Blog posts

When I was in architectural school so long ago, way before 4 legged apprentices were allowed in the kitchen, one of my best friends, a fine designer, was of Creole decent from New Orleans - the heart of Creole Country.  Cajuns weren't well thought of in New Orleans and scarcely seen then.  His wife was and still is a Cajun from the bayou country around Lafayette - the heart of Cajun Country where Creoles were shunned and hard to find.  It’s not that they hated each other, after all they were both French based to the core, but it was a bit like thick oil and thin vinegar

The owner of A&B Naturals, the store that sells my bread, asked me one day: "Can you bake pitas, too?" I had never made them, so I said with conviction: "Yes!"

At least I knew where I could find a pita recipe!

Although my baking has waned recently because I need to reduce the bread backlog in my freezer, it hasn't gone entirely dormant.  For instance, I baked some hamburger buns today (thanks, dolfs!) as a demonstration/interview for an instructor's position with the Culinary Center of Kansas City.  It was a lot of fun and felt more than a little bizarre.

Chocolate flavored coffee.....what could be wrong with using some in a bread you ask?  Nothing of course, so why not use it in a soaker as well ?  That is exactly what I ended up doing.  I normally leave the grains soaking for about 30 minutes to an hour, but in this case I left it over night for around 24 hours and the soaker grains sucked up all the coffee.  When I mixed the final do

Summer News.   My path in becoming a baker... (part II)

... goes through Kalispell Montana USA

 (A true story about chance, adventure and passion without boundaries)

Hello, TFL friends.

In my last post, I experimented with spelt flour in a country bread. The flavor was very appealing with slight nutty undertones and the bread came out great! However, I'm never satisfied with my last bread and always want to push into new areas. So I decided to increase the spelt in the formula from 10% to 20%.

There are not too many things I like more than a pastrami sandwich, so when my wife suggested I try using some left over pastrami on a pizza I figured it was worth a shot.  I also had some left over smoked pulled pork in the refrigerator so I figured I would make a barbecued pulled pork pizza as well

I found this when going through some old files on my computer: (pdf file) Marcel Desaulnier's Old-Fashioned Speckled Chocolate Cake.pdf

Oh, boy i feel at home, again!

Not only baking is addictive, it has become a part of me now. Almost 3 months of bed rest, and ayurvedic therapy, 1 of which was spent in Kerala, the beautiful southern city of India; has never detached me from thefreshloaf site, nor did my enthusiasm for bread baking waver.