Well one nice benefit has come out of this whole shelter-in-place thing…I think cooking and baking is on the rise (also probably alcohol consumption, but that’s another matter!). Now that I can stop worrying about getting my chicks back to the nest, I’ve started baking for them. There is nothing like the smell of bread baking…it is the ultimate in aromatherapy! Yesterday the #sundaybaking project was Cardamom Bread with Lemon Icing. Yummmm. I’m counting this as a health food because - lemons. Hey! They’re a fruit! I have a long-standing love affair with this stuff, which is admittedly a bit dangerous, and we happened to have a lifetime supply of cardamom on hand thanks to the Indian grocery store across town and my daughter’s affection for amassing spices.

I got this recipe from a series of baking classes I took with my sister and Dad about 20 years ago at the Cambridge Culinary Institute. The classes were a birthday gift to my Dad - he is the one who instilled a love for baking in us, and we had a blast. We also ended up with a truckload of great recipes and baking tips, and the knowledge that I will probably never make my own puff pastry ever again #notworththetrouble.

I have said before, I am a lazy gourmet..I don’t see any virtue in expending effort unnecessarily so I’ll point out where I diverged from the instructions to make things easier.

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Cardamom Bread with Lemon Icing

Ingredients

1 pkg active dry yeast

1/4 cup warm water

2 1/2 cups milk

3/4 cup unsalted butter

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamom

1 cup sugar

1 egg

about 8 cups all purpose flour

Icing Ingredients

2 cups confectioners sugar

juice of one lemon*

*the original recipe calls for 1/4 cup of milk and 1 teaspoon lemon extract, but I am not a fan of the taste of lemon extract so I substituted actual lemon juice which works perfectly.

Directions

Combine the yeast and 1/4 cup of warm water at approximately 110’F and let stand 5 minutes (I do this right in the bowl of the electric mixer - no need to dirty another dish!). Meanwhile, heat the milk and butter until the butter is melted and the whole thing is warm. This took 2 or 3 minutes in a pyrex measuring cup in my microwave. You can also do this in a pan on the stove, obviously. NOTE: too hot liquid can kill the yeast so be careful - warm activates it, hot murders it..fine line - if you accidentally heat it too much, let it cool a bit before continuing. Mix together the cup of sugar, salt, cardamom, and egg and add to yeast mixture in the mixing bowl along with the milk and butter. The recipe I have says to stir the flour in with a spoon and then turn it out onto a floured board and knead until elastic. My personal laziness kicked in before that last instruction and I fitted my standing mixer AKA “the beast” with the paddle attachment and added the first 4 cups of flour, then switched to the dough hook and added the rest of the flout and let the mixer do the heavy lifting and kneading - I told you I was lazy! If you need to work out some aggression or exercise your upper arms, feel free to knead by hand for 10 minutes. You want the dough to be smooth and elastic. If you opted for the easy method with a dough hook, it will pull away from the sides of the bowl cleanly when it gets close to the right state. I just set a timer for 6 minutes and left it at medium high speed to do it’s thing.

Once done, put it in a greased bowl turning the ball of dough to coat it with grease. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours. I use THIS dough bucket which I love. Go do something fun or productive until it has risen: HERE are some ideas.

Once the dough has risen, turn it out onto a floured board, punch it down to push the air pockets out (if you didn’t get to take out your aggression earlier, maybe this will make up for it…). Divide the dough into 6 equal portions. This is easier said than done and unless Paul Hollywood is lurking it is not critical that they be EXACTLY equal - mine most definitely were not! Roll them into 2’ long ropes. Remember art class in grade school where you rolled clay into ropes to make coiled pots? Just like that only a requiring a little more coercion because the dough is quite elastic and springs back. Press the ends of three ropes together and braid them into a loose braid tucking the ends under. Having years of experience with long hair helps here! You can create two loaves or two braided rings, whichever you prefer.

Place the prepared loaves on parchment lined baking sheets and cover with a towel to rise a second time until almost doubled (about 40 minutes).

Heat oven to 350’. Bake loaves 35-40 minutes until golden brown. Use the parchment to transfer them to a cooling rack. Combine the powdered sugar and lemon juice to form a glaze consistency and drizzle over the loaves.

Delicious served warm, but honestly, delicious at room temperature too! Excellent as a breakfast pastry, with afternoon tea, as a lovely addition to brunch, or a midnight snack…pretty much ANY time of day! Once cooled, loaves can be well wrapped and frozen, though they rarely last long enough for that around here!

Enjoy!