59. A Coat of Butter and a Coat of Sugar

Vera: Try this now. Drop one raisin into a cup of warm water and another into an empty cup beside it. Leave them while we weigh the flour, then bite each one. The soaked one is plump and soft as a grape. The dry one is still a pebble.

Anton: And a pebble in a loaf steals water from the crumb around it. That is why tonight the fruit has a bath before it goes in.

Beside the Warm Oven Door

Vera: Zuri, sitting on the floor by the oven door with the cat in her lap, has been in charge of the soaking cup. She has tested four raisins so far, for science.

Anton: This is the winter loaf of the old river towns in the middle of the continent: a rich, heavy dough with butter, spices, soaked fruit and almonds, folded over on itself, then brushed with melted butter and buried in sugar while it is hot.

Vera: Folded? Why folded?

Anton: Some say the shape is a cradle, some say a sleeping hill. I say it is a loaf that keeps its fruit tucked in, like a squirrel with its winter store. And it keeps for weeks, under a coat of butter and a coat of sugar.

The Winter Market, Long Ago

Vera: When I was fourteen, I spent a winter helping Wanda, whose stall at the winter market stood between a man roasting chestnuts and a man selling wooden stars. Her loaves were stacked in a tower, every one dusted white as a hillside in January.

Vera: My job was to wrap them in paper and tie the string. My fingers were blue with cold and white with sugar. Wanda paid me in loaves, one each Saturday, and I carried it home inside my coat like a warm cat.

Vera: She told me the secret was patience twice: once for the dough, which rises slowly, and once for the loaf, which tastes better after a week. I never managed the second.

At the Work Table

For one loaf, about sixteen slices. The fruit: 150 g raisins (1 cup) and 50 g candied peel (1/3 cup), soaked in 60 ml orange juice (1/4 cup) for at least an hour.

The dough: 375 g plain flour (3 cups), 7 g instant yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons), 50 g sugar (1/4 cup), 4 g salt (3/4 teaspoon), 125 ml warm milk (1/2 cup), 1 egg and 125 g soft butter (1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon).

Spices and nuts: 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom, the grated peel of 1 lemon and 60 g chopped almonds (1/2 cup).

To finish: 50 g melted butter and 60 g icing sugar (1/2 cup). Oven: 180°C (350°F).

Vera: This loaf has almonds. Anyone with a nut allergy should check the ingredients first; the almonds can be left out.

Anton: Mix the flour, yeast, sugar, salt, spices and lemon peel, add the milk and egg and knead for five minutes. Add the butter a piece at a time and knead ten minutes more. Cover and let it rise for an hour and a half.

Vera: A child drains the fruit, pats it dry and kneads it gently into the dough with the almonds.

Anton: Press the dough into an oval 25 by 20 cm (10 by 8 inches). Fold one long side over, not quite to the other edge, and press along the fold. Set it on a lined tray, cover and let it rise for forty-five minutes.

Vera: A child picks off any raisins on the surface and tucks them inside. A grown-up bakes the loaf for forty to forty-five minutes, laying foil on top if it darkens.

Anton: While it is hot, a grown-up in oven gloves brushes it with half the butter, and a child sifts over half the sugar. When it is cool, do both again. Wrap it well; it keeps for two weeks in a cool place and tastes better after three days.

Half Past Nine, Sugar Everywhere

Question: Zuri asks why the raisins on the outside have to be tucked in.

Answer: A raisin on the surface sits in the full heat of the oven. It dries out and burns, and tastes bitter. Inside, wrapped in dough, it stays soft and sweet.

Three quick questions. One: What do the raisins soak in? Two: How is the loaf shaped? Three: How many times is it buttered and sugared?

Answers. One: Orange juice. Two: Pressed into an oval and folded over, not quite to the edge. Three: Twice, once hot and once cool.

Anton: Look at the table. Look at Zuri. Look at the cat. Everything is white. Even the cat has sugar on her ears.

Vera: Then we need something dark and hot to go with it: a mug of cocoa. A grown-up warms the milk, and Zuri whisks in the cocoa and sugar until it froths. Wanda drank it from a tin cup at her stall, and so, in a way, do we.

60. Butter and Dough Must Be Equally Soft

Vera: Here is a letter in very careful pencil. Dear Anton, I am eleven. My grandfather says real butter crescents take three days and a cold kitchen, and nobody bakes them at home any more. I want to make them for his birthday. Can a child do it?

Anton: Tell him two days, not three, and yes. A child can do most of it. A cold kitchen helps, and so does patience.

The Marble Slab by the Back Window

Vera: Rafael, at the marble slab by the back window where the butter is kept, is already holding the rolling pin like a sword.

Anton: Good. He will need it. Tonight a block of cold butter goes inside the dough, and then we roll and fold, roll and fold, until there are dozens of layers, thinner than leaves, each one a sheet of dough lying on a sheet of butter.

Vera: Why does that make them flaky?

Anton: In the oven, the water in each thin layer of butter turns to steam and pushes the dough apart. All those thin roofs lift at once, the way birch bark peels in thin, papery sheets.

A Cellar Bakery, Three in the Morning

Anton: I learned this from Sabine, who baked at night in a cellar in a big old city on a river to the west. Her one window was at the level of the pavement, so all she ever saw of the street was shoes.

Anton: In winter she propped that window open to the snow so the butter would stay hard. On my first night the butter broke through the dough in yellow streaks. She shook her head. Butter and dough must be equally soft, she said. Like two people dancing. If one is stiff, they both fall.

At the Work Table

For twelve crescents, over two days: 250 g bread flour (2 cups), 5 g salt (1 teaspoon), 30 g sugar (2 1/2 tablespoons), 5 g instant yeast (1 1/2 teaspoons), 70 ml cold water and 70 ml cold milk (1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon each) and 20 g soft butter (1 1/2 tablespoons).

For the butter block: 140 g cold unsalted butter (1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons). One beaten egg. Oven: 200°C (400°F).

Anton: First evening: mix and knead the dough for five minutes, flatten it into a square 2 cm (3/4 inch) thick, wrap it and chill overnight.

Vera: Next day, a child puts the cold butter between two sheets of baking paper, beats it flat with the rolling pin and rolls it into a square 12 cm (4 3/4 inches) across. Chill fifteen minutes.

Anton: Roll the dough into a square 18 cm (7 inches) across. Lay the butter on it like a diamond, fold the dough corners over it to meet in the middle, and pinch the seams.

Vera: Roll it into a strip 15 by 45 cm (6 by 18 inches), fold it in three like a letter, wrap and chill thirty minutes. Do this three times in all. If the butter softens or breaks through, chill longer.

Anton: Roll it into a rectangle 25 by 60 cm (10 by 24 inches), about 4 mm (1/6 inch) thick, and a grown-up cuts twelve long triangles, each about 10 cm (4 inches) wide at the base.

Vera: A child stretches each triangle gently and rolls it up from the wide end, the tip tucked underneath.

Anton: Let them rise on lined trays in a cool room, never above 25°C (77°F), for two to three hours, until they wobble when the tray is shaken. A child brushes them with egg.

Vera: A grown-up bakes them for fifteen to eighteen minutes, until deep golden, and lifts the trays out with oven gloves. Butter may drip and smoke.

The Second Evening

Question: Rafael asks why everything has to stay so cold.

Answer: The layers stay separate only while the butter is solid. Warm butter melts into the dough, and then there are no layers to lift and the crescents bake like plain rolls.

Three quick questions. One: How many times is the dough folded in three? Two: Where does the rolling start? Three: When are they ready to bake?

Answers. One: Three times. Two: At the wide end of the triangle. Three: When they wobble as the tray is shaken.

Vera: Rafael has broken one open. Look. Layers like the pages of an old book.

Anton: Then the boy who wrote the letter can do it too. Two days, a cold kitchen, and a grandfather waiting.

Key Words

Lamination: folding a block of butter into dough and rolling and folding it again and again to make many thin layers.

Butter block: a flat square of cold butter, beaten and rolled between sheets of paper, that is wrapped inside the dough.

Letter fold: folding a strip of dough in three, like a letter going into an envelope.