potato challah

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Around this time two years ago I began begging Eggboy for a pet pig for my birthday. I’ve always loved pigs (it goes hand in hand with my marzipan obsession since when I was little I collected marzipan pigs) and after living on a farm for a few years, it seemed like the time was right to get one. 

Ok, but we’re going to name him Potato, said Eggboy.

That’s a cute name!! But why?

So that when we eat him we can just say we’re eating Potato and confuse all of our friends.

😒😒😒😒😒😒

That kind of ended that.

And that’s all I have to say about potatoes at the moment other than that there are real actual potatoes in this challah dough, not pigs. And there are potatoes of an unknown variety growing in our garden! And idk why it took me this long to put mashed potatoes in challah. I loved potato sandwich bread and potato bagels from Einstein growing up because, well you know me, I've always been one for soft doughy bread over a crusty baguette. So this year for Rosh Hashanah when I was having my routine challah brainstorm, my mind went to the humble potato.

If you thought that a perfectly baked loaf of doughy eggy challah could not get any better, well just add a cup of mashed potatoes to your dough and watch it get even softer. And richer! It’s a subtle difference, you can’t really taste potato *flavor*, but eating it is a similar sensation to hugging a friend who you haven’t seen in a while and feeling a stronger, more robust embrace, the kind of arms that make you step back, do a once over, and ask, you been workin out?  

Potato challah is regular challah that has been going to the gym all summer. 

So, you know, the recipe here is not very different from the challah that you were going to make next week. Just do all of us two favors: add mashed potato to the dough, and when proofing the yeast, use the water that you used to boil the potato instead of regular plain jane water. Works like a charm! Sounds like we’re all going to have fabulous New Years. 

Ok so to shape it, you can either just make one huge long snake and coil it up into a round swirly shape, as I’ve done in past years. Or you can make four strands and make a circular braid. It looks a lot more complicated than it really is. I have all of the faith in the world that you can do it. Here is a slower version of the braiding video that I posted on IG the other day. Plz forgive the background banter between chantell, brett, and me. Or just don't turn the sound on haha. My non-existent video editing skills are exactly non-existent: 

potato challah

makes 2 loaves

ingredients

8 oz peeled potatoes, cut into 1” cubes
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1 tsp + 2 tb sugar
4 c (504g) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 tsp kosher salt
2 large eggs
1/3 c (66g) flavorless oil, like canola or vegetable
2 tb (42g) honey

egg wash + topping:

1 beaten egg
poppy seeds, sesame seeds, other seeds, optional
 

clues

Place the chopped potato in a large pot and cover it with water. Bring to a simmer and cook until a fork pokes easily into the potato, begin checking for doneness at about 10 minutes. Drain the potato, reserving 1/2 cup of the cooking water. Let the potato cool, mash it, and set it aside. Once the cooking water has cooled to be warm (about 105º-110ºf), add the yeast and the 1 teaspoon of sugar. Give it a little swirl and let it sit for about 5 minutes, until foamy on top. Meanwhile, in a large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine the flour, salt, and remaining 2 tablespoons sugar. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, and honey. When the yeast mixture is foamy, add it to the dry mixture, followed by the egg mixture and mashed potatoes. Stir to form a shaggy dough and then either knead it on a clean surface or in the stand mixer, adding flour if it gets too sticky to handle. Knead until the dough is smooth and just slightly sticky, 7-10 minutes. Transfer to an oiled bowl, cover with a towel or plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled in size, 1-2 hours. 

Preheat the oven to 375ºf and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Turn the dough out onto a clean surface, divide it into two equal parts, and shape according to the notes and video above. Transfer the loaves to the baking sheets. Cover and let rise for another 30 minutes. Brush the loaves with a light coating of egg wash and sprinkle with seeds, if using. Bake until the loaves are golden brown and have an internal temp of about 190ºf. Begin checking for doneness at 25 minutes. 

Let cool until it is jusssst cool enough that it won’t burn your mouth, then smother it with butter and hope that there will be some left for dinner that night. Hehe. 

oh here are some more challah recipes!! 

-yeh!!!

photos by chantell and brett quernemoen!!

and this is what i wore! tunic by marimekko + apron by enrich & endure

sprinkle amerikaner + molly on the range is out in german!!!!

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Heute ist ein fantastischer Tag! Die Deutsche ausgabe von Molly on the Range, “Molly’s Kitchen” wurde heute geboren! Ich bin sehr glüklich! Kauf es hier!

Ok, that’s just about all I got. The other German that remains in my brain is reserved for ordering schnitzel and deciphering what bass drum sticks I’m supposed to use in German music. At one point I definitely could have told you how my day was, what I enjoy doing in my free time, and if I enjoy spaghetti or pizza more, and that point was 10 years ago. But! That doesn’t make me any less excited that Molly on the Range is out in German this week!!!! I would try to say in German that I’m really excited but I seem to remember that if you translate it literally, you actually end up saying that you’re aroused. Or something. Is this true? I don’t want to get into a naughty Ich bin ein Berliner situation. 

If you’ve read the spätzle section in Molly on the Range, you know that my love for German things runs deep. It began with a textbook teenage obsession with Mahler symphonies and a desire to understand all of the schwammschlägelns and langsamers in his music, and led to enrolling in four years of high school German class. It was so fun! I went by the name Ursula. And one schnitzel led to another, and one trip to Berlin with pops led to another with Blue Lake, and even after the excitement of the lower drinking age faded, I kept wanting to go back. I love the accents and the appreciation for opera and that the people I've met there have been so genuine and warm. 

Side note: I’m totally in possession of 10 pounds of haribo gummy bears right now. 

(it is so wild to see Lisel's illos auf Deutsch!!!) 

The first time I traveled to Germany, I got to miss a few days of eighth grade and hang out back stage at the Berlin Philharmonie during my dad’s rehearsals. I remember thinking it was so cool that they sold open faced sandwiches in the lobby and got as many butter and salami ones as I could eat in between movements of Bruckner. The other cool discoveries of this trip were: bienenstich (honey cake), pflaumenkuchen (plum cake-- make this right now before plums go out of season), and Amerikaners. Amerikaners are really similar to black and white cookies in that they’re essentially little flat cakes. They’re very soft, often flavored with a bit of lemon, and rather than having both chocolate and vanilla icing on them, most of the ones I had at bakeries around Berlin just had vanilla. I found a few that had just chocolate and, if my memory serves me correctly, I think I also had some pink ones. I basically lived on Amerikaners, salami sandwiches, and Haribo gummy things during that trip. 

Then the weirdest thing happened this last time that I went to Berlin, back in March, I could not find a single Amerikaner!!! I wouldn’t shut up about them the whole way there and then I dragged Eggboy into every bakery that we passed to try and find one but they were nowhere to be seen and Eggboy thought I was making the whole thing up. WTF!!! So I came home and made a bunch. And funfetti'ed them to celebrate the release of German Molly on the Range (which is actually called Molly's Kitchen since I guess "Range" doesn't really translate into both a farm and a stove...)!! So these are for you, dear German friends!! They are the child of two of my favorite childhood sweets, Amerikaners and Funfetti® cake and I am pleased as pflaume to share them with you!!! 

Ooh and stay tuned for a couple more German-American recipe mashups :) 

Here is the link to order Molly’s Kitchen! And if you live in Germany and are like was ist clear imitation vanilla?! here!

sprinkle amerikaners

makes 18

ingredients

2 c (254g) all-purpose flour

1 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 c (113g) unsalted butter, softened

1 c (200g) sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 tsp clear imitation vanilla (or vanilla extract)

1/4 tsp almond extract

1/2 c (113g) whole milk yogurt

1/3 c (64g) rainbow sprinkles, plus more for decorating

 

for the glaze:

2 c (240g) powdered sugar

2 1/2-3 tb whole milk

1/2 tsp clear imitation vanilla (or vanilla extract)

pinch of kosher salt

clues

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line two baking sheets with parchment and set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, salt, and baking powder and set aside. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, and then add the vanilla and almond extracts. Add the yogurt and dry ingredients in 2 or 3 alternating additions and mix until just combined. Fold in the sprinkles by hand. Scoop out 2” blobs of the batter onto the baking sheets, 2 inches apart. Bake until the bottoms are just beginning to brown, begin checking for doneness at 18 minutes. Let cool on the pans for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the glaze, in a medium bowl, mix together the powdered sugar, 2 1/2 tablespoons milk, vanilla extract, and salt. If it’s too thick to spread, add additional milk a few drops at a time until it's spreadable. Spread the glaze onto the flat side of the Amerikaners and sprinkle with sprinkles. Enjoy!

-yeh!

vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream

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(psst... it's a video ☝🏼)

I have formed this dumb awful habit of allowing myself to stay awake in bed. It happens either late at night when I should be falling asleep or at 3am when I wake up and suddenly everything of minor importance appears to be super urgent. The smart thing to do of course is to try to fall asleep just by brute force or by reading one of Eggboy’s books about economics but the thing about having an amorphous work schedule is that at 3am if I suddenly happen upon the need to do some bridesmaid up-do research I can push my alarm back by 30 minutes and dive right down into Instagram. The problem with all of this is that a) I’m exhausted the next day and b) my brain is so mushy at 3am that all of my decisions made at that hour are just bad. Last month I ordered $400 worth of raincoats from my phone just in case the one that Alana got me for Alaska didn’t fit around my thicker than average arms. They were returnable, I reasoned. And in the end it didn’t rain at all on our trip. Last week I made a hair appointment, saved a dozen inspirational photos of ombré balayage, and made a vocabulary list of hair styles to tell my stylist at my appointment, but then woke up and decided to just go full on brunette and then cancelled my appointment. And of course, 100% of my buttercream flower video watching was also in bed when I should have been asleep. 

I am going to get better at this as soon as I understand everything there is to know about butter based cake. 

That’s what keeps me up the most at night lately.

With the exception of sprinkle cake, pretty much all of my go-to cakes have been oil-based. They’re very easy, reliable, adaptable, and most importantly, moist. I had no reason to stray from them other than that I woke up a few months ago feeling funny that I wasn’t very familiar with butter cakes, and I also just wanted butter. And some change. So I put my stand mixer to work and tinkered with ratios and different ingredients and sat in the parking lot of the gym googling things that i thought of on the way there like “is there a reason that you shouldn’t use heavy cream in cakes” and made a spreadsheet of every single vanilla cake that I could find. I thought about acidity of sour cream and wrangled with our new oven heating elements that took a few days to even out… It was like being back in music school again, trying to learn a new excerpt. I felt like Rob with his spreadsheets which he used to track every single tempo of every single recording of every single important percussion excerpt.

And I went so crazy that I had to finally download that app where you grow trees if you avoid using your phone for long portions of time. 

You know how you’re not supposed to change a door knob? (Because if you change your door knob you’ll soon feel like you’ll have to re-paint your door and if you re-paint your door you’ll have to paint the room and if you paint the room you’ll have to paint the rest of your house, pretty soon you’re demolishing and building a new home? Or something.) That’s what I feel like I’ve just done. I’ve switched from oil to butter and now because I’ve done that I’ve needed to adjust moisture levels and because I’ve adjusted moisture levels I’ve needed to adjust dry ingredients and eggs and cooking time and approach and vision and values, etc. 

I’m aware that about ten thousand vanilla cupcake recipes exist.

But I also have this hunch that my ideal moisture level of a cake is on the very high side, and that’s what’s shaping my every move. I want a moist cake that has been lifting some weights. Moist, dense, soft cake. Like if these slipper socks were a cake. Not some airy light dainty pantyhose situation. There’s a time and a place for pantyhose cake, and in my life, that’s Passover in the 90s. 

So the name of the game became cramming fat into every possible orifice of this thing, without it deflating. Too much fat will destroy a cake’s structure, it will deflate. Too much liquid will also make it deflate. But of course not enough fat will make it dry. So I drew the conclusion that a moist enough cake will deflate just slightly when it comes out of the oven, making it have a flat top or just a slight divot when it’s cooled. It does not need to have a nice dome. It does not need to be pretty, it just needs to be moist. 

So I collected all of the fats:

butter (for flavor, duh)

and it’s european style butter (which has 2% more fat than traditional butter, cha-ching)

refined coconut oil (for additional moisture)*

heavy cream (fat and liquid)**

sour cream (for more richness)***

*since the coconut oil is solid at room temperature, it gives it slightly more structure than canola oil. You can use unrefined if you like a hint of coconut flavor. And if you don’t have coconut oil, using canola oil will indeed work.

**heavy cream adds tons of fat and richness, which is what we’re going for. But it adds so much fat that it makes the structure a little on the edge of stability. There’s enough stability in this batter for cupcakes, but not so much for full layer cakes. We’re going to talk about layered butter cakes in a later post. This recipe will also work with whole milk! Using heavy cream will make it richer, but if whole milk is what you have, that's ok. 

***I wouldn’t make you clear out the dairy aisle if it weren’t for a good reason. The difference that sour cream makes in this cake is like the difference between the flannel-lined duck boots and the shearling-lined duck boots. You are reading the blog of a shearling-lined duck boot owner. (You could sub this for plain whole milk yogurt. It will be just slightly less rich than using sour cream.)

And put them in with some flour (all-purpose, not cake flour because I prefer the denser texture of all-purpose), sugar, eggies (I didn’t go down the road of adding single yolks, which, yes, will add richness, but I just have this thing right now where I'm trying to avoid using only part of the egg), vanilla, and for some of the tests, almond extract, which I sometimes enjoy in a vanilla world. 

I went through dozens of tests (most of which were right before the Eggsis wedding which provided 320 taste testers and some of which are still in my deep freeze… would you like some cupcakes?) and came up with a cupcake recipe that I am so very happy with!! It has all of the moist/dense qualities that I was going for, and even after all of this taste testing, I still make audible “mmmmm” sounds when I have a bite. 

I have one major takeaway that doesn’t have to do with ingredients at all though, and that’s that you cannot let these over bake. Over-baking, even by like 30 seconds, will dry these out. So use an oven thermometer, begin checking them when I say, and when your cakes are thinking about starting to brown, and when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few crumbs on it, take em out. 

Let them cool.

And then frost them with a good American buttercream that uses a good European style butter. Because, again, we want more fat.

Sprinkles ad infinitum.

Ok I’m done. 

For now. Because part two of this saga is that we make a layer cake.

Thank you so much, Land O' Lakes, for sponsoring this post and for providing all of the butter for the endless test batches that were required for this recipe! Land O' Lakes®’ European Style Butter has a fat content of 82%, 2% more than traditional butter in the states, so it has more flavor and a creamier texture. It makes a great moist cake and a delicious buttercream frosting!!

vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream

makes 18 cupcakes

Ingredients

Cupcakes:

1 3/4 c (222g) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp kosher salt
3/4 c (180g) heavy cream, room temperature
6 tb (90g) sour cream, room temperature
1/2 c (113g) land o' lakes® european style unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 c (50g) refined coconut oil, soft but not melted
1 c (200g) sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste or extract

Buttercream:

1 c (225g) land o' lakes® european style unsalted butter, room temperature
3 c (360g) powdered sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla bean paste or extract
1/4 tsp almond extract, optional
3 tb (45g) heavy cream

Clues

To make the cupcakes: Preheat the oven to 350ºf. Line two cupcake pans with 18 cupcake liners, spacing them out evenly between the two pans.

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder, and then lightly stir in the salt and set aside. In a large measuring cup, whisk together the heavy cream and sour cream and set aside. 

In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together the butter, coconut oil, and sugar on medium high for 3-4 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Add the vanilla. Reduce the mixer to medium low and add the dry mixture and cream mixture in 3 alternating additions, mixing until just combined. Using an ice cream scoop, distribute the batter evenly between the 18 cupcake liners. 

Bake for 10 minutes and then rotate the pans and continue to bake until the cupcakes are thinking about starting to turn brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few crumbs on it; begin checking for doneness 6 minutes after you rotate the pans. If the cupcakes need more time, continue to bake and check them frequently (like every 30-45 seconds). Let them cool in the pans for 10 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 

To make the buttercream: In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat together the butter, powdered sugar, salt, vanilla, and almond extract, if using. Once combined, beat in the heavy cream. 

Frost cupcakes as desired and enjoy. These are best enjoyed within a day or two. 

This post was sponsored by Land O' Lakes! I'm very excited to be partnering with this minnesota-based farmer owner company this year!

All photos and video by Celeste Noche! 

sheet pan pita pizza with broccolini and lemon

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All of my teacher friends have gone back to work, the apples on our trees have appeared, and Eggboy comes in every night covered in a light layer of wheat dust because he is about halfway through wheat harvest. This can only mean a few things!

Fall is near

Risotto season is near

All of the mosquitos will soon die

I have to start collecting things for my Halloween costume and learning the choreography to that Haim video

Bojack season 4 and Broad City season 4 will be out soon

And before we know it Candace Cameron Bure will be all up in our TV with this year’s new Hallmark Christmas movies and I’ll be baking my second annual cookie tins, flipping latkes, and humming Sufjan Christmas.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

I know we’re supposed to be ~hanging on to the last days of summer~ but cover me with pumpkin bread and let me be cozy.

Of course I don’t want to minimize all of the wild and crazy awesome summery things that this last month since Eggsister wedding has brought, so I am going to show & tell some highlights right here:

-I fell in lurrrv with Maine, nearly died of happiness in the shadow of a lighthouse as butter dripped down my face while I ate my first real lobster with old friends and new! I taught classes at the magical Stonewall kitchen, experienced the insanely awesome Tandem Coffee Roasters and Briandre3000, freaked over oysters and kimchi ice at Eventide, and got to see Luke play gong at Bowdoin!! And then thanks to new friend Emily I got to see the Punch Brothers/I’m With Her/Julian Lage tour (and tell Chris Thile that I’ll be making him a hotdish soon)!

-Partied my tuchus off at Jaclyn’s wedding (complete with late night Ted Drewes!!) and Stefani and Kelly’s Bridal shower the day after!

-Judged the first annual town hotdish competition! There were six entries, including something called a funeral hotdish, which you and I are going to sit down and chat about on another day, and one with Thanksgiving stuffing all over the top, which I’m totally going to do this Thanksgiving. Sadly there were no tater tot hotdish entries, so please start planning your entries for next year, ok?  

-Celebrated my fourth anniversary of moving here! And this lil blog's ninth birthday! 

-Road bikes all around Mackinac island with the fam and then ate all of the fudge and snow cones and talked the entire time about how we felt like we were in a poop-scented Disney World. It was so great. 

-And then Eggboy and I saw Bruno Mars live in Fargo!! We bought tickets like a year ago because we loved his performance at the 2014 Super Bowl so much. It happened to be on a Friday and because it was all the way in Fargo, I made this here pizza so that we could have pizza night on the road. It’s kind of a hybrid between a grandma pie and the farmers market focaccia that I love getting at Huckleberry, and it’s covered in a flavor combo that I can’t get enough of these days: broccolini, lemon, garlic, and parmesan. Those four things are the perfect combination of bright/salty/sour/green, the kind of amazingness that can only really be made better on a bed of doughy crust and under a blanket of melty mozzarella. And because we’re eating a bunch of broccolini we’re going to continue to ride the healthy train by making this crust part whole wheat. It’s good! The crust uses the same dough that I use for my pita, it’s super easy to make, and it only rises for a couple of hours (or, maybe only one hour in this heat), versus the overnight pizza dough that I typically urge you to make. It’s also the type of thing that’s just as tasty at room temperature, in case you want to bring this to a potluck or, yeah, enjoy in the car on the way to the Bruno Mars concert!

One thing that will send this over the top:

Let loose with on the flaky salt on the crust. Do not hold back. Zoom in on the very top left picture in my grid up above, the one of the box of pastries, do you see how much salt there is on that chocolate chip cookie? It was an *inspiration*, h/t Briandre. It redefined my comfort level with flaky salt and this pizza crust is my prize and it can be yours too if you set your mind to it. 

sheet pan pita pizza with broccolini and lemon

makes one half sheet pan pizza

ingredients

for the pita:

1 1/2 c (356g) warm water

2 1/4 tsp (1 envelope) active dry yeast

1 1/2 tb sugar

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

3 tb olive oil

2 c (256g) bread flour

1 3/4 c (224g) whole wheat flour

 

for the pizza:

olive oil

8 oz fresh mozzarella, torn

1 lemon, cut as thin as possible with a sharp knife or mandoline, seeds removed

1/2 purple onion, cut as thin as possible with a sharp knife or mandoline

4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

6 oz broccolini, chopped

kosher salt

black pepper

2 oz parmesan cheese, shredded, plus more for serving

crushed red pepper

flaky salt

clues

for the pita:

in a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, mix together the water, yeast, and sugar. Let it sit for 5 minutes, or until foamy. with the mixer running on low speed, add the salt and oil, then gradually add the flour. increase the speed to medium-high and mix until the dough is smooth and slightly sticky, 7 to 10 minutes, adding just enough additional flour so that the dough no longer sticks to the bowl. (alternatively, mix by hand and knead on a lightly floured surface.) place the dough in an oiled bowl and turn it once or twice to coat it in oil. cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until it has doubled in size, 1-2 hours.

for the pizza:

preheat the oven to 450ºf. 

brush a sheet pan with 1/4 cup olive oil and pat out the pita dough to the edge, this might seem like a lot of olive oil but it'll make it good. set this aside to rise (uncovered) for another 20 minutes or so. Now is a good time to chop your toppings.

brush the dough with another little drizzle of olive oil, top with fresh mozzarella, lemon, onion, garlic, and broccolini. add another drizzle of olive oil on top. sprinkle the toppings with a couple pinches of kosher salt, a tonnn of black pepper, and shredded parmesan. Sprinkle the edges of the crust with flaky salt and don't be shy with it.

bake for 25 minutes or so, or until the cheese is browned and splotchy and the crust is golden.

top with crushed red pepper and additional parmesan, if desired. 

enjoy!

-yeh!