Ciabatta

After making wild mushroom ciabatta, I decided to try to improve my skills on the basics of this rustic bread and make it from just flour, yeast and water. Here is the basic sponge that has been sitting overnight next to the additional flour that will be added:

The dough came together more easily without the addition of the soaked dried mushrooms, and felt better to the touch, despite the lack of fat from the olive oil that had also been part of the mushroom loaf:

The bread rose well...before:

And after!

I split the loaves before setting up my couche:

And then left the bread to rise once more:

The finished loaves - this time, with better structure. I'll be making this one again soon!

Wild Mushroom Ciabatta

I was making soup for dinner, so I went a little wild with my ciabatta. Clockwise from top left: sponge, dried mushrooms soaking in warm water, minced garlic, and fresh mushrooms:

Once everything but the mushrooms and garlic were mixed in, this dough looked like a bit of a mess:

But after some rising, it was time to shape the bread and mix in the fresh mushrooms and garlic, by now sauteed in a bit of olive oil. Here, the bread is stretched out so I can fold in the mushrooms:

Sprinkled on top before I wrapped the dough back over for another rise:

Once the mushrooms were incorporated, this dough sits in a couche (well floured kitchen towels, basically) to rise so that it doesn't lose the proper shape:

And from the couche, into the oven...and soon after, to the table!

Food Fail: The Seymour Milkshake

I'm lactose intolerant, not that that generally stops me and a few lactaid pills from consuming whatever dairy products I please. There is a vegan fast food place in my neighborhood, though, which means I have no need for lactaid when I have a yen for a delicious, delicious milkshake: Foodswings.

Some of the food is kind of suspect, but the milkshakes are usually excellent. Last time I visited it seemed...chunky. I walked home and opened the lid, expecting to find an exceptionally frozen chunk of vegan pistachio ice cream with maybe a large piece of oreo and frozen peanut butter. What I found was...a malfunctioning blender? I have no idea:

Lemon, Thyme and Olive Oil Cookies

These pale, delicate cookies and rather easy to make, and have lots of surprising flavor:

All you need to do to make them is whisk together flour, sugar and spices, including plenty of thyme:
And then add in olive oil, milk (I used soymilk, easily turning this into a vegan treat) and lemon juice and zest.

Scoop out and bake!
Many thanks to Bex for finding this delicious recipe!

Sour Cherry Buttermilk Cake

Last weekend I got some beautiful sour cherries in the fruit share from my CSA:
I had seen this post, a raspberry buttermilk cake from the June issue of Gourmet, and decided that it would be the perfect recipe to adapt to sour cherries, and I had just enough fruit for the cake.

My first step was the pit my cherries. My favorite local cookware shop was out of cherry pitters, but they gave me some great advice - a piping tip will work just as well! I used my #4 Ateco:

Then, on to the cake. This was a straightforward creaming of butter, sugar, eggs following by alternating additions of flour and buttermilk:

Once the batter was done I poured it into a single cake pan, dotted the top with chopped cherries and sprinkled the cherries with sugar:

And after a quick 25 minutes in the oven, yum!

*any vegans out there can check out a great vegan adaptation of this recipe here.

Pain de Campagne

I chose to make this bread - another recipe from "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" - because of the many possibilities for shaping. There are instructions to form many traditional shapes in the book, but here I have attempted the Tabatière, or "pouch:"
They don't look exactly like the photographs in my cookbook, but they tasted pretty good, so I'll take it.

This bread began with a fermented sponge. This is just flour, water and yeast mixed together that rises a bit, then is chilled overnight. It brings out the flavor of the wheat:


In the morning, the fermented starter is chopped into pieces and brought to room temperature before you add more flour (rye and bread flours), yeast, salt and water:

After the dough has been kneaded and risen, the real fun begins. To shape a pouch, you form your dough into a boule, then flatten half of it with a rolling pin:

You then brush or spray a little bit of oil of the non-flattened part of your boule and fold over the flap. It is then placed on your baking sheet to rise and from there is headed straight into a five hundred degree oven!

Baguettes

A finished, not quite properly shaped baguette. This recipe is from the Williams-Sonoma "Baking" Book:
The recipe begins with a starter that ferments before you add the bulk of the flour and do any kneading. Starters are great because they extend the rising time and add to the flavor of the finished loaf. This particular starter has a bit of yeast, sugar, flour and warm water:

After adding more flour, kneading and rising, I sliced the dough into three chunks to shape:

Here they are after rising a bit. You can see that I didn't quite manage pretty loaves, here. Baguettes are very difficult to shape properly and I need some practice:

But they were tasty anyway - look out for prettier loaves in the future!

Ciabatta

I made bread for the first time in a long time, and didn't even think to take pictures until I was headed out the door, late, to a lunch and thought I should prove that I had a reason to be tardy - shaped ciabatta, sitting in a couche, ready to rise:

And when I returned it had risen and, well, fallen a bit:

But it baked up beautifully!


The recipe is from "The Bread Baker's Apprentice." 

and then I made some granola, from Fritz's mom's recipe. Dorothea has a great basic recipe that I've been modifying depending on the nuts and fruits that I had around. This batch has almonds, pecans, cinnamon and no fruit.