jaltsc's blog

I came across a recipe for "Pugliese Bread" years ago and used to bake 600 gram loaves due to the size of my kitchen oven. A few years ago I bought a bread oven that is able to handle larger loaves, and has holes on top which make it possible to use a pressure sprayer to produce steam and then be closed off. I recently started to bake 2+ kilo loaves and my friends love the results. I bake them for 85 minutes. This results in a very dark crust that crackles for 5 minutes after being taken out of the oven, and a very tender crumb.

Yesterday I shared my recipe for Bronx bagels. I also make bialys, which might make me one of the last 4 or 5 bialy bakers left.  For some reason bialys never became as popular as bagels. One reason might be that they get very stale and hard quickly. If not frozen and then toasted, it's like eating a hockey puck. The process is less complicated than that for bagels. Making bialys is like making cocktail size pizzas. The onion "schmear" prevents the entire piece of dough from rising.