Benito's blog

This is the season to bake for friends and people who make your life better.  This recipe was for a Bundt.  Bundts are rather awkward to walk with especially during the winter.  So instead I baked this in two pullman pans.  I didn’t get a chance to try any, but I plan on baking this again in the coming week for a dinner party.  Reports from people who did eat it said they loved it.  Then again, since they didn’t have to bake it, what else would they say?  LOL.

Finally back from a lovely vacation.  I did a Locum for the past week and finally had a chance to bake.  I haven’t baked a chocolate bread in ages, I love chocolate and tart cherries, so this chocolate sourdough focaccia with tart cherries and sugared rosemary was born.  This is a variant of my recent focaccia, however, it has unsweetened cocoa powder, semi sweetened dark chocolate chunks, dried tart cherries and a small amount of sugar in the dough.  Surprisingly the sugared rosemary is actually quite yummy and goes well with this focaccia.

I saw a recipe for a rose pizza sauce and followed that as an idea for this pizza with some changes.  I prefer prosciutto to genoa salami and added sautéed spinach for some extra colour.  I’m quite pleased with how this turned out.  The whipped ricotta was lovely, if I were to make it again I’d add lemon zest to the whipped ricotta to make it a bit more complex.

Not too long ago I made Anko Mooncakes.  In making that, I made more Anko paste than I needed thinking that I’ll have a use for it eventually and it freezes well.  So as I do when I prepare a batch of mashed purple sweet potatoes, I froze 100 g portions of the anko paste in ziplock bags.  I always clean and reuse the ziplock bags as I don’t like single use plastic much.  

I’ve never made soft pretzels before or any bread where the dough is briefly cooked in a simmering alkaline water bath.  I saw this recipe for soft pretzels in Bake from Scratch and I had time this morning to try it out.  Pretty fast since it uses commercial yeast. 

I can’t believe it has been more than a hear since I last baked baguettes and even longer since I’ve made this formula.  I am definitely out of practice, the shaping wasn’t perfect but each successive one was better shaped than the previous.  I will need to do another bake in the nearish future to try to get the muscle memory back.  In the meantime, I’m not mad at this bake.  I particularly like the blistered and thin crisp crust.  They went very well with the Chicken Marbella Plums two ways that I made as the main course.

It had been a long time since I’ve baked a pie and we are having friends over for their birthday dinners tomorrow.  Using the rhubarb a good friend sends me each year from his country home I decided to make a rhubarb pie.  No other fruit just rhubarb.  I’ve actually never had a rhubarb only pie and thought it would be interesting to try.  The rhubarb filling is spiced with nutmeg and I’ve left it nice and tart but with a decent amount of sweetness.

The weather has finally cooled off a bit, enough for another attempt at Giorilli Panettone.  I also finally have some free time for the planning and baking now that I am between locum duties and trips.  I have my fingers crossed for this one.  I’m not sure if it will make a difference or not, but I had been skipping one of the steps of the shaping.  There is an extra shaping and tightening step right after an uncovered rest on the countertop that I wasn’t doing.  I have my doubts that it will make a difference but we’ll see.

I got my hands on my whole kamut recently.  I haven’t had any in quite some time.  I’ve always loved that sunny yellow hue it gives the crumb.  Similar to semolina, I find that sesame seeds really pair well with it.  I haven’t sliced it yet but wanted to post this anyways.  This one is another lean dough with a high pff at 40% which is now my standard for these types of Pullman loaves.  I love the tiny blisters on the crust, even along the sides where the crust was in contact with the pan.  I love how simple and stress free these bakes are.

I love moon cakes and these are the first ones that I made in celebration of the Mid Autumn Festival.  I don’t love the salted egg yolk that is traditionally in the middle of each moon cake to represent the moon, so I didn’t include these.  These are filled with homemade azuki bean paste which I make less sweet than commercially available azuki bean paste.  I just ate the cut one and they are truly delicious, just enough sweetness and a bit of texture from the paste as I didn’t blend it down.  The pastry is nice and short and crisp, yummy.