Buttermilk Fantails

I spotted these Buttermilk Fantails Rolls on the cover of the February 2009 issue of Gourmet magazine and made them for dinner last night. They were surprisingly easy to make and a big hit. You can find the recipe online by clicking the recipe link, but I think mine look much better than those pictured on the website (if I do say so myself).  For the sake of convenience, I've reproduced the recipe below.  Do try them.  I am not much of a bread maker, but was enormously pleased with these.  Next time I'm going to add some onion and garlic powder to give them a little more flavor.

Buttermilk Fantails
1 stick plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, divided
2 teaspoons active dry yeast (from a 1/4-oz package)
1/4 cup warm water (105-115 degrees F)
1 tablespoon mild honey or sugar
3 cups all-purpose flour plus more for kneading and dusting

1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3/4 cup well-shaken buttermilk

Butter muffin cups with 1 tablespoon melted butter.

Stir together yeast, warm water, and honey in a large bowl and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. (If mixture doesn't foam, start over with new yeast.)

Mix flour, salt, buttermilk, and 6 tablespoons melted butter into yeast mixture with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until a soft dough forms. Turn out dough onto a well-floured surface and knead, dusting surface and your hands with just enough flour to keep dough from sticking, until dough is elastic and smooth, 6 to 8 minutes. Form dough into a ball.

Put dough in an oiled large bowl and turn to coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel and let dough rise in a draft- free place at warm room temperature until doubled, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

Punch down dough (do not knead), then halve. Roll out half of dough on a lightly floured surface with a floured rolling pin into a 12-inch square (about 1/8 inch thick; keep remaining half covered with plastic wrap). Brush dough with 1/2 tablespoon butter and cut into 6 equal strips. Stack strips, buttered sides up, and cut crosswise into 6 equal pieces. Turn each piece on a side and put into a muffin cup. Make more rolls with remaining dough in same manner. Separate outer layers of each roll to fan outward. Cover rolls with a kitchen towel (not terry cloth) and let rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled and dough fills cups, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F with rack in middle. Bake rolls until golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. Brush tops with remaining 2 tablespoons butter, then transfer rolls to a rack and cool at least 20 minutes.

Cooks' note:
Rolls are best the day they're made but can be frozen (cool completely, then wrap well) 1 month. Thaw, then reheat on a baking sheet in a 350 degrees F oven until warmed through, 5 to 10 minutes.
Gourmet | February 2009
by Ruth Cousineau

Yield: Makes 1 dozen rolls
Active Time: 45 min
Total Time: 5 hr (includes rising)

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5 Minute Artisan Bread - The French Boule

I am one of those people who just can't make bread, and because I can't do it, I am completely fascinated by it.  The process, the yeast, the flour, the shaping, the baking, the heady aroma, that first butter-laden bite.  All of this just sucks me in.  As a consequence I find myself drawn to the process, to the aisle of bread cookbooks at the local bookstore (many of which sit, dusty, on my shelves), and reading books of fiction that feature subplots on baking such as Barbara O'Neal's How to Bake A Perfect Life and Judith Hendrick's wonderful Bread Alone.  I was so captivated by the latter, that midway through the book I had to set it down, run to the kitchen, and bake a baguette using the recipe from the book.  How could I fail?

It was beautiful!  A gorgeous loaf  that smelled absolutely wonderful.  But...the crust was impenetrable even, I imagine, by shark teeth, the spongy interior would have easily removed permanent crowns and the most secure of fillings with ease, and it was so heavy I feared dropping it lest someone nearby fall victim to a piece of bread shrapnel.

Clearly, I had to accept that this was just one talent that I lacked.  Some people have the bread baking gene and some don't and, clearly (my family was quick to remind me) I don't.  Once I did check out the book by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking, from the local library, but my fear caused me to return it unread. 


What made me attempt it again is anybody's guess, but having stumbled upon the recipe for the simplest of the 5-minute breads, the classic French boule, I decided to give it a try. First thing this morning I put the ingredients together in a big metal mixing bowl wherein I promptly ignored it as I went on about my day.  Forgot about it actually, until hours later when it was puffing up beyond the sides of the bowl and, in a panic, I stuffed it into the back of the refrigerator.


An hour or so before dinner while I was making Sour Cream  Snickerdoodles (a future blog post, stay tuned) I decided to pull off a chunk of the dough, shape it and pop it into the oven.  It would give me a chance to use the pizza stone and peel that I'd gotten for Christmas three years ago.

The little ball of dough looked a bit sad on that big peel, but I reminded myself that it was supposed to be a small loaf, so tossed on some flour, made three cuts in the top, as directed, and carefully slid it onto the hot stone in the oven.

For the next 30 minutes I paced.  I dare not open the oven door to get a peak for fear of the steam I'd created by pouring a cup of water into a broiler pan beneath the stone would escape.  When the timer went off I opened up the oven and peered inside.  I was met with a blast of heavenly scented steam from the baking bread that immediately transported me to Paris.  My little loaf had baked up beautifully with an aroma that begged for a bite. It was torture waiting long enough for it to cool so I could dive right in.

When the time came, I cut the end off, slathered on some butter and took a taste.  I felt quite chuffed that I got a knife through it not to mention that the inside had a beautiful, non-doughy texture.  Biting into the piece revealed a perfect loaf.  A chewy and crusty exterior, with a light interior.  I had done it!  I handed the piece to my husband and urged him to take a bite.  He chewed thoughtfully and looked at me and said,  "We'll never have to buy bread again."

Neither will you.

The recipe can be found in various places, including the book, that I am off to buy once I post this entry, but for ease and expedience, you can also find it here.  

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Tate's Bakeshop Squash Rolls

Brush tops with melted butter as soon as you pull them out of the oven.

With dire weather predicted Monday through Wednesday of this week, it is time to hunker down with homemade bread, steaming pots of soups and stews, and a stack of good books.  In preparedness I made a batch of Squash Rolls.  Hot from the oven these are so light and delicious that one calls for another.  If the thought of making bread has you shaking in your snow boots, don't despair, I made these in the bread machine!  Both the traditional directions and ABM directions are below, so you can decide for yourself how to proceed.

Shaped and ready for the oven.  When shaping them into rounds, pinch the dough together and place the rolls, pinched-side down into the pan.

You can see the little flecks of butternut squash throughout this delicious roll.

Tate's Bakeshop Squash Rolls

1-1/4 oz. package active dry yeast

1/4 cup warm water

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup squash*

1/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

4 Tablespoon butter 

2-1/2 to 2-3/4 cups all-purpose flour

Traditional directions:

Dissolve yeast in warm water, with a temperature between 105-110 degrees F; set aside. Scald milk in a heavy medium saucepan.  Remove from heat and add squash, sugar, salt, and butter.  Stir until butter is melted and fully incorporated into the mixture.  Add yeast and water to the squash mixture. Place 2-1/2 cups flour in a large bowl.  Add the squash mixture to the flour and mix together well.  Turn dough onto a floured board and knead it until it is smooth and elastic, adding more flour as needed.  Oil a medium-sized bowl.  Turn dough into bowl, cover and place it in a warm spot to allow it to rise.  Once it's doubled in size (about 1 to 1-1/2 hours depending upon the temperature of your house), punch it down and move it to a floured board.  Divide the dough into twelve equal portions and shape into rolls.  Place the rolls in a greased 9" x 13" pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Bake the rolls for 20-25 minutes until golden.

ABM directions:

This is not a bread machine recipe, per se, but I have found that a lot of non-ABM recipes work just fine in the bread machine, these rolls included.  I simply put all of the ingredients into the bread machine according to the manufacturer's instructions and set the machine to the "dough" setting.  After the 90-minute cycle was complete. I dumped the dough onto a floured board (the dough is a bit sticky, but don't be alarmed, the rolls will come out fine), punched it down and continued as directed above, by shaping them and putting them into a greased pan and baking.  The rolls pictured here are the result of having been made in the bread machine.

*I emailed Kathleen King, owner of Tate's and editor of the cookbook, and asked her which is better, to roast a fresh butternut squash or use frozen.  She told me that frozen squash may be used equally well in this recipe and saves a lot of time and trouble.  Simply thaw out the package of squash, measure out the 1/2 cup and then cook and enjoy the rest.

For more delicious recipes from Tate's, I strongly recommend this book.

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