It’s actually quite rare that I post recipes verbatim from another cookbook or website without making a few modifications, but this recipe was perfect just as is. It’s from Joann Chang’s newest cookbook, Pastry Love, and besides the fact that I made it square not round, it is exactly as written in the cookbook and boy is it delicious. I also love the way the photos turned out. It’s the little things that keep you happy, right?
I guess this is a bit of a variation on a cinnamon roll bread only instead of a brown sugar and cinnamon paste, it’s filled with a cranberry sauce. I’m not overly pleased at how it slacked out and got some big holes (I suspect the cranberry mixture was too heavy), but it did taste good – sort of like pre-jammed breakfast bread.
Unholy (adjective)
Definition #1: sinful. wicked. godless. blasphemous. sacrilegious. profane. heathen. irreligious. nontheistic.
Definition #2: lacking in holes
We’re going to go with definition number 2, please. These bagels are unholy. They have no holes.
You see, a few weeks ago, a friend of mine was making Pretzel Rolls (Laugenbrötchen, for you Germans). Similar to making bagels, you place the rolls in boiling water for a minute or two before baking, only with pretzels or pretzel rolls, you are supposed to put food lye or baking soda in the boiling water, which gives it that dark brown exterior. Well, she forgot the baking soda, and thus ended up making bagel rolls much like these. She posted a photo to her FB page and I spontaneously just said “Unholy bagels!” which I found somehow very funny. Apparently it doesn’t take much to amuse me during lockdown. So there you have it. Unholy bagels, aka Dinner Rolls. They are really damn (ha ha) yummy, even if they started out as accident.
Have you noticed this crazy phenomenon called Banana Bread? As a person who follows a lot of food websites, chefs, fellow-bloggers and newspaper food section watcher, there is this crazy phenomenon where, I swear the collective households of the entire US are baking banana bread. Here is an article that jumped on the bandwagen.
And seeing it is bread week here at CSPS, I might as well jump on the bandwagon and make some too, right? This is my second go at banana bread during this pandemic and subsequent quarantine time and this one is simply amazing! Browned butter = yum, spiced rum (ok, if I must), banana overload (goodie) and then caramel pieces (OMG!) and walnuts (optional, but still pretty darn good). It’s sort of like bananas foster without setting the thing on fire. If you have some bananas left over while you’re sheltering in place, definitely give this one a go! (PS: don’t overfill the pans; I’d rather go for two than have an overflow!)