From Apple Jam to Crabapple Jelly

We've been listening to George Harrison's All Things Must Pass a lot recently, including its largely improvisatory Apple Jam sides ("Out of the Blue"!).

 fig. a:  George's Apple Jam

But, when it comes to making tasty jams (or jellies, as the case may be) of our own, we've been singularly focused on crabapples of late.

 fig. b:  crabapples

In part, that's because there's nothing quite like crabapple jelly:  that colour, that tartness, that natural set.  Most other jellies are either notoriously finicky, or they're just not nearly as pretty.

But, mainly, it's because we've had access to a particularly fruitful crabapple tree.  When the wild turkeys haven't been shaking it down (literally), we've been free to harvest this tree to our hearts' delight.

 fig. c:  crabapple tree

 fig. d:  freshly picked crabapples

At work, Michelle makes large quantities of crabapple jelly to serve with terrines, mousses, and pâtés.  With these crabapples, she makes small batches of jelly to spread on our toast.  Either way, the method is essentially the same.

Crabapple Jelly à la Michelle

Stem, clean and sort through the crabapples, removing any that are rotten. 

Place in a medium/large pot, depending on how many apples you have. 

Just barely cover with water.  You should be able to press down on them, getting the water to cover them when you do. 

Cook for 20-25 minutes at a simmer until your crabapples are falling apart and fragrant.
Pour through a chinois and let drip.* 

For every 10 parts juice, add 6-7 parts sugar, depending on the tartness of your crabapples. 

Place the juice and sugar in an appropiately sized pot, bring to a simmer, and cook at a simmer until you reach the gel stage. 

A drop of liquid should come off the spoon in a sheet rather than a droplet. 

Place in sterilized jars and seal according to proper canning procedures. Or simply pour into any clean glass container and let set, then store in the fridge.   

Voilà!

* You can also use a jelly bag for this step, but Michelle prefers to use a chinois because it speeds up the process.

And, either way, the results are beautiful--to the eye, and to the palate.



 figs. e & f:  crabapple jelly for breakfast

Of course, it pays to have homemade bread on hand to enjoy your jelly with,

 fig. g:  pain de campagne

but that's another story.

Act fast:  crabapple season is already in full swing.

aj

You can't always get what you want...

 fig. a:  Old Nova Scotia

A few weeks I got caught up in a small-scale research project of sorts.

A friend of mine, S., was on the lookout for Nova Scotia-style brown bread.  S. hails from New Scotland, and she had a hankering for a taste from home.  She thought there must be somewhere in Montreal that baked or offered Maritimes-style brown bread, but I wasn't so sure.  After all, it's nearly impossible to get loaves that have deep roots in Montreal--like a true caraway rye--let alone loaves from beyond Quebec, and especially loaves from other provinces.

Now, at first I thought she had something along the lines of Boston brown bread in mind.  S. had mentioned molasses and I was fairly certain that steamed brown bread could be found in the Maritimes, too.  I was right about that,* but it turned out she had a more conventional baked bread in mind, one that came topped with rolled oats.

All of a sudden, I could picture it.  This Maritimes-style brown bread was definitely something I'd seen in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island a few years ago.  In fact, I was convinced I'd tasted it, too.  And I was pretty sure I could smell its sweet, homey aroma.

Now, as it turns out, I'd been on something of a molasses kick in my bread baking.  For a few months, a good percentage of the loaves I'd made on my weekly adventures in baking were either corn rye or Danish rye loaves, both of which featured the lovely rounded flavours of molasses.  So I decided to take up the quest for Nova Scotia-style brown bread as a challenge, and I told S. I was doing so.  My only caveat was that, no matter what I discovered, I was going to develop a sourdough version of brown bread.

Now, that might sound a little ungenerous, but I was fairly certain that at some point in the past, sometime before the advent of industrialized yeast, Nova Scotia brown bread had been made with sourdough starter.  S. is a historian--I was hoping she'd understand.

When I began to research Nova Scotia brown bread online, I became even more set in my ways.  It might just have been the quality of the photographs in question, but I wasn't crazy about the kinds of recipes I was finding--or the way the results of those recipes looked.

Well, it turns out I was wrong, or, at least, the predominant method for baking Nova Scotia brown bread was altogether different from what I'd imagined.  Apparently, traditional bread baking in the Maritimes had been accomplished with homemade yeast.

As Marie Nightingale explains in our copy of Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens:

For the wise mother who still insists that home-made bread is a necessity for her family's health and enjoyment, bread-making is an easy task as compared to that of earlier days.  Today we begin with prepared yeast, either in cake or granular form, but in the old days the yeast had first to be made before thought could be given to making bread.

Making the yeast starter from hops and potatoes was a process that involved days, so care had to be taken to keep a supply always on hand.  Kept tightly corked in stone jars and stored in a cool place, the yeast would stay sweet and fresh for a couple of months.

As intrigued as I was by the idea of making homemade yeast, I had a sourdough starter on hand, and it was definitely sweet and fresh, so I stuck to my plan.  And, basically, I used this project as an excuse to overhaul my whole wheat bread recipe, which I'd always found a little ascetic.

This is what I came up with:

 fig. b:  is for brown & bread

AEB Brown Bread 

200 grams leaven (20%) 

630 grams water (80º F, ideally) + an additional 50 grams of warm water (68%) 

100 grams fancy molasses (10%) 

[total hydration:  780 grams (78%), including the molasses] 

600 grams whole wheat bread flour (60%) 

400 grams AP flour (40%) 

[total flour:  1 kg (100%)] 

20 grams kosher salt (2%) 

rolled oats (as needed)

Notes:  Top each loaf with untoasted rolled oats before the final rise.  I don't bother slashing my loaves before I bake them, as the topping of rolled oats makes this too difficult.  I just let these loaves go freeform.

 fig. c:  rolled oats

I've mentioned this before, but my sourdough method is borrowed directly from Chad Robertson's from Tartine Bread.  For optimum results, you should follow his directions closely.  Here, I'm just providing the measurements (in weight) and baker's percentages that you need to make two large loaves (roughly 2 pounds each).

Anyway, I was pretty thrilled with the results.

 fig. d:  sliced bread

In fact, this brown bread instantly became our house favourite, a loaf that made particularly great sandwiches, not to mention a loaf that had us bolting out of bed in the morning (well, at least it had me bolting out of bed in the morning) to make toasts with only butter on them.  Nothing else is needed.  Except maybe a soft-boiled egg.

 fig. e:  e is for egg

Or possibly the occasional drizzle of honey, but somehow that usually seems like gilding the lily to me.

S. liked it, too.  Because, of course, as soon as I tested it, I invited S. and J. over for dinner and baked her her very own loaf.  Nova Scotian verdict:  "super tasty!"

I took that to mean success.  But mostly I saw it as another example of how you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime, well, you just might find you get what you need.  We certainly did.

aj

* Steamed Brown Bread shows up sixth in Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens' section on Breads, after Anadama Bread, Rolled Oats Bread (one of the inspirations here), French Bread, Salt Rising Bread, and Sally Lunns.

In a Golden State 3: Tartine Bread

First, there was Tartine bread. Then, there was Tartine Bread.

fig. a: Tartine Bread

It had only been about eighteen hours since we'd touched down at SFO for our two-week Northern California vacation, but there we were, already back at Tartine Bakery. As you may remember, we'd spent a fair bit of time at Tartine Bakery on a previous tour of Northern California back in 2005. Breakfast, lunch, late-afternoon snacks, dessert, bread, coffee, wine, tea--we'd pretty much tried it all. In fact, we'd left the Bay Area so thoroughly acquainted with the whole Tartine experience, that as we made our way to 18th & Guerrero, it felt like we were going to visit an old friend.

Of course, the Tartine family had grown since the summer of 2005. Chad Robertson and Elisabeth Prueitt, Tartine's founders, opened Bar Tartine just a few blocks away from Tartine Bakery not long after our last visit. And we'd heard so many great reports about this latest venture over the years that it was right at the top of our "to do" list. But just as importantly, we wanted to make sure that Tartine Bakery--our original love--was more or less as we'd left it. We wanted to make sure that some things in life stay the same. Or, at least that some things can be depended on.  And as much as we couldn't wait to try their croissants, their morning buns, and their cookies again, what we were most excited about was Tartine's bread--their country and their walnut loaves. Which is why we actually visited Tartine Bakery twice on Day 1 of our trip--once to take a look around and have some sweets, and a second time to pick up a loaf of their country bread. Those fabled Tartine loaves are only available once a day--at around 5:00 p.m.--you either have to be very prompt, or you have to order your loaf ahead of time. We opted for the former strategy--we came back at 5:00 on the dot.

Now, like so many of the best things in life, Tartine's bread doesn't come cheap ($7), but it all makes sense as soon as you're cradling one of their loaves in your arms.  Tartine's country bread is one hefty loaf of bread (two pounds?). More importantly, it's a sight to behold, a veritable work of art.

fig. b: Michelle country

As you can see, it's perfectly baked, with a deep, dark amber color and a pronounced crust.

What you can't see is a) how good it smelled as we carried it away from the store, still warm from the oven, and b) how ridiculously good it tasted when we got it home and sliced it open. The crumb is mild, moist, and incredibly open-structured; the crust is hearty, caramelized, and bursting with flavor.

Put simply, Tartine's country bread was phenomenal. We had it with cheese, with soups, with sauces. We had it plain and toasted, and we used it to make sandwiches.  We had it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was huge, so it lasted for days. And because it was a true sourdough, it barely staled. I would have happily paid good money for that loaf on Day 3, let alone Day 1. But we didn't have to. We were right there, so we went back again and again.

In case you're not getting the message, we couldn't get enough of Tartine's bread during our stay. We knew Chad Robertson had a bread book slated for release in the fall even before we left for California, and we were already pretty excited, but after eating Tartine's truly memorable sourdough loaves for two weeks, we were gripped with anticipation. We were also gripped with the DTs. Montreal's bread situation has gotten more and more dire over the years--when we got back home, our store-bought loaves paled in comparison. Literally.

Our copy of Tartine Bread finally showed up on our doorstep in early October (none too soon!), and we were immediately impressed. The book is amazingly thorough: it works through the basic method for the basic country loaf in extraordinary detail, provides a number of tantalizing variations on this basic method, then moves on to cover baguettes and enriched breads (including English muffins, brioches, beignets, and croissants), before closing with over 100 pages of recipes involving days-old** bread.

It's also richly illustrated. Robertson's principal collaborator on the project was Eric Wolfinger, a cook/baker/surfer/photographer, and together they'd wisely decided that a proper bread book should be heavily illustrated. How else to teach amateurs what, exactly, to be looking for? How else to teach them to pay attention to how bread behaves?

But just as importantly, the book was inspiring. Weaved into it was a life story, one that involved love, travel, apprenticeship, dedication, collaboration, and surfing (yes, surfing), one that was motivated by a fundamental faith in that fabled "daily bread"--what Robertson calls that "elemental bread that sustained generations."

I was totally taken by the whole thing. I read it through once. I read it through twice. And then I really dug in. And, just as Robertson promised, the results were magical.

fig. c: country

Right from the start, my loaves showed great oven spring, they had beautiful burnished crusts, and they were amazingly tasty, characterized by a surprisingly sweet (not sour and tangy), rounded wheat flavor. With a bit of practice, they started to look almost professional.

fig. d: whole-wheat

How was I getting such satisfying results so quickly? Well, Tartine Bread isn't just a thorough book on baking bread--it's also been specially designed for the home baker, so that even novices can get professional results from a conventional oven. If you've tried Jim Lahey's now legendary no-knead baking method, aspects of Robertson's approach should be very familiar.

fig. e: dutch oven & co.

Like Lahey, Robertson employs the use of a Dutch oven in order to create the intensely hot and humid environment necessary to achieve a proper crust. Like Lahey, Robertson's dough is a much moister dough than you might be used to. It features an unusually high hydration level (75% in baker's percentages). This moistness is what makes Robertson's dough suitable for a no-knead method,* but it's also one of the reasons his recipe results in such a wonderfully tender crumb, not to mention a loaf with such staying power.

Tartine Bread was also rigorously tested for the home baker. Robertson assembled a team of test bakers to try out his Basic Country Bread recipe--the cornerstone of his method--then created a private blog so that notes could be circulated and data could be accumulated. The results were extraordinary:  "Many testers made exceptional bread, judged by professional standards--it was virtually indistinguishable from our own Tartine bread..." When it came time to assemble his book, Robertson realized that this test process held important lessons, and that profiling a few of his test bakers might provide his readers with the added encouragement they might need to roll up their sleeves and start making real bread at home.

fig. f: Tartine bread pix

Finally, Tartine Bread isn't just richly illustrated, it's exhaustively photographed. Robertson worked closely with Eric Wolfinger on this book, and he took full advantage of his collaborator's skills as a photographer. There are a number of other excellent bread books out there that take pains to illustrate the processes of making bread in detail. Books like Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes and Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Bread Bible include some photographs, but rely mostly on line drawings. Jim Lahey's My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method uses a lot of photographs, and it recognizes photography's ability to document step-by-step instructions in a way that goes beyond what line drawings can accomplish, but its use of photographs is timid compared to Tartine Bread.

While Lahey's photo-essay "The Basic No-Knead Bread Recipe in Pictures" is composed of 24 photographs, Robertson's instructions for his Basic Country Bread includes nearly 70 photographs, not including those that illustrate "Making a Starter." The difference here isn't only one of quantity. The seriality and precision of Wolfinger's photographs provide an invaluable reference when you're first getting used to the Tartine method. Together with the thoroughness of text (which is heavy on visual cues), they provide you with all the guidance you need to make successful loaves right from the start.

Results have been so good, and the experience of making real, honest-to-goodness sourdough at home has been so rewarding, that I've become a little obsessed. I haven't actually made that many of Robertson's bread recipes, to tell you the truth, but those I have made, I've made a lot of. So in addition to many, many loaves of the Basic Country Bread, I've made a bunch of walnut loaves, some polenta bread (with pumpkin seeds and rosemary!), some olive bread (with walnuts, lemon zest, and herbes de Provence!), and a few pizzas. Yeah, that's right, pizzas.***

There have been other signs of obsession, as well. Not only did I go out and purchase a 20 kg bag of white flour, not only did I photograph it (?),

fig. g: 20 kg Oak

but I worked through that bag in about a month. I've also been taking bread photos--again, a lot of them. Whole loaves, like the photos above. Half loaves and cut loaves.

fig. h: still life 1

Slices.

fig. i: still life 2

fig. j: rorschach test

And a whole bunch of shots that highlight the bread's open structure.***


figs. k & l: open structure 1 & 2

No kidding. Baking sourdough does crazy things to you.

Just a few more notes:

Not only does Robertson insist that you don't need a professional bread baking oven to make professional quality bread, but he also insists that the flour you use isn't nearly as important as the process. This isn't to say that flour doesn't matter, or that all flours are created equal. Tests proved that the flour Robertson gets milled specially for Tartine resulted in the best loaves with the finest flavors. That said, combining conventional, supermarket-bought all-purpose flour with the Tartine method resulted in loaves that were professional quality and superior to the overwhelming majority of store-bought loaves. So there.

Robertson's method for making true sourdough bread is remarkably simple, but it still requires some investment. You're going to need some basic equipment, like a proper scale, a bench knife, a Dutch oven, etc., and you're going to need to be dedicated to reading through the process carefully, and being exact when it comes to following it. You also need to realize that while Robertson's method is somewhat less labor-intensive than other methods, it is time-intensive. The real secret to Robertson's bread has to do with letting the sourdough work its magic slowly and thoroughly. As Robertson puts it: "The baker's skill in managing fermentation, not the type of oven used, is what makes good bread. This fact makes Tartine Bread possible." So it does take a fair bit of time to get from feeding your starter to taking your finished loaf out of the oven, but the nature of the Tartine method is such that it's feasible to work sourdough bread baking into a busy schedule (although wouldn't you rather take your time, do it right, and enjoy the process?), and the book provides helpful strategies for doing so.

And, lastly, Tartine Bread isn't without its glitches (it is the first printing, after all)*****, but it's a remarkably rigorous book, and it's filled with pure inspiration from start to finish (from its Basic Country Bread, to its recipes for soups, salads, sandwiches, sides, and desserts), and I predict the book's impact on the state of baking in North America will be enormous. There was a reason Tartine Bread topped our list of cookbooks for 2010. There were a lot of great cookbooks that were released over the course of the year, but no other book held the potential to really shake things up that Tartine Bread does.

Long live "elemental bread"!

Tartine Bakery & Cafe, 600 Guerrero St., San Francisco, CA, (415) 487-2600

aj

p.s. Still need more convincing? For even more about Chad Robertson, Tartine Bakery, Tartine's Basic Country Bread, the test bakers, etc., check out Tartine's bread video.

* Instead of conventional kneading, his method relies on gently folding the dough in a bucket, a modern take on the tradition of trough kneading.

** Again, Tartine's loaves are so well made that they stale very slowly. They literally aren't stale enough on Day 2 to use in a recipe that calls for "day-old bread," hence, "days-old."

*** Robertson throws down on the topic of pizza, addressing some of the orthodoxies that have accompanied the pizza revolution of the last decade, and, in many ways, I think his common-sense approach is right on the money. He writes, "Our current pizza revival, with all the attitude, manifestos, and "secrets" (the flour! the water! the oven!), is amusing. Just start with good bread dough and a very hot baking stone, and you will end up with a great pizza." He's right, too. Get a handle on his Basic Country Bread recipe, and making amazing pizza at home is a snap. Seriously.

**** I, like so many others, was first inspired to find real French pain au levain after reading a profile of the late Lionel Poilâne in the pages of Smithsonian Magazine back in 1995 (you can find the abstract to the article here). I say "find," because for some reason, it never really occurred to me that I could make it at home. At least, not with a proper crust. Anyway, that article was a revelation, and it set me on a path to locate such bread so that I could taste what Poilâne was describing, but, more than anything, what I remember about the article was a photograph of a slice of his bread being held up to the light to show off its open structure.

***** For instance, the Whole-wheat Bread recipe (which is in process as I write) lists 20 grams of salt, but is unclear on when to add it. Whereas the Basic Country Bread recipe adds the salt (and a bit more water) to the dough after an initial resting period, the Whole-wheat Bread recipe, which requires more water because whole-wheat flour has a higher absorbency than white flour, adds all the water at once, and never mentions when to add the salt. Like many of the other recipes in the book, the Whole-wheat Bread recipe is a variation on the Basic Country Bread, and after a few different steps early on, it advises readers to "[follow] steps 5 through 9" of the Basic Country Bread recipe. Unfortunately, step 4 of the Basic Country Bread recipe is the one where the salt is added. Anyway, if you've worked through the Tartine method enough times, you figure it out.

AEB @ CBC

fig. a: Michelle! Live!! On Air!!!

Actually, it was more like "MM @ CBC," because that's where Michelle was to be found today at about 7:40 am: on air, with the CBC's Jeanette Kelly. I was in-studio, too, but only to lend moral support (and to snap a photograph or two).

The occasion? Well, Michelle has a cooking class on candied fruits and how to use them tomorrow evening at Dépanneur Le Pick Up, and when the good folks at All in a Weekend caught wind, they asked her down to the studio to say a few words about candied fruits, holiday baking, being in the restaurant biz, and how she got into this pastry chef racket in the first place.

If you're thinking to yourself, "what's the point of telling us after the fact?," well, Michelle specifically asked me not to advertise her guest spot on AEB. She told me she was shy. Then she went ahead and tweeted all about it, unbeknownst to me. Go figure.

Anyway, I bring up the matter only to tell you that if you're interested in taking Michelle's class, you might still be able to. The class was SOLD OUT, but as of this morning, there was one spot available because some unlucky soul had to cancel. So if you contact Natasha at "natasha DOT pickowicz AT gmail DOT com"--in a hurry!--you might just be able to join us for the fun. And, if you missed this morning's broadcast, our friend Graham at "All in a Weekend" told us that they'd be archiving Michelle's interview later this week, so we should be able to post the link sometime soon.

How'd the interview go? Great. Michelle was a little more buttoned-down than usual, and 7:40am is a little early for a pastry chef/night owl like her, but she loved talking to Jeanette, and Jeanette really enjoyed talking to Michelle, and the fact that Michelle brought in some treats (ginger cookies!) didn't hurt either.

Can't make the class? Missed the radio show? Feeling shut out? Well, you can find an AEB-approved recipe for panforte (with candied fruit) here.

Now we're back at home, having a coffee, enjoying the morning, and listening to Michael Hurley sing about having tea and listening to the CBC...

aj

Relatively Quick Breads 2: Boston Brown Bread

A few days later, I was rereading John Thorne's wonderful chapter on baked beans from Serious Pig for the umpteenth time, when I suddenly realized that I'd never done anything other than gloss over his brief section on Boston Brown Bread that appears roughly midway through the chapter. I'd read the beginning of the chapter, of course, and the last several pages of the chapter--"A Note On Maine Bean Types," "First Find Your Bean Pot," and "Bean Hole Beans" (Thorne is nothing if not thorough)--but, inexplicably, I'd always just skipped over the section on Boston Brown Bread. Not this time, though. This time I read the Boston Brown Bread section closely and I could hardly believe what I was reading. The combination is an unlikely one, and Thorne draws attention to this: "At first, theirs seems a strange alliance. Brown bread, a chocolate-colored, raisin-studded soda bread made of whole wheat, rye, and "injun" [corn meal] is just as soft, dense, and carbohydrate-heavy as baked beans themselves--and yet, somehow, the two manage to paly off, even enhance, each other's goodness." But what really caught me by surprise was that Boston Brown Bread is traditionally a steamed bread--and one that's most commonly steamed in a coffee can.

fig. a: clean, empty coffee can

Like everyone and their brother, I knew about Boston Baked Beans. Like a lot of people, I'd heard of Boston Brown Bread. But somehow I never got the message that Boston Brown Bread gets steamed on the stovetop (in a can!) while your pot of Boston Baked Beans bakes in the oven. Talk about "Yankee ingenuity."

I'd already decided that I needed to make Boston Brown Bread that very night--after all, my Down East Baked Beans were baking in the oven and they still had a good 3-4 hours to go--but when Michelle got home I asked her what she knew about Boston Brown Bread. "What do I know about Boston Brown Bread?," she asked. "I've been wanting to make it since I was a kid, that's what." Turns out that at roughly the same age that I was obsessing over Johnny Cake down south of the border, Michelle was north of the border, dreaming of Boston Brown Bread. When I told her I was thinking of making it that very night, she got pretty excited. I had no problem convincing her to run off to the health food store for rye flour while I went to the supermarket in search of molasses, buttermilk, and a 1-pound coffee can.

15 minutes later we reconvened and Michelle started to assemble the dough while I got to work on the coleslaw (the third part of Thorne's baked beans trinity).

Boston Brown Bread

1/2 cup rye flour
1/2 cup cornmeal, preferably white flint
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbsp fancy molasses (not blackstrap)
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup raisins or dried currants
butter for greasing a 1-pound coffee can

About 2 1/2 hours before your baked beans will be ready, bring a large kettle of water to a boil. In a mixing bowl, stir together the rye flour, cornmeal, whole-wheat flour, baking soda, and salt until well mixed. Pour in the molasses and buttermilk, and work into a smooth batter. Fold in the raisins or dried currants [raisins are traditional, but Thorne prefers currants]. Carefully butter the inside of your empty, clean 1-pound coffee can (a 14-oz can will do). Pour in the batter and cover the can with a doubled piece of aluminum foil. Press this down so that it stretches tightly across the top and reaches partially down the sides, and secure it in place with a sturdy rubber band.

Put a small wire rack (if available) on the bottom of a deep pot. Set the filled coffee can on the rack or simply set it on the bottom of the pot. Pour the boiling water around the can

fig. b: adding the boiling water to the pot

until it reaches a little more than halfway up the sides. Bring the water back up to a murmuring simmer, cover the pot, and gently steam the bread for 2 hours, or until a straw inserted in the middle of the bread comes out clean. Remove, set on a cake rack, and let cool until the beans are ready to serve, then unmould the bread and serve warm. Brown bread is traditionally cut with a string, but dental floss works well too.

fig. c: still life with Boston Brown Bread, a coffee can, and dental floss

Serve buttered, alongside--or, if you prefer, under--the baked beans.

Makes 1 loaf of delicious Boston Brown Bread.

Total time: about 2 1/2 hours.

John Thorne has never let us down. Fresh, hot Boston Brown Bread with butter + baked beans was a revelation. I'd always been partial to sourdough with my baked beans previously, but now it's going to be hard to go back. And Boston Brown Bread is much more than just a sidekick to your baked beans--it makes for an ideal loaf of morning bread too. Again, all you need to do is toast it and add butter, the bread does the rest.

With a cooking time of 2 hours, Boston Brown Bread can hardly be accused of being the quickest quick bread, but it's one of the easiest, most satisfying bread recipes you'll ever find, and it's hard for me to imagine a better recipe to get kids interested in cooking. Think about it: piping-hot homemade bread in only 2 1/2 hours. Plus, when was the last time you steamed a loaf of bread? In a coffee can, no less.

aj

Breakfast Week 3: Soda Bread & Scones (& Mineola Marmalade, too)

Irish Soda Bread

Just when you thought we'd forgotten and moved on... Breakfast Week 2006 continues (and concludes)...

For some reason we were possessed to celebrate St. Patrick's Day this year, so we threw an Irish brunch. Between the two of us we have exactly one ounce of Irish blood (I've been known to claim 1/32nd or 1/64th Irish heritage, though the facts behind this claim are sketchy to say the least). Our guests didn't exactly amount to the Hibernian League either. One of them started spouting off about having Black Irish blood midway through the afternoon, but that was only after the whiskey started getting passed around. Stranger still, we threw our St. Patrick's Day brunch two days after St. Patrick's Day, on Sunday the 19th.

Okay, maybe our St. Patrick's Day brunch wasn't that big of a mystery. We'd both been reading the Saveur special issue on Ireland intently, and Montreal is home to one of the oldest St. Patrick's Day parades in all of North America, and this year's parade (the 182nd) was held on Sunday the 19th, and we were looking to have some folks over for brunch anyway, so I guess things did kind of add up. Neither of us really buy that old line about everyone being Irish on St. Patrick's Day, and we're not real big on face-painting or those big green Madhatter's hats you unfortunately see dudes wearing from time to time around March 17th these days. We love a good breakfast, though, and we're all for the Irish culinary renaissance, so we threw a brunch instead.

The menu:
freshly baked Irish soda bread
butter
boiled eggs
colcannon cakes
Irish salmon gravlax
sour cream with Zubrowka
triple ginger scones
mineola marmalade
Irish breakfast tea
Irish whiskey

The menu was a big hit. The warm loaves of Irish Soda Bread were a great way to get things started right--they were a perfect morning bread: quick, simple, a bit rustic, satisfying. As people started to tear into the gravlax we served the colcannon cakes and the boiled eggs. The colcannon cakes are a great way to make use of leftover colcannon from the corned beef feast you might have had the night before and they made a nice break from hash browns or homefries--and, as it turns out, they were particularly good with the Zubrowka-laced sour cream, which had been meant exclusively for the gravlax. Aside from "Irish tea"--tea with cream, sugar, and a shot of Jameson's--we finished the meal with a 1-2 punch that would have made Jack Dempsey blush: Triple Ginger Scones and Mineola Marmalade.

Our Irish Soda Bread/Breakfast Bread recipe came from the March 2003 issue of Saveur, which also had an extensive spread on Ireland.

Irish Soda Bread/Breakfast Bread

2 3/4 C bread flour
2 3/4 C whole wheat flour
1 3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp butter, softened
2 3/4 C buttermilk
1 egg
2 tsp pinhead oatmeal

Preheat your oven to 350° F. Whisk the bread flour, whole wheat flour, baking soda, and salt together in a large mixing bowl. Using your fingers, work the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse meal. Gradually add the buttermilk, stirring with a wooden spoon until the dough comes together.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Dust your hads with flour and knead the dough with the heels of your hands until the dough is semi-smooth. This should take about 1 minute. Divide the dough in half. Shape each piece of dough into a 6" round. Cut each dough round into 3 equal triangles and arrange on a large ungreased baking sheet 3-4 inches apart.

Beat the egg and 1 tsp of water together in a small bowl. Using a pastry brush, brush the tops of the triangles with the egg wash and sprinkle each with a little oatmeal.

Bake the loaves until deep golden brown and hollow sounding when tapped, about 1 hour. Set aside on a wire rack to cool for at least 15 minutes before serving.

Triple Ginger Scones

This is one of Michelle's favorite recipes. They're delicious and they always turn out perfectly, but be careful because they also have the power to bring people to tears (tears of joy, thankfully). The recipe she uses is a slight variation on Rose Levy Beranbaum's Rich and Creamy Ginger Scones from The Bread Bible. Michelle's annotated the recipe in her copy as follows: "the best." Enough said.

Rich and Creamy Ginger Scones, a.k.a. Triple Ginger Scones

12 tbsp unsalted butter, cold
3/4 cup heavy cream
2 cups unbleached flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp grated lemon zest
1 tsp grated ginger
2/3 cup crystallized ginger, cut into 1/4 inch pieces

topping:
2 tsp heavy cream
1 tbsp sugar

Cut the butter into 3/4-inch cubes and refrigerate for a minimum of 1/2 an hour, until very firm. Whip the cream until soft peaks form when the beater is lifted. Cover and place in the refrigerator.

30 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 400° F. Place an oven rack at the middle level and set your baking stone or baking sheet on it before preheating.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, ground ginger, salt, grated ginger, and lemon zest. Add the butter and rub it between your fingers until the mixture resembles fine meal. Stir in the crystallized ginger. Make a well in the center of the mixture. Add the whipped cream to teh well and, with a rubber spatula or a dough scraper, stir the flour mixture into the cream until all of it is moistened. Knead the dough in the bowl just until it holds togeter, then turn it our onto a lightly floured counter. Knead it about 8 times, until you can shaped it into a smooth ball.

Cut the dough in half. Shape each half into a smooth ball, press it into a 3/4-inch-thick disk about 6 inches in diameter, and wrap well with plastic wrap. Freeze for 15 minutes, or refrigerate for 1 hour.

With a long sharp knife, cut each disk into 6 or 8 wedges. Brush the tops with the heavy cream and sprinkle evenly with the sugar. Lift the wedges onto the prepared baking sheets, leaving at least 1 1/2 inches between them.

Place the pan on the hot baking stone or baking sheet and bake the scones for 15-20 minutes, until the edges begin to brown and the tops are golden brown and firm enough so that they barely give when pressed lightly with a finger. Check the scones after 10 minutes of baking, and they are not browning evenly, rotate the baking sheet from front to back. Do not overbake. They will continue to bake slightly when you remove them from the oven and they're best when slightly moist and soft inside. With a spatula, transfer the scones to a wire rack to cool completely.

Once again, these scones turned out wonderfully. They were amazing just by their lonesome, maybe even a little bit better with some additional butter, and possibly even better still with a little of Michelle's mineola marmalade. Of course, the marmalade was pretty impressive on the soda bread, too.

Mineola Marmalade

If you're not familiar with Mineolas, they're one of the new citruses on the block. Part of the tangelo family, all of which are tangerines crossed with some other citrus fruit, Mineolas are tangerines crossed with grapefruit. This recipe is very straight-forward and it works like a charm. Making marmalade has never been so easy. This recipe produces a sweet-sour preserve with none of the pithy bitterness most "serious" marmalade lovers prize. Mineola marmalade is a perfect preserve for kids or those trying to build themselves up slowly to "serious" marmalade snobdom.

Mineola Marmalade

400 g Mineolas
200 g sugar
1 lemon, juiced

Boil the Mineolas in enough water to cover in a medium-sized widemouth saucepan for 1 1/2 hours. Drain, chop finely, add the sugar and the lemon juice and boil gently, stirring frequently, until the setting point. Place in sterilized jars and can.

Mineola season is just about over. Act fast.

am/km

Breakfast Week 2: Panettone and Panettone French Toast

A couple of days later, Michelle got up, took a look out the window, and decided she was making panettone. She'd never made panettone before, but her friend Ana had once again given her some phenomenal candied fruit from Cancun, and Michelle thought they might go to go use in a panettone.

The recipe she turned to was from Bon Appétit and it had the advantage of being a recipe that could be made in the space of a few hours, as opposed to the full day needed for most traditional versions. It also involved saffron, and we had good quality saffron on hand that was just begging to be used.

Saffron Panettone with Mexican Candied Fruit

1 cup whole milk
8 green cardamom pods
1/8 tsp crumbled saffron threads
2 envelopes active dry yeast
1 tsp plus 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, brought to room temperature
4 large eggs
3/4 tsp salt
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups high quality candied fruit*
1 egg white, beaten
8 sugar cubes, coarsely crushed

Mix the milk, cardamom pods, and saffron in small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Swirl pan around a bit to spread the saffron, its color, and its flavor fully. Remove the saucepan from the heat. Cover and let steep until a thermometer inserted into this mixture registers 110°F. This takes about 20 minutes.

Strain milk mixture into the bowl of a standing mixer. Sprinkle yeast and 1 teaspoon of sugar over the milk mixture. Let stand until the yeast is dissolved and the mixture is foamy. This'll take about 10 minutes. Mix in remaining 1/2 cup sugar, the butter, 4 eggs, and the salt. Add 2 cups of flour and beat on low speed until smooth. Increase speed to medium. Gradually add 2 1/2 cups flour and beat until smooth. Beat in candied orange peel and raisins. Continue beating until dough pulls away from sides of bowl "in long stretchy strands." This should take about 3 minutes and the dough should be sticky. Butter a large bowl. Scrape the dough into the bowl and cover with plastic wrap, then with a towel. Let rise in a warm, draft-free area (not the easiest thing in this apartment at this time of year) until doubled. This stage should take about 2 hours.

Butter a 10" x 4" angel food cake pan. Using a rubber spatula, press lightly on the dough to release some air. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, the form it into 18- to 20-inch rope. Transfer to a prepared pan and wrap around center tube, pushing and pinching the ends together and pressing the top of the dough slightly with rubber spatula to try to distribute it as evenly as possible. [As you can see in the photo up top, Michelle used traditional panettone wrappers that she found at a local professional kitchen supply store, and she made two panettones instead.] Cover it loosely with plastic wrap, then a towel. Let the dough rise again in a warm, draft-free area until almost doubled. This stage should take another 45 minutes.

Position an oven rack in the center of oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. Brush the top of the dough with your beaten egg white. Sprinkle the panettone with crushed sugar cubes. Bake until golden brown and a knife inserted near the center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool in pan on rack for about 30 minutes. Turn out onto a rack to cool completely.

This panettone serves about 10-12.

*Bon Appétit's original version calls for 1 cup candied orange peel and 1 cup golden raisins instead.

How did it look? Well, just take a look at the pictures above and below. Pretty, huh?



How did it taste? We found that this abbreviated panettone-making process resulted in a panettone that had a very nice taste to it--the saffron and the Mexican candied fruit gave it an impressive depth, even a warmth--but wasn't as fine as the panettones we pick up from local Italian specialty stores for Christmas. So it might not have had that "professional" finish to it, but we really liked it all the same. It was excellent with morning and/or afternoon coffee, but it was even better the next day as French toast.



When it comes to French Toast, unless we're cooking for guests, we always use a halved version of an Annie Somerville recipe. The full version reads as follows:

French Toast

4 eggs
1 cup half-and-half (C'mon, live a little!) or milk
2 tbsp sugar
Zest of 1 orange, minced
1/8 tsp true cinnamon, preferably freshly ground
large pinch or two of grated nutmeg (optional)
8 slices of challah or sourdough bread (we used 4 slices of panettone instead)
unsalted butter for the pan

Beat the eggs, half-and-half or milk, the sugar, the zest, and the cinnamon (and the nutmeg, if you've decided to go that route) together in a shallow bowl. Transfer to a shallow dish. Soak each slice of bread in the mixture until moist and soaked through, but don't allow them to get overly soggy.

Melt enough butter in a large skillet to coat the pan. When the butter begins to sizzle, add as many slices of bread as will fit. Cook over medium heat until the bread is lightly browned on each side, making sure that the slices are cooked through. Repeat as needed.

Serves four.

aj

On "Saturday Afternoon Bread" and New York-Style Rye

Between the two of us, we had some limited experience with baking bread at home and even a little professional experience*, but when Michelle decided that she wanted to get into bread baking more seriously almost a year and a half ago now, she discovered that it was even more demanding than she’d imagined. She started to collect some of the essential literature on the subject, she did a lot of reading, and she acquired things like a proper baking stone, she even got some help from a professional when it came to her sourdough starter, and all of these preparations resulted in some very good loaves of bread, but the loaves were few and far between, and the problem had to do with fitting complicated methods into a busy life. Because of this, Michelle felt vindicated when she came across a review of a half-dozen of the top North American books on bread baking in the last issue of The Art of Eating (#70) by no less of an authority than James MacGuire, the Montreal-based professional who owned and ran Le Passe-Partout for over 20 years and who now lectures at the CIA (not “the Company,” the other one), among other places. MacGuire’s generous review encompasses everything from a comparison of baking habits in North America and Europe, to a brief history of the challenges encountered by the North American artisanal bread baking movement that began in the 1980s, but for the most part he carefully examines each of the titles under discussion, and doesn’t mince words in his appraisals. MacGuire notes serious problems with most of the books reviewed, and some books even get a drubbing, but one of his biggest gripes has to do with how overly and (in some cases) needlessly complicated these bread books tend to be. He quips that with some of these books, “the necessary dedication might lie somewhere between that required by a serious hobby and a minor religion,” before singling out Nancy Silverton’s Breads from the La Brea Bakery: Recipes for the Connoisseur: “in one recipe she suggests that readers begin work at six o’clock on Saturday morning in order to have the loaves ready by about ten o’clock that night.” What mystifies MacGuire is that most of these books are both overly technical and riddled with inaccuracies and, from time to time, outright mistakes, and he ends up pointing out that there the market is sorely in need of something that’s both solidly grounded and practical:

Missing from the lineup is a short book that someone could use to bake a few loaves of bread on a Saturday afternoon, a book that would explain what is genuinely essential but still leave room for chores, errands, or even a nap.

With all this in mind, we’ve recently decided three things: that we want to bake bread more often, that we want to bake bread together, and that we want to focus on recipes that are manageable. Oh, and if we can bake something that’s hard to find or altogether missing from the local bread market (believe me, as good as Montreal’s bread can be at times, this isn’t difficult), all the better. That’s why we made our first experiment as part of this new order rye bread. We’re both serious about our caraway rye, and if there’s really a serious rye available in Montreal at present, neither of us know of it. It’s certainly been a while now since there was a true European-style rye bread (MacGuire describes these as having a minimum of 60-65% rye flour) available in Montreal, but these days it’s even hard to find a good North American-style rye (20-30% rye flour). In fact, I'd be surprised if your average Montreal rye loaf (the kind of stuff they use for the smoked meat sandwiches at Schwartz's, say) has more than 10-15% rye flour. Try to find a good caraway rye and your success rate bottoms out entirely.

After consulting a number of recipes, we settled on Rose Levy Beranbaum’s recipe from her The Bread Bible. Now, MacGuire reviewed this book, of course, and he criticized it for “pseudoscientific precision” as well as for “an admissibly low” ratio of rye to wheat flour “for anything approaching real rye bread,” but we’d decided that weren’t even going to try to make a true European-style rye, that we wanted to make a New York-style rye with plenty of caraway seeds, and we wanted to be able to make our loaf within a matter of a few hours (more or less). We liked the way Beranbaum’s recipe read and it met all the above criteria.



“Levy’s” Real Jewish Rye Bread

note: keep in mind that we’ve only included the directions for the electric mixer version of this recipe. Michelle got a brand-new KitchenAid mixer for Christmas, so she might as well use it, right?

special equipment: a half sheet pan, sprinkled with cornmeal (Michelle used a piece of parchment instead)

a baking stone OR baking sheet

a mixer

Sponge:

3/4 cup bread flour
3/4 cup rye flour
1/2 tsp instant yeast
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tbsp malt flour
1 1/2 cups water (at room temperature, 70º F to 90º F)

In a mixer bowl or other large bowl, place the flour (both kinds), yeast, sugar, malt, and water. Whisk until very smooth, to incorporate air, 2 minutes. The starter will be the consistency of a thick batter. Scrape the sides of the bowl. Set aside covered with plastic wrap while you make the flour mixture.

Flour mixture:

2 1/4 cups bread flour
1/2 tsp + 1/8 tsp instant yeast
2 tbsp caraway seeds
1/2 tbsp salt
1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tsp cornmeal for sprinkling

Combine the ingredients for the flour mixture and add to the sponge. In a large bowl, whisk together the bread flour, rye flour, yeast, caraway seeds, and salt. Gently scoop it onto the sponge to cover it completely. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and allow it to ferment for 1 to 4 hours at room temperature. (The sponge will bubble through the flour mixture in places while you’re waiting. Don’t worry, this is fine.)

Add the oil and mix with the dough hook on low speed (#2 on a KitchenAid) for about 1 minute, until the flour is moistened enough to form a rough dough. Raise the speed to medium (#4 on a KitchenAid) and mix for 10 minutes. The dough should be very smooth and elastic, and it should jump back when pressed with a fingertip. If the dough is at all sticky, turn it out onto a counter and knead in a little extra flour. (The dough will weigh about 2 pounds, 1.7 ounces.

Now it’s time to let the dough rise. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and press it down to flatten it slightly. Round the dough into a ball about 5 1/2 inches by 2 1/2 inches high and set it on the cornmeal sprinkled baking sheet (or parchment paper). Cover it with a large container or oiled plastic wrap. Let the dough rise until almost doubled, about 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes. It will be about 7 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inches high, and when pressed gently with a fingertip the depression will very slowly fill in.

Preheat the oven to 450º F one hour before baking.

With a sharp knife or single-edged razor blade, make 1/4- to 1/2-inch-deep slashes in the top of the dough. Mist the dough with water and quickly but gently set the baking sheet on the hot stone or hot baking sheet (if you use parchment paper, just slide the loaf onto the hot baking sheet directly). Bake for 15 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 400º F and continue baking for 30 to 40 minutes or until the bread is golden brown and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean (an instant thermometer inserted into the center will read about 190º F).

Remove the bread from the oven, and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Being fans of a hearty, full-flavored rye, we followed Beranbaum’s “Ultimate Full Flavor Variation,” which meant that we allowed the sponge to ferment for 1 hour at room temperature, then refrigerated it for almost 24 hours.

Because Canadian unbleached all-purpose flour is higher in gluten than its U.S. counterpart, and therefore a lot closer to bread flour than it would be in the States, we opted to use it instead of bread flour. Michelle feels like she’s already got too many different types of flour on hand without having to buy yet another one.

Also, Beranbaum actually recommends a method whereby a cast-iron skillet or sheet pan is placed on the floor of the oven, then filled with 1/2 cup of ice cubes at the point when you begin baking the bread (the skillet or sheet pan should be pre-heated, of course). This method adds steam to the baking environment and makes for a better crust. We would love to use this method ourselves, but our oven won’t allow for it. Our crust turned out wonderfully anyway.

As indicated earlier, Beranbaum’s rye is very much a New York rye, not at all like the rich, dark ryes I got used to when I lived in Germany (and which Michelle quickly fell in love with when she came to visit). It’s got a good rye flavor, if a subtle one, and it contains just the perfect amount of caraway. It’s also remarkably sweet—not cloyingly sweet, mind you, but it’s definitely got a perkiness to it. That being said, this is an excellent loaf, and one that’s very manageable. I wouldn’t quite characterize it as a “Saturday afternoon bread,” but it’s pretty close.

Just how good is this rye? Well, Michelle’s mom (a.k.a. Helen) danced after she tasted the 1/2 loaf Michelle brought to her. Helen doesn’t suffer poor loaves of rye gladly and she doesn't dance very often, so that's saying something.

Next up: true pumpernickel.

As for that "as yet unwritten Saturday afternoon bread book"--if only MacGuire would write it. Just imagine.

aj

*Ha, ha. That’s a laugh—I was the temporary, fill-in bread baker at a vegetarian take-out restaurant in London in the early 1990s. I had some previous experience in the kitchen, so I did a reasonable job. I did make improvements to the house cornbread recipe, though, using my American know-how. When the regular bread baker came back from “vacation” (he’d had a nervous breakdown), I was moved to food prep in the kitchen because they liked me and I was competent. I remember that the regular bread baker was a bit difficult, prone to frustration and fits of rage. The rumor was that he had a plate in his head, and that when things got hot (literally) in the kitchen/bakery, well…

Hello, Greengage plum butter

Well, that jar of Baby Crawford peach jam from Andy’s Orchard disappeared in a hurry, and we had such a good time with it that we decided to bust out another of our California souvenirs. This time, however, we didn’t open up one of our can-as-you-go specials (although we do have a couple of those kicking around), we opted instead for one of the beauties Michelle bought directly from June Taylor last August, the day she got her personal workshop: Greengage plum.

We were familiar with the lore that surrounds Greengages, but neither of us had actually ever tried one until we visited Andy’s. Greengage season was effectively over by the time we got our tour of Andy’s Orchard, but Mr. Marinari managed to rustle up a few specimens for us nonetheless, even if they were past their prime in his eyes. Like everything else we had at Andy’s, they were outrageously good, so much better than Andy’s disclaimers would have led you to believe, and easily among the very best plums we’ve ever had. Obviously, this had a lot to do with Andy’s Orchard and the way they were cultivated, but it also had a lot to do with the variety itself, whose perfectly rounded honey-sweetness is the stuff of legends.

Alan Davidson notes that the Greengage originated in Armenia, by most accounts, but that the variety had reached France by the time of the reign of François I, where it was received very warmly indeed and was soon named after François’ wife, “Reine Claude,” the name by which the variety is still known to this day in that part of the world. By the early 18th century the variety had been introduced to England, where it also took hold, and where it became known as the Greengage (or Green Gage) because of its color and because of Sir Thomas Gage, who was one of the earliest horticulturists to develop the variety on English soil, having purchased a number of fruit trees from the monks of Chartreuse, one of which turned out to be a Reine Claude plum tree. Our favorite fruit book of the moment, The Fruits and Fruit Trees of America by A.J. Dowling (1845), lists numerous other varieties of plum bearing the name “Gage,” including Autumn Gage, Bleecker’s Gage, Hudson Gage, Imperial Gage, and Yellow Gage, but the Greengage is the one that predated all the rest and the one that has largely outlasted the rest, and in both cases the reason has to do with its famous taste. Dowling goes so far as to write, “The Green Gage is universally admitted to hold the first rank in flavour among all plums, and is every where highly esteemed… It is pronounced… the best plum in England, and we must admit that we have no superiour to it here [in New York],” and he describes its fruit as “exceedingly melting and juicy” with a “flavour, at once, sprightly and very luscious.” We couldn’t agree more. Davidson, for his part, has the following somewhat contradictory comments to make: “Greengages, being the finest of dessert plums, should be enjoyed in their natural state. They also make the most luxurious of plum jams.” We were lucky enough to have had them both ways, but opening a jar of Greengage plum butter in February (on a –20 C night, no less) was like a godsend.

So much so, that we decided to celebrate their unveiling.

1. We brewed ourselves a pot of tea to accompany our reading material.



2. We put the finishing touches on a loaf of rye bread [recipe soon to follow], then baked it in the oven.



3. And, finally, we slathered butter and generous amounts of the Greengage plum butter on our still-warm slices of bread.



No question about it. This was the best dessert I’ve had in weeks (sounds crazy, I know, but you're going to have to trust me on this one). I remember June Taylor telling us about how she often feels stumped when asked for recommendations on how to use her wonderful line of jams and butters. Look no further, June.

aj

More sourdough experiments

Loaf of freshly baked sourdough
Originally uploaded by michelle1975.

My sourdough starter has been through its share of ups and downs: being neglected in the fridge, dropped on the floor (in a container), used daily and then not for months... In spite of it all, it is still alive and well after a program of twice daily feedings for a few days, and I spent much of the day trying to convince it to become a loaf of bread. I tried a new recipe from The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum and was shocked to see how much it differed from the King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion ones that I've been using. The texture is totally different. Where King Arthur's breads were fine-crumbed, sweet and dense, this one is full of big holes, tangy and light. Almost too light, in fact, for my taste. It turned out as I think it was supposed to, though. She has a rye caraway that I'm dying to try, as well as a pumpernickel, which also sounds perfect.

Baking bread is a wonderful thing, but when you work with sourdough you really need to stay around the house all day as it requires all sorts of folds and it needs to rise every hour or two. This makes it "inconvenient" for modern on-the-go lifestyles, especially now that the weather has turned lovely, tempting one to drop everything and run outside. I am curious to move on to some yeast breads to see if it would eat up less of the day. I'm sure they are faster, but are they better?

m

My first successful sourdough

DSC00798
Originally uploaded by michelle1975.

It came out of the oven last weekend.
I was like a proud mother... My bread was perfect (to me, at least).
Some (guess who?) said it needed salt, it could have been more sour, it could have been more uniformly shaped...
I listened and took these things into consideration, but this one... It was perfect.
My first.
More soon.

m