Blog posts

When my sister-in-law invited me up to NY for Thanksgiving diner for family and friends...I thought to myself...oh S--- I am going to get stuck in traffic for hours...and then she said and bring one of your breads. OK....my first thought was to make the very festive two tier Celebration Loaf with nuts and cranberries. It would make a nice centerpiece for the table and be very festive. When I thought it out....I needed a bread I could retard overnight and throw in the oven first thing in the morning so I could leave before noon on Wednesday to run the gauntlet to the city.

so far, this is my best baguette to date. thanks to Jeffrey and James from King Arthur institute (really cool folks!). I have to remember to use a lot less flour and increase the steam. i think lack of steam turned my previous sourdough bake a darker color as suppose to a nice golden brown...i also was suprised by how well the baguettes turned out baking on the baguette pan. i was expecting less volume increase compared to direct hearth baking.

I baked three loaves for a Thanksgiving day dinner at my sister-in-law's house in Omaha, Nebraska.It was a case of I'd either be the smart son-in-law or the brother-in-law from Hell depending on how they turned out. I baked my rye Wednesday with the Bauernbrot recipe that Salome posted recently and despite my shortcomings on shaping the loaf, it came out very tasty. It didn't hurt that my mother-in-law got one of the first samples.

hi everyone.

Squeaky wheels get the oil? Or, whinny kids get the lollies, as Chinese put it?

We are headed 300 miles tomorrow to visit our daughters so I had to bake last weeekend. The loaves in the back are Susan's Sourdough with kalamata olives and rosemary. The darker loaves are toasted pecan with blue cheese inspired by PR. The rolls are Floyd's sweet potato. It has been a great 9months of learning to bake. Thanks for the recipes and inspiration, this is a great site for learning if you take it one bite at a time.

My herbal garden has been neglected since I started baking sourdough.  Occasionally I asked my son or my daughter to give the plants a drink. I have seen the bush turkeys in my yard a few times and was wondering what they were up to.  Yesterday morning I finally went and had a good look at my herbs.  My parsleys and mint are surviving but my rocket and cherry tomatoes are non-existent.

By the way, the food issue of The New Yorker just came out and had a long article on Baumkuchen, aka "Spit Cake."  The "spit" in the cake is a large metal stake that is dipped in batter and then rotated near a flame.  This process is repeated dozens of times and then the cake is removed from the stake and slices into disks.  Each slice has "rings" like a tree from the multiple layers of batter getting baked.