Baking Like a Great Grandma (Part I, Kuchen)

 

Baking like a great grandma takes skill and courage. Let's say it together: It takes chutzpah. The yellowed pages of the handwritten recipes say "a glass of scalded milk" and "blanch 1/2 pound of almonds and grind them into a paste." 

Without any warning, they tell you to "let rise overnight."

I'm quoting from this Jewish Cook Book, and I'm finding it delicious. It was published in the 1940s, so it definitely lacks authenticity — Jews in that time were trying to be more modern, less old country. There are sections I have no interest in, that seem to want to impress the Mad Men–era American housewife with gelatin desserts and crust-cut-off cucumber sandwiches.

But there are whole recipes that I read aloud to my husband while he's skimming the news on his iPad:

Listen to that! "Add 3 well-beaten eggs." No space-hogging list of ingredients; instead, the amounts and preparation of the components of the recipe are woven into the explanation of the method.

"The dough should not be stiff." The economy of that phrase! It assumes you know what you're doing.

I decided to give this recipe a try first after flipping through this book at my mother's house last weekend. "Mom," I said, "Do you mind if I borrow this cookbook?" "What do you want to make?" she asked. "Kuchen," I answered. That happened to be the recipe that jumped out at me. I could have said "strudel" or "mohntorts" or "barches" or "leberknadel" (well, that one I have no idea how to say aloud, so I probably would have skipped that one). The book is full of Yiddish breads, desserts, and long-ago abandoned cuts of meat.

Goose fat. Calf's lung. Tongue. Brains.

Kuchen

The recipes for yeast dough involve something called "compressed yeast" which is the same thing as "fresh yeast." I went on an internet quest to find out what this stuff was, and how I could aim to substitute in the kind of yeast I knew something about.

Turns out you can use dry yeast in place of fresh yeast at about 0.5 oz fresh yeast per packet (2.25 tsp) dry yeast. But I didn't want to overdo it, and I wanted some of that oldfashionedness you'd have in the fresh yeast, so I weighed out half an ounce of sourdough I had going, and put in about half a teaspoon of dry yeast. I followed the recipe and mixed that with milk, sugar, and flour to make a yeast sponge, and let that double in size. In my cool kitchen, it took about 4 hours. Then I followed the rest of the dough recipe and "let rise again, overnight."

It was a wet dough, but I figured that eventually we wanted it to have the consistency of a coffee cake, so I didn't add any extra flour. Remember, "the dough should not be stiff." I repeated this to myself like a mantra, and translated it "let it stay wet."

It wasn't double in the morning, so I figured the compressed yeast must have been stronger than my sourdough starter, and let it sit there until mid-afternoon, rising. My kitchen was approximately 67 degrees. By 2 PM, the dough was double in bulk, and very light.

I took the soft dough out of its bowl and stretched it into "a shallow pan of any desired size." It was not wet anymore, but having absorbed the flour over such a long rise, had a pillow-like bloom to it. Upon landing on the table, it deflated and allowed me to roll it out with some flour above and below it.

Having no idea what size pan you need for baking is a funny concept. I laughed aloud as I had my epiphany: all home bakers have the same size cake pan: 9 by 13 inches. And goddamn. That's how big kuchen dough rolled out to 1/2 inch thickness is, exactly. Well, pretty much. Who's counting.

(I imagined the America's Test Kitchen whiz, Christopher Kimball, his bow tie spinning.)

The dough then rises again until double (this time I let it sit about an hour and a half). Make a little cinnamon-sugar crumble to top it with, and then throw it into a "moderate oven" (350 degrees) for 15 to 20 minutes.

It has a consistency halfway between challah and scone. It is sweet and bready, with a satisfying chew. There's a lot of butter in it, but you don't feel guilty, because it took two days to make.

Perfect for breakfast, or to bring to your work friends for a mid-morning snack.