Blog posts

Another very productive weekend, with two beautiful brioche loaves. Can’t tell you how pleased I am with them, the loaves came out beautiful and light, with a wonderful texture and taste.

I gave one loaf away and already finished another one, well, I did freeze a couple of slices to have later on as a treat, plus I want to see how well the brioche freezes.

Last month, I posted about my work on developing a formula for the Pioneer Bread recipe from the Kansas Wheat Commission.

http://chaosamongstthefloursandflowers.blogspot.com/2011/06/variation-on-pioneer-bread.html

Okay. I know this is a baking forum, but consider: Rye bread cries for pastrami, and pastrami sandwiches cry for pickles. In fact, the respondents to my recent blog on Jewish Sour Rye Bread  and Eric's blog on home-made pastrami have more or less demanded I share my mother's recipe for the best ever garlic pickles.

But, first,  you have to hear a story about them, you should be warned.

I don't make pickles often. Typically, several years go by between picklings, so there are things I forget.

So here’s my first blog entry here at TFL. After lurking and secretly stealing and borrowing brilliant recipes and ideas from wonderful TFLers for a few years, only contributing very occasionally to the community with odd comments here and there, I decided (nudged by my fellow Essex TFLer, maxwellion) it’s ‘bout time I should pay back my long-overdue debt with some humble offerings of my recipes and  what I’ve learned from not-always-perfect bread making experiences.

Well, what a cute loaf!

Using the recipe from Franko
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/24172/first-success-altamura-project
which builds on others - I thought I'dgive it a go.   I'd tried a version with some white flour added - but not this time...

Building the Preferment:

I used the white wheat starter I have, and couldn't measure out a small enough quantity, so ended up with
30g starter (wheat, 100%)
50g durum flour
50g water

I always wanted to know how Pakistani wheat kernels i have in stock would perform in a loaf pan. I mill my own wheat, so i made a wholewheat loaf from Peter Reinhart's (Wholegrain breads). The loaf is seen here. I happened to find a pullman pan-look-alike on sale, and i purchased it without hesitation. The difference in this loaf, is that i sifted most of the bran out of the milled flour.

A few weeks ago I made a pizza I wrote about here . It was delicious, I loved it. This time I decided to try another method, to compare the results. This recipe it's been on my mind for a long time, I tried it few times, without noticeable results. I knew the recipe is good, and I knew that one day I'll be able to make it right. That one day happened last week. The recipe I talk about is from Jeff Varasano site, I'm sure you all know it.

Smoked Pastrami

While we bake bread for many purposes, few could be considered more noble than to aid in the creation of an outstanding Pastrami sandwich. Corned beef is a close second in my opinion but also a nice topping for deli rye breads. I have made this recipe many times and suggest you might consider smoking all you can get in your smoker at one time. It freezes well, sliced, and you will enjoy knowing you have a bag at hand if the need arises to feed special friends on the quick.

Okay, its not a good old fashioned American Cherry Pie, but its my version of it.

I just love cherries, swwet and juicy - no matter how hard you try, it always ends up all over the counter and your clothes.

Its a really easy recipe - I started in the morning, and it was ready by afternoon, quite pleased with the result too.

More photos and full recipe on my blog here

We sailed on a Russian cadet-training ship and were served wonderful dinner rolls with a carrot center.  I am quite sure the carrots were leftovers from the night's dinner before.  Does anyone have a recipe for these?  Does anyone know of other things that might go into rolls such as these?