Wild Yeast

I think we have established by now that I am generally afraid of baking cakes. I fear that it won’t rise, or it will fall, or it will organize its temperamental little self into foam, sauce, and jelly-jammy layers because I failed to beat the egg whites just so. I worry that it will stick to the pan and come out in pieces so I have to make a “German Chocolate Trifle” for my husband’s birthday. Or it will be underbaked in the middle and I will not discover, until it is already on my guests’ plates and on its way to their mouths, that my lovely apple upside-down cake is actually apple upside-down pudding. (All theoretical concerns, of course, not that any of these things has actually happened to me.)

Well. This month’s Daring Bakers challenge (or “mob bake,” as my husband calls it) brought a whole new meaning to the phrase “fear of cake.” The way I see it, any recipe whose author admonishes you not to slip up or you’re looking at a trip to the ER definitely warrants an extra dose of serious baking anxiety. Not to mention full body armor.

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If you celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday, I hope it was filled with good food and rich blessings. Once again, thanks so much to all who contributed to such a bountiful bread harvest this week.

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This post originally appeared on Wild Yeast on November 19, 2007. This year, Thanksgiving dinner will be at my sister’s house, and my niece will bake the cranberry bread. The sentiment, however, remains the same. Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving With (As Always) Cranberry Bread

This is the bread I will be serving at Thanksgiving dinner this year. It is the same bread I made last year, and just about every year since I learned how to turn on the oven. It is the same bread you will see here next year if this blog is still around. It’s cranberry-nut bread, the recipe clipped from the back of a long-ago Ocean Spray bag.

The rest of the menu will be similarly well-worn: roast turkey with the same chestnut stuffing we’ve had since my husband and I shared our first Thanksgiving, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, squash, creamed onions, apple pie, pumpkin pie.

I may vary the sweet potato treatment a bit from year to year. I add a brussels sprout or two if I the urge strikes me. I like to try new pumpkin pie recipes from time to time. But by and large, the menu is eminently simple and predictable.

This is not because I’m not an adventurous cook (although I’m the first to admit I’m not). It is because Thanksgiving dinner is not about the Cuisine, it’s about the Food. It’s about the familiar, abundant dishes you know will always be on your plate, year after year, dishes that come together to create what my husband calls “the perfect mouthful.” These are things that would be sorely missed if they weren’t on the table. This is food that tastes good without having to fuss with it. It’s food you know you can count on.

Now that I think about it, Thanksgiving dinner is a feast that’s a lot like the family I’ll be sharing it (whether physically or in spirit) with.

So no recipes today. The bread recipe is still on the back of the cranberry bag if you need it, but I suspect you don’t. Just make what you made last year.

Have a beautiful Thanksgiving, everyone!

Thanks so much to everyone who submitted this week. You all have really outdone yourselves this time, with a record number of breads to inspire our holiday (and every day) baking. Have a beautiful Thanksgiving, or whatever special day you’re celebrating!

See this week’s yeast spottings …

If I’m remembering my childhood correctly, there was a time when I didn’t like winter squash. Hard to believe, because I can’t get enough of it now: roasted or steamed; stand-alone, stuffed, or in risotto or pasta; with sweet spices or savory herbs. On top of all that, I have discovered it makes a pretty darn good brioche.

This bread is only lightly spiced so the squash flavor really shines through. Feel free to increase or tweak the spices to your taste. Also, it has less butter and sugar than a typical brioche; if you leave the pecans off the top, it could pass for dinner rolls, but the nuts push it over into pastry territory in my book. Either way, I think it’s a delicious and festive addition to a holiday table.

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If you know me at all, you’ll know I am big fan of the scale over the measuring cup. Sometimes, though, for whatever reason, you need to know the weight-volume equivalent for a particular ingredient.

The best one-stop resource I’ve found for this information is the searchable USDA Nutrient Database. It contains more foods than you knew existed, and it gives the gram weight of a standard volume or unit (e.g., a cup of nuts or a whole large egg).

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