Blog posts

Megapretzels, sunflowerbread and carrot-almond bread

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The last time I made caraway rye bread, I used the recipe in The Joy of Cooking. We really like it. But as I was leafing through The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum, I noticed her recipe for rye bread. A recipe that looked too good.

Hi. My name is Leigh, and I consider myself a pretty expert cook. I've been teaching myself for almost 4 years now, but I come from a wonderful line of cooks and bakers. I've made a few breads over the past few months, but I'm definitely still learning.

I made some amazing dinner rolls for Valentines Day last week, and I have some Honey Wheat Bread rising now - it's taking forever, but I have good hopes. It looks yummy, at least! And I guess that's all for now!

I wanted to make a bread for a recent gathering of friends.  My preference was for something sweet but not a sticky, gooey kind of sweet.  After paging through a number of books, I came across a recipe in Beth Hensperger's The Bread Bible for a sweet vanilla challah that sounded like it would fit the bill.  The recipe called for just 1/2 cup of sugar in a two-loaf batch of bread, so it wasn't excessively sweet.  The flavor, though, was driven by 1-1/2 tablespoons of vanilla extract in the dough and another teaspoon of vanilla extract in the glaze.

OK, I know you're out there.  Maybe those Birks are getting dusty or they're hidden in the closet along with your beaded vest and shrunken tie-dye, but you're really hankerin' for some good ol' fashioned hippie bread.  Just like the kind you used to eat while working on your macrame choker and groovin' to Cat Stevens before he became public enemy number one.  Here you go.

These were baked yesterday ...

I wanted to try some variations on a couple of breads that I have baked a lot - The "San Joaquin Soudough," which is a pain de campagne that has an overnight cold retardation at the bulk fermentation stage and the Sourdough bread from SusanFNP's Wild Yeast blog.

My San Joaquin Sourdough (SJSD) derived from Anis Bouabsa's baguette formula, as related to Janedo. See this blog entry: 

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/8454/pain-de-campagne 

So this is my first post here. I've got a few pictures here of the bread display I am putting on for the open house at the college. Theres Baguettes, Ciabatta, Miche, Light Sourdough Rye, and Challah. I also had a semolina loaf but someone decided to drop the dough on the floor. Enjoy!

Today I made Crumb bum's miche (though I split it into two loaves).

I also made Saffron Rolls with currants.

I'm liking my multigrain breads especially if I can get my sourdough starter to work with them. This latest is one from Hamelman's 'Bread", the Five-grain levain recipe. I followed the recipe fairly exactly only making 2/3 of the recipe. I used my whole wheat starter and not any commercial yeast. For the soaker I used part Bob's Red Mill 7-grain cereal mix, flaxseeds, and sunflower seeds. I even did the retarding part of the recipe in the refrigerator overnight, approximately 13 hours and then a four-hour warm up/proof on the counter before baking.

I finally scratched the itch and plunged into the happy world of breadmaking. Okay, pretzel making. Break making will have to wait while I work on stirring up my sour dough starter. But the pretzels. . .ah! I followed Alton Brown's recipe (link on main page) and substituted whole wheat flour for the all purpose, sea salt for kosher, aluminum foil for parchment and salted butter for unsalted.