We were jonesing for some blueberry pancakes this morning, so I threw together the following:
2/3 cup buttermilk
2/3 cup milk
2 large eggs
1/4 cup oil
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 cup whole rye flour
1/2 cup whole oat flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup fresh blueberries
Breakfast. Hmm. What to do? Cold cereal? Not appealing. Omelette? Appealing, but too fussy. Blueberry pancakes? Ah, that has possibilities. Wait, wait, wasn't there a Cherry-Studded Scone recipe in Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads? Could that be bent just a bit to feature blueberries instead of cherries? Why yes, yes it could!
And so it was:
And so it went:
The Culinary Center of Kansas City was rocking in the rye this past Friday, when I had the privilege of teaching another full-day class on rye breads. It was a lot of fun to work with a group of students who were eager to learn and had lots of great questions about everything from flour to techniques. We made three different breads: the Rustic Pumpernickel from ITJB, Eric’s Fave Rye, and a Vort Limpa that I customized from various on-line sources.
However, before the class, there was preparation. And before preparation, there was shopping.
In the month since our trip to Scotland and Ireland, baking around here has been rather hit or miss. No, scratch that, baking around here has been hit and miss. Consequently, this post is sort of a catch-all for the this's and that's going on in my kitchen.
One bake was the honey oatmeal loaf from the KAF Whole Grains Cookbook. I love that stuff; it's hearty and moist and hefty and just a little bit sweet. Makes a great sandwich, too.
Since I had Friday off last weekend, and since the weather on Friday and Saturday was rainy, it seemed like a golden opportunity for baking some bread. While perusing Hamelman's Bread, the Whole Wheat Levain was the one that I kept coming back to as I weighed the alternatives.
Many of us get rather, well, steamed, about our inability to produce steam in our home ovens. Some good techniques have been posted here on TFL. While I doubt that any of us will be able to produce anything close to the blast of steam that commercial ovens can provide, we may be able to do better than we think we can.
I've begun fiddling with Scottish Oat Cakes. They are a bit of a departure from my usual yeasted bread baking. What makes it tricky is that I really don't know what my target is; I suppose I may have to wait for our trip to Scotland and Ireland this summer to see whether I'm on the right track.
The past two weeks have been rather more demanding than usual. We had gone to Colorado Springs to visit our youngest daughter's family for the Easter weekend. We were just a few minutes away from their house when my brother-in-law called to let us know that he had taken my mother-in-law to ER; her cancer that had been diagnosed a year and a half previously was causing new complications. We decided to cut our visit short and drive back to Kansas on Easter Sunday. The following morning, April 1, my wife flew to Traverse City, MI, to be with her mother.
Most of my bread for the past couple of weeks has come from the freezer, rather than from the oven. That's a good thing in that the freezer needs to be cleared out but not so satisfying as baking. It also means that I've had a pretty steady diet of rye bread. Again, that's a good thing but it was time for a change of pace and taste.
