In March I travelled.  A lot.  My best guess is about 10,000 miles.  And, of course, when I travel I search for good bread.

First up was a trip to Vancouver for a Canucks game.  I did not get a change to go to all of the bakeries that folks here recommended, but at least I did get a chance to try Siegal's Montreal-style Bagels.

I don't know for certain that these are authentic Montreal-style bagels but fresh out of the oven they were delicious.  I will definitely be hitting Siegal's again the next time I'm up there... Perhaps for a playoff game in a couple of weeks!

Next up, a trip to Chicago for Drupalcon.

The conference was two blocks away from Fox & Obel, an upscale grocery store with a very good bakery in it.  The bakery was recently named one of the ten best bakeries in the US by Bon Appetit magazine.   I did not get a chance to take a photo of any of their breads, but their Olive Ciabatta rolls fueled much of my visit.  And of course I had to try a Chicago style pizza while I was there.  I had a veggie one from Bella Balcino's that was quite good... not a total gut bomb, which I could not handle a few hours before hopping on the plane home.

A quick trip home and back east to Washington DC.

Incredible weather, decent food, and the Presidential motorcade went past us twice close enough to see Obama's face.  Needless to say, my kids were thrilled.

After DC we went through Providence, RI.  I walked around the Johnson & Wales campus a bit and tried to go to a pizza joint that Peter Reinhart had recommended, but alas it it was closed on the night of the week we were there.

Final destination: Boston.

Mike's Pastry in the North End is famous for their cookies and cannoli.  The Cannoli were excellent but it was the pignoli cookies that really blew my mind.  I definitely intend to find a recipe for something like them soon.

And now we are back.  My starter survived just fine and made some lovely baguettes yesterday.

-Floyd

For some reason I wanted to make a loaf with a purple swirl... probably because purple is not a standard bread color, and I am not a standard bread man.  I tried this recipe and it turned out good. Just divide the recipe in half, and make two seperate doughs. For one of the doughs, replace the water with an equal amount of liquid from boiled red cabbage. I took a head of red cabbage, shredded it, then cooked it with 2 cups of water in a large pot for 30 minutes. Strain the liquid out, let it cool, and use it to make the purple half of the dough. 
Ingredients: (total for both doughs)

• 4 cups bread flour
• 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 1/4 cups water

Instructions: (remember you are making TWO doughs)

1. Combine all the dry ingredients (flour, yeast, salt) in the large bowl and stir with spoon for about 15 seconds.
2. Add water to the bowl and stir for about 1 or 2 minutes (it won’t look that good but that doesn’t matter).
3. Cover the top of the bowl loosely with plastic wrap.
4. Let sit on counter top for about 12 to 16 hours (I ussually do this for about 13 hours), the dough will look all bubbly on the top when done rising.
5. Generously sprinkle flour the top of your clean counter top or a cutting board (don’t worry about using too much flour, it won’t hurt it).
6. Slowly pour the dough from the bowl on to the floured surface, using the silicone spatula to help it peal off the sides of the bowl.
7. Sprinkle a little flour on top of the dough and rub your hands together with flour.
8. With you hands, gently stretch each dough out to a rectangle shape.
9. Lay the purple dough on top of the white dough.
10. Roll up the dough from one end to the other.
11. Place the dough into a lightly greased bread pan (seam side down).
12. Let dough rise till it is a bit above the top of the bread pan (about double in size or 1 to 1.5 hours).
13. Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees.
14. Place bread in the oven for 30 minutes.
15. Remove from oven, dump bread out on a cooling rack or your counter top and allow it to cool.

No detectable flavor from the cabbage, but the color just begs, "eat me!"

 

 

With St. Patrick's Day approaching I was asked whether I could bake some Irish Soda Breads for A & B Naturals, the store that sells my breads. Never having successfully baked one before - my first trial at King Arthur's "Whole Grain Soda Bread" ending in a brittle brick - I said, of course: "YES!"
"Yes" usually means that I know where to find a recipe, and, indeed, I remembered having seen one in "Cook's Illustrated". I studied the write-up for Irish Soda Bread to find out what had gone wrong with my prior misbegotten trial.
Mixing Irish Soda Bread has nothing in common with making regular breads. Apart from the right kind of flour - Irish white flour is quite low in protein, it has less gluten than American all-purpose flour - it doesn't require yeast but is leavened with baking soda.
Clueless about the true nature of this Irish tradition, I had given my King Arthur bread the usual treatment, kneading the heck out of it, adding more and more flour because it seemed too wet, and then cursing helplessly because, in spite of all my efforts, it strongly resisted being folded and shaped. What finally came out of the oven was a grainy, unappetizing brick that would have surely gone to the dogs if Buffy had already been with us.
Fortunately America's Test Kitchen never fails to take the scary out of cooking. Reading their introduction I understood that, with my uncouth handling, I had debilitated my hapless first trial bread. To achieve Soda Bread perfection the dough had to be mixed like muffin batter, barely allowing the ingredients to come together, before turning it out onto the counter and gently patting it into a round.
Enthusiastically I started preparing my first Classic Soda Bread, following the instruction. Everything went well until I emptied the bowl over the counter. The dough fell apart in larger and smaller lumps, and, also, shed quite a bit of loose flour. When I gingerly started turning it over, trying to capture the loose flour, a band of unruly crumbs broke free, rolling all over the counter.
When I finally managed coaxing all loose flour to stick, and herding back the crumbs that had gone AWOL, the sweat I broke was not only due to the oven heat.
While my bread was baking I looked through all those other Irish Soda Bread recipes I had gathered, and, also, consulted with Youtube. Did anybody know a way to make this procedure less of a crumbly challenge, more streamlined? For baking several loaves at one time? Even using a mixer?
What I read and saw was all hands-on only, even Jeffrey Hamelman described his experiences in Dublin as being "literally up to the elbows " in dough. The idea of handling a large batch of soda dough more likely to resist centripetal forces than submitting to them seemed rather daunting. Moreover, handling it with the gentlest touch!
My Irish Soda Bread turned out very nice, it was well worth the effort. And finally, I found at least a way to make it a little easier to bring the dough together without overworking it