Blog posts

The story of michetta:

The Marquis Doria sent a young bride who refused to give herself to him to prison to die. The population of Dolceacqua rose up and forced the Marquis Doria (1364) to stop this abuse of power and on the 16 of August there is a festival to celebrate the event.  The women of the village created the “michetta” to celebrate this occasion.  It is now the symbol of love and freedom. Michetta are small sweetbreads similar to a raised doughnut.

This is a bit of a tease. I can't share the recipe for these bagels, because the recipe is from a yet to be published book for which I'm one of the recipe testers. But they were so beautiful and so delicious, I just can't not at least share some photos.

Kraków (twisted) Bagels 

Crumb (coronal section)

I made the Apple cheese braid found in the comments below the blueberry cheese braid post.  I rolled it out and cut it square which made "braiding" it easier.  I made a little mini one withe leftovers and WOW it tastes good!  This is for tomorrow's breakfast.  I may have to hide it from my family, and myself!

picture isn't uploading now.  I'll post later.

It's been a month since I started baking with sourdough. So far every single recipe I tried (and there were plenty of them really) was successful and delicious!

This loaf is made with Italian 00 flour, corn flour (in the recipe white corn flour is used; I used simply fine corn flour, don't know whether it's the same thing) and whole-wheat. Oh and whey. I made it, as suggested by Dan Lepard, by stirring a bit rennet in milk and then straining mixture through cheesecloth.

I made the 123 sourdough from my starter the other day.  I was amazed and pleased at how this loaf came together.  I don't think I put enough salt in it though, and its not really "sour."  but the starter culture is really vigorous and active, and it is more sour than last time.  I started with 9 oz of starter, 18 of water and 27 of flour, and made two nice loaves.  The crust is thick and chewy, and the crumb is moist, but has small even holes.  No picture of crumb.

 I saw the blog as I was wondering though TFL for Bridge Rolls. I didn't know what they were or what they should look like so I checked it out. I am playing euchre with some of the women that I work with. it is an excuse to get together and drink lots of wine and nosh and gossip and yes play a little euchre. Hopefully these little Euchre Rolls with go with the Port Salut cheese and whatever anyone else has brought along. 

Polish bread is absolutely amazing!  Hundreds of ryes, rolls, street breads; the list is endless.  I will try to get some more pictures, but here's a start:

Link to some of my pictures of authentic Polish bread:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/slideshow/54352/polish_bread.html?cat=22

I usually don't get to bake during the work week, but this was a slow week so I got some afternoon time at home. Last night, I made pizza with dough I froze a couple weeks ago.

I had used Peter Reinhart's formula from BBA. I'm going to get the hang of stretching pizza dough yet. My wife generously consented to eating pizza once a week or so, providing me more opportunities to work on it. She is so supportive ... at least in agreeing to eat one of her favorite foods.

This is my first blog post on TFL, although I've been lurking around for nearly a year now. I started getting in to sourdough baking in Spring (southern hemisphere) last year but my poor little starter went on hiatus when we took a couple of months overseas holiday at the beginning of this year. Now it's June and I'm only just reawakening Owen, my starter. Luckily, our housesitter indulged my detailed instructions on feeding Owen while we were away. (Although she said something along the lines of "if I had a baby whose nappy smelled as bad as that bread thingy, I wouldn't change it"...)