Big Breakfast Focaccia
The first time I had focaccia, I was visiting Italian relatives in Modena, Italy, when I was 15. A baker handed us a square foot of it across a counter, wrapped in oily brown paper. My second cousin D...
In the boreal forest, and ecosystems further north, some plants hold their fruit for months after ripening. Some of these, such as highbush cranberries and lowbush cranberries, the latter also called lingonberries, get sweeter and tastier after they freeze. Winter berries are an important source of food for resident northern animals like birds, voles, and foxes and they are also valuable and tasty treats for people. Xay gige’ (in Ahtna) and Hey Gek’a (in Denai’na) translating in English to “winterberry,” are the names for Vaccinium vitis-idaea, or lowbush cranberry.
Winter berries are like jewels in the monochrome winter landscape, and they can be the perfect part of a special celebration meal. Look around and see if you can find some rose hips, highbush or lowbush cranberries, crowberries, or serviceberries. When harvesting, choose berries that are in good shape, that are not diseased, and that you are confident identifying because some poisonous berries do exist in Alaska. One way to use your freshly picked berries is in the recipe below, which I designed to be flexible and make use of a small winter harvest. However, instead of fresh berries, you may substitute frozen berries from fall harvests or dried or store-bought berries.
Ingredients
SERVINGS: Makes 16 rolls
For the dough:
- 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
- ¼ cup lukewarm water
- 7 tablespoons butter, melted
- 1½ cups milk (I use nonfat dry milk mixed with water)
- 1 egg
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon salt
For the filling:
- 2 teaspoons orange zest
- ½ cup sugar
- 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 cup wild cranberries
- 1 cup walnuts, chopped
Rose Hip Glaze
- 1 cup rose hips
- Water
- 1 cup powdered sugar (or cane sugar run through a food processor or a blender)
Preparation
Put the dry yeast in the warm water with a pinch of sugar and let sit 5 minutes so the yeast can activate.
Add the melted butter, milk, and egg. Whisk well. Add the salt and most of the flour. Mix well. Keep adding flour until the dough feels hydrated (you don’t need to add all the flour). Let the dough rest 20 minutes.
Knead dough. If the dough is sticky, add more flour to get it to be workable. Knead the dough for 10 minutes. Let it rise for 60 to 90 minutes.
The dough should double in size. Punch down the dough and divide it in half.
Sprinkle orange zest onto the dough and roll it out into 2 rectangles. Sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar on top of the dough and use your fingers to spread it evenly. Distribute the walnuts and cranberries on top of the cinnamon sugar. Roll each rectangle into a long log. Cut the log into 8 pieces and place half each into 2 buttered 9-inch-round cake pans. Cover the rolls and let rise for another to 60 minutes.
Bake both pans at 350° F for 30 to 45 minutes until light brown on top and the rolls sound hollow when you tap on them. Let cool before frosting, which is optional.
Rose Hip Glaze
Makes 1 cup
Put rose hips in a pan and cover with water. Bring to a boil and let simmer for about 20 minutes. If water evaporates, add more. The rose hips should be soft. Run the mixture through a food mill to turn the rose hips into pulp.
Starting with half the sugar and 1 tablespoon of rose hip pulp, combine. Then slowly add the remainder of the two ingredients, mixing them together until you achieve a consistency that is thick but can drip off a spoon. Frost the rolls when they are cool.
About this recipe
Note: I sometimes divide this recipe in half and use half of the dough to make savory dinner rolls. If you’d like one pan of rolls and one pan of sweet cinnamon rolls, simply add seeds and herbs like rosemary, pepper, and salt to half of the dough, and form it into balls instead of spirals.
Further reading about the science behind winter berries: Berries in Winter: A Natural History of Fruit Retention in Four Species Across Alaska, by Christa Mulder, Katie Spellman, and Jasmine Shaw Madroño, 68(4):487-510 (2021). doi.org/10.3120/0024-9637-68.4.487.
