredients, and just an idea that Sandy had in her mind. 

The details of what she presented to me: 

Removing the frozen bananas from the freezer, three full size bananas. I recommend that you make sure they are ripe, but not brown on the inside, just the outside. Toss them into your blender, include one who avocado, dates, a pinch of salt, and a dash of water here and there to just get the bananas to start to cream. 

Blend until a beautiful cream has formed and toss in some nuts, she used cashews today as they were the only nuts we had in the house. You could use almonds or just about any other you like, or not at all.

The recipe
3 frozen bananas
6 cashews
1 small avocado
7 dates (if using medjool dates you can use 5-6)
a pinch of salt
very little water

What is easier, simpler, and tastier than this? I cannot imagine that being many things. Imagine you are sitting on your balcony, listening to the wind blow through the trees as summer is approaching, and in your hands is a bowl of love, soft, creamy love.