It's week 8 in the Inside the Jewish Bakery Challenge - Semester 1. This week is Onion Rolls. Sadly, I'll be sitting out the next few dessert-heavy weeks.

Once my confusion over how to deal with the onion mix was clarified (thanks all) this proved to be an easy, fast bake (in terms of actual prep). My notes follow:

• I used 1 oz of the onion water and 9 oz plain water
• My egg was almost a full ounce heavier than called for
• I used 100% milled wheat, a 50/50 mix of hard red and hard white.
• My cooking time ended up being around 25 minutes.

These are tasty and the outside is crunchy. They aren't overpoweringly onion-y, which I'd been concerned about. I think the flavor would be improved if I make a soaker with the whole wheat next time and let it sit in the fridge overnight prior to adding yeast. I'll make them again for sure.

After the excesses of the  holidays, something warm and comforting and thrifty like soup and bread sounds like a great dinner. We've had soup probably four times since the New Year already, and have a wonderful lineup for the next couple of weeks, as all of my cooking magazines seem to have taken soup as their mantra for January and February issues.

Ok, back to the bread. This just looked good. And I promise, promise, promise that I am going to improve upon my (as-of-now) deplorable batting average and actually post on this one!

Looking forward (as always) to everyone else's experiences as well!

Kendra

I'd never made challah before test-baking for ITJB, and just loved the beauty and ease of it. I chose this bread for this week because our traditional Christmas Eve dinner is clam chowder with homemade bread (usually Swedish limpa). This year I'm going to substitute this challah for the limpa -- different culture, equally festive. I'm especially looking forward to the variety of braids we come up with -- I tested the six-strand bakery braid in the book and it's a stunner and not as hard as it appears. Looking forward to seeing (and yes, finally, posting) some great pictures this week!

I had the great good fortune to test-bake these during the test-baking sessions for the book, and they were marvelous. I used the spoon-drop method to portion the dough and it worked perfectly well for my less-than-meticulous baking aesthetics. With or without the chocolate they're ridiculously good. I'm going to make these for the cookie swap we're going to and watch the envy of the others as these disappear at lightning speed. If any actually make it to the swap, that is; the "quick-as-lightning" disappearing act happens as soon as they're set up enough to eat. Can't wait to see everyone's posts!

It's kickoff week for the Inside the Jewish Bakery Challenge - Semester 1. We're starting off with Mohn bars.

The bars are made up of three sub-recipes: 1-2-3 dough, a poppyseed filling, and streusel on the top. I used KA bread flour instead of home milled this time.

Baking notes:

• The food processor did nothing for my poppy seeds -- I ended up using my blender, which did a great job.
• I ended up adding almost a half cup extra of water while boiling the poppyseed mix.
• Also, through bad reading, I boiled the honey rather than adding it at the end.
• I cooked the shortbread an extra 10 minutes to get some color into it (and it's still pretty pale)
• I cooked the final bars an extra 15 minutes, with the broiler on for the last 2 mins, to get the streusel browned

These bars are illustrative of why I'm in the challenge -- they have a (wonderful) flavor that I've never encountered, and would have never thought to try. I'm hoping there's still half a pan left for my wife to take to the office tomorrow, I really don't need to eat all of these :)

Hi, everyone! It's almost time to start the Inside the Jewish Bakery challenge! 

We'll be baking nearly every recipe found in the wonderful "Inside the Jewish Bakery" by TFLs very own Stanley Ginsberg and Norman Berg. Not only will we get a chance to bake all the recipes -- we'll get to eat all the recipes! I can't wait!

It turns out that this fabulous book has enough recipes to keep us occupied for over a year. So, I've broken it up into 6 "semesters" of approximately 15 recipes each, spanning about three and a half months each time. Semester One begins on December 3 of this year, with the following lineup:

I'll start off each item with a post or or near the assignment date for that item, and then the comments section of this blog will be open for anyone to post their experience. To keep us all more or less together, I ask that if you're going to participate, that you post your comments by no later than seven days after the original assignment date (which happens to be, also, the first day of the next item on the list). 

There has been tremendous interest in this challenge, which is so exciting. I've decided to not keep close track of who is signed up or not -- you all know who you are, chime in as you please. If you miss a week -- or two, or three -- join back in. All are welcome. I'm hoping that the semester format will help the task seem more manageable -- there's a lot of ground to cover in this book! 

I'm looking forward to the adventure with you all. And until then -- Happy Thanksgiving!

Kendra

Hi, everyone!

(Note to Floyd: This is a cross-post from the Books forum, since not everyone who might be interested in a new challenge hangs out there. Please feel free to move this post if it is more appropriate elsewhere. Thanks!)

Those of us hopelessly smitten with Stan and Norm's wonderful new cookbook "Inside the Jewish Bakery" are going to begin a challenge on December 1st of this year. For those of you who have not participated in a challenge before, it's  a group of people who bake recipes from a single book at the same time, and then share their results (both positive and negative). It's a tremendously fun way to explore new recipes in a supportive environment, and a great way to try things you might not otherwise have chosen. 

I'll host the challenge here on the TFL, on a blog, and will set the calendar soon. The challenge will begin December 1st, and because there are so many recipes in "Inside the Jewish Bakery" we'll do it in parts (semesters, for my school-addled brain). The first semester will go through March 2012. December's baking will focus on the simpler (and festive, when possible) recipes, since it's a busy month for many of us. 

If you'd like to join in, the first step is to acquire a copy of "Inside the Jewish Bakery" by Stanley Ginsberg and Norman Berg. The second step is to let me know here that you'd like to join in, and I'll let you know when I've posted the calendar. 

Who's in?

Kendra

Hi, everyone!

I've had two weeks now with Stan and Norm's wonderful book, and I'm ready to bake. All of it. 

Anyone game for a challenge? I think that doing this in parts might be a fun way to do it -- that way, people who can't do the whole book in a row can join in a "semester." 

The "First semester" would start at the beginning of December. 

If there's enough interest, I'll be happy to coordinate it on a blog here at TFL. 

Let me know what you think!

Kendra

I had an idea while looking at breadbakingbassplayer's recent spelt posting and formula.

I have an enormous collection of bookmarked formulas entirely from TFL members that I eventually want to bake.

Would anyone be up for a challenge of selected TFL member formulas instead of Hamelman, BBA or Leader.

Just think, you could have an author's immediate feedback and I'm sure the individual authors' would be excited about perfecting their own formulas by having a group of TFL people bake them. 

Yeah, we already kind of loosely do that, but it might be fun to make it organized.

Thoughts?