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In The Kitchen

Jul 02, 2022

Olive Oil Cake with Olivelle Blood Orange Olive Oil

Olive Oil Cake with Olivelle Blood Orange Olive Oil

Olive Oil cake (adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s French Yogurt Cake)
Makes one 8.5 x 4.5” loaf or 8” pan, double recipe for a 9 x 13” pan.


Ingredients

  • 1 cup white sugar

  • 2 blood oranges, 1 large navel orange or pink grapefruit, or 3 lemons

  • 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

  • 2 tsp baking powder

  • 1/4 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt

  • 1/2 cup plain, whole milk yogurt (not low fat and not a strained yogurt)

  • 3 large eggs

  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

  • 1 teaspoon lemon paste

  • 1/2 cup Olivelle Blood Orange or Sicilian Lemon Olive Oil

 

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease the pan with butter or line with parchment paper

  2. Put the sugar in a mixing bowl. Zest the fruit directly over the sugar, then rub the zest into the sugar until the sugar is moist.

  3. Peel and supreme the fruit into segments, then rub the segments to break up into vesicles. Blot vesicles dry on paper towels while you make the batter.

  4. Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl.

  5. Whisk the yogurt into the zest and sugar, then beat in the eggs one at a time to form a smooth mixture. Whisk in the vanilla extract and lemon paste.

  6. Add the flour mixture to the yogurt mixture, then slowly stir in the olive oil and then the fruit pieces. You should have a smooth, shiny batter; pour it into the loaf pan, making sure to get it into the corners, and smooth the top.

  7. Bake on the middle rack, 50 to 60 minutes for a loaf pan and 40-50 minutes for an 8” pan, or until the cake is golden brown and starts to pull away from the sides of the pan and a tester inserted deep into the center of the cake comes out clean.

  8. Cool cake for 5 minutes on a rack, then invert it to dislodge it from the pan. Turn the cake right side up on the rack; cool to room temperature. Store covered at room temperature for up to 5 days.

 

* Olivelle Oils & Vinegars are currently being sold in store only. Visit us at 1725 Penn Avenue to sample.

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Apr 01, 2022

Grace's Sourdough Bread Guide

Grace's Sourdough Bread Guide

Grace's Sourdough Bread Guide: 

What You'll Need: 

  • Sourdough Starter that doubles in size within 12 hours after feeding at room temperature. (The link to Sourdough Starter Guides that Grace used can be found below).
  • Large Mixing Bowl
  • Scale
  • Proofing Basket with Liner, or a Dish Towel
  • Bowl Scraper
  • Dutch Oven or Bread Cloche (Oven Safe up to 500° F)
  • Pot Holders or Oven Mitts (Heat Safe up to 500° F)
  • Bread Lame
  • Non-Stick Parchment Paper
  • Cooling Grate

Steps: 

Autolyse

  1. Add flour and water. You can use any combination of flour that adds up to 500 grams, altogether. Grace recommends that the majority be bread flour. For this loaf, we used 450 grams white bread flour, 25 grams rye, 25 grams spelt. Add between 70 - 80% of the flour's weight in tap water. Grace did 75% of 500 grams (which is 375 grams of water). Mix until shaggy - you want all of the flour to be wet. Let rest for one hour. This part of the process is called "autolyse". 
  2. Add 20% of the flour's weight in ripe (doubled and bubbly) sourdough starter. In Grace's recipe, this calculated to 100 grams. Mix gently. 
  3. Add 2% of the flour's weight in salt. In Grace's recipe, this calculated out to 10 grams. Mix your dough with the "Stretch and Fold" motion for about 10 minutes. Let rest for one hour. This part of the process is called "Bulk Rise" or "Bulk Fermentation".

Bulk Rise or Bulk Fermentation

  1. After one hour, wet your hands and gently stretch and fold the dough 4 times. Let rest for another hour. Repeat this process of resting and then folding 3 to 7 times, or until the rested dough has doubled in size and large bubbles have formed on the surface. 

Pre-Shaping

  1. Lightly flour a clean surface and pour the dough out onto it slowly, taking care to not pop the bubbles that have formed. Use your bowl scraper as needed to help transfer the dough if it is sticking to the bowl. Lightly flour your hands and fold the dough, much like an envelope, then cover it with a towl and let it rest on that surface for 30 minutes. 

Shaping and Final Proof

  1. Generously flour your proofing basket.
  2. Shape your dough to fit the shape of your proofing basket. Grace used a round basket, so they shaped the dough into the shape of a ball.
  3. Transfer the dough into the basket (seam side down) and generously flour the sides of the dough so that it doesn't stick to your liner or dish towel. Let it rest at room temperature for 40 minutes to 1 hour, or until you can poke it with a floured finger and it springs back slowly. 
  4. Refrigerate for an hour or up to 3 days - until you're ready to bake it. Cold dough is easier to score, which is why it's important to refrigerate it, even if you plan on baking your loaf right after the final proof. 

Bake!

  1. Preheat the oven to 500° F with the dutch oven or bread cloche inside the oven. Grace preheated her dutch oven without the lid just to make transferring the dough easier later, but you can preheat the whole thing if you prefer. ** If using a cloche, preheat the whole cloche. Let the oven heat up for around an hour to make sure the heat is evenly distributed.**
  2. Take the dough out of the fridge and coat the top with flour. Turn the basket out onto a piece of parchment and carefully peel off the liner. You can coat this side of dough with flour as well, but it is purely an aesthetic choice. Quickly and deeply slash the top of the loaf with your lame. 
  3. Take the dutch oven or cloche out of the oven and use the parchment to help lift the dough into the dutch oven. Cover with the lid and bake at 500° F for 20 minutes.
  4. Reduce heat to 450° F and remove the lid from the dutch oven, continue to bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the top of the bread is deep golden and brown.
  5. Turn the bread out onto a cooling rack and let it rest for at least an hour. If you cut into it too early, the texture can turn out gummy. Enjoy!

Further Guides & Reading:

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Mar 10, 2021

A Special Spotlight on ITK's Manager - Don!

A Special Spotlight on ITK's Manager - Don!
The following post was authored by Anne Blanchard. 

"I am asking all my friends who like to cook to please share this post.

Great Chefs Who Cook with Their Children

…was the title of a magazine article that appeared in 1980 featuring Martha Stewart and her daughter Alexis, Jacques Pepin and his daughter Claudine, Edward Giobbi and his daughter Lisa, and Marjorie Blanchard and her son, Donald, my brother. Our mom, Marjorie Blanchard, authored 15 cookbooks working from our home on Turkey Hill Circle in Westport, CT. She was part of a growing, loosely connected group of cooking pioneers in the New York/CT area who were popularizing everything associated with fine cooking, especially French cooking. Her first book, The Kitchen Scholar, co-authored with Malvina Kinard, featured an introduction by James Beard, who was already a TV cooking celebrity by then. Several years prior to the article, Martha moved in down the street from us on Turkey Hill. As she mastered all things domestic in their renovated farm house, she would stop by to chat about cooking with my mom who taught private cooking lessons in our kitchen.

Growing up in this household, my brother and I took 2 different paths. I was a willing tester/taster of anything my mom made. My brother became a willing student of cooking itself, and by the time he turned 17, he had his own catering business, plus he had mastered the art of cake decorating.

For the photo shoot and article, my brother cooked a “Sunday Dinner” consisting of crepes cannelloni, salad, a meringue basket of strawberries, homemade breadsticks, and a peach tart. (Can you imagine being invited to someone’s house today and being offered this menu?). Martha and her daughter Alexis cooked a multi-part Chinese dinner featuring something called “Strange Flavor Fish” (must have been an interesting translation from the Chinese), Pork Pearl Balls, Gold Coin Eggs, Hot and Sweet Chinese Cabbage and several other delicacies. Jacque Pepin and his daughter Claudine, created “Claudine’s French Lunch” featuring Escargot au Beurre D’Anis, Gigot Roti a L’Ail, Epinards a la Crème, and Crème Caramel au Café. Sounds delicious! And Edward Giobbi and his daughter Lisa, created an “Italian Country Dinner” with Baked Herbed Chicken en Croute, Asparagus, and White Cake with Whipped Cream (spoiler alert- this dinner is not available at the Olive Garden).

40 years later, 3 out of the four children in that article are still carrying on the legacy of their chef parent. Claudine Pepin, Lisa Giobbi, and my brother Don.

After graduating from the Salisbury School in CT he went to Johnson and Wales in RI and went on to become a chef in Newport, RI. He moved on from there to the OuterBanks where he worked at several of the beach restaurants. When fatherhood started to compete with chef’s hours, he became a wine salesman, and even opened a brick oven pizza and ice cream eatery. Like my mom who wrote and cooked about everything from vegetarian cooking to early New England recipes, he immersed himself in virtually every aspect of great food.

Life and love took him to Pittsburgh to an amazing cooking supply store “In the Kitchen”. To walk into this store is to immediately feel your spirit lift, knowing whatever cooking problem you have right now will be solved. For me, it was boiled eggs. I simply could not cook them in a way that made my family love them as much as I do. Two weeks later, with my very cool looking specialty egg cooker, my family was asking for two or three at breakfast. And…how many stores do you walk into these days that can be said to have a sense of humor? Humor pervades the whole store – and the website too. If you visit, I challenge you to leave without laughing at the aprons/magnets/kitchen signs. This place is special, unique, not a chain, and here my brother found a home for his lifetime of cooking knowledge and also his humor.

Not having a tech focus, the store took its time getting a website up and running. Fortunately, it went live just before Covid brought its own special hell to Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, and great family-owned shops everywhere. Unfortunately, this year also brought for my brother the challenge of colon cancer. But this wonderful store, with its upbeat vibe, has supported Don at every twist and turn, and now, very carefully, he’ll be returning to work in the back office in October."

So friends, I have a favor to ask of you. Next time you need a garlic press, a new set of knives, or want the right tool for some new challenge, please check out the website of In the Kitchen and order it from them. If you need advice, hit the chat button, and ask for Chef Don. Like my Mom, he is always learning new things about cooking and would love to chat with you. You’ll be supporting a wonderful “local” business. And who knows, you may inspire someone in your life with a passion for cooking, just like Marjorie did.

God bless you all in these Covid times."

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