One of the best and easiest ways to joyfully brighten someone’s day I’ve learned in recent years is to give them a custom-designed cake from the Bakehouse’s Cake Studio. Seriously, their custom cakes are something else! We’ve been making these beautiful cakes for a bit over 20 years now, and the Bakehouse Cake Studio crew has won well-deserved praise for their wedding cakes. Having gorgeous custom-designed cakes for your big day that actually taste terrific is a big deal!
While wedding cakes are wonderful, you do not need to get married to enjoy one of these great creations! Most any occasion can be radically enhanced by the unveiling of a cake that has been custom-designed. I ordered one recently to share with staff for the start of our new fiscal year! And the photo above is the one created for Tammie’s birthday last spring that featured one of the dogs she rescued last year, Little Frankie Lee! Tears of joy ensued as soon as she got her first look at it.
The Bakehouse’s custom cakes are guaranteed to bring joy to anyone you give them to! Everything is created to order and made by hand! In fact, if you give one as a gift and joy does not ensue, we will be glad to give your money back! Consider it our investment in inspiring joy around Washtenaw County.
For big events, schedule a cake consult. If you’re thinking ahead, it’s never too early for custom cakes! If it’s last minute, we have our regular layer cakes in the Bakeshop, and we can almost always add a message if you can wait for five to ten minutes. For bigger projects, Cake Studio manager Alyce Machcinski says,
It’s always good to plan ahead; with only a few days’ notice, we can make something that is personalized and still very special for their celebration; and if something comes up last minute or you’re not able to plan in advance, we can add inscriptions to our everyday cakes that we have in the Bakeshop case. If someone is looking for a truly over-the-top cake, it’s never too early to reach out and start planning!
A couple weeks ago I had the honor of teaching a ZingTrain Community Event to a group that had gathered in Julia Child’s teaching kitchen at Boston University in Cambridge! It was both a little intimidating and a lot inspiring to be able to stand in the same spot Julia so famously presented from for so many years! Thinking about her here, I’m reminded of a line of hers I always loved: “A party without cake is just a meeting.” This week I want to imagine an inversion—a meeting with a cake can easily become a productive and joyful work party! They’re great for work anniversaries, amazing office birthday parties, impressing a big client you have in for lunch, or just adding a little vitality to your regular weekly meeting!
Most American Jews—and for that matter, most Americans—are familiar with egg-enriched challah, the traditional bread baked for Sabbath and holidays. Since my family’s roots are in Eastern Europe, this was the only one I knew until I started studying food more seriously after we opened the Deli. There is, though, another kind, German challah. It is little-known in the U.S. but has long been the norm in the German-Jewish community, where most will know the bread as berches.
Food writer Joan Nathan is part of a German-Jewish family in which berches is the norm! The same goes for Gabrielle Rossmer Gropman and Sonya Gropman, the mother-daughter team who co-authored The German-Jewish Cookbook. And now, after all these years, we’ve begun to bake it here. This likely was what Erich Fromm’s family would have had on the Sabbath table every Friday evening.
The Bakehouse crew has spent months working to craft our own recipe of this centuries-old German-Jewish classic. Amy Emberling, longtime co-managing partner at the Bakehouse, and a member of our five-person Stewardship Council, shares,
Jews for centuries have made our food in the context of other cultures. The spices, fruits, and vegetables used in the recipes often reflected what was available in the region and were then transformed to fit our recipes and food laws. For much of the history of the Bakehouse, we’ve been dedicated to making the recipes that were mainly traditional for Jews in Eastern Europe, including using the flavor choices from that region. Recently, we’ve begun to focus on using ingredients and flavors more common to Michigan as well as transforming recipes with our knowledge of artisan baking—this new challah includes freshly milled local organic spelt and high-extraction organic regional wheat flour. We’ve also enhanced the flavor and texture with a pre-ferment and some of our sourdough starter. For moisture, we include mashed potatoes.
Our German Challah is very slightly sweet, less rich without the eggs, but really delicious. It has a slightly darker crumb and a nuttier flavor from the freshly milled grains used. The fresh milling and local grains make the bread much more like what German-Jewish bakers would have been making and serving two centuries ago than one would get from the more highly refined, bleached, and bromated commercial flours that are now so commonly available.
Toasting the German Challah brings out the sweetness and gives a lovely, lightly nutty flavor. Great with the Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter and a bit of good jam. Or try it with the Creamery’s wonderful handmade Cream Cheese. On a more savory side, it’s lovely with chopped liver, and makes a beautiful base for a corned beef sandwich. Whether you want a new way to celebrate the Sabbath, you want to experience a bit of Jewish cultural diversity, or whether you just like to eat a lot of good bread, swing by and grab a loaf or two soon!
The German Challah is available on Mondays and Fridays. It will be on the shelves at the Bakeshop after 9 am and Deli around 11 am. Eventually, you’ll be able to find it on the Zingermans.com Mail Order site, too. In the meantime, we’d be glad to ship you some—just email us at [email protected] and we’ll send some your way!
Tag: Bakehouse
Angel food cake to celebrate summer berry season
A Bakehouse favorite from many years ago, it’s named after managing partner Amy Emberling’s son Jake, who’s all grown up now, and still loves this cake. It’s soft, fluffy, sweet, and light—“pillowy,” the people at the Bakehouse like to say—heavenly angel food cake made with lots of fresh egg whites, cane sugar, a small bit of flour, a touch of cream of tartar, and lots of vanilla extract and vanilla bean. This time of year, it’s particularly relevant because this lovely light cake marries so marvelously with berries.
Angel food cake is named for its lightness. A cake angels might eat. Although some will say it must have come down from heaven, culinary historians don’t seem to agree on its actual origins. Many give credit to Pennsylvania Dutch bakers. Others argue it was invented in the American South. Mrs. Porter’s New Southern Cookery Book has a recipe for “Snow-drift Cake” which was pretty much the same thing. Many historians agree that the invention of the eggbeater—which made making it much easier—in the 1860s increased its popularity. If it did come from the South, it was likely developed and perfected by enslaved women. In The American Pastry Cook, Jessup Whitehead says it came from St. Louis in 1894. And, he says, it was shipped from St. Louis all over the country in an early form of mail order. Some were even sent all the way to London.
In her 1881 cookbook, What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking, Soups, Pickles, Preserves, Etc., Abby Fisher, a former enslaved woman who’d moved to San Francisco after Emancipation, calls it “Silver Cake.” To get the full context, the recipe on the top of the same page is “Gold Cake.” Gold cake is made with egg yolks. Silver cake starts with the egg whites you’d have set aside when you’re “going for the gold.” Mrs. Fisher had quite a business selling pickles and sauces in San Francisco and was a well-known local culinary authority. The book was published by the very progressive Women’s Co-operative Printing Office.
What I love best about angel food—or maybe I’ll say silver—cake is that it goes great with berries and as other fruits come into season, it’s well suited to them too. Just crush your berries and add a small bit of sugar. Let the juices come out for an hour or so, then ladle the berry mix over slices of the cake. Eat up and enjoy! Its lightness makes a lovely pairing too with the equally light elegance of the Mexico Chiapas coffee brewed as an espresso!
A beautiful and delicious bread to brighten your day on August 18 & 19
One of my all-time favorite Bakehouse breads will be available this coming weekend! You can buy a Chestnut Baguette (or two) on August 18 and 19 at the Bakeshop and Deli. Feel free to order ahead to be sure there’s a loaf waiting for you. I’ll be picking up a couple for our house! James Beard once said: “Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts.” The Chestnut Baguettes from the Bakehouse backs up James Beard’s statement in a big way!
Baking with chestnut flour is wholly uncommon in the U.S. in the 21st century, but it’s got a long history in Italy, France, and central Europe where chestnuts were used for almost all sorts of cooking. Chestnut flour was often what people who couldn’t afford the more costly wheat would work with. In Ukraine, chestnuts are considered a symbol of prosperity, fertility, and also longevity.
(The story there, which dates to the 19th century, is yet another example of Russian imposition and acting with anything but grace, followed by creative Ukrainian resistance.) In the Lunigiana region of Tuscany, wheat was grown on the valley floor, so the only flour readily found in the mountain areas was ground from locally grown chestnuts. The region has long been known as “The Land of the Moon and the Bread Tree”—the latter is a reference to the chestnut.
The typical Casola Marocca bread of the area is now enshrined in the Slow Food Presidium. Chestnut flour-based breads were also popular in Liguria (the Italian Riviera), where Rocco and Katherine Disderide, the Italian immigrant couple who built the Deli’s building in 1902 had come from. In that sense, I feel like the Bakehouse’s Chestnut Baguettes have come full circle. Unfortunately, chestnuts in the U.S. fell prey to a massive blight in the early years of the 20th century and were almost totally eradicated. Michigan, I’m happy to say, has been the center of the American chestnut revival over the last decade or so.
To make the baguettes, we work with local chestnut flour from the folks at Treeborn, about half an hour or so west of here in Jackson. We blend that with freshly milled Michigan hard red spring wheat. No commercial yeast is used—just the flour, filtered water, and sea salt—which means that the baguettes are naturally leavened. The finished loaves are lovely, the color, in fact, of chestnuts. The flavor is nutty, full, subtly sweet, with a long, lovely finish that pairs well with an endless list. The baguettes are great with the Creamery’s fresh goat cheese or Manchester cheese. Toast a slice and top with olive oil and fresh Bellwether ricotta and some chestnut honey. If you toast slices on the grill to pick up a bit of woodsmoke, that’s wonderful too. Or just tear off a chunk and eat it as is!
Treeborn is located in the Rogers Reserve, land that was donated to Michigan State University by Ernie and Mabel Rogers in 1990. Determined to right what had gone so wrong in the American ecosystem, the Rogers gifted the land for the express purpose of supporting the revival of the American chestnut. Treeborn today has the only commercial chestnut peeling line in the Western Hemisphere, technology that makes this work possible.
As of the 2012 U.S. Census of Agriculture, Michigan is the country’s leading producer of chestnuts. Maybe when the ZCoB hits its 100th anniversary in 2082, local license plates will say “The Chestnut State.” And this beautiful baguette will be one of the state’s signature dishes, something travelers regularly take back with them to demonstrate what is possible when good people do good work in the world!
P.S. If you want to make the baguettes at home, the recipe is in the Zingerman’s Bakehouse book on page 228.
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Tag: Bakehouse
Super tasty, traditional Hungarian savory strudel served up May 5-7
Cabbage Rétes (the middle one pictured above) is a favorite Hungarian flavor we discovered during our time in Budapest ten or twelve years ago. The strudel’s filling has just a few ingredients—cabbage, goose fat, salt, and pepper—but lots of flavor. Why goose fat? Geese are a favorite protein in Hungary, and it’s possible to find all things goose in the meat markets. Goose fat is understandably a commonly used fat. It adds a distinctive roasted poultry flavor to this savory treat.
In Hungary, what most Americans call strudel is known as “rétes” (pronounced “ray-TESH”). Over the last few centuries, there’s been quite an argument going on between Austrian and Hungarian historians as to who should get the culinary credit for the invention of strudel. Quite clearly whoever came up with this amazingly wonderful so-thin-you-can-read-the-paper-through-it pastry filled with most anything you can imagine—deserves appreciation from both sweet and savory lovers. Writer George Lang said that the strudel was actually a legacy of the Turkish influence on the region.
While strudel’s delicacy might reasonably be taken as a mark of something that started in high society, Lang let us know that, “In Hungary, strudel is a village specialty, and even in luxury restaurants it’s always a farmer girl from the provinces who’s hired to make it.” Others have called it “the pride of Hungarian cooks.” Tina Wasserman, author of Entrée to Judaism for Families, suggests that the cabbage rétes was a big part of Hungarian Jewish eating—the use of goose fat in this recipe in place of pork speaks to Wasserman’s write-up.
Speaking personally, the Bakehouse’s Cabbage Rétes is a longtime favorite of mine! Amy Emberling, co-managing partner at the Bakehouse said of the strudel-making process: “The dough is one of those wonders of the baking world that is rewarding to make. It’s like a magic trick!” A slice of rétes makes an easy meal, accompanied by a salad and/or soft scrambled eggs (as I did this week with a bit of fresh goat cheese from the Creamery and sprinkled with some Hungarian paprika). When she first moved here from San Francisco, many years ago, my girlfriend-farmer-life partner Tammie Gilfoyle told me that “the rétes are like God’s gift to the Bakehouse!” In the context of Robert Pirsig’s appeal for us to accept Quality as a universal truth, the rétes could then be a terrific example to prove the point—both subjectively (full-flavored and traditional) and objectively, it’s awesome!
Come by the Bakehouse May 5, 6, or 7, or call to reserve them: 734-761-2095.
P.S. If you want to make this marvelous rétes at home, the recipe is in Zingerman’s Bakehouse cookbook (on page 237)—the book is a great gift for Mother’s or Father’s Day, made even better maybe by pairing it with the new pamphlet on Zingerman’s food philosophy. Amy, Corynn, Lee, and LJ are working hard on getting a second Bakehouse book, entitled Celebrate Every Day: A Year’s Worth of Favorite Recipes for Festive Occasions, Big and Small, out this fall! Stay tuned!
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Tag: Bakehouse
A world-class dessert handmade here
in Washtenaw County
Pecan pie is hardly hard to find—you’ll see one in nearly every American bakery, or at least on the menu in almost every roadside diner. The challenge isn’t finding one—it’s finding a great one. If you or someone you know has been on the search, I feel super confident that we can help you! My opinion? The pecan pie from the Bakehouse is one of THE best things we bake!
I’m not the only one who holds that belief. Amy Emberling, long-time co-managing partner and a member of our Stewardship Council, wrote in Zingerman’s Bakehouse, “This is my favorite Bakehouse pie, just because I enjoy it and also because it fits our mission perfectly—full flavored and traditional.” Want an outside affirmation? It’s been acclaimed by the Detroit News, featured in InStyle magazine, and was famously carried years ago to Paris by Frankie Andreu’s wife to help him celebrate the Tour de France bicycle team victory! To state it simply, this is a pretty darned exceptional pecan pie from the Bakehouse.
What makes it so great?
As Amy elucidates, “What makes the difference between a good version and a great version is the quality of the ingredients and their proportions.” Muscovado brown sugar is one of the “secrets.” It takes just as long to put this amazing sugar in our pie as it would take to use industrially-refined brown sugar, but the flavor it brings is about 55 times better. Above and beyond the sugar, “Real vanilla and flavorful butter are also critical.” And, the featured element—we use mammoth halves of Western Schley and Pawnee pecans, both of which are known for their good flavor.
As Mississippi-born food writer Craig Claiborne once declared, “Nothing rekindles my spirits, gives comfort to my heart and mind, more than a visit to Mississippi … and to be regaled as I often have been, with a platter of fried chicken, field peas, collard greens … to top it all off with a wedge of freshly baked pecan pie.” Shifting my geographic gears, I was thinking the other day about how in Vermont they often serve apple pie with a slice of room-temperature cheddar laid (not melted) on top. I had the thought to do the same with the Pecan Pie.
I used some of the six-year-old cheddar we have at the Cream Top shop from the Widmer family in Theresa, Wisconsin. It was terrific. The sweet richness of the pie and the creamy sharpness of the cheese make a great match. Alternatively, spread a bit of the Creamery’s handmade Cream Cheese on your plate, then put the pie on top—the creaminess of the cheese, the dark gently bittersweetness of the pie, the butteriness of the crust, and the natural nuttiness of the pecans come together to make a very special way to end a meal!
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