Peanut Butter

This is just a quick little post for anyone who might be interested.

In the past year I have overhauled my diet, added a fairly routine exercise program to my life, and I've had a lot of success. I feel better, I look better, and I am a very happy camper. One of the things I've tried to do is to eat less processed, factory made, or chemical heavy foods. When I thought about it, it made so much sense to me. Why should I be eating foods that are packed with synthetic and possibly harmful chemicals when I could be eating fresher foods more often (with the exception of the fact that the foods I am speaking of are typically much cheaper than natural and organic options, but that is a topic for another time)? So, I've been slowly adding more whole grains to my diet, subtracting some meat (not all, I am still an omnivore at heart), and trying to eat less refined sugar (I use honey almost every day for something or other). Like I said, it's taken a very long time, and I started out slow, but I feel amazing these days and it's only getting better.

However, there is one thing, one essential part of my diet, one little secret love of mine that I was not willing to let go of. I love this product like I used to love cake (you can say it, fat kid love cake, it's funny). I put this on bananas, bagels, toast, apples, cookies, on crackers, in sandwiches, pair it with chocolate or honey...yeah, I'm talking about peanut butter, I am madly in love with peanut butter. Not just any peanut butter at that. I am madly in love with good ol' Jif peanut butter. I'll leave the "Choosy Mom's choose Jif," discussion for another time as well. It takes everything I have to overlook that ad campaign and continue to buy Jif, but it's love and I love me some Jif. My loyalty to this factory made, processed creamy spread that does have a few extras in it for preservation and texture, was going to die hard...really, really hard.

Every member of my family has switched from our beloved Jif to something more healthy, like Smuckers Organic, or Vera Cruz Organic, or our very own Heinen's organic brand. I've tried. I really have. I just can't get past the stirring requirement, the oily top, the gritty texture, and the feeling that I'm eating peanut flavored tile grout. I was NOT going to give up my Jif.



Well, as it turns out, I didn't have to. Today I discovered a new Jif product. Jif Natural. Hallelujah, praise the Lord. Is it organic? No. But it is natural, without the little extras for preservation and texture. It is also essentially the same nutritionally (I can't give up those 3 grams of sugar, I just can't. Peanut Butter shouldn't taste like wallpaper paste), except for 10 more fat calories, but I don't care. It tastes great, it has the same familiar smooth Jif texture, and it IS natural, even if it's not organic. What a happy little surprise this was. So today I feasted on a multi-grain bagel, toasted, with Jif Natural, sliced bananas and a drizzle of honey. Perfection.

Lemon Bars and the Ladies Tea

For anyone who knows me well, two totally contradictory thoughts will enter their minds upon reading the title of this post. The first of these thoughts will be, of course, that baking for, preparing for, serving and enjoying a "Ladies Tea," would be something I would do, be very good at, and enjoy. The second of these thoughts, the one I have to put on the back burner occassionally myself, is something more like, what is this feminist, women's rights advocate, Women's Studies major doing at a Ladies Tea? In light of this I have decided that this blog post should address both of these ideas (for my own sanity)-first the theory, then the goodies.

The Ladies Tea. Some may say that the Ladies Tea is the epitome of a foundation, a structure, and a process that the various waves of feminist movements have been trying to overthrow. It is a perfect example of the intentional socialization of women, from birth, to be, act, speak and live a certain way. It is the pinnacle of conformity, from the lightness of the food that was served (watching our waistlines you know) to the size of the handle on the tea cup (you know we are all dainty, small, delicate, weak and God forbid we take up too much space), to the expectation of stockings and dresses that were confining and honestly not very comfortable. Perhaps the only people at the tea who could actually use the handle the way it was meant to be used were the four little girls under the age of 10 who attended. These little girls were dressed up, pressed up, and watching every little detail that was happening around them. I am just so very grateful that these girls, I know, are exposed to many other things-an advantage little girls did not have even 25 or 30 years ago. While they did attend the ladies tea, they probably also play soccer, or go fishing and they certainly speak their minds. Probably my favorite moment of the day was when one little girl, maybe three years old, pulled her dress over her head to scratch her butt-and this was after her shoes had long since been kicked off. Thank God for little girls like that.

The redeeming quality of the Ladies Tea for me is one that is fundamentally near and dear to my heart. It is the reason I participated and the reason I had a great time. It is a core piece of the very beginnings of the women's movement in America. The Ladies Tea was a women-only space. I think the importance of historically women-only spaces has been neglected and forgotten, if not totally disregarded. The women's movement didn't start on the streets, it wasn't broadcasted on CNN or YouTube, and it wasn't debated in Congress. The women's movement started in kitchens, laundry rooms, over stringing beans and brewing coffee. It started at luncheons, over cucumber sandwiches and piping hot tea served in cups with tiny handles that the women realized they couldn't even pick up really. Yeah. Before 1920, there existed no public arena for women's voices. Forget about your Tweets, your blog and your Facebook status updates. Forget about registering to vote, filling your birth control prescription, owning your own property, going to college, working outside of your home, or pursuing a career. Without women-only spaces, where women could speak freely and feel able to share their intellect, we'd still be our husbands' property, tied to our kitchens, without an education, a voice, or a chance.

Now those of you who want to rain on my parade with your ardently held slandering of genderedness, pardon my choice of words but, you can just shove it. Without these women-only spaces, you probably wouldn't be able to, have the right or opportunity to so freely express your opinion on how they shouldn't exist.

The Ladies Tea is a part of my heritage as a feminist. While I was carrying plates of chicken salad to the pastel clad ladies in hats and stockings, I kept reminding myself that perhaps, just perhaps, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton sat at a tea like this one, sharing their thoughts on how women really ought to have the right to vote. I closed my eyes for a moment and just listened to the hum of chitter-chatter going on from table to table and tried to imagine how these little sounds, these voices, this energy spun into the modern American women's movement and all of the priveleges extended to me because of it. I have to appreciate the Ladies Tea, I don't have to like the details of the tradition, but I do have to appreciate it.

Now, for those of you who are only reading through this Women's Studies lesson for the Lemon Bars, now's your time.





Everyone LOVES these lemon bars. They have a fantastic, sweet and thick shortbread crust, and a slightly tart but translucent and gooey filling. Nothing says springtime like lemons. The freshness, the zip and zing of tanginess, the delightfully yellow color and the citrusy bite all remind me that the flowers are blooming, the trees are budding and the warm sun is returning. These to me are the essential lemon bar, the perfect example of what a lemon bar should be, and I hope you enjoy them.


Ladies Tea Lemon Bars

CRUST

2 sticks of soft butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1/8 tsp. salt

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease, with Crisco by hand, one 9 x 13 x 2 inch glass or ceramic baking dish (don't use metal, they'll never come out of the pan).

2. Cream together the butter and the sugar until light and well blended. Mix the flour and salt together and add to the creamed butter. Press this mixture into the pan and bake for 15 minutes. Let cool for 10-15 minutes.

FILLING

4 eggs
1 1/4 cup sugar
6 TBS. flour
6 TBS. fresh lemon juice (about 3 lemons)
1 TBS. fresh lemon zest (1 lemon)

1. Beat eggs and sugar together until pale. Add the remaining ingredients, mixing well. Pour this mixture over the pre-baked crust.

2. Bake for 25 minutes, or until they seem set (you shouldn't see liquid moving under the surface of the bars) and are golden brown on top. Cool completely in pans. Cut into squares. Makes 24 bars.

The West Side Market--Part One

Last Friday, my good friend and uber-talented photographer/graphic designer Anna Zimmerman and I ventured across the Cuyahoga from our Eastern suburbs to a major artery in the network of living and breathing places that keep Cleveland beating. If you live in the Cleveland area and you've never been to the Westside Market...go. Now. Today.

On the corner of West 25th and Lorain Ave., the West Side Market is the heart of Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood. Surrounded by small, locally owned shops, stores and restaurants, for anyone that's into all things local (like me) this should be your first stop. While I do have some reservations about certain aspects of the market (the produce mostly), no where else in Cleveland will you find such a concentration of mostly locally made products as you will within the walls of the century old market building (look for the clocktower, that's where you need to go).


One of Anna's photos from our trip that day. Check out her blog to see more.

While there are still sausage shops and meat markets scattered like satellites in and around Cleveland's borders, typically they stand alone and there are miles and miles in between them. At the West Side Market, there are merely steps between them. A brief walk down one of the Market's packed ailes will bring you past at least three or four meat stands. You will stand in awe of the whole pigs, gutted and stretched out, ready for pit roasting. You will stop in your tracks and gasp at the sight of a cow tongue that looks like an enormous fuzzy slug, folded over, plopped inside of a meat case. You will pass a case with a whole lamb head, eyes and all, and you will turn to your friend and say "Who eats that?" For the first part of what will surely be a series on the West Side Market (my budget only allows the purchasing of one or two items at a time), I'll let you in on my latest find in the meat department. At Dionne's Poultry last week, I purchased six "Mild Italian" Chicken Sausages. After a good stint on a hot grill and being slathered with smoky seared peppers and onions, these were hands down the best chicken sausages I'd ever eaten. I highly reccomend them.

Like many other Clevelander's I've talked to, inside of my head, in my mind, Michael Symon (The Next Iron Chef) is my close personal friend. There is something about this place. If you're from Cleveland, you know everyone in Cleveland and if someone from Cleveland becomes famous, then they're pretty much your second or third cousin twice removed or something along those lines. So, while I was watching the Food Network series The Best Thing I Ever Ate , the episode about salty snacks, I, along with thousands of other Clevelanders saw Michael Symon share his favorite hot and spicy beef jerky with us. It is from Czuchraj's and of course we had to have some. Anna took the initial dive into the hot and spicy smokiness, right out of the bag, seconds after she handed it to us. Moments later, when her eyes began to water, I decided to save my first taste until I had something (milk, water, beer, whatever really) to drink, just in case. When I did finally taste it, I was in love. It is super smokey, it is crusted in spices and flavors, it rubs off onto your fingers making for fantastic post jerky finger licking, and the meat itself was perfect. It tasted like the best flank steak my Mom ever made, it was somehow perfectly dry (for jerky) and yet moist the longer you chewed it. I would definitely re-visit Czuchraj's and not only treat myself to this again, but certainly try their other smoked offerings.

My biggest problem with the West Side Market is that the produce is fresh, but not local. BUT, I am not so naive or self-righteous to think that a market in Cleveland, Ohio could flourish year round on what, in January, would be squash and apples. When I think about it, I just try to appreciate the fact that the Market provides access to fresh produce for many, many people, no matter what season it is or where it comes from. Fresh is always better, so buy on at the West Side Market.

Stay tuned for more tales of my adventures to Cleveland's oldest public market.

Maple Syrup

The Syrup Maker

His gloves were stiff and tough, the canvas stretched and stained after a year’s worth of hard work. They hung knowingly from a hook on the wall near the door and they stared at him awaiting their morning routine. When he chopped wood they were there, keeping the blisters off of his palms. When he bridled the horses they were there, guarding his knuckles from the coarse hair and weathered reins. When he milked the cows they waited patiently, peeking out from his back pocket. They were his routine. This morning, however, they saw their own betrayal, as his wife handed him a soft, flexible, bright new pair of gloves as he reached for the door knob. He’d waited in anticipation for this day all year, as he did every year. Today he was more than the wood chopper, the buggy driver, the milkman and the farmer he was always supposed to be. Today he was the syrup maker.

The time for making syrup is always cold. It is not cold like the heart of January or even the raging beginnings of February. It is the cold of March. This is the type of cold that chills you on the surface, but it doesn’t reach into your bones. There is a breath of spring in the air, you can smell it. The wind doesn’t burn your nostrils. Instead now when it blows you can breathe it in and smell the tiniest whiff of mustiness, the quaint pungency of fall’s composting leaves that are waking up beneath the drifts of snow. When he could smell the air this way, he knew it was time. He knew that now, he was not the only thing that wasn’t frozen to its core anymore. Now the trees are waking, they are shaking off their winter sleep and are breathing deeply again. Their insides are alive, their hearts are pumping and it is not blood that runs within their veins, but a sweet and sticky sap. Like a doctor may have bled his patient, he hoists his bucket full of homemade wooden taps into the wagon and begins pricking the trees.

As his boots grazed through the drifts of late winter snow, he drove a tap into every sugar maple of proper age on his property, and positioned a metal bucket precariously under to collect the slow dripping spring time harvest. He relishes the time alone in the woods with the chilly air and the softly falling snow. He is a faithful man. Every year for the past ten years he has worshiped God, loved his wife, provided for his children, and poured every ounce of himself into working his farm and raising his animals. He is a devout man, he has followed God’s laws and he reaps the full benefits of living. And while he knows he should not crave for more, every winter he yearns for the days when he can venture out into the forest alone.

He is the syrup maker. In a week he will thrust open the dust covered shutters of the tiny sugar house on the back of his property. Intense clouds of steam will funnel out of the chimney, and pour into the cold, gray sky as he cooks and stirs the earthy brown brew into an ultra sweet, thin, runny syrup. His wife will trek back to the tiny wooden structure once or twice a day with a small wagon to collect what he has made and haul it up to the kitchen to preserve it. Other than those moments, he is alone. He is the syrup maker. His neighbors and friends will all be so grateful for his annual efforts. His community will thank him and though this expectation of praise makes him feel ashamed and he will repent for it, he cannot stir down the pride that bubbles within him. For two weeks a year, on the snow covered expanse of his rural Ohio property, beyond where his family can see him, and totally outside of the routine of his everyday existence, he is the syrup maker.


It is that time of year again. While I, among others, anticipate the arrival of spring and summer and the ensuing flood of fresh, seasonal produce, we are treated to the arrival of the first harvest of the year, an appetizer for seasonal eatings. Maple syrup is big here in Northeast Ohio, really big. On April 22, the 84th annual Geauga County Maple Festival will open in Chardon Square. And while probably most people who live in this area open up a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth or Log Cabin for their pancakes and waffles (let's be honest, I enjoy that on my Eggos too), if you pair the real thing with the right flavors, you are bound for a love affair with pure, local, Maple Syrup.

While I know that pure, local maple syrup can be tough on a girl with a tight budget, if you can afford it, use it. It is a thousand times better for you to consume than the flavored corn syrup variety of "maple syrup," and buying it locally produced is good for the local economy. I bought my bottle at Eddy's Fruit Farm in Chesterland, Ohio. You can find it many, many places, now even including your local grocery stores. Just make sure that if you're going to shell out the cash for pure maple syrup, that you pick up a bottle that was made in Ohio, as close to where you live as possible (nothing against Vermont or Maine).

These were so tasty, try them once, you'll fall in love. And for anyone who is interested, there is no enriched flour and no refined sugar in this recipe. It is also made with lowfat butter milk and only whole grains.


Multi-Grain Griddle Cakes
with Orange Butter and Geauga County Maple Syrup

1/2 cup (8 TBS. or 1 stick) of softened, salted butter
Grated zest of one whole orange
2 eggs, beaten
2 1/2 cups of lowfat 1% milk fat buttermilk
1/4 cup local, pure maple syrup
1/2 cup (8 TBS. or 1 stick) of melted, salted butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2/3 cup locally milled stone ground cornmeal
1 1/3 cup white, unbleached whole wheat flour (King Arthur brand is what I used)
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
3 TBS. quick cooking rolled oats
Oil for griddle
1 cup local, pure maple syrup

1. The night before you plan to eat or serve the griddle cakes, cream together the grated orange zest and the softened butter until the two are well incorporated. Store in an airtight container overnight.

2. In a medium size bowl, combine the eggs, buttermilk, maple syrup, melted butter and vanilla. Set aside.

3. In a large bowl, combine the cornmeal, flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and rolled oats. Pour the wet mixture all at once into the dry mixture and stir until just combined and the batter is still lumpy. Let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.

4. In the meantime, in a small saucepan, heat the 1 cup of maple syrup over low heat until just warmed.

5. Oil a griddle pan or frying pan and heat over medium high heat until water droplets bubble and sizzle when they are dropped onto it. Using a 1/2 cup measuring cup, pour batter onto hot griddle. Cook on one side until bubbles form evenly across the top of the griddle cake and the edges just begin to dry out. Flip and cook until the bottoms are golden brown. The griddle cakes will cook faster after being flipped so keep a close eye on them. Remove and keep warm, while you finish cooking all of the batter.

6. Serve hot with the premade orange butter, and the warm maple syrup.

Makes about 12 - 5 in. griddle cakes.

For the benefit of Jon and others...

A couple of days ago my friend Jon asked me for a good potica recipe, and he included the sentiment that he felt as though I would have one. I whole heartedly enjoy that reputation and felt completely honored that he'd asked me of all people.

So, for the "others" out there, potica (pronounced po-tee-tsa) is a very traditional Eastern Euorpean nut rull, though it occasionally has other fillings. If you find yourself in the Cleveland area around Christmas or Easter, you are bound to run into some. With a total around 44,000 people of Slovenian descent, Cleveland boasts the largest concentrated population of Slovenians outside of our native Adriatic homeland. The best way to find good potica in Cleveland is to ask around. Someone here, specifically on the East Side where the population is the greatest, knows someone who knows someone who makes it.

Good potica should be heavy, moist and should have large concentrations of filling compressed between layers of wafer thin, delicate, flaky pastry. The raisins should pop inside your mouth when you bite into them, they should be plump and sweet. The best potica should also be made with love (not to sound cliche), it should be made with hands that remember those who have gone before them. When you are rolling out the dough, you should think of the generations of people who came here to the unknown, crammed together on the lower deck of a steamship with one suitcase and volumes of recipes that traveled here inside their heads, and their hearts. Even if you're not Slovenian, just think of all of the things you'd be missing out on if they'd never come at all (potica, klobase (Slovenian sausage), strudel, and lest we not forget polka music). Keep it simple, keep it traditional and most importantly, keep making it.


Basic Potica

(Based on the recipe from the Treasured Slovenian and International Recipes cookbook, produced by the Progressive Slovene Women of America, and used frequently by my Grandmother. I've made some revisions to help out.)

1/2 cup warm milk (115 degrees on a candy thermometer)
1 TBS sugar
2 cakes yeast (usually found in the dairy/cooler section of the grocery store)

Dissolve yeast in warm milk. Stir in sugar and let stand in warm place until foamy, about five minutes.

6 cups of sifted all purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1/3 cup sugar
1 stick of butter, softened
3 beaten eggs
1 cup of room temperature sour cream (very important that it's not cold)

Place flour in a large bowl and add salt, sugar, butter, beaten eggs and sour cream. Add yeast mixture and mix well. Knead until dough is pliant, about 10 minutes. (The dough should be feel smooth all the way through, be springy and easy to work with.) Divide dough into three parts. Oil three medium sized bowls and place a ball of dough in each one, turning to coat with oil. Cover each bowl with plastic wrap and let sit in a warm place for 30 minutes. (Suggestions for a warm place would be on a heating pad, or ontop of a pre-heated oven.)


1 cup golden raisins
2 TBS brandy, rum or orange juice
1/2 cup warm water
1 1/2 lbs ground walnuts (should be fresh, if they are stale it will taste bitter)
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/3 cup honey
2 TBS sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
3 egg yolks, slightly beaten
1 stick butter
3 egg whites, beaten until stiff
cinnamon
1 1/2 cups sugar

In a small bowl, combine raisins, brandy, and warm water. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand at least 30 minutes. Drain.

In a small sauce pan, combine milk and sugar. Scald the milk mixture (heat it until the moment before it boils, watch it carefully). Place the walnuts in a large bowl and pour the milk mixture over them. Add the butter and let it melt in the warm milk mixture. Add honey, 2 TBS of sugar, vanilla and egg yolks and mix well. Fold the stiffly beaten egg whites gently into this mixture and set aside.

Roll the first ball of dough out onto a lightly floured cloth to between 1/4" and 1/8" thickness (shape it like a long rectangle). Spread 1/3 of the filling mixture of the dough, leaving 4 inches of dough on one end without filling (to make a top crust). Sprinkle 1/3 of the raisins over the mixture. Sprinkle with a dash of cinnamon and 1/3 of the remaining sugar. Roll like a jelly roll, starting with the end that has the filling. Seal the edges with your fingertips.

Grease 3 extra-long loaf pans and line them with parchment paper. Place the log into the loaf pan with the end unfilled layer up (to make the top crust). Prick with a toothpick. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for 45 minutes. Repeat the rolling and filling procedure with the remaining two balls of dough.

2 egg whites
2 TBS of water

Beat together until mixed and frothy.

After the poticas have risen the second time, brush the tops with egg white mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees and bake for another 30 minutes. Remove from oven and let stand 15 minutes. Remove from the pans and cool completely on a wire rack.

Makes 3 poticas.


Suggestion: I would think about making 1 and 1/2 recipes or a double recipe of the filling, because I like A LOT of filling in my potica. Just a personal preference.

Easter, Spring and Something New

Darkness was my first impression of this Easter morning. Usually when I wake the sun is at least peeking, gently slipping through my window shades. There is a glow that illuminates the room in an orangey golden haze, and my mind knows immediately that it is time, another day has dawned and there is reason to wake. Today, when my alarm clock began to blare unforgivingly, it was pitch black save for the alien red glow of the mechanically square shaped numbers that read: 6:00.

When I had managed to stumble out into the kitchen, feeling the walls and flipping on light switches, I approached my ivory clad side by side refrigerator (which had spent the whole night groaning, clanking, and running intermittently like an old engine), and pulled the door wide open to a chilly morning blast. Trying desperately to rub the sleepiness out of my eyes, I squeezed them open and shut trying to focus on the great orange bowl I had set on the highest shelf only six hours ago. When the blury haze of morning fatigue had cleared, I saw it. Inside the orange bowl, just barely touching and clinging to the plastic wrap that was draped over its sides was a puffed mountain of earthy brown dough. Along the seams where the dough had groped at and climbed up the sides of the bowl were the billows and bubbles of it's stretching and expanding. It had swollen to twice the size it was when I had put it in there, and as I lifted back the plastic wrap the sweet, antique aroma of yeast and spices filled my nostrils and enlivened my spirit.

Six hours ago, I had wrapped it up and closed it inside the chilly rubber sealed vault that was my refrigerator. Now, as I opened the door and the pale light from the aging appliance filled the darkness of the kitchen, I pulled out something that was so very different from what I had put in. Life had been breathed into the originally limp, dense piece of sticky, intimidating dough. It had risen and I could put my hands around its lightness, hold it up to my face and breathe in its heavenly aroma. My eyes were open, my mind was alert and I was ready to embrace the day.

There is something magical to me about preparing food for the holidays. In fact, it is what makes the holidays. While Easter has great meaning to me from a religious perspective, it also has great meaning to me from a more cultural perspective. Just this week my Mom said to me, "My mother made it (Easter) special with all of the baking she used to do." While I never got to meet her, I have always felt this great connection with my maternal grandmother. I've spent my life trying to make her proud of me. Thanks to the stories handed down to me by my Aunts, Uncles, my sister and my parents, I feel like I've been able to know her so intimately, so passionately that I strive to be like her, I strive to honor her memory, and I strive to keep her traditions and the love she shared in her own special ways alive. She is who I thought of this morning as I prepared these buns before church. I didn't mind getting up early to begin preparing for the celebration of the day. I have taken on the challenge of embodying and fulfilling the type of love my Grandmother shared.

Per my Aunt's request, this Easter was the year of the Hot Cross Buns. A truly fine example of the melding of culture in America, Hot Cross Buns are an English tradition that has caught hold of almost every American who finds themselves near a bakery during Holy Week. If you happened to have lived in Cleveland twenty or thirty years ago, you might have found yourself at one infamous Cleveland eatery known as Hough Bakery. My Aunt swore up and down that these buns were the closest she'd ever found to the flaky, sweet perfection of Hough Bakery's Hot Cross Buns. Confirmed on this Easter day, this recipe makes Hot Cross Buns which are similar to but decidedly better than those from Hough.

Hot Cross Buns
(Based off of the recipe by Shirley O. Corriher in her 1997 cookbook Cookwise)

1/2 cup sugar
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup raisins
3 TBS. dark rum
1 1/2 tsp. active dry yeast
1 tsp. barley malt syrup
1/2 cup warm water (115 degrees F)
1 1/2 cups PLUS 1 cup AND 2 TBS bread flour
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
finely grated zest of 2 whole oranges
2 tsp. Spice Mixture (recipe follows)
1 small can (5 oz.) evaporated milk
1 tsp. salt
1 large egg yolk
4 TBS soft butter
1 TBS oil for bowl
2 TBS finely minced candied ginger
1 large egg beaten
1 TBS heavy whipping cream

1. Stir together the sugar, boiling water, raisins and rum in a small bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand overnight.

2. With a spoon, in the bowl of a heavy duty stand mixer, stir together the yeast, barley malt syrup, and warm water. Let stand 3 minutes until foamy (this means the yeast is alive and awake). Add 1 1/2 cups of the bread flour, brown sugar, orange zest, spice mixture, and evaporated milk. With the paddle attachment, beat the dough on medium speed for four minutes. Turn off the mixer and allow the dough to sit for one hour.

3. Swith from the paddle attachment to the bread hook of the stand mixer. Add 1 cup of the bread flour, salt, and egg yolk. Knead with the bread hook on low speed for 5 minutes. Spread the soft butter evenly across the span of the dough. Knead again for 2 minutes on low speed until butter is just incorporated. Use the oil to coat a large bowl. Place the dough in the oiled bowl, turning once to coat with oil, and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight.

Day Two

1. Let dough stand at room temperature for 30 minutes before beginning. After 30 minutes, turn dough out onto a floured countertop or pastry cloth and using your palms, cup and pat the dough into a smooth round. Grab either side of the dough with each hand and stretch into an oval shape. Let the dough spring back slightly and stretch again, pulling with your hands. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let stand 15 minutes.

2. In the meantime, drain the raisins. Toss the raisins and ginger with 2 TBS of the bread flour. Grease a 9 x 13 in baking sheet.

3. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough into an 18 x 10 inch rectangle. Sprinkle 2/3 of the raisin mixture over the left 2/3 of the dough. Use the rolling pin to press the pieces of fruit lightly into the dough. Take the right hand side of the plain dough and fold it over the center from right to left. Sprinkle the remaining 1/3 of the mixture on this part of the dough and gently press in again. Fold the remaining 1/3 of the dough from the left hand side over the other 2/3, encasing the dried fruit mixture. Seal the edges with your fingers and use the rolling pin to flatten slightly.

4. Cut the dough into 12 equal pieces. Using the palm of your hand and a rolling, cupping motion, form each piece into a bun. Place the buns evenly spaced, yet close together on the prepared baking sheet. Mix together the beaten egg and the 1 TBP of heavy cream and brush over the tops of the buns. Let rise one hour or until doubled in size.

5. In the meantime, heat the oven to 350 degrees. Place a pan of hot water on the bottom rack of the oven. When the rolls have risen, use scissors to snip a cross shape into the top of each roll. Brush with the egg and cream mixture again. Place buns in the oven and immediately turn the temperature up to 375 degrees. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until dark, golden brown. Remove from the oven and transfer buns to a cooling rack.

6. Frost each bun with the following frosting, piping crosses into the cuts on the top of each bun.

Frosting

1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. dark rum
3 TBS heavy cream

1. Whisk all ingredients together, adding more liquid if the frosting is too thick to pipe onto the cooled buns.

Spice Mixture

2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ground allspice
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. ground cumin
1/8 tsp. ground cloves

1. In an airtight container mix all ingredients, shaking until mixed well.


Thanks to Shirley O. Corriher for this fantastic recipe.

They are a ton of work, but well worth it in the end. You're going to love them.