Blog posts

Having used this site for ages, and having greatly appreciated and learned from the collective wisdom of my fellow bakers, I finally decided to join the Fl. So now, I figured, is as good a time to introduce myself as ever.

This is my first attempt to post a blog. I have been baking bread and looking at the site for many years....here it goes.

You ask, what could be more decadent, and I say absolutely nothing. Cartellate are traditionally made during Christmas. They are traditional Pulgiese fried pastries, filled with roasted almonds, honey, spices and chocolate.

They are a holiday cookie and although mostly made at Christmas time, they are our star dessert on our Thanksgiving table. They just seemed so suited to a beautiful Thanksgiving dessert table. 

Well here I am;

I want to thank Paddyscake here on the TFL for sharing her raspberry tart recipe last July (divine is the word to describe it).  She said she substituted the mascarpone cheese with cream cheese and used Pepperidge Farm for the crust.  She said despite these substitutions, the pie was just about gone in a heartbeat.

For about two years previous I had been making bread for groups of college students as a part of the college student outreach at my church. Every Sunday morning I would bring pounds of retarded yeast fermented dough to the church kitchen, prep it on site, and bake it off for our college lunch. I was pretty proud of the formula I used for it, mostly this was because it was mine. I chose the hydration, the fermentation technique, and the shaping and baking of it. And it always came out beautifully every time. Later on, i even started fermenting it with my sourdough starter. 

Background:

In Eric Kayser's book "100% Pain", the Foreword written by the celebrated French chef Alain Ducasse waxed poetic about Kayser's Tourte de Meule, which literally translates to "Millstone Pie" and which is basically a Country Miche made with High Extraction Organic Stone Ground Flour and a Liquid Levain.

 Eric Kayser's "La Tourte de Meule"

I am not a fan of bananas but every now and then for my kids I make banana muffins, banana bread (quick bread), banana pancakes and cakes, and banana milk shake and smoothie just to remind myself why people like bananas.  Whenever the bananas in my house have gone sesame (ie, growing freckles), the motherly cook's instincts in me start eyeing on them.  I never force my kids to eat any fruit or vegetables.  That's why the house ends up having so many unlikely combinations of chutney and jams.

This story is a confession of humility. Something happened to me a few days ago that is just to good not to share with my friends.

November 10, 2009 was an auspicious day. It was the second baguette day, and a day I thought would be as interesting and full of questions as I could be hoping for as early in the program as we were. I had my concerns of course, as the product we were finishing and baking was the direct baguette.