33. Add the Butter a Little at a Time

Vera: Go to your refrigerator now, take out the butter and press it with a fingertip. Hard as a frozen pond, yes? Leave it on the table while you read on, and press it again at the end. What changes under your finger is today's whole lesson.

Anton: Butter that gives like a ripe plum. Not cold. Not melted. Soft.

Half Past Three, the Butter Dish in the Sun

Vera: Priya has set the butter dish on the sunny sill above the sink and is poking it every two minutes, and Lev, at the far end by the egg basket, is counting out the eggs. Three for the dough, one for the glaze.

Anton: Today's dough is the richest yet. Eggs instead of most of the water, and a great deal of butter. Bakers call it an enriched dough: flour that has been given milk, eggs, sugar and fat, so the crumb turns tender and yellow, and the crust thin and dark gold.

Vera: Where do they bake buns like these?

Anton: In the wheat and dairy country of the west, where butter was cheap and plentiful. Bakers there shape it into tall loaves, little buns with topknots, rings. Children eat it at breakfast and again after school, torn open, plain or with jam.

Vera: Lev wants to know why it is so yellow.

Anton: The yolks. Hens that run about on summer grass lay eggs with yolks like marigolds.

Question: Why must the butter be softened, not melted?

Answer: Softened butter spreads through the dough in thin films and keeps it light. Melted butter runs out of the dough, makes it greasy, and the buns bake heavy.

Vera: And why a little at a time?

Anton: Because the dough can only drink so fast. Too much at once and it slides about in pieces, like pebbles in a stream. A spoonful, knead it in, then the next.

At the Work Table

For ten buns: 400 g bread flour (3 1/4 cups), 7 g instant dried yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons), 40 g sugar (3 tablespoons), 6 g fine salt (1 teaspoon), 3 eggs, 100 ml lukewarm milk (a scant 1/2 cup), 115 g softened butter (1/2 cup). Glaze: 1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon milk. Oven: 190°C (375°F).

Anton: One, for a child: mix the flour, yeast, sugar and salt, add the eggs and milk, and knead ten minutes. It is sticky at first. Do not add flour.

Anton: Two, for a child: add the butter a little at a time, a spoonful, kneading each in before the next, then knead ten minutes more, until glossy and stretchy.

Anton: Three: cover and let it rise for an hour, then chill it in the refrigerator for at least two hours, or overnight. The butter firms again, like honey in winter, and cold dough is far easier to shape.

Anton: Four, for a child: cut ten pieces of about 75 g, roll them into tight balls and set them 5 cm (2 inches) apart on lined trays. Cover and let them rise one to one and a half hours, until puffy and wobbly.

Anton: Five, for a child: brush the tops gently with the glaze. Then a grown-up bakes them fifteen to eighteen minutes, until deep gold, and lifts the trays out in oven gloves.

A Pastry Kitchen by the River, at Seventeen

Vera: At seventeen I washed bowls in a pastry kitchen by a broad brown river, where barges slid past the back window all day. Orla made the brioche there, at a marble slab cold as a cave wall, and she sang while she kneaded.

Vera: She said the butter had to go in to the rhythm of her song, a verse to a spoonful, and if anyone hurried her she simply started the song again from the beginning, so that in the end nobody ever dared to.

Anton: That is a wise way to run a kitchen.

The Sunny Step, Late Afternoon

Three quick questions. One: What makes a dough enriched? Two: How should the butter feel? Three: Why chill the dough?

Answers. One: Eggs, milk, sugar and butter. Two: Soft, giving like a ripe plum. Three: Cold dough is easier to shape.

Vera: Now press your own butter again. You see? Priya has already eaten one bun and has her eye on Lev's.

Anton: Then pour them each a glass of orange juice, squeezed fresh. Its sharpness cuts through all that butter, the way a mountain stream cuts through a warm valley.

Key Words

Enriched dough: a yeast dough made richer with eggs, milk, sugar and butter, so that it bakes soft and tender.

Softened butter: butter left at room temperature until a fingertip presses into it easily, but not melted.

34. Right Over the Middle, Left Over the Middle

Vera: Most people believe that a braided loaf is only for skilled bakers, a thing to admire in a shop window and never try at home. It is not true. If you can braid hair, or three ribbons, or three blades of long grass, you can braid bread.

Anton: The braid looks hard. It is one of the easiest shapes in this book. The dough does the showing off for you.

Three O'Clock, at the Window Seat

Vera: Nell has come with her hair in two braids, and she is sitting on the window seat beside the geranium pots, undoing one to show Pim how it works. Pim is braiding three of my apron strings together and getting tangled.

Anton: Good practice. First we roll three strands of dough, each as long as a forearm, fatter in the middle and thinner at the ends. Then pinch the tops together, and go: right over the middle, left over the middle, right over the middle, left over the middle, all the way down.

Vera: That is all?

Anton: That is all. Then tuck both ends under, so the loaf sits like a sleeping animal with its paws folded. The braid rises, and the strands swell into one another like the roots of an old tree.

Vera: And if a strand tears halfway?

Anton: Pinch it together and carry on. The rise hides small mistakes, the way new snow hides a muddy path.

Vera: And the dough itself?

Anton: Rich with eggs and honey and a little oil, so the crumb pulls apart in soft threads. In many lands a loaf like this is baked for rest days and feast days. Every family braids it a little differently.

Question: Why do we brush the loaf with egg twice?

Answer: The first coat soaks into the dough. The second, just before it goes into the oven, gives the deep, shining brown. Brush gently, into every crack, without pressing the air out.

A Lane of Old Houses, Long Ago

Anton: When I was young I worked in an old quarter of a city on a wide river, where the lanes were so narrow that the neighbours could pass a cup across the street from one window to the next. Malka baked braided loaves there on Thursdays and Fridays.

Anton: Her shop window was full of red geraniums, like yours, Vera. She braided with six strands, without looking, while she talked to her customers about their children, and on Friday afternoons the whole lane smelled of warm honey.

Vera: Six strands!

Anton: She told me to master three first. I did, eventually.

At the Work Table

For one large loaf of about twelve slices: 500 g bread flour (4 cups), 7 g instant dried yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons), 9 g fine salt (1 1/2 teaspoons), 60 g honey (3 tablespoons), 2 eggs, 55 g mild oil (1/4 cup), 180 ml lukewarm water (3/4 cup). Egg wash: 1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water. Oven: 190°C (375°F). Honey is not for babies under one.

Anton: One, for a child: mix and knead for ten minutes, until smooth and not sticky. Cover and let it rise for about one and a half hours.

Anton: Two, for a child: weigh the dough into three equal pieces and roll each into a strand 40 cm (16 inches) long. If a strand shrinks back, rest it five minutes, then roll again.

Anton: Three, for a child: braid them, pinch and tuck both ends under, and set the loaf on a lined tray. Cover and let it rise forty-five to sixty minutes.

Anton: Four, for a child: brush with egg wash, wait ten minutes, and brush again.

Anton: Five, for a grown-up: bake twenty-five to thirty minutes, until deep brown and hollow when knocked underneath. If it darkens early, lay foil over it. Oven gloves on, and children stand back while the door is open.

By the Geraniums, After Four

Three quick questions. One: How many strands make the simplest braid? Two: What goes over the middle strand? Three: How many times do we brush with egg?

Answers. One: Three. Two: The right strand, then the left, in turn. Three: Twice.

Vera: Nell's loaf is even and tight. Pim's leans to one side like a tree on a windy hill, and he is very proud of it.

Anton: He should be. A crooked braid tastes exactly the same, and he made it himself. Malka once told me her first braids leaned too.

Key Words

Strand: one long rope of dough, rolled to be braided with others.

Braid: a loaf made by crossing three or more strands of dough over one another, like hair.

Egg wash: beaten egg brushed onto dough before baking, to give a shining brown crust.