If you want to make this recipe chosen by Susan of Food.Baby for this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie, check pages 59 and 60 of Dorie Greenspan’s book  Baking: From My Home to Yours. I made two versions, neither one used raisins.  One loaf was filled with walnuts and the other one had dried orange cranberries. I also used wholewheat pastry flour instead of regular flour.  The combination of cocoa powder and cinnamon made for a sweet-smelling bread that tastes like a chocolatey cinnamon roll!  Here is my version:

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 tsp dry yeast
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cup soy milk, warmed
• 1/2 stick butter, room temperature
• a pinch of salt
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 1/2 cups wholewheat pastry flour

For filling:

• 1 tbs sugar
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 cup chopped walnuts or dried cranberries (or combination of both!)
• 1/2 stick butter

Directions:

1. Dissolve yeast and 1 tsp sugar in 1/4 cup soy milk.  Let sit for 3 minutes or until foamy.
2. Using an electric mixer, combine the rest of the milk, sugar and butter. Process for a minute then add salt, egg and vanilla and continue processing.  Add yeast mixture and beat on low for a minute.  Slowly add half of the flour and continue mixing on low.
3. Add the rest of the flour and increase speed to medium, kneading until dough comes together and starts coming off the sides of the bowl. Dough should be very soft.  Place in greased bowl, cover with plastic tightly and let rise until double in size.
4. To shape the loaf, grease a loaf pan. Combine sugar, cinnamon and cocoa.  Spread dough onto a floured surface and roll into a 12 x 18 rectangle. Smear with butter then sprinkle the sugar cinnamon mixture.  Add walnuts or cranberries.
5. Roll from short end of dough like a jelly roll and place on loaf pan seam side down.  Cover loosely and let rise until about an inch above top of pan.
6. Preheat oven to 375F.  Brush loaf with the remaining butter then bake for about 20 minutes.  Cover with foil to avoid too much browning and bake for another 20 minutes until bread is golden brown and hollow when tapped. Cool for 5 minutes then unmold from pan onto a rack and cool to room temperature.

Our hostesses this month, Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz, and Valerie of a The Chocolate Bunny, chose delicious pate with freshly baked bread as their June Daring Cook’s challenge! They’ve provided us with 4 different pate recipes to choose from and are allowing us to go wild with our homemade bread choice.

Love, love, love pate. I wish I could have made all three recipes provided by our hosts but I was reminded of the time I made chicken liver pate, got so excited and fed some to my dog.  She eats chicken liver.  In fact, she loves it so much.  Unfortunately, when I served it at a party my guests got carried away feeding her under the table. Bad! Really, bad.  The next day, she was so sick and was eventually diagnosed with pancreatitis.  Too much chicken liver and fat at one time.  Looking back,  maybe my chicken liver pate was really bad the guests had to feed it to my dog!! LOL.

Anyway, I made the Three Spice Pate version this time.  Made just enough for —- probably 40 people!  Hey, they freeze well so after processing and baking and cooling, I cut the pate loaf and reserved a sixth of the portion for us. The rest went to the freezer immediately!  To go with the pate, I made wholewheat french bread.  Here are the recipes….and thanks to our hosts.  I might just try the other 2 pate recipes. A seafood terrine is sounding more yummilicious the more I read other Daring Cooks’ efforts.

Three Spice Liver Pâté
Yields one 25 by 12,5 cm (10 by 5 inch) terrine or loaf pan

1 lb / 454 grams pork liver (or beef or combination)
1/2 lb / 227 grams ground pork
1/2 lb / 227 grams pork fat (or pork belly)
2 cloves garlic
2 shallots
1 whole egg and 1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp / 2 ml cinnamon
1/2 tsp / 2 ml coriander (ground or crushed)
1/2 tsp / 2 ml cumin
3/4 tsp / 3 ml salt
1 tbps / 15 ml coarse freshly cracked peppercorns
2 tbps / 30 ml cognac
2 bay leaves
1 package of bacon

Directions:

Preheat oven to to 350ºF (180ºC).

Cut liver and pork fat into small pieces and add to food processor. Add ground pork, garlic, shallots, cinnamon, cumin, coriander, salt and pepper. Grind until smooth.

In mixing bowl, incorporate the meat and liver mixture with the cognac and eggs.

Line bottom of baking or ceramic pan with overlapping pieces of bacon. Place a bay leaf on the bottom and then fill with meat/liver mixture. Cover top with another bay leaf and then overlapping pieces of bacon.

Place in oven in the larger baking pan and add enough water to cover 2/3rds of the pan containing the meat/liver mixture. Bake for about 1-1.5 hrs.

The pâté will contract and the juices will be on the bottom. Allow to cool and soak up the juices. Remove any excess bacon and discard the bay leaves.

French Baguette
yield: Three 16″ baguettes

Starter
1/2 cup / 120 ml cool water
1/16 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 cup / 240 ml flour

Dough
1 tsp / 5 ml active dry yeast
1 cup to 1 1/4 cups / 240 ml to 300 ml lukewarm water*
all of the starter
3 1/2 cups / 840 ml flour
1 1/2 tsp / 7 ml salt

*Use the lesser amount in summer (or in a humid environment), the greater amount in winter (or in a dry climate), and somewhere in between the rest of the year, or if your house is climate controlled.

Make the starter by mixing the yeast with the water, then mixing in the flour to make a soft dough. Cover and let rest at room temperature for about 14 hours; overnight works well. The starter should have risen and become bubbly.

Mix active dry yeast with the water and then combine with the starter, flour, and salt. Mix and knead everything together—by hand, mixer or bread machine set on the dough cycle—till you’ve made a soft, somewhat smooth dough; it should be cohesive, but the surface may still be a bit rough. Knead for about 5 minutes on speed 2 of a stand mixer.

Place the dough in a lightly greased medium-size bowl, cover the bowl, and let the dough rise for 3 hours, gently deflating it and turning it over after 1 hour, and then again after 2 hours.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly greased work surface. Divide it into three equal pieces. Shape each piece into a rough, slightly flattened oval, cover with greased plastic wrap, and let them rest for 15 minutes.

Working with one piece of dough at a time, fold the dough in half lengthwise, and seal the edges with the heel of your hand. Flatten it slightly, and fold and seal again. With the seam-side down, cup your fingers and gently roll the dough into a 15″ log. Place the logs seam-side down onto a lightly greased or parchment-lined sheet pan or pans.

Cover them with a cover or lightly greased plastic wrap, and allow the loaves to rise till they’ve become very puffy, about 1 1/2 hours. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat your oven to 450ºF (240ºC).

Using a very sharp knife held at about a 45° angle, make three 8″ vertical slashes in each baguette. Spritz the baguettes heavily with warm water; this will help them develop a crackly-crisp crust.

Bake the baguettes until they’re a very deep golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove them from the oven and cool on a rack. Or, for the very crispiest baguettes, turn off the oven, crack it open about 2″, and allow the baguettes to cool in the oven.

I was at another mini-reunion yesterday, welcoming 4 of our high school schoolmates to San Diego.  One came all the way from the Philippines and the other 3 have been “lurking” in the Los Angeles area. I say “lurking” because I was clueless as to their whereabouts until yesterday! I was so glad to get in touch with them, and of course, the other girls who I finally met last year (check out our reunion last year complete with–what else? — a feast!)

As always, we did a potluck get-together but looking at the spread (sorry, I forgot to take photos) one would mistake it for a full-blown town fiesta in the making.  We had kare-kare (oxtail in peanut sauce), turon (banana spring rolls), tilapia, pasta, maja blanca (yummy dessert!), tacos, etc. I brought quikiam and made pandesal.  Wait….I started making pandesal in the morning. The weather was so lousy, the dough was not rising properly. I decided to bring the rolled dough with me and planned to bake it at the party house.  I left it in my car and totally forgot!!! Yep…another senior moment. Or perhaps it was the excitement of seeing friends and munching on delicious food. Anyway, I came home (at a decent hour this time) and immediately placed the baking sheet-full of pandesal in the refrigerator to retard rising (or at least I hoped it would). This morning, I baked them and the house smelled like the bakery from the street where I grew up in.  It was heavenly.  Hubby had some for breakfast.  I had several.  I slathered mine with butter (no other way to enjoy pandesal!) and enjoyed it with my oh-so-strong brewed coffee.

This recipe was the result of several experiments from recipes from different cookbooks.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (or 1 packet)
• 2 1/4 cups lukewarm water
• 6 tbs sugar
• 1 1/2 cups soy milk (or regular  milk)
• 4 tbs vegetable oil
• 6 cups whole wheat pastry flour (or 4 cups wholewheat pastry flour and 2 cups all purpose)
• 2  tsp salt
• bread crumbs

Directions:

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine yeast and 1/2 tsp tsp sugar and 1/2 cup lukewarm water.  Mix and set aside until foam forms (approximately 10 minutes)
2. Add the rest of the water and sugar,  milk, and oil to the yeast mixture. Stir on low.  Add whole wheat pastry flour and salt. Continue mixing on medium speed using a dough attachment until dough comes together but still sticky and moist.  Reduce speed to low and continue to knead for 15-20 minutes or until well-incorporated.
3. Remove dough and transfer to a prepared container (sprayed with cooking spray), turning to coat lightly with the oil. Cover  and set aside.  You can use plastic wrap or a clean dishcloth if the container you are using does not have its own cover. Let rise until doubled in size.
4. When the dough has doubled, divide in half and roll into logs.  Slice log into 2 inch pieces.  Roll each piece on a plate of bread crumbs then place on a non-stick or well-greased baking pan or sheet keeping them 1 inch apart to allow for rising. You can also pull pieces off the big dough and roll into smaller balls instead of slicing. Let rise a second time until doubled
5. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes. Serve hot.