Hello, everybody!  

This begins with a resounding thank-you to user jannrn for asking a question and giving me an excellent idea...  A week ago, I posted about my Greek Fennel, Yogurt, and Honey Bread, and sweetly Jan told me she liked the photographs but hated fennel (I'm really the only person I know who does!).  She asked about alternate flavors, which got me to thinking...  

Here is a picture of the original fennel bread:

But after Jan's comment, I decided to experiment in a couple of ways with its basic formula, which is available on the old post too.  As before, these recipes are for individual loaves, but easily multiplied

My husband, David, adores onions (he could eat them like apples), so here:

For Love's Sake Onion Bread

Ingredients:  

165 grams flour

3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

3/4 teaspoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon powdered onion soup mix (a huge thanks to floydm's onion braid for this idea!)

dough enhancers: 2 teaspoons vital wheat gluten, pinch of ginger, 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

2 oz. warm water

1 cup total yogurt (2 oz. + 2 teaspoons yogurt for dough)

1 onion 

Instructions:

First, prepare the onion-yogurt blend.  Place 1 cup yogurt and 1 onion (but reserve slices for topping) in a food processor.  Blend well, until mixed.  

Whisk a little bit of the flour, yeast, sugar, and dough enhancers in water, and allow to autolyze.

Add salt, soup powder, the rest of the flour, and 2 oz. + 2 teaspoons of the onion yogurt blend.  Reserve the rest of the yogurt blend as a fantastic dip/spread!

Knead for 15 minutes, until the dough is elastic and will not break if stretched.  

Place dough in a lightly greased bowl and allow to rise, covered, for 1/2 - 2 hours or until doubled.

Remove dough from bowl and give it several soft kneadings and envelope turns.  On a lightly greased baking sheet, shape into a boule.

Allow to rise for 45 minutes or so, while preheating the oven to 210 degrees Celsius.  

Before baking, brush with milk and arrange onion slices on top as desired.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown, with an inner temperature of 205 degrees Celsius.  Enjoy!  Trust me, it sounds strange, but the yogurt-onion blend is amazing!

Or: Harvest Apple and Spice Bread

(okay, I know this bread looks really stupid and like a first grader made it.  I got dumb and silly, but it was still so tasty!)

Unlike David, I love actual apples.  Moreover, we have the dried fruit resulting from ten or so pounds of them (an unexpected and enormous present from our neighbors), and I'd better use some up.  So...

165 grams flour

3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

2 teaspoons honey

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

dough enhancers: 2 teaspoons vital wheat gluten, pinch of ginger, 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

1 cup total yogurt (2 oz. + 2 teaspoons yogurt for dough)

1/2 ripe red apple

2 oz warm water

2 tablespoons chopped dried apples, plus extra for decoration

First, blend the yogurt with the 1/2 apple until very smooth.  

Whisk a little bit of the flour, yeast, honey, and dough enhancers in water, and allow to autolyze.

Add salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, the rest of the flour, and 2 oz. + 2 teaspoons of the apple-yogurt blend.  The rest make a pretty good spread!

Knead for 15 minutes, until the dough is elastic and will not break if stretched.  

Place dough in a lightly greased bowl and allow to rise, covered, for 1/2 - 2 hours or until doubled.

Remove dough from bowl and give it several soft kneadings and envelope turns.  On a lightly greased baking sheet, shape into a boule.

Allow to rise for 45 minutes or so, while preheating the oven to 210 degrees Celsius.  

Before baking, brush with milk and decorate with bits of dried apple, though you don't have to make it as dumb-looking as mine!

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown, with an inner temperature of 205 degrees Celsius. Hope you like it!

This, by the way:

is the original crumb from the fennel bread, and I had identical results with the onion and apple variations, including the satisfaction!  And thanks again to Jan for the idea!

Hello to all the bakers and Loafers!  I'd posted about 5 months ago about my upcoming camping journey around the Mediterranean, and received so much wonderful advice...  I can't thank everybody enough for their kind, helpful ideas, or begin to tell all the traveling tales.  

Apart from a broken camp stove (aaah!) I did discover a number of fantastic, unique local breads, but I will have to wait to post some pictures and descriptions of those (though I promise I will!)...

But as I'm sure so many of you can imagine, now that my husband and I have returned to our home in Hungary, I'm enthralled just to have an oven again!  Every day has featured me dancing around a new bread, and it's been a blast - but it's high time I share a bit!

Though my husband, David, disagrees, I think this recipe has been my favorite new bread thus far...

Greek Fennel, Yogurt, and Honey Bread

I unearthed this recipe in The Bread Book, by Sara Lewis, which my little brother's girlfriend gave to me last December.  I'd never heard of it, but I very much enjoy the breads it's offered.  Both my husband and I try to eat as healthily as we can, so I admit this recipe has been somewhat modified, and though sometimes this leads to problems I was entirely satisfied, and if fact declared it my best ever!  Multiple times! 

On our camping trip, we spent a month in Greece, between beaches and ancient ruins, and found a lot of fabulous flavors - yogurt featured prominently, as did spices like fennel, anise, and sesame.  This evoked it for me...  It's very sweet, with a dense but extremely soft crumb, and a soft, pliable crust, and filled with the flavor of the fennel seeds and a tad of citrus.  

These ingredients, by the way, are scaled down to an individual loaf, for me, because my husband doesn't like sweet breads, but it's easy to multiply as desired. 

Ingredients:

165 grams flour

3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

1-3 teaspoons honey (all depending on your personal taste for sweetness)

(dough enhancers I utilized):

2 teaspoons vital wheat gluten

pinch of ginger 

1 teaspoon lemon juice

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons fennel seeds

2 oz. + 2 teaspoons yogurt (warmed to room temperature)

2 oz. warm water

Extra honey, milk, and fennel seeds (to glaze)

Instructions:

Whisk a little bit of the flour, yeast, honey, lemon juice, and water in a large bowl to autolyze for 3-5 minutes.  

Add the fennel seeds and yogurt and blend well to distribute the seeds.

Add the salt and the rest of the flour and knead with floured hands on a well-floured board.  With the large proportion of honey, the dough will be extremely sticky at first, but after ten minutes of kneading it tends to become smooth.  Knead for 15 minutes, or until the dough is elastic and does not break if stretched.  

Allow dough to rise in a covered bowl until doubled, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.  

Remove dough from bowl and give it several soft kneadings and envelope turns.  On a lightly greased baking sheet, shape into a spiraled loaf, like a cinnamon bun.  

Allow loaf to rise for 45 minutes or so, while preheating the oven to 210 degrees Celsius.  

Lightly glaze loaf with milk, sprinkle with extra fennel seeds, and drizzle with honey, especially in the creases of the spiral (yum!).

After rising time, bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until shiny and golden brown, with an inner temperature of 205 degrees Fahrenheit.  

Allow to rest and cool - and enjoy!

p.s. if anybody would care to look at some travelogue accounts and photographs of our Mediterranean trip, as well as here in Hungary (currently how we are making our own wine), my blog address is http://erzsebetgilbert.blogspot.com...

http://i12etu.com/wordpress/2008/02/27/sourdough-yogurt-bread/

http://i12etu.com/wordpress/2008/02/27/sourdough-yogurt-bread/

http://i12etu.com/wordpress/2008/02/27/sourdough-yogurt-bread/

Sourdough Yogurt Bread

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Here's a tried and true recipe I've used for at least fifteen years. I got it from a magazine or newspaper, I think. You can add fruit, nuts, chocolate, or just bake them plain. Not overly sweet, and with some nutritious ingredients. They come together quickly. You can decide to make them and be taking them out of the oven no more than 30 minutes later. Yields about 2 dozen minis or 1 dozen large, though I rarely get more than 10 big ones.

Yogurt Muffins

Heat oven to 375F.