Blog posts

Years ago I came across these buns when I went to Basel a lot.

They are sold only during lent, and only in Basel area.

The taste and texture were very memorable - unlike anything I had tasted before.
Next Saturday I will participate in a pop-up market and thought these Faschtewaije might be an interesting candidate.

I found a few recipes and saw what made them special. Lard.

I wouldn't be able to sell a lot of goods containing lard on this occasion (I am going with Hot-Cross Buns)
But my fingers itched and I tried out the recipe.

Plötzblog is one of Germany's best bread baking blogs. When Lutz Geißler (author of "Brot backen") invited us to his blog event blog-experiment: "Wir bauen uns ein Brot" (Let's build a bread), I was intrigued.

Of course I wanted to attend the very first "Bread Olympics"

Well I started a pulla dough intent on making a standard braid. Then I realized I had both cinnamon sugar, chocolate butter cream and sliced almonds on hand, so decided to roll it out and fill it Babka style. Another loaf which is hard to stop eating! Not quite the kitchen sink jobs that dab and Lucy produce but OH MY, yummy!!! :-)

Happy baking folks! Brian

I haven't posted recently and would like to wish everyone a very "Happy St. Patrick's Day"!  

Family has kept me busy lately and in a few days my youngest grandson is having some very extensive corrective overbite surgery done.  It's going to be a long recovery.  He's taking it very well and wants to have it done.

To keep things on a cheerier note.  A little St. Pat's Day feast.  Along with the traditional dinner of Corn beef with all the trimmings.  

I've been making the basic Tartine Country Loaf (from the first book) for a little over a year.  I love the method and have been really happy with the loaves but my goal has always been to make a sour sourdough loaf, like I remember from a favorite bakery in California years ago.  Along the way, I've read lots of varying suggestions and have tweaked the maintenance routine for my homegrown starter and the timing/temperature for the proof but that sour loaf has eluded me so far.

I have been baking these breads for several months.  I typically use my unfed (for a week) starter straight from the fridge, mix it with 200 grams of water, 100 grams of King Arthur AP and 100 grams of King Arthur White Whole Wheat.

Since today is St Paddys day, Ive come up with something pretty green. I added boiled and blended spinach into the bagel dough giving it the greenery color with the cheese sprinkle on top its delicious!! Happy St Paddys Day and happy baking. 

It's been two months since I last posted and I've scarcely gotten past the lurking stage here at TFL in that time.  The new project has kept me very busy at work, with more overtime than I care for.  The good news is that if the project progresses past the current stage, I'll get to work even more overtime for the next three years!  Yippee!  It's kind of like the airlines; if you fly with them often enough, they reward you by - wait for it - letting you fly even more!

Drinking, eh, I mean, baking for Saint Patrick's Day...

Guinness chocolate cupcakes

For this past Market day, I've baked the same breads I often bake For all preceding Arts and crafts markets: A Rye , A Whole Wheat multigrain, and a country White loaf.  For This market ,however, I've baked all three of them. a 7 Kg. worth of Rye dough, 5.5 Kg. Worth of Whole wheat multigrain, and 5kg. worth of Tartine’s Sesame bread dough; yielding a total dough of 17.5 Kg!  All bread was baked in three consecutive days, and none were frozen. Phew!