Golden Brioche

S.Kenney - Brioche - 2011

I adore making this bread.  If anything can send me into meditational bliss - it is the heady smell of brioche.  This bread brings back memories of my first trip to France when I was 17.  Knowing nothing of this sort of deliciousness, I hastily ordered a "bun" from a local patisserie in Paris.  Being young and always in a rush, I was mindlessly gobbling down a quick breakfast.


My young life stopped.  All taste buds went into over drive.  Every trip back to France is punctuated by that first bite of the wonderful french brioche.  I rejoice that they DO NOT readily sell it in the U.S.  I have been forced to take out the ingredients and make it myself.


I know so many of you have experienced the same near coma inducing brioche introduction.  Every trip back to France included a daily (sometimes multiple dailies) meditational indulging of this delectable bread.

S. Kenney- Brioche - 2011

I wish I could find the wonderful white chunky sugar that is always seen on brioche in France.  I look on the store shelves wherever I go but I just don't know where to find it.  If anyone out there knows, it would be such a magical touch.


Last fall, while in a small town called Valence ( 30 min. so. of Lyon), we went to their market.  I tasted a wonderful local brioche called "Dauphinoise".  It had yummy chunks of candied almonds nestled in the cracks.  I know it isn't polite but I had them cut a chunk for me and I nibbled on it and absorbed everything about that wonderful market.  I included a photo below of that loaf.

Recipe Below:  From the Bon Apetit issue February 2003
1/3 cup warm water (105°F to 115°F)
1/3 cup warm milk (105°F to 115°F)
2 envelopes dry yeast
3 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
3 large eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, each stick cut into 4 pieces, room temperature
1 egg, beaten to blend with 1 tablespoon water (for glaze)


Preparation:
Place 1/3 cup warm water, warm milk, and yeast in bowl of standing heavy-duty mixer; stir until yeast dissolves. Fit mixer with dough hook. Add flour and salt to bowl; mix on low speed just until flour is moistened, about 10 seconds. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl. Beat in 3 eggs on low speed, then add sugar. Increase speed to medium and beat until dough comes together, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low. Add butter, 1 piece at a time, beating until each piece is almost incorporated before adding next (dough will be soft and batter-like). Increase speed to medium-high and beat until dough pulls away from sides of bowl, about 7 minutes.

Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rise at room temperature until almost doubled in volume, about 1 hour. Lift up dough around edges and allow dough to fall and deflate in bowl. Cover bowl with plastic and chill until dough stops rising, lifting up dough around edges and allowing dough to fall and deflate in bowl every 30 minutes, about 2 hours total. Cover bowl with plastic; chill dough overnight.
Butter and flour three 7 1/2x3 1/2x2-inch loaf pans. Divide dough into 3 equal pieces. Cut each dough piece into 4 equal pieces. Roll each into 3 1/2-inch-long log, forming 12 logs total. Arrange 4 logs crosswise in bottom of each prepared loaf pan. Place loaf pans on baking sheet. Cover pans with waxed paper. Let loaves rise at room temperature until dough almost fills pans, about 2 hours.
Preheat oven to 400°F. Gently brush top of loaves with egg glaze. Bake until loaves are golden brown and sound hollow when tapped, about 30 minutes. Cool in pans on racks 15 minutes. Turn loaves out onto racks; cool at least 1 hour. (Can be made ahead. Cool completely. Wrap loaves in foil; place in resealable plastic bags and store at room temperature 1 day or freeze up to 1 month. Rewarm room-temperature or thawed loaves wrapped in foil in 350°F oven about 15 minutes, if desired.)

The Welcome Wagon Is A Hearse

Yesterday a friend and I stopped in Bowers, Delaware. We didn't stay long.

A street sign.

A boat.

My First Blog Award!

A big THANK YOU to Hynz over at Waiting in My Wings for giving me my first blog award!  

There are 4 simple rules to follow:

1.Thank and link back to the person who awarded this to you.

2. Share 7 things about yourself.

3. Award 15 blogs you have recently discovered.

4. Contact these bloggers and let them know about the award.

7 Things About Myself

1. I was homeschooled from KG all the way to 12th grade.

2. I started taking college classes when I was 16 years old.

3. I have one brother, who is a United States Marine! *OOH RAH!*

4. I married my first and only boyfriend, David in 2006! Love you dearest!

5. I love flip flops! I use to have 20 + pairs of them until we got our 3rd dog. He likes flip flops too. :(

6. I work in the school system as an Occupational Therapy Assistant with special education children.

7. One of my favorite hobbies is photography! I have a Nikon D40. Saving up for a D3100 next. :)

15 blogs I would like to give the Stylish Blog Award to are as follows:

(no particular order) Please visit their blogs!!

1. Sarah's Hearts Home - Sarah and I have been friends since we were 16 years old! She is my best friend and has 3 beautiful children! Her blog is about her life as a stay at home mom.

2. Cress Life - I met Jessica a few years ago when she married my husband's cousin! She has two adorable boys and one little girl on the way! Her blog is also about her life as a stay at home mom.

3. Live, Laugh, Learn, Love - Susan is another dear friend of mine. She blogs about whatever comes to her mind!

4. Housewife in Town - Laura was my very first snail mail pen-pal many many years ago! She now has two adorable little boys. Her blog is about her life as a stay at home mom.

5. Living in Lincoln - Nadja is a friend of both my brother and I. She has an adorable Golden Retriever puppy as well.

6. Women Living Well - Courtney is the founder and her posts have been a huge blessing to me. She writes about marriage, family, God and so much more!

7. Comfy in the Kitchen - Janelle shares lots of yummy recipes on this site!

8. Lynn's Kitchen Adventurers - This blog is just what it's name says! Lynn has a catalog of all her recipes that you can look at and print from her site!

9. Creative Learning Fun - Elizabeth is homeschooling her daughter and shares lots of homeschool ideas and activities.

10. A Collection of This and That - Dayle hosts a weekly link up called Simple Pleasures and also hosts giveaways. She is a writer and has published many of her stories.

11. Mama to 4 Blessings - Nicole just had her fourth child. She hosts lots of giveaways, blog hops etc...

12. Southern Reflexions - Have to share a blog with a similar name to mine. :) Photography, blog hops etc...

13. Reluctant Entertainer - Sandy is a author and specializes in entertaining at home.

14. Couching Mother, Hidden Toddler - Kelly is so creative with her daughter's school lunches. You have to check out the pictures!

and last but not least....

15. Give Them Something Better - Sarah and Stephanie and fellow Adventist Christians like myself and have created a vegan, vegetarian cookbook. Check out their recipes and menus!

Be sure to check out all the blogs above! They are all great reads!

Blessings,

Enjoy what you read here at Golden Reflections? Please vote daily at Picket Fence Blogs, just click the button below! Thanks! 

Some Implicit Cannibalism

I got this in an email from the UC I attended.

Alumni Converge on State Capitol to Deliver Message
to Legislators About Importance of University of California

Alumni from all 10 University of California campuses participated in the 2011 “UC Day” at the state Capitol to deliver an important message: UC’s excellence, accessibility and affordability are a driving force in California’s economy, but are critically threatened by the proposed $500 million budget cut.

Let's see, the state is $26B in the hole and the UCs are being asked to pony up $500M. The UCs don't want to pay that much. Since the money is going to have to come from somewhere, where will that somewhere be? The email doesn't say.

The Market Has Lost Its Fundamental Value Anchor

... or so says Bill Gross in his latest monthly newsletter to PIMCO investors.

Ultimately, however, the devil gets his due or at least the central bankers run out of mathematical room to lower real yields below commonsensical floors. Today’s negative real yield on 5-year TIPS (Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities) is perhaps reflective of a market that has lost its fundamental value anchor. A century-long history of average 5-year real yields would point out that bond investors in Aaa 5-year sovereign space have demanded and received a real interest rate return of 1.5% instead of today’s -0.1%. We are being shortchanged, in other words, by 160 basis points from the get-go, a “haircut” that is but one of four ways that governments attempt to escape from an over-levered national balance sheet.

Bill has decided to sell all Treasuries out of his bond fund, the largest bond fund in the world. The reason is that the interest on Treasuries is below a level worth investing money. I maintain that the low interest rates and money printing have less to do with boosting the economy than it does with making sure the government can borrow all the money it needs. If it weren't for the Fed loaning $600B or so to the government, the deficit wouldn't be so big because the government wouldn't be able to find any lenders. PIMCO's investment decisions bear this out.

Bill Gross makes the point that this transition from the Fed concentrating on maintaining interest rates to the Fed concentrating on feeding (printed) money to the government has wrecked the accepted standard against which other investments are measured: the Treasury. Bill's not just some nutty blogger with an opinion, he's the manager of the world's largest bond fund. He's doing more than writing about it, he's selling the things and telling everyone else to do the same.

Ouch.