May 13, 2012

Honey Apple Challah

For one reason or another, somewhere along the line my blog became synonymous with challah bread. While I would love to believe this is the result of a stretch of time spotted by many loaves of vanilla bean challah bread (and vanilla bean challah bread French toast), I have a hunch that it actually stems from one roommate’s drunken, but spot-on, impression of the almost laughable amount of time I spent in the kitchen when I first started, caught on camera and remembered to this day. Either way, challah bread remains very much a part of On Food and Baking and I’m both pleased and proud to consider its recreation “upholding tradition.” Of some sort.

For a girl with a sweet-tooth, pouring 2/3 cup of honey into this a swirling bowl of egg yolks couldn’t have been more satisfying. (Also, in case you’ve ever wondered about the differences between grass-fed chicken and grain-fed, check out the eggs below. The one on the left came from a chick who pecked her way around a yard and stocked up on some serious beta-carotene. The other two are store-bought, and I have no idea what their food contained. Still. Impressively different.) The beauty of a flaky, eggy challah loaf is its dessert-like air–dense, slightly buttery, somewhat sugary. Spread with the right condiment, it hardly feels like bread.

I will say that chopped apples made braiding this load far more difficult than it needed to be. Rolling out each braid, apples began creeping through the sides and onto the floured countertop. Soon I had amassed a pile, never to be added back into the loaf and discarded shortly thereafter. So, for what it’s worth, either braid better, or use less apples.

The final product was, predictably, sweet, textural and totally worth the three hours it took to get there. Still steaming from the oven and paired with a botched batch of strawberry-lime jam made the day prior (it never…jammed), I’d say this loaf served its springtime-dessert role quite well. I’m not sure what my next venture back into tradition will be, but I hope it’s very, very soon.

HONEY APPLE CHALLAH

(via Smitten Kitchen)

2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
2/3 cup plus 1 teaspoon honey
1/3 cup oil, plus more for the bowl
2 large eggs plus 1 large yolk
1 1/2 teaspoons  salt
4 1/4 cups all-purpose bread flour plus more for your work surface

2 medium baking apples, peeled, cored and into 3/4-inch chunks
1 large egg for egg wash

Whisk yeast and 1 teaspoon honey into 2/3 cup warm water and let stand until foamy, a few minutes.

In a separate bowl, whisk together yeast mixture, oil, remaining honey, eggs and yolk. Gradually add flour and need by hand about 5-10 minutes, untill smooth, elastic and sticky. Transfer dough to large oil-coated bowl, cover with a warm towel and set aside for 1 hour, or until almost doubled in size.

Turn dough out onto a floured counter and gently press it down into a flat, oblong shape. Spread 2/3 of apple chunks over 1/2 of the flattened dough. Fold the other half over the apple chunks and press the dough down around them, flattening the now lumpy dough. Spread the remaining 1/3 apple chunks over half the folded dough. Fold the other half over the apples, pressing the dough down again. Fold the corners under with the sides of your hands and form the dough into a round. Place back into bowl and set aside for another 30 minutes.

Divide dough into four pieces. Roll and stretch each one as carefully as you can into a rope. Arrange two strands in each direction, perpendicular to each other, like a plus sign. Weave them so that one side is over, and the other is under, where they meet. So, now you’ve got an 8-legged woven-headed octopus. Take the four legs that come from underneath the center and move them over the leg to their right, i.e. jumping it. Take those legs that were on the right and again, jump each over the leg before, this time to the left. Tuck the corners/odd bumps under the dough with the sides of your hands to form a round.

Transfer the dough to a parchment-covered heavy baking sheet. Beat egg until smooth and brush over challah. Let challah rise for another hour.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Bake in middle of oven for 40 to 45 minutes. It should be beautifully bronzed; if yours starts getting too dark too quickly, cover it with foil for the remainder of the baking time.

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April 30, 2012

Shrimp Tacos with Avocado and Grilled Corn Salsa

I’ve been so nervous about blogging again. It’s been on my plate (!!!) for months now, but the prospect of taking on such a laborious hobby again, and keeping up with it, is daunting at best. (How my original business plan–the one where I cooked/baked/wrote five times a week–made it six months is far beyond me. Laughable, even.) But in the spirit of keeping things positive, and keeping my food curiosity piqued, I think it’s worth giving it another, if sporadic, try.

And this weekend was the perfect time to start, wasn’t it?! All sunny skies and hyper-pigmented grasses. I got a tan. I drank (slurped?) a milkshake. I read nearly half of a book, did two loads of laundry and took a long bath. Spring is nothing if not my most productive season.

Do you ever just crave fish tacos? On bright summer mornings, I’ve honestly woken up fantasizing about eating a good fish taco on a bench on the side of the road in South Philly (here’s looking at you, Veracruzana), all messy tilapia and doubled corn tortillas, hands sweetened by the extravagant amounts of lime juice I douse on each one. There are plenty of foods that taste like “summer”, if you will, and this is certainly one of them.

In my mind, there are three key ingredients to a solid fish taco (aside from the fish.) They are: corn tortillas, chopped cilantro and lime juice. Pile on as many extras as you wish, but without those three your fish taco isn’t really a fish taco.

I found this recipe by searching my Gmail for “Kaitlin taco.” Aside from sharing a love of blood oranges, kale and Rebecca Minkoff bags, Kaitlin and I also have a fondness for tacos, and she has, since this discovery, shared many a recipe with me, this being one of them. I’m thrilled to say that her suggestions have not steered me wrong.

Among the “extras” included here are grilled corn, avocado and spring onions. The salsa, which is really more of a nutritionally dense  and hearty salad, is good enough to be eaten on its own (and was.) Grilling tends to be a luxury of home for me–we have one in Philadelphia, but it’s missing a part and I don’t know how to use it, anyway–so loading up on charred veggies and toasted tortillas gives me all kinds of good vibes and sort of makes me want to bust out the denim shorts and racerback tanks I plan on donning all summer long.

And, of course, the better part of half of a lime drizzled on top? Perfect.

Happy spring!

SHRIMP TACOS WITH AVOCADO AND GRILLED CORN SALSA

(via Eat Live Run)

For the salsa:

1 ear corn, husked

6 scallions, white and light green parts only

1 cherry pepper

1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved

1 large avocado

1 small bunch cilantro, minced

juice of one small lime

1./2 salt

1 T olive oil

For the tacos:

1 lb shrimp

corn tortillas

Heat your grill up to medium high.

Brush corn, green onions and pepper with olive oil and place on grill. Grill until slightly charred (about 5-10 minutes.) When done, remove veggies from grill and let cool. Peel the now black skin off the pepper, remove the seeds and chop into small dice. Run your knife down the corn to remove the kernels from the cob and place into a bowl with the pepper. Chop onion and place into bowl as well.

Add chopped avocado, cherry tomatoes and cilantro to the bowl and add lime juice and salt. Season to taste and set aside while you prepare the shrimp.

Wash and devein shrimp. Grill until pink (about 3-5 minutes.) When done, place into tortillas, top with salsa and eat immediately.

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January 3, 2012

Raw Kale Salad with Avocado, Orange and Toasted Almonds

Having spent the past two weeks starting my day with cake (I can’t help it when it’s just staring me in the face), I’m in desperate need for something a little lighter with a few more nutrients than the red velvet sitting on the kitchen counter. Sadly, sugar is not a vitamin.

Enter kale, my favorite vegetable in the entire universe. When a friend told me that it could be eaten raw if you “massaged” it with some sort of healthy fat until the rigid edges softened into the texture of salad greens, I was ecstatic. Hurrah! Sautéing is delicious, but a little on the repetitive side.

I chose avocado, but olive oil, walnut oil, almond oil, etc can also be used–I just had avocados on hand and was craving their light and nutty flavor. Toasted almonds and citrus make a nice accompaniment to what could otherwise be a very bland dish. Add a dash of salt and pepper and you’ve got a crisp, light meal filled with healthy fats, vitamins (K, A, C, and E, in particular), antioxidants and loads of fiber.

I can basically feel my skin glowing already.

RAW KALE SALAD WITH AVOCADO, ORANGE AND TOASTED ALMONDS

1 bunch raw kale

1 avocado

1 orange

1/4 cup sliced almonds

Salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spread almonds evenly on baking sheet and toast in oven for 10-15 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove and set aside.

De-stem and chop kale into bite-size pieces. Slice avocado in half, remove the pit and skin and chop into pieces. Place the kale and avocado in a large bowl and massage with hands for roughly five minutes, until kale begins to soften. Peel and slice orange and place on top, along with toasted almonds . Salt and pepper to taste.

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December 1, 2011

Persimmon Crisps

If you have ever eaten a persimmon, you have also not eaten a persimmon, stopping just short of the stalk when suddenly your mouth turn chalky. It’s the first and only rule you need to remember–don’t. eat. when. hard.–the bitter, dried-up taste sucks nearly all the juice out of your once-moistened mouth and leaves you regretting your first bites of bliss. Which is a shame, because persimmons run alongside mangoes as far as flavorful fruits go.

It’s the result of tannins, apparently, which aid the ripening process and protects plants from predators (ie, you.) Regardless, once the fruit has become it’s edible, softened self, there are many ways to eat them, usually involving a napkin.

Another way to enjoy persimmons is baked in crisps. Much like your regular 0l’ apple crisp, the persimmons are sliced thin, sprinkled lightly with cinnamon and placed in the oven just until the edges start to curl in. The persimmon flavor stays strong, you’re just left without the mess. No more puckerin’ lips for this girl!

PERSIMMON CRIPS

(via The Kitchn)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Slice persimmons with a sharp knife as thinly as possible. Place on baking sheet and sprinkle lightly with cinnamon. Bake for ten-fifteen minutes, until edges begin to curl, and flip to bake for an additional five-ten minutes.  Remove from oven.

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November 21, 2011

Red (Wine) Velvet Cake

As if Thanksgiving prep hasn’t been indulgent enough (I have already eaten three meals of turkey day food), here’s one more for you. This red wine velvet cake is the product of love, sugar and a good few glasses of wine for good measure (in the cake, not my stomach, though I guess some made it there, too.)

I’m not usually a huge red velvet cake fan, acting mostly on my body’s impulse to expel any excessive amounts of food dye that make their way into my food nearly as soon as they make their way into my digestive system. Does that sentence make sense? What I mean to say is that foods that require amounts of food dye surpassing that of their spice/levener cohorts make me what to throw up. Not in the figurative sense. So, anyway, the genius thing about red wine velvet cake is that there is no food dye! Devestatingly, however, it is also not particularly red. But–you win some, you lose some.

I followed the recipe pretty closely this time, only to find that, as always, any icing recipe that is more complicated than turning my mixer on high and involves a stove, double boilers and/or eggs, fails miserably. This one included. So while I would love to encourage you to take a shot at this “traditional German buttercream” or whatever, I also think that maybe regular white icing is okay? The cake is good enough–don’t sour it with crap icing!

And, I guess if you’re going to indulge in the decadence that is an entire pound of butter in a cake, you can indulge in the rest of your wine bottle, too. You’re welcome.

RED (WINE) VELVET CAKE

(via GiltTaste)

For the icing:

2 cups milk milk

2 vanilla beans, split and scraped, seeds reserved for cake
1¼ cups sugar
6 tablespoons corn starch
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 pound cream cheese, room temperature
1 pound butter, room temperature
¼ teaspoon salt

For the cake:

2¾ cups flour
½ cup cocoa
1 pound butter
3 cups brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2¼ teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon, preferably freshly ground
scrapings from two vanilla bean pods
6 eggs, room temperature
12 ounces red wine
1½ ounces vanilla extract

For the icing, bring the milk with the vanilla beans (not the seeds; save those for the cake) to a simmer in a medium pot. Turn off the heat and set aside to steep for at least one hour, or as long as time allows.

After steeping, remove the vanilla beans. Return the milk to a simmer. Meanwhile, whisk together the sugar, cornstarch, eggs, and yolks in a medium bowl.

Whisk about a half cup of the hot milk into the egg mixture—it will be thick at first but will loosen as the milk incorporates. Whisk in more hot milk until the egg mixture is fluid and warm. Next, whisk the tempered egg/milk mixture back into the pot of hot milk, putting on medium heat whisking all the while. Once the mixture starts to thicken and bubble sluggishly, continue whisking and cooking for a full minute more, then remove from heat and pour into a bowl.

Refrigerate until cool. Once the custard has cooled, mix until creamy. Begin whipping in the cream cheese, one tablespoon at a time, until it has fully incorporated. Then repeat with the butter. Add the salt and whip a minute more. Refrigerate until needed.

For the cake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line three 8-inch cake pans with parchment rounds. Grease lightly with nonstick spray.

Sift together the flour and cocoa, set aside. In a large bowl, combine the butter, oil, brown sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and vanilla bean seeds. Cream the ingredients for ten minutes on medium speed. Turn the mixer to medium low and add the eggs, one at a time.  Reduce mixer speed to low. Add the flour/cocoa mixture alternately with the red wine in about three additions. Add the vanilla at the end. Shut off the mixer and give the batter a few turns with a rubber spatula.

Divide the batter evenly between the three prepared cake pans. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Cool cakes and remove from pan. Level the layers with a serrated knife. Place one layer on serving tray, ice and top with another layer. Repeat. Ice top and sides of cake, and serve.

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November 14, 2011

Pumpkin White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies

Perhaps at some point I will get sick of eating/baking with pumpkin, consuming it sauteed fresh or canned and in cookies. Not yet, though. I’ve got at least one more recipe back-stocked and someday Grace will get around to posting her amazing pumpkin hummus recipe, and I’ll have to direct y’all there, too. Let this and every food bloggers delicious-if-trite, all-hail-pumpkin posts serve as a testament to the diversity of America’s most celebrated squash.

So round one of these cookies took place last week at 10:30 at night, because thank god for having friends who like to make cookies live nearby, right?? Kirsten and Mary came over, had these babies in the oven in 15 minutes tops and, 15 later, we were burning our tongues on just-baked-enough pumpkin cookies.

Round two fulfilled a lot more taste buds. Pumpkin cookies were what will likely become the first of many office snacks. Devoured by a mid-afternoon meeting, these had to have scored me at least a few bonus points. Right? Maybe? Work Hard, Bake Hard should probably be my new motto and, if someone would like to have this printed on an apron for me for Christmas, I would be delighted to wear it. I’ll bake you cookies.

PUMPKIN WHITE CHOCOLATE CRANBERRY COOKIES

(via My Baking Addiction)

2 cups flour
1 ½ cups old-fashioned oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 butter; softened

1 cup applesauce
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup pure pumpkin puree
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup dried cherries; roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine flour, oats, baking soda, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice and salt in medium bowl. Beat butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar in large mixer bowl until light and fluffy. Add pumpkin, egg and vanilla extract; mix well. Add flour mixture; combine until all ingredients are incorporated. Fold in white chocolate chips and dried cherries.

Drop by rounded tablespoons onto prepared baking sheets. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.

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November 10, 2011

Pumpkin Swirl Pancakes

I believe I have fulfilled all of my sisterly duties by serving these pancakes on a chilly Fall morning. Honestly–a cinnamon bun, pumpkin, and the best brunch food ever? I’m sold.

In my recent pumpkin frenzy, I grabbed Taylor and suggested she come over for brunch. I had volunteered her to participate in a study at Penn for one of my roommates and–seeing as though she was about to spend the afternoon watching me press a button that sent shockwaves directly to her hand (it was a study on empathy)–I felt like I owed her something more than the slight monetary award she would receive post-shock.

For a brunch, these are all sorts of decadent, from the thickened cream cheese icing to the buttery swirl of cinnamon topping each pancake. The swirls took practice, admittedly, and I don’t think I ever quite mastered an aesthetic icing, but mess-and-mayhem aside, the final product tasted far better than the gooey, drippy photo might lead you to think. If you’re a cinnamon fanatic, or maybe just love pumpkin as much as I do, these are certainly worth trying!

PUMPKIN SWIRL PANCAKES

(via RecipeGirl)

For the cinnamon filling:
1/2 cup salted butter, melted
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

For the cream cheese icing:
4 tablespoons butter
2 ounces cream cheese
3/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the pancakes:
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 cup pure unsweetened pumpkin puree
2 large eggs
2 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2/ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon light brown sugar

In a small bowl, heat butter, brown sugar and cinnamon for 40 to 60 seconds, just until butter is melted. Whisk the filling ingredients together and then pour it into a sandwich-sized zip baggie. Set aside.

In another small bowl, heat butter and cream cheese 30 to 60 seconds, just until butter has melted and cream cheese has softened. Whisk in powdered sugar and vanilla and combine until smooth. Set the icing aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together milk, pumpkin, eggs, oil, and vinegar. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, salt and brown sugar. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and stir just until all is moistened.

Preheat a large skillet to medium. Ladle a hefty spoonful of batter onto the pan and reduce the heat to medium-low. Pick up your cinnamon filling baggie, snip off a small piece of the corner and squeeze tin a swirl across the center of the pancake. Cook the pancakes three to four minutes, or until bubbles begin popping on top of the pancake. Slide a spatula underneath the pancake and gently flip it over. Cook an additional two to three minutes, until the other side is golden as well. When you flip the pancake onto a plate, you will see that the cinnamon filling has created a crater-swirl of cinnamon. Repeat with the remaining pancake batter and cinnamon filling. Serve pancakes topped with a drizzle of cream cheese icing.

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November 1, 2011

Pumpkin Pie Banana Oatmeal Cookies

Did anyone else go a little crazy when the news of a pumpkin blight affecting canned pumpkin leaked its way onto the internet? And left shelves of ‘seasonal goods’ vacant in grocery stores across the city? “Emily! I found canned pumpkin at a grocery store outside of Philly… how many cans do you want me to grab for you?” My friend called me in excitement upon spotting a few cans after weeks of being left without. (I asked for two.)

Fortunately, there is actually plenty of pumpkin–it just hadn’t made it onto shelves yet. Such availability calls for a celebration! Pumpkin everything.

These were the first (of many) things I made with cans of the pureed stuff. Not only is pumpkin delicious, it’s also loaded with fiber and beta-carotene. It’s the better butter! (Really.) Because this cookie recipe leaves out virtually any fat, they were light, fluffy and easy to consume about five of, per sitting. I topped them with coconut for an added bite (as per the suggestion of Oh She Glows) and it added a nutty kick to an otherwise sweet cookie!

PUMPKIN PIE BANANA OATMEAL COOKIES

(via Oh She Glows)

1 Flax ‘egg’ (1 teaspoon ground chia seeds or 2 tsp. ground flaxseed + 2 tablespoons water)

1 cup regular oats

1 cup whole grain spelt flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 tablespoon chopped walnuts

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup honey

1 small banana, chopped

3/4 cup canned pumpkin

Preheat the oven to 375F.

Mix dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl and set aside. Mix wet ingredients in a small to medium sized bowl and stir. Pour wet mixture into dry ingredients. Stir well and shape cookies onto a pan. Cook for 13-15 minutes.

 

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October 27, 2011

Candy Corn

This is the most seasonally perfect treat I can think of, as Halloween draws closer and closer. Who doesn’t love shoving a handful of candy corn into their mouths?

Grace pointed this recipe out and proceeded to come over, with Kirsten, to help me with this surprisingly easy baking project (it looks far more difficult than it actually is.) I only had purple and yellow food dye, so our candy corn got a bit of a makeover, and dishes of various colored molding clay were splayed out on our butcher block for the better part of a half hour, as six hands worked to roll, mold, string together and cut out intricate little triangles.

Admittedly, there is nothing good for you about candy corn. It involves three different sugars! BUT, it is worth noting, homemade candy corn far outweighs processed candy corn in flavor and texture. From the melt-in-your-mouth smoothness to the strong taste of vanilla, the hundreds of corn “kernels” tucked away in our fridge are well worth their nutritional vacancy. Let the snacking commence.

CANDY CORN

(via CheapHealthyGood)

2/3 cup agave nectar

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup honey

5 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup cornstarch

salt

food coloring

In a heavy bottom saucepan, combine the agave nectar, sugar, honey, butter and vanilla, and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Drop heat to medium and boil for five more minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat.

While agave mixture is boiling, grab a medium bowl and sift powdered sugar, cornstarch, and salt into it.

Add the powdered sugar mixture to the cooling syrup and stir to combine. Let everything cool about 20 minutes, or until it’s only a little warm. Turn out dough on to wax paper, and divide into 3 equal pieces.

Place each piece into a bowl and add several drops of food coloring to two of the pieces. Knead food coloring into the dough until color is even and the texture is smooth.

Divide each color in half again and roll each piece into a long, thin ropes. All six should be equal in length. The thickness of the ropes will determine the size of the corn as much as the way you cut it. If the dough breaks, just squish it back together and roll again.

Line up one rope of each color next to the others and gently squeeze together to form a long rectangle. Pat down lightly.  With a knife, cut the ropes into little candy corn-shaped triangles. Smooth out the edges with your fingers to shape the corn as you like it.

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October 25, 2011

Roast Your Own Coffee

“God, you add fifteen steps to everything,” one of my roommates commented when I told them I had bought green coffee beans with the hopes of roasting, grinding and brewing them from scratch.

The appeal of DIY-everything lies mostly in a basic curiosity about how things are put together. Like a mechanic toying under the hood of a car or a techie tinkering with the chips of a motherboard, fiddling around with pectin, macerated vanilla beans and now, inedible coffee beans, indulges a fascination with how much effort can go into a single product.

With the direct/fair trade debate still perking up ears everywhere, the ethical benefits of roasting your own coffee beans are obvious. Sweet Maria’s (where these are from) is one of many green bean purveyors that purchases small batches of beans directly from farmers across the world. Each coffee has a backstory that details everything from the region to the process and the farmers behind the bean. Read more about this particular batch, Ethiopia Harar Longberry, here.

Harar is a dry-processed coffee, the simple, rustic method where the ripe red coffee cherry is picked from the tree and laid in the sun to dry. It turns raisin-brown, then dries so the hard shell of fruit skin, mucilage and parchment shell can be torn from the green seed in one step. The result is wild cup flavors, fruited, chocolate, spice, and thick body. But since it is such a crude process, there is little mechanized intervention in terms of quality control: no machine screening, density sorting, electronic color sorting. Everything is done with the eye and the hand, as coffee is winnowed in baskets, under-ripes, broken beans, black beans, fermented beans, all removed visually in countless hours of work. It’s even hulled out of its husk by hand, pounded in a wooden mortar rather than by machine. It’s a human-sorting system that makes up in character what it lacks in perfection.

Each coffee is also rated and cupped and the notes are meticulous almost to the point of being ridiculous. One of the coffees I received had notes of “chocolate dipped banana.” I have high hopes for a nose that can do so much detecting. (Unfortunately, or fortunately enough, my nose smelled only “really fresh coffee.”)

Home roasting is actually incredibly easy. There are a few methods for doing so, most of which take between 15-30 minutes. I settled on using a mini wok, a wooden spoon and the lid off of a large pot. (This was nothing if not a guerrilla venture into home roasting.) Alternating between constant stirring (lid off) and constant shaking (lid on), I watched the beans gradually burn into an even, deep chestnut and even further into a chocolate brown. The biggest challenge, at least for me, was making sure all beans roasted at the same pace. Through constant stirring this wasn’t too much of a problem, but upon finishing I weeded out a few golden beans that hadn’t quite gotten enough “me” time with the hot side of the wok.

After roasting to the desired color (I’m a French roast girl at heart–the darker the better!) I sifted the beans through a strainer to remove extra pieces of shell and, once cooled, processed them through a grinder. I immediately pressed my first cup of fresh coffee–how can you not?–but apparently the coffee beans are at their peak about 24 hours after roasting. Noted. I suppose that means I’ll just have to make some more?

In regards to pricing, green beans are far less expensive than your average roasted beans–and rightly so, as your foregoing the major machinery typically used to roast. But it’s worth noting that unless you’re buying a significant quantity of beans (a few pounds or so) shipping will usurp any monetary benefit to home roasting. Not that it isn’t worth it, but don’t expect to make any money.

Sweet Maria’s has a briefing on roasting that details out the instructions much better than my heat-and-stir basics. It’s worth reading, even if you’re only mildly interested. The process is so complex, and I feel a bit more knowledgeable not only about where my coffee is coming from, but about the detailed methods used to create anything from a Full City roast to an overall stronger cup of coffee. Just taking my coffee obsession to a whole new level.

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