Elaine: "Five cups chopped Porcini mushrooms, half a cup of Olive oil,"
"three pounds Celery."
Soup Nazi: "That is my recipe for wild mushroom!"
Elaine: "You're through, soup Nazi.
Pack it up.
No more soup for you.
...NEXT!"
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More on that later, because right now we've got soup to make.
We're starting off with about 3 ounces of dried Porcini mushrooms,
that we're going to reconstitute using
about 4 cups of boiling homemade chicken stock.
Make sure those are good and saturated
before setting aside to steep for about 30 minutes.
Now, there are only three more ingredients named in this episode:
Celery, Parsley, and Olive Oil.
So, we're gonna have to make up the rest.
Start by dicing the parsley,
then fix your voiceover so you said "celery" instead of "parsley",
finely mince an onion,
and slice up 3 garlic cloves.
Now onto the mushrooms.
We've got maitake, whatever these are, oyster mushrooms and shiitake.
Chop all these into half-inch pieces
and place about 1/4 cup of olive oil over medium heat in a large stock pot.
Gently sauté the mushrooms for about 10 minutes
or until they're soft and they've expelled all their moisture.
Set aside for later and re-oil the pan,
so we can sauté our garlic for about 30 seconds or until fragrant.
Crank up the heat to medium-high and add our chopped parsley--
I mean, celery--and onion.
Sauté for about 10 minutes or until they're nice and soft,
and a beautiful fond has formed on the bottom of the pot,
which we're going to deglaze with about a 1/2 cup of sherry.
Scrape up all that good stuff before actually adding the parsley, finally.
I forgot to film it, but you actually want to add a tablespoon of freshly chopped thyme,
before adding our soaked Porcini mushrooms and their liquid,
along with about a teaspoon of soy sauce.
Let simmer for about 30 minutes to let those flavors get to know each other.
Dilute with a little bit of chicken stock if the Porcinis are too strong,
and add to the jar of a high-powered blender.
Blend until mostly smooth
before adding two slices of de-crusted white bread
that we're tearing into pieces,
and then blitzing on high speed
before gently pouring a steady stream of about a quarter cup of olive oil into the..
...feed...hole? What do you call that thing? "Feed hole", I guess.
Now we're going to season with salt and pepper,
blend one more time to make sure everything is nice and incorporated,
and we are left with a creamy delicious Porcini soup base,
that we're going to pour around a pile of our wild mushrooms,
with a drizzle of olive oil, some lemon zest,
a little bit of fresh parsley, and why not some crème fraîche.
Now this episode didn't give me much to go on recipe-wise,
so the ultimate goal was to make the best possible mushroom soup I could muster.
Which, this really turned out to be;
I'm not a big mushroom soup guy,
And this was absolutely killer, to the point where, you guessed it,
I had to sit down.
Woman: "I can't believe somebody pulled the top off this muffin.
Elaine:" That was me, I'm sorry...I don't like the 'stumps'."
"It's where the muffin breaks free of the pan and sort of..."
"...does its own thing."
Now, on to the question of muffin tops
versus whole muffins torn in half.
Elaine was eating a lemon poppy seed muffin so that seems appropriate.
So we're going to combine 12 ounces of flour
with a tablespoon of baking powder
and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.
We're going to whisk those together with about 3 tablespoons of poppy seeds
and a quarter teaspoon of salt.
Now in a larger bowl, we're going to combine 7 ounces of sugar
with 10 tablespoons of melted butter.
Use a hand mixer to beat this into a light fluffy paste,
to which we're going to add two eggs one at a time,
beating them into the mixture after each egg
Once that's well incorporated we're going to add the other titular ingredient,
the zest and juice of one whole lemon,
that we're going to, again, use our hand mixer to thoroughly combine with our butter mixture.
Now we're going to add half of our dry ingredients
that we whisked together earlier,
beat that together with hand mixer before adding 6 ounces of buttermilk.
Usually you might use yogurt in this situation,
but I like buttermilk; It's a little bit tangier.
Repeat with the remaining dry ingredients and the remaining 6 ounces of butter milk,
and beat together until you have a nice thick muffin batter.
Now, I've never really made muffins--oop!
Now I've never really made muffins before,
so I'm going to butter the edges of the muffin pan to prevent stickage,
and I'm then going to do a kind of Goldilocks experiment,
where I'm going to overfill two muffin cups,
What looks like correctly fill two muffin cups, and under fill two muffin cups,
and we'll see which one yields the perfect muffin top.
In the meantime, we're going to make a lemon glaze,
with the juice of one lemon and about 1/2 cup of Confectioner's sugar.
Whisk together until you get a nice pourable glaze.
Remove the muffins from a 375°F oven after about 25 minutes,
and, surprise surprise, the overfilled cups are the winner.
Brush the tops of the muffins with the lemon glaze while still hot,
and allow to cool completely for about 30 minutes.
In the meantime we're going to try to make just a lone muffin top without one of those muffin top pans
(that I've flat-out refused to buy)
So I'm going to half-bake a little bit of muffin batter in a ring mold,
before I take it out of the oven, remove the mold and continue baking,
For another 10 to 15 minutes or until browned and perfect little muffin top.
Brush with the glaze and it's time for a muffin showdown.
We're going to start with the Elaine classic torn-off muffin top,
which, according to her, is the superior method for both flavor and texture.
But she could not be more wrong:
the lone muffin top was way better.
It's got a nice crunchy bottom, and it's like a little muffin cookie.
Speaking of muffin cookies,
here's how to make some muffin cookies:
Simply space out some dollops on a parchment lined baking sheet,
and bake for 25 minutes at 350°F,
after which you will be greeted by
these delightfully abstract little breakfast treats
that'll make you fail a drug test.
Jerry: "Cinnamon takes a backseat to no babka!"
"People love cinnamon!
It should be on tables in restaurants
along with salt and pepper!"
"Anytime someone says, 'ooh, this is so good. What's in this?'
The answer invariably comes back:"
"Cinnamon! Cinnamon!
Again and again!"
Which is the lesser babka, chocolate or cinnamon?
Let's find out,
by heating a half cup of milk to 110°F
before adding a whole packet of active dry yeast and a pinch of sugar,
setting aside for about 10 minutes or until stinky and foamy.
In the meantime, we're going to combine 18 ounces of flour
with two and a half ounces of sugar,
along with a teaspoon of Kosher salt
and some freshly grated nutmeg, to your taste.
Combine on low speed before affixing your dough hook,
and adding our milk and yeast mixture, making sure to get all that dee-licious foam,
and finally four large eggs, Lightly beaten.
Mix on medium speed for about five minutes, or until the dough forms a smooth cohesive ball.
Now, we're going to add half of our butter, that's 6 tablespoons,
and knead together on medium speed for about another five to seven minutes,
adding flour, one tablespoon at a time, if the dough is sticking too much to the sides of the bowl.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl before adding the remaining butter,
and kneading for yet another 5 to 7 minutes or until you are left with a smooth supple bread dough.
Indulge in one of life's great pleasures and pull the dough off the dough hook,
before thoroughly buttering a bowl large enough to allow the dough to rise.
You want it to almost double in size.
Roll and stretch the dough between your hands until it forms a smooth ball, like so,
drop it in the buttered bowl, and roll it around to evenly coat it in butter.
Cover with a clean towel and place in a off oven, That's an oven turned off,
to prove for 1 and 1/2 hours.
We don't want this dough to get too full of itself,
so, just like life, we're going to punch it down.
We want to deflate the dough and remind it just how powerless it is.
Now, it's time for a cold rise in the fridge.
So we're going to cover the bowl, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.
In the meantime, let's make our fillings.
Melt together 1/2 cup of butter with 4 and 1/2 ounces of chocolate chips.
Add a teaspoon of espresso powder.
This isn't going to make it taste like coffee,
just going to amp up the chocolate flavor.
Speaking of which, here's 1/3 of a cup of cocoa powder.
We're also going to add 1/3 of a cup
of Confectioner's sugar,
that we're going to gently fold together
before whisking vigorously
into a thick spreadable paste.
Now it's time for our cinnamon filling.
Combine 1/2 a cup of dark brown sugar
with 2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon
and 1/2 a cup of melted butter.
Beat into a paste, and now comes the hard part.
Unveil our refrigerated dough,
and before it can get its hopes up, cut in half.
Lightly flour a rolling pin and a large work surface,
and begin rolling out the dough into a 24 by 18 inch square.
...rectangle.
...I know different shapes.
Now it's time to evenly spread our chocolate mixture onto the dough,
leaving a 1 and 1/2 inch border around each edge.
once the filling is spread, roll up the dough widthwise,
and place, seam side down,
on a parchment-lined baking sheet,
that we're going to place in the freezer,
for about 15 minutes.
In the meantime, we're going to roll out our other half of the dough and repeat,
this time using the cinnamon mixture.
It's going to seem like there isn't enough, but just keep spreading
and eventually you'll get it totally covered.
Likewise, roll it up like a cigar,
and swap places with the half-frozen chocolate babka.
Now we're going to slice down the middle lengthwise, revealing those beautiful layers inside.
Generously butter a loaf pan and drop a piece of parchment paper inside,
and with one half facing down, the other half facing up,
begin to twist your dough pieces
together into a decorative log.
Don't worry if these don't look quite right,
they're going to look a lot better,
after we cover them with a moist towel,
and allow them to rise for another hour and a half.
And they're going to look even better after we bake them at 375°F for about 30 minutes.
Cinnamon or chocolate, either one of these is sure to impress at your next dinner party.
Generously brush the tops of the babkas
with simple syrup,
and allow to cool for at least an hour
before slicing and serving.
The moment of truth; let's see which one looks better to start.
Chocolate's looking pretty good...
...and the cinnamon is not looking half bad either.
But it all comes down to taste.
The chocolate babka is absolutely delicious.
I love babka, I love chocolate,
and...I love chocolate babka.
That being said the cinnamon was also completely delicious.
So which one is the winner?
I gotta say, Jerry got this one right:
the answer invariably is cinnamon.
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