Bakery Review: Mr. Holmes Bakehouse

Mr. Holmes' Bakehouse - visited June 13-14, 2017

Whenever I’m somewhere “new” or different from my usual route of home to gym to work to home, I always, always check out any nearby bakeries and restaurants. Case in point, I went to my company’s annual user conference in San Francisco for a few days in June and I whipped out my phone to see what top-rated bakeries were within walking distance of my hotel.

If you remember my perambulations from my New York City trip, you know “walking distance” to me has a wider range than most people. I’ve walked 5 miles for a cookie in case that gives you context. Fortunately, in this case, I found a bakery just under a mile away from where I was staying – totally doable distance on two legs. 

And it wasn’t just any bakery. In googling “top rated bakeries” near my hotel, I came across a link for an article that listed “100 Foods to Eat in San Francisco Before You Die”. My first instinct was to take that as a personal challenge and see how many I could knock off the list before I went home. Then sanity prevailed. I was there for work, after all, and only had a limited time to work on my foodie bucket list. I had to prioritize.

Serendipity had it though that one of those items was the cruffin from Mr. Holmes Bakeshop. I’ve had cruffins before. Following in the wake of Dominique Ansel’s famous cronuts (croissant + doughtnut), a cruffin is – you guessed it – a cross between a croissant and a muffin. In addition, I found another foodie article that lauded the chocolate chip cookie from Mr. Holmes’ Bakehouse, calling it “the best chocolate chip cookie in San Francisco.” Whoa. Talk about waving a red flag in front of a twitchy bull. I can’t pass up that kind of challenge, especially when it was just a mile away.

Want to know how nuts I am, how seriously I take this kind of thing? Perhaps only another foodie would understand. Mr. Holmes’ Bakehouse opens at 7 am. I had to catch the shuttle for my conference at 8:30 am. I needed walking time to the bakeshop, enough time to buy my products, meet my coworkers at their hotel and walk to another hotel to catch the shuttle. Not only that but I wanted to go for a run before I went to the bakery because, let’s face it, a mile walk there and a mile walk back wasn’t going to be enough of a calorie burn to work off what I had planned to buy. So I ended up getting up at 5:15 am, was down in the hotel gym by 5:30, ran 4 miles on the treadmill, did a cool down, showered back in my room, got ready for the conference then headed out to get to the bakeshop a little after 7 am.

My timing was pretty good, although I was ready to stick my face directly into the display case because I was starving by the time I got there. Unfortunately, cruffins weren’t going to be ready until 9 am but that was okay since I ended up getting 2 churro croissants, a pain au chocolat, an apple monkey bread and one of the famous chocolate chip cookies instead. What? I planned to share with my coworkers (and actually did, I’ll have you know).

The pain au chocolat didn’t even make it onto the shuttle bus. While I waited for my coworkers in the lobby of their hotel, I polished that sucker off first thing. I’ve made pain au chocolat before and while they’re not that hard to make once you have the dough, they’re still enough of a pain (haha) to make from scratch that I’d rather buy them than make them. The key to a good pain au chocolate isn’t just having flaky croissant dough but also using high quality chocolate sticks as the filling. The one from Mr. Holmes was super flaky, almost a little too much so since it made for some messy eating. I’m enough of a foodie that I didn’t care that much of the sight I made, hovering over the pastry box while trying to keep flakes of my pain au chocolat from decorating my front. Dignity has no place when enjoying a good pastry.

Pain au Chocolat

My assessment of the rest of the goodies that I consumed throughout the day and also shared with my coworkers:

Apple monkey bread – super delicious. I like monkey bread, I like apples. Together they made a nice combination. I wish I’d gotten 2 of these and only 1 of the churro croissants.

Top right corner: apple pie monkey bread

Churro Croissant

Churro croissants – nice, flaky croissant, outside was covered in cinnamon sugar to align with the churro billing. The inside was filled with some kind of cream filling. It was good but I have to admit there was too much of it for me. I’m not big on cream or custard-y desserts except for crème brulee and there was an awful lot of filling in the croissant.

Chocolate Chip Cookie - $3

Chocolate Chip Cookie – I don’t know if this is THE best in San Francisco (I’m willing to try others for research purposes) but it was a pretty good cookie. It was thick, it had a delicious caramelized brown sugar-butter flavor and it was chewy. I did end up sharing this with 3 other people as I couldn’t finish the whole thing by the time I got around to eating it. No surprise considering all the pastry I had consumed earlier that day.

Cruffins - $4.50 each

But wait, I ate more. I couldn’t be this close to the famous cruffin and not actually try one, right? Fortunately I had a later start the next day since we were going well into the evening for the conference so I was able to get to Mr. Holmes Bakehouse right at 9 am when the cruffins were being put out. There was a small line outside the shop as others were waiting for the doling out of the daily cruffin. I bought one (by that time, I was still swimming in buttery, flaky pastries from the day before so one was sufficient as a taste test) and ate it later that morning. 

I’m not quite sure how I feel about the cruffin in general. Honestly, it seemed more like a croissant but just forced into an unnatural muffin-like shape. It had all the prerequisites of being flaky and tasting like a croissant and not so much of the muffin qualities. This also had an inordinate (to me) amount of filling in it – something like an orange cream. I discovered later that they do different flavors of cruffins just like Dominique Ansel does a different flavor of cronuts every month. If I was more of a cream filling person, I’d probably have liked this better. Don’t get me wrong – it was good and very well-made. I’m glad I tried it. But I would probably stick to the pain au chocolat and apple monkey bread if I ever went back. Still, check on the foodie bucket list for having a cruffin from Mr. Holmes Bakehouse. 99 more things to eat in San Francisco to go.

Bakery Review: Hannah's Cafe

Hannah's Cafe - visited June 17, 2017

I’ve been remiss in not blogging about the various bakeries and restaurants I’ve tried out over the past couple of months. I’ve been traveling so I've expanded my reach and it’s a shame not to share my gastronomic indulgences. So I’m going to take the next week (or two) on my blog and catch up on those posts as I share my “foodie crawl” from my neighborhood to San Francisco to Las Vegas to Milan to back home. I ate everywhere.

We’ll start local. One of my coworkers mentioned liking bear claws and how they were hard to find nowadays as so many bakeries just didn’t make them anymore. I ended up taking that as a personal challenge to find one and perused yelp for “best bear claws” in our area. One reviewer mentioned Hannah’s Café so I decided to mosey down there on a Saturday morning to see if the bear claws were really all that. 

Only to arrive and find there were no bear claws in evidence in the display case. I asked the counter person and she looked baffled. As in “what’s a bear claw” baffled. Not a good sign. Someone else behind the counter tried to explain it was “like an almond croissant”. Um, no. Totally different. Croissants are made by layering dough and butter multiple times to achieve their flaky texture. Bear claws are traditionally made with enriched dough like a brioche and have a less flaky texture but still a tender crumb, similar to a brioche or challah. Yes, they’re both stuffed with some kind of almond paste and garnished with almonds but the doughs are different.

Finally, someone who appeared to be the pastry chef for the café said she didn’t have any bear claws. Well, darn. Not that I’m such a big bear claw fan myself but I’d come with a purpose and that purpose was thwarted. Which, of course, only made me want a bear claw for myself. Still, I was flexible. And since I was already there, might as well try something they did have, right?

The café wasn’t very big and there were only a couple of display cases but they still showed a nice assortment of baked goods. I waffled between a pastry-pastry (like a pain au chocolat, my fave) and more of a cakey dessert like an actual cake or cupcake. I finally settled on two mini cakes: a German chocolate and a salted caramel chocolate.

When trying a new bakery, I rarely ask how much anything is, figuring that even if I pay a little more, at least I’m supporting a local small business, right? But I have to admit I blinked when the cashier rang up the two petite cakes and the total was $14. $7 a (little) cake! Eeep. For something the size of a Sprinkles cupcake. But….supporting a local small business means supporting a local small business so I dug for my cash and handed it over. (As an aside, I prefer to pay in cash when shopping at a small business so the small business owner saves on credit card fees.)

German Chocolate Petite Cake

The cakes were nicely presented, wrapped with clear plastic so the outer edges don’t get dry while sitting in a refrigerated display case all day. I thought both cakes were good. In hindsight, I should’ve gotten a different flavor for one of the cakes other than a chocolate-based one since essentially they came from the same cake but were just finished differently, one with the coconut and the other with the salted caramel.

Salted Caramel Chocolate Petite Cake

They must’ve been recently made as they weren’t dry and the flavors were good. I did think it was the kind of cake I could make myself though so I’m not sure I’d pay $7 for one again. I’d still want to support the business so if I go again, I might try something on the pastry side like a croissant or pain au chocolat since I can’t easily make either of those. Too bad about the bear claws though.

Vanilla Cake Filled with Cookie Butter

Bakery Quality White Cake - made July 4, 2017, adapted from All in All

This is another recipe I made for the 4th of July barbecue because I could frost and decorate the cake with my handy bag of red, white and blue M&Ms. M&Ms show up better against a vanilla frosting than a chocolate one plus my nephew, Vanilla King (he's made it to being able to "sort of" tolerate chocolate but still prefers vanilla) was attending the barbecue so I defaulted to vanilla cake as one of the desserts I'd brought.

Most vanilla cakes use almond extract to add to the flavor. Not me. I love almonds and despise almond extract. I always just add extra vanilla extract or, in this case, vanilla bean paste. I knew using cake flour would give this cake a nice tender crumb and it did. Just don't overbake it - does that even need to be said anymore?

I didn't want just a plain vanilla cake with vanilla frosting though (sorry, Vanilla King) so instead of sandwiching the layers with the vanilla buttercream, I ended up filling it with cookie butter. It was almost by accident as after I had made the frosting while the cake was cooling, I wasn't sure I'd have enough frosting to fill and cover both layers. So I spread a layer of cookie butter over the bottom cake before topping it with the second layer. It worked out pretty well and I left myself enough frosting for the rest of the cake.

But in hindsight I should've followed what professional cake bakers do and piped frosting around the outer edge of the bottom cake layer before filling it. Why? Because that's what would hold the layers in place and aligned while you cover the whole thing with frosting. Because I didn't, the layers moved around on me as I frosted it. So it was slightly lopsided. Ever try straightening a cake you'd already frosted? Yeah, it doesn't work.

Regardless, this cake tasted pretty good. The crumb was tender, the cookie butter added a nice flavor to complement the vanilla cake and, miracles, I even liked the vanilla buttercream. So did the rest of the barbecue crowd.

Oh, and you'll also notice, I did my usual trick of reserving enough batter for a small taste test cake. When I'm bringing a whole cake to a party, I can't very well present it with a slice missing or an explanation of "I had to taste it first." Instead, I reserve a small portion of batter to bake separately into a ramekin which I topped with a layer of cookie butter then covered with some of the frosting. Yup, I verified it was good enough to bring to the party and share with the others.

2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 cup milk
6 egg whites, about 3/4 cup
1 teaspoon almond extract (I substituted vanilla bean paste)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into cubes

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9" round cake pans.
2. In a medium bowl, mix milk and egg whites with vanilla and almond extracts until blended.
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine cake flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add cubes of butter and cut in with a pastry blender or two knives until butter pieces are the size of small peas.
4. Add the milk mixture and beat on medium speed until just combined.
5. Divide the batter evenly between the two cake pans. Bake for 25-27 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted near the center of the cakes.
6. Cool the cakes in the pans for 5 minutes then run a small spatula along the sides to loosen cake, turn out onto plates and let cool completely before frosting.

Frosting
3 cups powdered sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
2-4 tablespoons heavy whipping cream or whole milk

1. Cream butter and powdered sugar together with paddle attachment of stand mixer until well blended then beat on high for 3 minutes. 
2. Add the vanilla and 2 tablespoons of the cream or milk and beat for another minute, adding more cream or powdered sugar to reach desired consistency.

4th of July M&M Cookies

4th of July M&M Cookies - made dough July 1, 2017, adapted from Buns in My Oven (originally titled Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies)

In the interests of being holiday appropriate, I redirected this recipe for chocolate chip cookies to be 4^th of July M&M cookies to take to a barbecue on Independence Day. I’m late blogging it but timely in making it on the right day. The original recipe says you don't have to chill the dough. I re-wrote the directions to chill because that's what I always do, regardless of the recipe, but feel free to follow the original directions if you want more immediate gratification.

As I’ve blogged about multiple times before (you’ve only to search for “M&M cookies” on my blog to see how many times), I cheat by using holiday M&Ms to make cookies or other baked goods appropriate for the holidays. Red and green for Christmas, pink, red and white for Valentine’s Day, fall M&Ms for Halloween and, of course, red, white and blue M&Ms for 4^th of July. It’s an easy cheat and saves you (me) the trouble of messing about with food coloring or other decorations.

Plus, M&Ms are easy to add to cookie dough in addition or in lieu of chocolate chips. Just be sure you reserve some to press on the outside of the cookie dough balls after you form them and before you freeze them before baking.

I didn’t time these in the oven – what else is new – but just went by appearance. Once the edges had browned and the middles didn’t look raw anymore, I took them out of the oven, maybe around 10-11 minutes in my oven on the convection setting. Overall, I thought they were pretty good. Because I didn’t bake them for very long, they were of chewy and moist, almost like baked on the outside with a cookie dough texture on the inside. The nice part is they’re very versatile so you can make these with just chocolate chips or with any color/flavor M&Ms you choose.

8 tablespoons butter, melted and browned
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon espresso powder, optional
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 egg
1 2/3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup M&Ms

1. Combine browned butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar and espresso powder (if using); beat until well combined.
2. Beat in the vanilla and egg until just combined.
3. Add flour, baking soda and salt; mix until just combined. Do not overbeat.
4. Stir in the chocolate chips and half of the M&Ms. Portion dough into golf-ball-size dough balls and press remaining M&Ms on the outside of each dough ball. Cover, chill or freeze for several hours or overnight.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space chilled or frozen dough balls on baking sheets and bake for 10-11 minutes, until edges are golden brown and middles are just barely no longer raw. Do not overbake. Let cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes before removing to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Twix Nutella Skillet Cookie

Twix Nutella Skillet Cookie - made June 10, 2017, adapted from Kleinworth & Co

Whenever I go out to lunch with my parents and we order dessert, we usually get some form of pizookie – a warm chocolate chip cookie served with ice cream. My mom never fails to tell me “you should make this.”

Sprinkle with chopped Twix bars

I actually do make this but usually a one-dough-ball cookie baked in a tiny skillet with a dollop of ice cream – you know, dessert for one with that one being me. I don’t usually make it at dessert parties due to the timing logistics of putting them in the oven at the right time, having them come out at just the right time after everyone’s finished eating dinner and serving them at the right time. It’s bad manners to hover over your guests, prodding them with a spoon, anxious that they eat their warm pizookie offering before the ice cream melts. Or so I’m told.

Cover with Nutella

But they had some other family members over for a housewarming dinner and she wanted me to serve pizookies for dessert so I obliged. I had amassed three 6” cast iron skillets by now plus two 3.5” ones so I could go with 1-2 person desserts as well as make a couple of different flavors. Traditional chocolate chips for my cousin Elinor’s boys. Snickerdoodle for Vanilla King, my other nephew, who still breaks my heart by not liking chocolate (why???). There were 9 adults, 1 teenager and 2 tweens so I wasn’t sure my smaller skillets were going to be enough so I did make extra in an 8” skillet just in case. Which turned out to be a good call because this was a really good pizookie. I added my own pizzazz by adding a layer of Nutella and chopped-up chunks of Twix candy bars in the middle. And yes, that was a good call. This may be the new family gathering dessert from now on.

1 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup turbinado sugar
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons milk
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup chopped Twix bars
1/2 cup Nutella
2 teaspoons fleur de sel

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly grease an 10" cast iron skillet or line with parchment paper.
2. In a mixer bowl fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugars until smooth and creamy.
3. Beat in eggs, vanilla and milk until well combined. Scrape down sides of bowl to keep even textured.
4. Add flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt, mixing until just combined. Do not overmix.
5. Fold in chocolate chips and caramel bits, if using.
6. Smooth 1/2 the cookie dough into the prepared skillet. Sprinkle with chopped Twix, drop dollops of Nutella over the Twix and sprinkle with fleur de sel. Cover with the remaining cookie dough and smooth top.
7. Bake for 27 to 30 minutes or until browned on the sides and lightly brown on top. Cool skillet cookie slightly before serving warm with vanilla ice cream,

Red Velvet Cake

Red Velvet Cake - made June 10, 2017 from Spicy Southern Kitchen

So.....the original blog I got this recipe from said to sift the cake flour before measuring or else you'lll have too much flour and the cake will be dry.

True confession time: I hate sifting flour. I really do. It's messy, it's time-consuming and it just means an extra gadget (the sifter) to wash. For all-purpose flour, I use the dip and sweep method to measure. For cake flour, if the recipe calls for sifting then measuring, I just use less cake flour, about 1-2 tablespoons less for each cup of flour called for. It's almost always "close enough".

Alas, I probably shouldn't have taken the lazy baker's shortcut with this recipe. Although I only used about 2 cups of cake flour (unsifted) and thought the batter was fine, the cake, when baked, did have a slightly dry mouthfeel to it. No, I take that back. It wasn't really dry as I didn't overbake it but it wasn't as moist as I like my cakes.

The taste was fine but I prefer a more liquid batter that bakes into a more moist cake from a mouthfeel perspective. I don't know if it was because I ignored the instructions to sift then measure which means I did use too much flour or if I baked it longer than I should have (although I don't think so) but this didn't turn out quite as I had hoped.

Ah, well, lesson learned.

2 1/4 cups sifted cake flour (sift before measuring)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons red food coloring

Frosting
1 16-ounce box confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
milk, if needed, to achieve desired consistency

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9 x 13" pan with foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Sift both flours, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and vanilla on high speed for 3 to 5 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
4. On low speed, add sugar in a slow and steady stream. Once sugar has been incorporated, turn mixer to high speed and beat for 3 to 5 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
5. On medium-low speed, beat in eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition until just combined.
6. Combine buttermilk and food coloring. With mixer on low speed, add flour mixture, alternating with buttermilk mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Beat until just combined; do not overmix.
7. Pour batter into prepared pan and spread evenly with a spatula. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes until toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. Cool completely before frosting.
8. For the frosting, beat confectioners sugar, butter, sour cream and vanilla extract until smooth and creamy. Add milk, one tablespoon at a time, until desired consistency is achieved.

Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies

Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies - made May 29, 2017 from Martha Stewart's Cookies

Fudgy brownie, peanut butter batter swirled and baked into the brownie. Not much more to say here except “break out the mixing bowl and turn the oven on” if you like peanut butter chocolate combinations.

These turned out better than I expected in the sense that the brownie portion was nicely fudgy with my preferred chewy-soft, rich taste and texture and the peanut butter swirling throughout added a complementary flavor while not interfering with the chewy texture.

I made these for work by request and they went over pretty well. If you want some crunch in them you can use chunky peanut butter instead of creamy and/or you can sprinkle chopped up bits of toasted peanuts on top before baking. I prefer an unadulterated smoothness in my brownies so no peanut bits here but to each her/his own. The great thing about brownies is they’re pretty forgiving if you want to do a little experimentation. The only things they won’t survive are sub-par, low quality ingredients and overbaking.

Batter
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
4 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Filling
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line an 8" square baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Brownie: Melt butter and chocolates together in the top half of a double boiler set over hot, barely simmering, water. Whisk until smooth and completely melted. Set aside to cool slightly.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
4. Whisk granulated sugar into melted chocolate mixture. Add eggs, and whisk until mixture in smooth. Whisk in vanilla. Add flour mixture; stir until well combined.
5. Make filling: Stir together butter, confectioners' sugar, peanut butter, salt and vanilla in a bowl until smooth.
6. Pour one-third of the batter into the prepared pan; spread evenly with a rubber spatula. Drop dollops of peanut butter filling on top of the batter, spacing about 1 inch apart. Drizzle remaining batter on top and gently spread to fill pan. Drop dollops of remaining peanut butter filling on top. Gently swirl peanut butter filling into batter with a butter knife, running the knife lengthwise and crosswise through layers.
7. Bake until a cake tester inserted into brownies comes out with a few crumbs but is not wet, about 45 minutes. Cool completely.