The inspiration for this bake:
http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2008/04/24/name-that-loaf/
Susan at Wild Yeast has incredible breads on her site and I've printed out quite a few to try. This was one of them. 
I've been wanting to try "Pain Normande" ever since seeing it on SteveB's blog recently. Not only did I want to attempt to replicate his lovely bread, but I also conveniently have a ton of apples that I needed to use up. There are a lot of orchards around where I live so it's easy to come by (free!) great apples and fresh pressed apple cider. So, I threw a bunch of these apples in the dehydrator and got out the cider for this loaf.
Two girl friends came for tea this morning. In the past I would have toiled for weeks (no kidding) to prepare the most exquisite desserts and pastries that I could think of for our tea. Since I started making sourdough breads, my taste bud has changed. Just as well, Chinese tea is not meant to be enjoyed with sweets. We just drank and drank until we were hungry. We then had the finger sandwiches that I made earlier for lunch with the two Pains au Levain that I baked yesterday - Snow Peas Pain au Levain and Carrot Pain au Levain.
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.
