On Friday night, I mixed the pre-ferment for a batch of Pane Francese without fully reading my recipe. When I did read it, I realized that the original recipe took at least 48 hours, and I did not have that long since the bread was intended to accompany Chicken Vesuvio for a family dinner on Read More …
This loaf looks very white because it is made of a mixture of 1/3 white whole wheat flour and 2/3 all purpose flour. It has made good sandwiches and toast. The trick with sandwich bread is to get a very even crumb, through multiple kneading and rising steps. This recipe is an adaptation of Read More …
This was a hit with the Boy Scouts on our latest campout. It was inspired by a recipe in Bon Appetit and will serve 6-8 as a side dish. (In yesterday’s case, it was a side dish to chili con carne.) I did not have an opportunity to take a picture, so I will have to Read More …
As we were prepping at the Phillips’ cabin in northern Wisconsin for our latest trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, I was introduced to the kringle, a member of the Danish pastry family formed into a ring which is the state pastry of Wisconsin. It was good, so of course I kept my eyes Read More …
This year we decided to have an English themed Christmas dinner, and popovers fit right into that theme. My ancestry is predominantly English, so this is as close to ancestral cooking as I usually come. Popovers are very similar to Yorkshire Pudding, which my mother sometimes made for holidays, but I think popovers are Read More …
This was a successful experiment to improve the Bosnian flatbread Lepinja by adding a preferment step, rather than making it as a straight dough. The process involved dividing the original recipe into two parts, a preferment part, made earlier to develop gluten and flavor complexity, and the remainder added at the normal time a few Read More …
Focaccias are lightly topped Italian flatbreads which I generally make with the same dough I usually use for pizza. It should be very light and airy with the flavor of the bread shining through, and with the topping just as an accent. This posting is about the focaccia I made last night to go with Read More …
In Olia Hercules’ Mamushka: A Cookbook on Ukrainian and Eastern European cooking, there is a very enticing set of photographs and recipe for a large spiral filled with feta cheese. I have now made this twice, and have basically figured out what to do. When done right, the result is a flaky filled bread, like Read More …
Lepinja is a Bosnian flatbread, which is rather like a thick pita without a pocket. In the Balkans, they are used for many purposes, especially as a bun for cevapcici, the cyclindrical skinless sausages which are to the Balkans what the hamburger is to the US. I had lepinja in a Houston restaurant called the Read More …
This lightly sweet cornbread will be served to hungry Scouts and Scouters at the annual lunch to feed the Scouting for Food volunteers. It uses honey instead of sugar and is adopted from Marion Cunningham’s The Fanny Farmer Baking Book. This is enough for a 9 inch round or 8 inch square pan 1 Read More …