Blog posts

What is a better choice: an aluminized steel loaf pan that has an oily/non stick surface or a stainless steel pan?  We've been using the former kind for a while and are happy with it, but I'm concerned with how long they'll last.  I have no data on the stainless steel pans.  How well do they work, how long will they last?  We're about to order a large quantity (for us) and I would rather not make any foolish mistakes.  Any help is appreciated.

Thanks, Tanya

Very wet here this weekend.  Good for rainbows...

and also good for baking!

I made buttermilk cinnamon rolls this afternoon...

and a couple of loaves of my daily bread to eat with a big pot of soup this evening.

Lovely.

www.evilshenanigans.com

Have you ever craved something, let's say a cookie, and could not find a recipe that looked like it would be any good?

Actually just 'pain de provence', using Floyd's recipe from years ago, with a local liquer from the town which is a.k.a. "Bois le duc"/Duketown. I went easy on the herbs as well. This is one of the best breads I have made so far, I am really proud of it. Also, I almost gave up half way, the dough was too sticky and I was under time pressure. Never a good thing with 'new' breads.

The pain de provence is the larger bread, just as big as the basket itself. Wish I could make a closeup..
The smaller is just a sourdough, which is finally rising a bit. Great taste.

I usually only have time to make our favourite sourdough each weekend, but this weekend we have had rain and cold winds which cancelled some plans.  So I decided to make a recipe I hadn't tried before -Golden Raisin Bread - from Jeffrey Hamelman's "Bread".  This took me out of my comfort zone somewhat but I enjoyed the challenge and will try to take on a new recipe regularly.  I think I've grown in confidence thanks to this site.

Tragedy struck last week - I stripped the worm gear in my mixer and while the part's on order, it's out of commission.  So today I was looking for a nice, simple by-hand bread recipe.  You know, because supposedly people do bread all the time without the benefit of mixers.  =)

I turned to [i]Savory Baking from the Mediterranean[/i] by Anissa Helou and found a recipe for French Country Bread that had only 3 ingredients - 4 if you count water-based ingredients:

Had some dough leftover from making pizza using Peter reinhart's recipe. Made a loaf of bread with it. Loaf was baked at 400 F for 25 mins and stayed in after the oven was turned off for 5 more mins. The crumb is airy, light, moist. The crust chewy.

Made these dinner rolls using the Hokkaido milky loaf recipe I blogged about here. The dough was, of course, made minus the sugar. Rolls were baked for 20 mins at 400F and then brushed with melted garlic butter and sprinkled with parmesan cheese. Both crust and crumb are very soft and moist when eaten warm. 

Semolina Sandwich Loaf from DL Local Breads.

Here's an example of another loaf using the same basic recipe as the ones below.  In this case, I used all white flour and added barely sprouted wheat berries which I ran through a mini food processor.  Turns out it won't be a favorite of mine, but that's okay.  I tried it.  (My fav, so far, is white flour with 25g rye or whole wheat and 2-3 Tablespoons of dry steel-cut oats thrown into the mix.)