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Collaborative baking challenge from Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day

andrew_cookbooker's picture
andrew_cookbooker

Collaborative baking challenge from Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day

Hi all:

I'm working with Peter Reinhart and his publisher, Ten Speed Press, to do a collaborative recipe reviewing challenge, sort of a Julie & Julia meets 'crowdsourcing' for Peter's newest book Artisan Breads Every Day. It's all being coordinated through www.cookbooker.com, my website for cookbookphiles. I'd be delighted if any Peter Reinhart fans would like to take part.

It's quite simple - everyone who contributes a review of one of the recipes in the book adds to the collaboration, and all going well, we'll have collectively baked the entire book, making this a useful resource for everyone who owns the book and is curious about recipes they've not yet tried.

Ten Speed Press is giving away some copies of James Peterson's Baking as prizes for best written review, best photo, etc.

I checked with Floyd, who gave me the thumbs up to post this on TFL - this was the first place I thought of to try to spread the word, considering how dedicated everyone is to baking and talking about baking. 

Full details are here: www.cookbooker.com/challenge.php

 

Frequent Flyer's picture
Frequent Flyer

and have a couple of reviews posted.

FF

andrew_cookbooker's picture
andrew_cookbooker

Great to see! I've got a quick question about the 100% WW Sandwich bread, which you had success with - I just made it and it didn't have any oven spring at all. It tastes great, but I'm wondering if it's my using stone ground Red Fife (I remember a thread about someone with similar problems from last year). I'll try it again with 'regular' WW and also with some vital wheat gluten added, as Peter mentions this in the recipe as an option. Did you use any?

Frequent Flyer's picture
Frequent Flyer

I ran out of gluten weeks and weeks ago and have not found it locally yet.  So, I have used it and I have not used it with no more than regular variability in rising.  I typically let the shaped loaves proof beyond what Peter calls for (to twice the volume).  I get light loaves that way but the yeast has "sprung" while proofing and doesn't spring much in the oven. 

One exception was with the loaves in the picture.  That's a long story, but I used a sponge that spent the night in the fridge.  I mixed the remaining flour in and let the (ugly) dough hydrate the flour for 2 hours.  I then added the remaining yeast, all the salt, egg, sugar, and oil and fermented, shaped, proofed and baked.  I tried to repeat this last weekend, but the rise was good, but not huge.  Those loaves they were still good, light loaves.  I guess the one time was a fluke. 

andrew_cookbooker's picture
andrew_cookbooker

Wow, those really are much bigger than mine. I'll try letting them rise more before baking next time and see what happens; also add some gluten. Good point about the oven spring.

Now I'm just making a batch of Pain a L'Ancienne from the book to make baguettes tomorrow. He's definitely tweaked that recipe a bit and I'm curious to see how it will turn out compared to the old recipe from BBA, which is a personal fave.

Boboshempy's picture
Boboshempy

I just posted this a couple days ago:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/16189/pr%E2%80%99s-brown-sugar-cinnamon-babka

Tell me if you are interested in me writing up a review for it.

Thanks,

Nick

andrew_cookbooker's picture
andrew_cookbooker

Go for it! There's no issue with it appearing somewhere else - the idea is to try to cook the entire book, so every little bit helps. Peter said that the babka is one of his favourites from the book, and it looks very tasty in your photos. I'll be trying my hand at that one soon too.

 

andrew_cookbooker's picture
andrew_cookbooker

Just a quick update for anyone interested - thanks to the Fresh Loafers who've signed on for this. We've got 17 reviews now, which is great for the first week. And there are lots of recipes left unreviewed for anyone interested in collaborating. Myself, I'm going to make some Hot Cross Buns soon, and I have a seed culture just starting up for some sourdough experiments (not that I can win any prizes, but it's a great excuse to try some new recipes and stretch my baking skills).

andrew_cookbooker's picture
andrew_cookbooker

A final update - the Cookbooker Challenge with Peter Reinhart is almost over. We've managed to bake our way through almost the entire book, but there are still a few recipes left to knock off.

Remaining are:

Sourdough Pizza Dough
Challa
Crusty Cheese Bread
Croissants & Chocolate Croissants
Danish Pastry

If you have a hankering to try your hand, you have until April 12th to do so: www.cookbooker.com/challenge.php