Back in 2014, for the third time, I attempted to make pan pizza for guest. For the third time, everything seemed to be going perfectly and yet the crust came out far too hard. You can read about that here.
After that, I literally hung up my pizza peel (though I took it off the kitchen wall for free-form boules and loaves).
These are my attempt at black rye rolls, again from Beth Hensperger's The Bread Bible.* I thought I wouldn't have enough rye flour but then I did -- phew!
I consider these rolls a success, cracks and all, for several reasons:
First, this was only my second time working with rye flour, and I almost didn't have enough.
Yesterday I made a from-scratch deep dish pizza using the recipe in The Great Chicago Pizza Cookbook. The crust turned out beautifully, or so I thought until I tried to cut it. It wasn't burnt, but was hard as a rock! We had to saw through it and it was just too much chewy to enjoy the rest of the ingredients.
Does anyone have any suggestions? The recipe calls for 1/2 c of yellow cornmeal and I wasn't sure if that was the issue or if I should forego par baking or what? There are photos below. Any and all advice welcome!!!
The weather is finally cooling off here in Phoenix and for my hubby and I that means one thing: picnic season has arrived! And with it, my favorite part, a reason to bake picnic breads.
I think I've had a fairly successful Crescia al Formaggio, although I'm not sure that the inside looks as it should. The bread was flavorful, even the sponge that the melted cheese didn't get to.
After some trepidation, I finally attempted the Italian-Style Herb Bread from Beth Hensperger's The Bread Bible. The hubby and I are avid picnickers and my parents had just gotten me a snazzy portable picnic table I can't wait to try out tomorrow.
Several things made me nervous about this bread:
1.) The only other cooked stuffing bread I'd attempted prior to this was onion rolls (also from BB; it's the only bread book I have) and they turned out well, but the filling didn't quite blend as well as I'd like.
In continuing my mission to bake my way through The Bread Bible, I had the opportunity to try the recipe for Whole Wheat Walnut Raisin Bread. I was a bit worried it would be a bit advanced for my skill level, but I was baking it for my dad, who needed to transition to whole wheat bread to aid in his recovery from intestinal surgery.
Continuing my journey though The Bread Bible, I finally had both the flour and the time to move on to the third recipe, onion rolls. Since the basis of the rolls are the previous French white recipe, which with I've had repeated success, I'm not going to bother explaining that process. If interested, you can see my first attempt at that pain ordinaire here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/25195/pain-ordinaire-bread-bible
Bolstered by my success in baking White Mountain Bread, I finally had the time and the flour to attempt the second recipe in Beth Hensperger’s Bread Bible, French bread, or Pain Ordinaire.
Things began auspiciously enough with a beautifully smelling, light, spongy and almost fluffy slurry.
One of the best wedding gifts my hubbilicious and I received was Beth Hensperger's The Bread Bible. After reading the introduction and first chapter, I decided to follow in Hensperger's footsteps and do what she did, twice: teach myself more about the craft and art of bread baking by baking every recipe in a bread book, in order. And so it began, on August 14th......
Well, time passed in that way it does and soon I had two loaves ready for the oven:
I trimmed the parchment paper (which burned to a crisp, by the way, any tips on avoiding that in the future?), wished them well, and gently slid them on the stone.
Twenty minutes later, I pulled out these:
