Blog posts

Last week my wife and I took a short vacation to a small farm on the outskirts of Victoria, BC.  We stayed with Diane (aka intern#2 last year) and her husband Ed - both gracious hosts, tour guides, and entertainers for our (almost) week long stay.  On one of the days I taught a couple of classes at The French Mint, a culinary school in Victoria run by chef Denise Marchessault.  In the morning I taught a class on croissants, in the evening a class about sourdoughs.  Both went great.

I'd bought some smoked salmon to have with Greenstein's sour rye which I baked last week. My wife's comment was, "It's too bad we don't have bagels." It happens I had a couple bags of Sir Lancelot (KAF's high-gluten flour) in the pantry, as well as all the other necessary ingredients, on hand. I also had a lecture to prepare, and I was running out of excuses to delay finishing it. So, I made bagels.

I was putting in this blog and we had an after shock from the 6.9 earthquake that just hit Baja, Mexico.  It was said to be felt as 3.2 here.  Really shook the neighbors up too!

I baked a...you guessed it...Buttermilk Chocolate Cake with Buttermilk choc. frosting requested by Mike my husband.  I'm trying the new unbleached cake flour from King Arthur and also their double chocolate coco powder.  I also thawed out a Sourdough Potato bread for..maybe a sandwich snack later on this evening from our Roasted leg of lamb dinner.

I made up a simple dough last night and planned to leave the bowl by the woodstove, which actually went cold a lot sooner than I was hoping for, so the dough tried to rise in a 60* house.  I turned my oven on this am, and let it warm up for a minute before turning it back off and setting the bread bowl inside.  I'm not sure if I can expect my dough to rise any more, and that's fine.  I'll punch it down soon and then get it ready for 2nd rising prior to baking. 

This is the formula for a bread I made last year that gives you a packed bunch of flavours and uses the old bread as a soaker in the dough. I've been reading Mini's post with great interest as I'm keen to try this and this time put the old rye bread in with the starter and see what difference it makes, sounds very exciting.

Anyway I thought I would like to share this one with you

It's tradition in Italian culture to eat this cake over Easter. Very close to the Christmas Panettone, the Colomba is slightly richer.

Last year I was visiting family in Milan and my grandmother ordered one from the local bakery.  I had only ever eaten commericial ones you buy at the grocery store previously.

Sometimes the hardest part of baking bread is being there.   Yesterday I meant to get to making a semolina bread (p.

Brief Post on Vienna Flour

Uberathlete posted asking about Vienna Flour, see: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/17241/what-vienna-flour

Elizabeth David (1977; pp.76), in her "English Bread and Yeast Cookery states the following: " 'Vienna' flour was in reality high quality Hungarian or Romanian flour, roller milled, fine, of medium strength and creamy white, good for 'Vienna' bread and puff pastry and yeast cakes."

Horst Bandel's Black Pumpernickel.

This is a recipe from "Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes" by Jeffrey Hamelman.   A number of TFL regulars have posted on this recipe, notably,

ehanner: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/16501/learning-pumpernickel and http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/16348/horst-bandel039s-black-pumpernickel-bread

So there was a really big batch of chili made last night, so there was cornbread last night, and there will be cornbread tonight.  And, frankly, I don't get tired of it!  I know that there have been several cornbread recipes posted here, but I just have to share this, which is my favorite.  It comes out the oven so nice and tall, is perfectly delicious, and is extremely simple.

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup yellow cornmeal

1/4 cup sugar

4 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

1/4 cup canola oil

2 eggs