Blood Orange Bourbon with Cayenne Cinnamon Salt

I repeat. Blood Orange Bourbon with Cayenne Cinnamon Salt.

Inspiration here. Salt credit to ma petite sœur.

p.s. My writing skills have only improved with time, no? Ah, pipe dreams.

L

Pipe Dream #319: To Have a Moment – Lemon Curd Swirl Bread

Excuse me, I’m having a moment. A yeast moment.

Plus this butter lemon yellow lemon curd. Moment.

No shame in using jarred lemon curd here, though you can make your own and in the microwave, too. You’re making bread. Heaven knows that’s enough already.

It’s pretty quick, all things considered. It uses a rapid-rise yeast, which makes your prep time shorter, and the swirl technique isn’t so bad. It’s rustic (read: imperfect).

Overall, I got an overwhelmingly positive response. I think people might have been slightly thrown when they asked what it was, and I said it was a yeast bread. I should have just said “bread,” because yeast is like, normal in bread. One dude was like, “Is that the yeast I’m tasting?” Idk man, it probably just tastes like bread with a little bit of sweet lemon haha.

This would make a perrrrfect Easter brunch bread. You can even make it ahead of time and freeze it. Or freeze the dough after it’s shaped, let defrost and rise for a while whenever you want to bake it.

Risen twice over!

L

Lemon Curd Swirl Bread

An LH Original

1 cup milk

1/4 cup butter

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, divided

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1 envelope instant or ‘rapid rise’ yeast (approx. 2 1/4 tsp)

2 eggs (one for egg wash)

approximately 1 cup lemon curd

2 tablespoons canola oil

Combine milk and butter in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat on high for 1 minute, then remove and stir. Continue heating in 20 second intervals, pausing after each to stir, until the butter is melted and the milk is warm to the touch but not hot. Let the milk mixture sit for a few minutes until it is warm but not hot (no warmer than 110 degrees F).

In a separate bowl, whisk together 3 cups flour, sugar and salt until combined.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, add yeast and lukewarm milk mixture and stir by hand to combine. Add the flour mixture and egg, and beat on medium-low speed until combined. If the dough is sticking to the sides of the bowl, add the remaining flour, 1/4 cup at a time, until the dough begins to form a ball and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Continue beating for 5 minutes on medium-low speed. Remove the dough hook and cover the bowl with a damp towel and let rest for 10 minutes.

When the dough is ready, turn it out onto a floured work surface. Use a floured rolling pin to roll the dough out into a large rectangle, about 14 x 9 inches in size. (If you want all edges to be even, you can use a pizza slicer to cut the dough into a perfect rectangle.) Spread the lemon curd over the whole surface of the dough, almost to the edges. Beginning at the long edge, tightly roll up the dough toward yourself. Pinch the edges to seal the roll together.

Using a sharp knife, cut the long roll in half length-wise, creating two long, layered pieces. Cross one piece over the other at the center, then cross the ends of each a few more times to create a twist. Wrap the braid around itself in a circle, keeping the cut edges of the pastry exposed and tucking the end of the twist under the circle. Transfer the loaf to a baking sheet lined with parchment.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and let the dough rise until it is preheated (about 15 minutes). Brush the top of the loaf with an egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 teaspoon water). Bake for 20-30 minutes until the bread is golden brown. Once cool, sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired.

Did it. Made palcohol.

Remember when Palcohol was a craze? And then it got banned by the FDA or something? They were worried people would abuse the powdered form of alcohol more than they abuse the liquid form, I think? Right.

Anyway, I read up on it a little, then took an afternoon to make up my own recipe for red wine palcohol with a couple friends. I substituted the fancy malodextrin for tapioca starch, added a little red wine and sieved it to form a powder.

The ratio of starch to wine is like 7:1, so it would take pounds of this stuff to give you a buzz. I decided to use the rest of the bottle to flavor some pastry cream with which to fill some cream puffs, which I subsequently dusted with the red wine palcohol. The choux pastry turned out great, but the red wine flavor was just average overall.

Still. What an idea.

More on red wine later next week. Spoiler alert: CAKE.

Wait, maybe that’s not a super huge spoiler. This is a baking blog, after all.

L