Shortbread

I find laconic sexy. It could be the tension it brings  - all the long pauses and charged silences. It could be the case of attracted opposites - I tend to explain myself wordily and in greater detail. Or perhaps it's genetic - after all, my people are known to get wild over laconic texts and write talmuds of explanations for each word and even each letter.

Shortbread is the laconic superhero of the cookie world. Only four components - but the complexity, the versatility, and the long lasting properties make it a real gem. Make sure to use only the best ingredients though - this format does not forgive fakery.

Makes 1 30x30 cm tray (about 15 cookies.)

80 g icing sugar

350 g butter, room temperature

350 pastry flour

1/4 t sea salt.

Cream butter and icing sugar until it changes color. Fold in the flour and salt. Pat the dough in a buttered 30x30 metal tray and bake for 20 min at 160 C. Cut in squares. It can keep for ages in an airtight container, ready for you in the time of need. 

Sourdough bread

Apart from chocolate,  bread is probably the most sensual thing one can bake. Working night shift, my mind drifts to find more similarities in both bread and love making. It is usually done at night, unless you need a quick loaf to replenish  the stock through the day. You only need a handful of the most basic ingredients,  found in every kitchen. However, to achieve a truly spectacular bread, you cannot hurry - it has its own pace, and patience is vital. The dough springs and grows under your fingers, it can easily triple in size, but leave it unattended next to a draught and it shrinks pitifully. Some say you shouldn't be making bread while in a foul mood; although even if you start grumpily,  the very process of breadmaking raises your spirits. 
It's late and quiet,  the world is asleep,  soft jazz is playing, helping rather then distracting  There's just me, my task, and the whole night to make something  beautiful. 

Sourdough .
Start with preparing your sourdough starter 12-14 hours in advance.  If you're in a committed breadmaking routine, there should be  one sitting in your fridge already. If not, there are people who are more then willing to share theirs, just ask.  You'd only need a spoonful anyway. 
30 g sourdough 
125 g rye flour 
125 g water, at room temperature. 
Mix it together, cover and leave on your table for 12 hours to ferment.  Patience - the anticipation would do most of the work for you at that stage.
When the time is finally up, add to your sourdough the following :
165 g water 
15 g honey
420 g AP white flour 
10 g salt
Start kneading. It takes about 10 min in a machine, slightly more so by hand. The dough will be wet but not too sticky - kneading should develop its elasticity.  Don't just bang it on the table - use the palms of your hands to fully embrace it. Once this is done, leave the dough in a warm place to double in size.
When it puffs up, deflate it gently and knead  a bit more. Form a ball, wrap it in a floured kitchen towel and let it proof for another couple of hours. About 15 minutes  before you think it's ready start preheating your oven and the tray the bread is going to be baked on.  Use maximum allowed heat settings  for the oven - if it can go all the way to 250 C - lucky you.
Turn your dough on a scorching tray, splash some water on it and pop it in the oven. Bake at 250C for 15 min and another 20 minutes at 200C. Cool your loaf on a rack so it doesn't sweat too much afterwards. It will taste amazing still warm, with butter. The remains of that loaf would keep for a week, putting the smile on your face each time you think of that crazy bread baking night.

Cookies

It's difficult to write a sexual fantasy on a morning metro train to work. The surroundings are anything but exciting,  gray cold faces staring indifferently into gray cold walls of the carriage. The day spreads itself lustlessly ahead - it will be long and tiresome and gray as well, the loveliness of the autumn is long gone and the freshness of the winter  is still weeks away. On days like today being warm and cosy is vital to keep the spirits.
I slowly re-read a short note I'm holding,  it feels like sipping hot chocolate, the words warming me inside and making me smile. I can feel the virtual caress on my skin, the tingling of anticipation spreads all over my body, warming up frozen finger tips.
Images run through my head, flashbacks of our encounter mingling with the things i haven't done but long to. I need to put them on hold, channel this energy before it destroys me from the inside.
It's time to bake cookies.

Makes 10 cookies.  

100 g butter
75 g caster sugar
75 g light brown sugar
1 large egg
175 g plain flour 
1/2 t soda
1 t vanilla extract 
1/4 t salt
150 g chocolate chips, cranberries, nuts, marshmallows, solo or combined.

Bring your butter to a body temperature. There are ways to do it, but i choose the most hygienic one of popping it in the microwave for 20 seconds. Add sugars and whip with a hand mixer for about 2 minutes. You don't want it too fluffy,  soft and light would do. Slowly incorporate the egg, and whip for another minute.  Add the flour, soda, salt and any morsels of goodness you fancy, and mix by hand.  Divide the dough into equal balls, pressing it to the tray lightly. Bake for 10 minutes at 170 C, rotating the tray halfway,  if the oven is uneven. 
Take one still warm from the oven, inhale its buttery sweetness and enjoy a few precious moments of inner peace. 

Scones

In a world of funky practices, somewhere in between "people who have a tie fetish" and "those who like to be flagged for fun", there should exists a special  group, "Jews fascinated with porky baked goods". There is something very naughty about adding crispy bits of bacon to a cookie, or some lard to a pie dough. Those things can live perfectly fine without pork additions, they can hold their own on a busy buffet table and even shine - under the right circumstances - under the spotlight of a foodie radar. However skipping vanilla in favor of dark animalistic undertones, the fleshy texture, the salty crunch, takes it to a different, funkier dimension. 
If you find nothing specifically sinful or forbidden in pork, just substitute it with, say, the blood of Christian babies, and read on.

Ham and chives scones
(Makes 24 bite sized pieces)
300 g all purpose flour
125 g cold butter
1 t baking powder
1 t smoked paprika
1/2 t salt
10 g  fresh chives, chopped
1 egg
125 g double cream
50 g grated cheese (generic)
100 g chopped ham

Put flour, butter and spices in a bowl  and squeeze it with your fingers until it gets to the consistency of a rough sand. The fingers movement  resembles that of counting money - remember this motion,  as it can be very useful both in baking and life. If you are in a hurry, it is possible to complete this step in a food processor,  mixer or whatever other toy you find in your kitchen drawer, but it's  most satisfactory to do by hand, slowly,  feeling the coldness of butter pressed against flour. Add the rest of the ingredients and briefly mix to form a dough. It will be wet, chunky  and not too pretty.  Avoid the temptation to knead it - this is one of those recipes where extra physical force brings more harm then satisfaction.  Dust your working table with flour and pat the dough to a 2 cm thickness. Cut it into squares or triangles, assemble on a baking tray and bake for 15 min @170C. Those scones can be served as bottoms for all kinds of top ideas, or just offer them plain at your next orgy.

Cinnamon rolls

It's raining. I'm filling my day baking cinnamon rolls smeared with nostalgia.

My first year in America was full of temptations. Temptations I was aching to yield to. 

Food was among them. From the comfort of a monochrome boiled potato I was thrown into the cacophony of multiculturalism. There was a greasy Chinese, a muddy Indian, a tongue-burning Mexican, an understated Japanese, and above all - the real American, the most common of denominators, the reality show star of my junk food hall of fame. 

Wandering in a shopping mall, one would surely come across a cinnamon bun. Big, pillowy, smothered in frosting, it would promise a warm embrace, a sweet comfort, a sticky guilty pleasure. Those promises were never fulfilled - instead one was faced with a cold limp of commercial dough, as artificial as the smile of a shop girl . Yet, despite the disappointment, despite the heavy feeling of failed expectations in one's stomach, it was impossible to turn down a cinnamon roll, time after time. 

It is not easy to replicate the excess of a 16-year old, high on sugar and freedom, in a moderate Czech environment, weighted by years of baking experience. There's nothing healthy, reasonable or decent in it. It would probably leave you with a bloated stomach and a mouth ulcer, sick with nostalgia for the years when you could stomach five of those for hangover breakfast without any side effects. 

Makes 15 large buns.

dough:

250 g milk

115 g butter

125 g sugar

30 g fresh yeast

2 eggs

vanilla

750 g plain AP flour

Filling:

70 g melted butter

200 g light brown sugar

1 tbsp cinammon

1 tsp nutmeg

Frosting:

200 g icing sugar

50 g melted butter

50 g milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Knead the dough for 10 minutes, leave to double in size for an hour. Roll out, cover in melted butter and sprinkle with spiced sugar. Roll tightly and cut into 15 pieces. Let them raise in a warm place for another 40 minutes, then bake at 190 C for 15 minutes. While still warm, smother in frosting. You can freeze those until your next shopping spree. 

A brownie.

You don't need much in order to make a brownie.

Start by putting your butter and chocolate in a double boiler, a bowl over a pot. It's a culinary equivalent of keeping a poker face - the bottom part with water is boiling, steam is trying to escape, pressure is building, yet on the surface, chocolate stays cool and seemingly untouched by the turbulence of the lower pot. Then you start noticing a little tenderness giving way, the edges soften, butter melts its milky goodness into the dark mass, entangling, emulsifying, it should be shiny like the eyes of a woman who wants to kiss you. Be careful not to overheat it - if you neglect it for too long, it becomes burnt, dull and bitter. 

When the chocolate is melted and ready, take it off the heat and give it a moment to rest. While it brings itself back to reason, break eggs into a separate bowl and mix it with sugar. Do not whip it hard - you want some substance, not an airy submissive foam. Once mixed, add your buttery chocolate into the eggs - at this stage, it is better to mix it by hand - you would feel the change of the viscosity as chocolate connects with eggs and unites into a warm and sticky batter that envelopes your fingers. Add flour and knead the little lumps between your fingers, making sure that the batter stays silky smooth. Add a pinch of salt  - you'd want complexity of flavors, rather then a one-dimensional sweetness. At this stage you cannot linger any longer - there is a sense of urgency to spread the batter in a form before it cools off. If you fancy nuts - and who doesn't, really - add some on top, pressing it gently into the surface. 

Bake it for 25 minutes in a moderately hot oven, taking it out 5 minutes before you think it is ready - you want it to be moist and luscious, not dry and crumbly. Allow to cool before cutting, or even leave it overnight to boost the flavor with anticipation. Close your eyes while taking that first bite, and enjoy, while it coats your taste buds in decadence. 

Makes 10 pieces. 

120 g  dark chocolate

120 g butter

3 large eggs

250 g caster sugar

100 g plain flour

a pinch of salt

100 g nuts (optional)

two bowls, a spoon, a kitchen scale, a 9" rectangular form and a desire to do things.