B is for Book Week, BEST Cookbooks of Bon Appetit, Barley Recipe & Buoyant Spirits
It’s a crazy endeavor to write a book and see it come to life, to be born. This week Bread and Roses will be available everywhere books are sold in much of the world. The world. It floors me. Books for me were the biggest treasure as a kid and remain so. AND BON APPETIT just picked Bread and Roses as a Best Cookbook of Fall 2023! Dead. This week to celebrate the books birthday I will be launching the first of many giveaways throughout the fall and winter in partnership with some of my favorite brands! Brands you will find in the pages of the book, spanning ingredients, tools and things to make gathering more colorful. I’m super excited for you guys to win and play! Stay tuned to @trosewilde on instgram for your chance to win.
I hope to see so many of you this Saturday at Now Serving in Chinatown, from 11am to 12pm for the launch party and first stop on the book tour! I’ll be in conversation with Amanda Faber, an incredible baker and artist here in Los Angeles. You may know her from winning The Great American Baking Show or her self published book Cake Portfolio. We’ll chat about whole grains and flowers, answering all your questions! There will also be tons of bites from the book for you to eat, because it’s a P-A-R-T-Y! I can’t wait to celebrate with you! Click on poster to get your tickets!
Party Bites Menu:
Cakes by Alexys - Rye Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
Kassie Mendieta/I Bake Mistakes - Corn Candied Mango with Pink Peppercorn Sugar Cookies
Casey Shea - Brown Rice Chamomile Shortbread
Dina Furamato - Semolina Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Dara Yu/Food For You - Einkorn Blondies Brown Butter Dates
Catalina Flores/Panhead LA - Puffed Quinoa Persimmon Brownies
Sammi Tarantino - Khorasan Halva Apple Pie
Then I am headed to Seattle for a night with Tin Fish TikTok Queen Alexis Hooke at Book Larder (Get Tickets Here).
And San Francisco for another party with bites from the book at Omnivore Books (Get Tickets Here).
Don’t miss out on these opportunities to hang and geek out on great food. It is truly the joy of my life to gather with everyone this fall to celebrate!
If you preorder before the official release date of the book you’ll get a bonus ebook and be entered to win more great Bread and Rose's Swag. The ebook has a collection of recipes I love, that didn’t make it into the book. Sometimes you have to make cuts for page limits! So I am really excited to offer them to you in this way.
The first one is about one of my favorite grains - Barley. And I can’t help myself, I’m going to share it with you below. Barley is one of the oldest grains humanity has ever cultivated. Native to the asian continent it is most commonly found as purple, black or white small plump grains. It has played a huge roll throughout history and pop culture. How did the roman gladiators get so strong? Why they were “barley men”. Ever enjoyed a delicious beer? You have barley to thank! Wondered where in the heck the length of an inch came from? Why King Edward, when he lined up three grains of barley end to end! Barley is low in gluten and when ground has an incredible creamy texture. It tastes of vanilla, caramel and earth. A handful thrown in to any recipe will lend you a melting texture to all your bakes…literally perfect in all cakes.
Asia: Barley Pear Licorice Custard Loaf
My go to counter cake, breakfast cake, anytime is the right time cake. Extremely fruit forward, the fruit bakes down and becomes the crumb of the cake! It’s a pear party! So make sure that you are choosing good quality pears for baking like Bartlett, Bosc or Anjou. These seasonal beauties are held together with a barely set custard starring barley with its earthy vanilla flavor. Barley also keeps the numb very tender while being a protein powerhouse. (Like I said cake all day!) And finally a spike of licorice, the secret ingredient that when used well, it blows peoples minds. A lot of people claim to be licorice haters, but I would like to float the idea that they’ve only every had terrible candy! Licorice has subtler notes then its similarly flavored friends - anise and fennel. It comes from a root and is very prized throughout Asia and Europe. It’s very sweet, tannic, and has hints of tobacco leaf. I use an oil extract you can find online or at bakery supply shops for intense flavor with the addition of just a few drops. Licorice is best in moderation, echoing the earthiness of barley and rounding out the light sweetness of the pears. In a pinch you and sub a sprinkling of anise seed. This cake comes together so fast I never make less than two at a time. It’s a great portal way to brighten someones day as a surprise gift, but not so big its overwhelming for one person.
Makes two 8 inch loaf pan or one 9 inch springform pan
4-5 large pears
110 g barley flour
4 g baking powder
5 g sea salt
160 g cane sugar
2 eggs
6 g black licorice oil extract
125 g coconut oil, melted and cooled
65 g goats milk
Clotted Cream
To Make: Use a chefs knife to cut pear from the core. Once cored, cut pieces into 1/4 thick slices and place in a medium bowl.
In another bowl, combine barley flour, baking powder, cane sugar and salt. Add eggs, licorice extract, coconut oil and goats milk. Whisk till just combined.
Pour custard mixture over pears, using a spoon to gently toss till coated completely.
Preheat oven to 350. Prepare two loaf pans with a piece of parchment paper across the bottom and overhanging the long sides of the pan. Spoon evenly into two loaf pans. Use your hands to move the pears into the corner and compact batter, this will help it hold together better once baked.
Put pans on middle rack and bake for 60-70 minutes or until top is golden brown. Pull from oven and cool for 15 minutes before running an offset spatula along the sides and using the parchment paper to lift cake free. Cool completely.
Once cooled you can cut the cake into fourths along the long side of the cake. Serve room temperature or chilled with a dollop of Clotted Cream (p. 274) Cake keeps at room temperature 2 days or in the fridge for 1 week.
Bonus Recipes: A cookie published in the LA Times in 2020 featuring Corn and Sumac. Bake my Puckerdoodle today!
Obsessed with: Fall fruits are coming in full force at the market. Which means I am making LOTS of pie dough to stash in the freezer for quick delicious meals (savory and sweet) in an all butter crust. Pie is the place for fridge scraps and leftovers to be transformed. Make some pie dough and see the endless possibilities. Don’t underestimate the sublime feeling of pie every which way you can imagine!
Streaming: The Fall of the House of Usher has me shaking in my boots. I love a reinterpretation of classics, either told from another characters perspective or reimagined for modern times. It’s the common themes of humanity applicable to any age. Warning - this one is quite scary but mostly psychological.
Inspired by: Green Cookbooks! I am so thrilled that my book is green, it’s a color you want to reach for with happiness. There are a lot of other green cookbooks out this fall I have already got my hands on and I am loving - Maman & Me by Roya Shariat and Gita Sadeh a beautiful book about Iranian food made by a daughter and mother. Made in Taiwan by Clarissa Wei, I love Taiwanese food and am excited to see another solid book come out. Cooking Simply and Well, For One or Many by Jeremy Lee. I love his writing, its fun and funny. And the focus on small and large parties (party of one!) sets this apart. A book after my heart with its many illustrations.
Reading: The Triumph of Seeds by Thor Hanson, about the power and magic of the small thing all plants come from. The Book of Moods by Lauren Martin and Upstream by Mary Oliver, both offer meditations of life - often how to turn the worst into the best.
Just for Fun: I love bread as fashion. I once won a car on Let’s Make a Deal wearing a bread crown, staff and other accessories. And I screamed when I saw Dauphinette Baguette Bag. It’s especially stunning here all blinged out. It’s sold out but if you can make bread, I think I could just make one? Basically my new mission. But wait there’s more evidence of the bakery taking over the runaway this year! Cookies, Croissants and Cutlery - can’t take my eyes off this spoon dress and this garment with a full dining set!