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For the most part, I have had a lot of luck with bread recipes.  If it does not work out the way I want on the first try I begin the tweaking process.  It is not always fast but I get there in the end.  I say for the most part because I have had one bread nemesis.  One bread that, no matter how I tried, would never work out the way I wanted.  

That bread was the delicious Indian flat bread called naan.

When I was taking my Breads & Rolls class last year in culinary school we made an Indian bread called Aloo Paratha. It is a wheat bread dough that is filled with a curried potato mixture, rolled flat and cooked on a hot griddle. They were, in a word, delicious!

This is the first time I've tried this popular bread.  I used my Australian sourdough.  I'd like to try making it again...I had a lot of running around to do today...but at least it got a long ferment but pushed and shoved around a lot getting it into the oven...I should have saved myself a lot of grief and just put in on parchment paper!!  I'll know better next time! 

Jeffrey Hamelman's Vermont Sourdough W/Whole Wheat

One of the traditions of Purim (a very festive Jewish holiday celebrating an ancient victory) is to send gifts of food to friends.  Because the day is so full of fun, many people try to provide a laugh along with the treats.  This year, I decided pizza and beer would be fun.  How is that fun? 

Because they're cookies!

As requested here's the recipe I use to make baguettes. This recipe yields about 10-390g baguettes. For use in a home oven i would scale down the weight otherwise you'll end up with a small loaf rather than the slender french icon.

Baguettes:

Poolish:

Flour (Hard) 850g

Water           850g

Yeast           Pinch

There it is my very first loaf of bread, honey whole wheat. It went pretty well, I had my first sandwich today. Boy was it good, so much better then store bought. I'm making another loaf tonight...I just couldn't wait. I'm make a different version of the honey whole wheat. I'll let you know how it goes.

On Saturday the 7th at 9pm I started mixing my first dough and began my overnight bake to have fresh bread out for my display at the 2009 culinary salon. As the night progressed I created my take on the epi loaf, guinness and barley bread, ciabatta, palmiers, croissant, danish pastries, 5 grain buns, 5 strand challahs and my centre piece. I set up the display around 6 am on sunday after a relaxing night bake. Judging began at 8am and i was allowed back at 1pm. I arrived with much anticipation and found my peice awarded a 1st place standing in my category!. Gold!

Irish American Heritage Month

In absence of my camera (the display is broken), I uploaded a few old pictures. When our kids were younger, we once took them to the Bakkery Museum. They were really exited about the figures the bakers demonstrated. If it is not the content of a bread, it will be the form that decides whether they like it are not!

We made some of these breads during several birthday partys, even the 'never eat bread' kids would eat that own bread this time.