Flour.ish.en's blog

Happy Easter! I baked this Neapolitan Easter bread (Casatiello), published in the New York Times by Yotam Ottolenghi. Basically, it is a yeast bread dough wrapped up with meats, cheeses, herbs and eggs fillings, for the break fast picnic eaten the day after Easter. It was a fun bake since whatever leftovers you had on hand, you can roll them up tightly, like a cinnamon roll. It's easily adaptable to accommodate any filling ingredients. And you won't be getting your fingers all sticky and gooey. There is no glaze on the bread.

Does rugbrod, or Danish rye bread, rings the bell for you? You might have tasted it in an open-faced Danish sandwich, served with herring, cured salmon, ground liver or smoked cheese. The bread is dense and dark and substantial -- something a piece of our usual smooth white or whole-wheat bread can't hold up against the richly-flavored goodies on top.

The two foccacias shown here use a variety of ingredients that celebrate the arrival of spring: herbs from the garden, sprouted flour and lemon. That's where the similarity ends. Same dough, baked less than 18 hours apart, presented vastly different results. Has that happened to you before?

- Baked the first loaf on Tuesday around 6 pm. after leaving the dough to rest at room temperature for 3 hours. Result: open crumb.

Nothing beats the aroma of breads baking in the oven, especially in blistery cold winter days, when going out is an adventure to be avoided. Smell of these breads would surely bring excitement and anticipation in the kitchen. That's before you taste the breads. Another big flavor bread I like, besides the caramelized onion bread, is the carrot walnut bread from Jeffrey Hamelman. Moistened crumb and specks of carrot brighten any wintery day. What are your favorite aromatic breads? Feel free to weigh in on this.

I don’t make white bread; I've made something worst: brioche made with all-purpose flour and butter. “Everything tastes better with butter.” There is no shame in that, for some occasional guilty pleasure.

The best part of making brioche is in the making. I’ve made four versions of brioche over the last few months:

• Tartine brioche with natural leaven 

(http://flourishen.blogspot.com/2014/09/tartine-brioche.html)

• Tartine brioche with olive oil

I made a ricotta and rosemary bread pudding by using some Tartine country loaves I've just made. What I did not expect was how the humble bread can be transformed into an elegant light meal that I thoroughly enjoyed. The dish was large enough to serve a small crowd. The bread that keeps on giving!

Happy Labor Day!

http://flourishen.blogspot.com/2015/09/ricotta-and-rosemary-bread-pudding.html

I got some fantastic ideas from several Fresh Loaf members (Alfonso, AbeNW11 and dabrownman) since my last post comparing Tartine vs. Forkish process. I’ve followed their recommendations and thoroughly embrace the approach of no discard of sourdough starter and levain. I’m sure my starter, which remains nameless, appreciates that it gets to stay in my refrigerator perpetually. In addition, I refresh the starter these days following the three-stage builds that Alfonso recommended, discarding a small amount in the second build to make it quicker.

This is the first time I bake any Ken Forkish’s bread. This is the first time I post on the Fresh Loaf blog, although I’ve read and learnt so much from a lot of the active participants here. Rightly or wrongly, I feel I can’t be a complete bread baker, among other things, if I’ve never tried Forkish’s recipes. I started baking a lot of Chad Robertson’s breads after I read his two books, Tartine Bread and Tartine Book No.3, a year ago.