ilan's blog

It’s been a while since my last post. I didn’t post anything because I was lazy… I did bake, a lot. From bread, flat bread, pizza and more (next blog entry will be on one of them).

Today, I will continue with my sandwich bread. The recipe is not so different from the previous one, but this time I reduced the amount of yeast by half, added more sugar, and changed the ratio of water & milk. Nothing fancy here, but it taste good.

I love sweet basil, and a pesto made out of it is an excellent addition to a lot of dishes.

My path of research in bread making led me another step. This week I made yet another sandwich-bread and added different stuff into it.

I saw that in the several recipes most of the liquid in such bread consist of milk. It should make the bread richer in flavor as milk in oppose to water have a taste and in addition it contain some percent of fat.

All is good and well in theory. I already baked bread with water and bread with milk.

This time, I made two batches of the same recipe but in the second I replaced 2/3 of the liquid with milk.

Wife and daughter went to visit family, leaving me pondering which bread to do today.

I went back to basics; I wanted something tasty but simple. No preferment and other techniques that surely improve the final outcome but take a lot of time.

I made something very similar to the http://www.thefreshloaf.com/lessons/addingmore post but added sugar, salt yeast and switched butter with vegetable oil.

The recipe goes like this:

-       3 cups flour

This time, I wanted bread that brings more aroma and character of its own, something that can accompany a simple meal or to be used for a not too spiced sandwiches.

The combination of black olives and thyme is not new and since I love olives in both meals and sandwiches (depend on the dishes) I decided to have bread with it.

When I opened the fridge to get the olive paste, I saw a jar of dried tomato next to it. Olives and tomato is a good combo as well and I added the tomato paste to the mix but to keep the olive base of the bread I added only small amount of it.

Before going into the bread itself (which is simple enough), here is some background:

About a week ago the Jews had their Passover holiday. This holiday lasts for a week during which the religious and traditional Jews are not allowed to eat any bread that its dough was allowed to rise.

This is due to the Bible story of the Hebrew slaves running away from Egypt (the story with Moses – let my people go…). During this quick departure, they didn’t have the time to let their dough to rise and instead of bread they the Matza – bread of the poor – for their desert track.

Hi 

Baguette is one of my favorite breads. For long sandwiches, with a full meal or just eat fresh with butter. One of the things I like about the Baguettes that I buy from the market is the very crisp crust and a very soft interior. It cannot be eaten without making a mess. But in this case, I really don’t care.

Hi there all the bread lovers.

I'm Ilan, I work in the Hi-Tech industry for the last 10 years which means that I have very little time for myself or my family during the week.

For the last few years, I find comfort in the kitchen, cooking for me, my wife and our extended family. It became a therapy for me - after a long week of work I prefer to cook for 10 people instead of having a good weekend rest.

Bread fascinated me for a long time and about two year ago, I started to bake my own bread.